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monstersandmaw · 4 years

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Female tiefling guard x human princess (nsfw)

Edit which I’m including in all my works after plagiarism and theft has taken place: I do not give my consent for my works to be used, copied, published, or posted anywhere. They are copyrighted and belong to me.

This has been up on Patreon for a week, and now it’s time to share it here!

Contents: a short, fiesty, gives-no-fucks female tiefling guard, some anti-tiefling sentiments from the other guards, a soft but 'don't mess with me' princess, an army of attacking demons, a minotaur best friend, and an nsfw scene to finish. Wordcount: 6756

A dull rumbling startled Salanei from her bed and set her reaching for the deep well of magic inside her in a heartbeat. The castle was shaking.

“Impossible,” she hissed, but other guards were tumbling out of their bunks all around her, some scrambling to draw weapons, others calling sparkling magic to their hands, though there were admittedly fewer of those. The castle was built on a promontory of black rock, harsh and stark against the chill morning light, but it was as old as the land itself and nothing should have been able to make the foundations shudder like that.

Unless…

Tilting her head to one side, letting her thick, messy, black braid slide down over one shoulder, Salanei opened her core of magic a little to the surroundings. At first all she found were the life-sparks of the other guards, but then, like a murmuration of birds on the horizon, she felt something far more sinister. “We’re under attack,” she yelled, stuffing her boots on and sprinting for the door. “Demons.”

The tiefling ignored the way the others dismissed her or scoffed at her - whether through deep-rooted prejudice or uneasy disbelief at her cry of ‘demons’ - and she bolted through the palace like a rabbit through its home warren. She didn’t think, she didn’t stop, she didn’t pause; she raced up back stairs and along half-forgotten passageways, and emerged, gasping, in what had once been an upper, open-air walkway that connected the main part of the castle to the residential wing. Her boots skidded on the rough stonework, grit and dust slipping beneath her soles, and she barely stopped before the gaping abyss into the courtyard below swallowed her.

Where a thick buttress of stone had arched across the space for centuries, now a smoking, singed stump of the bridge remained and the walkway was completely gone. “Shit.” Across it, she could see more of the royal guard backing into the part of the castle that would lead to the residential quarters of the princess after only a few staircases and passages. From the looks of it, they’d only just escaped back along the parapet in time.

Looking out at the landscape around the castle, she froze, horror icing over her veins.

Demons swarmed down the hillside and pooled around the outer walls of the castle to form a seething, foetid moat, their shapes as varied as the horrific noises they made; some with wings, some with horns, some with lashing tails and glinting claws. One or two of them breathed gouts of flame into the dawning sky, and from somewhere deep below at the curtain wall of the castle courtyard, the bellow of a bull in a blooded rage made her ears ring. A second later, the whole castle trembled again and a rain of fine particles and chunks of stone clattered down around her.

They were going to breech the wall.

“Fuck.”

The span across the gulf of empty air wasn’t so big that she couldn’t use a little magic to propel herself over it, and so, summoning a gust of air to spring her forwards, she leapt lightly off the stonework behind her and let the updraft catapult her onto the far tower. She landed hard but rolled through it and came to stand smoothly on her feet, finding herself face to chest with an enormous, familiar guard.

“Brandon, it’s…”

“Bloody chaos,” he said, falling into step beside her as they moved through the shrapnel-scarred archway and into the tower beyond.

The huge minotaur was about as broad across at the shoulders as Salanei was tall, and his huge war axe was cradled gently in his massive hands; ready. He was the only person who had ever treated her with any genuine respect at the castle, and the two were somewhat unlikely sparring partners more often than not.

“Who’s behind it?” she asked as they trotted down the stairs and a pounding, dolorous bell began to sound from the heart of the castle.

He shook his shaggy, black head, the patch of white at the front of his forelock dancing in the low light. “Not sure. Reports suggest they came from the west.”

“Dorhul?” she asked, steady pace stalling in time with her horrified, faltering heartbeat.

Brandon shrugged. “Seems likely. He’s always wanted to add the kingdom to his collection. With Ria’s father so ill…”

Salanei’s black eyes narrowed and she fought the urge to ram her hard horns against a wall with the wave of bitter spite that washed up inside her. The minotaur, clearly seeing the echo of a familiar urge bubbling up in the tiefling, laid a hand on her shoulder. It was so big, it engulfed the joint completely, and the weight of it steadied her. “Easy. We’ll get through this.”

“Where is the princess now?”

“The Elite Guard took her down to the undercroft.”

Salanei’s heart lurched and she stopped. “They’re taking her out by boat? Bran, that escape passage only leads to one place… if she’s caught out on the open water…”

“Dawn’s not far off. The sun rises over the lake,” he explained, but she could tell he was as unhappy with the plan as she was. “If the demons can even bear to look at the sunlight as it hits the water, they won’t see her. The glare will be too much. I think they expected to have broken through by now, but this castle’s a hard nut to crack, even with those numbers. It should buy her time to escape.”

He had a point. It was a flimsy hope and a prayer, but it was all they had.

They made it two floors down before the ring of steel and the snarl of demons reached their ears, and Salanei swore again, drawing deep on her reserves of magic so that it lapped like a vast lake a the very forefront of her mind; ready.

She flung a conjured talisman at the nearest demon’s head and the creature exploded into a mist of gore and black ichor. Not pausing to get splattered, she ducked low and aimed another spell - a lancing spike of ice this time - at a twin-headed monstrosity, one half of which was occupied with the head of a guard in its maw, the other half of which had just spotted her. The spike went through both skulls and pinned them to the wall before Salanei had even finished dancing lightly around them.

Quick and light as a mouse in a hay barn, she dodged and struck, until finally she was at the far end of the corridor. From behind her, she heard Brandon bellow a warning at her, asking her to wait, but she was gone like a weasel. Protect the princess. That had been what the old king had demanded of her in return for the shelter and comfort he had offered, and she had gladly accepted the trade.

Shouldering the door at the end of the corridor with a little extra magic behind the gesture, she burst through in a barrage of splintered wood and iron studs as the ramming spell cloaked around her shoulders made short work of it. Instantly, she found three spear tips at her throat, and she froze.

“Stop!” came familiar voice, and were it not for the glinting blades hovering so close to her pulse that she could see her blackberry-purple skin reflected in them, she might have gone slack with relief. “Let her go.”

“Highness,” Salanei said, bowing gratefully from the waist. “They’ve breached the castle from above, and they’re trying to get in from below. They’re only a floor above you now.”

She watched the princess’ freckled cheeks blanch, and she swayed ever so slightly before rallying her courage and pushing back her shoulders. “I have been advised that the undercroft is the safest route out of here, all things considered. Do you disagree?”

Before Salanei could reply, a guard stepped directly in front of her, his deep, maroon livery blocking her view of the princess. “Highness, we must leave. Now. Let the gutter rat fight the demons, but we have to get you to safety.”

Salanei’s lip curled back off her sharp canines and she snarled a warning at the soldier who ignored her completely.

It was a miracle that she even heard the soft tread of slippered feet on the stone floor above the clangour outside, but when the guard’s spine straightened and he shifted awkwardly back to where he’d been standing, Salanei almost snorted with laughter.

The princess’ face seemed carved from marble; all softness had shattered into hard lines, her eyes blazed green, her strawberry blonde hair falling behind her like a shield made of silk. “Repeat that,” she demanded in a voice low and deadly. When the guard stuttered himself into silence, she blinked. “Repeat that.”

“Highness,” he grunted. “Please, we cannot waste any more time! We must leave.”

“Repeat. That.”

“She’s a gutter rat, Highness. Everyone knows it.”

Stepping so quickly that no one saw her move, the princess darted forwards and backhanded the guard across the cheek. “I will not have someone spoken of like that, either in my presence or elsewhere in the castle. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, Highness,” he nodded.

“Salanei, come here,” she said, turning away. Before Ria had gone two steps, a demonic portal began to open in front of her. The flickering purple and red edges were ragged as an old scrap of fabric, and a vile, sulfurous gas billowed out of it.

“Shit! Get back!” The tiefling dodged in front of the princess and brought her hands together, calling a binding incantation to mind and willing the strands of the spell to stitch the portal together again, preventing it from opening. The wielder on the other side was strong, their will like iron, but Salanei’s was stronger. Years of being whittled down until she was nothing but muscle and magic and sheer force of will had made her almost unbreakable now, and she knew it. Knowing it was half the struggle with magic.

I am stronger than you, she chanted in her head. This portal will not open.

“I knew having a magic wielder in my guard would be a good thing,” the princess muttered in her ear. “I’m just sorry my mother was so against it.”

Salanei could only grunt with the effort of closing the infernal portal. Behind it, straining against the glowing strands of her spell, a rabid demon snapped its jaws, trying to slice through the counter spell. The mage on the other side didn’t have a spare ounce of concentration to tell the beast to get back. Where was the High Mage when you needed her? Probably bolstering the wards on the castle walls, trusting that the Elite Guard would protect the princess for now.

“Get out of here,” Salanei finally rasped, sweating with the effort. The portal was almost closed.

A hand landed gently between her shoulder blades, fingers splayed wide, palm pressing securely against her skin through the fabric of her dirty shirt, and Salanei gasped as a rush of fresh magic and strength washed into her. With a snap, the portal sealed shut and she whipped around to find the princess smiling softly. “Come with me,” was all she purred.

Salanei nodded, winded and mute, and still dizzy from the surge of golden life that had poured into her from the princess and mixed so easily with her own magic. When had she learned to do that?

The path out of the princess’ chambers was littered with demons. Salanei used every trick and spell she knew, darting here, warping there, slicing, slashing, stabbing, to clear the path while the guard huddled close around their princess and picked off any stragglers who got through. The guards encircled the princess as though she were a jewel and they the setting. Nothing was going to touch her.

Out on another vulnerable, spun-sugar walkway that would lead them directly to the tower that sat atop the cavernous undercroft of the castle, a cloud of tiny, winged demons - which Salanei recognised with horror as having once been harmless forest pixies - swarmed towards them out of the lightening sky.

“Shields!” she screamed back over her shoulder, preparing another spell. Her vision swam from the speed at which she was hemorrhaging magic in the princess’ defence, but she blinked the daze away and focused on creating a wall of fire. Momentum sent the first half of the swarm ploughing straight through it, incinerating their fragile bodies to cinders, but the rest of the flock doubled back and regrouped. With a second flurry of flaming hands, Salanei danced through them until nothing remained but broken, blackened wings at her feet like campfire ashes.

One floundered uselessly at her boots, and while the princess was herded towards the safety of that final tower door by her retinue, Salanei scooped the wounded creature up in one hand and heard its infernal language as little more than a hoarse whisper, like wind through the grasslands. Tapping two fingers to her temple, she directed her magic at the creature, and connected a blue thread with its own yellow spirit thread, and demanded of it, “Who made you?”

A flash of images swirled through the connection, but she had seen enough. “Dorhul,” she spat when she saw the tall, slender figure of the most hated man in the four kingdoms. The connection sputtered, and the creature that had once been a pixie fell limp in her hand. Dropping it, she spun and trailed after the princess, blinking black spots from her vision.

Down staircase after staircase they plummeted, until finally they burst out into the echoing undercroft. Groin vaults stretched away into the darkness like the canopy of an endless stone forest, and Salanei shuddered. It reminded her of the dank dinginess of the slums so viscerally that she almost heaved.

“Don’t stop now,” Princess Ria whispered, pausing to find Salanei staring off into the darkness with wide, black eyes. “We have to keep moving.”

Nodding silently, the tiefling fell into step beside her, scanning the shadows for the faintest hint of movement, but it was still as a sepulchre down there.

The lap of water eventually reached her keen, tapered ears, and she looked up to see three small rowing boats bobbing in the shallow, underground dock up ahead. A narrow canal of water led out towards the lake, and as they all climbed into the boats, Salanei took a moment to admire the calm presence of the princess. It was a miracle that Dorhul hadn’t known about this entrance to the castle.

Ria, still clad in an incongruously soft, pastel pink gown that was spattered here and there with the evidence of their desperate escape, somehow looked as regal as she had sitting in the great hall in her father’s stead these last two years.

She had remained a steady, reassuring presence in the kingdom even as the king’s health faded away despite the High Mage’s efforts to heal him. In his absence, Ria had taken over the rule of the kingdom with the grace and justice that her father had instilled in her from a young age. The queen had died only a few weeks after her father’s sickness had presented, and Ria had mourned her for the appropriate weeks before getting on with the governance of the kingdom. Beautiful, refined, and achingly gentle, it was no wonder that the kingdom was in love with her.

Salanei swallowed thickly. Half the kingdom, and… her too.

Now, although there was the air of a frightened child about her delicate shoulders, she sat in the centre of the small boat as her guards rowed her away, her green eyes fixed on the retreating castle as they skimmed across the lake. Just as Brandon had said, the morning sun glanced off the surface, glinting like a cut gem as the castle burned behind them.

Salanei uttered a quick prayer under her breath for the minotaur who was presumably still inside the castle.

Halfway across the lake, the guards’ oars faltered with a splash. A vast wave of power pulsed from the heart of the castle and spilled out across the land in all directions, sweeping demons off the walls and parapets, scattering them to ash on the wind. The sheer, raw magic made Salanei’s ears ring and her chest tighten, but when she’d mastered herself again, she found Ria staring wide-eyed at the castle with a look of unbridled horror on her beautiful face.

“Highness?” Salanei croaked, barely resiting the urge to grab her shoulder and shake her gently. “Highness?”

“Father…” she choked. “My father is dead…”

Three thoughts raced through Salanei’s mind before it went perfectly blank again: ‘that means you’re the queen’, ‘if the king is dead it means he used a purging spell so powerful that it obliterated himself as well’, and ‘the castle is free of demons now’. “Should… Should we go back?” she finally croaked.

Ria just sat there in the little boat, her breathing shallow, her face ashen.

“Highness?”

Nothing.

“Ria?” she asked, reluctant to use her familiar name. She leaned forward to touch her arm, but one of the guards - a huge, leonine rakshasa - growled at her. Salanei bared her own canines at him and hissed like a cobra.

The sound of her bickering guards drew the princess out of herself, and Ria turned to them. “Please,” she whispered. “Not now. For the goddess’ sake, not now. Let me think.”

Chastened, they fell silent, though Salanei’s black eyes never left her princess’ face.

“We go back,” she finally said.

The leonine rakshasa’s ears pricked up and he growled softly as he said, “Highness, we only just got you out of there…”

“Look,” she said, her voice eerily calm as she pointed a trembling finger towards the castle.

A cloud of sparkling, fluttering sparks had risen like butterflies above the remnants of the highest tower, and Salanei recognised Maeva’s magical signature immediately. “The High Mage,” she whispered. “You think it’s a trap?”

Ria shook her head. “No. We have a code in case such a signal is ever used. Green with gold is a trap. Pink and pale green is all clear. We return. Now.”

The rowers turned the small craft around, and Ria sat with her jaw set and her fists clenched in the fabric of her dress, eyes intense, mind working. No one spoke or grumbled, despite how the guards’ shoulders must have been burning from the effort.

The princess ground her teeth, and muttered, “This is taking too long. It’s not your fault,” she added as a guard’s expression flickered momentarily. “You’ve all been wonderful.” Snapping her head up suddenly, the princess said, “Salanei?”

“Highness?”

“Can your tiefling magic teleport me from here?”

Salanei tilted her head thoughtfully to one side as she examined her reserves of magic. “If I do, I won’t have much left in the tank when we get there,” she said. “I’d rather not…”

“Do it,” Ria said. “That’s not a request. Get me to my father’s chamber, and Maeva can take care of the magic from there if needs be.”

Jartyn, a gnoll with half his ear missing and a huge burn scar on his face, interjected, “I really must object, Highness -”

Ria’s eyes flashed and he sat back, teeth clacking as he shut his mouth quickly.

However, she got control of her frustration and spoke in a gentle, if tense, voice. “I appreciate your concern, and I owe you all my life,” she said, gathering them all into the praise with a sweep of her emerald green eyes. “But my father just sacrificed his life to cleanse that castle, and now I must return to protect his legacy. If I don’t, there’s still a window of opportunity for Dorhul to step in and claim the crown and the kingdom amid the chaos. Do you understand?”

They did, and they all bowed as one.

“You will follow in the boat and attend me back at the castle.” Ria turned her gaze to the tiefling, and held out her hand. “Now, Salanei.”

Taking the princess’ hand in hers, Salanei concentrated every drop of will and magic on the king’s chambers. Teleportation was not something many could do, and it wasn’t something Salanei particularly relished. The familiar sensation of blurring at the edges announced that they were ready, and a heartbeat later, it felt like two magical grappling hooks had yanked them by the spine and guts and had torn them away to somewhere else.

The princess landed awkwardly beside her with a cry, collapsing against Salanei as they arrived in the bedchamber of the king, and the tiefling caught her. “I’m going to be sick,” Ria hissed a moment before it happened.

Salanei supported her and held her beautiful, long hair back, and then magicked all the mess away with an easy flick of her hand.

Clearly grateful, Ria straightened and turned to her. Her eyes were pink and her cheeks were pale, but she still looked so regal that Salanei’s heart twisted in her chest.

Then Ria’s eyes slid from Salanei’s face to the bed in the middle of the ruined room. The glass in the windows had been obliterated, blasted out into the courtyard below. The twisted remnants of the lead work hung like the gnarled roots of a ripped up tree from the casements, and the rest of the room was reduced to splinters and tatters.

On the bed, there was no sign of the old king at all, but where his head would have rested on the pillow lay the golden crown, and where his heart would have been was a glimmering opal. Salanei gasped when she saw it, following at a respectful distance, a pace behind Ria.

“That’s…”

“The heart of the Lunar Forge,” Ria whispered. “Yes. Imagine what hell a necromancer like Dorhul could raise with a focus like this… That must have been how he was able to wield so much magic just now too…”

Salanei shuddered, not wanting to think about what could have happened. The Lunar Forge sat at the heart of the castle, and beneath the light of a full moon, any weapons quenched in the pool of spring water had the power to destroy demons utterly. The focus of the power was that opal. It was the size of Salanei's fist and it thrummed with power. That power did not have to be used to focus the powers of the Lunar Forge though; it could be used at the heart of any ritual, to add unfathomable power, and if the necromage had got his hands on it, who knows what he could have brought into this world.

Ria picked up the stone and the crown and then sank onto the bed. When she looked up at the tiefling, another pang went through Salanei’s chest. Tears flowed silently down Ria’s face and the urge to embrace her surged inside Salanei. “Highness,” she whispered, her heart going out to the young woman.

Her face twisted, and sobs wracked the princess then, and her guard didn’t hesitate. She stepped in close and the princess folded forwards, throwing her arms around her wiry torso and burying her face in the filthy fabric of her shirt. Her tears dampened it until the flow finally stemmed as Salanei stroked the coppery hair and just stood there, taking her grief and fears in her stride.

“I can’t do it,” Ria whispered, still plastered to her chest.

“You will. You’re not alone. I know he’s gone, but you’re not alone. You have Maeva, and your guard, and… for what it’s worth, you have me.”

It took another few minutes before Ria leaned back to regard Salanei and drew in a deep, unsteady breath.

Taking a chance, Salanei reached out and thumbed the remaining tears from the princess’ blotchy cheeks. “You have me,” she repeated as her golden eyelashes fluttered softly. A moment later, the tiefling let go and spun, adopting a defensive stance as footsteps rang on the floor outside and someone burst in.

She relaxed instantly, adrenalin dissipating when the familiar red robes of the High Mage swirled to a halt and the older woman appeared to go through a similar gamut of relieved reactions upon seeing the tiefling. “Thank the goddess,” she breathed, leaning heavily on a long, slender staff. “Ria, child, are you alright?”

Mutely, the princess nodded and stood. She touched Salanei briefly on the arm as she passed, and sent a tiny rush of her innate magic into the tiefling. The tenderness of the affection made her sway on the spot where she stood and she smiled at the princess, bowing her head.

The Queen, she corrected, forcing herself to make the mental adjustment. That’s the queen standing there now, you dolt!

The severe figure of the High Mage was made all the more stark by the harsh daylight now flooding in through the empty windows. The wind at this altitude whipped right through the room, tugging at tatters of cloth and blowing papers around like dry, rattling leaves. Maeva drew the queen to one side and the two proceeded to talk in hushed voices, leaving Salanei with nothing to do except keep watch.

She crossed to the door at the sound of — she tilted her head and strained — hooves. Demon or friend…? Brandon’s telltale white forelock and black pelt drew into view as he trotted up the staircase and she relaxed.

“You’re alright,” he smiled, tugging her into a quick hug before stepping back. “Thank the goddess. When you disappeared like that — And… the princess?”

“Queen now,” Salanei murmured. “She’s fine.”

“Goddess shelter his soul, and long live the queen,” Brandon said under his breath.

“What’s the rest of the castle like?” she asked, jabbing her thumb over her shoulder and adding, “It’s a fucking mess in there.”

“Same,” he said, leaning on the door frame and suddenly looking extremely tired. “It’ll take weeks to clear the demons and the rubble, but whatever that was, it purged them all in one go. Damned powerful magic.”

“It was the king,” she said. “He sacrificed himself to save the castle.”

“Not just the castle then,” Brandon said darkly. “Saved the whole bloody kingdom with it.”

It in fact took just over a week to get the last of the ichor and demons out of the castle, but it did take much longer to clear the rubble.

Ria insisted on being crowned in the goddess’ temple at the castle, despite the fact that half the roof was missing. Maeva and anyone with even a scrap of magic had been drafted in to weave invisible supports over the roof timbers and pillars to stop it all from tumbling in and crushing the congregation.

Salanei stood at the head of the guard of honour, her blade raised as the queen passed beneath, and she winked at one of the kitchen girls’ daughters whom Ria had selected to be one of the four train-barers. The tiny child could hardly lift the heavy material of the excessively long gown, but she valiantly did her best, along with the other children who had been chosen from the families of the castle staff. It was a lovely touch, and it had only endeared the young queen more to her people.

As the queen drew level with Salanei, she didn’t stop or break her step, but she shot her a fleeting look in passing, and the tiefling’s heart leapt. Over the past few weeks, the queen had shown her a remarkable degree of affection. She’d raised Salanei to the prestigious position of the Queen’s Blade - her personal bodyguard. But where the two had hardly interacted before the attack on the castle, now Salanei found herself often being admitted inside her private study to discuss security and plans to bolster the castle’s and kingdom’s defences with magic and boots on the ground. On such evenings, it was not uncommon for their hands to brush or their gaze to meet, but whatever swirling emotions Salanei felt, she kept her thoughts to herself. This was the queen after all.

The coronation service went on and on, but finally the oaths were taken, and the queen, now formally crowned, processed out into the courtyard beyond to thunderous cheering and applause. Maeva sent a rain of enchanted petals down around her, and she addressed her people as their new leader. All the while she spoke, Salanei scanned the crowd, but to her relief, she found nothing but adoring faces and cheering people. She met Brandon’s eye from the front row of guards keeping the crowd back, and he nodded at her.

It wasn’t until Ria was back in her chambers, again with Salanei at her side, that she showed the faintest sign of her exhaustion.

She was silent while her maids undressed her, their nimble hands undoing the regiments of buttons. Finally, they removed removed the ridiculous gown from the room and found something more comfortable. In her humble, ignorant opinion, Salanei thought that the queen looked much better in plain dresses anyway.

Ria had decided, upon Maeva’s advice, to take the rest of the day to herself, and just as Salanei was preparing to stand guard outside her door, the queen took her wrist in her gentle, firm grip, and halted her.

“No, Salanei,” she said in a hoarse, tired voice. “Stay. Please.”

“Of course. What do you need?”

“I… I don’t know,” she said with heartbreaking honesty. “I don’t know what to do with myself.”

Feeling her body go slack as her heart went out to the young woman, Salanei said, “Shall I run you a bath, Majesty?”

On the point of replying, the queen paused and changed her mind. “Call me Ria,” she said. “Please. When it’s just us two in these rooms, please… call me by my name. I’m… I’m afraid that I’ll forget the sound of it now that I’m queen and there’s no one left to call me that…”

Bowing her head under the weight of that gift, Salanei nodded. “As you wish… Ria.”

With a smile, the queen reached for Salanei's other hand and squeezed her fingers in her own. “You’re so strong, Salanei,” she said, running her thumbs over the rough, scuffed knuckles and feeling the calluses from weapons training on her palms and fingers. “You… You’re so beautiful…”

The breath left Salanei in a rush as if she’d been punched in the solar plexus. “Majesty,” she protested, embarrassed and trying to pull away, but the queen held firm.

“I mean it,” she said with a fierce light in her eyes. And then she went soft with a sigh and said, “But yes, a bath does sound nice.”

“I’ll run you one,” Salanei offered, glad for an excuse to leave the room. Her heart was thudding and her skin felt hot all over.

“You’re not my servant,” Ria barked as the tiefling made to stride away across the room towards the chambers. “You don’t have to do that.”

“I’d like to,” she said. “Please.”

With a nod, Ria accepted, and ten minutes later, a steaming hot bath stood ready for her in the adjacent bathroom, the scent of jasmine heady in the air. When Salanei emerged, she found the queen undressing again, and struggling with a button right in the middle of her back.

“Help me?” asked the queen in a surprisingly shy voice.

Silently, Salanei crossed to her and freed the tiny pearl button from the back of the dress, revealing the smooth, warm skin of her back as the fabric parted and fall away. She had three freckles just to the right of her spine. The urge to brush her fingers down the length of the queen’s back from the nape of her neck to the waist of her dress was almost overwhelming, but she forced herself to step back. “Anything else?” she asked in a croak.

With a knowing, almost playful smile, the queen looked over her shoulder and said, “Fetch me a robe?”

Licking her lips, Salanei swallowed. Had Ria’s eyes always been so bright? Her hair so golden? Her lips so…

“Salanei?”

“Of course,” she chirped and turned abruptly to fetch a robe from the back of the bathroom door and bring it. When she found the queen standing completely naked in the middle of the room with her dress pooled around her ankles, she nearly cursed. Her feet stopped and she stood there, slack-jawed and staring.

“Are you going to pass it to me or not?” Ria giggled.

Flushing hot, Salanei handed it to her and looked away as she extended her arm.

“Don’t,” Ria breathed. “Unless you want to, of course.”

She had no answer for that.

“Salanei…?” the queen asked, sounding suddenly unsure. “What is it you want? Answer me honestly.”

You.

“I can’t,” she hissed, turning completely away.

Oh gods, I want you so much, she thought. I want to make you forget everything. I want to kneel between your legs and taste you. I want to sink my fingers into your heat and feel you let go. I want to give you what no other can give you.

The queen’s voice was steady as she asked, “If you could speak freely, what would you say to me?”

“Tell me I’m not out of line,” Salanei breathed. “Tell me —” she couldn’t finish it. It felt… blasphemous even to begin to voice her desires. This was the queen. And she was a gutter-rat tiefling from nowhere, with no family and nothing but her magic and her fighting skills.

“I want you, Salanei,” the queen said unflinchingly. “I want you, but I don’t want you afraid.”

Her lips parted when she heard those words, and she turned to face her queen properly. Ria still hadn’t done up the bath robe, leaving a column of perfect skin exposed between her covered breasts, and a soft nest of golden hair between her legs. Salanei’s fingertip ached to touch her just there and see if her knees would buckle at the contact.

Without a word, the queen turned and walked slowly towards the bathroom, leaving the door open. An invitation? Salanei stood there for a long time, listening to the slosh of the water in the huge copper bath as the queen got in and then lay back. Steam billowed out of the room, coiling along the floor like crooked fingers calling.

Swallowing, her heart thudding, Salanei padded into the bathroom and came to an uncertain halt. The bath stood in the centre of the small chamber, and the queen had her back to the door where she reclined in the steaming water. “Come here,” she said gently.

“Would you like me to stay?”

“I’d like you to do more than that, if you feel comfortable…” she purred, and as Salanei drew level with the bath, she looked up at her, features sharpening. “Don’t do anything you don’t want to, alright? I’m well aware of what I am, and what your station is. If… If you feel as though you’re… obliged in any way to… to…” tears filled her eyes but she refused to let them spill, and in a rush Salanei knelt on the cold marble beside the bath and put her left hand on the rim of the tub.

“No,” she said fiercely. “I want this. Trust me, I want this…”

“You can touch me,” the queen said in a low voice, tilting her head back. The bubbles just skimmed the surface of the water, but as she moved, fragrant waves lapped at her chest and Salanei glimpsed the roundness of her breasts beneath the water and the dusky pink of her hard nipples too. “Please…”

Salanei slid her right hand into the water, her plum-purple skin in sharp contrast to the warmth of the queen’s own, and she found the inside of the queen’s thigh, letting her palm play up and down it for a moment. Ria let out a long, broken moan and arched her back a little, and it suddenly occurred to Salanei that she probably hadn’t ever been touched like this. Aside from being dressed by her maids, she was always apart, always unreachable, always kept safely at arm’s length.

“I…” Ria faltered, her eyes still closed. “I never thanked you. I never found a minute, but… I should have made time. You’ve given everything to me, and you helped to save my life.”

“I made your father a promise,” she said, still just cupping the curve of her thigh in her hand, hardly daring to believe that this was happening. “And I grew to love you years ago. Your goodness, your grace, your kindness… You won me heart and soul, Ria. I’m yours. Always.”

A tear slid from Ria’s eye and disappeared into the dampness on her skin at her neck. “Touch me,” she whispered, voice intense, and Salanei complied.

She moved her hand further up her smooth thighs, feeling her tail coiling around her own ankle as her body heated up and she began to get wet from the sheer anticipation of touching the queen like this at last. How many nights had she touched herself with thoughts of the queen’s pleasure ringing in her imagination?

At the smooth glide of fingertips over her folds, the queen’s legs fell apart and she bucked weakly, sloshing water almost over the rim of the bath. Another moan escaped her and she let her head loll as Salanei repeated the gesture on the other side before circling her swelling clit and then nudging just beneath it.

A shudder ran through the queen and she gripped the edges of the bath as Salanei brushed against her, teasing and testing, finding out how she liked to be touched, where was too sensitive and what garnered her the most vocal reactions. Slow and firm seemed to drive her closer to towards her peak, while tentative and teasing made her buck and gasp, shivering and grunting with satisfaction delayed. Naturally, she drew out the process for as long as she could, and oscillated between the two.

“Please!” Ria finally gasped, curling forwards, knuckles white on the rim of the copper bath as Salanei ran one callused fingertip back and forth just between her clit and her entrance. It was far too slow and far too teasing. “Oh goddess… oh goddess…” she chanted, her whole body winding tighter and tighter. The water could not disguise the slickness that eased Salanei's attentions either.

In a single motion, Salanei slid two fingers deep inside her and crooked them, pressing against her walls while circling her clit with her thumb, and the queen shattered. Salanei was fairly certain she’d soaked through her own underwear, but nothing could distract her from the tight, clenching heat as pleasure ripped through the other woman and swept her away with it. She gave herself completely to it and convulsed, water slopping over the edge of the bath and onto the floor and drenching Salanei's loose trousers too.

“You’re so beautiful,” Salanei crooned as the queen continued to come. “Goddess, but you’re so beautiful…” She kept the pressure inside the queen’s body with her fingertips, easing her through it until finally Ria slumped back against the bath, her chest heaving, her eyes closed, and the softest, sweetest look of joy on her face.

When she’d caught her breath, she opened her eyes with a flutter of golden lashes and whispered, “I want to do that to you.”

“I’m yours,” Salanei replied with a wry smile, withdrawing her fingers and tracing a fond touch across her sensitive inner thigh without removing her hand from the water.

“Give me a moment to feel my legs again,” Ria said, “And then help me out of here, and I’ll return the favour. I do feel bad that you were on the floor though,” she said, a tiny frown pinching her eyebrows together.

Salanei laughed hoarsely and said, “If you knew how wet I was, you wouldn’t have said that.”

The queen went still, a surprised smile on her face. “That got you wet? Doing that to me?”

“You have no idea.”

With that, Ria stood somewhat shakily, water cascading down her perfect body, and, with her eyes practically glowing, said, “Show me.”

___

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crossbowking · 5 years

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The Dark Place

Summary: (Set in the beginning of Season 4) While on a hunt for supplies, the reader is forced to face a childhood fear.

Request: “I’m not brave like you are.” @eiresworld

A/N: Hiya strangers! Glad to be back! Hopefully, everyone enjoys this little one-shot — the ending gave me such a tough time, you have no idea. I would love to hear some feedback from you lovely readers! Makes this whole process totally worth it.

xx crossbowking

“Shit!” you exclaimed, coming to an abrupt halt, the archer colliding into you from behind a moment later.

Daryl steadied himself, grabbing onto one of the many lockers lining the hallway for support before he sidestepped around your frozen form, his heavy breaths mirroring yours. “Shit,” he reiterated with a growl, the sudden severity of the situation hitting him then.

You’d been scavenging a nearby elementary school for supplies. With all of the newcomers from Woodbury moving in with your group at the prison, the need for necessities had nearly tripled. You and Daryl — being two of the most skilled in scavenging and tracking — had begun making weekly trips around town to keep supplies in stock for the rest of the survivors.

After exhausting all local resources, you’d been forced to broaden your search perimeter — which had led you here — to this moment.

Surprisingly, the school had already been fairly wiped clean — lockers emptied, cafeteria ransacked, nurse’s office barren. You and Daryl had been making your way out of the school when suddenly, the doors to the auditorium shattered open as you’d passed by them — a hoard of the dead pouring out from its confines.

So you ran, Daryl hot on your heels as you weaved throughout hallway after hallway, the herd trailing not far behind, fueled by raw and innate hunger.

And now — well, now you were trapped.

The last corner you’d rounded had turned out to be a dead-end — how morbidly ironic.

Bracing your hands against your knees, you worked on controlling your breathing, the grunts and groans coming from around the corner growing increasingly deafening as the herd began shortening the distance between them and their next meal.

You glanced up, watching Daryl begin to pace rapidly back and forth — and as though you could read his mind, you could see the wheels turning as time began to run out. For a brief moment, his gaze landed on your hunched over form, expression unreadable before he tore his eyes away. He instead lifted his crossbow, looking as though he was counting how many bolts he had left — but you could tell by the way his body stiffened, the way his features hardened, that there weren’t nearly enough.

Daryl let out a stream of curses, though his voice soon became lost amongst the roar of the dead.

You straightened, wanting to say something, anything, to provide some sort of reassurance for the man — but the moment you opened your mouth, you were interrupted by a low snarl coming from behind you.

Without a second thought, you spun on your heels, coming face to face with one of the dead. There was no hesitation as you swung your arm forward, plunging your knife straight into the walker’s temple, its body immediately collapsing at your feet. You yanked the blade from its skull, quickly standing upright as your sights set on three more biters rounding the corner, faster than the rest of the herd soon approaching.

You took a step forward, knife armed and ready, but before you could make a move, you felt Daryl grab onto your arm. “The hell ya doin’?” he hissed sharply, pulling you back against his chest, fingertips digging into your flesh as he began yanking you away from the advancing dead.

“What’s it look like!” you shouted as you struggled against his hold, stumbling backward, unable to shake off Daryl’s grasp.

“Ya gonna get yourself killed, that’s what! C’mon!” he bellowed, practically carrying you down the rest of the hall, closer to the dead-end, surveying the incoming herd from over your head.

Daryl finally let go once you reached the end of the hall, a row of lockers and a brick wall trapping you there. But that was when you noticed something on the third wall you hadn’t before — a door.

“Get in, Y/N,” Daryl ordered as he raised his crossbow and fired at the closest nearing walker, landing a perfect headshot.

A burst of hope rushed through you as you reached for the door handle and yanked it open.

But it wasn’t what you’d expected — it wasn’t a stairwell or a classroom, it didn’t have any windows or other doors you could climb and escape through.

It was a closet. A custodial closet filled with sprays and rags and brooms and darkness.

And you felt your chest tighten.

“Get in!” Daryl shouted once more, his fiery gaze locked on you as he reloaded his bow and fired once more.

You opened your mouth to speak, but couldn’t seem to make any words come out as you stepped backward, your entire body beginning to tremble, your legs turning into mush beneath you.

When Daryl suddenly appeared behind you, his arm roughly wrapping around your waist, he began forcing you forward, closer to the closet.

“No!” you shrieked, feeling your heart begin to pound inside your chest as your flailed against the archer, turning around in his grip so you were face to face. “N-No, no! I can’t! Stop, damn it!”

“The fuck’s the matter with ya! We ain’t gonna make it, Y/N!” Daryl growled through his teeth as he struggled to maneuver you into the closet, his expression wild as the clock began to run out, the herd now only a few feet away.

“Just let me go! I can take the herd! I-I can handle it!” you stammered, pounding your fists against the archer's chest, trying to create some sort of space between you.

“Are ya fuckin’ crazy?”

“Let me —“

“— gonna do is get us both killed —“

“— take care of myself, please —“

“— an’ get your ass in —“

“Get off me, you —“

“Now!” Daryl roared, swiftly grabbing both of your wrists with one hand, the other wrapping tightly around your waist as he hefted you up, trapping you against his chest before he lunged forward into the darkness.

Your body crashed against the back wall of the closet, briefly knocking the wind out of you before Daryl released you. You spun around just in time to see the archer deliver a powerful kick into the gut of a walker that’d attempted to push its way into the closet after you — the biter stumbling backward, knocking over a mass of the dead in the process.

Then Daryl grabbed onto the doorknob, the last shred of light disintegrating as he yanked the closet door shut until you were enveloped in nothing but darkness.

You couldn’t move.

It was as though your feet had molded into the foundation below, like the floor was clawing it’s way up your body, seeping into your bones, running through your veins until it consumed you altogether.

You couldn’t breathe.

It was as though every last breath had been forced from your lungs, leaving you desperate for another gasp, for the sweet relief of air to ease the burning pain growing in your chest.

The walls were closing in on you — you were sure of it. The ceiling was collapsing, the floor rising, threatening to crush you until you were nothing but ash. The darkness around you was somehow getting darker — more vast, more void — and had it not been for the wall pressed up against your back, you feared the blackness would swallow you entirely.

Through the foggy ringing in your ears, you could just barely make out the sound of sporadic thuds and incessant growls — but the sound seemed far away, muddled and lost against the drumming of your rapid heartbeat.

And then you felt pressure.

Dull at first, but getting increasingly sharper. First on your shoulders, followed by a quick shake. Then grasping onto the sides of your arms, the squeezing becoming more intense before the heaviness dissipated, reappearing around your neck.

But the touch was different this time — it was gentle, it was grounding.

And that was when you finally heard it.

Through the darkness around you, the ringing in your ears, the cloudiness of your mind — you finally heard him.

You couldn’t see his face, but you could feel his breath tickle across your skin, his calloused fingertips brushing the hair from your face, grounding you further. You suddenly began to feel faint, wobbly even, your rapid breathing making you lightheaded, your legs trembling beneath you before giving out altogether.

But the ground never rushed up to meet you — instead, a pair of strong arms wrapped around your middle, holding you upright for a moment before slowly lowering you to the floor.

You still felt paralyzed — by the darkness, the confinement, the fear. No matter how hard you tried, you just couldn’t seem to catch your breath, to calm your racing heart.

But then you felt a hand gently grab the back of your head, pushing you down until your face rested against your curled knees. Your arms automatically snaked around your shins, coiling yourself into a tight ball. The world still sounded muddled, though you could still vaguely hear distant pounding, low snarls, fading growls, and then suddenly —

“Breathe.”

Your breath caught in your throat — you knew that voice.

That voice was safe. That voice was home.

“C’mon, girl. I need ya ta’ breathe, alright?”

You wanted to breathe — you needed to breathe. Why couldn’t you breathe? Why did it feel as though you were trapped underwater suddenly? Why did it seem like —

“I got ya, alright? I got ya.”

You couldn’t see him, but you knew he was there — kneeling in front of you, brow furrowed, hands gripping tightly onto your elbows, reeling you back from the dark recesses of your mind.

You felt him draw nearer then, his body practically enveloping yours as you felt the stubble of his cheek press against the side of your head.

“Breathe,” came a soft whisper, low and guttural, his lips directly next to your ear.

The tightness in your chest lessened, allowing you to inhale a deeper breath.

“‘Atta’ girl,” he murmured, his exhale tickling your cheek. “Jus’ like that.”

You inhaled once more, melting into the warmth of his body shielding yours.

“Alright, alright, it’s alright,” he rumbled and you weren’t sure if he was speaking to you or himself in that moment — either way, you couldn’t focus on that. Breathing — that’s what you could focus on.

You felt him shift, pulling himself away from you then — and you couldn’t stop the soft noise that slipped past your lips in protest, your voice still lost somewhere in your chest.

“M’ here, it’s okay,” he suddenly mumbled as if reading your mind, before you felt him reposition himself beside you, the sides of your bodies just barely touching.

You exhaled shakily, feeling some of the fog finally lifting, finding strength in the presence beside you. If you just focused on that, focused on him, you didn’t have to think about the way your body was twisted and cramped inside the darkness — you didn’t have to think about the reason why you were so damn scared.

You kept your eyes closed, forehead still resting against your knees, taking slow and steady deep breaths.

“Jus’ gotta wait ‘em out,” he whispered, voice gruff and deep in his chest. “Ain’t too long now, alright? I’ll get ya outta here — promise ya that.”

You nodded your head once — not that he could see it anyways — but it was all you could muster at that moment.

Silence stretched on between you then, save for the steady pounding and groans coming from outside the closet door — but just like Daryl had predicted, gradually they started to fade, drawn away by outside noises or sudden lack of interest until eventually, the noises stopped completely.

The stillness was deafening — even Daryl stopped breathing, the two of you waiting with bated breath, waiting for the herd to come back, for them to somehow tear down the closet door and steal away your existence.

But when the quiet stretched on, the archer began to shift, pushing himself up off the floor.

Your head snapped up at his movements, his sudden absence sending a jolt of unease through you as you fumbled in the dark, grabbing onto his wrist.

Daryl stilled but didn’t pull away. “Hey, it’s okay, alright? M’ gettin’ us outta here,” he murmured, his voice softer than you’d ever heard it before.

You let your hand fall away, inhaling shakily as you sat up straighter, resting the back of your head against the wall, arms still wrapped around your legs. The side of Daryl’s boot scuffed against yours as he maneuvered his way around you, feeling for the doorknob.

It was silent for a moment more before you heard a soft click, a slow creak, and then a sliver of light appeared.

You brought your hand up to shield your eyes, wincing slightly as the door opened further. Squinting through your fingers, you watched Daryl peek his head out into the hallway, sneaking a glance in both directions before an audible sigh slipped from his lips.

He pushed the door open all the way, light pouring over your cowering form — and every ounce of fear, of trauma, of weakness you had felt moments ago dissipated.

And in its place — shame.

You exhaled softly, feeling a pinprick of tears form as you unwound your arms from around your legs, your muscles sore and tender from rigidity. And even though you were safe now, even though you could walk right out of that closet, you just suddenly couldn’t find it in you to stand up.

You could practically feel Daryl’s eyes on you, no doubt wondering what in the fuck just happened to you — and you felt your cheeks flush, humiliated that he’d been forced to witness your unexpected nervous breakdown. You’d never wanted anyone to see you like that — you’d never wanted him to see you like that.

“Wanna talk ‘bout it?” came Daryl’s gruff voice suddenly, like he’d read your mind once more — his words were soft, though. Understanding, almost.

You took a breath, wiping away the sweat that had formed on your brow before you glanced up at the archer. He stood still, almost statuesque, leaning coolly against the doorframe, crossbow dangling at his side, gaze locked on yours. You sighed once more, lowering your eyes to stare at your clasped hands. “Not really,” you whispered, voice thick.

Daryl grunted softly, shifting slightly, but didn’t make a move to leave. He was giving you time, you realized then — and you felt a warmth spread through your worn body.

You cleared your throat, wringing your hands together in your lap. “My stepdad used to lock me in the trunk of our car,” you murmured so quietly you weren’t even sure Daryl could hear you. The words had just tumbled out of you, desperate to be heard, out in the open for the first time in your entire life.

The quiet that stretched on seemed endless and you found yourself pressing on. “He wasn’t a bad person — he just, uh — he was Marine Corps,” you shrugged, clearing your throat once more. “He was a hard ass, you know? But I guess after all the shit he’d seen...I mean, I didn’t blame him for being the way he was.”

You weren’t sure why you were defending him — you’d hated the man growing up, hated your mother even more for marrying him. But still, you felt the need to explain yourself.

“I just — I was young. Really young. And too afraid to sleep in my own bed, I was — uh, I was scared, you know? The dark, the boogeyman, whatever,” you continued to ramble, digging your fingernails into the skin on your palm. “And he wanted me to be brave — wanted me to ‘face my fear’, I guess.”

You sighed, peeking up at Daryl from under your eyelashes. He remained in the doorway, still as stone, you weren’t even sure he was breathing. His gaze remained locked on yours, unfazed, and you almost felt stupid for speaking at all.

“Ain’t no way ta’ treat a kid, Y/N,” the archer simply murmured, his words carrying a heaviness to them.

You pursued your lips, lowering your gaze once more. “I’m sorry,” you exhaled quietly, the words, the guilt, bubbling out of you. “I-I almost got us killed — I almost got you killed. What would — what would I have done, huh? I could’ve gotten you —”

“Hey,” Daryl cut you off sharply, pushing off the doorframe. “Stop, alright? Ain’t your fault.”

You shook your head, wiping away a tear that snaked down your cheek. “I just — I-I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m not — I’m not brave, Daryl. I’m not brave like you are. I mean, for fuck’s sake!” you snapped, your humiliation quickly morphing into anger. “How pathetic can —“

“Hey!” Daryl hissed, cutting you off once more, dropping down into a low crouch in front of you, his eyes ablaze, boring into yours. “Bullshit — it’s fuckin’ bullshit, Y/N. Not brave?” he scoffed incredulously. “Ya were gonna take on that whole damn herd all by yourself — jus’ you an’ that lil’ pig stick a’ yours,” he pointed out, nodding towards the knife strewn by your side.

“But —“

“Nah, that’s enough,” the archer interrupted, holding a hand out in front of him. A beat passed before you saw his eyes soften. “Ya made it this far, didn’t ya? An’ ya made it for a reason,” he urged firmly, though his tone was noticeably gentler. “Not brave?” he reiterated as if it were the most ridiculous thing he’d ever heard. “You’re a fuckin’ force, Y/N.”

You let his words sink in — the passion behind them striking you — and felt another wave of emotion wash over you. “Thank you,” you whispered, holding his gaze for a moment longer before looking away. “I guess I should probably be thanking my stepdad — he was an asshole, but he also taught me how to survive.”

Daryl grunted once. “Still an asshole,” he grumbled dryly under his breath before he rose to his feet, extending his hand down towards you.

You grabbed his hand, allowing him to pull you up off the floor, your body swaying slightly as you maneuvered out of the closet. You inhaled deeply, sweet, fresh air filling your lungs, feeling the last remnants of your panic attack fade away.

You glanced up at the archer, surprised to see his gaze already locked on yours. “Ya good?” he asked softly.

“Yeah,” you nodded, giving Daryl’s hand a gentle squeeze before pulling away, feeling your cheeks flush suddenly. “Yeah, I’m okay,” you breathed, brushing the hair back from your face.

“C’mon then,” the archer rumbled, jerking his head, motioning for the two of you to start heading back.

You took a step forward but then paused, glancing behind you, sparing the closet one last look.

A moment later, you felt Daryl reach out from beside you, squeezing your shoulder gently. “Hey, let’s go home,” he murmured, drawing your attention back to him, his normally hardened features softening.

You quirked a small, somewhat sad smile, before nodding, Daryl’s expression mirroring yours as he let go of your shoulder and instead lightly cupped the side of your face. You leaned into his touch, surprised at the rare showing of affection from the archer, before he pulled away, the tips of his ears turning pink as he nudged you forward.

And as you navigated your way back through the abandoned elementary school, winding down hallway after hallway, you began to realize that ‘home’ didn’t always have to mean place.

Sometimes, incredibly, a home could become a person.

A/N: OK SO LIKE THIS ENDING ANNOYS ME LOL. But I tried to come up with something better for DAYS and it just didn’t want to manifest haha anywho, hope you all enjoyed anyways! Onto the next! Let me hear your thoughts!

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bethagain · 4 years

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I’ve enjoyed reading some conversations lately about whether Din Djarin would know anything about food. We've only ever seen ration packs on the Razor Crest. When he's planetside we see him order food for the child, but obviously he's not eating anything himself.

So, would good food be a new experience for him? A revelation, even? That’s the take in one corner of fandom, and it does make a fun foundation for a story. I got to thinking, though, and here's what I figure:

Din absolutely does know about good food. In fact, it’s kind of a thing for him.

Let’s look back a few years before Chapter One, when maybe he wasn’t quite so worn down by the galaxy or by his place in it...

Sure, when he's got days in hyperspace, he's eating shelf-stable rations. The Razor Crest doesn't have a refrigeration unit. There's no cooktop. He does have a coil rigged up to heat water so he can have caff in the mornings--or sometimes at midnight, ship's time, when life is being difficult and he's got to stay awake. The heating coil works more often than it doesn't. When it fails he dumps the powder in a cup anyway, shakes it up, and chases it with plain water so the grit doesn't stick to his teeth.

You might think all this means he doesn't know (or care) much about food.

You'd be wrong.

He's not lingering over meals in restaurants or ordering dinner at the bar, that's true.

But he knows the best hole-in-the-wall joints for home cooking in half the systems on the outer rim. When he's on Alken Prime he'll make a point of touching down at the edge of the second city, just to hit up that place that does the fiery hot dumplings in Nestorian-style broth. Where the owner doesn't blink when Din's got a handcuffed quarry in tow. He knows when he counts the credits Din hands him, he'll find twice the price of the meal.

There's that little shack in that backwater town on Geel V, the one cobbled together out of salvaged steel panels, with coalfire smoke rising dark grey from the chimney at the back. The elderly Bothan cook always gives him an extra portion of barbecued mol meat, the end pieces blackened crisp at the edges, and packs the sweet sauce separately so things won't get soggy on the way back to his ship. Doesn't hurt that he lets her tease him. That he'll even flirt back just a tiny bit, just enough to make her giggle and shoo him out the door.

Sometimes his work doesn't follow comfortable hours. Even then, there'll often be that one place open way past midnight, the kind with yellow light showing through a grimy window on a dark street and a crooked door that doesn't close all the way and doesn't need to, because the kitchen never shuts down. You have to know where to find it but when you get there there's always a line. He'll wait with the cleaners, the trash collectors, the security guards, the low-level spice dealers and their hollow-eyed customers. Sometimes there'll be another bounty hunter and they'll nod each other's way. It'll be the kind of place where no one knows exactly what's in the stew and the owner isn't telling, but it'll be loaded with vegetables and the sauce will be addictively spicy, and it probably comes with huge hunks of chewy brown bread perfect for scooping it up.

He'll carry the food back to the Razor Crest, careful not to spill the container or let greasy wrappings touch his armor. Sometimes it's just him on his own, and he'll flip down the little table in the hold and be civilized about eating, proper chair and a clean rag for a napkin and everything.

Sometimes the job's done and he's got the quarry to deliver, and if they're civilized he'll handcuff them to a bolt well-anchored to the floor, leave them a portion of whatever he's picked up, and take the rest to eat alone in the cockpit. If not, he'll take the time to run a carbon freeze cycle and stow the slab away. He'd prefer not to have to, though, because by the time he's done the food's always getting cold.

When it’s been long hours and a tough job, especially--a hot meal, well-prepared, really helps with putting the day behind him. And being ready to face the next one.

#the mandalorian #headcanons #minific #din djarin #food #noromo mando

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mdelpin · 3 years

Text

The Red Dragon - Chapter 34

AO3 | Tumblr: Ch1 | Ch33

Chapter 34

Gray’s soul had indeed tethered to his new body, but Igneel had attached his soul to it as well. This would allow him to cast the spell that would transfer his remaining life energy to Gray while he and Atlas raced to Natsu’s aid.

Or that had been the plan, anyway. Despite all of their considerable planning and research, there was one thing that apparently neither dragon had ever considered.

It was going to take some time for Gray to get used to having an actual dragon body.

While his first emotions and thoughts had been those of a dragon whose mate was in mortal peril, his first attempts at movement had been more akin to a baby fawn taking its first steps. As if that wasn’t bad enough, it had also dismayed him to realize that his newly heightened senses proved difficult for him to adjust to.

They wouldn’t be racing anywhere.

With no time for him to get his feet under him, there was no other choice than to have Igneel take control of the body’s movements while Gray focused on figuring out his magic.

As humiliating as it was to be a passenger inside his own body, Gray was actually grateful to have one thing less to worry about. It ensured they would get to Natsu sooner, and that was the most important thing to him.

He focused on the soul bond he shared with Natsu, delighted to discover their connection felt even stronger than before. It didn’t take him long to feel his mate’s location and lead Atlas and Igneel there.

They landed a short distance away from the battle and, though Gray itched to go help Natsu, Igneel kept his feet planted firmly on the ground, determined to use the element of surprise to their advantage.

Gray struggled to remain silent as Igneel and Atlas discussed the locations of the different combatants and drafted a battle plan. One that depended on his magic actually having the counter spelling effect they’d observed in the astral realm when Igneel had attempted to breathe fire on it during their experimentation.

He felt Atlas stiffen next to him as Acnologia began to cast a spell on a defeated looking Natsu and Gray felt his rage mount. His magic screamed to be let out and just as he was about to comply, he heard a dispirited Natsu in his head.

Please hurry, I don’t think I’m going to make it this time…

Not even Igneel could stop him from replying to that. He communicated all of his love, rage and determination through the bond, hoping to boost his mate’s fighting spirit.

Don’t you dare give up, Flame-Brain! Help is on the way…

Gray collected as much magic as he felt he could control, letting it out through his mouth in one large burst and watching as the strange mist crept towards Natsu and Acnologia.

“Those markings are back,” Atlas said. “That mist is definitely connected to them somehow.”

Gray glanced down to see that black inky substance work its way up his right foreleg, leaving a trail of strange markings in its wake.

Sure, why not?!

He was about to take part in a battle unlike any he’d ever experienced before, in a body he couldn’t control, using a magic he didn’t fully understand. To say he was terrified would be an understatement, but he hadn’t changed everything he was to let this asshole take his happy ending away from him now.

Igneel spoke up then. I know you’re scared. This is your first time using this magic and you’re not convinced it will do much, but I have faith in you- in your courage and determination to do what’s needed.

I’ll do my best. Gray felt a twinge in his heart at the thought that Igneel would soon be gone forever.

I know you will. Just follow your instincts, they will be your greatest ally in this fight.

It didn’t take long for him to realize Igneel was right. If he didn’t know what he was doing, then he might as well surrender to his instincts in the hopes they did. He emptied his mind of all doubt and followed his intuition.

His first impulse was to lift his marked foreleg towards the mist, noting with increased amazement that the mist seemed to respond to the gesture.

0-0

Natsu watched the mist advance toward him, covering the ground quickly. As it neared, he became even more convinced of its origin. It wasn’t a perfect match by any means, but it carried just enough of Gray’s scent to identify it.

But what was Gray even doing here?!

He couldn’t understand what could have possessed Atlas and his father to bring his mate along when they knew how deadly Acnologia was. And what was this magic? It was like nothing he’d ever seen Gray cast before.

All these questions made him feel uneasy, but he had to set them aside for now. There would be plenty of time for that once the fight was over. At the very least, he knew he should have nothing to fear from it.

He’d just have to make sure not to act in any way that would alert Acnologia to Gray’s presence, and hope that was enough to keep him safe. With any luck, the dragons' scents would be enough to conceal it.

The unexpected appearance of the mist had prompted Acnologia to cease casting his spell and Natsu couldn’t help the surge of pride he felt at seeing the hesitation and uncertainty on the renegade’s face as he too studied it.

When the mist enveloped Natsu, he felt a cool numbness spread through his acid-etched scales. The smoke ceased to pour out from them, and he felt blessed relief as the acid seemed to be completely denatured upon contact with it.

Natsu struggled to his feet and used the reprieve to cast a quick healing spell. He felt the deeper wounds mend, and some of his strength returned, but his magic was unable to mend his wing or scales. As soon as the energy emerged from his body and touched the mist, it sputtered and dissipated like a candle being blown out. At the same time, the mist seemed to become more agitated where it touched his magic.

What the hell?

Natsu panicked at this revelation, but his concern quickly turned to absolute shock and confusion as the voice of his soul-mate sounded in his head, albeit with an odd deep undertone, as if someone else were speaking in harmony with him, sounding nothing like what he was used to.

Don't worry Love, I'm(We're) here now.

The mist continued rolling past Natsu, heading directly toward Acnologia. As it approached the renegade, the thick blanket roiled and churned, making it seem as though the fog itself was angry. Swells rose within the mist and sped toward the black dragon, stopping at the leading edge of the mass, but pushing it forward in a ragged advance.

As the waves within the mist grew higher and were almost large enough to crest, Acnologia unleashed a torrent of hellfire at the oncoming fog. Rather than evaporating it or even pushing it back, the moment the flames touched it, they guttered and withered away to nothing. At the same time, the blanket of fog exploded into a massive cloud that covered the entire area of the clearing where the two dragons stood.

The sparks that whirled within the cloud flared brightly as they ceased their chaotic spinning and gathered together into pairs. Each set of lights was only a few inches apart and approximately six feet above the ground. They seemed to draw the cloud around themselves as if it were a misty cloak, and within ten seconds after Acnologia's hellfire was spent, the cloud had shifted into a troop of twelve humanoid forms, their eyes blazing with twin pools of pure magic.

The figures stood between the two dragons, facing Acnologia, and as one, they crouched and reached into the thick fog at their feet. As they stood and continued their advance, each form drew various types of martial weapons fashioned out of gleaming ice from the mist. The six forms at the front wielded falchions and short spears paired with large, foggy shields. The four standing directly behind the front line held a pair of long spears and a pair of halberds, while the last two star-eyed warriors in the rear held a pair of heavy crossbows.

It was clear that Acnologia was at a complete loss as to what was going on. With a roar, he unleashed a volley of lightning bolts at the misty warriors. The foggy shields intercepted most of the bolts and the electricity disappeared within them with no effect other than a brief brightening of their starry eyes. One bolt skirted the edge of a shield and it hit one of the crossbow carriers. Its weapon shattered into glittering shards of ice, carving a hole through its torso before the lightning grounded out into the blanket of fog. But the warrior did not fall or even falter. It simply crouched again and drew another crossbow from the fog as the hole in its chest filled in with more mist.

The warriors retaliated with a charge at the black dragon, and he responded by raising a wall of ice between himself and them. But while it seemed thick and impressive, within seconds, there was an ominous crackling sound from its base as the fog quickly ate through the foundation. The six leading warriors concluded their charge with a shield bash against the wall, and the ten foot tall structure toppled over, forcing the dragon to leap backward to avoid being hit.

The mist warriors moved around the crumbling remains of the ice wall and continued their march on Acnologia. Gajeel took advantage of the distraction, transforming his arm into a massive steel sword, and swinging it at the dragon’s back leg. The sword broke off a few scales and left a small gash just above the knee, but Acnologia knocked it away with a swipe of his tail, sending Gajeel tumbling across the clearing.

Rogue provided cover for the downed slayer, forming a large curtain of shadow interposed between the black dragon and where Gajeel lay. The shadow caster gasped as he felt the drain on his magic from where the shadows touched the blanket of fog, and he concentrated on trying to keep the curtain close without touching the strange mist. He looked around, trying to locate its source, and he saw when it reached the shield dome.

The dome’s holy light dimmed sharply upon contact, and the blanket of fog reacted by surging against the dome like breakers. Rogue could make out the form of Sting collapsing to one knee for a moment before stubbornly hauling himself back to his feet. Rogue took a step toward his mate, but breathed a sigh of relief when he saw the mist pull back a bit, leaving the shield dome as a small island untouched by the sea of fog that covered the rest of the clearing.

As impressed as he was by Sting’s efforts, Rogue couldn’t help but worry. His mate was expending a ton of magic to hold that barrier spell. How much longer could he keep it up? He had to be running low by now, but despite that, he showed no sign of slowing down.

His chest swelled with pride and for just a moment he flooded their bond with it so that Sting could know how he felt.

You’re amazing, I love you!

Sting didn’t respond with words, but the love that flowed back from him was unmistakable. Rogue thought he noticed a tightening of his stance and a slight glow to his body that hadn’t been there before.

Shaking his head with a smile, Rogue returned to scanning the clearing for more information. He saw two dragons emerge from the shadows of the trees. One he immediately recognized as Atlas, but the other looked nothing like Igneel. It was a dragon he’d never seen before.

Its body was covered in navy and white colored fur, rather than scales. A silver marking decorated its chest, its shape making Rogue think of a sword, while its horns, talons, wings and even the tip of its tail all looked like they were made of ice.

An ice dragon?

If so, it was certainly unlike any he’d ever seen. And what were those black symbols on its foreleg?

The more he looked at the dragon, the more Rogue couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something familiar about it, but he shrugged the thought away, deeming it too ridiculous.

The two dragons approached Natsu while the star-eyed warriors held Acnologia at bay, and Rogue continued casting curtains of shadow and forming vague decoys shaped like the warriors to assist them in their battle against the raging black dragon.

0-0

With Acnologia somewhat occupied for the moment, Atlas and Gray rushed over to Natsu to check up on him. Gray kept the bulk of his attention on the figures he called Dragongard in his head, making sure they continued to put pressure on the black dragon.

Truth be told, he was incredibly pleased with how well he’d been able to adapt his maker magic to his as yet unnamed new one, but it took a lot out of him to control the individual mist constructs.

Gray watched Natsu intently, trying to gage his reaction as he knew there was no way his mate wouldn’t figure out who he was right away. Over the last few weeks, he’d explored many fantasies of how he’d present himself to Natsu when the moment came, but not a single one of them had played out like this.

“Gray?!” Natsu gawked at Gray’s new form.

“Surprise?”

Gray felt suddenly bashful. He didn’t know what to say or where to look, too worried about what Natsu might think of his sudden transformation.

“You’re so beautiful!” Natsu breathed, his eyes shining with unconcealed affection.

“You really think so?”

“Can you two hold off on flirting until we’re not fighting for our lives?” Atlas grumbled.

Natsu tore his eyes away from Gray long enough to ask, “But how did you do this, and what is that magic?! It’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen before.”

“I hardly think this is the time to be asking those sorts of questions.” Atlas held Natsu’s gaze with an equanimity that Gray envied, especially given what he knew of Atlas’ feelings on the matter.

He, on the other hand, could only stand tongue tied and paralyzed by the onslaught of all of Natsu’s conflicting emotions bombarding him through their bond, not to mention his own guilt at having Igneel within him.

Gray felt Natsu prodding at their bond and he couldn’t for the life of him figure out what to tell him, too terrified of letting what he was feeling filter through.

Igneel’s voice resonated in his mind. I know you want to tell him everything, but now isn’t the right time. He still needs to fight.

Gray couldn’t deny the truth in Igneel’s words, but they did nothing to ease his guilt at withholding the fire dragon’s presence from his mate. He could feel Igneel’s magic working away inside of him and had the presence of mind to realize his father-in-law would likely disappear once the spell had finished. Wasn’t he depriving Natsu of his last chance to say goodbye to his father?

A sudden thought occurred to him, something he hadn’t considered before. If they defeated Acnologia before Igneel’s spell had run its course, then they might be able to restore the fire dragon’s soul to its former state. And wouldn’t that mean that Igneel could reunite with Porlyusica after all?

He wanted to ask Atlas, but he couldn’t do that in front of Natsu and he didn’t want to get Igneel’s hopes up if he was wrong.

One thing was for sure, if that outcome was in any way possible, then he would do his damndest to make it happen. At least then, Natsu and Atlas could both know peace.

He reached for his magic with renewed vigor, determined to put an end to the renegade’s reign of terror as quickly as possible.

0-0

Atlas left Natsu to Gray as he quickly flew over to the shield dome. He stood before it, impatiently waiting for Sting to let him through. That was, until he realized the dragon slayer’s eyes were closed, and he was oblivious to anything other than maintaining his magic. The dragon raised one massive claw and gently, but firmly, knocked on the shield.

Sting opened his eyes with a start, but soon realized that he was facing the hellfire dragon rather than another attack. He shook his head and looked around blearily until he located Acnologia at the other end of the clearing. He quickly opened a hole in the shield large enough to admit the dragon.

Atlas wasted no time in entering and looking over Wendy’s patients. Nodding firmly, he stepped forward and gently pulled her back with a claw while he cast his own healing magic on Wendy and the three injured combatants. Wendy fell back on her rear, propping herself up with her arms. Sweat streamed down her face and she panted in relief.

“Nice of you to make an appearance.” Irene said once he’d finished, sitting up and offering the hellfire dragon a tight smile. “What’s going on out there?”

“Gray, Rogue and Gajeel have Acnologia contained for the moment, but who knows how long that will last. I need to get you all out of here quickly.” Atlas replied, noticing the patches of dragon scales Natsu had mentioned.

“Gray’s here? Natsu’s gonna flip out.”

“He already knows. I was just with them.” Atlas answered Sting absently, looking over the wounded to assess the results of his healing spell.

Happy’s wings appeared to have healed nicely, but his hind legs were still in terrible shape. Oliver’s wounds had all but closed up, but he was unconscious. He’d have to ask Irene to keep an eye on him, which would also serve to keep her out of trouble, as she wasn’t completely out of the woods, either. Wendy and Sting were almost out of magic, so he cast one last spell to replenish some of their magic stores.

It was the best he could do for them. The day’s earlier spells had used up a lot of his magic, and then he’d cast a speed spell on himself and Gray to make up some of the time they’d lost. He was wiped.

“Happy, do you think you can get back in there?”

Atlas hated to ask the young dragon to get back in the fight when he must still be in pain, but he couldn’t afford not to.

“Aye, Sir!”

He felt especially cruel because he knew Happy looked up to him and would never say no, but there was still a chance that if they killed Acnologia before Igneel’s spell ran its course his soul would heal and he wouldn’t have to experience soul death. They had to try to make that happen.

“Alright, that’s as much as I can do for you right now. I don’t have a lot of magic to spare, but I healed and boosted what I could. There are a few things you should know before we go. Gray is a dragon now, so Sting and Wendy, I’m going to fly you over to him. You’re going to have to help him fight however you can as he has less combat experience and is still learning his magic.”

“Gray’s a dragon?!”

Atlas ignored Wendy’s question in favor of giving instructions. “Irene, I’ll fly you and Oliver somewhere safer. You’ll have to remain there until the fight is over. I’ll try to heal the rest of your injuries then.”

“What do you mean Gray’s a dragon now? You can’t just say something like that and not explain. How? And what about Rogue and Gajeel? And where’s Igneel?”

“There’s no time to waste.” Atlas said, too tired to inject his usual bluster into his reply. “Our friends need us. I’ll explain everything once we’ve killed that bastard. Now, everyone climb on. Sting, don’t release your barrier until we take off.”

Atlas picked up Oliver in his talons, being careful not to jostle him too much. He could tell that Sting and Wendy were unhappy at being kept in the dark, but they climbed on and didn’t put up any more of a fuss. A minute later, he and Happy took off.

They split up, Happy rejoining the fight, while Atlas flew towards Gray and Natsu, wanting to drop Sting and Wendy off so he could find a safe place for Irene and Oliver.

0-0

Acnologia might have been on the back foot, but he was far from defeated. A reinvigorated Natsu traded blows of claw, fang, and tail with the black dragon while the star-eyed warriors continually harassed his flanks. The swords and halberds tore scales off of the dragon whenever an opening presented itself, while the spears and crossbow bolts sought out those vulnerable openings.

Any time one of the icy weapons struck deep, the raging dragon roared in pain and fury, spinning to face the warriors and drive them back again. Whenever he saw an opening, he flung some form of magic at the dark blue dragon lurking behind Atlas. Invariably, each attack was intercepted by a large shield of holy light cast by Sting. Gray and Atlas repositioned themselves continuously, keeping the Dragongard between themselves and Acnologia.

Wendy had immediately attempted to cast a reinforcement spell on her teammates. That spell failed, however, as it tried to envelop the entire body of the person, and the magic quickly drained wherever it remained in contact with the fog.

Her next attempt was a smaller and more targeted spell. This one focused on the person’s head, imbuing them with enhanced senses and quicker thought and reaction speed. It seemed to help, so she concentrated on keeping as many of her teammates in sight as she could and maintained the spell on them while she sat astride Gray’s massive back behind Sting. One hand clutched Sting’s shirt tightly, while the other was raised with a ball of wispy magic that extended long ephemeral tendrils that kept her connected to each of the combatants receiving her enhancement.

Sting held on to one of the fin spikes on Gray’s neck with one hand while his other was constantly raised palm outward toward Acnologia, prepared to cast a shield at a moment’s notice. It burned him that he couldn’t take a more aggressive role in the battle, but he knew there was nothing he could physically do to injure the dragon, and while the mist was a tremendous equalizer, it still did nothing to prevent the black dragon’s immunity to magic.

He did his best to focus on the dragon’s attacks, struggling to avoid being distracted by the sight of Rogue risking his life as he darted around the battleground, casting various spells to distract and hamper their foe. He was tiring, though, and as another bolt of lightning flew toward them, he failed to summon another ward in time. They all braced for a blow that never came. The development was made even more peculiar by the sound of Acnologia’s frustrated roar.

“What happened?” Sting asked, glancing around to see if Natsu or Atlas had intervened.

“I don’t know, right as that attack was about to hit there was ... I don’t know, something.” Gray said, not knowing how to explain what he’d seen. It was like a shield had manifested out of his chest to stop the blast, but it had felt like Natsu’s magic, not his own. And his mate had been nowhere near him when it happened.

He moved them once again, puzzling about what it could all mean, and wondering if maybe he’d discovered some other magic. He decided to ask Igneel about it.

Do you know what that was?

I’m not sure, but it did feel like Natsu’s magic. Maybe something to do with your pendant? He imbued it with a lot of protection magic and it saved you once before....

Happy circled above the fight once more, looking for any opportunity to swoop in and attack. He’d learned from the last encounter to account for the black dragon’s tail and ensure his opponent was thoroughly distracted this time.

Seeing an opening as an icy crossbow bolt struck deep into the dragon’s side while Natsu’s jaws were clamped on Acnologia’s tail, he dove, landing with all four legs right on the black dragon’s head, driving it under the blanket of fog and into the ground. Happy tried to regain his footing and move clear, but the pain in his legs slowed him down.

The black dragon shook off the stunning blow too quickly and managed to grab one of the young dragon’s legs in his jaws. His powerful neck whipped around and threw Happy at Natsu. They collided with a sickening crunch, and they were both bowled back toward where Atlas and Gray stood.

“Natsu!” Gray cried as he darted forward, almost unseating Sting and Wendy in his haste, the mist flickered and the Dragongard seemed to hesitate in his distress. He noted with some trepidation that Igneel’s control over his limbs was weakening. His mental acuity, however, seemed to be intact.

I know it’s difficult, but you must keep a level head, Gray. If you don’t, all is lost.

I know, I know! I just-, I can’t lose him now.

Trust in him… the key to defeating Acnologia lies within you both. I can feel it.

“I’ve got them! You just focus, damn it!” Atlas scolded, hurrying to check both dragons over. Natsu was fine, but Happy’s legs would need to be tended to. He lifted the small dragon out of the blanket of fog and cast a healing spell, using up what little magic he had left.

Gray glared at Acnologia, who still looked slightly wobbly from the blow to the head. How could the damn bastard be so hard to kill?

“Die already.” He spat out, his frustration mounting as Igneel’s time counted down and his hopes of a quick defeat were dashed over and over again.

He directed his star-eyed warriors to close ranks and form a shield wall to guard their downed teammates, then he leaned down and nuzzled the fire dragon’s head gently.

“Get up, Natsu. Battle’s not done yet,” Gray said while looking his mate over for any severe injuries. Other than minor cuts and missing scales here and there, the only major problem was Natsu’s torn wing sails. There had been no opportunity to remove him from the fight long enough to heal them.

“Y-Yeah yeah, I know. I’m going. It’s just so frustrating. No matter how hard we hit him, it’s never enough to keep him down,”

As he got to his feet, Natsu noticed something strange. Well, stranger than every other strange thing that had happened since Gray had arrived. As Gray’s new dragon body crouched over Natsu, close enough that the red dragon could feel his mate’s icy cool breath on the back of his head, his eyes were drawn to the silver marking on Gray’s chest. He had noticed it earlier, and thought it was beautiful. It reminded him of the token he had given Gray, but what he noticed now was that it was glowing — pulsing as if it were a beating heart — and it seemed to glow even brighter as he drew closer to examine it.

“Princess… what is that?” Natsu whispered as he lifted a claw and touched the silver marking. Upon contact, there was an actinic flash of light, and he reared back in surprise. That surprise was multiplied as he found his claw was drawing a silver colored icy sword out of Gray’s chest, hollowing out the marking until it appeared as only an outline.

The hilt fit perfectly in his draconic grip, as though it were intentionally forged for it, and small motes of starlight swam through the ice of the blade, causing the silver edge to twinkle as wisps of mist curled around it. Natsu regained his footing and rose up onto his back legs as he lifted the sword and gazed at it in dumbfounded wonder.

“Gray… what is this?”

“I’m not sure, but I think it saved us earlier too.”

Natsu examined the sword’s magical signature closely. “It feels like it has both of our magics running through it.”

“Do you think it might be enough?” Gray dared to hope. He could feel Igneel getting weaker, and he knew they were running out of time.

“I don’t know, but I’m sure as hell going to find out,” Natsu readied himself for another charge, hoping against hope that it would be the last one. He was exhausted and knew the others weren’t doing much better. “You think you can give me some cover?”

Gray answered by thickening the existing fog between them and Acnologia, and making it taller.

Atlas took to the air. Given how tired he was, he had no illusions of inflicting any actual damage, but he knew he was one of the few dragons left that Acnologia considered a threat, and he was certainly going to use that to their advantage. All he had to do was distract him long enough for Natsu to get at him.

Natsu advanced on Acnologia, carefully hiding the sword clutched in his claw under the cloak of the fog covering the ground. He watched as the black dragon batted at the star-eyed warriors with a massive tree trunk. It drove them back and held them at bay even as the dragon used the wooden cudgel to parry a series of strikes from Gajeel, then riposte with a swing that sent the iron dragon slayer diving back out of the way.

Atlas roared in challenge and dove towards Acnologia, commanding his attention. Natsu wasted no time in making use of the opening his uncle had provided and made his move.

“Acnologia! Your senseless slaughter ends now.” Natsu challenged the black dragon boldly. “You will not live to see another dragon reaped.”

Acnologia drew back the tree trunk, his gaze darting between Atlas and Natsu. He opted to swing it at Natsu’s head, but the red dragon reared on his hind legs and raised the hidden sword in a parry. The silver edge of the sword bit deep into the wood, and the momentum of the swing split the trunk in two. Acnologia dropped the stump of his cudgel and slashed at Natsu with his claws, and Natsu swung the sword up in a strike that met the black dragon’s arm right at the armpit. There was a crunch and a loud pop, and the dragon’s arm separated from its owner in a gout of blood.

Acnologia’s head reared back with an anguished roar, but moments later, the roar fell off and turned into a gurgling cough. His neck bent curiously, and he stared down at the icy sword embedded hilt deep in his chest.

“What? No… I-I…”

He fell back, causing the sword to slide out of his chest. As it withdrew, it was covered, not in blood, but in a shimmery aura of pale light. Acnologia collapsed to the ground, his head covered by the blanket of fog, but where his chest rose above the mist like an island at sea, the hole in it leaked equal parts blood and pale light. The blood dripped down, but the light coalesced into globes, each of them hovering above the dead dragon for a few moments as they grew.

Gray dispelled his magic, and the fog faded away, revealing the mangled remains of the battlefield.

Natsu turned and walked back to Gray, holding the sword out to his mate reverently, point down. As it neared his chest, the outline of his marking pulsed in time with the light of the sword, and when they touched, the sword disappeared, returning to a silvery marking on the dragon’s chest.

Atlas landed next to them, having collected Rogue and Gajeel from the trench. They all stood together, exhausted but proud, as they watched the globes continuing to pour out of Acnologia’s body. Some of them winked and fizzled out and Natsu took a moment to grieve for them, knowing there would be no Dragon Eyrie for them or even the chance to be reborn. Their existence was over.

He rejoiced to see the number of globes that suddenly raced off in the direction of Drak Aast far outnumbered them. His thoughts immediately went to Weisslogia, hoping that regaining the missing portions of his soul would help the white dragon regain some of the strength he’d lost, and to Belserion, who had selflessly sacrificed his soul so that Natsu might live.

One last globe remained in the sky, glowing softly above them and Natsu felt drawn to it. He instinctively knew this was the missing piece of his father’s soul. The relief he felt at the thought that his parents could now reunite was immeasurable and he watched its trajectory with a smile, expecting to watch it race towards their cave where his father no doubt awaited their return. But rather than do that, it slowly traveled towards them and entered Gray’s body.

Natsu stared at Gray with mounting confusion. Why would his father’s soul enter his mate’s body? Souls were tethered to their earthly vessels. It didn’t make any sense. He turned to Atlas for an explanation, but his uncle wouldn’t meet his gaze.

“Atlas?”

Natsu remembered that deep undertone he’d heard in his soul bond earlier and shook his head, dismissing the thought before it could gain any traction.

No, it couldn’t be.

But as much as he wanted to deny it, things were adding up.

He had grown up around Atlas and his father, listening to them talk about the limits and applications of magic for hours on end. More than once he’d heard them speak of the existence of spells so powerful they required sacrifices from the caster, although it was usually things like life force, like the spell his father had used to transform into a human temporarily.

Wait, did that mean that Gray’s transformation was also temporary? His heart sank. He'd allowed himself to believe that the impossible had somehow come to pass and they could be like this forever. Natsu wanted to ask, but he didn’t want Gray to think he was disappointed, and the truth was he loved him no matter what. That would just have been more convenient.

None of these thoughts were helping him to figure out what was happening, and he was done guessing. He looked at Atlas once again, determined to get answers this time.

“Atlas, what’s going on?”

“Natsu, I-”

“No.” Atlas interrupted Gray. “I’ll tell him. He deserves to hear it from me.”

The dragon slayers whispered amongst themselves, none of them understanding what was happening but feeling the tension in the air.

“Igneel’s gone.” Atlas finally looked up at him, and the pain Natsu saw in his eyes was enough to let him know his uncle was speaking the truth.

“Dad’s gone?”

Natsu felt like he couldn’t breathe. Even if he’d suspected as much, hearing it spoken aloud was more than he could bear. Gray’s worry and grief inundated their bond, and it was then Natsu realized it had felt muted earlier, but he’d been too focused on the fight to notice.

“Once he realized Gray possessed a dragon soul, he became determined to find a way to give you the life he’d always promised you.” Atlas’ usual bluster was nowhere to be seen, and Natsu felt for him too. He couldn’t even imagine how hard it must have been for his uncle to go along with this. “He wanted that more than anything. I tried to find another way but—,” his voice broke as he added, “there just wasn’t enough time.”

Gray had a dragon soul? But how could that be? What would have made his father ever think that?

Natsu shook those thoughts aside, recognizing them for the distractions they were. It was just his mind’s way of distancing him from the pain he didn’t want to accept.

He could see it so clearly now. That invitation to go flying together had been so out of character for his father. Not only that, after a lifetime of avoiding his questions, Igneel had shown him his mother at long last. And then there had been that strange comment about getting Natsu what he needed.

Everything clicked into place then, and he could no longer deny the truth of it. His father had given up his life so that he and Gray could have a chance at a normal life together. It was an incredibly selfless act, but all Natsu could think about at that moment was that if things had gone differently, then he would once again be the reason that his parents were separated.

Except this time it would have been for eternity, and that didn’t sit well with him at all.

“You didn’t need to do that!!” Natsu yelled out in a strangled cry.

“Natsu?” Gray reached out to touch him, but Natsu shook his head, not wanting his comfort, at least not yet.

Of course I didn’t need to, I wanted to.

Igneel’s voice rang in his head a moment before Gray’s body pulsed with a blinding light and his legs buckled underneath him. Natsu moved to help, but before he could do so a beam of light shot out of his mate and into the air. It flickered and coalesced into a semblance of his father.

“I’m so glad I got to see you once more.”

Igneel hovered above them, and although there were many cries of surprise at his sudden appearance, the red dragon only had eyes for Natsu.

His form flickered and flared in the air, making it all too clear that it wouldn’t be long before he was gone for good. But all Natsu could do was stare back in frustration.

How was he supposed to just accept all of this when Igneel had been there for him ever since he could remember? Offering his counsel and showering him with affection when it seemed like there was no one else who understood him.

“Why?” Natsu struggled to find the words he wanted to say, even as the tears began to flow. “You should have told me what you were planning! I could have- I would have-”

“Natsu,” Igneel interrupted, his eyes pleading with him in a way Natsu had never seen before, “There was nothing you could have done. I know this is hard for you to understand, but I needed to do this. Not just for the two of you, but for myself as well. I wanted my life to amount to more than just the sum of my mistakes.”

You’ve always tried to do your best for the ones you love. I think sometimes you forget you deserve to be happy too, and that’s what I wanted to give you.” Igneel’s smile was fond and warm and damn it, it hurt, because Natsu knew this was the last time he’d see it. “Seeing the two of you like this, and knowing how far you both had to grow to get to this point, it makes me so proud of both of you.”

Igneel’s form began to fade and Natsu reached out with his hand, even though he already knew there was nothing there for him to grab hold of. “Please,” he sobbed. “I just want a little more time with you.”

“I’ll always be with you, Natsu, In your heart and in your memories.”

Igneel turned his head suddenly, and when he looked back at Natsu, there were tears in his eyes. “I can hear your mother calling for me.” His voice trembled with the yearning he’d tried to hide for so long. “I can’t wait to tell her all about you. Take care of each other, my sons.”

His last words were barely a whisper as his form flickered one last time before reshaping into a globe and racing skyward. Natsu watched for as long as he could make out its progress, making no effort to stop his tears.

“Thank you, Dad.”

And even as his heart ached, he also felt a sense of peace settle over him. His parents, separated for so long, would once again be free to continue their eternal dance. He felt a tail coiling around his, as an icy wing attempted to envelop him in a tight hug, grounding him and reminding him that despite the enormous loss he’d suffered, he’d also gained something of equal value - a lifetime with his Ice Princess.

A/N: I have mixed feelings about this one, it was by far the hardest chapter to write to date. I'm glad that while Igneel died, he was able to get his fondest wish in the end. He's one of my favorite dragons in the series and I really enjoyed giving him more life than he usually gets. Next chapter they'll finally head home.

I really love what Dein did with Gray's magic. Acnologia was so incredibly overpowered that the only thing that could help defeat him was to neutralize his magic and put them all on an even playing field. Maker magic is so incredibly versatile, and I really enjoyed how Gray used it to create those warriors, which reminded me a bit of both his decoys and of course the weapons he constantly makes in canon.

When I first asked @khaoticvex to design Gray's dragon form (God in like April of 2020) I was blown away by what she came up with. She incorporated all of Gray's magic and elements in his design. One of the things I instantly loved and wanted to do something with was the sword pendant. She had made it into a marking on his chest and that is where a lot of the inspiration for that scene came from. She also included his devil slayer markings which I had not considered using at first, but opened up the possibility for this magic Dein created which we are currently calling NegaMagic as it negates magic. ;)

I hope you enjoy this chapter. Only one left... I'll get to work on it soon. It should hopefully be up on or before August 30th.

#fairy tail #gratsu #the red dragon #the red dragon fanfic #update

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jonathananubian · 4 years

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Te Dralyc Kar Ch 6 [Star Wars Fanfic]

Synopsis:

Jango isn’t quite sure how he came to adopt a blonde slave boy after a job on Tatooine went sideways, but he honestly couldn’t complain. The boy is a little genius, brimming with compassion and a willingness to learn. The only hiccup, as far as Jango is concerned, is the fact that his boy is a naturally powerful force user. Someone the jetii would want to get their hands on.

Of course- he’d just like to see them try.

[This story isn’t linear. More like a series of snapshots. At least until later chapters.]

Chapter 6: Haran

In his secure base on Rorak 4 the red Nikto lounged inside his luxury apartment. The new shipment was already being processed and he could already envision the wealth of credits he’d be swimming in once the sale went through. Sipping at the alcoholic beverage in his hand he leered over the datapad at some of the merchandise. Opening a channel he called down to the guards and ordered them to bring him a specific product from the new shipment. A thrill of anticipation ran through him as he waited.

And waited.

Calling down again he cursed at the guards and demanded to know what was taking so long. But there was no response, only static. An explosion rocked the very foundation of his base and K’tharsin cursed vehemently as he flicked through different channels, trying to contact any of his guards. No one was responding.

Behind him the door to his expensive apartment blew off its hinges and he scrambled toward the panic room he’d had built into the place since day one. From the smoke and haze of debris a whipcord zipped through the air and latched onto his leg. The owner of the whipcord grabbed the end and yanked, hard, slamming the red Nikto into the ground with enough force to daze him.

Storming into the room, fierce like a stalking predator, was a Mandalorian in silver armor with a blue flight suit. Terror swamped K’tharsin as he immediately recognized the famed bounty hunter. “Wait! Please! I-I’ll pay you double whatever the price on my head is!” The Mandalorian stopped, black visor staring down at him coldly. Before he could even think to offer more credits two blaster bolts seared into his skull and three more through his torso.

“Who said anything about credits?” Jango said to no one as he untied his whipcord, turned on his heel, and left the dead Nikto behind.

[Shiona]

Helping Maav load more of the kids into the transport the purple Twi’lek felt her stomach roil in disgust and chest burn with rage. When Jango had come out of nowhere, asking for a favor, she’d punched him in the side of the head before hugging the daylights out of him. They’d heard tales there was a possibility he was alive and had learned about the bounty hunter sharing the name of their lost Mand’alor but hadn’t wanted to believe, in case it was just some trick to draw them out of hiding.

What she learned of the aftermath of Galidraan set her blood to boiling. Now, after years of thinking their king was dead, he returned asking for a favor? There had to be a pretty damn good reason for it.

Lo and behold there was, and his name was Anakin.

The picture Jango showed her was one that had been taken by someone else, a candid shot if ever she’d seen one. The blonde was sitting on Jango’s lap holding up a little flag with a racing logo on it, a wide grin on his face and eyes sparkling with joy. The gentle smile on Jango’s face as he watched his son was enough to make Shiona’s heart melt. It was obvious how much he cared for the boy.

So when he explained that someone had nearly kidnapped him to put him back into slavery, that the one responsible was purposefully targeting kids to sell, she gathered a few of the Haat Mando’ade she’d kept in contact with and got them in on the raid. When they learned they were saving kids from slavery none of them even asked if their was a contract or reward. Kids were precious, regardless of whose kids they were. Not to mention the inherent disgust at slavery in general.

Their reaction to Jango had been a mixed bag of joy, grief, anger, and disbelief but in the end they all accepted that he was, in fact, the Mand’alor- and that their Mand’alor was calling them to action.

No one cared that it was out of revenge for messing with Jango’s son. No one cared that they had been divided for years after Jango’s reported death. The Haat Mando’ade weren’t going to sit back when someone was dealing in kids. Especially if they’d attempted to try and snatch the Mand’alor’s son. That was a very deep and personal offense none of them were about to let slide.

“That’s the last of them, Captain. We’ll meet you at the rendezvous and head toward our destination from there. Safe travels.” Shiona waved the man on and got back into her ship. Maav, seeing she had things well in hand, quickly headed to the cockpit to start up the ship.

“Captain, got a present for you.” Catching the datachip out of the air she looked it over then raised a brow at Zermot, their most talented slicer.

“What’s this?” The man grinned at her.

“Proof.” Her eyebrows rose and she eyed the man curiously.

“Proof of what?” She asked him, fondly exasperated.

“Of why you shouldn’t mess with Mando’ade.” He paused. “And that Jango’s back. Our comrades are going to want proof.” She nodded and slipped the datachip into one of her waist pouches. She knew just the person she could send a copy of whatever Zermot had cooked up.

[Roz]

Watching the scene play out again the pink Toydarian chuckled with dark amusement. Trust Jango to take his revenge in the most daring, competent, and vicious raid anyone had seen in years. It was a neat military operation the likes of which could only be accomplished by a tactical mind and a trained mercenary force. The bounty hunting guilds couldn’t even fault him for it, either. Not only was he freeing enslaved children, which no respectable guild would dare disagree with, but the organization had tried to steal his own child. Roz knew the guild would look the other way on the matter.

“What’s so funny ba’vodu?” Clicking off the video she smiled at the blonde head that was peeking into the room, smudges of grease across a pale forehead and nose.

“Nothing, sweetheart. Just a silly video a friend sent me.” Anakin’s nose scrunched up as he scrutinized her and she smiled. “What are you working on now? I hope you didn’t take apart one of my expensive appliances again without asking.” Blue eyes went wide and darted toward whatever it was before coming back to rest on her.

“Uh… naas. Dar’baati, ba’vodu.” ‘Nothing. Don’t worry, auntie.’ Roz let out a sigh. Jango was going to have to teach the boy how to lie better, he was absolutely abysmal at it. Especially since he always slipped into Mando’a whenever he tried. It was a dead giveaway for anyone who knew him.

“Anakin.” She said sternly. The boy blushed and chewed on his bottom lip.

“Okay, but… you looked really busy and I actually know how to fix it this time! It was leaking anyway and I thought it would be nice to do something for you…” She wanted to be cross with him, she really did, but she just couldn’t bring herself to be. Not when he was trying so earnestly to do something nice for her.

“Fine, I’ll overlook it this time. As long as there’s no mess and it actually works when you’re finished.” A smile like a sunrise crossed his face and he was quickly nodding.

“Lek ba’vodu!” ‘Okay auntie!’ Roz sighed as the boy darted off, he was always so full of energy it was a wonder Jango could keep up with him. She honestly never thought she’d learn to speak Mando’a either and yet here she was helping a little Mandalorian child to learn his basic letters and how to hold simple conversations. It was something she knew Jango had once thought to leave behind him, to keep to himself and never speak about with her, but his son just had a way of bringing hope and light to everything he touched… except for her washing machine. That poor thing looked like it someone had stuffed a frag grenade inside by the time Anakin had finished with it and tried to turn it on.

The comm on her desk chimed and she flew over to answer. “Yes? What is it?” There was a request for docking from five ships, none of them with familiar transponder codes and all of them clearly of Mandalorian make. Roz smiled and granted them access. She had no doubt that Jango wouldn’t be far behind.

“Anakin!” She called. The boy came running into the room, wiping his hands on a greasy rag.

“Yes auntie?” Landing beside him she smiled and ruffled his hair, which made him pout.

“Go get cleaned up, quickly. There are some guests in the hangar and your buir should be right behind them.” Anakin whooped and ran off to get cleaned up, leaving Roz to smile warmly at his retreating back.

[Anakin]

Once he was properly washed and changed into the nice tunics his buir had bought him he followed Auntie Roz to the docks, feeling as if he was going to explode with excitement and joy. He was so happy that his buir was back and if he wasn’t heading straight for the medics it meant he wasn’t hurt! Anakin preferred when his buir came home in one piece, since he hated to see him hurt. It reminded him too much of the last time he saw his mom and then he got all sad and anxious…

When they reached the docks his buir was standing with a group of people, although Anakin didn’t really pay them any mind. He wanted to make sure his buir was there, real and whole. Running as fast as he could, ducking around the workers and other guests, he barreled right into his buir’s side, clinging to him as if he could be taken away at any moment. “Su’cuy buir!” ‘Hi dad!’ His buir let out a chuckle and pried him off, making him pout, before he was being lifted into the man’s arms for a proper hug.

All the conversation stopped and he could feel the curious eyes of the people his dad had been talking to. “Anade, ner ad Anakin.” ‘Everyone, my son Anakin.’ Smiling he waved at the group of armored individuals, staring at their armor in open curiosity and awe. “Anakin, anade.” ‘Anakin, everyone.’ Jango made a few hand motions that Anakin didn’t yet understand, since his buir said he needed to learn Mando’a before he could learn the Tigaan, or Mandalorian Hand Signs. After a moment of hesitation the other Mandalorians removed their helmets, except for one of them. They made a few small hand gestures at at his dad, who nodded respectfully back. The last Mandalorian kept their helmet on.

“Su’cuy gar, anade!” ‘Hello, everybody!’ Anakin said with a wide grin, happy that he could talk to them in Mando’a at least. The first Mandalorian, a purple Twi’lek, smiled at him.

“It’s nice to meet you, An’ika. Your buir told us all about you.” Anakin looked at his dad, eyes wide. His dad just chuckled and ran a hand through his hair to soothe his sudden embarrassment.

“Mand’alor, I’m sorry to interrupt but we need to talk about the ade.” His buir frowned and he could feel his mood turn from content/amused/joy to rage/sadness/determination. Flinching back slightly he looked the man in the eyes for a moment before giving him another hug.

“What are they talking about, buir?” Jango hugged him back, arms protective rather than smothering.

“Remember the hut’uune that took you?” Anakin nodded solemnly, his eyes going hard at the memory. “They took other kids too. We went to rescue them.” Anakin’s eyes widened and he began to shake slightly as he gripped his buir’s armor.

“D-did they have chips too? Can I go see them?” Buir felt hesitant and defensive in the force but his expression became calm and contemplative so he stayed still, almost wanting to hold his breath waiting for the answer.

“You can come with me to see them. But if I think you’re in danger and I tell you to go you will listen to me, An’ika. Tion suvarir?” Yes, he nodded, he understood. Buir set him down and took of his helmet, clipping it to his belt before taking Anakin’s hand.

They had some former slave children to help and Anakin would do his best to make them understand that Mandalorians were nothing to be afraid of. Mando'a Translations; Hut'uune- Cowards Tion suvarir?- Understand?

#fanfic #fanfiction #star wars #mandalorian culture #adoption #mando'a #young anakin skywalker #mandalorian anakin #true mandalorians #mandalorians ocs #rozatta #slavery #past slavery #jango fett #found family #genius anakin

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carrera-ffxiv · 4 years

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Morning Shadows Pt. 4

Click click... clack clack... click click... clack clack… the tapping of his boots were chased by their own echo along the barren walls of the warehouse. A familiar figure knelt in the center of the room, surrounded by recently snuffed candles still faintly smoking in the dark. Wreathed in a cloak of leather and raven feathers as black as a starless sky, she waited until he was deep inside the building before acknowledging his presence; it was like she knew he was coming- like she was waiting in this dreadful place for all this time.

Crimson hair covered the Raen's left eye as she looked up to her former teacher. “Hadriel.” a sweet voice, yet laced with venom. “Such a pleasure to see you once again. Perhaps if I asked kindly, would you step aside?”

The clacking came to an end across from her. “Perhaps. Perhaps once before when I held faith in you. But faith is a gift from the Kami. And their blessing is fickle and their boon has run dry. Rina, perhaps if I asked kindly, you would stand down?” he mirrored her statement.

Rina rose to her feet and let her raven cloak slip from her shoulders to gather behind her feet. She drew a pair of kodachi from behind her hips, yet her corset and leggings were adorned in blades as well. “I will miss you.”

“I understand.” Hadriel responded flatly as his feet shifted a shoulder-width apart. His knees bent slightly and his right hand rested against the hilt of his katana.

Aetheric energies gathered forcefully to the ball of his feet. Between two heartbeats, faster than a blink, the flash of wind assaulted everything nearby once he drew from his sheath. Hadriel dashed forward like a bolt of lightning and aimed to lop Rina’s head off. He was startlingly fast, but she was faster- showering light and sparks across their faces when she parried his lethal strike. “I am no longer your student! You would do well to remember that!" Her graceful footwork let her spin and twirl, sending forth an unrelenting flurry of slashes and stabs. In here, the darkness was not Hadriel’s ally, for he was hard-pressed in parrying the blow from two weapons at the same time. Half-blinded by the constant flashing of light from their blades, he was forced on the defensive as she moved aggressively, pushing him back yalm by yalm.

She had been using the technique Hadriel started with- quick-stepping with aetherial energies to match his movement. Her left eye glowed a dazzling blue hue as she read Hadriel’s aether. Every time his flow adjusted she in turn adjusted her movement to stay one step ahead. Clash after clash, each strike met with parry as Rina stepped circles around him; it was an elegant dance of ringing blades and flashing steel.

S’era watched the tense but beautiful exchange from afar, her teal and blue eyes shimmering in the pitch black. It seemed almost as if Hadriel and Rina were performing more of a waltz than a duel, yet the tone soured and changed once Hadriel was pushed back. She held the superior eye when it came to reading aether and it bled through in their traded blows. He took the first chance he had to go on the offensive, but his katana struck nothing but dust and shadow; she had vanished into the dark, but he knew she wasn’t far. In that instant Hadriel posed a question between ragged breaths: “You’ve forced my hand Rina… why are you doing this?” he demanded, slipping his katana back into its sheath- yet his hand still remained on the hilt, ready to draw and strike with an iai technique.

She answered with only laughter bouncing off the walls and shapeless shadows. It was impossible to find her with the naked eye, but scanning his surroundings for her aether proved fruitless as well. Hadriel closed his eye and focused, following the echoes of her voice, awaiting her ambush. Then he saw her silhouette- standing along the rafter high above him. She didn’t yield an ilm while he spoke; her hands and fingers slammed together in silence, but watching her aether let him recognize the imminent danger in time- she was performing a series of mudra! “Katon!” The darkness fled before the blinding glare of surging flame! Rina would ignite the air in this warehouse to blanket the area in fire, affording him no escape!

Yet with his hands now free, Hadriel performed a mudra of his own. “Suiton.” When he touched his hilt again, his sheath dripped with seething fog and creeping frost. Rina could see the aether flow inside his body gather around his dominant arm, but it was too late to stop him. “Tenka Goken.” Out from his swinging blade came blades of ice and water, with expert twirls of his wrists Hadriel spun and flourished his katana around his body; blades of water sliced through the air and sharp metal sang the hum of subtle vibrations. The immediate fusion of a torrent of water against an overwhelming flame caused a steam explosion, catching her off guard, ripping her from the shattered rafters, and sending her to the ground- hard.

“They’re reading each other’s aether- that’s how they’re able to guard and parry so fast… look at her left eye… she couldn’t dodge that last one because that explosion wasn’t magic- the catalyst was, but the explosion was rooted in a thermal reaction based on elements in nature. Basically he just attacked her with thermochemistry…” K’vyna whispered to S’era while they remained on the sidelines- which she was thankful for seeing as she had burned through all her mana and stamina beside. S’era pretended to listen to her, but she was still awestruck at her mentor’s skill.

Seeing her sprawled across the ground in a steaming puddle of water and dying embers gave him enough pause to stop himself from finishing her off. “Feel like talking now...?” Hadriel asked, resheathing his sword; though it wasn’t an act of confidence or certainty of outcome, rather it was the opposite- he showed his opponent the respect they deserved by going all-out, and he was preparing to strike from the sheath again. The flames pushed aside from his watery counterattack still splashed along the ground and walls, bathing her broken form in a soft orange light. Yet this building was old, and remarkably flammable; it wouldn’t be long before the gluttonous embers devoured the warehouse and stripped it down to its stone foundation.

Rina picked herself up off the ground, burns riddled her arms and the left one hung limp. Blood trickled down slowly from her forehead, running between her unblinking stare to get caught by her tongue sliding across her upper lip. For someone so injured, she seemed unusually unfazed- her hand tempered with calm and her mind reanalyzing the situation. He hadn’t underestimated her, she had underestimated him. She placed the handle of the kodachi in between her red stained teeth, grabbing the second one with her good arm. Hadriel had hoped to have knocked some of the spirit out of her, but her gaze remained resolute. Her visage spoke of a determination to see this fight to the bitter end. A warrior’s soul; she would not back down.

His voice grew soft, almost pleading, “Rina… please.”

Her assault resumed unabated. Their steel once again collided and clashed, creating flashes of light from their exchanges. With her broken arm now useless in this fight, he knew he could outlast her in this vicious stalemate. Darkness was her ally, but the dark was now gone, allowing him to adjust and endure the battle rhythm she had established. Seconds passed like minutes, and despite slowly gaining the advantage, Hadriel slowly began to realize that he had made a fatal mistake. Pieces started to fall into place as he started to figure out what was so off about the flow of the fight. The drugs that were peddled disrupted and dissipated the aether of its victims- but where did that excess of aether go? The pendant on her chest grew brighter and brighter as it drew from unseen reservoirs. Her attacks continued with renewed vigor and strength every time they reengaged. She danced about his katana, flipping and dodging ever so lightly as the blade grazed or kissed her flesh but never finding purchase.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity to them both, one of their strikes found their mark. His blade held against the one in her grip, the other found its guard against his torso. Hadriel flung her sword wide with his, then moved to bash her head with the end of his hilt when she executed a quick backstep to gain distance a few fulms.

Blood spattered as he pulled the blade from his person and flung it to a far-off corner, then spit even more against the ground. He held his blade steady, ready to engage once again. She continued her unmitigated violence- seemingly gaining speed with each moment. Now even with one kodachi she seemed just as threatening as she had initially with two blades and no injuries. All the while Hadriel’s movements slowed noticeably. At first what had been deft deflections and parries seemed to gradually degrade into desperate attempts at warding off fatal blows.

She had bided her time for this moment and her patience had paid off. Finally, an opening presented itself after whittling away at his defense, draining what strength he had remained. Schlunk. A straight path and direct hit to his torso was afforded to her. For the first time since their reunion Rina’s posture broke and her hand began to tremble. “I…” her voice shattered in kind, her last words for him would be in the Doman tongue, “Sumimasen… sensei.” The sound of his katana falling to the floor rang throughout the structure.

Hadriel reached to embrace her yet his grip felt violent. In the moment Rina had accepted this gesture as a sign of desperation, and perhaps sorrow, until immense pain wracked her being and her own vital flow down her body. He had taken advantage of the situation to bite viciously at her neck and tear her flesh. Her eyes grew desperate while she staggered backwards, her only functioning hand cradling the wound by her throat in an attempt to stifle the bleeding. She fell to a knee, trying to reassess the situation as quickly as she could.

He spoke between labored breaths, “Thought I… taught you… to keep your guard up... until the very end.” A smirk wore on his features as he grabbed at the blade in his stomach, “It was only a matter of moving ever so slightly… for you to miss my vital organs… I thought you would’ve noticed.” Rather than leave the blade in to slow the bleeding, he drew it from his own gut vigorously as a shadowy figure erupted from the darkness. An odachi made of dark energies stemmed from a small staff as Carrera’s figure coalesced from shadow. Her eastern greatsword formed of dark magics aimed to split Rina’s head from her body yet was held at bay by the blade Hadriel pulled.

“The deal was that you help me kill her.” Carrera spoke hatefully.

“I would never... abandon... one of my students... so easily.” Hadriel huffed out.

“You grew a conscience now? You who butchered countless lives more than any of us?” Carrera seemed perturbed.

During their exchange Rina managed to gain hold of the katana Hadriel had dropped and sparked their two swords apart.

“H…-how dare you…” her focus seemed on Hadriel alone, “Don’t act like some heroic knight now… you left me to fend for myself while you went on your journey for revenge. You’re disgusting.” All three had gained some distance from the others.

Rina appeared frustrated- she had burned through the excess aether she had stolen from the victims of her grand plan to fight against Hadriel, “You who were once called the Wolf of Yanxia, have you forgotten what was done to my family? Our village?” she was holding the hilt of the blade while still trying to press her fingers against the gushing blood from her neck. “I… I needed this power to finally get revenge!” she coughed up blood as she exclaimed, “You forsook your title and gave up everything to track your prey across continents- and you gave me inspiration to do the same… and yet when I did… you stand here after taking away any hope of vengeance from me, after having gotten yours, and then you dare to play at being my savior!? No… as my last act- I will kill you both.”

Carrera’s face fell flat and her odachi formed with dark aether was held at the ready as she stared the other woman down. Her left eye shifted from a glowing crimson to a brilliant blue for but a moment before the glamour restored itself. Each of the executives seemed to carry with them that same eye. In the end Carrera was unimpressed and unmoved- her voice bore a dark intensity; “I, Carrera Blackheart of the Seventh Seat do hereby declare your life forfeit, Rina Inoue.”

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yourfaveisyanderematic · 5 years

Text

Russian Roulette

WARNING: The reader is threatened with probability. Also, descriptions of gore.

Suppose you were sitting at a table with a man who loads two bullets into a revolver side by side. He spins the cylinder once, twice, three times, points it at your forehead—that little spot between your eyebrows that aches when you’re frowning—then pulls the trigger.

Click.

He congratulates you on your luck, and then informs you he’s going to pull a second time. If you survive, you win. He gives you the option to ask him to spin the cylinder once more before this next pull.

Should you?

“Mista, I—“

“It’s a yes or no question, sweetheart,” the man cut you off, twirling the gun around his fingers. The ease in which he did so, the casual way he talked, could have easily fooled you into thinking this was just a hypothetical, a harmless thought exercise people toyed with when they wanted to imagine how it would feel to be daring.

It would have, anyway, had you not just watched him load two very real rounds into his very real gun, point it at you and pull the trigger.

You weren’t restrained to your chair or anything, but there wasn’t any point in bolting; the kitchen table separated you from Mista, and he separated you from the door. Though he lounged in his seat, balancing the gun in one finger so he could adjust the sleeves of his crop top with the others, the look he gave you—a tiger deliberating when to move in for the kill—told you all you needed to know about what he’d do if you tried anything. You realized you were hyperventilating, still trembling with adrenaline from what just happened, and forced yourself to take a deep breath. The room was dead silent as he waited.

Light glinted off the barrel of the revolver (so lovingly polished), but you couldn’t make yourself look away from his eyes. It was incredible, really, how the goofy, loving boyfriend you knew had completely vanished, as if a switch had been flipped, leaving only a hardened gunman who wouldn’t be moved by your words or tears.

“Mista, I’m sorry,” you choked on the words, amazed you hadn’t managed to start crying yet. You weren’t saying them just because you were at gunpoint, you really did feel shame—the niggling doubt you’d buried all these weeks, of this is wrong and you should tell him, surged forward into poisonous, all-consuming regret. He was so sincere, though, and seemed to take your sweet nothings at face value, that there really seemed to be no way to break it to him, to admit what you had been doing all this time. It seemed so much easier to just play along and enjoy what you had, even if its foundation was a lie, that you were really only with him to keep your family from drowning in Mafia debt.

Here’s the thing about Russian Roulette, though: you don’t start playing it without accepting the fact that you might end up eating the bullet.

Mista sauntered closer, never once letting the barrel of the gun stray from your face, past the table to where you sat. His free hand grazed the side of your face in an almost-caress as he raised his leg to slide into your lap. If this were a game, you would have enjoyed the sensation of lean muscle, the warmth of his body so close to yours, but all you could feel was raw and mind-numbing terror as cold steel rested gently against your lips.

“I’m gonna assume your final answer is to pull again, without spinning,” he said, barely above a whisper, and when you looked into his eyes you saw that they were deep and completely void of remorse or pity. The barrel pressed against your pursed lips, and you could actually feel the metal start to slip past and knock against your clenched teeth. Your shaking hands came up to his waist—maybe to push him off, maybe to hold him close, you had no idea what you were doing. If he noticed, he didn’t respond, just stroked the line of your jaw with his free hand before it held your head in place.

“C’mon, you like playing games, right? Give it a kiss.” The angle changed as he moved his hand to press the gun against your mouth, harder this time, and you were already leaned back as far as the chair would allow. There was nowhere for you to go, with the weight of his body on yours, and nothing else you could do, so you opened your mouth just enough to allow the barrel to slide past your teeth.

Mista pressed the gun further and further, forcing your mouth open wider until you were practically kissing the cylinder. Something hot dripped past your cheek, falling onto the flesh of his free hand, and you belatedly realized you were crying. Your breathing had gone funny, a stuttering sob that made your head tremble and teeth rattle against the metal, but his had remained steady, slow and deep, as he watched every twitch you made with a detached, almost scientific fascination.

“Don’t bite down, now, mind the teeth.” he said, chuckling a little at the inarticulate whine you gave in response. Almost teasingly, he pulled the gun back an inch or so and then pushed it in again, letting it graze the roof of your mouth before angling it towards the back of your throat, a sensation that would have tickled if you weren’t on the edge of hysterics.

“Wrong answer, by the way,” was the next thing you heard, and before your mind could properly register the words you felt him pull the trigger.

The blast echoed through your skull, the sound of a thousand mirrors shattering at once, somehow simultaneously deafening and muted in the too-small space of your head.

Several seconds passed, seconds where all you could register was the blindingly bright light overhead, before you realized you weren’t dead. Slowly, as if in a dream, you felt yourself raise a shaking hand to cup your left cheek and the hot wetness coursing down the side of your face, unable to pull away from the painful burning in the roof of your mouth. More pain was coming, but it was almost peripheral, masked by the numbing adrenaline that made your legs tremble under Mista’s weight in the useless, desperate instinct to run, to flee the danger it hadn’t realized already passed.

You still couldn’t look away from his eyes. You barely registered that his face had relaxed, just slightly, from the hardened neutrality of a killer to the too-casual calmness he displayed before, as your fingers danced around the edge of the blood freely flowing down your face, searching for the wound but too afraid to actually touch it, to make it reality.

Somehow—it was too insane to be a miracle, but you felt every millimeter of that gun between your lips and knew it couldn’t possibly have moved—the bullet had changed angle, and instead of going through the back of your skull exited your cheek instead, leaving your face almost completely intact, and leaving your life entirely in your boyfriend’s hands.

Calloused fingers came over your own—he must have set the gun down while you were still in a daze—pressing down and forcing you to feel the ragged, tiny hole in your cheek. A distant but hysterical part of you was thankful he’d chosen to use a relatively small caliber just now.

“I like to think I’m a pure-love kinda guy,” Mista’s words forced you to return to the moment. You felt unfamiliar, hot pain tear at your cheek, pulsing in time with your heartbeat and threatening to bloom into full-blown agony, “but I’m fine with making this relationship whatever you want it to be. You want everything to be a transaction? Make this all about what we can get out of each other? That’s cool, that’s cool.”

I’m sorry I’m sorry I didn’t want to let me go please forgive me let me go—

“We’ll call the hole in your cheek a down payment,” he continued dabbing at your face with his sleeve, “and what I’m doing right now? That’s your last gift. You can get painkillers, I can get you patched up…but how are you going to buy them from me? Hmm?”

He pressed his forehead to yours, staring deeply into your eyes. You blinked a few times in response, furiously, trying to stop your vision from blurring with tears. Carefully, almost delicately, you moved your chin forward a little, meeting his lips in a kiss. You watched his eyes close as he leaned into it, slightly, and then more, letting his warm tongue slip in and chase the memory of cold metal from your lips.

After a moment, he pulled back again, and the smile on his face was much more genuine.

“That’s a start,” he smiled, “that’ll buy you a needle and thread. We’ll work out how much it’ll cost you to go out after this later.”

As he got up, rummaging through a nearby drawer for the first-aid kit, you wondered with a sense of faraway dread whether or not he should have let the bullet kill you after all.

#yandere jjba #yandere x reader #guido mista #by me #fun fact: Mista's kinda-wrong here #If you find yourself in this situation you have a 75% chance of surviving if you pull without another spin #vs a 66% chance if you spin again #but I figure a guy like him would know exactly where the bullets are and when #Math! It's terrible!#You want to re-spin every time if the bullets are not in adjacent chambers #66% vs about 60%#I didn't do this math on my own I'm too gay I looked at a blog talking about probability #yandere mista

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yuri-cocaine · 4 years

Text

riding home

She wakes up in her room. It feels like pulling a net from the sea.

Miss Yun left so many messages lately, each one getting more and more panicked. “Use the crystal I have sent you and remember everything while holding it,” one said. “Follow Vision One’s instructions and use the tomestone,” another said.

Ai wakes up, and pain tears through her head. Adrenaline floods her limbs, her heart thrashes against her ribs, and every piece of her is screaming, screaming, sceaming.

[Termination protocols enacted.]

[Targets are at—]

No. No. No.

Ai thinks she still has time. Just a little more time in the Sandsea, in the library, in the garden, at the bar with the orchestrion playing her favorite songs, at the markets with her friends. She thinks she still has a little more time to make more friends with the other Riskbreakers, and hear about their adventures in Dalmasca. She thinks she can still live.

[Commencing termination protocols at--]

Ai gasps, grasping at her table. It tips over and she goes down with it, papers and inkwell and medicines flying across the rug. Static roars in her ears. Her blood is alight.

Thank you, Ai writes. Her fingers are dripping with ink.

Thank you for being my friends.

The past few moons had been filled with dizziness and nausea and weakness, but now her body burns as if her sickness was never there. Ai leaves the Sandsea at daybreak, her feet carrying her to a shaded alley in the Goblet. The equipment team is there. How does she know that? Information slides into her mind. Everything is tangled, jumbled.

[Equipment team deployed to coordinates x: 11:6 y: 7.4. Retrieve gear and—]

The team consists of two trembling men and a stony faced woman holding a crate. They give her a standard-issue gunblade, a standard issue tactical jacket, and a visor. As Ai marches towards Drybone, she thinks that the visor looks a lot like a black blindfold. It’s the kind prisoners wear as they are executed. She tightens it over her face, and presses into its softness.

Subject B10 is a Hellsguard Roegadyn. Subject B12 is a Seeker of the Sun Miqo’te. How did she never know they lived in the Golden Bazaar all this time, building an inn for miners? Ai could have visited them. They could have been friends.

B10 whistles a little song as he puts on a helmet and grabs his toolbox. The foundation for the inn is done, and now they are moving onto building support beams for the walls and ceiling. Ai recognizes the song he is whistling. It’s the song they play for the egg festival. A lot of the Riskbreakers find it annoying, but she likes it. She wants to tell B10 she likes his whistling.

Ai lunges forward, and cleanly slashes B10’s throat open. He collapses, gurgling. His golden eyes are blank, looking at her and looking at nothing. He didn’t even have time to be surprised.

The toolbox crashes to the floor. A screwdriver rolls out and stops at the front step of the little house he left. B12 opens the wooden door and peers outside, curious.

“Diving Falcon? Did you drop—what?”

B12 looks healthy, just as B10 did. They have not reached their deterioration stage yet. Now, she looks at Ai, recognition briefly flickering across her face. Ai leaps, impaling the blade into B12’s stomach as she covers B12’s shriek.

There is so much blood. It stinks of rust. Their blood is red, despite being so inundated with aetherochemicals in their creation. Their blood pools and flows and stinks.

In a few hours, in the soft morning hours, a few Golden Bazaar residents will find B10 and B12’s bodies. News of Diving Falcon and O’lamana being murdered will be everywhere for a while, with people wondering why a quiet couple from nowhere would be killed like this. They would be buried at the nearby lichyard, and their co-workers will leave flowers, and then they will be forgotten.

[Sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m sorry I’m sorry I ‘m ssss orry S O rr y]

[Targets at]

[Location specified]

She wants to rest. Her feet hurt so badly. Static roars and roars. She imagines eating pastries at a snowy marketplace with a girl with a gap tooth. She is so tired.

In Castrum Oriens, a few imperial guards captured from the Alliance’s siege on Castrum Abania are held in custody awaiting trial. They used to be security guards for one of the laboratories, and their biggest worries used to be who got graveyard shift and whether Triple Triad was scheduled for afternoon or evening. At least they won’t be executed, they think. Say what you will about these savages, they at least knew mercy.

One of the old guards notices a swift shadow outside, and he sits up on his cot. He nudges his cellmate awake.

“I think our meals are here,” he says.

Ai plunges her blade into his head, bone and brains crunching. The other guard stumbles to his feet and opens his mouth to shout, but she cleanly decapitates him. He is frozen in a silent shout on the floor.

Ai flees into the woods, across the Velodyna, and picks her way across the rock and scree towards Rhalgr’s Reach. Her lungs are burning. At one point she staggers and retches, just outside the gaol, and when a Resistance guard comes to ask if she’s all right, she stabs him and leaves him writhing on the floor.

At Rhalgr’s Reach, Ai accidentally makes a mess. She is unable to pick the locks on the cells, so she blows the bars apart with fire spells and runs her targets through with her blood-caked blade. Resistance fighters pile in, demanding her to freeze, but she fights through them screaming and snarling. An arrow lodges in her shoulder, but she rips it out and kicks the archer to the ground. Ai coughs great heaving coughs and sags against the wall, and four people grab her, but she bucks and twists and bites before a surge of strength bolts through her and she throws them off.

M’naago sees Ai run towards the exit to the Peaks, and she fires three shots. Despite her ragged, limping form, Ai cuts the arrows out of the air with ease. Her clothes are torn and her hair is matter with blood and viscera and her face is cut and bleeding. She is shaking, barely standing, but M’naago swallows her confusion and looses another arrow.

M’naago misses. Ai escapes into the mountains.

Where is Anko? Where is her sister? She hasn’t seen her in her dreams in so, so long. Did Anko grow tired of her? Maybe she doesn’t love her anymore?

[Targets at]

Where is she? The rocky slopes here seem familiar. The sky is so blue. The wind blows hot and dry. Maybe she is in Thanalan. She is going home to the Sandsea, where she has invited Miss Saehild and Miss One to come over and visit. Ai hopes they like the Sandsea.

Her vision blurs and the world spins, but she is pulled forward. The static finally quiets, but now everything is muffled. Ai limps onward.

Where is the Sandsea? Isn’t it supposed to be nearby? Did they move? Did they forget about her and left her behind?

No. They wouldn’t do that. Ai loves her friends, and her friends love her. Just a little further, and she can go home.

#ai #my writing #cw: gore

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crackinglamb · 5 years

Text

Fluff-uary Prompt 29 - Bonus Fluff

(DA - Hawke/Varric)

Hawke literally fell out of the Fade.

Solas had told her to focus on what she wanted, and so she had. She didn't know how long she'd traveled, or how far – was measurable distance even a thing in the Fade? – but she'd finally gotten to a spot where the Veil was thin. The Old Song swelled in her mind, drowning out everything else. She pressed her hand and the crossbow bolt she'd never let go of into the place where the Song was loudest, forcing her way through. For a moment she'd been in freefall, weightless but shifting, and then she'd been on pavement in the dark of night.

She landed on her knees and vomited bile before she was able to look up and see where she was. It was hard to tell in the gloom. Tendrils of fog curled around the foundation of buildings and obscured roads and for a moment she froze, her first instinct to think that she was still in the Fade. She shook her head and looked again; the fog wasn't green. She'd had enough of green fog to last her several lifetimes. She knew she was in Kirkwall, she could hear the chains in the harbor. She got up and stumbled down alleys and streets, eventually turning a corner that her feet hadn't forgotten even though she still didn't know where she was on a conscious level. She sank to her knees once more and she laughed, the sound coming out more like sobs.

The swinging sign of the Hanged Man hadn't changed, although the building had. It was raining, and she lifted her face to it, letting it wash her clean from however long she'd been stuck there, battling for her life and her wits. She opened her mouth to the rain, drinking in the sweet simple taste of skyborne water.

The door to the tavern opened. The sound of her cackling must have drawn the attention of the crowd inside. She wondered...

“Demon!” Varric snapped, pointing Bianca at her. She stayed on her knees, looking him over. He looked awful. Not so much in how he was dressed – which was far richer than she'd ever seen – but in his face. He looked haggard and exhausted, with deep lines between his brows that hadn't been there before. He looked older.

He looked like he'd mourned her for far too long.

“How long has it been?” she asked. Time and distance might have no meaning inside the Fade, but that didn't translate to how much was passing outside of it. She knew at least on some level that it had been long enough for Solas to put his plans into motion. Not that she even knew what they were. Just that the elf was no longer just an elf. Getting sidetracked, Hawke. “Varric, how long?”

“Do not call me by my name, demon,” he spat, still holding Bianca aimed at her face. “You can't fool me, Hawke is dead.”

“No...” she whispered. She hadn't considered this. Well, she had, but only briefly before she'd been stuck in another fight for her life with the denizens of the far side before finally getting herself somewhere 'safe'. “My name is Carmilla Marian Hawke. I've always hated it because it was too high class and girly,” she went on, almost desperately, seeing him still stare at her in revulsion and fear. She paused for breath, wondering what possible thing she could say that only they two would have known. “The first thing you said to me was 'how do you do' and you were twirling a bolt on your fingers like a showoff. You'd stopped a pickpocket for me. You clocked him. Varric, please...it's me. It's really me.”

Bianca dipped but didn't fall completely in his hands. A crowd had gathered around him, standing well clear of his line of fire. He was still staring at her, but the expression had fallen flat into shock. He cleared his throat and finally spoke. “Right hand or left?”

“What?”

“Right hand or left. How did I clock him?”

“Milord...?” one of the onlookers asked softly, as if he too couldn't understand why that was important.

Hawke's eyes widened and she surged to her feet, ignoring the dizziness that had set in once her body realized she wasn't just a figment of her own imagination. “Maker damn you for a nug wrangler! When did you start cashing in on that Merchant Prince bullshit? And it was a left hook, you ambidextrous son of a...dwarf.”

He wasn't looking at her face now. He was staring at her hand. She held up the bolt and let him see it, dulled from use, ragged at the ends where she'd constantly carried it. That wasn't the only thing he was looking at. A tendril of bright blue traced along the length of her middle finger from the tip, spreading out to cover her palm in etched lines and crooked angles. It looked almost exactly like a vein of raw lyrium, as indeed it was a lyrium mark. She'd never been a mage, even though the magic ran strong in her family, but through trial and error she had learned she could make things real, a useful tool in the Fade where so much was not. Her first meeting with Solas had anchored it firmly into the fiber of her being, and now it would never leave her.

The transition from angry to awed in Varric's eyes started slow, so slow she nearly missed it. Then he was laughing and Bianca slid behind his back into her holster. And then his hands were on her face, pulling her back to her knees, cradling her cheek as rain washed down on them both. “Hawke? My Hawke?”

“Varric, tell me, please. How long has it been?” She leaned into his touch, never forgotten, no matter how much had happened since the last time his hand caressed her face.

“Five years, Cara. It's been five years since we left you in the Fade.”

She closed her eyes, feeling the years she'd missed. No wonder Solas was surprised that she had still been there when she saw him, just...just a while ago. No wonder she could hear the Song so strongly, when most people didn't hear it at all. She'd known that lyrium passed between both sides, and stayed close to it when she could in her endless searching for a place the Veil was thin. She knew it had changed her. And now it had brought her home, no matter how long it had taken. Just like he said it would.

When she opened her eyes again, she put any thought of the elvhen mage god out of her mind and smiled at her dwarf. Varric hadn't gone on without her, it seemed. She lifted a trembling hand and covered his against her cheek. So much time had passed. Were they even still the same people as before? Would her Templar-like abilities scare him away? After everything that had happened to him, he was not likely to be much of a fan.

“My lord Viscount,” another voice said, breaking the perfect silence of the moment. “Should we not still test her...er...I mean to say...she could still be a demon...”

Varric tossed a scowl over his shoulder and the crowd shrank back from him. “I know this woman. She is the Champion of Kirkwall.” He looked back to her, his eyes twinkling now in the spilled light from the Hanged Man. “And she's mine.”

He kissed her then, in front of them all and the years and miles shed off her like the rain pouring off her shoulders, inconsequential and irrelevant. His breath warmed her face and his touch made her feel solid. She could have stayed there in the rain forever as long as he was kissing her, his presence filling her with the Song, grounding her in what was true.

When he finally drew back, she smirked at him, a flicker of the old Hawke coming through. “So...Viscount?”

He smirked back and while at first it seemed unfamiliar to his facial muscles, they remembered at last and it looked more natural. Her trusty dwarf. Storyteller. Rogue. Love of her life. “Yeah. Shit, you've missed a lot. Hey, you wanna take a shot at being a Viscountess?”

Something grew in her, something warm and golden that spread through her limbs like fire, like healing. The Song flared in her head, then fell soft, whispering from the corners. She realized she knew more than he thought she did, and passed a final thought for Solas...Fen'Harel. She might know more than Varric now.

No time to waste, she thought. He said for whatever time remained. She stood up, shaking the rain from her eyes. “Little Tethrases,” she whispered aloud, seeing Varric's faint smile echo her own. She could make that happen now, couldn't she? “You're on, Varric. As soon as you buy me dinner. And a drink or ten.”

“I can do that.” He took her hand in his. “What happened to your hair?”

She huffed lightly, the mundane question so beyond funny that she almost didn't know how to reply. She touched the roughly shorn ends. Felt like an hour ago. A year. A century. Maybe just a few seconds. “I cut it off. It's a long story.”

“Well, we've got time.”

She followed him into the Hanged Man without answering. Somewhere out there her friend was hurting, too many of her friends were hurting. The wolf still counted among the sheep. But that was for later. Now was for them.

(Notes on this ending can be read on the ao3 posting here)

#FLUFF-uary 2020 #dragon age #hawke/varric

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