#also if you ask me how the sages can help without the secret stone i never said that. zelda absolutely pulls a heist | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

moonlights-inkwell · 4 years

Text

And Me Wearing Your Clothes

Jaskier x Reader

Word Count: 5,992

Summary: A creature in the woods is killing village girls in the woods, but to keep you safe Jaskier volunteers himself, and one of your dresses as bait instead.

A/N: This one probably needs some level of explanation. So, Joey wears a dress on the cover of The Horror and The Wild, and it has lived rent free in my mind since I first saw it so I had to get around to writing Jaskier in a dress eventually. Also, I know I’ve used Little Miss as a pet name for the reader in fics before, but don’t know if I’ve mentioned that it’s because of the song Little Miss Why So, which the title is also taken from- Just in case anyone was wondering where the fuck I pulled that from.

There’s some mild smutty elements in this too. No explicit smut in this chapter, but this is gonna wind up being a two-parter anyway, so you’ll get the explicit stuff later. It’s worth noting that this is chronologically the first part of my whole series with Jaskier, at least so far- so sorry for any confusion.

When Geralt had informed you that there was a job in a village not far from where you had set up camp, you had been more grateful of it than you would admit out loud. Villages mean inns, taverns and a chance to sleep on something that isn’t dirt, but the way the white-haired man looks at you lets you know this won’t be as easy a job as you could hope for.

“Small village, no inns or taverns, less than a hundred and fifty or so people- less by the day.” He sighs and heaves himself off of Roach to sit on a felled tree by the fire.

“Less by the day?” You raise an eyebrow. Little places such as these tend to have smaller problems, thieving little creatures, the occasional Doppler; but Geralt’s words make it all too obvious to you that the diminishing population isn’t just because people are leaving for somewhere that actually has a place to drink.

“They say there's something in the woods.” He says, as if that’s all the explanation that you require. It takes a second of looking at him pointedly for him to realise you need more information than just that. “Sounded like an Aswang from what they said. Been snatching up local girls, sucking them dry and leaving the bodies to be found come morning.”

Talking to The White Wolf is a Sisyphean struggle; so often it's like drawing blood from a stone, but on the days he decides to speak you can barely understand what he's saying. Not for the first time, you consider simply pretending to know what he means, to act sage and wise, but think better of it all too quickly.

“The bloody hell is an Aswang?” A fair question in your eyes, but the man sighs. You think, on occasion, Geralt forgets that just a few years ago you were just a barmaid with a love of brawling, not some monster hunter with dreams of Glory. Not that there’s much glory in your hunts, just bruises and wounds, limps that last too long and perpetually sore back, even if the occasional song comes from it.

“A type of vampire.” He clarifies. “Dangerous. Normally have a taste for pregnant women and baby blood, seems this one has a taste for any woman it can get its hands on.” That makes your blood run cold. Travelling with the Witcher and his Bard has been the first time in your life where you’ve been free from the limitations of your sex, but the way those amber eyes are watching you now has you suddenly all too aware of yourself.

“A taste for women? Why, Geralt, that’s a very tasteful way of describing yourself in a brothel.” A voice pipes up from behind you, causing you to jump. Jaskier. You thought him still asleep, he'd slept poorly the night before, but if the tiredness lacing his voice is any indication, he's only recently been roused.

“Not now, Bard.” Geralt growls out, but the bard just chuckles and gets to his feet, leaves crunching underfoot as he walks up behind you and settles at your side, a hand pressed to your lower back. Warm, especially through the thin material of your blouse.

“Oh, Geralt, a smile won’t kill you.” He trills and in spite of how serious you know the situation to be, your lips turn up in a far too easy smile. It does just as quickly though, when you realise that Geralt is still looking at you.

“...You want me as bait.” It comes out less as a question and more as a statement as your own eyes meet amber. Geralt doesn’t say a word and you look down. It’s not meant as an insult, and you know that, but it stings none the less; hurts to be asked to be less useful on account of having a cunt. He's asking you to make yourself weak, it’s a request that should be seen as an honour, a few minutes of acting like something you aren't to spare the lives of those girls in the village, but instead it leaves a sour taste in your mouth- like talking a gulp of milk only to discover it's curdled on your tongue.

The hand at the base of your spine rises quickly and rests on the curve of your back as Jaskier seems to realise what you just said.

“Bait?” He sounds as incredulous as you feel. “For what?”

“Vampire.” Geralt says crudely, “It's it targeting women.”

“And you want to send Little Miss in there as bait?” Jaskier snaps back at him, fingers curling into the fabric of your shirt as if you'll be plucked away without a second’s notice. This, this concern is all too welcome, and you glance at Jaskier from the corner of your eye. His clothes are still crumpled from sleep, but he's pushing himself up to his full height as if he expects that to intimidate a Witcher. It’s a foolish endeavour, but gods how you appreciate it.

“She can handle it,” is all the response that is given, which only sends the man beside you into further ramblings.

“She can handle it? She could fucking die, Geralt!” His voice raises, and you're quite sure he’s forcibly making his voice lower to try and sound less emotional about this. “You want to send her in, I’m betting almost completely unharmed, to act as a lure for a blood sucking creature of the night!”

You should feel insulted, to be talked about as if you aren’t there, but now you’re far too focused on the hand resting on you to focus on much else. Early spring's chill is still in the air, making the bard seem warmer than be likely is; and which is the cause of the goosepimpling of your skin is a mystery. Since the bard and yourself started your... entanglement, even the lightest most mundane touch has seemed like lightning crackling through your body. Entanglement is one way of describing it. Really, all that has happened has been kissing- the sort that start as barely more than a brush of lips and don't stop until it turns to heavy breathing and you removing yourself from the situation before you can do something you may regret.

He's always been a mother hen, flapping about to stitch whatever wounds he can and forcing you to seek out healers when he feels it more extreme than a simple slice, but you've no doubt that this concern is coming from a more selfish place than simply wanting you safe. The grip of your shirt is all the confirmation you need.

“It only attacks women, Jaskier.” Geralt growls out slowly, as if teaching an especially slow child. “And unless you’ve a secret to share, Little Miss is the only woman we have.” The pet name comes out in a patronisingly saccharine tone that makes you turn your eyes to the ground.

“I would sooner go out there in a dress myself than let you put her in harm's way for no good reason!” Jaskier shouts back at him, sending your eyes up to meet the Witcher's, when you catch sight of something rare. A smile.

This is a bad idea.

Awful idea. Terrible. Quite possibly the worst idea that the three of you could have come up with, and the fact that Geralt is allowing it to go forward is a mystery.

Well. Not a mystery. Geralt, for all his attempts at stoicism and claims of emotionlessness, has a sick sense of humour: and a chance to humiliate the Bard who interrupts his silence with every passing second must have been more tempting to him than you ever could have anticipated. You, on the other hand, were less keen. Especially when informed by Geralt that Jaskier would need to borrow your only dress for this humiliation tactic. It had taken an hour and a half for it to be taken from you, and it was only really able to be taken because Jaskier had pulled you into a kiss unexpectedly, causing you to drop the dress to wind your arms about his neck. A genius manipulation, really. Should have seen it coming.

It'll never succeed though

Jaskier is perhaps more attuned to his feminine side than many men; His love of scented bathing oils and ointments for his hands, fine clothes and penchant for the dramatics spring to mind, but there's no way that he could be mistaken for a woman unless this Aswang has incredibly poor eyesight. Sweet smells and minor theatrics do not a woman make, even in a borrowed dress. You sit by the fire pit, poking, poking, poking at the burning logs with a long enough stick that you don’t risk your hands with each jab.

Geralt won’t even let you help him set up the trap, and all at once you’re reminded of your girlhood; how the boys in your little home town had allowed you to play knights and dragons with them, only to have you act as Princess. You had always hated it, sat stock still and aloft chairs stacked like a tower for hours while the boys would tumble around fighting each other, roaring and crawling, stabbing and calling in their presence until it was finally time to rescue you- always long after you had grown resentful of your place waiting. You wanted to nothing more than to pick up one of those wooden swords and take part properly, but every time you had asked you had been told that there are no female knights, only princesses. You would always run home to your mother to complain only to be tapped lightly on the nose and told what an honour it is to be picked as a Princess, and given a bowl of peas to de-shell for supper. It didn’t feel like an honour then to sit around feeling useless, and it doesn’t feel any better now. The only respite that comes is from the jabbing and stabbing of the logs.

“I think they’re dead, Little Miss.” Jaskier speaks in your ear, sending you to the ground in shock. The self-pitying had ensured that you hadn’t heard him coming, and he laughs. Chuckles that drip honey have you look up at the bard, ready to curse him for frightening you, but the words wither away on your tongue. Your lip trembles and you drink him in.

With you on the ground, he looks so much bigger than he already is but that isn’t what has you tongue tied, no, not at all; it’s the dress. It’s white, and you always thought it made you look sickly, but on him it’s almost otherworldly, like something you might see on a god, flowing in a wind you hadn't felt before he reappeared. It’s beautiful. He's beautiful. The fabric clings to his pectorals and tapers in at his waist and you realise something that has never struck you before: Jaskier is muscular. Not to the extent of Geralt, but muscular none the less, the muscles of his arms thickening as he crosses his arms across his chest, which only accentuated the sculpture of his pectorals and the dark thatch of hair visible from the plunging neckline of the gown. Tanned skin all but glows in the light of the flames, given richer colour by the stark and almost holy white gown, giving him the illusion of something more than just your bard; some manifestation of Apollo, youthful and beautiful, still grinning that boyish grin, looking for all the world both like he has spent his whole life lounging about and spent it in fields to develop those muscles. Logically, you know he must be muscular, spends his days walking across the continent, carrying bags and bedrolls and whatever can’t, or won’t, be carried by Roach but it catches you off guard. You've always considered him a dainty flower of a man, always singing, always strumming, but now you're confronted with the reality of the situation, Jaskier is all sinewy muscle and dark hair and truly, you’ve no idea how patterned doublets and a lute have kept this reality a mystery to you. He’s beautiful, always beautiful, but this is something else entirely. Beauty implies something entirely understandable. This is otherworldly, incomprehensible in how it makes both so much and so little sense all at once. Your throat is dry and you take a deep gulp of air and struggle to find the words to say and settle on a soft little,

“Oh.”

“Oh?” He smirks, eyebrow raising as he offers out a hand to you. “Does it not look nice? Do I not look like a delicate lady in need of protection?” He teases, skin around his eyes crinkling with his grin.

“You look better in it than I do.” Your voice comes out weak, and he smiles and tugs you to your feet once you take his hand. “Though you are perhaps the hairiest delicate maiden around here.”

“Don’t do yourself a disservice, Dear Heart.” He says tenderly and cups your cheek, leaning down to press a kiss to the corner of your mouth. He calls that space Your Kiss, as if a kiss is a part of your body rather than something people give each other. “You look beautiful in everything and anything- and nothing.” You raise an eyebrow at that, smirking slightly at the comment. “Not that I know what you look like naked! Not that I haven’t thought about you like that, unless that makes you uncomfortable-" He rambles, cheeks flushed a pretty sort of pink, so you lean in and peck his lips.

“It looks much better on you, Dandelion.” You say decidedly, settling on the balls of your feet. “Though I rather think it isn’t complete.”

“Is that so?” Jaskier asks and watches you as you scramble through your bag and pull free two small pencils before settling yourself on the ground and tapping on the log. It takes a second, but he does sit, eyeing the pencils like they might be weapons. “Are you going to stab those into my feet, so I walk in a womanlier way?”

“...Is womanlier even a word, Bard?” You tease, trying desperately to avoid the hand attempting to swat at your head for questioning his obviously superior understanding of language. “And no. Not at all, they’re cosmetics.”

“Cosmetics?” He repeats and watches you as you grab one of the pencils and a dagger, carving at the wood until it is sharp enough for you.

“You do understand women put products on their faces to look prettier, don’t you?”

“You don’t,” He snaps back at you, indignant that you would even question his understanding of the fairer sex. “You’re all bare and natural, and look all the prettier for it, like a rose.” A hand moves forward and cups your cheek, you can feel every callous and scar that riddles his skin. He’s trying to avoid you putting the makeup on him, but just for now, you allow yourself the indulgence. It’s only dusk. Geralt said that the plan won’t need to be enacted until close to midnight and he has yet to even return from his setting of the trap; a little time to take pleasure from something as simple as the man who kisses you having a hand on your cheek. “Beautiful, fresh like a daisy and lovelier than the month of May...” He continues, hand shifting a little forward so that his fingers bury themselves in your hair, causing you to lean towards him, head shifting into the touch- reminding you all too much of the little cat who used to come begging for scraps when your mother and you would eat outside in the warmer months. It’s a strange thing to catch your attention so, but now that the thought has entered your mind, you cannot help but wonder if your mother has been feeding the tiny little beast in your absence-

“Little One?” Jaskier says gently, snapping you free of your thoughts, you’ve no idea how long you’ve been thinking, but it was clearly long enough that the man before you has noticed it.

“...Yes?”

“I asked if I could kiss you.” Can I kiss you? Although you’ve never been someone with much interest in the romantics, you’ve never so much as kissed a man before you met Jaskier, you’re quite sure that men don’t normally ask if they can kiss you. Most that you’ve seen interacting with women simply crash their mouths on their partner’s, breeching their mouths with their tongues like they’re stabbing a creature that means them harm. But Jaskier asks. He means to ensure that you are always completely comfortable with his touching you, to make sure you know that if you have no interest in this contact that it will stop. He won’t push. It’s enough to make your lips turn up in a tiny little smile and you nod, leaning towards him and resting hands on his knees, lips puckered tight and eyes falling shut, and he chuckles. “Melitele, Dear Heart, relax your lips, you aren’t trying to pierce my lips with yours.” He lets his thumb glide across your lower lip, causing you, quite instinctively to relax your lips. “There we are.” A rush of pleasure overtakes you, making you shiver and heading straight to your core. Simple praise is all it takes from him to make you unsure of yourself, and want to do anything to please him, so when he pulls you up gently and settles you on his knees, you do so without complaint, and as if as a means of rewarding you, kisses you softly.

In the months since the two of you have begun this not-quite courtship you’ve grown more accustomed to kissing him than you ever would have anticipated. It happens so often that it’s almost strange to you. He kisses you as a means of waking you, kisses the back of your hand to reassure you, kisses the back of your neck when he passes you, hell; you’re more than a little sure he kisses you sometimes just to annoy Geralt. It feels so natural to you now, to have his mouth on yours, moving languidly like the rest of the world does not exist. He kisses like he’s afraid he might hurt you, all gentle touches and reassuring rubs of thumb against flesh. He knows that you’ve never so much as kissed a man before him and seems to take some pleasure in that- not in the kind of way that the boys at home seemed to when talking about deflowering some virginal girl, but in a way that he seems to enjoy teaching you something about intimacy, or at least this version of it. He acts for all the world like some sort of teacher, gently reassuring you when you go wrong and guiding you back on track, and you preen under the attention. He never pushes, never asks you to do anything you don’t want to do, and it’s far more appreciated than you will ever say, even if in the last few weeks you have found yourself wanting... more.

His lips are wind-chapped but somehow soft, and press into yours so softly, hand curved around your cheek and guiding you to tilt your head slightly, so you follow his lead, reciprocating the kiss as sweetly as you can, winding fingers around his wrist to hold it in place. The kiss is chaste, with no sign of moving beyond just the plush push of lips on lips but still, this position makes it feel more intimate than it has any right to; sat on his legs, your own parted and on either side, and the dress makes it more intimate still. In his doublet and trousers, the only warmth you feel from him while kissing comes from his hands and face, but now with so much skin exposed it’s seemingly coming from all around you, seeping through the fabric beneath you, from the arms extended in front of you, from a heart beating so close but so out of reach. The fire roaring just behind you is hardly helping the situation. Jaskier hums softly against your lips, little more than a vibration, but it makes you smile. Even when kissing he makes noise; he cannot bare to be silent, relish in the sounds of nature, no, he simply must make noise. It’s lovely really, such consistency is hard to find, especially on the road, but Jaskier is consistent. It takes a little more bravery than it should to swipe the tip of your tongue across the seam of his lips and the movement seems to shock the bard, who ceases his kissing for just a second before opening his mouth slightly and dragging his tongue across your own. Normally you would wait for him to deepen a kiss but with him looking the way he does, and the overwhelming need developing between your legs, you cannot continue this lazy sort of kiss as you normally might. No. Now, you need something more than this innocence. So, you shuffle closer to him, legs tightening around his and both hands moving to wind around his neck, fingers curling into the soft hair at the nape of his neck. Your own bravery seems to have inspired some in Jaskier too, so he wraps his arms about your waist and pulls you even closer still, tongue lathering over your own before his teeth drag across it and then bites gently. It makes you shiver, letting out a quiet moan which brings a moan out of him too. Not too long after that he pulls back and heaves a deep breath while you pant, head tilting back.

“That was new.” He laughs, fingers tracing circles into your back.

“What can I say? That dress really does look good on you.” You respond with a chuckle before leaning forward again, this time to mouth at his throat. You feel Jaskier gasp before you hear it, the skin of his neck going taut beneath your lips.

“Dear Heart,” He starts, and the pet name does nothing but make your heart race, “If you don’t stop soon, we’re going to have a... well, an issue.” He stammers out, and you pull back immediately, eyes wide with worry. Had you been too intense in taking your own pleasure from this situation that you had missed some clear hint of his that he was uninterested in going further? He goes to such painstaking lengths to ensure your comfort and you feel like you’ve encroached on his.

“An issue?” The words come out shaky, and you try to shift yourself back from him, but he holds you still. “I’m sorry! I wasn’t trying to upset you-”

“You haven’t. Gods, Dear Heart, I think you could stab me, and I would still thank you.” He says, still rubbing those reassuring circles into your back. “You’re just. You’re...” Jaskier stops and seems to deliberate his next few words, “You’re exciting me, that’s all.” That makes you blink. He doesn’t look all that excited to you, if anything he just seems to be riding the same high he always is after kissing turns a little more passionate, pupils blown wide and lips pink and plush from kissing, but he doesn’t look excited. Your confusion must be visible because Jaskier sighs, muttering something under his breath before his hand creeps higher toward your shoulder blades. “You’re making me hard.” He says, the words said carefully as if afraid he might upset you.

“Har- Oh. Oh!” Realisation hits you all at once and your eyes dart down to his lap, suddenly seeing the tent in the dress that certainly hadn’t been there when you first settled on him. It was mere centimetres away from your core when you were kissing him, and you hadn’t even noticed. It’s the first time you think you’ve ever seen someone be hard, even if it is completely covered up, and the knowledge that it was you who has done this to him fills you with pride. You’ve never really considered yourself the kind of person to have that kind of power over a person, you only ever really feel powerful in a fight, but the feeling overtaking you now feels like power. With nothing more than a mouth and tongue, you’ve affected him in this way. "I wouldn’t call that an issue.”

He blinks at you, lips slightly parted and he looks you up and down. For the first time, you wonder if he’s thinking of other trysts, where it was him in shirt and trousers on top of some woman in a dress who is falling apart at next to nothing. It should leave a sour taste in your mouth, but the feeling of power is more overwhelming than any insecurity.

“I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable, Little Miss.”

“I’m not uncomfortable.”

“You’ve never seemed interested in... progressing.” He’s being careful not to say anything he thinks might offend you. Jaskier is never one to mince words, but your virginity seems to have him somewhat uncomfortable when it comes to what language to approach sex with. You aren’t a child, and used to work in a tavern, you’ve heard all too many terms for sex; shagging, fucking, making the beast with two backs, a labour for Venus, but Jaskier calls it Progressing. Like it’s travelling, moving from one destination to another, from kissing to something else entirely. It’s quaint coming from a man who you’ve heard sing songs about receiving hand-jobs. “I don’t want to push you into anything you might not be comfortable doing, Little Miss, I don’t want you to feel pressured by me or this or anything-”

“I’m interested in progressing.” You cut him off, a little too eagerly. “Truly, I am. I just. Haven’t done anything like this before. So, I wasn’t sure how to go about it, you know. I couldn’t just... I don’t know. Ask you to take my virginity.” Jaskier chokes a little at the words.

“I wouldn’t be taking anything.”

“But I do want you to.”

“I don’t mean in terms of... not wanting to. I do. Melitele’s tits, I’d crawl over shards of glass just to put my mouth on you, Darling. I just mean, I wouldn’t be taking anything from you. There’s nothing to take. You would just be someone who has been intimate instead of someone who hasn’t. You don’t lose anything.”

Your heart, something in the back of your mind says coyly, you’ll lose your heart to him if you allow yourself to be breeched by him, he’ll take it unknowingly and not be able to give it back to you. Each step, each breath, each blink and each song, he will have your heart entirely and there will be nothing you can do to have it returned. He’s had so many lovers before, it’s unlikely he’ll give his heart to you in return for you giving him your own- and it won’t be because he’s cruel or unfeeling, it will be because Bards give their heart to anyone who hears their song, and there isn’t enough of it left for you. He’s entirely enough for you, but you will never be entirely enough for him.

“If I lose nothing by it then why are we discussing it instead of... progressing?” You have to bite down on your tongue to keep from saying shagging. Fucking. Anything but this dance around what it is that the two of you clearly want.

“Because I want you to understand.” He says, and it sounds like a plea. “I want you to know that you don’t lose a thing, and I want you to be doing this because you want to do it, not because you feel like you ought because I’m hard or because you feel you owe it to me. I want you to do this because you want this, and because you want me.”

Because you want me. It makes you falter for a second. Of course, you want him, you wouldn’t kiss him if you didn’t. Your heart aches at the thought of someone kissing or sleeping with him and not wanting him, using him and discarding him afterwards.

“Of course, I want you, Jask.” Your voice is little more than a whisper.

“I mean it, Little Miss. If I do this, I won’t want for another person in my life, I won’t be able to not think of you, and if you’re doing this out of obligation and not because you want me, it will kill me.” He continues, the hand on your back moving up still until it’s buried entirely in your hair, twisting and feeling about your scalp like the answer to every question he will ever ask is written in your hair. “If this is only for once, I cannot do it. It would kill me to know how it feels to be inside you, to feel at one with you, and know you don’t ever intend to do it again. I care far too much for you to do a thing like that.”

“Jaskier...”

“I admit, I have a... reputation for leaving a string of not-quite-crying lovers behind me, but I cannot add you to that list. I won’t. And I refuse to spend the rest of our days together writing melancholic songs about how I want you, desire you, crave you, only to know you only have eyes for others, I would sooner-”

You can see by the impassioned look in his eyes that he has so much more to say, but can’t bear to hear anymore, for fear of fooling yourself that the beautiful man in front of you loves you. So instead, you reach down and wind your fingers around his member and relish in how his words choke to a halt and he lets out a sweet sigh.

“I don’t want to sleep with you once either, and your former lovers and I have nothing in common. For one, I’m not married, and two, I want you Jaskier. Not reprieve from some small pricked husband. I want to have sex with you because I want you, I care about you.” I love you; your mind screams the words you don’t dare say. It’s enough though. Enough for Jaskier to smile and move both hands around your waist once more and gently lay you on the floor beside the fire, hair fanning out like a halo among leaves and grass.

“I. I had intended this to have a more romantic location.” He admits to you as he parts your legs and settles on his knees in the space he has made. “Some inn, where I could strew some petals about, draw you a bath, sing a song.”

“I don’t need petals or poetry or baths.” You smile at him, but he shakes his head with an affectionate smile,

“It’s not about need, Darling, it’s about what you deserve. And you deserve to be treated like a princess.”

“In that dress I rather think you’re more the princess out of the two of us.” Out of the dress too. You’re rougher than any woman should be, and if your mother could see you now, you’d be pulled by your ear off to be told how good and proper ladies dress and behave- you find yourself covered in monster gore more often than you would like to, and have taken to wearing darker colours so that the dirt on them doesn’t show quite as much, but Jaskier with his sweet voice and fineries? He’s a crown away from being a prince, the sort who appear in every story you were told as a child who could fix any maiden’s problems with a kiss that would end in happily ever after.

A cough draws the both of you from each other and you turn your head to see Geralt and realise the light purple sky of dusk has been replaced with the near pitch of somewhere closer to when your plan needs to take place. He looks as uncomfortable at finding you as you feel at being caught. You feel like a child whose mother has caught you doing something they expressly told you not to do, and the fear of whatever comment he shall make keeps you from laughing at the mental image of Geralt dressed as some mother, in a drab old dress and dirtied up apron, flour dusted about his face, still world weary and with his swords strapped to his back.

“...Aswang will be here soon.” The Witcher says, and you’re grateful he’s decided not to address what he had walked in on. “We need our... beautiful woman to be wandering in the woods.” He gestures with a movement of his head to Jaskier to come towards you, and the bard does, albeit slowly, remove himself from the spot between your thighs. Geralt’s stoic face might be enough to fool most people who don’t know him, but you can see the mirth in his eyes. He’s glad he called Jaskier’s bluff on the dress, this story will never make its way into a song for the sake of Jaskier’s ego but will be brought out by Geralt at any and every ball that he is dragged to from now on. His fictional tale of the Bard being castrated by an unfortunate kick to the bollocks by an Ox as a child will now be replaced with an honest account of the esteemed bard Jaskier having volunteered himself- seemingly at random- to serve as bait in a dress for a very dangerous beast. You think he’s never looked more beautiful than he does in the dress, but Geralt very clearly sees it as funny. Men are strange. It’s just a dress, and a dress that makes him look far more attractive than any fine suit or set of armour ever could, so what is so funny about it. The Witcher says your name and you look up at him and nod. “Stay here.”

“But-”

“Hopefully the ‘fair maiden’ is enough to get the Aswang. If it sees an actual woman, it’ll attack it and not try to attack him. I’d prefer not to have to carry your corpse back to your village. It would be a long journey.” He’s being facetious, at least you hope, but you nod anyway. “We shouldn’t be too long.”

“Stay here, it’ll all be over soon.” Jaskier tells you, smiling that disarming smile he uses to try and charm more coin from locals.

“But the memory of you in a dress will live on.” Geralt says, unable to keep the smirk from his face, which makes Jaskier’s face morph between anger and confusion quickly before settling on incredulousness.

“No one is to hear of this Geralt. Geralt! Do you hear me? No. One. Geralt!” His protests increase as the White Wolf begins to trek back into the thicket of trees, Jaskier following behind him and shouting all the while.

“Jaskier!” You call to him, and the complaints die as he turns to face you. “Please, please be careful.”

“I promise, Dear Heart. I will be fine.”

Somehow, you don’t quite believe him as he disappears into the trees to join Geralt at his trap, leaving you alone with only the fire and the moon for company. Eyes turn up towards the full, round beacon of light, the only break in the darkness overhead with no stars to join her. You aren’t religious, and don’t believe in worship or prayer but now, tonight, you close your eyes and breathe deeply. You trust in the moon more than you trust Geralt and Jaskier not to take any unnecessary risks,

“Please keep him safe for me. Please.”

#jaskier imagine #jaskier x reader #jaskier x you #jaskier smut #the witcher imagine

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certain-death-awaits · 4 years

Text

Theories & Predictions for Champion of the Titan Games

If you need a refresher on the full lore of the Fair Folk, do read my post about it. They’ll be quite relevant to these theories. Now, let’s read the theories! If you want anything explained, don’t hesitate to make a comment, or send an ask on anon if you’re shy. It’s weird to write everything down after just having it in my head for so long, so this might be long-winded and incoherent.

Ezabar, the Somber Knight, and Selona - I theorise that the Somber Knight is a lich. The Somber Knight has an especially dark reputation according to Henrick, and resides in catacombs (built by wizards even though Dragon Slayers generally have a distaste for wizards).

The air in his lair is markedly lifeless, though pure.

He is thought to be undead- something more “powerful and evolved” than a zombie or wraith- by Tanu and the public of Terrabelle. When he loses his leg and forearm, he isn’t in danger of dying, but makes his way back to his lair to regenerate. In popular culture, a lich keeps its soul in a reliquary. If destroyed, the lich would re-form at the location of its reliquary.

Like the Somber Knight, liches traditionally spend their time hidden from the world in their lair.

In Fablehaven, liches appear desiccated (like the ones on the Path of Dreams) or completely skeletal (like Calumbra or Ezabar) .Their touch also bruises- both would be good reasons for the Somber Knight to be completely encased in armour.

In Fablehaven, a lich is a type of undead (the lich Belrab used to be a wizard), who deliberately retains some of it’s former human will. Some are able to control lesser undead. I think that the Somber Knight, or Ryland as is his true name, was one of the Fair Folk, and think the Fair Folk had a role in placing him. I don’t think it’s really in question for him to have been a wizard- all Dragon Slayers hate dragons, and tend to distrust wizards. He also has a name that sounds like a Fair Folk name (Like Lockland), and resides under Terrabelle; he would have even been placed there at the same time the territory was established. Eve found his name from “the old stories”, and Lord Dalgorel asked him to help Eve even though only the caretakers of Wyrmroost are supposed to command him. Seth asks Ezabar if he’s a lich, and Ezabar concedes that “that is one label”. Ezabar asks Seth to find a piece of information for him in return for allowing him access to the prison. To help provide context, he explains that he used to live in Selona. It’s possible he lived there as a wizard, but I think that he lived there as one of the Fair Folk, because he asks Seth what became of a boy called Toleron, son of the Duke of Hester, whose mother was called Ingrid. It seems like a matter of personal importance to him. I think that becoming a lich or whatever higher form of undead might be more common among Fair Folk, or at least it doesn’t have the same taboo it seems to have for wizards. Oh, and I asked Brandon Mull if Fair Folk could become undead, and he said that they wouldn’t be normal undead, but could be liches or revenants. Those would be the forms of undead with their own will.

Wizard-Fair Folk Cooperation- Wyrmroost was established by Archadius, the first wizard. Wyrmroost has had several caretakers since its establishment, the fourth of which was Agad. Though the Fair Folk are neutral, there is a settlement of Fair Folk at every dragon preserve, with the three largest settlements being at the three with a Dragon Temple, and this is not common knowledge- perhaps deliberately so. These three preserves are also where the Sage’s Gauntlets, shield-that-repels-dragons, and harp-that-soothes-dragons are guarded by the dragons. The very talismans that helped defeat the dragons long ago. I suspect the Fair Folk are stationed in these locations to keep an eye on the dragons, and that they-at least formerly- are here to prevent the dragons from gaining power over the other races. Further proof that they have diplomatic priority- by “ancient treaty”, the defences of Blackwell Keep do not repel the coach of Stormguard Castle.

I also want to talk about the Sovereign Skull. If you don’t remember it, you can catch up on it here. I think that Selona was created by wizards primarily to house the Sovereign Skull, or at least the sphere it’s located in. I would equate it with Zzyzx, which had a physical location (Shoreless Isle) but was in reality its own realm. Selona would have a physical location in Europe (as Ezabar alluded to) but be its own country. It’s very secret- Eve declines to tell Kendra and Seth about it, Ezabar says it’s impossible to access, and Agad only reluctantly shares information about the location of the skull with Kendra. It makes sense- the Fair Folk enforce neutrality at Selona, and Lord Dalgorel was certain the dragons would need to “crush Selona”. “If our mother country falls, it could create a permanent imbalance, and unending age of dragons.” he says. The dragons mean to destroy the Sovereign Skull. I believe they are connected.

Humbuggle and Curses- What happened at Stormguard Castle is widely referred to as a curse by those who do not know what happened, and was created by Humbuggle. Serena, investigating the Nipsie curse, was last seen headed for Titan Valley, which is where Gabrinko said that Humbuggle’s Castle is. After all, it was Humbuggle, colluding with Graulas, who cursed the Nipsies. My theory is that the Nipsies are a cursed form of Fair Folk- that’s why nothing is ever designed with them in mind (think the Path of Dreams). Calvin says that Nipsies “used to be more powerful. And bigger. Maybe even as big as I am now”. But to curse them, he’d need a motive- I think it’s possible he intends to weaken the Fair Folk as a group. Another curse of his might’ve been the phenomenon in which “Almost no babies are being born anymore. Nobody is sure why.” Weakening the Fair Folk would benefit Humbuggle simply because they are a neutralising force, and of course curses are Humbuggle’s hobby.

Calvin and Humbuggle- I think that Calvin is either colluding with, or he is Humbuggle. I have only circumstantial evidence, but here it is. Look how these parallel one another-

“The curse came with a prophecy,” Calvin said.

“Tell me.”

“All nipsies can recite it:The curse arose from the demon’s blight; the lord who slays him will set it right.”

“It rhymes,” Seth observed.

“Most of the good ones do,” Calvin said. “Some strain more than others. But the basics are clear. Whoever kills the horrible demon will help lift the curse.”

And then these two scenes from Wrath of the Dragon King

“I suppose,” Humbuggle said. “I could also eat plain oatmeal every day to stay alive. An explanation is more pleasant when it rhymes. And a tad more official.”

“To keep the game fair, I will confess that the Wizenstone is jealously guarded by a powerful demon. Any who seek to claim the stone would have to ward off the demon before long.”

I also think it’s intriguing that right after showing Kendra how he morphed into Augie and Elouise, this exchange takes place:

“You’re sneaky,” Kendra said.

“Young one, you have no idea,” Humbuggle replied.

Bracken misses Calvin when he’s reading minds. They never check with the Nipsy elders that Calvin is legitimate. Camarat does not sense any darkness in him, but he is also unable to tell what Calvin is before he reveals himself. This is of note because in SotDS, Camarat is able to tell that the knapsack contains an “unconventional automaton and a hermit troll”, and is able to detect that Seth is a young shadow charmer. Gabrinko says he’s legitimate, but like @carolinelikesdinner said, he’s an outcast from his society and may be exiled for a good reason. He would also have access to Fablehaven- in the Caretaker’s Guide, it’s mentioned that there is a magical dwarf among the colony at Fablehaven, whose intentions are unknown.

Loose Things That I Want To Point Out

-Serena was “with a woman of human size”. I have no evidence, but intuition tells me she is Isadore, an enchantress mentioned in the Caretaker’s Guide.

-Ezarod was killed by Dromadus in dragon form. Dragons, when they become wizards, change their name. Liches are often former wizards. It’s possible, though unlikely, that Ezabar was in fact Ezarod.

-Celebrant’s wings make an unmistakable whistling sound when he approaches by air. I know Chekhov’s gun when I see it.

-The Roost is Wyrmroost Castle. The caretaker used to split time between it and the Keep. It was important enough to even have a scepter. However, I cannot find any other allusion to it, and we can only assume we will learn more in future books, meaning we will hopefully return to Wyrmroost.

Agad is a Shady Bitch- This isn’t a theory, but I have a couple of things I want to point out. First, don’t forget that Ryland thinks he may be:

“Agad became caretaker long after Wyrmroost was founded,” the Somber Knight said. “He was the fourth caretaker. Wizards love their secrets. It is possible he never knew the medallion derived power from a hidden scepter. If he did know, then you were set up to become caretakers, and to discover this knowledge on your own, so you would be forced to decide how to proceed without external influence, thereby assuming responsibility for all the associated risks and perils.”

Agad constantly warns Seth to stay away from the Blackwell. When he departs for Soaring Cliffs in WotDK, he warns Seth to stay away from the Blackwell. Marat, too, frequently warns Seth to stay away from the Blackwell. Of course, this is for the safety of himself and others- but he’s also one of the only people even capable of releasing the beings of the Blackwell.

Vanessa lists shades and haunts as ethereal restless beings, much like apparitions, phantoms, sky phantoms, specters, and wraiths. Shades and Haunts are said by Amulon to live in the Barrows, Lackluster Woods, and Adjoining Meadows- why weren’t the creatures of the Blackwell given their own domain like this? I have a very good reason- Agad’s grudge against the wizard-turned-lich imprisoned there. According to the Sphinx, Belrab is a powerful lich, and controls the other beings imprisoned there. This is eerily similar to the case of a Morisant; he was another dragon-turned-wizard-turned-lich, imprisoned along with his minions. (It’s never explicitly stated Morisant is a lich- but he matches all the requirements)

#dragonwatch #fablehaven #theory #meta #original

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inventors-fair · 4 years

Text

Recycling day: Commentary on “Unique Artifacts”

This contest went exactly how I was hoping it would go. A variety of artifacts, a whole slew of unique mechanical ideas, experimentation — what more could I ask for? I’m glad that people liked this one. I’ve been stewing with it for a little bit. I think there were a few wording issues that I’ll get around to, but I’m also a stickler for perfection. Y’all should know how pedantic I am at this point. I’m practically a vedalken.

Anyway. Commentary time!

@ajani — Devra Chai

I really like your callback to Indian inspiration and the nature of Kaladesh. Mechanically, this card’s got some chops. I also like the abstract use of energy here as it relates to food. There are a few easily fixable issues. Firstly, there should be a comma after “sacrificed.” Secondly, as this is a Food, the second ability should be “2, T, Sacrifice Devra Chai: You gain 3 life.” The “You” is super important. Lastly, and most pedantically, as great as the flavor text is, “it’s” should be “its” because English is certainly a language. Small issues aside, good idea overall.

@deafeningsandwichpeach — Ancient Stone of Greed

The power level here is really hard to judge. The draw on the first ability seems really strong. Did you base this on Coveted Jewel? Overall, I feel that this card is a fine idea but a little busted with any artifact untapping. Filigree Sages makes this an infinite draw combo, but it’s not broken wide open. Let’s fix the wording. The second ability should be “Spend this mana only to cast a Hydra or Dragon spell.” This should be four lines, with “Skip your draw step” and the death trigger being on separate lines. I’m 80% sure that “Skip your draw step” also should be the first line on the card, and with that, you can probably take off the flavor text.

@demimonde-semigoddess — Gilded Yarn

This is an interesting one. Personally, adding an activated ability onto the equipment itself that’s not an equip cost seems a little hard to grok for the average player. Flavorfully, I understand the first ability, but not the attack clause at all. I’m not connecting it to anything specific in mythological tropes. It’s not a bad card mechanically, but I’m a little lost. Did you shift+enter for the equip cost? It looks really close to the other line.

@dimestoretajic — The Steel Leaf

The one and only! I like the callback. From a cursory look, I don’t think there is an actual “steel leaf” on Dominaria, but the sentiment is appreciated. I’m a little iffy on the fact that it doesn’t exactly do anything if you don’t have the trigger, and it doesn’t really help itself to the trigger, but it’s okay to have cards that you need to build around. The last ability is a little awkward because the way it’s worded now you can return green creatures your opponents control to their owner’s hand and it gets around hexproof, which I’m sure wasn’t intentional. “you control” could fix that easily.

@fractured-infinity — Cold-Iron Skillet

This is a fascinating little equipment. I love the creativity here. Honestly, not a whole lot to say about this one. It’s niche, but flavorful enough. Maybe the second ability should somehow be tied into being equipped to a creature? After all, the skillet’s not gonna do anything by itself, right? Major notes: both “foods” and “faeries” should be capitalized.

@gollumni — Pontiff’s Coinbox

Now this is unique. I can perfectly imagine the art here, which is majorly cool. I’m not sure why you tied the untapping to each opponent’s upkeep rather than their untap step, which is the way things usually go. And based on the amount of massive counters you can gain fairly early on, “twice the number” might be a little too powerful. The last ability should have “YOU gain 3 life” as well. I’d add a “(1)” to it as well, personally. I’m a little iffy on this kind of white acceleration, but there’s only one way to find out, right?

@greensunzenith — Dust Bunny

It’s a super cute idea, for sure. I kinda like the idea that your opponent keeps having to sweep it away, and that it’ll keep coming back. The difficulty in removing it is a bit of a pain, but that’s the nature of the beast, I suppose. I wouldn’t call the design anything mind-blowing, and frankly, as a one-drop it’s a pain in the butt probably more than it should be, but it’s not bad. Might have to cost 2 or 3 mana, and I would add a little flavor if you can come up with something.

@grornt — Smothering Rug

Well, I didn’t expect a rug for this contest, so kudos there. It changes up combat in a really powerful way, and I’m worried about its power level in a limited format. It’s an anti-trampler, anti-first striker, and man, that makes combat complicated. This is a card that would have to see a significant amount of testing, considering that every deck can play it. Doesn’t blow me away, but it’s good enough. Again, might want to consider flavor text with the amount of rules text that you have here.

@hypexion�� — Spy Satellite

It’s unfortunate that we had two spy-oriented cards submitted here. Surveillance is a great concept, and I’m glad you used the name in a flavorful way. I don’t know how powerful the surveil is here considering that it’s harder to remove than other creatures which have repeatable surveil. It’s a good card, certainly. I don’t know if the second ability needs UU instead of 1U, but I guess I can see the reasoning. Flavor text is pretty good. Overall, it’s a fine enough card. Save it for a custom cube.

@i-am-the-one-who-wololoes — Press of Magic Knowledge

Ah, batching. I think that you were ambitious in the way that you designed this card, and I’m not sure the payoff is entirely worth it. Seven different creature types is a lot to ask for, and it implies that all these different types would be in a single set. I think that’s entirely too much to ask for. The card itself isn’t...bad? It’s incredibly powerful. The wording might be a little convoluted. Why does it give the ability to the spells, instead of having it just be a trigger? “Whenever you cast an instant or sorcery spell, you may tap an untapped Spellcaster you control. When you do, copy that spell. You may choose new targets for the copy.” A little easier to grok. Name and flavor text could use a little work, too. Doesn’t excite me.

@illharg-the-rave-boar — Hunted Windmill

I’m still thinking about this card. The fact that is has menace and that it gives your opponent a single creature is kind of an “eff you” but in limited, it’s certainly a pain in the butt. The two toughness really makes it feel fragile, but maybe the eight power makes up for it? I think this card could be fine. I think it could even be good. It’s still asking a LOT of questions that only playtesting and the right environment could ask for.

Also tfw “Dawn Kijote.” Take your kudos and go.

@kavinika — Ace of Spades

This card is... Restrictive. Basically, it says that “for the rest of the game, I decide all coin flips,” and that’s not interactive. It’s not exactly fun. If it was a sacrifice effect with a secret kind of ETB, then I guess it would be okay, but unlike Krark’s Thumb, it’s getting rid of a key part of randomness with no time limit, and that’s not great. I liked the philosophy of your submission, but I don’t feel that this card is adherent to MTG principles.

@koth-of-the-hammerpants — Amphora of Ephara

Kudos for making me look up the word “amphora.” Yet another card I can easily visualize! So, in terms of power level. Man. This card is a pain in the butt. In the right deck, it can grind out aggro decks with even the smallest creatures, and I assume there would be enough artifact/enchantment removal to make it not busted, but holy cow this could be a potential pain. And you know what? That’s not necessarily a bad thing. I would call this card annoying, certainly, but not in a “win the game” way. Two things: One, there should be a comma after the blue mana symbol in the activated ability. Two... “a city?” Too vague. Gotta spice it up with worldbuilding and/or specificity, man.

@machine-elf-paladin — Headmaster’s Lectern

Another great choice for a unique artifact here. Love it. It’s a simple design, but it’s perfectly functional, and sometimes that’s all we can ask for. It’s a great uncommon. Doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but it’s a card that works, and that’s just plain fine. Flavor text 7/10. It’s a little hard to grok exactly what that immortalization looks like and where we are in the timeline. You set up a grand artifact, and then add a funny bit, and the two don’t exactly mesh perfectly. Both parts are fine. Again, good enough to worldbuild.

@mistershinyobject — Peace Table

Let’s get the good out of the way: I like how the middle ability gives a “swords to plowshares” kind of feel. That aspect works. That first ability, though, is missing a major wording. As it reads now, you can tap it and tap any number of creatures with different names — that you don’t control. And you can target those same creatures after. So, basically, for four mana your opponent never gets to attack again. I know that wasn’t your intention at all, but that’s the way the submission reads. Minor note: the flavor text should feel funny, but the art and concept is pretty serious, and it’s a little bit of a tonal clash.

@misterstingyjack — Unwanted Gift

Surprise! It’s horrible. Not the card, though, because I love this card. I can see it going into a set with Morph, and that works perfectly well. It might have to be mythic, because holy shit a reverse Immortal Sun is still awful to deal with. And I take a LOT of issue with that last ability. Just have it punish for every card draw! It’s totally functional without that weird restriction.

@nine-effing-hells — Beldam’s Mortar

This is my favorite artifact in terms of uniqueness. You added mythological aspects that are little-known but easy to grok, it feels magical, it seems cool, and it’s so unusual that you can’t help but to just plain love it. Now, the card. Using Bladed Bracers as a template, there should be one line for the equip buff, and another that says “As long as equipped creature is a Druid, Hag, Shaman or Warlock, it can’t be blocked.” I might take out either Druid or Shaman from that list, personally? Three might be the limit for batching. The flavor text could also talk a little bit more about the importance of the mortal itself as a means of transportation.

@nvijork — Scrying Dish

I have a soft spot for tutors. They are my absolute favorite cards. I love combo, control, unique synergy, all that crazy stuff. Additionally, I love randomness. So, there are two changes I would make to this card, one mechanical and two syntactically. The syntax one is that “3″ should be “three.” That’s just how Magic works. There should also be a comma after “(4).” Mechanically, I would also add that after you shuffle and put the cards on top, you draw a card. It’s the payoff to the scry, it bumps the power level up, and it justifies the cost. Overall, I really liked this card.

@real-aspen-hours — Nutrient slurry

I guess this card would be an uncommon? You gotta add rarity to text submissions. I think that for next week I’ll add an example post. Anyway, besides the name capitalization, I think that this card actually works really well. It feels green, it’s powerful enough, it’s synergistic with the game, and could see some pretty cool +1/+1 counter interaction. Not bad at all. The flavor text might need to be in quotes, because, well, it’s first-person. The card is pretty great, but the submission needs polish.

@reaperfromtheabyss — Resincase Relic

I really would have added imprint here. Although, would that imply that the card never comes back? It’s honestly not the worst price to pay. This is a perfectly functional mana rock, a theoretically budget version of Chrome Mox, and I’m okay with that. It should be “one mana” instead of “a mana,” looking at the Thriving lands and Chrome Mox itself. And two lines of flavor text wouldn’t have gone amiss here.

@scavenger98 — Storm Jar

I really want to like this card. For the first ability, I would absolutely make it a may ability — “you may have target creature gain or lose flying until end of turn.” Gotta simplify it. The second ability needs the “s” in “sacrifice” to be capitalized. This is a fun card mechanically, and very potentially powerful in limited! What’s with the flavor text, though? I don’t get it.

@shandylamb — Cursed Compass

So, major mechanical issue: You, as the player, don’t explore — the equipped creature explores. It would read: Equipped creature has “T, Pay 1 life: Scry 1, then this creature explores.” Easy enough fix, but needs to happen. Additionally, good lord, this should be at least an uncommon. Potential scrying and exploring each turn? Very powerful, moreso than I think you’re giving credit for. A great idea for sure, but NOT common, no sir. I like it, don’t get me wrong. Also, I assume this is from one of the Pirates movies. In the future, please clarify the specific piece of media.

@starch255 — Orb of Petrification

This is a card that I really spent a lot of time thinking about. I still don’t know what to feel about it. It’s evident that you spend a lot of time thinking about this card and putting it together, and I want to give you credit for that first and foremost. The second ability is really weird to me, because it prevents the orb itself from activating its abilities, and it shuts down all artifacts on board? I’m not positive how that works flavorfully. It’s not bad. It’s probably super powerful in commander, not gonna lie. Control magic out the wazoo. I’m still on the fence about this one. Fine in standard, fine in limited, probably part of a frustrating combo in eternal formats. Still gotta congratulate you for the design process.

@teaxch — Semaphore Flag

Another really cool choice for a unique artifact. Functionally fun as a build-around. The card needs some kind of basic flavor text, because man it’s looking blank as heck right now. But older cards do that sometimes. Maybe I’m just a stickler for these sorts of things. Overall: probably fine. Probably not gonna see play except for in that deck made by That Guy that copies a buttload of artifacts.

Thank you all for your submissions! New contest tomorrow. Get the creative juices flowing.

#mtg #magic the gathering #custom magic card #contest #entries #commentary #unique artifact #inventor's fair

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vraelgard · 4 years

Text

A week has passed, with Lilliana’s fears of more frequent attacks becoming a reality. The princess herself was doing all she could, even donning a suit of armor that had not been seen since the days of Queen Blossom. She makes it no secret about what she plans to do, and citizens watch in awe as she strode, sword in hand, towards the Eastern Gate, accompanied by Lady Ebony and Count Ivory.

"Are you sure about this? Your magic can be a little...volatile," Ebony says quietly as they reach the entrance.

"It's what I was born to do. Let us go," Lilliana replies, and the three enter the forest that lies beyond Terra's walls.

Strangely, there are no beasts to attack them as they head to Tenebrae's temple, their travel expedited by what powers Ebony and Ivory had left. The forest of Blackgrove is painfully silent, every twig that snaps below Lilliana's heel sounding as if it's going to draw the attention of a beast to them. Upon reaching the temple, Lilliana pauses a careful distance away, eyeing the beast that remains guarding it.

"I will make quick work of this," she promises.

She steps forward, eliciting a growl from the monstrous creature that guards the temple as it fixes its gaze on her. Still, she does not falter, drawing her sword and pointing it at her enemy. A pause, as Lilliana readies herself, heels digging more firmly into the earth.

"Lux dea, duce me, et disperdam malum…"

With her incantation, Lilliana bounds forward, guided by the divine light and pierces the beast. Her movement is too quick to follow, but the beast unleashes a pained howl before abandoning its post and disappearing into the darkness.

"That was amazing!" Ebony says, rushing over to Lilliana.

Lilliana, however, looks winded, and she sinks to her knees as she attempts to recover herself.

"I didn't banish it fully...my magic is…" she lets out a noise that's half between a sigh and a groan. "The Goddess help me, my family has the worst magic in this country."

"Still, we can now check on Tenebrae, so I believe we can consider this a success," Ivory points out. He helps Lilliana back to her feet, and the three step carefully into the temple.

What greets them is a scenario Lilliana would only have dreamed of in nightmares.

Standing in front of the altar is a stone statue of Tenebrae, his mouth open in a silent cry, his hand outstretched as if trying to get something back. But aside from the temple of the goddess, there are no statues of the sages inside.

"Oh no," whispers Ebony.

Ivory takes a moment longer to examine the scene before turning to the others with a grim expression.

"Tenebrae...has been petrified. And the moonstone is missing."

* * *

Lilliana paces back and forth in front of the petrified Tenebrae. Ebony sits on the steps that lead up to the altar, chin in hands, as she watches Lilliana's movements. Ivory, in the meantime, is continuing to examine the Sage.

"It's peculiar," he says finally. "It's as if someone used a magic that's not...based in the elements. But combined it with Dark magic...turning Tenebrae's power against him."

Lilliana stops pacing, turning to face Ivory. She crosses her arms and fixes him with a glare.

"Alright, then how do we fix this? I cannot allow a permanent night to rule over Vraelgard. We need Tenebrae back," she says.

"Maybe the Ciemnica witches have a solution," Ebony suddenly pipes up. "They're like, the closest magic users to Tenebrae that would know how to deal with something like this, aside from his Mage."

"Speaking of which, where is Moonlight?" Lilliana asks.

Ebony and Ivory exchange a look and a shrug.

"She aided in my first attempt to fight off the beast," Ivory says to Lilliana. "Assuming she's heard that we've gained entry…"

"Let me call her," Ebony offers. She pulls out her phone, quickly selecting a contact and putting it on speaker.

After three rings, the phone picks up.

"Lady Ebony? Has something happened? Is there a new development?"

"Uh, yeah, actually," Ebony says. "We got into the temple. Tenebrae's...been petrified and...the moonstone is gone."

There's a long silence on the other end.

"You defeated the beast?" Moonlight asks, sounding surprised.

"Not exactly, it kind of...ran away after Lilliana smacked it with one of her spells," Ebony says, and Moonlight sighs.

"...I see. I can't help but find it peculiar that it would give up so easily." She's quiet for a moment longer as there is the faint sound of rustling paper, followed by a small "ah." "...Assuming these notes are correct, I do believe I know of a way to revive him. You will need components of darkness, and the mirror of the Ciemnica witches. I doubt it will be easy to obtain, but Princess Cica will likely hear you out. I will send you a list, and I will come to meet you at the temple."

With that, the call ends, and a couple moments later, Ebony receives a text message with the components list. She frowns at it before showing it to Lilliana and Ivory.

"Some of these are really hard to get, and I don't know how we'd manage them on our own," Ebony says. "What d'you think, Lilliana?"

Lilliana skims the list, taking note of the trickier items. It's true, they wouldn't have enough people to collect them, not with the monsters still on the loose. But…there is another solution. She looks at Ivory.

"Do you trust me?" she asks.

"Of course," he replies without a moment's hesitation.

"...Very well. I believe it is time we turn to some outside help."

* * *

The foreigners of Terra will suddenly find themselves receiving a text message from Princess Lilliana. Peculiar it wouldn't come in the form of a video message, but the instructions are clear.

The Sage of Darkness, Tenebrae, is petrified, and his elemental gemstone is missing. We have reason to believe that it was stolen by someone who is behind the beast attacks and disappearances that have plagued our city as of late. As it is imperative that Tenebrae be cured and balance restored to our elements, I humbly ask for your help.

All of you will now find you have access to the forest of Blackgrove. In the forest are a demon clan, led by a demon woman named "Shi," and the Ciemnica Witch Clan ruled by Princess Cica. They can be negotiated with for their respective items. The rest come from creatures in the Blackgrove area. Please use caution when retrieving them. Once you have obtained an item, bring it to Tenebrae's temple, and give it to the Mage of Dark, Moonlight.

Thank you for your assistance,

Princess Lilliana.

* * *

Sitting perched on a tree branch is a young woman with bubblegum pink hair and cat ears, otherwise blending into the darkness with her black clothing. Her partner stands below her, nonchalantly lighting a cigarette before looking in the same direction as her, the shadow beneath his eye not covered by an eyepatch betraying his exhaustion.

"Things are getting interesting, aren't they Will?" the woman asks, swinging her legs back and forth. "Do you think we'll be busy tonight?"

"Depends on how many of them die," her partner replies. "And I told you not to call me that."

The two of them stare in silence at the monster they've been watching as it roams the forest of Blackgrove. It doesn't seem to take note of the two of them, or perhaps it simply doesn't care.

"It's such a pain we have that promise to the princess," the woman says, stretching her arms over her head until her shoulder lets out a satisfying pop.

"A bit..." agrees her partner. "But for now... we'll wait to see if any of them die."

And so they watch. And they wait.

What's happening?

Surprise! This is not fun; why did I say surprise. Tenebrae has been petrified, and the moonstone is missing! The only cure to bring Tenebrae back and end the eternal night is to gather the elemental components for a panacea. And that's where you come in! Lilliana needs your help, so the components and a general idea of how to obtain them have been listed below! Do you want to fight for them? Sneakily grab them? Whatever works for you!

Who is Moonlight?

Moonlight is the Mage of Darkness, the most powerful sorceress of Dark magic in particular, and has dedicated her life to serving Tenebrae! There are Mages for every element, but peculiarly no one seems to know who the Time and Space Mages are… Regardless, Moonlight will be waiting at the temple for you to bring her components!

Will we die?

Some of you may die, but that's definitely a sacrifice I'm willing to make. Even though Lilliana managed to get rid of the beast outside the temple, the attacks are no less frequent upon the city. There are also plenty of beasties roaming the Blackgrove forest, so it's best to be careful.

Can we still write Part 1 starters during Part 2?

Absolutely! Of course, if you just want to remain in the city during Part 2, not much has changed with the situation, sadly.

Will we be allowed to explore Blackgrove further after the event?

Yes, but only if you're of Commoner rank or above! While Blackgrove is temporarily open to those of Novice rank, Travel Visas will only be given at Commoner rank after the event. And without a Travel Visa, you can't leave Terra. Sorry!

Who are the man and woman at the end of the post?

Wouldn't you like to know, weather boy? Joking aside, you will learn their names, who they are, and what they do with the event conclusion. So look forward to that :)

What are the components and where do we find them?

Blood of a Blackgrove demon - easy enough, find a demon who lives in Blackgrove, and kindly ask for a bit of their blood. You can always take it by force, but they'll prooooobably get pissed at you for that. So you better be prepared to fight. How do you find the demons? Well, your best bet is to either call out that you request a meeting with one, or to try to find where they live, somewhere to the northern part of Blackgrove.

Slime of a Darkness Blob - peculiar creatures that make their home in Blackgrove are what appear to truly just be...literal blobs of darkness. While they're entirely friendly (and...harmless), they do occasionally secrete a slime used as a component in many spells and potions. They might not really understand if you ask nicely, but maybe your kind tone will get across?

Feathers of a Raven - peculiarly large ravens make their home in Blackgrove, and these are the ravens Moonlight requires feathers from. The birds themselves do not take kindly to outsiders, but they're known for leaving their feathers behind places.

Fur of the Beast - one of the most difficult items to get, you'll need to fight a monster and survive. More than that, you'll need a patch of its fur. Of course, it's not required to kill it, but it might be easier that way.

Mirror of the Ciemnica witches - the hardest item to get, as it has been passed down from one witch princess to the next for generations. From her grandmother to her mother, and from her mother to her, Princess Cica is unlikely to trust such a precious heirloom to just anyone. This would be best acquired if you have every other component first–and promise to give it back to her.

NOTE: If you wish to attempt to get the mirror of the Ciemnica witches, send a message to the masterlist for further instructions on how to do so! Otherwise, this will be handled at the end of the event!

Part 2 will run from midnight, May 16 to 11:59 p.m. May 30th!

#vraelgard event #midnight part 2 #vraelgard midnight

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peterparkrr · 5 years

Text

The Santa Clauses

AO3 Link! Happy Holidays :)

Tony can glean a lot of information from the way Pepper walks into a room. Actually, he can tell a lot about anyone from the way they enter a room, he’s perceptive like that. But, he has years of studying Pepper under his belt, so she’s definitely his area of expertise.

The way that the door to the garage swings open—fast, yet controlled, she doesn’t let it slam into the wall, but it’s a near thing—means that Tony did something Not Good. Not 'slowly dying of palladium poisoning without telling anyone' bad and definitely not 'wielding all six infinity stones in a field full of super-humans' bad, but still, Not Good. Or it could be that someone close to Tony did something Not Good. Either way, it means that he has a mistake to fix.

“Tony,” she starts.

“Pepper,” he replies. “I want you to remember that the holidays are right around the corner, so in the spirit of forgiveness—”

“Oh, hush. You don’t even know what happened.”

That’s good. That means that it wasn’t Tony who made the fatal error.

Pepper leans against one of the tables, arms crossed. “You know I love Nebula and she is welcome here anytime.”

Tony feels his eyebrows raise automatically. Nebula is the offender. That’s a new one. She and Pepper get along just as well as he had speculated that they would. They have a shared love for the practical that Tony’s not sure that he will ever understand.

“What did Ms. Smurfette do?”

Pepper sighs. “She didn’t do anything on purpose.”

Tony peeks out the window of the garage. From what he can see, the house still seems to be intact.

“She was playing outside with Morgan.”

Tony swivels to look out the window on the other side of the garage. Morgan’s toys are scattered about the yard as usual, no sign of extra destruction. Also, no sign of Morgan. Tony’s heart races for a moment, but Pepper wouldn’t be this calm if something like that had happened.

“Morgan insisted on wearing one of her Christmas sweaters today—the one with the sleigh and the reindeer.”

Tony remembers. He’d thought it was a little early for that sort of thing. It’s only the sixth after all. But, they’re trying to foster Morgan’s self-expression.

“Nebula asked her about it. So she gave her an overview on Christmas.”

“Wasn’t Nebula here a few years ago at Christmas?”

“Yes, when Morgan was still a baby,” Pepper says. “Which is why Nebula knows that Santa and his reindeer are just characters.”

Tony’s starting to understand the problem. “And she told Morgan as much.”

“Yes, she did.”

It’s sad. Tony thought Morgan would have at least a few more magical Christmases, but she was always going to figure it out—sooner rather than later. She’s too smart.

“Well, this was bound to happen at some point.”

“Tony, she’s six.”

“My old man told me to quit believing when—I must have been four! Maybe younger.”

“Because that’s the example we’re trying to follow as parents,” Pepper mutters.

Tony laughs, but quickly sobers when he remembers the aftermath of that particular conversation with his dad. He’d been crushed. Even Jarvis couldn’t coax him out of his room the next day.

“Is she upset?”

“It didn’t seem like it. She just went back to playing.”

Tony breathes out a sigh of relief. “We’re in the clear then. No waterworks. That’s impressive.”

Pepper’s head snaps up. “We are not in the clear! Our daughter doesn’t believe in Santa! Christmas is in less than a month!”

“Honey, we can still have a wonderful Christ—”

“This is how it all starts.” Pepper’s head falls into her hands. “First, we lose Santa. Then, there will be no more family dinners because she’s out with friends. Then she’ll graduate and move out. It’s the beginning of the end.”

It seems that they’re spiraling on this previously calm December afternoon. Tony wants Morgan to stay as she is, all wide-eyed wonder for the world, just as much as Pepper does. He’s just not sure if the Santa-thing means the end of all of that. “Don’t you think—”

Pepper points a finger at him. “Fix this, Tony.”

“Me?”

“Yes, you!”

She’s gone before he can say anything else. It’s Tony’s turn to rest his head in his hands.

Tony raps his knuckles on Morgan’s door. “Maguna, anybody home?”

There’s a quick succession of footsteps from inside, then the rustling of sheets.

“No,” she calls, followed by barely stifled laughter.

“Oh, I see.” Tony pushes the door open and steps inside, surveying the child-shaped lump under the comforter. “Then I guess it’s the perfect time to finally take all of her toys to sell. I’ve been trying for years. Look at me now, FRI, it’s finally happening.”

“Stealing from a six-year-old, boss, very impressive.”

“FRIDAY, stop him,” Morgan whispers. “Override code alpha-romeo--”

It’s only the first two letters of one of his override codes, but it's enough to convince him that Morgan has the whole thing. It’s not the first time she’s gotten one, and it won’t be the last either. She’s going to be a nightmare to keep up with as a teenager, Tony can feel it.

“Woah, there.” Tony places two hands on the comforter and yanks it back with a bit of flourish. “When did you discover that one, little miss?”

She covers her face with her hands and shakes her head.

Tony decides to let it go. He’s here for a more urgent reason—a ‘Pepper will never forgive me if I don’t fix this’ reason.

He sits at the foot of the bed. Morgan clambers the rest of the way out from under the covers to sit next to him.

“Mom said that Nebula played with you today. That was nice of her.”

Morgan nods. “She let me take off part of her hand.”

“She—“ Tony trails off, shaking his head. He’s learned not to question what Morgan and earth’s mightiest heroes get up to. Morgan has all of them wrapped around her tiny finger.

“I put it back just right,” she adds.

“Good job.” Tony brushes her hair back so that it’s not flopping over her right eye. “Just be nice, okay? Nebula might not want to be treated like a project all the time.”

“Okay.”

“Did you and her do anything else today? Or—talk about anything else?”

Morgan’s face scrunches up in thought, before smoothing out again. “I told her about Christmas. She said Santa isn’t real.”

Tony knew that, but it still feels like a punch in the gut to hear the words out of Morgan’s mouth. He steels himself for the rest of the conversation.

“Do you believe that?” He keeps his tone as neutral as possible.

“Why would Nebbie lie?”

He hadn’t been prepared for that one. All he can do is hum in response.

“Did she lie?”

Tony purses his lips and looks to the side. He can’t outright lie to Morgan’s face. It’s too much of a betrayal. He should create some sort of telepathic link so he can tell FRIDAY to sound an alarm just from his thoughts. It would help him get out of so many sticky situations.

“It’s a little complicated, Mo.” Tony cringes even as he says it. It’s not his finest save.

She seems to accept it though, nodding sagely. “I’ll figure it out.”

Tony calls Peter.

“Is this a trick question, Mr. Stark? Because when May asks me that, I’m supposed to say yes, because otherwise she gets all sad and then I get sad, too, because—”

Sometimes talking to Peter is like listening to a hamster run around and around on its squeaky wheel. Then the hamster gets off, does a lap around the cage, and hops back on to run in the other direction. It’s exhausting, and grates on his nerves at times, but somehow it’s mostly just endearing.

“I just want your answer, the truth, please.”

There’s a long silence.

“No. I do not believe in Santa.” He whispers it, like it’s some shameful secret. “Unfortunately.”

“Perfect, I need your help.”

Peter doesn’t cry when Tony explains the situation, but it’s a near thing.

“I’m sorry,” he says, as he tries to collect himself. “I thought that we had some Christmas-themed villain to take down. Not this. She’s so young. How did this happen?”

Tony waves his hand in the air. “Long story, Nebula’s fault.”

“This is a disaster,” Peter mumbles. He seems almost as distraught as the time they thought Morgan had been kidnapped. Tony should lock him and Pepper in a room and let them commiserate until all the fretting is out of their systems. “What’s our plan?”

Peter is the plan. “I thought maybe you could talk about Santa like he’s, you know, real. She worships the ground you walk on.”

“Oh man.” Peter grimaces. “I don’t know. That’s a lot of pressure.”

Tony stares at him in disbelief. “Kid, you fought a titan—on an alien planet.”

“There’s so much more at stake here!”

Tony rolls his eyes and then places his hands on Peter’s shoulders. “You’ve got this. I trust you.”

Something in Peter’s face shifts and hardens. He nods once, sharp and final, before spinning toward the door and walking out of the room.

“Oh, you’re going for it, now, right now?”

Peter doesn’t stop, so Tony follows him into the family room where Morgan is criss-cross on the floor surrounded by magnets. She’s moving one around above them so that they spin to align with the poles.

“Hey, Morgan,” Peter says.

She drops the the magnet in her hand and leaps to her feet, sending a bunch of others scattering around the room. Tony tries to catalogue where they go so he can find them later. At least three slide under the couch. One is between the chair and the end table.

Morgan runs at Peter and he lifts her into the air with an ease that Tony can’t help but envy. He tosses her once, and ducks a little so that she falls longer than she thought she would. She squeals as he catches her again.

“I didn’t know you were coming over!” She beams at Peter. Her grin has gained a few gaps in the last month. Pepper has a point about time flying.

“Well, here I am!” Peter tosses Morgan onto the couch and plops down next to her. Tony wanders into the kitchen so that he can still hear without obviously spying.

“Are you excited for Christmas? Have you written your letter to Santa?”

Tony winces. Peter’s going straight in. Subtlety has never been one of his finer skills.

Morgan doesn’t answer right away and Tony has to resist the strong urge to go back and see what’s happening.

“Yeah,” she says slowly. “Have you?”

“Of course! I’m so excited to see what he’s going to bring me.”

“Oh.” Morgan sounds confused.

“I always hear reindeer’s footsteps on my roof on Christmas Eve! Have you ever heard them?”

“Um, I don’t know, maybe?"

It goes on like that for a while, Peter finding more and more creative ways to keep the conversation centered around Santa. Tony puts a stop to it when Peter claims that he saw Father Christmas himself at a beach one summer.

He makes some excuse about May calling and practically drags Peter out of the room.

“I think I really sold it,” Peter says. “Did you hear me?”

“Oh yeah, aces,” Tony deadpans. “Stick with the superhero gig, alright kid?”

After Peter leaves, Morgan follows Tony into the garage. His plan was to work on some of her presents, but he can’t do that with her watching, so he ends up opening old suit plans instead. He spins them around idly, hoping Morgan will get bored and leave.

“Peter believes in Santa, like a lot,” she finally says.

Tony stops and turns to her. Maybe the plan had worked after all.

“You should tell Nebbie not to tell him. I think it would make him really sad.”

Tony nearly smacks his head into the concrete wall. Pepper’s going to kill him.

Tony takes Morgan to lunch—a nice little diner where they won’t be bothered by any reporters.

They get almost matching cheeseburgers, Morgan’s sans pickles. Tony waits until she’s finished about half of hers before launching into his prepared speech.

“Remember when I told you that Santa was complicated?”

Morgan’s nose wrinkles and she places her burger down. “I’ve been trying to figure it out. It should just be a yes or no answer.”

“A lot of things that seem straight-forward aren’t,” Tony replies. “You’ll learn that as you grow up.”

She sits up straighter. “I’m almost seven.”

“That you are, which is why I’m going to explain it a little bit, sound good?”

She nods. Tony takes a deep breath. Belatedly, he realizes that he should have discussed the route he had decided to take with Pepper beforehand. There’s no going back now, with her eyes fixed on him, watching expectantly.

“I like to think of Santa as a metaphor.”

“Those are the ones without ‘like’ or ‘as’.”

Tony smiles. “Exactly. Santa represents being kind and giving.”

Morgan tears her napkin in half. Tony feels like he can see her thinking, trying to predict exactly where he’s going with this.

“We all get a chance to be a Santa, when we’re ready.”

Morgan abandons the strips of paper and meets Tony’s eyes. “How do you know when you’re ready?”

“Well,” Tony says. “As an experienced Santa, I can make that decision.”

Her chin juts out, a little. It’s the same face Pepper makes when she’s preparing to lay out her best argument. Tony feels his lips tug upward.

“You’re a little young, kiddo, but I think you might be ready.”

She wiggles a little in her chair, excitement radiating out of her. “What does a Santa have to do?”

“Well, there are a few rules.” Morgan leans forward. “The first is that you can’t talk to anyone who isn’t a Santa about it.”

“Is mom a Santa?”

“Of course she is.”

Morgan looks relieved. “Good, I can’t keep secrets from mom. She always knows.”

Pepper will love to hear that one. Tony can’t wait to tell her.

“As a first-year Santa, your job is to choose one person to give a gift to. You have to find out what they want without asking them and the most important part is that you can’t tell them it was you.”

“Easy,” Morgan says.

“Do you know who you’re going to pick?”

Morgan nods around a mouthful of burger.

Morgan chooses Peter, of course. She’s an overachiever, so her gift is two-part.

The first part, Tony helps her with. They code a slew of upgrades into a new holiday suit, from the more practical things — the heater needs to be warmer on his hands, sometimes they feel like ice after he patrols, dad — to the festive — would jingle bells give him away to the bad guys? When it’s finished, it’s green where the original was blue, and the spider symbol has a Santa hat. There are also some Christmas fairy lights sewn in for if he’s in a particularly jolly mood.

The second part, Morgan does all by herself. She types up a note, to Peter, from Santa. She doesn’t let Tony read it.

She delivers the suit before Christmas so that Peter can wear it during the holiday season. Tony drops her off at May’s apartment building and waits in the car so she can have a quick escape. She sprints out of the building, gesturing wildly for him to start the car.

When footage of Spidey in Rockefeller Center, with the Christmas lights shining bright, appears on the news, Morgan jumps up and down and plays it on loop.

“I think Peter likes it, mom, dad, look he’s wearing it by the big Christmas tree!”

She pumps a fist in the air as Peter swings in front of the camera once again. He throws up a peace sign and Morgan mirrors it, bouncing on her toes.

Pepper squeezes Tony’s arm. “You did good. Thank you.”

“I don’t know why you’re surprised.”

“Two words,” she says. “Giant bunny.”

“Oh, come on!”

On Christmas morning, Morgan tears through her presents with the same vigor that she brings to most things. The pattern she takes to go through them is systematic, yet the action of opening each is reckless, crumpled up balls of paper flying in all directions.

There are toys and books and gadgets. Most notable is the present that Pepper and Tony poured most of their time into — a robot that Pepper had sketched out and Tony had built. The pieces are disassembled, in a box. There’s a tool kit so that Morgan can put it together herself, and a paint set so that she can decorate it.

She runs over after she opens that one, wrapping her arms around both of them, as far as they will reach.

“You guys are the best Santas,” she whispers. She squeezes one final time and bounds back to the box, prying it open and dumping its contents on the floor.

Pepper leans her head on Tony’s shoulder and sniffles. Tony’s definitely not crying.

May and Peter are supposed to get to the cabin at 3:00. Tony knows that this means to expect them around 3:30. Morgan starts standing by the window at 2:45.

Tony, Pepper, and even FRIDAY try to coax her back to her toys, but she refuses to move.

“Peter will love the letter,” Tony tells her.

“You haven’t read it!”

“You wouldn’t let me, Mo.”

She sighs. “I should throw it away.”

“No, you worked hard on it. He’ll love it.”

The telltale crunch of tire on gravel nears the house. Morgan gasps and presses her face against the window. Then she runs around Tony to open the front door.

“Santa left a present under our tree for you, Peter,” Morgan blurts as soon as he steps inside.

“Really? Should I get it now?”

Morgan pales. “Um, if you want to.”

Peter heads for the tree and Morgan darts to Pepper’s side, latching onto her arm.

The letter is in a holiday-themed envelope, red with a snowflake border. Morgan had asked Pepper to write Peter’s name in cursive on the front. He picks it up and tears the adhesive, careful not to rip the envelope or the contents.

It takes him a few seconds to read it and then he blinks a couple of times and clears his throat. His eyes dart over to Morgan, then Tony, then finally up to the ceiling.

“Thanks Santa,” he says. “That means a lot.”

Morgan grins. She buries her face into Pepper’s side to hide it.

She goes back to working on her robot on the floor after that. May and Pepper sit on the couch by her, half-watching, half-chatting. Tony and Peter drift into the kitchen.

“What did it say?”

Peter clears his throat again and then passes the letter into Tony’s hands. “You can read it.”

Tony hesitates, but curiosity wins over and he opens the folded paper.

Dear Peter,

Congratulations on being on the nice list. It’s great to finally write to you. You’re one of my favorite children, and that’s saying a lot because I know all the children in the whole world. I heard that you’re a big fan of Santa. I’m honored that Spider-Man thinks so highly of me. Don’t worry, your secret is safe with me!

This year, I wanted to write you a letter because you’re one of the most deserving people in the world to hear from Santa Claus. A lot of people were sad when you were gone. People told stories about Spider-Man, but Morgan’s dad told stories about Peter Parker. He missed Peter a lot. He’s a little old to write letters to me, but I’m sure if he did, he would have asked for you back. Morgan thought the same thing, so she added you to her Christmas lists for her dad. That wish finally came true last year.

Morgan originally wanted you back just to make her dad happy, but she got the best big brother out of it too! Keep up the good work! Santa is very proud of you!

Merry Christmas,

Santa

P.S. I hope to see you again at the beach this summer.

Tony folds the paper back in half and slides it across the counter to Peter. He picks it up and places it back in the envelope.

“She did,” Tony says. “She always put 'Peter' on her lists — once she was old enough to write them. Cried like a baby the first time I saw it.

Peter’s finger is running over the outside of the envelope, tracing the lines where the paper meets. Tony feels like he should say more, but he doesn’t know what. Even if he did, anything longer than a few words would probably come out choked and end in tears. This Christmas isn’t for crying. All of the darkest days are over.

“Merry Christmas, Tony,” Peter says.

Tony leans a little to the side to bump Peter’s shoulder. “Merry Christmas, kid.”

#irondad #peter parker #tony stark #morgan stark #pepper potts #irondad fic #irondad fanfic #my stuff

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fantasyfandommaiden · 5 years

Text

Adrien’s Mentorship: Groceries And Glamour

Adrien gets to go to the Farmers market with Carmine well they gather supplies for the linage spells! Having never been to the farmers market before, he is in for some interesting expirencese, including his first expierence seeing glamour outside of his super suit.

Part one Here

[[MORE]]

Adrien insisted that he accompanied Carmine to the farmers market the next time she went, which happened to be the next day. Carmine asked if he really wanted to spend a majority of the weekend with her, seeing as he could hang out with his friend, but he just stated that he had lots of free time now, so he could hangout with his friends whenever he pleased.

Nathalie gave the ‘okay’ with the plan, however Adrien would have to wear a disguise since a new ‘Gabriel’ commercial came out starring Adrien, and that meant that his fans would be more frantic than usual.

So Adrien had left the house were a baseball cap and a pair of aviator sunglasses. He alway wore a simple white tee shirt and a pair of jeans.

~~~~

The Gorilla had parked outside of Carmine’s building, but said woman was already standing on the side walk, typing away in her phone. She smiled and opened the door, sliding in to sit in the back with Adrien. She looked up towards the Gorilla and smiled “Thanks again for driving us there. I really appreciate it.” She said.

Gorilla gave a slight wave back, a clear sign of ‘don’t worry about it’ before he started to drive.

Adrien looked over his magic teacher, noting that she was wearing a white tank top with a soft violet chiffon cover up overtop. She, like him, was also wearing blue jeans and as well as a pair of sandals, she also wore a hat however unlike him, she wore a small brimmed sun hat. She was also carrying a large purse with her and several cloth bags, no doubt for the ingredients they were going to gather at the farmers market.

Adrien was bouncing in his seat, and brought out his note book again, flipping through it to find the spot where they and left off with his questions when he noticed movement coming from Carmine’s bag. He looked at it with a raised brow, looking at Carmine who hadn’t seemed to notice.

“Umm... Mlle Carmine?” He said slowly, Carmine looked towards Adrien with a small smile “Is there something in your bag? Something... moving?”

Carmine blinked slightly looking slightly confused, before opening her purse to look inside she scowled slightly “... I told you to stay in the apartment.” She stated in a slight scolding tone.

Adrien was really curious about what she was talking to, forgetting all of his lessons about never looking into someone else’s bag without permission, he leaned over and peered inside the purse to see... a ferret?

Adrien blinked several times as the white and brown ferret stuck his head out of the purse, letting out a chattering noise as he looked towards Carmine, who continued to scowl at the small animal. “No. I remember distinctly that I told you to wait in the apartment, it was just to be me and Adrien today.” The ferret let out another chatter sound, seeming to raise one of its brown brows at Carmine. “Plagg doesn’t count, he is always with Adrien.” She countered.

Adrien’s eyes widened as he smiled widely “Oh my god... you can speak with animals?!” Adrien asked in an excited tone, both Carmine and the ferret looked towards Adrien with a raised brow each.

“No, I can speak with this ferret and that’s it.” Carmine stated before sighing “Well, I was going to do this after but might as well do it now.” Carmine held out her hand and the ferret scuffled onto it than up her arm TIL he was draped over her shoulders, seeming to almost looking smug about it “Adrien, this is Gladiolus, he is my familiar.”

“Your familiar is a ferret?” Adrien asked curiously. He had did a bit of research about different aspects of the occult and witch craft. He knew that familiars were usually animal helpers, like black cats, who would help magic users with their spell making.

“Not always.” Carmine stated, giving Gladiolus a small scratch on top of his head “He shape shifts once every ten years or so as to not draw suspension. When I first arrived in Paris to study when I was 19 he was a mouse.” Carmine explained, giving a soft smile to the ferret. “... Gladio and I have been together since I was 13 years old. He is my oldest friend, confidant, and helper. I would be lost without him...” she than gave the ferret a slight scowling look, remembering that he wasn’t suppose to be in the car with them “Even though doesn’t always listen.” The ferret let out another smug, chattering sound, which caused Carmine to roll her eyes.

Adrien’s eyes were still wide as he looked at the ferret on her shoulders “So...

Is it like Harry Potter?!” He asked excitedly, looking at her “Is there a familiar shop? Will I get a familiar?! An owl would be cool, but I don’t know how father would react to that!”

Carmine looked at Adrien with a deadpanned stare, and a raised brow “... Adrien sweetie, that’s not how it works.” She said to him “One, those were not familiars but pets, not entirely the same. No, a familiar is not bought but summoned through a ritual, and even than it can be a hit or miss.” She informed the teen as she glanced towards Gorilla. She knew he was listening, she also knew he could keep a secret. “A familiar is summoned when a fey, or in some cases a demon, wishes to come over to this side, and form a contract between themselves and the magic user, this bonding them to that person TIL the day the magic user, or in some cases the familiar, dies.”

Adrien looked at her, nodding slowly “... So, if I wanted to summon a familiar, I would need ingredients for a ritual right?” He asked, looking at her.

Carmine gave him a playful smile, before tosseling the top of his head where the hat was “Let’s gather the ingredients for the linage spell, than worry about familiars, alright?”

~~~~~~~~

The farmers market reminded Adrien a lot of the different movies and anime he had seen growing up (and still watched to this day). It was outside in a large area, with multiple stalls all around with tents over top of them for share.

Adrien’s nose was assaulted with all the different smells, and all the different sounds of people trying to pilfer their wares was so different from what he was use to and it took him a few minutes to get use to it, which Carmine graciously lead him to a bench a little ways off to help him adjust.

“Is... is it always like this?” He asked, looking at Carmine who looked at the boy with a concerned expression on her face.

“Yes it is. I’m sorry Adrien. If I had known you had sensory issues I would have warned you.”

“It’s fine, the sensory thing is new, What with...” he gestured towards his ring before looking towards Carmine. “... so, what do we need?” He asked curiously, looking at Carmine.

Carmine gave him a small smile, before digging into her purse and brining out a list “Let’s see... first we need pomegranate, and than some ginseng root...”

~~~~~

They spent the next half hour touring to he different stalls, finding the best ingredients for the ritual... although, to Adrien, it sounded more like they were making a really elaborate tea with all the different but odd ingredients, like bay leaves, sage, one really large apple... were they making a tea? He wouldn’t put it past Carmine.

“Where is he...” Carmine said, looking around in search of something.

Adrien looked at Carmine with a raised brow. He had offered to hold the bags for her, seeing as that seemed what a lot of apprentices did in movies and such “Who?”

“Well, I have someone here who I always buy from because he always has the good stuff, but I can’t seem to find hi- OH there he is!” She said excitedly as she briskly walked over to a stall that was a little off to the side “Théo!” She called, making her way over to the stall.

Adrien followed closely after however froze momentarily upon seeing WHO was manning the stall. It was Théo Barbot, the artist who became CopyCat a few months back. Adrien felt a scowl come onto his face at the memory of that Akuma but quickly made it go away into his ‘model smile’ as he approached with Carmine.

Theo looked up at his name being called and smiled brightly “Oh, hey Carmine! I was wondering when you were going to show up around here.” He said, placing another of his small sculptures down on his table, it was a sculpture of a sword in a stone, however it was made out of wood. Adrien noted that there were several wood or stone carvings on the table, as well as statues and boxes, most likely all hand made. Théo glanced at Adrien as he approached and stood beside Carmine, his brow raised slightly “... you baby sitting today?” He asked in a playful manner, grinning as he brought up more sculptures.

Carmine smiled proudly, placing a hand on Adrien’s shoulder “No, no babysitting. This is Adrien,” she explained, before giving Théo a pointed look, a knowing smile on her lips “My student.”

Théo’s eyebrows almost went up to his hairline as he looked at Adrien with new found interest, standing up slightly straighter as he looked him over “Really?” He asked, looking Adrien over appraisingly “... isn’t he kind of old to be your student?”

“That is for me to decide Théo.” She chided him softly, as Adrien made a mental note to ask Carmine what he meant by that later. “Did you manage to get the items I asked for?”

Theo smiled brightly “For the most part, it’s all in my car. Can you watch stall well I go get it?”

“Of course.” Carmine replied easily, as Théo made his way to the parking lot.

“... I don’t like him.” Adrien muttered slightly under his breath.

“Why ever not?” Carmine asked him, with a raised brow.

Adrien froze up slightly, looking at Carmine “Uh, he imitated me when he became CopyCat, remember?” He said, giving her a nervous smile. It was a half truth.

Carmine looked at him with a raised brow, and Adrien could tell she didn’t believe him fully. “... and what else?” She asked him. Adrien remained quiet for a moment, looking down at the ground. “Adrien, either you tell me or I ask Théo about it.”

“He has a crush on Ladybug...” Adrien finally muttered under his breath. Carmine raised a brow at the statement, giving Adrien a VERY unimpressed look as Théo returned holding a cardboard box.

“Théo, you still admire our city’s lovely superhero’s correct?” Carmine asked, looking at the artist. Théo in question looked at her with a raised brow, clearly not expecting that question as he placed the box on the table and began to open it.

“Of course I do, who doesn’t. Although Chat Noir could stand to do some growing up.” Théo stated, causing Adrien to blister slightly “I was talking to the guy, saying how I was disappointed in the fact that Ladybug hadn’t shown up to the unveiling of my statue, and he began insisting that they were a ‘thing’ and were like ‘this’” Théo said, demonstrating his fingers being crossed, but than rolled his eyes “I wanted to express my gratitude towards our city’s hero, not confess. However I got so mad at the insulation that it caused me to be Akumatized.” The man shuttered at the memory, and didn’t notice the extremely guilty look on Adrien’s face, or the look of extreme disapproval on Carmine’s as she looked at her student.

“Well, I’m glade that Ladybug and Chat were able to deal with the situation properly.” Carmine stated simply, giving Adrien a pointed look that expressed ‘We are talking about this later.’ As she looked at the box in front of her “This it?”

Théo grinned widely “Yep, have to say Carmine, some of this stuff wasn’t easy to find. Doing something special with it?”

Carmine gave a slight shrug, opening the box to look inside “Something like that. You mind if I check to make sure it is all there?”

“Be my guest.” Theo said, leaning back against one of the poles holding up the tent.

Carmine smiled and pulled out one item at a time, before placing it in one of her cloth bags “Japanese maple leaves from Japan, grave yard dirt, vines and ivy...” she murmured Softly, brining out a small glass bottle to examine the insides “Pinkie bone of a long dead priest...”

“I’m sorry, a WHAT?!” Adrien asked, his voice somewhat shrill as he looked at the glass bottle she was holding. He did notice inside what looked to be a bleached white bone.

“Oh don’t worry.” Théo told him, grinning “No one mourned this idiot. He burned down half of Paris supposedly.”

“As well as killed a previous fox chosen and her unborn child.” Carmine spoke in Mandarin to Adrien quietly as she examined the bone closely “The Ox Goddess dealt with him however...”

Theo looked between the two, eyebrow raised “So... everything up to your standards Carmine?”

Carmine looked up at Theo, placing the pinkie bone into her cloth bag “Of course, here is your payment.” Carmine said, digging into her purse and brining out a small hemp braided bracelet “Charged and ready, should last you another three months.”

Adrien looked very confused as Theo graciously took the bracelet than quickly put it on, taking off an identical hemp bracelet off his other wrist and handing it over “Just tell me what other goods you’ll need and I’ll start looking for them.”

“What does the bracelet do?” Adrien asked, curiousity finally getting the better of him. Carmine looked at Theo wit a raised brow and he looked back at her with one of his own, a silent conversation happening between them before Theo finally shrugged “He was bound to find out eventually, if he is sticking around as your student.”

Carmine gave a slight nod, before looking at Adrien “May I borrow your sunglasses Adrien?” She asked him, looking at the blonde model. Adrien, still very confused, slowly handed her his aviator sunglasses, which she took. She than examined them, murmuring softly under her breath, Adrien only being able to hear because of his experience as Chat Noir. “Of soft moon glow, and suns ever light, bless this item I hold with mystic sight.” Her eyes flashed ember in colour as she breathed onto them, the glasses flashing a similar ember colour before she wiped them with her shirt.

Gladiolus, seeming to sense his mage using magic, poked his head out of the purse looking around at their surroundings as if to make sure no one was watching.

She than handed them back to Adrien, smiling “Try them on and not cause a scene.” She warned him.

Adrien looked at her with a raised brow, placing them on and looking around however stopped when he looked at Theo in front of him, who had his arms crossed and a smirk on his face, but Theo looked anything but human.

His skin had turned a deep purple colour, his hair a darker shade of purple and his eyes were a deep scarlet red. A pair of ram horns on his head, and a long devil like tail that swished back and forth.

“What... How... who..”

“Teifling. Glamour, still Theo, at least that’s what they call me now.” The devil creature explained, Theo’s voice escaping its lips. “Carmine makes me a really strong glamour spell in exchange for collecting hard to find items for her, which is easy considering all of my connections.”

“And I appreciate everything you do for me Theo.” Carmine said to him smiling “And I would love to stay and chat but there is more I have to do today before I get ready for a ritual later.” She explained to him, however Theo just gave a wave of his hand, still smirking “Ah, don’t worry about it Carmine, I’ll catch up with you later!”

Carmine had to lead Adrien away from Theo’s stall, he was still in a daze “So... that was a thing.” He said as they walked towards the limo. Carmine smirked widely, looking down at her student.

“Oh Adrien, trust me...” she smirked at him as they walked, Carmine’s arm around his shoulders in a parental way almost, Gladiolus looking at Adrien with almost a smirking expression as well “This is only the beginning.”

#ml au #ladybug au #adrien’s mentorship au #carmine regal #adrien agreste #theo barbot #tea magic

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chemicalmagecraft · 5 years

Text

I Would Totally Kick Jiraiya’s Butt Chapter 16

A/N: Kind of a timeskippy chapter because there's like a year gap between important events. And I also ended up having a lot of fun with the secret base.

kukukuku~

"So," I said, sitting atop a sealed stone arch, "how does it look?" I took a bite from my chocolate bar.

"It looks really complicated," Naruto said, squinting. I smiled, though. It looked like he was at least following it somewhat, which was good.

"You really fucking want a space-time ninjutsu, don't you?" Kurama noted.

I huffed. "Excuse you. I'm sitting on a space-time ninjutsu. I want to know if it's a functional space-time ninjutsu." I looked at Ai and Tenten expectantly. "Well?"

Ai shrugged. "As far as I can tell, it'll work. You might want to check with your eyes first, though."

I nodded and pulled down my sunglasses. I saw only a few seconds into the future, so the drain was relatively minor; I lost maybe thirty minutes off my day at most. "Right, looks good. Wanna see it?"

"Don't you need to make a second one first?" Tenten asked me.

I grinned lightly. "Well of course I made another one already. I'm like a celebrity chef that way. Keep your arms and legs away from the portal until it's fully formed, unless you want to lose them." I took another bite from my chocolate and swung my legs up away from the portal and sent a command to the two demon sage cores embedded in each arch. I didn't see the safety illusion or portal form from my vantage point, but I did notice the shadow fall over Ai, Tenten, Naruto, and Kurama from how the sunlight was now somewhere miles away. I swung my legs back down once it was safe, using the momentum to swing myself through the portal and, with an application of chakra threads, onto the wall that was where I was sitting on the other side. It was pretty surreal, to be honest. Cool, though.

"Come on in, the water's fine!" I shouted from literal miles away. Or I guess I should maybe use kilometers...

"Why is it so dark?" Tenten asked.

I dropped to the ground. "It's a me-made cave. Wanna see?" I snapped my fingers and activated the light seal I'd placed above the arch.

"It's pretty empty," Naruto muttered. There was in fact literally nothing in the cave, except for a few strategically-placed holes for better air flow and pillars that hopefully would prevent cave-ins.

I shrugged and made a sort of picture frame with my hands, looking at the cave. "You try remotely making an artificial cave in a mountain several kilometers away. Now that I can physically go here I'll hopefully be able to refurbish this place better. Just gotta find a good place to put the gateway arch."

"How did you even find this place?" Ai asked.

"Remote-controlled body killed some bandits. Well, not remote-controlled but certainly not physically me. On the other side of the portal is an abandoned mine they were using as a hideout. It's secluded enough that nobody's gonna find it, hopefully. And once my base is more set up I'll just hide the front entrance." I walked back through the portal, then closed it behind me. I lifted my palm, and the core I was using in the keystone of the arch flew into it. The arch collapsed back into the earth. "I think maybe I'll use my closet for the gate, actually."

kukukuku~

Despite the absolute hell of boredom school was, the next few months passed by surprisingly fast. And even school wasn't really all that bad because I could telepathically communicate with Neji, Tenten, Kurama, Hinata through Kurama, Usagi, Gaara, and Karura. And even if they were all somehow busy, I could split myself without actually manifesting physically as Chikage and talk to myself without being crazy! Well, crazier...

Speaking of Chikage, we unfortunately couldn't figure out a way for her to physically take objects. There were a few ideas that almost came close, namely inscribing seals on her body to allow her to summon a sack or just seal stuff away in her, and then the simple idea of grabbing something from the shadows and trying to move it around, but unfortunately didn't cut it. The sack theoretically worked fine, but as it turns out, summoning makes a lot of chakra "noise" that a well-trained sensor can easily detect, and Danzō took full advantage of that fact. Storage was fine on the detection front, but Chikage had trouble melting into shadows with a physical object stored in her. She could still do it, but the part of her that had the object in it was always completely black and went either very slow outside of a shadow or kinda slow inside a shadow, especially compared to her usual near-light speed. Because we'd only have one shot, we were holding off on using it... And just grabbing stuff from the shadows was even worse, because it was exactly like sealing in terms of results except the object was outside of the shadow.

Moving on to brighter news, I used building the base to train my power. I wasn't two-tailed yet, but I was approaching Shukaku in terms of red chakra already. I also trained up my control of all the elements I had some kind of affinity for, letting me use more and even use two at a time. And yes, I remembered to practice taijutsu this time, meaning I could kick people kinda well. Even more fun, though, is the fact that I inspired other people to do some training. Namely, my friends. Except Kurama who, as he was locked in a small child, was naturally excused. Ino, Shikamaru, and Tenten joined the ranks of budding sagehood. Neji could manage a weak sage mode after a minute or so, and he managed to build up to first tail cloak without getting too bad of a fever. Naruto actually knew jutsu now. At least one of each type! With how I was giving Kurama back his yin chakra, Naruta was unknowingly getting better at using genjutsu, at least a bit. Hinata had gained some confidence and could control an entire one person's body and chakra, going so far as to somehow being able to make people use the jutsu that they knew, despite not knowing them herself. I guess there's some kind of chakra memory? That's probably what Sasori used with his puppets, actually. And Sakura... well technically she didn't do to much training, but she was super strong and I helped her learn how to not break things? I guess that counts as training...

Next topic, the secret base was awesome! It took me months to actually dig out all the rooms and stuff, then another month or so to find or make all the furniture and decorate it, but secret base! I also took to trying to do engineering after finding some broken up electronics. I probably wasn't the best at it, but with magnet release and Chikage's ability to possess objects essentially letting me scan things, I could do all kinds of cheating. So yeah, I modded a generator to be able to power it solely with magnet release, which was pretty simple, actually. Then, when I was finally able to fix up the minifridge I'd found, I got some snacks in my base. Well, I already had a pantry but I was able to have more stuff. I was hoping to actually make original stuff, though. Like maybe a magnet release-powered railgun. That would be fun. Or actually, if I could somehow make myself a 3-D printer or something like that knowing generally how that stuff works, that would also be useful. I didn't know what to do about plastic, but I at least knew how those things that you use to sand down stuff like metal or wood into particular shapes worked. Long-term goal, though...

In addition to the portal room, my base had some neat features. There was a sort of living room, which was where I put the snacks and some books. I was also trying to figure out how to hook up a TV in there, but that was probably a losing battle... There was also a theater that I was hoping I'd be able to use at some point, though I had yet to find any projector, much less one that was either usable or easy for me to repair. I mean I guess I could just genjutsu up visuals, but where's the fun in that? Okay nevermind that actually sounds really fun. I had my scrying room, which was just a fancy room I'd made with a really big crystal ball and some other stuff I could use for scrying. I made sure that that room in particular was visually impressive.

For the actually practical stuff, I had a mechanical workshop for mechanical projects, a fuinjutsu workshop near it for fuinjutsu projects, a poison/medical room for take a wild guess, and a gigantic storage room for materials. The mechanical workshop was really only just a table with scrap metal and reference books on it so far, but I was hopeful! The fuinjutsu room looked a little more impressive. It had shelves of scrolls on the walls, and a desk with a buttload of ink bottles on it. I ended up doing a lot of work there, because it turned out I could sell a bunch of basic paper bombs for a lot of money through my dad. Don't you just love it when your dad helps you sell a whole demolition team's worth of real-ass bombs? And then the storage room was just for storing the rest of the junk I had, plus the ores and stuff I managed to find and promised myself to mess around with someday.

The poison/medical room... was a work in progress. I mean, I kinda had some of the poison stuff going. The half of the room I had for poison was well-ventilated and separated from the other half with a glass barrier. Turns out Chikage just... had sand powers because I ate enough Shukaku. I knew I had magnet release, but I didn't actually expect that I'd have been able to generate pure silica sand. Seriously, how does earth jutsu work? And my scrying room was useful for figuring out exactly what to do with that to make nice, clear glass from that. Turns out you have to get sand surprisingly hot to make glass, but I made do by using a demon sage core for some extra chakra. I also used my glass magic to make all that mad sciencey glass paraphernalia you always see in mad science labs, using an Orochimaru base I could scry for reference.

Side note: I also ended up selling glass figurines and stuff because wouldn't you know it, the ability to make high-quality glass through supernatural powers makes for really pricey glass stuff, especially after I figured out how to alter the sand slightly to make colored glass. Seriously, that dragon was just... I was almost tempted to keep it because it was so beautiful, but I made so much from it. And then I realized I could make more. My base became so awesome a week or so of no sleep after that. I also jammed a bunch of glass in a scroll, because first off having a scroll that launches shards of glass at whoever you point it at like a literal glass cannon is a pretty good weapon and second off having shards of glass you can control with your mind with you at all times is a pretty good weapon.

Where was I? Oh, right. Deadly poison. I managed to work out a recipe for a decently good and fast-acting death poison with some help from Anko using the flora of the mountain range. It was a strangely convenient mountain range for poisoning. What a coincidence. I also made a bit of a garden for the ingredients that I could take from so I didn't have to go searching for more ingredients. I put that stuff in some Skyrim-looking potion bottles (made from glass, of course) so that I could just take a few of with me. I was hoping to use those with senbon for some sneaky kills. I also ingested tiiiiiiiiny amounts of the stuff (At large enough gaps, of course. I'm a mad scientist in training, not an idiot.) to try and build up my poison resistance, at least to my own stock. As for the medical side, well... I had a first aid kit and a few cruddy stone beds with stabilizing seals and chakra reservoirs attached to demon sage cores that would hopefully do more good than harm to anyone placed on the beds. I'm not Tsunade, that's good enough for me. The scalpels I put in there were really more for show and using my ferrokinetic powers on in the case of a home intruder. Seriously, why is Shukaku actually the most overpowered bijū aside from the Jūbi? Not that I'm complaining, of course.

I also had a bit of an exercise room made. Really, it was mostly just a track for jogging, a bunch of rocks with various weights to pick up and throw around, and a rock wall. And I found a secluded forest clearing far enough away from my base that I could hopefully use it to test bombs without worrying about the shockwaves damaging my base, at least if I kept them small enough. And it looked like it would be a pretty good training ground. I mean, I had another idea for the bomb range and training ground, but that'd do for now. I didn't exactly have enough demon sage cores to float a giant platform yet...

And of course, I wasn't the only one there. I mean, technically I was, but turns out Usagi can split themselves pretty much infinitely, so long as there are enough demon sage cores. I mean, there was still an "original" Usagi that was still carrying out their original mission and was more intelligent than the copies, but Usagi's intelligence had ended up filling all the demon sage cores that I wasn't directly using, making a bunch of hive-minded servants made of rock for me that populated my base. We were originally almost the same personality-wise, but it seemed like Usagi grew slightly... off from me. For one, the politeness wasn't an act anymore. To be honest, that was kind of disturbing, especially coupled with how I was ordering around these versions of me who were disturbingly polite. Still, they were useful because, as I said, a bunch of hive-minded servants. They fetched stuff for me.

kukukuku~

I admired a glass "gem" Chikage had just made. "Do we even need a 3-D printer?" I asked, tossing it up lightly. "This is some dang good glass, not to mention the fact that we can control it. Sure, we may want to also work on metal, but that shouldn't be too much of a step up from metal when we get more power, though we probably can't just conjure up more iron."

She stopped fiddling with the guitar she'd made from her chakra body. "Sounds legit," she agreed, then started making sounds like a cat coughing up a hairball. Her throat glowed and she spat up a ball of molten glass. "I am the 3-D printer." I still had no idea how magnet release could be used to control molten glass, but to be fair it could be used on regular sand, which isn't magnetic in the slightest.

"Hey, I have an idea," I said as I watched her mold the glass into the rough shape of a kunai, then let it start cooling so we could clean it up later. Glass blades, though a little fragile, are super sharp if you do 'em right. "You up for another blade?"

"Hit me with it." I sent my idea to her telepathically. What, you thought I was just going to tell you? She grinned and spat out another glob. I thought for a moment about how spitting molten glass would probably be a pretty good ninjutsu by itself, though that was a thought for later. Chikage waved her hands over the glob of molten glass, elongating it. The blade was longer than a kunai, but much thinner. It was intentionally weak, though not enough to fail to stab through someone. The blade didn't have a handle yet, that'd come later... "Let's hope this idea actually works, 'cause we're basically grasping at straws here."

kukukuku~

Chikage

Uchiha Shisui paused on his walk home. He surveyed the dark street and placed a hand on his blade. Something was following him. He noticed something in the shadows, and activated his Sharingan. "Who's there?" he asked. He saw an outline in the shadows.

"Uchiha Shisui," the shadow said. I bet you can tell by now just who that shadow is. "Your life is in danger."

He raised an eyebrow. "And I'm supposed to trust the shadow demon that's stalking me?"

I pushed a dagger out of my shadow, hilt first. "This is for you." I slowly moved toward him until he cautiously grabbed it.

"The blade is made of glass. What use is a glass dagger?"

"The Thorn of Spite. It was made to kill one man who is better off dead, and is sufficient for that purpose." The first of the enchantments I'd sealed onto the dagger activated, transcribing a storage seal onto his skin. The dagger automatically entered, and the seal hid itself. "It will show itself in the event your eyes fail you. You will know who you must kill then." Unencumbered of the dagger, I was able to move far away in an instant.

And then I came back. "Just to be clear, the dagger isn't for suicide."

He snorted. "Yeah, I figured." I disappeared again. He stared at his palm. "The hell was that?"

#fanfiction #naruto fanfiction #naruto #I Would Totally Kick Jiraiya's Butt #IWTKJB CH16

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phaedrecameron · 6 years

Text

The Accused, James Fraser Chapter 8 - The Sixth

Yer not welcome here. Ye can’t just show up!”

“It’s okay Geillis , I’ll speak to him,” Claire stated. Geillis had graciously allowed Claire to stay with her while she got furniture and internet established in her new apartment.

Claire grabbed her best friend’s shoulder. “We’re still on for drinks later?” God knew she would need it. Today was her meeting with Jamie and now an unexpected visit from Frank.

“Aye, I’ll meet ye there.” Geillis glared at Frank and shut her door.

Claire pushed past Frank. “I’m late for a meeting. I’ve nothing to say. You can speak to my lawyer.”

“Be reasonable, Claire. You can stay in our house. I can go elsewhere.”

“Oh, I bet you can.”

“I was faithful to you.”

“Always?” Claire dared him.

“You know I made mistakes. And I now know you can’t let them lie. I just don’t want you to suffer.”

“Goodbye Frank.”

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

Claire sat in the interview room of the jail waiting for Jamie. She tried to focus her thoughts. Damn Frank. She’d wanted to be here earlier. James Fraser liked to be in control. He liked to solve his problems on his own terms. And he was stubborn. Claire needed him out of control and off kilter before he’d let her help him. Oh, and she was going to help him, if he liked it or not. Even if she had to provoke and lie to him to do it.

She heard the guards. She sat up and forced her face to stone. In an odd déjà vu he sat across from her. He glanced up from her now bare ring finger, a question in his blue eyes. No! Focus Beauchamp....

Abruptly she stood, walked around the table separating them, and grasped his left hand-his injured hand. He flinched. Not expecting that were you! His hand was secured to the table so he couldn’t pull away. She manipulated it at her leisure. He was warm to the touch. His whole body radiated heat. She pulled up the sleeve to examine his arm to the elbow. She noticed the blond to auburn to gold hair that covered his forearms. His tension gradually receded as she continued to examine him. He was strong, she could tell. The muscles of his forearm flexed and released as she moved the limb. She positioned herself to face him. Her right forearm flat against his upturned left one; his fingers naturally curling behind her elbow. She peeked under the bandage.

She didn’t dare look at him. She caught his smell. No, it wasn’t actually a smell. It was like an unconscious chemical reaction. She wanted to feel all of his skin pressed against her. She felt like a husk; hollow and achy. She held herself still; praying for the moment to pass, praying she could pull this off.

Jamie was surprised by the strength of her grip. He tried to focus away from her as she carefully inspected both his arms, but as close as she was he’d noticed her skin. It was flawless, like pearl. He saw the pulse in her neck. He wanted to touch her there. Place his thumb over it and then his tongue. He breathed in deep. She had an earthy herbal smell; sage maybe. He smiled. Perhaps she was a witch.

Her fingers ghosted over his wrist. Where was her ring? She had belonged to someone. Had that changed? Once chosen by her, how could any man let her go?

Jamie looked at her curls as she was staring at his left arm. For once he was glad to be fettered. It prevented him from burying his good hand in her hair and freeing her curls. Mo nighean donn. His hand twitched to cup the base of her skull, to feel her hair free flowing over his hand, to bring his ear to mouth and hear the secret of her.

She broke contact and stared down him; her eyes whisky and storm. Her whole body felt cold at the loss of contact with him.

“Are you going to hurt yourself again?” Claire asked matter of factly.

“No,” he replied.

“That wasn’t smart, especially given it’s your dominant arm. I can tell because the muscles are slightly more developed in your left forearm than your right.” She’d placed her hands on her hips. “Have you been doing your rehab exercises? I am a medical doctor, those are critical to regain function.”

God, she was scolding him. Her words went right to his cock. He winced and tried to find a comfortable position on the small chair.

“Aye, as instructed.”

His voice almost undid her. Something in his burr as he answered her. Primal and urgent. Her body recognized it and began to respond. She placed her hand to the back of her neck and forced her brain into gear.

You’re attracted to him Beauchamp..so what? Most women probably are…it..it doesn’t mean anything..you promised his sister you’d help him…you promised Joe you needed to fix what you missed.

Claire brought her hand from her neck and took her seat.

“Good, everything I said in our previous eval still stands, but this time we’re going to talk about the actual facts of the case. Even if you confess to the crime, it can’t be used against you in determining guilt or innocence, only your sanity at the time. Do you understand?”

Jamie hesitated. There was something off about her manner. “Yes, I understand.”

“Good, Jamie, lets begin.”

His eyes narrowed at the use of his nickname, but before he could think on this she slammed a huge binder onto the table.

She pulled out an autopsy photo of Laoghaire MacKenzie and placed it directly before him. She noticed he looked at it for a fraction of a second before immediately looking above her head at the wall behind her. She pulled out a second photo from the crime scene and placed it right next to the other. He wouldn’t even glance down. Good..

“I think you should look at those so we can talk about what happened in that alley.”

He looked at her; his eyes turning a blue as cold and crisp as water in a glacial pond.

Keep going Beauchamp…

“You know what’s interesting? You’re left handed. The autopsy report indicates Laoghaire was killed by a right-handed attacker. Someone tall, but not quite as tall as you.”

Jamie’s finger began to tap the table.

“Also, she had skin and blood under her nails. I mean, I’d fight for my life if I’d been her.” Claire pointed to the photos.

“DNA isn’t back yet, but the blood under her nails doesn’t match your blood type. She also had blood in some of her wounds. It’s not uncommon in brutal knife attacks for the attacker’s hand to actually slip past the hilt onto the blade during the stabbing, thus depositing their blood onto the victim. That blood isn’t your type either and you didn’t have a scratch on you.”

Two of his fingers tapped the table. He pushed the the photos away as best he could while shackled. “Yer lying, Ned woulda told me this.”

She was lying. Laoghaire MacKenzie hadn’t the chance to defend herself, there was no foreign blood in her wounds and given the nature of the attack there was no way to tell the attacker’s dominant hand.

Please. Please don’t let him see through me.

“I don’t need to lie, Jamie. I told you, I’m a medical doctor. I pulled some strings at the medical examiners office to see the report before it’s finalized. Ned hasn’t seen it. I wasn’t going to come here without all of the information I could gather.”

Claire allowed that to sit for a moment.

For the first time, Jamie looked unsure of himself. Claire fought the urge to caress his hands.

Don’t let him regroup….

“Have you ever blacked out before?” Claire asked

“No.” Jamie tried to recover his equilibrium.

“You’re sure? You’ve never not remembered something?

“I said, no.”

“How many siblings do you have?”

Jamie bucked against his restraints and tried to stand. He couldn’t and Claire rose instead. She’d forced him to impotence and it turned her insides to do it.

“I didna hafta talk to ye!” he roared.

“I’m not afraid of you!” Claire shouted back.

God he was stubborn!

Claire stood over him and spoke calmly, “No, you don’t. Then, I won’t be able to render an opinion and you’ll be presumed sane like all criminal defendants. You can have your trial, be found guilty and likely be executed. You’ll leave your family in tatters and the person who killed Loaghaire and her unborn child will go free.”

His face snapped to hers. This was one thing she didn’t need to lie about. She’d found out in the new documents Grey had provided. Laoghaire MacKenzie was a few weeks pregnant.

“She was with child?” Jamie searched her face for confirmation.

“Yes, early still. She might not have known. They’ll say you murdered the mother of your child.”

“I wouldna….”

Claire leaned down. “You wouldn’t what? What wouldn’t you do?

He looked down at the photos. His jaw set. Claire felt as though he were tearing her guts out. She moved her chair to sit and face his right side. She placed her hand on his shoulder. “Please Jamie. Please let someone help you. You’ve Ned and Jenny and William. All your nieces and nephews. Friends. Claire cleared her throat. And..and you’ve got me, I’ll help.”

He sat motionless, eyes closed. Claire moved closer and he made no move to pull away. “What happened the night Laoghaire was killed?” She implored. His eyes opened, but he didn’t respond. “Did..did you love her? Was the baby yours?” Claire continued. He turned to face her, eyes glassy. “No, we werena together.” His reply was so soft she could barely hear. “But it was my fault,” he added and turned to look straight ahead once again.

“Jamie, that isn’t possible. I know it wasn’t your fault. I know it.”

He didn’t look at her, but slowly he upturned his right hand on the table. Before she could think to stop herself, Claire slid her hand in his. He closed his fingers around hers. She was struck by the rightness of it.

They didn’t speak. Their breathing began to synchronize. She’d been wrong, she wasn’t merely attracted to him. She couldn’t understand it, but this wasn’t usual. It was the most powerful thing she’d ever felt.

She brought her other hand to the table to cocoon his good hand with both of hers. He moved his fingers as he tried to feel both her hands. She saw the fingers of his left hand strain against their bandages to try to reach hers. “Did you blackout? Is that why you think it’s your fault?” Claire tried again.

He faced her then. His eyes swept across her face. “Claire…,” he spoke her name, the first time he’d done so. It was no more than a whisper. She squeezed his hand in encouragement.

Clunk!

They both jumped at the sound. It was a metal waist chain striking a cell door. The guards were coming to collect him. He withdrew his hand. Claire scrambled to move her chair back in position.

“Shift change. Are you almost done?” said a guard through the now open door.

Jamie looked at her and said something in Gaelic. He then faced the guard, “aye, we’re done.”

Claire moved forward. She struggled to catch his eye as they moved him to the door. He managed to turn toward her, “Goodbye Claire.” He looked back at the guard, “I dinna want to see her again or anyone else.”

******** “Christ, Claire! Was it Frank? I’ll get my coven on him!” Geillis slid her old fashioned to Claire as she sat. Her eyes puffy and swollen from crying.

“No, I …I just had a very bad day at work. I tried to help and I might have made it worse.” Claire downed the drink and looked for the server to ask for another. “God,no.”

“What?” Geillis asked, looking in the direction of Claire’s stare. She was looking at a woman who’d just entered the bar. The woman seemed to recognize Claire and approached their table.

“Are you Dr. Claire Beauchamp?” the woman asked.

Claire stood, her knuckles gone white on the empty old fashioned glass. Geillis hadn’t been in a bar brawl since leaving Edinburgh, but she’d do it for Claire. Geillis stood as well.

“Is he staying with you? How was the symposium?” Claire slurred. “Did the very distinguished Dr. Frank Randall make a splash?”

Phaedre Cameron stared at the two women. The short ginger looked as though she kept a Ouija board in her car. Beauchamp’s hair brought Medusa to mind and she looked as though someone had pissed in her cornflakes and stole her dog.

“Um, you mean the Scottish Jacobite expert? I’ve no clue where his hotel is located. I don’t follow his work.”

Geillis grabbed the glass from Claire’s hand. “Dr Beauchamp is off duty, maybe you can stop by her office tomorrow.”

“I tried that. I’m here about Jamie Fraser.”

#the accused #outlanderfanficau #jamieandclaireau #outlander modern au #john grey au

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dragonslayer-5fanfiction · 6 years

Text

My Burly Love Chapter 2

Sorry this took so long. I just got my wisdom teeth out. I don’t own any of Tolkien’s characters. Gif credit goes to owner and creator. This turned out longer than I expected. I appreciate all the love I got for the first part, you guys are amazing! So without further ado, here we go...

Chapter 1

I didn’t get the chance to give Dwalin his cloak because right after Balin told me who it belonged to;Thorin left. So; I packed it up with my things and decided to talk to him about it tonight.

I had decided not to ride with Fili today because he’d been squished on his saddle for days now. Instead I decided to ride with Bofur; he was always smiling and telling jokes. I quite enjoyed it…until Kili and Fili decided to pester me with questions, all day long. Silly little things like:

“What’s your favorite colour?”

“Most embarrassing moment?”

“Favourite food?”

“How do you pass the time?”

When Kili asked me that one, I told him to watch- and then I shoved him off of his horse. He didn’t ask me many questions after that and; I think Bofur was extremely grateful. Those two can be extremely annoying at times.

As we trudged along, the sky grew darker and the wind drew a cooling breeze. I closed my eyes and enjoyed the nature around me. It felt like hours, but I knew merely minutes had passed until something wet touched my cheek. I didn’t pay much attention, I assumed that Fili or Kili spit on me, but then I felt it again on my nose, then my eyes. The water kept coming and coming. It finally dawned on me that it was raining when the sky opened up and sheets of rain poured onto us.

“Mr. Gandalf? Can’t you do something about this deluge?” Dori asked.

“It is raining, master dwarf. And it will continue to rain until it is done! If you wish to change the weather of the world, you should find yourself another wizard.”

“Are there any?” Bilbo asked.

“What?” said Gandalf.

“Other wizards?”

“There are five us. The greatest of our order is Saruman, the White. Then there are the two blue wizards. Do you know? I’ve quite forgotten their names.” Gandalf replied.

Bilbo asked “And who’s the fifth?”

“Well, that would be Radagast, the Brown.” Gandalf answered.

“Is he a great wizard or is he…more like you?”

“I think he’s a very great wizard, in his own way.” Gandalf answered. We continued on into the freezing wall of rain. Bofur kept telling me jokes to distract me from the cold.

“What do you call a bear without ears?” he asked.

I thought for a minute and couldn’t come up with anything. “I don’t know, what?”

“A ‘b’!” It took a minute for me to understand it, then I fell into an uncontrollable laughing fit. I was laughing so hard I almost fell off of the horse along with Bofur. That would not have been good.

I eventually calmed down; but the rain was so thick that I couldn’t tell if I was crying or if it was just the rain. We continued on for several hours trucking through the mud and rain. The further we went, the more the rain slowed and slowed. As the sun began setting, the rain ceased. We decided to take advantage of the lack of rain and set up camp near an abandoned farmhouse.

“We’ll camp here for the night. Fili, Kili, look after the ponies. Make sure you stay with them.” Thorin ordered.

Gandalf inspected the ruined house, “A farmer and his family used to live here.”

“Oin, Gloin, get the fire going.” Thorin demanded.

“Right you are.” Oin replied.

“I think it would be wiser to move on. We could make for the hidden valley.” Gandalf replied.

I stopped listening to them when Bombur told me what he needed for dinner. I glanced up as Gandalf stomped off, muttering to himself. I started to worry about not having Gandalf with us. I figured with all these warriors around, we would be okay if anything happened to us, but it still didn’t feel right. As dinner was handed out, I found Dwalin sitting on a log by himself.

“Hey Dwalin, can I talk to you for a minute?” I tentatively asked. He glanced up at me and grunted making soup dribble out of his mouth. I sat down next to him. I didn’t know exactly how to word what I wanted to say without making it awkward.

“Lass would ya stop starin’ at me and spit it out.” Dwalin said, pulling me out of my thoughts.

I looked down at my hands in my lap, “I was told that the clo-”

Fili and Kili came running into the campsite, cutting me off, saying something about Mountain Trolls taking the ponies. Then they said that Bilbo went to free the ponies because he’s the company burglar. No one spoke for several seconds. Then, as if they were all slapped across the face they began to gather their weapons.

“Fili, Kili, lead the way.” We followed them, dashing into forest. We crouched down behind the bushes so we wouldn’t be seen. Bilbo wasn’t the easiest hobbit to spot, and it took us several minutes to find him until Fili pointed him out. Bilbo was trying to get a knife to cut the fence that held the horses, but he wasn’t having any luck. Out of nowhere, one of the trolls reached behind him. He was reaching for a rag, but he grabbed Bilbo instead. The nasty troll blew his nose on Bilbo: snot, boogers, the whole works. I wanted to vomit, but somehow restrained myself.

“Aah! Blimey! Bert! Bert, look what’s come out of me hooter! It’s got arms and legs and everything!” The troll yelled.

“What is it?” Bert asked.

“I don’t know, but I don’t like the way it wriggles around.” He promptly dropped Bilbo and, by the way he landed, I could tell it hurt. The trolls began asking Bilbo questions. The panicked look on his face brought Thorin to life. He started barking out instructions after that.

Just as they had decided to eat Bilbo, Thorin gave the signal to charge. Kili went, first slicing one of the trolls legs. All hell broke loose once the first drop of blood hit the ground. Everyone else was fighting; but I managed to get to the ponies and help Bilbo free them. As the last rope broke free, Bilbo and I were suddenly flung into the air. I remember looking into the disgusting face of the trolls before the world faded to black. When I woke up, we were hung over a fire by our feet. This wasn’t exactly how I pictured my death, but what can a girl do.

“Lay down your arms! Or we’ll rip their arms off!” I could tell they were aching for a fight, but they wouldn’t risk our lives. The trolls hogtied some of the dwarves to a spit over a fire, others were tied in bags, and I was left tied to a tree.

“I say we just squish em’ into jelly.” William said.

“No, they should be sauteed and grilled with a sprinkle of sage.” Bert said. Tom agreed with Bert.

“I think we should just skin the girl, and eat her now.” Tom said.

There were hollers of “Don’t you dare!”, “I will kill you if you hurt her!”, and “Ya’ better not touch the lass!” I glanced around at the dwarves, seeing how desperate they became. I felt helpless; all I could do was accept my fate.

“Wait! You’re making a terrible mistake.” Bilbo pipes up. Dori mumbled something about how he couldn’t reason with the Trolls because they were halfwits. “I meant with the…uh, with the…with the seasoning.” Bilbo replies.

“What do you mean?” Bert asked.

“Well, have you smelled them? They’re going to need something stronger than sage.” Bilbo answers. All the dwarves started to grumble and argue with Bilbo, but I understood what he meant.

“What do you know about cooking dwarves?” William asks. The trolls argued amongst themselves for a few minutes. “What is the secret for cooking dwarves?” Bilbo was floundering for an answer.

“You must skin them first!” He finally exclaimed. The trolls then started to argue more about what they should do.

“Nothing wrong with a bit of dwarf. Nice and crunchy!” Tom said as he lifted Bombur above his head to eat him.

“No! Stop! You can’t eat him!” I yelled struggling even harder to get out of my confines. All heads snapped towards me.

Tom stalked closer to me, “And why can’t I girlie?” I gulped and glanced over at Dwalin. His eyes were wild with fear and something else I couldn’t quite place. He was straining even harder to get off of the spit now.

“Because that one’s got worms in his tubes.” Bilbo answered. Tom threw Bombur into the pile of dwarves. “They’ve all got worms. They’re riddled with parasites.” Once that was said, everyone started to protest and threaten Bilbo, but mainly Kili. Thorin kicked him to shut him up, once he realised Bilbo was stalling.

I could see the sun beginning to rise; we only had to stall for a little longer. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a figure coming up on the rocks.

“The dawn will take you all!” Gandalf yelled, cracking the rock to allow sunlight to shine on through. I watched on in awe as the trolls turned to stone while Gandalf helped the dwarves get out of their sacks and off the spit.

Once Fili and Kili were freed they ran over to me and cut the ropes. “Are you okay, Y/N?” Fili asked.

“I’m fine. I might have some rope burn, but I’ll survive.” Kili grabbed my wrists to check them over, making sure it wasn’t serious.

He gently ran his hands over the burns. “I’m sorry. This never should have happened to you.” I just shook my head.

“I chose to come with you guys. I chose to come help you fight, this wasn’t your fault. I promise I’m okay. I’m going to go see if Oin needs any help, okay?” I patted his back as I walked past him.

Oin was busy checking up on some of the others, so he told me to go check up on Dwalin. He was talking to his brother so I didn’t want to interrupt their conversation. I began to walk away, but Balin saw me.

“Everything okay lass?” Balin asked. Dwalin turned around to face me when his brother spoke.

“Yeah. Sorry to interrupt, but Oin told me to come and check on Dwalin.” Balin smiled knowing that I also needed to talk to him about the cloak. He said something to Dwalin that I couldn’t hear, then walked off. I shuffled closer to Dwalin, “Are you okay? Did you get hurt?”

“Lass, m’ fine. And ye? Are ye hurt?” He asked. I bit my lip and looked down. I didn’t want him to worry that I was hurt. I shook my head no because I didn’t want him to see me as a weakling. “Well if that’s the-” he suddenly cut off grabbing my wrists, making me wince. He held them up so I could see what he was talking about. “What are these?” I looked down at my feet, suddenly finding them very interesting. I mumbled something about rope burns, hoping he wouldn’t hear. Dwalin sighed and ran his fingers over the burns. “D’they hurt? Do ye need any medicine for em’?”

“No. I should be fine, besides I’m supposed to be checking you. Not the other way around.” I chided. He chuckled. I looked away and gathered all the courage I had to continue the conversation from earlier. “Before things get crazy again, can I ask you something?” He just grunted and nodded his head for me to continue. “I found a cloak with my blankets the other night. I was told it was yours. Is that true?” I paused and looked at him. He looked almost sheepish as he nodded yes. I smiled and continued, “Well in that case thank you. But why did you give it to me? Don’t you need it?”

“I was on watch and saw that ye were shiverin’ even under all of yer blankets. I decided that I couldn’ let ya freeze. My brother would have my head if I did. So I gave it to ya lass.” He looked away at the end, like he was embarrassed. By the blush on his cheeks, I didn’t believe that Balin was the reason he gave it to me.

“Do you want it back?” I asked.

He smiled, “Nah, ye can keep it. Ye might need it again.” He winked. I blushed as I shook my head and watched him walk away.

Chapter 3

Tag list: @fentah, @xxdragonagequeenxx, @perseny-blog, @captainrainbowpanda, @perseny-blog, @reignofglitter

#dwalin x reader #dwalin imagine #the hobbit #dwalin #the company #my burly love #Thorin Oakenshield #dwalin oneshot

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selemina · 6 years

Text

Moonlight guidance

“So, what can an old priest like me do for you, traveler?” the old man asked with a soft smile. There was the same kindness, the same wisdom in his eyes than Father Williams had, and Walker couldn’t help but think about how far from home he was… Except he had no home anymore. Temples seemed to be the closest thing, for him, now.

“I… I am not sure.” He admitted, glancing around to make sure nobody else was there. Fortunately, they seemed to be alone in the dusty temple. “Well, what drove you here, then? Curiosity? The search for a shelter, perhaps?” “....A difficult choice.”

The priest nodded sagely at the gravity of the newcomer, sensing the turmoil inside. He motioned to the first row of pillows, closer to the statue of the Moon godess. “Please, come have a seat. What you say under the Moon is kept a secret, as is one of her many sides. Speak freely, I have all the time in the world.” a small chuckle. “One of the advantages of living this old.”

Walker let out a deep sigh, and a small unseen smile, before walking forward, joining the priest. He did not expect the cushions to be this thin, but a lot of people must have sat there over the years… “So. You said you had a choice to make?” “...Yes. I have to decide between being selfish, and being selfless. But either way, people -a great number of people- will suffer, including if I don’t act.” Walker sighed, looking down. The priest listened silently, neutral. “Matters of pure numbers never offer a satisfying solution, do they.” “No. But I have to decide between immediately angering a deity or slowly allowing an evil god to evolve and appear.” At that, the priest’s eyebrows shot up, and he chuckled. “Now this is indeed a heavy burden! Are you sure you’re not an angel?” “Quite sure. ...I… I do worship the god of Death, but I am trying to look for the purest way to do so, distancing myself from the murderous aspect people have tainted him with.” Walker suddenly looked nervous. “...Maybe I shouldn’t talk about this in another God’s house. I meant no disrespect.”

“I would be very surprised if our Lady took offense to this!” the old priest smiled kindly, amused. “She is also a neutral deity, after all. She is the light at night, the silent eye that sees all secrets, the gem in the sky that fascinates and enthralls. Solace, secrets and charms are her aspects, and like all Gods she has her own dark sides. That you want to spare another god from being consumed by their dark side would not be an offense to her.” At the mention of the darker aspects, Walker frowned slightly, visions of the Prince flashing in his mind. “....What evil aspects does she suffer from, if it is alright of me to ask?” The old priest close his eyes, his expression betraying an ancient pain. “The royal family is probably the best representation of her aspects, both positive and negative. There is a balance in this bloodline, but it shifts with every generation.” He adjusted his position, sitting more comfortably. “A long time ago, this place was nothing more than a village on the verge of decay. The wells had run dry, and people were dying. The chief of this village prayed to the Godess for help, and she answered. A blessing and a curse wrapped in one, a charm and a hex : she would allow his bloodline to rule over a growing, thriving empire, but this glory would have its own shadow of madness. For each good thing done for the people, the active ruler would see darker and darker deeds bloom in their heart. Now, not all kings we had since then were bad! Some did amazing things, opened trade routes, created entire fields to cultivate where logic would not allow, magnificent temples and palaces came out of the ground under their rules… But each time, the price…” He shook his head sadly. “The fields had to be first irrigated with the blood of 20 newborns. People died building towers and walls, gardens grew over mass graves. Some monarchs had public blood sports in honor of the godess, some were simply constantly abusive and violent but never killed anybody, and some… Some killed quietly. Occasionally. To keep their dark balance in check.” Walker narrowed his eyes. “Like the Prince.” A sad nod from the priest. “Indeed. But you have to understand, he has been one of the better rulers we’ve had so far. The scarce disappearances, and occasional spouses he takes, are a very reasonable price to pay for all he has done. He has paved a safe route deeper into the desert and contacted other struggling towns to offer them trade and water, he has planted enough trees to stop the advance of the desert onto the town, and our relationships with neighbouring nations have gone up considerably!” “...Or so I hear in the streets, yes.” Walker remarked, sombre. The priest picked up on the dark tone, and studied the pale man’s expression for a moment. “Does your dilemma have anything to do with him, per chance?” Walker looked up. He didn’t know if he could trust someone so attached to the Prince. Hopefully the Moon godess looking down on them from her stone perch wouldn’t judge him too badly for lying. “It would be unfortunate. No, I am simply concerned for the safety of a friend of mine.” Once again, the old man chuckled, and a little spark of mischief appeared in his eyes. “My son, one does not become priest of the Moon without being able to discern lies, truths and untold truths. That is the one part you feel like sharing, and I will respect that, but know that what I said earlier is true : nothing said under the Moon will be told outside.” he leaned back, waiting to see if Walker would rethink his answer, and after a deep sigh, he did. “....My friend is being held captive by the Prince. He refuses to let him go. But said friend is a God-touched, and his god is slowly dying, consumed by his darker side. He’s on a mission to right people’s views of his god, and he can’t do so if the Prince keeps holding him captive!” The old man rubbed his chin, deep in thought. “And you fear the Prince might take it out on us if you get your friend back? Or do you fear his bargain for his safety will cost you too much?” “He did not want to bargain. He said as long as my friend was his plaything, the people of this town were safe from his impulses.” Walker narrowed his eyes, shooting daggers at the ground. “But if I know anything about sadists, it’s that they are never satisfied. The need to get stronger and stronger thrills always comes back. Eventually he will stop caring about him and go back to hurting you all, with a new twisted passion. But by then, it may be too late for my friend’s god…” Walker sighed. “What are your options, then, worshiper of Death?” the priest asked softly, impartial. Walker fell silent. On one hand, leaving things as they were. The god of Pain would become the god of Torture, and people around the world would start suffering from his followers. And eventually, the Prince would spit out a broken Seeker to go quench his thirst for blood on his own people, as his curse demanded. On the other, he could sneak into the palace, locate Seeker, and extract him with minimal casualties. The god of Pain would still have a chance to survive, the Prince would go back to kidnapping and torturing occasionally. That seemed like the least damaging option. Or… “Tell me, Father… If something were to happen to the Prince, what would become of this city? Or this kingdom?” He asked, still looking straight at the ground. He didn’t see the grin on the old priest’s lips. “Dangerous question, my son. The royal bloodline is protected by the Moon’s grace. So far, every assassin that tried to take a ruler’s life either died in the attempt, or succeeded only to be cursed to death by the Godess. All of them have been found burned to a crisp in the middle of the desert, and it didn’t stop the ruler’s child to take the throne and inherit the Moon’s light. We have never gone without a ruler. But since balance is important for neutral Gods, I would expect this kingdom to slowly crumble, stone by stone, time reclaiming what the blessing has offered. Maybe over the years we will go back to our dying village, and it will end up disappearing. Or maybe everything will collapse at once. Whichever our Lady prefers, I would assume.” He explained, sounding very disconnected from said fate. Walker looked up at him. “...Do you not care if your temple collapses on your head?” “I was ready to die today. I was ready yesterday. I will be ready tomorrow.” He smiled softly, age marking his face. “If the collapse happens, I will watch until the end, and die. I have lived my life, with its fair share of happiness, sorrow, passing of crowns and passing of friends and innocents. I’ve seen blood in the streets and hands joined in marriage, beautiful nights and dreadful, bloody moonlight. I’ve seen enough. I’m happy with my life.” He grinned again, in a way that suggested that he might have been quite the trickster back in the days. “Now, I’m not sure everybody outside would give you this answer. It is as you said : whatever you do, people will suffer. But remember this…” He leaned in and rested a boney, fatherly hand on Walker’s shoulder. “People survive. We’ve seen Gods merge and separate numerous times. Cataclysmic fits of holy rage, oceans rise, mountain crumble to dust, and we’re still here.” He gave Walker’s shoulder a soft shake. “We’ll survive. We’ll be fine. We’ll suffer and stand back up, like we do. In the end, whatever you do will only affect you. Selfishness, sometimes, is no sin ; and coming from somebody that cares about the fate of the whole world, I have no doubt you will do fine.” The old priest gave Walker a reassuring, confident smile, and the wanderer felt his heart tighten in his chest, inexplicably. “...I try not to resort to murder. I’ve… been misled before. I don’t want to fall back into bad habits, even if they… they feel so easy.” he said, hands instinctively resting on the weapon at his side. “Was it the same situation?” “No. I was told who to kill. But how different is it, if I tell myself who to kill?” “How different are you from the one who used to give you the order?” Walker growled. “Very.”

“I believe that is all you needed to realize.” the old priest smiled, painfully getting up from his pillow. “Oof, we need to replace these… Anyways. I would advise you sleep on it. See if your life is worth your friend’s, provided you decide to go for the Prince’s life. See if you want to cut this town’s poisonous lifeline, or simply leave it behind, live your own life. Forget people. Forget numbers. You can’t save everybody in this situation, so listen to yourself and be true to what you hear.” Walker got up, offering a hand to help the old man straighten up, but he waved him away. “....I think I understand. Thank you… for your guidance. I will try to find the better solution.” “If my temple crumbles over my head I’ll know what you chose!” The old priest chuckled. “And if your corpse gets tossed in the streets by the Prince, I will try and find you a proper grave. What name would you like on it?” A pause, then a small smile.

“Deathwalker.”

#Seeker's story #Have some loredump!#cause I couldn't be asked to draw ALL OF THAT! XD #There is more about the royal family #about Walker's choice to come #and about the Godess of the moon #and her poisonned gifts

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kittyrossa · 7 years

Photo

when i first watched the S5 finale, i was instantly struck by how the white lion trials parallel the marmora trials! for brevity’s sake, i will refer to them as WL (white lion) and BoM (blade of marmora) throughout the post.

my friend @shirogane-s made a gorgeous gifset that sums up the main parallel, which is, as she says in the caption:

keith initially embodies lotor’s “i will get the results i want (i.e. victory/knowledge) or die trying” approach, but is only able to awaken his blade once he yields, which nicely mirrors allura’s success with the white lion

these three characters (keith/lotor/allura) are all fascinating foils to one another, so it makes sense that their trials would highlight exactly that!

HERITAGE

kolivan: the only way [awakening the blade] is possible is if galra blood runs through your veins.

lotor: that thing is a guardian — it will only allow worthy alteans through.

the BoM trials can be completed by those of galra blood, and the WL trials can be completed by those of altean blood.

keith goes into the BoM trials wanting to discover the secrets of his past; he has spent his entire life with a blade that he does not know the origins of, but has reason to believe is connected to his mother and to galra heritage.

lotor goes into the WL trials wanting to discover the secrets of altean alchemy; he has spent centuries searching for clues of oriande, hoping it will connect him to his altean heritage and to his mother, who possessed the same thirst for knowledge.

allura goes into the WL trials wanting to discover the secrets that her father knew and that she may have inherited: the ancient altean wisdom that allowed him to create voltron and spread peace throughout the universe, the very legacy that allura wants to continue.

CHOSEN

lotor and allura are branded with “the marks of the chosen”, altean markings that glow when deemed worthy of entering oriande. lotor is unsurprised that allura is chosen — alfor had the strongest understanding of altean alchemy — but lotor does seem surprised by his own selection. because honerva did not unlock the secrets of oriande, lotor only saw allura as a potential key. it’s plausible that haggar and lotor were given the properties of a sacred altean after honerva went through the rift, but lotor is not yet admitting that haggar and honerva could be one and the same. whether or not being chosen by the guardian is due to bloodlines, lotor and allura are both chosen. lotor says this is because some alteans are more connected to energy — more “magical” than others. this is just the first step, however; they will still have to prove their worth in the WL trials.

keith being “chosen” is not quite as magical or mystical! he is chosen by his parents to own the blade, though in its knife form; the magical and mystical part comes if he awakens the blade, transforming it. from the way antok reacts — accusing keith of stealing it — it’s clear that most BoM trials end in owning a blade that is individual to the wielder. because keith comes to the trials with a blade that used to be his mother’s and was then passed on to him from his father, he has to prove that he is worthy of being “chosen” by both the blade and his parents.

you can even argue that keith is chosen by a third person: shiro, who ends up playing a crucial role in the BoM trials, and who was himself chosen by ulaz as a fighter/leader that could help the BoM. shiro chooses keith not just as a right-hand man that will partner him to the headquarters, but as someone he trusts to take over leadership should something ever happen to him. shiro says that keith needs to work on controlling his emotions and on learning self-discipline, unaware that the BoM trials will test keith with that same mindset.

BLACK HOLE VS. WHITE HOLE

each trial is hidden: the BoM trials within a space pocket bracketed by black holes, and the WL trials within the energy of a white hole.

this is true to the fact that both trials are rooted in secrecy. the BoM’s location is only revealed because ulaz entrusted shiro with the coordinates, and the WL’s location is only revealed because allura’s power granted her access to the compass stone’s map. only two are permitted to enter the BoM headquarters, and only two are chosen by the guardian to enter oriande’s realm. in both cases, the rest of the paladins are forced to wait at the castle, without a glimpse of what could be happening — the black and white holes cause too much interference, preventing any readings.

lotor: the wise stand back from the fire; fools are burned on the pyre; the mystic becomes one with the flame; the embers and he are the same.

keith has to navigate away from being sucked into the black hole, but lotor and allura have to navigate inside the white hole. this is a mirror of the trials themselves: the BoM trials are about evading a dangerous path to focus on the destination, and the WL trials are about becoming one with energy to reach the destination.

KNOWLEDGE

as soon as the trials begin, they do not stop. keith is faced with the relentless swordsmanship of the BoM, and lotor and allura are faced with the charged attacks of the white lion.

keith and lotor rise to the challenge, but allura is quick to realize that engaging in combat is not the answer:

allura: i do not wish to fight! i come here seeking knowledge. this isn’t the way.

though allura has lost altea, she has not forgotten its culture or what she has learned from her father. alfor’s contribution to peace went beyond voltron; as coran says, they “can’t always put the fate of the universe in the hands of a giant weapon — at least, that’s what your father believed.” alteans were diplomats. the first time allura awakens her magic, it’s not through weapons, but through words. her voice reaches the balmerans as she tells them not to give up — she knows what it’s like to watch her home planet die, and will not let it happen to them.

coran: in the days of old, when alteans were given the gift of crystals from a balmera, we would repay its sacrifice by performing a ceremony. a sacred altean would re-infuse the balmera with quintessence. in this way, we had a symbiotic relationship.

allura: the galra have only been taking. it’s time we give back.

allura risks the same ceremony that her father performed, even though she’s never done it before and the scale of it may come at the cost of her own life. the ceremony isn’t about power, but about how she can use power to provide peace; and since then, this has been allura’s goal every time she has awakened her magic. her magic destroys the komar (haggar’s experiment that drains planets of quintessence), and her magic revives voltron on naxzela before haggar can bomb it. allura’s magic may be new to her, but by following her father’s footsteps in saving countless lives, she is firm about what she wants to do with her magic.

this is the wisdom that allura brings with her to the WL trials. lotor admits that none of his research can prepare them for what happens once they’re in oriande, but allura is a natural at navigating the obstacles presented by the sages. she knows that she needs to kneel and seek permission for passage and clarify that they intend no harm; that they offer up the compass stone as a gift. she also spots the teludav that transports them to the WL trials, something that lotor says only a “trained altean” would recognize.

as much as he wishes to connect to his altean heritage, lotor is not a “trained altean”. he has attempted to train himself by exploring the universe and gathering what remnants of altea that he can find, but there’s a difference between scientific theory and spiritual practise. attempts at either have been shamed as weak by zarkon — “you have altean blood running through your veins, poisoning your very being” — or outright crushed.

lotor: i envy you growing up with king alfor. i always wanted to be an explorer and learn about the universe. my father was only interested in conquering it. he once put me in charge of a planet for a year, running the quintessence mining and getting to know the local population. rather than employ the usual galran methods of subjugation, i worked alongside the leadership of the planet, learning their customs. we would only extract as much quintessence as could be replenished, and i enjoyed my time there quite a bit. when my father found out what was happening, he ordered me to destroy the planet. i refused, and he sent me away. he destroyed them all. i was powerless to stop him.

lotor does try to prioritize knowledge, just as he feels his mother once did — and if he’s going to gain a victory, it’s not going to be through the brute force and aggression that is favored by his father. he’s a fighter that survives by trapping and evading and using his surroundings; when engaged in combat, he provokes whoever is at the other end of his sword — throk, zarkon, sendak — by mocking their aggressive clawing for power and glory. when zarkon pursues him in the air with the intent to kill, lotor doesn’t fight, but escapes through harnessing the power of a sun.

because he’s been raised in galra culture rather than altean culture, it’s understandable that it’s lotor who keeps repeating that the WL trials will likely test their “worth”. when we first meet lotor, one of the first things he reveals is that rising to the galra throne is through “the honorable rite of combat”, and this is further confirmed with the ceremony of kral zera. you win by being the strongest, whether your methods are mental or physical or a combination of both.

lotor is a “trained galra”, even if he tries to rebel against that training. allura isn’t afraid to be alone during her WL trials, but lotor is out of his element when he finds himself without her, asking after her by calling her name. the landscape is an open space — there is nowhere to hide and its emptiness provides nothing to use. he can’t evade this. plus, the white lion doesn’t talk: it’s like a translucent spirit, making no sounds beyond roars and growls. there is no personality for lotor to provoke, no amount of cunning that will stop the white lion’s physical force — he can only respond to it by matching it with his own.

lotor: i will not yield! i will gain your secrets!

this is an obvious echo of keith in the BoM trials, though he’s fighting people rather than projections:

BoM: surrender the blade and the pain will cease.

keith: i won’t quit.

BoM: surrender the blade and the pain will cease.

keith: never!

this is not about glory; this is not about proving himself the strongest. keith is galra, but hasn’t grown up in the empire as lotor has, internalizing its values despite himself. this isn’t about his pride as a fighter, but as a person. if he surrenders the blade, he is surrendering his identity. if he gives up the fight, he is not being faithful to his determination to always see a goal through — to be all in.

like lotor, keith hasn’t been trained by his mother. keith is coming into his trials with the least amount of knowledge about his family, and he sees his knife as his key. how can he let them take it away? he doesn’t know the BoM’s customs and culture. he doesn’t know that these trials are not just testing his endurance against the empire’s unyielding fight, but testing his ability to know when to stop — a balance that he’s already struggled with.

coran: it’s zarkon! keith, get out of there, now! zarkon is too powerful!

keith: this is my chance to put an end to the galra empire! i have to take it!

zarkon: you fight like a galra soldier — but not for long!

unlike lotor, however, keith has a support system that has helped him try to find that balance.

keith: patience yields focus.

shiro: that really stayed with you, didn’t it?

keith: you’ve given me some good advice. if it weren’t for you, my life would have been a lot different.

shiro is right there watching the BoM trials, worrying for keith and rooting for him. he knows that keith will never quit, and he knows that keith’s emotions can overpower his focus. keith may be seeking knowledge about his galra family, but shiro is his found family from earth. they met at some point in their lives, and shiro for keith became the one person who “has never given up” on him, implying that others have given up. others have perhaps looked at keith’s fire and found the flames too dangerous or destructive, a person they don’t want to get burned by, but shiro looked at keith’s fire and helped him transform it into a light to guide both keith and others, including shiro. he believes in keith.

so, it takes him some time, but keith eventually uses “patience yields focus” in the BoM trials: he slows down and notices the escape route, throwing his knife and evading without surrendering. keith is exhausted and in pain and he desperately wants to see shiro, which is why hologram!shiro appears as a manifestation of his hopes and fears — the hopes that he will support keith, and the fears that he will reject keith. hologram!shiro tries to impart wisdom, but it’s clinical and cruel: keith is selfish, keith already has family in shiro and the paladins, and if keith doesn’t give up the knife, then keith has chosen to be alone. shiro abandoning him is the first thing to make keith hesitate, but before he can run after him, the mindscape changes to a hologram of keith’s father, who has all of the knowledge that keith is seeking.

SACRIFICE

the BoM trials and the WL trials come down to the ultimate question of “what are you willing to give up, and will you give it up?”

allura: i seek the secret of life. i give my own.

allura is willing.

keith: just take the knife! it doesn’t matter where i come from — i know who i am. we all need to work together to defeat zarkon. if that means i give up this knife, fine. take it.

keith is willing.

lotor: victory or death!

lotor is unwilling.

before i continue, there’s a third “trial” that feels relevant: shiro’s battle with zarkon in the astral plane.

zarkon: you have no idea how to command a weapon like this!

shiro: no one commands the black lion!

zarkon: you dare lecture me? do you think the black lion would allow such a feeble creature to pilot it? only the powerful can command it!

shiro: you’ve forgotten what’s most important between a lion and its paladin. it’s not about power. it’s about earning each other’s trust!

lotor fails his trials because he fails to realize what allura and keith do: that it’s not about being worthy of power, but about being trustworthy.

lotor doesn’t trust the white lion not to hurt him, and it’s hard to blame him. his father has targeted him with the same physical force, and would have gone to the point of killing lotor more than once. and though lotor is adamant that “that witch is not my mother”, haggar is the nearest maternal figure that he has: she has stood alongside zarkon and participated in the attempts to control lotor, albeit more psychologically than physically. she has sent out people to spy on him (military, narti, shiro); and though she shares the same blood that blocks her from the throne, haggar coldly calls lotor a “half-breed” whose altean blood quells the rights granted by his galra blood.

so, it’s understandable that lotor isn’t quick to trust people, let alone mysterious mystical lions. his team of generals came the closest in that lotor trusted them to carry out his plans, and in the end they deserted him — but only because lotor lost their trust first. cutting narti down is an example of how lotor does not like to feel powerless — like he’s losing control — and thus is not above doing whatever it takes to regain that power and control. he has manipulated the empire, the rebels, and the paladins, presenting and performing himself as trustworthy in actions and in words. but it’s likely that the white lion would have seen a manipulative stab at diplomacy such as “i come here for nothing but peace.” lotor may claim that as his aim in discovering the secrets of altean alchemy, but in reality he is still too focused on power.

it’s comparable to the triforce from the legend of zelda: three forces (power/courage/wisdom) that need to be balanced to bring peace. allura, though she also relies on power and courage, embodies wisdom; keith, though he also relies on power and wisdom, embodies courage; and lotor, though he also relies on courage and wisdom, embodies power.

allura and keith have a better hold on balancing all three, even if one can dominate; but lotor largely uses his courage and wisdom for the endgame of power, a path that his parents went down and launched an unending war.

alfor: the ore from the comet practically engineers itself. it’s frightening, in a way.

zarkon: endlessly powerful ships for the galra empire.

alfor: and an endless source of clean energy for the entire system.

alfor: we must exercise caution. we have no idea what is out there.

honerva: the ancients thought that lightning was shot from the bows of the gods until science proved otherwise. we must always push into dangerous territory in pursuit of knowledge.

honerva: quintessence is so much more than you can understand. it is life itself.

alfor: you’ve gone too far.

honerva: you’ve always been a coward! you wish to close off our gateway to enlightenment — we should be expanding it!

zarkon: if we use voltron, we can enlarge the opening to the other reality!

alfor: it’s madness! this prolonged exposure to quintessence has poisoned your minds.

zarkon: we’ve only scratched the surface. we can rule this entire universe! we can live forever! all of us!

alfor: i cannot be a part of this.

zarkon: you are only one part of voltron, alfor. you cannot hold us all back because of your fear! alfor, i lead the paladins! i command you!

lotor doesn’t want to be his father, but emulating his mother doesn’t mean he isn’t seeking power. like honerva, lotor seeks power through knowledge; and like honerva, lotor sees going through the rift as how to get that power. plan A was reaping the rift’s quintessence by building ships from the transreality comet. when that failed, lotor went for plan B: allura and voltron — much like how zarkon and honerva manipulated alfor and voltron.

shiro: how do you get an empire that’s only known violence for thousands of years to put down their weapons?

lotor: by providing them with the very thing they’re fighting for: quintessence. unlimited amounts of it. and allura, you are the key to getting it.

lotor: in order to transition the galra empire to a peaceful existence, i need to open up a pathway to the quintessence field. once my people have access to unlimited energy, the old ways of the empire will be behind them.

allura: if this voyage is successful, the universe will finally be on the path to peace.

again, lotor is certainly saying all of the right things — but, well, “the masses are easily manipulated.” he must know that it’s not that simple: unlimited quintessence may stop the hunt for power, but that doesn’t mean it’ll stop the hunger for it. the galra spirit won’t change from power-hungry to peace-seeking overnight — the galra can still use unlimited quintessence for physical force and violent feats. when keith and krolia reunite, it’s on a mission to destroy a superweapon built from undocumented quintessence that is unparalleled in its power; and lotor says himself that haggar is constantly seeking altean magical knowledge to “pervert” for her own power.

allura: your mother was honerva? the honerva that discovered the rift on planet daibazaal? then you’re — half-altean!

lotor: yes. it was something the galra considered a weakness, but i considered it a strength. the union between zarkon and honerva sparked a technological revolution within the empire. even back then, altean culture was remarkably advanced. the kinds of experiments she was conducting — she advanced science by eons.

lotor is trying to gain power in the Altean (Honerva) Way that he sees as superior to the Galra (Zarkon) Way. given how much lotor has had to fight for his own survival, it’s not unreasonable that he thinks he needs power to do so — specifically more power than zarkon, who lotor has felt powerless against before. when the white lion attacks him, lotor kills it — “victory or death!” — out of survival instincts; he isn’t about to sacrifice his own life that easily, not after centuries of fighting for it and for the dawn of a new age that honors his (and his mother’s) vision of power.

lotor: i will light the flame. not for defeating my father, and not even for being the strongest galra here. but because i did something no one else could do: i returned the black lion to the galra!

lotor may try to distance himself from his father, but at his core, he too sees voltron as a source of power to command. he displays himself as having ownership over the black lion, which is why he doesn’t succeed with the white lion. it never once occurs to him that it’s about teamwork and trust, a sincere emotional bond — “political allyship for one’s own gain” is not going to cut it.

keith’s BoM trials are about forming an alliance between voltron and marmora, but keith succeeds where lotor fails because he puts the mission above himself. the mindscape is on the cusp of unlocking every secret kept from keith, but he’s distracted by the galra attacking earth and people screaming and the red lion waiting for him.

keith: dad, i’m sorry, i gotta go. there’s people that need me out there.

keith’s father: don’t you want to know where you came from? your mother gave [the knife] to me.

keith: mom?

keith’s father: she’ll be here soon.

keith: you gotta tell me, dad. i have to know! where did the knife come from? what does it mean?

keith’s father: your mother is almost here. she’ll tell you everything.

keith: i can’t wait around anymore, i have to go!

keith’s father: if you walk out that door, you’ll never find out who you are.

keith: goodbye, dad.

arguably, the first lion “trial” is between keith and red: the red lion requires its paladin to prove that they’re worthy of respect, and keith has to fight off galra and get thrown out into space for the red lion to believe that he’s “all in”, swooping in to save him; a pattern that continues after keith finds out that he’s able to connect to red from long distances. keith is a paladin of voltron: he knows that working together with your lion is what will save the universe. he would never strike it as lotor did to the white lion, and the red lion would never let anyone strike keith.

shiro: [the red lion] has a link with keith. it knows when he’s in danger — it’s coming for him!

shiro joins red in fighting the BoM, only letting go of a wounded keith to defend him against kolivan and antok, who demand that keith give up his blade because he “failed to awaken it.” keith stops them as shiro and antok clash, voicing what he decided in the mindscape: he knows who he is and what he wants to do. what matters is saving the universe, and they need to work together to make that happen. if he has to give up his knife for that teamwork and trust, then he’s willing to make that sacrifice.

this is what awakens keith’s blade, and it is probably what has awakened other blades: the willingness of the BoM member to put the mission above anything that could hold them back. emotions are a “luxury” they cannot afford; kolivan doesn’t call emotions a “weakness” because he recognizes emotions for what they are: powerful feelings that can make someone selfish instead of selfless, upholding their own life above the lives that the galra have been threatening for several millennia. if they want to defeat the empire, then they can’t indulge in emotions that risk outweighing that mission.

krolia tells keith that she left keith once and will never leave him again — she, too, had chosen between family and mission, and now wants to meet in the middle. in retrospect, this sheds a light on how keith has always struggled with that balance: at one moment, he is scolding pidge for wanting to find her family over forming voltron; at the next moment, he is willing to give up on voltron because he wants to find shiro, his found family.

allura: keith — i know exactly how you feel. but our mission is bigger than any one individual. even those who are … completely irreplaceable.

keith: i know you’re right. it’s time to figure out how to reform voltron.

the black lion trusts keith in replacing shiro because shiro trusted keith in replacing shiro. keith has no visions of the black lion granting him power and glory. he only sees that he is filling the seat of someone he desperately wants back, and keith talks to black as though the lion and shiro are one soul: “i know you wanted this for me, shiro. but i’m not you. i can’t lead them like you. this one’s for you, shiro.”

when shiro does come back, keith sacrifices his own place on the team to make shiro black paladin again. rather than kick lance out of red and allura out of blue, keith turns his efforts towards somewhere he knows he can play a role: the BoM. he makes this sacrifice no matter how much he may miss the lions and the paladins and the teamwork and trust that they have begun to build together. as always, the mission comes first.

and allura isn’t wrong: if anyone knows how keith feels, it’s her.

allura: i don’t know if we should run to preserve what we have, or stay and risk everything. i want to fight, but the paladins of old are gone. i know what you would do.

hologram!alfor: i scattered the lions to keep them out of zarkon’s hands. you urged me to keep them and fight, but, for the greater good of protecting the universe, i chose to hide them.

allura: i think i understand.

hologram!alfor: no, daughter, you were right. i made a terrible mistake, one that cost the universe countless lives. forming voltron is the only way to stop zarkon. you must be willing to sacrifice everything to assemble the lions and correct my error.

allura doesn’t have the luxury of putting her grief above the mission. she has lost everything irreplaceable to her — her father, her planet, her people — and yet she doesn’t falter in putting herself out there to ensure that others don’t experience her pain. she ruthlessly trains the new paladins not out of a power trip, but because she understands the urgency of war; and it’s the same when shiro disappears and she has to push keith to step up to the plate, just as she had to for alfor.

it’s hard for her to let go of those leadership instincts when it’s her turn to pilot a lion. she’s used to flying the castle, creating wormholes, and calling the shots for the entire team — and while she doesn’t lose that role completely, it takes a trial and error period to realize that she can’t command blue as she would the castle. she knows that bonding with a lion is important, but as happened to lotor, it’s one thing to know something in theory, and a whole other thing to act it out in practise.

allura: nothing works! i’ve tried asking you nicely, and i’ve tried commanding you! what do you want from me? i can’t do this. everyone depends on me. the universe depends on me, but i can’t control everything. i need your help. guide me. i can’t do it alone.

allura accepts that she can’t fight on her own, and this may be why the blue lion accepts allura where the red lion didn’t. she did ask red for help, but because alfor piloted red, allura put double the pressure on herself in asking red to accept her: not because she wanted the glory of being her father, but because some part of her felt she could only follow alfor’s footsteps if she mirrored him in every way imaginable.

she still sometimes feels that pressure, fearing that she’ll never be the alchemist her father was, but by opening herself up to the support of others as she did to blue, the journey has become less lonely. the universe doesn’t rest on her shoulders alone. the WL trials again ask her to consider the balance between power and peace, and allura accepts the white lion’s energy into her heart — she sacrifices command and control. it’s about working together and trusting each other. how else will they save the universe from a constant cycle of fighting?

allura has the same awakening in accepting the help of the galra: the BoM, keith, and lotor.

allura to keith: i’m so sorry i misjudged you. you’ve proven it’s not what’s in your blood — it’s who you are that counts.

allura to lotor: what you did was for the greater good. and for many of us, proof of your intentions for peace.

despite her trauma, allura’s perspective on galra can be changed if they prove that they are fighting for the same cause that she is. it’s an extreme emotional risk — the first time she had a galra teammate, they betrayed voltron and killed her father and destroyed her entire culture. this cannot be understated, nor can the amount of strength it takes to put herself on the line for that vulnerability again and again. but from where allura’s standing, keith and lotor have proven — again and again — that they believe in voltron’s mission.

as of S5, allura and keith have a relationship of genuine trust. it’s been tested, such as when keith began prioritizing BoM missions over being the pilot of the black lion; but at the end of the day, keith has always done whatever it takes to fight the empire. they were both willing to leave the castle to find out if zarkon was tracking them, sacrificing their own safety for the safety of their team and the entire universe. keith was willing to put action over caution and infiltrate central command to finally defeat zarkon, earning allura’s turnaround in trusting him. they were both willing to sacrifice the chance to stay with their departed fathers, letting go of their holograms to maintain their mission. and allura was willing to reach out and offer keith a place in her “new family”, knowing what it is to lose your biological family and have to rebuild and reconnect.

keith doesn’t fault allura when she falls for lotor’s trap with the altean distress signal, and allura expresses condolences when keith loses regris, partially due to keith’s own risk-taking. keith has allura’s blessing in joining the BoM, knowing he’ll make them proud — and she acknowledges that the BoM have been instrumental in the fight against zarkon, a huge leap from her initial distrust in them and criticism of their caution. though they’ve parted ways for now, allura is similar to shiro in that she has made it clear that she wants keith to feel he can come back to them; that the team has faith and trust in him.

as of S5, allura and lotor have a relationship of tentative trust — “tentative” because it’s genuine on allura’s end, but lotor’s end is debatable. fandom seems 50/50 on it, which speaks to lotor’s complexity and how you can build a case for both. but these are the facts: lotor has communicated faith and support in allura’s abilities, urging her to be the person who can carry on the tradition of altean alchemy. honerva and alfor were alchemists, and zarkon and alfor were friends that fought alongside each other. can’t lotor and allura be the same, and rewrite their wrongs? everything lotor says is rooted in truth, even if there is a part of him that’s bending it to get the results that he wants. he and allura are both genuinely nostalgic for a time that no longer exists — as the new rulers of their royal families, they can understand each other in a way that few others can.

we can assume that lotor is using altean nostalgia for an ulterior motive, just as he used the altean distress signal to appeal to allura and get him the transreality comet. what he’s doing now is a more personal version of that plan, becoming friends with her and earning her trust and confidence. he says that he cannot revive altean alchemy without her, and allura boomerangs the same sentiment back at him: “i’m glad you’re here to help me now. i never would have gotten here without you.” this comes after lotor confides in her his reasons for being exiled, and his genuine despair at how he was powerless to stop zarkon. when allura later repeats that she couldn’t have unlocked her altean alchemy without lotor, he smooths over his frown with a smile and says that oriande was for her and not for him — she is the true alchemist.

alfor was once blinded by his compassion for zarkon, and allura may have that same blindness in her compassion — and empathy — for lotor. but the potential is there for them to have a future relationship without ulterior motives; to someday join together and restore altean culture and bring peace to the universe.

what about keith and lotor to complete the trifecta? as of S5, they have what i call a “wild card” relationship, and one of distant trust. it’s unclear if they’ve properly met in terms of being formally introduced — keith knows who lotor is, but lotor doesn’t seem to have been told that a former paladin (and one that he fought) is now a part-galra member of the BoM. they used to collide in battle when keith flew black and lotor was emperor pro tem; keith had immense distrust in lotor, doing everything he could to thwart him and his traps. but more recently, they’ve collided while saving each other — lotor unaware of who he was saving, but keith completely aware and doing the exact opposite of how he’d approached lotor before. lotor saved keith and the universe for his own political gain, but keith saved lotor because he now trusted him to be someone who could change the political tide.

i said this in my keitor meta for S3 + S4, but lotor saving keith had the potential to make keith do a turnaround in his trust of lotor, and S5 confirms this even if they never met afterwards. keith is still with the BoM, and their contact with lotor is indirect — lotor gives the paladins intel to pass on to kolivan, and kolivan reports back that it’s trustworthy. communications appear to stop after lotor kills zarkon, which is why keith doesn’t hear from them about kral zera — but it’s kral zera where he and lotor collide again, and it’s kral zera where keith saves lotor.

keith and lotor’s potential dynamic is a “wild card” because unlike their dynamics with allura, it’s galra-on-galra. prior to S5, many of us assumed that keith was a prime candidate for manipulation — he was part-galra like lotor and isolated from his former teammates like lotor, and if lotor wanted to deepen that wedge, he could have appealed to keith’s desire to belong by offering him a place alongside him. but as of S5, the tables have turned: it’s increasingly clear that keith is the galra that lotor pretends to be — that lotor finds it hard to be as the emperor’s son. keith refuses to be a prisoner of his own blood, knowing that galra blood doesn’t automatically make one loyal to zarkon or “just like” zarkon. he works with the BoM to take the empire down from the inside, and not just to shift its methods of power as lotor is doing with altean methods, but to dismantle its power and restore stability — hence the plan to blow up kral zera as the symbol of the first planet the galra conquered, along with the galra’s currently powerful leaders.

keith aborts that mission when shiro and lotor arrive — and the fact that keith lumps in lotor with shiro as “someone i want to save” is huge. but it’s logical: keith’s trust in lotor shifted once lotor executed the exact action keith was planning (destroying haggar’s bomb). seeing shiro ally himself with lotor is going to deepen that trust, even if keith is only viewing things from a distance. lotor is like a “cool/calculating” version of shiro: both have been pursued by zarkon for taking his former thrones (the empire’s + the black lion’s), and zarkon has mocked shiro and lotor for being “weaker” than him, stopping at nothing to eliminate them. and of course, both have been pursued by haggar and are currently being pursued by haggar, who through her magic tries to control them for her own agenda for power. lotor and shiro deal with this trauma by masking it with composure, and they make decisive and difficult choices to keep on surviving. keith has never lost trust in shiro, so it’s not out of the question that he’d trust lotor if he got to know him more personally — unless he saw the “cool/calculating” personality for what he used to see: someone cunning and chaotic. this may depend on how lotor responds to operation kuron: eliminate shiro like he eliminated narti, or help him and empathize with him (and therefore maintain keith’s trust)?

on the flipside, keith is like a “fiery/explosive” version of acxa — lotor’s former, and most devoted, general. less is known about acxa’s backstory, but since her introduction in the weblum, she has been mysteriously honorbound. keith says she’s “just like the rest of them” after she steals the scaultrite, but acxa remains different in that she doesn’t kill keith once she gets what she needs (and she pays her debt by saving him at kral zera). she reminds her teammates not to kill anyone, but to get the intel they need and get out. like keith, she encourages her team to stay efficient and dedicated to the mission, and like keith, she is intensely loyal to her leader; she wants to trust that he’ll protect them, and she needs to be convinced to overthrow him for her own gain. even then, her decision to do so is “for narti”, and she can’t help but insist that “no one is replacing lotor” when zethrid and ezor muse about usurping him as emperor (very keith-esque in how he responded to anyone replacing shiro as black paladin). what separates them is that acxa maintains her composure where keith’s emotions are often crystal clear; but they have both served as trusted right-hands to their leaders, and so it again makes you wonder what would happen if there was a mix-and-match: lotor meeting keith, a foil to acxa, and keith meeting lotor, a foil to shiro.

if allura represents the altean side of lotor that he on some level wishes he could embody, then keith may become that for lotor’s galra side. his WL trials demonstrate that he still has a long way to go on the path to inner peace and universal peace; allura and keith are already moving ahead.

as of S5, allura is connecting more and more to alfor and her altean heritage. as of S5, keith has just been given the opportunity to connect to krolia and his galra heritage. but as of S5, lotor has been denied the secrets of oriande and seems to be in denial about haggar being honerva — if he’s admitted it to himself at all, he sees them as separate entities. discovering that haggar is essentially an “amplified” version of the mother he holds on a pedestal could be something that destroys him, or it could be something that allows him to finally move forward and balance these two important sides of himself.

there’s nothing inherently evil about seeking victory or seeking knowledge — it’s about why and how you seek those things, and allura and keith are proof that choosing the honorable path is possible. for inner peace, they could use a little of lotor’s “selfishness” (not sacrificing their own emotions), and for universal peace, lotor could use a little of their “selflessness” (not sacrificing the safety of others). even if you theorize that lotor wants to go through the rift for “selfless" reasons — quintessence to uncorrupt haggar, as his parents may have wanted quintessence to save lotor’s life — there is still an element of selfishness in seeking power that can save one person at the cost of endangering the entire universe.

whatever happens in S6 and beyond, it’s safe to say that keith/lotor/allura all have compelling arcs about the trials of repeating history + shaping their own history. i’m super excited to see how these arcs continue to parallel and/or intersect!

#leithal #vld keith #keith kogane #vld lotor #prince lotor #vld allura #princess allura #keith and allura #keith and lotor #allura and lotor #more chara-centric than shippy but tag it as kallura or keitor or lotura if you want!#vld meta #long post #add-on:#keith and shiro

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timebuzzer · 4 years

Text

Ever After Chapter 9

3rd Person

A week after Sage's enlistment, Alex together with Aira and Hans set an appointment with Alex's CEO.

Aira already informed their CEO about Alex's change status. As it was stipulated in Alex's contract, she can date but she has to inform her agency about it and it has to be in utmost secrecy. However, Alex did not just date but got married.

Before Aira and Hans agreed to arranged their secret wedding, they carefully scrutinized Alex's contract as well. Hans consulted his father's legal consultant about Alex's contract and found a loophole in it. Hans warned Aira and Alex that the CEO might have to impose possible sanctions about her change status but assured them that suspension would be the most severe disciplinary action he could do.

They had a civil conversation about what happened to the couple's wedding and discussed the loophole in the contract as Hans prepared beforehand.

As Hans was also the CEO of Sage's agency and on equal footing with Alex's CEO, the latter was respectful but controlled anger could be seen in his face as his nerves were visible on his forehead and his knuckles were white due to his tight clenching.

"Mr. Oh, you are also a CEO and I don't think you would be happy to know that your talent got married without your permission, I suppose?" Mr. Yoon, the CEO, retorted as he could no longer hide his resentment.

Hans understood the implied mockery of Mr. Yoon's statement so he replied simply.

"I agree with you Mr. Yoon that's why I came here personally to represent my talent's wishes and as a major shareholder in our agency as we promise that the couple's wedding would not hinder or affect Alex's projects in any form as I would make sure that this will be kept as confidential as possible. Sage is inside the military so there would be no problem with any dating rumor or the rumor spreading any time soon. Rest assured I would do everything in my power to keep this classified." Hans vowed without batting an eyelid.

He voiced out with conviction and confidence in his capabilities as the son of the Entertainment giant in the industry. He knows how to handle any scandal before it even reaches any media company in the country.

"Well these conditions could only apply because Sage is inside the military but what happens after he goes out for enlistment? Can your power control all the paparazzi lurking in the shadows just waiting to catch these two?" Mr. Yoon rebutted with raised brows as he doesn't want Alex to get away unscathed and have her way with it.

"I suppose Mr. Yoon forgot Platinum agency is just my stepping stone to inherit CJE..and with all due respect, before anything goes online my father informs me about the issue...oh..and I almost forgot..." Hans declared with a hint of caution to the old man in front of him and added,

"Aira here also controls anything that goes out of the media as she too has a father who owns KT Telecom who controls all the broadcasting networks in the country...in case Mr. Yoon forgot.." He then placed his arms above his lap as he rested his face above his knuckles.

Mr. Yoon could only grunt in defeat. He never could have imagined that despite his rage he could only be helpless in facing these two managers in front of him. He forgot that Aira and Hans do not have simple backgrounds.

Aira and Alex looked at the battle of stares the two gentlemen is having. They could feel the tension in the room as these two men won't just surrender.

Finally, Alex spoke.

"Mr. Yoon, I apologize for not informing you beforehand but you have my word that my change in status won't get in the way of my projects and job. I will work hard to compensate for my misbehavior and I will be on my best behavior so as not to catch any unwanted attention that might reveal my change in status."

Alex asserted with conviction as she held Aira's hand for support under the table.

Aira squeezed Alex's hand in acknowledgment. Hans and she already decided to battle this agreement together even before Sage asked them to.

After a long staring game Mr. Yoon then decided to retreat as he saw Aira's nonchalant demeanor paired with Hans's relaxed gesture as he knew that these two managers already made a concrete counter-argument in case he drags this issue further.

"I guess, Alex here is fortunate to have known people with solid backing." Mr. Yoon uttered sardonically.

"Perhaps she is Mr. Yoon. Isn't solid backing a requirement in surviving in this industry in addition to exceptional talent? You of all people know that, am I right Mr. Yoon." Hans responded with equal mockery as he knows Mr. Yoon had his position as the CEO because of his influential brother.

If looks could kill, Hans would have already died with Mr. Yoon's stares, but the object of the glare managed to keep his mischievous smile looking like a confident businessman who knows what he's doing.

Left with no choice, Mr. Yoon added,

"I'll leave everything in your hands then, in hopes that you keep your part of the bargain and not just empty promises uttered to an old man." He uttered with sharp breaths.

"You have my word. And thank you for this cooperation. If there is any difficulty you'd encounter in the future, I would gladly return the favor." The hand then extended his hand for a gentleman's handshake.

Mr. Yoon was reluctant at first but he knew he cannot win with this guy and after heaving a deep sigh he accepted Hans' courtesy.

"Ms. Lee, I'm not being lenient here. You remain unscathed because I don't want my other artists to know about your rush behavior. I will keep this in utmost secrecy too to avoid additional problems that may arise. But... If this goes out to the media, you will shoulder the damages it would incur to clean up your mess."

"Thank you very much, Mr. Yoon," Alex replied.

The three of them went out of the office immediately afterward.

Alex could not help but admire Hans's professionalism. It was the first time she witnessed him handle a difficult situation and getting away with it unscathed. She could not help but tease Aira with it.

"Girl, your fiancee looked awesome there! I never thought Mr. Yoon would just let us go that fast. I thought he would scold me death just like before but because of your man, we are now walking freely." Alex chuckled.

"Hush, he might hear you and he will brag about this day for a long while and that would be irksome..." Aira responded in a hushed voice.

"Oh, I heard it loud and clear...What did you say, Alex? I looked awesome?" Babe, Alex acknowledged my skills, don't you think I deserve a kiss for a job well done?" Hans replied with a mischievous grin as he pouts at his fiancee.

Aira's cheeks then turned crimson and replied, "In your dreams!" as she sprinted out of the building taking Alex with her.

Alex could only smile as she knew her best friend well. She knee that Aira also admired Hans's skills and could only shout at Hans as they are meters away from him.

"Thank you, Hans, I know Aira would reward you greatly when you are finally alone." Alex then winked at him.

"Yes! I will claim my reward later." Hans thought to himself.

"Wait for me, don't leave me here." He retorted back as he sprinted to catch up with the two ladies.

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tipsycad147 · 5 years

Text

Voodoo In The Modern World: A Gris-Gris Love Story

SL Bear

I got my gris-gris bag during a rough time in my life. Even though I was applying to jobs all over town, no one was calling back and my bills were bearing down on me like a freight train. Being low on funds was nothing new, but I’d always been able to find a job before. As my desperation kicked in and I started googling how much kidneys were going for these days, my sister suggested we go downtown to the witch shop. Now, of course, you don’t know my sister but she’s not the kind of person to suggest such a thing. I was intrigued, to say the least.

We pulled up in front of a teeny tiny shop that used to be a teeny tiny house. It seemed to be just big enough for one person to live very cosily with their cat, so pretty much perfect as far as witch shop locations go. Jars filled with dark liquids hung in the window and runes and odd symbols decorated the door and window ledge. Inside, though it was noon and hotter than hell outside, the store was dark and cool. Most of the light came from candles or strings of Christmas lights. Glass jars filled with herbs lined an entire wall. Pendulums hung from the skull of some horned animal and the musty smell of patchouli was everywhere. A hundred different kinds of incense and oils sat near the register, which itself was covered in more symbols and lined with little stones. In the back of the store, a massive altar sat where customers could leave offerings. Cigarettes, little figurines, and even hair were set out on the altar and before it, witches worked silently at a round wooden table: Grinding herbs with a mortar and pestle, mixing things in large ceramic bowls, tying cords around bundles of sage…

In the front of the shop, under the shop’s only window, was a table filled with small baskets of different stones. This is where I headed first. The stones were warm from sitting in the sun and picked up the light like little jewels. Though I didn’t know any correspondences at the time, certain stones drew me in more than others and as I read their carefully handwritten descriptions, I realised I had gathered stones possessing qualities important to me, and stones that seemed designed to help me in my current hopeless state. Jasper for luck, aventurine and pyrite for money… It was so exciting in a way I can’t describe.

Everything about the shop just felt like home, and while other customers came in and gasped at the skull or absently picked up tarot decks and giggled with their friends, nothing about this place felt like a tourist pit stop to me. That’s when I noticed there were other things on the table with the stones: Many small, neatly tied bags.

A piece of decorative paper next to the bags told me they were gris-gris bags, and each one had a specific purpose. They were scented like sachets of potpourri, tied with different coloured strings and seemed to hold sand or very fine powder. There was something else in the bag I held, something solid, and I figured I’d open it up and find out what it was when I got home. A little mystery!

When I was ready to check out, I handed my stones to the owner of the shop and she inspected each one, commented on their colours and patterns, then she looked up and asked me if I was having money troubles.

“Yeah, maybe because I spend it on rocks instead of food,” I said. She didn’t think this was very funny, but any awkwardness evaporated when I handed her the gris-gris bag I’d chosen.

“Hmm,” she said, “do you know how to take care of a gris-gris?”

“You mean you don’t just pop it on the shelf?”

She shook her head quickly and explained that gris-gris bags are like spirits, like friends, and they have to be well taken care of to work for you. You should do things like play your gris-gris music, carry it with you in your pocket, and most importantly, once a week, light some incense as an offering for your gris-gris. She said this with such sincerity, I didn’t even make a stupid joke. In fact, I was almost instantly absorbed by this new information — it played to my nature perfectly. She showed me some incense and I added that to my purchases, and when she bagged my items, she was careful to hand me the gris-gris. Already, this little bag was extra special. It didn’t go in a paper bag; I was to carry it.

I was vigilant about taking care of my gris-gris. I lit the incense exactly as the witch had described. I played music for the gris-gris every Thursday. Eventually, things started to turn around for me and when I began getting calls for interviews, I upped the ante. I added a candle to the weekly ritual and put the stones I’d purchased around the gris-gris. When I got a job, the gris-gris got two or three figurines — like the ones I’d seen on the altar at the witch shop.

Over time, this weekly ritual grew, totally by accident, into my first altar. I’d already read all about gris-gris bags online, but I started reading about sigils, too, and correspondences and then everything else in this wonderful, secret world of witchcraft. As you can imagine, my gris-gris is very precious to me (after all these years, I still have my first and only one!) and without it, this world might have stayed closed to me forever. Not to mention, the gris-gris worked like a charm!

Voodoo Charm

The gris-gris bag traces its origins to West Africa. Born of the influences of Muslim scholars, healers, and mystics, the gris-gris bag was absorbed into African cultures, which shaped and transformed the talisman according to local beliefs and customs. Originally, a gris-gris may have consisted of a folded piece of paper with an inscription from the Quran, written in special ink, with meaningful numbers, words, and symbols in a grid. This piece of paper was folded and tied with string and placed in a leather pouch to be worn on the body or affixed to a meaningful location. Where the gris-gris was worn (neck, waist, or limbs) or placed usually related to the gris-gris’ purpose; protection, health, wealth, and social harmony all required different placement. If, for instance, you wished for someone to fall in love with you, you might wrap your gris-gris in meat and feed it to a female dog.

When slaves were brought from West Africa to the United States, many of their customs were imbued with Christian and West Indian influences as well, particularly with voodoo practitioners in Louisiana. Slaves living in unspeakably cruel bondage turned to voodoo and hoodoo for help in matters of protection, healing, and cursing their masters. Through the years, the gris-gris bags’ contents became more complex, while still adhering to important religious protocol — such as maintaining only a certain number of objects and including objects with specific symbolism (bones, powders, roots, etc), all depending on the gris-gris bag’s intended purpose.

Voodoo blossomed in Louisiana (today hailed as the voodoo capital of America), and New Orleans in particular, and gris-gris bags were (and are still) an important part of the religious practice. A few voodoo practitioners, such as Marie Laveau, the Voodoo Queen of New Orleans, became renowned for their skill and were sought out by a racially diverse clientele. Laveau made a living working hoodoo for clients, including making and selling gris-gris bags as part of her love, luck, and protection spells. Gamblers hedged their bets with gris-gris bags filled with good-luck tokens such as shark’s teeth and dove’s blood.

Those wishing to ‘put a gris-gris bag’ on someone for revenge, or to banish them, were regular visitors. Their bags’ ingredients were thrown at the person or left at their home. Imagine stepping outside and catching a gris-gris bag in the face! You would know the spirits were aligning against you and it was possibly time to make a trip to Madame Laveau’s yourself. If a person really wanted to harm another, Madame Laveau would make a gris-gris bag from a death shroud and fill it with things like one-eyed toads, a rooster’s heart, and a suicide victim’s pinky finger.

How To Make A Gris-Gris: Whoops!

Because I am not an initiated practitioner, I don’t have the knowledge required to pass instructions onto you. It’s not simply a matter of putting corresponding things into a bag, not by a long shot. Many gris-gris tutorials online and gris-gris bags for sale these days are actually mojo bags, which is a similar practice but not, in fact, the same as a traditional gris-gris. When crafting a gris-gris, many things are specifically considered, and practitioners who have this knowledge are also masters in studies like history, cosmology, astrology, numerology, colour symbolism, etc. — all of which is crucial in the assembly of a true gris-gris.

Everything is specially chosen with a reason in mind (even the paper and ink) and those reasons have deep Islamic and African roots. This is knowledge that must be preserved and passed on, but not information most people should take from a random online tutorial. So, it’s important to remember that not just anyone can make a gris-gris, and the history and culture that this tradition belongs to should be shown respect.

https://thetravelingwitch.com/blog/voodoo-in-the-modern-world-a-gris-gris-love-story

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hardblazesong · 7 years

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Noir Nocturne Part 1 Chapter 7 Further Exposition

Jamie got control of his temper by the time they got to the door of the house, but it was a close thing. The talk the men had had outside had not gone well. He knew Murtagh wouldn’t hurt Claire for love nor money but Dougal and Angus were like ill-tempered bulls even when not faced with life altering circumstances. He was also beginning to suspect that they both might have feelings for Claire that were not welcome.

He recognized this could just be jealousy on his part, but he was new at being in love. He’d been infatuated a time or two, but that was entirely a different thing, and this new state of being was confusing. He wanted to protect her, provide for her and show her off whilst also wanting to hide her away from anyone or anything not himself. He also thought he had a duty, as her husband, to guide her, not be led by her. Six weeks of being her friend and three days of being her husband were just not enough to show him the ways of it.

His mother had died too early in his life for him to really know what he expected from a wife. His father had obviously loved his mother, but he wasn’t privy to the inner workings of their marriage. Now he had a completely different time to adjust to as well. He had expected to take her home to Lollybroch at some point. He understood that life, wanted that life. Would there be a way to make something like it here? He’d studied history. He knew people didn’t change as much as the times did. Still, nearly two hundred years had passed. He was just going to have to let events unfold and pray that she could come to love him enough that they could make it work.

“Jamie? In here please.” Claire said leading him across a porch and through a door off to the side where the others had disappeared while he was mulling over his circumstances. He smiled down at her while trying unobtrusively to notice everything at once.

The room was large and so white. Everything gleamed and looked familiar but strange and much too bright. He noted a fair few cabinets, and a large round table with eight chairs off to one side. The floor was like nothing he had ever seen. It wasn’t tile, marble, wood or packed dirt. It shone as well. There were no candles, and he couldn’t see a fireplace, but did see something that looked like it could be an oven of sorts.

“Have a seat with your friends you two. I’ll put a kettle on and get the Sister here shortly.” Father McDaniel said as he waved in the direction of the table. Jamie heard a clicking noise, saw the Priest take a small box down from a shelf and pull out a tiny stick that he somehow kindled and lit a flame with on top of the oven type box object. He gasped, as did Angus.

Claire giggled as she sat down at the table. “We must have missed the light switch, just look at your faces! Electricity, gas and indoor plumbing that does not include chamber pots, oh my.”

Jamie sat as close to her as he could at the table and took her hand under it. “What did he just do over there Sassenach? Is that for cooking that thing he’s standing at? Is everything so bright in this time? What is this floor made of? Why do I smell lemons but canna see any? Do all homes now have so many windows?” He would have gone on but the look on her face stopped him. She was gazing at him as if he were a small child and she was trying not to laugh at his curiosity.

Father McDaniel laughed outright. “Oh, this is going to be one of the great joys of my life, educating you lot. Let us try not to get ahead of ourselves though. Perhaps you could take a few minutes to point things out to them and make the tea while I call for some assistance Mrs. Fraser?” He then stepped into a small alcove and they all heard him speaking to someone they couldn’t see “Yes, yes, come here now. Yes, I know it’s late. No, nothing’s wrong, just come here and be quick about it.”

Claire stood up and started to describe what was in the room to them while she looked for items in the cupboards. “That is an oven with a cooking surface, this is indoor plumbing called a sink which has running water. That rectangular object is called a refrigerator, you store food in it, like a pantry. He lit the stovetop with a match, not magic. This, thank God! Is Earl Grey tea! That’s to toast bread. This is a bread box.” She seemed to be having a good time pointing at and collecting things so Jamie just enjoyed the novelty of it and her typical nonstop manner. He tried not to think about all that she knew that he didn’t, that way lay madness.

“So, there’s food in here then? This is a Kitchen? What’s to eat?” Angus nearly shouted at her.

Father McDaniel came back in and stepped to the refrigerator where he began taking out assorted foodstuffs. He moved to a counter top and started to make sandwiches with some leftover ham. “No need to fret Son. They’ll be plenty with some to spare for the next part of your journey.” He then opened yet another cabinet and took out a bottle, and collected six small glasses. “Here, a bit of the old sod won’t go amiss while the tea steeps. Purely medicinal you understand.” He handed a wee tot to each of them and lifted his own glass in a toast. “Here’s to new friends from very old times and one lovely lady to see to their welfare!”

The men all saluted with their glasses and drank quickly having known from the aroma a good whiskey when they smelled it. Jamie looked askance at him though. He knew about Prohibition after all. It’s what had nearly started a brawl outside. “Father, how did you come by that bottle? I thought it wasna’ permitted?”

Father McDaniel shrugged and looked at Claire “Told him did ya lassie? Might have wanted to wait on that one. Ah well, I have my ways Son, I have my ways. Now get to eating or there will be no end of trouble with the Sister if she gets here and finds you drinking.” He laid a platter of sandwiches on the table along with jars of mustard, pickles, onions and assorted other nibbles.

Claire handed each of them a plate and brought the tea things to the table along with cutlery. She shook her head and teased him saying “I know you must be out of sorts as well Father if you are letting them eat without saying grace. Thank you just the same for everything.” She then sat back down by Jamie and reached for his hand again under the table, giving it a gentle squeeze of reassurance.

“You wanted to know more of my story Father? Well, in 1945 I was in Scotland, um vacationing, when I happened upon a circle of standing stones. I heard a strange buzzing noise and reached out to the tallest stone and the next thing I knew I was in the midst of a skirmish between these men and some Redcoats. They believed me to be some sort of spy and led me back to their Larid and his lands to keep an eye on me. I thought I was being kidnapped until I understood it to be 1743. I then tried to fit into their world as a healer, I’m a nurse you see, while I tried to figure out a way to get back to the stones and my own time. Meanwhile, Jamie here had been injured and while tending him, we became friends. It took a great deal to adapt to the situation I found myself in Father. It was not easy and I thought it possible that I would never return and certainly did not expect to be transported here and now by yet another mystical means. Circumstances beyond our control led to Jamie and I being wed. It had to do with clan politics and a nefarious Captain in the Dragoons, but that is another tale.” She stopped there and Jamie saw her frown and give the Father the oddest look, as if she were silencing him into keeping secrets.

“Ahem, yes, well, I am sure we can talk more on this soon Claire.” Father McDaniel said with a sage look at her. Jamie wasn’t sure what was going on between them but they appeared to have some sort of unspoken agreement. It made him uneasy and he didn’t know why.

The Nun, Sister Mary Margaret appeared in the doorway and coughed. She looked astonished and wary to Jamie. He saw her take in the sight of them all in the kitchen late at night and then look at the Father as if he might be losing his mind. “You needed assistance Father?”

“Yes, take a couple of these men to the stores in the basement and outfit them with a couple changes of clothing, some undergarments and coats and hats. Give them a blanket each as well. Then come back and do the same for the other two. Then take Mrs. Fraser and outfit her too. She will be needing a sundries kit bag as well Sister.” He then pointed at Murtagh and Angus and said “Go along with the Sister. We’ll all be sitting right here when you get back laddies.”

Jamie hid his grin in a bite of the sandwich. He knew Murtagh wasn’t inclined to go anywhere without him and wouldn’t like missing anything that would be said in his absence. Claire beamed her brightest smile at the two of them and told them it was the thing to do. He couldn’t help but feel proud at that. She was so clever and even though she sometimes spoke without thinking she appeared to know that they were taking her lead gracefully and wasn’t using her authoritative tone anymore.

“Father, where can we find lodging and employment?” Claire asked after they’d gone. “We also will need to find a pawn shop.”

“OH, I have that all sorted my dear. You are going to need to walk a couple of miles tonight to where they are building an outdoor Greek Theater. You can kip for the night under the stage. In the morning, you will be heading to Mrs. Barnett’s Boarding house which is close to an employment center in Hollywood. I also have the address for a reputable Pawn Shop and I will be phoning ahead to all three places to be expecting you. I will draw maps, so you won’t be getting lost. We don’t have a shelter here and the church bus isn’t kept here at night, so I have to be sending you out on foot sadly. I expect you to phone me first thing after you have settled into your lodging. That’s not too much to be asking, do you think?” He asked while smiling and giving the three of them a stern look under his brows.

“No Father, it is most definitely not.” Claire had what looked to be tears in her eyes when she said this. Jaimie understood her emotion. He felt very grateful himself.

“Yer a good man Father. I thank you for your kindness.” Dougal said, surprising them all as he had been unusually quiet in the kitchen.

“Ah think nothing of it. You know I’ll be expecting you all back for Mass and we can always use a bit of help around here. Mrs. Fraser, I believe I know a clinic that could use your help as well. They won’t be asking too many questions when I phone them. You wouldn’t happen to speak Spanish, would you?”

TO BE CONTINUED

#noir nocturne #Jamie and Claire in the 30s AUOutlanderNoir

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tonysinterested · 7 years

Text

A thing I wrote

I play in a D&D Group that’s DMed @memegenre. This is the backstory for one of my characters.

I didn’t actually write this for him. I run a writing group over discord, and the prompt they voted for that week really fit my birdlady cleric. So I wrote a bit on her.

I would normally never post this (especially since it’s not really polished, doesn’t go anywhere, and is overall kind of bad) but I’m tired as hell and I feel the need to prove that I can actually create content that’s not just stealing videos and turning them into gifs, even if the gifs are probably better.

Meirit touched down on the steps of her home and coughed, shaking some of the water out of her feathers. Flying in the rain was always awful, but today felt especially bad, the wind pounding frigid drops into her wings with surprising intensity. It would likely start hailing soon—good thing Temple had ended early.

“Home early?” her mother asked, looking up from the pot she had on the small stone oven. Meirit could smell the subtle sweetness of her father’s favorite salmon soup. Mother must have finished her own sewing early today, if she had time to make that.

“Yes,” Meirit said, curling a wing in front of her and using a hand to brush the moisture from the feathers. “Lady Bethani was concerned about the rain, I suppose.”

“As she should be,” her mother murmured, stirring the soup. “I hope your father returns home soon.”

The worry on her mother’s face was as obvious as it was unnecessary. Father had faced worse than a simple hailstorm, and, if worse came to worse, he carried enough human currency to buy himself a bed to wait out the storm. Then again, it was Mother’s right to worry. Perhaps even her obligation, it seemed, considering how the other women acted towards their husbands.

“He will be,” Meirit said, softly, staring down at her wing. It still dripped with water. She sighed. “I’m going to go and dry off.”

“Hurry now, dear,” Mother said, softly. “I need some help with the bread.”

Meirit nodded, then walked forward, crossing through the hallway to the room she shared with her sister. She dropped her leather pack on the floor and removed her hood, hanging it on a peg to dry. After retrieving a towel from their unstained oak dresser, she dried herself off, as best as she could.

Meirit sat down, after she was dry, and began to tend to her feathers, smoothing them back down. This took her several minutes. Mother was probably done with the bread, by now. Meirit sighed. Perhaps there was something else she could help with.

The Aarakocra was walking out of her room when something on her desk caught her eye—a neatly folded sheet of paper. Meirit blinked, tilting her head. The folds were too clean to be her sister’s work. A note from mother, perhaps, but why didn’t she mention it?

Meirit picked up the paper and unfolded it, and began to read:

Meirit,

I hope this letter finds you well. Sending it shall be a rather complicated endeavor, and I cannot guarantee my success in doing so. Before I continue further with the body of this post, I advise that you sit, before continuing to move onto the next paragraph.

Meirit rolled her eyes. Great. Probably some suitor, again. Perhaps Adlai, or Samuel, trying a new tactic. Then again, she wasn’t sure if either could read. Maybe they’d hired somebody to write this for them—the handwriting was feminine, for sure, and, now that she was thinking about it, very familiar. Perhaps one of the other girls in her Temple class.

Now, I know you well, so you’re likely standing. This is, again, a mistake, but I also know I cannot convince you to do otherwise, so we shall proceed without taking any precautions.

First, we must settle the matter of who I am—who is writing you. I’m afraid, however, that the answer to this question is, at best, confusing, for I am you. Or, rather, one possible version of you, some thirty years your senior, if you are receiving it when I intended.

Meirit was somewhat taken aback. On further inspection, the handwriting was indeed a reasonable approximation of hers—wobbly circles that formed ‘o’s, the dots on the ‘i’ a bit higher than they should be, all of the flaws her handwriting instructors had criticized her for. Whoever had created this forgery was quite good at what they did. She continued reading:

If you are reading this, I’m afraid I am dead.

Meirit felt her heart rate increase. Not by much, of course, but there was something strange about seeing those words in her own hand. This joke wasn’t funny. Already, she was creating the stern words for the prankster in her head, as she kept reading.

I cannot tell you how, or why. All I can do is send you this letter in an attempt to help you. To help us.

There is somebody in this world who, through either natural ability or arcane study, has uncovered a horrible secret: the ability to undo what has been done, to revise history as a sage changes the drafts of his stories. I know only little of how, and even less of who he is, but I am afraid I cannot even transmit this piddling information to you, at risk of causing further paradox. All I can say is that you shall find his face through history, if you look carefully.

Meirit. You must find him. Such magic was not intended to be possible, but some error has occurred in the laws of creation. I fear grave consequences if this error is further exploited. This wizard must be stopped, at all costs. You—myself—am the only person I can trust to do so.

Meirit sighed. In truth, she was somewhat excited to see where this was going, but this was simply too unbelievable. That, certainly, would have to be included in her scolding.

By way of proof, I can offer this only: your sister shall find her first developed feathers within a day, if my timing is accurate. I can offer you nothing else, but still, I implore you: find him. You must.

- Meirit

Meirit put down the letter, agitated, and was halfway out the door to ask her mother who had delivered such dribble when she saw something else on her desk.

Below where the note had been, there were four feathers, longer than any of the ones she occasionally found clinging to her cloaks or bedsheets. These were the longer feathers that spread at the corners of an Aarakocra’s wings, granting them flight. And, somehow, they looked almost familiar.

Meirit leaned down, slowly, and picked one up. She extended a wing forward, and held the feather up to it. The colors matched nearly-identically—the ones left were a bit darker, and a bit longer, but they were freakishly similar.

Meirit suddenly found it harder to breathe. She couldn’t put a claw on why, exactly—her coloring wasn’t exactly unique, nor was her height—but the feathers unsettled her. Touching them felt... wrong.

Meirit, for a moment, was lost, but then the lessons of her temple came to her. Silently, she closed her eyes and whispered for guidance. It took her a moment to decide on who, exactly, to ask, but soon the answer became clear: if she was uncertain of the truth of something, the goddess of knowledge would be the one to help her. Silently, she asked Visn for peace in the matter.

“Mer-it!” a voice called. “Mer-it! Come look!”

Meirit groaned, slightly annoyed. Her younger sister wasn’t even of temple age yet, so she couldn’t fault her, but she did have a rather bad habit of interrupting prayer.

“Yes, dear!” her mother shouted afterwards. “Come look!”

Meirit paused, for a moment, and felt dread bubbling within her stomach. If she told her mother that she was praying, she would likely have patience, but something deep within her told her that she needed to look. She stepped into the main sitting room, to see her mother leaning down on one knee, next to her sister. In her hands, held between two flour-covered talons, was a small, red feather. Her sister beamed up at her, beak held slightly open against the grey fluff of her face.

“Is...” Meirit said, finding her voice constrained.

“Your sister’s, yes!” her mouth said, voice too loud.

Meirit swallowed. A flight feather. Surely a coincidence, but...

“Oh, this calls for celebration!” her mother shouted. “We must make some pastry. Before your father gets home—Meirit, you shall help me, yes?”

Help her Meirit did. She mixed flour and sugar, rolled out dough, placed berries in a careful pattern, tended to the oven. She put on a smile when her father returned, said her responses to the prayers, congratulated and hugged her little sister, read her a story to help her sleep. And, all the while, she was a thousand miles away, moving in a dream.

At midnight, after her sister’s slumber was sound, Meirit left her room. She scribbled the words “At temple. Need to pray.” on a piece of paper, which she left on her bed. Then, she went to the front of their small house, took a deep breath, and jumped into the hail.

Meirit made it to the holy site in a surprisingly short amount of time. The sisters who tended to the shrine said nothing as she entered, sopping wet, and fell on her knees. A small draft blew through the stone room, ruffling the silken curtain that covered the inner sanctum. Meirit slowly moved her mouth, at first whispering scriptures, then simply begging for any kind of answers. She, to her great regret, soon found them, a horribly certain anxiety at the core of her being.

Meirit was retrieved by her father over a day later. She spent a week in bed, having caught a horrible cold from the chill of the night. A week after that, she began the process to commit herself in service to the gods, and, mercifully, her parents did not question why.

A year later, as Meirit swore her vows, a single sentence danced in her head.

The wizard must be stopped.

#fiction #writing #original fiction #birds #bird #aarakocra #D&D #backstory

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