#Seems to really give him an edge (the magic powers are separate from the transformation) and likes the initial transformation (where he is

[trans-leek-cookie]

Do you think that the little mermaid would be jealous of Gerard? She gave up her tail and her voice (we can assume) to live on land and it's likely she, because of the original myth, is in pain A Lot because of her transformation. And Gerard may hate being a frog (which like Yeah. It does suck and there a lot of trauma and powerlessness he associates with his current transformation I'd bet) but he gets to go on land and walk around while she can't go home and even if she can live on land it's Hard. Y'know?

[yannowhatigiveup]

My One And Only - Chapter 18

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Hey! Welcome back to another chapter of MOaO! I won’t be able to update this as much as I want to (I’m not really updating it as fast as I won’t to right now but I’m trying) as exams are coming up as well as other various things. (I just realized that I haven’t said this earlier I’m so sorry, Ramadan Kareem to those who celebrate it!) Also, thank you so much for 128 followers!

"...I believe I found a way to subdue Hawkmoth"

————————————————————

Her eyes repeatedly scanned the page, making sure she was reading it correctly.

"It won't defeat Hawkmoth" Damian carefully pointed out, not wanting to diminish her excitement. "But it'll be able to stop him for some time, a month or two at most"

"Do you know what this means?" Her voice was barely above a whisper. "We'll be able to have some peace of mind! We'll be able to prepare ourselves! The whole of Paris! Who know, maybe we'll be able to get some clues on his identity as well as Mayura's as well!"

By the end, Marinette was spinning around the room, her slight giggles of happiness appeared here and there. Damian chuckled at her delight, seeing her happy was probably one of his most favourite sites in the world, that and seeing her flustered.

"I understand that you're excited but what do these cryptic messages mean, 'a tear of joy'? Did I translate that correctly"

She giggled at his confusion. "No that's one of the ingredients for the power up. Speaking of ingredients, I need to get some" Her bluebell eyes quickly scanned over the tablet again before she speed walked out of the hotel with Damian on her arm. "We're going to Master Fu's old place, he still has some ingredients we could use"

The two walked in silence, there was a topic that they needed to discuss, the end of the week was approaching fast.

"Maybe in the small time of peace, I can get Father and my brothers to help"

The bluenette chuckled slightly but not out of amusement. "I almost forgot, you'll be leaving in a few days" her gaze fell to the ground before she looked up at her boyfriend, solemnly. "It's gonna be a lot different, huh?"

He squeezed her hand gently with a comforting smile on his face. "It will be but I'm sure we'll handle it"

The couple grabbed the necessary ingredients and made their way back to the hotel. They dropped them off at the hotel room before making their way upper to the restaurant to get some food. Their dinner was quickly interrupted by a rockstar coming to congratulate his niece.

"Nettie! You're rock'n'roll! Your song is a huge hit!" Jagged exclaimed once he reached the table, he only seemed to register there was another person there once he sat down. His moderate cyan eyes widened in recognition when his gaze landed on the green-eyed boy. "You must be Damian, you look just like you're old man Brucie"

Damian shook his hand when the rockstar had offered it. "I am, Mr Stone"

"Uncle Jagged-"

"You break my niece's heart, I'll send Fang to eat you"

"Uncle Jagged!-"

"And I will gladly let you"

"I approve of your relationship, I just wanted to give the shovel talk since it sounded fun"

Marinette gaped at the two males on her table. "Dami, don't encourage him! I've already got Gami waiting to spar with you"

"Ah yes, my son's girlfriend is just as scary as Penny" Jagged visibly shuddered in good nature.

"Wait, Luka and Gami got together? Without telling me?!" The bluenette huffed, offended. "And to think I'm his honorary cousin"

Jagged chortled at her reaction while Damian had a faint smile playing on his lips. The rockstar decided to take his leave shortly after that, not wanting to draw some unwanted attention. He did manage to leave a pair of blushing teens as he told them to "Use protection!" before departing. Marinette was utterly embarrassed while Damian was flustered. Once dinner was finished, the couple went back to Damian's hotel room to discuss what they were going to do next.

Doing his best to help, Damian passed the ingredients to his girlfriend who then mixed up said ingredients in a pot.

"Can you get the Tear of Joy, Dami?"

The green-eyed boy looked through the ingredients until he found the slim bottle with a minuscule amount of clear liquid. He eyed the water as it squished in the bottle, it seemed so ordinary despite the great magic it could create. Damian could almost see the water taunting him with its mystic properties, he could just about feel it as he brought the bottle closer to the cauldron.

"This is it, correct?" The ravenette showed the blue-eyed girl the bottle in his hand

Her eyes lit up when presented with the vial. "Yes, that's it" As she removed the cork that was sealing the bottle shut, Damian asked a question that was lingering in the back of his mind.

"What exactly is the tear of joy?"

Marinette turned to smile at him. "It's a tear of joy"

"So a tear caused by laughter?"

"Precisely" She looked up at the ceiling wistfully. "I remember, when Syren attacked, Master Fu was trying to decode what a 'tear of joy' was. It took some time but we managed to figure it out in the end" She sighed. "It's great that we managed to find out about 'power-ups' but if we found out about them sooner, maybe more people would've been saved."

He put his hands comfortably on her shoulders. "What did Syren do exactly?"

She stopped dead in her tracks. That wasn't the reaction that Damian was expecting, whatever had happened with this Akuma must have been bad to induce this response.

The bluenette sighed and looked at the green-eyed boy straight into his emerald eyes. "Syren was one of the most dangerous Akumas we've ever had to deal with. She flooded all of Paris with her tears, only a few hundred people managed to reach the rooftops in time"

A breath quickly sucked in through his lips, the scene itself sounded horrible, imagining it even more so, having to actually see it must have been... traumatic.

"But Ondine is doing much better with Kim. And it's all in the past, we've learnt how to deal with the memories!" Her smile hurt to look at. His girlfriend had to deal with so much and she couldn't even express her negativity without fear of becoming an akuma. Damian placed a kiss on her head as she finally got the lid off of the bottle.

Both teens watched in anticipation as the droplet rolled down to the bottle's lip, teetering over the edge. It fell in. The concoction then shimmered a silvery blue. Grabbing a bottle, Marinette poured some of the liquid inside it, looked at the bottle and hummed in satisfaction. She quickly put all the equipment used back in a box and cleaned up any mess made. Once she was finished, she turned to the boy standing over her.

"I'll bring these back to Master Fu's old apartment then I'll drop this bottle off at my house, you can tell Tikki and Plagg that they can come out now"

The contents of the box shifted to one side, Damian helped steady both the bluenette and the box before going to the kwamis. Once the kwamis where comfortably with their owners, Tikki in Marinette's purse and Plagg in Damian's hoodie pocket, they made their way to the apartment. It still technically belonged to Master Fu, he rest hadn't rented it out so they were free to roam around. After putting the equipment away, the couple strolled to Marinette's house hand in hand. The bluenette went up to her balcony, with Damian close behind, and hid the bottle under her pink-striped deck chair, away from the sunlight.

"It needs to 'mature' in the moonlight, I guess. So when the moon is out, I'll take the bottle out" Marinette gestured for Damian to follow her as she went back down to the bakery portion of her house. "I'll give you some Camembert with the power ups infused. But I'll have to make it first!"

She hummed as she went upside to retrieve other substances that Master Fu had taught her to create. In the moment she was gone, Plagg appeared.

"I hate transforming!" The black kwami whined, settling in the boy's hair.

"What's so bad about it?" Damian raised an eyebrow at Plagg's outburst.

"It ruins the beautiful taste of Camembert, and it tastes weird"

"Quit your whining Plagg" Tikki's squeaky, but still relatively scary, voice rang out as both she and her owner returned.

"But Sugarcube-"

"No 'but's Stinky Sock!"

Damian watched with quiet amusement while Marinette giggled, handing him a wheel of Camembert.

"The cheese is cut up in different slices, each representing a different power up. I'll explain which is which on the way back to the hotel"

Damian put the wheel in his pocket before taking the bluenette's hand. "I look forward to it"

~~~

Each power up was simple enough, they all had a different colour corresponding with it's ability, making it easier to memorize. The couple walked by a dark alley as Damian check the time. Passing his phone to the bluenette next to him, Marinette took one glance at the time before dragging the two of them into said dark alley. It was time for patrol. Once both were done transforming, Noir and Ladybug made their to the assigned rooftop. When landing, Noir took his staff and looked through the help guide to get a better idea of what weapon he was working with. Spinning the staff with his hands, he separated the staff into two separate batons. He hummed in contentment.

"Grayson never gave me his escrima sticks for missions. I suppose this is good training if I ever want to use them"

The two rods snapped back together with a satisfying snap. Continuing to look through the articles on his now full staff, Noir didn't even notice when Ladybug moved to stand behind him. In one swift motion, the spotted heroine pulled down the black hood that was shielding the black cat-themed hero's face.

"La-"

Her covered fingers stroked his black cat ears, she giggled as his cheeks flushed. The feeling itself was unusual to the green-eyed hero, he had never felt anything remotely similar before but he wouldn't say he didn't enjoy it. It was just... unexpected. The spotted heroine, however, quite liked making the stoic Noir flustered. His ears felt so much like a real cat's that Ladybug was nearly taken aback, she got used to it after her shock, though. Noir found himself leaning into her touch but looking at everything but her in embarrassment.

Had his ears not been occupied he probably would've heard the two other heroes arriving, he only knew they were here as he saw them in his peripheral vision, rolling his eyes as he noticed them snickering.

'Angel, Rena and Chien are here'

Ladybug's head snapped in the direction of the two other heroes, one of her hands left his head as she she greeted the fox and the dog.

"Hello Rena Rouge, Chien" Ladybug greeted them casually, something Noir knew he couldn't do at that moment.

"Hello to you too LB! Hey Noir, did the bug find a way to tame you?

He mumbled a reply.

Ladybug giggled before turning to properly address the other heroes. "I've been thinking of adding three more members. I know it's a lot since you, Rena, have only just been announced as a permanent user and you, Chien, have basically just joined. But Noir and I found something that will require their help. I have a hunch that Hawkmoth might try something like Guerrier but with the same level as Syren"

The fox-themed hero nodded. "You need all the help you can get. So who do you have in mind?"

"A Snake, a Bee and a Dragon" The spotted heroine answered with no hesitation. "We'll need a snake as it is... intuitive"

Upon registering the description, Chien chuckled. "Isn't that the point?"

"Perhaps" Ladybug hummed with a smile on her face. "A dragon can control elements, a strong power would be useful. The bee miraculous's power is immobilization-"

"Paralysis can be very beneficial when trying to stop an akuma" Noir provided his input.

"Yes. So what do you think?" The spotted heroine looked between the three heroes standing on the rooftop with her. Noir hummed approval while Chien gave her a thumbs up.

"You always have the best ideas, Bug!" Rena voiced out her agreement, Ladybug let out a sigh of relief she didn't know she was holding.

"Then I'll go get them now shall I? We gotta teach them as fast as we can" The blue-eyed heroine took the yo-yo from her hip, spinning it with a flick of her wrist. "I'll send them here and then you show them the ropes"

"Aye aye Captain!" Chien saluted and Rena followed suit, only after a quick laugh. Noir rolled his eyes in good nature while pulling his hood back up, flicking his cat ears before doing so.

Hurling her yo-yo at a nearby building, Ladybug hissed through the air, her yo-yo latching onto another building as she neared the previous. Soon enough, she landed gracefully in a quiet area where two familiar figures were strolling hand in hand.

"Ladybug?" A boy with dyed hair questioned, a bluenette with short hair and almond eyes next to him.

She nodded before pulling out two miraculous from her yo-yo with, presumably, unlimited storage. "Luka Couffaine, Kagami Tsurugi, these are the miraculous of the Snake and the miraculous of the Dragon. They grant you the powers of Intuition and Perfection. You will use these miraculouses for the greater good, can I trust you?"

Luka and Kagami shared a knowing look then turned to the heroine in front of them.

"You can count on use Ladybug"

"We're honored to be chosen to fight by your side, my Ladybug"

She gave them the miraculous and watched as they both transformed into Viperion and Ryuko. "The others are waiting at this location." She showed them a map on her yo-yo. "I'll meet you there once I finish with a task a have to do." She hissed through the air once more, thanks to her yo-yo, and landed on a rooftop that was very familiar now. There stood a blonde, leaning on the banister.

"Ladybug?" Chloe's confused voice rang out.

"Hello Chloe Bourgeois" Ladybug took something from her yo-yo. "This is the Bee miraculous, it grants the power to immobilise your opponents. Should you choose to help us-"

"I can't"

"Pardon?"

"I said I can't" The blonde looked solemnly at the heroine. "I've been an utterly horrible person, I don't deserve to be a hero. Especially after... Queen Bee"

"People can change Chloe" Ladybug put a hand on the blonde's shoulder. "As long as they are given the chance to. Do you want to take this chancep?"

Chloe stared at the miraculous before looking at the heroine with a determined expression.

"I won't let you down, Ladybug"

~~~

Ladybug soon returned with a bee-themed heroine, named Honey Bee, by her side. After a brief reintroduction, the patrol began. Rena Rouge took the west side with Honey Bee and Viperion, Chien and Ladybug took the East while Ryuko and Noir took the North, they had already checked the South. Most of the patrol was done in silence, other than the odd 'nothing wrong here'. Ryuko had been the one to start a conversation

"You're the new wielder of black cat miraculous, correct?" The dragon user questioned Noir. He recognised it as the beginning of an interrogation.

"It certainly seems that way" Ryuko hummed.

"You fancy Ladybug, don't you" The question obviously took him aback. "Do you consider yourself... worthy?

The cat-themed hero didn't hesitate. "No"

He saw her raise her eyebrows.

"Ladybug is too virtuous for this world, there's not a soul in this entire universe worthy of her affection"

The dragon hummed in satisfaction. "You remind me of the boyfriend of one of my friends. Though I have yet to be convinced that he should date said friend, you have proved yourself worthy of Ladybug. I approve of your relationship even though it isn't my place to make such a decision"

"I am pleased" Despite the fact that he is a leader in this team, he's content with the fact he has the great dragon user's approval as she is the most intimidating of the team, other than Ladybug herself.

"Also don't mess this up, Ladybug is a Queen " Ryuko casually pointed out.

"Glad I am not the only one that thinks so"

"How can you not? Have you seen her?!"

"She's a goddess"

"You have my approval again"

~~~

Noir and Ryuko were first to arrive as they had finished their patrol early, the rest of the team weren't too far behind, however.

"Alright" Ladybug began once everyone returned. "Honey Bee, Viperion, Ryuko, it'll be best if you memorize all of Paris. That way, when there's trouble, you'll know your way around."

"I found that an aerial view is the fastest way to know the city like the back of your hand!" Rena Rouge pointed out.

"That's also the way I did it!" Chien chimed in,

"Yep! If you don't mind, there's something I'd like to discuss with both Rena Rouge and Chien. Noir, will you join us?" The spotted heroine turned to the heroes named.

"I ought to" He replied flatly.

"Alright then, follow me!" Ladybug hissed through the air followed by Noir with his staff and Rena and Chien with their enhanced abilities. Soon they landed in an alley. "I know you already know this, Rena, but I think it's fair if Chien knows too"

"Fair that I know what?" His gaze moved between the two heroines before landing on the black cat hero, silently begging for answers, to which Noir returned with an unconvincing shrug.

"That you know this. Tikki, spots off!" A blinding red light filled the narrow corner they were in, Rena shut one of her eyes while Chien shut both, Noir was shielded from the light thanks to his hoodie. Then, a certain Marinette Dupain-Cheng stood where the spotted heroine once was.

"Wh- Bu- How-" Chien spluttered as his brain combusted with all the information that was flowing through it at once. Marinette giggled at his confusion, Rena full on laughed, clutching her stomach while Noir merely smirked. "But, but I saw you standing next to Ladybug! Wait no, yourself? My brain is melting! Wait, you two knew?!" The dog-themed hero screeched.

"She's my best friend" Rena shrugged with an innocent expression, her transformation dropped. Chien stared in shock.

"She's my girlfriend" Noir mimicked Rena Rounge's shrug while letting his transformation fall too, leaving Chien the only one transformed.

"Okay THAT makes sense, you're both deathly attr- Wait, did you say best fRIEND?!" Chien shrieked and detransformed.

"ADRIEN?!" Alya exclaimed, Marinette and Damian watched in amusement.

"As entertaining as this is-" The green-eyed boy cut in before the pair would attract unwanted attention. "-Marinette needs to explain the reason why she revealed her identity to you"

The bluenette nodded. "You see early today, at school, I had this 'miraculous burn' I guess you could say from Guerrier's attack. Thanks to Alya I'm feeling better but that resulted in getting my identity revealed. So to avoid anymore incidents like that, I also told you Adrien. I can't tell the rest of the team yet as I don't want them to go all protective over me, you'll three will have enough overprotectiveness"

"Not wrong there, girl" Alya said without shame.

"I know I have to tell them my true identity at some point but right now it's better just to have you three know."

"We understand" Alya and Adrien said in unison.

"Great, now let's go back to the others so we can tell them patrol is over"

~~~

It was sunset, the orange cotton clouds contrasted beautifully with the darkening blue sky. A cool wind blew through the air, cold enough to make one shiver but not enough to catch a cold. Walking hand in hand, a couple made their way to Le Grand Paris. The bluenette looked up to the noirette next to her, leaning onto his arm covered by the Robin-themed hoodie and smiling while doing so, she closed her eyes to savor the moment.

"Angel?" Damian brushed the stray hairs on her face as she pulled away to look at him properly.

"You know, I'm really going to miss this" Marinette raised their conjoined hands as they approached the hotel doors.

He hummed and in response, put his arm around her waist to pull her closer while going through the elevator doors. "I am too"

They soon reached the hotel room, the kwamis roaming around for food once they got inside. Food in hand, Tikki and Plagg sat of the coffee table, leaning on one another as Damian turned on the screen to watch a movie. Once he was comfortably seated, Marinette joined him, snuggling into his side. He brushed his fingers through her silky midnight hair. He was going to miss this, deeply. What would life be like going back, without the beautiful bluenette physically next to him?

'I do not want to find out'

———

Provisional Cessation, It was created for the purpose of temporarily stopping a miraculous from being used if any harm were to come to the user. It would also deem it unusable for a certain period of time if the miraculous were ever come into the wrong hands. The reason Master Fu didn't tell Marinette this information was because the last time a user tried this power up, they were put into a magical induced coma, it was too risky.

———

Taglist:@little-bluestar,@miracleofadisaster,@frieddonutsweets,@jjmjjktth,@genderfluidmoma,@starlit-dreaming,@icerosecrystal,@lolieg,@kashlyn,@mochegato,@eggadoodle,@walkingthroughonautopilot,@toodaloo-kangaroo,@lady-bee-fechin,@weebjai1

[le-loup-et-lion]

I know I talked about this on Discord once ages ago but did I ever tell you guys about my absurd harvest-mouse!Javert au?

Basically it's brick canon until Javert says to Valjean "I will wait for you here", at which point due to inexplicable fairy tale-esque 'you told a lie for the first time in your life' magic curse bullshit Javert is transformed right in front of Valjean into one of these lil guys:

Conceptually it's completely ridiculous, but what makes it funny is that's it's played completely straight.

"Autumn, you seem like a fairly serious person when it comes to this fandom so why on earth would you come up with something this silly" you say? well. you see. it literally came to me in a dream (no, seriously).

I imagine it as a very terrifying and painful transformation, which starts out almost like the pangs of a heart attack, with Javert clutching his chest and doubling over with a grunt as Valjean is walking away, causing Valjean to turn back around and kneel down with him, grabbing him by his shoulders and trying to assess what's wrong with him, ending up bewildered as Javert begins to glow with an eerie golden light which eventually engulfs him (but not before Javert can look up and meet his eyes one last time with an utterly petrified, vulnerable, pleading look). Then this blinding luminous form shrinks in Valjean's grasp until it is naught but a small floating orb, at which point the light begins to fade and whatever is left of Javert starts to fall. Valjean catches it in his hands and, somewhat horrified and awestruck, opens them to reveal the tinest little mouse he's ever seen curled up in his palms within the faintest fading golden glow.

Javert goes unconscious during this transformation, leaving Valjean to trudge back to his apartment in complete confusion with him (very gently) in hand, highly questioning his own sanity the entire time until Javert is able to wake up again and respond to basic yes/no questions.

(Javert of course absolutely loses his mind at first and tries to run away as soon as he begins to process the situation, but is unused to his new body and runs right off the edge of the table without thinking, forcing Valjean to panic lunge across the tabletop and grab him midair to prevent him from falling and hurting himself)

Anyway they are both very rattled and perplexed by this and Valjean keeps him at his apartment because they don't know what else to do.

Their whole hunter/prey antagonist/protagonist relationship gets pretty immediately and completely derailed by this, but not in like, a neatly resolved way, because they can't really just have a conversation about it at first, leading to ... a pretty weird mental state for both of them for quite awhile.

It also levels the playing field between them in a way because Javert was the only one who "knew" Valjean, and now Valjean is the only one who "knows" Javert.

Javert can't talk obviously but he CAN dip his little tail in an inkwell and write with surprisingly humanlike penmanship. (Also harvest mice have prehensile tails which they use to climb around vegetation; so it's more useful than he initially realizes—I wonder if they would be dexterous enough for him to write with just the tail itself, without having to grasp it like a pen in his front paw?)

His top hat fell off while he was transforming so it didn't transform with him (thereby remaining the only real proof of the situation, sort of) and Valjean sat it on his bedside table and filled it with bits of fabric (I like to think they're different colored cravats) for Javert to use as a hiding place/bed, which is just. the cutest thing ever if you picture it.

People on Discord were laughing about the idea of him wearing, like, a little waistcoat from a doll or something bc he's nakey and embarrassed about it lmao

I was thinking that shortly after this Valjean might fall ill, perhaps due to some wounds he received at the barricade (bullet grazes?) becoming infected by all the sewer muck he was wading around in, leaving him bedridden and unsure of the future (hmm, just like Marius). This would give him plenty of time to talk openly with Javert without anyone seeing, but also mainly force him to worry about Javert's immediate future as well, perhaps in his own absence (though he doesn't die in the end, of course). And then, their overwhelming mortality would probably make Valjean start talking about things he wouldn't otherwise have brought up.

Eventually after a long time of living with Valjean and watching him interact with others, and realizing the kind of person he is/that people can change/that the law and justice are two separate concepts/that he has spent his life helping to oppress people who often didn't deserve it, Javert manages to tolerate/accept and even appreciate Valjean in a sort of backwards Beauty and the Beast type au, and would turn back into his old human self again. But I haven't figured out exactly what the specific caveats of this "curse" (and therefore the breaking thereof) would be yet.

Like. Is it about being honest with oneself and others? Is it about learning to love? Is it about how seeing the humanity of others and treating them humanely is fundamental to what makes us human? What would break the curse, exactly? A kiss? A confession of some kind? A selfless act? Certainly it is more about him learning to love than it is about him becoming loveable; but then, are those two concepts not inseparably intertwined?

And why did he turn into a mouse, specifically, to begin with? (The real answer here is that my subconscious picked it while I was asleep, so I'm not sure; but) I feel like, in a metaphorical sense, Javert is a mouse who wholeheartedly believes himself to be a lion.

By which I mean, he was born into a position of powerlessness in society due to classism, racism, moral persecution, and economic inequality, and because of this he sought respect and power; but instead of trying to gain these things by fighting against the oppressive system he faced (as he believed it to be an unwinnable battle), he caved into it entirely and chose to become a servant of it, in return for a scant amount of personal security and the illusion of authority.

At the end of the day, however, he is still impoverished, disrespected, and distrusted. He is lying to himself in that he believes that through his self-sacrificial and self-stifling choices, he has fulfilled his goals to rise through the ranks of society, becoming his "morally best" self—but the reality is almost exactly the opposite. He has become the self-same monster that would gladly oppress people like him and his family. And he makes the choice to continue being that monster every day, because at least now he feels powerful; at least now people fear him enough to pretend they respect him.

Perhaps it is fitting, then, that his illusions finally break around him as he chooses to knowingly lie, not just to himself this time, but finally—and for the very first time—out loud. And in the admittance of his dishonesty to himself, he transforms physically into what he truly was all along—meek and small, voiceless and powerless; an inconvenient and easily forgotten pest in the eyes of society.

Would the acceptance of this truth, and the embracing of true humility, be what breaks him of the curse then; restoring to him his physical humanity at the restoration of his spiritual humanity?

I never fully figured out the plot direction for this au but I still think about it now and then and try to add to it in my head. So possibly, one day longggg in the future, you may see. a very silly little fic on AO3

[chatonne-rousse]

Lullaby and Good Night

When two-month-old Emma wakes up in the wee hours of the morning, Adrien employs the unique combination of purrs and piano to help his daughter fall back to sleep. His heartfelt song carries Marinette from dreams to reality and back again.

A little story of sleep deprivation, the power of music, and two hearts overflowing with love for their family of three.

Read it on Ao3 here.

*****

The dream is lovely, but clearly a dream. There's no reason, much less space, for a grand piano to be situated on a rooftop, gleaming in the city lights and the nightly glow of the Eiffel Tower, but here they are.

Ungloved fingers glide across the keys, filling the air with a melody she feels in the depths of her heart. It's more than pleasing to the ear, far more than just a beautiful tune, though every stroke of the keys is perfect. This is his heart speaking to hers through music, pure love in every note. Tears spring to her eyes unbidden and she wipes them away quickly, the feel of her suit cool against her skin.

She gently places her hand on his leg, red and black against the green and grey plaid of his...pajama pants? His muscles flex beneath her fingers as he deftly works the pedals and she closes her eyes, letting his closeness, his scent, the feel of him beside her, right where he belongs, wash over her in a heady rush.

Words are unnecessary in this halcyon moment. I love you echoes all around them in the night air.

As dreams always do, this one drifts away on tendrils of contentment, leaving Marinette with a smile on her face even before her eyes open. Warm and cozy under the duvet, she reaches for her husband, ready to snuggle close and chase a few more hours of sleep - or, at least, as many blessed minutes as the adorable alarm clock they created would allow them.

Expecting warm skin and the body she knows every inch of by heart, it's a surprise to find the other side of the bed empty. Well, it's a momentary surprise. One or the other of them leaving the bed in the middle of the night has become commonplace in the past few months, but Emma will be sleeping through the night before it ever becomes normal to be alone in bed without him.

Wakefulness comes quickly from that point. Figuring she’d been awakened by Emma’s fussing but hearing no sound from the crib nearby, she takes several long moments to blink in the darkness and orient herself to time and place.

A soft melody reaches her ears when she sits up, and there's no stopping the smile that crosses her face.

In all these years, hearing him play the piano has never lost its magic.

With rarely a sour note, the technical prowess gained through years of grueling practice is evident, but his genuine enjoyment for the instrument shines brightest.

His life has long since been his own, happily shared with his beloved family on his own terms, with infinite support to chase dreams he would never have entertained in his youth. When he works the occasional modeling gig, it's because he chooses to do so. When he fences, it's because he enjoys the sport. When he plays the piano, it's because the act of creating and sharing music brings him joy. Simple as that. The latter is one last vestige of connection to his mother, a way to escape a difficult day for a little while, a method of bringing beauty into the world that doesn't involve smiling for a camera.

Marinette knows all of this, knows that when her husband sits at the piano he requested to be placed in their living room, that it's an extension of the man she loves, a precious gift that he gives of himself every time he plays.

She pads silently to the crib and peeks in, finding it empty.

A picture is starting to form. She hurries into the living room, bare feet silent on the hardwood floor.

It's another surprise, then, to find someone other than Adrien at the piano. She'd expected him shirtless and clad in those green and grey plaid pajama pants, with sleep-mussed hair and a tired smile. Instead, she finds Chat Noir, holding their daughter in one arm as the other hand plays a soft lullaby.

When she slides in next to him on the piano bench, the smile he sends her is indeed tired, but also full of tenderness and a touch of wonder. That's common - his awestruck joy at becoming a father, at seeing the love of his life become a mother, has left him with a permanent soft shine in his eyes. Marinette would have said she couldn't love him more, but he's proven her wrong at every turn. It's a good thing the heart has an infinite capacity because, between Adrien and Emma, hers seems to grow daily.

"Not that I mind," she murmurs, reaching over to caress the back of her daughter’s head and marveling as always at the fine softness of her wispy hair, "but why is a superhero in my living room playing the piano in the middle of the night?"

He chuckles quietly. "You know how much our kitten loves my purr. I thought it would soothe her back to sleep."

Our kitten. It makes her emotional every time he says it.

"It does, Minou, but we both know you can purr without the suit." She shakes her head. "Because that's a thing in our lives, for some reason."

The laugh he stifles shakes his chest and the infant held against it, but, Marinette notices suddenly, Emma's eyes are wide open anyway. She doesn't make a peep, simply gazing up at her daddy, with one tiny hand curled against his suit, directly over his heart. Limned in moonlight from the balcony's double doors, they're an ethereal vision, almost too beautiful to be real. Even as she laughs quietly with him, she's helpless against the tears that finally spill down her cheeks and wet the front of the old t-shirt she sleeps in.

He's used to the spontaneous tears by now, and presses a kiss to her cheek.

"To answer your question, My Lady, I can purr louder and longer transformed, and she loves the feel of the suit." He gently touches the back of his daughter's hand at his chest and meets her silent gaze. "Don't you, my precious girl? You love your Daddy Kitty, yes you do."

That startles a laugh that Marinette doesn't even try to hold back now that she knows Emma is awake. "Let's revisit that name later, Adrien."

At this point, the half-delirious laughter they share is that of two exhausted parents awake for the second time between midnight and dawn.

"These claws make playing a total pain, though." He lays his free hand gently on top of the keys with a little scale of five successive clicks. "Worth it for my favorite kitten, though."

Emma looks so peacefully comfortable in his arms, Marinette hates to separate them, but— "Was she hungry?"

"Dirty diaper," he says, patting Emma's bottom. "She wasn't crying, I just happened to hear her fussing a little. Didn't want to wake you up since you were just up with her—" he glances behind him at the clock on the wall, squinting at it to make out the time in the dimly lit room. He gives up trying to calculate and looks at Marinette with a wry smile, "—a very short time ago. We've been hanging out for...a while."

She wonders what "a while" means, but she's beyond grateful to have a partner so willing to get up and tend to their little one in the middle of the night. His thoughtfulness is never really a surprise, but she has yet to find its boundaries - his kindness and care are seemingly infinite. Marinette can't imagine a better husband, father, partner.

Aaand she's crying again.

"You sure you're okay, Mari?"

She nods and smiles at him, sniffling. She reaches for the baby and he hands her off with practiced ease. Within a moment, Emma roots against her chest and Marinette lifts the hem of her t-shirt to let her nurse.

Adrien slips away but returns immediately with her nursing pillow, which she takes with a grateful smile, sighing in relief once it’s in place between her lap and the baby cradled in her arms.

Taking one look at Emma, Adrien puts his hands up in mock-surrender. "Fine, fine, I get it. I've got a cool suit and strong muscles and I can purr, for heaven’s sake, but mommy wins every time, because I can't do that."

"Darn right," she says with another laugh, before her expression softens. "And...thank you, my love. I slept just long enough to get in one nice dream."

The eyebrows he raises are hidden, but his mask moves with them, big green eyes alight with mischief. "Dreaming about a certain cool cat?"

"And his strong muscles? Maybe."

He hums. "We should...recreate it."

"You don't even know what I was dreaming about, you tomcat!"

"Ah, but you were there and I was there and it was nice, so whatever it was, it sounds great."

She shakes her head and grins at him. "I would love to recreate it, Chaton."

Green light fills the room as his transformation falls, leaving the tired, shirtless dad with sleep-mussed hair and plaid pajamas she'd originally expected to find at the piano. He catches Plagg and gives him a scratch between the ears.

"Thanks, buddy. I appreciate your help."

Plagg's huge yawn morphs into a sleepy half-smile that shows one fang. "No problem, Kid. But I'm going to bed...after a cheese break."

"Good plan. You've earned it." He smiles after his kwami as he zips off toward the kitchen.

Alone once more with only the sound of Emma nursing and Adrien rubbing circles on her back, sleep creeps back in at the edges of her consciousness, darkening the corners of her mind and making her eyelids droop.

Adrien shifts next to her, reaching over to brush the back of his fingers against Emma's cheek; the movement brings Marinette back from the precipice of sleep. She blinks several times at her daughter, perfect and beautiful in the pale pre-dawn light - a miracle created without magic, Ladybug's ultimate lucky charm.

She's halfway to tearing up again when she hears a jaw-cracking yawn beside her and gives him a watery but sincere smile. "You can go back to bed, Minou. We'll be right there."

Though his eyes are half-closed, he shakes his head. "It's okay, I can wait for you."

Marinette repositions Emma to the other side and latches her before placing a hand on Adrien's plaid-pajama-covered leg. Unlike in her recent sweet dream, the hand is ungloved and they're in the quiet of their apartment instead of a rooftop, but the feeling of being blissfully happy and loved beyond imagination is identical. If she's just a bit more tired than she was in her dream, well, that's life with an infant, isn't it?

"Will you play for us, Adrien?” she asks, quickly adding, “if you want to."

The radiant joy that lights his face makes her heart soar, and she falls just a tiny bit more in love.

"For the two ladies I love more than anything?" He bends to kiss Emma's head, then meets Marinette's lips for a soft, lingering kiss. "The world."

"A song will do, Kitty. I'm too tired for the world right now."

He nods sagely. "Right as always, My Lady."

She giggles when he straightens his spine and theatrically flings nonexistent coattails behind him off the piano bench. Exaggerated for show, he places his bare foot above the pedal and positions his hands over the keys as though he's playing to a packed concert hall. He flashes a brilliant grin over his shoulder at her just before his fingers meet the ivory.

The song he begins is soft and plaintive, neither a lullaby nor a romantic epic but a heartfelt mix of the two. Gentle and lovely, the melody he coaxes from the keys reflects his own heart in vivid detail. She hears his devotion to his beloved partner in the deep, solid chords that anchor the piece, his effervescent delight at being a father bubbling over in the tinkling trills at the top of the scale that he plays softly so as not to rouse Emma. With a sweeping glissando, he returns to the center of the scale and lets each note tell Marinette how truly, deeply, eternally he loves her.

It's one of the most profoundly beautiful things she's heard in her entire life, a gift of love for her and for their daughter. It's overwhelming.

Emma's eyes have closed as she drifts off, her lips fluttering occasionally against Marinette's skin. When she's sure Emma is asleep, she lets the hem of her t-shirt fall to her lap again and brings the baby to her shoulder. Cradling her close, she lets her eyes slip shut and sways languidly with the melody. The tears that wet her cheeks are inevitable at this point, her chest so full of emotion she could burst.

Adrien's impromptu moonlight concert concludes on a quiet arpeggio layered over a lingering chord, fading into silence when he finally lifts his foot from the pedal.

He takes a deep breath and turns just as Marinette surges up to meet him, her lips moving against his with her heart's own echo of his song.

I love you. Emma loves you. We're so lucky we have you. You're the best dad. You're the best partner. My heart is yours forever.

When they break apart - gently, of course, so as not to wake the currently-sleeping baby - she imagines his expression of lovestruck exhaustion is mirrored on her face.

"I love you so much."

"Mmm. I love you, too."

A pause.

"I'm so tired."

The laugh they share is one of pure commiseration.

"I know. Let's get back to bed and see how much sleep we can get before our kitten wakes up again."

Adrien carefully takes Emma from her before he stands and starts up a quiet purr, reaching out his free hand for Marinette to take. She lets him help her up and lead her back to their room, watching as he settles Emma back in her crib with the utmost care. When he joins her beneath the duvet once more, she finally snuggles up to him as she had intended a half hour ago, before she found the bed empty and Chat Noir in her living room.

She smiles against his chest and listens to his breathing even out. Chasing precious sleep herself, Marinette lets the memory of his song fill her mind as she drifts off, hoping for another dream as beautiful as the last.

[hopeaterart]

Mario Odyssey: Paper Kingdom AU

Or: The AU where I adapt Paper Mario characters into a kingdom in Mario Odyssey because while my brain is small, it has a big mind that keeps thinking up new ideas. This tackles the kingdom’s backstory, it’s travel brochure, why Mario ends up going there, and the frankly ridiculous political context he stumbles into. I might tackle the characters in another post.

Backstory

A long time ago, a creature made out of shadows and thin as paper rose out of an island. Calling itself- or herself- the Shadow Queen, the malevolent spirit could wield the power of seven stars, and her heart was pitch-black and full of chaotic hatred. She reigned over the land with an iron fist, terrified painted shadows at her command.

Until one day, a small faction of her own people turned against, led by four heroes and eight mages. They studied her magic, and turned it against her, folding themselves like paper get close to her and stealing her stars to destroy her body, the eight mages using their magic to separate her heart from her spirit

Enraged, her spirit lashed out, cursing the four heroes into suffering the same fate as her, reduced to spirits enclosed in coffins just as she unleashed the full power of her heart. But before she could turn her wrath on the other rebels, the eight mages sacrificed themselves, turning their souls into pure energy and setting it on the Shadow Queen’s heart, ripping it out and sending both the heart and the soul of the Shadow Queen into a deep sleep.

The only thing left was a prophecy- a warning. If a cruel monster and a gentle maiden marry each other in a farce, the Chaos Heart will rise again. If this happens, the Shadow Queen’s rise is imminent, and she will take over the body of the maiden. The only way to stop her is to find her Seven Stars, and use them to destroy her soul once and for all.

The throne of the Paper Kingdom is left symbolically empty, and the country is ruled by a council.

-

Travel Brochure

Population: Sparse, but plentiful

Size: Wide

Locals: Shapeshifters

Currency: Paper fortune teller shaped

Industries: Construction, stories

Temperature: Average  73 °F

A craft for the ages

Multi-level: The Paper Kingdom is made of multiple levels carved within the plateau, and all of them have something to offer. From the charming beach town of Rogueport to the looming Castle of Chaos, this place is vibrant and full of carefully crafted layers.

Rich History: The Paper Kingdom’s history is something for the ages: A demon rising out of the earth, her own people standing up against her, a battle ending in tragedy, and a prophecy! And they know it too! Their own history is so rich and captivating, they transformed telling people about it into a spectacle. If you’re ever in the need of someone to give a grandiose speech, a Paper Kingdom storyteller is what you need!

Origami Festival: If you visit the Paper Kingdom during their fall season, you might bear witness to the Origami Festival! While considered unorthodox and dangerous, Shapeshifters recognize origami as an incredibly powerful type of magic, allowing one to become anything their heart wish. As such, they have festivities centered around this concept that lasts a week, where they put up tons of different and incredible origami displays celebrating the concept.

-

How it fits in the game

For it’s location, it would be a decently sized island between the Luncheon Kingdom and Snow Kingdom, and would be the last place you go to before Bowser’s castle. From above, it would look rectangular, and most of it would be very elevated (think of a plateau, but in the middle of the ocean.) While it would seem small at first glance, the truth is that most of the earth is hollowed out, and there’s a lot of communities that live underground. You would be able to visit the two surface ones (Rogueport at the base of the plateau, and Castle of Chaos (Equivalent to Castle Bleck) on top of it) from the start, and at least one additional area under Castle of Chaos would unlock after the main story.

As for it’s place in the story, a wedding needs an officiant, and Bowser decided to get a storyteller from the Paper Kingdom because they’re known to give quite touching speeches. Bowser was originally planning to make his announcement of his marriage to Peach, take someone by force if he got denied, and leave the kingdom in disarray as punishment for denying him.

So you can imagine his surprise when not one, but two storytellers volunteered to be his officiant: Dimentio, royal jester and local agent of chaos who’s starting to find the current situation in the Paper Kingdom boring because it’s stagnating (albeit because they want to stop the hostilities temporarily for the upcoming Origami Festival), and the Beldam, eldest of the shadow Sirens and actively trying to resurrect the Shadow Queen. 

Let’s be clear, here: Neither of them are really interested in Bowser’s marriage, but both are after the power of the Chaos Heart, which has the potential to arise from this union: Dimentio to create even more chaos, and Beldam to harness it’s power and bring the Queen back to life. He picked the storyteller who had actual experience with being an officiant: Dimentio, who officiated multiple noble weddings- and left a fuming Beldam behind. In her rage, she decided to make the King of Koopas not choosing her as an evil marriage officiant everyone else’s problem and promptly started freezing everything in sight.

And that’s where Mario and Cappy come in, looking for Power Moons...

-

What’s going on?

A few weeks before Bowser shows up, the wedding of Blumiere, the son of an important count, and his human girlfriend Timpani (I don’t know from where she could be, probably New Donk CIty), was happening. However, in part due to a sinister prophecy that foretold the rebirth of the Chaos Heart if a furious monster lord (Blumiere is not human, and he has quite the unstable temperament) and a fair and lovely maiden (Timpani is a bit shy, cares for everything around her, and is nothing but kind) got married, and in part due to being a racist fuck, Blumiere’s father tried to stop the marriage by lethally attacking the bride.

Big mistake.

Blumiere ended up flying into a rage, messily killing his father with his bare hands and the assistance of a surge of magic, and destroyed the wedding venue. He then took Timpani, who was dying, to the origami craftsman, who earned himself a reputation of defying nature’s law by creating Olly and Olivia for an Origami festival, which was. Not planned. He then more or less forced him to heal his bride. 

The craftsman was absolutely able to say no: Olly brought to life multiple office supplies and all of them are ready to attack on sight, but he still went and healed up Timpani, albeit altering her physical appearance permanently due to having to heal her up using Origami Magic. Olly does not take his father being threatened into helping someone well, and barges into Castle of Chaos two weeks later and self-proclaim himself king with the assistance of the office supplies, which he dubs his Legion of Stationery, because of a perceived disrespect toward his family.

He is twelve.

Blumiere- who renamed himself Count Bleck following his father’s death- is understandably outraged, and denounces Olly with the support of his companions. Said companions are: his wife lady Timpani whom he (and most of the kingdom) adores, a small bat-like woman and his spokesperson Nastasia, the strong but dimwitted warrior and champion O’Chunks, the robotic but emotional Mimi who works in banking, and local shit-bastard jester Dimentio. This is due to Bleck being a direct descendant of one of the eight mages that sacrificed themselves, and he’s forced to make a claim to the throne to be taken seriously in trying to stop Olly.

He does not want to take the throne.

So now, there’s a twelve years old and a pissed off count who murdered his father in a blind rage fighting over the throne of the Paper Kingdom, neither of them know what they’re going to do next, and no one is happy about this situation. The instability allows a third party to make an appearance and grab for the throne: The X-Nauts, a race of robotic aliens led by the tyrannical Sir Grodus. Their goal? Resurrect the Shadow Queen and use her power to remake the Paper Kingdom, and eventually the planet, in their image.

The good news is that neither Olly nor Bleck want the X-Nauts to succeed. Bleck because he knows they’re planning on resurrecting the Shadow Queen and he does not want that to happen, and Olly because Grodus’ second in command was mean to Olivia once. This means that they are able to put their difference aside, which means there’s still hope an all-out civil war can be avoided.

Speaking of Olivia, poor girl think her brother went evil and wants to reign over the Paper Kingdom like a tyrant. This is understandable, as he’s a irritable twelve years boy with six killing machine at his command and also starting his emo edge lord phase, and she’s a literal ray of sunshine. As such, Olivia decided to find other people willing to stop Olly, Bleck and Grodus from burning the country to the ground in their squabble, not realizing that, as the leader of this group, she is also making .a claim for the throne.

She is also twelve.

And now, there’s Beldam losing her shit over being turned down and freezing everything into unmoving sheets on the walls. Ironically, this common enemy might just be what’s needed to calm everyone down.

[nautiscarader]

billythesquid writes: How about Finn and Huntress Wizard for Snowed In? They're on a mission to the Ice Kingdom, there's an avalanche, and oh no! They've got to get warm fast.

(Ao3)

Also, if you enjoyed my work, here's Ko-fi link if you'd be so kind ❤️ .

=============

- That's not how you summon a trasheratrops.

Huntress Wizard chuckled and scolded Finn after he let out a prolonged, grumbling moan that echoed around the snowy canyon they have been travelling in.

- Really? it worked last time... - Here, let me show you.

Huntress stopped and produced her magical flute. Though the night air in the Ice Kingdom was predictably freezing, she took a deep breath and blew into her instrument, producing a melodious, yet deep sound that, if they were in a different part of Ooo, could attract a whole herd of mythical beasts she was talking about.

When she opened her eyes, she noticed a deep, crimson blush on Finn's cheeks. Despite their lengthy trek to Ice Kingdom, it wasn't because of the cold, though. If there was one thing that never failed Finn to reignite his love for Huntress Wizard, it was her music talent that properly mesmerised him, as if he was the animals she was taming.

- Ooh, let me try.

Finn took out his flute and joined Huntress Wizard. He was less skilled than her, but as their music continued, the two started harmonising, creating a music that soon diverted from their original intent. Huntress and Finn looked at each other, as they became more and more entranced by their performance, walking up the snowy mountain. And for a long, glorious moment, the two forgot about their mission, and the rest of the world...

But the world reminded them of itself with a thunderous, low, rumbling sound, akin to a horde of trasheratropsi running down the mountain. A cloud of white snow erupted high above them, but in a blink of an eye it travelled several dozen feet, forcing the two to evacuate.

- Avalanche!

Finn screamed, but Huntress was quicker. She grabbed him with the talons of a hawk she transformed into, taking them from the main path of the avalanche. But she miscalculated how wide the wave of snow was after them, forcing her tu turn sharply towards a mountainous range that arose in front of them. Just before she thought they would crash into the rocks, Finn pointed to a small crevasse, and with a sharp turn, Huntress flew into it, just before the walls roared when the avalanche missed them by just a few feet.

The two tumbled on the solid ice, until Finn reached to his detransformed girlfriend.

- H-Dubs! Are you okay?! - I'm... fine, Finn.

Huntress spoke, though she pointed out to the narrow entrance that now was completely cut off by a wall of snow. The teo looked around the icy room, illuminated just by a faint crack in the ceiling, too small for neither of them to slip through, at least not without getting torn to shreds by icicles.

- Well, at least we're not gonna suffocate...

Finn spoke, examining the thick, icy walls that surrounded them. He tried making a dent in them, first with his bare, metal arm, and then his sword, but up to no avail. And by the looks of it, the fresh snow that chased them has started forming another impenetrable wall as well.

- Looks like we might have to spend a night here.

He expected to hear from his girlfriend, but when he turned around, all he could see was her, curled up next to his backpack, unmoving.

- HW!

Finn rushed to her, closing his arms around her, feeling her body shivering from cold. Of course, she was part-plant, Finn thought. At once he got rid of his coat, and threw the contents of his backpack on the ground. The bed was one thing, and it would insulate her from the floor, but at this rate, they won't last long.  

He heard her teeth chattering, as he looked through the things that could help them. Huntress closed her eyes, listening to Finn's rambling about fire. And then, she heard a sound of metal sliding against metal, and something bright reached her vision, and when she opened her eyes, she Finn holding a torch in his hand.

- H-How...?

And then she noticed. It was his flute.

- Well, it got us in trouble in the first place, didn't it?

Finn looked around to see what else could he use, but Huntress was faster.

- Here, let me help you...

Despite the cold, she stuck out her arm and shook it, letting many, many leaves fall to the icy ground.

- We need some kindling.

Reluctantly, Finn gathered the leaves and set them on fire, separating the small campfire from the ice with rocks. It took him quite a while, but after a few minutes, the fire was burning with enough heat to give them just a shred of hope of surviving.

Him, at least.

Huntress was still shivering, despite the double layer of insulation and the warmth of her boyfriend cuddling up next to her. The two formed a tight cocoon sharing the heat of their bodies, and with that, her state improved marginally, especially when Finn offered her a bit of candy liquor.

- Thanks, Finn... - No worries, H-Dubs, we're gonna get through it. - I hope so, Finn...

She closed her arms and legs around him, letting their bodies share the necessary closeness. But as long minutes went by, Huntress started considering another option.

- Finn... there is one way we can share our heat. - How? I don;t think we can get any closer, I'm practically inside you.

Huntress smiled at him.

- Oh. - We can become one, Finn. That is magic powerful enough to keep us alive. - Woah, H-Dubs, I mean... you know what happens when dudes enter cold bath, though, right? - Don't worry. You gave me enough heat, it;'s time for me to repay you.

She leaned forward, or as forward as she could, being almost face-to-face with him and kissed him, while her arms sneaked between their pressed bodies and into his trousers. She was already straddling him, so with one more clumsy move, she lifted her pantaloons. And if Finn had any worries about her hands closing around his cock, then the few droplets of liquid heat dripping from her sex brought him back to full flory, as if they were in his treehouse.

Huntress made one forceful push and let out a prolonged moan when his hot rod sneaked between her folds, already bringing her the energy she so desperately needed. Their arms curled around each other, as their savoured their intimate connection, and when their kiss broke, Huntress smiled and began moving her hips up and down.

Clouds of air erupted from Finn's mouth as short gasps, but he quickly redirected them in between their bodies, to bring save much needed warmth, though with Huntress' moves, the friction between them was doing enough already. But Finn knew it wasn't just silly physics. There was magic in action, he could see it in her eyes and her body wriggling and twisting around him, and when he began movig his hips, the spell was complete.

The two forgot about coldness that surrounded them, and the potential lethal consequences of their trip. they forgot about their obligations as well, as they continued to rock against each other, letting their love generate more energy than any battle could have ever done.

But they both knew that there was one crucial element they were both withholding with each long minute of their carnal dance, and Huntress, as usual, was the one to verbalise it.

- Finn, we need to come together. I-I will coat you with my warm sap..

Huntress spoke in short, needy sentences, that roared in Finn's mind despite her whispering.

- But I want you to set me on fire... I need your flame inside me... In my loins, my sex...

She leaned against his shoulder.

- In my womb...

Something about that last word struck a chord in Finn's brain. The way she accented it, the way she spoke of it as something vital and imperative, speaking to a very primal part of Finn's brain. The next moment, he felt Huntress Wizard shuddering atop him, and that, in turn, brought him to his edge.

Hoping his metal arm won't cause any harm, Finn tightened his grip on her back, and with a mighty, yet still slightly girly roar, his body jerked, and with Huntress' walls squeezing on him, he spilled himself inside her, shooting stream after stream of his own brand of warmth up her sex, right where she wanted it.

For a moment he wasn't sure if Huntress was speaking metaphorically, or if her wooden, leafy body really would be set aflame - from the way she moaned and arched her back, it would have certainly seemed so. But she was okay,  riding him, letting the pleasure consume her, until every drop of his warmth was safely inside her. When she ran out of energy as well, she collapsed onto him, though, from the feeling of it, her sex was still closing around him erratically. Finn listened to soft chirping Wizard has been producing with each drop of seed she milked him of and with each layer of sap she coated his cock and balls with.

- H-Dubs, you-you are still shivering... - Finn spoke amidst his own, bliss-hazed mind - It's-it's Fine, Finn. - Huntress spoke, reaching for his lips. - And so are you.

Every nerve of her body reacted to the intimacy and closeness they shared, and part of her wanted to disrobe completely, but she knew better this was just a false sensation. Instead she buried herself deeper in the cocoon of clothes, feeling droplets of sweat on her forehead. And with Finn's heartbeat next to hers, she closed her eyes and whispered her final plea.

- Don't go, Finn. I want to be with you like that forever... - Uh yeah, but, uh, I gotta... - Oh.

For an agonisingly long split of second, the two lovers had to part, so Finn could go the furthest corner of the cave and do his thing, hoping that he won't freeze while doing it. And when he returned, he was met with the sight of Huntress wizard with her legs spread invitingly, and her hand over her used sex, keeping her folds shut.

- I don't want a single drop of it wasted.

Finn sat in his place and let his cock slip inside her again and seal his seed inside her, especially as with his strength and stamina regained, he slowly became hard again. Their eyes met, and the two shared a nod, before their bodies began rubbing against each other for a second time.

- Are we-we gonna do it all night? - Finn asked, seeing her lips curling into a wide smile - I wouldn't mind...

And the two pushed their bodies to the limit, becoming one time after time, after they both fell asleep in each other's arms, unsure if they would ever wake up again.

When the morning arrived, Finn opened his slightly frosted eyelids only to Find Huntress cuddled against him, lightly snoring. His first sensation was that of overwhelming warmth that connected and joined them after countless rounds of short, but passionate love-making that kept them alive. A wide, satisfied smile was plastered on her face, and when she felt his sudden moves, she woke up too, happy to find them both well.

- Morning, Finn. - Morning, HW. - Morning, you guys.

At once, Finn and Huntress wizard jumped in place, as the third, croaky voice reached them. Lost in themselves, they only now became aware of Ice King sitting around their campfire, now fuelled by a bunch of paper wrappers, trying to roast a marshmallow over it. Finn instinctively pulled out a sword and aimed it at his old adversary.

- Ice King! What the flip are you doing here? - I just wanted you guys to know that I found my keys. - Wait, how did you find *us*?! - I didn't, I was trying to shuffle back my snow that you guys have dragged from up my mountain! And that's where my keys were all this time, so my bad.  

He reached into his pocket and jangled a key ring.

- So, yeah, I no longer need you.

Finn and Huntress Wizard blinked.

- Wait, you needed us to... find your keys? That's why you called for us?! - Well you promised "All heroic deeds" in your ad. - Ice King shrugged - Oh, and I see you don't have Jake with you... Tell him he still owes me money from the last card game.

Ice king stood up and waddled nonchalantly towards the exit, now unblocked, leaving Finn and Huntress Wizard utterly dumbfounded.

- Did we almost freeze to death for that? - Uh, I think so. - Finn replied - Oh, hey, he left marshmallows.

Finn untangled himself from his girlfriend and reached for the snacks, while Huntress tried to comprehend the situation. If it wasn't for Finn, she'd seriously considered quitting the "Hero for hire" job.

A few minutes later, the two were packed and began journey back to Candy Kingdom, and just like yesterday, the two talked and joked all the way. But while the air was still chilly, Huntress Wizard wasn't feeling it at all. Just like she asked him to, Finn has ignited a spark inside her, one that would soon turn into a wildfire and keep her warm for months to come.

[thanksjro]

Dark Cybertron Chapter 1: Welcome to Comic Event Hell

You know what readers love? When the stories they’ve gotten invested in over the course of a couple years get interrupted for some pseudo-crossover bullshit.

And you know what writers love? When the story they’ve been crafting over the course of a couple years get interrupted for some pseudo-crossover bullshit.

Did I say love?

Because I didn’t mean it.

“Dark Cybertron” was penned by John Barber and James Roberts, with collaboration with comic writer and artist Phil Jimenez, and was published from early November, 2013 to late March, 2014. Atilio Rojo, James Raiz, and Livio Ramondelli did the art, each responsible for scenes in specific locations, with Robert Gill filling in as needed. Alex Milne, Andrew Griffith, and Brendan Cahill would also contribute pencils to the first issue and the back half of the series. It was a celebration of the 30th anniversary of the franchise, and the second birthday of Phase Two... which went on for over four months, but never mind that!

Both "Dark Cybertron” and its preliminary materials were made to go alongside the Transformers: Generations toy-line, each issue being included as a toy pack-in with whatever character was being featured… or, at least, that was the plan. Sometimes it didn’t work out. Regardless, this storyline was created to sell toys directly, as opposed to the MTMTE/RID series being made to sell toys more through the power of suggestion. It’s a small distinction, but important, because it will help explain any lack of soul one may perceive while they read “Dark Cybertron”.

“But Hannz!” you cry out, reaching to grab me by the throat and shake me like a rag doll, because to you I’m merely a faceless voice on the internet. “Surely by calling this specific storyline soulless, you’re completely ignoring the very nature of this franchise that you’re almost uncomfortably invested in!”

To which I’ll say this: look, I’m pretty realistic about where my giant space robots came from; Transformers as a franchise would not exist the way it does without Ronald Reagan introducing the Free Market to literal children and fucking up how we interact with media for the rest of time. There is no ethical consumption under capitalism, and that rings especially true when I’ve got a Spinister on my bookshelf staring me down as I write this, that was likely made out of plastics which either involved blood oil or unethical labor practices, if not both.

However!

The choices of a company to have their comic license holders to cook up an entire plot that derails what they’ve already got planned out for toy tie-in comics is a completely different animal than what IDW had had going on up to this point. Phase Two had been about exploring different ideas that hadn’t been able to be explored during the war, and seeing what happens when you take away a third of the logline for Transformers G1 as a whole. Being a part of a brand of toys was almost inconsequential to how the stories were being told; even the Spotlights, which were also toy tie-in comics, had plenty of charm to them, if only because there weren’t quite as many constraints placed on the writers, and they were stand-alone issues.

Of course, being tie-in comics isn’t the only reason that “Dark Cybertron” is a bit of a slog, considering everything IDW itself was trying to get done within this storyline, but we’ll cover the publishing company’s/Simon Furman’s/Transformers’ tumultuous relationship with the concept of gender identity and expression later on, when it becomes relevant to the story proper. This point also ties into the interesting origin of Windblade, who we’ll meet in a few issues, and what happens when you let your fanbase have a taste of power and forget that people might like to see themselves represented in the media they consume.

“Dark Cybertron” is what ended up making me stop reading MTMTE the first time I tried it in 2015. A big part of it was because it forced the reader to need so much information from RID and even events prior to Phase Two, it wasn’t very fun to try to parse what was going on, on top of the writing beginning to flag because of obvious constraints to what Barber and Roberts could actually do, both within their deadlines and the rules put in place by their higher ups for the event.

 “Dark Cybertron” is the result of the sort of executive meddling that kills reader enjoyment by requiring writers to cram their two worlds together as quickly as possible, without the option to go for nuance because there simply isn’t time. The reason we have four separate artists for the front half of this story is because Milne and Griffith didn’t have time to draw both their current workload and “Dark Cybertron” at the same time... but sales probably went up due to the nature of how the story was published, so I’m sure they didn’t really see a problem with it.

That’s a general “they”, not a Milne and Griffith “they”.

In short, we’ve got license contract obligations, fan-poll obligations, and gender stuff fighting for space within the next 12 issues, which will be published in the span of roughly four months. Things are probably going to be a little bloated and sloppy.

Regardless of any of these points, this is what we’ve got. It’s not like it’s all bad- “Dark Cybertron” has the benefit of being written by two people who had been working closely before it had even been conceptualized. Barber was the senior editor for MTMTE, and IDW as a whole until he left in 2016. It also isn’t a proper crossover- y’know, where two completely separate titles get mashed together for a bit. MTMTE and RID exist in the same universe, just have their own things going on, so a decent amount of things still carry over without you needing to have read every single thing in both. The writing, while not quite up to par with pieces that had more creative freedom and breathing room between scenes, is still recognizable as being Barber and Roberts’. Their voices are still here, they’re just strained under the weight of everything that has to be said inside of 12 issues.

With all THAT out of the way, let’s dive in to Dark Dawn: Dark Cybertron Chapter 1.

We get a quick rundown of the most basic information you’ll need for this entire story to make sense, as we reintroduce the fact that Shockwave is an ecoterrorist with more agendas than a daily planner factory on meth, and also that he grows magic crystals. I don’t care what he says, the Ores are fucking space-magic. If you don’t want to read through all of RID for everything else, please see Robots in Disguise (2012), #1-22- A Recap, For Reference Purposes.  We also get a quick rundown of the Lost Lighters’ deal, as Swerve potentially has a meta-episode.

Be careful what you fucking wish for, bucko.

Our story proper starts with a flashback to the shittiest road trip Cyclonus ever went on, as the Ark 1 finds itself at the edge of a mysterious portal. This is likely why he wasn’t super thrilled when the portal to Luna 1 showed up- portals are probably a touchy subject for him.

Jhiaxus doesn’t know what this portal is- surely this means that science has failed us, and it’s time to call in the religious crowd to try and suss out what’s going on here.

It’s moments like this that make me wonder what exactly happened in the Dead Universe that made Cyclonus’ cheek meat just pack up and leave.

Now, we know that Cyclonus is correct here, because we as readers have more knowledge than the characters at this point, but Jhiaxus tries to write off this theory as hogwash, because he is a man of rationality and science. This is a slight removal from his character in the present, whose most notable traits seem to be a lack of ethics and screaming.

Everyone here seems to be slightly different from their current iterations, actually; Galvatron doesn’t say a word as he steps between Jhiaxus and Cyclonus, only using his body to communicate that the scientist might want to back off. Cyclonus himself is certainly the wordiest we’ve ever seen him to be, droning on through his actual thought process before he comes to a conclusion on what exactly they’ve found. Compare this to the Cyclonus of today, who only deigns to grace everyone with his voice if they outright threaten him, have something he wants, or are Tailgate. If he were to ever pull this verbal meandering on board the Lost Light, people would probably assume he’s having a stroke.

Nova Prime- you remember him, don’t you?- gives not a fuck about the Dead Universe, only what it means for him personally. And what it means for him is more locations to subjugate, because he is cartoonishly evil. His character is the least removed from his present-day iteration out of everyone. He tells the crew they’ll be getting a little closer, only for the portal to do the work for them, by way of dark energy tentacles.

Wow, the pilot for the Ark 1 really is just straight-up named Butt, isn’t he? And what the fuck is that face you’re making, Cyclonus? Are you- oh my god, are you emoting? Oh my god, he’s emoting.

As the Ark 1 is pulled to its doom, Jhiaxus makes a quick phone call to Shockwave to tell him he’s his favorite, and to keep up the good work.

In the present, Shockwave reflects on just how friggin’ long this whole ordeal has taken. Fortunately, Waspinator and the Titan are almost here, and he can hardly wait.

Not, uh, that he’s got emotions or anything. It’s been established that he doesn’t have those anymore. Is impatience an emotion? Does that count?

Shockwave seems like he’d be really frustrating to write for.

Anyway, the Titan shows up, the Ore inside him and the Ore in the underground Crystal City combine, and the Titan starts screaming because everything hurts. Shockwave’s about as thrilled as he can be about the situation, given his lack of emotions.

Above Crystal City, we finally get back to that nonsense about the early sunrise, as someone- maybe Starscream, given the color of the narration box- waxes poetic on the planet of Cybertron, wartorn and wild in its rebirth, ruled by paranoia that has nothing to bounce off of, and so creates its own walls.

Then we get a detailed shot of Rattrap’s mug, and the moment is broken.

Rattrap’s character is a lot of fun in everything he gets tossed into, but you’re a goddamn liar if you think he’s pretty to look at. You are lying to yourself, and I won’t apologize for saying it.

Starscream walks out of his room in his hot new body, feeling fine and ready to take on the world. We’ll check in on him later in the day to see how that positive mentality is working out for him.

So, the sun hasn’t moved, and it’s way too early for the sun to even be up right now. That’s weird. Because I guess he didn’t know how the sun works, Starscream’s only just realized that this is perhaps a problem. He does some computer work and realizes that this is indeed a very bad thing, and asks that Rattrap call the Autobots. Not the ones who fucked off into the wilderness, the other ones. The gay, space ones.

Up in space, Orion Pax and his pals have found themselves in dire straits, the collapsing Gorlam Prime sucking their ship back down as the Death Ore consumes everything.

That’s not how engines work! And I think it really says something about the “Prelude” issues that I completely forgot why Wheelie was down an arm for a solid five seconds.

It turns out that Orion was the narrator the entire time, which I should have known- since when is the once and future Optimus Prime not the primary voice in any media he appears in?

It’s looking rough for the fellas, but luckily we’ve got to get the plot rolling, so the Lost Light VZZZZTs into existence and picks up the Skyroller to place it gently into its belly.

Orion isn’t exactly jazzed about the fact that Rodimus didn’t listen to what he told him, not even bothering to thank the guy for saving his life. I say y’all keep going on your Thunderclash Quest and leave this ungrateful loser behind. No space yachting for you, Orion.

The rest of the Pax Posse enter the Lost Light proper, and Hardhead reveals that he nearly joined the Quest, before he saw who all would be coming with, while Garnak has a tearful reunion with Rodimus. The fact that he’s calling him Sir- which I don’t recall him doing in Transformers (2009), at least not in a way that seems reminiscent of an unfortunate Antebellum Period Romance- feels rather weird, but I’m glad someone’s fucking happy to see Rodimus at least. Ultra Magnus asks Orion if he’ll be assuming command of the vessel, as Rodimus tries not to look horrified by the thought alone, but fortunately Orion’s not going to pull his “I’m Optimus Prime and I Can Do What I Want” Card just yet.

Smash cut to the bridge, as Rodimus tries to make himself sound competent, when Starscream calls. Orion doesn’t like that Starscream has their number, Perceptor almost reveals the fact that this ship technically doesn’t belong to a faction, likely due to being purchased after the war, and Cyclonus gets brought in for his professional opinion.

As it turns out, that early sunrise isn’t a sunrise at all, but a portal to the Dead Universe. This is a problem, because the Dead Universe really sucks, and you don’t want to go there, especially if you enjoy being alive. Orion seems more concerned about the fact that Starscream is ruling the planet, and Bumblebee is nowhere to be found.

Speaking of Bumblebee, he and all his camp buddies are psyching themselves up for a confrontation.

Swoop, please, this is hardly the time for crudeness.

The Dinobots, sick of Bumblebee’s dithering about, decide they’re going to fight the fucking sun and gear up. Prowl, though generally disliking their brand of problem-solving, does share his begrudging respect of their can-do attitude.

Their can-do attitude over fighting the fucking sun.

Then an earthquake happens and the ground rips open to reveal that Titan that Waspinator showed up with.

Shockwave takes over the narration at this point, and we get artsy, as we see events that haven’t transpired yet over musings on the nature of... time? Maybe? It would be in line with Roberts’ go-to topics, but honestly the whole thing’s kind of vague so I couldn’t give you a solid answer. Shockwave gets awfully introspective for a guy who shouldn’t care, I know that much. The point is, he is inevitable and is super good at logic and science.

Also, Nova Prime and Galvatron are back, which is cool, I guess. Not sure where Galvatron had gotten to exactly after the events of “Chaos”, but he’s back now, so it doesn’t matter too terribly much. Shockwave serves them, which we’ll probably get an explanation for at some point.

God, you can practically taste the desperation to pin all these plot points together before the entire thing implodes on itself.

[thunderpot]

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 (you’re here!)

“You are right.” He could see the shine in Hawkmoth’s eyes, even though he didn’t move an inch “We both had people we love harmed...” was that a glimpse of hope? “..By you.” 

And he let go.

He saw the mix of emotions as the older man fell down: the surprise, then rage, then something like understanding before closing his eyes in acceptance of his fate. Instants before he touched the ground, however, Adrien was fishing him out with the split baton and pulling him up in a single swing. 

He knew the kwamis would absorb the damage and stop him from breaking in half from the motion, but it was enough to bring the panic back up full force.  As soon as the arc from the pull was done, Hawkmoth was landing face first on the ground in front of him with a loud bang as Adrien got closer, not releasing the grip of the weapon around his body.

“You forgot a crucial detail.” The older man was in a mix of pain, panic and shock now, looking at him with his mouth agape and eyes wide open; there would be no little mind games now “I’m not a murderer like you.”  

Adrien bend down then, still looking straight into the other man’s eyes, and continued, now in an almost whispered manner:

“But if you ever even dream about raising a finger against Marinette again…” Gabriel’s eyes grew even wider as he saw the determination Adrien spotted whenever he was dead set on getting something. Whatever would come next wasn’t an conjecture, but a warning “I will kill you.” and a brief pause “Nooro, Duusu. Unmerge, please.”

“No, Ad-Chat noir--” He pleaded as his transformation was undone and Adrien carefully took both miraculous out of him “You- you do not understand” his voice was still hoarse from the grip just moments ago, but now it was also shaking. His neck, Adrien noticed, was starting to bruise real bad from it. “you’re still too-- The media will-”

“Do I look like I give a flying fuck to the media.” It wasn’t a question. He moved the baton to start merging it’s parts back, effectively pulling Gabriel closer and up on his feet. Adrien kept him in place with a hand, releasing the baton’s grip with the other “Death is too good a punishment for you” 

The hero wasn’t interested in an answer, however, hitting him by the nape just to see the man fall on the ground. That should keep him shut for the next few hours, and if there was a God out there, they knew he couldn’t digest a single more word coming from that mouth or he would really kill him this time

Stepping on the edge of the building, he looked at the baton once more before looking back to the city, the transformation starting to wear him down real quick now. Before transforming, he thought he would feel reassurance in the kwamis powers to keep everything in place, but now…

It was unclear if that was effect of his heightened senses of sheer anxiety, but he could feel each raindrop heavy on top of him, and the distant thunders like fireworks ringing on his ears. There was a big lump on his throat as his thoughts went back to Marinette. He only had one chance to make  things right, but there was also only one thing he could ask for. Touching the baton on his forehead as if it could hear his thoughts, he silently pleaded to make things right, to save everyone. 

To bring her back to him.

He only stayed that way for a few seconds, but to him it felt like a lifetime before he took a deep breath and, gathering all the courage he had left, threw the baton up into the air, a humble “please” becoming his magical word for the wish he didn’t dare say out loud.

The next seconds passed him by in slow motion as the baton went up just smoothly before slowly stopping in mid-air, as if judging him, and for a split second he could swear his heart had stopped as it started glowing until it was but a ball of light that split in all directions at once, going from light rays to the familiar swarm of light ladybugs as it distanced from the center. 

He felt the gentle pressure against his chest as they passed him and looked back into the direction Alya had taken Marinette. He would’ve followed it, but right now he was sure his legs would fail him. He couldn’t even breathe properly, let alone jump half the city's buildings. Letting out a tired sigh, he stepped out of the edge to sit down leaning against it. 

“Tikki, Plagg, unmerge” 

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

Alya sat down by her friend, beaming with happiness as she saw Marinette waking up. Her injuries and even her clothes back to pristine condition after the ladybugs had done it’s magic.

“Mari! Mari, are you ok??” She helped Marinette as she sat down, seeing her hold her forehead for a few seconds.

“I’m fine, I-- Chat Noir!!” she made a sharp turn from Alya to Nino, noticing she was somewhere she didn’t know and her partner wasn’t there wither. “Where is him!?”

“He stayed back to fight Hawkmoth after you were hit, but-”

“He stayed back!? He took the biggest hit!” She was up and fully awake now “How long did I- no, this is not important now. Tikki, spots on!” Nothing happened, and after touching her ears to find nothing there, she gave a baffled glance to her friends. 

“Hawkmoth..?”

“No. Adrien.” Alya got serious. “Come on, we’ll tell you what happened on the way. We need to find him.” 

She knew details would have to come later, but was relieved to find out her friend accepted the brief summary. Marinette got eerily silent after finding out Hawkmoth was in fact Gabriel Agreste all that time, but seemed more worried about Adrien. She knew Tikki would heal anything she could, but merging Tikki and Plagg was out of almost everyone’s league in full health, let alone injured like she last remembered him.

The search took a bit more time than they expected it to take, as both hero and villain had moved significantly from the place where the group was separated, but when they finally found it, Alya put Mari on the ground reluctantly. Gabriel was but a lump tossed to the side, no kwamis nearby, and Adrien was relatively far from him: miraculous in hand, breath shallow and holding his chest where a single dark stain remained.

He took a hot second to look up, seemingly in a shock trance, but as soon as he saw Marinette it was impossible to hold a sob. Tikki and Plagg had gotten out of their hideout behind Adrien to greet them, but Marinette could hear nothing as she focused solely on the blonde guy in front of her, getting precariously on his feet to meet her half-way just to fall down to his knees again as they met each other. Without a kwami his weight was too much for her to hold, but she gave him a bit of support as they kneeled down together.

“Mari, Mari” Her name came out of his mouth like a prayer as he cupped her face to be sure she was there. “It’s all ok now Adrien, I got you. I’m right here with you.” She tried to remain as calm as possible while she saw desperation grow in him as his eyes got red from unshed tears. “It’s over now.”

“I’m so sorry” he pulled her to a hug so tight it hurt, but she didn’t say a word. 

Instead, she took the chance to finally look at Tikki in a silent question, feeling relieve flood her as the Kwami reassured her with a head swing. So Gabriel wasn’t dead, which was great. Adrien didn’t deserve the extra trauma on top of everything.

His sobs grew a bit louder as he let himself cry against her shoulder, and she found herself silently crying with him, telling him in barely audible whispers that she was there for him, and everything would be alright.

“I didn’t” he’d tell her “I didn’t, but I wanted to-- you--I want to still...I’m so sorry” before bursting into a mostly silent cry mixed with one grunt of pain here and there but still holding onto her for dear life. He needed a hospital for that wound and to recover from the transformation, but she knew he needed to let it out before recomposing himself.

All the while she’d answer him that she knew, and she was proud of him. She expected nothing less from him. Everything would fall into place.

Adrien kept his hold on her, but it didn’t take long before exhaustion took the best of him and she felt his weight shifting as he got silent. Searching Alya with her eyes, she found her friend leaned against a wall by Carapace’s side with Tikki and Plagg, waiting. Her other friend carrying an unconscious Gabriel Agreste. 

As she took in the sight of the kwamis, Marinette found herself wishing she could make a selfish wish. Unfortunately for all of them, however, certain things in life needed to be dealt with the traditional way, and she would be sure to be by Adrien’s side when the time came to face this new, non-magical demon.

“Rena Rouge..”

“No need to finish that.” Her friend answered with a small smile and gently took Adrien from where he was.  “We will have a lot to explain to the police.”

Taking her earrings and his ring back from Adrien, Marinette said a brief “sorry” before transforming into Ladybug again. She could take no chances of anyone finding out about Kwamis in a hospital. Taking the exhausted man from Alya’s arms, she looked back at them.

“And a lot to cover, too. Take care of Gabriel, I will take Adrien to the hospital and meet you guys as soon as I can.”

“Don’t sweat it” Carapace answered already jumping from the building “We can take care of this one no problem now.”

As she took Adrien out of there, she couldn’t stop thinking about everything that went down and how he had opened a completely new page for them in such a short time. A very chaotic page, at that.  Perhaps she would finally need to give Felix that call she dreaded so much...

But that was a story for another time.

[snarkybluechristian]

Hazbin Hotel: Yandere Alastor x Vaggie Chapter 43

Tears of happiness poked at the edges of Vaggie’s eyes as she squealed her girlfriend’s name, “Charlie!”

“Hey, Vaggie!” Charlie said cheerfully.  “I’m sorry I’m late!  But I’m here now!  I’ll take care of this, so don’t you worry!”

Happy tears fell from Vaggie’s eyes as she silently nodded while handing Molly back her phone.

In the car behind them, Alastor narrowed his eyes and growled while opening another hole of tentacles on the side of the road that Charlie also burned up before they could reach the limo.

In a second, Charlie transformed into her demon form complete with horns and said to Vaggie in a distorted voice, “Get down, Vaggie.  This is going to get ugly.”

“Okay, Charlie, but be careful,” Vaggie warned.

“Don’t worry about me,” Charlie replied.  “Worry about protecting yourself and everyone in the car.  I’ll be fine, Vaggie.  I’ll handle this and get us home.”

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep, princess…” a sinister voice crackled through the radio.

“ALASTOR!” Charlie shrieked.  “LEAVE MY GIRLFRIEND AND MY FRIENDS ALONE!”

A laugh track following Alastor’s terrifying laugh played over the radio before Alastor responded, “Princess, do you really think I’ll give up on pursuing my fiancée just like that?  I have claimed Vaggie for myself.  It doesn’t matter to me that you and she were together before I came into the picture.  Vaggie is mine.”

Vaggie shuddered fearfully, prompting Molly to sit her down and give her a supportive hug.

“You’re wrong!” Charlie snapped back.  “Vaggie is mine!  She will never ever be yours!  I don’t care how powerful you are!  If you think I’ll even let you touch her again, you have another thing coming!”

“Hahaha!  Talk is cheap, little Charlie,” Alastor said maliciously summoning his voodoo familiars from the ground surrounding his car as a static cloud grew around him and the Spider Family who were shuddering in their seats.  “And, as my Mother would say, actions speak louder than words!”

The static cloud and the swarm of voodoo familiars flew through the ground and the air towards the limo in front of them.

“Oh, shit,” Vaggie muttered as her eyes grew as wide as saucers.  “Cherri, step on it!”

“You don’t have to tell me twice,” Cherri quipped seeing the disaster following behind them through the rearview mirror.

Cherri promptly slammed on the gas to gain some distance.

In the meantime, Charlie opened rifts of fire behind the limo, quickly separating her group from Alastor’s.

“Oh, shit!” Henroin screamed, swerving the car to the side and pressing on the brakes.

Henroin pressed on the brakes causing the car to swerve and stop on its shotgun side, just barely avoiding falling into the pit.

Henroin put the car in park and hyperventilated at the wheel.

“Dammit,” Arackniss said looking into the fiery pit.  “What do we do now?”

“Leave it to me,” Alastor said.

Then with a snap of his fingers, Alastor used his magic to create a road over the fiery pits.

Meanwhile, back in the limo, everything was going smoothly.  The roads were unobstructed, and everyone was finally starting to breathe.

Charlie continued creating fiery pits behind the limo as it sped away.  Vaggie and Molly sat down inside the limo under the sunroof while Cherri continued speeding down the road.  Angel laid down on the backseat with his eyes closed.

Molly rubbed Angel’s head, held his hand, and said, “Hey, Angel.  Charlie’s here and she’s helping us get away.  When you wake up, we’ll be back at the hotel.”

“Go, Charlie, go,” Angel muttered without opening his eyes.  

“Angie?” Cherri asked in concern.  “Angie, how are you still awake?”

Angel’s eyes fluttered open and he exclaimed, “Vaggie, you need to come back to my fluffy tits!  You still need to hide!”

“Angel, get a hold of yourself,” Vaggie replied annoyedly while laying his hand on his shoulder.  

“I’m trying, babe, but I can’t stay awake,” Angel said, grabbing onto Vaggie’s hand.  “I can’t keep you safe anymore.”

Vaggie squeezed Angel’s hand, smiled, and replied, “Angel, you’ve done enough to keep me safe.  Don’t worry.  We can take care of things from here.”

The serum finally took hold of Angel, and he was quickly losing consciousness.

“Okay, Vaggie,” Angel said slowly.  “Whatever happens.  Promise me you’ll kick ass.”

Vaggie smiled warmly and said, “I promise, Angel.”

“And one more thing…” Angel said as he shut his eyes and drifted away.  “Thank you for not leaving me.”

“Ditto,” Molly added.

“Sleep tight, buddy,” Cherri called out from the front seat.  “We’ll get you home.”

Angel then completely lost consciousness and drifted off to sleep.

“You’re welcome, Angel,” Vaggie said with a warm smile as she covered him with the straitjacket.

“Oh, my God…” Cherri muttered fearfully, prompting Molly and Vaggie to immediately look through the window.

To their horror, an innumerable swarm of voodoo doll familiars were jumping and climbing and practically flying through the pits despite the flames.

“Charlie!” Vaggie yelled through the sunroof.  

“I see them, Vaggie,” Charlie replied.

Charlie summoned more fire that consumed the voodoo familiars at first.  But as suddenly as it started, the fire extinguished and the pit returned to road.  

“What?” Charlie almost whispered as she every fire pit she summoned kept getting extinguished.

“Charlie?!” Vaggie asked poking her head through the sunroof.  “Charlie, what’s going on?!”

“I have no idea!” Charlie yelled in a panic as she desperately created another pit of fire only to have it extinguished immediately as the swarm of voodoo familiars passed harmlessly over.

The familiars were gaining on them, and no one could figure out what was happening until Charlie heard a familiar voice yell her name.

“CHARLOTTE!”

Everyone in the car looked up to see Lucifer, the King of Hell, flying over the vehicle with his large black fallen angel wings.

“DAD?!  WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?!” Charlie yelled fearfully pausing only for a moment before snarling and angrily throwing fireworks in his direction.  “Stay the fuck out of our way!”

Lucifer masterfully dodged the fireworks and unflappably replied, “Upholding my end of the bargain.”

“What bargain?!” Charlie asked.  “What are you talking about?!”

“Our bargain of course,” Alastor’s voice called out from down the road.

Charlie, Molly, Vaggie, and Cherri looked behind them to see that, to their horror, Alastor was rising on a summoned pit of his tentacles while Henroin and Arackniss were driving behind him on the road summoned to traverse the pit.  

“Oh, shit,” Vaggie muttered in a terrified whisper.

Vaggie’s voice shook Charlie out of her fearful stupor.  She summoned fire on both of her hands and prepared to strike at Alastor.  

Unfortunately, before Charlie could strike, Alastor opened a pit of tentacles directly under the car.  The tentacles wrapped around Charlie and the limo.

Then, before the ladies in the car could fight back, Alastor telekinetically shut off the car, closed the tentacle pit, and allowed the limo to drop onto the road, knocking Vaggie unconscious in the process when her head slammed against the limo’s ceiling.

“Vaggie!” Molly yelled as she crawled over and desperately tried to shake Vaggie awake.  “Vaggie!  Wake up!”

“Goddammit,” Cherri said, summoning bombs in her hands.  

The car Henroin was driving finally arrived on the other side of the pits just as Alastor was telekinetically opening the car doors.

Alastor then telekinetically lifted an unconscious Angel and began pulling him out of the car.

“No…” Molly said, trying to grab him.

“Wait,” Cherri said.  “If this is our last stand, we need to plan this out.  Let him go for now.”

Molly reluctantly obeyed and allowed Alastor to telekinetically move Angel out of the car and over to where he was standing.

“Angel!” Charlie cried struggling desperately against the restraints her father had her in.  “Don’t hurt him, please!”

“Hush!” Lucifer chided.

“What’s wrong with Angel?” Arackniss asked, hopping out of the car.  “Did he get knocked out?”

Alastor briefly smelled Angel’s fur while he hovered in front of him and said, “No, it seems that he’s been drugged.  Valentino’s doing no doubt.”

BAM!  

Without a warning, a bomb exploded between Alastor and the Spider Family.  Shots of bazookas followed the gunfire, covering the area completely in smoke.

“Go, go, go!” Cherri yelled at Molly as she dashed through the smoke with her guns blazing and grabbed Angel.  

Unfortunately, before either of them could get much further, Alastor’s tentacles grabbed Molly and Cherri and held them still.  

Lucifer then summoned a wind that blew the smoke away.

“Thank you, your highness,” Alastor said with a bow before turning back to Henroin and Arackniss who were now standing in front of him a couple yards away.  “Now, where were we?  Oh, yes…”

Alastor telekinetically flew Angel to the Spider Family and said, “I do believe this mess belongs to you.”

“Thanks, Alastor,” Henroin said, lifting his arms in expectation.

“Oh, there’s no need for that,” Alastor said, flying Angel above their heads and into the backseat of the car behind them.  “I’ll simply move him back into your limo once we return to the mansion.”

Alastor snapped his fingers and released the tentacles restraining Cherri and Molly.

As soon as she hit the ground, Cherri summoned some more bombs, ran towards the car, and yelled, “Let go of Angel or I’ll blow you to kingdom come!”

Alastor smiled maliciously as he snapped his fingers again and the straitjacket that was lying on the floor of the limo instantly teleported onto Cherri, restraining her arms instantly.  He snapped his fingers again and the bombs teleported into the sky where they harmlessly exploded without hurting anyone while Molly watched helplessly.

Alastor then telekinetically pushed Cherri to Arackniss who held her in place.

“Do with this young firecracker what you wish,” Alastor said.  “Though if I may make a suggestion, I think you should sell her to Sir Pentious.  He couldn't give me anything I wanted for Angel, but his weapons and technology may be of use for you."

“Excellent idea,” Henroin said with a wicked smile.  “Arackniss, get her in the car.”

“Yes, Dad,” Arackniss said, grabbing onto Cherri’s shoulders as he opened the door to the back seat.  

Cherri refused to move and struggled viciously against the restraints of her straitjacket.

“LET ME GO, YOU FUCKING BASTARDS!” Cherri screamed as she twisted and bucked against Arackniss’s grip, unable to escape his strength despite his slightly smaller stature.

Alastor snapped his fingers again and Cherri was teleported under Angel's torso.  The dead weight held her down so that she couldn't move.  Molly stood there helplessly trying to find a solution while Charlie struggled against the tentacles’ hold.

Arackniss opened the car door, put the seatbelt around Cherri, and said, “We can’t thank you enough for your generosity, Alastor.  Are ya sure there’s nothing we can give ya in return?”

Cherri thrashed against this additional restraint and snarled, “Keep your fucking hands of me, ya piece-of-shit!”

Arackniss turned to Cherri, shut the car door, leaned against it, and said, “Listen here, girly.  Ya need to watch that mouth if ya know what’s good for ya.  If I were you, sugar, I wouldn’t be so nasty.  Besides…”

Arackniss reached into the car and stroked a hand against Cherri’s face before he finished, “…you’re a cutie.  In exchange for a good time, I might consider letting you go…”

“ARACKNISS!” Henroin and Molly both snapped at once.

“What?” Arackniss replied, turning to his Dad and not noticing Cherri sink her teeth into his hand.  “Can’t I ever get anything good out of these…OWWWWWWWWWWW!”

Cherri quickly let go of Arackniss’s injured hand and spat in his face, forcing him to reel back from his perch.  

“Not in your afterlife, jackass!” Cherri snarled.

Alastor chuckled and said, “Just be sure to keep Angel and his friends under your thumb and away from my bride.”

“Can do,” Henroin replied, walking back to the car.  “Now go get your bride and let’s get ya home.  Come on, Molly.”

“Like Hell!” Molly snarled.  

“Excuse me?” Henroin asked, turning on his heels and stopping in his tracks.

“I wish I could say that this surprises me, but it doesn’t,” Molly chided as she strode right into her father’s face.  “Every time I think you two couldn’t have gone any lower, you always manage to go even deeper.  And now, you’re going to torture my twin brother!”

“It’s for Anthony’s own good,” Henroin replied with a shrug.  

“Bullshit,” Cherri shrieked from the car.

Alastor snapped his fingers and a gag covered Cherri’s mouth.  

“Let Cherri go, you sons-of-bitches!” Molly cried.

Meanwhile, Vaggie had come to in the limo.  She saw the scene around the corner of the door and watched Molly as she continued to make her protest.

Vaggie looked up at Lucifer, who was watching the scene with amusement, and Charlie, whose eyes immediately locked with hers.  

With tears of desperation flowing down her cheeks, Charlie gestured with her head for Vaggie to run.  Vaggie wanted to stop and protest, but she knew she didn’t have the time or the choice.  

As the argument between Molly and her father and brother continued, Vaggie managed to sneak to the front of the car unnoticed, shut the doors carefully and quietly, got the car out of park, and stepped on the gas.

It was then that Alastor finally noticed what was happening.  He summoned more of his voodoo doll familiars and immediately sent them dashing after the limo.  

As everyone watched wordlessly, Charlie opened a large rift of fire to try to keep the familiars away.  

Unfortunately, as soon as the rifts were opened, Lucifer closed them again allowing the familiars to catch up to the limo and use their combined strength of numbers to lift the limo off the ground.

“Dammit!” Vaggie yelled out in frustration as the familiars popped the tires and placed the limo back on the road.

Alastor instantly teleported over to the driver’s side and opend the door.

Vaggie glared at Alastor with all the hatred she had in her being and snarled, “I hate you.”

Alastor scoffed with an amused smirk and replied, “Give it time, dear.”

Alastor then blew a red mist onto Vaggie’s face.  Vaggie tried to wave it away as she coughed and started to blink drowsily.  

Charlie quickly realized what was happening and yelled, “VAGGIE!!!” before Alastor covered her mouth with part of the tentacle.

Molly shook out of her stupor and tried to dash over to help Vaggie, but her father held her back and wouldn’t let her go.

“Alastor!” Molly cried.  “What are you doing to Vaggie?!”

Vaggie fainted where she sat, and Alastor picked her up in his arms and replied, “Regaining my side of the bargain.”

Alastor teleported with his bride back to the side of the car while summoning a portal to Valentino’s building that his familiars immediately shoved the limo through before returning to their shadow forms and disappearing.  He looked at Vaggie’s sleeping face with a contented smile and lovingly moved her hair out of her face before telekinetically opening the car door.  

“My bride and I are ready to return to the manor, Henroin,” Alastor said as he climbed in and took his seat.  

“You got it,” Henroin said, shutting Alastor’s door and walking back to the wheel of the car.  “Molly, get in the car!  You can cram in the back with Arackniss.”

“Fuck you!” Molly screeched.  

“What did you just say to me?!” Henroin snarled.  

“You heard me!” Molly retorted.  “You are no longer my father!  You are dead to me!  I’d rather walk across all of Hell than ride in a car with you!”

Molly then turned around and started walking away as Henroin snapped, “That is not a request, ya dumb broad!  Alastor, could ya help me?!”

“Say no more,” Alastor said snapping his fingers without removing his gaze from his sleeping beauty’s peaceful face.

Alastor snapped his fingers and Molly instantly teleported to the middle seat in the backseat under Angel and buckled her in with the seatbelt.

“Fuck all of you!” Molly snarled as Arackniss climbed in the car next to her.

“Alrighty, everyone,” Alastor said merrily.  “It’s time for us to be going.  Thanks again for your help, Lucifer.”

“You are quite welcome, Alastor,” Lucifer said.  “Now, let go of my daughter and go on your way.”

Alastor snapped his fingers, allowing Charlie to fall onto the road.

Charlie angrily got to her feet and attempted to dash to the car only for her father to hold her back.  

“That’s enough, Charlotte,” Lucifer chided.  

Charlie fought against her father’s arms and yelled in desperate anger, “ALASTOR, YOU’RE FIRED!”

Alastor looked up from his position in the car, flashed a large smile, and teleported in front of Charlie.

“Dear,” Alastor began with a patronizing smirk.  “As I recall, our agreement was that I would help you with the hotel as long as I returned.  Was it not?  I still desire to help out, so I will continue to help out as much I desire.”

“I can make a deal,” Charlie pleaded.

“Charlotte!” Lucifer yelled, summoning his wings and flying them both in the air to get away from Alastor.  “I won’t let you make a deal with any overlord!  Now, stop being so fucking stupid!  I apologize for this, Alastor.”

Alastor chuckled merrily and said, “Don’t worry about it, your majesty.  Just keep your daughter away from me and my beautiful wife until the day after the wedding unless she has a real change of heart and we’ll call it even.”

“Agreed,” Lucifer replied.  “Enjoy the rest of your night.  I’ll see you at the wedding.”

Alastor bowed his head a final time and said, “See you then.  Have a wonderful night, you two!  Let’s go, Henroin.”

Without another word, Henroin turned on the car and drove back to the manor on the now-restored road.

When the car was out of sight, Charlie summoned her wings, broke out of her father’s grip, turned to face him with her glowing red eyes and tear-soaked face, and said, “Dad, how could you?!”

Lucifer sighed and replied, “When you’re in power over a kingdom such as mine, there are sacrifices you have to make to keep order.  That, and frankly, your efforts to redeem these sinners with that hotel of yours are fucking embarrassing.”

“FUCK YOU!” Charlie screeched before turning to fly over to the manor only for her to freeze in place.  “Dad, what are you…?”

“If you won’t willing keep yourself safe away from Alastor,” Lucifer said flying in front of Charlie and summoning a portal to his castle as his dark energy held her in place.  “I have no choice but to use force.”

[mitigatedchaos]

(~1,500 words / 6 mins)

google Zarus

- @contemplate-everything

Hah, I had forgotten about him, but when it comes to "The Gods are Racist," he isn't what I had in mind. (I'll tag in @samueldays and @morlock-holmes as well.)

To put it simply, in any fantasy setting in which there are multiple sapient species (to call them 'races' suggests a smaller difference between them than there is, in my opinion), we must wrestle with the question of why there is any species less intelligent, less kind, and shorter-lived than the smartest, kindest, longest-lived humanoids.

There are a whole lot of different perspectives we can take on this, which makes it a fertile creative territory.

There are, broadly, four major reasons a species can be evil (or 'evil') in a fantasy setting: environment, culture, innate, or selected.

1. Environment.

In a friend's setting, orcs are not less intelligent or inherently more bloodthirsty than humans, but have been pushed onto more marginal lands that have less productivity, making it harder for them to develop 'civilized' agricultural states. They end up more likely to raid as well, as their economic production for advanced goods is lower.

A species could also be otherwise normal, but are widely hooked on evil magic drugs that just aren't available in other areas, or have a local environmental pressure that murders kind people.

2. Culture.

A species may worship an evil god and exist within a culture of self-sustaining evil norms, where social approval is based on being evil and altruistic people are considered exploitable morons. A member of that culture has, as their entire life experience, expectations formed on this basis.

3.A. Innate (Body)

A species may have a fundamental evil resource conflict with another species. For instance, a vampire who must murder one human a year to survive would have to be crazy moral in other ways (such as, I dunno, holding closed a gate to the infernal realms?) not to come out, on balance, quite evil just by surviving.

Alternatively, a species that has a very high fertility might quickly exhaust local carrying capacity and come into resource conflicts with neighbors more often.

3.B. Innate (Mind)

This is basically an AI safety argument. A species could be designed to enjoy cruelty more, or to be more xenophobic, or more paranoid, or to have more bloodlust or less inhibition, just as an AI could be designed to be a paperclip maximizer. In a fantasy setting it can be an absolute binding, but it could easily just be an increased frequency. Imagine having an implant in your head that rewards being a bad person.

A species might also not be innately more evil, but have greater risk factors, such as a natural craving for power and complexity, or an ability to consciously control their own sense of empathy for others.

4. Selected

A species (such as fiends) may be impossible to become or impossible to remain as without being evil.  Thus, the entire population of that species consists of evil people, or people who were once extremely evil.

I actually like all of these, as they provide a rich palette to paint with and can be used to create morally-challenging scenarios when used together. Giving orcs the capability to be good but having a tougher time of it will tie the clerics and paladins in knots - but also more clearly separates them from the neutral and evil characters.

And let's give four reasons for their existence as well.

1. Evolution

In our world, humans ended up being the only sapient species, but in a world with magic, evolution might go in very different directions. It could be simply that no one made goblins on purpose, but a sapient species with short lifespans, small resource usage, and high fertility has an evolutionary edge in many regions, particularly when technology levels are low.

On the flip-side, elves living for such a long time allows them to access more magic and more complex magic, resulting in a feedback loop in environments where magic resources are rich. Same for intelligence, which is used for developing and casting spells - but also for finding mutually-beneficial arrangements.

In a magic-evolutionary environment, it's possible that the species create the gods rather than the other way around, so they tend to (probably accidentally) create deities that reflect their strategies and tactics, which then reinforce them both culturally and environmentally.

2. Evil Deities

Evil deities are, well, evil. In the interests of spreading their evil influence, it would make sense to create evil sapient creatures, even if a handful of them will defect to good. The suffering of these creatures matters little to their creators, as evil deities are evil.  This seems to be the usual reasoning.

3. Divine Ecology

If gods need prayers, then a logical thing to do is to deliberately create sapient species that will worship you. Creating an evil species is like creating a brainwashed population, only it's down to the innate level so it's even more effective. This evil species also won't have moral objections to spreading your worship by conquering the rest of the planet.

Alternatively, species may not be equally easy to create. Creating an elf species might cost Divine Points, which then can't be used for shaping mountains or adding oceans or building temples or something. It might also be high-risk - long life may mean low fertility, which could be devastating if there's some kind of depopulation event.

4. Mortals & Evil Mortals

In this scenario, both the long-lived species (like elves) and the short-lived or 'evil' species (like goblins) were deliberately engineered on purpose, probably by evil wizards. Who was going to stop them? Paladins? That sounds like a quest!

This situation may have occurred much earlier, in a more advanced body-hopping fantasy-transhumanist civilization, where elves were high-end 'sleeves' and goblins were cheap and expendable bodies that people would exit once the time period was up. Then that civilization collapsed, and the body-hopping technology was lost... until now...

This gives us multiple options for a "The Gods are Racist" campaign.

1. Undoing the Dark Gods' Handiwork - A group of adventurers set out to remove the evil influence that the Dark Ones exert over orcs and goblins, and possibly increase their lifespan and intelligence to be similar to that of humans (or even elves). The Good gods support this quest.

BRANCH: The Dark Ones do exist and do corrupt the orcs, but the original technology used by the body-hopping civilization to create orcs is discovered, calling into question just who or what the good deities are, since this is completely incompatible with the creation mythology.

BRANCH: Removing the evil influence is possible (and successful), but increasing the lifespan is not, imposing a moral dilemma.

2. Undoing the Gods' Handiwork - A group of scientific-rationalist transhumanist adventurers challenge the deities, which in a more Greek god type way, have made the different species different without appropriate moral evaluation.

BRANCH: Turns out the Greek gods are just very powerful and very obnoxious wizards that have become full of themselves over the millennia. No higher entity is discovered with certainty. Subsequently voluntary species-change technology is introduced; only thanks to vanquishing the wizards is its energy cost economically feasible.

BRANCH: Turns out the Greek gods were once mortal and they would really like to retire from this deity thing. They scout the adventurers as their replacements, who end up having to make a lot of similar decisions due to similar resource constraints, just like the last batch and the batch before that.

3. Elf Supremacy - A group of adventurers find a magical device able to turn other sapients into elves. They discover this when they accidentally use it on themselves.

BRANCH: This is part of a plot by the Elf Deity (who is Evil) to transform everyone into elves, thus taking all worship in the entire world for himself. The party must root out and stop this vile Elf Conspiracy; unfortunately being an elf is considered so desirable that the conspiracy has many backers and this proves difficult. They end up having to take assistance from rival evil deities.

BRANCH: At first they use this device for immense profit, because so many people want to be elves, before discovering the effects are contagious, unleashing the (involuntary) Elf (Transformation) Plague. It turns out this was why the technology was not used before, and they must embark on a quest to stop it on behalf of the Elf Deity, before the other deities go to war.

BRANCH: As a subversion, it turns out there’s nothing especially dangerous about the technology at all.  The adventurers spend the rest of the campaign increasing their opportunities for their company, Elf Inc., to make huge amounts of money, and occasionally being challenged by conservative elements in other societies as they expand their markets.

4. Newly Unequal - All the species were equal until just a few hundred years ago.

BRANCH: This was the result of an elf supremacist wizard using magic to transfer other species' positive attributes to elves. The quest to stop him failed. Fortunately, this power is concentrated in a series of physical artifacts that can be destroyed. Elves aren't even a 'real thing,' but rather are descendants of a specific kingdom at the time of the switch, which has used this transferred power to subjugate the other 'species'.

BRANCH: Every kingdom in the world is still trying to figure out what happened as the global political situation has been rapidly destabilizing. It turns out that actually, this is what the species are normally like (in the absence of intervention), and a series of magical stations built by an ancient empire drained energy from more powerful species and transmitted it to less powerful species for the benefit of ideology and political stability. The adventurers face a moral choice in reactivating it, not least because the effect will rapidly kill some of the oldest members of the high-power species.

[jq37]

The Report Card – Fantasy High Sophomore Year Ep 9

Bad Kids Family Reunion

Can you believe we’re on our last episode for the year? I feel like we just started! We may not have another episode until January, but we left off on a doozy this week so let’s get going. This ep is basically split into two parts: The bulk of the Bad Kids in the Land of the Lomenelda and Adaine in Catheldriel Tower. In the ep, we go back and forth a little, but I’ll just summarize each part separately to keep things simple. 

Lomenelda Family Reunion

As you probably remember, last week the group decided to teleport to the Land of the Lomenelda because Catheldriel Tower was too secure to get into directly and because The LotL is both close by to the Tower but also the ancestral home of Fabian’s mother’s side of the family. 

Once they arrive, they see it’s basically the most stereotypical elven forest ever. Pristine woods, beautiful animals, haunting music. Fig puts a clove cigarette on the ground as an offering to a deer that she thinks might be her creature (which she still hasn’t paid for as far as I know) which brings out an elf named Telemien to tell her to stop littering. Telemien is very Elrond-esque and he has all the classic elven traits--long-winded, breathy speech, weirdly inflected words, turning into sand to be dramatic. He also happens to be Fabian’s grand-dad. 

Gilear rolls very well on his diplomacy check and, combined with the fact that they’ve brought family, the group in welcomed into the forest with open arms. Fabian fills his grand-dad in on why they’re in his neck of the woods and Telemien informs him that the Abernant family has been disgraced, Adaine’s mom was found guilty of treason (though he doesn’t know the exact crime) and fled, and their land has been seized by the Court of Stars. While the Lomenelda are generally apolitical, Telemien doesn’t have a problem saying that he has a low opinion of the Abernant family and Anguin especially is an amoral, power-grabbing, sonuvabitch.  

Riz, who is shouldering the entire responsibility of keeping the Bad Kids on task since Adaine is currently locked up, rolls to see if anything weird is going on in the forest and we learn that the Lomenelda basically just drug their teenagers with magic grapes and sad music to keep them chill and not horned up (something he finds iffy until a day of herding his friends towards a very time sensitive rescue mission at which point he’s like maybe this guy is on to something). Still, Riz warns the group against eating anything, which is always a good rule of thumb when you’re dealing with fae-adjacent nonsense (and Kristen does ping faint fey/celestial energy when she casts a Detect Evil and Good).

Fig and Riz are willing to leave for their rescue mission pretty much right away but the group decides to get a full night’s sleep first so they can regain spell slots and stuff. Ragh goes to flirt with some elf teenagers and Tracker reminds Kristen that they need to have a chat vis a vis Garthy and Sandra-Lynn. So, four episodes after the fact, Kristen finally tells Tracker that Sandra-Lynn hooked up with Garthy but she does it in such a blase and offhanded way that I assume was an attempt to sell it as not a big deal to Tracker to prevent a trip to the doghouse. It’s not the strategy I would have suggested and clearly the dice agree with me because she hits double Nat 1s on her persuasion roll. Tracker gives her another shot to give the real reason why she kept the info from her (besides “I didn’t wanna tell a lot of people,” which is such weaksauce). Kristen says that “so much was happening” and just Tracker stalks off. 

Fig, having seen Tracker leave in a huff, asks what just went down and Kristen tells her. Fig takes Kristen’s side and is appreciative that Kristen was willing to let her mom’s business be her own business. Kristen decides to give Sandra-Lynn a heads up that Tracker knows what she did. Sandra-Lynn is distraught enough about the situation that she makes the mistake of briefly giving Kristen whisky before wising up and sending her to the Van, sans alcohol.  

Fig talks to Gilear who, if you remember, also noticed that something was up with Sandra-Lynn and Garthy. Fig doesn’t give details but basically confirms it and says that at least he can take solace in the fact that him getting cheated on was probably more on her than because of anything he did. Gilear responds by telling Fig a little about Sandra-Lynn’s short-lived adventuring career: Apparently, Sandra-Lynn was a rising star in the adventuring world back when she went to Aguefort but her career was thrown off the rails when she joined a party as a replacement and ended up romantically involved with one member of a couple. The couple was very powerful and the one she was with didn’t treat her very well. Eventually, she was kicked out of the party and her name was smeared by the couple. After that, she couldn’t really find another party to join which is why she works for the Ranger Corp now. Gilear knows who the couple in question is but declines to tell Fig.

And the Kristen/Tracker trainwreck continues. Kristen gathers flowers for Tracker and finds her sulking in wolf form. Kristen did a decent job on the flower picking but whiffs her persuasion roll with another Nat 1! Tracker says that Kristen is always going off about being introspective and doing the right thing, but sitting on this, paralyzed with inaction was just as much of a wrong choice as taking an action and, also, it just plain sucked. Kristen kind of tries to “yes, dear” her way through the lecture but then gives Tracker the flowers in such a way that implies that eventually Tracker will get over it which Tracker does not care for at all. She stalks off for a second time.

Fig decides to tell Telemien that Gilear is dating Hilariel (his daughter) and they leave to take a walk and talk about poetry. Gorgug (who is very exhausted by all of the elven nonsense going on) goes to the Van and asks Ayda if she can cast Sending for him to Zelda. After accosting him (you can take the girl out of the pirate city and so on I guess) she says she’ll do it for 150 gold. The message essentially says, “Hey. We’re safe. Sorry about screwing up. I’m working on it. Miss you.” He rolls Persuasion with disadvantage and a 12 gets him left on read all night. 

Tracker has cast the Moon Haven spell and everyone (except Gilear) piles into the Van. Kristen, who’s sleeping alone tonight for obvious reasons, walks into Ragh’s room and sees that he has brought a high elf teenager. She quickly leaves to give him privacy and then decides to take Adaine’s room for the night. While she’s awake, she notices that Gorgug is still awake too. He says he messaged Zelda and he hasn’t gotten a reply yet. Maybe it’s a time zone thing? Kristen is pretty sure it isn’t a time zone thing. Gorgug also notices that Kristen came out of Adaine’s room and not Tracker’s. They hug it out over both being in the doghouse with their respective partners.

Fabian, who had previously failed his Con save with an 8, gets to re-roll because of the super fine, elven forged, 800 thread count sheets he brought into the Moon Haven (that Riz refused because it seemed inappropriate while Adaine was in jail) and he got a modded 20, finally getting over his levels of Exhaustion. Our boy isn’t back to his old self but he’s getting there.

In the morning, Riz is very anxious to leave and very over all the elven and Bad Kid shenanigans. Ragh is also very ready to leave, but that’s mainly because he wants to escape his (first ever) hook-up who is a liiiitle too into him being a half-orc if you know what I mean. Kristen decides to give one of her classic, patented, inspiring speeches which is just a glorious trainwreck that’s half public apology, half total ramble, 100% uncomfortable for everyone involved. Then, she offhandedly asks Telemien if he can see Kalina in the photo. He can’t but, guess what? She can. She freaks and asks Tracker to hug her cause she’s freaking out. Tracker obliges until Kristen pushes her luck and asks if she’s slept off being mad at her, at which point she up and leaves for the THIRD TIME. Even Fig is like, “Yikes, girl.”

Ayda isn’t sure if this is a good time (it’s not) but she got a reply back from Zelda. Zelda said that she couldn’t answer because she was at a party and says trying to build a cell tower is crazy. “It’s all whatever Gorgug. I don’t blame you.” The gang walks Ayda through the nuance of the text and why the prognosis is looking negative on the Zelda front. She offers to hurt Zelda for Gorgug. Gorgug appreciates the sentiment but declines. Ayda also says she can research Planeshift for Fig once they’ve rescued Adaine. 

But back to the matter at hand. Telemien explains the defenses of Calethriel Tower: It’s defended by a lot of arcane spellcraft that will protect against most magic attacks but is vulnerable to physical attacks which the elves would see as too base to defend against. All of the defenses are powered by Elemental Pylons (which are basically like power transformers). Also, Gilear tries (and fails) to ask for Hilariel’s hand in marriage by inducing vomiting in himself which makes slightly more sense in context but only slightly. 

When they get to the edge of the valley where the tower is, Kristen sees that the Pylons are pretty far away from each other (like, miles away). There’s no way to hit both towers and then get to Adaine before someone realizing something’s up. The group mentions that they’re also supposed to be breaking out Aelwyn but Fabian is a lot less gung-ho about that part of the plan than he previously was, pre-existential crisis. They talk it out for a while and end up coming up with the following plan: The hirelings will go to one Pylon to destroy it. Gorgug, Fabian, and Riz will destroy the second Pylon at the same time. Once the Pylons are down and the magical defenses are weak enough that they can use magic without it being countered, Fig (disguise expert), Kristen (in case Adaine or Aelwyn need heals, which they will), and Ayda (who has teleportation and invisibility spells) will go in and get the sisters. Then, everyone will meet at the Van and teleport out (or at the very least, get together to plan a different way out). 

Abernant Family Reunion

Meanwhile, in Calethriel Towel, Adaine is having a Day. She’s been put in a Torture Orb which isn’t that bad for the time being but it is very annoying and Boggy is pretty upset. She’s actually not being prevented from casting spells because the elves wouldn’t expect her to have slots yet and she can’t really regain them without trancing. She can sense that the prison is full of permanent magical effects (powered by the Pylons she doesn’t know about) which is unusual since those are really hard to achieve. 

The elves’ hubris in not completely stopping her from casting spells works out to Adaine’s favor. She casts Dispel Magic and needs to hit a 15. She gets a 19 and her orb disappears. Unfortunately, that sets off an alarm. She needs to hide but she’s not exactly Riz. She decides (to my immediate delight) to hide in Aelwyn’s room. She only rolls a 6 but that only means that Aelwyn clocks her when she rushes in, not the guards. Speaking of the guards, on a 15 perception check, Adaine can see that there actually aren’t a ton of security mages. It just seems that way because they can immediately teleport to wherever the problem is from these doorless archways. 

Anyway, Kier rushes in with some green, 8ft tall, magical construct guards. As she does so, Aelwyn motions for Adaine to stay silent. Kier asks Aelwyn if she knows where Adaine is and Aelwyn basically says, “How should I know?” (which is a question and not an outright lie, smart in case any kind of lie detector spell was running). Once Kier is gone, Aelwyn telepathically messages Adaine (which is a cantrip she’d be able to do even without spell slots) and asks if Adaine has any spell slots left they can use to escape. Adaine says she has 4 first level spell slots and her frog, but her spellbook was taken (as was her jacket). Aelwyn says it was probably taken to the vault on the first floor but it would have been locked down because of the alarm was triggered. Then she and asks if their mom found her and Adaine said she did, briefly.

Up close, Adaine can see more clearly what she glimpsed for a second when she was brought in. Aelwyn is doing BAD. She’s shaking just from the effort of keeping upright and having trouble putting together thoughts. Completely unprompted, Adaine tells Aelwyn that nobody deserves the torture she’s going through and that it’s barbaric and undeserved. Aelwyn immediately starts tearing up (as much as she can being so dehydrated) and says that she can’t remember exactly what it is that she did--both to the world in general and to Adaine specifically--but it was also barbaric and undeserved. She apologizes and is self aware enough to realize how messed up she must have have been that it took months of literal torture to get her to a place where she realized that she had things to apologize for--even though she can’t really remember what they are at this point in her mental deterioration. Adaine, in turn, is aware enough to realize at this point that their parents didn’t just screw her up; they screwed up Aelwyn too by treating her like the golden child. Aelwyn reflexively defends their parents, saying that they tried their best and that they were just trying to make them better by having high expectations but Adaine, who’s had a year of therapy to unpack her trauma, gently rebuffs her. “Expectations without love? What’s that?”

At this point in the conversation, Aelwyn starts repeating herself like an NPC that’s run through all their scripted dialogue options. Adaine realizes but is very patient with her until she’s found and brought back to her cell. However, her cell is close enough to Aelwyn’s that they can message each other. She also uses Ray of Frost in her Orb to make a kind of Slip and Slide to keep her spirits up and she’s able to avoid taking a level of exhaustion in there.  

Later, Kier comes in with Adaine’s dad so they can talk. And by that I mainly mean so he can talk at her because she still wants nothing to do with him. Anguin tells Adaine to stop being stubborn and just do what’s asked of her to avoid execution. She also doesn’t know how he is OK with how they’re torturing to Aelwyn. He says she’s being a drama queen since Aelwyn committed treason and she’s not being literally physically beaten or injured. Adaine starts trying to respond to that and then decides to just demand a lawyer. Anguin thinks she’s being ridiculous because things like lawyers and democracy are Solesian concepts and ridiculous, unlike Falinel’s totally normal system government which involves immortal dancers and moon phases.  

Adaine, in probably the most high-elf-y display we’ve seen from her, formally curses her dad in the name of the seas and the moon and sun. Then she casts Tasha’s Hideous Laughter on her dad (wasting one of her very few spell slots in a very in character way) because she truly cannot help herself. After Kier quickly dispels it, she demands to see the Solesian Ambassador. But you’re a citizen of Falinel, says Kier (though she can’t hide that the threat gets to her a little). Yeah, but I go to Aguefort, says Adaine. As soon as his name is invoked, a hologram of Aguefort pops up like Clippy and says, “Hey, it seems like you’re F’ing with one of my students. Now, I’m the baddest bitch that’s ever lived. Do you want to do this the easy way or the hard way?” Kier smirks and chooses the hard way. The hologram blinks out, an alarm starts going off--

And that’s where we end for the year! 

*Note: Anguin and Adaine also were contenders for Detention and the Honor Roll respectively but it would have been for basically the same things as last week so I chose other people. 

Detention

Kristen for The Worst Apology Ever

I’ve been concerned about this whole Sandra-Lynn/Garthy thing blowing up since it happened, man. I read the writing on the wall. And I knew, if she didn’t get ahead of it, this was gonna splash back on Kristen. And then she decides, not only is she not going to get ahead of it, she’s gonna actively jog further behind it? Truly wild. 

And it’s even crazier because, yeah, it would be an awkward conversation to have but it wouldn’t have reflected badly on Kristen (who didn’t do anything), just on Sandra-Lynn. And, yeah, not great for group dynamics but, you know what’s way worse? Tracker being mad at Kristen AND Sandra-Lynn. Tracker’s not even so mad on her Uncle’s behalf as she is about how Kristen decided to handle the situation which, yeah! Duh! How did you think cutting your girlfriend out of the loop would go?

And, listen, a lot actually was going on. The Fabian ordeal then Ragh got possessed, Riz got ambushed by Kalina, they fought Wicklaw again and Adaine got kidnapped. All of these things happened very close together than they’re all #1 Priority type things. She for sure had time to tell Tracker (and should have) but it wasn’t the most pressing thing going on. There is an apology that includes the words “there was a lot going on” that actually works but DAMN, this was NOT it chief.

Honor Roll

Aguefort for Having his Students’ Back 

Listen. Aguefort is a crazy, mercurial, semi-feral agent of chaos who I would never leave children in the care of.

HOWEVER, when he comes through he REALLY comes through and man did he come through for Adaine.

Of course, it remains to be seen what his help will actually look like but he gets this spot for bringing a spot of hope into a pretty terrible situation in a very cool way. Well, that and the Drama of It All. 

Also, I’m just relieved he’s at least somewhat keeping track of the child assassins he’s sending out into the world.  

Random Thoughts

Adaine Re: Boggy: He’s with me how dare you?

Brennan says near the end of the ep something like, “I didn’t think we were gonna spend a whole episode dunking on eleves,” but, honestly? Valid. I really can’t stand elves in most media (even though I usually play elves or half-elves) because they’re so pompous and holier than thou and constantly talking about how fleeting everyone else's lives are. It drives me nuts. Moonshine in Naddpod is my favorite elven archetype in anything because she totally inverts the trope. 

“I can’t believe I’m half this.”/”You are not half this these are high elves.”

I love how Fig has absolutely no concept of how this “make me a creature” thing is supposed to work. Does she think Aguefort is just gonna release it into the world without telling her and she has to just, like, find it? Not that that doesn’t sound like something he might do, but still.

Gorgug gets so sick of the insane elven pronunciations and talk about how he’s gonna die at 20 and general nonsense that he has to go lie down in the Van which is The Mood.

Fabian receiving a long, elven greeting from his grandad and then giving the most kid-like response--“Yeah so I’m in high school and I have a school project I need help on and it’s like 60% of my grade”--was very funny.

A couple lore points from this episode:

Fabian’s grand-dad crafted a sword for the king of Falinel 3000 years ago which is why he was gifted the land they live on.

Calethriel Tower was originally a monument by a grieving widow to her husband died in war with Highcourt 500 years ago.

For more detailed physical descriptions and info on the lore, you can check out jamiebluewind’s post on that here.

And then you can also find new character descriptions here and transcripts of the two big RP scenes in Calethriel tower here and here. 

And I just wanna give another big shoutout to @jamiebluewind who saved me a lot of backtracking with these descriptions/transcripts. I really appreciate the effort it takes to do that and it’s a super useful resource to have.  

“Sheetsmith” High elves are truly insufferable. I’m with Gorgug on this.

I love Fig’s continuing efforts to be Gilear’s cheerleader. Their relationship is so great and it’s come a long way. I also love his brief moments of insight and competence (like, lol, remember in ep1 when Fig disguised herself as her mom and he drove her to school anyway? I loved that) so I was really cheering for him when he successfully did his diplomat stuff at the top of the ep and during his talk with Fig.

Fabian saying he wants his V-Card “removed” like it’s an infected appendix or something. I’m curious to see what, if anything, he says to Aelwyn when they see each other again, seeing as they’ve both hit rock bottom since the last time they met--which, to remind you, was at an insane house party where they were both at like a 14 out of 10.

I think it’s really great that, despite how much the Bad Kids clown on each other, they’re all super patient with explaining social nuances to Ayda. And I love that even though Ayda is pretty unclear about what the appropriate response is to anything, she is pretty ride or die but quick to rein it in once someone talks to her.

“It’s probably fine if Gilear has a grape.”

It’s very important for me to note that the funniest thing that happened this episode was a player action, not a character action and it was Siobhan--after about an hour of sitting in relative silence as the rest of the group did their thing--pulling out a present for Brennan--a set of Sugar and Dice Candy Dice. “So you can eat your fucking dice!” Amazing.

Brennan, as Telemien, recited some poetry and either Brennan just had that memorized or he was freestyling poetry with a consistent meter and rhyme scheme which is just too much for me to handle rn.

Kristen’s “inspiring” speech included the line, “Friendship is thicker than water and we need water to live.” Classic Kristen.

I truly cannot wait for Hilariel to re-enter the story. I want her takes on so many things and I want to know what her relationship with Gilear is like so so so bad. I wonder if he’s gonna tell her what happened with her dad. I didn’t really get the sense that she and Telemien stay in touch very much. But, in fairness, I don’t think she’s kept up with anything/one much in the past 20ish years. Imagine a wedding arc. Now that I’ve thought of it, I want it more than I can imagine. You know Fig would appoint herself Best Man.

The friend group thing where someone says your name wrong once and you pray it doesn’t become A Thing, even though someone’s already in the process of changing the group text title to that. Anyway, you know everyone’s gonna be spelling Fabian’s name Fah-Bee-Ahn in their group text for the foreseeable future.

Fig Re: Gorgug using the Pirate Sending Spell to Zelda: You can end with raunchy promises.

What party was Zelda going to in the Red Waste mid-quest? Was there even really a party? Or was it maybe a Gold Gardens type thing? Based on my experiences being a teenage girl, I would not be surprised if that text was written by committee. 

“She’ll come back?”/“Sure.” 

Kristen taking Adaine’s vacant room was such an evocative image. I can see it perfectly. Just her curled up alone in this immaculate room with little Adaine-y touches, sad about two things.

The Bad Kids in the forest had maybe the biggest Teenager energy that I’ve seen in any episode of FH so far. Like, that Tracker/Kristen argument alone.

“If you wanted me to build a cell tower I would do it immediately and I would know how.”

I don’t know if there really haven’t been many Kristen and Gorgug scenes or if I’m just forgetting but I loved their one on one in this ep. They’re good scene partners. 

I also really liked Gorgug’s talk with Ayda who has been a great addition to the squad. And I love how easily she jumped from, “You’re a good person from what I’ve seen” to that John Mulaney sketch where he’s like, “That guy sounds like he sucks. Do you want me to murder him for you?”

Brennan gave everyone some XP this ep so they’re very close to level 9. Lol at everyone suggesting they Fight Club each other to grind the last bit they need.

“My friend is kidnapped and the rest of my friends are just dancing and eating grapes!”

Telemien’s abject revulsion to the point of throwing up at the operation of a gun (which is why Gilear induced vomiting before asking for Hilariel’s hand btw) was a Choice on Brennan’s part.

“The body protects itself and secretes more hit points.”

Telemien offers to get the best eleven eyesmiths (sure) to make Fabian a new eye and it shouldn't even take long. Unfortunately, in elf-time, that could mean anything from 1 - 100 years.

WHY CAN KRISTEN SUDDENLY SEE THE SHADOWCAT? WHAT IS GOING ON? I’m like thisclose to thinking that it actually is transmitted through bodily fluids like some people were saying. But, seriously, what’s changed since last time the picture was taken out? This was post argument with Tracker. Is that a factor? Or does it just feel like it might be because it was the last major thing to happen before she was able to see it? I want to sit down during the break and make, like, a conspiracy theory board to put together all the data we have on this so far because I feel like every single new piece of info we get is something unexpected but I falso eel like we’re gonna hit ourselves when we realize what it is. 

Fig is very ride or die for Adaine this whole episode. She basically had no spell slots but was ready to go after Adaine right away, she offered to go in to get her alone as a “one woman Adaine retrieval team” while everyone else dealt with the Pylons, and when Ayda said Adaine was her best friend, she was like, “Well Adaine is kinda my best friend.”

“By the transitive property, are we best friends?” [Yes] “I grow richer by the day.” I love her so much. 

Even though Telemien is like more than a thousand years old, he’s apparently never met a goblin because he calls Riz a “strange, green, mouse thing.”

Riz: Who among us hasn't killed someone?

That "on mushrooms" bit had big "cell tower" energy.

Gorgug: Your grandfather is pissing me off.

Siobhan, to Lou who just Rolled an 8 on His Con Save: We're gonna get you new hands for Christmas. 

“It’s Gilear’s day baybee!”

I loved Riz and Fig teaming up to give Gilear as much help as possible for his botched attempt at asking for Hilariel’s hand. “Did he just call himself a throw-up boy?”

If you think about it, it actually is extremely funny that Adaine would demand a lawyer. She’s lived in Falinel almost her entire life but she studied abroad for one year and all of a sudden she’s like, “I have rights!”

Gilear very specifically said that Sandra-Lynn was with, "a member if the couple" and not which one it was. That was such an intentionally vague phrasing that I'm surprised Fig didn't call him on it. Also, I'm curious whether Fig actively knows who it is (maybe a teacher at school) or if he just knows she would go track them down for shenanigans once she had a name.

Also, speaking of Fig, wild that her Catfishing of Dr. Asha is one of the only relationships standing at this point. 

OK, I ate my vegetables now I get to talk about Abernant Family Drama.

Those of you who have been following me since I became active in the d20 fandom probably know that one of the first things I wrote were a series of meta-bordering-on-drabbles about what a future relationship between Adaine and Aelwyn could look like because, from episode one, my thought was, “There’s not one messed up sister in this house, there’s two.” I have been on the Abernant Sisters Against Their Parents train since S1 y’all and I thought it had a decent chance of happening but then Aelwyn’s iconic S1 episode happened and we learned she was working with Kalvaxus and she got thrown in jail so there wasn’t much time for development from her.

But then, it became clear that the Abernant family was gonna be all up in this arc and I got excited again. I mean, I tempered my expectations. The confrontation could have shaken out in a couple of different ways. And I would have enjoyed watching Adaine verbally destroy two family members instead of just the one, don’t get me wrong. But y’alllllllllll.

I thought Adaine and Aelwyn would put aside their differences and end up on the same side eventually but I wasn’t expecting Adaine, with absolutely no prompting, to take the path of compassion so quickly and absolutely. And, in turn, I didn’t expect Aelwyn to be as apologetic and forthright as she was. And, man, her whole situation is heartbreaking. The idea that you were so messed up that it took a year of torture to be able to recognize that you were living such a fundamentally flawed life? And then reaching that point but at the cost of your stability and the information needed to make things right? Literally not knowing what’s real and what your fevered brain has made up? That’s so tragic, man.

And Adaine was so gentle with her. The patience as she started repeating things and the kindness as she firmly cast away any remaining delusions Aelwyn had about their parents and upbringing. I am so constantly upset by how well the cast in general but Bren and Siobhan specifically just spit out these fully formed masterpieces that I would need to take a full hour to think through before even opening a Word Doc. It’s really magical.

I have no idea how much mental damage a healing spell can fix, if any, but I’m very interested to see what an even slightly more stable Aelwyn looks like, post all of this. Like, say she gets completely stable due to a combo of therapy and healing magic over time. What is her personality even like at that point? Does she revert back to a version of her old personality but with the acid aimed at someone who deserves it? Does she start from scratch from this baby deer learning to walk place she’s at right now? 

Very good DM move from Brennan to have Adaine’s low stealth roll to be Aelwyn noticing her and not the guards so we still got the Aelwyn confrontation and not a quick and frustrating capture. 

Aelwyn asked Adaine if, “mother found you,” which makes it sound like she checked in with Aelwyn before she fled. I continue to be very interested in the clues we’re getting to what that woman is up to. Maybe Aelwyn knows more info that the gang could get once she’s a little better or via a detect thoughts or something similar.

I want Anguin to look me in the eye and tell me to my face that not letting someone rest for a full year and not letting them eat or drink and literally keeping them on the brink of death isn’t torture so I can jump through the computer screen into Falinel and strangle him with my bare hands. Like, boy, you’re not even going to go with, “This is justified torture?” You’re gonna say it just straight isn’t? Man I can’t wait for the Bad Kids and/or Aguefort Himself to get sicced on this bastard.

OK, I don’t wanna end on a point about Anguin so, instead, think about Adaine and Aelwyn keeping each other company from nearby cells via the Message cantrip. Isn’t that bittersweet? Closer than they’ve ever been but physically separated and it took literal torture for them to get there.

Oh! And, actually, I almost forgot but this is also a good note to end on. Shoutout to Adaine for switching from Elven to Common when talking to her dad, just to be that little bit more of an annoyance to him. You gotta rebel how you can. 

That's it for 2019, guys! We don't have another ep until January 8. Have a good New Years in the meantime and I'll see you then!

No Nat 20’s were rolled this ep. Gorgug rolled 1 Nat 1 and Kristen rolled 2 (or three if you count the one she rolled with disadvantage).

[monstersandmaw]

Male selkie x reader (light nsfw) - Mermay story #5

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.

Shsshhhhhhh, it’s still Mermay ok. Good? Ok. Let’s continue.

I hope you like this new boy. Something a little different this time, back to High Fantasy setting, rather than Starfall, and we find ourselves taken on as a guard at a castle by the sea which has one or two more secrets than most castles do…

Content: very light nsfw and a gender neutral reader.

___

You’d stumbled up to the colossal old castle gate little more than a month ago, bedraggled, with a notched blade and not much else to your name, wounded, and utterly exhausted. Mercifully, instead of shooting you on sight from the parapets, the guards had taken you to the little infirmary and you’d been taken care of there.

In order to repay them, you’d offered your services on the watch, or as part of the guard. After surprising the Captain of the Guard by proving yourself more than capable of wielding a blade - you could take care of yourself alright when you weren’t outnumbered six to one by bandits, which was how you’d got into that mess in the first place - you were given a bunk in the barracks and told to report to the castle’s armourer and smith for a mail shirt.

The smith was… colossal. With shoulders practically as broad as the castle gates, he towered over you, but as you entered, he glanced up from his work, and from one look at his handsome, dark-bearded, fire-stained face, you saw a gentle, kindly man beneath the grime and the muscles. He had a bit of a paunch too, which made him seem jovial and friendly, softening him at the edges where the muscles of his arms might have made him seem aggressive or dangerous.

“Alright?” he asked in a gruff, deep bass voice.

You nodded. “Been sent for a mail shirt. I’m joining the guard.”

“Ah, welcome,” he said. “I’m Dennek. I’ll be seeing more of you then, I suppose,” he added with a wonky grin as he extended his dirty hand to you and clasped your own in a bone-creakingly strong grip. “So, you managed to get lost yet?” he asked, his grin only broadening when you rolled your eyes.

“Yup,” you said. “Only about, four times… This place is a labyrinth!”

His friendly expression flickered suddenly and you watched his shoulders drop just a little. “Don’t go poking around this place, alright? Stick to your guard patrols, and the upper castle.”

“The ‘upper’ castle?”

He licked his lips. “Yeah. There’s been a castle on this outcrop for, well, thousands of years. As long as you stay up here, and don’t go exploring down into the cliff itself, you should be fine.”

“What’s down there?”

“Nothing but empty tunnels for miles and miles, or so I’m told,” he said. “Most folk who go wandering around down there either don’t come back at all, or come back stark raving mad.” He clearly saw the look on your face and added with an empty chuckle, “But you’ll be fine. I didn’t mean to scare you. Come on, let’s get you fitted out with some new gear.”

The blacksmith’s words stayed with you, and in fact you found them echoed by the Captain of the Guard, who told you in no uncertain terms that you were not to go ‘poking around’.

Between your new duties and the training regime, you barely had a moment to yourself anyway, and all you wanted to do at the end of your rotation was crash into a bath or a bed. Preferably the former then the latter.

You formed a few close friendships in the first months of being at the castle, but perhaps your closest was with Dennek. He always seemed pleased to see you, and recently had taken to offering you a cup of tea whenever you dropped by the castle’s impressive forge.

“What’s on the anvil this time, Den?” you asked, leaning against the wooden door frame of the separate smithy and making him look up at you from his work with a fond smile. The forge-fire reflected in his huge, dark eyes, and his lashes you suddenly realised were very long indeed. Something fluttered and turned over in your stomach at the discovery.

“Oh, just horse shoes today,” he said. “I seem to make more nails and more horse shoes than anything else. Can’t make a new sword everyday after all…” he grinned. “Even for His Highness up in the tower,” Den added, jutting his chin up in the direction of the highest tower of the castle.

“I’ve been here six months, and I’ve never once seen the prince,” you said, stepping inside. The heat and the smoke and smell of the forge had become a comfort to you in your time there, and you came to associate the smell of hot metal and leather with the strong arms and dark eyes of the smith.

Dennek chuckled and rubbed at his close-trimmed black beard. “Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that. He’s the shy and retiring type.”

“I heard he was sick,” you said. “But I’ve also heard that he’s mad and that the adviser is the one with all the power…”

The smith’s heavy brows darkened and he shook his head. “Where’d you hear that rubbish from?”

You shrugged, unnerved by the hint of outrage in his tone. “Same place I hear stories about a skeleton that wanders the castle, glowing green in the dead of night, and of folk that transform into wolves or seals at night and steal away young virgins from the safety of the castle walls… The guards and the servants like to talk…”

Dennek’s usual ruddy complexion paled instantly, but he recovered himself and turned away. That was hardly the reaction you’d been expecting. “Codswallop, the lot of it,” he muttered, sticking the blank, glowing horseshoe into a trough of water to cool it and tossing it into a pile of similar ones nearby.

“Den?” you asked, taking an uncertain step towards him.

He huffed an awkward laugh and turned back to you. “Fairytale stuff from superstitious folks, that’s all. Magic and all that has been dead for a thousand years.”

You nodded slowly and let your gaze drift towards the fire, and your thoughts went with it. Now that he’d lessened the air intake, the coals were glowing more softly and you sighed as you stared at it.

Dennek murmured your name and you jumped, not realising that the huge smith had crossed back over to you to stand so close. “What is it?” he asked in a gentle murmur. It seemed strange that someone so large could still manage to be so quiet.

“I wish… I wish it hadn’t all died out, you know? I wish there hadn’t been the trials and the burnings… I wish we still had magical creatures. It sounds foolish, I know, but my father used to tell me stories about the fair folk and healers who were also witches, about goblins who lived in the mountains and selkies who lived in the sea.” You let out another sigh. Beside you, Dennek had gone very still. You smiled sadly and exhaled. “I always ached for it to be true. I think part of me still does.”

You shot him an embarrassed look, expecting him to laugh, but his face was oddly unreadable. “Maybe it is still true, somewhere,” he muttered under his breath.

“Wouldn’t that be nice,” you smiled.

To your surprise, he shook his head, his curly black hair bouncing with the movement, and he moved away from you. “It’d be miserable for them, living in hiding, always in fear…”

“I guess…” you said, unnerved by the sombre quality his deep voice had taken on. You hopped up lightly onto his anvil and perched there like a crow on the castle parapets, and said, “Well, that turned gloomy… What are you doing tonight? You want to come to the tavern with me?”

He turned from where he’d been stowing his tongs and hammers back in the neat rack at the side of the forge, and you took the opportunity to admire his incredible body yet again. His pale shirt was scruffy and dirty beneath the leather apron he wore, his softer stomach very much evident beneath it, and since he’d cuffed the sleeves up to his elbows, you could clearly see the iron muscles of his forearms and the smudged and scarred, darkly tanned skin. His brown trousers were simple and baggy, tucked into clunky boots which were falling to pieces at the soles.

Those big dark eyes gleamed in the low light of his forge, and he looked at you with an intensity you’d never really noticed before. Den was always quiet, thoughtful, but something else seemed to have leached into him that day.

“Den?”

“Love to,” he said a heartbeat later, and his smile was back. “Meet you at the Wingspan Inn at seven?”

You nodded. “Perfect. My shift finishes at six.”

Dennek was already there when you pushed the dockside tavern door open.

It was one of the pubs frequented by the employees of the castle, but this one also had a mix of folk who lived in the town which had grown up at the base of the outcrop on which the castle had been built. The smell of iodine and salt followed you inside as you stepped over the threshold, but it was quickly swept away by the smell of food, gathered people, and spilled ale.

The smith was deep in conversation with a beautiful young man, lithe and slim, with long dark hair and pale, freckled skin, and he was openly flirting with Dennek.

The man’s slender hand slid up Dennek’s muscular arm, and you watched as the smith laughed and leaned more heavily on the bar, chin resting on his balled fist. When he glanced away and saw you, his eyes lit up and he excused himself from the young man and patting him rather patronisingly on the upper arm as he passed him by in favour of you.

“You’re popular,” you couldn’t help snipping as he joined you, and he shrugged, blushing a little.

“I’m glad you’re here,” he said. “The man might have had sweet words, but he’s not you that’s for sure. What are you drinking?”

He got you something to drink and you followed him to a quieter corner of the bar.

“How was the rest of your day?” he asked as he leaned back and stretched out his long, thick legs beneath the table with a grunt. One caught your calf as he crossed them at the ankle, but he didn’t apologise. He only smiled and left his leg where it was, a warm weight against your own.

You told him about your day, but you couldn’t really focus. His eyes were so bright, his smile so warm, and his presence just so… big. You’d been drawn to him since the moment you'd first met him, but now you felt something new, something deeper binding you to this huge, gentle man.

“You know what?” he asked as he finished his beer and set the heavy glass tankard back down on the table with a clunk. “You want to get out of here?”

You nodded, and he held out his hand to you, helping you to your feet. He almost didn’t let go of it, but then he let you walk ahead of him through the closely-spaced tables of the traditional old pub.

A large, older man caught his attention by yelling his name and laughing, and Dennek chuckled ruefully. “Excuse me just a moment, will you?” he asked you, and turned to speak to the grizzled man. You thought you saw a familial similarity in the two as they clasped forearms and clapped each other on the back.

“Uncle Jordan,” he said.

“Laddie, when are you coming to visit again! It’s been too long. But life in the castle is clearly doing you good - look at you lad!” he chortled, slapping Dennek’s slightly round belly with the back of his hand.

“I’ll visit tomorrow, I promise. But tonight, I’m a little busy.”

Jordan dug him in the ribs with an elbow and laughed. “Ach, get on with ye,” he said with a twinkle in his dark eyes. “Have your fun, but remember…”

“I’ll be careful. I remember.”

A frown tugged at your brows at that, but it was erased when Dennek turned his own eyes on you and smiled.

“Sorry about that,” he muttered as he joined you and ushered you out of the pub. “Overbearing family who lives locally…”

“They care about you. It’s nice,” you said. “I wish I had family who lived nearby and looked out for me like that.”

“You never told me about your family,” he asked carefully as you stepped out into the chilly evening and headed along the empty cobbled street towards the shore.

With a snort, you said, “There’s nothing to tell. Yours seem nice enough though?”

Dennek fell into step beside you, his footsteps oddly quiet for a man so big. He towered over you, but you somehow felt protected instead of dwarfed, which was ridiculous because you knew you needed no one to protect you. Still, it was nice to have the luxury.

He bowed his head in mixed apology and acceptance. “You want to walk towards the beach? The tide is out.”

You and Dennek made your way along the road, and in that strange, empty space, something seemed different now between you. There was a tension that had not existed in the months you’d been friends, and you realised that although you’d been out together before, it had always been in the company of others from the castle. This was your first time alone with each other.

Cool night breezes wafted in from the sea, and it carried with it the scents of the ocean and the call of gulls. Dennek lifted his head, his thick, curly hair lifting in the sea air as he inhaled deeply, dark eyes fluttering shut. He had the longest lashes you’d ever seen on a man.

He caught you looking at him and his lips quirked behind his beard. “What?”

When you told him your thoughts on his eyelashes, he tipped his head back and barked a booming, deep laugh that came from his belly and made his throat bob. “Aye, I’ve heard that before,” he said.

“I bet you have,” you shot darkly, and his laughter cut off immediately.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked in a very soft and gentle voice.

You sighed. “Nothing.” You shivered. “I’m cold. I want to head back to the castle.”

Dennek nodded, unaffected by the chill air, and the pair of you wove through the streets in silence. That shivering tension had tightened and you sighed.

You said goodnight to him in the castle courtyard, simply raising your hand and thanking him for the evening as you walked away.

Dennek watched you go until you were at the very door of the barracks and only then did he turn around and enter the little door of the smithy.

The next morning you woke well before dawn feeling unrested and twitchy. Your watch was not due to start until midday, and you had free training before that, but you didn’t feel like swinging a sword around the training ring that morning. Instead, you dressed in light clothes and set off at a jog out of the castle.

As you crossed the courtyard, you glanced up at the highest tower, which had affectionately come to be known as the Prince’s Tower, and you glimpsed a hooded figure, shrouded in darkness, standing on the balcony way above you. You blinked, and a moment later there was nothing there. Feeling odd, you shivered and turned your back on the place.

Your feet took you through the town below the castle. Mist clung to the rooftops and hung between the houses, and as you reached the beach, the sand of the shore still dark in the wake of the retreating tide, you saw a group of seals on the rocks at the far end of the curving bay. You smiled and thought fondly of the stories of the selkies your father had told you as a child.

You jogged along the hard sand towards them, enjoying the way your muscles had to work to balance you, to work a little harder to propel you forwards, and welcoming the burn in your lungs with every inhale.

Out of the waves, another seal emerged much closer to you.

This one was huge and really rather chubby, and the moment it breached the surface, nostrils flaring, and saw you, it went utterly still.

Water washed over its stone-grey back, swirling around its flippers and caressing it gently as your own feet faltered and you watched it in wonder.

“Hello,” you said, crouching down. “It’s alright. I won’t hurt you.”

One of the seals on the rocks barked a warning and the one before you jumped as though startled out of a trance by the sound.

“It’s alright,” you said again. “Here,” and you stretched out your hand, fingertips trailing in the cold foam at the edge of the lapping waves.

To your surprise, the seal lumbered forwards and pressed his - something made you think it was male - nose into your palm.

“Well, aren’t you just the sweetest?” you chuckled, and the seal snorted indignantly, spraying your hand with salty water.

You laughed, and then sighed as you stared into its inky eyes. The seal blinked slowly and made its awkward way a few inches closer to you, cocking its head to one side in a manner that, oddly enough, reminded you of Dennek.

“You know,” you said, “My father used to tell me stories about shape shifters. I always dreamed they were true.” You scratched the seal under the chin and stood up, turning to go. “Maybe you’re one,” you said with a rueful smile. “Perhaps I shouldn’t be so patronising.”

The seal lowered his chin to the sand and lay flat as he watched you leave, the same way a hound watches a beloved friend go, knowing he must remain behind.

When you finally jogged back up to the castle, you paused outside the smithy. Curious, wanting to satisfy your strange whim, you knocked on the door, but it was all shut up, cold and quiet. “Dennek?” you called, trying to peek in at one of the windows.

You heard your name called across the yard, and you turned around to see Dennek come running in through the gate, out of breath, hair curling and wet, dripping into his face, and his damp shirt open at the neck to reveal a little of his skin. His chest heaved from the effort of running, and you frowned, turning to go back to him. Over the crook of one arm, he carried something silvery and shiny. At first you thought it was a finely woven mail coat, but, looking at it more carefully, you could see it was an animal pelt.

“Den?” you asked as you got closer. “You ok?”

“It’s true,” he whispered, still trying to catch his breath.

You drew level with him and halted. “What’s true?”

He leaned in close and you smelled salt water and sweat on him. “What you just said to me… on the beach… it’s true.”

Your world tilted. “You mean…”

He nodded and your knees went weak.

“Come inside,” he said, jutting his chin towards the smithy behind you.

His knuckly, scarred hands shook as he slid the key into the lock, and it took him a couple of goes. The pelt across his arm was a seal pelt.

It was all true.

Selkie.

He turned around to face you as you came inside and shut the wooden door behind you. Swallowing, you looked up at him and smiled. “Promise me this isn't some kind of sick prank…” you said. “Tell me what I told the seal on the beach, and I’ll believe you.”

Dennek smiled gently, fear still obvious in his dark eyes. He licked his lips and said, “You said that your father used to tell you stories about shifters, and that you dreamed it was true. And that you shouldn't be so patronising.”

You sank down onto a wonky, three-legged stool as your knees gave way.

“You alright?”

“Yeah,” you rasped. A moment later, you added, “That was really you?”

He nodded.

“How…? I mean… Are there many of you?”

He shook his head, dark curls bouncing. “Few enough of us survived the troubled times. I’ll tell you about it one day. Do you want something to drink? Are you alright?”

With a weak little laugh, you nodded. “Yeah, a drink would be good.”

The smith smiled and dipped a copper ladle into a bucket of clear water from the well and filled a pewter tankard for you. He handed it to you with a steady hand and knelt before you. He looked up into your face and you were suddenly, viscerally reminded of the seal on the beach.

With a laugh, you said, “I don’t know why I didn’t see it before.”

“You weren’t looking. No one is, these days, thank the gods. The prince has done a lot to protect our kind and to make the people forget, to make them think that it’s all just foolish superstition.”

“The prince…” you thought about the shadowy figure on the balcony. “Is he… different too?”

With a shy, private smile, Dennek gave a tiny nod. “Yes, but that’s not my secret to tell. He’s not a selkie though.”

“Right. But you are.”

“Yes.”

Dennek looked at you with steady, dark eyes. “Den…?”

“Yes?”

Your fingers twitched. “May…?” you bowed your head and looked at your lap instead, your courage draining away.

“May what?” he asked gently, still kneeling before you.

You swallowed thickly and let out another awkward chuckle. “I was going to ask if I could kiss you.”

“If you were to ask,” he said, “I would say yes. Does that make it easier?”

And at that, the tension snapped, and you began to laugh. In fact, you couldn’t stop laughing.

Suddenly his rough hands, callused from years of forge work, were on your cheeks, his thumbs tracing a soft arc over your cheekbones. The crinkles at the corners of his eyes drew you in, and he was still laughing softly as he kissed you. His beard was scratchy and rough, but his lips were soft, and his kiss was so tender it stole your breath.

All you could hear was your heart hammering as he kissed you. He stood, drawing you to your feet and pulling you close, back into the kiss.

You pulled back, breathless with amazement. “Dennek…”

“Yes?” he rasped.

He’d been pushing you, guiding you gently towards the single bed in the corner of the humble room, but he suddenly froze, as if he’d just realised what he was doing.

You smiled and bit your lip. “I… I didn't know you were interested… I mean… in me…”

His hands skated down your sides to your hips and he pulled you tight against his body. You felt the hard line of his cock tenting his loose trousers, and as you looked up into his large, warm, dark eyes, you had your answer.

************************************

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[marauders-groupie]

A few things that (probably) won’t make it into my Bellarke/A Discovery of Witches AU

They’re my darlings but I’m gonna rewrite this AU. 

It doesn’t feel fun at the moment. I honestly think I shoved myself into a world-building hole; I tried to incorporate too much of ADOW into a single AU, and it’s losing emotional charge by the minute. Also, ADOW is slightly messy? 

The majority of these lines and scenes aren’t going to make it in the final thing, but I think they’re good and fun so I want to share them with you, pals. If you like any of them in particular, let me know. It might be helpful for the rewrite. :)

Tagging @goodqueenalys​ because she prompted it + that one anon! 

Here ya go!

_

have i not given my blood

have i not given my body

have i not given enough?

(clarke)

_

When she was eight years old, Clarke Griffin found a bundle of bird bones on her porch. 

“Mom, it’s happening again!”

Beyond the confines of their porch, the sun was already seeping orange. The cornfields looked like they’d caught fire.

She sank to her knees and inspected them immediately. The bones couldn’t have been bigger than a sparrow’s, and they seemed to be waiting for her.

At eight, Clarke didn’t know what sacred was, but this felt like it.

Her mother was with her in a split second; Abby’s warm hands enveloping Clarke in a tight hug. Some days, Clarke thought her mother would forget to let go and she’d run out of breath.

“Does this mean I’m a witch?” Clarke asked, parting from the embrace just slightly so she could look her mom in the eye. Abby’s eyes stormed as she looked at the bones.

“No, honey. Magic will never send you bones. Not unless you ask for them.”

_

“I didn’t know you were interested in alchemy,” Clarke says, genuinely surprised. Half of the people there came because she was Clarke Griffin and they heard rumors about her family practicing witchcraft. The other half just wanted to hear a new accent. 

Monty smiles.

“When you talk about it, everyone is. What was it?” he ponders, quoting her words at her, “The alchemy researchers became tinged with the lunacy they originally set out to describe?”

_

At first, it’s just a sudden chill. The air grows imperceptibly colder. The hairs on her arms stand on edge when she realizes that she is the only one who can sense it. 

Everyone else is lost in their quaint little world.

She is the only one who recognizes the tall, dark stranger for what he is: a vampire.

He strides in like he owns the place, a scarf woven around his neck, and a careless smile that entrances the waitress. She’s bringing him tea before he’s even paused before Clarke’s table.

“Doctor Griffin.”

His smile is too wide. She blinks and then it’s the perfect width, a little charm woven into the corners. Someone must have loved him very much to give that gift to him. 

“And you are?”

He smiles again, unwrapping the scarf and resting his hand against the chair. “A stranger who could really use a seat, if this one is not taken.”

Clarke smiles back, motions him forward, and watches how he sinks into the atmosphere. The kind of person who seems at ease wherever he lands.

The kind of person who is never at ease. 

Not really.

They sit in silence for a while, the stranger scrolling on his phone and Clarke pretending to blow at her already ice cold coffee, when her hand starts burning again and she decides she’s had enough.

“Do you know how I recognize vampires?”

His eyes widen for a fraction of a second and then he cocks an eyebrow, a smirk already forming on his lips.

“No idea, Princess.”

“You all look like you’ve seen everything there is to see, and you can’t be moved.”

His smile falters, and then he spins in his chair to face her fully. His demeanor shifts from disinterested and aloof to honest, interested. He looks at her like she’s the most interesting person in the room.

First, Clarke registers his freckles. Scattered across his cheeks like misshapen constellations. 

The second thing she sees are his canines, sharp enough to cut through a packet of sugar with a slice when he decides his tea is not sweet enough.

“Well, since the cat is out of the bag, we might as well speak freely.” He pours the sugar into his tea, stirs it counter-clockwise and licks the spoon. “You found Ashmole 782 at the Bodleian library yesterday.”

_

He’d never seen a witch more powerful than Clarke Griffin, even when she was eight years old and idling on the porch, peering through the windows when she thought the adults couldn’t see her.

Bellamy saw her.

He stepped out onto the Griffin’s porch and Clarke beamed at him.

“Are you here to check if I’m a witch?”

Bellamy smiled at her, taking a seat on the floorboards that could’ve used a little more care.

“Not today, Clarke.”

She squinted at him. “How do you know my name?”

“Everyone knows your name,” he said, ruffling her hair. The child of the two most powerful witches, there wasn’t a magical being in the world that didn’t think their daughter would get the best of both worlds.

Even at their Michigan estate, separated from the reality with acres of corn fields and warding charms, Bellamy could feel eyes on little Clarke.

“How about you show me where you found the bones?”

Clarke nodded, getting up and dragging him towards the other end of the porch. Corners, always bad. A witch could never protect her corners well enough.

“They were here.”

Bellamy inspected the area. Found nothing. Of course, he never would. It was a strange kind of magic and even if he was a vampire, this primeval sort eluded him.

Blood magic was embedded in the roots of their world. 

It could appear and disappear as it pleased, leaving no trace. It’s what made it so dangerous.

It’s what made it so alluring.

“Did you see anything else?”

She frowned then, pursing her lips in a way that almost made him want to laugh. 

Eight and there she was, more intelligent than some people would be at eighty. He could see her wisdom in her eyes. There was no hiding it.

“The sun was red.”

Bellamy blinked. “What do you mean?”

She took his hand and led him to the railing, pointing her little finger in the distance, to where the corn fields ended and the horrors began. To the east, where wolves and monsters hovered in the shadows, waiting for the Griffins to slip up.

“It was red, Bellamy.”

He blinked, staring at something only she could see. But he could feel it. 

He could feel it. And he never told her his name.

“It was not supposed to be red.”

_

A witch was nothing without her magic. A witch without her magic was an empty promise, a heart cleaved open, a perpetual winter.

_

When she was a kid, she used to slip under the water when her mom wasn’t looking, and stay there until she turned blue. If she held her breath long enough, she could reach a point where there would be very little to her; just one struggling breath in her lungs.

At that point, she could always see what would happen the very next day. 

It used to be a game.

This time, she dives in and it’s nothing but.

Clarke waits for the moment. Her lungs slowly catch fire, burning for a breath. Her hands grasp the edges of the bathtub but she refuses to let go.

When her vision darkens, all she can see is red. Violence. Chaos like nothing she’d ever seen.

Her feet leave marks on the floor when she launches her out of the bathtub, heads straight for the kitchen and starts painting.

Red. Violence. Chaos. She fights the canvas, hitting it with her brush, and when the brush breaks, she uses her hands.

Red. Violence. Chaos. Her mother’s voice drifts back to her and tells her not to be afraid. It wavers. Witches lie only when they have something important to protect.

Red. Violence. Chaos.

She collapses on top of the canvas, spent. 

The shapes look like a curse. And there she is, in the middle of it, carrying a crown of gold, directing the destruction.

_

She traces the paint, smearing it even more, until her gaze stops at the skin between her breasts and she finds something strange.

The paint here is thicker, and she prods it with her finger, uncovering darker lines she couldn’t have made.

Not even she could draw the alchemical child that well.

And she would never have it tattooed. 

A baby, holding vines in its pudgy hand, floating in a burning orange flask that has always signified hope in alchemy. 

Transformation.

For something to be gained, something must first be lost. 

It’s the first law of equivalent exchange.

Her feet lead her to Blake’s office even before Clarke knows what she’s doing. She knocks on his door first, and then starts pounding. Students ambling down the hallway eye her strangely, but she doesn’t care.

“Come on! You wanted me! Here I am!”

Finally, the door opens just a crack and she pushes it forward, moving into the room. The door shuts behind her. An act of magic or gravity, she doesn’t know. She doesn’t care.

She comes face to face with Bellamy Blake and again, his freckles are the first thing she notices.

“Clarke, what - “

Without preamble, she reaches for the bottom of her shirt and pulls it over her head.

Bellamy’s expression changes from confused to shocked to- 

Deadly serious, when she unhooks her bra and lets it fall to the floor. His gaze trails across her body, finally landing on the ink she’d found seared into her skin.

“May I?”

Clarke nods.

Bellamy’s fingers are cold when they first touch her skin, inspecting the tattoo carefully. For a second, she thinks he might recoil as if scalded, but there is nothing.

Instead, inspection with cold fingers turns into reverent admiration.

_

“Vulgar silver and gold are dead, while those of the Philosophers are full of life.”

Clarke smiles. “De Tschudi?” 

“If I remember correctly, he viewed the entire alchemical opus as a metaphor for internal transformation. Purification of the soul. He never thought it was about silver and gold. Humans,” he says and smiles, “have very little use for that.”

_

Bellamy keeps her company as she wraps up her own manuscript.

“Don’t you have work to do?” she asks one day, when she’s paging through a 15th century chemistry manuscript as she finds herself get stuck on the last twenty pages. 

Bellamy grins.

“Nope. Princesses come first.”

Other times, it’s Clarke who distracts him. 

She stretches on purpose, cat-like, and makes sure he notices. His pupils darken but a smirk curls his lips and she feels a tug in her belly. 

“You’re distracting me, Doctor Griffin.”  

But she can’t blame herself. 

With him, magic seems easy. He goes about it naturally, discussing things she’d filed away with incredible ease.

She was born into magic and yet, it’s him, who was thrust into magic violently, that takes to it like a second skin.

A part of her envies it. 

A much darker, more wanting part of her wants to reach into his chest and make him share.

_

The first thing that truly astounds Bellamy is that Clarke Griffin is human and she can laugh. 

He can hear it in her heartbeat before it happens. 

The steady picking up. Her veins thrash against the muscles. A thrill always goes through her stomach, as if her body begins preparing for the joy. 

Bellamy wants to devour her, maybe. Her blood has a rhythm he’d love to taste. The need to devour, he can handle. 

Something much softer that hangs around the edges of it he cannot.

_

When he finally makes it to the Bodleian, it’s already too late.

People are fleeing through the doors, students and professors knocking into each other, and warning him against entering.

He follows the sounds to the second floor, makes his way up the stairs as fast as he can, but even that seems futile.

“He is your enemy!”

The walls reverberate with Thelonious Jaha’s voice, and another, another sickly sweet. 

“You’re a witch, Clarke. Remember that, or we will make you remember.”

Bellamy is too late. 

When he reaches the floor where Clarke loves sitting, spreads her things across the table like she’s making a nest out of the sunny corner, all the shelves are knocked aside.

She’s on the floor and he can smell her blood in the air.

“Get away from her,” he hisses, moving towards Jaha. Too slow. Bellamy’s knocked back with a force that punches the breath out of his lungs.

He tries again but he can’t. The woman next to Jaha - Josephine, his apprentice - keeps Bellamy away, an invisible barrier that won’t let him cross to where Clarke is.

“Stay away, Bellamy!” she shouts, rising to her hands and knees. She spits blood and viscera out of her mouth, stands up on shaky legs. “Josephine, let him go. Right now!”

“How can you cherish this undead thing, Clarke?” Jaha asks, motioning towards her. She’s pulled forward as if by strings; the sight of it alone makes Bellamy’s stomach turn. “Look at him. He could never compare to a witch.”

Even at her weakest, even as Jaha and Josephine each take a side and pull her in opposite directions, Clarke throws her head back and laughs bitterly.

“I’m not a part of your world, or have you forgotten? He is not my enemy more than you are.”

Then, she lifts her head again, gritting her teeth. Bellamy tries to get up again, but something is keeping him chained to the floor and no matter how much he struggles, he can’t move.

“And I thought I told you to get the fuck away from him.”

Two things happen at the same time:

Jaha and Josephine’s hands drop to their sides, and Clarke stretches, just like she always does when she’s trying to tease him to distract herself from working.

Then, a gust of wind like nothing Bellamy had ever felt before blows them all apart, sends the bookshelves flying, all the books scattering with the wind and crashing through windows that may have withstood powerful witches, but they have never dreamed of seeing Clarke Griffin, furious.

The sheer force of the wind wreaks havoc on the library. Somewhere to the side, Josephine is screaming. Jaha flies back and grasps for purchase on the floorboards, his nails leaving bloody marks on the wood.

Clarke is standing in the center of it all, conjuring a witch wind.

It sends everyone flying, but it doesn’t move him.

Bellamy stands and crosses the hall to get to her. The wind is still pouring out of her, all the sinews in her neck pulled taut, her hair blowing around her like a harbinger.

“You,” she croaks, hands pushing the wind towards Jaha and Josephine, “will not,” her own feet skitter but Bellamy feels nothing, not even a single thing, “touch me or anything that is mine,” his arms reach for her waist and another gust of wind shatters the last window pane in the Bodleian, “ever again.”

He hears Jaha and Josephine crash somewhere outside, feels their heart beats and then vanish into the ether.

Clarke pours and pours until there is nothing left.

Then, spent, she collapses to her knees.

“It’s okay,” Bellamy’s voice comes back to him. “It’s okay. I’ve got you now.”

_

The woman takes her hand and suddenly, Clarke sees.

Bleak days, dying people. The girl’s hand in Bellamy’s, small, and her voice contorted with fear. “Why do we have to live here, Bell?” The hospice is no place for a child. Death should have no part in the beginning of someone’s life. “We’re not going to live here much longer, O,” he promises, a resolve strengthening in him. He steals for the first time that day. He kills for the first time the very next. Three days later, they are somewhere warm. The girl’s stomach expands. It feels warm not to be hungry anymore.

“I’m his sister. And you are very strange,” she says, stepping away. But she doesn’t recoil, just cocks her head at Clarke like she’s studying a fine specimen. “The name is Octavia.”

“You’re O.” 

She nods now, a smile easing her features. “And you’re his witch. Well… Welcome to our home, I suppose. You’ve got a hell of a meeting to attend.”

_

They turned her into a weapon and then told her to find peace.

The man she fell in love with betrayed her not once, but twice.

And now not even her bones are her own.

She grasps at the seedlings of magic coiling in her bones. Look, here is bone marrow. Here is a sap that reached out of the ground green - gone dark in the leaves, its body taken and transformed.

have i not given my blood

have i not given my body

have i not given enough?

Clarke shifts the gear, keeps her eyes on the road. Only a part of her is reaching for home. The other is Wanheda, calling to her, calling to the world. A darkness waiting to be unleashed.

“There is no time,” Octavia says in the passenger seat next to her. The light reflects off her canines, sharp and shining. 

Clarke knows what her blood must smell like to her.

Rot rot rot

Wanheda is Clarke’s growth, gone wrong. She had slowly started relearning her magic, but Jaha and the Congregation forced her hand. They took her choice away. 

Now, that has magic has twisted. Turned into something that used to be pure. Even to her own soul, it’s monstrous. 

It should not be.

“Clarke, you need to stop,” Octavia tells her. Her eyes are fixed on the windshield, trees in the night zooming past them like distant shapes.

“Not Clarke.“ 

Even her voice sounds different now.

"They wanted Wanheda. They have her now." 

_

Murphy asks Bellamy, when he says he’s gonna teach Clarke magic: “How the fuck are you going to teach her magic, you undead fuck?” 

Bellamy responds grouchily: “I’m a thousand years old. I think I picked up a few things along the way.”

_

Other notes:

Metaphorically, Wanheda is what happens when you want to use a pure, beautiful thing (i.e. Clarke) as an instrument of war for your selfish gains. “Magic is not worth more than a single human life, with its small joys and deepest sadness cleaving the soul in two. That is what is truly sacred.” (This is a metaphor for money not being worth more than the people it is supposed to serve.) 

[fallen029]

Open

"How did you get it?"

"Get what?"

"Your scar."

Mirajane stared at Laxus with the same disappointment he'd stared at so many other women, in moments like this, just like this, where they were at their closest, their most intimate, and he began to have ideas and feelings and thoughts and desires for something more, something concrete, something real, but then they'd brush their finger over his most cliché part, the zigzag that laid across his eye, and question him about it. Ponder. Wonder. Ask. Blatantly. Because they thought they could. Because they were in a relationship, or at least something close, they were close and that meant that they could discuss the sorts of things that one discusses when they're close, but they weren't close.

Someone close to you, who felt so deeply for you, everything beneath the surface and in-between the crevices, would never ask something like that. Because they would know. Without ever lingering on it, ever questioning it, they would just know. Be well aware. Without knowing the truth, they would know better than to ask. Something so personal and tragic and...and…

And he thought they were different.

Because they were different.

She was different, than every other woman that thought that because they could bring him to his knees that he should just surrender every hidden part of himself. He was different, with her, than the closed off, distant and expectant, so expectant and rigid, man that he was with every other woman.

If she'd asked him, if she'd really asked him, straight up and honestly, about how he found himself with a lightning bolt scarring his flesh, he would tell her straight up. Not get huffy or defensive. Not give some bullshit, bogus lie about how he'd done it himself, or had it done, maybe, with the help of Freed and Bickslow, to make himself look cool. No. He'd have told her the truth. Not withdrawn or been ashamed. Been angry or defensive.

Mirajane was different to him, than every other woman before, and he loved her, he truly, honestly loved something, someone, for once, and it was so real and raw and it hadn't really been that long, but he'd never felt this way, not really, not even when he'd thought that this was the exact thing that he was feeling, all those times before, but this time was so different and real and special and she was it. He knew she was it.

Perhaps it was his own self-importance, the arrogance and swagger he had, to think that just because he felt this way, just because he'd fallen so hopelessly and madly in love, that without a doubt, of course, Mirajane had found herself feeling the same. That of course, to her, their summer romance while the S-Class jobs weren't rolling in and he was taking a break, while she was finding more time off work as Kinana desired more hours, wasn't going to bloom into something more, but rather die off, fade away, with the long days, like a fling should, like all summer flings should. Because oh, they were the same, of course they were the same, but at the same time, they were so different because he was in love, he knew he was in love, he could tell he was in love, truly in love, but she was not.

Was she?

The way she withdrew then, from him, as he traced a finger across the faded, old, but still prominent scar she had right beneath her left breast, long and crooked, but hidden typically from the world, even with her typical skimpiest of outfits or swimwear, it lay just so perfectly, but prominently, to Laxus, who spent so much of his time with his head buried there now. And he'd traced it before, both with the tips of his fingers and the point of his tongue, but now as he did it with the edge of his fingernail and spoke those words, so softly, that he'd so often heard spoken to him.

Mirajane shifted back from him, a certain look crossing over his previously content expression, and he had to wonder how he'd fucked it up, so quickly, so easily, so obviously, as the moment shattered and he fell away from her as well, both silent now with their own realizations about the other, spawning from a simple question.

Laxus would have told Mirajane anything he wanted. He thought that he did tell her everything she wanted. He'd opened up, in this short expanse of days where it felt much longer than the multitude of years they'd known one another, however sparingly, for the majority of their teenage years and all of their adulthood. He knew so much about her, learned so much about her, from this some odd thirty, sixty days, whatever it was, it didn't matter, all that mattered was how special they were, how important, those days, these days, but if this was fleeting, if she didn't feel that way, if she didn't hope the same as him, that the summer never ended, then…

Then…

"I'm sorry."

"Dragon-"

"No, I shouldn't have ask-"

"It's not that."

Mirajane found that she couldn't look at him. That she didn't want to. Then. He was getting out of bed then, following her silence, and she felt like she should do something, to stop this from happening, but at the same time, she wasn't the one who'd spurred it on.

Was she?

No.

No.

He'd done this, by questioning her, asking her that, and she hadn't mean to draw away, visibly recoil at his words, but it just took her back a bit, his question. In a way she wasn't expecting. It wasn't exactly something she was asked about frequently. If at all. Mira found most everyone had scars, in some way or another, especially given the line of work they were in. And considering so many of the men she did find interest in were also mages, working far more than she did in those days, most of their bodies were speckled and marred by an assortment, some even in awkward places.

But Laxus' was different. She'd give him that. If she knew his hangup about it, then she would surrender that nugget to him, yes, of course, because his was so prominent, so much a part of who he was, brought together his whole facial structure, really.

Plus, well, she knew Laxus fancied himself as different. From the rest of them. His pain and trauma, baggage and backstory were intricate to him in a way the rest of them didn't understand. Laxus lived for his pain and his anguish. The remembrance. He liked to pretend that it was in his past, where it belonged, like the rest of them were forced to do away with their own, but unlike the rest of them, Fairy Tail wasn't an escape, a gateway away from the tragic years that brought them as wayward youths to the guild's sanctuary. It was a constant reminder of all he'd gone through, the enigma that brought about so much strife to his family. Fairy Tail was the Dreyars, but also destroyed the Dreyars.

Even if everything had worked out, when she was young, in her village, she imagined she'd still have left eventually, would have had to, to get away from what it had meant, what she'd felt, all the scenery to remind her, constantly, of when she lost her parents, her childhood, and her freedom. She'd want to be somewhere new, carving a path, separate from the things that had drug her down, even if it wasn't to her absolute degradation, somewhere where she wasn't remind constantly of what she'd lost. Who she'd lost.

Mirajane loved Fairy Tail because all her early memories tied to it involved discovering her magic, battling it out with Erza, watching her younger brother and sister, both ravaged by the world, come out of their shells again, find friends again, discover happiness again.

Laxus' memories, as he'd told her before, in moments like this, where he felt his most open, consisted of all the people he'd known, not just his parents, but all of the people, the past members, who eitehr died out there, on jobs, or just went away, disappeared, gone of to live fulfilling lives separate from the only thing that he could ever imagine being; a Fairy Tail wizard.

A mage.

A fairy.

Laxus lived with his trauma, his past, shoved in his face every single time he walked through the wrought iron gates and into the hall, the one that had changed so many damn times, but still felt the same, no matter it's grown or shrinkage, as the air inside consisted of the exact same presence it always did, all the way back to when he was just a little kid.

The scar cut across his eye was much the same. Plain for everyone to see. But hidden in the fact that he'd never tell, he couldn't tell, anyone anything about it. Refused.

With the power of transformation magic, Mirajane could hide just about any blemish or marking on her body that she wished. And she didn't mostly, usually. It was a nominal amount of magic, it was almost second nature to her. She didn't know what it was not to hide away parts of herself. Not face them. Not force others to do the same.

But it was different. Overnight. Frequent, overnights, which she found herself dealing with then, with Laxus, as they'd lay in bed together, so openly and freely, and she warned him the first time, she let it all down, her magic and guard, but he only laughed and made some passing remark about how silly she was. Feminine. Girly. Womanly. Something like that. Equally dismissive. To be so concerned about appearance.

She laughed too, because it did sound silly, didn't it? All of it? To care about something like that? And it was so hot, that summer, the summer that they were together nearly every night, falling into his bed together, alone in his apartment instead of crammed and hammed up with her siblings back home, that Mira found it best not to wear anything, nothing at all if she could help it, and it felt so freeing for it to occur to the two of them, at the same time, the same thought, without a word spoken between them.

When the guise fell, when the ruse faded her flesh didn't look so pure and white, but nothing about the two of them ever was and Laxus seemed happy and content, in his own way, his unspoken way, for them to be like this together. Open. Unabashed.

Laxus didn't want the summer to end, but Mirajane did. She wanted it to shift to the colder months, where they had to cuddle up together and wait out the heat once more. He didn't want things to change, but she couldn't wait until they did, until they changed into something even more solid and real.

"Seriously, just drop it. I shouldn't have-"

"It's okay, Laxus. Really. I-"

"You don't have to tell me-"

"I know why you asked."

Of course she did.

Of course she did.

Because of all the random assortments of scars she had, from all the battles she'd fought, won and lost, this one was the oddest, wasn't it? All alone? In it's age? It looked far fresher, because it was, than any other she had. In a strange place. He was curious because he brushed against it so frequently, because she talked of her life so frequently, but never mentioned this not yet faded, not truly, still raised somewhat, rough patch of skin. Even without her magic, the others were all at least somewhat hard to notice, as they blended with age, but this one was different.

Why was everything about the two of them so different?

This was hidden because she chose to hide it, she was able to hide it, with or without her magic, and it was separate, from everything, and she knew he'd question it, eventually, he seemed to run his fingers, tongue, everything across it so frequently, and this was just a game of averages, between the two of them. Trying to out play the other. How much could be given up in exchange for silence on the rest?

He meant no disrespect, hadn't considered the possibility of such a negative reaction, but as he sat there then, on the edge of the bed, feet rooted in the floor, he wasn't pushing up, getting away, like he'd seemed to desire the second he realized the err in his delving. Instead, he just sat there, head turned just slightly in the darkness of his bedroom, staring over at her with something of interest, maybe, or perhaps just hopeful acceptance once more. Whether she told him the truth or not, expelled all of her secrets and thoughts and feelings and emotions regarding the scarred flesh no longer mattered; he just wanted her to pull him back down on the bed and banish any fears over misdeed.

But when she reached for him, to pull him back down, into the bed once more, it wasn't to rectify his mistake, but rather to sigh, deeply as they rested their foreheads against one another's, the silence different now, but still hinged on something.

"I just," Mira whispered softly as he bowed his head then, her lips brushing over his golden locks instead, "don't like to talk about it. Think about it."

"That's okay," Laxus assured her, burying his head into her, wishing he could go back to how he was before, when he wasn't absolutely terrified of the thought that she didn't want him, or wouldn't want him any longer, once the summer began its descent. "Really. We-"

"It was...recently, is all." She thread some fingers into his hair then, blinking some as she thought. "And not in...battle or training or anything, so I just..."

He wasn't ready again, so soon, but that was fine because that wasn't what she wanted and when she pushed him back, shoved him really, suddenly, so he was staring up at her, Laxus only blinked sleepily.

Reaching down, Mira traced a finger over the zagging line that scarred his face, made him look so mean, so evil, so much like her Satan Soul take over, but different, because he wore this every single day. Not as a mask, but as a part of himself.

They were so different.

His eyelid fluttered shut, instinctively, void of intention, while the other stayed wide open, watching as she applied pressure, just a bit, while gliding down the lightning bolt-esque marking over his eyes, feeling it, truly, for the first time.

"Who gave you yours?" she asked softly and he didn't even think about it, didn't reflect, just answered honestly.

"Ivan," he replied dryly, but honestly and Mirajane nodded her head slightly as she removed her finger from his cheek.

"I was dating a...jerk, a few months before you first asked me out." She shrugged some, glancing away from him then. "From another guild. It was...different, than how it is, with you and me. And we kind of… He just wasn't someone I should have been with. He had his own stuff going on-"

"Do I," Laxus asked her softly then, his voided gaze turning harder then, "know him?"

"No," she whispered, but she nodded her head, just a bit, and he glared. Then, sighing, she added, "It doesn't matter."

He wanted to argue, she could tell, but relented some as he remarked, "Why did he...cut you?"

It felt blunt, put like that, and Mirajane looked away as she remarked, "He didn't. Not really. We were...fighting, and his magic… It's stupid. His magic just caught me because I wasn't going to, you know, transform on him or anything. I just...and he…he underestimated me. Most men do."

Reaching out, he sat up some as he caught her chin, just slightly, in his palm, forcing her to meet his eyes. They were on even ground again. Finally.

"I don't," Laxus whispered to which she smiled, weakly, distantly, just really.

"I know," she agreed as he fell back then. "Dragon."

They were shifting again, together now, as she slowly fell back into bed as well, and they were together again, settling once more for the night. In the morning, she had to get down to the hall and he'd promised to train with the Thunder Legion, so they needed their sleep, they needed far more than they were typically allotted, but at the same time, in that moment, he didn't want it.

At all.

But she did.

At least somewhat.

"Why do things have to change?" he muttered as his eyes felt heavy and this was all just a dream, almost, kind of, it felt like, but Mia's lips felt warm against his cheek as well as her breath, reminding him that it was all real, all too real.

It felt like a weird thing to say, a very weird thing to say, honestly, but somehow, someway, because they really were connected, maybe, unspoken, but known, and Mirajane understood perfectly.

"Because if they don't," she answered with a yawn, falling back into her side of the bed then as he blinked at her some more, determination the only thing winning out against sleep in the battle to keep his eyes either open or closed, "then they can never get any better."

"Can't get any worse," he reminded, but she only shrugged.

"Sometimes," she told him simply, "it's worth the risk."

And after finding this to be true, following his question that brought about the entire interaction, it was hard for him to do anything other than agree.

[exaltatuss]

“Light a fire they can’t put out. Thus, set yourself on fire, seek those who fan your flames.” -Blair

General Info:

Name: Blair Blanchimont Nickname: Xeno Blair Occupation: Time Patroller Race: Vacosian Gender: Hermaphrodite Height: 190 cm Morality Alignment: Lawful Neutral Eye Color: Silver. Turns to gold on several occasions Hair Color: Silver Semblance: Tenacious Evolution Misc: Either always wears the above, or the one below, which would be her attire as a Time Patroller

Personality;

Xeno Blair’s personality would be somewhat similar to her main counterpart, if not more laid back due to the fact that she doesn’t have to deal much with royal duties, considering her new occupation as a Time Patroller. But despite such, she’s still very much as responsible as the main timeline Blair, and thus, would take immediate, dire tasks seriously, and thus, would make sure they are done swiftly and efficiently, if possible, especially in battles. However, outside the job, her laid back personality would very much be seen, and thus, would also be someone who would enjoy spars here and there, especially with Xeno Ruby.

Backstory;

In the Xeno-Timeline, everything up to the God of Destruction Cerveze Saga remained the same, with them attaining God Ki, but never going to train with the GoD and her attendant, instead opting to raise and refine their combat power on their own. As such, several years passed, with the Ascendance Team being able to train in peace.

Five years after the fight with Cerveze, Tyrian, an old nemesis of Ruby, had gotten onto Kami’s Palace, attaining the Dragon Balls and was about to wish for immortality, but the sight of Ruby and Blair, caused him to panic. The two Vacosians had taken to training together in the Time Chamber for a bit, just recently coming out.

This panic caused Tyrian to word his wish in a bad way, with both Ruby and Blair having been reverted to their teens. With this he thought he had an easy time killing them, but had been blasted to smithereens by a heavily annoyed Blair. Ruby of course chuckled it off, telling Blair that they can just use the Dragon Balls again to become adults again.

But Blair mentioned that they had used them prior and that the Dragon Balls of Remnant would now remain inactive for a year, during which Ruby and Blair were stuck as teenagers. Going further, Blair explained that she couldn’t lead her Kingdom like this and while she really didn’t want to burden her kid again, Bianca would have to take over the mantle of King of Blanchimont Kingdom once more.

Ruby and Blair had of course informed their family and friends about it, some of which laughed at it, while the others commented that they would help find the Dragon Balls later with them, but otherwise life went on as normal. During this downtime, Ruby and Blair also kept training, not being able to do their usual jobs, due to their newly induced youth.

It was then, that they found out a lot of their abilities and skills had lost their edge. Ruby’s Instant Transmission barely worked, while her Haken had begun draining both stamina and doing damage to her body again. Worst of all, she could only use the 20 times in short bursts.

As for Blair, she had used the evolved version of her Semblance, being stuck with the basic ten times that the normal one provided. Her other techniques had lost their kicks as well, but it was a win in her books that she didn’t have to relearn as much as Ruby had to do.

Yet the final nail in the coffin was their transformations. Super Vacosian was fine and all, but Super Vacosian 2 had a strain to it once more, making the form harder to use, rather than effortlessly. For Ruby it was even more devastating, as she was the only one able to use Super Vacosian 3, yet was unable to sustain the form for even a minute, without it completely sapping her strength away.

Yet as is known in Remnant, the peace never lasts for more than a couple of years, before some new villain shows up. This time in the form of an old nemesis of the Vacosian Rage, Tsathaggua, who wished to enact for her race, by wiping out the remaining Vacosians. Yet she was to weak to do so, opting to deploy underhanded methods instead.

One of which was to assault one of the stronger Vacosians and take over her body, with Arancia falling victim to such. After a series of body-snatching and body-hopping, Tsathaggua was able to attain control over a weakened Ruby, whom she was able to push her body beyond its natural limits and attain power even beyond Super Vacosian 3.

This being was known as TsathaRuby, with Blair handily losing against an opponent like such, even while using Super Vacosian 2, with her Semblance combined. All hope seemed lost, with Blair having perished against TsathaRuby, but what really happened was Purple Sister using the Instantaneous Movement technique to teleport Blair out of harm’s way and onto the planet of Kaioshins.

There, Blair cursed her own inability to save the day, annoyed that it was always Ruby. Purple Heart in the meanwhile gave her an offer, to begin training under her, in order to nourish that God Ki within Blair some, maybe help her reach a higher plateau of power. Of course the condition was that they had to restore Blair’s tail, as the Kaioshins told that the true source of power lays within there.

After a painful procedure, that involved a lot of magic, Blair had her tail again. For the first time in several decades, she felt like a whole Vacosian once more, aside from the whole thing of being turned back into a teen, she once more was taken to TsathaRuby and fought her a new. Her newfound power allowed her to fight her possessed rival rather well, until the other revealed the fact that she had been holding back, and unleashed all of the power she had stolen from her prior hosts.

Blair once more was beaten and smashed to the ground, a large crater of 3 kilometer radius forming upon impact. Yet as luck would have it, a solar eclipse happened. The restored moon of Remnant laying over the bright shade of the sun, creating a perfect darkened circle, with an amber glow. It was this that allowed Blair to transform into a Great Voidal once more, but this time it wasn’t black like they usually were.

No, this one had a white color, being referred to as the White Voidal of legends. After running rampage for a bit and scaring TsathaRuby away, she finally was able to wrestle control back from her primal instincts, the form compacting into a humanoid form once more. Blair was back in her adult body, her prime, and yet her hair wasn’t blonde. It was wild, unruly and white, with her having gained the ears and tail of a wolf to boot.

Blair didn’t know what this form was, but it had more than enough power to overwhelm TsathaRuby and allow Blair to use her techniques fully once more. With the usage of God Ki, she was able to remove the fiend from Ruby’s body and obliterate her into nothingness. The day was saved once more, but this time it was the unlikely Blair who had done so.

Ruby now back to her normal self, had to take some rest and several senzu beans, her body having gone through quite the ordeal. Finally, the Kaioshins descended down on Remnant, purifying everyone from Tsathaggua’s control and restoring the natural order. After thanking them, Ruby decided to ask Blair what the form was, with Blair only giving her a shrug.

According to Vacosian legends of old, this could be the true Super Vacosian form, the one that is on par with the legend of the Super Vacosian God. With that, Ruby decided to coin it as Super Vacosian 4, as the whole Super Vacosian God thing was another line separately. Still, now that they had some time, Ruby also had her tail restored and with the Solar Eclipse still happening, she attained Super Vacosian 4, after a very long time of trying to control the White Voidal form.

Ruby’s case of the form was rather interesting. Her hair became more of a mix between red and black, much like her base form. Yet like Blair, she had gained wolf ears and a wolf tail, while being returned to her prime as well. With this she could use the Instant Transmission and Haken again, but for some reason was unable to really make it compatible with Super Vacosian 4, anything higher than the base Haken not working.

Enjoying a few months of peace, Ruby and Blair were able to further train with Super Vacosian 4, mastering it to a better degree. They were hyped, because the wait of a year was nearly over and they could wish themselves back to their adult body’s once more. Yet while they were asleep, the sky had darkened, a few of Cinder’s old minions having revived her.

Of course this was felt, but by the time the Ascendance Team arrived on the scene, the deed had already been done, Cinder and co having escaped off planet and back to her empire. Of course Ruby and Blair were extremely pissed, with their unfortunate realization that they were stuck to being teens much longer. Three wishes had been used in a hurry, meaning they had to wait at least 9 months, before being able to use the inactive Remnant Dragon Balls once more.

Still, they couldn’t exactly track down Cinder. Her empire’s technology was too advanced and helped her mask her ki, not even the omniscient Kaioshins were able to track her. With such, half a year had passed, the Ascendance team training in preparation for whence Cinder would strike. It was during this time that nearly all of the Ascendance team started getting back into the habit of training.

Both Osiria and Arancia trained with each other, unleashing their potential with Purple Heart’s help and discovering new forms unique to them, yet due to being hybrids, they weren’t able to attain Super Vacosian 4 themselves. It was a form seemingly limited for pureblooded Vacosians. Regardless, the rest of the team, like Chione, Aura and even Orithyia had attained newer heights of power too, yet it was nothing compared to the Super Vacosian 4 of Ruby and Blair.

Finally the Ember Empress came, and brought her entire forces with her. Remnant would have been invaded by Cinder Fall once more, but the forces were locked in battle with the Ascendance team, while the Empress was dealing with Ruby and Blair.

The two Super Vacosians 4 had a hard time against Cinder’s newly revealed Ascended Warrior form, which allowed her to fight them both on the same time. Yet Cinder wasn’t the only one with an ace up her card, as Ruby revealed that she had attained an evolution to Super Vacosian 4, known as Ascended Super Vacosian 4.

This form more than doubled the user’s Super Vacosian 4 multiplier, but in turn came with the heavy strain of sapping energy away like Super Vacosian 2. In this form bio-electricity came too, Ruby gaining a bit more arrogance and a wilder look, but was able to make quick and short-work of Cinder. Finally having avenged Pyrrha from the past, with Ruby having found some more inner peace that way too.

Blair revealed that she had the form unlocked as well, and once the entire forces of Cinder’s Empire were dealt with, Arancia questioned Ruby and Blair why they didn’t use it from the start, with the duo answering that they wanted to test themselves out a bit and hey, it made for a fun and dramatic reveal.

With that, the Ascendance Team parted ways once more, Ruby and Blair working on mastering the Ascended Super Vacosian 4 form to the best of their abilities, while waiting for the remaining 3 months of the Dragon Balls to finally return to being active. The time came, with Ruby and Blair being more hyped than ever to return to being adults.

But of course where they are, trouble comes running too. The heavy usage of the Dragon Balls over the years had let to Negative energy being accumulated, with Synron not appearing normally, but as an evil version of itself. It told them of what transpired and that they’d have to fight and get rid of seven Evil Dragons, and only get one more wish. This was told with the last bit of positive energy it had, before turning evil and leaving them to their vices, waiting for them at the ‘edge of the world.’

With that, the Ascendance Team set out to deal with the seven powerful dragons in 7 groups. Arancia and Osiria took on the third most powerful, 6-Star dragon, with Ruby and Blair taking on the second most powerful, 2-Star dragon, while Chione, Aura and co dealt with the rest. The fights were tough, each of the members being pushed to their limits. Even Ruby and Blair were forced to push past their limits, activating their semblance and the Haken in ways not meant to be.

Yet the 2-Star Dragon, known as Niji-nron, was still overwhelming them. It was in this that Ruby and Blair had both broken past the limits of their limits, Blair being able to use her Semblance Evolution once more, while Ruby had attained a higher form of being in Super Vacosian 4. The true form as it was called and known as, True Super Vacosian 4. With this, they made short-work of the 2-Star Dragon.

With the battles being over temporarily, Ruby and Blair reverted back to their base forms to recuperate for a bit. Yet only Blair returned to looking like a teenager, with Ruby being unable to revert back from the basic Super Vacosian 4. It turned out that it had become her new base form, in price of achieving the True Super Vacosian 4 form.

Ruby was a bit saddened, not because she lost her handsome bastard qualities, those still remained, but because she now permanently had wolf ears and a wolf tail, with Blair sometimes referring to her as a furry thanks to that. Still, they couldn’t mull over it for too long, as the Ascendance Team promised to gather together and face the strongest dragon, the 1-Star Synron, all together.

The dragon proved to be more than a match for everyone involved, until Ruby and Blair decided to put in the last remnants of what they could do and once more assumed True Super Vacosian 4 and Super Vacosian 4 with the Semblance Evolution, in Blair’s case. This allowed them to overwhelm Synron and as they were about to extinguish his life, something happened.

As the dragon was about to die, he absorbed the dragon balls into his body, becoming Omni-Synron and growing vastly more powerful than before. Not only that, he gained the abilities of all the deceased dragons too, allowing him to overwhelm even the mighty combination of all the Ascendance Team attacking together.

Desperate situations called for desperate measures, with Ruby and Blair putting their pride aside and doing the fusion dance. The resulting fusion was known as Rulair, a Vacosian that had the True Super Vacosian 4, but was able to use Blair’s Semblance on top of that. The fusion’s time was cut short, but ultimately allowed her to match Omni-Synron and destroy him forever.

Forever, because the fusion had put too much power into the final beam attack, cracking and shattering the Dragon Balls into pieces, meaning the Dragon Balls of Remnant were now history. Of course Kami offered to recreate them, but Ruby told her no, they had to learn from their mistakes and relying on the DBs once more, would just give birth to a being even mightier than Omni-Synron, something that not even the fusion Rulair could defeat by then.

But of course that final wish remained, with Synron’s apparition appearing once more and telling them that he was grateful for being able to be purged of his sins. Hence the Ascendance Team using the final wish to restore Remnant to how it was before all the villains attacked. Of course they offered Blair that, but she denied it, calling it a waste of a wish, when their home planet was in dire need of salvation.

It put a smile on everyone’s face, as it confirmed that Blair truly saw Remnant as her new home, even giving up the wish of becoming an adult once more, just to have everyone be revived and all the damage be restored.  With that, Synron thanked them and bid them goodbye, and hoping to see them in the next world not too soon.

“A battle worth remembering, indeed. In fact, I’ll never forget this.” Was Blair’s response, before returning the Rose’s tease to her having to go through puberty a second time by calling her a furry, which shut Ruby up. With those antics back in order, all of the Ascendance Team laughed and bid each other farewell, returning back to their daily life.

Some more time had passed, with peace setting in. Yet Ruby and Blair were bored, them not being able to return to their jobs, due to their conditions, meant that they were stuck with only training, training and some more training. Luckily for them, their exploits were noticed by a Time Patroller, who called them abnormally strong for a timeline. Much things later and they were approached by Chronoa of Universe 12, their universe and offered to become Time Patrollers.

Henceforth, Ruby and Blair decided to refer to themselves as Xeno Ruby and Xeno Blair, to not confuse themselves with their main timeline counterparts. From here on out they travel time to solve problems and put things back into the right order, with Ruby becoming more mature as a result. Blair, on the other hand, still would be her usual self, albeit more laid back, but would take her job as a Time Patroller seriously.

Trivia:

-Much like Ruby, Blair is also stuck in Super Vacosian 4 permanently, that it might as well be considered as their new base form at this point. A consequence of her using Super Vacosian 4 on top of her Tenacious Evolution Semblance, in parallel to Ruby’s use of True Super Vacosian 4. Blair is very much fine with this, the wolf ears and tail are very much welcomed, really. Thus, with Ruby teasing her that she had to go through puberty again, Blair would always return the sentiment by calling the other a furry whenever she sees fit.

-Using Super Vacosian 4 on top of her Tenacious Evolution often results in massive collateral damages, with it being able to tear through the very fabric of space-time, causing unwanted phenomena, and cause its upheaval. Such permanence would be so extreme, that nothing short of the Super Dragon Balls would be able to restore the damage. Thus, Blair only uses it on situations that beg for it to be used. In other words, she’ll only use it in situations that are dire enough. Chronoa says so, too, and explained it to her, after all.

-Both Xeno Blair and Xeno Ruby are responsible for managing things across the Outerverse and will step in if a threat becomes too big. It helps that they are incredibly strong too, all in all, they’re mostly left to their own vices, free to travel or stay on Remnant as they wish, train, etc. But when they are called upon, then one knows that things are very dire.

-In terms of power, they outclass the main timeline by a good bit, but are even when Ruby and Blair use their -Dominus- and -Sign- forms each. In short, a battle between those four is forbidden, as they could cause all of existence to crumble. Something that impressed even the Demiurge and the Scarlet King.

-Super Vacosian 4 is different from what the main timeline Ruby and Blair have achieved. Their Wrathful State is not the real form of how Super Vacosian 4 looks like, the true form being what Xeno Ruby and Xeno Blair have achieved. The difference in power is quite clear too, with the basic Super Vacosian 4 heavily outclassing Super Vacosian Blue by a good margin.

-Xeno Ruby, as well as Xeno Blair, both have bonded with their own unique Keysword, which they can summon in battle whenever they wish, as well as gaining all of its abilities and resistances too.

-Naturally, Blair would have most of the main timeline Blair’s abilities and techniques up until the Cerveze Saga, along with the possession of God Ki, gained under her training with Purple Heart. Still, while she isn’t able to be like the main timeline Blair in terms of achieving Super Vacosian God, she still gets the benefits of having God Ki, with some of them being:

-Energy / Ki Absorption, Life-Force Absorption (Using "Draw", she can damage opponents by sucking out their life energy, which she can then use to heal himself) -Probability Manipulation -Dimensional Travel -Space-Time Manipulation (Those with flawless control of God Ki can open holes in space to travel to dimensions, as well as create their own space/dimension. Can also create dimension in which time is slowed, or not existing, while being unaffected by such occurrence.) -Receive reduced Damage. -Can reduce enemy’s damage reduction by 50%. -Purification (Can purify Dark Demonic Energy.)

As well as the resistances that come with it:

-Existence Erasure -Soul Manipulation -Mind Manipulation -Magic -Law Manipulation -Physics Manipulation -Death & Life Manipulation -Gravity Manipulation -Sealing & BFR -Time Manipulation -Time Stop -Possession -Madness Manipulation -Corruption -Power Nullification -Memory Manipulation -Unholy Manipulation (Demon Magic & Demon God Magic)

-Like Xeno Ruby, Xeno Blair has also received a new style of clothing, something she had gotten due to her role as a Time Patroller now. It certainly does suit, and very much exudes her taste.

[longsightmyth]

Myth reads The Riddle, Chapter 1

Alrighty, folks. I can’t to a direct book-to-book comparison (there are seven ToG novels not including The Assassin’s Blade, which is a collection of five prequel novellas, and only five Pellinor books including the prequel novel) so I made a spreadsheet to figure out what should be read with what. The Riddle gets to be compared to Crown of Midnight, Heir of Fire, and a not insignificant amount of Queen of Shadows. The Crow gets the rest of Queen of Shadows, the entirety of Empire of Storms (Hem doesn’t deserve that but them’s the breaks), and a good chunk of Tower of Dawn. The Singing has the rest of Tower of Dawn and all of Kingdom of Ash, for which it has my sincere apologies.

The Bone Queen is going to be compared to The Assassin’s Blade on the premise that they are both prequels and that at some point I could use a break from doing anywhere from 40-90 pages at a time of ToG. I may do those two directly after The Riddle so I can have the aforementioned break.

I COULD, of course, read two books for every Pellinor book except the Bone Queen, which would still be read only with The Assassin’s Blade, but a, I didn’t think of that until I was already done with my spreadsheet, and b, that would involve reading exactly 1.628 pages (Tower of Dawn and Kingdom of Ash) with The Singing, which is 444 pages. As various friends correctly pointed out, that sounds torturous (and comes out to about 4 pages of ToG for 1 page of The Singing). After that discussion, I decided my spreadsheet should not be in vain.

Here we go.

The Riddle, being the second of the Books of Pellinor

Chapter 1

The Riddle

Do not twine garlands of myrtle for my forehead Nor pluck sweet roses to adorn me Make me a crown of somber violets For I am dying

The sweet lips of the maidens of Busk And the flashing feet of dancing goatherds Will never again quicken my desire For I am dying

Come to me merciful Meripon In your ebony chariot drawn by swallows From the dim halls beyond the Gates For I am dying

I kiss the peaks of Lamedon with my eyes And the white arms of the passionate sea Which loves this beautiful island that I love For I am dying

Thus begins the first chapter of the first section of The Riddle, called Thorold.

Yikes.

Maerad has a dream vision of a lot of armies marching through a desert, and not even a cool natural desert. Something about it feels bad and poisoned. She freaks out and falls…

Maerad woke, gasping for breath, and sat bolt upright. This was an unwise thing to do, as she was sleeping in a hammock slung below the deck of a small fishing smack called the White Owl. The hammock swung dangerously and then, as she flailed for balance in the pitch dark, tipped her out onto the floor. Still trapped in her dream, Maerad screamed, putting out her hands to break her fall, and hit the wooden floorboards.

Cadvan of course rushes to check on her. Maerad says she had a bad dream and apologizes if she cried out. Cadvan jokes that it sounded like there was a hull on the boat and asks if it was a regular nightmare or a foredream. Maerad says definitely foredream, definitely horrible, also she is not a fan of boats because she gets seasick.

Foredreams, in Maerad’s experience, we always horrible.

Cadvan, when Maerad tells him about it, says it definitely sounds like the place the Nameless One started out from when he marshalled his armies to bring about the Great Silence. Maerad asks hopefully if maybe she’s just seeing the past, and Cadvan says there’s always the possibility but he doesn’t think so in this case, because Cadvan is a negative nancy.

Maerad gives us some ‘last time on’ info while she and Cadvan consider the implications, including that Turbansk, Saliman’s Bard school and where he and Hem went, are going to have it rough.

“...even that vast force is only one piece in the great strategem the Nameless One is now unleashing. And you, Maerad, are as significant to him as that huge army. Maybe more so. Everything turns on you.”

Maerad bowed her head, oppressed beyond measure by Cadvan’s words. On me? she thought bitterly. And yet she knew it was true.

Cadvan, I don’t mean to criticize, but you seem to forget a lot that Maerad is a teenager who was pretty recently yoinked from slavery. Maybe, like. Chill for a second on the whole ‘the fate of the world is on Your Shoulders Alone’ thing? (It’s a different matter from how I feel that in ToG the books have forgotten that Celaena is a teenager pretty recently yoinked from slavery. If I fail to mention this in the comparison yell at me in the notes and I’ll talk about it)

More ‘last time on’ but I don’t mean it as a criticism: it manages to be couched into Maerad’s thoughts about Cadvan and her Foretold-ness, and honestly I feel like more books should have some ‘last time on’ thoughts when they’re sequels. If nothing else it would remind the authors themselves what happened in the last book.

Naming no names, re: sequel consistency (oh we’ll get to that)

They’re two days out from Busk, and Maerad, at a loss for anything else to do, offers to keep watch so Owan or Cadvan can nap, since they’re the only two who really know how to sail. They would have taught Maerad, but Cadvan has a magic wind still going, which makes teaching difficult, and when it’s not going he’s asleep and Owan is busy actually, you know. Sailing.

Maerad had already witnessed Cadvan’s powers of endurance, but his stubborn will impressed her anew: his face was haggard and his mouth grim, but he moved the with alertness of a well-rested man.

So many jokes I could make. I will refrain.

Maerad sees something in the water and alerts the other two. Cadvan tries to make them go faster but whatever it is keeps up.

It’s an ondril, which are usually pretty benign sea serpents. This one is big, they’ve already gotten out of whatever territory onril would normally defend, and they can’t see to outrun it.

Welp, says Cadvan (lightly paraphrased), guess we’re gonna have to fight. Let’s charge it.

Owan cocked his head and thought briefly. “Aye, easily enough, if you put more breeze in the sails,” he said. “Think you that’s a good idea?”

“I don’t,” Maerad said. “I think it’s mad.”

“We may be able to wrest the initiative,” said Cadvan. He looked at Maerad and smiled with a sudden sweetness that illuminated and transformed his somber face. “Come, Maerad. It is far better to put away fear than to be driven by it. You know that.”

Yes, I know that, Maerad thought sardonically. But I’m tired of having to be brave when really I’m so terrified I scarce know what to do.

He lets his wind die, has Owan turn them around, and whips of an opposite direction wind to charge the ondril. Maerad isn’t pleased but readies her sword and magic. Cadvan magically fastens Owan to the boat so he won’t get thrown out and gives age-old fighting advice: go for the eyes.

They do.

Anyway they have a battle, Maerad hits it with fire (some of which glances off), they run, the ondril pursues, both Maerad and Cadvan go for the remaining eye when it catches up, and they finally manage to escape. The men congratulate each other and Maerad.

Maerad looked away over the sea, feeling nothing but a vast emptiness. She had no sense of triumph, nor even relief. All she felt was a returning wisp of nausea. The only good thing about being frightened half to death, she thought, is that it makes me forget all about being seasick.

End chapter.

Throne of Glass

Are y’all ready for Crown of Midnight? I bet you aren’t!

Confession: this is the one I remember least, so we’re going on a journey together basically. I hope that comforts you as it has failed to comfort me. Anyway. Chapters 1-6 (and the first 51 pages) of CoM, here we come. (I also have to remind people that if I didn’t enjoy this on some level I wouldn’t be doing it: no one is forcing me. I’m just being dramatic)

Also can we discuss how I actually LIKE Crown of Midnight as a title, even if it’s pretty irrelevant to this book? Just saying.

We start with part 1, titled ‘The King’s Champion’ which is a departure from the first book, which was separated only by chapters. All subsequent books follow this format for reasons I don’t entirely understand, but we can talk about that in the comparison section, probably in more than one of these chapter/section comparisons.

Chapter 1!

Celaena sneaks into a house in a storm with many s words describing movement. She’s concealed in a black mask and hood, which is not a good way not to attract notice. Human-shaped splotches of solid black aren’t exactly blending in with the shadows (you’d want lots of different shades of brown and grey and black and yes even red, especially if there’s a lot of brick around. Fun fact: red is one of the first colors to register as grey to human eyes in the dark) and not exactly great for blending in with the crowd (unless that’s a new fashion in Rifthold?). She might have done better to disguise herself as a servant once she was in the house, or even to get in the house.

To give Celaena her due, she is trying to make An Impression on the dude she’s supposed to assassinate so he’ll take her seriously. To harp on my own pet peeve, making everyone around him less competent to make Celaena seem more badass is not the way to make a badass character (“the [servant] girl hadn’t noticed [Celaena’s] wet footprints on the floorboards,” really? She has to clean those floors. That girl is going to notice when they’re dirty).

We are two paragraphs into this book.

Anyway. I might also have to start counting uses of the word ‘wraith’.

Celaena notes that Lord Nirall’s wife is pretty and wonders what these nobles have done for the king to want them dead. Remind me to talk about Celaena’s weird compassion for high ranking Adarlan citizens vs everyone else in the world in the comparison.

She crept to the edge of the bed. It wasn’t her place to ask questions. Her job was to obey. Her freedom depended on it. With each step toward Lord Nirall, she ran through the plan again.

Her sword slid out of its sheath with barely a whine. She took a shuddering breath, bracing herself for what would come next.

Lord Nirall’s eyes flew open just as the King’s Champion raised her sword over her head.

Chapter 2!

Celaena’s walking down the hall to the king’s council chamber. I personally would have my assassin report to me in my study barring some really specific circumstances but I am but a young girl unschooled in the ways of politics and murder.

Also Rifthold is spelled Rift-hold for some reason. I assume it’s just a formatting error or typo.

Celaena bows to the king, notes Chaol and Dorian, and removes her hood when the king tells her to rise, which just makes these guards even more incompetent. You’re letting a hooded chick with a bloody sack just walk into the council chamber?

Wait why does the council chamber have the glass throne. Does the king just have multiple glass thrones? The glass throne has been mentioned all of once and it already has more impact in the book NOT named after it. Anyway.

Celaena produces a head (mauled unrecognizably) and seal ring, and then when the king asks about the guy’s wife she hauls a “slender, pale hand” wearing a wedding ring from the sack, saying that the wife is chained to the remains of her husband at the bottom of the sea. Dorian looks sick and Celaena decides she should give him credit for not throwing up.

The king says fine, and tells her that her next assignment is to root out and get rid of a growing rebel movement.

“There are several people on my list of suspected traitors, but I will only give you one name at a time. This castle is crawling with spies.”

Well that’s stupid on a scale rarely seen. You aren’t going to hand her a physical list, after all, that would be -

Chaol stiffened at [the comment about spies], but the king waved his hand and the captain approached her, his face still blank as he extended a piece of paper to Celaena.

- exactly what you’re doing. Okay.

Keeping her features neutral, she looked at the paper. On it was a single name: Archer Finn.

Celaena actually knows him - he trained for a bit with her, because he’s a courtesan and needed to be able to defend himself from his clients’ jealous husbands, apparently. No gay people in Rifthold, no siree. Celaena had a crush on him back in the day and she hasn’t seen him in several years.

“...she’d never thought him capable of something like this. He’d been handsome and kind and jovial, not a traitor to the crown so dangerous that the king would want him dead.”

Sounds like a perfect spy tbh.

Somehow despite Archer being a famous and highly sought-after courtesan, the king thinks it’s salacious that Celaena might know who he is. Then the king gives her a month to kill Archer or he’ll reconsider her position. When she’s killed Archer she’ll get the next name on the list.

Surely there isn’t an actual physical list somewhere of everyone the king considers a traitor. Surely he at least has it in code. Surely his spymaster has different bits of info kept different places or with different people. Surely he has a spymaster?

Leave me my hopes and dreams.

She had avoided the politics of the kingdoms - especially their rebel forces - for so many years, and now she was in the thick of it. Wonderful.

Ah. Sorry to mention this, but…

“We kill corrupt officials and adulterous spouses; we make it quick and clean…”

Maas, Sarah J.. The Assassin's Blade: The Throne of Glass Novellas (Throne Of Glass Series) (p. 41). Bloomsbury Publishing. Kindle Edition.

Killing corrupt politicians is not avoiding politics. I’m just saying.

The king tells her that her payment for killing Nirall is in her chambers. She pulls a salary and gets bonuses? Sweet gig. Aside from, you know, the murder.

She leaves the throne room, keeping the piece of paper with Archer’s name on it because this is Celaena we’re talking about, and we swap to Dorian’s PoV.

He’s worried because Celaena is killing people and not dressing up anymore and starts to think that maybe she just manipulated him into getting her the position of King’s Champion, which would make sense except for the fact that he pulled her out of the salt mines having never knowingly met her (and she doesn’t know they’ve met either: it’s a prequel thing) for the express purpose of making her King’s Champion, no seduction required.

Also, she’s an assassin who kills people for money. I am always surprised at how characters, knowing that fact, are surprised when she talks about killing people for money.

Dorian couldn’t bring himself to finish the thought. He’d visit her - tomorrow, perhaps. Just to see if there was a chance he was wrong.

But he couldn’t help wondering if he’d ever meant anything to Celaena at all.

Back to Celaena’s PoV!

She goes to the sewers to dump the body parts and Chaol follows her. She wonders why everyone seems shocked that she’s willing to murder people, which is the first and possibly only time Celaena considers that as far as I can recall.

Chaol gets mad at her for being unwilling to share her murder details because for some reason that links in to missing her? I guess bonding over working for the apparently murderous conquering dictator is one way to strengthen a relationship.

They hug because she realizes he was worried about her and we are reminded that Celaena is warm for Chaol’s form. He says she smells really bad. She complains that she wasn’t allowed to shower before going to see the king, which I will acknowledge is a fair thing to be peeved about.

Chaol walks her to her room and agrees to come back for dinner, after which Celaena gets fussed over by Philippa in summary and then ruminates on how she hadn’t actually killed Niral and his unnamed wife or the named first target (Sir Carlin). Apparently there are sick-houses that dump lots of bodies, so Celaena stole a couple that looked like the victims and slashed them up a little. Celaena thinks about how the pale and slender hand had come from a girl “barely past her first bleed” which marks the beginning of the interesting relationship these books have with menstrual cycles and somehow knowing if someone has them or not.

She tries to think of how she can fake Archer’s death and draws a blank because he’s so well-known (but somehow it was surprising that she knew who he was back in the throne room?), then that she still can’t believe he’s a rebel, then that she can’t think of what else the king could conquer unless he’s looking at the other continents.

There were other continents, of course. Other continents with wealthy kingdoms - like Wendlyn, that faraway land across the sea.

Celaena’s mother was literally from Wendlyn. It irks me that the book pretends she has no idea about the country.

Celaena thinks that if the king finds out what she’s up to he’ll destroy her.

Chapter 3!

Celaena has a nightmare where Cain and the ridderak chase her through the secret tunnels. Cain almost catches her and…

He whispered her name, her true name, and she screamed as he -

When the book acknowledges Celaena’s Super Secret Long Lost Heritage and when it doesn’t has never quite made sense to me, but here we are.

She wakes up, cuddles her dog, and goes back to sleep.

The next morning Celaena and Nehemia play fetch with Fleetfoot the dog who hates everyone and everything but Celaena per the text. Celaena considers that Nehemia is a spy but the king definitely can’t know about her or he wouldn’t trust Celaena to be his Champion.

Fleetfoot is apparently abnormally large, as a sidenote.

Nehemia wants Celaena to tell her anything Celaena figures out about the king’s plans, because Nehemia is a reasonably competent spy in enemy territory using every advantage. Celaena promises to do so but thinks that she won’t, actually, because the king promised if she worked against him he would murder Chaol, Nehemia, and Nehemia’s family one by one in that order, which is really the wrong order to go in if you’re an evil king bent on bending a mostly morally incompetent assassin to your will. You kill somebody just close enough to prove you’re serious first. You don’t give up your hostage grown princess or loyal captain of the guard until other options have exhausted themselves. The hostage crown princess keeps an entire country at bay. The loyal captain of the guard is a, loyal, and b, captain of the guard. Those are the people you get rid of when you’re just Over It. You won’t have anybody left to bargain with after you kill the people Celaena actually cares about.

Look if you’re going to write evil, calculating characters, make them evil and calculating. Moving on.

If Nehemia talked more about the rebels, [Celaena] didn’t know how much more of it she could take. Yes, she wanted to be free of the king - both as his Champion and as a child of a conquered nation - but she wanted nothing to do with whatever plots were brewing in Rifthold, and whatever desperate hope the rebels still savored. To stand against the king would be nothing but folly. They’d all be destroyed.

Nehemia talks about Calaculla, which is supposed to be a work camp even harsher than Endovier and reserved almost entirely for citizens of Eyllwe, and says that the king won’t meet with her to discuss the conditions there.

“Apparently, he’s too busy finding people for you to kill.”

Get her.

Nehemia calls Celaena Elentiya, which if you have forgotten means ‘spirit that could not be broken’ in the language of Eyllwe and which you might have REPRESSED that Nehemia gave to Celaena, possibly in a fairytale hope that if you name something you influence the nature of it.

Sorry, Nehemia. You tried.

Anyway she does that while demanding when they can actually act.

But when Celaena said nothing, when she promised nothing, just as she always did when Nehemia spoke about these things, the princess dropped the stick on the ground quietly and walked back to the castle.

Celaena thinks about how she has to go meet Chaol for a run in a few minutes and she’s going to go hang out in Rifthold afterwards.

After all, the king had given her a month, and despite her own questions for Archer, she wanted to get off the castle grounds for a bit. She had blood money to burn.

Chapter 4!

We start with Chaol’s PoV. He and Celaena are doing their morning run and it’s cold. He looks over at her.

Noticing his stare, she flashed him a grin, those stunning turquoise eyes filled with light.

I just wanted it noted for the record exactly how noticeable her family eyes (from her Wendlyn side) storied in song and legend are.

They tease each other and run faster. Chaol thinks about Cain and how he killed him and asks Celaena how often she thinks about the people she’s killed. She drags him to a stop and says he shouldn’t pass judgment on her before breakfast. In the book it’s not bantery, it just sounds that way in summary.

Chaol assures her he wasn’t judging, and when she asks if this is about Cain he says yes. Celaena launches into a speech about never forgetting the people she’s killed, which would be a lot more moving if we knew anything about the people she killed or if she actually, like, remembered them in her PoV. we don’t even know who the guy she killed when she was in the single digits (mentioned in ToG) was. This is what I mean by these books telling instead of showing. We’re in Celaena’s head for most of these books. We should know more things.

Celaena assures Chaol that what he did wasn’t dishonorable and that she’ll never forget he saved her. Chaol reflects silently that he doesn’t know who he’d chose if it came down to Celaena vs the king, which, uh. Really dude?

They run some more.

Celaena’s PoV!

They’re walking back to the palace through the gardens. It’s still really cold.There are lots of women out to ogle Chaol as he removes all his layers but his shirt. Celaena is irritated. Chaol offers to help her with surveillance on Archer, she says she doesn’t need help, and they run into Dorian and a blond young man.

Blond dude is Roland. He makes Celaena nervous, which I’m not actually going to make fun of. Sometimes dudes just give off unspecified Bad Vibes. Dorian introduces them.

They still used her alias whenever she couldn’t avoid running into members of the court, though most everyone knew to some degree that she was not in the palace for administrative nonsense or politics.

Administrative.

Nonsense.

Fine whatever.

Roland didn’t expect the King’s Champion to be so lovely, apparently. He’s here to take a position on the king’s council. Chaol gets grouchy. Roland ogles Celaena. Dorian breaks up the party.

Dorian’s PoV!

Roland comments that Celaena/Lillian is an unexpected choice even with the competition. Dorian hates him and remembers that time Chaol punched Roland in the face and knocked Roland unconscious. He says Roland deserved it but does not explain why, though apparently he deserved it enough that the entire court took Chaol’s side.

Roland asks some more questions. Dorian gives no answers and thinks about how Meah (where Roland is from) is a prosperous coastal city with no army and no political power, which makes me question everything. Also I wish the throwaway comment early about Celaena ‘killing’ a dude in Meah linked into Roland somehow, but that would mean this was a different book.

Celaena’s PoV!

Her salary as King’s Champion was considerable, and Celaena spent every last copper of it.

Where does all your money come from later if you spend it all? I guess we’ll talk more about that in Queen of Shadows.

She returns to her room to find Dorian waiting for her. They banter, mentioning Dorian’s flocks of ladies.

Actually, the thought of Dorian with other women made her want to shatter a window, but it wouldn’t be fair to let him know that.

Yikes.

Celaena says she has to head back out into Rifthold.

Dorian took a step closer, exposing his palms to her. “Do you want me to fight for you? Is that it?”

“No,” she said quietly. “I just want you to leave me alone.”

His eyes flickered with the words left unsaid. Celaena stared at him, unmoving, until he silently left.

Alone in the foyer, Celaena clenched and unclenched her fists, suddenly disgusted with all of the pretty packages on the table.

In a weird way, I think this might be one of the most telling passages about Celaena. When Nehemia tries to talk about helping people, Celaena goes shopping. When she reiterates to Dorian that she doesn’t want to date him, that is when she can’t stomach shopping.

It’s just interesting to me, is all.

Chapter 5!

Up on a rooftop reindeer paw, down jumps good old Celaena Sardothien.

Ahem.

On a rooftop in a very fashionable and respectable part of Rifthold, Celaena crouched in the shadow of a chimney and frowned into the chill wind gusting off the Avery.

She’s waiting for Archer to leave his current appointment. She remembers Sam Cortland and vague events from the prequel novellas, but not in any helpful manner. When Archer exits (apparently after two hours instead of the one his previous appointments took).

While she was in no hurry to seek out the truth behind her own capture and Sam’s death, and while she was fairly certain the king had to be wrong about Archer, part of her wondered whether whatever truth she uncovered about this rebel movement and the king’s plans would destroy her, too.

And not just destroy her - but also everything she’d grown to care about.

Later, Celaena and Chaol are chilling in his room (she notes that it’s one room with a bathroom, not the suite that she has). Celaena is studying Archer info. Chaol is presumably doing captain of the guard business, which should involve a lot of writing and accounting so at least that’s happening. Good for you, book.

Celaena learns that Wesley (Arobynn’s bodyguard) killed the crime lord who killed Sam. Arobynn apparently killed Wesley right afterwards.

Celaena ruminates on how Arobynn betrayed her and…

How much she’d make him suffer - and bleed for it.

Chaol asks why she cares, and she explains about Sam and being captured.

“I failed him,” she said. “In every way that counted, I failed him.”

Another long silence, then a sigh. “Not in one way,” Chaol said. “I bet he would have wanted you to survive - to live. So you didn’t fail him, not in that regard.”

I feel like it’s moments like these where my extreme disgust and disappointment in the way Celaena is handled as a character gets in the way. This would normally be a sentiment I’d be down with. It’s not terribly written. I just can’t make myself believe that Celaena really gave a damn about Sam.

It’s a problem.

Chaol opens up about his own romantic past, in which Roland stole his ladylove away and whisked her off to Meah, never to be seen again. I want to be clear that it wasn’t a kidnapping, it was Roland sleeping with Chaol’s girlfriend.

Look. Not to be all ‘ladies can’t make their own choices’ but I gotta say if the cousin of the current murderous dictatorial king was like ‘sleep with me’ I probably would out of fear for my own safety. The situation might not have been like that, but it kinda seems like that.

They banter. Chaol goes to walk Celaena back to her rooms and she asks if he’d do the same for Dorian or if he only does it for women. He doesn’t reeeaaally answer and walks her back.

Celaena tells him that if Lithaen (a wink and a nod towards Celaena’s secret identity in Queen of Glass) chose Roland over Chaol then Lithaen is ‘the greatest fool who ever lived.’

Please see above, re: consent being debateable.

Celaena is also grateful that Lithaen is gone.

Midnight! Celaena heads for the library, being unable to sleep. She plans to grab a book and hightail it back to her room unless there are still some fires lit in the library and I’d ask why she wasn’t reading one of the eighty zillion books she apparently bought earlier but I have been in the frame of mind where nothing you have works for your brain. It’s like with some people and clothes? But with books.

With the chill tonight, it was no surprise to see someone completely concealed by a black cloak, hood drawn over the face. But something about the figure standing between the open library doors made some ancient, primal part of her send a warning pulse so strong that she didn’t take another step.

It’s a librarian come to keep her away from the books. They know what’s going to happen when she brings her dog into the library and they know about those times when she was a kid and they figure out that she’s easily spooked by people in black cloaks.

I’m kidding. It’s creepy and evil and the Eye of Elena starts glowing to ward it off. Celaena closes her eyes.

When she opened her eyes, the amulet was dark, and the hooded creature was gone.

Not a trace, not even the sound of footsteps.

Celaena didn’t go into the library. Oh, no. She just walked quickly back to her rooms with as much dignity as she could muster. Though she kept telling herself that she had imagined it all, that it was some hallucination from too many hours awake, Celaena couldn’t stop hearing that cursed word again and again.

Plans.

Honestly I feel like that chapter should have just ended on ‘Celaena didn’t go into the library.’ It’s kind of funny but still conveys that the creature freaked her out.

Chapter 6!

Celaena is still walking back to her rooms in this chapter. I feel like that could have been better worded last chapter. She’s trying to rationalize still: reading is out of fashion, so maybe somebody was indulging in the middle of the night so nobody made fun of them.

Also it’s a lunar eclipse tonight.

Celaena decides to go see Elena in her tomb and sets off down the secret passageway. Celaena has scars from the Ridderak bite (“a ring of white scars punctured her palm and encircled her thumb”) that I don’t believe were mentioned before or are ever mentioned again. I could be wrong.

She reaches to open the door to the tomb and a bronze doorknocker shaped like a skull asks her if she’s going to knock. She freaks out and says the door knocker can’t really be talking because that would mean magic.

It was impossible - it should be impossible. Magic was gone, vanished from the land ten years ago, before it had even been outlawed by the king.

“Everything in the world is magic. Thank you ever so kindly for stating the obvious.”

She calmed her reeling mind long enough to say, “But magic doesn’t work anymore.”

“New magic doesn’t. But the king cannot erase old spells made with older powers - like the Wyrdmarks. Those ancient spells still hold; especially ones that imbue life.”

What the fuck ever, y’all. I give up on figuring out the magic vanished from the world stuff. Really it only vanished from this particular continent, too, you learn later. Does that mean it’s really only a forcefield? Does that mean water stops magic? Does the amount matter? Would a river stop magic? If you’re on a boat in Erilea, can you do spells?

No answer. Well, I live in hope, as the priest said to the princess (thank you Tamora Pierce for that saying, which I have used since I was seven)

The door knocker is annoying. Celaena is annoying. Their banter is annoying. I think reading 50 pages of this at a time is messing with whatever objectivity I was clinging to. Moving on.

Apparently King Brannon (first king of Terrasen, Elena’s father, hot fae dude with fire powers) put the door knocker there to watch Elena’s tomb. I have to ask what the door knocker’s powers are aside from speech, but I know I will receive no answer.

The door knocker (whose name we have now learned is Mort) says that her name is the funniest thing he’s heard in centuries.

Apparently Elena is recharging after helping Celaena and won’t be back for a while. Mort says he has a message from her to Celaena though. Celaena decides to put that off and examines the tomb more thoroughly.

There’s a sword of truth, wyrdmarks on the walls, and Gavin Havilliard’s armor but no sign of Elena’s. The lunar eclipse puts the tomb almost entirely in darkness and Celaena agrees to hear what Elena has to say.

Mort cleared his throat, and then said in a voice that sounded eerily like the queen’s, “ ‘If I could leave you in peace, I would. But you have lived your life aware that you will never escape certain burdens. Whether you like it or not, you are bound to the fate of this world. As the King’s Champion, you are now in a position of power, and you can make a difference in the lives of many.’ ” Celaena’s stomach turned over.

“Cain and the ridderak were just the beginning of the threat to Erilea,” Mort said, the words echoing around the tomb. “There is a far deadlier power poised to devour the world.”

“And I have to find it, I suppose?”

“Yes. There will be clues to lead you to it. Signs you must follow. Refusing to kill the king’s targets is only the first and smallest step.”

Celaena has the usual ‘why should I bother helping other people because my life sucked’ discussion with Mort, who does the wise old mentor parts right down to “you don’t mean that.”

Mort just glowered at her. “You’re that selfish? That cowardly? Why did you come down here tonight, Celaena? To help us all? Or just to help yourself? Elena told me about you—about your past.”

“Shut your rutting face,” she snapped, and stormed up the stairs.

End chapter 6.

Comparison

Accidental parallels ahoy! Neither Maerad nor Celaena want their destinies. Both are told the fate of the world hinges on them.

Of course, The Riddle has Maerad keep it on the down low and ponder things herself even as she keeps moving forward because she has had a crappy life, and she doesn’t want other people to have a crappy life. We also know who Maerad is and why she’s important to the grand scheme of things, while ToG is taking its sweet time confirming what seemed to me on first read incredibly obvious. I remember being confused when it was a reveal and flipping back through. That’s just the kind of book ToG is. Of course she’s a long lost princess. Of course she is.

I just wish the book didn’t pretend it was going to be a surprise.

We also have Maerad remembering the last book and some key points and having an action scene almost right off the bat. Celaena, the action murder heroine, has yet to have a fight six chapters in.If you took away Maerad’s experiences, she wouldn’t be the same character. If you took away Celaena’s, she would still be doing exactly what the plot says she should be doing, because nothing has formed or been formed by Celaena.

If that makes sense.

Stats

The Riddle

Pages: 18

Fragments: 14

Em-Dashes: 14

Ellipses: 6

ToG

Pages: 51

Fragments: 110

Em-Dashes: 116

Ellipses: 48