#adventures in pest control | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

randomshyperson · 2 months

Text

Old Yellow Bricks - Heart Shaped Series

Chapter Summary: The conclusion to the adventures of an international thief and an Avenger witch. Or the one where you stop skipping work, Valentina answers the phone and Wanda does an ultrasound.

Warnings: (+18), smut (wanda taking the lead ‘cause that’s hot), bl*wjob, unprotected s*x, creampie, more shapeshifting stuff, some supervillain drama, minor angst with a happy ending I promise. | Words: 7.094k

A/N-> Hey folks, yes, I know I disappeared for a long time but I was so busy and mentally exhausted that I couldn't keep writing anymore, and I used practically half of my vacation just to get a decent amount of sleep. This story was almost abandoned, but I decided to give it an ending, even if it was a bit hasty, out of affection for the plot and out of consideration for those who have followed it up until now. I hope you aren't too dissatisfied with the ending, I tried to address any loose ends and leave it open to the canon we already know. Good reading.

General Masterlist | Wattpad | AO3 | Series Masterlist

-&-

It shouldn't come as a surprise that you got caught. But you did, mainly because for the past weeks you've felt so comfortable around Wanda that for a moment, you weren't you. No international bounty for your head, not gangs or supervillains or big schemes.

Just you and Wanda.

Your small argument with the Black Widow was to blame for your distracted state, but fairly, those men were probably following you for a while now, just waiting for the right opportunity to show themselves.

They weren’t aggressive, despite everything. You're just walking a little further from the hotel and this Van - Strategically hidden with paintings from a pest control service - was parked next to the sidewalk and you immediately knew. The door opened and nobody came out.

It was an invitation.

You took a deep breath and a last glance at the street before getting in.

The face of one of Valentina's most trustworthy henchmen, Mrs. Cassian Camorra, came to focus in the poorly lit car. He was not alone, masked guards armed to the teeth took every other seat. The only vacant spot was for you.

With a discreet shift, there was no longer much difference between your muscles and theirs. The change made the white-collar man chuckle at you.

“There's no need for that, reaper.” Says Cassian with a smirk. “We're not here for a fight.”

You stare at him with an indifferent expression, lifting your chin a little.

“The Guns send a different message.” You say but he smiles again just before nodding to the others, who immediately relax their alarmed posture even though they continue to listen to the conversation. In that small space, it would be impossible to do anything else.

You don't let your guard down but sigh once your eyes meet Cassian’s again.

“I don't go by that name anymore, Cass, you know that.”

He chuckles. “Would you prefer shithead?” He teases but you roll your eyes, wishing this conversation would end soon. He laughs again at your expression. “I still don't understand why you would be ashamed of one of your greatest achievements. The Reaper was a goddamn legend! The name gave people the chills!” He recalls excitedly.

You swallow, shifting in your seat. “Just tell me what you are here for.” You cut his enthusiasm with a sharp demand, managing to make your voice deeper. The security guard next to him has this immediate reaction of touching his gun, but you offer him a cocky smirk before focusing on Cassian again.

He adjusts his suit, one of his hands moving to his jacket pocket to grab something. A small purple cart is extended to you but you don't move a muscle.

“I'm not looking for a job at the moment.” You tell him but he chuckles, flipping the card to show you the back of it.

You thought it was the traditional mission paper with a coding at the back, for you to find target information but instead of that habitual info, there's a written number there.

“The Countess asks to meet in person.”

You don't grab the card. “If that is what she wants, then why didn't she come here herself?”

The man chuckles, and without giving a damn about the concept of personal space, he moves his hands to find your pocket and shove the card inside.

“The Countess is a clever woman, child. Why on earth would she talk business with your new superhero friends around?”

“They are not my friends.” You mutter, pushing his hands away with a slap before pulling the card out of your pocket. “And if she really wished to see me, her face would be the one to welcome me into this car.”

But when you make mention of getting up, Cassian loses some of the calm facade he kept so far.

“Sit your spoiled ass back right now, kid.” The bodyguards in the two seats behind you grab you by the shoulders, but their hands move away once you are back at your spot so you don't try to start a new fight. “This is the problem with Valentina's little freaks. You all think you're special. She's too soft with your type, so you grow confident in your insignificance. Let me tell you what's going to happen if you don't take this cordial invitation seriously, Lady Fontaine. Every favor for your protection, every deal, is off. You won't be CIA protégée anymore, you'll be on your own. For once in your life. That might talk some sense into your head.”

The anger is burning in your chest because of the cruel words but it spreads around with shame and guilt. Tears beg their way to your eyes but you keep your cheeks dry.

“I've been alone my whole life, Cass. You don't know shit.”

But he laughs, truly, as if you're joking.

“Alone? You? Hydra's golden egg goose?” He mocked managing some chuckles from his colleagues. “You're the one who doesn't know shit, you brat. You have no idea what people like us would do to have the kind of protection you so proudly display without a second thought. The mansions, the travels, the luxury. All that money. And don’t get me started on the attitude. The rest of us living in the gutter, trying to survive out of crumbs while freaks like you get to walk around like you own the world.” He narrates with a trace of bitterness and contained hatred that makes you shudder. “How many times have you walked out of prison? Do you think it's the same for the rest of us? That we get those same privileges?”

Some redness escapes to your cheeks but you manage to keep your cool.

“I have no power over how things happen in our line of work, Cass. And I am hardly the one you should be angry at. Those privileges you say, believe me, they came at a very high price.”

But Cassian rolls his eyes, dismissing your words with a hand gesture. “Fragile. You always have been. Crybaby should be your next nickname.”

You sigh impatiently and this time, when you move to open the door and leave the car, they allow it without any fight. Standing on the sidewalk, you hear Cass hold the door open and look at him one last time.

He leans for one last warning. “If you ignore her invitation, she will have her answer. And we will be back, this time, not for a conversation.” He lets you know with a little smile that makes you shallow hard. The possibility of putting Wanda in danger makes your heart miss a beat. And when Cass lets out a small exclamation as if remembering something, you somehow know it's not a good thing. He searches in his other pocket only to take a small photo.

“Almost forgot. She asked me to give you this. A gesture of trust, she said.”

But that was nothing trustworthy about Valentina being aware of you and Wanda's relationship, especially for such a long time. The picture is from a security camera and is clear by the poor definition, but still, that day is still fresh in your mind as if it happened yesterday. The Avengers fair you once infiltrate to find Wanda, only for her to end any plan you might had or ever could by kissing you. Inside those tents you were safe but outside, the camera caught the last kiss you stole from her before your departure.

The fact that Valentina knew about this, for so long, makes you feel sick in your stomach.

You don't take the picture - it's a symbol of the false freedom you possessed under Valentina's wigs. You storm off and hear the agents giggling and muttering threats before the car is gone, and so are you when you make a curve that takes you back to the hotel parking lot.

The whole thing made your blood boil. How dare she? What was she even after, what did that photo even mean? Was it a treat? Or it could really be a gesture of trust? Something like, yes she knew and she never did anything about it, so maybe Valentina doesn't want your complete misery. But then again, you know her well enough to tell that every action she takes is a well-planned one. If she knew about your relationship with Wanda and allowed that with no fuss other than a small bait in the first weeks, telling you to read Avengers files in an attempt to get you away from Wanda, then for sure, Valentina had a bigger plan.

And for once in your life, you're done with being the pawn.

Wanda's asleep when you're back in your shared motel room so you do your best to keep it quiet on your way to the bathroom.

This will be painful but you're confident you can manage, with your powers help at least.

The small device hidden under your ribs is a high-tech tracker and it's your last physical connection to your old life. It doesn't work unless you want it to, because it answers to a biological stimulation only you can provide. Baron von Strucker gave this to you as a work tool, if you were ever captured, you could call for help without anyone being aware.

You haven't tried to use the device purposefully in years, but sometimes, when being too hurt, it would activate on its own. And because it's quite easy to forget a hidden object behind your ribs, it occurred to you that it has been active since you bled out in Greece, the same day Wanda called to tell you she was pregnant.

The realization that Valentina was aware of your location for so long, Wanda's and her friends especially, rips a sob to your throat. It’s more painful to know you’ve been putting her in danger than the open wound.

You muffle down your crying the second you hear the bed shifting. But luckily Wanda doesn't wake up. Taking a deep breath, your shaky hands keep doing the hard work - to cut open with a medical kit's scalpel your skin so you can remove the tracker.

It's painful of course but it ends quickly. You don't need a badge but it does take a lot of energy to heal on your own so when you're finally back at the bed, after destroying the little device with a squeeze, storing everything else, and getting clean, you're quite exhausted. Stumbling around, you do a poor job of laying down without much noise.

Your girlfriend only grumbles sleepy in return before her magic brings you closer to her body.

-&-

“Wake up.”

It's less gentle than previous attempts, but Wanda had to do it. You were really disturbed in your sleep - mumbling and sweating as if you were running.

Your restlessness and discomfort disturbed her greatly, but she gives you a tender smile as she sees all the tension ease when you meet her eyes.

Sleepily, you close your eyes again the next moment and Wanda takes the opportunity to move the sweaty hair away from your face.

"You were having a nightmare." She mumbles, and she's almost sitting on your lap so you think that it would be a waste to miss the opportunity. Your hands bring her into the position with ease, but Wanda has concern on her face. "Talk to me, detka."

A smile fills your lips, and you remain in a half-asleep state. "I love it when you call me that. You're so lovely, Wanda."

A faint blush fills your cheeks, but Wanda is determined to clarify a few things. "You came back late and as big as a bodyguard. I want to know what happened." She says, and seeing you sigh with your eyes closed, she frowns her heart racing. "Did you find trouble?"

"No, everything's fine." You retort quickly, stubbornly. And Wanda tilts her head incredulously at the clear lie. You finally look her in the eye, and she thinks it's unfair that you're such a pretty liar. Unable to hold her gaze, you look away, the flush on your face more from embarrassment than anything else. "It was nothing." You correct, annoyed, and Wanda sighs at the whole thing. She hopes that one day, your barriers won't have to be so raised all the time and you'll be able to trust her by instinct. But considering the kind of life you've led so far, maybe something like that is just impossible to achieve.

She moves one of her hands to your face, caressing the skin tenderly. "If you can't put it into words, let me see."

You close your eyes again, nodding, and the invasion is almost immediate. The whole thing happens very quickly - Wanda is getting better at it. Accessing last night's memories is easy, the hard part is dealing with their significance.

When she comes to her senses, the room comes into focus again and so does your turned-away face. Pure guilt and shame in your expression.

"I'm sorry." You say promptly, your voice a bit tearful. " I keep fucking things up. I brought them to us because I forgot the damn tracking, and I got everyone in danger. I understand if you're angry and want to shout at me."

Wanda sighs at the words, shaking her head. "No one's going to be yelling at anyone." She says, her hands moving lower to pull your shirt up a little. She traces the new scar, feeling some of the tension leave her shoulders as she sees that, apparently, you've healed fine.

"Don't ever do anything like this again." She says, and you sniffle.

"That was the only trace I had-"

"Not that." She cuts in seriously, waiting for you to look at her. Wanda looks more hurt than angry and that confuses you. "You can't just self-harm in the bathroom and sew yourself back up in silence. You have to tell me things. You should let me take care of you, all right?"

Aware that the warmth spreading through your chest is quickly creeping up your neck and ears, you give up on putting together a coherent sentence. You nod quickly, and Wanda gives a weak laugh.

"I'm not angry." She continues, adjusting your shirt again, although her hands remain underneath, drawing patterns on your skin as she speaks. "You're always so... jumpy. And you get into trouble like it's second nature. And you're so incredibly stubborn-"

"Thanks." You grumble ironically, but your annoyance turns into a choke when you feel Wanda shift in your lap. It's an intentional fit at your hips, she's probably noticed the bulge you'd forgotten you were even carrying now. And the fit takes the air out of your lungs and makes your body jerk gently, waking you up completely.

Wanda doesn't pay a second's attention to your reactions as she continues to talk. "You also have this habit of not letting me finish my sentences." She says with a little grin, her eyes dilating as your breathing starts to get heavy. "And I have to admit that you're hard work, but darling, you're worth every second of that effort. I wish I could take all the pain out of your past, but since I can't, I need you to understand that you're no longer dealing with things on your own. That I'm as devoted to you as you are to me."

These are romantic, intense, and considerate words. But Wanda is grinding slowly against your hips as she says them and you can only return a desperate nod, a deep moan tearing its way into your throat.

Wanda won't even let you lead - Your hands grab her barely covered ass through the oversized shirt she's stolen from you in an attempt to intensify the friction, but bright magic threads pull your wrists away in the next second.

With your hands pinned to the headboard, you can only squirm at the mercy of the woman on top of you.

"You feel bigger than last time, baby." She whispers, almost losing her train of thought during a particularly hard thrust against your hips. You struggle to breathe.

But Wanda stops, and you bite back a sigh of frustration as you stare at her in a mixture of desperation and curiosity. She works with a certain urgency on your underwear, but instead of rewarding you with her warm cunt, she moves away until she's between your legs, her nails scratching your thighs.

"W-wanda, what are you doing?" You ask, suddenly very shy, your eyes slightly wide. She giggles, as her magic removes your underwear completely, and she leans in, planting kisses on your thighs that make you shiver.

Her dominant hand finally grabs your length and it's not very gentle so you let out something between a moan and a whimper and Wanda looks at you with a certain regret.

"Sorry, babe." She says softly, still holding you now more carefully. "I've never done this before."

Your mouth is dry, and your eyes want to close and just enjoy the sensation, but you fight these instincts to speak. "Done what, Wanda?"

She giggles mischievously, and her hand moves slowly, giving a tentative squeeze that makes the muscles in your thigh twitch. "You know what." She says in return, although you both share the strong blush on the cheeks, Wanda seems more confident about what she's about to do. "It can't be that hard. And if I do something wrong, you can just tell me to stop."

"Wanda, you don’t have to-" But she leans in, and unceremoniously takes your member into her mouth. You break down in an aroused sob, arching up on the bed.

It's heaven, you're sure. Wanda Maximoff decided to wake you up with a blowjob, it’s a gift from the heavens that you must definitely don’t deserve but you won’t complain. You struggle against the magical chains just as you struggle to breathe and not to come immediately when Wanda continues to suck you off.

It's sloppy at first - as she mentioned, she had never done that before. But the lack of practice doesn't make the act any less deliriously enjoyable. You feel very close very quickly and have to use all your concentration when Wanda meets your gaze, mouth full.

"Jesus." You groan, your whole body vibrating. Wanda pulls back, licking the tip and your eyes roll back. "Fuck."

She revels in your moans as much as she does in the whole thing. She can feel her own core throbbing at seeing you so pathetically at her mercy, but she wants you to finish first. Her hand moves to help and with each lick of the head leaking pre-cum, your body jerks in a way that makes the bed shake.

"Come on, baby, you can cum." She encourages you firmly as she alternates between sucking and licking. "You need this. And I got you."

You cry out the warning, and Wanda takes your whole length so as not to waste a drop. Your back arches on the bed, and the hot shot is deep into her throat. Wanda moans in return, making a mess all around as you try to return to orbit, your chest heaving and your body jerking.

She kisses your now flaccid member, biting back a smile as she watches the final throbs. Taking advantage of your state, Wanda resumes her previous position on your lap. Her magic fades from your wrists.

Just the brief rubbing of her thick thighs against you is enough for Wanda to feel you harden again.

"Are you sure, babe? You're still shaking." She asks teasingly, but all you give in return is an affected chuckle, your hands helping her to settle into you. The invasion happens slowly, and Wanda groans satisfied at the proof that yes, you are bigger. The stretching is gentle, and it's not painful because she's soaked, but it's still there and she has to bite her lips as she slowly sinks down until you bottom up.

Panting together, you watch her adoringly, your hands on her hips helping her move.

Wanda doesn't rush things. She rides you leisurely, feeling every inch of your cock inside her warm walls until the slowness is too overwhelming.

Her hands rest on your shoulders, and you don't care that her nails are digging into your skin because Wanda feels too good for you to think of any other sensation than that tight pussy wrapping around you.

She holds your gaze, and between the grunts and moans she lets you know; "I love you." You can only nod, trying to gasp the same when Wanda suddenly bounces harder.

One of your hands grips with more strength, enough to mark the skin and she has to grab the headboard for a firmer support.

You groan at her nearly roughness; "Easy, woman." You try, even though she's grinding vigorously and the room has started to spin. "Wanda, damn it. Be more... ah... careful. You're pregnant...slow down… God."

She comes first, which is a surprise because you honestly don't know how you managed to hold it for so long.

You're still coming inside her when she collapses on top of you, falling down against your shoulder. But then there's satisfied laughter filling the room, and a joke about that being a very incredible way to start a day.

-&-

It's decided that you guys need to move as soon as you and Wanda are properly dressed and Wanda has encouraged you to be honest with the other Avengers.

And she also doesn't need to be a mind reader to know that there's something wrong with Natasha, who doesn't offer more than a mumble of agreement and doesn't say anything about you keeping a tracker jammed in your ribs all this time.

While Wanda goes out to buy breakfast for the team, you stay behind and busy yourself packing the bags. But she is recognized at the grocery store near the motel when she tries to buy breakfast. It's just a child and her older sister, wanting photos with an Avenger, but it still causes her so much anxiety that she goes back to the bedroom with something more than food: a box of hair dye.

"I thought I'd follow Natasha's idea." That's what she gives as an explanation, and you laugh confusedly but end up believing it until Wanda has bleached spots and ends up confessing what really made her late.

You're standing in the doorway, and she's focused on painting her hair, her eyes meeting yours through the reflection in the bathroom mirror.

"I'm sorry for not saying it right away. I just didn't want to worry you."

You let out a sigh before offering her a small smile. "No problem, love." You assure her, reaching over to pick up the empty box of the product and read some of the labeling on the back. "I'm more concerned about whether pregnant women can dye their hair."

Your comment makes Wanda giggle. Her magic continues the process of coloring the spots, and she busies herself with washing her hands at the sink.

"Well, most pregnant women can't manipulate energy and move things with their minds. I think I'll survive." She jokes back, sticking her tongue out at you when you smile. It ends up being a small grimace battle before you return the empty box to the garbage can and lean in to steal a kiss from her.

Wanda smiles through it, but her cold, wet hands reach under your blouse and make you jump. She laughs at the reaction, and you can barely notice the time passing as you play with each other and wait for the dye to finish settling on your locks.

When Wanda disappears back into the bathroom for a while, you wait for her to finish washing her hair and nothing really prepares you for the new look. Your girlfriend is slightly shy as she reappears, the towel still slung over her shoulders.

"So, what do you think?" She asks about the red hair and you swallow dry, speechless. Wanda blushes immediately, a nervous giggle escaping her lips. "What?"

"You look..." Your voice fails you and you have to clear your throat. "Really beautiful."

Wanda smiles, but then raises an eyebrow, gesturing gently in your direction. "It does seem that you truly like it, dear, I'm flattered."

You blink in confusion, before following her gaze and noticing your own body, and the bulge in your pants. Grinning in embarrassment, you quickly cover yourself with the nearest pillow. "Sorry." You mumble with your ears burning, but Wanda giggles, glancing quickly at the ajar door.

"I wonder if we still have time before we leave." She comments, scarlet threads appearing through the wood with the thought of closing it, but as if guessing the intentions of a delay, the door suddenly opens and Captain Rogers is practically pushed inside by Natasha.

"Nice change, Maximoff. But I hope your suitcases are ready." That's what the widow said, and she looked stressed, most likely because of all the stories about her adventures the night before. If your embarrassment over the tracker story wasn't enough, there was the other one you were trying to hide under your pillow. Wanda disguised it better than you, nodding quickly to the widow and gesturing toward the ready backpacks. "Steve can you take these to the quinjet please, I want to have a word with Romeo and Juliet."

The Captain sighed, trying to ignore being made a baggage handler - Muscles must be good for something - and offered you and Natasha a sympathetic look before leaving the room.

The widow closed the door but you spoke first. “Listen Nat, if this is a second scolding for the tracker, I've already made sure it can't be retraced and-"

"That's not it." She interrupts you with a certain determination, then a forced smile. "I've found a doctor for you. For Wanda, to be more exact."

The now red-haired woman gives Nat a surprised look and it's you who asks; "Are you sure it's safe? Risking a medical appointment in the situation we're in."

"You underestimate me."

"I didn't mean it like that."

But Nat smiles genuinely, shrugging. She checks her watch.

"We're actually going to meet her. Apart from Banner, she's the only doctor I trust."

You and Wanda exchange a look before nodding to Natasha in thanks. Your girlfriend then asks; "That's not all you wanted to talk about, is it Nat?"

The widow nods, seeming to get upset for a moment.

"I'm not saying this for the tracker story, I swear I'm not, but... maybe it's better if Y/N doesn't stay with us anymore."

Wanda snorts indignantly, ready to protest, especially as you lower your head.

"We stay together-"

"I know." Natasha cuts off Wanda's defensiveness with a sigh. "I wouldn't expect otherwise." She mutters, taking a deep breath to gather her courage. "Rogers doesn't agree, you know how protective he is over you. I mean, he was pretty indignant when Tony tried to ground you in the Tower. Anyway, that's not the point. Clint left. He accepted a decent deal until things settle down, and yes, they will settle down. I know it feels like our world has turned upside down overnight, but we need to remember why the Avengers were created in the first place. It's only a matter of time before they need us, all of us again, and maybe it's experience talking, but I've seen so many governments collapse and rise again. I have seen this movie before."

The widow vents and you and Wanda don't have the heart to interrupt her.

"What I mean is that Clint can make a deal for his family, and maybe you can do the same."

Wanda thinks for a moment until she swallows. "I'm not an agent with years of military service to my credit. General Ross would never offer me a deal."

"Not him. And not to you." Natasha retorts, turning her face towards you.

You sigh deeply as you understand exactly what she's implying. " Is there really no other option?"

Natasha gives you a sympathetic smile. "That's not an ultimatum, mercenary. Just think about it. None of us wants a pregnant woman in the life of a fugitive, and don't make that face Wanda, I know you don't want the baby to be in danger either." Your girlfriend begrudgingly shuts up, knowing that the widow is right. "Just give it a thought. Melina has agreed to do the prenatal care, so you have all this time to make a decision."

Natasha nods in farewell before heading out the door, and you turn to Wanda.

"Do you have any idea who Melina is?"

-&-

In the safety of the Quinjet and the untraceable lines of the Avengers, you call Contessa Fontaine.

The first thing Valentina says when she sees your face in the high-definition hologram is a scolding; "That tracker was worth a billion dollars."

You have to laugh, your back resting on the cold metal of the ship. "Can't say I'm sorry, boss. Having a tracker in the middle of your ribs doesn't scream work ethic."

She gives a short laugh, and you realize from the surroundings that she's in the private room of the Fontaine Mansion, a place you've been to countless times before.

"What can I do for you, my dear child?" She asks, slightly impatient. You swallow dry.

"Your people said you wanted to see me." You comment.

Valentina laughs wryly. "Oh, yes, in person. Not talking through an Avengers line. You must have lost your mind."

"There are no more Avengers, Val, you know that." You retort, and she smiles in satisfaction.

"Touche." She mutters before raising her bright eyes to you. "But let me guess, they're listening to this conversation."

You sigh impatiently. "What difference does it make? I've been with them for weeks. I could have told them all the secrets I know about your work, but I didn't. Just as you didn't inform General Ross of their location. So how about we stop playing games?"

Valentina gives another evil little laugh, nodding. "Oh, dear, I miss our conversations, you're always so direct and attentive. Yes, I didn't hand over Team America to Ross, because unlike that arrogant fool, I have no interest in seeing our heroes trapped in the Raft. Only someone like Ross and his ballistics background would think of something as stupid as taking out Earth's main line of defense for threats we have no means of dealing with." You remain silent at Val's words, and she takes a breath to continue. "You know me, Y/N. I like my... enhanced ones. I understand the grandeur of this new world, men like Ross, impressionable with colored rifles, don't."

"So... you've been trying to help the Avengers?"

She breaks into a laugh. "Help? Don't go that far." She retorts grinning. "Let's say we had allied objectives up to the present moment. And I have no reason to put them out of work, you know? In any case, perhaps a little time out of the spotlight and struggling will lower some of their egos. It's a shame that Mr. Stark always seems to shrug off the consequences of his actions, he could learn something without having billions to spare."

You sigh without patience for the speech, adjusting your body. "Val, speaking of money-"

"Oh, it's about time."

With a short laugh, you continue; "I need mine."

She looks at you for a moment, before smiling. "Your money has always been yours to use. Nothing has changed."

But you force a smile, not quite believing it. "Everything has changed, Val. I don't want Lady Fontaine's money. I don't want to be one of your pawns. I want a new account, a new life. With everything I've worked to earn."

"And what makes you think I can give it to you?"

You snort, rubbing a stress point on your forehead. "Please, Val, don't take me for someone naïve, who doesn't know the extent of your influence."

But Valentina sighs deeply, resting her elbows on the table and her chin in her hands, to look at you intently.

"In fact, I'm beginning to think that your naivety is indeed remarkable and, unfortunately, my responsibility." She comments, and you chuckle ironically and indignantly, but she doesn't let you question it. "There is no new beginning for you, Y/N. Not the way you're asking me, not the way you really want. You're deluding yourself if you think I can bring in false documents and billions of dollars without anyone ever finding out the truth. That's not how things work. The bill always comes, and a past so stained with red always catches up with people like us." She says and you swallow, not having the heart to interrupt when you know deep down that she's not lying. Despite her seriousness, Valentina's gaze softens: "I know it's not what you wanted to hear, but all is not lost. You've been walking around for weeks with someone who committed as many atrocities as you did, and yet have been allowed to experience the greatest version of freedom a criminal can get."

It takes a moment for you to realize that she's talking about Natasha. You glance quickly at the main area of the quinjet through the glass of the private room they got you to call Val, and your former boss uses this time to light a cigarette.

"I'm not a black widow."

Val chuckles. "Of course not, they fight much better." She comments and you grimace. Val takes a slow drag, blowing smoke against the camera before continuing to talk; "Speaking of them, you should thank your new friend sometime. The amount of black widows she's put on the market looking for work is what's given you so much time off. I'm not short-staffed, thanks to that."

"I'm glad the rescue of trafficked women has given you new employees, Contessa." You sneer in annoyance, stepping out of the way of the video and ignoring her confusion to tap lightly on the glass. The Avengers outside look up at the same time, but you wave for Natasha and Wanda to come inside.

"Where'd you go, little bird?" Val asks the wall, and ends up choking on her smoke as the faces of the two Avengers come into focus next to you. "Oh, hello. What an honor-"

"Cut it, Val." You interrupt annoyedly, squeezed between Natasha and Wanda on the seat in the room. "Make your proposal. I want Romanoff to tell me if it's true, because she's the only one with any real experience of these things, and well, Wanda's my partner and she should be up to speed."

Your former boss smiles impressed. "What a lovely thing, a thief and an Avenger, my eyes can hardly believe it."

You snort impatiently, but Valentina doesn't keep up the teasing. She nods, before turning her attention to the personal computer next to her phone. As she types, she repeats her earlier proposal. "I need to work on it first, dear. But I understand it will be something very similar to the agreements Miss Romanoff signed with Shield when she was hired as an Agent. Serving the American government entirely in exchange for freedom."

Natasha looks at you. "Is that what you want to do? Be an Agent?"

But you shake your head, offering her a sad smile. "There's no more Shield to recruit me. And I don't think I'm fit to be an Avenger anyway. But Val is director of the CIA. She could offer me something perfectly legal. And I could have an almost normal life."

"But what about the Sokovia agreements?" Wanda asks in concern. "You're an enhanced one."

Before you can answer, Val hums and grins. "Oh, I can see why you like that one, she's clever." You roll your eyes at the provocation, wishing you'd gone to see Val in person and could pull a gun on her to make her behave. Your boss stops typing and turns her full attention to the three of you. "Miss Maximoff has a very good point. If you wish to work with me at the moment, a CIA Agent contract, you would be legally obliged to sign the Sokovia Agreements."

You snort impatiently. "I'm not signing something that would force me to become a lab rat again! And certainly not something that says Wanda should be behind bars or-"

"Relax, I didn't say I was going to make you sign it." She cuts in. "And you're the one in a hurry for a new job after all. I don't understand the hesitation to do something that could be entirely bureaucratic if you stay out of the spotlight."

You hesitate, and exchange a quick glance with the two women next to you. Natasha shakes her head in the negative, but Wanda sighs.

"I'm pregnant."

Valentina chokes on her cigarette again, and Natasha covers her face with her hands. You don't know how to react, and Wanda keeps talking.

"Y/N is doing this for us, and if your partnership has meant anything other than work all these years, I know you'll help her."

But Valentina shakes her head, chuckling incredulously to herself. Wanda begins to worry.

"I don't want to appeal to sentimentality, I'm just asking you to be considerate. Job or not, no one is going to put my family at risk. I won't take it lightly if your people follow and threaten her again."

But Val gestures quickly. "A child, little bird? How can you keep this a secret from me?"

You sigh tiredly. "It wasn't exactly any of your business."

But Val leans over to pick something up from the table, and you frown as you recognize your old research file. "Except, well, it's entirely my business." Val retorts seriously, her eyes running over the pages she's leafing through. Until she lets out a small exclamation. "Yes, here it is. Strucker specifically wrote that you were infertile. And that was a disappointment of course, because everyone who gets an enhanced one, would love to make more of them."

Wanda looks at you with confusion, but you stand up as if you're going to choke on the attention, taking the cell phone with you to the other corner of the room.

"I know exactly what those pages say, you don't have to read them to me." You retort angrily. "Strucker had to believe that he couldn't have more of me, okay? I couldn't..." Your voice falters, but you control your emotions by swallowing hard. "I did what I had to do. The changes to my body so that he would never find out. So that no one would find out. But when I'm with Wanda, I just... I don't think about the past. I can breathe, Val. And it happened. And I'm asking you, if your mentoring has meant anything all these years, to give me a chance to be more than a goddamn puppet. Please."

Your boss remains silent, thoughtful, before sighing and offering you something like a sincere smile, however small.

"Ten years, little bird."

You frown in confusion. "What?"

"Ten years." She repeats. "That's the most I can offer you. Your money, a new identity, a fresh start. Think of it as extended maternity leave. The child will be old enough for boarding schools, and I'll charge you for the services."

"I-I..." You hesitate, looking at Wanda who has an expression that says she can't make this decision for you.

Valentina stands up, taking the phone with her. "I'll work on your contract carefully. Nick Fury is not a foolish man, little bird. He sees the world as I do, the dangers that surround us and that must come from the outside. I like the idea of a team working on my behalf, but it's too early for anything like that. Especially with everything that's happening with the first team." Val continues, and you swallow. She gives you a genuine smile. "And of course, all those years have meant something to me. You're the first person I'd trust with the job."

You want to tell her that this isn't the kind of meaning you'd like, but you think that work reliability is all Valentina can offer you. You nod and thank her and she says goodbye before hanging up.

Natasha thinks it best to leave you and Wanda alone for a moment, and when you sit down on the floor, Wanda sits down next to you. Silently, she holds your hand and rests her head on your shoulder.

"A lot can change in ten years." You murmur, and you don't need to explain for Wanda to understand your hope that you won't have to fulfill any contracts. She squeezes your hand tighter because the decision has already been made.

Your cell phone vibrates again, not with the CIA contract, but with your new documents and bank account filled with all the money you've earned as a mercenary. It makes your stomach turn with the feeling that you've just sold yourself again, and there's nothing you can do about it.

Wanda turns away to look at you and waits for you to do the same. Once your gazes are connected, she raises her hand to your face and pulls you in to kiss you softly on the lips.

"I'll always love you. Nothing will ever change that." She whispers against your lips, her forehead resting against yours. "I need you to promise that you'll always remember it."

You caress the wrist of the hand she holds to your cheek, and continue with your eyes closed. "I won't remember anything else."

She smiles, ending the distance again.

You kiss for a moment before you pull away to press your lips to her forehead and squeeze her hand.

"We'll be fine, Wanda. It's me and you, and just one baby. We can manage."

She smiles tenderly, nodding before hiding her face in the crook of your neck and sighing as she repeats the words. "You're right. Two of us, and a whole team of grumpy superheroes to handle one little baby. How hard can it be?"

Six hours later, Melina Vostokoff carried out Wanda's first ultrasound, which would reveal not one, but two little boys growing inside her womb. Both of them had a natural inclination towards superpowers.

But that's another story.

#wanda maximoff x reader #wanda x reader #elizabeth olsen x reader #heart shaped series #wanda maximoff #wanda maximoff imagines

538 notes · View notes

glassrowboat · 3 months

Text

Our Adventure. Venti.

Summary: A child of Mondstadt has recently been gifted a vision. A gift from the gods. Yet all she views it as is a decorative charm that invokes ire and fear in her very own heart, a babble she can't even control. The solution? The best bard in Teyvat, obviously!

Word count: 2400+

Authors note: Basically, I've been toiling away in my head what would happen if a vision user was struggling to use their newfound gift and I wrote this :)

The wind had a habit of carrying many things along it's ever flowing breeze, from leaves to the sweetest of songs, from love confessions to the dandelion seeds that truly marked Mondstadt as a land full of endless wishes and freedom. Tonight, however, there was a cry, a wail that even a banshee herself would be incapable of making as it rang in the young bard's ears. This was how the archon had come to know so many secrets that lay in the land he called home, and this was how he ended up below a closed window with pebbles in his hand.

A small thud could be heard on the sill, bouncing off the wood as Venti tried his best to not get hit with the smooth stone hurtling back down to the ground. When no answer came from that still weeping woman another pebble was tossed.

What plagued her was already known by many, far too many if anything. Gossip spread fast in these stone walls. Drunkards would talk about how they came across a random patch of grass just outside the city's gates dried out beyond compression. The local carpenter would talk about how he had to chop down a tree that suddenly became too unstable to be allowed to stand any longer, only to find out behind the untouched bark the inside was lacking any moisture that was so characteristic of fresh wood. The most notable of all however was the knights who said they had to escort a young woman home, too weak to walk as she knelt down right inside a ring of brown blades too stiff to wave in the wind like the fields of green typically would.

(Y/n), a child of Mondstadt recently gifted with a hydro vision.

The very same person who was on the other side of that window was struck with knock after knock as she glared at it with pure contempt, nose still running even as she picked up a random shoe. A heel with its pointed end should do some decent damage, right? So she held it tightly in her grasp, that is until the window randomly opened as if Peter Pan himself was trying to sneak into her darkened room. No candle lit to truly brighten up the scene of a red shoe hitting a green figure square in the face.

“No, no, that's some vampire shit I ain't about. Go find some other woman to prey on I- I ate garlic bread for dinner ya know?” Even with your vision blurred by tears you quickly grabbed the other shoe, getting ready to throw this one too.

Vampires can't enter without permission, right?

Well nevermind to that idea as the green figure landed on the floor having successfully passed through what was supposed to be a barrier of protection. All the while he was beaming at you with a smile that would make anyone want to punch him, even with his hands up in the air.

“That's not allowed….”

“Hello to you too.” Ah, you recognize that voice. The little pest that would run around the cobblestone streets all the while humming a tune that would be running on replay in anyone's head for hours after. “Can you put the other shoe down? My face already hurts from the first one.”

“I think you deserved it, you oversized fly.” Letting go of the shoe you let it fall to the ground as you got back up from what was an admittedly cowering position on the floor.

“Come now, what happened to you calling me a grand poet the likes no one has seen in this modern age? Am I not the next-” and you ended up throwing the shoe at him in the end- “Hey!”

You just shrugged, hands raising in the air in what could only be described as a whatcha gonna do about it motion.

Venti looked down at the shoe for a moment as it fell to the ground before kicking it back over to you, giving you free ammunition. “You could throw that shoe at me again or you- I was joking about the shoe! Please, spare me.”

“Flies usually get swatted.”

“Okay….different approach then.” Sighing to himself Venti walked over to, hand ruffling with something in his pockets before pulling out a handkerchief. The white square of cloth held out to you as it swayed in the wind coming from that still open window. “A fair maiden such as yourself shouldn't be crying, so I offer you this: let the best bard in Teyvat whisk you away on an adventure for the ages. We can make our grand escape right away!”

That's a great way to have missing person posters plastered up right next to the ones of the travelers sibling, and how well have those worked so far? Therefore your answer was an obvious “fuck that.”

“Please, with a cherry on top? And sprinkles too.”

Grabbing the handkerchief, and half tempted to throw it right back at him, you brushed it against your eyes. The fabric is surprisingly soft for something a bard who can barely afford a drink would be carrying, yet the lack of an abrasive texture appreciated nonetheless. “Why are you even here?”

“Well,” with a giggle Venti held his hand up, like he was in a play about to recite a sonnet in the middle of a stage with hundreds of eyes on him and him alone. If it was any other situation it could be an amusing sight, but he's still trespassing. “Let's say the wind guided me to you.”

It was hard to pinpoint why it felt so off-putting the way he said that, wistful in a way, but you didn't really get the chance to think on it more as Venti opened his mouth again. “What bard can stand hearing a fair maiden cry and not try and cheer her up with a song or two? Certainly not this one.”

“The wind?”

“Yup. Or maybe even Barbatos himself.”

“Have you ever gone to a doctor to see if you're clinically insane? Or have you just been hanging around Barbara and her musings of the church doctrine too much?”

With that Venti leaned over, a hand held up right next to his mouth so he could whisper, “the results came out inconclusive.”

Wait. What?

“Now come on! We have to get going before the sun fully sets and we have no light to help us see.” After all, who would want to be running around tripping over the loose cobblestones in the streets? “Walking through the dark is only romantic on beaches and sneaking around back alley ways to meet your lover, you know.”

So, he is insane.

Yet here you are taking out the hand he was holding out to you, letting that bard whisk you away on this promised adventure as he drags you out the window. (Trying your best to pretend you didn't notice him grabbing the vision you had tossed on the bed as he did). So while you didn't trip over the loose stones, at least not this time, you did fumble over roots as Venti pulled you under windrise. Leaves occasionally fall down from the tall tree, flowing back and forth as the wind catches the thin object before it finally settles down amongst the grass you two were trampling over as he pulled you to sit down.

Your knees hitting the dirt right before the stream winding along the plains to the coast, water softly rushing past you both as the sound hits your ears almost like a melody. Though a certain drunkard would be aghast to hear you say you prefer this over the strumming of his lyre he'd be plucking at any other time, even if it was just as a joke. Though admittedly it was odd not to see the ducks wading around, having gotten so used to seeing them so often from past visits trying to steal your lunch when you weren't looking.

Pesky little things they were, just like this brat.

“So, what's with the field trip?”

“I can't just pull you along for a midnight trip to my favorite spot?” The answer was clearly an obvious no. Not without a reason of course. “I give, I give, just don't have to glare at me like that. I've heard around town that you had a little incident.”

Oh great, so the rumor mill was doing its thing. What a goody. Just the thought of that scene again, of the hydro vision being cradled between your hands as the grass beneath you withered away to the point a patch of dead, dried out flora has your nose wrinkling. Not wanting to go over the image that played in your head like a highlight reel. A movie dedicated to your own inability.

“Is this the part you impart on me some sage advice?”

“I can.” With the wave of his hand, or more like a flutter of the earth's breath itself as a breeze swayed past you both, catching his braids and making them dance, Venti summoned his lyre. A certain blue glow reflecting off the wood from the gem sitting between you both. “Or we can sit here while I play a tune. It's up to you, (y/n).”

“I'd pick the latter in an instant.”

“But?”

“But it won't get me anywhere.”

Somehow even just the gold encased vision (or maybe the casing was a part of the vision, you didn't really know much about how that all worked) had a certain aura about it that felt daunting. Just an item. Just something as useless as an accessory if it wasn't being used by its owner. It was like instinct to avoid it, just like when you were a child and you had to learn the hard way not to touch that pan that had just been pulled off the still burning hot stove. For the two instances to be so comparable was like a funny, passing thought, but to you it certainly wasn't.

How can one laugh at their own misery without doing so just to mask their pain?

“Venti, what was it like when you first got your vision?” It felt like a natural question to ask, but he didn't really give you much of a real response to that besides strumming that lyre. A tune playing between you that you had heard at the tavern a good handful of times before.

“Let's just say I have always been a natural.”

“So you're useless to me.”

“Sounds like it, doesn't it?” Reaching over Venti picked up a windwheel aster only a little bit away, close enough he didn't have to shift at all to simply pluck it from the ground. “Though I wouldn't call the company of a friend useless.”

You couldn't help but huff at his statement, annoyed by the fact he had a point. “Fine. Sorry.”

He nodded in turn, not bothering to say anything about your mood today. Not when you both knew why you suddenly turned into such a grouch. “I can still explain how it feels for me.”

“As long as you promise not to say something cheesy like I become the wind itself.” That would surely make anyone in your position a little peeved. A prodigy sitting before you who has the ability to so naturally have control of something that threatens to turn on you. The claws of a wild animal that one can never say for sure will come to you for help or to attack.

“I can try!” Holding the flower out, those same orange petals that had become second place in the walls of Mondstadt began to spin. Turning round and round as you were left to stare at the little demonstration. “Like freedom itself has graced me. I can feel wind under my fingertips just as easily as I do strings or this flower for an example.”

“(Y/n), you may not currently know exactly what melody you are trying to share with the world yet, and that's fine! We all have to start somewhere.” Giggles came out between his words, easing the tension you couldn't help but feel at being so blatantly called out. “But just like always, a tune will still play, or in this case the sound of rushing water will be the music you grace me with. Either way, I can't wait to see what you can come up with.”

“My, how sweet, I almost want to wretch.”

“Hey, I was being serious for once!”

That's why this entire interaction feels so wrong.

Still, you glanced back down at the blue gem, watching how it glows so the grass it lays on is tinted with its color. Would it do the same to your garments once you get brave enough to hang it from your clothes like you've seen Amber doing? It was still a burner after all, but even a burner will cool. It just takes time.

“I wasn't expecting to see this side of you today.”

“Like what you see, my lady? Next, all we have to do is throw you in the water and see what happens.”

“I swear to fucking god-” No, you are not down for being thrown around by his wind currents. Just having to ride down one as you left your apartment to get here was enough for one day.

“Easy! Easy! We won't go back to throwing shoes at me, right?” He asked, hands in the air. Already surrendering just in case. The flower hanging in the air between you both. His doing, obviously.

“You're infuriating sometimes.” With a huff you snatched the flower from the air, pulling it close so you could look at it properly. It still had life left in it, still had water coursing through that green stem.

Your eyes were so focused on the petals you didn't even notice the smile Venti was giving you, soft in nature as he watched you stare down at the gift with a pout. You didn't need to know that he was just happy to see you free from tears again, to no longer have you be locked up in your own room from fear of something new. As for Venti? He didn't need to know you couldn't help but think maybe Barbatos did send him to you.

No, not all.

So just like any silent night at windrise, or as silent as can be with you two mouthing off at each other, the leaves rustled as branches swayed back and forth, and a tune, for the wind had a habit of carrying the sweetest of songs.

#venti x reader #venti #genshin impact #genshin x reader #genshin impact x reader #hoyoverse #x reader #fem reader #barbatos x reader #banner by cafekitsune

79 notes · View notes

evilwriter37 · 4 months

Note

I need more feral Hiccup. Where he has an older brother to take over as Chief of Berk instead so Hiccup can go in all his adventures with Toothless. Maybe being known as "Stoick the Vasts' strange son." He is almost never seen around the village, and when he is, its usually just to work on more crazy inventions or an important family related thing. But even then, he is fidgety because he's not moving around near constantly. He can hang from trees, or anything he can grip onto. He lost his foot in the same way, and brought piece between Berk and the dragons. But he's still hard to control. Once he gets to about 18-19 he is finally allowed to leave the archipelago. He only followed the rule of no leaving the archipelago until a certain age. Once he leaves he finds the ship grave yard and the reaper. He explores it and finds the dragon eye. Keeping it, then making himself a target too Viggo Grimborn. They meet one night while Hiccup is just hanging out in the trees on Viggo's island. Viggo had been on a walk trying to calm down because Ryker is stupid and can't find "The dragon riding pest" who has something that belongs to them, and messes up their plans of capturing, killing and selling dragons. Hiccup was just fidgeting with something on his suit that had come loose, hanging upsidedown from a branch, back facing Viggo, who is rightfully confused. Why was this person hanging upsidedown on a tree branch for starters. And why was he on his island? Who is he?

Viggo realizes who he is once a night fury comes into view, said dragon having noticed Viggo just staring. Hiccup finishes what he was fixing and bends backwards (You know, cause hes flexible, Viggo is a little frightened by the position) to see who was behind him. He knew someone was there, he was just busy fixing something on his suit.

"So, you're the one who has been messing with my hunters." Viggo would start the conversation with. Hiccup would end up just leaving because he didn't (he did) have time for a conversation. They would keep running into each other until Viggo finally gets to see him without a mask covering his face. Viggo is taken back by how green Hiccups eyes are. And the freckles that are all over the boys face.

Obviously, Viggo isn't able to keep the feral dragon boy for long, Hiccup slips away and isn't seen for a couple weeks. In that time, Dagur joins the hunters, claiming to know Hiccup. The next time Hiccup is, somehow, captured, both Viggo and Dagur are there. He looks Dagur up and down and just says:

"Did you get uglier?" Viggo almost instantly falls in love with the way his voice sounds. He begins to become a bit, "a bit", obsessed with Hiccup. (We can go ahead and throw in some whump with this.) He then later learns that he can't keep Hiccup grounded if he wishes to get his love. Slowly, Viggo gets to know Hiccup and slowly stops hunting, killing and selling dragons. More interested in Hiccup. Obviously others are pissed about this, but Viggo doesn't care. Hiccup and Viggo start a romantic relationship over some time, Hiccup being allowed to go on his adventures when ever he wants. Not being grounded and refused the chance to be free, because thats not what Viggo wants. Hiccup always returns covered in mud, leaves, twigs in his hair, and cuts and scrapes. Viggo always help a with those, gives him the whole "You should be more careful out there" talk while doing so.

Oh, that reminds me of this post! I think when you sent this we as a fandom were discussing how Hiccup is more of an adventurer than a chief? This definitely plays into that! Him having an older brother would be super interesting. Wondering how that dynamic would work, and what would happen when others find out about Viggo.

Love their first “meeting”, by the way. Just… Hiccup hanging upside down from a tree and leaving once he’s spotted. Love how Viggo instantly clocks him as the one who’s been upending his operations.

It could be fun if something really bad happened to Hiccup on one of his adventures and Viggo has to go rescue him. The torment of worrying about him, of hoping he gets to him in time, of just not knowing.

Juicy ideas, my friend. Very juicy.

#asks #vigcup #long post

77 notes · View notes

acidichcl · 4 months

Text

I’ve been seeing people make their own tmnt iteration for a while now and i wanted to finally join in the fun. Im not as creative tho so 😭 whatever. Heres me doodling the main cast to get an idea what they look like in my version

Edit: this is kinddaaa outdated. Theres been a few changes to their designs

I wanted to get the 2000s cartoon vibes. And i was thinking of sgt frog too while making this so there might be the same vibes. I love sgt frog. I call this version TMNT: Against All Odds. Probably sounds corny but idk, sounds catchy

Some info about them under the cut

April’s the one who dressed them up based on their interests. Excluding leo’s and donnie’s techs. Donnie made his tech and leo’s hologram control thing. And leo’s hologram necklace is actually a gift April got from her science teacher, Baxter Stockman. More on that later tho. Maybe. Idk yet

In my version, things are more lighthearted. Shredder is an alien that took over the utroms planet and so the utroms escape to earth. Theyre like pests tho, they carry ooze that makes ppl sick. Theyre not TOO harmful, but theyre bothersome. the turtles do fight crime that happens and also tries to help out with utrom situations. The turtles are mostly carefree and has a more positive outlook on everything. Leo tends to be the most innocent, other than mikey. They both have so much joy and love in their hearts bless them

The best way i can describe donnie is that he’s like Rise donnie but less vocal abt his sense of superiority and intelligence(?) my donnie is more mysterious and puts on an off-putting facade just for the fun of creeping people out. He cares for others tho and it rlly shows that hes kind hearted. Just a bit weird and sometimes takes his pranks too far (he pranks his brothers with his inventions to show how impressive his inventions are. Sometimes it fails and so their adventures consists of them having to get around donnie’s invention problems) if you watch Sgt frog, then u can tell i got heavily inspired by Kululu lol

My raph is basically like 2003 raph i think, just a bit nicer

For April, i wanted to make her be a popular girl in her school. Shes not a mean popular girl. She just is popular for some reason and shes cool with everyone. Everyone gets along, mostly, but she just doesnt like being around people and prefers to stay home doing her own thing. Shes an art kid who loves anything artsy, especially making her own stories

Overall theyre just having fun tbh. I want them to not have trauma for once😭 or at least not yet. Other than the whole utroms situation, their problems are mostly them wanting to have fun outside and do normal people stuff but April doesnt let them cuz she knows people will be weirded out by them. And other shenanigans. I do have more plans for them but for now, this is all

Close ups without the little notes:

#tmnt iteration #art #my art #drawing #artists on tumblr #teenage mutant ninja turtles #tmnt #digital drawing #small artist #concept art #digital art #artwork #tmnt art #character redesign #yippiee #tmnt against all odds #doodles #𔓘

84 notes · View notes

nat-20s · 4 months

Note

Hi! I'm newly obsessed into Doctor and Donna, would you happen to have a list of her appearances outside the TV eps? I found a list on the Fandom wiki page and was surprised to read your post about the Camelot book because it wasn't on the list! So I don't trust it anymore now lol and turning to you. Thank you ❤️

*cracks knuckles* OKAY SO i can't claim to be an expert so I'm just listing everything i can think of but im sure there's the obscure extended universe thing here or there but here's as comprehensive of a list I can provide!

Big Finish Audio Dramas

Tenth Doctor Adventures Vol 1

Tenth Doctor Adventures Vol 3

Donna Noble Kidnapped!

Specifically Audio Books (narrated rather than full cast performance)

Death's Deal (which I didn't even know about until i scanned through big finish!)

The Nemonite Invasion

The Forever Trap

Pest Control

Novelizations of specific Donna episodes

Planet of the Ood

Fires of Pompeii

The Star Beast

Wild Blue Yonder

The Giggle

Novels that are independent adventures

Ghosts of India

Beautiful Chaos (an absolute must read imo!!!)

Legends of Camelot

The Doctor Trap

Shining Darkness

In The Blood

Comics

Idk about the comics for the most part but there is this one shot that makes me feel So Many Things

That's all I got! If anybody knows of any more Donna Noble content please add on to this!!

#doctor who #donna noble #love the dneu (donna noble extended universe)#replies #anon #also many of the novels are also in audiobook format!#i just downloaded (on spotify so alas not in a piracy way :/)#the wild blue yonder audio book- READ BY BONNIE LANGFORD!!!

79 notes · View notes

flamboyant-king · 1 day

Text

OC Guide Revamped!

#Find Eli: A group of teens find their way through growing up.

#Grow As We Go: A fairy helps a veteran feel human.

#Meanie Greenies: A pest control duo deal with an out of this world infestation.

#Little Creatures:/Wiwi and the Golden Acorn: Small Critters on Big Adventures.

#artPG: A parody on role playing games where art comes to life.

30 notes · View notes

nitewrighter · 11 months

Text

What Large Teeth You Have

Seeing the Genji and Mercy Knight and Dragon skins made me realize it's been a hot minute since I've last done a fairytale AU. Also WOW! This one turned out to be almost 10k words!! CW for animal death because this is pseudo-medieval land which means critters get eaten.

----

"I mean, of course you're a girl dragon! 'Cause, you're just reeking of feminine beauty."

--Source unknown

----

Genji frowned at the bounty board. Behind him, the tavern was quiet, dust motes hanging in the early afternoon light streaming through the windows. Come sunset it would be full of the usual boisterous bands of adventurers, their drunken boasts, and even more drunken brawls, and then their drunken tearing down of local bounties, so he preferred to come in before all that.

"Are you sure this is everything?" he glanced over his shoulder at the tavernkeeper, who was sleepily polishing a flagon.

"Eh?" the tavern keeper glanced up at him.

"Are these all of the available bounties posted?"

"If't ain't on th' board, 'tain't worth doin'," said the tavern keeper, returning his attention to the flagon.

"Really?" Genji yanked one flier off of the board, "'Kill the dreaded six headed possum that's taken over my rubbish heap?'" he yanked another flier off the board, "Find my prized goat with two extra nipples?"

"T'ain't on th' board, 'tain't worth doin'," the tavern keeper said again.

"Counting goat nipples is not a valorous deed," Genji said sullenly.

"Them's fully functioning nipples, from what I heard, they are," the tavernkeeper said, whipping his polishing cloth at Genji in admonition.

"Surely this can't be it!" said Genji.

"Genji, Genji, Genji," a voice tutted and Genji's shoulders slumped. He pivoted where he stood to see a figure with dark spiky hair and pointed ears in a blue tunic.

"...Lena..." he grunted.

"You know what your problem is?" Tracer strolled right next to him and took the fliers from both his hands, "You think an adventure is all... fanfare and bravery and blood and grand deeds, when really it's about the little things."

"...like goat nipples," he said flatly.

"Like answering the call!" said Tracer, stuffing the fliers into her own belt, "No matter how small! Letting the realm know you care about them!"

"If you want to find random animals for people who likely cannot tell their heads from their buttocks, by all means," Genji folded his arms, "My sword thirsts for glory."

"'My sword thirsts for glory,'" Tracer imitated his timbre with a mocking flail of her hands. "Welp. My coin purse thirsts for commission. So with that I'll be off."

"I bet the possum doesn't even have six heads!" Genji called after her. She just flailed an arm up in an 'I don't care' gesture of goodbye before heading out the door.

He leafed underneath the more recent ones, knowing that if those ones hadn't been taken, they were likely just as arbitrary as the goat and possum, and indeed, they were. Jobs that were little more than being hired muscle for petty disputes of dubious legality, jobs that seemed to amount to courier work with equally dubious legality, one that had definitely been written out by a child apparently dealing with some bullies, a dragon cult in the ashlands to the west, pest control for a local mill--

Wait, what was that last one?

Genji seized a flier off of the board with interest and read it.

By Order of Duke Engel of Sinteroth

Reward!

Adventurers of able body and sound mind needed to clear Castle Ziegler of the dreaded cultists of the Order of the Emerald Flame, and rescuing the Duke's ward, Lady Angela, from their clutches.

The adventurer successful in ending the threat of the dragon cultists is welcome to as much of the cultists' treasures as they can carry, as well as an official reward 500 Gold sovereigns, the ownership of a 20-acre plot of land, and the title of 'Baron.'

"What do you know about this one?" Genji held the flier up to the tavern keeper.

"Eh?" the tavern keeper bumbled over and squinted at the flier, "Ah, shite. Meant to take that one down."

"Take it down? Why?" Genji tilted his head.

"Word is, Engel died not long after the Lady Angela was kidnapped--nerves or heart or some such thing--and his heir, his nephew y'see, had no interest in giving away so much of his father's wealth for a ward who would only be a potential rival for his own succession. So there's no reward now--no gold or land or titles. Ye'd be headin' into whatever horrid black magic them cultists been cookin' up for nothin' but whatever fell trinkets they have scattered around, and a highborn orphan shrew--if'n she's still alive, that is. Which is doubtful."

"...so they just... let the cultists have that castle," Genji tilted his helmeted head.

"No one's fixin' to kick a hornet's nest--not without an offer of 500 gold and barony, that is."

"I have no desire for land, gold, or titles," said Genji (this was perhaps only 60% true), "I shall reclaim Castle Ziegler from the cultists, so the shadow of their dark magic no longer threatens the realm." With that, he dramatically rolled up the bounty flier and stuck it in his satchel.

"I mean, as long as the flier doesn't stay up--" the tavern keeper shrugged but Genji had already swept around into a heroic stride out the door.

"I go to seek my destiny!" he declared, "Wish me luck!"

"The flier did call for 'Sound mind' you know!" the tavern keeper called after him.

"Thank you!" said Genji, who hadn't heard him and definitely interpreted his yell as some variation of 'good luck.'

The tavern keeper just awkwardly waved after him. "Poor sod," he muttered under his breath.

----

The journey to the ashlands was long and arduous and more than once did Genji feel a bit foolish riding out so far for a quest he knew little about, save that there was no actual certain reward. Even his own promise to himself that he would at least have a good story to bring back home seemed dubious. But then again, he figured if all of Tracer's claims were to be believed, then this truly was adventure for its own sake. Storming castles, slaying dark mages, rescuing fair maidens, the parts were there, but doubt set in more and more the closer he got to the ashlands.

Days and nights he rode, deeper and deeper into the west. Traversing plains, clambering up and over mountains, fording rivers, sleeping under the stars or shivering in lean-tos. He was guided by the stars, by the wind, by the growing scent of smoke in the air. Any living soul he came across, he asked about everything they knew about Castle Ziegler, about the cult of the Emerald Flame, and about the Lady Angela.

"They're old wizards, I know that much," said an elderly tinker at a farming village where Genji spent the night in a barn. "Used to conduct their nasty rituals at the old stone circles in the hills. Don't rightly know if it was them what put them stones up, but I remember seeing their fires blazing on the hills on starless nights as a lad. Mothers wouldn't let their children out of the house after dark in those days. The taking of Castle Ziegler and the kidnapping of Lady Angela—that's the most any of us have heard of 'em in a while."

"Bloody charlatans giving a nasty name to all other magic users in the land, that's all they are," said a traveling wizard Genji shared the road with for a few leagues, "Did you know they're worshipping a mistranslation? They claim their dragon god Vernihiloth was banished to the infernal plane, but a proper translation and proper historical context indicates that Vernihiloth was slain. Not the first fools to worship a dead god, but they could at least be less of a nuisance about it." He caught himself. "Not that I would call the kidnapping of the dead Duke's ward a 'nuisance' mind you!"

"The Lady Angela?" A traveling merchant said, as he and Genji rode in the back of a wagon together (Genji offering his protection to the caravan in exchange for a ride to give his own horse a break, of course), "I've seen her a few times. Beautiful, but curious woman. Always asking me for new books. Dreadful, what happened to her."

"Her parents threw their lot in with the wrong lord," an old mercenary said as he and Genji hunched over bowls of rabbit and pease pottage, huddled under tarps as a miserable drizzle rained down a few nights later. "They were just a breadbasket for that uprising. Hardly raised swords, themselves, but were executed for treason all the same."

"She came to the Duke a sad and hollow creature," a bard explained at an inn a few days after that, "But quickly grew into a lady of surpassing beauty and intelligence. Still, her parentage would more or less doom her to the life of a spinster."

"We all knew old duke treasured her, but she had a soft spot for us smallfolk," said a shepherd in a field Genji was riding through, "She had a gift for the healing arts and would ride out to the villages to help set bones or mix medicines."

"I saw 'em grab her!" a boy of no older than 11 declared while Genji was having a farrier look at his horse in another village, "They killed her horse! And then she was kickin' and yellin' and I think she stabbed one only I dunno if I can say that since highborn ladies oughtn't be stabbin' people!! I ran to get grownups, but by the time I was able to get them to come, they were all gone..."

"The Old Duke did attempt to ransom her, and later sent the finest of his personal guard after her... neither attempt ended well." a weaver woman said, not looking up from Genji's trousers as she was darning them, "First they sent back the hands of the messenger, then they sent back his guards' heads. Most have kept well away from Castle Ziegler since then. Haven't heard any word from the village near it, either. The current duke would rather see the whole thing forgotten than even look."

"I shudder to think of what those cultists would want with her," said a traveling cleric, "Black magic like that---no one wants to say virgin sacrifice, but that might be a more merciful fate than other alternatives."

Genji did not question much on the Lady Angela after that. And as he rode further along, the fewer and further between the villages and travelers got. The problem with saying you're going to do something, and punctuate it with a phrase like 'I go to seek my destiny' is that the closer and closer you get to that destiny, the more you realize its ramifications. Genji became increasingly conscious of the fact that this was not a valorous story, if it would be anything, it would be bringing closure to a very sad story.

Still, the ashlands weren't nearly as bleak as their name suggested. Rather than bleak gray flatlands, Genji found himself in rolling, forested hills shaded by massive ash and maple trees, their seeds fluttering down like fairies in leaf-dappled light. For all its beauty, though, there was a distinct loneliness that seemed to hang in the air. Perhaps it was the ancientness of the trees, or perhaps it was the other features of the land. True to the tinker's words, some hilltops had been cleared of trees and were crowned with stone circles. They hardly seemed like structures that would have been erected by the cultist's predecessors, it seemed to Genji more likely that they would simply co-opt these ancient stones without any knowledge of their original spiritual purpose. It was in one of these stone hill circles that Castle Ziegler finally came into view. Here now, was a place that matched the name of 'ashlands.'

Perhaps before the cultists had moved in, it had been much like everything else here—tall, and lonely, and old, and lovely, maybe with a village clustered around it—but now it was a blackened craggy ruin, several of its towers collapsed, jutting itself up from a nearly acre-wide radius of scorched earth and the sharp black shards of what used to be trees. Genji's horse nickered nervously.

"Nothing ventured, nothing gained, old friend," said Genji, stroking the horse's neck (though he had largely made peace with the fact that there would be nothing gained regardless of what was ventured at this point.)

Genji walked, for some reason it felt wrong to ride in, as close as they were, until they reached the edge of the blackened earth, where the grass was brown and dead with what must have been a blast of instantly drying heat. Genji looked at the castle, surrounded by the charred remains of trees and buildings, then looked back at his horse.

"You need not go any further," he said, stroking the horse's muzzle, "I can take it from here."

The horse gave a low rumble of a nicker and a wary look at the castle as if to say, 'Good, because there's no way in hell I'm going in there,' and Genji gave him another pat on the neck before going forward. The ashen soil was soft beneath his feat, and tinged his boots black and gray and white, making his movement toward the castle completely silent.

Genji moved low, darting behind various burnt-out building frames and peeking out from behind them as he drew closer and closer to the castle. He scanned the castle's towers and ramparts for spies and archers and saw... nothing. He still kept his furtive approach, regardless, though feeling slightly more stupid doing it. Just because you couldn't see archers, didn't mean they weren't there. But for all his caution he still found himself at the blasted-open-from-the-inside remains of the main portcullis. He could hear the low sighs of the breeze bouncing around the interior of the ruined castle, and somewhere from deep within, a rumble. Genji swallowed hard and drew his sword.

"I go to seek my destiny," he said very softly to himself, stepping over the stones and twisted iron grate, into the shadows of the ruined castle. Ash and dust motes lingered in the air in massive shafts of light from the blasted-out parts of the ceiling overhead, and instantly something crunched beneath Genji's foot. He glanced down to see he had stepped through a blackened ribcage of a twisted human skeleton.

It was not the first human remains he had seen in his adventures, but he noticed something hanging around the skeleton's neck. He stooped and picked it up, brushing off some soot with his thumb. Miraculously it hadn't been melted down, but it appeared to be an amulet featuring a dragon's roaring face with startlingly bright green jewels for eyes, ringed in runes. He probably should have asked that wizard more about the whole 'worshipping a mistranslation' thing, but he was used to adventures where you sort of go off of 40% of what random strangers are saying. So all he did was go "Hm," before pocketing the amulet.

He gingerly stepped around a mess of blackened skeletons, and his eyes scanned the walls where the shadows of human shapes were outlined in what must have been a blast of smoke and soot. Somehow that made him shudder more than the actual skeletons on the ground. He had run into his share of magicians who had bitten off more than they could chew in his adventures as well, but something this widespread, something this indiscriminate, something this seemingly all-consuming and instant, made his blood run cold. In an ironic way he wished he was currently slashing his way through cultists and dodging out of the way of spells and crossbow bolts--that was something he could deal with, that was something he could recognize.

Deeper he went into the castle, glancing around at the positioning of the skeletons. They all seemed pointed toward the exit, in that same way the portcullis had seemed blasted outward. They had been fleeing something. He passed under a doorway leading to a large chamber where a massive stone staircase framed the room, but between and the staircase was a massive hole in the floor. Carefully, Genji edged toward the hole to peer down into its depths. He had a length of rope on his person, if he found something to anchor himself to, he might be able to--

The floor gave way beneath him. His free arm flailed out and gripped the edge of the chasm, leaving his legs dangling over the darkness below and his sword gleaming against the blackness. The rocks that had fallen beneath him were tumbling into the depths below and he heard them land far too far down with more cracks and rumbles. With a grunt he tossed his sword up onto what was hopefully more solid ground, and swung his body around to grip the edge with his sword hand.

He froze at the sound of a deep rumbling far below him. The sheer vulnerability he felt hanging there was enough to make his palms slick with sweat, but he steeled himself.

Just the stones settling, he told himself, hauling himself out of the chasm. A few more stones were collapsing in at the edge and he quickly picked up his sword and scrambled away from it. He was catching his breath as the continued cracks of the stones below once again gave way to the gentle moan of wind through the ruins. He was checking his sword for nicks on its edge from the throw, when the rumbling sound came again. And then there was another sound, that wasn't quite the moan of wind through the ruins, nor the rumble of settling stone, and Genji slowly, silently got to his feet. The sound came again, a warm sound, a living sound, but a sound that was unlike any animal he had ever heard before. His feet were already backing away from the chasm, his sword gripped in both hands. He briefly considered saying 'I go to seek my destiny' again to calm his nerves from whatever was in that pit, but at the same time, he knew for all their evil and cruelty, his flesh wasn't any more fireproof than the cultist skeletons that littered this place.

A massive green scaled limb suddenly jutted up and out of the chasm and slammed claws as big as Genji's forearm into the stones in front of him, sending up a spray of dust and stone and ash. A furious flood of regret rushed through Genji's mind. Forget destiny, all common sense told him, Fuck destiny. You are going to die here. Run. Run now. Run. Just run--

But Genji's legs were frozen in place as a vast shape hauled itself up out of the pit.

Genji was aware of dragons. At least in concept. To him they just seemed like something people tossed into a story to make it sound grander. He had understood that the Order of the Emerald Flame was a dragon cult, that is, a cult that worshipped a dragon. But staring up at it, at the golden lobster-plating of its stomach, of the glittering green-gold scales shifting over powerful legs and expansive, bat-like wings, of the furious eyes, like molten peridot, the ivory horns and rows of massive gleaming white dagger-sized fangs, backlit by glowing embers at the back of the creature's maw, this then when he realized this was the source of that instant, all-consuming blast that had scoured this castle and the lands around for nearly an acre. This was that fell shaper of the twisted skeletons that had tried to flee this place. This was that cruel painter of the human shapes blasted into the walls. Staring at this creature, all wings and scales and sinew and claws and fire, glaring down at him with those furious eyes before raising its jagged jaws skyward in an earsplitting cry, was when he realized: Oh. This is their god.

He stared up at the dragon and it stared down at him, its throat rumbling. Genji's eyes settled on a jagged collar of black iron around the dragon's neck, where a green gem that must have been the size of his own head gleamed at him like a third, cruel eye. Genji held his sword at the ready. Facing down cultists would have definitely been more preferable, and yet, all the same, this was what he had hoped for when he was scanning that stupid tavern board what seemed like another lifetime ago (It was like a week and a half). He steadied himself, rolling his fingers along his sword's hilt. I go to seek my dest---

The whack of the dragon's tail sent him flying, then bouncing along the floor, before finally slamming hard into a wall with a grunt. He practically peeled off the wall and flopped in a heap on the stone floor. He heard a short ting ting ting of metal bouncing away from him--too small to be his sword, and he knew he still had a death-grip on the hilt. There were stars in his vision from the impact as he glanced up to see the amulet he had picked up now rolling like an oversized coin before tilting and spinning onto its flat side with a faint, ringing rattle. He heard a growling, questioning noise from the dragon, and then a short huff of its nostrils. Genji hauled himself up to his elbows to see the dragon, a ways away from him (How far had that tail strike threw him?). The dragon's head was held in catlike alertness, and Genji saw a few feet in front of him was the amulet he had picked up earlier. It must have fallen out when he hit the wall. The dragon didn't seem to have the same furious contempt in its eyes, but rather an animalistic alarm, its attention completely fixed on the amulet. The gem on its collar was thrumming with a green glow. Genji wasn't sure what instinct drove him to scramble forward and seize the amulet once more before the dragon lunged forward for it, but he thanked the gods for the surge of adrenaline that let him push himself up to his feet and run away as fast as he possibly could. The dragon took in a breath and blasted fire at him.

It's really remarkable how the immediate fear of imminent, flaming death makes your own disappointment in yourself seem very muted. As he sprinted and dipped out of the way of deluge after deluge of roaring cascade of flames as the dragon leapt and lumbered and twisted after him, Genji was not thinking 'This isn't valorous at all, I won't be able to tell a story about this.' His line of thought was more along the lines of 'Please don't let there be more fire around this corner. Please don't let me be running into tail or jaws.' Every time the dragon's powerful clawed feet made contact with the stone floor, dust was shaken down from the ceiling and the vibration in the ground nearly made Genji stumble himself. He was in that wide-legged, mad dash where you seem inches from crashing and falling for all your desperation, yet somehow your own momentum seems to barely keep you upright. The dragon blasted fire again and Genji dodged in a roll out of its way. He raced around columns and the dragon seemingly turned on a dime to twist after him, jaws snapping. He desperately struck back against a swipe of its claws, but the claws on steel set it ringing in a way that warned the next strike would make his sword shatter. He leapt over a pile of rubble and huddled against the ground as fire blasted over his head and sent stones tumbling down around him. He even scrambleed up the half-ruined stairs circling the dragon's pit, and with a beat of its wings knocking against the walls and sending hot air and soot and dust everywhere, the dragon was right after him, its jaws snapping behind him. He pivoted on his heel and finally struck at the dragon's snout with his sword. It flinched back and snarled, perhaps not expecting this much fight from something that had been so desperately fleeing it before, but then Genji felt the air getting sucked around him--the dragon was drawing in a breath. He leapt out from the stairs and barely managed to slide down a ceiling column as the fire blasted after him.

His one advantage was that he was relatively small, agile, and capable of breaking the dragon's visual fix on him by virtue of his own erratic movements and hiding behind rubble and dodging over half-collapsed walls. He was an adventurer, he knew how to use his environment to his advantage, even if it wasn't exactly brave. Clever was better than brave, at a time like this. He heard the dragon's breath catching in his throat, that rumble shifting in the room behind him as the dragon's neck swayed this way and that, searching for him. He fled down a corridor to catch what little breath he could in an increasingly hot castle, but could hear the dragon lumbering toward the entryway and ruined portcullis to cut off his only known means of escape.

Genji wondered how long he could stay in this castle before all the heat bouncing off of the stones would cook him alive. He wondered how long he could keep his helmet on until his brain cooked. Maybe it already had, otherwise he wouldn't still be caught up in trying to slay a dragon. He fled down a half-ruined corridor that he prayed was too narrow for the dragon to scramble into, but he knew he couldn't stay long. Eventually the dragon would stop guarding the exit, seek him out, and in an area this cramped he wouldn't be able to dodge his way out of a blast of fire.

He hastily yanked the amulet from the interior of his brigantine and tried to squint at it in the faint lights of the ruins. Why would it be so important to the dragon? He knew of dragon hordes, but the dragon had been chasing him all over the castle and he found no piles of gold anywhere. His mind flashed back to one quest he and Tracer had shared, when they had to defeat a lich that had taken over some local catacombs by destroying its reliquary. Genji wasn't much of a magic scholar, but he knew the lich was just as erratically obsessed with its reliquary as this dragon seemed to be with the amulet. If this was a beast that was brought here by tearing some sort of veil, much as the lich had by keeping itself alive through magic, then perhaps it needed an anchor. Perhaps that skeleton close to the door (back when it had flesh) was trying to get to a safe distance so it could use the amulet to take control of the dragon.

He set the amulet on the stone floor and hovered the tip of his sword over it. Like a lot of things he had done to get to this point, he felt somewhat foolish. He wasn't sure what breaking the amulet, if it could be broken, would do. At this point what logic he was able to put together in a brain flooded with adrenaline and dread, was that the dragon wanted the amulet, and if it was the evil god of an evil cult, it probably should not get the amulet. Further, Genji reasoned, if he got killed here, it would probably very easily retrieve it from his corpse, so he decided, whatever the amulet was to the dragon, he should remove that possibility. He squeezed his eyes shut and drew in a long breath, trying to will strength, rather than desperation, to his muscles. Then he plunged the sword down.

When he and Tracer had destroyed the lich's reliquary, there was a sort of expected outburst of evil magic—a great howling of the countless souls the lich had sacrificed to keep himself alive, a horrible upward whirling of black and violet spirals of smoke-like energy that smelled of foul death that he and Tracer had covered their nose and mouth at for fear it was poisonous. He wasn't sure what he expected when the sword split the amulet, but the reaction was definitely bigger than that. There was a great surging of green flames, splashing up from the fissure in the amulet like a great fountain, and an otherworldly scream. There was a voice in his head, cruel, and crackling, and ancient. It wasn't speaking the common tongue, or any tongue that Genji knew, and yet it seemed to pierce understanding through his psyche like a pike.

YOU FOOL BOY, it snarled, WHAT HAVE YOU DO--

And all at once it seemed... sucked away. Suddenly pulled into a small, tight space where it shrunk into nonexistence. Genji winced, feeling a strange searing pain-that-wasn't-pain in his chest and across his sword arm. He opened one eye, then both, to see the amulet cracked in half, blackened and smoking on the ground. He then flinched to see the runes from the amulet now blazing along the blade of his sword, in green flames that faded to etchings in the steel, and green light spiraling along his sword arm. The very weight of it seemed different in his hand, now. The blade seemed to vibrate, not quite with that typical ringing impact of striking stone and metal, but with an otherworldly hum. He was suddenly overcome with the desire to sheathe the sword, and maybe to throw it in the nearest body of water and never see it again, but it was still his sword, and gods knew he wasn't about to be caught without his sword with a dragon about. He heard a distant, high roar of the dragon that almost seemed like a woman's shriek. So whatever the amulet was, it was affecting the dragon, somehow. Not knowing what he would find, he rushed toward the sound.

He found the dragon back in the main foyer of the castle, still blocking its exit as it has presumably planned, but it was thrashing and shrieking and flailing its head along its snake-like neck, still letting out that shriek-like roar. Genji's eyes flicked down to the hideous collar around the dragon's neck, now crackling with green bolts of electricity or something. The dragon continued thrashing around like it was being attacked by insects, until it fixed its eyes on Genji, and suddenly all that desperation seemed to be laser-focused into pure rage, pure rage at him. It drew in a long, furious breath, stilled to a tense, quivering, shape, shaking like a too-taut bow, its tail lashed out behind it.

No more running, a voice that wasn't quite Genji's, nor that strange tongue sounded from his chest. He brought up his sword as the dragon exhaled all of its fire in a roar. Genji squeezed his eyes shut, expecting instant searing death--but instead he felt a rush of heat, and heard his sword singing with that strange vibration again.

The dragon's breath blazed against the blade of his sword, the green runes singing and glowing as the fire split around him like a flooding river around a stone. He glanced around at the fire roaring around both sides of him in awe, then looked back at the dragon, still unleashing that furious breath. He wasn't sure what compelled him to twist his grip on the sword so that the flat of the blade faced the dragon--and then the flame pouring toward him bent. He could hear whispering in that tongue that he knew and didn't knew as his eyes scanned down the runes on his blade. For all the brightness of flames and runes, he wondered if he would be blinded. The dragon shrieked with surprise as its own breath came pouring back at it.

The whisper of the runes turned to a roar in his head again, in the tongue he should not have been able to understand:

YOU WOULD SET SOUL AGAINST BODY!?

But Genji anchored his legs and then pushed forward, he watched with equal parts wonder and horror as the bright glow of the runes along his sword sent out a smoke-like light that spiraled around his sword arm. There was that pain-that-was-not-pain again as he got closer and closer to the dragon's throat. The dragon had ceased its breath and swiped out at him with its claws, and he easily struck the claws back with his sword, it gnashed out at him with its razor teeth and he ducked and rolled out of the way. Now, he thought, pouncing out of his roll. He leapt toward the dragon's throat, as it reared its head back to try and snap at him again. He had no doubt that with these cruel runes running up the edge for this blade would have no problem biting into that lobster plating of the neck, maybe even severing the head, but at the last second, his eyes flicked down to the crackling ugly iron collar and its cruel green jewel. He wasn't sure why he heard Tracer's voice in his head at that point. It's about the little things. He swung his sword and it hewed into the gem with a strange, unnatural sound, like ice forming and cracking on a lake. The crack on the gem spread and crumbled and suddenly, there was a massive blast of magic as the gem shattered.

Genji was sent tumbling back once again--not flying, but bouncing, and this time quickly being stopped by the friction of the multiple skeletons crumbling beneath him each time he made contact with the floor--blackened bones crunching against his brigantine. He only barely pushed himself up to his hands and knees to look up at the dragon, swaying and screaming, as the iron collar crumbled off of its neck, before it finally collapsed onto the stone floor, kicking up a shockwave of dust and ash in all directions that sprayed Genji and sent him sputtering. He stayed there on his hands and knees, watching the dragon. Was its form... smoking? Was that from being blasted with its own breath?

Keeping himself low and ready, Genji edged toward the fallen dragon warily, sword still in hand, weakly spurting off the odd green spark. The percolating stillness of the dragon's form, the settling of the dust and ash after all their scrambling and clashing of sword and claw and blasts of magic, seemed to summon the adrenaline-suppressed exhaustion back to Genji's muscles. His mouth and throat were horribly dry, but his curiosity at the sight before him still managed to keep his collapse from exhaustion at bay.

The giant form of the dragon was burning away, scales crackling off of it and being borne aloft on the heat of its own flames. Green sparks rippled off of Genji's own sword. Heat waves blurred the air around it, and then the flames rose higher, burned denser and brighter, seemingly shrinking down, hotter, and hotter, until there was a white-hot shape at its core--the dragon's heart? Genji flinched as a rush of hot air hit him. Where the dragon had previously laid, was a woman, naked and covered in soot and scratches. Dead?

Her side rose and fell with a rasping breath. He made out fair hair, strong shoulders, wide hips, all dusted with scratches and ash like she had been shoved down a burnt hill.

"...Lady Angela?" he said after a few long beats.

She coughed and flinched from where she was laying down on the tiles--or at least the remains of the tiles. The heat had cracked the stone like a dried up riverbed, or even turned it red in some spots in some kind of pre-molten state. He instinctively wanted to grab her and yank her off of the stone for fear it would hurt her, but it didn't seem exactly chivalrous to just grab a naked woman, nor did she seem to even notice the heat. She pushed herself up to a half-collapsed position, "That..." her eyes trailed around the room, trying to gauge her surroundings, "That is me." She said those words as if her name was something she had forgotten for a long time, and she was just now picking it up off the ground and dusting it off. Her voice was thick and raw. All those roars--had she been screaming? Crying for help?

"Do you remember what happened?" asked Genji, glancing over his shoulder slightly so she could hear him better, but now depending on the way his helmet cut off his peripheral vision to keep from looking at her.

"They--they tied me down to the altar...They were singing this horrible song...about how their god would return..." her hand went to a point between her breasts. Genji averted his eyes as hard as he could "I--I felt the knife go through me. I felt my blood running out, and it felt like fire--I thought--I was feeling myself die, but something happened. Something went wrong or, something changed--Everything was burning. Everything. I couldn't see anything because everything was flames and then, suddenly... I was... big."

"Big," Genji repeated.

"Everything is so much in that shape..." she pressed her fingers to her forehead, "There was a voice in my head pushing me down... down... And... and I tried to leave. I couldn't stay here, something was wrong with me, but I couldn't leave. There--there was something around my neck...?" she felt at her throat. Her eyes widened. She had pulled herself up to a hunched over kneeling position at this point, and seemed a bit more... covered. "There was someone--" she cradled her forehead in her hand again, and then her head slowly raised. "You--Who are you?"

Out of pure valiant hero reflex, Genji pivoted around and started (with what would have been punctuated with a flourishing bow) "I am Gen--" he realized she was still naked and immediately swung around again and muttered, "Genji of Overland."

"Come again?" said Lady Angela, "You're a bit hard to hear in that helmet--and facing away from me."

"I am Genji of---Look, can we just--?" Genji yanked off his helmet and let it drop to his feet with a clank, then started furiously undoing the buckles of his brigantine, "It's not knightly to continue this discussion when you are in such a state."

"State...?" Lady Angela squinted, then glanced down at herself. She seemed to consider her own nudity with a vague concern, like there was probably something she should be remembering but was very close to coming to the conclusion of 'If it was important I wouldn't have forgotten it.'

"I have a cloak in my horse's saddlebags," Genji had gotten the brigantine off at this point, and it was clear his intention was giving Lady Angela his tunic to cover herself with, but he had now realized that the tunic had become completely plastered to his torso with sweat, due to previously running from blasts of fire. Her fire. "But I can't ask you to walk out there naked. And I can't exactly leave you to get the horse so--" He peeled off the tunic with no small amount of effort and was desperately flapping it to dry some of the sweat and stink out when he heard crackling behind him.

He flinched a glance over his shoulder to see Lady Angela looking at her hands, which were both on fire.

"No!" he stumbled toward her but then stopped when she glanced at him with a perfectly calm albeit reasonably confused expression. The flames were consuming her entire forearms, but just as suddenly as they had come, they disappeared, like they had been blown out by a strong breeze. Where the flames had been, were now plates and scales and claws at her fingertips, her whole forearms looking almost like gauntlets. Genji watched as Lady Angela seemed to burst into flame at her breasts and hips all with the same curious but unhurt expression. He watched with the sort of 'I should not be watching this' embarrassment as anyone might have of seeing a stranger dressing or undressing, and yet the whole process was so removed from any semblance of dressing, he couldn't tear his eyes away.

"Hoooow are you doing that?" asked Genji as scales sprouted across her stomach.

"I don't know," she said, as the flames died away, leaving a scrappy coverage of plates and scales over her torso that... could pass for clothes? Armor? Unfortunately he knew it was, technically her flesh, and was a little scared and embarrassed to ask if those scales were going to be there forever. "But is this better?" Her legs and most of her upper arms were bare, but she had seen fit to give herself clawed feet and scaled calves, that Genji hoped he would be able to convince people were very interesting boots.

"...I don't know," said Genji, after a beat.

Angela seemed to regard her surroundings with a bit more clarity now. "The men who took me..." she said vaguely, as if trying to remember, "Are any...?"

"There were none when I arrived," said Genji, "I mean they were all..." he trailed off, "There was only you. Alive."

She stared at him, and then glanced back at her own clawed and scale-gauntleted hands. "It felt like a dream..." she murmured.

"What was so important about the amulet, do you remember?" asked Genji.

"What amulet?" asked Angela, with sincere blankness.

Genji's mouth opened for a few seconds, "It's... fine. We--I can figure it out later."

Angela studied him for a few seconds, but then seemed to startle with realization. "Duke Engel--I have to get back to my guardian! He's probably worried sick about---" she noticed the shift in Genji's expression and her brow crinkled.

"H-how long have I been like this?" she asked, her voice hushed.

"I don't know," Genji said softly, "But... I think we should get out of here."

----

The journey out of the Ashlands was... quiet. One would have ventured to say awkward. The horse was, for what it was worth, waiting for him and nonchalantly grazing only a few dozen yards into the trees. For all the horrifying noises that must have issued from the castle, either the horse was deaf, or had its own odd sense of loyalty. This loyalty towards Genji did not go as far as Genji's attempts at comforting the Lady Angela, however. He tried to offer to let her ride back, and the horse pulled as far away from her as it could, stamping the ground and flattening its ears and taking significant effort from Genji just to convince it that it was safe to walk with her.

"It's fine," Lady Angela said, "I... need to get used to two legs again."

And so they were off.

Genji was embarrassed, not just over the whole nudity and flesh-becoming-scales bit, but at the idea that for him this had been a quest for glory and now was... actively dealing with someone who had lost everything, with someone who would, for all they knew, never be the same again. It was practically sunset when they began their journey away from Ziegler castle, so it wasn't long before they had to make camp.

"I know you've been through a lot," said Genji, "But we don't have a lot of time before we lose the sunlight. So if you could gather firewood while I set up a snare, we might be able to--"

"Shh--" Angela's pupils turned to slits, she had a hand on his shoulder as she scanned the ash trees around them. She gave the air a short sniiff. "I'll find food." she said, as if entranced.

"What-?" Genji started but she suddenly took off in a sprint leaning so far forward she was practically horizontal. "Lady--!"

But she disappeared into the brush. Genji tried to convince himself that that had not been a tail lashing out of the bushes as the last thing he saw of her. He was left standing next to his horse. The horse grumbled and stamped the ground.

"Don't give me that," said Genji, picking up some sticks for firewood.

Nearly half an hour passed. Genji had barely gotten his tinder lit when he heard a distant, animalistic bellow. His stomach dropped as he wondered if she had taken the form of a dragon again, but that hadn't sounded like any noise she had made before.

"Angela?" he called out to the all-too-quickly darkening woods.

There was a feminine grunt and a rustle of branches and Genji turned on his heel to see Angela coming from a completely new direction. He would have thought to wonder how far she had run if he wasn't distracted by the massive stag she was carrying across her shoulders. Those slit pupils of hers had dilated like a cat's, either from the dimming light or from adrenaline.

"I got it!" she said, dropping the dead stag onto the ground. No visible gashes--but he soon realized she had broken its neck.

"G-good job," said Genji.

Her eyes flicked from him, down to the dead stag, back up to him. Her nostrils flared and she slowly ran a forked tongue over her lips as she looked back down at the dead animal that was entirely too big for two people."

"You know what? I'll butcher it," said Genji.

"R-right," she seemed to remember herself.

"If we keep the fire going all night we can smoke what we don't eat rations for the next few days," Genji went on.

"Mm-hm. Rations. Yes. Few... days. Yes." She had folded her arms tight across herself, and was itching at her scales

"...you want to eat it now, don't you?" Genji asked cautiously.

"Please," smoke billowed out of her mouth and nostrils, and her teeth had gone sharp in her mouth as she spoke.

"Well, obviously you caught it, so you should decide what to--"

He shrieked and hopped back as she blew a billow of flame onto the dead deer. Genji's horse whinnied with alarm and Genji had to calm it down. But out here in the night air, the fire wasn't nearly as hot as it had been in the castle, but it also seemed... only comfortably warm. Like a campfire itself. Instinctive control of the the temperature of her own flames? Then she walked around it, stuck her hands under it as it was still burning, flipped it, and blew fire on the other side.

"...so you can do that in human form--?" he started but she didn't seem to hear him as she threw herself onto the still-burning stag.

He couldn't look away as she clawed and bit into the animal on her hands and knees. Genji's horse nickered with disturbance as she tore away burning hide to reveal sweet-smelling smoky venison, and dug in, tearing with teeth and claws. It was horrifying, it was animalistic, it was savage, and it was a lot more erotic than he wished he was recognizing it as. She made sounds like she was eating the most exquisite delicacies in the finest halls. She was almost moaning in ecstasy, blood and juices running down her chin as she yanked out a whole leg bone, blew a short flame on it for good measure, then snapped it in two and sucked out the marrow of one jagged end. "Mmh!--" She paused only to catch her breath, wiping at her chin with her scaly wrist, before she seemed to remember he was there. "Oh--" she looked down at what was now a burnt and ravaged wreck of what was once a stag. "Let me just---" she tore off a steak-sized rag of the meat of its leg round with her claws. and held out the other half of the bone she had sucked marrow out of to him. "Here."

He took both gingerly. "...thanks." he said, kind of wishing he had at least pulled his knife out to cut the meat into more manageable bites.

She was looking at him expectantly. He sheepishly lowered himself to a cross-legged position across from her so he was at her level, the burnt stag between them. He took a bite of the venison round and was... honestly impressed that it had been cooked to perfect rareness. She seemed to note his position and assume a more human sitting position, still reaching forward and grabbing random bones out of the stag, breathing a short flame on them, then snapping them and sucking the marrow out. They both ate quietly. Those first few bites seemed to remind Genji's body of its hunger, and soon he was drawing his knife and cutting out more little filets of venison to eat for himself. Angela was eating far more than him and faster, though it was clear she was more mindful of his eating as well--clearly a little embarrassed that this was her first meal with another person in what must have been a long time. Finally, both flopped back from the smoking remains of the stag with a sigh, staring up at the stars framed by ash tree branches. Genji's comparatively pithy little campfire crackled gently.

"...you know, you're a pretty good cook," said Genji, breaking the silence.

She just snorted with amusement. "I--I didn't even think about it. It just...felt like the thing to do. And the fire came so easily. The fire came because I was hungry. The only thing that made me realize it wasn't normal was... you shrieked like a little girl."

"I won't deny it. Maybe the fear makes it taste better," said Genji.

A soft chuckle escaped her. Another long pause passed between them.

"I can't go back to Sinteroth," Lady Angela said softly, "Not--not like this. I'm not a fool..." she trailed off.

"Do you... think there might be a way to reverse what's been done to you?" asked Genji.

She propped herself up on her elbows and looked at him, those pupils turning to slits again. "Do you think that's what must be done?"

"I don't know," Genji was starting to feel like he said that a lot to her, "When I started this journey, you were an idea. Maybe a beautiful maid in a tower to be returned home, or... nothing but a necklace I could bring back to your people to give them closure." He made a snarling sound. "Gods dammit, Tracer was right."

"What's a Tracer?"

"Valor and bravery is about small things," he said, sitting up, "Or... at least it's not just one big thing you can just knock out and not have to worry about."

She was looking at him, perplexed.

"Never mind," he said, quietly, "I mean... I set out on this quest to win glory for myself. But now there's actually someone who needs my help--or maybe you don't need my help---and it's all messy and--" his hand went to the hilt of his sword, "Something's... changed me."

An amused 'hmph' issued from her.

"Well, obviously not as much as it's changed you--" Genji started.

"I understand," she said. She looked at her own clawed fingers against the stars above. "I like this body, and it frightens me that I like this body."

"I... like your body too," said Genji, "I mean--" He cut himself off. He was trying to be encouraging and signal that his previous suggestion about reversing her state was completely up to her, but immediately realized that was terrible phrasing for it. She just chuckled again.

"It feels as though its only been truly mine for a few hours... and it was so awful for the time before... when I was trapped. But now it's mine and I can't stand the idea of giving it up." Those slitted pupils widened again as she lowered her hand and stared at the stars. "Trapped in that castle, this body longed for the sky, and now so do I. But it's terrifying. I know... the moment I'm flying, I'll never want to be human again."

"You don't... have to be?" said Genji. He had known a decent number of adventurers that lived with their own enchantments and curses--an arm that had been turned to stone and was kept mobile by gnomish steamworks and earthweaver runes, a donkey's head from a fae prank, men and women cursed to take the shape of animals by either daylight or night---a lot of them lived with it, a lot of them had more interesting stories for it, but also adventurers set out without a lot to lose to begin with. Being a lady who, from what he heard, had already lost so much, he could understand her mixed feelings on the matter. All the power of a dragon though...and one brought to this plane by black magic... this would be a pretty delicate matter.

"You're very adaptable," she said, a smile in her voice.

"I try to be," he shrugged. They both watched the stars a while longer.

"...I remember the amulet," Angela said slowly.

"What?"

"I really... don't know that much about it," she sat up and hugged her knees, "Only that one of them was holding it when the knife went into me. Part of the reason my head's so foggy is... I was sharing that body with--with something else. I don't hear the voice in my head any more but..." she squinted her eyes shut, "I can hear it from you--but not really. It's like it's muffled in another room."

Genji remembered the voice in his head: You would set soul against body.

If she was the body---

Genji's hand tightened around his sword hilt until his knuckles turned white.

"You hear it too, don't you?" said Lady Angela, "That's what you mean by something's changed you."

"Yes," Genji admitted.

"I'm sorry," said Lady Angela.

"I chose to go to Castle Ziegler. I'll live with my choices. Whatever's happening with my sword, I'll... figure it out."

"You're very brave," she said quietly.

"'Brave' and 'didn't think a lot of things through' aren't the same thing."

"They aren't mutually exclusive, either," She gave a short huff out of her nostrils again. "So... you said you came from Overland?"

----

It was a few days later in the Overland tavern. It was the evening, when most of the patrons were at least a pint in, and all the adventurers were boasting and telling stories and drunkenly ripping down bounties from the board.

"So," Tracer was holding up her massive stein of beer, surrounded by several tough and burly-looking adventurers with a redheaded tavern maid in her lap, "It turns out it wasn't a six headed possum--just a mama possum with five babies. Which they carry on their back. Felt kind of wrong to take the bounty money just to pop them all in a sack and drop 'em in the middle of the woods, but that's the job for ya!"

"You're so brave," the tavern maid tickled Tracer's chin.

"Oh I know," said Tracer, smugly.

A goat bleated next to her.

The bell hanging over the door rang and Tracer glanced over to see Genji holding the door open for a tall cloaked figure.

"Oi, Genji! You had us all scared there, love!" Tracer raised her stein to him, "Where have you been?"

"Oh--just... traveling around," Genji shrugged.

"I told 'em about the cultists," the tavern keeper offered from behind the bar, setting down two pints for both Genji and Angela, "Told 'em you were probably dead."

"So what were they like?" Tracer pushed, "Did your sword get its taste for glory sated?"

Genji vaguely gestured, "Well, it looks like whatever plans the cultists had... blew up in their faces. No trace of her ladyship, either, unfortunately. Maybe she ran away, or... maybe she met the same fate as them. I can't say for sure."

Angela shot him a knowing look from the periphery of her hood and he smiled beneath his own helmet.

"And...who's your friend?" said Tracer, watching as Angela walked over to the bounty board.

Angela pulled back her hood, and gave Tracer a smile. "Just another adventurer. You may call me Mercy." They had managed to get her a cheap tunic and trousers in one of the villages on the way here, and her bare hands appeared human, but she appeared to be wearing some fabulous clawed scale-armor boots.

"We um... met in the ashlands," said Genji, "Same quest. Same disappointment. You know how it is."

"The ashlands!" one of the adventurers suddenly exclaimed, "Did you two see the dragon?"

"The dragon?" Mercy and Genji repeated with faux-shock.

"A great green beast! There's been word from the west! Past few days it's been showing up, circling around in the sky, then it lands and by the time anyone gets to where it's landed, Fffft! Gone!"

Genji could feel his sword softly, moodily thrumming in its scabbard.

"It hasn't been razing villages, has it?" said Mercy, putting a hand over her heart with concern.

"Well... no."

"Stealing sheep?" Genji guessed.

"Er... not that I heard," said the adventurer.

"And it just disappears as soon as it lands?" Genji leaned against the bar.

"Well... yes."

"Sounds awfully convenient," Mercy walked up next to him and arched an eyebrow.

Tracer was looking at both of them skeptically, eyes narrowed.

"You're suuuure you didn't see anything out there?" she asked, looking between him and Mercy.

"Nothing but ash and bone," said Mercy with an unsettlingly level glance at Tracer and a wide, calm smile. She blinked and Tracer could have sworn she saw the slick slide of nictitating membranes. "I'm with Genji on the 'fell magic blowing up in their faces' theory, but if that dragon is real, well, it's probably best to stay out of her way."

"'Her' way?" said Tracer.

"'Its' way," Mercy corrected herself with a dismissive hand wave before glancing over at Genji, who was sipping his pint. "Do you know if they have venison, here?"

#gency #questwatch #dragoon mercy #royal guard genji #adventurer tracer #overwatch

57 notes · View notes