#after their land is destroyed

[astral-from-afar]

I don’t get what the fuck ‘stop the boats’ even means. It’s just another attempt at being anti-immagration because it’s better to point at an invisible boogeyman than the real internal damage they have caused to other countries which has led them to try coming here

[bluerosefox]

"Daddy! Mommy's is having Ellie!"

Everyone in the Batfam knows Jason keeps secrets.

Secrets he'd take to his grave a second time if he had to.

But to think one of those secrets would be about the fact he had a secret family.

And the only reason the Batfam found out was because apparently their secret (grand)daughter/sister-in-law Jazz/Jasmine was in labor and their (great)grandson/nephews Danny (Daniel) and Dan (Dante) called him while on a Red Hood job with the rest of the Batfam to panicky tell him their baby sister Ellie was on the way early.

Red Hood books it away from the fam to his bike while asking to put Kori or Roy on the phone.

Oh boy.

[gummi-ships]

Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep - The Land of Departure

[justarandomlambblog]

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 [END]

The second shackle comes off

Get adopted and feel loved, mangey cat

We're gonna pretend I didn't give Heket the wrong shaped crown aight? aught 👍

(explanation beneath the cut bc I didn't want dialogue)

The harvest comes. Narinder can't help but notice how sad the wheat fields are, the wheat growing small and patchy at best. He remembers how Heket would make the wheat fields flourish just by walking between the stalks. The memory of the fields she would create early in their godhood makes him feel somber, realizing now what the cost of being a godless land is; their entire lives are left to the limitations of the earth, without any god to help them thrive. These people are making the best of what they have, and they're happy even though it's not a lot.

Narinder notices some are harvesting wheat while others till the earth once it's been harvested, and the old dog explains that once this wheat is harvested they plant "winter wheat", which can be harvested in the spring before they plant their summer wheat. They till and fertilize the earth before planting the winter wheat, of course. Narinder tries his hand at harvesting the wheat, and the old dog begins to teach him how to use the sickle. Time passes.

Over the late summer, autumn and winter, Narinder learns how to live this provincial, modest life. He tills the fields with the other villagers, he sees feral beasts for the first time in over a thousand years, learns to collect eggs from said feral beasts, learns how and decides he doesn't like to collect milk (the godless lands have more feral beasts than the Lands of the Old Faith ever did), has finally regained enough strength to draw water from the village well without help, learns to bake bread (with great amounts of help so as to not waste the precious resources with the inevitable first fifty failures), and attends his first lantern festival. All in all, this marks his approach to his second year here, most of his first year spent indoors recovering. (His fur is also getting long, something something new me new hair something (totally not an excuse for me to draw hair))

At his first lantern festival, Narinder decides to partake in what is usually a coming of age tradition for the village; he gets an ear piercing, choosing a symbol that will essentially act as his written name. He chooses a symbol that is a crescent moon inside of a sun, thinking of Aym and Baal when he sees it. (Note: He is not scared/nervous about the ear piercing, he isn't bothered by a literal pinprick of pain, but the fact that someone he barely knows is this close with a needle is what worries him)

Later on, days or even weeks later, the old dog gives him a chain with their individual symbols on it, with a loose chain hanging from the other side of Narinder's sun-and-moon charm. Narinder questions this and the old dog explains the symbolism behind the charms; two charms with a chain extending between them indicates marriage/partnership, and two charms with another charm on the chain between them indicates that couple's child/children. The one Narinder has is the latter, with the second parent's charm missing, indicating that the old dog views Narinder as his own son, now. It takes a moment, but Narinder realizes all at once that this is the old dog's way of extending an invitation to become family- and it's been so long since Narinder had a family... (And yes, the old dog is fully aware that this cat is thousands of years old (Narinder was very vocal about this in the first weeks before he eventually stopped bringing it up), but that won't stop him from deciding he's gonna be this abandoned, fallen god's new family)

Narinder goes to sleep, and finds that despite everything- despite how simple and quaint and, frankly, not easy life in this little godless village is, he's happy. He has none of the luxuries that he had as a Bishop; no worship, no reverence, no servants, no silks or satins or veils or anything of the sort. Here he's just... one of the people. Just another face in the crowd. And he's happy. Happier than he's been in a long time. Unfortunately for Narinder, he is failing to realize that this godless village is a little less godless every day he's there. But that's not necessarily a bad thing.

The village wakes up to their fields flourishing like they never have before. The wheat is taller than the tallest villager, and no one is really sure what to do about this, but there is excitement throughout the village. Narinder thinks of Heket again, reminded once more how she would make the fields come alive. The shackle on his left hand opens up before dispersing into light, and he remembers the way she looked at him in the days leading up to his imprisonment, the quiet and somber warnings she would give him. He takes a moment to grieve before turning his attention back to the present, back to the family he's creating now.

[mosquito-queen]

soulmate au except there’s also a souleater version

or

there are two times where yelena nearly kills kate. the third time she succeeds.

WIP

the blood is sticky and mats hot in her hair. faucets down her face. be cool. be cool. be cool. the head and fingers always bleed the most. doesn’t mean anyone is dying. her vision says otherwise: flecks of static swim unsteadily in her sight, auras bloom in tandem with the bruises along her jaw.

“i said stay out of my way, kate bishop.”

kate bishop tries to shuffle further into the false safety of the dumpster and alley wall’s embrace. if she can’t see her assailant, then her assailant can’t see her, right? right?

wrong.

glass crunches. a shadow looms.

and then strong hands grip the base of kate’s collar, haul her up against the brick. kate groans. she leans towards the dumpster, hurls into it. she grips a hand bar half-heartedly screwed into the side of the metal, it gives slightly under her weight as she tries to remain upright. the hands that had been so helpful keeping her standing have vanished, instead replaced by a breadth of space. she spits again, wipes her mouth and turns her head to find where the violence has gone. yelena is standing just an arm’s length away, a disapproving grimace twisting her face, “very uncool.”

“you pushed me out a window.”

“only two stories,” yelena shrugs, absently toying with a knife she’s taken out of her pocket. she steps back into kate’s personal boundaries, “you should not run, ptichka.”

and then the embrace of death is back. the tip of the blade scrapes down the side of kate’s face, yelena’s other forearm bars against kate’s chest her hand clenching the fabric over kate’s shoulder. kate sags against the brace, “why do you think you’re the one that’s supposed to kill me?”

kate’s hand finds the rusty handle again. grips it tight.

“as opposed to what? you? killing me?” this earns kate a bark of laughter, “you are funny, kate bishop.”

yelena’s breath is hot against kate’s skin. makes her head swim in a different way. that stupid white spider at the base of her skull buzzes with the proximity. kate can’t help but wonder what the hawk burned out of yelena’s neck feels like. probably hurts like hell.

“we could just get drinks instead,” her voice comes out strained, pain tunneling her vision, “no killing.”

another bark of laughter. but it comes out wrong, doesn’t have the same layer of mocking. kate doesn’t catch the hesitation, she’s busy fixing her gaze on the opposing wall, counting bricks to distract herself from the knife scratching letters against her collarbone. her skin raises with the tip of the blade, not enough to break but just enough to leave a mark.

yelena breaks eye contact to inspect the lettering, and that’s when kate snaps whatever remaining energy she has. she wrenches the handle. her body groans in protest at the sudden ferocity she must wield to escape. her body also screams when she whips the handle against yelena’s skull. if that’s what it feels like to hurt your soulmate, then maybe yelena was right. maybe she was meant to be kate’s souleater. she wants to throw up again at yelena faltering away, caught off guard. but kate knows yelena’s recovery time is inhuman. so she has to fucking run. now. because the primal part of her brain will do whatever it needs to survive.

kate hurls herself out of the corner, races towards the opening of the alley.

yelena lets her.

[beevean]

Castlevania: Curse of Darkness

Legendary Belmont

[incorrect-ikevamp-quotes]

*MC is considering canceling plans, and Isaac and Dazai are advising her on what to do*

Isaac: Just don't go.

Dazai: Say you’re ill!

Isaac: Pretend to break your leg.

Dazai: Really break your leg!

[plan-3-tmars]

thinking abt how in the bible the holy spirit is represented by a dove, an animal that is pure white and represents . purity. And innocence

thinking about how in angel's egg the girl is. well. a little girl (and innocent kid) and is also near pure white in skin tone and hair and is also followed by feathers whenever she runs

warning for a massive ramble in the tags major spoilers for the whole movie if you want to venture in there lmao

[randomnameless]

Something that really bothers me about the rose coloured glasses vis a vis tellius and fe fans (ESPECIALLY from 3h fans who learned about tellius later) is that many like soren purely because of his main ship (i mean i like ikesoren too but come the fuck on) and jokingly characterise soren as a stereotypical nasty mean limp wristed sarcastic gay man instead of a deeply flawed branded angry at the world and definitely trauma bonded to ike, but micaiah is still absolutely getting raked over the coals over the blood pact and not being ike’s fangirl

Well,

Jokes often involve flanderisation, so Soren being flanderised to oblivion when people joke about him isn't something I really care about, but maybe that's because I'm not really fond of Soren to begin with lol

What annoys me more is when some people try to rationalise Soren's anger and backstory by either pointing at Almedha or Deghinsea being responsible for everything, and I'm like, what.the.fuck?

Almedha's just, idk, I won't call it sexism, but damn - that woman loves her son who is the only reason why she hasn't completely lost her mind over 1/losing her powers 2/being casted away like trash by her "BF" 3/being rejected by her dad 4/thinking her brother was tortured and abused to death because of her actions 5/being separated from her beloved child.

Deghinsea being "uwu bad bcs he's the reason why brandeds are rejected by both beorcs and laguz" is another take I really am not fond of, and iirc I wrote a post earlier this year about it? But to some people who buy the "Crusts BaD" as the reason why Fodlan sucks, I guess they need to have someone to name and pill all of the world's nonsense rather than, well, in Tellius' case, realise that the worldbulding and the lore really sucks, to the point where the duology touted as the most "against racism" of the franchise, is pretty much way more racist than anything Tru Piss can throw us (yes, because in Tru Piss we have characters rejecting coexistence, in Tellius, it's the world mechanics - whenever a Beorc and a Laguz coexist too much, the Laguz dies...).

As for Miccy,

Just like, imo, Soren gains some "new" attention and "uwu excuses for why he's being a snarky jerk at times", Miccy used to be bashed when FE10 was released (with all the Mary Sue accusation being thrown around!) because she was written to be a sort of foil/antagonist to Ike, and when the party reunited, she was demoted to a "soul-jar" role, let it be regarding the greater plot, or, even, her own backstory!

TBH, for people who didn't play FE10, if Ike is the bestest thing since melted cheese, Miccy, who opposes him, must be BaD and so you can pile everything you don't like on her, hoping to see it stick.

Or even worse, I've seen posts here and there comparing Miccy to Supreme Leader and how misunderstood uwu she is, which is the worst insult poor Miccy ever received since FE10 came out rofl

[humanthatlikestuff]

When you actually finish a WIP from 4 months ago.

"He's there... inside my mind."

"Dear Yve.. deny it no longer."

"You played a part on this."

"Oh, you were so passionate, so fixed into chasing me and ending my reign."

"When we finally had time for our final showdown..."

"Oh, how strong your blows and attacks! It is so thrilling!"

"Then you cornered me."

"Then striked me in a fast rythym."

"Again, and again, and again.."

"You still weren't satisfied."

"You stabbed me.. over and over.."

.....

"Let me remind you.."

.....

"That you killed me."

.....

"And what I saw was mesmerizing.."

"Your eyes."

"Full of hatred, remorse, and desperation.."

"Sadism."

.....

"And now, your source of adrenaline.. your obsession.. your sense of purpose, gone."

"And with those hundreds and thousands of worlds that we both destroyed along the way."

.....

"Wouldn't it drive you mad?"

.....

"Your mask is breaking Yve.."

"I can see it."

.....

"I'll be the chaos to your perfect equilibrium."

"One way or another."

Hello @goldemas1244 i finished it.

Yey

[ciderjacks]

”Israel is the only livable, safe middle eastern country” says white westerners, meanwhile israel is bombing and decimating every Arab country in sight.

[identifying-spacecraft-in-posts]

Roscosmos Space Shuttle 1K 1.01 Buran (Snowstorm)

Antonov An-225 Mriya (Dream)

[torchwood-99]

Eowyn and the rehabilitation of Minas Morgul into Minas Ithil has completely taken over my brain. I'm obsessing over this. No one else seems to care. I'm lost and alone in this spiral of hype.

Eowyn and her husband were tasked with destroying and rebuilding the very city that had been ruled by the Witch King of Angmar who Eowyn slew in battle how do you expect me to be normal about this?!?!!

[kneeanderthal]

Jonathan and Nancy are so Sebastian and Mia from LaLa Land

[unproduciblesmackdown]

also to go "wow this is just like in pentiment" about absolutely anything and/or "wow this is just like iphigenia crash land falls on the neon shell that was once her heart (a rave fable)" about absolutely anything further:

the Narratives within crash land falls where like, in the end iphigenia being Given the story of both "this is going to happen anyways" and "so why don't you see it as a noble sacrifice to accept." the situation happening to Create a story that she was killed, so her father must be tragic, and sympathetic. that iphigenia does take on that Narrative of taking on the Noble Willing Sacrifice, and it kills her, but she also would have been killed anyways, as everyone also knows. that we even get a bit of pentimentesque [other characters observe & assess things] like, the fresa girls as a chorus, and one at the end like yeah She Was No Saint, i saw everything, but being cut off by The News that's like yeah looks like iphigenia was killed, that seguing into her father saying yeah she was killed, god's will was done, She's A Saint now. seguing to the emcee who introduced the play, but that superceded by achilles, and that superceded with iphigenia's extasis monologue as the end of the play. that whether iphigenia's a saint or not, she dies. that [the whole play] tells us as much, like, this isn't a What If kind of retelling where she escapes her fate, this is a retelling examining itself like, she Will die because the story's preset, so what to do with this as the story that has to take her there, what to do with this as iphigenia who has to go there

that iphigenia takes on another narrative in addition to the one offered by like, violeta as guide and oracle telling her she has to die (As A Noble Sacrifice), that again (as per iphigenia in aulis being like uh hey daughter. let's go to aulis so you can uh marry achilles (it is to be sacrificed)) achilles is this bait, but it's only in the ending that there's any Story about being with achilles, and when iphigenia goes to the mercenary soldier who she knows will kill her, she's the one telling him what to tell her about where she's going and why, i want you to tell me achilles is waiting for me....and she still dies, because This Is The Story. as also applied to the reality, iphigenia as another dead and missing girl following & preceding many; any disappeared deaths when consumed as disposable & replaceable, not given part of any narrative about it. while also iphigenia only gets a chorus of fresa girls from there being crosses put on the factory wall with their names, with one girl even remarking like hey they spelled my name right for once. but at the same time they're also like, both mere Apparitions but also like standins for people who are simply alive. real [shades]esque kind of, i suppose, but like they're not Sanctified for dying either, they'll comment on iphigenia but not with any like, divine knowledge, just as this out of place rich girl. whether iphigenia's A Saint or Not A Saint, she's still dead either way. she wants to be a fresa girl, they maybe want to be her, but everyone's doomed anyways thanks to way larger forces and the Stories that have been told and will be told again

but there's also the moment right before the final section wherein, before she's having to say what she wants within the bounds of [she has to die], there's achilles asking "you still want me" and iphigenia answering with "i want everything" and her vision for, like, getting to be alive actually, i'm on the gulf where the sea is gray, and no one wants a piece of me....the whole inciting event here where iphigenia wants to evade her fate however she can, exiting the bounds of her life, the physical bounds and the family unit and walking away from the rank of status / class / wealth, trying for [have her body for herself] and what the body wants, the sensuous indulgences of (a rave fable), let's hear some more about the roman state like "we don't like the examination and challenge and upending of class and convention in a bacchanalia, so only do the official versions we permit;" the Threat of people's desires for themselves, when that's going to be counter to those in power who'd want these people to be resources at their disposal; the burden on the disempowered to suffer [the only way out is through] with the Additional pain & loss that has to be taken on in pursuit of their autonomy, while also of course suffering for the autonomy they lack, that restricted and controlled and mitigated versions of what you might want are deigned to be provided or permitted so that you have Something, but that everyone's actual undeniable personhood will always be spilling past those bounds, the potential power of transgressive pleasure when one's wellbeing and autonomous choices are counter to the power structures that have to constantly try to suppress and preclude this. achilles just as bait, doomed to die like iphigenia is also still doomed, sex was never going to save everyone and the [recognizing connection as these two parallel people / We're The Same] with your lover here is not going to save everyone but it still makes more things possible for them both; iphigenia does know what she wants, and gets some of it because she wants it, same with achilles in turn, while it can't save anyone from their fates still. but it can mean something even if it doesn't transcend, like even a fleeting night of insignificant dancing that doesn't change anything can mean something, and we all die, but that doesn't mean it's Nothing to be killed any more than it's Nothing to have your desires or choices one way or another to be wrung out of your life before you are

anyways, the stories. the Looking and Presenting here. achilles and iphigenia first encountering each other as images put together and presented by someone else for their own purposes. the presence of what's seen through film/camera/recording versus in person; the potential power relations and even violence in framing, presenting, and the intended looking and assessing. repeated language about eyes/looks that burn, while also that connection between iphigenia and achilles, and their finding the least room in what they do have of their lives for more of their own wants and selves and something genuine and not predetermined, is also connected to eyes and looking and being seen and light and burning. while they're also connected to the protection and possibility of night and darkness, getting to exist and be Without being lit up or seen; that with the power that's still in play, it's never like, well then you should have nothing / no reason to hide; the penultimate moment in the play with achilles being one that's in person and fades into darkness, rather than coming in from the light of a projection / video onscreen as the introduction....iphigenia needing to be guided through a crossroads to even get to achilles in person; violeta giving the Advice and Story and Tradition to pray to eleggua, as iphigenia does before getting to encounter achilles for real, who also doesn't get to break out of a role or a fate in full in any way, but their tragedies are like, pointing towards [autonomy, imagine it] in both the ways they manage to find a little bit of it for themselves, in no small part for simply recognizing each other as in the same boat here, and in the ways they still don't have it and still can't get it

and anyways it's also inevitably saying like, telling a story?? this Play is a told story!! looking? assessing? interpreting? you're doing that in the course of experiencing it! and it's really so fucking true.

[bohemian-rhapsody-in-blue]

Beboptober Day 6: Collateral Damage

Thanks to @thestarlightsymphony for the prompt list! Something relatively light and fluffy today, since my fics for the last few days have been pretty angsty and serious.

Ed hadn’t meant to hurt Spike’s ship. She’d just been playing, running around in the Bebop’s nice, spacious hangar—partially pretending she was a bird like the fat little ones she’d seen on the streets of Mars, and partially just for the sake of running around, burning off some of her rambunctious energy and high spirits. Ein had been following behind on his stubby corgi legs, barking enthusiastically.

She wasn’t the only one on the Bebop who’d been in good spirits—since they’d caught a relatively substantial bounty a few days before, the whole crew seemed noticeably happier. They laughed a little more, argued a little less, and had, for the time being at least, a good supply of delicious food to eat. Ed loved the feeling when everyone in her little family was happy; she always fed on it, let it fill her up like a bunch of bright, buoyant bubbles.

At one point, she’d had run to the upper platform that surrounded the hangar, giggling all the while—then leapt off. She’d squealed with glee at the soaring feeling in her stomach, like she really was a bird flying among the skyscrapers.

Then the illusion had been shattered when she collided with the wing of Spike’s spaceship, landing hard.

She was able to break her fall easily by tucking and rolling, and she got up relatively unscathed. When she turned around, however, she saw that the Swordfish II was not so lucky. A deep gash marred one of its wings, ruining the paint job, with a dent in the center where she’d landed. Ed went uncharacteristically silent for a second as she inspected the damage.

It wasn’t like the ship was pristine aside from that one gash that marred its perfect surface—it was pretty heavily abused, covered with pockmarks and scratches, and had clearly been the victim of a lot of other injuries before. Ed had often seen Spike complaining as he went to the hangar to fix them or, in the occasional severe case, get the ship serviced by Doohan. This wasn’t as bad as that, she thought. But even so, Spike would definitely notice the next time he went out in the ship that there was damage to the wing that hadn’t been there before.

She hadn’t realized she’d damaged it that badly. She hadn’t meant to land there or hurt it at all. But she had a sinking sense that, once Spike saw the damage to his ship, his good mood wouldn’t last much longer.

“What are we gonna do, Ein?” she asked, hanging her head.

It really had been an accident. Collateral damage, Spike or Jet might call it—Spike with a shrug, Jet with a reproachful glare. Accidental harm done in the pursuit of something else.

But she brightened up as she realized that maybe it would all be okay. Because she could fix it! She could fix the collateral damage she’d done. The ship would be good as new, and Spike would never have to know. He—and everyone else on the ship—would be happy.

~~~~~

The first problem, to Ed, was the paint job. This she could remedy quite easily. She didn’t have paints, but she did have markers and pens, with which she’d drawn pictures on paper, on the Bebop’s walls, and occasionally on the exposed skin of the other crew members when they were asleep, unconscious, drunk, or just couldn’t be bothered to get up. Drawing on a spaceship couldn’t be that different.

She retrieved her pens and returned to the hangar while skillfully managing to evade the glances of the other crew members—or maybe that was just because they were all wrapped up in their own things on different parts of the ship and didn’t spare her a glance. Still, this fit her purposes just fine.

She used a red marker to fill in the ugly gray spots on the metal wing, occasionally hanging upside down to color in the gash from a different angle. She got stray chips and flecks of paint stuck all over her hands as she brushed them off. All the while, she hummed and chanted cheerfully under her breath: “Fixing it, fixing it, good as new…”

When she was done, she stepped back to inspect her work. As did Ein, looking back and forth from her to the wing with skepticism. Okay, so maybe the patch she’d worked on looked a little…scribbly compared to the rest of the ship, and the shade of red didn’t quite match. Still, it looked a million, billion times better than when she’d started. She could fix things! She was helping! She hugged herself and gave a little jump for joy. Spike would be so pleased. Or at least not so angry.

But there was still something wrong—the dent she’d left was still there. And this couldn’t be fixed with markers; Ed wasn’t entirely sure how it could be fixed. She wondered if it would mess up the way the ship flew. She didn’t know a lot about aerodynamics, but she did know that that wouldn’t be good.

Oh, well. Spike had lots of tools that he used to work on the Swordfish II; maybe one of them would work to fix the dent. She wasn’t sure how, but she could just mess around with the tools until she found something that worked! She was certain something would.

Now the only question was where Spike kept his tools. Luckily, Ed was good at investigating, exploring the secret corners and hidey-holes of the Bebop; she was sure she could find the toolbox easily. She hummed softly as she entered the main area of the ship, then began rooting around in closets, storage areas, and random little compartments, Ein following her all the while. She found a lot of interesting things that might be fun to use later—a few plugs and cords that could be useful for Tomato, a tube of lipstick that probably belonged to Faye, some weird small rubber things that looked sort of like balloons in packages—but nothing that seemed like it would help the Swordfish. But she was having a blast looking, happy and secure in the knowledge that she was being helpful.

Finally, in a back closet near Spike’s room, she found it! A toolbox! It looked well-worn from use over the years, dinged and dented, but it was definitely usable. When she opened it up, she was met with the sight of what looked like hundreds of hammers, wrenches, nuts and bolts gleaming up at her. It was like a whole mini-world. She stared at it for a while, mesmerized, picking up some of the objects and inspecting them with fascination.

Unfortunately, she was so caught up in looking that she completely failed to notice Spike coming up behind her.

“What are you doing in there?”

Ed looked up, answered honestly. “Looking for tools.”

“Tools?” Spike frowned and narrowed his eyes. “Why do you need those?”

And here Ed panicked a bit—she couldn’t tell Spike why she needed them, because then she’d have to reveal that she broke his ship, and he wouldn’t be happy anymore. Even if she was fixing it. “Um…”

“Ed,” said Spike, “what are you doing?”

~~~~~

She had an uncharacteristically guilty, evasive look as she led him to the Bebop’s hangar; even her patterns of walking were more subdued. Spike had barely known her to be anything but cheerful, and her expression threw him for a loop. What could the kid possibly have done? Was she planning to crash the ship? Blow it up? Blow up someone else’s ship? Revive the mutant fridge monster and release it again to terrorize everyone on the crew?

But she showed evidence of none of those things. Instead, she stopped next to the left wing of the Swordfish II and gestured to a spot on it, her head hung ashamedly. Ed whined and looked up, his ears back and low on his head.

The spot had been dented pretty badly, and the paint job was scratched up, suggesting a mild to moderate collision—nothing that couldn’t be fixed relatively easily, but still noticeable. It definitely hadn’t been there the last time he’d taken the Swordfish out. The area had been clumsily filled in with a red marker; the area was also noticeable by the little doodles of blue stars and yellow smiley faces that surrounded it.

“Ed hurt Spike-person’s ship while playing,” Ed said, looking up at him from below the lids of her wide, heartbreakingly contrite eyes. “Ed tried to fix it…”

God, she was practically the dictionary definition of “puppy-dog eyes.” Almost even more so than the actual dog who stood beside her.

Wait a second—was he actually taking pity on the kid? He shook his head in disgust. Since when had he gotten soft like this?

“It was an accident,” she said imploringly. “Collateral damage.”

He’d normally be mad—he wanted to be mad—but she really did look sorry, and whatever the hell she’d done to the ship had clearly been an accident; Spike just couldn’t imagine her intentionally sabotaging it. Besides, it wasn’t like he hadn’t damaged the thing himself hundreds of times, in dogfights or during hunts or just out of sheer carelessness. And at least, in her attempts to help, Ed hadn’t made it actively worse. (Spike couldn’t imagine what would have happened if she’d actually gotten hold of the tools and tried to use them on the wing to fix it, without any actual knowledge of mechanics. He tried to shove the mental images out of his mind.)

Anyway, he didn’t have the energy to waste on anger. They had just caught a bounty. They were out of the red for the first time in a long time. He was looking forward to a hot shower and a hot meal tonight—maybe bell peppers with some actual beef. For one fleeting, fragile moment, things were going okay for them all. He didn’t want to ruin that over a little, easily fixable bit of—what had Ed called it?—collateral damage. (Not his usual definition of the term, but he supposed it worked.)

He kneeled down and took the toolbox from her. “Do you want to learn how to actually fix this?”

Ed brightened up immediately, her usual cheer back. “Okay!”

Spike couldn’t help but give a small grin, despite himself, as he got out the tools to buff out the scuff. Ed cheered and chanted happily behind him. He wouldn’t be surprised if she got bored partway through and left him to do the thing himself. And he couldn’t deny it was a pain having to take the time out of his day to fix the ship. Ed really deserved to be chewed out for all she was worth—he couldn’t believe he’d gone soft the way he had.

But now, as Ed rocked back and forth on her heels and stared at him with wide, fascinated eyes, Ein next to her with his head cocked in curiosity—

Well. He’d had worse.