#and as is it mostly just lets them feel them slowly break and decay and feel their systems shatter and fall back on backups on backups

[mantisgodsdomain]

Gonna post about our iterator OC now. Fun fact: Unit of Radioactive Decay's umbilical arm has significantly less range of motion than other iterator models, including other iterator models from their generation!

It prioritizes delivery of water and nutrients to their puppet over movement, which makes it a good bit clunkier than other arms - almost all of the joints in there can only bend one way, and the few that don't are only two-way, unlike an arm like Pebbles that more or less lets him bend however the fuck he wants.

In general, they tend to prioritize having parts that are easily maintained or replaced over anything else - kind of a necessity for them, but some of the people who originally dreamed them up would have an utter heart attack over the sheer number of substitutions present in their structure by now.

[tovibeornottovibe]

Oil and Fire

Azriel x Priestess!Fem!OC (Thea)

Azriel finds Thea training up in the House of Wind after a family dinner and a sleepless night. There's comfort in knowing that the only thing that will ever change between them is that their feelings will fade. Pining for someone you'll never have has its perks. [5.1k words :0]

warnings: implied/referenced sexual assault, angst, az is angry and horny and doesn't know where to put all of that, questionable coping mechanisms, spiteful, vengeful violence

Prefer to read on Ao3?

It’s strange. Azriel remembers exactly what the fire and oil on his skin had felt like. Still knows the smell of his own burning flesh. Can taste the acrid smoke on his tongue. He can bring it to mind vividly in the same way that Rhys can’t when he tries to think of the scent of Amarantha’s sweat, or the hideous tautness of her skin touching his. He'd forgotten, and Azriel said that he maybe should be glad for it, that he didn’t know. Rhys told him that his head fabricated it anyway. It’s a kind of inescapable torture, and they had only ever discussed it once. Only between each other during a sleepless night a few weeks after he came back from Under the Mountain.

Azriel had been there. It was sealed but he slipped past the wards in shadow. Easy. Her decaying corpse was still there, torn in pieces and laying in pools of dried blood. From where he had been standing, peering over her, her brutalised body seemed rather too small, fragile, even. Rhys would have begged him not to come here, but he had to have it confirmed. She was still dead; just a collection of bones and meat and broken nerves, her mind no longer ticking. The knife Rhys had used to try and kill her was still there too, snapped in half. He had pocketed it and it sits in a drawer in his room in the House of Wind.

In the middle of the throne room, the one that was and is too similar to the one in the Hewn City, he could feel where the world trembled. A crack in the way the air moved. Where Feyre had died and been reborn. His shadows had hugged his body and urged him to move on. 

Before, he had lobbied Nuala and Cerridwen for as much information they could bear to give him, but, really, he was here for one thing: to remove the traces of Rhys from this place, to cleanse it of his presence, so he knew where Rhys’ chambers had been and how little time he had spent in them. He knew the place Amarantha had kept him confined and how his brother used to preen to protect himself. This, Azriel knows, is the bitterest kind of revenge he could have gotten. Revenge after the fact. Because he can’t revive Amarantha just to kill her again. Can’t have her in the dungeons of the Court of Nightmares, the ones that her own dungeons were such a pale imitation of, and slowly drain the life out of her for years and years and years, can’t break her bones or let her blood or starve her of air. Doesn’t mean he doesn’t think about it. Rhys does too. Feyre and Cassian and Mor and Amren. They all think about it. The cruel satisfaction of it.

He had gone to Rhys’ chambers first, but they were mostly bare. Sickeningly, they were undoubtedly his. Black bed sheets still on the mattress, tucked in the way that his mother used to do it, and pillows arranged specifically in the way he liked them. The wardrobe and the drawers were empty, but under the bed there was a dagger that he had never used. Azriel still has it, but it’s in the moonstone palace. The bed was not big enough to accommodate wings, and it brings him relief even now that Amarantha never coaxed them out of his brother, that she did not remember that they had met in the First War and that she had already seen them. He had stripped the bed and burnt the sheets in the fireplace. It had purged the lingering scent of salt and citrus.

It must have been with a particular, wretched callousness, he thought as he left them smouldering, that she had provided him a room with no windows.

Amarantha’s rooms were opulent and reminded Azriel of the High Lord’s bedroom in the moonstone palace. She had, of course, been there only once, but that wing is blocked off now. Feyre had stayed in that place without knowing that, and Azriel thinks that it’s wrong of them to not tell her all these years later. 

More had been in her chambers than in Rhys’: personal effects, dresses, jewellery, and scraps of fabric that had belonged to Rhys’ shirts. Azriel had dragged every piece of furniture, every pearl and diamond, all the pictures on the walls and all the decanters of liquor, did it with his bare hands instead of his shadows so he would feel the weight of them properly, out of the door and piled them in the throne room. By the time he was done, there was not a single thing of hers left. Pettily and aware that it made no difference, he had thrown the parts of her on the pyre too and set it alight. For hours, he watched it burn until it was just ash, each part indistinguishable from the rest, and revelled in the gentle violence of the act.

Then he’d doused the vestiges of her room in oil and did the same, the thought of removing every physical reminder of her overwhelming even his spiking fear at holding a can of oil in his scarred hands.

He’d gone out in the early morning and returned to Velaris in the middle of the night, had planned to sit on the terrace of the town house to make sure Rhys didn’t accidentally hurt himself if he woke from a nightmare. The ones they all knew he had and have since stopped pretending they had never noticed. Mor, as it happened, had been planning the same, and was already lounging on a deck chair with a glass of something strong when he landed.

A flicker of concern, curiosity maybe, had come across her face. 

“You smell like smoke,” she’d said. 

His voice rasping and quiet, he’d replied, “I know.”

And they spent the rest of the night in silence, praying that Rhys wouldn’t wake up until the morning.

So, though the question “What are you thinking about?” had been asked innocently, Az can’t give a truthful answer, can’t even give half of one, can’t obscure the fact that he had been thinking about the way he had seen Amarantha’s skin shrivel and flake away, or that walking into her rooms had made him feel ill. He gives a noncommittal shrug and says, “Just thinking.” Nesta leaves him alone after that.

He waits until his family starts to retire for the night. It had been the first family dinner where they were all there for a while, and the first he had managed to sit through and actually enjoy for the majority of the time since the end of the last war. Elain and Lucien go first, then Cassian and Nesta, Amren and Varian, and then Feyre, Nyx, and Rhys. Rhys who smiled and laughed throughout the night and so rarely now holds that haunting emptiness in his violet eyes. All Feyre has to do is touch him and he brightens. He hears Nyx babble and he softens. And he deserves it.

Just he and Mor remain, and once upon a time, he would have relished it, savoured the attention and the cadence of her voice, but he doesn’t anymore, and she knows that as well as he does. She knocks back the last of her wine and offers him a smile. It is odd that his heart doesn’t lurch because of it. He feels the keen absence of the five-century-long instinct. With a clap at his shoulder as she walks past, she tells him to get some sleep. He scoffs and she looks at him with something like pity.

Picking where to sleep tonight is an issue. Though Rhys and Feyre would never begrudge him for staying here, in the river house, it always feels like intruding, not like the town house used to be, where they all used it and owned it. This was their home, built and designed for them. Cassian and Nesta will be fucking in the House of Wind; sleep there will be impossible. He dares not go to the town house, not while Elain and Lucien are there and they can still hardly tolerate each other. Mor will go to Windhaven tonight, straight to Emerie’s house. He knows that because he checked where she was sneaking off to and the invasion of privacy doesn’t bother him. It is his job to know things, even about the Inner Circle. If she hadn’t wanted him to find out, she would have thwarted him properly.

Still deciding, he tips back his drink, lets it slide down his throat, and stands, stretching out his wings until he feels them start to strain, then a little more until it hurts. He snaps them back and they ache. 

Summer nights in Velaris are warm, pleasantly so, and the breeze ruffles through the curls in his hair as he flies. Though he doesn’t have anywhere specific in mind, the natural movement of his wings takes him along the Sidra and towards the docks, where he settles atop one of the spires which mark the shoreline for passing ships. From here, the city shines, brimming with energy even as the moon reaches the height of its journey across the sky. Sailors and dockworkers are already up, loading cargo, laughing, drinking. He watches, unseen up in the room where the faelight shines out to sea, and makes sure to think about nothing at all.

By the time he makes it to the House of Wind, the sun is coming up and bathing the balconies in fleeting pinks and oranges, and the idea of sleep is entirely lost to him. He hesitates outside his door, his hand hovering over the doorknob, and he wonders what good it would do him to sit and stew at his desk. He could work, read reports and scratch out orders to his spies, probably should, but he’s in the kind of mood that would make him suggest that they cause some chaos just to see what would happen, to poke holes in the defences of other Courts just in case they ever needed to exploit them. Rhys doesn’t know he does that sometimes, and he would certainly order him not to, but what he can’t stop won’t kill him.

His shadows call him to the rooftop, to the training pit, and he takes it to mean that they want him to let off some steam, for him to physically calm himself down. He’s wrong, though, and he knows they fooled him on purpose. They meddle when he would rather they didn’t.

Up there, hitting perfect strike after perfect strike after perfect strike against the third training dummy of the session—the rest splintered and broken by her feet—is a priestess with her dark brown curls tied up like usual: Hemithea, but she hates the name, so they call her Thea. As soon as he walks through the archway and sees her there, draped in light blue training clothes which let her manoeuvre easily, he knows he can’t just turn around and leave because she’ll bring it up next time they train and he’ll have to explain himself anyway. She’s stubborn like that.

Instead, he settles himself near the weapons rack, finds tape, and wraps his hands for something to do, like he plans to train. And he watches her, lies to himself that it’s to assess her form and her grip on the blade, but it isn’t. It’s because he enjoys it and he’s too selfish to make himself look away. She’s probably aware of that. Subtlety too is lost to him this morning.

She doesn’t acknowledge him until she’s broken the dummy and sweat has only just started to percolate on her terra-cotta dark skin. That, he reasons, is why it is so mesmerising to watch her train. The utter efficiency in her hits, the skillful conservation of energy that will serve her well, the way she uses momentum and footwork and balance to wring strength from her body far above what her build should allow. Had she been born into some warrior race, as an Illyrian or a Peregryn, she would have been a natural fighter. The best of them. Az is convinced of it. This, too, while an undeniable fact, is a lie he tells himself for why he finds her captivating, so he won’t feel guilty for letting his mind wander and think about a priestess from the library when he’s in bed and throbbing need pulls over his skin.

She knows that he looks because sometimes she catches him and looks back. He knows that when he spars with Cassian she rakes her gaze over him and enjoys it when he wins. She winks at him when she floors someone and the both of them hoard the contact they get when, at the end of training, she always asks him to practice swordplay with her without a hint of innuendo in her lilting tone. 

Neither of them are going to do anything about it. It just is what it is, and that’s fine. Mostly. He’d never presume she wants anything more than they already have.

The worst of it is that he can’t tell himself it’s just a physical thing. He likes Thea. He likes her voice and her laugh and he enjoys being in her company. He likes it if he can make her skin flush, either from the exhaustion of sparring or by whispering something lowly to her in the breaks. 

He likes the sheer ruthlessness of the way she trains and the fact that she doesn’t hide it. They’re too similar in that way. Truly, she is a kind person, gentle with the other priestesses and never impatient like even Gwyn was on occasion. She listens and does things because they’re the right things to do. Has a generous, calming soul. But she also takes pleasure in making him bleed. The power of that. He’s content to give it to her whenever she asks, but he makes her work for it. Sometimes, it’s a necessary thing to release the pent up ache, the anger it takes to get to that point, and he understands that better than anyone.

Kinship is probably an apt word for what he feels for her, and the only one he’s willing to consciously consider. Self-preservation at its finest. Lying to himself is simpler and he can sit in the knowledge that the only thing that will ever change between them is that whatever it is they feel will fade. Preserving their little cocoon of temporary longing is important to him. He has no intentions of ruining it by overthinking.

Chest heaving, she turns to him, raises a shaped brow, and asks, “Any pointers?”

He can’t even think of something plausible. Her stance is exact, her rhythm precise, and her movement accurate. If she wanted to, and he thinks it’s somewhat strange that she doesn’t, she could cut the Valkyrie’s ribbon in a heartbeat. He starts to stretch and catches her glance downwards. “If you keep training instead of sleeping,” he says, “you’re going to exhaust yourself.”

She huffs a laugh, the sound ringing through him like a bell, and shakes her head. “You’re one to talk.” He doesn’t answer and doesn’t need to; they both know she’s right.

As she exits the ring, she very casually kicks the ruined training dummies out of the way and onto the deck, where the House promptly clears them for her. Azriel makes an effort not to dwell on how attractive he finds it when she does things like that with a sword in her hand. She goes to put it back in the weapons rack, but he’s already moved to haul a punching bag into the ring so they can’t linger in each other’s presence, because he’s not sure he has the capacity to catch the scent of her (Strawberries, and something else he hasn’t determined yet.) and not do something stupid.

He starts hitting the bag and she sits at the edge of the ring to warm down like usual. There’s comfort in the routine of it, in knowing what will come next. She’s going to ask him a question, maybe something personal, or something innocuous, and he might respond or stay quiet, depending. Then, he’ll ask her one and she’ll do the same, though she answers more often than him. He tends to ask her about whatever it is she’s reading so he can listen to her ramble. It’s more soothing than he cares to admit.

Her mind works in ways his never could. She understands anything and everything. He’s always interested if she tells him about something informative, some scientific concept that she explains in terms that he’s sure anyone could understand without being condescending. In fact, he doesn’t think she knows the meaning of the word. What really makes him tick is when she manages to philosophize fiction. The phrase “I understand the notion of sexual liberation through smut, but Sellyn Drake really is an abomination to literature,” sticks out in his head and makes him laugh at inopportune times. Her subsequent “If you tell Nesta I said that, I swear to the gods, Azriel—!” even more so.

But he always asks second, so he keeps his fists working while he waits.

It takes a while, but she shuffles to a more comfortable position where she’s sitting behind him. He wonders if she’s watching him like he watches her, or if she’s actually studying his form, or perhaps looking for weaknesses. That little, depraved part of him that he keeps quiet desperately hopes it’s the former.

He hears her take a breath.

“Who gave you the scars on your hands?” she asks, and it’s a miracle she can’t see his face. Az had known that she would ask him one of these days, but it still shakes him a little. 

A carefully, cleverly worded question which allows him to give an answer lacking in detail without outright refusing her one. His punches don’t falter as he thinks about whether or not he’s going to reply at all. He could leave it with the truth, not provide any more, and she wouldn’t push it. She never does. 

“...My half-brothers did,” he says, striking the punching bag harshly enough that a jolt shoots through his arm.

“Why?”

A beat. Another punch. The bag’s starting to creak under the weight of them.

“Because they hated me,” he says, “and they were cruel.” He can practically sense the frown on her face as she tries to work out why that would be, so he puts her out of her misery and continues, unsure of why but feeling the urge to do it anyway. “I was evidence of my father’s affair, and his wife didn’t want him to take responsibility for me but he did, so she had me constrained under his keep with my wings bound. Her sons took after her, and wanted to know whether Illyrian healing would hold up against oil and fire.”

For a moment, it’s only the sounds of him hitting the bag that sound across the space between them, but she doesn’t let the silence stretch out for very long. In her voice when she speaks, it’s not pity, it’s a kind of contained, roiling rage, and he finds that more gratifying than he should. 

“How old were you?”

Thea knows, of course, that he had gone to Windhaven at eleven.

“Eight,” he replies.

And she stays quiet until he stops moving, knowing that if he kept going his knuckles were going to start bleeding, and self-destruction isn’t what he’s after today. He steadies the bag as it sags.

“Are they dead?” she asks.

When he turns, he sees her staring up at him, still angry. “Yes,” he says simply and unhooks the bag.

She nods. “Good.”

It is. He remembers that day vividly too, and thinks it’s fitting that he had them begging for their lives as they died in the cold. Their voices are clearer in his head than he wants them to be sometimes.

As he throws the bag out of the ring and the House whisks it away, he wonders how he’s going to follow that up, whether to diffuse the tension, ask something light-hearted, but even as the words come to mind, that question dies on his tongue. It’s a self-indulgent impulse, what he does ask, done because he’s curious and wants to know. Maybe it’s because he cares for her too, maybe he wants to get angry on her behalf, but he doesn’t think talking about it will help, in the same way that reliving what happened to him does nothing anymore.

He sits a little ways from her and starts peeling the tape off his hands, his wings splaying out behind him. She tracks the movement. Finally, the scent of her gets carried on the wind to him, and he lets himself inhale and bask in it.

Something floral, he thinks. Roses, maybe. Strawberries and roses.

Then he says, more bluntly than he had planned to, “What happened to you?” and she understands what it is he’s referring to.

Exchanging trauma isn’t where he thought his morning was going, but it’s where he is. She doesn’t owe him a response, and he won’t ask again after this, but anything else seemed unsuitable, maybe a bit disingenuous. He knows parts of her story, that she hails from the Summer Court and walked to the Day Court before Mor found her and brought her to the city more than a century ago. It’s also no secret that the priestesses in the library, terribly, share a common experience, so he figures that’ll be something she’ll tell him, if she answers.

A wry smile comes across her lips. It does him no harm to acknowledge that he looks at her lips more often than could be considered friendly. “Is this payback for my question?” she asks drily, and it’s good-natured, but still serious.

“You know it isn’t,” he says, realising that it probably sounded like it was, moving onto his other hand and taking the tape off that one too.

Thea purses her lips and looks away.

“You don’t have to—” he starts, but she shoots him a glare and he clamps his mouth shut, lets her settle.

“In Summer,” she says, “priestesses do more than officiate ceremonies and perform rituals, they’re scholars, a bit like here. That’s why I decided to become one, not for any particular religious feeling, Mother forgive me. I lived in a temple not far from Dodecana—,” the city where the royal family spent the summer months, “—did research, spoke with other devotees to the Powers that Be, you know? I liked it there. Liked being in the temple and reading and just, it was nice.” She accents the words with another small smile, but Az’s heart starts to sink. 

“One day, after a sermon, I think it was on the natural world and the Solstice that was coming up, a male came up to me and he seemed nice so we chatted for a bit. He was interesting. I don’t know how long he’d been in the Court, but he was tall, kind of handsome, had this dark hair and I clocked him as being from the Night Court pretty quickly because he had a bargain tattoo on his wrist right here.” She taps her forearm where he could see the veins in her wrist. It’s a common place for tattoos of that kind to appear. “Anyway. He started telling me about where he was from because I was curious, and he said he was from ‘a city amongst the stars’ which fascinated me. So every so often, he would come and talk to me and I’d learn a bit more about him and this nameless city of his.

“I guess I liked him. Or, I don’t know, I was too young and too naive to get suspicious.” A mirthless grimace flashes across her eyes. “I basically let him walk me into the main chamber of the temple alone and he assaulted me on the altar.” 

Azriel had guessed it as soon as she’d mentioned him, but the revelation hits him like a kick to the chest anyway, the very specific violation of it. The nauseating purposefulness of befriending her before defiling her, if the act wasn’t sickening enough; the invasion of a place so important for her; the taking of safety that it provided. Anger doesn’t begin to cover it. The sensation that washes over him is thick, corrosive, and he’s sure she can see it on his face like he can see how she remembers every part of what happened to her all too well.

“I healed,” she says, and the emphasis makes Azriel feel ill. “Couldn’t stand to stay there so I just got up and left in the middle of the night, which, in hindsight, was stupid but… it was what I did. I started walking and kept going until I reached the border for the Winter Court and on the way I formed a plan. Promised myself some things. I swore that I would never, ever, let something like that happen to me again, and I told myself that I would find him, find him and his ‘city amongst the stars’ all the way up in the Night Court where, as far as I was aware, everyone was a brutal rapist who’d hurt me for even looking at them, and I would kill him. Burn his fucking city and everyone in it. Obviously—” she looks at him and the harshness in her tone softens, “—I’ve no plans to set Velaris on fire, but I was angry and hated myself and let that push me because the other option was…” She trails off, but Az fills in the gaps himself. The other option was giving up.

“I got lucky, honestly,” she continues, leaving how she had gotten through The Middle unsaid, which, knowing the horrors that exist there, Azriel thinks must have somehow been worse than everything else. It takes more than bravery to cross it unscathed. If she hadn’t been sitting in front of him, he would have called it impossible without divine intervention. “I’d made it to the Day Court and I was trying to figure out how the hell I was going to get over the Myrmidons when I collided with Mor in the middle of Rhodes. Why she was in Day, I don’t know, but she practically dragged me to the palace and made me eat because I probably looked like I was dying. She asked me what a priestess from the Summer Court was doing there and I told her everything.”

“You told Mor you were going to kill a member of the Court?”

She nods. “I thought lying to The Morrigan was probably a bad idea. And I didn’t have a lot left to lose.” A sobering confession. “She made me swear that I’d keep what I’d learnt about the city a secret, then offered to take me there, to help me find him and—the way she phrased it was ‘give him what he deserves’.

“She must have cleared it with Rhys because I didn’t meet with him until afterwards, but we found him. He lived in one of the flats near the Palace of Hoof and Leaf and I asked him why he did it. He gave me some excuse about how I led him on, but I think he did it just because he could.” He thinks she’s probably right, and he’s not sure if that makes it better or worse, if that even matters. 

“So, I slit his throat and that was the end of it.” Relief, more than shock, Az realises, is what thunders through him as she speaks with a kind of vicious triumph. “Rhys told me I could stay here and I did. And, there you have it. Other than Rhys and Mor, you’re the only one who knows all that.”

He swallows. He wants her to know that he doesn’t pity her, she doesn’t want that and doesn’t need it, but that he appreciates it, her trust in him and the strength it took to reveal it all, so he says, “I’ll count myself lucky.” 

Thea looses a lofty laugh that shudders and the weight on her shoulders drops. “Take it to your grave, yeah?”

Of course. Nothing they ever talk about here, when it’s just the two of them, gets told to anyone else. Not even Rhys could get him to spill her secrets, and she does the same for him. “I swear it,” he says, hand on his heart, half-joking to make her laugh, but mostly devotedly serious.

She rolls her eyes at him and, though it happens rather too quickly to be fully genuine, it pleases him to see her shake the past off her features. Back to being Thea. Everyday Thea. Not that he doesn’t want to know the other Thea, it's just… he despises it when she’s upset or something’s clearly getting her down and that’s not a selfish thing. It’s because he wants her to be happy. Because, in spite of all the complicated feelings and emotions that pass between them, she is his friend, one of the few he has, and there’s comfort in the fact that that won’t change either.

All it takes is a second, one tiny, precious second, and their little bubble gets broken by Cassian shouting his name through the hall and up to the training ring. 

“Thought he was still asleep,” Az grumbles, glancing back at the entranceway.

The shout comes again and the moment is truly gone. 

“I think that’s my cue,” she laughs, standing, stretching. When she passes by him, she ruffles his hair; she thinks messing with it annoys him, but he actually relishes the feel of it. Thinks about her hand in his hair a lot. It’s harmless, really.

Before she crosses the threshold and goes back to the library, she tosses a wave over her shoulder and calls out, “See you, Az!”

It’s too soon for his liking. He’s got too much he wants to say to her, too much that he still has to work out, but all of it’s too sincere, too deep for the atmosphere, and he doesn’t know what else he has that would make her look back or stay a while longer. So he calls “See you,” back and finishes unwrapping his hand, having gone idle as he listened to her. 

He takes a breath. Two. Lingers where he sits for a bit, then goes off to find Cassian.

[ellies-cycling-notes]

Day 23: Warren Dunes to Chicago

Distance Covered: 82.82 miles

Total Time (including rests): 8:14 (8:07am-3:21pm {-1 hour from timezone difference})

Time spent riding: 6:44

Average Speed: 12.3 mph

Apples Eaten: 2 (honeycrisp - 7/10, zestar - 5/10)

LAST RIDE!!!!!! It's finally over. Most of the ride was actually kinda of a blur, cause I was rather focused on just finishing it. I've been wavering about whether or not I want the ride to be over, and now that it is, I'm just gonna say I'm really glad it's over. Of course, this does present the problem of what I do next year. For the last several years, once a summer I do some impressive bike ride/collection of bike rides, and I don't think I can really beat this one, and don't know if I even want to.

Most of the ride today was on bike trails. Some of them were less good than others, largely because I hadn't planned a route, so I was just following my route, and at times it planned the shortest route, not necessarily the best.

I only took 2 breaks, 30 miles and 60 miles in, which was easier to do because of how much of the ride was on trails. The second break was another lunch break at a Culver's, cause I was out of food, and I just wanted to eat something I knew I would be okay with. I ate a little too much, so I have a slight stomachache now that I'm writing this, but it didn't impact me much while I was riding.

Much of the ride was rather scenic, either right by Lake Michigan or through trails that could be counted as wooded, or at the very least non-urban. The trails were mostly well-paved and nice to ride on. There were quite a few people out and about, but very few actually got in my way.

Design Notes

I have a few notes on magic items on Cardcasting, "organized" in a bulleted list.

All substances, living and not, in the world of Cardcasting have a relationship to magic interacts with them. For most, it simply flows through them, or can interact with them manifested through spells. Some substances, especially living beings, tend to absorb magic from their surroundings, which is what lets spellcasters replenish spells. And some substances have a rejection to magic, either partially or completely.

The first important property of a substance with regards to magic is how well it contains it within itself. For example, a potion of healing is made using a liquid which conserves Create Soul magic very well. It still decays over time, but much more slowly than it might otherwise.

The second property is how well it gathers magic within itself. Most non-living substances do not really absorb magic on their own at all, and so they cannot be used for self-sustaining or self-replenishing magic items.

The last property is that of how well it accepts or rejects magic. Substances that reject magic can be used as anti-magic equipment.

I have more I could say about magic wands and mana stones, which are used to store magic from a spellcaster's deck so that they can use it at a time they want, but I'm running out of mental ability, so I'm not going to say more here.

This is all for today! It feels surreal, that this is my last real post. This post is shorter than I would've liked, but I got home and then just relaxed for a while, and so I ended up not writing anything for a bit. I'll be posting a masterpost tomorrow, as well as a post-ride debrief post even later than that, but apart from that, things are over. It's been fun, hope you enjoyed it!

Previous -- Today's Pics

[myheartxmyman]

Where are you?

What are you doing?

Do you miss me?

Probably you're going on with your life like usually,

maybe sometimes clouded by some bad mood and anger.

Bet there are moments you forget completely about me.

I feel pretty sure about you having wandering eyes on interesting and attractive woman who you see potential in.

I am once again going pretty much crazy. Totally.

I presume while I am going crazy, you are slowly going in the other direction, detaching yourself even further from our relationship, or better 'sinking ship'.

You are swimming in safety while I am drowning.

It doesn't change anything that I am the distant one,

I am still the one who's losing it and suffering.

My head aches continuously, my appetite has died, my clothes are all huge, and most of the new orders is smallest size xrtraxtra small, and still too big.

Feels like our bond got infected dozens of months ago. Catched an horrible and (terminal?) and devastating illsness. Combined to that hardship our love got poisened aswell. While the hearts were breaking, our relationship slowly began to wither, broke apart bit by bit.

Yet it feels like I am the one rotting and decaying in isolation. Of two lovers one of them loves more, I suppose that's me 'cause I can barley hold on anymore. Still I am loyal, I try, I have my mind on you; on us.

I kinda 'accepted' situations, which broke me, which changed me, which are still hurting to this moment. Sometimes it feels like I am betraying myself 'cause I didn't leave at times, so I could keep you in my life. I let myself down, because of my love for you, and what we were. I silenced myself, forced me unconsciously to' just forget and erase 'parts of our relationship history'. Parts where I normally as I said before, would have left and never looked back.

I fought and tried. I was hurt in such ways I would've never believed one year ago. Still can't wrap my head about some things.

Too often I am overwhelmed by suddenly occurring feelings and thoughts towards you, being the ones I trie(-d) to push away they are brutally heavy at times. The memories of our worst moments, of so much pain, deep agony, the desperation, disappointment and shock I partly felt, and still feel come rushing back as soon as somehow they get triggered just a little bit. It's just too much for my brain to comprehend. I don't get it, even now. How could it get so far? So dark? So cruel, damaged and painful? Secondly actions and words doesn't add up, it makes me think and feel on repeat until my overtaken mind unconsciously tries to erase, to hide parts from myself deep inside myself.

Overwhelming shock and confusion turn into brainfog and numbness.

I am kinda detached from myself, to be 'able' to be with you, able to be with selfneglected self.

Since approximately half a year, there are only two reasons why I still choose getting hurt, over leaving, giving up on what is left of 'us'.

Love and hope.

Love, for the man I meanwhile miss for such a long period of time. It hurts unbelievably that being in your presence, makes me miss you even more, because I can literally feel how far we are apart. How much has build up between us. I can sit right next to you, skin on skin, mostly I wouldn't really feel you. Not like I used to. Even while being platonic friends I felt closer to you than I do now. I long for you, even when we are together. Stil I hope that there is a way back for us., finding the ability to connect again, to see us for all we have been and still are. Growing together, and finding combined by our kintsugi repaired bond new positive traits in the 'actual version of each other'. Honestly sometimes I look at you, I hear your voice, I smell you.. And it's all familiar, while closing my eyes. But my mind drifts directly in the past, when I open my eyes you look like you, but oftentimes there is a stranger sitting next to me.

I hope that, after we did grow so far apart, one could say we did lose each other (out of sight, out of our compassion, out of our consideration, eg..). It came the moment when I looked over, recognized you, but somehow didn't recognize you anymore. Your smell, your voice, your eyes, it was all so familiar, at the same time I had no idea who you were.

Basically we went so far in opposite directions, it felt like a 'from lovers to strangers' kinda thing.

Two days ago a thought crossed my mind.. Apparently everything in life as we know it is connected, aswell as everything is in a balance. So maybe it's now time for us, slowly finding our way back to each other. I mean, leaving even further is NOT POSSIBLE. I wish and I need to connect on a deeper level again. We have to finally work our way out of this, we need to change, starting by treating each other with compassion, empathy, validation and care again. I hope we will manage to grow together, change for the better. We Need to treat each other with respect, again. We both want to feel secure and safe. Our nervous systems must be at high peak, we HAVE to change the damage we've done to our relationship. I've got to say, my hope is since the beginning of this year in a prolonged dying process, so yes, it will definitely be hard. And even if we are gonna put hella time and work in the both of us, I am honestly not sure, whether I'm gonna be able to heal enough from the wounds this relationship has caused me.

It's a rare occasion that I trust someone, normally my trust builds over Years. It felt pretty much from the beginning right, like the normal thing to trust you. I didn't even had to think about it, I just did it. You made me feel safe, secure, seen, heard, listened to. You talked with intelligence, empathy, compassion. The first night we talked I already felt peacefully at ease, calm and i notice just now, I probably didn't seem at all like a private and secret person. Being with you felt good right from the start, everything flowed right from the start.

Let's call the brief moment, where I suddenly lost control over my face

to find out my chin was able to move in only twenty seconds to a place somewhere between the end of my hair/stomach and the Spätzlewagenboden.

It feels like there is trying from both sides, but not once at the same time. Not once with combined power. It's more like one person is distanced, kinda emotionally checked out, physically at times 'there', yet so far gone. Not really invested. Maybe too tired? To drained of energy? Or simply over and done with it, at the verge of breaking it finally off for good.

Love for what we had, what we shared, the way we were. Love for the way my body was flooded by positive thoughts and feelings, 'just' because I was were you were, you were where I was, because we were together. Love for the future I could see when looking at you. I am in love with a ghost. Kinda. Second reason I am still in, is hope. It's said: hope dies last. And as deeply as I feel at times, my hope is still alive.

[the-bengali-diva]

Here's my top fics!

1) Moonlit resurrection

Seriously do I even have to say anything? Anyone who knows me knows I'm completely obsessed with this fic and have been following it like some crazy ex for two years. In fact I've visited this fic total 1842 times. That should say enough.

But still here's the premise!

Atsushi would always be resurrected by Akutagawa, tainted by bloodshed but purified in his moonlit divinity.

or: Atsushi is hit by an ability that sends him spiraling. Forced to confront his traumatic past or die in two weeks, Atsushi begrudgingly teams up with the man he hasn’t seen in years: Akutagawa Ryuunosuke.

2) Once Before I Go

Basically there's a mission and Atsushi gets injured and almost dies. It's mostly from Akutagawa's pov.

Here's the premise

“Somewhere along the line, Akutagawa noted that Atsushi had begun to less fit the image of the tiger and more fit the image of a bird. Uncaged and beautiful, his wings spread against the sun, harboring freedom Akutagawa couldn’t hope to taste unless vicariously on his lips. Akutagawa hadn’t even noticed his trajectory as Atsushi climbed into the sky, higher and higher until he was an unreachable silhouette in the distance, hadn’t noticed the unnatural shine of his feathers until the wax had already begun to rain from the sky.”

OR

Atsushi gets hurt on a mission and theres a couple emotional revelations that result from it

3) Kill The Lights And Kiss My Eyes

My recent most favourite smut fic

After the defeat of Fyodor, Atsushi takes a break from celebration to meet up with Akutagawa to say something he wanted to say for a long time.

4)Please Wake Up (I Don’t Know If I Want To)

A fic where Atsushi (again) kind of dies. But it's discontinued:(

A river flowing, just waiting for him to take the leap. Take off his shoes and step inside, let the current take him. There was nothing else he could do. He lost control over his own body. He knows he cannot do a single thing to change the fact that the sun and moon are cycling without caring that he couldn’t experience them like he used to. They weren’t waiting for him, why should he make everyone else wait?

Atsushi spends his time watching. It’s all he can do to pass the time. The only thing he’s capable of achieving anymore. He can’t do anything to stop. Stop himself from slowly sinking further. Stop the way his own deteriorating has slowly decayed the lives of those around him.

He’s ever so still in the current dragging him away. He’s letting it drag him away, he’s given up fighting.

5) wildfires and weeds

Atsushi dies after getting injured badly at the fight with Fukuchi on that ship

“You want so clearly to live,” Ryuunosuke rasps, “so get up.”

The words he does not want to hear spill from the weretiger’s mouth, sinking into his bones with the leaden feeling of dread. “I can’t.”

“You can.” He retorts, blood pooling in his mouth as he coughs hard, his upper body shaking. You have to. You’ve always been stronger, you can get up. Please get up.

Atsushi laughs humorlessly. “Akutagawa,” he says, sounding small and afraid and vulnerable, “I can’t feel my arm at all.”

( yes I only read bsd fics. Well also TGCF and SVSSS fics but I don't get back to them often)

@mikayuumouse girl add yours too!

Top (current) 5 fanfic chain.

Write down your top 5 fanfics you go to frequently (currently) from any fandom and tag your friends to see theirs.

The Fractured Hourglass: Ongoing Harry Potter fanfic in which Draco Malfoy goes back to the third book and basically has mini crisis and therapy along the way. I don't have any proper complaints about this fic.

Timeless: Ongoing(?) Boruto Fanfic in which Boruto goes back in time and fixes stuff. It's pretty much deserted but I still love it. My main problem with the series is the fact that it is deserted.

in sickness & health: Bungou Stray dogs one-shot, surrounding Sskk post war. It makes me feel things.

Quite an Unusual Match: Finished Bungou stray dogs fanfic about Akulucy. It's THE akulucy fanfic, it singlehandedly made it my rarepair ship. My main complaint is how Atsushi is characterized, my boy wouldn't act like that but beggars can't be choosers.

Batfamily groupchat: This one is on Wattpad and I swear to god. You will laugh and you will laugh hard. Not at it, but with it.

@coffee-cake-witch @urlocalbisexualmess-alt @hannigramislife @the-bengali-diva @atsushis-missing-leg and anyone who wants to share.

[ruby-serpentis]

a break

pairing: male! eden x gender neutral! reader

warning(s): kidnapping (past), implied sexual harassment, stockholm syndrome (i mean you literally get this trait with eden), soft eden (if you’re not into that)

summary: because sometimes, it gets too much. and you need a break. somewhere far from the town.

please note that i do not condone any of this behavior in real life. this is merely a work on fiction based on another work of fiction.

over and over and over and over again. life keeps going. it doesn’t stop for anyone. but it becomes mundane, overwhelming. as the days went on, you felt yourself slowly begin to decay.

go to school, exercise for an hour or so in the park. go to the multiple jobs you had. monday and tuesday was the spa. wednesday, model for niki. thursday, work at sirris’s shop with sydney then head to the brothel afterwards. friday, same deal except do a brothel show. saturday, work at the cafe or the dog pound, help out robin’s stand for a bit, go on a date with avery, work at darryl’s if you weren’t at the hotel. sunday, work on alex’s farm and hope to god that remy’s goons won’t attack you while you’re working.

your chastity exam is due? well you failed it. you’re used to being purified. you come out relatively unscathed. but that’s probably not a good thing.

every night, confronted by people. “show me a good time and i’ll make it worth your while.” “hey you’re that slut that likes showing off.” “you’re that model right? i’m a big fan of yours.”

others were less friendly. a lot less friendly. some nights you had the energy to outrun them, other nights you didn’t. the occasional beast popped up.

You are numb.

you’re tired providing for yourself. and you loved robin with all your heart. you really did but you were also tired of providing for them.

you needed a break and thankfully, there’s one person that can provide such a thing.

maybe you purposely go into the woods, wander in and search for things. you ignore the gun shots, the boot prints, the bullet casings. and you welcome the cold feeling of metal at your back. you don’t resist and you willingly go back.

or maybe you ignore that feeling while you’re walking around town.

Someone is hunting you.

he grabs onto your wrist, turning you around. he angrily tells you about how you worried him and how you’re in so much trouble because you made him come out to town. he hates the town.

do you fight? do you run? or do you submit?

briar can go suck it anyways.

you go back with him, see a cage in the cabin. you don’t resist, letting him tear your clothes apart. you are an obedient little pet, regaining his trust before he lets you out. as cramped as the cage is, it’s nice to just relax.

or if you convinced him to let you stay in town for a limited amount of time, you decide to go back early, venturing into the forest. fuck going on another date with avery. you’ll deal with it later. + Rage

you get there just as he’s finishing up. “come on. let’s go inside.” he gestures you to follow him.

sure, you have to do things while you’re with eden. make him breakfast, bathe with him, among the many chores and household duties you do to pass the day. you spend a lot of time with his garden though because it’s all tangled up.

you like to relax in the spring, sit and do nothing after a day’s worth of hard work. eden would join you sometimes. mostly when you tried to masturbate. but you weren’t afraid to admit that eden making you cum was a lot better.

you were allowed to relax, allowed to do nothing. just sit and admire the scenery. and at the end of the time, you could cuddle up with him, practice some shots, and then eventually go to bed.

you were safe in the cabin, safe with eden.

and as you curled up to him near the fire, you talked about some of the stuff you had gone through. sometimes, you could feel his grip tighten around your body or hear him mumble something about how terrible the townspeople are.

the hermit life in the forest wasn’t so bad. maybe he had the right idea after all.

on top of everything else, he’d also do things for you. wash you, read to you. you loved teasing him, watching the bashfulness appear on his face. “i didn’t know the books were so dirty, okay!”

at some point, you’d need to return to town. whether it was to get supplies for eden, new decorations, or even a gift for him.

bailey would be looking for you. briar would be looking for you. and you did not want to deal with the consequences of your actions.

you had more than enough money anyways so you were free to buy eden’s supplies and decorations.

but that wasn’t your concern right now. you buried your face into his chest, breathing in the herby scent of the salve you had just used while giving him a massage.

he chuckles as he pulls you closer.

“this is nice.” you mutter.

a well deserved break from your brutal reality.

or maybe you could stay here permanently. that works too.

[bananaofswifts]

5 STARS

By Helen Brown

OK, Swifties. You liked the fairytale fictions and indie-cred boast of Taylor Swift’s pandemic alt-folk records. But you’ve been yearning for the intimacy you felt when she knocked out those confessional bangers, haven’t you? Well, the wait is over. Playing Midnights will make you feel as though you’re sleeping over at her house while she spills secrets and settles scores into the night. Over a series of murky electronic grooves (mostly co-written with Jack Antonoff), the pop star unpacks her darkest dreams, deepest doubts and cruellest thoughts. All the while she keeps things just cryptic enough to keep the tension crackling and the speculation buzzing.

That said, she’s already stopped speculation about the opening track, “Lavender Haze”. “Gaylor” fans who’ve stuck (rather doggedly) to a queer reading of Swift had hoped that the song might be a coming-out track because of the colour’s long association with gay culture. But in an Instagram post, Swift explained that she had happened upon the phrase while watching Mad Men and found it was vintage slang for a dreamy love glow. Against the throb of a synth bass, she appears to be addressing the misogynistic media obsession with whether or not she’s marrying actor boyfriend Joe Alwyn, with whom she’s been settled since 2016. “All they keep asking me / Is if I’m gonna be your bride / The only kinda girl they see / Is a one night or a bride” she notes (you can hear the eye-roll). But as the vocal layers build, she shakes off the judgement effortlessly: “Talk your talk and go viral / I just need this love to spiral.”

The slower, grimier texture of “Maroon” is a dive back into a past relationship (place your bets). Describing the affair, Swift sings of it decaying from the initial pink of cheap rosé to the “rust that grew between telephones”.

She’s on her best, self-scrutinising storytelling form on the excellent “Anti-Hero”, which lyrically sends zinger after zinger bubbling up through the fuzz of distortion. She unpicks the unwieldiness of her stardom with terrific, surreal imagery. “Sometimes I feel like everyone is a sexy baby / And I’m the monster on the hill / Too big to hang out / Slowly lurching towards your city / Pierced through the heart but never killed.” She skewers her acts of public kindness, too: “Did you hear my covert narcissism / I disguise as altruism / Like some kind of congressman?”

Things get funnier as the singer, whose fortune is estimated at about $500m, slur-growls: “I have this dream my daughter-in-law kills me for the money / She thinks I left them in the will / The family gathers round and reads it / And then someone screams out ‘She’s laughing up at us from hell!’” Swift lays into her “niceness” again on the poppier swell of “Bejeweled”, on which she warns a guy that she has the capacity to light up rooms (and all the boys in the band) if he doesn’t pay more attention.

There’s been some excitement online about the teased track “Karma”. Many thought it would address her spat with Kanye West, and that it might have been taken from an album lost during that time. But the swipes at a “spiderboy, king of thieves” waving a “web of opacity” would suggest it’s about her ex, Spider-Man star Jake Gyllenhaal (who famously dumped her by text, breaking her heart and inspiring the album Red, which she recently re-recorded). The album ends with “Mastermind”, which seems to be about Alwyn again – and includes a confession that, like “all wise women”, she engineered some aspects of their romance. “I’m only cryptic and Machiavellian because I care…” Ha.

The subtle melodies of Midnights take time to sink their claws in. But Swift’s feline vocal stealth and assured lyrical control ensure she keeps your attention. Turn the lights off and let these songs prowl around you. Just don’t expect their meanings to settle too biddably into your lap. Swift’s always as elusive as she is allusive.

[glassessence]

Elriel Hint and Analysis - includes analysis of Feysand & Nessian (ACOSF Spoilers)

I’m pretty new to the fandom, but I am currently obsessed with Elriel. This is my ship and I will go down with it until the day I die. As a fairly casual reader, I honestly had zero doubts the next book would be Elain’s and that the couple would be Elriel. 

Then I discovered the existence of the extra POV chapters and Azriel’s threw me in for a bit of a loop. Especially with the ending (which I genuinely believe is a red herring. I lean very heavily into the lightsinger Gwyn theory).

However, stalking Tumblr made me come across this again: 

Life and death and rebirth

Sun and moon and dark

Rot and bloom and bones

Hello, sweet thing. Hello, lady of night, princess of decay. Hello, fanged beast and trembling fawn. 

Love me, touch me, sing me.

And then my brain accidentally vomited an essay on the symbolism in each sister’s journey... 

Life and death and rebirth so clearly symbolise Feysand’s journey. Feyre leaves behind her life of poverty for a brand new one with Tamlin. She journeys Under the Mountain for love of him and ultimately succeeds in saving not just him, but all of them. In the process, she dies. Not just in the physical sense, but spiritually too. Feyre the human perishes, giving rise to Feyre the High Fae. In a purely physical sense, this is definitely a rebirth. But it’s stilted, incomplete. She’s the newly born phoenix - young, fragile and yet covered in the ashes of its fiery death. Her spiritual rebirth lags behind her newly changed body. Like a bird in a cage, she is trapped in Tamlin’s realm, unable to finish developing, to spread wings and fly. 

That all changes when she is whisked away to the Night Court. She learns to read and some of the ash falls from her body. She makes friends and some more ash is brushed away by the Inner Circle. The final remnants of ash are blown away by the taste of freedom and the kiss of wind, and Feyre’s rebirth is finally complete. Spiritually and physically, she is changed. She becomes Feyre the High Lady. From life back to life, she is returned through the power of love. Take note that while love is important in all the sisters’ journeys, it is the focal point and highlight of Feyre’s. She is someone who has never been loved in that wholesome, selfless way Rhysand loves her. Tamlin was possessive and abusive; Nesta was barbed and sharp. Elain was fragile and ethereal. Love was something she had never really known and consequently something she desperately, desperately needed. That’s why the phrase that symbolises her is love me.

Sun and moon and dark refers very much to Nessian. Nesta is the sun and she is burning. Has been burning for a long, long time. She is aflame, nothing but ashes inside, and her words are fire. She scalds anyone who dares approach, just as everything melts before the sun. Like Feyre, she has had her physical rebirth, but not her spiritual one. She is trapped in her own head, locked behind her own self-hatred, her own raging inferno that yields to no one. Like Feyre, she is also a phoenix, but one whose fire never stopped. In that sense, she has never died. Her spiritual rebirth is not simply incomplete; it has never happened.

Until she starts training with Cassian. Until she starts befriending Emerie and Gwyn. This is what marks the death of Nesta the human and the emergence of Nesta the High Fae. (I use the term ‘human’ loosely here, mostly as a way of conveying my point about her spiritual journey rather than the state of her physical being). She loses her solar flare, that inner blaze that was killing her and blackening her soul. She mellows from unapproachable sun to a softer moon. It’s here that she stays a while, seeming to progress and regress in her healing journey as the moon waxes and wanes. It’s not until the hiking scene that she finally breaks. She weeps despite Cassian’s expectations to the contrary. Through her tears, she finally extinguishes the long-raging fire and hatred that has been destroying her. No more blazing sun, no more wavering moon. Only darkness to cradle her, and acceptance. Through Cassian’s ceaseless efforts and her friends, her journey reaches its apex. She finally becomes Nesta the Valkyrie. 

Her journey hinges heavily upon the fact that nobody could reach her through the flames. Nobody had kept trying after getting burned again and again. Nobody except Cassian. He reaches out, time after time, even when she hurts him. Even when she burns him. Until he succeeds and touches her soul. That’s why the phrase that symbolises her is touch me.

Of course that leaves only the last line: rot and bloom and bones. I wonder who this could symbolise! Surely not the Archeron sister who is associated with roses and has a complicated romance dilemma with someone from the Autumn Court (rot) and someone else from the Night Court (bones)! Surely not!

Jokes aside, I strongly believe this line reveals Elain’s journey. If we continue thinking of the words as a progression, I think it makes a lot of sense. Keeping in mind the theme of life, death and rebirth, this is how I think of it: 

Life / Rot / stagnation, the start of the journey

Death / Bloom / change, the start of healing

Rebirth / Bones / ascendance and acceptance, the start of the future

There are several interesting things to note about the sentence: 

The word bloom is nestled among rot and bones

Elain’s two potential love interests both have strong associations with those words

I’ll address each point as we delve into Elain’s analysis. 

Let’s start with Elain the human. As previously established, this is when the character is at their worst, blind in the dark before the dawn. I see this as Elain’s forced transformation by the Cauldron. Everything she knows is ripped away from her and her marriage crumbled to dust. She is thrust into a world both unknown and at war. She emerges changed and cursed with powers she cannot control and does not understand. Her life, once a slow-blooming flower, has just rotted into nothing. She is lost, confused and deeply depressed. Her physical rebirth may be complete, but her spiritual rebirth cannot begin until she gathers the shattered pieces of herself back together.

This happens slowly. So slowly, in fact, that it’s hard to notice and easy to dismiss. She befriends Nuala and Cerridwen. Begins gardening again. Talks to the Inner Circle and buys them gifts for Solstice. Slowly, so very slowly, she is starting to piece herself back together. Off-page, she quietly unravels Elain the human and emerges from her cocoon as Elain the High Fae. Like a wilted flower that has dropped its petals, a new season has come, bringing with it new buds. She is blooming, opening herself to new possibilities for companionship, love and for a new self to rise to the surface. But blooms are fragile, newly born things. Elain hasn’t dealt with the full force of her trauma, of her lifelong lack of choice (I’m not going to delve into this as there are so many amazing analyses out there!). She is a trembling fawn, still trying to learn how to walk.

But her spiritual rebirth will remake her. Bones. It’s so different from the previous two words that it really leaves an impact. Blooms rot and fade. Flesh breaks and dies. But bones are strong, the frame that holds up our entire beings. Bones are unyielding and solid, taking no other shape like blood nor bruising like flesh. I see this as Elain standing up for herself, unswayed by external forces that have always governed her life and breaking away from the fragile flower people have always thought she was. By cutting away the rotting flesh, she will reveal the backbone beneath and ascend as Elain the Kingslayer/Seer. 

Of course, closely tied to each sister’s personal growth arc is her love interest. For me, I don’t see it going any other way than Azriel. 

SJM chose rot not only to represent the ‘life’ section of Elain’s personal journey, but also to represent Lucien. He has connections to the Autumn Court, a season that is often associated with decay and rot, but also with harvest and bounty. Highlighting the negative aspects of autumn invokes a strong sense of wrongness. Lucien is not right for her. Not to say anything bad about his character; he’s just not right for Elain. His presence in the books eats away at her newfound boldness; he rots away the path she is trying to carve for herself. 

On the other hand, Azriel is closely tied with death, with blood and bones and shadow. He’s not only Rhys’ spymaster, he’s also his torturer. His association is with bones, a word that invokes a sense of everlasting, of persevering beyond death. Bones is also used to describe the ‘rebirth’ section of Elain’s personal growth arc, the final aspect that leads to ascendance, and acceptance of one’s past and present. Meanwhile, bloom represents Elain herself and the ‘death’ portion of her story, the aspect that heralds change and healing. 

Rot, bloom and bones represent both her personal journey and her love interests. It’s all intrinsically linked. Lucien is ‘life’ and stagnation, Elain is ‘death’ and change, and Azriel is ‘rebirth’ and acceptance. As a progression, this is how I interpret the sentence: 

By rejecting the bond with Lucien, she is stepping into herself and forging something everlasting with Azriel.

Lastly, let’s not forget that the phrase symbolising her is sing me. This didn’t make much sense to me until I read Azriel’s bonus POV. In it, he confesses to Gwyn that he does sing. Why include this if it’s not a subtle callback to this prophetic paragraph in ACOMAF? It feels like a treat to hardcore fans who like finding all the little connections (since they’re the ones most likely to have read the bonus chapters). The fact that Gwyn also sings signals to me there’s an important plot point regarding song. Maybe homegirl Elain will be forced to throw a hardcore metal concert to save Az XD Wouldn’t that be a plot twist HAHAHA. 

I don’t know when SJM started planting seeds for Elriel in any serious capacity, so perhaps I am reading WAY too much into this. Either way, I am super keen for the next book!

Please feel free to comment and let me know your thoughts! I am desperate for Elriel right now hahaha. Thanks for reading! 

OH, BUT ONE MORE THING. 

The greetings are really interesting. Sweet thing obviously refers to Feyre. Lady of night and princess of decay are clearly meant for Nesta. 

Fanged beast and trembling fawn are left for Elain. It’s easy to write this off as being about her LI and herself, respectively, but I don’t know. The sentences build upon each other. A single moniker grows to two - the first separated by a comma, the second expanding to use an and. It’s something you see a lot in poetry, generally used to emphasise a point. I’m not entirely sure what the point is; it might just be a nice writing flourish, but wouldn’t it be interesting if both those statements were referring to Elain herself? Wouldn’t it just be juicy? 

[inland--empire]

“I have a… let’s call it what it is, a slightly crazy idea. If the world glitches when one person leaves…. Guess we’ll all have to leave at once!”

(A follow-up to the Moonlight-Esquire interaction I typed on impulse yesterday. I’m sorry if this is a super unnecessary and boring addition to your AU, this just popped into my head and it kinda comforts me to think about so I need to write it down. Basically Moonlight’s been wandering the town for a little while, they’ve met all the other characters but mostly stay by Esquire’s side, because they know how lonely and guilty he feels. In order to try and help him feel better, Moonlight has been allowing him to show them what happens in other timelines, so they know what happens in all of the AU’s actual endings and it stresses them out a lot because it doesn’t look like Gordon’s coming back in this one. Eventually, they have an idea: have the town help Seer build a big rocket, so that everyone can break the world’s barrier together before the world collapsing can kill them. They aren’t sure what they’ll do after, but it’s the best plan they’ve got for now. Unfortunately, this plan requires at least some cooperation from Sunshine, since he’s the only AI unaffected by the decay and thus probably the most physically capable, so Moonlight has to make it clear to him that the others need him, but this time for who he is, not for someone they’re trying to force him to be. Eventually they reach out to Sunshine with help from Bones and everyone builds Seer’s rocket together. They all get in the rocket, take off and break the world barrier, glitching the world but getting all of them out safely. They end up drifting in a dark void, all alone, for a while, until eventually Moonlight realizes that the void is the Space Between, that of course they’ll be dropped there without a universe to go to, and they call for their G’ to save them. G’ creates a new little world for the AIs to inhabit, one that won’t break down without a story, one where they can just live their lives together and find their own purpose, and everyone begins to slowly heal. G’ even brings Gordon over to visit one day, and while things between him and Sunshine are certainly… tense at first, everything works out okay. MBTS Helping Hand AU, I’ll call it.)

NO NO I LOVE THIS YES HOLY SHIT YES AAAAAAAAAAAA

[originalgenshinscenarios]

Hellooo- so you know that Halloween scenarios you posted? I LOVED ALL OF THEM

SUPERB

FANTASTIC

So i wanted to ask if you’d continue with some headcanons for undead diluc x s/o? Like all the creepy undead habits or forgetting he basically has a hole in his torso or ...idk. Something.

I’m genuinely ok with anything as long as it’s undead diluc.

I'm so happy you liked it!!! To be honest I think that Diluc scenarios from that post were the best. And it's funny cuz he was the only one I had no idea what to do with at first lol.

Part one for undead Diluc (+Vampire Kaeya, Witch Lisa and Werewolf Rosaria)

Undead Diluc's "life" with his S/O

Reader here is gender neutral

Cw: injury description

Of course there was a lot of things he had to pay attention to. He hid being undead mostly because he was scared and he admitted to that.

He wasn't ever a social person but still, assumptions, rumors, hell anything can happen. And since you're now together he's scared that something may happen to you too.

First things first he needs to wake up extremely early. Even though he leads nocturnal lifestyle. But of course everything he does during the night is a secret.

Luckily he doesn't really need sleep. Sometimes it's just to pass some time quicker and sometimes it's just so you don't feel alone if you share a bed.

When he wakes up he puts some makeup on, obviously his skin is ultimately pale due to the fact that he has little to no blood so to make people less suspicious he needs to cover that fact.

Luckily he isn't decaying... Yet? He isn't sure how this works but he'd assume that his body would change more over time. But it's lucky for him, it makes things easier.

If things start to change he's ready to run and live somewhere alone. Unless you join him but he never even told you about such plan yet. Mostly because he only slowly prepared for it and hopes it doesn't come to this.

Of course even though he covers his chest he also has another measure to hide his injury. Let's say you put your hand on the place where the hole is... What does he do to that?

Well obviously a chestplate. Very flexible chestplate that is useless as armor but perfect for a fake-chest.

Unless he gets hit hard it won't be a problem... Actually when you caught him looking dead when he was putting it on now that you think about it.

And he really rarely takes it off... So your timing that day couldn't be worse... Or better?

While yes the whole thing did make him feel like he was on thin ice, but in the end he had you right?

When it was just you two he dropped the act. It was a bit odd at first but you could get used to it.

But even in your company he didn't take off the chestplate. He knew it was gross and having it on didn't inconvenience him so he didn't mind.

Sometimes however... You wanted to see it. The moments when you did were short because this wound not only reminded him of his past, but it also was risky for him to have it off for so long.

He still doesn't understand why he woke up but not his father. Maybe Dellusions were even more cursed than he could imagine.

He did remember being pushed back with the last of his father's strength but he thought it was due to the fact that Crepus probably couldn't see things clear, while in reality all he did was try to prevent Diluc's death.

He has a lot of "What if"'s going on around his head. It was filled to the brim with regrets.

At some level he also regrets meeting you. Not because he hates you or anything. It's the complete opposite he loves you (I could joke that to the death but if he's already dead wouldn't it mean that he doesn't like you? I dunno)

He's just worried about you. Let's be honest you are very restricted with stuff you two can do together and he feels like you should be with someone... Well... Alive?

At one point he did consider breaking up with you. He just doesn't want to to waste your life on a corpse... But he couldn't do it.

He didn't wanted to break your heart. Even if it was for your good he just couldn't push you away no matter what. He felt selfish because of that... But he didn't care.

Instead he did let you know that if you want to leave him, you don't have to force yourself to be with him.

Of course you shut that down and told him that you wanted to be with him whether his heart was beating or not.

He just doesn't want you to regret this... But since you're so sure he will be the best undead boyfriend there is out there.

And he kept his promise. Even people around him saw him change. He was smiling more even though there was some worry with it. Perhaps your wholesome argument made him a little bit too happy.

~Mod Lisa

[tenkoscumslut]

LoV headcanons

This is is there toxic traits when in fights:

Dabi:

Dabi is already described as a sociopath and manipulative.  If you guys weren’t in a relationship he becomes much more aggressive, or if you try to break up he will physically harm you because he doesn’t know how to keep you.

If you guys are in a relationship he would completely degrade you, and make fun of your ‘flaws’ and not give a fuck if your crying.  He will continue to insult you in the meanest way possible.  He honestly doesn't realize boundaries with anything.

What he does to make you feel better:

After your fight, you obviously say you guys are done and leave.  He’d probably have a fake sense of relief and will either go out to just walk and go over the entire fight, or he will take a nap.  After a few weeks he will slowly come to realize how he hurt you, and realized you guys aren’t in a relationship anymore.

Him being the possessive bitch he is, will not want you with another man, female or just romantic partner in general.  He would track you down, stalk you, even go as far to kill anyone who even shows interest in you.  He will start an obsession with leaving dead bodies at your window still, or them but cut up into tiny pieces in a bowl soaking in their own blood.

You guys don’t get back together because Dabi is crazy, and to obsessed with you.  Dabi never got over you, he wont not until you come back to him.

Shigaraki:

(help i'm reading a Hawks cheating story and I have tons of Hawks posters surrounding me.  I want to commit hate crimes on our Birb)

His quirk.  You would be arguing about something simple, like a video game.  Shigaraki is impatient and doesn’t know how to control himself, he attacked you while you were in mid sentence.  He’d be overly furious, and be shouting at you to shut up.

This happened on the regular, this time Shigaraki had taken it to far.  Everyone was use to the fights, they would leave for a few hours and return like nothing had happened.  Both of you were screaming at each other at the bar about a mission where you had to leave the new guy behind to the heros.  Both of you were furious, there was no fighting, not yet anyways.

“You can treat people like that!”, you shouted at your boyfriend who was fuming, “Who gives a fuck?!”, he hissed.  “me! I give a fuck!”, you exclaimed.  You guys were in a storm, it was so much bigger while you two were in it, but once you both looked away you realized how small it was.  Shigaraki grabbed your wrist, he was sure it was 4 fingers.

He didn’t notice the small tick of his pinkie hitting your skin, he didn’t notice the pained expression you wore, or you slowly turning into an ash.  “Tomura!”, you exclaimed, he let go.  You scrambled away from him, tears were falling down your eyes.  Then he noticed your arm slowly decaying, and the scared sobs leaving your lips.  He called Kurogiri, but nobody picked up.

He was frantically trying to stop it, anything.  He grabbed a knife to cut your arm off, but it had already spread to your chest.  The fear in your eyes had him crumbled to the floor.  HIs quirk was destroying everything around him, everything he loved, cared for, everything that meant something.

He knew you’d be gone forever, the only person who loved him was dying before his eyes.  He couldn’t do anything, he’s never felt so hopeless, or so defeated.  He looked at your eyes one last time, you didn’t have to say word, and to be honest it’s better left unsaid.  The feelings still remain the same, sometimes you feel more than you see.  

All the faces Shigaraki saw, every single day, yours was the one that brought him happiness, you were the one who brought him joy and love, you were the face he needs.  And when his mind is absorbed in on screen, and he’s walking blindly through crowds of people, he hears your voice reminding him all is going to be ok.

Now you were just a pile of ash. As simple as that, forgotten, dead.

Now he truly was alone.

Hawks:

(btw guys I am so sorry for this one I love Hawks, he would never cheat on you since he is a Red Tailed Feathered Hawk but I can see him doing this, once again I am sorry)

You guys had a fight, a pretty nasty one.  He had been leaving early in the morning and coming back late at night from work.  You were mostly concerned about his mental health, I mean, yes you did stay up at night and sometimes not sleep for a week, but this was on another level.

Hawks was mad you were trying to tell him what to do, when honestly you were just concerned, and almost begging him to come back and get some rest.  He left for a good few weeks, the entire time you were worried sick the point you had to quit your job, well more of fired for not working and lack of mental stability.

When Hawks returned he seemed quiet, less joyful. You wanted to slap him, but hug him and kiss him, just do everything to him at this point.  You couldn’t bring your feet to move though, the air was thick with a pregnant silence.  He was hiding something, you could tell by the way his eyes were full of fiery spirit or joy.  Even when fighting, or upset, he would look so alive.  Now he looked dead.

He sat down at the counter, drumming his fingers against the marbled surface, “There’s something I have to tell you”, he said.  “I stayed at my assistants house”.  An odd announcement you thought, but he wasn’t done.  “She kissed me”, he stated.

You were in shock, not able to utter a word for a few seconds, “W-what....what did you do?”, you had choked out.  “There’s a reason why I was gone for a week”, he mumbled.  A pain you hadn’t known struck your chest, he had cheated on you.

He fucking cheated on you.

You wanted to cry, to scream, to punch him, to leave, but none of that came up.  The man you had once loved, the man you had thought you knew was someone else.  “I understand if you want to break up”, he mumbled.  Your chest fought for air, all this love, all this compassion, this sympathy, you had gave up almost everything for him.  

“Fuck you”, was all you managed to say before leaving his apartment.

~A few months later~

You had gotten over him, even getting into a new relationship with his Assistant no less.  To be honest she was drop dead gorgeous with one of the most beautiful personality.  You loved her with all your heart, and so did she.  Now she had forgotten her lunch at home, you frowned knowing you would have to go to Hawks agency to deliver it to her.  But you were prepared for that.

You had a knew life, you had an amazing girlfriend, you loved her, and she loved you.  Once you were preapared to go deliever the food, you left the apartment and set foreward to Hawks Agency.  Little did you know Hawks was beyond eager to see you walking towards his Agency, he maybe or maybe not had been watching the security camera footage to see if you were ever going to come back to him.  His wings flapped excitedly when he saw you opening the door with a small container in hand.

“Shoyo, Y/N is coming, let’s go meet her downstairs!”, he exclaimed happily.  Shoyo did not like Hawks anymore, seeing him for the cheating bastard he was made her want to puke.  She rolled her eyes, not thinking it was her Y/N.

She followed him down the stairs, when she saw you a smile appeared, “Hey Y/N”, she chirped happily.  “Hey bub”, you greeted back.  Wait, no, that’s Hawks nickname, and why were you talking to her?! Wouldn’t you hate her for sleeping with your soulmate?!.

Hawks was in awe when you pecked her lips softly and whispered a few obsenities into her ear, Shoyo licked her lips.  “Sounds good babe!”, she said with a blush.  “W-what?!”, hawks shouted.  You looked over at him with a confused expression.  “Why are you with her?!”, he shouted.

“she’s a great person”, you said slowly, “And I love her”.  Shoyo grinned happily, wrapping her arm around your shoulder, he was furious, how dare you date someone else, his assistant no less,

From that day on he stalked you, leaving dead birds at your door, promising to kill Shoyo if you dare even show any affection towards her.  You and Shoyo will never solve the mystery of the man who still loves you.

Toga:

No no no nono nonono she is baby she would not hurt you in anyway during a fight, same with Twice, Mr. Compress, Spinner and Kurogiri!.

[vex-bittys]

In Your Dreams: A Horrortale Story

Raffle prize for @purplesangel. When your life is a living nightmare, is it any surprise that your dreams are just as bad? Thankfully a dream-walking human has arrived to help, but will she still want to help Axe when she finds out what he’s done to stay alive?

WARNING: character death mention, language, blood mention, some disturbing imagery including cannibalism (no details)

READ ON AO3

----------

Life in the Underground was an endless nightmare for Axe. During his waking hours, he checked his traps and hunted in the forest, often returning home empty-handed only to see the disappointment and desperation in his brother’s sockets. Supply trains became frantic riots as too many monsters competed for their share of too little food, and the sharp pain of hunger lingered even after the skeleton brothers’ meager meals.

Madness seeped in through the hole in his skull, distorting reality. He clawed at his skull, trying to release the pressure of the frenetic energy that consumed him. He could feel the darkness lurking, waiting for him to make a misstep, some seemingly trivial mistake; that’s when it would strike, shredding his thoughts and shattering his focus. There was no escaping it, and Axe knew that one day it would swallow him up.

Sleep provided no reprieve. In his dreams, Axe continued to suffer. He watched his brother fade away to nothing from starvation. He felt the gnawing emptiness of his own unsatisfied hunger. Feasts appeared before his single working eyelight only to transform into grains of sand that slipped through his fingers when he reached for it. He ran through the shadowed forest outside of Snowdin, fleeing an unknown terror in the night while thorny tendrils of a deeper darkness caught him, slowing his progress, dragging him down, and allowing his madness to suffocate him.

Days dragged on into months, and months melted together into years. Waking life remained bleak with monsters still struggling (and at times failing) to survive. Food sources dwindled, and the gathering of other resources fell by the wayside as every creature in the Underground focused on filling their stomachs as best they could. Everything stagnated in its state of destitution and decay… everything except Axe’s dreams.

Axe’s nightmares repeated themselves night after night until slowly, they began to change. It started with the appearance of a new character- a human that Axe didn’t recognize, though he thought it might be a female. At first the human only observed the horrors that lurked in the sleeping world of Axe’s mind. Gradually, though, she began to interact.

It all started during one of Axe’s nightmares about his brother. Crooks would turn a pleading gaze to his brother, mouthing a soundless plea for food. Axe would fall to his knees, sobbing and pounding his fists into the ground. Crooks slowly collapsed, and the gradual dissolution of his body sent his dust drifting towards his brother, filling Axe’s mouth and nasal cavity until he choked himself awake… usually. This time things turned out differently.

“I’M SO HUNGRY, BROTHER,” Crooks’ voice came from the air around them and not his mouth, the teeth there long since broken or knocked askew from gnawing away at non-edible items simply to assuage the need to chew.

The human appeared, but instead of observing the unfolding scene, this time she glanced around until her eyes fell upon Axe.

-

Since the very first time you’d stumbled across this heart-breaking nightmare scenario, you’d worked hard to return to it. Dream-walking involved focus, practice, and a bit of luck, and in this venture, the fates were on your side. You’d walked this collection of now-familiar nightmare images many times, slowly working out which participant it belonged to and why the skeleton with the broken skull kept replaying these torturous situations in his sleep.

Now, you were ready to interact and hopefully restore some peace to the sleeping world of the monster in front of you. You extended a tentative hand towards him, unsure if he would welcome your touch as a form of physical comfort. He just stared at your outstretched hand as if it would bring some new and unfathomable horror to his disturbingly familiar nightmare. You let your hand drop. Words would have to suffice then.

“It’s not real,” you told the stocky skeleton firmly.

His sockets narrowed suspiciously. “what do ya mean, ‘not real’?”

“This-” you gestured to the vague, nondescript surroundings and very crisp, well-defined figure of the tall, starving skeleton behind you, never breaking eye contact “- is not real.”

The skeleton with the broken skull laughed, a harsh and humorless sound that grated against your ear drums. You sighed, frustrated but determined. It rarely improved a situation to reveal yourself while dream-walking; most dreamers forgot their nightly travels when they returned to the waking world anyway. Those who didn’t merely discarded your presence, along with any advice you might give, as part of a nonexistent scenario that could not influence their waking lives and should thus be ignored.

Normally, you resigned yourself to this and walked through dreams as a silent observer, but this skeleton’s torment tore at your heart and brought forth a tenacity within you to help him in the only way you could: by walking through his nightmares and defeating them, one by one, until nothing remained but peaceful slumber.

The skeleton with the broken skull scoffed. “you don’t know nothin’,” he growled obstinately.

“I know that your most frequent nightmares involve food, madness, and losing this other skeleton-”

“my bro,” the skeptical skeleton clarified.

“Losing your brother,” you amended with an edge to your voice, “to starvation.”

“it’s not like you’re some expert investigator piecin’ together the clues, pal. we’re all starvin’ and dustin’ down here,” he said, dismissing your observations. You frowned. Was there some truth to these nightmares? Often dreams represented thoughts and fears in a metaphoric manner, but maybe this skeleton didn’t have room in his troubled mind for subtlety.

Regardless, you would do what you could for him in the only place that you could reach him.

“I don’t know what your life is like in the waking world,” you conceded softly, “but this? Everything around us now? It isn’t real.” You continued in a rush before the skeleton could interrupt you again. “You’re asleep, and your mind is processing your fears… and your reality… into nightmares.”

The skeleton inhaled, obviously ready to argue again, but you stopped him by making a sweeping gesture towards his brother. Had this nightmare been reality, the taller skeleton would be dust by now. Instead, the image was frozen in place thanks to the stocky skeleton’s change of focus. “Look,” you ordered boldly.

-

Axe begrudgingly allowed his single eyelight to stray from you to his brother. While it was true that nothing had changed in the scene since he had turned his attention to his unexpected visitor, the moment he looked back, the scenario resumed. Flakes of dust drifted loose from his brother’s body, floating away on an unfelt breeze to disappear as they dispersed until nothing remained except the unbearable weight of guilt and his brother’s ghost of a voice whispering “Why?” over and over again in his head.

Why didn’t you save me?

“It’s not real,” you whispered solemnly behind him, but honestly, that didn’t matter. Watching his brother die of starvation that he should have prevented sent jagged pains through his SOUL whether it existed solely inside of his mind or not. Your next words, however, carried a much greater impact: “I can teach you how to change it.”

-

The most frustrating part of dream-walking was the inability to change the contents of people’s dreams or nightmares yourself. While you could view the unfolding events, you possessed no real power over them. Only the dreamer could affect their dreams. Thankfully, unlike dream-walking, lucid dreaming is a skill that can be taught.

As with every teaching experience, some students learn more quickly than others. Axe, as he eventually introduced himself to you, was not one of those students. The most difficult aspect of lucid dreaming for him happened to be the very first step to lucid dreaming at all: accepting that what he experienced while he slept was a dream instead of a warped reality that lived inside of his cracked skull and broken mind.

“These images all come from your thoughts,” you explained again. “You can control them, but first you have to accept that you can control them.” 

You knew that the dreams involving his brother were far too emotionally charged to make good fodder for lucid dreaming practice, and you preferred to steer clear of the choking darkness since you had no idea what effects such a powerful and overwhelming negative force could potentially have on you, even as an observer within someone else’s troubled subconscious. This only left the dreams of an untouchable feast to practice on… and practice was not going well.

As with your many previous attempts to gently guide the stocky skeleton towards seizing control of his nightmares, the lesson had quickly devolved into a squabble. You insisted that Axe could learn to control his subconscious surroundings; Axe stubbornly insisted that he could not. You would point out that this was his dream, and his mind; he would attempt to discredit your existence as just another piece of the complicated web of nightmares that plagued him: a human offering him false hope in a bleak and hopeless world.

It did bother you a little bit that Axe considered you- a (mostly) patient and helpful human- to be nightmare fuel. Only monsters lived in the Underground since the long-forgotten war, so why would Axe’s guilt-riddled dreamscapes include humans?

You decided to save the questions for another time.

“Try again,” you told Axe, who only answered with a weary, frustrated sigh.

-

Irritation swirled through Axe’s excessive magic, though it was aimed more at himself than at you. Every night you tried to help him take control of his dreaming mind, and every night, despite your calm instructions, he failed. You made it sound so easy, so why couldn’t he just grab a stupid spider donut off of the stupid table and shove the stupid thing into his big, stupid mouth?

“Try again,” you told him patiently as he brushed the gritty sand from his finger joints. He uttered a weary, frustrated sigh.

“i am trying,” he grumbled, biting back a deluge of unhelpful comments and curses. He touched another piece of food, a french fry, still steaming though it had been sitting on a pile of its doppelgangers since the nightmare began. The entire fry stack crumbled to sand before he’d even lifted one free; Axe’s patience dissolved along with it.

“if this was as easy as you claim,” he shouted, letting his anger overflow into sharp words, “then i’d be able to pick up these plates and smash them on the floor like i want to!” Without any conscious thought, Axe lifted one of the plates in question and hurled it at the ground. It shattered, leaving silence in its wake as Axe and the dream-walking human stared down at the shards on the ground in awe.

Axe gave an entire stack of plates an experimental shove, sending them cascading over the edge of the table and onto the ground where they created an inharmonious symphony of destruction. You applauded the spontaneous mess and squealed with glee, and Axe swept you up into a quick celebratory hug, spinning you around once before setting you back on your feet. As soon as he set you down, he grabbed a donut and crammed it into his mouth. Chewing, his sockets narrowed in utter bliss, he picked up a second donut and offered it to you. 

Nothing tasted as sweet as victory… except for maybe a spider donut.

-

You didn’t want to dampen the skeleton’s joy by telling him that you wouldn’t be able to taste a donut in his dreams, so you took a bite, your head still spinning from his sudden show of physical affection. With a promise to see him the following night, you stepped out of his nightmares. You felt content that you’d taken the first big step on a journey to giving Axe the power to sleep peacefully without constant, horrific nightmares plaguing him.

The next lesson would be more difficult; you intended to guide Axe through banishing nightmares of his brother’s death. Out of consideration for Axe’s privacy, you had never asked him why he had such specific nightmares about his brother, but nightmares involving a sibling death as vivid as Axe’s hinted at some very dark and complex situations existing in the skeletons’ waking world. Those hints aside, Axe had outright stated that things were terrible in the Underground where he lived. Maybe working through his dream would give him some insight into fixing his real-life situation, at least the one he faced with his brother.

You hoped so. During the nights you’d spent helping Axe learn how to lucid dream, you had come to consider him a friend. You hated the thought of him suffering. You especially hated that you could only reach him during his nightmares. You wished you could do more, but how? Those were thoughts for your own waking world.

Tonight you wanted to focus on Axe’s progress, and once he’d gotten some practice at lucid dreaming, you’d work on changing the heart-breaking nightmare of his brother.

-

Sweat beaded on Axe’s skull as he waited for you to appear. He could feel himself slipping towards darker dreamscapes, and he fought to stay in the safe in-between place like you’d shown him. He told himself that the tremors in his bones were caused by his unstable magic and not by fear. What if his previous successes were a fluke? What if he failed when it mattered the most? 

Thoughts of failure sent him spiraling into the guilty nightmare of his starving brother. After all, his failures in reality led to this, and the dire consequences that he saw unfolding in his subconscious lurked only a step behind him in the waking world. Soon his real life would become this very same nightmare, and he would be left as powerless to stop it there as he felt to stop it here.

Thankfully, you appeared within seconds to chase away the grim meanderings of his mind and help him focus on the task at hand- Crooks.

Axe’s brother loomed in front of him, eyes pleading, begging for something that Axe could not give him. He watched the image of his brother twist and reshape itself, growing alarmingly large, the bones stretching from an influx of magic that still somehow managed to provide almost no nutrition. He whispered his brother’s name, frozen in place and unable to remember what he was supposed to do to stop the scene unfolding in front of him.

A small hand slipped into his; he had forgotten about you as his familiar fears swamped him. You looked up at him with a calm expression and nodded, encouraging him.

“You can do this.” Your words bolstered his courage. He dragged his panic back under control and turned to face Papyrus… or what had become of Papyrus under his inadequate care: the monster now known as Crooks. 

“You know what you need to do,” you whispered.

Axe stepped towards his brother, focusing on Crooks as he had seen him last: tucked into his bed, the blanket no longer quite long enough to cover his lanky frame, wishing Axe a good night and sweet dreams and promising to see him in the morning. Keeping that image locked in his mind, Axe let his lone eyelight travel over his brother’s altered frame. Sure enough, not a single mote of dust rose from the other skeleton. Crooks simply stood there, watching him through sunken sockets.

Though he’d brought his brother’s recurring death to a halt, the words that swirled and echoed around him continued, too faint at first to make out individual words or phrases. His brother’s voice whispered accusations like poisoned arrows that pierced his SOUL. A chorus of questions, all beginning with “Why…?” slowed, sharpened, and gained clarity. Crooks spoke, though his mouth never moved and the words seemed to thrum within his very bones, tangible beyond mere sound.

Normally Crooks’ omnipresent voice asked him why he would allow his brother to starve, but this time the question differed, though it still sent chills to the very marrow of Axe’s bones.

“WHY DID YOU MAKE ME EAT-”

Axe quickly hushed his brother, stealing a glance at you to gauge your reaction. You simply made an encouraging gesture as if to say “Go on, you’re doing great.” He wondered if you’d feel the same way if you knew what Crooks’ next words would have been.

“i couldn’t let ya starve,” Axe spoke softly, tilting his head to maintain eye contact with his much taller brother. “i’d do anything to keep you alive.”

“EVEN-”

Axe nodded, nearly choking on guilt. “yeah. even that.”

“BUT I TOLD YOU I DIDN’T EVER WANT-”

Remorse softened Axe’s expression, and his gravelly voice hitched. “i couldn’t let ya dust. i had no choice. i’m so sorry.”

-

Without warning, Crooks slumped, but he wasn’t collapsing into dust. Instead, he crushed his brother against his ribcage in a tight hug. You sensed a loosening of the guilt and remorse that gripped this particular nightmare so tightly. Things weren’t resolved yet. Nightmares could rarely be banished in a single lucid dreaming session, but you’d given Axe the tools he needed to seize control of his sleeping world. 

Only one challenge awaited you now: fighting the suffocating darkness of the final nightmare. You made plans to tackle that monumental task once Axe felt satisfied that he could manage this current nightmare on his own. Working through the tangle of emotions that his brother’s death awakened would take quite a bit longer than satisfying himself that he could eat his fill of dream donuts, but you were willing to go the distance to help Axe.

You actually wanted to do this, no matter how much the slithering darkness terrified you. Axe just meant that much to you.

-

“I think we’re ready for the final nightmare,” you declared after a dream session in which Axe showed off by summoning various items for his brother to eat.

In the lucid dreams about Crooks, his dream-brother mostly stood or sat nearby providing companionship and support as Axe practiced controlling his consciousness. Axe enjoyed the time with his brother, despite the knowledge that this version of Crooks existed only inside of his mind. It gave him a tentative sensation of hope that perhaps someday he could experience this type of peace with his brother in the waking world, free of the constant mad scramble for survival.

Your words shattered fragile, fleeting calm. Sweat beaded on Axe’s skull. The final nightmare contained his deep, dark fears, his madness, his guilt. Tendrils that reeked of his unspeakable crimes dragged him down into the cesspool that used to be his SOUL. He didn’t want you to see that part of him. He didn’t want you to know what he was truly capable of.

You’d never come back, and he’d be left alone with the echoing, blossoming psychosis that suffocated him. It would be worse now though. You’d shined a light into his life, and now he risked that glimmer of goodness being torn away… torn away because of what he’d done.

The punishment would fit the crime of his continuing survival.

-

You stepped into Axe’s dream world, excited and nervous at the prospect of facing the unknown horrors of this last nightmare that plagued him. The endless grey limbo that surrounded you came as quite a surprise when you expected inky vines of darkness encased in the thorns of Axe’s painful emotions and memories. Axe refused to meet your eyes when you approached him. Something was off about the whole situation.

“Is everything ok?” Maybe Axe wasn’t ready to face the darkness of the upcoming nightmare. You didn’t mind; you weren’t going to push him towards something that he didn’t want to do. You weren’t exactly eager to face it either, and besides, you thought you might enjoy just spending some time with Axe.

When he raised his head to meet your eyes, you couldn’t suppress a gasp of fright. Goosebumps erupted along your arms, and you shivered.

Axe’s single red eyelight… it glowed with an eerie flickering light, seeming to swell until the socket could barely contain the vortex of its power. Axe tilted his head at an unnatural angle and laughed at your reaction. You forced yourself to stand your ground despite your fear. This was not the monster you knew. Axe now embodied the darkness of his own inner turmoil, and it froze the blood in your veins.

“nothing is ok!” Axe’s snarl dissolved into sinister chuckles that made his broad shoulders shake. He lifted a hand, phalanges curved like claws to scrape at the hole in his skull. You lunged forward to pull his hand away before he caused more damage to himself, and he shoved you roughly away.

-

The hurt and confusion in your eyes filled Axe with dark satisfaction. You needed to know just what kind of monster he was. You needed to fear him, to run away and never come back. Instead, you offered him your compassion yet again.

“Let me help you.” Tears filled your eyes. His madness must be breaking your sweet, loving heart, but he drove home his depravity because if he let himself care, you’d find out the truth eventually anyway. Losing you would hurt more if he actually had you first.

This time when you reached out for him, he dodged, letting your momentum carry you to your hands and knees on the floor. He loomed over you, oozing menace like a thick fog.

“help me?” Axe’s scornful laughter echoed around the empty landscape. “and why,” he asked cruelly, “would you help a murderer?”

“Murderer?” You repeated the word as a question, as if you weren’t completely sure you knew what it meant. Your eyes widened in shock as tendrils of darkness climbed Axe’s arm, sliding over his bones like living tattoos until they pooled in his hand, taking on the shape of a huge meat cleaver.

“how do you think i’ve survived so long, little human? i hunt, and i kill.” He grinned, his mouth stretching into a disturbing parody of joy. “humans mostly. honestly, did you think the blood on my hoodie was mine?”

-

You admittedly hadn’t thought much about the blood stains on the hoodie. Maybe they were his. Maybe they were ketchup. Maybe in his dreams he wore the stains of his brother’s imagined death. Dreams and nightmares created their own reality with its own details pulled more from a dreamer’s mindset than accurate memories. It shocked you to think that Axe truly wore a hoodie that had once been soaked with fresh blood.

Human blood.

You trembled. Axe began to circle you like a hungry wolf, casually swinging his gigantic cleaver.

“Do you regret it?” you finally asked in a tiny voice.

-

Those four words penetrated the armor of madness that Axe was using to push you away, and they struck him like a well-timed attack. He reeled, reaching for some lie to keep you from seeing the truth and pitying him.

He found nothing.

The meat cleaver fell from his shaking hand. Axe sank to his haunches, covering his face with his hands, trying to hide from you and your perceptiveness. He wanted to scare you away before you could judge him and abandon him, but you shot your question straight to his SOUL, refusing to believe the worst of him.

“every fucking minute of my life.”

This time, when you tentatively reached for him, undaunted by his previous rejection, he leaned into your touch. He hated himself for his weakness, but every second that you stayed, even if you left eventually, was a second he would cherish until time wore away even the memory of his dust.

With his first admission, however poorly he’d delivered it, out of the way, Axe couldn’t stop himself from confessing even more of his transgressions and regrets. “i lied and told my brother it was meat from an animal in the forest. he didn’t want to eat humans, but i tricked him. i couldn’t let him starve” The words poured out of him; he feared that as soon as things went quiet, you would realize what an irredeemable abomination he was and flee. “i shouldn’t have done it, but i didn’t know what else to do. we were so hungry… and it messed up our magic. there’s no way to hide what we did. no way to undo it.” 

-

Axe’s words stumbled to a halt, and you sat for a moment in the heavy silence of the grey dreamscape, contemplating them. You hated what he had done, but you also understood that his only other option would be watching his brother starve to death. The circumstances didn’t allow for any winners, and Axe suffered with the knowledge of the things he’d done. 

“You were trying to survive.” Your voice nearly cracked on the final word. You could not fathom the desperation that drove Axe to his decision.

You remembered all of the heart-breaking stories that Axe told you about the Underground: the human who’d stolen the SOULs that the monsters had gathered and fled, taking the monsters’ hope with them, the death of their monarchs at the human’s hands, the Royal Guard Captain’s ascension to a throne that she didn’t possess the skills to manage, and the unbearable suffering of monsters starving to death or falling down because of an unshakable despair.

You raised your eyes to meet Axe’s eyelight, expecting to see softness there once more, but instead his horrified expression stared back at you. You didn’t need to puzzle out the cause because a moment later, barbed shadow vines lashed you, wrapping around your legs and dragging you towards a puddle of oozing darkness near your feet. You struggled against the thorny tendrils, and they tightened, driving each wickedly sharp thorn-tip into your flesh.

Pain seared your legs, real physical pain… in someone else’s dream. Panic washed over you, and you fought harder to escape, causing the barbs to rip deeper into you.

You screamed.

-

Shaking off his shock at the sound of your scream, Axe lunged forward. He wrapped both of his arms tightly around you and wrenched you away from the grasping vines. A writhing mass of them rose up behind him, swarming over him like living things. Staggering a few steps forward, Axe set you on an empty bit of space, but the vines quickly pulled him off of his feet and into a kneeling position. More tendrils rose to wrap around him, and the inky darkness of the puddle rose up to meet them, slithering up his body and swallowing him up in the darkness.

“i can’t protect you here… i can’t keep you safe from me, from my mind.” Axe choked out the words through the darkness consuming him. He couldn’t let you come back. He wouldn’t allow you to be in danger because of him.

This had to be good-bye.

He focused his mind.

“don’t come back.”

-

You jolted awake, that one last glimpse of Axe’s red eyelight, brimming with pain and regret burning in your mind. He had kicked you out of his dreams and told you not to come back. You couldn’t dream-walk in a mind that wasn’t open to your presence. Your throat constricted, and you felt tears sting your eyes. What if you never saw Axe again?

When you tossed back your blankets, you half expected to see scratches on your legs where Axe’s negative thoughts and emotions had touched you, but your skin was unbroken. You’d never experienced a nightmare so vivid and intense, but you breathed a sigh of relief that it couldn’t reach you in the waking world. If only Axe would let you come back, you could tell him that despite your panicked reactions, his dreams had no power to harm you.

Instead, he would continue to face the torment of his past mistakes all alone… for now.

Because while you had been helping Axe deal with his nightmares, you hadn’t neglected the appalling circumstances of his reality. If you could make your waking project work, you would be able to truly save the skeleton that you cared for so deeply.

I won’t let you push me away, you vowed.

-

Axe settled himself on the bench of his sentry station, taking a break from prowling the forest for potential meals. The barren snowscape left him all alone with his thoughts, and he hated it. In one bout of unhinged boredom, he’d created a sign for the outpost: “Head dogs, 5G.” It made as much sense as anything else in the Underground. Besides, there was no such thing as a hot dog in this frigid wasteland.

The narrow lines of dead tree trunks shifted if he stared at them too long, and the wind that howled through them carried voices whose words he could not quite arrange into coherency. The windblown whispers rose in volume until the roaring of innumerable voices filled his skull. The blazing white of the snow surrounding him only added to the sensory overload. He couldn’t hear, couldn’t see. 

“shut up, shut up!” Axe chanted, clawing at the hole in his skull. Reality warped, the passage of time quickened and slowed, and nothing made sense anymore…

… and you were standing in front of him.

Axe recoiled in disbelief. How could this be happening? He hadn’t fallen asleep… or had he? Maybe you were a cruel hallucination conjured by his loneliness. He refused to accept the vision of you even when you reached out in that oh-so-familiar way to calm the scrabbling of his phalanges against the jagged edges of the hole in his skull.

Axe’s hand shot out as quickly as a striking snake and grabbed your wrist. He yanked you forward until you were partially bent over the sill of the sentry station. He raised his massive knife high above his head; his eyes held no recognition, no clarity, no sanity.

You held completely still, unflinching. The meat cleaver hovered threateningly above you, but it did not fall. You and Axe were frozen in the moment, but despite the madness that absolutely radiated from him, you trusted him not to hurt you.

“you’re not real,” Axe accused you in a gravelly whisper. You weren’t even sure if he meant to speak aloud at all.

“Are you going to kill me?” Your voice didn’t waver, and you kept your eyes locked with his single eyelight, calm yet firm.

Axe lowered the knife. Real or imagined, starving or not, he would never hurt you. You knew him too well. He released your wrist, hoping he hadn’t hurt you by grabbing you like that. He wanted to ask how you’d gotten here, but other matters demanded a higher priority.

“you aren’t safe here,” the skeleton scolded gruffly. “didn’t you listen? monsters here kill and eat humans!”

“Good thing I found you first then.” You tried to diffuse the tension with bravado, but you had to admit that your choice to come to the Underground was a risky one. Axe’s eyelight travelled over your body, searching for injuries while surreptitiously taking in the sight of you. His obvious concern for your safety filled you with warmth and determination.

“there’s nothing good about this,” Axe growled though he had to admit that seeing you again definitely felt like a good thing to him. That little bit of goodness could be snuffed out in a hurry though if another monster saw you and attacked. “i’ve got to get you out of here.”

Axe lumbered out of his sentry station, glancing furtively around the barren landscape, though it wasn’t entirely clear whether he expected to spot an enemy or an escape route. The skeleton stopped right next to you, attempting to block you from prying eyes. You found his protective stance rather charming, but you weren’t here to be charmed. You were on a mission.

You slipped your backpack from your shoulders, swinging it around into Axe’s line of sight and opening it. Seven clear canisters sat inside, each with a brightly-colored heart shape inside of it. Axe’s mouth dropped open in shock.

“are those…?” Axe sounded almost reverent, and with good reason.

“Human SOULs? Yes. I gathered these from willing donors who wanted to help set the monsters free.” It had taken dedication and time, but you’d meticulously interviewed potential donors until you tracked down all seven SOUL types that you needed. Now, only the path to the Barrier stood in your way.

Without warning, Axe swept you into a crushing hug, then proceeded to spin you around. Your feet actually left the ground, and you laughed softly at the thrill of it.

“you’ve got to meet my brother, then we’ll smuggle you into the Capitol.” For once you heard excitement and hope in Axe’s voice. His eyelight gleamed with resolution as he reached for your hand. You placed your hand in his without hesitation. Axe’s declaration that he knew a shortcut still rang in your ears as the world spun beneath you and everything went dark.

Disoriented, you tried to take in the scene around you. You’d been outside, standing in a forest choked with dead trees and carpeted in snow, but suddenly you found yourself in a house. The loud colors of the bowling alley style carpeting had long since faded, and the couch had obviously seen better days. Everything in the house was touched with the same look of elegant decay: faded colors, worn fabrics, the yellowing of book pages, and the subtle musk of disuse. 

A fine film of the dust of time spoke volumes about the life of two monsters who devoted so much of their lives to simply surviving that they were forced to neglect the basic upkeep of their home. The house looked so long abandoned that the presence of life within it seemed almost surreal. You couldn’t find words to break the silence that permeated the house, soundless echoes of what it had once been.

Movement caught your eye; a lanky figure detached itself from the shadows and stepped in the dust-mote-filled light. Your eyes travelled up and up, an impossible height despite the figure’s hunched posture, until you found facial features that you recognized from Axe’s dream. The vivid colors of Axe’s subconscious bore the same washed-out appearance here that characterized their home, but you knew this must be Papyrus, now known as Crooks due to the effects of his recent tragic diet.

Crooks wrung his hands shyly, awaiting your reaction to his somewhat terrifying appearance. His teeth were crooked and broken, caked with something red that you tried not to think about too much. His nervous actions tugged at your heart, and you offered him a gentle smile which he responded to with a smile of his own.

“I’D OFFER YOU SOME OF MY SIGNATURE SPAGHETTI AND EYEBALLS, BUT WE’RE ALL OUT OF PASTA.” His apologetic tone did little to distract you from the fact that the skeleton brothers were short of pasta but not eyeballs. 

“That’s alright. Really.” You didn’t hold out much hope that Crooks had misspoken considering Axe’s earlier admission. The sooner you got these monsters out of their Underground prison, the sooner they could return to normal healthy eating habits.

“my friend here wants to help us get to the Surface. they’ve got plenty of pasta up there. we just need to talk to ol’ Queen Undyne first,” Axe interjected, using a light tone to dispel the awkwardness of his brother’s offer. 

Crooks perked up at the mention of Undyne. “UNDYNE WILL BE SO RELIEVED. I DON’T THINK SHE LIKES BEING QUEEN VERY MUCH…” You clutched your backpack and its precious cargo of SOULs, unzipping it slightly to show the mingled glow of seven vibrant colors. Crooks peered at them with a mixture of curiosity and delight.

Axe shifted uncomfortably. “yeah, relieved,” he mumbled, refusing to meet your eyes. You didn’t have much time to wonder about the skeletons’ very different reactions to Undyne because Axe extended a hand to you and Crooks. As soon as your fingertips brushed his smooth, warm bones, everything went dark again.

In the few seconds it took your eyes to communicate the view of a once-opulent throne room to your poor confused brain, a glowing blue spear appeared and slammed into the ground so close to you that you felt the force of the impact thrumming up the shaft of the weapon. If Axe hadn’t yanked you backwards, you would’ve been impaled. Where had it even come from?

“UNDYNE WAIT! THIS HUMAN IS A FRIEND!” You followed the direction of Crooks’ voice to see an armor-clad monster with a wild mane of crimson hair. She held another glowing blue spear, and her single yellow eye focused on you with murderous malice. You staggered backwards from the force of her glare. 

“No human is a friend to monsters,” Queen Undyne roared, launching a volley of her spears at you. You resigned yourself to your doom, regretting that your rescue attempt had been such a short-lived failure.

A wall of bones erupted from the tiles of the floor, blocking the attack. Crooks and Axe both stood next to you, arms outstretched to summon the defensive maneuver. More spears struck the bones, causing them to shudder, but they remained standing. You turned wide, panicked eyes to Axe, searching for some explanation or reassurance.

“can you hold her off?” Axe asked Crooks, who nodded somberly. The stocky skeleton grabbed your arm and dragged you down a hallway of soaring pillars coated thickly in cobwebs and floor to ceiling windows of cloudy, cracked glass. Away from the immediate danger, you began to tremble. Tears welled up in your eyes.

Axe pulled you close, wrapping you in the safety of his arms and gently rubbing your back. He made soft shushing sounds, and you realized that your tears had turned into terrified sobs. Your body shook, and you hiccuped, trying to catch your breath. Axe held you until the overwhelming wave of emotion subsided.

“i’m so sorry. i thought maybe we could talk some sense into Undyne. she and my brother used to be really close, but the last human who came through here… well, that human killed a lot of monsters and stole the SOULs that we had collected towards breaking the barrier. they left us with nothing but despair and dust, and Undyne blamed herself for not stopping them. it… affected her.” Once again, Axe looked guilty.

“How can we convince her that I’m trying to help?” You gripped your backpack with determined hands. You didn’t gather these SOULs for nothing, and you didn’t plan to leave the starving monsters in the Underground without at least making an effort to save them.

“you aren’t going to convince her of anything.” You opened your mouth to protest, but Axe laid a phalange against your lips to silence you. “i want you to get out of here. it’s not safe, and i would never forgive myself if something happened to you.”

“What about breaking the Barrier?”

Loud crashes sounded from the Throne Room. Axe shot a quick glance over his shoulder before pushing you further down the hallway. “i need to go help my brother. if we can convince Undyne to trust you, i’ll meet you at the Barrier to break it and free the monsters.”

“What if you can’t?” More sounds of destruction threatened to drown out your whispered words, but Axe was close enough to hear you over the cacophony. Sorrow filled his single eyelight.

“i won’t put you in danger.”

“That doesn’t answer my question!” Actually, it did answer your question, and the implications left you frantic with worry for him. You wanted to explain how you felt about him, why his plan tore your heart to pieces, that you couldn’t just leave him behind, but the sounds of battle were approaching quickly. 

Crooks slid backwards into the pillar-lined hallway, kicking up dirt. He held bone attacks in his gloved hands, and he used them to deflect wave after wave of spear attacks. The barrage of attacks drove him backwards again, closer to you and his brother. Axe stepped between you and the sound of Undyne’s war cries.

Turning, he cupped your cheek in one large, bony hand. His eyelight drank you in as if to memorize every feature of your tear-streaked face. He leaned forward and kissed your forehead. “go,” he murmured, pressing his forehead to yours.

Then he was gone, teleporting to the entrance of the hallway to join Crooks with bone attacks flying. 

If you stayed, it would only distract him. He wanted you to go, to be safe. It took every bit of willpower in your body to walk away, to step through the Barrier without him, knowing that he never would’ve fought Undyne if it wasn’t for your meddling.

You waited.

And waited.

The seconds stretched out, each one lasting a thousand excruciating years.

You waited.

-

Axe curled up on the couch, full to bursting from a delicious dinner prepared by his brother. Yawning, he rested his skull in your lap, and you gently stroked his scapulae, smiling as he began to doze. He no longer feared nightmares. In fact, he rarely dreamed at all anymore. After all, what would be the point in dreaming?

Life on the Surface far surpassed anything that his subconscious could fabricate, and he already lived that dream every single day, with you.

INDEX

[red-riot-rat]

G o o d b y e    t o    a    w o r l d

LITERAL ANGST FT. P! LOV X TEEN! READER, MOSTLY HIMIKO TOGA HERE <33

WARNINGS: CURSING, DEATH, BLOOD, YOUCH YOUCH HURT, READER DIES, HIMIKO CRIES, THAT KINDA RHYMED, UHM, kid did NOT proof read this,,, apologies dkfjgndg

WC: 1478

T I M E S T A M P : 6:55 AM

AN: Ive attached an announcement to my rules, right below my masterlist link. please read that!! <3

-

-

-

“Kid! Please run!” 

Himiko Toga’s voice rings through the debris of the broken down bar. You stumble, your eyes trained on the amount of heroes flooding in, the chaos bound to be caused bouncing in your mind.

You scramble to run, your hands catching you right before you fall as you bolt as fast as you can.

You know this is protocol. You have to go.

Out of everything they have told you, taught you, scolded you for,

This was the lesson that rang through the bars every week, every moment of danger.

‘If we get attacked, you run.’

Its a no matter what, no matter what you’ve witnessed or how scared you are for the others, they want you alive. 

Even if it means without them, you're are so overwhelming important to them.

Above all else.

Run.

And you try your best. Your sneakers thud with every step, feeling the shake in your legs, the anxiety in your brain. 

All you have to do is get to the apartment. The apartment assigned for this moment, and this moment only. The moment were the life of the League depends on.

The one that has been fully stocked since its been bought, the one made for the moments of chaos like this.

Thats all you have to get too. And they will see you there, everyone safe and sound.

Everyone.

The sirens and the yells of heroes bounce in and out of your mind as you ran out the back of the bar, and into the allies that felt like they were constructed for you.

You ran left and right, listening for footsteps behind you, to the left, the right, above you, anything that could give away the presence of a hero.

And there was nothing. 

Maybe that was it. The false sense of security that washed over you. Maybe it caused you to become reckless.

Or maybe it was the fact that you were safe for a split second there, and he ruined it.

The image of Himiko’s terrified eyes, but unending smile burned into your eyes at your sneakers thudded on the concrete in the dead of night.

You turned one  last time, and the apartment building came into sight. The bland grey, and mostly broken windows relived you for only a minute as you focused on the sound of your rapid breathing as you slowed down.

The apartment building itself is practically abandoned, and its not hard in the slightest to get in the grey old building.

Everythings going to plan, although you can still here the sirens go off, but theres no yelling. None at all. 

This is the plan you’ve gone through so many times, over and over again.

Sometimes things go exactly to plan, 

And they’re just not yours.

Slamming the door to the disgustingly decorated apartment complex, you slid down to the floor, your back slumping at you curled into a ball, your face in your hands. Your breathing still rapid, from running from the bar and up the multiple flights of stares, from the anxiety of the whole situation, that anyone and everyone you have ever loved could die right now.

And most of all,

The feeling of eyes on you.

Glaring eyes.

Hero eyes.

Your head rises slowly, unsure of what to do.

This wasn’t part of the plan.

It was never a part of it.

What the fuck now?

A dark haired hero sits on a red sofa, the red matches his glaring eyes as his mangy hair floats up.

“The League’s kid.”

His voice feels mocking and you feel anger build up.

You cant even fucking believe this.

Shota Aizawa is sitting in the apartment everyone considered to be the escape plan.

And all you can do is die.

Your hands shake as you pull yourself up from the cold wooden ground. This isn’t a part of the fucking plan.

He rises slowly, your back is still against the wall. Your brain racks through options as your faced with an underground hero, one that’s even defeated Tomura before, even if it was through a sliver of good luck.

God, the way you wished you had that sliver of luck.

Before even thinking, you took off. You legs taking you anywhere that you felt had a chance of survival in.

For fucks sake, you wish you didn’t go into her room.

Out of everywhere you slam the door entering into Himiko’s room, you can feel the immediate pain shes going to suffer through.

The tears, 

The blood,

The absolute anger and havoc herself alone that she can cause.

“There’s no where to run kid. You’ve got two choices.”

But you know the choices. You’ve heard them time and time again. Its either,

Rat on your family and become an enemy of the few people you’ve ever loved,

Or die.

And this time? You don’t have a way out.

Theres no one left to save you anymore.

Clocks stop ticking.

Luck runs dry.

And heartbeats go silent.

You look the man straight in the eye, still glaring red as it runs dry.

You know your choices.

And you know what has to happen.

“You can come with me, unharmed, or I’ll hav-”

“Kill me.” you practically shout at him, the tears building up as your throat closes and nose burn.

“For the love of god, do it.” Your eyes wide, bottom lip trembling and hands balled up, you accept it.

The fact that even though this is not what you want, what anyone in your League wants, it will be the only option. 

And that’s all you can do.

Is watch as the very root of your anger takes your life and adds gasoline to the fire in within the depths of the League.

And just like that you sat on the cold ground once again, leaned against the cute white bed frame Himiko owned, and bled out onto her floor. The warm red ooze left your mouth as well, dripping down your chin.

The worst part out of this situation, isn’t that you’re dying on floor of Himiko Toga’s pastel decorated room, its the fact that her once cute room with forever be haunted by the memory of your blood being spilledt.

And the realization that she was too late to save you. 

You can hear the front door open ever so softly, and hear Himiko call out for you.

The only kid that shes been able to take care of, to trust, and protect for months on end,

Is now dying alone in her room.

And that it itself,

Will cause her to break from the inside out.

And the world will never know true peace again.

Her footsteps echo down the hall you remember running down in a moment of panic, and as her door creaks open theres not much you can do. Expect watch her fall apart in a split second.

“No.. wait please I’m so sorry, please wait, hold on, Tomura- he can- Tomura!” She calls out for the male, who isn’t anywhere near this designated safe space. A destroyed safe place. 

She cradles you in her arms as her tears overflow, and her smile decays into an everlasting pain on her face. She feels helpless, because she is.

All she can do is watch you die as you lay in her arms.

All she can do is know that shes too late.

And you’re so far gone.

“Please stay. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry I didn’t get here, I-” Her own sobs cut her off, her hands shaking and face distorting into such a clear vision of pain as she strokes your cheek with right hand. Her heavy tears fall as you smile every so slightly up back to her.

Your eyes stare into hers, the ones you used to meet every morning when she would wake you up, or when you needed validation.

“Thank you.” Your voice is barely above a whisper, something she can barely hear, but so painfully there. She whimpers, pulling you as close to her body as she can.

“Please stay, just for a- a minute longer please.” She begs you to hold onto any sliver of life you have left, anything at all. But sometimes, you know what has to happen.

Sometimes you don’t hold on.

“I’ll say goodbye soon.” You smile as wide as you can to her, hand resting on hers as your breathing slows. As you watch yourself leave your family.

“Though its the end of the world,” Her brows furrow even further than before and she can feel her stomach churn. The sight of you in her arms has her so overwhelming broken, she’ll never recover.

“Don’t blame yourself,” She smiles as wide as she an as she lets out a broken sob.

You slip right through her fingers.

“Now.” 

She was too late.

[dwellordream]

the best laid plans

day 1 for @wayhavensummer because this is the only prompt I'll have time to do this week!

T Rating (for one brief mention of sex and one brief reference to emotional abuse) Felix x Detective Esme Kingston, 2300 words

The migraine cuts her to her core, and Esme can’t even manage the usual dose of guilt and hesitance she’d feel about canceling plans with Tina. They were supposed to go away this weekend, and Esme hasn’t been on a vacation since uni, but right now she couldn’t even make her way out of her flat, never mind into a car for a seven hour drive down the coast. 

She feels like vomiting, the pain is so intense, as if she’d been concussed. Migraines have been a constant for her since puberty; she has a vivid memory of her first one, when she was thirteen, and the long wait in the nurse’s office at the private school her mother paid so much money for. The same mother who eventually sent someone else to pick her up, ninety minutes after the first phone call. 

Esme doesn’t even remember who it was; some Agency intern? A vampire? A demon? Whoever it was, they brought her home, gave her some painkillers, and told her to sleep it off. She woke up hours later, in the middle of the night, to a still empty house. Rebecca had come home briefly to leave a note for her about some leftovers in the fridge and another one excusing her from school the next day if need be, and then gone straight back to work. 

Maybe Esme should have been outraged or hurt by this, but she doesn’t recall feeling much of anything at the time beyond hunger, when the pain had finally receded enough to think straight. She ate the leftovers cold in their sterile, silent kitchen, and put herself back to bed.

The migraines had intensified through high school, to the point where her mother considered putting her on permanent medication, before receding just before she went away to university. After that they were far more infrequent, which was both a blessing and a curse- it was easy to forget what the pain felt like, and to feel like it was weak, lazy of her to let it get the best of her. 

Bobby certainly didn’t help matters; the first one Esme had during their relationship came around shortly after they’d had sex for the first few times, and Bobby quickly became convinced this was her version of ‘not tonight, dear, I have a headache-’. That she was, for some ludicrous reason, exaggerating her migraines. 

If she didn’t want to have sex with him, she’d never had much of an issue saying as much, bluntly, clinically. Another thing he despaired of- her lack of social graces, her insistence on saying exactly what she meant, in her usual ‘ice queen’ manner. Now he had reason to call her frigid in more ways than one. 

Esme still isn’t sure how things between them ever lasted as long as seven torturous months. She assumes they both had a private masochistic streak- why else would two people who made one another so blatantly unhappy stay together? 

Bobby isn’t here now, of course, to whinge and moan about her ignoring him, but there’s still a little voice in her head telling her to get up and stop acting like a baby when the evening rolls around. The pain has greatly lessened, thankfully, and she’s hungry, which is usually a good sign, but she’s also exhausted and cranky and generally miserable, feeling as though an entire day was wasted, one she could have spent with her best friend, on her way to a vacation. 

Now, again, she is alone in a dark room. She slowly rolls over onto her side, bracing for a wave of pain or nausea, then pushes herself up onto her elbows and gropes at her night table for her phone. She has several missed calls and texts. Two from Tina, one from her mother, and one from Felix, which is the most recent, about thirty minutes ago. 

Felix H: omw over to drop stuff off. 30 min???

She checks the time, then jumps, almost bashing her head into the headboard, when she hears a quiet knock at her door. For a moment Esme considers lying back down and not answering it; Felix can be persistent but he would never try to break her door down, especially when he knows she’s ill. 

Then she clambers out of bed, some instinct driving her, a desperate kind of loneliness- for an instant tears spring to her eyes, as if she were a child again, terrified of being left alone, that she will just miss him, that she will pull open the door and he will already be gone-

“Ez?”

He’s right there when she yanks open the door, the chain still in place. Esme undoes it and pulls the door open all the way. Felix is staring at her, a small bag of groceries in hand. Vampires have far better temperature regulation than humans but it’s obvious he is feeling the heat; for once he’s not wearing a beanie or any kind of hat or cap at all. 

He’s gotten his hair braided recently; Esme looks at him for a moment, staggered by the fact, as always, that even in the harsh fluorescent lighting of her narrow hallway. Felix’s dark skin has a sheen all its own, magnified by his golden eyes. 

He prods her shoulder gently with the pad of his thumb. “If you faint on me, I’m gonna drop your gifts.”

“My gifts?” Esme shakes her head, leading the way back into her darkened flat. It’s much more cluttered than usual; she never finished packing for the trip she was supposed to take today. 

Felix does not reach for a light switch; he has perfect vision in the dark, and light from the parking lot is spilling through her blinds. Instead he sets the bag on her counter and sorts through it as enthusiastically as Santa Claus on Christmas, or a child sorting through their Halloween candy. 

“Min tea,” he says, “cold packs, squash, sweet potatoes, brown rice, dried cranberries…”

“Did you just look up ‘what to eat and drink for a migraine’?” Esme manages to ask, bemused. 

He looks up, a sheepish smile quirking at his soft lips. “If I say yes…”

“I’m impressed,” she says. “And.. thank you. Very much. You didn’t have to do this.”

“I didn’t have to supply my ailing girlfriend with nutritious food and drink?” he waves the bottle of mint teat in her face vigorously. 

“Ailing? I’m not eighty five years old, Felix.”

“That’s right, I’m the old man here,’ he cackles, then amends, “Or, will be. Technically we’re not that far apart in age but eventually when you start decaying-,”

“Decaying?” As usual, his word choice both horrifies and amuses her. 

Felix has even less of a filter than her, but with the opposite effect. She comes across as cold and controlling. He comes across as… well, ‘space cadet’ has been used a few times, but Esme likens it to a time traveler. Only, not from the past, and not quite from the future. A parallel visitor. Something out of the Twilight Zone, only… warm and colorful and eager to please. That’s Felix.

He shrugs. “Succumbing to the elements?”

“I’m not a castle,” she mutters, but pours herself a cup of cold mint tea. Will it be as good as if she’d brewed it herself here at home, no, but at the moment she doesn’t care. 

He puts the rest away in her small fridge while she drinks, leaving out the cranberries, then circles warily, as if approaching a wild animal, when she finishes off her cup. “Can I-,” his fingers ghost along the back of her neck. The hairs there raise and she shivers violently, but not in fear or pain. 

“Yes,” she murmurs, then leans back into his embrace as he wraps his arms around her. 

They scuttle over to the sofa like that, and ease down together. Felix is not terribly tall, and she is average height, so there’s scarcely a few inches between them. Esme has always liked that. All the others she’s been with had towered over her, and it made her feel spoilt and delicate in an undesirable, bratty kind of way, as if she were childish, some little princess to be coddled and indulged. Or maybe that’s just her projecting onto everything else that makes up a relationship besides height differences. 

For now, she is content to lie back so her head rests against Felix’s, cheek to cheek. His is silken smooth; she knows he is fastidious about shaving, the same as her. 

“You’re feeling better, though?” he murmurs, and snakes a hand under her pyjama top as if to check. Splayed warm against her belly, it tickles for an instant and she smiles. 

“Yes. It’s mostly passed. I’m just tired. And annoyed. Tina was really looking forward to this trip. She’ll still have fun by herself, but it was supposed to be the two of us, and I’m always canceling plans.”

“You are not,” says Felix, reasonably. “You’re just busy. And you couldn’t help it this time, you were sick. She knows that.”

Esme nods; for all his jokes and quips, Felix is always sensible in a manner that she finds comforting- stating the obvious isn’t such a bad thing when dealing with someone like her. 

“I hate being sick,” she murmurs, rolling onto her side so she can rest her cheek on his shoulder. He wraps his arms around her more securely, even intertwines their legs. Felix sleeps like this too, though at this point he’s only spent the night a few times. 

Esme is taking things as slowly as she dares, given all the other factors at play- her mother, their work, the rest of the team, the fact that he is a vampire from another dimension and she is the human equivalent of dry toast… 

“I kind of like it,” Felix confesses, with just enough lilt in his voice that she knows he’s half teasing.

Esme grumbles vengefully into his shirt. He smells like coconut butter and vanilla. She doesn’t know if that’s his aftershave or just the essence of Felix, refined to the purest degree. Sometimes he smells like cinnamon to her, or lavender and honeysuckle. 

Felix tolerates these assessments but likes to claim that it’s him producing some kind of super pheromones perfectly designed for luring in unsuspecting human prey. Or his girlfriend. Or both. 

Esme has not been anyone’s girlfriend in a long time. Years. It feels very strange. Before him, it’d been so long since she’d even touched anyone, besides Tina or her mother or shaking hands. That absence did not hurt Esme. But being with Felix is like an unexpected delight. Free dessert. Extra sprinkles on your sundae. Any number of juvenile metaphors she should be above, but isn’t. 

“You’re not going to ask why I like it?” He is winding his fingers through her hair, which she let down from its usual tight ponytail to ease the tension on her scalp.

“Because you like to mock me?” she ventures.

“No,” says Felix. “Because you would have gone away with Tina, and now I get to see you. And hold you.” He presses an astoundingly gentle kiss to her brow, like a feather.

Esme feels a queer stab of guilt. “I didn’t know you’d minded so much.”

“I don’t mind,” he says quickly. “I was happy for you to get away for once. I’m not going to third wheel you and your best friend.”

“I think the terms refers to the opposite-,”

“Hush hush,” he interrupts, which gets a giggle out of her. “But this is like… an unexpected delight.”

The back of her neck prickles. “Can you read minds?” she asks, half serious.

“Not yet,” he sounds smug. “I have great intuition.”

“Because you’re a vampire?”

“No, because I’m me,” he boasts. “Look at Ava’s intuition. Terrible.”

Esme laughs again. “I wouldn’t go that far.”

“She’s always expecting the worse. And Nat swings in the other direction. Always wants to play nice and hug it out.”

“And Mason?” Esme teases, feeling energetic enough not to raise her head so her chin is on his chest. Their noses are almost touching.

“Eh… he’s alright,” Felix breathes, and then closes the gap with a kiss. 

Esme kisses him back, more passionately than she’d meant to, and only stops it when he starts to sit up so she is straddling his lap. 

“I don’t think I can…”

“Eat some cranberries?” He grins impishly and hands her the bag from the coffee table.

Esme smiles and bumps her forehead against his, something she did impulsively after their first kiss and which he never let her live down. 

“What are we, cats?” he says, on cue, but brushes his nose and lips down her cheek and onto her neck, as if to nuzzle her in turn. “Eat some fruit before your migraine comes back. Do you want me to put some of this stuff away?”

“No,” she says, pushing him back down on the sofa. “Just- stay with me, please?”

“Alright,” he agrees, amiable as ever, and reaches for the remote. “This can be like our vacation, yeah? The Felix and Esme Show. The Fezme Show-,”

“No,” she groans, but wriggles off him to curl up beside him instead, a handful of cranberries rising to her mouth as he flips through the channels.

He settles on an episode of Columbo. Felix hasn’t really seen much in the way of TV, and so reruns mean nothing to him. But it means everything to her. They keep the volume on very low, and he gets up at one point to open the windows more, even as the faint sounds of the parking lot outside drift in- the buzz of the lights, doors opening and closing, the crunch of gravel. 

Esme falls asleep sagging onto him, cranberries in her lap, mouth half open while Felix watches, riveted in the light of the screen, as the detective closes the case.

[when-a-humble-bard]

what my heart just yearns to say

Word Count: 5575

summary: Jaskier’s a romantic at heart. So you would think he falls in love at first sight. But... when he falls in love with Geralt, he falls very, very slowly. Or, ten moments where Jaskier falls a little bit more in love with the Witcher, until he's really not sure when it started in the first place.

Warnings: hurt/comfort, fluff, injuries, vomiting, mentions of death, nonconsenual almost-groping by a patron, shipping lens on a canon scene, near-drowning, cursing (of course), first kisses, feelings confessions, Jaskier yearns so much oof

A/N: In which I continue to be amazed by the other creators in this fandom, inspired by them, and also wanted to further explore these two. I hope you enjoy it! A companion piece is in the planning stages already... Heh. Edited by yours truly, so all mistakes are mine.

Read on AO3

...

I.

“They said it’s a water nymph?” Jaskier asks the Witcher one evening.

A fire crackles in front of them, sparks shooting up into the night sky. Stars peek between the breaks in the forest canopy above them. Geralt glances at the bard, then sighs and turns his attention back to the fire.

“That’s what they said.”

“But you don’t buy it,” Jaskier says. It’s not really a question. He can tell from Geralt’s tone.

Geralt’s lips press into a thin line. “Rusalki and some bruxae share a number of similarities in terms of appearance. The rusalki they described has pale skin and dark hair.”

Jaskier’s fingers twitch with the sudden desire to grab his notebook. “And… rusalki don’t look like that?”

“They can,” Geralt replies, glancing at him, “but so can bruxae. They also have similar tastes in prey.”

Jaskier purses his lips as he remembers what the townspeople had told them. “Men.”

Geralt nods. “Which is why you’re going to stay here with Roach tomorrow.”

Jaskier glances over towards the horse grazing a few yards away, then looks back at the Witcher. “So what’s the difference?”

He doesn’t know if the question tumbles past his lips because he’s genuinely curious about the answer or because he just really likes hearing Geralt talk. The Witcher’s subdued cadence was stubbornly persistent. Often when Jaskier made a concerted effort to engage Geralt in conversation, his responses were brief, clipped, and straightforward. A staccato drum against Jaskier’s lilting melody.

But apparently, Geralt was a fountain of willing knowledge when it came to monsters. And Jaskier could listen to him for hours.

Geralt’s brow quirks in surprise at the question. “To start with, bruxae are of the vampire family. They lure men to their death so that they may feed on their blood. Rusalki are, usually, much more amenable. They lure men to them for procreation, and rarely intend death.”

Jaskier’s brow furrows. “Which is why you think it’s not rusalki. You think it’s a bruxa.”

“Hm.”

Jaskier feels something twinge in his chest. “How do you kill a bruxa?” He tears his gaze towards the fire as he feels Geralt glance at him.

“They’re susceptible to silver, like most monsters. Igni is also useful. Bruxa tend to hunt in packs, so its unusual that the villagers here have only seen one.”

“Have you fought them before?”

“Yes.”

“Are you nervous? About tomorrow?”

A pause. “No.”

Jaskier huffs and offers a faint, uncertain smile. “That makes one of us.”

“I told you you’re not coming with me.”

“Yes, but that’s quite beside the point, isn’t it?” Because Jaskier isn’t nervous about himself.

Geralt’s head snaps over to the bard in surprise. “Jaskier—”

Jaskier waves him off. “So tell me, dear Witcher,” he says, because he just wants to hear Geralt talk as much as he can tonight. “Why does silver work so well on monsters?”

 II.

Jaskier watches him. The early spring air tugs gently at the loose strands of his white hair. Birds twitter happily in the canopy above them. The stream nearby is still. Mid-morning sunlight filters through the leaves and branches, leaving a mosaic of light around them.

Geralt breathes.

Kneeling in a patch of grass with his hands resting on his thighs, the Witcher has his eyes closed and just… breathes. Jaskier watches the steady rise and fall of his chest. The way it expands with each inhale, the way the ever-present tension in Geralt’s shoulders eases just the slightest bit with each exhale.

Jaskier knows he’s not asleep. Sleeping and meditating are different things. But he thinks that Geralt actually looks more peaceful like this. Jaskier had spent many nights in the bedroll near the Witcher and knew all too well that when Geralt slept, it was usually fitfully. But when he meditates like this…

Geralt is still.

Jaskier can’t help but feel like he’s getting a rare glimpse at who Geralt was—is—beneath the layers and layers of training and mutations. He knew Geralt didn’t regret what he went through to become a Witcher. At least… not exactly. Can you regret something that wasn’t your choice to begin with? Had been his rhetorical response when Jaskier had been brave enough to ask him one evening. But the bard knew that no amount of trials and training could erase the parts of Geralt that was still—sometimes painfully—human. Geralt held within himself a carefully balanced dichotomy that seemed, at least to Jaskier, to be a storm built on regret and guilt and (in his darker moments) self-loathing.

But watching Geralt meditate—the steady breath, the perfect stillness—makes the bard wonder if the storm metaphor isn’t quite accurate. Because really, when Jaskier thinks about it, Geralt’s humanity is perhaps more like the coastal waves. Relentlessly returning to the shoreline no matter how many times it’s sent away.

Jaskier watches Geralt meditate and feels something tighten in his chest. He’d follow that tide to the end of the earth, he realizes. He’d call the waves back to shore for as long as Geralt would let him.

Geralt’s eyes blink open and Jaskier unapologetically meets his gaze.

He arcs his eyebrow. “Composing, Bard?”

Jaskier offers a small, sincere smile. “Something like that.”

 III.

“I’d rethink that move.”

If he’s being honest, Jaskier is almost as surprised as the patron when Geralt seems to materialize out of the crowd and grab the man’s wrist in a vice-like grip. The man’s other hand is still fisted possessively in the waistband of Jaskier’s trousers, uncomfortably close to his crotch.

“What,” the patron spits with a sneer full of rotting teeth, “unwilling to share your whore, Butcher?”

Jaskier grimaces. Butcher made his skin crawl, and he knows that Geralt didn’t take kindly to that term either. The bard had learned that very early, and very quickly.

Geralt growls low in his throat, his eyes flashing dangerously. “Call him that again and I’ll slit your throat.”

The threat makes Jaskier freeze instinctively. Call him that again… Him.

As in Jaskier.

The patron roughly lets go of the bard, who stumbles a step from the suddenness of the motion but still hasn’t taken his eyes off Geralt. In truth, Jaskier really hadn’t been particularly bothered by the term itself. He’d been called it before, and been called much worse than that several hundred times over. But Geralt took issue with it, evidently.

Geralt was defending him. He’d never had someone who’d done that before. Not even his own family.

“Not worth it,” the patron says gruffly. Geralt releases him with a shove to send him stumbling away from Jaskier. He staggers a few steps, muttering something under his breath. Jaskier doesn’t hear it clearly—something about his voice and screaming as pretty as he sings—but Geralt evidently does hear it, quite clearly. Something bright and furious ignites in his gold eyes.

“Geralt,” he says quickly but quietly. “Let it go. It’s fine.”

For a moment, the Witcher looks torn. Jaskier places a hand on his forearm, and Geralt levels a withering gaze on the other man. He rushes through the crowd and out the tavern. It’s not until the door closes behind him that Geralt turns his attention back to the bard. The hot anger in his eyes evaporates slowly into something that Jaskier almost wants to call… soft. His gaze flickers—quick and calculating—over Jaskier’s form. Looking for signs of injury.

Geralt’s gaze meets his again in a silent question. Jaskier offers a reassuring smile and slight nod in answer. I’m okay.

Geralt shakes his head, but Jaskier doesn’t think he’s imagining the tinge of relief under the veil of exasperation. “You really ought to learn some self-defense, Jaskier.”

Jaskier offers an affronted scoff. “I can defend myself perfectly fine, thank you very much.”

“Hmm.”

“I can! I’ll have you know, he is hardly the first over-enthusiastic fan I’ve dealt with.” Jaskier tries not to wince at the way Geralt’s expression darkens, and rushes of add, “And I’ve fended off unwanted advances just fine. He just happened to be particularly, ah, insistent.”

“Hm. And what happens when you can no longer talk your way out of such situations?”

Jaskier’s flippant smile wavers, then stays in place. “Are you offering to teach me, Geralt?” He’s mostly joking.

“Yes.” Geralt’s answer is immediate and unflinching. Jaskier tries not to think too long about why that sends a flutter through his stomach.

 IV.

The kitchen of the small house on the outskirts of the town has barely enough room for the three of them. Geralt, beside him, reeks of death and decay and monster guts. In front of them, the young boy—who couldn’t be older than 16 by Jaskier’s best guess—hoists his baby sister up further onto his hip.

“Truly, Witch—ah, Geralt?” At Geralt’s slight nod, the teen smiles. “Truly, Geralt. Thank you. I, um…” he trails off, turning to rifle through a drawer behind him. The middle sibling, a young boy of about six, runs around the corner and nearly barrels straights into the two of them in the entryway.

“Oi!” the teen snaps. “Slow down, will ya?”

“Sorry,” the younger boy mumbles, and then is off like a flash the moment Geralt takes a step to the left to let him through.

His brother watches him with a certain fond exasperation, even as embarrassment colors his cheeks. “Too much energy for his own good,” he says. Jaskier realizes then that he has a small pouch in the hand that isn’t supporting his baby sister’s weight. He extends it out to the Witcher. “It’s not much. Certainly not nearly enough for disposing of the monster that took our parents, but...”

Geralt shakes his head, making no move to take it. “No payment necessary.”

Jaskier glances at him and feels something unexpectedly soft warming in his chest.

“Please,” the teen says. “I insist.”

“Keep it.”

“My father taught me to never accept charity.”

Jaskier thinks of the empty cupboards around them in the kitchen and feels a small tug in his gut. He remembers all too well singing for literal scraps. Barely surviving. He knew desperate times. And he also knew that some people still ranked their pride higher. The bard figures he can’t really fault him for it, and besides, the poor kid had just lost the very father he’d spoken of. Grief did funny things to people.

Geralt stares at the boy for a long moment. Jaskier sees the tension work in his jaw before he holds a hand out and lets him deposit the coins into the outstretched palm. Twenty ducats fall from the piece of cloth.

“It’s all I have—” he begins apologetically.

“It’s plenty,” Geralt interrupts, folding his fingers over the paltry sum. It does not escape Jaskier’s attention that he doesn’t slip the coins into his own pouch.

The infant in the teen’s arms shifts and makes a distressed noise. “I… I should put her down for a nap, I think.”

Jaskier can hear the uncertainty in the boy’s voice and offers an encouraging smile. “We’ll see ourselves out. I’m sure a bit of rest is exactly what she needs. As a matter of fact, I could use a nap myself.”

Geralt rolls his eyes, but Jaskier sees the relieved smile pull at the boy’s mouth. “Right. Well… Thank you. Again. I… thank you.”

He disappears up the rickety wood stairs. On their way out, Jaskier sees Geralt discretely drop the ducats into a partially-opened drawer by the entrance to the kitchen.

That soft, warm feeling in Jaskier gives an aching, happy tug.

 V.

Jaskier watches, fascinated, as Geralt’s eye twitches. The music that fills the tavern is not coming from Jaskier, and while the other bard is clearly less experienced, Jaskier seems less bothered by the amateur display than the Witcher. Which is odd—really odd—to Jaskier. Because he had been certain that Geralt really couldn’t give a rat’s ass about music.

Jaskier looks at the Witcher over the top of his wine glass as he takes another sip. “What’s troubling you, Geralt?”

Geralt settles an irritated golden gaze onto Jaskier as the bard (the other one) starts another song. It takes only a few seconds for Jaskier to realize it’s the same simple, mundane chord progression and structure as the last song played. Jaskier doesn’t miss the way Geralt’s gaze flickers lightning quick to the lute beside him.

Jaskier stifles a grin. “Don’t tell me you’re already missing my serenades.”

Geralt isn’t looking back at him, instead watching the other bard parade around the room with a look that is very nearly a glare. “At least your songs have some… complexity.”

That sends a very unexpected surge of warmth through Jaskier’s chest. He sits up a bit more, leaning forward. “Musically or lyrically?”

“Music,” Geralt replies, almost absently. “The… chords?” The Witcher’s gaze flickers uncertainly to Jaskier, who can’t help but feel like he’s clinging to every word. He gives Geralt a slight, encouraging nod. Geralt shifts. “They’re better than this shit.”

Jaskier stares at him. Sure, the Witcher didn’t have the same musically-inclined vocabulary, but even that couldn’t hide the fact that Geralt listens to his music. Really listens.

Geralt tears his gaze away from Jaskier’s after a moment, taking a long pull of ale from the tankard in front of him. “Your lyrics,” he continues, “are little more than inaccurate stories.”

“Ah, my dear Witcher, ordinarily I would balk at such a baseless accusation—”

“It’s not baseless.”

“—but you cannot hide the fact any longer.” Jaskier cannot contain the grin that pulls at his lips any more than he can contain the surge of a warm, fluttery feeling in his chest. He points a finger at Geralt. “You listen to me.”

Geralt looks back at him and—though he knows Geralt would deny it—Jaskier swears he sees a twitch to the corner of his mouth. “Impossible not to,” Geralt replies dryly, “what with you filling every damn second with song.” He takes another swallow.

The thinly veiled deflection does nothing to diminish Jaskier’s smile. “And you like it.”

This time, Geralt can’t quite contain the tilt to the corner of his mouth. “Hmm.”

Jaskier knows it’s a hum of agreement.

 VI.

Jaskier’s heart still hasn’t stopped pounding, even though they’d finished the treacherous part of the shortcut around an hour ago. The image of Borch, Téa, and Véa plummeting—their bodies disappearing into the mountain mist below—still leaves Jaskier with a slight roll to his stomach and an ache in his bones that had nothing to do with the long day of foot travel.

It’s close to dusk. The chill of evening mountain air begins to stiffen the bard’s fingers as he sets his lute down beside his bedroll. The dwarves busy themselves with setting up camp and starting to prepare a meal, but Jaskier can’t help the way he keeps watching Geralt.

Geralt, who hadn’t said a thing since Borch let go of the chain.

Jaskier kneels by his bedroll and pretends to adjust it, but he watches the Witcher sitting on a boulder a few yards away. He gazes out over the jagged terrain off the cliffside. He is still. But Jaskier feels his chest knot with concern.

Geralt was perhaps the single most selfless person that Jaskier had met in his 40 years of living. But that came with its pitfalls too—especially as it related to how Geralt tended to view himself. There had always been splintered shards in Geralt’s soul that Jaskier didn’t know how to begin to dig out. But he can still picture the way Geralt had stayed kneeling for a moment on those wooden planks, his head bowed like the weight of the world had—for just a moment—dropped on top of him.

Jaskier fears he knows that body language, and the weighted silence that had followed that moment. He fears that his 22 years of traveling with the Witcher means that he really does know Geralt. And that Geralt feels that he has let them down somehow, despite all he did to try to save them. Even at great risk to himself, Jaskier remembers with a bit of a wince, hearing the creak of those boards under Geralt’s feet.

The Witcher could never catch a break, it seemed.

With a sigh, Jaskier stands and crosses to him. Geralt makes no move to acknowledge his presence, not really, but his stillness is a sign of recognition in and of itself. The bard sets himself carefully, gingerly, on the boulder beside him.

“You did your best,” Jaskier tells him softly, the words managing to push through his slightly tight throat. “There’s nothing else you could have done.”

Jaskier looks at Geralt as he says it. The Witcher had spent more years constructing a mask of passivity and stoicism than Jaskier had been alive, but the bard knows him. And when he sees Geralt’s gaze drop by a few degrees, he knows he’d been right about where Geralt’s thoughts had been.

Something in Jaskier’s chest pulses with an ache that he cannot name. Geralt has carried too much for too long and Jaskier desires fervently to ease that burden. To find a way to let Geralt breathe and be and exist without quite so much heaviness.

“Look, why don’t we leave tomorrow?” he offers, his fingers fidgeting in his lap against the sudden desire to take Geralt’s hand. “That is, if you’ll give me another chance to prove myself a… worthy travel companion.”

It’s a weak, flimsy attempt for a smile. Geralt doesn’t, but there’s just the slightest tug at the corner of his mouth when he hums in response. Geralt glances at him briefly, and though Jaskier doesn’t meet his gaze, that aching in his chest gives a sharp lurch with hope.

“We could head to the coast. Get away for a while,” he adds softly. He’d never said the words aloud before, but they resonate with a certain familiarity. “Sounds like something Borch would say, doesn’t it? ‘Life’s too short. Do what pleases you… while you can.’”

Jaskier swallows, setting his hands on his thighs because they are only getting more fidgety with each pulse of that sharp warmth in his chest—more insistent now. Harder to ignore.

“Composing your next song?” Geralt rumbles quietly.

Jaskier looks down at his hands. “No, I’m just, ah—” I love you, he thinks without daring to look at him. “Just trying to work out what pleases me.”

 VII.

They’re half a mile out of town when it starts to rain. The starting sprinkle lasts just long enough for Jaskier to think he’s glad he invested in a case for the lute before the sky opens up and it starts to pour. Then he’s also glad he bought some decent boots at the last town they were in.

“Fuck.” Jaskier knows that tone. Geralt is annoyed. The bard glances at the Witcher beside him, a faintly amused smile pulling at his lips and a teasing quip on his tongue, but… it dies on his tongue .

Because Geralt meets his gaze, and for a moment, Jaskier forgets how to breathe.

He doesn’t know why, really. The rain soaks Geralt’s white hair, causing some of it to fall into the man’s face in damp, loose strings. His dark shirt is quickly becoming plastered to his broad shoulders from the downpour, having left his armor to be cleaned during their quick trip to the woods to collect some medicinal herbs. Jaskier thinks it’s something about the Witcher’s eyes. Maybe it’s something to do with the way water droplets cling to his lashes. Or the way his golden eyes seem so much brighter in the downpour. Maybe it’s something else entirely.

Jaskier is a man of many words and many metaphors. But he finds words failing him entirely now, and he can’t explain why. Except that he’s left with the sudden, clear sense that looking at Geralt feels a lot like being called home.

Geralt tilts his head slightly, the way he usually did when he was about to ask a question, but Jaskier blinks and jumps in before he can.

“And you thought the lute case was a poor investment. Well, how do you feel now, Geralt? We still have half a mile to go before shelter, and such time for a lute to spend in rain like this…” Jaskier shakes his head. “It would be nothing short of an absolute, irrevocable tragedy.”

“Hmm.” Geralt looks away from Jaskier then, squinting briefly up at the sky. Not squinting, Jaskier realizes after a beat. Glaring.

“Not a fan of the rain?” he asks, mostly rhetorical. Geralt rarely vocally complained—usually Jaskier did it enough for the both of them—but the slight crease between his brows is a familiar look of displeasure. Jaskier pulls the lute case off his shoulders and shrugs out of his doublet.

“It will make it harder to track—what are you doing?”

Jaskier rolls his eyes as he slings the lute case back around his shoulder. “You left your cloak back at the inn, and I know, though you will adamantly deny it, that the real reason you hate the rain is because it gets into your eyes and makes it harder for your sensitive, Witchery eyes to see. So, here.” He hands the purple doublet out to him, looking very pointedly down the road where they can just barely make out the silhouette of the edge of the town.

“Jaskier…” A hesitation. A surprisingly heavy one.

“Honestly, Geralt, you’ll be doing me a favor. Wet doublets are dreadfully heavy, and as I am already saddled with carrying the weight of this lute and your reputation…” Jaskier looks back at the Witcher then to flash him a smile.

Geralt stares at him for a long moment, then takes the garment. As he does so, Jaskier swears he sees a twitch to the corner of Geralt’s mouth.

The bard quickly spins around and rushes a few steps in front of him, arms outstretched to welcome the rainfall, feeling a little breathless again.

 VIII.

Jaskier jolts to awareness with a desperate, strangled gasp. Bile surges up his throat and he barely has the wherewithal to roll away from the person beside him—whose presence is more sensed than seen. Jaskier groans and shuts his eyes against the rolling nausea and the oddly briny taste it leaves in his mouth.

“Fuck,” he mutters, wiping at his mouth with the back of his hand. He feels a hand rest between his shoulder-blades, so gently it almost seems hesitant.

When Jaskier takes a breath, it trembles. More bile—salty and acrid—rushes up his throat. When the second round of nausea abates and the coughing that wracks his lungs eases, Jaskier feels something cool and smooth pushed against his lips. He instinctively jerks away.

“Damn it, Jaskier,” snaps a rumbling voice. It’s weirdly familiar, even if the strain in it sounds foreign to the bard’s ears. “There’s not—”

Whatever the voice was saying is drowned out by a beautiful, echoing melody. It whispers promises of safety and warmth and love, and something in Jaskier’s chest gives a near painful lurch towards the sound. It’s also not until then that Jaskier gets a sense of his surroundings: the lake in front of him, the grainy sand sticking to his sopping wet clothes, the slate gray overcast sky above him. There are ripples in the lake and that song is calling to him from the water.

Overcome, Jaskier scrambles towards it.

“Fuck—”

Something thick and heavy grabs around Jaskier’s torso and pulls him back. The bard’s back hits something solid and firm but Jaskier’s chest is still pulling, pulling, pulling towards the water, towards the song.

The cool, smooth thing is pressed to his lips again. Jaskier wrenches his head away. But then he can hear something, barely, rumbling like distant thunder beneath the lilting song.

“Drink it, Jaskier. Please.”

The “please” sounds… odd to him. Strained and choked.

Jaskier lets his lips part in response, and a cool liquid floods into his mouth. It tastes of honey and cotton, washing away the briny taste that had been lingering in his mouth. He swallows it down.

A second later, the song fades away. So does the sound of the lake and the dusk breeze brushing past his ears. Just… silence. Jaskier feels the pulling in his chest release and the bard nearly goes boneless from the sudden relief.

He blinks a few times as clarity starts to trickle back into his thoughts. He’d been… traveling. Tracking a siren, or a mutation of one anyway. Yes, that was right. But he’d been with someone. Specifically…

“Geralt?” he asks, his own voice sounding odd in his head with the rest of the world muted. He realizes as soon as the name leaves his lips that Geralt is the thing that’s holding him in place. Jaskier cranes his neck to look at the Witcher, who still hasn’t relaxed his grip. Bright gold eyes meet his blue ones, then flickers over his form with panicked speed.

The stoic, collected look the Witcher usually wore has splintered, just a bit, and Jaskier thinks he can see a glimpse through the cracks that Geralt is frantically trying to piece back together.

He’s… afraid, Jaskier thinks. Or he had been, a moment ago.

“I’m okay,” Jaskier tells him, if only because he has the feeling that maybe Geralt needs to hear it.

The Witcher doesn’t reply, instead swallowing thickly and sinking his head to where Jaskier’s neck meets his shoulder. And if Jaskier traces Geralt’s arm around him to find his hand and lace their fingers together, well. Geralt doesn’t seem to protest.

 IX.

Jaskier is about halfway through the song about the vampiress when the door to the tavern ricochets open with a loud crack. Geralt staggers a step into the room—and it’s the fact that he staggers that makes Jaskier stop mid-song. The Witcher’s entrance is less than graceful, but Jaskier watches closely as Geralt grits his teeth, straighten his spine, and step fully through the threshold. Geralt’s eyes flicker over the room like he’s looking for something, or someone—perhaps the woman who had hired him—when they settle on Jaskier.

Oh.

The bard gracefully, if quickly, jumps to his feet and slings the lute in his hands around his back. Geralt is hiding it now behind sharp eyes and a rigid posture, but something is wrong. Jaskier can tell.

“I hate to cut a performance short,” he says to the crowd as he maneuvers through them towards the Witcher, mostly in an effort to break the sudden silence in the room, “but alas, I must bid you all adieu for the evening. Geralt, shall we?”

Geralt doesn’t argue. Doesn’t even hum. But he follows Jaskier as the bard carves a path through the crowd towards the stairs. Jaskier flashes patrons reassuring smiles despite the way his own throat is tightening with concern.

They make it to the room—barely—before Geralt’s steps falter again. Jaskier steadies him by grabbing his arm and bracing a hand against Geralt’s chest.

“Easy,” he says softly.

“Fuck.”

“Here. Let’s get you sitting before you end up face-first on the floor, because if that happens then we���re both out of luck because—Melitele’s tits—” Jaskier yelps  when he staggers for a second under Geralt’s sudden weight. “Okay. I’ve got you. Here we go.”

Jaskier is rambling as they cross the small room to the bed. He helps Geralt sit, kneeling in front of him as the Witcher sinks to the edge of the mattress. Geralt grimaces tightly and pitches forward into the bard, his head landing on Jaskier’s shoulder. His weight sinks a bit more, as if too weary to pull away. This close, Jaskier can feel the echoes of faint tremors wracking through his body.

Jaskier swallows the rising panic down. “Potions?” he asks in as level of a voice as he can manage.

“Out,” Geralt answers. “The venom isn’t lethal just—” Another shudder and a tight grunt. “—hurts like a fucking bitch.”

Jaskier releases a faint breath. He supposes he should feel relieved that it’s not lethal, but he can’t help that the tightness in his throat doesn’t quite ease. “What can I do?” he asks, because of all the things Geralt could have done and all the places he could have gone, he chose to find Jaskier when in immense pain. He wants to live up to that display of open trust.

He feels Geralt fist a hand in his shirt. “Just… stay.”

“My dear Witcher,” Jaskier says thickly, and if his voice breaks just a little, at least Geralt doesn’t seem to notice. “I’m not going anywhere.”

 X.

Jaskier doesn’t think about it. He sees the mage thrust a hand out in Geralt’s direction when the Witcher’s back is turned and Jaskier lunges on nothing but instinct and the acrid taste of fear on his tongue.

A bolt of sharp green slams into his chest. Something cracks when Jaskier hits the forest floor, something that the bard doesn’t think is magic. His head snaps against the ground, his vision swimming. Heat and sharpness tears through his chest.

Someone screams. Maybe it’s Jaskier. He thinks he hears his name shouted, but it sounds far away.

He is drowning. Can you drown without water?

The bard gasps, desperately, searching for air that he can’t seem to drag into his burning, burning, burning lungs.

His eyes sting. He doesn’t know how much time passes.

There’s a hand on his shoulder—and Jaskier tries very hard to let that tug him from his haze of thoughts. When the hand pulls at him, rolling him onto his back, Jaskier can’t quite contain the choked whimper that releases in the back of his throat. He grimaces, his eyes squeezed shut.

“Jaskier.”

He definitely knows that voice. Jaskier blinks his eyes open, setting squarely on Geralt above him. It occurs to him that he’s never seen Geralt’s eyes quite so wide.

“Fuck,” Jaskier wheezes. He grimaces again. Is he dying? He doesn’t know.

“What the fuck were you thinking, you goddamn idiot?”

“My dear Witcher,” Jaskier replies, pretending he doesn’t notice the way Geralt’s voice very nearly breaks. Jaskier voice is tight with pain—his lungs are throbbing—but soft. Unapologetic. “You’re quite lucky I love you, or else I might be insulted.”

He’d never said those words aloud before—I love you—but he means them. He thinks perhaps he’s meant them for quite a long time. Long before even the thought had occurred to him on that mountain all those years ago.

And he thinks Geralt knows this, from the way his eyes widen, and then his whole expression crumples.

“Jask,” he says, a hand cupping the bard’s jaw, his thumb skimming Jaskier’s cheekbone. “You can’t—you… fuck.”

Jaskier takes a breath to reply but cuts off with a wince at the sharp jolt it sends spiking up through his ribs. But he realizes then that the burning in his lungs is easing—gradually, but quickly—and the bard’s next exhale trembles with relief, even as his vision blurs with tears. Whatever spell the mage had sent at Geralt, it seems like one meant to briefly incapacitate and not kill outright. With a quiet grunt of effort, Jaskier presses a hand against the wet leaves beneath him and pushes to sit up.

Geralt looks startled, but he helps nonetheless. The hand on Jaskier’s jaw slips back to cup the back of his neck and the other grabs his free hand to ease him up. The bard sees Geralt’s gaze flicker over his form.

Jaskier tosses him a shaky, wan smile. “Not a lethal spell, it would seem.”

“You didn’t know that,” Geralt snaps, like that should have made a difference in Jaskier’s decision to jump in front of it.

“A moot point, really, Geralt.”

Something bright and pained flickers through Geralt’s gaze. He takes a breath as if to reply, then stops. A crease appears between his brows a second later. “You’re still hurt.”

“Some broken ribs,” Jaskier replies dismissively. The fact that Geralt is still gripping him like he’s afraid Jaskier might just dissolve into smoke in front of him doesn’t escape the bard’s attention.

“Hmm.” He sees Geralt swallow. Watches the way his pupils flicker over the bard’s chest and refuses to meet his eyes.

“Geralt.” The gaze snaps to his own, wide and splintering. Jaskier takes a shallow breath, his gaze as steady as the words that leave his lips. “I meant it, you know. I do. Love you, I mean.”

Though Jaskier can’t be sure—his ears are still ringing a bit—he thinks he hears Geralt’s breath catch.

“Jaskier,” he says, and the bard doesn’t know why his name sounds choked in Geralt’s throat. The Witcher leans forward until his forehead rests against Jaskier’s, and he’s clutching the bard’s hand to his chest like it’s a lifeline. “I… fuck. Fuck.”

And then Jaskier feels Geralt’s lips brush against his own—soft and careful, warm and asking. And Jaskier kisses him back with answers and promises on the edge of his lips.

It feels like coming home.

[awellboiledicicle]

Like i literally spend the entire year trying to determine how fucked we’re all gonna be in fire season or how long it’ll last. 

This is mostly spent wincing when the snow doesn’t stick in the mountains, which means there’s not going to have icepack to slowly keep the plants all watered and green--meaning they’ll be dead and flammable later. It also means the ground’s gonna be dry, so when it does rain the plants take advantage and so we get massive growth followed by mass die off when theres no longer water.  Then we get massive rainstorms that cause flooding bc they go on for so long the ground physically cannot absorb things well, so there’s another massive boom of growth and die off. And we get mudslides with the flooding.  All the while dead plants are drying and building up and if they’re not getting cleared out--which no one can cover the whole state, not unless the government decides to pay land management really well and hire a bunch of people to go clear brush and collect it into a site where it can be safely burned--which means its gonna be a tinderbox.

Did you know that a really hot, dry summer can just,,,, start shit on fire if given enough time. That’s why no ones really surprised when we have red flag warnings and heat advisories and then shit starts on fire.  Part of it is humans being dipshits, part of it is humans tend to like... drive. One spark from a trailer hitch hitting a bump at speed can start a fire. Lawnmowers hitting rocks. Sure, part of it is human. But part of it is that the process of rotting plant matter can very quickly decide it’s going to ignite. That’s why you keep a close eye on compost piles, because they can and often do get so hot inside from the decay that they light on fire. Which catches other things on fire. 

Like, ok so.  Imagine we start in winter. It’s a heavy snow, pretty consistant. No surprise warm snaps melting everything, sweet. It’s high up on the mountains and stays there. Good news. Only when spring hits, it’s not in like the 50′s on the high end. No, it’s in the 80′s.  All that snow starts to melt. Most people see the green and go “early spring! yay!!” They tend to ignore the following wave of crunchy brown. Around here the soil is largely clay and sand. People don’t notice how unstable it is until the rain in spring comes. Add that to the melt off, and even more green. Growth, lushness. People are happy.  And then the dry comes and another rain. and more. The hills start sliding because the plants holding them together were removed for a lawn or sitting area outside a shop. Roads flood because while they’re SUPPOSED to be designed to guide water off the road, the logging trucks and semis hauling goods have worn ditches in the pavement. So you just kinda learn how to hydroplane as part of how you drive, along with what to do if you see a large chunk of earth fall onto the road. Floods start. Roads become impassable, and the growth continues and so do the slides. People point to the growth as proof it’s somewhat positive.  then summer comes and everything dies. The only green not directly around a water source is lawns people desperately try to maintain for vanity purposes. The ground is now baked hard and nothing could grow easily--though certain ‘weeds’ do. ones that burn very easily. People go swimming and consider it just a thing that happens as hundreds of acres go up in flames. Hundreds are left homeless, dozens die, towns are defended by people who get 2 hours of sleep because they’ve been housed in a shut down school. They are expected to put everything out before school starts, because they can’t have fire fighters around. Even if the fire is still close.  Fire season doesn’t care about when school starts. It doesn’t care that the things it devours were loved or not. It doesn’t care that you’ve lived someplace for decades, or that your only mementos of a loved one were in that house. Or even if you’re in that house as it consumes it.  This Is Just What Happens, people insist. The Fireworks Were Worth It, they say as someone elses home is reduced to ash.  The only respite is when it gets too cold for the fires to build their own weather properly and drive themselves. Throws off the air currents and makes it harder for them to build-- even if the wind pushes them around. The damp helps. Some still burn up until it snows. Winter fires are a deadly reminder that departments often only have so much water to throw at a problem when it could freeze and break the trucks. That no one has the funding, not even paid departments, to constantly repair engines that break when the temps hit the negatives. They do their best while taking the gamble. And again we watch the snow, and hope it comes in well again.

This is year round. I can’t ignore it because my whole family fights fires for a living. I have a scanner telling me everything 24/7 that i can’t turn off in case the radio towers were burned down again and dispatch can only get the word out through active911 or the godradio. I watch the kids of the fire fighters and try very hard not to wonder if these like... 8 year olds know their parents could very well not come home. Or let show that every single call my family goes on could be the last one. Because its dangerous, but needs doing.  I would like to say i don’t also bitch about it being hard to breathe, and the ash feeling gritty on my skin, or being able to smell the melted plastic in the air. I’d be lying, but i’d like to say it. 

More than that, i’d like it if humanity could get its shit together enough that every single goddamn year isn’t just wondering if its going to be dozens or hundreds dead/homeless/out of work because their job or town burned down. 

If you can’t tell, i’m a bit heated about this tonight