#I hope the wizard side of tumblr finds this

[angelnumber27]

5 year plan: buy a little wizard hat and become feral and swing a stick at people who come near me

[yukidragon]

Sunny Day Jack - Dragon Jack Fantasy AU Headcanons

So, I know that Jack’s fursona is a snake, because he wants warm cuddles his sunshine won’t run away from, which is where we get naga Jack, but what if he was a different sort of mythical creature?

No, not an incubus, but you can check out my incubus headcanons here and here. I’m talking about a different fantastical creature that still has a few scaly features.

It’s the year of the dragon, and that got me thinking about a certain piece of absolutely gorgeous artwork my friend Mars made back in August, which in turn made me think, dragon Jack AU?

Dragon Jack AU.

Oh hell yeah, let’s get fantastical.

Credit for this beautiful artwork and fueling my inspiration goes to the marvelous Mars, who you can find over here on tumblr and on twitter. Please consider popping on by to leave a kind word or two. Trust me, you won’t regret looking at all of her jaw-droppingly stunning art!

Content warnings: There is going to be spice in these headcanons, and it’s going to get a bit kinky at times. I mean, we’re talking about Jack as a dragon getting frisky with his sunshine. Bad Dragon didn’t get its name for nothing after all. Oh and there’s also some dark themes like going insane from isolation, families being awful to one another, exploitation of workers, bullshit politics in a medieval inspired fantasy setting, deadly monsters attacking people, yandere obsession, that sort of thing.

Overall it’s going to be pretty lighthearted, especially in comparison to the super dark and angst-filled hurt/comfort story that I recently posted, so this post shouldn’t get more intense than the game itself.

The Cursed Prince

Let us begin this AU with the tale of Sunny Day Jack, a poor soul who was damned to be left alone and forgotten by all who knew him. In this case, that place he was left to be forgotten was a castle in the middle of a dark and twisted land, bound by a curse that not even the strength of a dragon can break.

Jack wasn’t always this way. Long ago, he was someone grand, a prince by the name of Joseph, though not in line for any sort of throne. He was the spare of the spare, the unwanted and unneeded family member who was a risk to the true heir to the crown. He had to learn how to be strong and cunning to survive the castle politics, while at the same time he was overlooked and ignored by all.

Initially, Joseph tried all he could to earn favor with his family, to be loved by them, but no one cared. Because his family didn’t care about him, and he had no “purpose” in existing except as an obstacle to the heir to the throne, others often ignored him as well to not risk showing favor and appearing to side with him against the current forerunners to the crown. Acting out and creating mischief that the royal family couldn’t ignore was the only way for Joseph to get people to pay attention to him.

Unfortunately, Joseph pushed his luck one too many times. He ignored a family member’s warning that it would be best if he lived as a dead rat, forgotten and unseen. An assassin struck in the guise of a tutor during one of his lessons. He barely escaped, but uncovered a terrible truth. The family he always hoped might someday truly see him and love him had been behind the assassination attempt. How many members of his family were involved in the plot, he never knew for sure, but their indifference and disdain for him left him with no one he could trust.

The unwanted prince was then forced to flee the kingdom, never to return. Joseph lived as a wanderer, hiding his identity. He changed his appearance as much as he could, even stealing a potion from a wizard once. Sadly, the potion he stole could only change his hair from brown to blue, but it was better than nothing, and he quickly grew fond of the look.

Yes, blue hair is something natural in this setting. This is a fantasy world where dragons and magic exist after all. We can have people with anime hair and eye colors. ;3

The unwanted prince learned the ways of the world firsthand and took many names as he drifted along like the wind. No longer a spoiled prince, he learned how to put on a smile, to placate people instead of antagonize them. He was still alone, forced to be a wanderer until he was far, far away from his homeland, but eventually he tried to set up roots. There, he took a humble job as a jester for a noble, hoping that maybe he could find a new life, one where he could be seen and loved.

Fortune smiled on Jack, as more and more people came to watch his shows, and he earned the stage name of Sunny Day Jack. His performances with silly jokes and stories with sound moral lessons delighted the children. Nobility took notice of him, and he started to make real connections and a real life for himself in this distant land. The lord ruling over the country even eventually took notice of him, a rich and powerful ruler that could afford to throw plenty of gold this entertaining jester’s way… provided he was always entertaining.

Sadly, his good fortune was not to last. Jack got too much attention from the nobility, and a traveler familiar with his homeland took notice of how eerily similar the jester looked to the lost prince.

Word eventually got back to those who saw Prince Joseph, however unwanted and overlooked he may have been, as a risk that could not be accepted. His popularity, however frivolous, made certain people of power nervous that perhaps one day he might return and lay claim to the throne of his homeland.

It was during a performance that the world came crashing down around Sunny Day Jack. The lord that favored him and helped him most with his fame and acclaim had betrayed him to his homeland in exchange for more riches. The trap was sprung as Jack stood before a crowd of hundreds, a sudden accusation ringing out that he was a notorious criminal who had done several heinous acts while the knights of the land came at him in force to arrest him. He barely managed to escape, though not unscathed, his new life destroyed and forever sullied to all who knew his name.

This time the pursuers were relentless. Jack wasn’t known here as a prince in this foreign land. There was no one who would show even a token loyalty to his royal blood and aid him. He was now a heinous criminal, wanted dead or alive, with none willing to give him shelter. There was no way for him to use his former name or royal bloodline to gain assistance, as Prince Joseph was long since declared dead.

Jack was a clever man, and a clever man who has nothing left to lose is capable of anything, including mutually assured destruction. His time as a jester wasn’t spent as a simple fool. Though he tried to be sincere when forging his friendships, truly wanting a life of happiness where he could be loved for who he was, he had tasted betrayal once, and it cost him everything but his life. Sadly, he was prepared should this happen again. He learned how to be charming, and he used his appealing and kind nature to learn secrets that might help him one day.

One of these secrets Jack learned was of magic treasure that the lord’s family guarded and exploited for generations. He also learned of a few secret passages in the lord’s castle, which helped him to elude his pursuers. With nearly all the knights put to the task to capture or kill the escaped criminal, this left the castle vault’s security unusually lax. It granted him an opportunity that could save him, or damn them all.

There in the vault was one of a set of golden cuffs, the symbol and pride of the lord’s family, and the very thing that allowed them to take dominion over the land generations ago and rule to this day. These cuffs were said to possess a magic too powerful for any one person to control, so no one dared to wield more than one at a time, but the truth was that if anyone was foolish enough to do so, they would unleash a terrible curse that would doom the land. This was why they were kept separately, for the safety of everyone.

These cuffs have their own history to them, as a fae was tricked into creating them, a bargain for power and a price not yet paid, which was the reason behind their curse. I could ramble on about ideas I have for how they came to be, but their backstory doesn’t really matter to Jack… yet.

Betrayed, branded a criminal, his hopes for a new life dashed to pieces, and everything spiraling out of control, Jack managed to break into the vault and steal the golden cuff hidden there. Before word of the theft could spread, Jack repaid the lord for his betrayal, launching a surprise attack and stealing the other cuff before it could be used by the lord to fight back against him.

With the power of both of the golden cuffs, Jack defeated all the knights that came for him, but the power he used went out of control as the curse took hold. The power was too much for a human’s body to contain, so it changed him into a fierce creature that was made of magic, a dragon.

The land around him changed as well, the natural ley lines of magic in the land exploding out in all directions and birthing all sorts of monsters from cracks in the earth. It was chaos, and those that could fled. It was a terrible night of horrors so great that survivors who witnessed the apocalyptic destruction dared not speak of it. Over time, the plants in this tainted land grew strange from the saturation of magic, and what few animals that braved to remain in this twisted land were changed as well. The land, once prosperous and full of smiles and laughter, became a dark and foreboding place where humans refused to linger long, for fear that they too would be cursed and forever changed.

Years passed, and with the survivors refusing to speak of what happened, all traces of what happened the night the kingdom fell were lost to history. The name of the country was lost as well. The place was only known as the dark woods now, named for its twisted features and the heavy clouds that covered the land and hid it from the sun. Speculation of its creation sprang up over the years, the details growing more fanciful from storyteller to storyteller until it became only myths. The closest to the truth was that the fae had regained the land and turned it wild, which, in a way, they had when a clever but desperate prince turned fool unleashed the fae’s curse that had long been kept at bay.

What happened to that foolish prince? The curse kept him bound to the heart of the land, making it nearly impossible for him to stray far from the castle where he unleashed the curse. The more he struggled to escape, the more ways the curse would manifest to bind him to the land, chains erupting from the ground to hold him, thorns of an unnatural, cold substance blotting out the sky, monsters birthing from the land to hold him back and inflict pain on him until he could no longer fight back.

Jack had become a powerful dragon, but his power came from the very curse that turned the land into his own personal hell. His body was warped, a scaled monster with wings and horns, terrifying to behold. Those who saw him would flee his presence, save for those that tried to slay the beast that legend has it is the heart of the curse.

The dragon of the dark woods, unnamed and feared by all, was known as the master of the dark woods, dangerous and cunning. Adventurers that dare risk going into the cursed land for its materials rich in magic are wary of the great and powerful beast. Its scales gleamed of fire, its eyes spoke of endless hunger, and its power was unmatched. None could hope to slay this beast, and all who tried all failed, for only the curse itself is more powerful than the beast it created.

Despite it all, Jack struggled to hold onto his humanity. He read every book in the castle, every scroll and scrap of paper, desperate to learn the way to undo this curse he unleashed. Naturally, this was difficult for him to do with giant claws, but unfortunately for the former prince, he had nothing but time to learn how to use his altered body.

As the world forgot about the lost prince, the sunny jester, and the awful day an entire kingdom fell along with the names of all three, Jack started to forget his humanity bit by bit. He didn’t learn how to break the curse, but he did learn of other magical artifacts that had been gathered in the castle long ago, including an enchanted belt that would allow him to change his form into whatever he pleased. He used it to become a “human,” but by that point he didn’t quite remember what he used to look like. The passing years eroded his memory of humanity, and he had gotten used to his imposing dragon body. The result was a form that was a mishmash of both, a humanoid man with scales, a tail, wings, claws on his hands and feet, pointed ears and fangs, with horns and blue hair.

Jack might have started to forget things over the years of solitude, but he was at least certain that he had blue hair when he was still human.

Funny enough, no matter how large or small Jack became thanks to the magic of the belt, the golden cuffs remained fastened to his wrists. The curse wouldn’t allow them to be removed, only warp in size and shape to match whatever form his body took. Even if he were to, say, transform into a copy of a different person to fool someone, his golden cuffs would give away the ruse.

When Jack learned how to transform back into a “human,” he went through the motions of being a human in his empty castle filled with riches that were all but useless to him. He wore clothes again, even learned how to alter the fancy clothes left behind to suit his tastes. He learned how to cook the strange plants and animals of this cursed land. He no longer had any need to eat due to the magic of the land sustaining his flesh, but food still tasted good, and there was some satisfaction to be had from creating something. He kept himself sane with what hobbies he could, learning new things, but he could never learn how he could free himself from his lonely hell.

The presence of adventurers into the heart of his land was both a blessing and a curse. It was rare that it happened, and in fact it was several years after the land changed that anyone dared to venture into the dark woods for fear of being cursed for doing so. It was years more before they found its master at the heart of the cursed land.

At first, Jack was elated. He tried his best to be friendly, overly so, desperate for company and help, but this was before he found the belt that made him at least passably human. It had been so long since he had been around another human that he hadn’t tried to speak, and with his draconic muzzle, all that came out were terrible growls and unholy noises. The adventurers that found him only saw a great horned beast with claws and fangs, another monster to slay for materials, riches, and acclaim.

Jack never wanted to kill anyone. He learned to fight when he had to, though he tried to avoid killing if he could. Unfortunately, when he unleashed the curse, people perished in the chaos, much to his dismay. Though he tried to approach these adventurers peacefully, he would not allow them to cause him further suffering. His power was so great that it was difficult to hold back, so the damage he could cause was severe. He would let those who fought him live if he could, allowing them to flee, but none saw this as a mercy. He became a nightmare spoken in hushed whispers, a challenge for adventurers to overcome, rather than a lost soul desperate to be free.

In a twisted way, over time Jack started to look forward to anyone brave enough to venture into the heart of the dark woods, even if the result was always violence. It was always a rare thing due to the intense danger of the dark woods. Certainly, they would always try to kill him, but at least he got to spend time with another human being! Being alone messes with a person’s mind, especially for such a long time. Humans are pack animals not meant for solitude.

Sometimes these adventurers would leave stuff behind, and Jack kept them. Dragons have an instinct to horde, and the castle is already filled with treasure. Plus they were reminders that humans were still out there and that someday, hopefully, he’d join them as one of them once again.

Jack tried his best to learn how to talk with his new body, to sound friendly instead of fierce. Unfortunately, oftentimes he found himself getting the opposite result, the words coming out of his muzzle sounding strange and uncanny, which only added to the nightmarish legend of the master of the dark woods.

Every encounter with Jack was a battle more fierce than the last, and the dragon’s legend only grew. His attempts to follow after the humans who fled from him led to the land itself stopping him, and others would be caught in the crossfire. To Jack, the humans that came to visit him were his only hope, and he would struggle harder against the curse to escape, to be with them. This made the curse fight back even harder in more brutal ways, summoning worse monsters. Soon the heart of the dark woods was known as a hellish place, where the land itself would turn against you if you tried to escape its brutal master that hunted you relentlessly.

Over the years, humans adapted, as they often do. Adventurers learned to stick with the outer fringes of the dark woods to harvest materials. It was the least dangerous, relatively speaking, and what could be gained deeper in was not worth the cost, especially if they strayed to the heart of the land where its terrible master lay in wait for any poor soul to enter.

It’s been a long, long time since Jack has seen another human, and he’s slowly going insane from solitude. He does what he can to distract himself or escape, trying desperately to hold onto his humanity, but it erodes bit by bit with each passing year. Even gaining the ability to transform into a “human” form hasn’t stopped his ever steady decline into madness. He fears that one day he might lose his humanity completely and become the mindless monster that those who fought him believed him to be.

Perhaps all that Jack and the dark woods need to heal is a little bit of sunshine.

Beyond the Dark Woods

Outside the fringes of the cursed land, time marched on. Years went by, rulers came and went, borders changed as land was annexed or reverted to wilderness. A lot can happen over the decades, especially in a fantasy world filled with magic, monsters, and mischievous fae.

How long Jack was trapped alone in the dark woods is a mystery. Maybe it’s 40 years, or perhaps a lot longer than that.

Regardless, the homeland that once had a lost prince named Joseph is still around, a relatively stable country all things considered. In fact, it had grown over the years thanks to annexing land from other countries that had been weakened by the results of the curse. Monsters often wandered out of the dark woods, putting nearby villages in danger and impressing the need for more adventurers to cull the monsters that threatened human life. What was once a kingdom had grown into an empire, growing prosperous with its many strong knights and adventurers, though like any place, it had its own share of problems.

But enough politics, let’s get into the other characters, shall we?

MC is a knight, as demonstrated by the lovely Thea in Mars’ art. Well… they aspire to be a knight anyway. Bullshit politics have kept them as a squire to a knight of higher nobility since they were a teenager. It’s been over 10 years already! How much longer do they have to wait to become a knight? They’re sick of having to polish and shine Barry’s armor, and if they have to scrub his codpiece one more time…

Yup, Barry is a knight in this AU, though only technically. Nobility sometimes get granted a knight title for some reason or another, usually as a token to honor them and/or their families. These nobles usually  were just knights in name only, parading around as if they’re this grand figure when other knights did the real battling. They can play the hero without ever actually having to go into battle and send squires to do the menial work for them.

In a sense, Barry is a rich man who bought a title because it was cool, and he makes a big show of it. It’s pretty much a vanity project, and a way to increase his clout to maybe move up in the ranks of nobility. He has MC announce his presence grandly, something just as over the top as the greeting to Yogurtopia. Perhaps something like… “Announcing the great, honorable, and very handsome and still very single and looking for a bride, Sir Barry of [insert surname here].” Or something like that, maybe with his noble title thrown in there for good measure. Maybe he could insist his squire plays a horn first…

Man, even with a proclamation heralding Barry wherever he goes, no one is interested in him. He hasn’t had a date in way too long. Maybe he needs his armor to be polished a little brighter.

While MC isn’t Barry’s only squire, they are the one often left doing the work, as other squires slack off or wind up getting elevated to knight despite being younger than MC is. It’s understandably really, really frustrating for MC. They come from a lesser noble house, just barely above a commoner, so they’re an easy mark for any higher ranked noble to rub the power difference in their face.

Really, it’s all enough to make MC consider quitting to become an adventurer. Sure, adventurers are basically mercenaries for hire at the guild and the jobs can be infrequent, and money can be hard to come by, but… Ah, who are they kidding? The squire job might suck, but at least they get the security of steady pay, regular meals, a place to sleep, mild prestige, and they don’t have to go camping in the woods for days on end hunting some specific monster or harvesting a certain number of rare herbs.

Besides, MC admires the knights (aside from Barry). Their best friend became a knight a few years ago, lucky dog. Still, Shaun didn’t rub it in their face like the pal he is. Shaun looks so regal in his shiny silvery armor, even having it adorned with pretty badass etchings and other decorations. There’s a very feline feeling to it as well, since cat daddy has to be cat knight in this AU. Hey, I don’t make the rules.

…Oh, wait. :3c

Anyway, the other knights can be pretty cool as well. There’s this one knight who has been friendly, though MC doesn’t know his name yet. The guy acts strangely shy when they’re around, which is confusing to them. They’re just a squire after all, not a cool knight in studded leather armor like him.

Poor Nick has a crush on MC in this universe too and is pretty tongue tied around them. MC might still be a squire, but there’s just something about them that lights up a room. Their spirit isn’t crushed despite the fact that they should’ve been a knight years ago. He envies how easily Sir Shaun can chat with them.

Of course, Shaun is in the same boat as Nick, in that he also has a crush on MC and can be pretty clumsy with how he tries to express it. Still, in spite of this, he would have tried to see if they could be something more if not for a certain scandal that happened.

The reason why MC is still a squire, or at least one of the biggest reasons, is because of rumors that they were the secret lover of Prince Ian, the current heir to the throne.

Of course, given that MC is barely above a commoner, the idea of them getting together with the crown prince is scandalous. They got to know each other as children, with MC serving as a page to play with the young prince. When the queen caught wind that the prince saw them as anything more than a playmate in their teen years, their relationship got exceedingly strained.

Ian is in love with MC, and they felt the same, at least at one point. All the time they spent together while growing up led to fondness, then sweet first love. Unfortunately, they knew early on how their different stations meant that the chances of them being together were almost non-existent. This led to a lot of mutual pining, moments where they were tempted to act on their feelings, and some secret encounters between the two.

In spite of the queen’s interference separating them, MC and Ian saw each other in secret as much as they could. They started a forbidden romance together, and the two of them convinced themselves that maybe, somehow, they could defy the odds.

But the weight of the crown hangs heavy on the head. As Ian was swept up in his duties and the time he would be crowned as king drew ever closer, he had less and less time to spend with MC. His mother’s interference certainly didn’t help, especially since she was trying to get him engaged to a high ranked noble woman to ensure that he would be able to sire the next generation of royalty.

While yes this fantasy world is far more open with gender expression and loving others regardless of gender, nobles tend to be uptight when it comes to making sure their bloodline and power continues. Plus Ian’s mom is still abusive and controlling of her son in this universe too, and she uses not only religion to bully Ian but politics and duty as well. As queen, she has a lot more power too, and a lot more flying monkeys to spy on her son and interfere.

In a way, it’s lucky that the queen hasn’t decided that MC is a threat that must be entirely eliminated at all costs. No assassination plots… yet. Mostly it’s interference and petty revenge by forcing MC to remain a squire instead of a knight. She could throw MC out, but then how can she occasionally be petty if MC never comes to the palace? MC might be Barry’s squire, but everyone follows the queen’s orders, and a narcissist needs attention and others to bow down to them.

Unfortunately, the queen’s schemes did succeed. Ian, in a moment of weakness, fell for the seductive charms of one of his potential fiancees. He felt awful for betraying MC, to the point that he had to see them despite the risk of his mother catching them, so that he could confess what he had done and beg for forgiveness.

MC’s heart was broken, but what was worse was that it became a huge scandal. Someone had seen Ian’s confession and begging, and soon word spread like wildfire. Now everyone knew that they had secretly been lovers and that the prince was begging a mere squire for forgiveness. Ian’s reputation took a hit, while MC’s outright tanked due to the scandal, and things became much harder for them, and people have been keeping their distance from the squire that dared think they could become a future king’s consort.

Since then, MC has kept their distance from Ian as much as possible, and Ian, reluctantly, has given them space, knowing that he’s messed everything up for them. But… when he’s king, not even his mother will be able to stop them from being together. When he’s king, he’ll be able to fix everything. He just has to do what he can to make sure that happens. Then he and MC can finally be together in the open, stations be damned! Then he can truly make amends and be forgiven for what he’s done.

Shaun was there to support MC with their broken heart. While his becoming a knight has put a bit of distance between them, as he has more duties to attend to, including being sent away on missions for the country, he makes sure to keep in touch and meet up with them as best he can. Anyone who dares to say a bad word about MC in front of him is getting this cat’s claws.

Nick is no stranger to scandals. He’s basically the most popular knight in the realm, with countless admirers. Perhaps they could offer MC a word or two on how to deal with so much unwanted attention and rumors rumbling in the background.

A Squire’s Quest

Now, how does Jack factor into MC’s life without a compelling VHS tape to tie them together? Well, the instigating factor in this universe is that a thief made off with an important treasure, and Barry the knight was tasked with retrieving it. As Barry’s squire, MC was compelled to come with him to assist, which usually meant doing 99% of the work if there were no other squires with them at the time with Barry taking all the credit. But don’t worry, he only does it because he knows they’ll do a good job at it, and it just shows that they’re one step closer to becoming a true knight!

After traveling quite a ways, tracking down the thief (with MC doing most of the work picking up the trail in the first place), the pair realize that the thief went into the infamous dark woods.

Well, that’s not good. Sure there are areas that have been explored for materials, but still… the cursed land is quite dangerous. Barry decided that the best way to divide the work is for MC to continue to follow the thief’s trail, as they were better at tracking, and he, being much better at supervising and dealing with people, would see if anyone nearby could get information about what the thief might have been after, maybe set up a trap that MC could chase the thief into.

MC had to seriously consider their life choices up until this point, but if they quit now, that meant kissing goodbye to the stability they had going for them. Also, it’d probably bring dishonor to their name, maybe damage their lineage permanently, and so on and so forth.

Well, if they quit to become an adventurer, they’d have to do stupid things like trek through the dark woods anyway. Besides, the thief already stole a national treasure, which meant they weren’t stupid enough to go hunting for the invincible dragon guarding the heart of the forest, right? Sure there’s rumors that maybe the dragon guards the greatest treasure of all, but no way the thief is that dumb. No one’s actually ever seen any real treasure, or have a consensus on what the supposed greatest treasure is actually supposed to be.

After a hard internal debate, MC ultimately decides to brave the dark woods, tracking the thief stealthily. They may only be a squire, but they would probably be the greatest knight in the kingdom if not for politics. Their exact combat style is up to interpretation and personal preference, but they’re no stranger to slaying powerful monsters. They’re also used to Barry giving them unreasonable demands like this one.

And, hey, at least they’re not mortifying themselves by singing Barry’s praises when he enters a room while they’re busy with this stupid quest. That’s got to count for something, right?

Right?

Yeeeahh, okay, MC is obviously just lying to themselves and they know it, but damned if they do, damned if they don’t. They swear to themselves that they’ll only go as far as the hunting expeditions usually travel into the forest. If the thief really is stupid enough to go to the dragon’s lair, MC will just circle back and just tell Barry that the dragon probably just killed the thief, or something. No way they’re going to risk getting eaten by an unstoppable dragon.

These thoughts are a small comfort  as MC follows the thief’s trail. Occasionally they have to fight magic-tainted plants or monsters. Their skill shines despite the dark gloom of cursed woods. They even get some nice materials they can sell for some extra cash. Maybe being an adventurer wouldn’t be too bad a gig after all…

Just then the loud noise breaks the eerie calm. Some sort of explosion. Magic? Fireworks? Regardless of what it was, it riled up something. That something is big, nasty, and charging right at them! In fact, it’s a lot of somethings! A pack of creatures got aggravated, and MC is forced to run!

Now, was this a natural occurrence? A bit of misfortune? Did the thief make a false trail to trick MC into going on ahead while they secretly doubled back and used a small explosion to make the monsters go nuts on MC while they used the commotion as a cover to make their escape?

Perhaps. Perhaps. MC certainly isn’t in a situation to figure out which of these possibilities it was at the moment though, as they’re too busy running for their life, inwardly cursing Barry, the queen, the thief, and anyone else that annoyed them lately. If they knew they would die today, they wouldn’t have held back last week when that one jerk stole their cinnamon roll. They would’ve at least had the satisfaction of telling them off for it!

Sarcasm and sass are a good way to cope, but MC knows full well the gravity of their situation. They quickly lose the trail back the way they came, forced to do battle with creatures that are in their path while avoiding being overwhelmed by being so outnumbered. It’s only through a mixture of skill and sheer dumb luck that they manage to survive.

And by dumb luck, I mean that they fell into a catacomb through a ruined ceiling that was keeping it hidden underground.

Well, shit. From bad to worse, right?

Nothing for it, MC is forced to find a way out of the catacombs, then somehow find a way to leave the dark woods without another group of monsters going aggro on them.

Piece of cake. Noooo problem. They just have to avoid the castle at the center of the dark woods that the dragon supposedly uses as its lair, and they’re fine. An old crypt with some undead ready to pop out is better than an unstoppable dragon. Right?

As you may have guessed, MC is, in fact, going in the direction of our lonely dragon prince. Is it just bad luck? Is it some sort of intuition or instinct drawing them to Jack? Are they bound together by fate? Is it some sort of spell Jack has cast that compels humans to seek him out because it’s been forever since a human came by, and he’s desperate for both company and freedom? Maybe some combination of these things or something else entirely. Who’s to say~? It’s up to interpretation/personal headcanon~

In any case, MC is very taken aback when they meet Jack face to face for the first time, as is Jack really. It’s been so long since he’s seen someone. A part of him wonders if MC is actually real. When they get defensive and try to figure out who or what he is, he does his best to placate them, even if they might have their weapon out and ready for battle.

Jack puts his best foot forward, being friendly and welcoming. He invites MC to his home. They look exhausted and like they’ve had a hard time. MC isn’t exactly trusting this at face value, being very guarded about the whole exchange despite how cheerful and friendly this man with wings and horns is being. He’s also getting dangerously close. Should they try to use their weapon to ward him off, like Thea might have done with her sword, Jack is skilled enough in combat by this point to easily redirect her sword with his claws.

Oops, that put Thea off balance. Don’t worry, her new pal Jack is quick to catch her before she takes a tumble.

“Careful, we wouldn’t want you getting hurt, would we?” Jack said, his tone playful.

Despite MC’s skills, they are hopelessly outmatched by Jack. He has far more experience with combat, and he has the insane powers that the curse granted him.

Of course, MC is pretty quick to put together that Jack is the invincible dragon that rules the dark woods, which means that they’re utterly screwed. Strangely enough, Jack isn’t really acting like the monster people whisper about. It’s almost enough to make MC wonder if they aren’t mistaken, but the dragon features and his overwhelming strength kind of gives it away. The fact that Jack brings MC back to his castle pretty much seals the deal.

So MC is stuck as a guest with Jack. The dark woods are too dangerous for humans to wander around alone, especially at the heart of the forest. He’s curious about MC and why they would take such a risk, very concerned by their recklessness. Why were they there?

It’s an awkward situation, but MC has no choice but to play along. How much they resist or comply depends on the MC. I figure Jack indulges even a very resistant MC due to how lonely he’s been. He can easily disarm any attempts to attack him or thwart them from getting away, so they pose no threat. He has all the time in the world to convince MC to lower their guard.

And Jack is just so… so nice. It’s hard not to find him charming. He seems so concerned about MC, and they’ve been having such a hard time with, well… everything. The castle, despite being old, has been maintained decently well. The rooms are decorated so nicely, filled with clothes for them to wear, and the food Jack makes is fantastic. Holy crap, his cooking is out of this world!

Really, the longer MC stays there, the more it seems like there’s nothing Jack can’t do, and their stay is kind of like a vacation in ways. Given how much time he’s had to teach himself new things, it’s no wonder he has become something of a jack-of-all-trades.

I make no apologies for that pun.

Here then comes the classic conundrum when it comes to Jack - does MC fall for his charms, or remain suspicious and hold him at arm’s length? They’ve been feeling pretty lonely and beaten down by life for a while now, and Jack seems almost too good to be true. It’s not like he’s keeping them captive, but they’re in the heart of the dark woods. Outside this castle are some of the worst, most dangerous monsters imaginable. Jack can protect MC if they stay there in the castle with him, but he can’t go very far from the castle, so he can’t help them leave the woods. That is why he’s keeping them from leaving the castle. You know, aside from not wanting to lose the only company he’s had in so many years.

Jack is right about the danger, unfortunately. Whether MC tries to slip away from the castle or just scopes out the surroundings via a window, they find that it’s surrounded by monsters far too dangerous for them to handle alone. There’s no way they could make it, and if they tried, they’d only survive thanks to Jack coming to their rescue.

Of course, Jack acknowledges that MC is powerful. He saw them try to attack him if he did, or he just can tell in simply because they made it all this way on their own. It’s just, well, there’s only so much anyone can do on their own. Sometimes we all need a friend to help us out.

If Jack could leave, then he could help MC leave too, but he’s stuck in the castle. He’s been there for such a long, long time.

Whether his tragic plight is enough to make MC sympathize is, of course, up to the individual. I do know my gal Alice is going to want to help him after hearing him out. Being trapped in this awful place by a curse is a fate she wouldn’t wish on anybody.

Not to mention helping Jack would help MC leave the dark woods. There’s no threat he can’t handle after all. They’d be getting their own personal dragon bodyguard.

Perhaps with a pair of fresh eyes and more knowledge of the state of the world, MC will have better luck figuring out how to free Jack from the curse. Maybe they’ll just play along to not upset their super powerful host so they can escape. It would certainly take time for MC to really trust Jack, even if he seems so friendly and kind… and, they have to admit, this place is lonely and very unsettling for anyone to stay in, even if Jack has tried his best to make it look nice. It’s certainly creepy to be alone here in the heart of the dark woods. The castle is better than the woods full of monsters, but still…

Anyway, the interactions between MC and Jack are up to the individual to decide. Romance the dragon, or flee from the dragon in the end. Being stuck together can bring a sort of fondness, and Jack falls in love. It makes him determined to never lose MC, ever, so he falls down the yandere path, which can lead to some pretty obsessive moments depending on the choices made.

As for the alternate love interests, after Ian receives word that MC disappeared in the dark woods, he sends knights on a quest to find and rescue them, despite the queen’s interference. This of course includes Shaun and Nick, who are the first to volunteer for the rescue mission. Despite the queen’s meddling, not wanting to waste manpower on a thorn in her side, Ian finally takes a stand against his mother for the sake of MC and their love, and the expedition is sent.

Unbeknownst to the knights, Ian sneaks along with them in disguise. He can’t just sit back and wait while MC is in danger. He can’t let them down a second time. He’ll prove to them, and himself, that he’s truly worthy of their love.

From there it’s trials and tribulations of the guys trying to rescue MC from the dragon… provided that MC still wants to be rescued by the time the guys reach the castle.

Really, in order for all of the love interests to spend time with MC and interact, perhaps Jack will be brought back with them somehow, like he found a loophole in the curse or a way to bind him to MC. That way, Jack can leave the forest, so long as it’s with MC, with the added bonus that he can’t stay too far away from his sunshine. It’d create something of a dynamic similar to the game, only in this case everyone can see Jack and learn that he’s an incredibly dangerous dragon that has the power to kill all of them if he so chooses. Not that he would ever! He’s MC’s best friend after all. He just wants to protect his sunshine.

Though chances are MC will want to hide the whole “dragon” thing if they decide to leave with Jack. Maybe coach him on how to better pass for a human. Best not to scare people, am I right?

Or this AU could just stick in the castle where MC chooses to either romance the dragon or flee the dragon. I know which one Alice is going to choose, regardless if they stay in the castle or go back to civilization.

On that note, let’s get to the part that I suspect you’ve all been really waiting for.

(S)laying the Dragon

With Jack being a mythical creature, that offers possibilities for a very kinky fun time. There’s his obvious features like his sharp teeth and claws, but there’s also those long pointy ears that are perfect for nibbling, and maybe offering a bit of emotional expression in the way they tilt. Then, of course, there’s the tail and wings, perfect to wrap around his sunshine. He’s got even more limbs to hold them close!

Now… dragon anatomy is pretty much whatever we want it to be. Bad Dragon has the name for a reason after all. Want dragons to have two dicks similar to snakes? Go for it. He could still have that while he’s in his “human” form too. In fact, with a belt that allows him to change his shape, he could alter himself in very fun ways. A funky fantasy dick with ridges and/or bumps? Perhaps some tentacles anybody?

I mean, Jack has been alone for a long, long time. He’s only had himself to entertain and experiment with. He might have some very kinky tricks that no one has ever tried before.

To be fair, the tail is probably prehensile, so it might be able to be used like a tentacle for sexy times. He might not even need a second dick to plug up all of MC’s holes at once.

Dragons tend to have long tongues, so french kissing Jack is going to be intense, especially if it’s forked too. Then of course there’s oral. Naturally, he’ll be careful with those sharp teeth of his. Well, unless MC is into something a little rougher. Jack doesn’t want to hurt his sunshine (humans are so fragile after all), but if they like a little pain, well, their good old pal Jack will oblige them!

In my personal fantasy headcanons, pointy ears and the base of wings and tails are sensitive erogenous zones. Nibble on Jack’s ears, please! Preen his wings and make him feel loved and cared for. Rub at the base of his tail, and he’ll get hard instantly.

The scales might be harder than armor, but they’re nice and smooth, and have a nice feel. Jack has some control on just how hard or soft his body is at a time due to the belt’s power. Unless otherwise requested, Jack is very gentle with his sunshine, worried about going too rough due to how easy it was for him to hurt others.

Of course… Jack is also so desperately lonely and horny. MC’s presence has been his only bright spot in so long, and he loves them so much. When they love him too… well, it was already so hard for him to hold himself back. It wouldn’t be that difficult to rile him up and make him start to lose control, struggling to hold back his power even as he tosses MC around and takes them.

Naturally, many of my personal sexy headcanons for Jack apply in this AU. This includes a breeding/seeding kink. It’s a bit more pronounced here. If MC has his child then they’ll never ever leave him after all, and they’ll be bound together forever and ever and ever. Even if a child is off the table, the act of breeding/seeding alone is enticing, making them beg him to take them and fill them up with his hot cum is something that he fantasizes about often.

Of course, Jack doesn’t simply want sex with MC, he wants to make love. They make him feel truly loved for the first time in forever. Did he ever feel so loved before? He wants to experience their love in every way he can, fill them up with it until he’s a part of them forever.

Jack won’t ever force his sunshine, no matter how desperate he is for their love or to make love. He’ll go crazy with need, but always hold himself back if they need him to. As long as they love him, he can take care of himself sexually like he always has. He’s just been so empty, alone, and unloved for so long. MC fills them up with love in a way that he can’t live without anymore.

Naturally, when the pair do start making love, Jack can’t get enough, and his stamina is insane. MC is without a doubt going to be the one passing out first after they’ve been fucked senseless with Jack thrusting inside them, babbling how much he loves them and how good they make him feel. The more they go on, the more feral for their love Jack becomes. He’s needed his sunshine so, so badly, and now that he has them and their love, he can’t live without them anymore.

Of course, with a dragon AU and a shapeshifting ability, you can get really creative. For one thing there’s his full dragon form, which would be a giant compared to MC. Size difference anyone? Plus the exact details of how Jack looks in his dragon form could offer interesting possibilities of its own.

Then of course there’s even more furry-related kinks like oviposition or stuff like that. It's not for me personally, but I can imagine Jack would be open to experimentation and indulging in MC’s kinks, even the more outrageous ones. After all, it’s all just more ways to show just how much he loves his sunshine~

You best believe Jack has a predplay kink in this universe. He can smell MC and track them down easily. If that doesn’t work, there’s all sorts of magic he’s learned over the years that can do the trick. Of course he doesn’t want to scare MC, but when it’s good fun, it can lead to a delightfully spicy time~

While I’m on the topic of Jack smelling MC, he is addicted to their scent. The smell of their pheromones easily riles him up, practically sending him into rut like an alpha from Omegaverse!

Naturally, since Jack is a dragon, he has a horde. The castle was loaded with treasure, and it is pretty and shiny. It looks nice all piled together, maybe even neatly decorated. No doubt he’ll want to make love to his sunshine atop a pile of shiny gold coins and jewels, though he’ll make sure that he’s on the bottom so they don’t get jabbed by the hard edges… unless they’d like that, of course.

Of course, the true treasure Jack is hoarding in his lair would be MC. Gold and jewels are nice, but they don’t hold a candle to the love of his sunshine~

Wow. I think this is the longest headcanon post I’ve ever made while sticking with neutral MCs for the most part. I think I’m long overdue to shamelessly self-indulge with my OTP. Let’s see how Alice’s choices will affect this AU and how events unfold, shall we?

Lady Alice of House Rose

Naturally, Alice can’t have the surname of King in a setting like this, so I’m going to use her middle name as the house name.

Fun fact, Rose is the middle name for Barbie and Coraline too!

Yes, that means Barbie’s full name is Barbara Anne Rose King.

Yes. Yes, that pun was indeed intentional.

No, I will not apologize. Her name was picked to be a pun in the first place after all. ;3

Anyway, back to Alice. Being the eldest child, she has the responsibility to elevate the status of her household. Not only are they barely nobility, but their finances aren’t in the best shape. She needs money to help her family, and the honor of being a knight in hopes of gaining a better title.

It’s a shame that the queen doesn’t care for Alice and she’s been stuck as a squire way longer than is reasonable.

Alice knew that it would be impossible for her to marry a prince like Ian, no matter how kind he was, or how close they were. She couldn’t avoid falling for him though. It made her more determined to earn a better title, to make something of herself and earn acclaim. Maybe if she became the greatest knight in the kingdom, maybe she can prove herself worthy of royal consort and be with Ian as his wife one day.

Alice busted her ass trying to be a knight despite all the rough training and being forced to work menial, often degrading tasks as a squire. The weapons she specializes in are the bow and magic, combining the two to devastating effect. She’s also very good at keeping quiet and being stealthy.

In this universe, Alice never had sex with Ian. Although this fantasy setting is more open about sex before marriage, the gap between her and Ian was so wide, she didn’t want to risk doing anything that might ruin their chances of being together. That’s why finding out he cheated broke her heart, regardless of them being physically intimate together. Worse, his outburst when he begged her for forgiveness made it sound like they had been sleeping together to those who overheard, and the rumors were very unkind to the two of them, Alice especially.

Ian cheating proved to Alice that she was only fooling herself that they could be together. Their worlds were too far apart. Ian was to be king someday and she… well, maybe she’ll reach the title of Baroness. Though Ian begged for forgiveness, and Alice gave it to him, she couldn’t go back to the way they were. Advice from Shaun and others helped her see that it was best for everyone involved that she simply remain as the loyal (future) knight and Prince Ian as only her liege.

Let’s skip ahead to the mission to catch the thief in the dark woods. Alice’s best means of combat is the stealth kill. She sneaks quietly, sets up magic traps, fires arrows when the enemy is unaware, and in general takes her time to take her enemy at her own advantage. She actually works pretty well as a solo fighter due to being so stealthy. Though she is good at hand to hand combat if need be, she prefers to strike before her enemy realizes she’s there, and she’s amazing at her skills. Why, if she put her mind to it, she could be a skilled assassin. (Or in another world, a sniper.)

The horde of monsters the thief set off to charge after Alice was almost her undoing. By the time she fell into the catacombs, she passed out from exhaustion, having drained her mana dry. She might have been doomed if a monster came upon her then, but fortunately the master of the dark woods found her in time.

Alice was pretty darn shocked to wake up in a surprisingly fluffy bed, with her armor removed. Not all of it fortunately. She had her modesty protected and her softer clothes still on, but the uncomfortable hard outer plates were removed so that she could sleep peacefully. Jack was apologetic about removing any part of her clothes without asking, even blushing about it, but he didn’t want her to be uncomfortable while she recovered.

Needless to say, Alice is wary of Jack at first, but he did save her life. She does piece together that he’s the dragon pretty quickly and is naturally wary, deciding that the best course of action is to rest up, heal, and carefully get information from the legendary master of the dark woods.

The rumors and legends are so varied, it’s hard to know what exactly is the truth. The dragon of the dark woods doesn’t even have a name, and some of the tales are clearly exaggerations. Since Jack is showing himself to be surprisingly friendly, and he saved Alice from certain death, she decided to trust him… at least enough to remain civil and learn more about him, the castle, and the dark woods.

After asking many questions and getting as much information as Jack can give her (though much of it is confusing due to how rusty he is with socializing), Alice agrees to help him find a way to break his curse. She’s taking a risk, but if she leaves the castle on her own, she’ll die. If she stays, she can keep an eye on Jack to see if he’s really as good and gentle as he presents himself to be. If she has to, she’ll find a way to escape without him if she gets the sense that he’s using her to escape the forest in order to conquer the world or something.

Being very good at sneaking, Alice does slip away to search around the castle for answers on her own as much as possible. However, Jack can’t stand the idea of losing track of her, and all it took was one time of losing track of her for him to leave a magic tracker on her discreetly so he can find her wherever she goes - for her own safety of course! He can’t stand to be far from her. He has to give her time to herself, since if he leaves her with no privacy she won’t trust him, but it’s so hard to stay away. He’s so lonely.

At first Jack’s feelings for Alice are platonic, just a lonely man in desperate need of friendship, but over the time they spend together, getting to know one another, he falls in love and falls hard. Alice, naturally, takes much longer to fall after her relationship with Ian fell apart. At first, Jack is someone she can’t quite trust because he’s a stranger, then she is cautious because he’s a powerful dragon with many unflattering legends about the monster that he is, then it’s concern for the power imbalance between them… but eventually she sees that he’s just a lonely, sweet dork who just wants a friend.

Of course, Alice won’t realize he wants much more than friendship until later. Jack doesn’t want to scare her away after all.

I don’t think Shaun, Nick, and Ian are just going to sit back and wait long to try and find her, but I want to give Alice and Jack plenty of alone time, so I’m going to go with the idea that when humans come deep into the heart of the woods, at first Jack is excited. More friends! Then he becomes fearful when he realizes they’re looking for Alice. They want to take his sunshine away. She’ll leave him, forever!

Well, that won’t do. Jack doesn’t want to hurt them, but he can just make it difficult to find the castle. Maybe use the power of the cursed land to rearrange the forest when the search party isn’t looking, mix them up so that they find themselves suddenly outside the woods. Jack might not be able to leave due to the curse, but he’s not known as master of the dark woods for nothing. He can wield the golden cuffs’ power however he likes, just he can never leave.

Jack just needs to divert them long enough that they give up and leave, or he can find a way to escape with his sunshine’s help. Alice knows many interesting spells, being very creative with magic in ways that he never thought of before, and she knows of things that he doesn’t due to coming from outside the woods. With her help, he is able to figure out a way to free himself from his imprisonment… provided that he remains close to his sunshine. It’s more of a change in the curse than an actual cure for it, but it’s a vast improvement! He can leave the dark woods! Finally! At long last! He can converse with more people! He can make friends! He won’t have to be left alone and forgotten in the dark anymore!

Of course, Alice helps Jack prepare to be around people by helping him refine his “human” form. People aren’t going to understand that the deadly dragon of the dark woods is really just a sweet marshmallow, practically a giant cuddly puppy in human-ish form! When Jack can master looking properly human, they can come up with a cover story that he was a wanderer that found her lost in the woods and helped her until she could get back home. It’s not a lie technically. He used to be a wanderer after all, and everything else is true. He’s been nothing but helpful to his sunshine~

So Alice has to hide the secret of her new dragon friend, who has made it his mission to win her heart. Jack is willing to wait for her to be ready to love him the way that he loves her, even if the wait drives him crazy, but he’s very territorial, not liking the way the other guys look at her. However, Alice does notice his more possessive behaviors even as he tries to remain subtle about them, and she makes sure to keep her new “pet” dragon on a tight leash. Jack is fine with that so long as it means he’ll stay close to his sunshine.

I’m going to say that the change to the curse to bind them together does cause an empathy connection because I really love empath magic. Plus, allowing the pair to feel each other’s emotions and even pleasure and pain is very intimate. When Alice realizes they now can sense each other’s pain as a result of what she did, Jack makes it clear that he’ll do whatever it takes to keep her safe so that she won’t have to experience any pain. He’ll promises to protect her for the rest of his life.

Of course, such a declaration leaves Alice feeling rather flustered. ;3

Overall, it is a bit more of a slow burn than Sunshine in Hell, but eventually the two of them fall in love, much to the dismay of the rest of the male leads.

Naturally love will overcome the curse, because I am an absolute sucker for happy endings. Jack and Alice will find a way to break the curse and remain together so they can live happily ever after. And make love like rabbits hopped up on viagra.

No, I won’t apologize for that pun either.

It won’t come too easily, of course. There’s plenty of people who aren’t going to be keen to immediately trust Jack, and not just the male leads. He came from out of nowhere, with no known background. Alice’s family is certainly going to be concerned by the stranger that waltzed into her life after her heart was already broken by Ian, especially since by the time they meet Jack, she’s already shown signs of crushing on him. The family is going to need to make sure that this new guy is worth potential heartbreak.

Then of course there’s the whole political aspect of things. This country used to be the very kingdom that Joseph was chased out of many, many years ago. The lost prince is a story that could be uncovered to potentially explosive results.

Why, if Jack had the mind to, he could take back the throne and rule the kingdom that once chased him away… with his sunshine ruling by his side after all.

Will that happen with Alice? Maybe. Maybe she’ll actually become a queen after all, or maybe she’ll just live a simple life with Jack who doesn’t let on that he’s powerful enough to level the whole kingdom. After all, all he truly wants is to be loved, and Alice is sure to give Jack all the love he could ever ask for.

Perhaps that love will wind up with a lot of adorable half-dragon babies running around. Though they could be fully human if Jack does become a human after the curse breaks. I kind of like the idea that Jack is freed of the curse, but he is still a powerful dragon and can still use the belt to have fun with his shape. Plus baby dragons are the cutest and the idea of Jack and Alice’s kids being little dragons with tiny wings and cute pointy ears heals my soul.

…Holy crap this ramble went on for 26 pages. That’s over 11,000 words according to google doc! This must be my longest ramble yet, and that’s saying something! Well, I suppose that’s what happens when a dragon lover makes a dragon AU, haha. Fantasy has always been my jam, and I love playing with magical elements.

Anyway, I’m going to take that as a cue to wrap things up here for now. Let me know what you think about this AU and if you want to hear more about anything in particular. Also, let me know if this post inspires you to create anything of your own and please share it with me! I love it that we can inspire one another to create in this fandom, just like Mars’ lovely art inspired me. I hope I’ve given you a few new fun ideas to play with. Thanks for reading this far!

@channydraws @earthgirlaesthetic @sai-of-the-7-stars @cheriihoney @illary-kore @okamiliqueur

[myredrainbow]

~Since Hazbin Hotel is finally getting their season within a week, I wanna start off my tumblr with an Alastor fic for those who love him ( myself included). Forgive me if everything isn’t accurate towards his personality, since the season will come out soon hopefully all of us can see his personality more ! Enjoy !~

( Headcanons : Alastor x Y/n )

~ Alastor at first was just near you for the entertainment due to his boredom over the past few decades.

~ But ever since you’ve join the crew in the hotel, something inside him just.. changed..

~ You we’re a housekeeper/maid, that cleans hotel rooms for guest. You and niffty get along great, and Alastor likes you for that.

~ Once you came in his office- ( based off the pic in the season. Not sure if it’s a room or office) you were there to clean around his office, due to him being a powerful overlord. You wanted to leave as quickly as possible because you didn’t want to make Alastor mad.

~ Alastor moved himself towards his door, as he watched you clean around his office. Standing there smiling at the sight . Not in a sexual way.

~ Once you were finished, you picked up your rag and duster only to find yourself get hit on the head with the duster. “OW!” You yelled, as you rubbed your head.

~ Alastor chuckled as he walked towards you as your head started to sting. “Now my dear! Allow me!” He cheered as he touch your head, the stinging pain fading away. Making you confused..

( not sure if he can actually do that but for this fic, yes ^^ )

~ Alastor’s hand then gently rubbed the bump where the duster hit you, as the bump swelled down. Your face bloomed red, as you realized how close he his too you.

~ But you got to your senses, and did a small bow to him. “Thank you, Alastor.. I’m so clumsy” you sighed out but he just kept rubbing your head. “ Oh! No no no, my dear! It’s nothing to worry about!” He smiled as he placed his hand by his side.

~ You blushed as you moved away from him, “apologies but I still have to continue to clean the other rooms”. You grabbed your supplies as you walked towards the door but was stopped but Alastor appearing out of nowhere.

~ “Now dear, if you need anything. Just let my know, I wouldn’t hesitate to come to your rescue” he grinned, turning his head to the side. You just blinked at him.

~”what?” You question, as he gently held your hand. “As a gentleman, I don’t want anything to happen to you and your pretty face” he said, fluttering his lashes at her.

~You then fluttered your lashes yourself in confusion but then smiled softly, “Oh, um. That’s very kind of you”. Alastor smiles and moves out of the doorway, allowing you to continue your work.

~”Which reminds me my dear, do you have a favorite song I’m able to play over the radio? To help you work?” He beamed, You thought for a second and remembered. “Over the rainbow” you smiled.

~About ten minutes into your cleaning, your heard static over the radio. Then a familiar tune was playing over it…

“Somewhere over the rainbow, blue birds fly”

You sigh happily as you softly twirl around, memories of your life on earth- swirling around your head. Your smile bright as ever ..

~ As Alastor smiles at the doorway, smiling to see you happy~

Woo-hoo! That’s was my first fic on tumblr done! I’m sorry if it’s inaccurate! But I hope you like it !! And if you have an idea - feel free to request ! I’m open for it!! Btw the song is from the wizard of Oz since it’s close to Alastor’s time period!

-RedRainbow

[galedekarios]

Hi!! Hope I am not bothering you (if so please feel free to ignore!) with a Gale lore question, but I figured you're the person on tumblr who would most likely know given all the cool shit you've been posting, but do we have any idea *where* gale was when he got snatched by the mindflayers? I can't seem to find a straight answer about most of the companions, but there seems to be a fairly straight forward answer for most of them except Gale (and Astarion to some extent) I know he had his year of solitude that he seemed to have left willingly and from what Tara says about Waterdeep it doesnt seem like they had a massive nautiloid attack the city a la the opening. I figured he either left Waterdeep in search of more items to sate the orb/protect the city in case of rupturing and was taken there or he was just maybe beaten over the head and abducted in the city by one of the few Absolutists that are in Waterdeep.

thank you for your message! i really appreciate your words.

sadly, there is no indication at all where precisely gale was before the events of the game take place.

i've collected some pieces of the puzzle, however, that i thought are relevant to at least paint a broad picture of what likely happened:

gale is well aware of how unstable the orb is. when he escapes the nautiloid, his first thought is that the illithid tadpole is very likely to have adverse effects on it:

he has lived with the orb for about a year or longer, knowing well what its effect might be. i have wondered often just why gale would know so much about ceremorphosis before the game starts. perhaps the devs just needed another exposition machine, which is likely, too, of course.

but considering the very real and very present danger of the orb, i think it's also likely that in his desperation to find a way to heal himself, reading up as much as he could on everything that even resembled some sort of solution, gale perhaps even read up on ceremorphosis, before deciding that it's just not viable, that it would do more harm to than good.

i think it might be in line with the same reasoning as to why the player can bring up the nightsong to gale as a possible solution to the orb.

2. gale is aware just catastrophic the consequences of the orb being unleashed are. when gale goes to rest in his origin playthrough, sleep will not find him and once more, his thoughts turn towards the orb first:

it's likely that this is why we find him staring into the flames playing a custom protag. these two scenes seem to mirror each other.

3. we also learn from the same dialogue two important things: that gale made tara promise to stay in waterdeep, concerned for her safety. we also learn from his conversation with tara that he is not only concerned about her safety, but his mother's as well and that he left her behind in waterdeep as well:

morena isn't aware of what her son tried to do. he kept it from her. not only had he disappointed her faith in him and his talents, now, with the orb, he was actively putting her in mortal peril. along with everyone else in the city.

from a later dialogue we also learn that gale is afraid of bringing shame to his family name:

player: So, your last name is Dekarios? gale: It is. Courtesy of my mother, the inimitable, dare I say it sometimes unavoidable, Morena Dekarios. It's been so long since I've used it. 'Gale Dekarios' cuts a poor figure next to the wizarding prowess of 'Gale of Waterdeep.' player: You're right. Just 'Gale' is better. gale: I agree. And on the plus side, if I get myself into any truly cataclysmic straits during the remainder of our journey, my family name will go untarnished.

we also learn that while news of the absolute seems to have reached waterdeep, tara doesn't seem to think that they have infiltrated waterdeep yet. which in turn means that waterdeep wasn't affected in the same way baldur's gate and other cities and regions were.

4. the next morning, gale can have the following conversation with tara:

"you left the tower in such a hurry you didn't leave an address." is what stands out to me here.

what exactly did make gale leave so suddenly?

was it a particularly bad flare-up of the orb? i think it might be likely because i also found this line in the files:

player: i fail to see why you need me to help you this. you've done fine without me so far. gale: A fair point - however, until recently I was able to rely on a supply of artefacts stored in my tower in Waterdeep. A supply that has now run dry. The reality of the matter is that a lone wizard with a chronic impairment such as my own is not in the most ideal of situations with regards to self-defence. The manner of artefacts I need are not often found waiting patiently on a shop-keep's shelf. One usually has to lift them delicately from trap-filled tombs or prise them from the hands of violent ne'erdowells.

so not only does this validate the fact that gale indeed suffers from chronic pain due to his condition even more, it also clearly states that he had nothing left in his possession to treat his condition anymore.

(as an aside, larian really did the seriousness of his condition a grave disservice here on a multitude at levels and this is another point where the narrative is at odds with the game mechanics of the full release. in ea, it truly required great artefacts (the sword of justice blessed by tyr or even the idol of silvanus) to soothe the orb.)

so to bring all of these points together, this is what i believe:

i think gale left waterdeep in a hurry after he felt the orb destabilising.

having no artefacts great power left, staying was no longer an option, lest he puts his mother (and waterdeep itself even) at great risk. he hurriedly packed what he could.

i assume tara was there and that it was then that he made her promise to stay because he didn't want to put his longest (and now only) friend at risk, too. perhaps he also felt better knowing that tara would be there for morena.

i think he was abducted while on the road, trying to find information about artefacts of great power and perhaps even setting out himself to acquire them.

[slusheeduck]

Casual Banter Masterpost

aka my Fictober 2023 drabbles! I figure I might as well get them all in one place on Tumblr, since I have them in one AO3 fic. Using the titles and descriptions from AO3.

Featuring my named Tav (Falerin), Tav/Astarion, a lot of Gale, and most importantly INTERACTIONS BETWEEN THE COMPANIONS.

Day 1: Smart - Astarion asks for a magic lesson. Day 2: Prize - Karlach wins a prize at the circus. Day 3: Fireside - One last campfire chat before the Shadowlands. Day 4: Cooking Lesson - Lae'zel learns to cook. Day 5: Mask - Astarion tries on a mask for funsies. It goes badly. Day 6: Sick - Gale and Falerin chat about friendship and illnesses Day 7: Anchor - Astarion regrettably holds Halsin's hand. Day 8: Good Taste - Gale shares a treat, and a good time is had by all. Day 9: A Talk - Just a little chat, in regards to some campsite romance. Day 10: Drizzt Do'Urden - Wyll, Karlach, and Astarion find some common ground. Day 11: Temporary - The campsite romance hits a snag. Day 12: Mirror - Gale makes good on teaching Astarion magic. Day 13: Lost Wizard: If Found, Contact Tara - Tara despairs over the state of her runaway pet wizard. Day 14: Clowning Around - Falerin uses a disguise kit. Astarion wants a divorce. Day 15: Proper Horn Care - There's no possible way to write this summary without it looking horny. Day 16: A Token - Halsin carves a little gift for Astarion. Day 17: One Nice Thing - Karlach shows Shadowheart something nice, when she really needs it. Day 18: 90% Evil - Why WOULDN'T the rogue be the one to talk to the death cultist? Day 19: Seamstress - No one in camp but Astarion would have survived Home Ec. Day 20: The Selfless Choice - Or, How To Be A Confidant To Both Halves Of A Couple In The Face Of World-Ending Catastrophe, By Gale Dekarios Day 21: Taste Test - Falerin is...kind of a fucking weirdo. This is Gale's burden to bear. Day 22: Curl-based Despair - Astarion experiences #curlygirlproblems. Falerin helps. Day 23: Hunger - Someone gets a little hangry. Day 24: Pact, Pt. 1 - Astarion finds out about Fal's illness. Day 25: Pact, Pt. 2 - Astarion finds out about Fal's illness. Day 26: The Cuddliest Foe - Lae'zel does some research. Clive assists. Day 27: Homecoming - Two resident Baldurians discuss coming home. Day 28: Date - Astarion gets some new clothes. Day 29: A Healthy Dose of Theatrics - Are you really best friends if you've never been tempted to throttle each other? Day 30: Starfall -The newly formed party takes a moment to enjoy a magical sight. Day 31: Epilogue - A quiet moment after saving the world. Post-Fictober Drabbles:

Stars in His Eyes - Fal learns about naming ceremonies--and why Astarion has the name he does.

Slumber Party - Astarion and Gale have a fun night of kicking their feet, giggling, and discussing the all-consuming power they both intend on taking for themselves. Kidnapped - Astarion's siblings succeed in getting him back to the manor - but he's stronger now. Plus he has a very, very pissed-off partner. Rewriting The Story - After defeating Cazador and a tryst in the graveyard, it's time for some relationship reflection. Happy - Surely being the lover of an ascended vampire is the happiest ending one could hope for. (Ascended Astarion AU)

Wild Heart - A brief moment, the morning after the almost ascension, where two early risers have a chat.

Matters of Balance - Withers performs a resurrection. Breathe Deep, and Move - You can never really go home.

Side-Tracked - As they're embroiled in a murder mystery, Fal decides to take Astarion out for some enrichment.

Late Night Thoughts - Astarion has some thoughts on Falerin's lie from earlier in the day. (Bonus chapter for Side-Tracked)

In The Weeds - Astarion decides to take in the sights of Baldur's Gate during the day, and has a nice conversation with a local.

New Tricks - Astarion discovers a new trick while trying to herd a cat.

Party Favors - The ultra-self-indulgent take on the ever popular tiefling party.

[vtforpedro]

Bagginshield Raffle

Hi everyone! Life has been difficult for so many of us, so I hope that this brings some warmth and humor, as I very much like writing those things!

I reached a number I never thought I'd get to on AO3 and now I am a handful away from 1000 followers on Tumblr! Holies molies. So, I thought I'd run a little Bagginshield raffle like I've done a few before! <3 I'm offering a fic with a word count between 1500 - 4500. Please thoroughly read this post. 1. You must be following me.

2. If you follow and unfollow before the raffle closes, I will not be counting your entry.

3. No raffle/prize accounts, no side accounts for a second entry. Only one entry is permitted.

4. If you are drawn, PLEASE keep the word count in mind and only offer ideas that can be done in shorter fics! What I will write: Bagginshield! Canon AUs, canon divergence, missing scenes, snippets during the quest, after the quest, Bilbo stays in Erebor, Reshirement, different first meetings, magical creatures, wizard!Bilbo, modern settings, modern royalty, and more! I am especially fond of fluff, humor, romance, falling in love, and fics with those aplenty. @/morticia-butler won my first raffle, and I wrote a reincarnation fic for her, which you can find here. @/stevecarrington won my second raffle and I wrote a garden-in-Erebor fic for him, which you can find here. What I won't write: Genderbending, Parentshield, mpreg, ABO, other ships unless briefly mentioned, politics, unrequited love, sickfic, a 'third party' interfering in their relationship, cruel Durins, cruel hobbits, heavy heavy angst, smut, MCD How to Enter: One reblog is your entry to the raffle. Please keep that in mind! Likes and replies will not be considered an entry. The winner will be drawn with a random number generator. I'll be assigning numbers with usernames based on the reblog order in a google document. The winner will be tagged, and I will also send a message through Tumblr Messages. I will draw a winner on October 1st, so you have just over a month to enter! I'll draw another winner if I don't receive a response to my message within 72 hours. Thanks so much! I'm looking forward to the draw!!!

[chdarling]

Hello CH.  I’ve not contacted an author before and I don’t know Tumblr all that well, so I don’t know if you’re actually going to see this.  But if you do…I was disheartened reading your post about how some were being unkind.  I wanted to contribute to the positive voices you hear, and hopefully outweigh any negativity.

I’m not a writer (grammar, sentence structure…what?), please bear with me.

I just wanted you to know how much The Last Enemy project means to me and how much I appreciate you.  I stumbled onto The Howling Nights about the same time that I had a health scare.  I had four or five months of talking to doctors, tests, and waiting for results.  A surgery.  Lots of stress and worry. Reading your fic played a huge part in me getting through that with a lot less stress and fewer tears.  I cannot begin to express how much your writing meant to me during that time. I could just fall into your world and put mine on pause for a bit.  

It’s just so easy to fall into the world you made. The Last Enemy is just so beautifully thought out and written.  I’ve seen it expressed more masterfully by others when you respond to them on Tumblr so I just have to echo a few points already made.  I love the different flavors of each chapter depending on which character’s POV it is.  There’s a different tone and manner of thinking for each character.  I can only imagine how much planning, character analysis, and time went into thinking about each event from multiple POVs to explore how it should be told.  I love all the small details that you (probably) agonize about; it makes a world of difference in continuity.  I love how we’re inserted at one point in time, and we learn about the past from someone’s point of view.  Like here’s Lily, a Muggleborn thrust into a new world and learning about wizarding politics/history through Dearborn and Dorcas’s bookstore.  We can see the pendulum of wizarding politics and culture and the effect it has on Hogwarts; for example, students eschewing Muggle clothing as a reflection of the current political leanings(Welcome to the backlash, baby!). I love how you’ve even brought in unconscious biases (Sirius - The Whisper of Trees), which is such a subtle but important detail in prejudice and breaking out of it.  And the relationships set within this context!  Lily thinking James acted the way he did because of blood purity.  James realizing that Lily went through so much more than he initially thought because she’s a Muggleborn girl and you know how these muggle girls are. The Muggleborn group! James teaching Quidditch because that’s the only thing he can do right now to fix something. Okay, I’m just rambling now, so I’ll be shorter.  Lily and Severus’s relationship…just so twisted.  Remus and Sirius - so much there. How James and Sirius confront Lily about Remus to protect him; aw. Lily’s “medicine” for Remus…I can’t even.  There’s so much more about your writing that I admire; I just can’t keep going or this will take forever to read.

I don’t even know how many times I’ve re-read the series, but there is always some new nugget I’m finding or some connection I’m making.  I also joined Tumblr because you were on it.  When you answer a question someone has or a reader points out something I missed, I have to go back and read it again.  It’s so much fun.  Whenever I start reading the series again, it’s like talking to an old friend. On a side note, I’ve also found a ton of new authors through Tumblr.  I wouldn’t have found them without you.

Ramble ramble.  Okay.

I’m always super exciting when I see that you’ve posted a new chapter.  Of course I am.  I sincerely hope you finish the whole series.  Of course I do.  And I will read every word and probably re-read more times than I can count.  But I’m happy knowing that it’s something you’re happy with and it’s what you want to post.  No matter the length of time between updates.  You exist beyond the keyboard.  You have a life. Rational people know that.  Also, I’ve been through grad school…it’s a lot.  Yikes. That you’re creating this series during grad school…um, how?

Thank you, thank you, thank you for the time and effort you’ve put into this and for sharing with us. Lots of love.

This made me rather teary (in a nice way!) 🥹

Thank you so so much for taking the time to send such a kind and supportive message. It truly means a lot to me. And I’m so sorry to hear about your health scare and all the stress from that. I hope you’re doing better now. ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

[swallow-the-bird]

“That Legendary Wizard Who Was Weathered by Worldly Trials.”

Here's a semi-finished piece! I'm not sure if I'll finish it, but I'm sharing it anyway 😂 It's been so long since I've been on Tumblr!

This piece was inspired by a friend's AU idea! In short, it imagines a world where Grindelwald is born over a hundred years later than Dumbledore, so the soulmates never have the chance to meet before Dumbledore's death.

Without ever meeting Grindelwald, Dumbledore never experiences the tragedy of losing his sister. Although this Dumbledore also firmly remained in the light side throughout his life, his excessively sharp approach led to criticism, and there were even rumours that he was suspected of being another Dark Lord in the making.

Nevertheless, he still wins the Second Wizarding War against Voldemort, staking his own life in the process.

My friend's words capture this AU's Dumbledore perfectly:

"The difference between him and the canonical Grindelwald is that this Dumbledore feels that the world isn't worth it, so he isolates himself, doubting himself while looking at the world with cold eyes. Without meeting Gellert Grindelwald, he can't understand how terrifying power is to him personally.

I think a Dumbledore who hasn't experienced the tragedy making him losing his sister wouldn't have a core of awe for fate and a self-examination that leads to bowing his soul. What we see in the canon is a man with his head bowed. But in this AU, Dumbledore would definitely hold his head high.

Dumbledore’s last photo during his lifetime shows a white-haired figure, walking into the vast darkness with distant flashes of lightning barely visible. This photo was published in The Prophet with the title 'Former "Hero" Returns - A Power Struggle or a Publicity Stunt?' ”

It's only after Dumbledore's death that Grindelwald is born.

Grindelwald pieces together Dumbledore's image from historical records and hearsay. He finds himself resonating more and more with this legendary figure who has been stained by the world. Despite the vast expanse of time separating them, the two geniuses still manage to spark a fierce collision of soul and thought.

However, this Grindelwald can never catch up to see his confidant while he's still alive, and the much-feared Dumbledore doesn't leave many images behind.

Until one day, Grindelwald finds a previously unknown portrait of Dumbledore. In the painting, the man looks down upon him with a haughty smile.

This is an encounter a century too late.

Praise my friend, this AU is really intriguing!! I hope that all of you also enjoy this brilliant AU idea as I do!

I'd love to draw more related scenes when I get the chance:D

[therenlover]

Put Me Back In It (I Would Do It Again) Chapter Six: Moments Of Truth

Pairings: Tav/Raphael, Past!Astarion/Tav, Haarlep/Raphael

Word Count: 7,200~

Synopsis: Tav finally confronts Raphael about the holes in his version of the truth. Haarlep regains their routine.

Rating: M (+18)

Warnings: Emotional Manipulation, Brief Mentions of Past Abuse

Tags: Emotional Manipulation, Dreams, Memory Loss, Regaining Memories, Everyone Is Lying and Mentally Ill, Love Triangles, Hurt/Comfort, Unrequited Love

You can find this fic on AO3 Here or find the other finished chapters on Tumblr Here

--------

The colors in the portal room really were beautiful.

From her seat on the floor, Tav could see the combined hues of a whole universe unfolding before her through the glimmering glass of their mirrors. A miniature dragon soared over a dwarfed frozen landscape in the distance. It swooped low on the horizon before flapping its wings and flying into the distance. She watched it go with an absent fascination. Around her, the world burned. 

“I told you that she would bring us nothing but problems!” Haarlep raged, wings flaring behind them.

Raphael was pacing the room. His own wings were drooping low against the floor as he picked at his claws. “And I told you to watch her! If you’d done your job for once, none of this would have happened,”

“Don’t you dare blame this on me,” The incubus stormed up to the devil. “She is your pet project, not mine. Any failure of hers is due to your failure to keep her in line,” Chest to chest they formed an odd juxtaposition. So similar, and yet Tav would know immediately which was which from the looks on their faces alone. 

She smiled absently at the thought as Raphael cocked his head to the side. “Say that again,” 

“This is your failure, not mine,” Haarlep hissed. 

The room burst into a supernova of orange light. 

It was beautiful in a twisted way. More flames soared through the heavy air, spewing sparks and ash and even breaking one of the great mirrors, sending shards of glass in every direction. Tav could feel them landing in her hair like burning snow. She still smiled, even as blood ran down her forehead. 

Everything felt like a dream.

Haarlep’s green robes were singed, some of the silver tassels melting clean off in the heat of the inferno. They still stood, though. Despite everything, they didn’t back down. “Do you think you can scare me with your magic tricks?” 

“I suggest you stop testing me before I have to tighten your leash,” Raphael took a step away and then it was back to more pacing, taking quick laps around his half of the room. Haarlep didn’t reply. The animosity was still there, but the smoke and fire on every side seemed to even their tempers, at least a bit. “We haven’t lost yet,” 

“Haven’t we?” Something deflated in Haarlep’s chest. “They’re going to come for us, Raphael, and even if we get lucky enough to kill the first of them more will come to avenge the last.” 

“Then I’ll just kill them all, one by one,” Raphael stated confidently.

“And when Mystra lends the wizard her power to make sure you’re defeated? When the full power of a vampire lord’s army descends on the House of Hope? Be honest with yourself, they’ve bested us before with less and they will best us again,” 

The devil shook his head. “Things are different now. This time, they don’t have her. Besides,” The flames dulled a bit as Raphael calmed, gaining back that infallible confidence that he usually exuded with every word. “I hope to avoid the fighting altogether. If it truly comes down to it I’ll just have to make another deal,” With every passing second the devil was writing a new script to perform, setting the stage for his next great performance, and she could watch the wonder growing in his eyes as his plans solidified. He was invincible in the world he’d created for himself. Not even rationale could convince him otherwise. 

Haarlep let out a sigh, shoulders wilting, and Tav watched them with heavy-lidded eyes. They had always been so kind, so strong in the face of Raphael’s power. Was that part of their responsibility while taking care of her or did they choose to show her mercy? She didn’t have the mind left to speculate. Instead, a euphoric hysteria shut down her body and kept her right there, glued to the floor even as the thick, hot liquid began to run into her eyes.

Despite it all, she felt more like herself than she had in years. 

“You’re really depending on that? On another deal? After how well that’s worked out with me?” Tav asked, blood dripping further down her face. 

Raphael regarded her with a burning gaze. “I suggest you keep your mouth shut,” 

“Or what? You’ll kill me?” She laughed. Red coated her teeth, spewing from drips on her lips and tongue with every wheezing giggle. “That doesn’t change things for me. I’m down here with you either way. Are you looking forward to wrangling Karlach’s soul too? Or Wyll’s? Hells, you’ll have a whole party of us down here to deal with by the end of it, and for what? Because they’ve finally exposed your lies?” Tav shook her head. Shards of glass fell from her hair to the ground with soft tinkling, like the ringing of fae bells. “Which is funny, because all this time I genuinely believed I traded my soul to you in exchange for keeping the Crown of Karsus safe, but if I had, then Karlach would’ve known exactly where I’ve been all these years.” 

The devil flexed his wings, chest heaving in the smoke. 

All eyes were on her. 

Every inch of her felt unsteady in the heat. Sweat soaked through the silk of her now-torn dress, still shimmering so brilliantly even in the horrid orange light, but she pushed herself up onto her feet. Her hands burned. Her whole body burned. She hadn’t felt that much pain in a long, long time. In some odd way, she’d missed the reminder that she was still alive, despite it all. 

“Were you ever going to tell me?” 

“Tav,” Haarlep warned. 

Raphael held up a hand. His face slowly morphed into an unreadable, suave mask as he clenched and unclenched the fist at his side. “Let her wear herself out, Haarlep,” His wings fluttered slightly before tucking themselves back in neatly against his shoulder blades as he approached. “No, I didn’t intend to tell you. We were just starting to be happy. Why would I change that?” He paused. “We could be happy again, you and I. Just drop this,”  

Tav could feel the bile rising in her stomach. “Was I happy? Or was I getting used to you controlling every moment of my life?” 

He had the nerve to scoff at her in response. “What does it matter? You had no pain. You were well kept; given a place of comfort in my home no matter how unbefitting your behavior may have been, and taken out into the world when you expressed displeasure with the place you were given. I have been nothing but permissive of you. I brought you into my family as an honored guest as opposed to a possession. What more would it have taken to make you happy?” His voice edged on desperate as he approached. 

“The truth!” Tav shouted, “I want the truth!” 

The closer Raphael got, the weaker she felt in his looming shadow. Ghosts of her own uncertainty swarmed around them. Only a few hours could’ve passed since she was excitedly picking at her breakfast, staring up at a man she had convinced herself that she was madly in love with. Had she convinced herself, though, or had she loved him before everything changed? If she’d never learned the truth, would everyone have been better off? 

She didn’t deny that. She couldn’t deny it. 

Leaving the careful sphere of Raphael’s influence, even with his blessing, had led to the destruction of all the comfort she’d built for herself. Now the life she had and the life she’d known would rip and tear at each other's throats until only a victor remained. If it were Raphael she’d expect it. Nothing would change. Grief and pain would haunt her for six more years, or however many it took for her to lose her mind in the labyrinth he’d built to contain her, but she would keep living as she had been. 

If he lost though… it should’ve been the best case. Going home, gaining back her soul, finding her friends, setting off on the next big adventure; she’d wanted it so badly for so long. So why did it make the knot in her stomach expand? Why did the thought of seeing Raphael and Haarlep strewn across the bloody floor set her legs into another fit of shakes? 

When had she stopped wanting to go home? 

When had Avernus become home? 

Tav didn’t know what she wanted anymore, besides to fill in the gaps in her memory that seemed to sit wide open like windows into her weeping mind. Her life was out of her control. In fact, it had been out of her control since she’d wound up on that Illithid ship all those years before, hurtling through the same burning skies that watched over her now. 

“Do you truly want to know?” Raphael asked solemnly. 

For the first time in a while, Tav made her choice entirely for herself, knowing the consequences and choosing to take them in stride. “Yes,” 

“Follow me,” Raphael turned on his heel, traipsing out of the smoldering room without so much as a backward glance, leaving Tav in his wake. 

She moved one leg forward, then the next. Blood was still dripping down her face and hands but it was easy to ignore when it was paired with the roiling nausea and burns that covered most of her exposed skin. Haarlep made no moves to assist her. Instead, they nursed their own wounds and made their way to the broken mirror, gathering the shards in a pile with an unseen magehand. They only spared one silent glimpse as she started her shuffling, dragging walk out of the room. 

So much for that friendship.  

It took far longer than it should have but eventually, Tav made her way out of the mirror room and into the House of Hope’s great round hallway. Raphael was standing a ways down at the entrance to his personal office, and as soon as he caught her eye he was quick to walk inside, leaving her struggling to shuffle after him once again. When she finally reached him for good, he was standing at the edge of his desk. He had taken his human form again, which should’ve been a kindness but instead just made him even harder to read as he turned to face her.

“Are you sure this is what you want, Tav?” He asked. She could find no emotion hiding in his voice, no rage or concern hanging from his words. Just a great emptiness. She missed his explosive dramatics now that they were nowhere to be found. 

Still, she steeled herself. “Why am I here, Raphael?” 

The devil didn’t answer, instead gesturing to a small, oval crystal sitting on his desk. 

Tav had seen similar ones before, great crystal balls in Raphael’s displayed collections that trapped memories of some of his less fortunate souls. This one, though, was far smaller, as if it had been cut and carved to fit into someone’s palm or pocket. It glinted in the candlelight. The stone must have been ruby or garnet, reflecting a deep red against its flat face and all its small, shimmering facets along the side. 

She approached the desk slowly and gathered the stone in her bleeding hand. 

Her skin was slick enough that it almost slipped out from her trembling fingers, but she managed to hold it in her cupped hands, letting the face sit upright. Even when she watched the small figure rushing through the red landscape within that shining jewel she kept a fast grip on it. Because it was him. 

Tav couldn’t see her own face in the facsimile, only her trembling hands outstretched before her in defense, but she would recognize the pale man she was looking at anywhere as he lunged at her, throwing her against some unknown surface. 

The memory itched at the back of her brain. It floated through that open window in her mind and settled back in, slotting into its place like it had always been there, but it wasn’t quite complete. Instead, it was a red-tinted ghost, silent and sure, just as it appeared in the stone before her. 

“I thought I would spare you the shame of knowing what you became after your defeat of the netherbrain,” Raphael mused, “but you’ve given me no choice,” 

In the stone, the man brought his lips to her neck, holding down her trembling arms.

“No,” Tav’s voice shook. She felt the nausea building again and yet she could not bring herself to put it down. 

The pale elf left her on the ground after a while, and the version of herself Tav couldn’t quite remember scrambled to a loose floorboard the moment the heavy door shut behind him, prying it up and grabbing components from their hiding place below. Her own blood was used as the final puzzle piece as she laid the items in their proper order on the floor. 

“Once upon a time, you were in love with a rogue who showered you with all of his horrid love and affection. You trusted him with your fragile, mortal heart despite the fact that he was nothing more than a monster, driven by his predator’s instincts to lure you in and possess you. When he demanded power, you laid it at his feet,” Raphael brought a fist down against the corner of the desk, shaking the books and pens that littered the surface. “And as soon as he had you alone, he betrayed you,” 

The name was at her lips before she had a chance to think about it, pulling the puzzle together. “Astarion,” 

Raphael didn’t need to nod for her to know she was right. “You were his cattle; food for a hungry vampiric lord and his army. If you felt as though you were a prisoner here, you have no inkling of how locked away you were in his castle. None of your little friends came to save you either. They knew his power, and they left you to be victim to it,” 

Tav shook her head in disbelief. She had been a hero, hadn’t she? She’d been strong enough to save all of Baldur’s Gate, so why hadn’t she been strong enough to destroy the evil right in front of her? In the ruby, she was on her knees painting the familiar red sigil and then she was up on weak legs, running through a familiar hall towards a great set of doors. 

No.

It couldn’t be. 

She couldn’t have… could she?

“And who stood at your side after everything? When you had nothing more than your very soul to offer for protection against the vampiric hordes that threatened to slaughter us both if they found you? Who hid away the shameful memories that haunted you, even knowing you’d blame me for your captivity because of it?” 

She dropped the crystal on the desk as she watched Raphael appear before her through her past tear-filled eyes. 

Something that had been teetering at the edge for longer than she could remember finally, finally toppled over. The small shred of herself she’d gained back fell into the abyss with it. 

“You saved me,” Tav whimpered. 

Her chest felt empty. Where was her heart? Where had it run to? She could feel every shard of glass littering the skin of her palms and scalp, but no heartbeat in her ears. 

A quiet rage crept into Raphael’s words as he stepped away from her. “And now you’ve doomed us all. Those fools you called friends will go right to the man that you sold your soul to escape, and all of this will have been for nothing,” 

Tav finished things for him before he could. “This is my fault,” 

A cold certainty fell over the room as she wrapped an arm around herself, using the other to hold up her swaying body against the desk. In the stone, she caught a glimpse of herself collapsed in Haarlep’s arms. All of the nightmares suddenly made sense. 

Those bloody nights were real. Every horrific vision she’d tossed and turned through was a mirror image of a whole life she’d forgotten at that pale elf’s side. As she tried to grasp at the time she’d lost so much was still entirely missing. She could barely remember how she’d felled Orin or saved the grove. Was that Raphael’s doing, or her faulty mind’s after six years? And how had she failed to notice until now? The answer was plain. She hadn’t wanted to think about it. She’d been so focused on her new life in Avernus that, at least after a while, she’d given up on everything she’d known before. Was she really the hero of Baldur’s Gate if she couldn’t remember the person she was when she’d saved it?

Who was she anyway? 

The questions encircled Tav as they had for years now, but she finally faced them with open eyes. 

She was a mere mortal in the presence of powers beyond her comprehension; a lucky, foolish mortal who’d had a chance at greatness and seemingly sold it for the love of evil men. It was almost laughable to look at the pattern she left behind. She didn’t know what she wanted. If those who had been her closest friends perished in their quests to save her from a fate she’d sealed herself, she wasn’t sure how much it would hurt. If her captors— no, her saviors— fell in the fights to come, the pain would be immeasurable. 

The sun would rise and the sun would set, just not for her to see, and pain would follow her everywhere she walked, just as it always had. 

Alcohol and adrenaline rushed through her veins as she brought her wet gaze to Raphael’s. He was still unreadable there, arms crossed in the dim light. Tav shamefully wanted him to reach for her, to pick the glass from her hands and lay with her in his bed until everything was just a bad dream on the horizon. She wanted to punch him so hard that his teeth scattered across the floor. She wanted more than anything, though, to cease being and just surrender to him. He’d taken such good care of her, after all, for all that time. He could do it again. 

All it would take was letting go.

“How do I fix it,” she asked, voice uneven. 

Raphael shook his head. “You don’t. You let me fix it, because I always clean up after your messes,” he growled, “though maybe I should leave you to pick up after yourself this time. Maybe it would teach you just how much I do for you,” There was something wild in his eyes. She embraced it. If he had decided to devour her soul on the spot she wouldn’t have fought him, she would’ve leaned into the twisted warmth of the only love she might ever know, the pathetic creature that she was. Tav stumbled into him without thinking about moving her feet. 

The devil spluttered as her bleeding hands found his chest. “I’m sorry. Please fix it,” She wanted to crawl into him, feel the warmth of his hellish pulse surround and consume her. Underneath the grandeur and fear, there was a sort of home against his flesh for her, the only home this new cowardly Tav had ever really known. “Please fix me,” 

“I…” Raphael raised his hands but did not push her away. His heart missed a few beats, stilling against her forehead. “What are you doing Tav?” 

She repeated her apologies like a prayer, and in a way they were. The fine purple silk of his doublet was wet with blood and tears as she fisted her hands in it. No matter how he shifted she didn’t let up. After all of her time in Avernus, she’d finally gone mad with him. Insanity wasn’t as bad as she thought it would be. 

He moved his mouth but no words came out as she desperately grasped at him. Her chest was heaving. She was breathing, she knew she was breathing, but the air felt thick and tight like no matter how many lungfuls she took in a breath couldn’t make it past her mouth. Her head pounded. She was so tired. 

Raphael looked down at her, his wobbling, morphing face taking on something that almost seemed like baffled concern, cupping her stained cheek in his large, warm hand.  

Tav pressed into his touch desperately. His searing warmth was an anchor into a body that seemed to drift further and further from her mind with every passing moment. “Please, I love you, I’m sorry,” 

“Sleep,”

The spell was almost instantaneous but left her conscious just long enough to watch a shimmer of shock run through the devil’s very being. Then the misery ended. 

———

Tav could smell bacon cooking in the kitchen when she opened her eyes. 

Sunshine was gleaming on her face and she could hear the creaking of wheels on cobbles beyond the window she’d rested her head on for an afternoon nap more times than she could count. Outside, Baldur’s Gate woke for the morning. 

Dust floated lazily through motes of morning light, covering Tav’s eyelashes like snow. 

“Darling, breakfast!” A voice called. 

She wandered through the room, following where she was beckoned. Everything was just as she’d remembered it. Books were still piled in the corner around her father’s favorite reading chair, waiting for him to return from another magical pilgrimage or another, while her mother’s sword and mace sat mid-polish on the low table in the front room. The living room fireplace was smoking embers from the night before. Mother must have been up all night setting up to defend some new client or another.

Did the books know her father wasn’t coming back? 

Tav did. 

She lingered just long enough to stroke her fingers against the well-worn covers. Those piles had always dwarfed her as a small child, looking like mountains towering over her small stature, but now they looked so small compared to the books she’d seen gathered in the tombs and homes across Faerun she’d pillaged with her friends. It still smelled like pipeweed and parchment though. She breathed him in and let him go as she passed through the warmly furnished home towards the stoney kitchen. 

“I’m sure you’re hungry,” her mother’s voice called from the distance, “You’ve been working so hard, Tav. Come sit with me. Tell me about your day, love” 

Oh, to sit and share breakfast with her mother one more time. 

“Mama, I have so much to tell you,” Tav breathed, hand skimming the plastered walls as she turned the corner into the kitchen. Her mouth and eyes were watering. “I was a hero, Mom; a real hero. Dad would’ve been so-” 

Haarlep turned from the great hearth, pan in hand, wearing her mother’s steel armor like a second skin as they poked around at the strips of sizzling meat with a spoon. Her mother's voice came from their chest as if they were playing some sort of strange thaumaturgical trick on her.

“Haarlep?” 

The incubus shook their head. “Always getting into trouble with your little friends,” her mother’s laugh was like church bells, but they clanged dissonantly in an unfamiliar mouth, “I’m just so glad to have you home in one piece. You shouldn’t leave them waiting too long, though. My daughter, the hero,”

Clouds blotted out the sun. Haarlep’s orange eyes lit the room as it was plunged into shadow. 

Tav’s stomach dropped. 

“They’re waiting for you, Tav,” they whispered, tongue tracing their small fangs as they turned to look back down the hall behind her. 

She turned without waiting to hear if they had anything else to say. She didn’t want to hear it. Not from her mother’s voice. 

Every footfall was an earthquake as she followed the endless hall back towards the living room. When it appeared before her, it was bare. Tarps laid over the furniture like looming ghosts, covered in a thick layer of grime. The boarded windows hid it from the world, letting in thin streams of moonlight through the thin gaps in the slats. Moths ate the rotting pages of her father’s beloved collection. Rust gathered on the pile of left-behind equipment in the corner, armor stand long rotted and collapsed. It was all just as she’d left it. 

A light flickered in the rooms beyond. 

Tav followed. She knew where she’d be expected. 

Her room was lit by hundreds of little candles, dripping wax around an open coffin on the wooden floor. The elf and the devil stood by with matching grins. 

She stumbled into the wall. All of a sudden she was Allicent down the owlbear den, lost in the weaving paths of the faewild, and yet she was right at home where she had longed to be. Her gaze was lost in the velvet lining of the ebony box at her feet. All at once she was a small child and moments away from death. 

Raphael held out a hand. “We’ve been waiting for you,” 

“Come along, darling. Don’t be difficult,” The other— Astarion, she had to remind herself— nodded along and held out his own palm. “We want to help you,” 

She took their hands into her own and let them help her into the bed she’d made, one cool and one searing. The world spun in a smoky haze. Astarion pulled a blanket over her shivering body while Raphael stroked her sweaty, matted hair. 

“Do you love me?” She whispered.

“Yes,” they replied in unison. 

The fire grew around them, creeping up the walls as the smoke got thicker in the air. Tav felt like she was floating through a grey sea as the men began to char and burn. She watched their clothing peel and disintegrate on their skin. She didn’t even scream when the ceiling caved in.

———

Tav woke in a room she didn’t recognize, tossing in sweat-soaked sheets. 

There were no windows, just one large door in the stone walls that she knew would be locked tight before she even got up to try it. A cup of wine sat on the stone floor beside her cot with a small bowl of some sort of oats, long cold. Across the room, a chamberpot waited empty for her. 

She sat up and pulled her knees to her chest. 

Someone had dressed her in a plain cotton shift. It scratched against the burns on her legs and torso, catching on the still-sticky skin, but at least it was blissfully cool against the oppressive heat of the cell, letting small drafts flow and cool the sweat-soaked fabric. Whoever it was who’d brought her there hadn’t just dressed her, though. They’d taken the time to heal her hands, and well. The skin was flawless again. Every piece of glass would’ve needed to be painstakingly removed before the skin was sealed over, and they were. Not a single jagged bit pressed from under her soft palm as she pressed her thumbs into the fragile muscle. The absence of pain was almost disappointing. 

As she wrapped her arms around her shins her bladder screamed louder than even her pounding head. She ignored it, though. She ignored it all. 

———

Haarlep had always been a creature of habit, and they liked it that way. 

When Tav first arrived their routine had gone ass-up. After six years, though, the incubus was once again waking up alone in Raphael’s bed. They fell back on their old ways as easy as breathing. 

What’s six years to a millennia, after all? 

Mornings started early with an hour of lounging, then came breakfast. They weren’t a huge eater, it was all for pleasure as opposed to sustenance, so any leftovers were taken down to the snake pit and dangled over the debtors like bait. Once they were bored of that game they’d settle down to paint or read. Before Tav, he’d finish up his hobby of the day and that was about when Raphael would seek them out for a quick tryst before he really got his day going and settled into business. Now, though, that was unheard of. Haarlep hadn’t been approached by Raphael alone since the waif showed up. Instead, the afternoon sat empty. 

Sometimes they’d try to stretch out their activities or eat again. If they were feeling particularly annoyed they’d find some poor soul to torment in the halls. Most of the time, though, they just lay in bed and waited for something interesting to happen. 

Not so long ago, at least in their lifespan, Haarlep would’ve expected to be called in to help Raphael with some deal or another. They were his right hand, after all. Who else could handle his most important dealings? That also stopped a while ago, though, right about the time that all he talked about turned into ‘Tav wants this’ and ‘Do you think Tav might like that’ and ‘I need to get these for Tav’. 

Thankfully that stopped when she’d been put away. 

The silence was temporary, much to Haarlep’s frustration. It quickly turned into more chores for the incubus and more meltdowns for the oh-so-infallible lord of the house. 

That’s how Haarlep found themself on porridge duty twice a day to make sure their honored guest didn’t end up starving in the dungeon. 

Her cell was cushy, as far as cells went. It was only a few stories down the great winding staircase to the debtor’s pit below and afforded her privacy and comfort most souls wouldn’t dare dream of in Raphael’s house. She didn’t appreciate it. As always, she was curled up on her cot when they unlocked the door and walked in with her newest meal. 

They groaned as they kicked at the still-full bowl on the floor. The wine was untouched again too. “You’re going to dehydrate and die down here,” Haarlep groaned, switching the old oats for fresh ones and replacing the wine with water. 

Tav didn’t reply, turning away to face the wall. 

No matter how much they wanted to gag when they thought about it, they did worry about the girl. Even in the weeks following her deal with Raphael, she’d never been quite low. They supposed that was what happened, though, when someone’s whole reality collapsed. Bringing her down to Avernus was a bad idea from the start. This was just the natural consequence. Still, they wished something could’ve been done to avoid it. 

“It shouldn’t be long now before Raph can finally let you out of this damn place,” Haarlep groaned, leaning against the wall. They had never stayed with her down here before. If it meant she might eat, though, a few minutes of discomfort might be worth it… for Raphael’s sake, of course, not hers or their own. He’d be less than pleased if his favorite pet withered away under their watchful eye. “We just need to finish fortifying the house, just in case of unwanted guests,” 

Their words were again met with complete silence and stillness. Great. 

“Look,” they wiped a hand down their face, “I’m sorry about what happened at the party, ok? This wasn’t your fault, and this isn’t a punishment. He’s just-”

“Are we friends, Haarlep?” Tav asked the wall. Her voice was a dry croak. 

Haarlep shook their head. They wanted to say no. They weren’t friends, after all; They were competitors. Nothing about his entire existence gave the incubus the ability to have and keep a friend. They were built for physical pleasure and companionship, nothing more. They weren’t even made to be able to love the ones they fucked. 

And yet… those things turned out not to be true, didn’t they? And Haarlep couldn’t explain why, so they ignored the strange sense of protection and companionship they felt every time Tav cried herself to sleep over the man she loved— Hells, either of the men she loved. 

They were kindred spirits in a way, Tav and them. 

So Haarlep leaned his head against the wall, relishing in the sharp crack that sounded as his skull hit stone. “Maybe not friends, I’m not nice enough to be your friend. I think you’ve gotten me as close as you possibly could to being your friend, though, no matter how much I wished I hated you.”

Tav let out a crackling laugh and rolled over to face them, lips bitten and bloody. Gods she looked awful. Her eyes were empty, sitting in deep sockets as she withered in her skin. She wasn’t quite starving yet but it wouldn’t be incredibly long before she was if she kept up the hunger strike. It was less of a physical change, though, and more of an intangible one. Her sparkle was all but dead. 

Damn. Raphael had really done it. 

A deep down part of the incubus burned with shame and rage at the realization. 

Things had gone too far a long time ago. There wasn’t much to do now besides watch the aftermath. 

“I’m glad we're friends, Haarlep. I owe you a lot,” 

They shook their head. “You can start repaying your debt by eating this,” 

She eyed the bowl at their feet with suspicion but accepted it the moment they brought it over to the bed and placed it in her hands, gulping the beige slop as greedily as the incubus might’ve devoured a suckling pig. They sat behind her and put a hand on her back before thinking about what they were doing. “Eh eh! No choking. I’m not going to take it from you, I promise. Just slow down, would you?” 

Tav was too busy eating to reply, and Haarlep handed them the metal cup of water without being asked (not glass, they’d thought she still might be too unstable to be left alone with anything fragile and sharp). She finished the whole bowl as they rubbed her back gently. 

“I didn’t realize how hungry I was,” she finally spoke, looking anywhere but their face. 

“Starving will do that to you,” Haarlep chuckled. “Better?”

She shook her head no. “Why… do you know why he hasn’t come down here?” 

“Because he’s a bastard,” they shrugged, “what’s new?” 

Tav let out a groan, leaning into Haarlep’s shoulder. It stirred a strange warmth he couldn’t name in his chest. “Does he hate me? For the whole party thing?” 

“Gods, no. He wouldn’t be feeding you if he hated you,”

“Good,” she nodded before pausing, “Do you hate me for ruining your lives?” 

Haarlep almost jumped out of their skin but tried to play it off as best they could. “I thought I just said we were friends?” Why did that rattle them so much? It was an absurd claim. Completely unfounded. “Besides, why would I feed you if I hated you?” 

“Because you love Raphael too much to disappoint him like that,” 

Their blood ran ice cold. Rage flooded them first and foremost as they jumped up from the cot, flexing their wings a bit, but something else flushed their cheeks. “I’m an incubus, I don’t- Raphael is my master. I serve him. I devote myself to him, I don’t… no. You’re mistaken,” 

Tav shrugged. “Whatever you say,” 

Haarlep was more shaken than they wanted to admit, even to themselves, but the twitching in their tail was undeniable. They were quick to gather the empty bowl as well as old oats and wine from the floor as they quickly headed to the door, leaving the rest of the water behind with her. “I’ll be back later with your dinner,”

“Wait,” 

They paused at the door, turning to face Tav where she sat. No emotion crossed her face. Her mask was almost as good as Raphael’s but there was no intent in it. She probably felt just as blank on the inside as she appeared. It disturbed them. 

“Will you tell him I’m sorry?” She asked. “Tell him… tell him if anybody shows up I’ll tell them I want to be here, with him. I made my choice. The elf- sorry, Astarion might not take that for an answer, but the rest of them will, and that could make a difference. Nobody deserves to get hurt over this besides that man,”  

Haarlep gulped down a mouthful of spit as more welled in their mouth, nodding quickly. “I’ll do what I can,”

The moment the door was locked behind them they lost the contents of their stomach onto the floor of the hall. 

They cleaned up after themself quickly and tried not to think too much about anything at all on their way back up into the house, especially not that baseless accusation Tav had made. Them? Love Raphael? It was laughable. And yet when they walked into the devil’s office to find him frantically writing again, they couldn’t deny that they’d taken a few extra moments outside the door to make themself presentable. 

Before he could even look up from his work, Raphael was asking about her. 

“Did she eat?” He barked, quill scratching frantically on parchment. Haarlep just threw the empty metal bowl at the floor. It clattered noisily against Raphael’s own discarded dishes. “Good,” 

Haarlep hated the sigh of relief that escaped his lungs. 

“You look like shit,” they deflected. The whole room reeked of sweat and stress, and not in a sexy way. Usually, they wouldn’t mind looking at Raphael’s messy body. Something was so alluring about seeing someone who was always so put together at their most base and scattered physical form. It was only fun when it was for them, though, a proof of their ability to rattle him. They ran a hand through his limp, greasy hair and Raphael flinched away. 

The devil huffed. “I don’t have time for this, Haarlep” 

“Still drafting potential deals?” 

“What else would I be doing?” He snapped. “When those damned adventurers show up I need to have a script and plan for every outcome. I refuse to lose her to some loophole I didn’t see. Wyll is giving me the most difficulty. He’s made a deal before, so he’ll know exactly what to be cautious of when setting his terms. Whatever I give him has to be nothing less than ironclad or things will end up very poorly for all of us, you included,” As he rambled, Raphael began absently chewing on the end of his quill, pressing the tip of the feather between his thin lips. 

Haarlep watched with an almost scientific fascination, focusing on the way his brow furrowed as the ink stopped flowing. No one else saw the devil like this. It was for them and them alone to appreciate. Well, at least it was… 

They flexed their wings. “It seems like a good time for you to take a break, besides,” Haarlep leaned against the desk, their leather pants squeezing their legs as they bent over, “I’m hungry. You’ve let me starve for weeks,” 

Raphael’s eyes flitted up to theirs but went right back to his paper without even pausing for a moment on Haarlep’s bare chest. “I told you I’m busy. Go fuck one of the more deserving debtors and leave me be,” 

They stumbled back from the desk. Even in the aftermath, Raphael paid them no attention, fully engrossed in his project, but of course he was! Without it how would he save his precious Tav? Anger bubbled in Haarlep’s throat but they swallowed it down. How dare she get everything they’d ever wanted after everything she’d done to them both? 

How dare Raphael be capable of setting aside time for her, but not them? After all they’d done?

Haarlep took another step towards the door, eyes on the floor. “She asked about you,”

The scratching of the quill immediately stopped. “She did?” Raphael asked. 

“She was wondering why you hadn’t come down to visit her yourself, and if you hated her. It was incredibly sad,” They let their voice trail off and kept gazing out into the hallway, setting their hands on their hips. “Congratulations, I suppose. You’ve finally broken her in!” When they finally turned around, Raphael wouldn’t meet their gaze.

He floundered for a bit, pushing back his greasy hair again and rubbing his stubbly cheeks with flat palms. “What a victory…” Haarlep’s stomach curled in on itself at the way Raphael’s voice trailed off. They’d never seen him look quite so weak before, except when he’d been moments from death. “Haarlep, am I doing the right thing? Do you think she can be happy here?” 

They choked. “Why does that matter?” 

“It doesn’t,” Raphael waved a hand, gaze drifting over to the few bolts of leftover fabric that sat stacked in the corner. He paused on them for a bit. It almost looked like he was… daydreaming. “I suppose I was just curious. She said some peculiar things after I let her see that the deal was all her idea, or at least mostly her’s. It was like she went mad. I don’t know. It’s absurd, you’ll appreciate it Haarlep. She said she loved me!”

Oh. 

He loved her. 

It was plain on his face and in every insane, obsessive plot he’d manufactured to lure her into his arms. All it took to kick in those romantic instincts was the right person, it seemed. 

“Not that that matters,” Raphael trailed on, ignoring the way Haarlep stood frozen against the shelf. “She’ll make a fine prize once I built her back up, now that the hard part is over. I do love how malleable mortals are, though I hope she’ll keep a bit of that fight she has. She’d be boring without it,” 

Was that why they’d never been good enough? Because they gave in to orders too easily? Because they had been broken long before Raphael had ever set hands on them? It set their teeth on edge. She was just being handed everything he’d ever worked for on a silver platter. The worst part? Haarlep was too damn broken in to even resist it. If it made Raphael truly happy, if it made him smile and lose a bit of that damn dramatic seriousness he wore like a coat of arms at all times, could they really resent her for it? No. They could only resent it wasn’t for them. 

“Did she mention anything else?” Raphael asked, setting his chin on his palm.

Haarlep bit their tongue, looking down at the veritable pile of battle plans at his elbow. A bead of blood came up where their fang dug into the soft flesh.

“No, she didn’t mention anything else,” 

“To be expected,” Raphael sighed, disappointed. He looked down at the papers and pushed up from the desk with a groan. It had probably been days since he’d last gotten up. “I suppose I could pause planning for the moment, a bath does sound nice.” He raised an eyebrow at Haarlep. “Still hungry?” 

The incubus feigned a smile as they left the room. 

“For you? Always,” 

-----------

(A/N: Thank you for sticking with me <3 This chapter took a very long time to write, half because work was insane and half because I had to rewrite it probably 6 times before I ended up with something I halfway liked. I can't wait to rewrite all of this once the story is over so I can practice editing something novel-length, because that's what it's looking like it'll end up being. This is now, I believe, my longest project ever to date and it's been such an incredibly gratifying challenge to take on. I can't wait to finally get into the original story I wanted to tell with you guys.)

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[grumpygreenwitch]

The Witches and Wizards Job 31-32-33

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THIRTY ONE

The first rule of dealing with something magically stronger than you is to keep a low profile. You know, the one thing I've never been able to do all that well.

To be fair, I'd known from the beginning that if I went to the auction, that if I agreed to follow Ford's plan, I'd be in Koschei's crosshairs sooner or later. The mastermind had not lied to me, not one single step of the way. I'd just been hoping that with all those plans and machinations, I'd be able to stay in the background, for once.

Harry Dresden, eternal optimist.

I'd stayed closed to the bar after I was done with my part in the festivities, the easier for Eliot to find me. It was a good central place, I had a nice line of sight to two other rooms, and I could catch a glimpse of a couple more. I waited for the flash of blue.

I didn't have a plan. Despite my reputation, I'm not the sort of man that goes looking for fights, particularly with something I know it's stronger than me. I will fight if there's no other option, and most of the time there just isn't.

Sophie walked back into the main area, looking around, and I had to force myself to walk up to her. I'd done my job too well; the Veil on the diamond dripped a sort of subtle menace that matched her perfume, and my feet didn't want to go. Paradoxically, it was the memory of the Soulgaze, paired with how she'd charmed the Dredgers, that got me moving. This was Sophie Deveraux. A creature made of mirrors, of masks, that still managed to know herself better than anyone I'd ever met. No Veil could ever be more powerful than the woman currently wearing it. So I scooted over and introduced myself.

We managed to trade a whole three pleasantries before she hauled up and slapped me so hard I went staggering back. The only reason I didn't go down was that my supposed bodyguard came back at that moment and caught me. Sophie was snarling rapid-fire Russian at me, glaring murder. The entire room turned their attention on us. She took one step forward and suddenly Fedorov was there, one arm around her waist, murmuring soothingly, his uncle and Nick just a step behind him. She hissed something back at him, in no mood to be appeased. Ying Ying had a tiny little grin on her perfect orchid mouth, and two of the people with her looked like they were about to start laughing. A few, very few, of those around me, looked mildly disconcerted - the look of people who'd come to a party expecting, you know. A party. Not a potential brawl.

"Dresden, what did you do?" Eliot hissed at me through gritted teeth. Someone laughed, high and brittle, off to one side; the fey twins had just arrived.

"I was complimenting her!" I protested my innocence. Surely I was a very convincing advocate for it.

"Complimenting!" Sophie exclaimed in angry disbelief, her Russian accent even more clipped.

"Kate, it's fine," Fedorov tried.

"It is not fine!" She whirled on him. "I will not be compared to a, a peddling, graverobbing mortal mongrel!"

"I didn't compare!"

"Dresden -"

"I just said it was kinda nice to meet a bigger crook than the Brit."

"Harry!" Eliot snapped.

She made to charge me. Fedorov caught her, just barely, speaking hasty Russian. Off to one side Hardison, having just come downstairs, pushed his glasses up his nose. "Well, that seems uncalled for," he muttered primly. Those around him tittered mildly.

"This is why you need a babysitter, man," the hitter growled at me.

"Please!" Here came the man of the hour, arms outstretched, friendly uncle mode fully engaged. "No violence, no violence, this is a party! We're celebrating. If someone has to be drawn and quartered, surely it can wait until after the auction -" Koschei caught sight of me and came to a dead stop, mouth open, eyes gone wide, the joke forgotten.

"And you!" Sophie all but shouted at him. "What game are you playing here? None of these are real, they are all fakes! The portrait is not here! Were you going to rob us all? Have you stolen all the originals and were you going to play us all for fools?"

For a second, a single dangerous moment, Koschei was too stunned by my presence at his shindig to defend himself or refute Sophie's accusations. Under normal circumstances that wouldn't be a problem. Most people's minds didn't jump to betrayal just because someone shouts about thirty pieces of silver in the crowd.

But most of those around us weren't people.

"There's really only a few confidence games," Nate had told me. "Every con, every heist, every job is based off of them. The Kennedy half-dollar is a variant of the Golden Fiddle, the con we did when we needed you in the MFA vaults. We're going to question the value of everything in that auction, forcing the man in black to prove its worth."

And on that razor's edge of perfect timing, Sophie pulled it off. I felt the mood in the room shift as vividly as if it were a visible tide. No one thought much of Harry Dresden, professional wizard. Ying Ying had only noticed me, probably, because of the current situation between the White Council and the Red Court. But the fact I'd approached a deadly, unknown predator, coupled with the interest they all had on Vanya Fedorov, meant Sophie's curator character and I both had a sudden wealth of banked credibility. We were believable. And when Koschei didn't immediately refute the accusations, given everyone there was a crook of one kind or another, doubt immediately sank in and took root.

"Of course they're real!" Koschei protested at last with a scoff. "The only item I'm selling is the painting -"

"Portrait!" she hissed at him.

"Whatever! I have no interest in the Dragon's Flute or the Bag of Winds, or any of the other…" He waggled his hand restlessly. "Oddities on offer here!"

"And yet it would not be the first time you have taken something from their sellers, is it," she shot back acidly.

Koschei recoiled. Minutely, but it was still the worst possible thing he could have done. Behind me I heard Ying Ying whisper something to one of her cohorts. Unlike her, I couldn't make out the words, and I doubted Eliot could either; then again, I didn't know if he even spoke Thai. That didn't matter. What mattered was watching the young woman march off smartly, already reaching for her phone. Past her, security began to slip into the room, likely sniffing the potential for trouble. I counted four and stopped paying attention, because after that numbers weren't gonna matter.

"Is this true?" a young man's voice asked. The fey twin, the memory-eater, stepped forward. He was wearing a tux in bloody shades, and somehow he made it look good. "Are all of the items copies, are none of the real items here?"

"No!" Koschei tried to laugh it off. "Yes, I did put the actual portrait elsewhere, for safekeeping reasons. But I haven't tampered with anything else, why would I?"

"Yeah, why would ya?" Classy growled, flanked by four of his people, all of them glaring murder at the wizard. "Why fuckin' would ya," he clipped out.

Koschei was glaring murder at me, even though I hadn't said a word since the whole mess had started. I grinned back at him. The whispers among the small crow were beginning to turn into a solid, angry murmur. "Please!" He threw his arms out. "I'll have the original painting, er, portrait, brought over at once. You can authenticate it to your heart's content. I cannot account for everything else -"

"Why the hell not?" Classy snarled back. "This whole copy bait-n'-switch mess was yer fuckin' idea!"

"I will tend," Koschei gritted out, "to those concerns in a moment, mister Act, I assure you."

Entirely unrelated to anything going on, my brain suddenly figured out Classy's actual name, and I snickered. It wasn't much. It burst out of me when even I wasn't expecting it. The room's attention lashed out and latched onto that sound, and then came back to rest on Koschei like a shroud of stone. He flicked his fingers at one of the security people, a man who looked vaguely like an unfinished slab of rock given human shape, and said something. I felt Eliot tense next to me.

The man nodded to his instructions and waved a couple of his people over. They moved on at a brisk step. I felt a press of heat at my back and knew we'd been given some company. "Two?" I asked Eliot as quietly as I could.

"Three," he replied evenly.

A large, flat wooden crate was brought in. Crowbars came out, and Sophie gasped. She was not the only one. Hardison made to say something but thought better of it, and everyone around him whispered uneasily.

"Carefully, please," Koschei entreated his people.

"Why not have Mister Act and his people do it?" Sophie suggested. "I trust their handling of priceless treasures far more than I trust your thugs."

The crowd murmured agreement. Classy looked surprised for a fleeting moment, then put on his best business face on and stepped forward, shrugging off his jacket and nodding to his people. One of the security people offered him a crowbar and he scoffed. "Clod," he declared disdainfully, rolling up his sleeves. His people, somehow having become five in number, swarmed over the box, tipped it over until their boss could run his hands over the seam between two boards. He felt his way along until he found the right spot, nodded to himself, and slid his claws in. The wood bulged, he twisted his arms a smidge, and the front board sprang free along one corner. The Dredger shifted his grip in some impossible way and peeled the board off one nail at a time, methodical and slow, until he and the woman with him could remove it altogether. Another one of his crew carefully removed the padding away and they all stepped back. A sigh went through the crowd. The portrait was, magic aside, truly a work of art. The colors, the details, the sheer amount of work that had obviously gone into it were enough to make even an uneducated goon like me understand why art was what it was, why it touched people the way it did.

Sophie stepped forward. So did Hardison, working his glasses. "So this is the original, then?" he asked Koschei. "The actual original?"

"On my word it is," the wizard smiled stiffly at him.

That one was gonna come back to hurt him, I thought. It made me smile.

Sophie and Hardison paced before the painting. It was him who stepped back first. "No, it isn't."

"Excuse me?" Koschei stared at him blankly.

Sophie swore at him in Russian. Behind Fedorov, I saw his uncle put a despairing hand to his face. "What game do you think to play with us?" Her voice was regal and lethal; the Veil was pretty much overkill at that point. "This is just another fake!"

"Sir," Hardison's British accent had gotten even more rigid. "I find this unacceptable -"

"This is the real portrait!" the wizard protested.

Sophie scoffed in patent disbelief. Koschei puffed up indignantly. The crowd was growing loud and very restless.

A sound like a drum silenced everyone. "If I may," a man's voice wheezed. "I have, for the auction, acquired the services, very costly, of one of city's, quite capable, experts on the artist." The crowd parted. The toad-like man shifted, settling back down, stubby fingers holding a brandy glass. No amount of custom-fitted tailoring or magic could fully hide his nature, though he was making the best attempt of everyone present to pass as human. He was surrounded by four willowy blondes that I was sure could murder most everyone there without care or effort. The toad dredged in another breath. "I must question, unfortunately, the lady's opinion, as one must." He gestured with one stubby hand at Sophie. "You may be, possibly, tricking the competition, being us, into leaving."

Sophie gasped, elegantly offended.

"A possibility," Hardison said before she could detonate, then turned to Koschei. "If there's another expert curator present, I would welcome their opinion. I'm good, of course, but Sokolov is not my particular field of expertise."

Koschei was looking outright murderous, but he managed to dig up a smile out of somewhere. "Of course. Mister Batra, please, your expert?"

The toad's bodyguards parted; he stepped aside.

Jessamine Lochlin, dressed in a lovely lilac and green gown, stepped forward.

Well, crap.

THIRTY TWO

The only person present who could say anything did. "Jessamine," Sophie breathed.

Parker's friend gave her a withering glare, even as her feet tried to shy her away. "I can't believe I liked you," she told Sophie angrily, and then refused to look at her altogether. I felt Eliot shift behind me and moved to cover him, remembering the situation at the MFA. No way of knowing if she'd remember him from it.

Hardison blew out a low breath and rubbed at the side of his face. I could only imagine what the conversation on his earbud was like. Ford wasn't speaking through the mirror shards - there were too many people around that might have heard him, with so many of us put together, but I was pretty certain Parker wouldn't take this one lying down.

"Are we to trust the word of a human in this matter?" the twin to the fey memory-eater asked. She was wearing a gown in every shade of gray and silver and looked both inhuman and beautiful. Somehow Sophie still managed to outmatch her in elegance.

"Doctor Jessamine Lochlin has made it her life's goal to be the world's foremost Sokolov expert," Sophie fired back before anyone else could. "If you believe you can produce someone better, please. Do."

The fey woman looked away, pissed. Her twin grinned, examining both Sophie and Jess with open interest.

For a moment, the only sounds were those of the breeze coming through the open windows, the distant surf across the gardens. No one said a word, and I wasn't entirely sure half the audience was even breathing. We all watched and waited as the young woman examined every inch of the portrait and its lavishly carved, antique wooden frame. I saw her expression fall but, stubbornly, she checked and double-checked before she took three steps back. "It's a fake," she declared, not quite able to hide her heartbreak.

Koschei lunged at her. I'm not sure what I was thinking, I'm not sure I was thinking at all, but before I knew what I was doing I'd taken two long steps and was between him and Jess. He bared his teeth at me and I knew I had about two seconds before he threw a spell on me point-blank. So I grinned at him. "We're still all your guests here, aren't we?"

He froze, hands curled into fists. "So you are," he ground out, and took a step back.

It struck me then. That was it. That was why I kept walking away, that was why I kept surviving. In all his centuries Koschei had gotten comfortable knowing no one could challenge him if he bent or twisted the rules to serve his own interests. But I was a wizard. I could call him out, and I had, every time. Ironically, my time under the Damocles Doom had taught me to slide right up to the very limit of what wizardly law had to tolerate without crossing a line. Koschei could pretend he was still within the law and force acceptance by sheer firepower. I didn't. I knew to the millimeter what I could get away with without ever lifting a finger for a spell.

And he hated it. He hated that I was outright calling him out on it every. single. time. But he couldn't do anything about it, because he was technically not a criminal, and that was important to him. That facade was vital to the man and he would do anything to preserve it.

Even back off from a staredown with the hobo-looking wizard from Chicago.

I could feel hands gripping the back of my duster in a white-knuckled grip, and turned a little. Jessamine Lochlin was ashen and terrified, but she was on her feet and not gibbering, and honestly I counted that a win even as my heart went out to her. I could see why Parker liked her, too; to have finagled an invite to the party just to try and get close to the portrait? She was made of titanium. "You alright, miss?"

She looked up at me and managed a little nod. That was all the communication we managed before two of the toad's bodyguards came to shepherd her away.

"Mister Stone," Koschei called out to one of the hulking behemots passing off as a security guard. "Close the house, please. Security at every door and window."

"Wizard, what do you think you're doing?" Ying Ying demanded.

"Recovering my stolen property," he ground out. "The real portrait was here. Now it is not. I have been robbed, and I intend to find out who, and how, and why -"

"Rot the portrait!" Another man said. "How dare you presume to imprison us -"

"I will not be accused of theft!" Sophie declared, utterly outraged.

Hardison moved closer to Koschei. "My good sir," he informed the wizard as primly as possible. "Unless you believe I'm hiding Piotr Sokolov's largest work in one of my pockets, I will be leaving now. I don't know what game you think you're playing here, but it's uncalled for. It's…" He groped for a word, and finally declared. "It's rude. You will be hearing from my office about this matter. Good day, sir."

He stalked off. One of the security people moved to stop him, but Koschei gestured impatiently to let him go. Hardison wasn't even out of sight and he already had his phone in his hand, and not a single one of the guests there spared a thought for that. Me, I didn't even try to figure out what sort of digital magic he was about to wreak on the gathering.

A very heavy hand dropped on my bad shoulder. I couldn't quite keep from wincing, but I did a passable job of not making a sound. "Mister Koschei would like a word with you in private, wizard," the man said, low and indifferent.

I'd barely looked back before Eliot had grabbed the wrist of the security man in an equally heavy grip. "You don't want to do that," he said very mildly.

Half a dozen heads, those with supernaturally keen hearing, turned immediately in our direction. The security man, who was my height and built like a Cold War bunker, took one look at Eliot and scoffed.

The hitter shifted his grip a little bit. The next thing I knew he'd peeled the man off of me and had his arm twisted at an impossible angle. The security goon crashed down to one knee with a startled, pained howl.

"I did ask nicely first," Eliot declared amicably.

"You did," I confirmed, but the other two security with us were already rousing angrily, and I could see three more coming at us through the crowd. "Let him up, though. Koschei might be selling duds, but I don't wanna get on the bad side of the Dredgers if we break something."

Eliot held his grip just a second longer, to make his point, before he let go. The man reeled back, and one of his buddies helped him up. I stepped forward to keep things somewhat under control. "I'll be happy to speak with wizard Koschei," I assured them sunnily. "Lead on." One of them gestured me on; another tried to block Eliot's path. "My bodyguard comes with me, of course."

The hitter looked up very levelly at the guard. "Are we doing this?" He was still perfectly calm, but there was murder in his eyes.

The guard stepped back, and we were both shepherded away.

THIRTY THREE

Alexander Worthington (the Third), stalked out of the mansion speaking irately into his phone, past the pack of door guards, who did nothing more than stare indolently after him. He made it to a nondescript black rental before he dropped the accent and the pretense. "Alright, Nate, I'm out," he informed the mastermind as he got in the car, popped an earbud in and drove sedately away - directly into the parking lot where Lucille 2.0 and the U-Haul van were parked.

Not a moment later a tousled, breathless man came charging down the hallway and up to the door, looking slightly rumpled. "The portrait's missing," he wheezed to the woman in charge. "No one leaves, by the wizard's orders."

They blinked at him, and he could all but see their heart sinking. "The Christie's man just left," the lead security woman informed him, sounding and looking aghast.

"What?!"

"He just -"

"Well, go! Go find him! Stop him!" Nate turned and trotted back into the manor as the woman started barking orders. "And don't let anyone else leave!" He shifted to a more leisurely walk just in time to meet the security guard he'd narrowly avoided when sneaking in, coming down to warn the door guards of the same thing. He nodded politely at the man and headed further in.

The guard put a hand out. "No one is to leave, sir."

"Oh, I'm not - I'm not leaving," Nate assured him. "I just got here, is the auction over already?" The thing was, Nate was coming from the right direction. He was dressed the part, he wasn't trying to leave, he didn't ring any warning bells. He'd snuck in with the slimmest of margins, directly behind the door guards but just ahead of the arriving guard, the only weak point in security at that moment, knowing he needed them both to see him at the right time, at the right place.

The guard grimaced and stepped away. "No, it hasn't started, go on, sir."

"Thank you," Nate watched the man hurry away. "Alright, who's free?"

"I'm with Nick in the dining room, by the bar," Sophie murmured. "Fedorov's putting pressure on his uncle. He's going to get the truth out of the man sooner or later."

"We're going a whole lot further into the house than the guests were allowed," Eliot commented casually. The mastermind heard the voice of one of the guards, the words impossible to make out; the mirror shards had a lot less peripheral range than the earbuds.

"I'm ready down here," Parker reported. She sounded cold and distant; Nate knew that finding out her friend was in the line of fire had shifted the thief's priorities radically.

To be fair, it had shifted his own priorities as well. Nate paused at the door to the main room, where tempers were fraying and moods were disimproving. The guards were just finishing closing off the windows. He moved out of the way of another woman who was closing the door with a quiet, polite apology, and headed to the bar.

He'd had to cut Dresden's part short; he could only hope it'd be enough. The last window latch fell, the last heavy, ancient door closed. "Go ahead, Parker."

Boston's older buildings, for the most part, had either radiators or floor-level heating systems. Both worked more or less the same way: a heated medium was run through a pipe surrounded by heat-dispersing fins. The system subscribed to the true-and-tried adage: if it ain't broke, don't fix it. But modern, wealthy homes were often moved to the more familiar HVAC system, which were more efficient, quieter, simply pumping heated or cooled air as needed through vents - the same vents Parker had been using to peer around the mansion.

Those vents quietly, efficiently went to work pumping cooled air into the room as soon as all the doors and windows shut.

"Well, now." Koschei turned to look at his very angry, very captive audience.

Ekaterina coughed delicately into one hand. Fedorov leaned attentively close with a question, but she shook her head and murmured an easy reply.

"I should like my portrait back, if you please," the wizard declared. "I would prefer it happen before one must resort to violence."

"Resort fuckin' away," Classy challenged from the back of the crowd.

One of the fey twins coughed, startling her sibling into giving her a puzzled look. She looked no less surprised herself; she'd nearly dropped the champagne flute she was carrying.

"Mister Act, as I have told you, I have not touched any of your belongings -"

"Yeah? What about the one you already t- " Classy suddenly choked, hawked and spat off to one side, squinting. "The hell."

Ekaterina coughed again. This time, she didn't manage to stop, and had to lean on Vanya's shoulder.

"Come on," Nate murmured.

"It will be returned at the end of the night, as promised. Now, if you don't mind -"

"It was s'posed t' -" Classy coughed roughly, but his anger carried him on. "Supposed to be ret-" A coughing fit caught him. The fey woman was all but clinging to her twin, and they were not the only ones. The toad wasn't coughing, but all of his bodyguards were. Nearly all of Ying Ying's party was beginning to choke. Nick cleared his throat pointedly.

"What is this?" the toad demanded; he'd gone slightly grey with alarm.

"Come on, come on," Nate urged.

Ekaterina opened her mouth, but Classy beat her to the punch, his voice a snarl as he and his group retreated against a wall. "He's usin'… he's usin' a fuckin' Witchwell t' p… t' poison the lot of us!"

"He did this back at the museum, to steal the portrait," Ekaterina wheezed. "Did you think we would not notice you trying to kill us? What were you going to do, Blackbird, loot the corpses?"

"I have done no such thing!" Koschei exclaimed. "I don't even have the damned thing! Everyone here would be affected, I would be affected!"

"Unless you knew what was coming," Vanya pointed out. "Unless you protected yourself and your friends. All those people you introduced me to, they are not affected."

The crowd glanced around. Without hesitation, sudden and absolute battle-lines were drawn up when Fedorov's words rang true: a small number of people who were, very much, not of the average human variety, found themselves suddenly surrounded and outnumbered two-to-one by their angry, coughing peers. The twins shoved at each other, hissing, hands turned to claws. The one member of Ying Ying's entourage that wasn't coughing was suddenly ringed by lambent-eyed vampires.

The fey in the blood-red tux caught his sister with one arm when she collapsed down on one knee, unable to fight him. He picked up an elegant antique chair with his free hand and flung it at a window. Glass shattered explosively; two of the security guards charged at him. He caught one by the throat like a stoat catches a vole and flung him at his counterpart, sending them both tumbling.

"Carevogh!" Koschei roared. "Don't you dare!"

"Bite me, Crow," the fey snapped back coolly, picked up his sister in a bridal carry, and leapt out the window.

"Stone!" Koschei bellowed. The security forces converged on him, which was good, because a lot of angry guests were beginning to advance on the wizard, too.

"Alright, Parker, that's good. Shut it off and get out." He got out of the way of a very large woman escorting what looked like a child, until one noticed the porcelain gloss of her skin and the clicking joints on every limb. The woman kicked open the door and Nate left her to it while he worked his way along the perimeter of the room, further into the mass of frustrated guests. This, he knew, was the most dangerous part for him. One stray look from Koschei and the wizard might well figure out the trap.

But Koschei was too busy trying to keep the guests from scattering. "Mazarena!" The wizard shouted.

"Keep me out of you schemes, wizard," the animated doll said in a clipped, mechanical voice, and trotted out. "I came here to bid, not to thin out your enemies for free."

"On it," Parker declared, just in time for the earbuds to screech angrily and collapse into static. Nate kept his hands firmly in his pockets, but it was a close thing. "Hardison?"

"She's offline," the hacker replied, his voice tight.

Nate finally got close enough to Classy and his people. He unlatched the window and threw it open, and lent both his hands to steadying two of the strangers until they were all but sitting on the windowsill. On the other side of the room Fedorov had yanked one of the decorative runners off a table and was using it to cover one of the vents. Nick and Ekaterina were by one of the windows. The vampires had tried to bully their way closer but one flat, level look from Nick, along with that unnerving smile, had led them to instead force open the doors to another room.

Nate paused. "Where's Sagorov?" He helped Classy up along with the one woman in his band, pulled him up close and whispered something very quickly against the Dredger's ear before hurrying away, leaving him staring after the mastermind in disbelief.

Fedorov brought Ekaterina a drink. They both whirled around at the sound of a yelp, just in time to watch Koschei slip away in the midst of a pack of security guards, dragging Jess along with him. The doors were slammed shut behind them. The main room was turning into a riot. "Bugger. Nate, Koschei just slipped away, and he took Jess."

"He's tracking the portrait." That was Dresden, barely speaking over a breath. "He just triggered my marker on it."

"Parker," Nate hissed, hoping against hope. There was, unsurprisingly, no answer. "Dresden, is there any way you can slow him down?"

"Um." He heard the wizard blow out a sharp breath. "Hardison, is there a sprinkler system?"

"Yeah."

"Ah, no, no. We're not using water until we know the watercolor is safe," Nate hurried to head that particular train off at the pass, even as his brain caught onto the fact he'd refused to see. Running water, the mastermind realized, and on the heels of that understanding he grimaced. He was doing it again, trying to explain things away, trying not to see them, not to hear them, not to know them. And he was costing himself and his team options in doing so. He closed his eyes and counted his blessings on Dresden. The wizard was working against Nate's own blinders, but what would happen if he tripped on a problem that didn't have a solution Dresden could improvise on the fly?

"Alright." Hitter and wizard had both retreated to one corner of the fancy drawing room where they'd been brought, but even so neither of them dared speak too loudly, not knowing if the guards would have keen enough hearing to catch them at it. Dresden tipped his fancy chair back until Eliot was sure he was going to topple backwards, and ground the heels of his hands into his eyes. "Hardison, where's the closest big electrical junction?"

"Let me stop you right there," the hacker said. "Harry, I need power to manipulate the systems inside the house, I can't have you frying the electrical."

"I'm not gonna fry it," Dresden whispered mildly. "You're gonna make it look like I did."

"Oh, I like that. Finally we're meeting somewhere in the middle." Hardison sounded delighted. "East wall, about ten feet from the windows.

"How's that going to stop Koschei?"

"It won't. Nothing we can do is gonna stop him. But he's a man same as you and me and everyone, Ford. He needs eyes to see, he can't use a flashlight, and right now any magic he didn't have prepared beforehand is going to be a little hard for him. You didn't ask me to stop him, you know better. You asked me to slow him down." Harry rolled to his feet; the guards immediately turned in his direction, and he gestured at an elegant gingerbread cabinet. "I'm just going here. You know, looking for something to drink or something?"

The guards relaxed minutely. In the spirit of pretending Harry was still a guest, not a prisoner, they hadn't frisked him or Eliot, and were treating them both like live IEDs. They also didn't know enough about human habitats to realize a doily-covered gingerbread chest of drawers wasn't likely to be a fine repository for booze, and lost interest quickly in what the wizard was doing.

Until he leaned against the wall next to the cabinet, and every light in the mansion went out.

"Oh." Dresden said. "Can someone point me to my chair?"

"Dresden." Eliot sounded as if the last of his patience had run out several hours ago. "Get over here and siddown."

Nate, downstairs, met up with Sophie, Fedorov and Nick just before the lights went out. The Russian enforcer was scowling at his phone. "My uncle isn't answering," he told the mastermind. "I think once again you have brought me a truth I didn't want to hear."

"Oh, I'm so sorry we didn't let him raffle you off like a prize bull," Sophie declared tartly and he gestured appeasingly at her.

"Unless he can leave the grounds he's a problem that can wait." He turned to Nick. "We need to find Dresden, fast. Can you take us to him?"

"Sure." Nick shrugged and began to walk away. "I'm a little off from the flower stuff, but he's got a strong scent to him." At the far end of the dining room, two of the security guards were watching the door they needed. One put a hand up preemptively. Nick picked him up and threw him through the door. The other guard backed warily away and he smiled that wildly cheerful smile at her. She backed away another couple of steps.

They all walked on by the light of Fedorov's phone. Behind them, Vanya had finally gotten through to someone; he spoke in clipped, coldly angry Russian very briefly before hanging up. In the brief pause between his ending the call and reactivating the flashlight, Nate noticed something. "Sophie, you're um. You're glowing."

They paused. Fedorov turned off the flashlight. In the dark, the shades of blue of the spider-silk gown gleamed like the last gasps of sunlight through deep water.

"I'm not doing that," she breathed.

"You're doing strong magic," Nick said mildly as he sniffed at a crossing of hallways. "The silk's reacting to it, soaking it up."

"Strong -" The grifter's hand wrapped around the diamond she wore.

"Nate." Hardison's voice was low and worried. "The emergency GPS tracker on Parker's phone just went off."

The mastermind paused. He and Hardison were the only ones at the moment with both a working earbud and a pair of mirror shards. He gave Parker enough time to sound off. She didn't. "Eliot. We're coming to get Dresden. I need you to get to that tracker."

Eliot turned to look at the man sitting next to him. No one had bothered to make light of any kind; the guards either didn't need it or didn't care. In the dim glow coming through the windows, starlight and moonlight, the wizard's profile looked refined, ascetic, ancient as a knight errant keeping his midnight watch. But this was still Harry Dresden, professional wizard, and no matter what sort of power he could sling he was also the man that kept getting run through a meat grinder every time Eliot took his eyes off him.

Without looking at the hitter, Harry gave him a tiny nod.

Eliot rolled to his feet. The guards instantly tensed up. "Relax, relax, I just gotta, you know. Been drinking a little too much champagne. Where's, uh -" One of the guards nodded to another, who huffed minutely and moved to open the door for Eliot. The hitter glanced idly at him. "Alright. Didn't realize I needed a babysitter to use the bathroom."

"Walk, Spencer."

"Where, man, I can't see, and my phone," he gestured pointedly at the wizard, "bit it."

"Not my problem."

Eliot scoffed, thinking hard about the crash course Harry had given him on the many beings likely to be used as security, aside from leshy, by Koschei. The man was too big to be one of the hare-folk. The clothes were good, but they were definitely clothes - not a golem. The fingers were normal, no extra joints - not a ghoul or a gaunt. Normal teeth - not a were or a vampire. Gloved hands, but the shape of the claws was subtly visible.

"Hey, Eliot, catch." Dresden threw something small and shiny at the hitter. The guard intercepted it, opened his hand, and sniffed thoroughly at it before licking it. "Jeez, Godzilla, it's just a box of matches."

The guard growled and handed the matches over. Eliot grinned at Harry's help. It had been startling as hell to realize his reputation stretched into territory he'd only ever suspected existed, but at the moment that was a hindrance, not a bonus. Unlike most humans, who saw him as a challenge to be conquered, Koschei's security forces were instead brutally cautious of his every move. The hitter was getting nearly as much attention as Dresden, if not more. He flicked the lighter on and headed out into the darkness of the mansion's hallways. Somewhere in the mid-distance it sounded like a small riot was going on, but in their immediate vicinity all was quiet.

They made it to the bathroom on a single flickering light, and Eliot glanced at the, presumably, reptilian creature with him. "You gonna come in with me?" he mocked lazily.

His escort scowled at him, peered into the bathroom, saw a window and stepped in.

"Hey!" Eliot protested.

Unsurprisingly, he was ignored. It was likely to be the only half-second of diffidence his escort was going to give him, because the thug knew Eliot was going to complain, knew the hitter wouldn't like the situation. It was a protest he was expecting. What he was not expecting was the hitter to whip around, a blur of motion, slamming the flat of his hand against the guard's throat. Twice. Eliot stepped further into his opponent's reach when the guard staggered and gagged, one hand groping at his throat, the other grabbing for his attacker. He hooked a foot behind the one joint he knew for sure the guard had on his leg and shoulder-checked him. The man crashed down into the sink, spine leading. Eliot elbowed him through the porcelain sink.

And still the man was trying to get up, grabbing for him. Helpfully, the hitter picked him up and kicked him hard into the tub. Tangled up in the shower curtain, the guard was still feebly trying to come at him, so Eliot picked up the cover of the toilet tank and swung like a baseball pro. The cover shattered. So did the glamour, finally, revealing a heavily scaled, noseless face with awkward proportions, a mouth full of peg teeth, beady eyes and, surreally, a battered toupee. The guard sank into a groaning heap.

"Yeah, you do that," Eliot said, throwing the pieces of the toilet cover on top of the creature before he charged out of the bathroom, fishing his earbud out of one pocket and putting it in place. "Where, Hardison?"

"Basement," the hacker replied.

"Ok, Nate, I'm on my way."

Nate, Sophie and Fedorov were still following Nick as he single-mindedly moved through the house. They surprised a trio of people who were, apparently, using the distraction from the blackout to try and get away. Nick caught one; Fedorov stepped forward and punched another, hard. The stranger crashed down with a startled little squawk. The third tried to run, and went down in a tangle when Nick threw their buddy at them.

Sophie stared at Fedorov, who lifted a hand and tightened it into a fist around the gleaming knuckledusters in it. "I had a very enlightening conversation with your wizard," he said mildly. "And I know a few priests."

"Do you solve all your problems by throwing people?" Nate asked Nick with utmost courtesy.

Nick shrugged. "When I'm not allowed to bite 'em." He sniffed at the air and resumed walking.

They'd made it halfway up the stairs when Harry's voice came through the mirror shards, a lazy drawl laced heavily with sarcasm. "Is this how you treat your guests, Blackbird? Who's your friend?"

"Stop," Nate put a hand over the pin on his lapel and snapped out the one word. "Koschei's not looking for the painting, he's with Dresden."

"Nate." Eliot's voice was tight and furious. "I'm here, but I don't know what Parker tagged, it's just a basement."

Hardison's phone, back in Lucille 2.0, rang. He snatched it up when he saw the ID and hit the speaker feature. "Parker! Wher-"

"I am not Parker," the stern voice of an older woman with a thick accent whispered.

Everyone who could came to a halt. "Hardison, go on." There was a steady, subtle crackle of static to the earbuds, but they were hanging in there. The mirror shards could barely pick up the voice on Parker's phone, but it was enough for Sophie to have gone perfectly still, her face carved in ice. She and the wizard were the only ones without an earbud.

Hardison pressed his lips into a tight line before he spoke. "Grandmother, I presume?"

"Yes," the woman whispered.

"Ma'am, are you alright?"

A small, wryly amused sound came through the line and the phone flickered, the connection faltering. "I was hurt long before I was brought to this place," the woman said. "But thank you. I do not know who you are, or why you care, you and your princess, but thank you."

"Hardison," Eliot ground out.

"Ma'am, we're actually here to get you out," the hacker informed her.

"Yes, she said that. But I do not see how."

"Where are you?"

"There is a small room beneath the house, behind the old iron heat bellows and pipes," she reported

"Eliot."

"On it." The hitter started moving again. "Hardison, tell her to get to some cover."

"Ma'am -"

"No, no, it is not me you should be helping, but the princess, the prince. They should not have come. He has always been greedy for such people, such power."

"What do you mean, what happened to Parker?" The hacker was trying to remain focused, but his worry was beginning to froth over.

"Is that her name?" she asked gently, and the tone soothed him back under control.

"Yes."

"You care for her."

"Yes, ma'am, I do."

The phone crackled angrily. "I do not think your little device likes me very much. I am not diminished enough for it to work much longer. She found me while she was hiding down here, among the pipes. But the leshy heard her, too."

"Can you get somewhere… out of the way, ma'am?" Hardison asked cautiously.

"I am in a bathroom. I am an old lady, splashing water on my face. All this iron, you know, it makes me ill." She sounded terribly amused.

"Stay there. It's gonna be safer for you."

"You must help your princess -" Hardison's phone suddenly went dark, the line lost.

[orithyiaeleven]

UC Fanwork Celebration Day 1 (The early access version)

Day 1 was Favourite Arc / Roll for AU. My favourite Arc is Arc 3, and I rolled Class Swap, so I let the dice decide what each Arc 3 character's new class should be. I then re-imagined their first meeting with their new classes. This is shortly pre-Arc 3 Flashback.

However, I am not quite happy with the story yet, and will take the time to work on it before uploading it to AO3. Because today is the day, though, and technically the story is finished, I will post the current version of it under the cut here on Tumblr instead, and update you once I am happy and have uploaded it.

It doesn't even have a fixed name yet, but my working title would be "A different group of heroes". I hope you enjoy, and the finished piece will hopefully come soon.

The crackling sound of pyromagic mixes with the cheers of people, carried over to Lathe by a helpful little breeze gossiping in his ear. He closes his eyes and takes a moment to taste the caramel popcorn in the air. With a little smile, he quickens his step: Festivities are happening in the centre of Tyle, and he must know more.

Nimbly, he finds his way past the little shops and side alleys. A crowd of people is currently pushing towards the town centre, following the same siren’s call of laughter, fireworks, applause and cotton candy that he is tracking, but he knows the quickest ways around, and how to avoid getting stuck in the slowly moving mass of bodies. He sprints past the little bookstore with a “Good morning, Mx. Shinebearer”, through the backyard of a house that has been empty for ages, past a few spell component stores and the academy students gathered in front of them, until finally, he reaches the town centre. A man dressed in the borderline gaudy garb of a circus director stands on a small makeshift stage built up in front of the gigantic magician’s statue, addressing the gathered crowd with big movements.

“Come, come, one and all! Young and old, people of all shapes and sizes, come and gather to witness the magic and wonders of the Cinderbloom Circus!” More fireworks pop up, displaying flaming flowers in all colours of the rainbow.

“Now, people of Tyle and beyond, witness one of our audience favourites, our star, who has come all the way from frosty Glaceria to present her talents, our ice princess! And remember to come visit our full show and program in Maevir-Eirik-Park, from tomorrow until next week!”

With more cheers, the announcer clears the temporary stage they have set up for a young woman dressed in glittering pastel purple silks. She has a thin, but athletic build, and although she carries herself with the poise befitting her stage name, Lathe recognises the way her chin is slightly drawn forward, and the way her eyes seem to search the crows for someone daring to challenge her position.

Three circus assistants jog up to the statue and quickly arrange some silks to drape around the arms and the wand of the stone wizard, while the acrobat takes out a little flute from a pocket hidden in her garments. She bows to the crowd, looks to the assistants for a quick sign that they’re done, and grabs one of the aerial silks. Within moments, she is up on the statue’s shoulder, dangling her feet, and gives him a coquettish little kiss on the cheek before sliding down again to the tune of her own melody, seemingly falling. Just inches above the ground, she catches herself again, and climbs up the way she came. Her movements are fluid and seem entirely effortless, coming to her as easy as breathing, and all the while she still continues playing the flute as if to underline how little mind she has to pay her motion. Even the way her pastel purple hair falls seems to be choreographed and trained to perfection. She moves through the silks with ease, somehow finding grip on the smooth fabric. All of it seems so in sync, it’s captivating.

Her performance is only a few minutes, but the crowd explodes with cheers for her as she is finished. She gives a smile, together with a head movement that seems to say “see, I told you I could do it”. It fits her stage name, but again, Lathe recognises the signs of someone who had to prove herself all her life. While the announcer reminds the crowd again to visit the full show, the purple performer is already going backstage again, and Lathe follows. Instead of an actual backstage area, the circus has rented an empty store as their dressing room. Before the young woman enters, Lathe manages to get her attention.

“Excuse me, Miss! Can I talk to you for just a second?”

“A second, sure, how can I help you?”

“Lathe Nightrym, my pleasure, truly, what a wonderful performance-“

“Oh thank you, sir, I am always happy to inspire people.”

“You have definitely done that today, my dear. Could I ask you, would you be willing to join a little adventuring party?”

“Ah. Right. I, uhm, I am very honoured by your request, but I must say no. As the circus is travelling around quite a lot, it is simply not possible for me to take up any other obligations. But thank you, I always enjoy talking to fans.”

“Please, just think about it.” He hands her one of his flyers. “A small group of friends travelling through all of Hyranor, defeating monsters, saving the world – have you never dreamed of that? Of not having to prove your worth, but having the stories about your heroic deeds precede you?” She breaks eye contact and looks to the side. “Take the flyer, just consider it, for a moment. The adventures we could go on. The stories they would tell. Being invited to court by the Queen, mere hours after defeating a monster. I am currently trying to form such a group, and I just know that you would make the perfect addition. I have handed out and put up flyers all over town, and in two days, we will meet at the Brewster’s Potions for brunch to meet up. No strings attached yet, absolutely no requirements, just to get a feel for the people, do some brainstorming… And if you don’t like it, you can just leave and go back to this life here.”

She sighs and lets her fingers wander over the flyer. He really did his best to draw the dragon, but maybe in this case it’s not bad that it is reminiscent of children’s drawings. “Alright. I will consider it”, she finally says.

Lathe can’t help but grin. “Amazing. See you in two days, then!” He turns to leave.

“I said I will consider it!”

“Brewster’s Potions, right next to the Gilded Quill!”

Brewster’s Potion, right next to the Gilded Quill, is not empty, but also not bustling with patrons two days later. There is a pleasant drizzle of conversation from the surrounding nooks and tables as Lathe Nightrym sits at the back of the room, waiting for people to show up.

“Are you ordering, or still waiting?”, the server asks again.

“Still waiting, thanks, dear”, he answers with a smile.

“Alright love, you just call when you want anything.” For a moment, Lathe believes to see pity in her eyes. But people will show up, he was just early. He handed the flyers out to at least fifteen people, and put them up in places all around town, someone has to show up.

Mere moments later, they do. The big guy he met at the Academy enters the tavern, and Lathe waves excitedly to get his attention. Carefully, the Firbolg makes his way over to him, the greyish hair on his head scraping the ceiling, his Academy uniform neat, but not freshly ironed. Only when he is already standing in front of the table, Lathe sees that he has brought a friend, a young Halfling woman who seems even smaller, near comically tiny next to him, but dressed in full armour. Eagerly, Lathe puts out a hand, and the big guy shakes it.

“Hello, hello, so glad you decided to come! You’re the first here, and I see you brought a friend as well?”

“Annie Wintersummer”, the young woman answers, putting out a hand as well to greet Lathe.

“Delighted to meet you, Annie Wintersummer. Sorry, friend, your name was?”, he asks, turning towards the Firbolg again.

“Aldrum.”

“Right, right! I’ve met you during the Open Day at the Arcane Academy, truly, what a glorious performance of arcane work you did. And you, Annie – I hope it’s alright if I just call you Annie? – are you a student at the Academy as well?”

“No”, she answers, and Lathe can see Aldrum make the “delicate topic” face. “No, the Arcane Academy did not think my magical talent was… worth cultivating at their esteemed institution. So instead I decided to hone my skills with weapons. I spend my time with technique instead of theory. And my magical gifts can influence my blade as well.”

“That sounds incredibly interesting, would you care to show me?”

“Not inside here, but later outside I can absolutely show you what I can do.”

Lathe smiles with excitement to see what the young woman would show him. Having someone of her size who would be able to run through enemy lines and legs and stab them from behind could be very beneficial, and she seems determined enough.

His smile widens even more as he sees the woman with the pastel purple hair enter the tavern, her eyes searching around. He stands up and waves to get her attention, and she floats towards them.

“You really came! How wonderful, please, take a seat. This is Aldrum, a wizard from the Arcane Academy, who has recently presented a very interesting project on some new protective spells he is working on, and his friend Annie Wintersummer, who apparently is a very skilled fighter.”

“Fighter and warlock. I can do some magic. Even if the academy cannot appreciate it.”

The purple woman smiles and shakes their hands each. “Happy to meet you, my name is Fey Moss.”

It is only then that Lathe realises he never actually heard her say her real name before. “And Fey Moss here is an acrobat with an incredible skill set, truly, I have never seen anyone move that nimbly before, what a performance!”

She nods her head down, as if to indicate a bow. “You might have heard of me as the ice princess.”

“I haven’t, actually”, Annie says.

Fey looks a bit taken aback, although she catches herself with ease. “Well, I am also quite skilled at martial arts, if it is necessary. I would love to see you fight as well, Annie, I think it would be very interesting to see your skillset.”

“Surely, yes. I would appreciate that. I always like to broaden my horizon and learn new styles and techniques.”

“How wonderful!”, Lathe exclaims and claps his hands. “Truly, I am so glad you are getting along already. Let’s get some brunch, and we will get this party going! Excuse me, Miss- we would like to order, please!”

Right as the server brings them their milkshakes and sandwiches, the tavern door opens again. At first, it seems no one entered, until Lathe sits up straighter to be able to see down, where he can track the long ponytail of an elderly Halfling man move towards their table.

“Lathe Nightrym?”, the man asks, looking at him. “I believe you were looking for people with the mind and skillset for adventures?”

Lathe quickly scans the man. He doesn’t seem particularly strong or dextrous, but not frail, either. He wears sun-coloured robes, and there is a certain glint to his eyes that seems almost animalistic.

“Yes, absolutely, take a seat here with us. What’s your name, friend?”

The man gives a polite smile and takes the offered seat. “Diarmad. I saw your flyers around the city.”

“Oh perfect, so they did work, then! May I ask, what kind of skills do you bring to this group? Your robes seem religious, but I cannot see any symbol on them?”

“Right, no, I am a magician, but not the divine sort. The robes are just the kind of garments we wear at my commune. But I was, let’s say born with magic.”

“Why do you say ‘let’s say born’? Were you born with it or not?”, Annie asks, trying her best to cover a probably not too kind remark about sorcerers and nepotism from Aldrum.

Diarmad throws a quick glance over at the Firbolg in his shirt and cloak with the Academy logo, raising a brow, and then turns towards Annie with a much nicer expression on his face, nearly mischievous. “It’s not my first time around. My people have found a way to basically concentrate weak flows of magic in a person through a ritual of reincarnation, so… The weak magical potential of my previous life has been focused into a pretty mean set of magical skills.”

Aldrum doesn’t seem convinced. “And… how exactly is magical talent enhanced through reincarnation? That sounds like it contradicts most current theories on magic.”

“You tell me, you’re the scholar. It worked for me, and that’s all that matters. But you academy people prefer to keep the magic to yourselves anyways, right?”

Annie puts a hand on the hilt of her sword, glaring at the elderly Halfling. “Please don’t talk to my friend like that,” she says in a tone that isn’t a request.

Lathe decides to steer this conversation around as fast as possible. “Alright, friends, I think that’s enough of that, we’re supposed to become a party after all!”

“A party?” A tall person with brown skin and some suspiciously alive and worm-like looking accessories in her hair leans over the half-high room divider between the table they apparently sat at alone, and the table Lathe had ordered. “I love parties, can I come as well?”

“Oh, not that kind of party, we’re trying to go adventuring-“

“Adventures are fun, I love adventures, too!” She smiles, climbs over the wall instead of going around it, despite wearing breastplate armour, and squeezes in between Fey and Annie around the table. Fey looks at the, oh yes, definitely worms, with a mixture of morbid fascination and absolute horror.

“Alright, hi then,” Lathe begins, not too sorry about the distraction from the magic discourse, “and you are?”

“A friend! And a new party member for your group. Six is a much better number than five, anyways.” They smile at all of them.

“…And your name is?”

“Oh! Right! Bombyx Mori. Pleased to make your acquaintance,” she says slowly, tasting out every word in her mouth.

Annie continues the questions. “And you do adventures?”

“Absolutely! All the time! The forest is filled with adventures.”

Now, Diarmad seems intrigued. “You’re a forest kind of person?”

“Yes, definitely, that. I met some very nice trees some time ago, and they asked me for help against disrespectful woodcutters. So I helped them, and then I swore to help all the trees, and protect all the forests, and apparently, when you make an oath, that is really meaningful in this world. So now I have to protect the forests, and I haven’t really figured out what exactly that means, yet, but I have already fought some monsters and that has gone really well for me so far, so I think I might just have become invincible.”

“For sure, for sure”, Lathe says, trying to not show his disbelief too much. A paladin is something their party could use. Whether Bombyx Mori is the perfect addition or the last missing piece for a perfect disaster, or possibly even both, he isn’t as sure of, yet. But it’s worth a shot. Especially if they actually have some experience already. “Alright then, let’s order some more milkshakes for the two of you, and then I can already tell you about a potential first adventure.”

[riverstories7]

My Writing

I write Pride & Prejudice variations under the pen name S. E. Granger. My first book, Reverie & Rancour, is now available as a Kindle ebook! To learn more about my Regency romance writing, visit segranger.com.

You can track my current writing goals on the NaNoWriMo website all year round. Feel free to connect with me over there!

Current Projects: You can always find my fics on AO3.

See You Again - Dramione - In 1971, Lucius Malfoy lost his first love to another man. In 1993, he reunites her with her long-lost daughter. That decision changes the entire course of the Second Wizarding War. Updates weekly.

Fixed Stars - Pride & Prejudice - The "Darcy proposes to Jane before he meets Lizzy" AU. Updates weekly.

Original Projects:

I'm developing two adult fantasy novels and a historical romance.

Next year, I hope to work on a mystery-fantasy multimedia story which will eventually have its own Tumblr.

On the academic side of things, I'm currently working on getting my first monograph published (one rejection down, ? to go) and outlining/researching my second.

[shopwitchvamp]

Sorry to hear that you've been getting so much negativity lately! I respect that other people have different preferences but it would be nice if the anti-polyester crowd understood that it goes both ways: I have sensory issues too and my particular brain finds a lot of natural fabrics difficult to wear. That's not going to change - I'm unimaginably ancient by Tumblr standards - and loose, lightweight, thin, stretchy clothes make me feel far more comfortable in my own skin. They're also great for bodies which aren't catered for by most creators, because I'm short and fat and most indie brands don't fit but that doesn't mean that I want to wear boring clothes or feel constrained. Those stretchy waistbands are a lifeline. I'm happy for people who prefer other fabrics but having suffered in those for years, your skirts are a big help in giving me the courage to go out, along with a few other creators who make similar clothing. And your designs are fun! Maya's skirts are beautiful, FHF skirts are cute, but when I want to wear my neon stockings or otherwise inhabit my darker, sillier side, I look to one of my Witch Vamp skirts. I also love that you do skaters because I'm super short and midi skirts look like maxis on me already, so your shorter lengths mean that I can actually occasionally see my own legs.

It's sad how, many decades after leaving school bullies behind, people still find ways to rain on strangers' parades wherever possible and put their own preferences before consideration for others' individual requirements. Looking forward to the new designs (and the vetiverfox collabs!) and hope that business continues to thrive in spite of the haters.

Aww, thank you so much 🥰 I totally agree with all of this, and yeah I also know some other people with sensory issues that prefer synthetics. Also as a side note, I've mentioned this before but- the more I've started looking into it & getting advice from a business mentor, etc., the more I'm leaning towards starting a sister brand for natural fiber skirts/clothes if or when I do get that all figured out. So it'd be great if at some point people would accept that Witch Vamp just is what it is, and that if they want something vastly different than what we're offering maybe they should look for it somewhere else rather than angrily trying to get me to totally change Witch Vamp. Hopefully someday that "somewhere else" can be a sister brand that I can point them to :] Thanks again for all the compliments! And don't worry too much about the haters getting to me. For one thing, people do say that "all publicity is good publicity" and that seems to ring true when the hater parade comes out. I always get a lot of traffic on those days, haha. (oh, also also! Mini skirts will be coming out finally with the wizard stuff, so for anyone that's short but wants a skirt that'll fit a bit closer to how Skaters fit on me, look forward to that!!

[whimsy-of-the-stars]

whimsy-of-the-stars: a writeblr (re) intro

hi there! this post is here because I can't edit the old one on desktop bc I reblogged it! :( Anyway i’m whimsy-of-the-stars! the only name i really go by is my actual one, but i’m hesitant to share it online. some info about me:

relatively new to tumblr

currently in high school

i aspire to be an author, as well as a poet and musician

I enjoy cartoons, comics, fiction podcasts and novels

Currently, I'm foraying into the world of itch.io, so you might see me working on Twine games or ttrpgs too!

Learning languages is fun! my main focus right now is Spanish!

I’m in the LGBTQIAP+ community

I like to read (YA): fantasy, sci-fi, fluffy romance, some mysteries

I like to write (YA): fantasy, sci-fi, fluffy romance, superhero

oh and I kinda have an original poetry tag within my posts! It’s “whimsy of the poetry” lol. there you’ll find my 1 (one) poem posted so far!

I’m really bad at coming up with names so most of my projects are untitled. now onto mini WIP intros!!!

unnamed apocalypse story

status: roughly halfway thru the first draft

genre: uhh queer apocalyptic mg/ya

this one is new-ish! ok, not really. It's from April 2023 Camp Nano, and I never finished it. I'm hoping to resume writing soon, probably for July Camp Nano. I'll make a WIP intro soon!! | SWEAR! (casually has never made one before)

Anyway, it centers around a bunch of teens who get lost in the huge forest right before the plant-centered apocalypse hits. They have to survive in unfamiliar woods as this freakishly fast-growing plant continues to creep closer and closer, releasing dangerous pollen; not to mention they've gotta get along with each other. featured in this wip are: silly diary entries, hand-drawn maps, new friends, and questionable poetry!

The Quest for Calamint (a Twine game)

status: jam version (aka simpler, more bare-bones version) available now here! better, cooler version coming in or after July, probably, along with full intro post!

genre: Wholesome fantasy interactive fiction :)

Go on a quest to get your best friend, a little goat named Calamint, back from the faeries who stole him and the rest of the dairy animals on your family's farm. Navigate the forest, talk to the right faeries, and solve the ex-queen's puzzle to get him back!

Side Projects

currently, I'm slowly working on a few small tabletop roleplaying games!! There's one about wizard girls, one about a seaside vacation where you become a delivery kid, and one about summoning a ghost with your friends! however I’m also thinking about a bunch of other things as well for the One Page RPG Jam of 2023 hosted on itch!

[bluedalahorse]

I was reading through this thread on statistics and mlm slash reblogged by @darktwistedgenderplural, and reflecting on it a bit, as one does. I’ve been active in fandom spaces since the turn of the millennium, and I’ve seen similar versions of this argument on tumblr and livejournal and in other sites for over two decades now. I do think it brings up some reasonable statistical points. At the same time I think that sometimes we think of fandom as a space immune to the influences of patriarchy, when in fact it still at times influences us and nudges us toward which characters we prioritize. I find that I have to do a lot of questioning of my own biases as I explore my various fandoms. Other people’s experiences may vary—maybe your experience is different than mine—and I can really only speak to my own. Maybe what I have to say here resonates with a few of you, though.

Anyway, let me shift to talking with a more positive lens. The more I considered the ideas in that original series of posts, and the more I thought about people agonizing that fic about female characters is harder to achieve than fic about male characters, the more it made me grateful for Young Royals and how well-written its female characters are. Two out of its five main characters are teenage girls, and Sara can even be called the show’s B Plot Protagonist. (Thank you again @heliza24 for sharing your meta about that with us! I think about it at least once every three days.) And Sara and Felice are both what I would call authentic and textured characters, who’ve got really interesting backstories and desires and flaws at play, the same way you get that for dynamic male characters. There’s so much for fanfic writers to work when it comes to the two of them! And I’ve enjoyed writing them both in my time in this fandom, and I’m proud of what I’ve managed to achieve so far in my writing.

Since the post addresses shipping as something fandom loves to do, I also think there’s lots of potential ways to ship the girls on Young Royals—whether that’s shipping Sara and Felice with one another or with other people, or whether that’s shipping the other girls in with other people various femmeslash ships and het ships. I admit I haven’t written Felice/Sara yet, but I’ve written Felice/Maddie and Felice/Rosh and Sara/August. And of course, in the moments when Heart and Homeland allows, I’ve explored the Manor House Girls friendship pentagon, and all the complex interpersonal interactions therein. I’ve seen other great ideas thrown around by other people, too, like the folks who’ve come up with Linda/Kristina backstory in the 1980s and so on.

I hope that as YR develops as a fandom and as we collectively write more fics, we’ll see the number of fics about female characters continue to grow alongside the number of fics about male characters. And also, once again, I think it’s so awesome that Lisa Ambjörn invests so heavily in the female characters on her show. She’s just about my age and my fandom generation, and I know there’s interview notes about her writing m/m slashfic for that wizard fandom back in the early 2000s. Her writing takes what’s awesome about fanfic but also mixes it with what’s great about professionally published fiction, and she did not neglect her female characters in the process. It’d be easy enough for her to just focus on cute boys and ignore the girls, but she doesn’t. And I just thought it was fair to give myself space to gush about that a bit, when a few of the comments in the post I was talking about alluded to writers who aren’t doing the best with the women in their stories.

…

Outside of Young Royals side note: even if I’m not writing fic for these other shows yet, I’m additionally grateful that TV right now has a whole crowd of female characters I can get excited about. There’s the girls of Heartstopper including my beloved Elle Argent, there’s Claudia in Interview with the Vampire, there’s Rose and Essie in When the Angels Left the Old Country (ok that’s a book not TV but I still love it), there’s Helen and Noelene on The Newsreader, there’s Kleo and Lidia Poët in the shows named after them, there’s Maribel and Fanny and Clara and Nines in 45 RPM (although god, nowhere near enough people have seen 45 RPM, and I wish there were more people out there who’d seen it!) That’s just off the top of my head. As more women have been included in writers rooms and have gotten to be showrunners for things—still not nearly enough, but an increasing number—I do think representation for female characters has gotten much, much better overall.

I also realize that… well. Over time, with hindsight, I’ve been able to appreciate female characters from old fandoms that I didn’t before. Like Relena in Gundam Wing, who I in my teen years used to bash relentlessly. Or Éponine in Les Misérables, who I used to roll my eyes at for being in tragic unrequited love, or something. But now I can see the roles they play in their larger narratives, and the nuances of who they are. So I think there’s also a lot of good representation that’s always been there, even if I haven’t always seen it.

I’m hoping that the trend of more and better female characters continues, and I’m hoping that the fandom statistics shift to reflect that with time. Are there any female characters on anyone else’s mind, while we’re chatting about this? Who are your favorites right now?

[strawberryflavoredsoap]

im rereading atyd and i got to this part

which obviously got me thinking and i’m always so interested in exploring different dynamics within the marauders so my mind took this and ran with it. idk how to explore it other than fic form but … i have no actual plot in mind so it’s manifesting in a Tumblr post

- a remus and james who grew up around each other so when they got to Hogwarts they glued together in the way you do to your friends in a crowd of strangers 

- bless them they probably met on the platform or went to diagon alley together beforehand 

- but then like in this au I'm thinking they’re not bffs yet just like family friends who you see a couple times a year 

- so its when lyall gets invited to the potters cause he works in the ministry with fleamont for like holiday parties or random dinner parties they host

- James and Remus’s first prank was at one of these that is real #tome

- THEN im thinking “well... what does James and Remus already being friends do to the development of the marauders” ... or more specifically how can we make a wolfstar story out of this 

- anyways im thinking like a little “ugh stop trying to steal my best friend” thing on both sides when James and Sirius start getting closer 

- which over the months obviously smoothes out as they all become best friends but it just created this dynamic where they’re always trying to one up each other which then just turns to Sirius and Remus constantly trying to impress each other

- then ofc years down the line that's turns to and iiii seeee sparks flyyy wheneverrr youuuuuu put a dung bomb in a Slytherins robe pocket and they kiss awe happy ending 

- I once read a fic (and I can’t remember it but if I do I'll link it) where remus is a child of divorce which gave me the inspo for this next part:

- when Peter gets a letter from his mom in 4th year saying she and his father are separating remus is there for him and consoles him through that

- backtracking lets say after the divorce hope moves to idk oh my goodness Scotland and omg the same town / close to lily because she has family there or loves the scenery and not for plot convince at allll

- so when remus is at his moms he hangs out with lily and then im trying to figure out how this goes so it can be like remus middle man in a jily fic 

- omfg wait just thought of this. pre-hogwarts remus is staying with his mom and James comes to visit for like two weeks or something and lily comes over once looking for Remus but bumps into James 

- and later on she finds Remus and shes like “Oh my god Remus there’s this guy who was hanging around your house idk if you know him is he new to the neighborhood? anyways I had the most awkward run in ever he was so obnoxious ugh thank god I'll never see him again” and remus is standing there like “idk how to tell you this....”

- then lily gets her Hogwarts Letter and omg little happenstance she discovers remus did too!! omg!! they’re going to magic school together how cool!!! 

- (sorry just now realizing this would mean remus and James would know Snape before Hogwarts too.... this is just a brainstorm im ignoring that for now)

- then remus is like “lily... remember that boy... hes a wizard too... and is the heir to one of the richest and most esteemed wizard families” and lily falls to her knees in anguish clutching her Hogwarts letter “nooooooooo” (probably less of the drama but we’re here for the giggles)

okay thats all I have ... for now...