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cupidsworstcrime · 2 months ago

Text

Kyle x f!reader x Price

inspo - @goatgoesmbe

smut below the cut

contains anal , double penetration

The storm had ripped through faster than expected. You’d barely made it to the safehouse—snow crusted on your lashes, clothes soaked through, your body shaking from the cold that seeped into your bones. The power was out, no heating, and only a few dry blankets in the supply cache.

You’d barely stepped through the door when Soap, rubbing his hands together, turned to you with that signature grin, cheeks red from windburn.

“Well, technically speakin’, body heat's the fastest way to combat hypothermia. Skin to skin contact—preserving core temperature through mutual thermal exchange.”

You stared at him.

“…Did you Google that before the op?”

“Nah, just read the survival manual. I’m very educated.” He started unzipping his jacket. “C’mon, lass. For science.”

Ghost, already moving to peel his own shirt off, didn’t say a word. Just looked at you through narrowed eyes and gave a solemn nod. Like this was a battlefield decision. Like naked cuddling was the mission now.

Before Johnny could say another word, Gaz stepped between you and the two shirtless idiots.

“Alright. That’s enough,” he scolded, waving an arm toward the hallway. “Don’t listen to these perverts. Come on, we’ll get you warmed up the normal way. With blankets. And dignity.”

He ushered you toward the back room, closing the door behind you.

But then, to your surprise, he sat on the bed and started stripping off his jacket too.

“…Kyle?”

He sighed, cheeks slightly pink.

“Look, Soap’s an idiot, but he’s not wrong. I’m not letting them get their hands on you. If anyone’s doing naked cuddles tonight, it’s gonna be me.”

You barely had time to register that before the door creaked open again.

Price, calm as ever, stepped into the room, closing the door behind him with a soft click.

He didn’t say anything. Just raised an eyebrow, looked from Gaz to you, then to the pile of blankets.

“You’ll catch your death in this cold,” he said, peeling off his gloves. “Might as well make the best of the body heat.”

Gaz stared at him.

“Sir?”

Price pulled off his coat.

“Didn’t say I liked the idea. Just think it’s practical.”

A pause.

“…Shift over.”

You’re in the middle—Gaz on one side, Price behind you. The storm still howling outside, but in the bed it’s sweltering, every inch of you surrounded by muscle and warmth. The initial awkwardness fades with the cold, and pretty soon your body starts to relax… and notice.

Gaz’s hand is the first to move. Just a subtle shift. His fingers graze the curve of your waist, like he’s adjusting his grip—but then he doesn’t stop. He strokes lower, fingertips skating across your stomach, slow and deliberate.

“You alright?” he murmurs, voice low against your neck. He knows exactly what he’s doing. There’s a little smile in his tone.

Behind you, Price must’ve felt the way you tensed—because suddenly his hand is there too. Big, warm, steady, splaying across your hip.

“…You're shivering again,” he says, not quite teasing, not quite serious. His palm glides slowly down the swell of your thigh, thumb brushing bare skin.

The tension under the blanket shifts, thickens, burns.

“Kyle…” you breathe, barely above a whisper.

“Keeping you warm, love,” Gaz says, nosing behind your ear. “Can’t have you freezing to death.”

Price hums quietly behind you, lips brushing your shoulder. “Could’ve sworn tha' was the mission. Gotta make sure you stay hot.”

Hands now—both sets—are exploring. Gentle but growing bolder. Fingers tracing the dip of your spine, the curve of your ass. Gaz slides his hand up to cup your chest, thumb flicking lazily as he watches your face. Price’s hand ventures lower, between your thighs, parting them just a bit. Testing how wet the heat has made you.

And when they realize just how warm you’ve gotten, Gaz lets out a low, wicked laugh.

“Fuck… See... Told you this would work..."

You’re already breathing harder, your body betraying you with every slow glide of their hands, every teasing stroke. But then Price leans in, lips brushing the back of your neck—soft at first, barely there. Then firmer, more possessive. His beard scratches faintly against your skin as he moves lower, just to the base of your neck.

The second his mouth finds that tender spot—warm and wet and intentional—you shudder hard, a helpless tremble that rolls down your spine.

That’s all Gaz needs.

His hand slides up, tilting your face toward him, and then he kisses you. Not gentle, not testing. No, Kyle kisses you like he’s been holding back the whole mission. His mouth is hungry—hot, slick, tongue sliding into yours as he catches your gasp, swallowing it down like a man starved.

Price doesn’t stop either. His hands roam freely now, gripping your hip as he presses his chest flush against your back, his cock hard and hot against you. His other hand slips around to palm your chest, fingers rubbing slow, lazy circles around your nipple while his mouth keeps branding your skin with every kiss.

You’re pinned between them, bodies grinding into yours, hands everywhere, mouth claimed by Kyle, neck claimed by Price. The cold is a distant memory now—you’re on fire.

Kyle pulls back just slightly, lips red and breath heavy.

“Fuckin’ love when you get all needy like that,” he mutters, voice ragged. “You want more, sweetheart?”

Behind you, Price lets out a low growl of agreement, hand sliding lower again, dangerously close to slipping between your thighs.

“Tell us, love,” he murmurs against your skin. “We’ll take care of you. Just say the word.”

You barely get the words out—just a breathless little "please”—before they pounce.

Price growls low, deep in his chest, and his hand finally slips down to cup your soaked heat. “There’s my good girl,” he rumbles, voice pure gravel, thick with need. “Soaked through just from a few kisses… You need to be fucked, don’t you?”

Right into Gaz, who grabs your thigh and throws it over his hip, opening you up more, pulling you flush against him. “That’s it,” he mutters darkly, pupils blown wide. “Knew you’d be fuckin’ filthy under all that kevlar.”

He doesn’t wait for an answer. His fingers slide through your folds, slick and shameless, circling your clit with slow, cruel precision. You gasp—your hips jerk forward—

His mouth crashes into yours again, biting your lower lip, tongue fucking into your mouth just as Price slides a finger inside you from behind. Then another. You’re moaning into Kyle’s mouth, hips rocking helplessly between the two of them, gasping when Price curls his fingers just right.

“You hear that?” Price murmurs into your neck, fucking you slow and deep with his fingers. “That wet little sound your cunt makes when I touch it? She’s crying for cock.”

Kyle's already rutting against you, teeth dragging down your jaw. “Think she can take both of us?” he pants, hand sliding down between your bodies. “Wanna see her fall apart… see who she begs for first.”

Price chuckles low. “Why choose?”

They shift you easily—Gaz rolls onto his back and pulls you on top of him, slotting his cock between your thighs while Price presses behind you, lining up. You’re shaking, breath caught in your throat as you realize what they’re about to do.

“Hold on tight, sweetheart,” Gaz whispers, fingers digging into your hips. “We’re gonna break you.”

You’re trembling between them, thighs shaking as they guide you into position—Gaz beneath you, thick cock rubbing against your soaked entrance, and Price behind you, large hands spreading your ass, his cock heavy and hot against your rim.

Your breath stutters in your chest.

“You’re gonna take us both, sweetheart,” Gaz mutters, voice ragged with anticipation, one hand gripping your hip while the other strokes himself, smearing your slick along his shaft. “Gonna let us ruin this pretty cunt and tight little ass.”

Price chuckles low, breath warm against your shoulder. “You’re ready for it. Been fuckin’ dripping since I touched you. So greedy.”

He pushes a slick finger in first—slow, testing—and your whole body jerks forward into Gaz with a gasp. It’s new, a stretch that burns just slightly, but he’s careful, patient. One finger becomes two, scissoring gently as he lets you adjust, whispering soft filth against your neck.

And then—they move.

Gaz sinks into your pussy first, inch by inch, your walls stretching around him, hugging him tight. You clutch his shoulders, burying your face in his neck as he groans, “Fucking hell, baby—you’re clamping down on me—like this cunt’s never been touched before.”

Behind you, Price lines himself up to your ass, cock already slick from your own arousal. You’re whining now, overwhelmed—but wanting. You want it.

“Relax, love,” he murmurs, kissing your spine. “Let me in.”

And then you feel him push.

The stretch is intense. Full. Slow and demanding. Your body trembling with every inch he sinks into your ass, gasping at how tightly you’re being filled—every hole stuffed, every breath caught on the verge of breaking.

When they’re both inside—deep—you’re suspended between them, utterly impaled, legs quaking.

“Jesus fuckin’ Christ,” Kyle hisses, face flushed, watching your expression twist between pain and pleasure. “You feel that, baby? Feel us both inside you?”

You can’t speak—just nod, a choked moan falling from your lips.

And then they start moving.

Not gentle anymore—fucking you in tandem, a rhythm designed to obliterate. Price rocks forward when Gaz pulls back, then Gaz snaps up into you when Price withdraws. Perfect timing. You’re used, wrecked, stretched impossibly wide and loving every second.

Their grunts, growls, and filthy praise blur together:

“Taking us so well…”

“Like this hole was made for my cock…”

“Look at you—pretty little thing..."

"Fuckin’ drooling, baby, you love being ruined like this, huh?”

You’re a limp, quaking mess—crying out with every thrust, your mind blank, pleasure overwhelming. Your body clenches around them both, and when you come, it’s violent—your orgasm slamming through you, tears streaking your cheeks as your pussy spasms and your ass grips tight around Price.

They don’t stop. They chase their highs through your body—brutal and possessive until they both come, Price groaning as he fills your ass, Gaz cursing your name as he spills inside your soaked cunt.

They collapse against you, cocks still deep, breathing hard.

You’re shaking. Leaking. Ruined.

And all they do is hold you close, kiss your shoulders, whisper how fucking perfect you are.

You don't even remember the feeling of the cold anymore.

mbe say the word and i will stop, pinky promise. i just love your brain... such yummy yummy ideas you have

also si and johnny are totally naked cuddling in the living room, they don't even care you aren't there

#kyle gaz garrick x you #kyle gaz garrick x reader #kyle gaz garrick #gaz x reader #gaz cod #price x reader #john price call of duty #john price #john price x you #cod x you #..........#mmmmmmmmm #dp #mmmmmmmm

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taurasiluvr · 11 months ago

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i need riding cc’s strap pleaseeeee

OOOOUUUUUU ABSOLUTELY LOVE

as soon as the door clicked shut behind you, she was on you, her lips capturing yours in a desperate, hungry kiss. "i need you, baby," she murmured against your lips, her hands already working to strip you of your clothes.

you felt a rush of heat at her words, your own arousal skyrocketing. "need you too," you replied breathlessly, helping her remove the last of your clothes before she sank to the bed.

she guided you onto the bed, positioning you in between her legs as she continued kissing you. she pulled you on top of her, and aligned the strap-on with your entrance as you sat on her lap. with one slow, deliberate thrust, you pushed inside, filling you completely. you gasped at the sensation, your body arching in response.

your hands grabbed on her shoulders for support as your head fell back at the sensation. "oh fuck, cait,"

your words were a breathless moan as you began to move, the sensation of caitlin filling you driving you wild. caitlin's hands were on your hips, guiding your movements as you rode her, the friction and fullness creating waves of pleasure that had you shivering with every thrust.

"that's it, baby," caitlin groaned, her voice rough with desire. "look so fucking beautiful like this, riding me like a slut."

you felt a flush of heat at her words, your pace quickening as you rocked your hips against her. the room was filled with the sounds of your bodies moving together, the wet, rhythmic slap of skin on skin, and your breathless moans mingling with caitlin's low groans.

"cait, need more," you gasped, your hands gripping her shoulders tightly. "please, give me more."

caitlin's grip on your hips tightened, her thrusts becoming more forceful as she met your movements with her own. "that what you want?" she growled, her eyes dark with lust. "want me to fuck you harder?"

"oh yes," you cried out, your body trembling with the intensity of your need. "harder, cait, please."

she responded by increasing the intensity of her thrusts, driving into you with a power that had you seeing stars. cach movement sent jolts of pleasure through your body, building you up higher and higher.

"god, you're so perfect," caitlin panted, her hands sliding up to cup your breasts, her thumbs brushing over your nipples. "love watching you like this, love how you take me."

your head fell back, a loud moan escaping your lips as you felt your climax approaching. "'m so close, cait," you gasped, your body trembling. "i'm gonna cum."

"cum for me, baby," she urged, her voice filled with raw need.

with a final, powerful thrust, you came hard, your body convulsing as waves of pleasure crashed over you. you cried out, your nails digging into caitlin's shoulders as you rode out your orgasm, every nerve ending alive with sensation. caitlin held you close, her own breathing ragged as she continued to thrust into you, prolonging your pleasure until you were utterly spent.

finally, she slowed, her movements becoming gentle as she helped you come down from your high. you collapsed against her, your body still trembling, and buried your face in the crook of her neck.

if you enjoyed, any interaction is greatly appreciated!

with love, rylin 𝜗𝜚

#wbb x reader #wbb smut #wcbb #wnba basketball #caitlin clark #wcbb x reader #wnba x reader #caitlin clark fluff #caitlin clark x reader #caitlin clark headcannons #caitlin clark imagine #caitlin clark smut #caitlin clark fic #indiana fever #iowa wbb #wnba #iowa hawkeyes

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deadsetobsessions · 1 year ago

Text

Pt. 4

Sorry this took so long. In the hospital still. Out of the hospital now!

For @unadulteratedsoulsweets

——

It had been early in the morning when she’d stepped foot in the manor. It was closer to noon, now, that found the reincarnation attentively sitting in one of the (if she remembered correctly from the blue prints) three massive kitchens located in Wayne manor.

She sat atop one of the island stools Damian had ushered her into, spaced a comfortable distance from the man that was her biological father in this life. Her mask dangled at her hip, a comfort she indulged in after unpacking her things. In truth, she’s had cookies before, but it had been so long since she’s tasted it that she might as well have never tried it before. Damian and Alfred Pennyworth worked with maximum efficiency, measuring out flour and sugar and chocolate like there were no tasks more important than this.

Alfred Pennyworth also avoided a specific cabinet that smelled slightly of metal polish and gun powder. It was kept away from the perishables.

Perhaps the manor was smaller and much more homely than the palace, but the reincarnate could see the sense in and approved of the various well-hidden caches of weapons around. Meant for non-lethal take downs, of course, but anything can be lethal if you tried hard enough. Or, considering the vigilante filled manor she had agreed to vacation in, anything could be lethal if one did not try hard enough to keep it non lethal.

The scrape of a spoon drew her attention back to Damian, waving away the off topic musings her mind had wandered into now that a large portion of her brain power was freed from the duty of fear.

She tracked how Damian existed within this space he had so clearly made for himself. He was… happier. Kinder. More. More at ease, more settled into his skin instead of where he stretched it to fit the cast of the Demon’s Heir. Simply, more. He was more Damian than he had been in the league.

When Damian was locked within the walls of the palace, his shoulders were always held straight. There’d been a- not quite darkness- cruelty in his eyes and gait that their grandfather had eagerly nurtured. His chin had remained lifted, his actions closed and callous. She’d feared, for while, that Damian would follow their grandfather’s footsteps. Until the day she saw him sneak a bird into his room to heal, her heart had trembled and grieved to see someone she loved imitate the worst parts of her abuser. It didn’t change the fact that she loved him, but it changed how she taught him.

But experience is a better teacher than she will ever be, and Damian had little chance to experience true kindness in the pits of the league.

Here, Damian is light. Perhaps less aware than he normally would have been, on the look out for fatal attacks as she had trained him to be within the league, but here he is free and safe and relaxed. It feels like she’s sitting in a haze, the chirps of birds and the clouded noon sun casting everything into an unreal light.

“Ukhti, assistance is requested.” Her brother holds out a bowl of dough. Her heart hurt with how happy it was. She squished the dough between her fingers like a child rediscovering her childhood. In some ways, she was.

——

As she watched Damian, in turn the others observed her. Bruce sat beside her, cataloguing every minuscule expression of his child, the first and the eldest, in an attempt to make up for lost time. And truly, it was minuscule. For all Bruce trained in micro-expressions and movements, his eldest- god, he had another daughter, the eldest- daughter remained a mystery from which he gleaned little of. Her face never lifted from that trained neutrality, having resettled back into it after first bite of b’stilla. He cradled the mug of coffee in his hands, the tang of grief and guilt roiling in his stomach as his daughter hesitantly but skillfully rolled a ball of dough.

“Pennyworth has divulged his secrets to me.” Damian plucked the ball from his sister’s hand, who allowed it with traces of… bemusement, perhaps? His eldest daughter flicked her eyes up in question, perhaps mildly amused. Even if she had more than two decades worth of training, Bruce was frustrated that he could not read her. She was his daughter.

Already he fails her. For too long, he had failed her.

“He chills the dough for a chewier cookie. I, and some of the others with adequate taste, prefer this texture. But which would you find adequate?”

His daughter flickered through that sign language again, the one he had no knowledge of. Considering he knew multiple from each continent, that was saying a lot. He was catching a few repeated signs, but nothing concrete.

Alfred waited patiently as they had their conversation, paying sharp attention to their motions. Bruce… felt like he was sitting next to Cassandra. He supposed they were the same, except his eldest daughter hadn’t gotten free.

“That wasn’t what I meant, and you know it.” Damian grumbled, resting his hands on the counter, making sure to keep it away from his meticulously clean clothes. “We’ll cook them immediately.”

Bruce, in a fit of inspired parenting, offered a compromise.

“We could do two batches. One for right now and save a batch for later.”

Unspoken were the words ‘so she can try the cookies now.’ Despite the silent nature of his intent, Bruce thought that Alfred and Damian understood anyways.

“A fine suggestion, Master Bruce.”

“Thanks, Alfred.”

——

She sensed them before she saw them. Her father had slipped out after his suggestion, no doubt intercepting his flock of traumatized orphans before they could pile in.

Perhaps she had inherited something from Bruce Wayne after, considering how many of them she’d taken under her wing. She rolled the ball of dough between oiled fingers in a haze. Faint memories, impressions of a life long faded, guided her hands as she smooshed the cookies to her preference.

“Penny for your thoughts, Miss Al-Ghul?”Alfred Pennyworth asked her.

‘A Pennyworth for my thoughts?’ She swapped sign language, eyes slyly watching for Damian’s reaction.

Damian, right on cue, clicked his tongue, looking defeated. Alfred, on the other hand, smiled wider.

“A Pennyworth for your thoughts indeed.”

Her humor faded into something softer. Longing. Melancholy.

‘It’s been a long time since I’ve made dessert for myself.’

She glanced at Damian, who was trying his best to pretend like he wasn’t paying attention to the conversation lest he caught another stray pun. ‘Or used it to inoculate poisons.’

“I see.” The butler patted his hands dry onto a towel, a sharp eye on Damian’s efforts at covering the dough meant for freezing. “I assure you that these cookies will remain poison free, have no worries about that. Now, would you like some tea?”

She shook her head. ‘I’ll make it myself later. Thank you.’

“Very well, Miss-”

“Hi, Alfred. Making cookies?”

Her hands continued to work on her tray, placing cookie dough on the tray with military precision. Damian remained relaxed, though watchful of her reaction.

“That’s correct, Master Tim.”

Tim shuffled over to her, and she turned. Ah, her partial benefactor.

“Little photographer.” She smiled, slightly. Her eyes, however, were warm. Alfred stilled for a brief second at her voice.

“Hi. It’s been a while.” Tim plopped down on the seat next to her. His whole body screamed of nostalgia. It’s odd to see the little scrawny Bristol boy grow into a full fledged vigilante. It seemed like yesterday she was keeping him from slipping on Gotham’s manifestations of its rot and plummeting down on its stone heart.

She hummed. ‘Not too long.’

“What is that supposed to mean? When had you met Drake, recently?”

She glanced at the little- not so little- photographer.

“She helped me bring B back.” Tim lied. She didn’t like how easily he lied to Damian… but on account of her fondness for him, she let it slide.

“Did you, Miss Al-Ghul?” Alfred wiped his hands on the hand towel he carried. “Then I suppose we owe you our sincere thanks.”

She blinked slowly.

‘I didn’t do much. I kept him alive just the once.’

“That is a harder task than one might think, Miss Al-Ghul. Master Tim has, arguably, the worst self preservation instincts out of the life risking vigilantes I have known.” And he has known many, Alfred seemed to imply.

She tilted her head in acknowledgement.

“Hey! What is this? Gang up on Tim day?”

“I would participate in that even if it wasn’t,” Damian stated, packing the frozen cookies away in the corner. “Come and help, Drake. My ukht is about to have her first cookies and we will bake it to perfection. Bring the tray.”

Tim scoffed but slid the tray away from her, Alfred seamlessly dropping a napkin for her to wipe off the dough from her fingertips.

“Thanks, by the way. For saving Z and Owens.”

‘They were my assassins. Even if you did manage to sway them to your cause.’ She tapped the marble island, before opening her mouth. “Thank you. For destroying his pit options. It helped me kill Ra’s.”

In her peripherals, Damian settled back, disgruntled but willing to rest his curiosity as gratitude towards Tim’s part in her freedom overrode his need for answers.

Tim stilled. “…What are friends for, right?”

‘Of course, little photographer.’ She relaxed as her, arguably first, friend and now brother popped the tray into the oven.

“Anyways, they sent me in here to see if you’re ready to meet the rest of them.”

“And they said that?” Damian scoffed, coming around the island to stand beside her as she slipped off the stool.

“Nah, they actually wanted me to subtly vibe check her, but it’s not like she wouldn’t catch me doing it.”

“Ukhti��s ‘vibes’ are perfectly fine,” Damian said crabbily, crossing his arms defensively. She tapped the back of Damian’s neck and he relaxed.

‘Thank you for the… assessment of my character and general disposition.’ She signed dryly.

“Ugh, I should’ve made the connection. Your syntax is exactly like Damian’s.” Tim joked, dodging the punch Damian aimed at his nonexistent spleen.

The reincarnation huffed. ‘I spoke perhaps three words to you.’

“And how many people use disposition on a regular basis?”

“I do, Drake!”

“I know, Damian. That was the point, you little walking thesaurus.”

——

They left Alfred in the kitchen, the man all but shooing them away so he could get working on lunch, and made their way to a sitting room. The floor was covered in a plush blue carpet, a fact that made itself vividly present to the reincarnation when she placed her foot on it, the fabric brushing the back of her heels. She was too trained to allow the slip to visible, but for a microsecond, the memories of kneeling and choking clawed their way past her defenses. She made note of the trigger and moved on, compartmentalizing that fact for later.

“It’s you,” Nightwing breathed out, tensing. The others behind him freeze, even more alert than their regular state. Bruce whipped his head towards him, sharp and searching.

“Nightwing.” She greeted. She felt a kinship with this vigilante turned brother. She watched him soar and fall alongside the little photographer. She watched him grow new wings and watched them get tainted with blood and fear and grim hope. She lived vicariously through him, he who flew when she was chained. In some ways, she had ended up watching his back for a long time, both in yearning for the ease he was allowed at her father’s side and to protect the vulnerable back that knew not of its openness. Bruce inhaled deeply at her voice.

Dick stepped forward and pulled her into a hug. She does not disembowel him for it. Instead, she allowed the giant octopus hug her new oldest little brother gave her. There was no aggression in his countenance. Only relief and gratitude.

“You know Dick?” The little, ah, no, she doesn’t want to sound like Ra’s, Tim asked. Dick tensed, clearly unwilling to speak about it. She stepped in.

“I met him once. Eliminated a spider for him on a rooftop. I did not think he would remember.”

“Is that why you were so adamant on knowing who ukhti was?” Damian demanded, scowling. She immediately freed an arm and wrapped it around his shoulders. Damian ducked away with a rather petulant scowl. "Not because of my safety but because she crushed an arachnid for you?"

Dick nodded at him before looking up at her. “I really hated that spider. It was super scary. Thank you for getting rid of it.”

In lieu of an answer, she gently hugged him back.

“I get the feeling.” She said solemnly, voice coming out soft and borne of an implicit understanding. ‘Talk later,’ she signed to him.

“I was not aware you were afraid of spiders, ukht,” Damian muttered. “Though, Richard, I would believe.”

“Hey!”

Dick detached himself and pasted on a mostly genuine smile. “Oh! You should meet the others!”

He turned to the rest of Bruce Wayne’s wards and children to cheerfully point them out.

“This is Duke! He’s Alfred’s favorite grandkid, because he hasn’t burnt down the kitchen yet and reports when he’s injured.”

“Hey. Nice to meet you.” Duke Thomas raised a hand, smiling. “The bar was literally on the floor with you people. ‘Sides, Jason did just fine.”

The reincarnate nodded. Yes, she knew of him, though her memories were hazy. It had been over two decades, after all.

Dick steamrolled onwards. “This is Stephanie-”

“But you can call me Steph!” Stephanie Brown interjected, bouncing in her seat. Despite her bubbly demeanor, her gaze was sharp. Seeing. She liked that sharpness. It was tempered by the same rough and tumble kindness she’d seen in Grave- ah, Jason.

Spoiler, her memories reminded her. It was a soothing distraction from the anxious memories of the league. She found herself collecting little hints and information about this family. Her family, even if it were tentatively so. She caught Bruce staring at them intently, visibly anxious about this meeting.

‘A pleasure to meet you.’

“So… what do we call you?” Steph tilted her head. Hm. A tell Ra’s would have beaten out of her, had Stephanie had the misfortune of being in his presence for more than a day.

“Al Ghul will be adequate.” Damian cut in. The glance he threw her promised a discussion upon the topic of her name. Later, it promised.

“Wow. That’s kind of impersonal though.”

“Steph!”

“What?! I’m not wrong.”

“Anyways!” Dick loudly said over the two bickering kids. “That’s actually it for now.”

“The rest aren’t here as of this moment, but they’ll be around for dinner.”

A white lie. She studied Bruce for a moment before acquiescing. He meant no harm. Despite his capability to inflict harm, his willingness to do so, she could not read a single instance of ill will in him. Not, at least, towards her. She allowed the lie to slide.

‘I wish to see the grounds.’ She put a hand on Damian’s shoulder. He knew what it meant for her to retreat to the wilderness. Nature, where most things were free and where one does not often find Ra’s after he’d had a taste for luxury.

“We will go to the gardens. Ukhti wishes to explore.” Despite the rather curt way he pronounced it, Damian had stepped closer to her side in a gesture of concern. The pit inside of her stomach eased.

“Sounds good! Let’s go!” Steph bounced out of her seat.

“We could tell you stories,” Tim offered from behind her.

“Yeah, like that one time Dick face planted onto one of Poison Ivy’s flower beds because he was distracted by an ice cream truck.” Duke grinned, eyes crinkling.

“Hey! That ice cream truck was full of Scarecrow thugs!”

“And they weren’t worth an Ivy-lecture. I’m surprised she didn’t skin you and make a pot out of your bones, Dick.” Tim yawned.

“Ooo, we should tell her about the time I hit you in the face with a brick!”

“Literally what more is there to that story, Steph?” Tim grumbled.

“I would like to hear this tale,” Damian said, beginning to tug his ukht towards the garden. The rest of the group followed.

“Actually, why don’t we tell her about the time you tried getting Batcow to the barn and he just sat down? Didn’t you bargain with her for an hour, Damian?”

“Tt!”

Duke leaned back and took in the chaos he unfolded with a twinkling grin and Bruce’s sigh bolstering him. And if their newest and oldest addition to the family relaxed in his chaos, well, that was between him and her.

——

Cassandra found her in the gardens, the both of them weaving in between the foliage like light footed cats. Her contingent of Bats were behind them, watching the two former assassins approach each other.

Cassandra had frozen, mirroring the reincarnator’s stillness.

“Ukhti.” The word was torn out of Cass’ throat, filled with tears and relief.

“Cassandra,” she called, fond and kind and loving. Damian’s eyes darted between his sisters. They knew each other. How? She called his ukht, ukhti. A title he had assumed only he could use.

Cassandra scrambled and launched herself at her, silent sobs shaking her frame.

“Hello, Cass,” she caught the flying vigilante, crushing her first little sister into a tight hug. “Freedom suits you, habibti.”

Cass trembles in her arms, hands clutching at the fabric on her shoulder blades like Damian’s. Her eyes softened, and she rested her chin on Cass’s head.

“You know Cassandra too, ukhti?”

She nodded.

“Ukhti named me.” Cass said, voice wobbly. ‘Cass. Cassandra.’ Cass did her name sign. The one she had taught the slip of a girl back when Cass was stuck in a senseless prison and she was only free in terms of movement.

‘First word too.’ She smiled, proud of Cass and how far she’s come. Cassandra reads the pride in her language, the safety and kindness that she’d never forgotten even after traversing the world for years before arriving home, and she burrowed deeper into the hug.

“Oh. I see.”

“Two ukhts.” She smiled at Damian.

Cass shook her head, but before Damian could settle into his hurt at her supposed rejection, Cass explained her confusion. “Ukhti is your name? I’m Cass.”

“Ukhti means older sister.” Damian informed her.

Cass blinked and looked back at the reincarnation. Her shoulders relaxed and drew back, eyes softening and body loosened from its confusion. She smiled, bright as the sun, and deftly clambered around to perch on her older sister’s back.

“Two.” She declared. And truly, the reincarnation was weak to her younger siblings because that was that. Cass declared it so, and it shall be so. Damian grumbled but seemed like they agreed.

“How did you two meet?” Bruce piped up, intent and surprisingly considerate.

“Saved me,” Cass sighed, resting her chin on her ukht’s head. ‘From father and the league. Taught me to speak, a little. My name. Cass. Taught me..’ Cass paused. “Taught me I am not a weapon.”

The former assassin carrying Cass on a piggy back ride hummed in agreement.

“Oh.” The rest of the family glanced at each other. Dick had his shiny teary eyes on, the ones he got when Jason initiated a hang out.

“Not a weapon,” Cass repeated, pressing firmly on her ukht’s head.

A less sure hum. Cass scowled.

“No. Bad,” Cass scolded. “Not a weapon.”

An acquiescing hum, full of fondness and exasperation.

Cassandra Cain will take that answer. For now.

“You named Cass?” Duke asked. Bruce looked at them with gentle eyes.

“After a heroine I knew.” She replied, shifting. Cass hugged her tighter, intently listening. “She was strong. Lethal if need be. But… kind. She had an inherently kind heart. Full of love. Like Cass.”

“Oh, that’s really.. that’s really sweet.”

Cass hugged her ukht closer, touched. She had never known why she had been given the name, but finding out that it was after a heroine her sister looked up to made the day that much brighter. Hopeful. Honored.

“You have not told me this story,” Damian said.

‘I will. One day.’

——

Jason found her at the lunch table. Along with the rest of the brood. Except for, jarringly, an alien named Jarro.

“He’s our alien brother!” Duke said. He smiled, and it was a smile of unassuming harmlessness. A well crafted mask that she knew better than to be fooled by.

She offered three long blinks that had Cassandra, stuck like a limpet on the reincarnator’s back, muffling a laugh.

“Telling truth,” Cass whispered, sentences punctuated by giggles.

She hummed, shifting to more securely carry Cass on her back. Damian sighed and dutifully carried Cassandra’s pack. She smiled at her little brother, who straightened. Adorable. All of her siblings were adorable. She would kill for them. Ah, right. They frown upon murder here. So had she, once. Before Ra’s broke that part of her heart and forced her hands to commit evils that grew gnarled vines through her very soul.

“Oh.” She blinked.

“Hm?”

“Killing is… a choice.” The conversations around them fell silent. Cass’ arms tightened around her shoulders.

“We don’t have to do it, anymore,” Damian agreed. Yes, he understood what it was like, to be raised to kill and suddenly having the option not to.

“Did you not want to kill, before?” Bruce asked, suddenly a bit closer. Her mind was slipping, she realized. It felt… safe, to slip.

‘If I did not,’ she admitted, like throwing stones off of a lock-laden bridge. ‘Damian would bear the consequences.’

She sounded… young. Afraid. Two things she had always been and were never allowed to be.

Bruce Wayne looked at her like his heart was breaking, like he wished he could shoulder her pain on top of the weight of the world he willingly carried since his parents died. This, she is reminded, was why she swore Damian to secrecy regarding her existence. She wondered if he had ever taken the burden of more grief than he could bear.

‘And I could not say no, regardless,” she told them, absent and tired.

She wondered if she would be the one to break him, should she allow him a glimpse of the scars on her back.

“I could have taken it.” Damian grabbed her arm, clutching at her sleeve once more.

“No,” she whispered, haunted. ‘Not while I drew breath, habibi.’

“You don’t have to kill here. We’re all very good with no murder.” Tim reminded her firmly.

“Unless it’s the Joker.” Steph chimed in, bubbly smile gentled into something kinder.

“Unless it’s him.” Duke agreed. His eyes were more serious now.

“No,” Bruce replied, tired. Heavier, in a way that made sour tang of guilt scratch the back of her tongue. She hadn’t meant to give him the weight of knowledge, but she had inadvertently done so with the things she had and hadn’t said. He wasn’t the world’s- she glanced at Tim, who quirked a smile at her- second best detective for no reason.

“Yes, but you’re not ready for that conversation.” Dick snapped, lightheartedly.

Ah. That’s what was off.

They’re kind. They choose to be and they inherently are kind.

It showed. And she wasn’t used to that.

“Lunch.” Cassandra reminded them. She was a solid, grounding presence at the reincarnator’s back.

“Oh, Jason said he’s on the way.” Duke commented, nodding when she quickly did a subtle thank you sign.

“Why does he text you and not me?” Dick whined.

“Wow, man. I don’t know. Maybe it’s because of the emoji wall you send?”

“They’re nice! How else are you supposed to know what I’m feeling, right, Cass?”

Cass nodded and gave a thumbs up from her place on ukhti’s back.

“See?!”

“I love you Cass, but you also use a wall of understandable emojis. Dick just spams them.” Steph retorted.

The reincarnator turned to Damian, a silent question in her eyes. He sighed. “Yes, the imbeciles argue all of the time.”

She nodded and the group made their way to the green house for lunch, bickering all the while.

When they get there, Jason Todd, along with Alfred Pennyworth were already at the table.

“Grave.” She greeted as Cass slipped off her back.

“Ain’t no fucking way, Trainer?” Jason leapt to his feet. It was odd, seeing him in casual clothes. Ra’s had kept him in armor most of the time.

“You know each other?”

“At this point, who doesn’t ukht know would be an easier question.” Damian grumbled. She tapped him on the head twice, a light reprimand.

‘Grave was part of your guard,’ she told him. ‘He protected you well.’

“You’re the demon brat’s older sister? That makes so much fucking sense.”

She felt her eyes go cold, lifting to stare at Grave’s rapidly paling face. He visibly backtracks.

“Uh- I mean, you’re Damian’s older sister?”

She regarded him for a beat longer before blinking, ice melting away at the change. The nickname chafed at her neck, too close from a fate she gave everything to save Damian from.

Her head dipped into a small nod.

“Wild.” Jason sat back down. “So, uh, how are you handling the pit?”

‘I am not.’ She informed him, settling down in her seat. Damian claimed the spot next to her and Cass quickly took the other, much to Bruce’s chagrin. Tim plopped down to the seat next to Cass, eyes zeroing onto the chamomile tea Alfred had set out for him.

Duke smiled at Bruce before sitting next to Jason, Steph skipping over and sitting next Dick and Jason at the same time.

“Ukhti managed to get rid of the side effects,” Damian informed the table at large.

Her little bat had the worst ability to make sure attention focused on her, the reincarnation groused. She sighed.

“How?” Clearly, Grave had forgotten how much she beat him into the sparring mat because he leaned forward to glare at her. Well, she hadn’t wanted him too afraid of her.

‘Magic.’

His face fell at the assumed non answer, but Damian’s nod had the entire table once more expectant.

She sighed and began weaving her magic.

——

She stalked through the shadows of the manor, at ease. Bruce and the others had left on patrol, hours ago. She was clad in her sleeping clothes, one of her less favored clothes. Her hands would get dirty again tonight but she was long past the point of lingering on those regrets.

“Miss al-Ghul,” Alfred turned as she stepped towards him, having made sure she made adequate noise as a forewarning. “Having a good night?”

She tilted her head, eyes inquisitively peering at the spotless china display behind the butler.

“Ah, you must be curious about the fine ceramics we have currently displayed,” Alfred smiled. “Would you be so kind as to indulge an old butler on this topic?”

She had an idea about the kind of gift Alfred Pennyworth would appreciate.

——

“Uh, whatcha got there?”

She blinked, pulling bloodied hands away from her clothes where she had been inspecting them. The assassin that caused the damage on her clothes laid beneath her feet, still and lifeless. She blinked again.

Nightwing, Dick, stood in front of her, freshly showered from his patrol.

Some form of long forgotten instinct rose from the dry rotted fabric of her faded memories had her responding, ‘A smoothie.’

“…That’s… not a smoothie,” Dick said as he stepped into the room and closed the door behind him. “I’m pretty sure that’s an assassin?”

She shrugged. “He was after Damian. To force him into being the Demon’s head.” She paused. ‘I am tying up loose ends.’

Dick considered her. And the he sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Right, okay. I’ll help you get rid of the evidence.”

She waved him off, clicking her fingers and looking over the room with critical eyes as the body and traces of the fight disappeared.

“Woah, handy.”

‘Very,’ she agreed. ‘Did you need something?’

He made a face. “That’s weird. It’s usually me asking that,” he muttered. “Uh, yeah. I just… wanted to thank you again. And uh, let you know that the others don’t know so if you could not tell them, that would be great?”

With a huff, she reached over and up to gently ruffle his hair. ‘Of course. Damian did not know either.’

“Right,” he breathed. “You get it.”

She gave him a knowing look. “Been avoiding thinking about it?”

He swallowed. “Yeah.”

She looked at him, silent. Offering a space to listen, and a quiet promise to offer no judgement.

“I don’t- it- I could have stopped her,” he told her, guilt and shame and the lingering whispering voice Catalina burrowing into his ears and heart.

And when he started, it seemed to him like he couldn’t stop. Dick told her of the things he felt as she got on top of him, of how numb and far away things were. How, if it rained, he couldn’t be in the quiet because it made him relive it.

“But… but you stopped her so I shouldn’t even be like this!”

‘It wasn’t your fault.’ She told him, the first thing she’s said since he’s started talking. ‘The only one at fault was her. You trusted her to stop. She did not. Her crimes were not yours to bear.’

She paused, taking in the refusal she could read on his face. “If someone beats another person, would you blame the person who was beaten?”

“No!”

‘Then you are kind. But you are so kind to others, why not yourself?’

Dick fell silent.

“I killed Ra’s,” she reminded him. “He allowed many others to partake in my body without my agreement.”

She leaned towards him, the admittance of something she had not even told Damian ringing painfully in her heart but made all the easier to say by the fact that one of her little brothers (the free, first Robin, the son who stood by Bruce’s side when she could not) needed her. “He himself partook in me. And yet,” she added, when Dick looked up. ‘It is difficult to forget. I am still afraid when I step onto the carpet on the sitting room.’

“The carpet? The rug? The fluffy one?” He asked, confused.

“It is like… your rain and silence,” she crossed her arms. ‘That and the sound of rustling silk reminds me of his chambers.’

“Oh.”

‘I killed him and it will not go away. Would you blame me for that?’

“No, that’s how healing is- oh.”

“Be kind, to yourself.”

His chin trembled. “Yeah. Thanks.”

“Ukhti.”

“Ukhti,” he parroted, aiming a watery and small smile her way.

She held out her arms and, with Dick’s tacit understanding, tucked him beneath her wings like she did with Damian. “Thank you for offering to get rid of the body, habibi. But I would not want you to get in trouble.”

“Eh, I’ve helped Jason deal with worse.”

‘Comforting.”

“I know, right?”

——

“Why the hell do you keep calling me Grave?” Jason asked her, grumbling as he tried to wire his new helmet after the last one got damaged.

She leaned back, basking in the sun on the new rugs. After their conversation, Dick had set fire to every fluffy rug in the house-

“What the hell, dude?!” Duke gaped as he watched Dick cheerfully toss an expensive rug into the impressive bonfire they had going on.

“Ukhti doesn’t like fluffy rugs,” Dick said with a straight face. Damian dragged another roll to the bonfire with a scowl. “Alfred Approved project, if you want to join~!”

Duke stared at him… and picked up a roll to toss into the fire.

- and bought new ones using Bruce’s credit cards.

“You got some of your memories back, in the league.” She hummed. “You liked reading. Poems.”

“What does that even have to do with Grave?”

“I remembered one. A line. Do not stand at my grave and weep. I am not there, I do not sleep…”

Jason twisted around. “Are you kidding me?”

She continued. “Do not stand at my grave and cry. I am not there. I did not die.”

“But I did die.”

She shrugged. ‘People still remembered you. Gotham and Bruce cried at your loss. I saw it.’

She straightened and smiled a small smile at him. ‘Besides. You got better.’

Jason snorted. “You too, I guess.”

She hummed an agreement, eyes slipping closed in the warm light of the sun, relief after a long second life of cowering in the shadows of a man more like a demon than he was a grandfather.

#dc #Batman #apparently oc got inducted into the dc version of ROOT from Naruto #thanks bestie I hadn’t thought of that #oc gets isekaid and proceeds to have a shit of a time #oc in a discovery channel narrator voice: a Damian in his natural habitat is a relaxed creature #reincarnation #oc in dc #me: oc gets hugs.#my sister used to give me piggy back rides and I kinda miss it #when we were young #unfortunately she is now old as dirt and her back sounds like popping bubble wrap #oc: I would murder for cass if she’d let me #oc: wow I’m feeling guilty #also oc: *is holding back tears at genuine kindness*#they have a greenhouse bc I said so #also bc that’s where they keep Ivy’s plant samples on hand #and bc Alfred likes gardening and that was Bruce’s gift to him on Father’s Day #tw: implied/referenced rape/noncon #fuck you catalina flores #if she has no haters I’m dead #tw: talk of murder #tw: implied abuse #tw: sa #the specific grief of watching someone you raised/loved grow to be like the person who almost broke you

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transcarcinization · 1 year ago

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*waves hands* eclipses. you knwo

sources under cut

Quotes:

"On that day, many hopeless romantics became destined to a lifetime of searching for signals in the gamma-ray sky", A History of Dark Matter

"Do you have a human soul and can you prove it?", The long and short of it, Richard Siken

"Dear God / It is great the way you always get the stars in the right places." Children's Letters to God, Stuart Hample

"Things are similar- this makes science possible. Things are different- this makes science necessary." the dialectical biologist, Richard Levins & Richard Lewontin

"Hinc Itur Ad Astra", translates as "from here the way leads to the stars". Motto of Vilnius University

"Amid energies of the cosmos, you gave as good as you got", Eulogy from a Physicist, Aaron Freeman

"I know that / intimacy is not a clean thing; / it is difficult like this—covert / and common. Bare, as it should be: / someone says I want the mess in you / and you give it to them", Heed the Hollow, Malcolm Tariq

"For all I know, maybe everyone is screaming / as they go through life, silently," Don’t Tell Anyone, Tony Hoagland

"KL: Your honor I am here for a refresh. A renewal of self. I consider this act to be a poetic gesture and a birthday gift. I am ready for an update. An intervention into my life. I am here to be born again as myself, or at the very least, the most current version of myself. I am prepared to let go. To empty my cache. To refill the screen with the same information." Court hearing, Kristian Sue Lucas

Images:

Nasa: solar eclipse, multilength milky way, tycho's star

circuits archive (my love), Enterprise schematics, Franz Joseph, 1973

Other:

shoutout to this post for making me want to learn gradient maps, and @metronn for helping me find the episode where they show Geordi vision! Paintings are referenced from this screenshot (sorry for pinterest link i have no idea what episode this is)

#my art #star trek tng #this isnt really meant as shipping but you can interpret it that way #im not a daforge but i believe in their beliefs ect #data soong #geordi la forge #portraits

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katakaluptastrophy · 1 year ago

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Let's be very clear about what the Houses do.

When Gideon fantasises about leaving the Ninth, this is what she imagines:

Not for Gideon a security detail on one of the holding planets, either on a lonely outpost on an empty world or in some foreign city babysitting some Third governor. Gideon wanted a drop ship—first on the ground—a fat shiny medal saying INVASION FORCE ON WHATEVER, securing the initial bloom of thanergy without which the finest necromancer of the Nine Houses could not fight worth a damn. The front line of the Cohort facilitated glory. In her comic books, necromancers kissed the gloved palms of their front-liner comrades in blessed thanks for all that they did. In the comic books none of these adepts had heart disease, and a lot of them had necromantically uncharacteristic cleavage.

A drop ship of infantry. Armed with those infantry standard two-hander swords. Their job is to secure the initial bloom of thanergy. Which sounds like a very antiseptic way of saying that a House invasion starts with a suicide squad of teenagers whose job it is to cause as many casualties as possible, so that the necromancers have something to work with. Teenagers like Gideon, desperate serfs or just wanting to make something of themselves, sold a promise of sex and glory, economic assets of their far-flung Houses until their untimely deaths.

But how useful their deaths, and those they take with them are! To the necromanvers of the Second, who can drain your thalergy as you die screaming. The Third, who can draw energy from the corpses littering the battlefield. The Fourth, who can turn them into bombs...

Until the subdued planet can be flipped, a contract put in place, a profit exacted. That Third governor installed.

Later, John explains to Harrow how planets are flipped:

So back at the start we’d drop in a single Lyctor, unnoticed, to start the thanergy reaction. Not to flip the whole planet, you understand, just to get the juice flowing.” He made a hand gesture for get the juice flowing, which made your head hurt. “Then within an hour or two you could send down a team of adepts and be confident they’d have all the reserves they needed. Nowadays we can’t afford to use Lyctors, so the first strike falls to the men and women of the Cohort, and they do a magnificent job…but the old way was neater, and kinder too, I think.

And in NTN, Aim describes her own harrowing experience as a displaced victim of what happens after that invasion, after the long and exploitative economic contract, and after the planet finally succumbs to its flipping:

The usual. It had been under contract for a long time. I mean, we were the third settlement wave, they built the Crescent in the bones of two other cities, you couldn’t dig up anything without finding remnants of a people we’d never known. The microbial population didn’t show signs of serious decay until the moment before the sea went anaerobic. The things crawling out of there … they seemed to mutate all at once … The Houses pulled support, said they’d prep us for an early move, but they left minimal forces in the barracks. We dug up old caches of materiel and used them. On the mutants from the sea, on the animals as they changed, on one another, on the Houses when they saw what we’d got our hands on and came back to take control. Blood of Eden was there too, you know. And in the end the Houses won and most of us surrendered and we were moved. Two moves later, and I’m here. There’s still a facility on Lemuria, of course. A decade later the Houses made it safe for geopolymer refining. It must be desolate.

And so you get the "lonely outpost on an empty world", the assignment Gideon saw as so unglamorous.

#the locked tomb #tlt meta #gideon nav #john gaius

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bestanimal · 3 months ago

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Round 3 - Mammalia - Eulipotyphla

(Sources - 1, 2, 3, 4)

Our next mammalian order is Eulipotyphla, sometimes called the “true insectivores” (as they used to be grouped paraphyletically with some afrotherians, colugos, and treeshrews in an order called “Insectivora”). Eulipotyphla includes the families Solenodontidae (solenodons), Talpidae (“moles”), Soricidae (“shrews”), and Erinaceidae (“hedgehogs” and “gymnures.”) Yes, we have finally come to the true moles and shrews!

Eulipotyphlans resemble rodents with pointed snouts and small or reduced eyes. Scientifically, they are set apart by their lack of cecum in the large intestine. Most are terrestrial insectivores or omnivores, and they have many sharp, spike-like teeth. Some of these animals (solenodons and shrews of the genus Sorex and Blarina) emit clicking noises, the sound waves of which bounce off objects in their vicinity. This form of echolocation helps these nearly blind animals navigate as well as find food. Eulipotyphlans also have an above average sense of smell. Many have unusually high metabolic rates, and need to eat almost constantly. Eulipotyphla contains the majority of venomous mammals, the only others being the Platypus (Ornithorhynchus anatinus), 3 species of vampire bat, and Slow Lorises (of the genera Nycticebus and Xanthonycticebus).

Eulipotyphlans are generally solitary, highly territorial animals that only tolerate each other for breeding. Only the mother raises the young. Litter size depends on species. Solenodons only have 1-2 young per litter once a year, while shrews can have 1-11 pups per litter, and can become pregnant soon after giving birth. Baby hedgehogs (called hoglets) are born with their quills covered by a protective membrane which dries and falls off several hours after birth, allowing their sharp quills to emerge.

Eulipotyphla is one of the oldest mammalian orders, having already begun to diversify in the Late Cretaceous, before the K-Pg extinction.

Propaganda under the cut:

Many shrews have a venomous bite. They use their venom to render invertebrate prey paralyzed, caching them for sustenance in the Winter months when food is more scarce. Their venom also allows them to take down prey their size or even larger, such as rodents and lizards. The European Mole (Talpa europaea), and possibly other species of mole, also have toxic saliva that allows them to cache paralyzed earthworms for later consumption. As an added measure, solenodons have grooves in their teeth which allow them to more effectively deliver venom. Fossil records show that some other now-extinct mammal groups also had the dental venom delivery system, indicating that solenodons’ most distinct characteristic may have been a more general ancient mammalian characteristic that has been lost in most modern mammals and is only retained in a couple of very ancient lineages.

The contents of the venom glands of one American Short-tailed Shrew (genus Blarina) are enough to kill 200 mice.

Solendons are often called "living fossils" because they have remained virtually unchanged for the past 76 million years.

The Hispaniolan Solenodon (Solenodon paradoxus) (image 4) was once thought to be extinct, due to its secretive and elusive behavior. The Hispaniolan Solenodon and the rat-like Hispaniolan Hutia (Plagiodontia aedium) live in the same habitats and are the only surviving mammals native to Hispaniola.

The Cuban Solenodon (Atopogale cubana) is endangered due to predation from invasive animals like domestic cats, domestic dogs, and the Small Indian Mongoose (Urva auropunctata) which was introduced to Cuba to control snakes and rodents. It is also threatened by deforestation as well as habitat degradation due to logging and mining. The animal can take a long time to recover because it only breeds a single litter of 1-2 young per year. Unfortunately, solenodons are not very charismatic, and very little conservation attention is given to the species.

Desmans (see gif above) are uniquely aquatic moles, though they excavate dry sleeping chambers. They have waterproof undercoats and oily guard hairs, elongated and flattened tails, and webbed paws to aid in swimming.

While the Star-nosed Mole (Condylura cristata) (image 3) is known to share its burrow, other moles are very territorial, and can engage in extraordinarily fast battles.

The Star-nosed Mole is adapted for both subterranean life and for swimming. Star-nosed Moles are able to smell underwater, accomplished by exhaling air bubbles onto objects or scent trails and then inhaling the bubbles to carry scents back into the nose.

A report in the journal Nature gives the Star-nosed Mole the title of fastest-eating mammal, taking as little as 120 milliseconds (average: 227 ms) to identify and consume individual food items. Its brain decides in approximately eight milliseconds if prey is edible or not.

The Small Japanese Mole (Mogera imaizumii) is extinct in central Tokyo, but still found on the grounds of the Imperial Palace.

The Etruscan Shrew (Suncus etruscus) is the smallest known terrestrial mammal, with an adult body length of about 4 cm (1.6 in), excluding the tail. On average, they weigh only about 1.8 g (0.063 oz). Like other shrews, it has a very fast metabolism, eating about 1.5–2 times its own body weight per day.

In some shrew species, exposed areas of the teeth are dark red due to the presence of iron in their tooth enamel. The iron reinforces the surfaces that are exposed to the most stress, which helps prolong the life of their teeth.

Shrews are considered beneficial to humans, as they are voracious predators of many insects and rodents that humans consider pests, such as cockroaches and House Mice (Mus musculus).

Shrews do this really cute thing where the babies will each bite onto the tail of the one in front of them and all follow their mom in a line so they don’t get lost. This is called “caravanning.” I call it a Shrew-shrew Train. (I’d like to see what the people who get upset about those joint child daycare leashes think of this.)

The Dalat Gymnure (Hylomys macarong) gets its species name, macarong, from the Vietnamese word for “vampire”, Ma cà rồng. This is a reference to the animals’ prominent long fangs, specifically the first upper incisors, that distinguish mature males of this species.

Hedgehogs (subfamily Erinaceinae) are one of the many mammal groups to convergently evolve spines from hair. Unlike the quills of a porcupine, hedgehog spines do not easily detach from their bodies. However, immature hedgehog’s spines normally fall out as they are replaced with adult spines. The animal will roll into a tight spiny ball when threatened, tucking in their furry face, feet, and belly. Some light-weight desert hedgehog species with fewer spines are more likely to flee or attack, ramming an intruder with their spines, rolling up only as a last resort.

Since 2000, the European Hedgehog (Erinaceus europaeus) population in Great Britain has been declining rapidly, down by 30%-75%. European Hedgehogs are common roadkill in Britain, especially during the breeding season when they are wandering for a mate.

Hedgehogs can suffer from a unique condition called balloon syndrome, in which gas is trapped under the hedgehog’s loose skin from injury or infection, causing the animal to inflate. Trying to research this syndrome can be difficult, as searching “hedgehog inflation” can often yield unintended results.

The Four-toed Hedgehog (Atelerix albiventris) (image 1) is a highly energetic predator, sometimes covering miles of ground in a single night as it forages for insects, grubs, snails, spiders, some plant matter, and even small vertebrates. It has a high tolerance for toxins and has been recorded consuming scorpions and even venomous snakes.

Hedgehogs are usually a welcome visitor to gardens, as they eat many garden pests such as beetles, slugs, and grasshoppers, and only eat a very small amount of plant matter.

Moles and hedgehogs have natural immunity against some snake venoms due to the protein erinacin in their muscles (though in such small amounts that a viper bite may still be fatal).

#animal polls #round 3 #mammalia

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darylbae · 1 year ago

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i have been dying to read a fic where daryl has not yet confessed his feelings for the reader, and this is based around the group just arriving in alexandria and one of the people there start flirting with the reader, so daryl gets jealous and confesses?

if only you knew — daryl dixon🩰

in which a flirty encounter pushes daryl to confess some long-time feelings for you

note: i am loving the requests im getting, keep them coming!! <3

REQUESTS ARE OPEN!

If there was anyone you'd been close to since the end of the world, it was Daryl. As strange as that may seem, considering just how opposite you were, and how rude he was at first. You'd taken a liking to him, and had realized his rudeness was only a wall.

Daryl was definitely one to show he cares instead of saying it, but with you it was rather different. When he'd realized his feelings for you, he'd stopped talking to you entirely. He'd give you a nod here and there, help you if you needed help, side with you if he thought you were right. But found himself avoiding you, to conceal his feelings. It hurt you, but you kept it to yourself. Losing Daryl, who you'd considered a close friend, felt like a kick in the teeth. But you got on with it. When the prison fell, you were separated, and even as you'd all reunited, old Daryl would've squeezed you into him and patted your head, something he did because of your height difference. But you got nothing more than a nod and a wave. When you were all shivering in the barn, old Daryl would've given you his jacket and sat beside you. But he seemed more content sat in the corner fiddling with his fingers.

Unbeknownst to you, his eyes were on you the entire night. He didn't sleep, to protect the group, but his gaze was fixated upon you. He watched your frame as you slept, using your arms as a pillow, your hair falling into your face. If only you knew.

Shortly after, you had found Alexandria. Well, this Aaron guy had led you here. Beautiful suburban homes lines up next to each other, the community looked like it hadn't been left. Like the state of the world hadn't applied here. The supposed leader, Deanna, had asked you all to put your weapons into a trolley, to be taken to the weapons cache. People had unwillingly given up their weapons, even Daryl and his beloved crossbow. You looked around at the Alexandrian's, who all looked happy, blissful, ignorant to what was outside these walls. You envied them. You'd caught the eye of a rather tall man, brown hair similar to that of syrup, a sweet smile as your eyes met his. When the group had broken off, he'd approached you. "Hi, I'm Spencer." He greeted you, walking beside you slowly as your group had trailed off to the homes you were allowed to stay in. "Hey, Y/N." You introduced yourself, shaking the hand he'd extended out to you. "My mom is excited to have you all here, all she wants is our community to grow stronger." He explained. "You're all tough son's of bitches." You laughed, accepting the compliment. "Well, thank you."

Daryl was only a few steps ahead of you, and he wanted an arrow through his head. He could hear this Spencer guy talking to you, his tone dripping with lust. Daryl couldn't really blame the guy, you were hot. And more than that, you were sweet, nice, caring. He wanted that for himself, he didn't want to watch someone else get it. "If you're okay with it, tomorrow, I'd like to show you around. In fact, my mom is having a housewarming party that she's going to invite you all to. I could accompany you to that." Spencer suggested, and you felt a little suffocated. You weren't used to people being all over you like this, even before the world fell apart. "Almost sounds like the old world." You joked. "I'll see you tomorrow."

You were quick to get inside, dumping your bag along with everyone else's in the living room. You were all sharing a home tonight, which would be fun, to say the least. The day had ended, the night sky coming out and you had been sat by one of the windows. Watching the sunset, watching your group in the reflection, watching the moody archer glance your way every so often. You didn't think you were going to sleep tonight.

Daryl was too wound up to sleep right now, instead he was sat in his makeshift bed, jealously bubbling up inside him. How could you let Spencer talk to you like that? He was so obviously flirting. Who wouldn't? Daryl would kill for a chance. So he stared straight ahead, sulking about this Spencer guy. You had looked over at Daryl, the only other person awake, and waited for him to look back at you. And when he did, the butterflies all came back. He hadn't done as much as nod your way in a long time. He'd stopped being so friendly, and it killed you everyday thinking about it.

"Dar," you whispered, and your voice trickled into his eat like a pot of sweet honey, "can we talk?" "What about?" You gestured to the porch, standing up and trailing over to the front door to let yourself out. Daryl was shortly behind you, his heart beating ten to a dozen at the mere thought of being alone with you. It hadn't been just the two of you for a long time. "What's th'matter?" He asked, folding his arms and leaning against on of the porch pillars. "Why don't you talk to me anymore?" You asked, your heart sinking at the confrontation. "I feel like on the farm, you just... stopped being my friend." Daryl felt moronic. It was never about not being your friend. If only you knew. Daryl fought with himself in his own brain, debating on whether tonight was the night. It had been eating away at him, every time he saw you, and today with Spencer, it had pushed him over the limit. Meanwhile, you took the long pause as Daryl being dumbfounded. It took all of you to not walk inside and leave him out here to freeze and think about it. "S'a long story," Daryl mumbled. "Good thing I have time." You countered, sitting down on one of the porch steps and hugging your legs. Daryl had joined you, his shoulder touching yours and he almost went insane at the connection of your skin with his. He sighed deeply, and you were growing impatient. You just wanted an answer. "I can't be around ya." He admitted, and you could feel your heart cracking in your chest. "What? Why?" You were on the verge of tears now, concealing your glossy eyes with your hair. "I can't be around ya because I love ya." His voice was a bit louder, which to most was a normal speaking volume. "Every time I look at ya, I jus' want to tell ya but I couldn't. I care about ya too much to let it ruin what we had." "But it did!" You exclaimed. "It did ruin it, Daryl. You stopped talking to me, you stopping being around me. Like my existence was not good enough for you." Daryl grabbed your hands, and you instinctively turned to face him. "You're more than good enough. You're too good f'me. I love ya enough to know you need better." "What's better, Daryl? Who's better?" You countered, raking your fingers through your hair. He came up short, there was no answer. "Why are you always so bad about yourself? As if you don't care deeply about your people, as if you don't go above and beyond for us all." You explained. "Daryl, I love you. I have for a while." "I couldn't take the thought of you and Spencer today, or you and anyone else. It's selfish, but I want ya." Daryl confessed, and your cheeks were wet with tears. You were filled with anxiety every day about what you'd done to push Daryl away. It felt like relief to know the truth. "I don't want Spencer, or anyone," you spoke, squeezing his big hand with both of yours, "I've only wanted you Daryl. Since the start." "Y'sure?" "As sure as I've ever been."

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thewavecache · 2 years ago

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THE WAVE CACHE: Discover the Next Wave. 🌊 https://ift.tt/djGJX78 FOLLOW THE ARTISTS 🎶 aldn 🎶 ◙ https://ift.tt/Uqu8EVW ◙ https://ift.tt/GKsIDvW ◙ https://twitter.com/hereisalden Artwork by ericaofanderson ◙ https://ift.tt/GEDyZVi SUBMIT MUSIC & ART: https://ift.tt/2VnqvQu #TheWaveCache #NextWave #Music 🌊 aldn - buffalo '66 (Lyrics) 🌊 by The Wave Cache

#The Wave Cache #Vaporwave #Cyberpunk #Music #Underground #80s Aesthetics #90s Aesthetics #Aesthetics

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wonik1ss · 1 year ago

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✦ JUST SWINGING IN — ❝ kim minji ❞

[ 널 내게로, burn it up, 네 손길로, turn it up ]

synopsis • after meeting spider”man” in a mall robbery you just can’t seem to shake the city’s hero ( 4.4k ) fluff < playlist rec : just swinging in 🕸️ >

a/n : it’s finally here ! my longest fic !

you adjusted your glasses as you got down to your beakers level. just one drop and your class would be-

“oh I’m such a klutz sorry..”

“y/n..”

“yeah yeah”. hana waved you of as she pretended to limp over to your freshly 24 year old professor.

“we can use mine..”. yunah giggled as you got ahold of her hand grasping it for dear life.

“oh you sweet sweet angel!”

“calm down I already finnished anyways ..!”. you thanked your friend again and then began to jot down some notes. you were not even three months into college when your favorite class became your least favorite. last week your professor who looked like he was deadly close to kicking the bucket decided to fight a student and he ‘retired’ the school says by his own volition..

now with your new much younger professor you felt like panties were dropping left and right.

“it’s like seeing two birds mate..”. yunah playfully shushed you as a bell rang.

“ok see you all next week..!”. already packed up you and yunah giggled as your professor struggled to get your fellow classmate to leave too.

“so the mal-“

“can’t.. jihan needs to study for her science test and I can’t let her fail..!”. you nodded as yunah ran of to find her bestfriend. ever since you started all your new friends were old friends to others. so after school ended it was either frat party’s or staying at home binging kdramas.

you tried though. you went to three frat party’s in the three months you been their for no more then three minutes. after one minute you were seen as fresh meat, two y they stalked forward, and threw a bunch of horny college boys tired their luck with you

“his boobs were moving”. yunah tilted her head as she painted your nails.

“guys don’t have tits.. y/n”

“well.. he’s peeks like.. twitched..”. you heard a door open and you laughed at jihan s open mouth.

“you should have let me come..!”. as jihan played with your painted hand you went on to the point yunah had to close jihan a mouth herself.

snapping out of your daydream you stepped of the bus ear buds on. you went to get the essentials first. a new tooth brush since your roommate stepped on your old one, some more shower products then finally you got to your wants. walking into the sanrio store happy by wjsn playing in your ears.

you shopped to your hearts desire. or until you reached your debit cards limit. once you were done you wandered into a comic shop. but what caught your eye wasn’t the comics but the red and blue merch.

after coming to seol for that better education you soon found out in your part that somewhat resembled nyc a spiderman ran around helping peopl. last week it was snake in a tree, the next was the culprit of a cat napping and now you saw his suit on the cutest jacket.

$50

“fucking inflation”

“I know right..!”. you head jerked to the old white man in the front of the store.

“sorr-“

“no no I understand.. I tried to haggle it down but he’s just got to famous for that now..”. you smiled and as you put the tag of the jacket down you heard the caching.

“take it I’m closing up shop in a few days and it would suit you”. you tried to say no put the man put the jacket and something else in your bag and you bowed and thanked him on your way out. until you fell on your ass.

“watch it dude!”. when you looked up he was long gone and a bunch of people ran following. as you dusted of your legs you heard a stomp then another then another. you tried to scramble to your feet but his eyes trapped you. what looked like an old timely soldier. his eyes glowed blue.. it was like you were in a trance.

“thy must join me or per-“

“army’s are so old timey man just start a cult of something”. you saw red and blue legs infront of you.

“..I shall repeat myself onc-“

“are you alright miss?”. spider-man helped you up while simultaneously webbing the soldier to the mall wall.

“yeah.. shouldn’t you be fighting him though”

“feel like I should help a pretty lady escape first..”. you stood stunned when spider-man winked at you and rushed you to hide in his merch store..

“now how about you travel back in time and leave this poor mall alone..?”. the soldier broke the webs and charged at the webbed boy. spider-man dodged. webbing the soldiers face.

“I am the all powerful blamore kneel to me !”

“bla bla bla..”. spider-man pretends to yawn as the soldier pulled of the sword on his back and and tried to strike spider man again. put the man webbed it to wall.

“how far did you come from bro your really out of shape !”. after a couple hits taken from both men, you got tired of waiting. it had been twenty minutes and you could tell the solider was wearing down but spider-man was also.

“man let’s just call it a nig-“. you threw a spider man plushie at the soldier. both guys stated at you dumbfounded. taking this as you chance you keep on throwing the plushies. spider man getting the hint punched the solider in his face. after a few more hits the soldier fell unconscious. peering over the cash register spider man tilted his head at you hands gripping the counter.

“you know this is my job.. right..”

“didn’t look like it”. as you straightened up spider mans grip loosened as he chuckled. you didn’t know how to say it but you knew it wasn’t organic.

“are you using a voice changer?”. spider man stopped laughing and started to walk backwards as you left the counter and walked towards him.

“w-what no”. you crossed your arms as the spider tapped his neck twice and his voice got lower and then you heard a crack.

“did you just break your voice changer..?!”. giving up spider man nodded while staring at the floor. you bent your knees and tilted your head up at him.

“who knew seoul’s super hero was such a pus..”. as you smiled spider man raised his head and scratched his neck.

“I.. I peoples lives you know”

“mm”

“I mean the lady’s love me..!”. the spider gestured to the store. you picked up your jacket and your shopping bags and looked back at the strange guy.

“you have a really attractive voice spider boy”. you heard a pft as you walked out of the store

“and you have a nice style”. if there was ever a time you would be able to blush this would be it.

as the weeks went on you started to drift more to the spider man side of seoul. suddenly you found yourself searching up about the spiders past saves. a kid from a car that was falling of a bridge, a vaulter and much more. with this new interest came new merch.

“omg it’s like your his groupie now..”. jihan said as she showed one of the spider-man plushies to yunah who giggled.

“I mean it’s not like his an eyesore..”. with that jihan jumped on your bed.

“did you know hana was there when that guy tried to steal those old lady’s purses and she swore she saw the imprint of his abs on his suit..!”. you grabbed the plushie and put it back on your bed.

“hana also probably has connections to that one big drug dealer”. jihan wrinkled her nose and waved you off.

“well you should know y/n.. you were in the mall when that soldier guy stormed in right..?”

“blamore, he’s a soldier from like caesar’s time..”. jihan and yunah looked at eachother.

“I think your a little obsessed”

“no I just became.. a fan”. jihan looked you up and down.

“that spider man shirt says otherwise..”. you threw one of your other shirts on her and yunah giggled.

“are we going to get jihan that c or what ?”

“you said I could get an a !”. as you changed and jihan pouted yunah patted her head.

“yeah in a few years if you actually had a studying schedule..”. you giggled as you grabbed your purse and jihan stomped out of your dorm room.

approaching the library jihan gobbled down her corn dog.

“like what I’m going to slather the book pages with ketchup?”

“knowing how you eat you probably would”. jihan pushed you and before you noticed it you collide with something.

“oh shit I’m sorry”

“no problem.. just watching your step next time”. with that and a smile the tomboyish girl hurried into the library.

“nerd”

“that’s got to be you in a few weeks if you want to pass that math final !”. as yunah went on jihan zoned out and so did you. for some weird reason you felt compelled to the tomboyish girl. she looked really cute with her backwards cap, and her sweatshirt that was way to big for her.. how could she make her mess of a low bun look so good..?

“earth to y/n it’s been and hour and all you have done to help is stare blankly at the exit.. I think that means we should leave !”. jihan said as she turned to yunah who was nose deep in a book.

“sorry was just thinking about something”

“your web man”

“he’s not my anything”

“you zoned out and drew him in a sticky note.. he must mean something to you..”. your eyes widened at the post-it note jihan held up snatching it and throwing it at the trash can.

“if your not going to any help to help me study at least have aim”. you flicked the girls forehead as you actually started to help her. in the corner of your eye you swore you saw someone pick your trash up put never put it in the actual trash. to bad jihan face planting into her books distracted you.

one hour turned into two and two turned into four and you all parted your ways from the library. you ended up walking a small corner store for a small snack. as you walked in the owner waved you at and you smiled back. you grabbed your favorite snacks and a drink and as you were about to check out you felt something cold on your neck.

“get me the money from the cash register of I shoot her”. your breath shallowed as the owner hurriedly tried to find the key. a soldier and now a robber who smelt like.. tuna.. what’s next..?

suddenly the pressure of the gun was gone and your eyes darted to your side.

“I didn’t even get to ask for her number yet dude..!”. the robber struggled to get up while spider man turned to you.

“you ok..?”

“you should as the cash-“. turning to face the counter you saw the man had run out the door.

“looks like he’s spoken for”. you giggled and your swore the bug boys eyes widened.

“you gunna ask for my number yet..?”. the boy tilted his head and then you could feel the presence of his smile.

“yeah just gotta catch a bad guy no biggy”. you nodded as spider man webbed the robber to the stores door. webbing his mouth last.

“so that..”. you placed a note in his hand and as you walked out you turned around and signaled a call me with your fingers. so while spider boy geeked out you skipped all the way to your dorm snacks acquired. for the next two weeks you kept having run ins with the webbed boy.

“you didn’t answer my call”. you could hear the pout in the boys voice as you looked up from your subway seat. realizing your lips were suck tapped and so where your hands the boy jumped down and untied you.

“are you trying to say texting some spider boy is more important then my college degree..?”. thinking for amount spider man spoke.

“ya I thought we had something”. spider-man patted his chest as we walked away to un-duck tape the rest of the passengers.

“no you have a thing for stalking me..”

“not my fault your so crime prone”. you smiled as the boy stuck a note onto the subway hijackers head.

“you think that’s enough?”

“mmhm ‘someone’s been a very bad boy sorry cops sad face’”. you turned and frowned at the spider boy at the last part.

“don’t drown your ruin your beautiful face”. spider man nudged your face up as he heard multiple feet coming your way and winked and webbed the ceiling and left.

a few days later a museum was under attack by some rogue robots.

“you didn’t pay for the damages you caused for the subways ceiling..!”. as spider man pummeled one of the robots face in he laughed.

“you know your voice is even more pretty over the phone..!”

“your basically a villian too..”. as spider man beat the last robot her walked over and crouched down to your level.

“I thought girls liked bad guys..”

“considering your a boy and not a guy..”. spider smiled and untied your hands.

“get your degree or something dumb isn’t the new cute you know..”

“property damage isn’t the new hot..”. spider man winked at you as police ran in.

then again a week later at a outdoor frat party with some unwanted witch guests

“so you see I’ve been thinking..”

“shit you do that”. as spider man threw several webs at the witches he faked a laugh.

“could we maybe go on a date..”

“you don’t even have my actual number..”. he paused.

“what..?!”

“I gave you some sex lines number.. i don’t know who’s under that mask”. behind the bar you winked.

“your wicked..! we had deep conversations..!”. webs flew everywhere only a few catching the witches as they chanted spells that made him levitate.

“about what..?”

“how far cindy was from my location..!”. you giggled. he got your humor.

“so how about that date”. one witch was knocked out the other wouldn’t back down.

“where?”

“the roof of the candy exhibit on crest street..?”

“sure..spidey”. with a laugh spiderman webbed the witch to the floor and walked over to you.

“wear your best dress”

“wear your best onesie..”

“hah your funny”

“does it look ok?”. jihan and yunah titled their heads and then jihan ran over to you pulling the dress up a bit.

“perfect”

“I feel the air on my ass jihan”. the girl shrugged.

“just looked like you were in a night gown before sorry..”. you playfully hit her as yunah gave you your bag.

“remember I put a taser in your bag if anything goes wrong”

“what do you mean?”. jihan laughed.

“this man’s enemies are all over the city.. you might need it..”. you sighed as jihan reapplied your lipstick and you walked out the door. you decided to talk but you started to regret that decision as the high heels jihan picked out seemed to not be on your side today.

so as you half hazardly limped to the rooftop, a certain spider’boy’ just got home. spiderman slowly opened his window and crawled onto his ceiling. quietly crawling down the wall to jump infront of his door tapping the middle of his chest to tak of his suit.

“DUDE HAVE SOME SELF AWARENESS”. spiderman screamed like a girl because he?.. she was one. minji kim one day while studying like crazy fell asleep and got bit by a spider and she screamed the same way.

“HANNI WHAT THE FICK ARE YOU DOING HERE?”

“i don’t know you texted me to get here so as a good friend I did! what’s up?”. as minji changed into some streetwear hanni rolled her eyes.

“you stalked a girl and she willingly went on a date with you.. scratch that she probably was just scared…”. minji threw her back pack at the girl and she fell backwards onto the bunk bed.

“I swear she flirted with me though.. on like all occasions?”

“what happens when she finds out your a girl and not some.. tom holland look alike?”. minji paused and cursed.

“what if I just go in my suit? I could date a girl in my suit right?”. hanni sat up.

“mhm every girl loves making out with latex suits”. wiggling her eyebrows hanni made minji laugh and bit her lip.

“well maybe I’ll just wear the suit this time”. I’m lightning speed minji changed.

“you liked the tie”. minji flicked the tie she glued onto the suit as hanni looked between her and the door.

“FUCK AUNT TAEYEON! ”. taeyeon slapped the back of minji’s head.

“you got beat and bruised to ask out a girl who doesn’t even know your a girl??”. Minji scratched the back of her neck.

“no..”. taeyeon hit the back of her head again.

“your lucky I got a date.. if your not home by twelve your internship is done..”. aunt tae squinted her eyes at the teenage girl and then broke into a smile.

“so happy your finally dating.. oh wasn’t it yesterday I found out you even liked humans in gen-“. minji pushed aunt taeyeon as hanni giggled.

“can’t wait to hear about your date..!”. minji scowled as she climbed out her window but as soon as she was jumping from building to building no one but her knew the smile she held underneath her mask.

“is he calling me fat or something.. these stairs are killing me…

you stopped in your tracks as you reached the door leading to the rooftop. you heard promise by laufey playing. what guy listens to laufey..? opening the door you saw spiderman straighten up in his seat patting the pillow next to him.

“your late..”

“I just went up like twenty flights of stairs your lucky I even came..”. you stopped to see fairy lights lining the rooftop and peering below you a checkered blanket two pillows a basket and a candle. even further below a market of people with dazzling lights.

“pretty right..?”. you rolled your eyes to see spiderman already looking at you.

“I’m eighteen not stupid..”. Spider-Man held his head low as you giggled.

“oh thank god I was thinking you could be way older..”. you gasped and hit his knee.

“your the one head to toe covered in a suit!”. he laughed as he opened the basket. to reveal two sandwhiches, cupcakes and sugary soft drinks. spider-man set it all up and when he finnished looked at you.

“why are you smiling like that”. minji blushed a bit. after all her joking she finally looked at your outfit and you looked perfect.

“what I can’t smile?”

“no I mea-“

“just didn’t expect you to be such a gentleman..”. minji smiled and stood up urging you to join her. you stood up and tilted your head. minji got closer and you froze. she held your waist to make sure you didn’t fall and tilted your chin from her to the sky.

“woah..”

“yeah.. guess we haven’t ruined everything on earth..”. you smiled as you looked back at her.

“you really do so much.. what if I didn’t come?”. you stood on your tippy toes with your chin up, minji laughed.

“your lose..”. she got closer.

“your some random guy in a spider suit..”. you got closer.

“who fights crime”. she got closer.

“and looks hot doing it..”. as you got closer and closer you attempted to close your eyes as you pulled up his mask. thump thump thump.

“look dude I’m pret-“

slam

you turned around to see the warrior. blamore. he grabbed you by the waist and jumped two times the height of the building all the way to the infamous bridge spidey fought the reptile doctor at. it wasn’t easy for him though you keep tazing him the whole ride there.

“let me go !”

“not until your warrior is defeated !”. you rolled your eyes as he sat you on the roof of a car and used his gold rope to tie you up. you rolled your eyes as he use the rope around your mouth.

“you may delay the fight if you keep using that mouth of yours”. people ran and screamed as he seemed to power up glowing with every step he took looking in the sky for spider-man.

“you ruined my date”. blamore had no time to react as he was slammed onto the roof of a car.

“I study all day..”. a punch to the ribs.

“and all fucking night..”. a dislocation of his left leg.

“to finally ask her out..”. spiderman is punched to the floor.

“and you ruin it”. getting up a fist fight starts with a jab to blamores face and a sword slash to spider-man’s torso. instead of just watching you picked up your taser and while bending over backwards to laser through the rope you broke it taking of the rope on your mouth aswell. but instead of running a way for some reason you saw a baseball bat on the road and took it up.

somehow spiderman was now holding onto the bridge with all the strength he had left. the slashes with the sword never stopped and now he was bloody on the side of the bridge. but as blamore got closer you hit him over the head and helped spidey up.

just before you felt something on your throat.

“jump and she stays alive”. amour worn down hay knocked off and blamore still wanted the fight. you tried to use the taser but blamore just used it agonist your waist. you tried to not cry but that just made the tears fall down.

“spide-“

“it’s ok..”. backing away spider man fell. but just as soon as he fell you saw a web on your waist. the sword loosened and suddenly you were in his arms. blamore threw his sword with all his might but as she ran towards spidey he fell to his own demise.

“you ok?”. spiderman held your face in his hands.

“are you ok…”. you stared down at his waist and helped him to the side of a car.

“I’m so sorry.. guess he was just jealous..”. you pulled out tiny band aids and he laughed.

“just.. just text my bestfriend..”. with a sigh he told you his passcode and you texted the username ‘nando’ and caressed his cheek.

“shouldn’t I take of your ma-“

“no..”

“I’ll have a better chance fixing your face..!”. minji threw his head back.

“just..just close your eyes for a minute”. you did and after a minute you felt two hands take them away. infront of you sat a korean girl with a busted lip a cut on her eyebrow and some scratches here and there.. the finest one being under her right eye. immediately you put a spiderman band aid under her eye.

“no reaction..”

“you still look hot.. just more bloody then I expected”. minji laughed as you patched up her face with tissue and whatever was in your bag.

“you liked bruised college students..?”

“didn’t know thugs went to school”

“it’s not my fault he interrupted our date..”. you but your lip.

“should have just finished him off at the mall..”

“dirty.. I like it..”. you gasped as minji winked. as he held onto your waist and webbed his way throught the city. as you landed on the rooftop you stood stunned. minji patted your hair down and sat down.

“my names minji..”

“huh..”

“minji kim”. you turned around still in a haze.

“can we finnish our date now.. before the ants get to it..?”. minji tilted her head and you still shocked sat down next to her and took a bite of the sandwhich.

“you can’t cook for shit”. spiting out the sandwhich minji frowned.

“..I thought hybe had the best cooking classes..”. you laughed.

“I go there two how have I never seen you..?”

“I don’t know.. maybe because I’m always.. I don’t know.. fighting crime”. you nudged her shoulder as she ate her cupcake.

“oh fuck your right..”. you laughed as minji told you to turn around so she could change and you both could get some actual food. while at the same time as hanni approached the bridge she looked to to see a text ‘I’m still bloody just eating ramen with her! love uuuuu’

“sooo since I got a big fat c- can we go to that tanghulu stall! you can bring sunoo and and taesan”. you nodded as you text your new boy-friends. after last weeks events you thought making new friends was nothing. you even went to invite hanni too.

“sooo.. can you also invite the mystery girl..?”. you sighed and typed away as yunah poked your waist.

“so sad nothing happened with spidey though..”. jihan sighed.

“what if he had like a hot friend.. we would have it it of-“. jihan triped walking backwards and fell into the hands of a certain australian.

“oh shit you ok..?”. jihan looked up star gazed with a certain hue of pink dotting her cheeks.

“I’m jihan..”. hanni nodded and waved to you.

“oh hay I didn’t know you were still on campus we were heading to the tanghulu place!”. you laughed as minji opened her mouth.

“I told you we were going the right way”. just as you went to her side you felt something coming your way.

“oh shit sorry.. y-“. minji held the football in her hands and handed to the black haired boy.

“minji.. just got fast reflex’s ha ha..”. minji scratched the back of her head as sunoo nudged you about her. looking up you saw a big boom a few blocks away. you looked over to see minji already gone, hanni texting you.

“oh guys I forgot I got to study!”. jihan pulled on your sleeve as hanni volunteered to help you and as the rest left you looked up to see a certain spider slinging from building to building. jumping in the black van hanni looked at the cameras as you put in your ear piece. to hear some famous lines from spidey that the old shop keeper would probably put on a t-shirt as Minji approached the new villian.

“oh sorry dude I’m just swinging in”

#kpop fanfic #kpop #kpop idol x reader #kpop imagines #kpopidol #kpop gg #kpop smau #reader x idol #kpop girls #reader insert

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nillegible · 1 year ago

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Threefold

(For @ladyteldra, who shoved me into this unexpected rabbit hole, but then stuffed it full of content to make me happy)

No one had noticed during the war, as wars were rather distracting. But it was hard not to notice when they got home.

What was left of home; it was still a work in progress.

At first Jiang Yanli excused it away as the magic of Lotus Pier going awry because of what it had been through, but by the second week of reconstruction she tracked down a copy of the Entail from one of the surviving caches.

It shouldn’t have mattered.

Jiang Cheng was the chosen Sect Heir, their Father had made that clear when Jiang Cheng turned fifteen, and Lotus Pier should know that.

(Except Lotus Pier would have felt Mother, then Father, then Jiang Cheng lose their cores here. It might have thought… Perhaps that would explain why…)

When she gently probes Wei Wuxian for his thoughts on their misbehaving inheritance, his face goes stricken and over the next week he dives into the scrolls himself, more thoroughly than she had.

Jiang Yanli had not meant to distract Wei Wuxian from his own self-loathing and his eerie ghost-brides, but that is what it amounts to, in the end.

“Do you think,” Wei Wuxian says finally, over dinner, eyes red and wild like he’s been drinking (clearly distinct, to her, from the red and wild from raising ghosts), “That when Wen Zhuliu. When he – that it broke what marks you as heir?”

Jinag Cheng stiffens at the reminder, and frowns at their brother. “Would that…? But BSSR fixed it.”

“What if it’s not the same core as before?” asks Wei Wuxian, vehemently. “Doesn’t it” he waves a hand towards their surroundings, “feel like it did when we were younger? Before you came of age?”

That’s exactly what it was, Jiang Yanli realizes. The magic of Lotus Pier felt familiar for all it was acting slantwise; it was exactly how it had been before the heir had been named.

“What does that mean, then?” asks Jiang Cheng, standing up. “I’m not the heir, then?”

“You shouldn’t be the heir,” Wei Wuxian says. “You should be the Sect Leader.”

“You’re saying the Lotus Pier doesn’t want me,” says Jiang Cheng. Jiang Yanli lays a hand on Jiang Cheng’s elbow.

Before she can speak a word, Wei Wuxian says, voice final, “No. I’m saying I think the Lotus Pier thinks you died.”

Their ravaged, gutted home is recovering steadily, with new disciples, new responsibilities, new buildings.

Their new Sect Leader and his right hand aren’t doing so well.

“If it thinks you’ll do better, then fine! Be the sect leader!” Jiang Cheng had yelled at Wei Wuxian one day, terrifying Wei Wuxian who insisted he didn’t have the right nor did he want to, and setting off quite a row (“Oh, so Lotus Pier just isn’t good enough for you, huh? Where DO you want to go then?”). Naturally, that escalated into a more physical fight, and when punches were landed and brothers elbowed in the gut and flipped onto their backs, swords were drawn (“You still won’t use your sword? What if I run you through with mine? Pick up your sword, goddamn you!”) which came to a screeching, horrific halt when Suibian unsheathed for an incensed Jiang Cheng.

Wei Wuxian had a lot to explain.

Jiang Yanli doesn’t think Jiang Cheng will ever forgive Wei Wuxian for this, but she patches them both up as best she can, listens while each rants about the idiocy and foolishness of the other. She talks down one little brother from his stated plan to find Wen Qing and make her switch the cores back, and coaxes the other one to rest with promises that she wouldn’t let Jiang Cheng try something like that while he sleeps (“I promise, you can sleep now, A-Xian, I won’t let him.” “Oh but HE can, HE can decide for me-!”)

“Since we’ve decided not to keep secrets from family,” she tells them, after a week of indulging them both in their childishness, “you should both know. The Jiang family has, now, in the direct line me and Jiang Cheng. And then there’s Wei Wuxian, son of Wei Changze, who was a shu-son of Grandfather’s and, technically, broke the oath he made when he left the sect that he would not have children of his own.”

Their faces, when that finally sinks in, makes her giggle.

[“So you could be Sect Leader, since Lotus Pier would accept you. This explains so much about Mother.”

“I told you that Uncle Jiang wanted it to be you! But…yeah. It really does.”]

[“Wait, so the Waterborne Abyss tried to grab you in Gusu… do you think that it wanted…”

(That particular conversation ended abruptly when the plank Jiang Cheng was standing on crumbles, dumping him into the river below.)]

[“Without Uncle Jiang’s mark on Jiang Cheng showing Lotus Pier who the heir is, I think it’s confused about who to pick,” Wei Wuxian tells them, after more time with scrolls and an unexpected visit to Meishan Yu and Gusu Lan sects. “Should it go with strength, or primogeniture? Dad was older than Uncle Jiang, but Shijie’s older than me. And I don’t have a core – but mine’s not gone, it’s still-”

Wei Wuxian shuts himself up before Jiang Cheng can, that time.]

For some reason, the issue seems to weigh more greatly on her and A-Xian than A-Cheng. Perhaps because even though Lotus Pier had not yet acknowledged Jiang Cheng as Sect Leader, the Jiang Sect had. And Sect-Leaderly duties did not wait on the convenience of an ancient dwelling and what may or may not dwell beneath the watery foundations.

Which is why it’s surprising when it’s Jiang Cheng who finds them the solution.

“Are you sure?” she has to ask him.

“Honestly, I always imagined that when I’m Sect Leader, Wei Wuxian would busy-body his way into doing half my work anyway. The only difference is that you can stay here at Lotus Pier and help instead of marrying out.” The sect leader of a clan could not, after all, marry out.

“You should thank me for getting the engagement called off, then!” says Wei Wuxian. “Can you imagine? If we went through with this, then we’d all be engaged to the peacock.”

“A-Xian,” she chides, and her brother looks at her sheepishly. The grin is more naturally like himself, and not like he’s forcing himself to act like he once did.

“Is that okay with you, A-Jie?” asks Jiang Cheng.

“Yes,” she tells them. She had wanted a husband, children, a family of her own. But asked to make this choice; her sect or herself, her brothers or a family that one day might be. She knew her answer. “When shall we do it?”

In the aftermath, very little changes.

The bemused Jiang disciples are told to address both Young Mistress Jiang and Wei-shixiong as Sect Leader also, which takes them some getting used to, but they adapt soon enough.

The civilians from Yunmeng think it’s splendid, and take great pride in their three Sect Leaders.

The other sects receive a letter informing them that Jiang Yanli, Jiang Wanyin, and Wei Wuxian were ‘…henceforth by mutual agreement, to be recognized as one entity, encompassing legal and spiritual dimensions alike. As leaders of the Jiang sect, they will jointly bear the responsibilities and obligations attached to this esteemed position.’ Naturally this brings about some interested speculation in their allied sects.

[“Are you alright, Wangji? Do not worry, there is no need for you and Xichen to do likewise, it is an old ritual meant to rejoin the branches of a Clan that are at risk of a schism, without the messy business of pruning one side to disallow heirs, or line adoption."]

[“How utterly absurd. That girl, and the Ghost Flute, to be acknowledged as Sect Leader Jiang, when little Jiang Cheng can barely fill the role himself? What is the world coming to. Fetch us some wine, boy.”]

[“No that is not a euphemism for them deciding to have an incestuous polyamorous marriage, Huaisang! It probably has to do with that thing they don’t talk about; though why the Wen were not eaten when they stepped foot in Lotus Pier we’ll never know.”]

#wip #JZX/Yunmeng Sibs #So maybe that cancelled engagement wasn't as cancelled as they thought #whoops #what can you do?#All credit to Lotus Pier's waterborne abyss go to Tel

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itchytitss · 8 months ago

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Wine tasting with Shadowheart

Early on in your relationship, Shadowheart had expressed her interest in going to a wine tasting with you, though you quickly found out about the lack of wineries near Baldur’s Gate.

Sure, you would often find half empty bottles of drinkable wine along the road in your adventures, but the only good wine worthy of drinking is found in very few expensive bars and the occasional brothel. If you were lucky, you could snag a bottle from the docks after a recent import, though they’re often kept under wraps to be sent to the nobles or churches.

You and Shadowheart have been collecting a variety of good wines you have found (stolen) around Baldur’s Gate most prestigious bars and have been hiding them in your camp for ages now, separating them from the average wines kept in the group cache. You wait for the perfect night to host your own private wine tasting.

When the night comes around, you and Shadowheart slip off into the woods after dinner. You lead her to a rocky cliff that overlooks the nearby beach. A perfect picturesque view of the sun starting to set beyond the horizon.

You lay down the picnic blanket and pillows as you carefully place down the bottles of wine and water. Shadowheart makes herself comfortable on the blanket as she looks over the cliff, sighing in content as she watches the sunset. You place down some cheese and biscuits because you can’t have a wine tasting without some proper snacks. Though you mostly ignore them and go straight for the wine.

You spend the night drinking, laughing and talking about everything you can think of. Your favourite topic is the one that is your travelling companions. As you get more tipsy, you gossip and bitch about your friends who are only just a few hundred meters away. You groan about how loudly Karlach snores. You chuckle at how Scratch stole one of Gales books and made him chase him for it. You express your shared hatred for the blood left lying around camp by Astarion after his meals.

Hours later, you laugh together as you sip on an abundance of wine under the silver light of the moon. At this point you’re both laying on your sides. Facing each other.

“I think… I think I’m drunk.” Shadowheart giggles as she reaches towards you, accidentally knocking over an empty bottle of wine.

You grab her hand in yours, giggling at her flushed face and tired eyes. “I told you we were only supposed to taste the wine. Not… Not drink ourselves to death.” You hiccup.

“Where’ss the fun in that?” She slurs. “What, we just waste all this wine and… and spit it off the cliff?” She waves her hand around drunkenly.

“Shit, we’re going to be sooo hungover tomorrow.” You giggle. “Tomorrow? Today? I don’t even know what time it is.” You mumble, causing Shadowheart to giggle along with you.

“Oh gods, Lae’zel is going to be so pissed when she finds out we stole… stole her biscuits.” Shadowheart laughs loudly, causing her to snort through her nose. You both chortle at the sound, quickly shushing each other when you realise how much noise you’re making. You place a finger on Shadowheart’s lips, silencing her with a shushing gesture on your own as you both fight to hold back your laughs.

Your giggles die down as she takes your hand again, holding it in the space between the two of you on the blanket. You stare into her eyes. Her gorgeous, tired green eyes that slow blink at you with love and affection. Her smile tugs at your heartstrings and it’s as if you can feel your teeth rotting from the sweetness of it all. You scan her face as you slowly tuck a strand of hair behind her pointed ear.

“I can’t believe you’re mine.” She whispers, shuffling closer to you. You press your foreheads together as she hums softly in satisfaction.

“It’s surreal.” You mumble, rubbing over the scar on her cheek with your thumb. “You’re so beautiful…” You breathe, entranced by her soothing aura.

“I know.” She smirks.

Your thumb traces over her soft lips before you lean in to lock your lips with hers. Your hand moves to cradle the back of her head as she smiles into the kiss, squeezing your hand. You kiss slowly, softly, tasting the mixture of wines on her tongue.

After a few lazy kisses. She moves to place small pecks up your nose to your forehead. You giggle as she slides her free hand up to cup your face.

“Can we stay a bit longer? I don’t… I don’t want to go back to camp yet.” She whispers.

“Aren’t you cold?” You ask.

“Mm, a little. I’ve got you to warm me up though, don’t I?” She shuffles herself into your arms, tangling her legs with yours and burying her face into your neck.

“That you do.” You mumble, wrapping your arms around her as you pull the edge of the blanket over yourselves and close your eyes.

#shadowheart #bg3 shadowheart #tav x shadowheart #shadowheart x tav #shadowheart x reader #bg3 shart #shart #bg3 #baldurs gate 3 #baldur's gate 3 #bg3 x reader #bg3 headcanons #bg3 fanfiction #lesbian #sapphic #wlw #wlw fanfic #wlw fluff #fluff fanfiction

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probablyasocialecologist · 7 months ago

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Only weeks after arriving in the Iraqi capital, Paul Bremer, a retired diplomat with absolutely no Middle East experience, exercised his extraordinary authority, akin to that of a colonial viceroy, as head of the new Coalition Provisional Authority and eradicated the previous Iraqi government with two strokes of his pen. With no clear plans for what might follow, he issued Order Number 1 on his fifth day in office, decreeing a sweeping purge of all senior Iraqi officials previously affiliated with the ruling Baath Party. “By nightfall,” warned the CIA chief of station, “you’ll have driven some 30,000 to 50,000 Baathists underground. And in six months you’ll really regret this.” Imperiously waving away what he called “a sea of bitching and moaning,” Bremer plunged ahead, forcing at least 85,000 Iraqi officials out of office. US commander Ricardo Sanchez would later call this policy decision “a catastrophic failure.” Ignoring both White House instructions and military advice, Bremer soon issued Order Number 2, aimed at “dissolving Saddam’s military and intelligence structures to emphasize that we mean business.” With that second stroke of his pen summarily dismissing 335,00 police and 385,000 soldiers without salary, severance pay, or pensions, Bremer created a vast cadre of what the US Army’s official war history would call “seasoned military men who suddenly had no livelihood.” As Bremer’s two orders “sent shockwaves throughout the country,” there were angry anti-American demonstrations and “violent confrontations” between Iraqi ex-soldiers and coalition forces. Those demobilized former soldiers also included countless trained experts with access to cached military munitions and knowledge of how to build lethal improvised explosive devices, or IEDs. Three days after Bremer’s Order Number 2, a US Army private died when the first of these new weapons exploded under his vehicle. Over the next ten years, IEDs would kill 3,100 US servicemen and wound 33,000 more, including 1,800 amputations—forcing the Pentagon to spend $75 billion to prevent fatalities from a weapon as cheap as a pizza. “Orders 1 and 2 led to a far more sweeping implosion [of the Iraqi state] than US leaders intended,” the US Army’s official war history later reported, “after which factions of all kinds, including extremist militants, rushed to fill the void.”

Alfred W. McCoy, To Govern the Globe: World Orders and Catastrophic Change

#iraq #iraq war #war on iraq

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wingedblooms · 1 year ago

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Heart of the Night Court

This meta is a continuation of theories in forbidden secrets, blooming dreams, and bright as the dawn, as it narrows in on Illyria, Ramiel, and their connection to Wyrd. Please avoid if you do not want to read hofas spoilers.

Facing Ramiel

The northern region of the Night Court is where Ramiel, one of the three sacred sister peaks, is located. It is considered the heart of Illyria and the Night Court.

Ramiel. The sacred mountain. The heart of not only Illyria, but the entirety of the Night Court. None were permitted on its barren, rocky slopes—save for the Illyrians, and only once a year at that. During the Blood Rite. Cassian soared toward it, unable to resist Ramiel’s ancient summons. Different—the mountain was so different from the barren, terrible presence of the lone peak in the center of Prythian. Ramiel had always felt alive, somehow. Awake and watchful. (acofas) [...] Ramiel rose higher still, a shard of stone piercing the gray sky. Beautiful and lonely. Eternal and ageless. (acofas)

Cassian describes Ramiel as alive, awake, and watchful, and so very beautiful as she rises from the earth. Likewise, Feyre emphasizes that Elain is alive and somehow infinitely more beautiful as she rises from the ground after she is Made in the Cauldron. Her legs are even bare, which remind me of the barren terrain, and her sheer nightgown might even be a hint for thin places, as @offtorivendell observed. Elain’s strength has also always been different than her sisters, just like Ramiel among her sacred sister peaks.

And as if it had been tipped by invisible hands, the Cauldron turned on its side. More water than seemed possible dumped out in a cascade. Black, smoke-coated water. And Elain, as if she’d been thrown by a wave, washed onto the stones facedown. Her legs were so pale—so delicate. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen them bare. The queens pushed forward. Alive, she had to be alive, had to have wanted to live– Elain sucked in a breath, her fine-boned back rising, her wet nightgown nearly sheer. And as she rose from the ground onto her elbows, the gag in place, as she twisted to look at me— Nesta began roaring again. Pale skin started to glow. Her face had somehow become more beautiful—infinitely beautiful, and her ears … Elain’s ears were now pointed beneath her sodden hair. (acomaf)

As each spring dawns on the world, Ramiel is crowned with three stars, and the Illyrians—who we learned may have been the Asteri’s soldiers and therefore may carry on rituals that would have benefited them—honor bloodshed on her land rather than new life.

No wonder that first ruler of the Night Court had made this his insignia. Along with the three stars that only appeared for a brief window each year, framing the uppermost peak of Ramiel like a crown. It was during that window when the Rite occurred. Which had come first: the insignia or the Rite, Cassian didn’t know. Had never really cared to find out. The conifer forests and ravines that dotted the landscape flowing to Ramiel’s foot gleamed under the fresh snow. Empty and clean. No sign of the bloodshed that would occur come the start of spring. (acofas)

Some even seem to take great pleasure in the killing that is permitted during this rite, and Ramiel, which we know is alive and watching, is forced to witness it every year. Azriel calls it a week of pointless bloodshed, but we know now that is likely untrue. @silverlinedeyes, @offtorivendell and I believe the Asteri may have created or warped an existing rite to suit their needs. @silverlinedeyes pointed out that this spring rite reminds her of the Great Rite, and that made something click for me: perhaps the Blood Rite is the Night Court's Great Rite. Is the secondlight from slain warriors absorbed by the land? And do those few who reach the stone, which I suspect might be the Maiden in this rite, provide firstlight to the cache hidden in Ramiel’s heart? Is it any wonder the winds around her howl, and her land is often frozen and inhospitable?

The mountain neared, mighty and endless, so wide that he might as well have been a mayfly in the wind. Cassian soared toward Ramiel’s southern face, rising high enough to catch a glimpse of the shining black stone jutting from its top. Who had put that stone atop the peak, he didn’t know, either. Legend said it had existed before the Night Court formed, before the Illyrians migrated from the Myrmidons, before humans even walked the earth. Even with the fresh snow crusting Ramiel, none had touched the pillar of stone. (acofas)

The shining black stone on Ramiel’s face is able to heal and transport those who touch it. In acosf, it knew where Nesta’s friends were needed most and sent them to the River House. It is also on the southern face of the mountain, which in the northern hemisphere, is the part of the mountain that receives the most sunlight. Cassian tells us that he doesn’t know who put it there, but legend says it was before humans even walked the earth. While it is very likely that the Asteri warped it (into a tool to sustain them, like the gates in Lunathion as @merymoonbeam so cleverly pointed out), I believe it may have also originally been linked to the Cauldron.

In hofas, we discover that Ramiel used to bear the Cauldron on her land:

“The Cauldron,” Nesta said hours later, pointing to yet another carving on the wall. It indeed showed a giant cauldron, perched atop what seemed to be a barren mountain peak with three stars above it. Azriel halted, angling his head. “That’s Ramiel.” At Bryce’s questioning look, he explained, “A mountain sacred to the Illyrians.” Bryce nodded to the carving. “What’s the big deal about a cauldron?” [...] “All life came and comes from it,” Azriel said with something like reverence. “The Mother poured it into this world, and from it, life blossomed.” (hofas) […] The snows around Ramiel parted, revealing a massive bowl of iron at the foot of the monolith. Even through the vision, its presence leaked into the world, a heavy, ominous thing. “The Cauldron,” Nesta said, dread lacing her voice. […] “The Cauldron was of our world, our heritage. But upon arriving here, the Daglan captured it and used their powers to warp it. To turn it from what it had been into something deadlier. No longer just a tool of creation, but of destruction. And the horrors it produced…those, too, my parents would turn to their advantage.” (hofas)

I wonder if long ago, before the Asteri desecrated them, the stone and Cauldron together resembled this depiction of Wyrd:

The Under-King lounged on a throne beneath a behemoth statue of a figure holding a black metal bowl between her upraised hands. Symbols were carved all over the bowl, continuing down her fingers, her arms, her body. Ithan could only assume it was meant to represent Urd. No other temples ever depicted the goddess, no one even dared—most people claimed that fate was impossible to portray in any one form. But it seemed that the dead, unlike the living, had a vision of her. And those symbols running from the bowl onto her skin…they were like tattoos. […] “And she,” the Under-King went on, gesturing to that unusual depiction of Urd towering above him, “was not a goddess, but a force that governed worlds. A cauldron of life, brimming with the language of creation. Urd, they call her here—a bastardized version of her true name. Wyrd, we called her in that old world.” (hofas)

This depiction is interesting because it mirrors, almost exactly, the figurine Nesta assumes is the Mother in the House of Wind:

It was a fire. Not her father’s neck. Her gaze shifted to the carved wooden rose she’d placed upon the mantel, half-hidden in the shadows beside a figurine of a supple-bodied female, her upraised arms clasping a full moon between them. Some sort of primal goddess—perhaps even the Mother herself. Nesta hadn’t let herself dwell on why she’d felt the need to set the rose there. Why she hadn’t just thrown it in a drawer. Another log cracked, and Nesta flinched. But she remained sitting there. Staring at that carved rose. (acosf)

For some reason, she needed to set Elain’s rose, half-hidden in shadow, next to this depiction of what appears to be Wyrd. In hosab, the Under-King also described Wyrd as a mother to all, which is why I theorized that she is actually a triple goddess: Mother, Cauldron, Fate. They are three parts, or faces, of the same force. The three sacred sister peaks and three blessed Archeron sisters are intentionally linked to her. Perhaps the moon in the female’s hands isn’t just a moon, but a world too. Immediately after this scene, the House of Wind shows Nesta her heart in the lovely darkness of the mountain, which she calls the heart of the world, of existence. Of self.

Heart racing, Nesta lifted the lantern in one hand and gazed at the darkness, untouched by the light from the library high, high above. The heart of the world, of existence. Of self. The heart of the House. “This…” Her fingers tightened on the lantern. “This darkness is your heart.” [...] Let the darkness sweep in. Embraced it. “I’m not afraid,” she whispered into it. “You are my friend, and my home. Thank you for sharing this with me.” (acosf)

Nesta embraces the heart of the House of Wind, which naturally makes me recall the heart of the Prison asking Bryce to open her heart to it…it might sing again. Awaken. There was a beating, vibrant heart locked away, far beneath them. We’re not sure exactly how Avallen might have affected the Prison island, and I suspect there is more to come with that plot thread. While I had always hoped the Valkyries might re-establish themselves as an intercourt army in the Middle, which does not have ties to any court in particular, I can also appreciate the possibility that they might ultimately settle on the Prison island instead. It would be incredible to see Pegasi return and for the Valkyries to learn how to fly on them.

This plot is related to the core thread driving us forward, and it is something that can occur in a book that is centered on Elain and Azriel. Together, they have the vision and gifts needed to map the secrets of the land, starting with the sacred sister peaks, which I believe will ultimately help them restore Wyrd. This would fit all of the seeds Sarah has planted for the third sister’s arc with Azriel, Nuala, and Cerridwen. It would also be powerful for a character who has been underestimated and ridiculed for gardening to heal the land and the very source that created it.

As I said prior to hofas, this exploration will inevitably bring them to the very heart of Ramiel. As a bearer of Wyrd, the source of life, Ramiel may even be the heart of the world, not just the Night Court. Will they discover that she was once very different? Did she change, as her sisters did, when the Asteri burrowed into her heart? Or was it because the Cauldron, Wyrd’s physical form, was warped into a tool of destruction by the Asteri and later removed from her land? Were the Illyrians created to guard the Cauldron since it was the Asteri’s most precious weapon? And is that why, as @cassianfanclub wondered, the Asteri were so desperate to reach the stone at the top, where the Cauldron was once depicted? Enalius may have prevented it from falling into their hands as he defended the Pass, which would’ve been a critical turning point in a rebellion. Unlike the rite they currently use to honor him, Enalius’s defense was in the service of life, which is what made Nesta’s sacrifice so inspiring. Her sacrifice is now depicted in the heart of the Court of Dreams, which is dedicated to building a better world.

Descending into Ramiel

We learn that Ramiel may be hiding secrets from Eris, of all characters:

Eris shrugged, and Nesta knew Cassian monitored his every breath. “There are three of them, you know. Sister peaks. This one, the mountain called the Prison, and the one the Illyrian brutes call Ramiel. All bald, barren mountains at odds with those around them.” “We don’t know why they exist, but do you not find it strange that two out of the three have underground palaces carved into them?” […] Eris gave him a mocking smile, but continued, “Unsurprisingly, the Illyrians were never curious enough to see what secrets lie beneath Ramiel. If it, too, was carved up like the others by ancient hands.” “I thought Amarantha made the court Under the Mountain herself,” Nesta said. “Oh, she decorated it and made us act like a sorry imitation of your Court of Nightmares, but the tunnels and halls were carved long before. By who, we don’t know.” (acosf)

He tells us that the three sacred peaks are sisters. Sacred is another word for blessed. And two out of three of them have been at least somewhat explored, but the third? Still mysterious. No one was curious enough to see what lied beneath her beautiful face, at her heart. This is such a lovely parallel for the three blessed sisters, and seems like a clear hint for the third one in particular.

In hofas, we receive confirmation that these secrets might be connected to the Asteri, who are known as Daglan in Prythian lore:

“They fought the Daglan and won, she went on. Using the Daglan’s own weapons, they destroyed them. Yet my parents did not think to learn the Daglan’s other secrets—they were too weary, too eager to leave the past behind.” (hofas)

Vesperus backed up a half step, hissing at the gleaming weapon. “We hid pockets of our power throughout the lands, in case the vermin should cause … problems. It seems our wisdom did not fail us.” “There are no such places,” Azriel countered coldly. “Are there not?” Vesperus grinned broadly, showing all of her too-white teeth. “Have you looked beneath every sacred mountain? At their very roots? The magic draws all sorts of creatures. I can sense them even now, slithering about, gnawing on the magic. My magic. They’re as much vermin as the rest of you.” (hofas)

Bryce concludes, after Vesperus is able to draw the power from her secret cache below, that there is a firstlight core in the root, or heart, of the mountain. We see what happens in Avallen when the land is forced to contain magic where its ley lines overlap, rather than allowing it to flow as it should: it binds the magic of the land and causes it to wither like a plant with root rot. And that seems to explain why the sacred peaks are so odd: barren yet thrumming with power.

I have theorized that the caches of power may need to be released leading up to the restoration of Wyrd, and I suspect there may be clues—especially within Ramiel—about how the Asteri warped and bound her to the land. If Elain is as tied to the land as we suspect, this could also strengthen whatever magic she possesses.

In the cavern illustrations Bryce views in hofas, we see what might lie beneath Ramiel, maybe even the entire Night Court:

Scenes of a blessed land, a thriving civilization. One relief had been so similar to the frieze of the Fae male forging the sword at the Crescent City Ballet that Bryce had nearly gasped. The last carving before the river had been one of transition: a Fae King and Queen seated on thrones, a mountain—different from the one with the palace atop it—behind them with three stars rising above it. A different kingdom, then. Some ancient High Lord and Lady, Nesta had suggested before approaching the river. She hadn’t commented on the lower half of the carving, which depicted a Helscape beneath their thrones, some kind of underworld. Humanoid figures writhed in pain amid what looked like icicles and snapping, scaly beasts—either past enemies conquered or an indication of what failure to bow to the rulers would bring upon the defiant. The suffering stretched throughout, lingering even underneath that archipelago and its mountaintop palace. Even here, in paradise, death and evil remained. A common motif in Midgardian art, too, usually with the caption: Et in Avallen ego. Even in Avallen, there am I. A whispered promise from Death. Another version of memento mori. A reminder that death was always, always waiting. Even in the blessed Fae isle of Avallen. (hofas)

This might merely be a hint for the Asteri secrets that remain buried in the earth. But I agree with others (including @offtorivendell, @ladynightcourt3, @cassianfanclub, and @silverlinedeyes) who have wondered if this Helscape is in fact a hint that Prythian, and the Night Court in particular, is tied to Hel. We learned that the worlds in the Maasverse are tied together through ley lines, and the veil between worlds is thin where these ley lines overlap—like the lines in a star.

That may be the true meaning of star symbols throughout the Maasverse, and the one specifically found in the Prison that is connected to the Starborn: as I theorized pre-hosab, it is a compass rose, and it seems to be linked to other places in the grander tapestry of the universe. There is power in the space where the lines meet; these lines represent ley lines. Certain people (Asteri, Starborn, etc.) are able to use that power to travel, communicate, or even light up entire worlds. Depending on how those lines are woven in certain areas, they might even be able to draw you to one place more than another. That may explain why the Prison seems more connected to Midgard. So, could Ramiel be more connected to Hel, and the Middle to…Erilea?

I wonder if Elain, Azriel, Nuala, and Cerridwen’s exploration in the heart of Ramiel might lead them to Wyrd’s Temple in Hel, except @silverlinedeyes, @offtorivendell, and I think she goes by yet another name there: Chaos. It’s possible they could use black salt or another substance to achieve this, as @offtorivendell and @cassianfanclub have discussed, especially with Elain’s sight. I am personally hoping for a physical trip to Hel and Ramiel might possess a doorway, or rift, as @offtorivendell has theorized.

The black boat that Aidas led Bryce and Hunt into was a cross between the one that had brought them into Avallen and the ones that carried bodies to the Bone Quarter. But in lieu of a stag’s head, it was a stag’s skull at the prow, greenish flame dancing in its eyes as it sailed through the cave. The eerie green light illuminated black rock carved into pillars and buildings, walkways and temples. Ancient. And empty. Bryce had never seen a place so void of life. So … still. Even the Bone Quarter had a sense of being lived in, albeit by the dead. But here, nothing stirred. […] “It’s like a city of the dead,” Hunt murmured, draping a wing around Bryce. Aidas turned from where he stood at the prow, holding in his hands a long pole that he’d used to guide them. “That’s because it is.” He gestured with a pale hand to the buildings and temples and avenues. “This is where our beloved dead come to rest, with all the comforts of life around them.” […] Before Aidas could answer, the boat approached a small quay leading to what appeared to be a temple. A figure emerged from between the pillars of the temple and descended its front steps. Golden-haired, golden-skinned. […] “The Temple of Chaos is a sacred place,” Apollion said sharply. “We shall never defile it with violence.” The words rumbled like thunder again.

This sounds familiar, doesn’t it? It sounds an awful lot like other beliefs in the Maasverse:

Bryce asked, because some small part of her had to know after what she’d seen of the Mask, “When you die, where do your souls go?” Did they even believe in the concept of a soul? Maybe she should have led with that. But Azriel said softly, “They return to the Mother, where they rest in joy within her heart until she finds another purpose for us. Another life or world to live in.” (hofas)

“We’ll collect the dead tomorrow,” Manon said, her voice low. “And burn them at moonrise.” As both Crochans and Ironteeth did. A full moon tomorrow—the Mother’s Womb. A good moon to be burned. To be returned to the Three-Faced Goddess, and reborn within that womb. (koa)

Wyrd (Chaos) is the heart of the world, of existence. Of self. And that is where people rest in joy until they are reborn. Could this be where the spirits are migrating on Starfall?

We know the Princes of Hel are intergalactic helpers, so a trip to Hel or an encounter with a Prince (Bryaxis? Thanatos? Even Balthazar, if he isn’t Elain? 😉 still my favorite crack theory) might give us insight into their role in Prythian. It could also involve Azriel’s peculiar magic that makes him, like Ramiel, so different from even his Illyrian brothers. Let's be honest, he’s always had a Prince of Hel vibe—down to his reverence for Wyrd (Mother, Cauldron, Fate/Chaos)—that I would love to see come to fruition.

Beyond Azriel himself, I also think we will learn the origins of the Illyrians in the heart of Ramiel. Were they connected to Hel before the Asteri made them their soldiers, like @silverlinedeyes and @offtorivendell theorized? Or were they an experiment like the blessed sisters? Did the Asteri put humans (hence the ears) into the Cauldron after it was imbued with their void magic and create beings of night and pain who could combat enemies, including demons? This might be another reason why the three most powerful Illyrians are a match in power for the three blessed sisters.

Together, they balance opposing forces as @silverlinedeyes previously theorized. They seem to represent the forces of Void and Chaos, and their power can be combined in the space between to achieve impossible feats (eg, physically healing the Cauldron and the rip in the world). All three sisters seem to be chosen bearers, or conduits, for Wyrd (Chaos), so I wouldn’t be surprised if we see another example of this in a different way for Azriel and Elain, and/or a scene where they are all linked magically.

My lips tugged toward a smile. But Rhys stared at all of us, somehow assembled here in the sun-drenched open grasses without being given the order. Our family—our court. The Court of Dreams. […] He surveyed them all again—and held out his hand to Cassian. Cassian took it, and held out his other hand for Mor. Then Mor extended her other to Azriel. Azriel to Amren. Amren to Nesta. Nesta to Elain. And Elain to me. Until we were all linked, all bound together. (acowar)

Since Ramiel is connected to Wyrd (Chaos), and there may be a doorway to her temple in Hel, this journey will likely also uncover secrets about her. Will her story come from illustrations in stone, members of Hel, or…my personal favorite, Wyrd herself? I believe that is one of the many reasons she gifted Elain with such powers, including sight: so she could tell her story to someone who could see differently. Someone who could see the creator within the darkness, just as Elain saw the dark cottage as a shelter rather than a prison. This gift may provide them the information they need to uncover the Asteri’s secrets and unravel their magic from the sacred peaks and Wyrd, which could lead them to at least two other places: (1) Midgard, where the Book of Breathings is now kept by Bryce, and (2) Cretea, where the Cauldron is currently hidden. Could Azriel even pay back Bryce for stealing his precious dagger? It would only be fitting.

Ramiel Springs Eternal

I was so cold I might never be warm again. Even during winter in the mortal realm, I’d managed to find some kernel of heat, but after nearly emptying my cache of magic that afternoon, even roaring heart fire couldn’t thaw the chill around my bones. Did spring ever come to this blasted place? (acomaf)

Illyria is known for being bitterly cold, to the point where Feyre wonders if spring would ever arrive there. Sarah has consistently described Elain as blooming life amid death and winter, and this imagery starts to become really apparent in Illyria:

Mor let out a snort that made the Illyrians stiffen. But she shifted, revealing Elain behind her. Elain was just blinking, wide-eyed, at the camp. The army. Devlon let out a grunt at the sight of her. But Elain wrapped her own blue cloak around herself, averting her eyes from all those towering, muscled warriors, the army camp bustling toward the horizon…She was a rose bloom in a mud field. Filled with galloping horses. (acowar)

Compared to Nesta, a newly forged sword, Elain is a blooming flower even in an Illyrian army camp, which is essentially saying she is a bloom of life and color in the middle of winter. This imagery is so fitting because she commits her time to creating and restoring gardens wherever she goes. She brings life and joy and beauty into the world. Even her scent is a promise of spring:

Her sister’s delicate scent of jasmine and honey lingered in the red-stoned hall like a promise of spring, a sparkling river that she followed to the open doors of the chamber. […] Her sister turned toward her, glowing with health. Elain’s smile was as bright as the setting sun beyond the windows. (acosf)

We also know she is also capable of hearing sound, specifically hearts, through stone. In their conversation about heartbeats, Lucien even wonders if she is speaking to him:

She looked away—toward the windows. “I can hear your heart,” she said quietly. He wasn’t sure how to respond, so he said nothing, and drained his tea, even as it burned his mouth. “When I sleep,” she murmured, “I can hear your heart beating through the stone.” She angled her head, as if the city view held some answer. “Can you hear mine?” He wasn’t sure if she truly meant to address him, but he said, “No, lady. I cannot.” Her too-thin shoulders seemed to curve inward. “No one ever does. No one ever looked—not really.” A bramble of words. (acowar)

Was Elain actually speaking to one of the sister peaks, or even Wyrd, during some of this conversation? Her response to Lucien even seems to echo the song of the land: no one had ever truly looked, not really. No one knew what secrets they carried in their heart. This is such a lonely existence. As Elain and Azriel heal the land, I believe they will also heal their own wounds. Feel seen and heard. Understood.

Elain was also wearing a blue cloak in the Illyrian camp. Could that be a hint of her future work with others who wear something similar, like the priestesses who worship Wyrd? She answered her sister’s prayer during the war rather than Wyrd and has led her own sister in prayer before. Is she more priestess—more healer—than warrior, and is that the different sort of strength needed to garden on a larger scale? @willowmeres and I were discussing this the other night: perhaps like Gwydion and TT (which I theorized singing to each other across space), Elain’s rose necklace was called to the library when the priestesses were singing about Wyrd. And because like calls to like, the necklace answered and drew Azriel to the library instead of the Palace of Thread and Jewels. Like her sisters before her, Elain might receive help from priestesses as she hones her vision and gifts. I would scream if this turns out to be true because that necklace is pure Chaos (pun definitely intended).

It’s also possible the priestesses could be helpful in unbinding Void from the Book of Breathings, a book of spells. I doubt this will be a simple matter, however. It might rival the unraveling of Erawan, which required massive raw healing magic. Will the Asteri’s void magic manifest on another plane as Elain battles it with raw healing magic, shining bright as the dawn? Could a dawn ritual help ground her during this battle? And will Azriel, the sisters, the brothers, even priestesses with their healing stones, need to create a living chain to defeat Void and fully restore Wyrd (Chaos) in the end? Will we finally get a glimpse of her, unbound?

Maybe with the help of Azriel and others, Elain will even restore Wyrd—blossoming life—to Ramiel’s sunniest face, the heart of the world, of existence. Of self. And true spring will finally come to her sacred land.

#ramiel #the third sacred sister peak #mysterious as the third blessed sister #healing the land and Wyrd #elain archeron #azriel shadowsinger #elriel #wyrd #mother cauldron fate #a temple in Hel #nuala and cerridwen #archeron sisters #illyrian brothers #court of dreams #priestesses

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