#and he decided to inflict traps on everyone else for eternity

[question-why-not]

Yeah, the only way he’s beating her is if he successfully lures her into a trap. Which is (at least in UTRH) very much his style in general, note.

"Red Hood vs. Batgirl who's winning the fight" There is no fight. Have you forgotten who we're talking about here

[taevescence]

Poème | Kim Taehyung

Summary: For centuries, Taehyung has roamed the world, trapped in an eternity he never truly desired. Desperation led him to accept an offer of immortality, a gift that quickly turned into his greatest curse. Once a hopeful young man dreaming of a future with the love of his life, he now wanders through time burdened by regret, forever mourning the one he lost. No amount of power, beauty, or wealth can fill the void left by you. If eternity means living without you, then what is the point of living at all? Author’s note: Hi again! I hope everyone is well ^^ I know I had said I was going to focus on GAS? but…. Tae vampire came to my head and demanded to stay until I managed to bring him to this world :) Soooo, I don't know if most of you read this but I seriously, seriously need your help for this, I really don't know how to move it forward :(( so please, if you have any ideas on how to move it forward or any scenes you'd like there to be, send me an ask or a dm, I'd really appreciate it <3 Pairing: Vampire!Taehyung x Human!Reader (female) AUs: Vampire!AU Word count: 4.6k Status: Unedited Permanent Taglist: @thunderg @minjianhyung @queenv1997 @yoongtism @lizzymizzy-blogg @superbbananananana @drpepperobsessed @themwordsblog @taekritimin123 @bluecloudss @yooglefics @tan-veee @angellekookie @madussthougths Dividers by @the-aesthetics-shop and @strangergraphics

What would you do if you were given the option to live for all eternity? If someone offered you the secret behind immortality and eternal youth, would you accept? Would you be capable of leaving everything behind just to avoid facing death?

Taehyung wished with all his heart that he had asked himself those questions before saying yes to the beautiful woman in the elegant dress who offered him a second chance at life—one without sickness or poverty, a life filled with luxuries and privileges he could never have had as a mere villager in the Victorian era. Something he could have never even dreamed of when he was still human.

When desperation consumes you and you don’t know what else to do to avoid falling into the clutches of death, you… accept the first offer placed in front of you, no matter how risky it may be. That was exactly what led Taehyung to an eternity of regret, suffering, and torment.

He had been blessed with eternal life, but what was the point of living until the end of time if he was alone? What was the use of existing for centuries, watching people be born and die as if they were nothing more than tiny toy soldiers with an expiration date set by a child who had decided it was time to discard them, believing he was too grown up to play with them anymore?

He refused to live an endless life if you weren’t in it.

But you had been gone for so, so long, and he could never forgive himself for it. He could never turn back time and reject the offer from the one who was now his creator. He would never see your smile again, hear your laughter, or smell the soft scent of flowers, of the forest, of you. If only he hadn’t left home that night, if only he had waited a few more minutes… If only you had gone with him, perhaps… Perhaps now, the two of you would be living a long life together, enjoying each other’s company until the end of time.

But that wasn’t how things happened. He left his home that night. He didn’t wait. You didn’t go with him. And now, his fate was sealed. He couldn’t die, he couldn’t be harmed, he would have eternal youth and an ethereal beauty that could make any human give him anything he asked for with just one look. He could have everything—everything except you. And that, without a doubt, was the greatest torture anyone had ever inflicted on him.

That had happened over 170 years ago, and he had spent each one of those years tormenting himself. When he was still human, he had been vibrant and full of life, a social butterfly who, even without the seductive abilities of a vampire, could charm anyone with a single smile. Now, he was nothing but the empty shell of the man he once was.

During that time, he met many like him—those with whom he managed to form something close to what he could call a "family." Jiah was his mentor, the woman who had turned him and helped him through the difficult transition from human to vampire. Chaeyoung was the second oldest, a cheerful and optimistic young woman who had been a vampire for over a thousand years. Sooah and Hoseok came next, both turned in the 15th century. Then there was him, Jiwon, and Jimin—the three of them transformed in the 19th century, all saved from the brink of death by the compassionate leader of their small group.

They had been his family until now, and though he loved them as much as he was still capable of love, his love for them would never amount to even a fraction of what he felt for you. Not even a hundred people could mend the wound in his heart, no matter how hard they tried.

He could still remember his life by your side, when his body was still warm and his heart beat in a rhythmic melody, reminding him that he was alive. The two of you met because of Taehyung’s father’s work—you were a young lady from a wealthy family, and he was the son of a tailor who barely had enough money or resources to live. Yet, you noticed him—his smile, his playful jokes, and his flirtatious charm, reserved only for you.

You weren’t supposed to be together—you both knew that. But neither of you wanted to give up, you didn’t want to lose the only real thing in your lives. So, you ran away. With no money, no place to stay, only the hope of finding a place in the world where you could live without regrets or judgment.

It was his selfishness and foolishness as a teenager that led you both to that situation.

He should have realized it was madness, that there was no way you could survive in the outside world with dreams and hopes coated in sugar and honey. This was the real world—it was cruel and ruthless, showing no mercy to anyone, no matter their age or gender.

The first few months on your own were peaceful. You traveled from town to town on horseback, living freely, loving each other with all your hearts, talking about your dreams for the future, and how exciting it would be to have a family together.

You had managed to stabilize your life—Taehyung making elegant garments for high-society ladies, and you painting beautiful portraits under a pseudonym, which he promoted and sold with his natural charm.

For the first two years, life had been peaceful. Until smallpox arrived. That was when everything fell apart. No matter where you went, how much money you had, or which doctor you saw, once you were infected, there was no escape.

You both caught it at the same time. He did everything he could to keep you both from falling into death’s hands, but it was a fatal disease—there was no cure, especially with their limited resources.

It was on a dark winter night that everything changed. You were starving, and Taehyung was determined to find something—anything—to feed you. Despite his weakened, trembling body, he walked through the dark streets of the coastal city until he reached a shop. But his body was on the verge of collapse, and he fell just a few meters away from home.

He clung to the last bit of strength he had, trying to crawl back to you if necessary—anything to avoid dying far from you. He didn’t want you to think he had abandoned you, didn’t want to make you suffer when you found out he had died in the cold, damp streets, all for the sake of bringing you something to eat. He didn’t want to die without you by his side.

That desperation was what made him accept so quickly the offer placed before him by a complete stranger. “Just one drop, and you will never feel pain again.” And he accepted. He drank whatever she gave him, clinging to the hope of surviving a few more minutes. Then, everything went black for a moment—until he opened his eyes again.

Everything felt new, as if he had been reborn and was rediscovering the world. He felt good, healthy, strong, and maybe a little thirsty—but alive. And that was all that mattered.

When the initial shock passed, he begged the woman to do the same for you, to save you just as she had saved him. She smiled kindly and let him lead her to your small home.

But she stopped before entering, giving him a look of pity and compassion. At that moment, he didn’t know that he could hear a human’s heartbeat from a distance. He didn’t know that, even before stepping inside, she already knew that you were no longer in this world, and nothing could change that—not even her blood.

Taehyung may not have died that night, but his heart… His heart shattered into a thousand pieces the moment he laid eyes on your pale, lifeless body. His body had survived death—but his soul never would.

For a long time, his life had become a series of meaningless events that only served to make his desire to die grow stronger. He knew it was foolish to feel this way when he had what many would kill for; his eternal life was a miracle that tormented him every damn day, and he knew that would never change.

It took him 138 years to get over you—if that was even the right word to use in this context. Perhaps a more accurate way to put it would be, well, trying to forget you through other people. 138 years of solitude, where his only company was six other vampires just as reserved as he was, each keeping the scars of their previous lives a secret, each too afraid to open up to the others and relive memories of a past they all wished to forget.

The first time he tried something with a girl was because of Jimin, who insisted that he should look at someone else besides your portraits—the ones he himself had painted back when he had wanted to immerse himself in your world. He went to a stupid bar, too loud and filled with drunk and high people looking for something casual. But he didn’t want something casual. He wanted something lasting. He wanted you.

Hours passed before a rather beautiful girl approached him. Her shy smile and flushed cheeks seemed endearing, but nothing inside him stirred the way it had when he first met you; her eyes weren’t like yours, her essence wasn’t like yours. He didn’t like her, but still, he forced himself to try.

That night was the first and last time he attempted to move on with someone else. There was only a kiss, a brief brush of lips that the girl gave him as a thank-you for walking her home. That night, he cried like he hadn’t in years, clawed at his lips with his nails until they bled, and his screams were so agonizing that everyone in the house had to check if he was okay, because it sounded as if someone had just run a blade of iron straight through his body.

Taehyung felt that kiss exactly like that—like someone had just plunged an iron sword into his heart and desecrated his body in every possible way.

Sooah called him dramatic. Jiwon even mocked him for making such a fuss over a simple kiss. But it was Jiah who ordered them to be quiet and stayed by his side all night, comforting him as his tears fell ceaselessly down his cheeks.

After that day, he resolutely refused to go out with anyone else for the rest of his life. He didn’t need a replacement—he was much better off living with your memory than trying to forget it.

That was exactly how he managed to slowly overcome his pain—by treasuring your memory through the works of art he created, reliving every one of his feelings for you with each brushstroke on the blank canvas, until there was no trace left of the pain he had once felt. Now, all that remained was peace and a beautiful memory that he would keep deep in his heart for the rest of eternity.

It took him 175 years to achieve that peace—175 years in which he held onto the one thing he had left of you: your last painting, the one of a young wealthy woman standing alone in the middle of a grand ballroom. The soft tones and the contrast between the setting and the woman in her simple pastel dress gave off a strange warmth. It wasn’t one of your best paintings—he knew that better than anyone. You had created true masterpieces, works that your clients back then would have died to own. But this one… this one was simple, more discreet, with much less detail—mostly because you were already unwell when you finished it. But your essence, your touch, the feeling you poured into it… all of it was still there. And that made it the most important piece you had ever created.

That was why, as the last act of love he could offer to you and your memory, he traveled to Paris to present it at the Musée d’Orsay. The meeting with the museum’s curator was far more pleasant than he had expected, and he even considered making a generous donation after they agreed to exhibit the painting.

The inner peace he felt when his eyes saw the painting hanging on those cream-colored walls, among hundreds of other paintings from important figures of his era… was something he could never put into words. For the first time, his heart felt at ease—it did not beat, it did not pump blood, he knew that. And yet, for a second, Taehyung felt as if he had come back to life.

He closed his eyes, inhaling the scent around him. Despite the years, there was still a faint trace of you in it. And though it hurt to think that he would never again hold you in his arms, never again breathe in your scent, he felt happy.

Happy for you—because finally, one of your works bore your real name, because at last, people could see the incredible talent you had. This had been your dream, and somehow, he had made it come true for you.

He wondered if there was something after death, if there was truly a paradise in the afterlife. He knew that if such a place existed, you would undoubtedly be in heaven—in a paradise unlike any other, shining like the brightest star the world had ever seen. If that place was real, were you watching him from above?

What would you think of him right now? Would you be afraid of the fact that he was no longer human? Or of the fact that, in his first years as a vampire, he had taken the lives of many?

Would you still love him from that place so far away from him?

He prayed every day to a god he wasn’t sure existed, just to hold on to the hope that the answer was yes.

"How are things going over there?" Jiwon asked through the phone.

Taehyung’s feet carried him through the museum for the sixth time that afternoon. He still wasn’t in the mood to leave, and it’s not like anyone needed him at home at the moment. He would probably head to a nearby bar, have a glass of wine, and wander around the city until the sun rose again.

"Fine, I guess," he murmured, his gaze fixed on the paintings displayed in front of him. He had seen many of them online, but seeing them in person… it was definitely something completely different. Noticing the brushstrokes, the old traces of a brush over the oil paint, the colors, the size—everything was a new experience. It was like meeting the same person a second time; the feeling and the first impression could never be the same if you only saw them through a screen.

"So expressive, Kim." Taehyung rolled his eyes at Jiwon’s mocking tone. He wasn’t in the mood to be expressive, and it’s not like he was obligated to be.

"Anyway, Jiah is pretty worried. You know how she is, especially when it comes to you."

Taehyung nodded in silence, even though he was aware she would never see the gesture. Jiah was… she was like a mother to their small family. She was the one who turned them, the one who took care of them and taught them how to maintain their composure, always patient and loving with everyone. Taehyung couldn’t recall a single time when she had ever raised her voice at any of them.

He had always known, just like the others, that she had a certain weakness for him, something he associated too much with the fact that she had witnessed him fall apart upon finding you lifeless that night. She was the one who worried about him, who paid to give you a proper funeral, who helped him get through his sleepless nights, and who showed him a completely new world. She was the mother Taehyung never had, and he was grateful every single day for everything she had done for him, despite all the trouble he had dragged her into.

"I’ll be back soon, I just… I just want to say goodbye properly."

He stopped again in front of the painting he had submitted. That small pang in his chest had returned and, although for a few seconds he regretted it, the weight lifted when he saw someone else stop in front of your artwork to take a photo. He had managed to immortalize your memory—that was all that mattered.

At last, he would no longer be the only one completely in love with your art.

There were a few seconds of silence in which neither of them seemed to know what to say. The stillness was broken by Jiwon's soft and—unusually—understanding voice.

"Are you really okay over there, alone? We’re all a bit worried about you."

Taehyung let out a soft chuckle, lowering his head to glance at his elegant brown oxford shoes. When he was still human, he had longed to wear a pair like these, and now that he could afford them, half of his wardrobe revolved around them. You would probably be just as enamored with them as he was.

"I’ll be fine, Jiwon. It’s just a few days, it’s not like I don’t know what I’m doing."

He made his way toward the museum exit, but not before giving the painting one last look. This would be the last time he saw it—this was the final farewell. He sighed, running his tongue over his dry lips.

"Besides… I need to do this alone."

"Alright, okay, I get it. It’s your healing process and all that cheesy crap you love." Jiwon let out a heavy sigh on the other end of the line. Even miles away, Taehyung could feel the worry in her voice. A part of him was touched by it. It was nice to see that, despite everything, she still cared for him.

"Just… call us if anything happens, okay? Jimin is about to lose his mind."

"Jimin is always about to lose his mind," he chuckled under his breath, politely nodding to the guards watching the entrance.

The first thing he saw upon stepping outside was the sky, painted in pastel hues, with a faint trace of stars beginning to emerge, preparing to turn it into a beautiful nocturnal canvas with the moon as its protagonist.

"I’m going to hang up. I need to go somewhere else before heading back to my hotel."

"Alright, I get it, you’re bored of me." Even without seeing her, Taehyung knew she was smiling on the other end of the line.

"See you."

And with that, the call ended, leaving him alone with his own thoughts once again.

He wished that becoming a vampire had meant his emotions—like his heart—simply stopped functioning. Life would be easier that way. Carrying the weight of his emotions would be… probably a little more bearable.

The soft sound of Taehyung’s footsteps echoed through the dark streets of Paris, faintly illuminated by the streetlights surrounding the small, quiet alley he had chosen to escape the bustling crowd—and, in turn, his own thoughts. He had stopped by the bar he had wanted to visit for so long, but after spending a couple of hours sitting at the counter, sipping a drink he could barely taste… it was dull not being able to savor it the way he once did.

He gazed up at the night sky stretching above him, noticing how the stars seemed much closer, as if they had gathered there just to shield his eyes, rather than simply existing as part of nature’s design.

Tomorrow, he would probably buy a ticket back to Korea, still debating whether to purchase a first-class seat or a regular one. Jiah had given him more than enough money to indulge in any luxury he desired, but he didn’t want to take advantage of her generosity. He had his own savings, and not just a small amount—old trinkets he once considered worthless centuries ago were now worth millions, a fortunate advantage for all of them.

A soft melody from a nearby radio pulled him from his thoughts. He hadn’t noticed the old record store beside him, still open for some reason. It had a distinctly vintage, understated charm—exactly Taehyung’s style. He studied its exterior, noting the yellow sign with red lettering perched atop the roof, reading: Le cœur de la musique.

In the display window, several vinyl records from the ’70s and ’80s were neatly arranged, among them the famous Can’t Help Falling in Love with You by Elvis Presley, the very song now enveloping the alleyway with its gentle notes and romantic lyrics.

Taehyung truly loved that song. He closed his eyes, letting the music seep into more than just his ears—letting it settle into his body as well. With graceful movements, ones that seemed almost ingrained in him, Taehyung began swaying to the melody. He had been a great dancer in his youth. When you were both just children, you had asked him to be your dance partner so you could practice. The two of you had ended up falling completely in love with the warm, intimate feeling of it. Even when your bodies had grown cold, even when death gnawed at your bones and drained your souls, neither of you had ever stopped dancing.

His memories of you returned, vivid as always; he could almost feel the soft scent of your skin against his nose, the sensation of your hair brushing against his rough fingertips, your forehead resting gently on his shoulder, your breath against his chest. It was almost as if you were still there with him, dancing in the empty streets of Paris, in front of an old record store, your hearts swaying in perfect harmony beneath the stars.

His feet continued moving across the pavement until a soft click snapped him out of his trance.

Instantly, all of his senses sharpened. He halted his movements at once, scanning his surroundings for whoever had made that sound. He knew it was a camera. And he knew it hadn’t been close—if it had been, he would have smelled the person’s blood by now, wouldn’t he?

His dark eyes flickered with a brief glint of alertness as he surveyed the alley. That’s when he finally noticed her. At the far end of the alleyway, a young woman stood frozen in place, her face still partially hidden behind the camera lens aimed directly at him.

Before he could even think, his feet carried him forward, ready to demand why she had captured such a personal moment without his permission. But then, the delicate scent of strawberries and roses reached his nose. And right after—her blood.

Sweet. Addictive. More tempting than any other scent he had encountered in his 175 years of existence.

For a fleeting moment, Taehyung swore his heart beat again, just from the sheer intoxication of it. His gums began to itch as his fangs pressed against the inside of his lip, the thirst for blood growing exponentially with every step he took. His hands clenched into fists at his sides, the overwhelming urge to feed suffocating him, clouding his mind.

Until she lowered the camera.

Until he saw your eyes.

Large. Bright. Filled with life, staring at him from the end of the alley.

His heart—still lifeless, still incapable of pumping blood—felt like it was being squeezed in a vice. And though he had no need to breathe, he swore the air caught in his lungs.

Did that make sense? Of course not, but you—standing right there, smiling at him as if you hadn’t died in his arms over 170 years ago—didn’t make sense either.

And yet, there you were.

The same eyes. The same lips. Your hair was different, yes, but everything else… everything else was exactly as he remembered. Exactly the same as the day death had stolen you from him.

Was this some kind of punishment? Retribution for the countless lives he had taken in his early years as a vampire?

“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable!” you blurted out the moment you noticed the man standing just a few feet away from you. A soft, warm blush quickly spread across your cheeks—not only from the embarrassment of being caught photographing a complete stranger without permission but also because that very stranger, the one now standing before you, was breathtakingly handsome. And now he was looking directly at you, so intensely that you could feel his gaze burning into your skin.

“I-It’s just that I was on my way back to my hotel, and I saw you dancing alone. You had this melancholic expression that was just so captivating from here and… I’m sorry, that’s no excuse for what I did, I’ll delete the photo right away!”

As you fumbled over your apology, nervously gripping your camera once again, Taehyung took the opportunity to examine you—every detail of your face. You had the same beauty mark beneath your left eye. The same faint scar between your index and middle fingers. Even your voice—one he remembered as if it were his own—was exactly the same.

Your clumsy way of speaking.

The pink flush on your cheeks.

Your long eyelashes.

There was no doubt in his mind. The young woman standing before him was you.

“I…” His voice was quiet, almost hesitant. “What’s your name?”

He watched as your eyes lifted to meet his. He couldn’t help but notice how your lips parted slightly at the unexpected question.

Ah.

He still remembered the way your lips moved against his—soft yet intoxicating, slow yet sensual, always keeping him on edge. He remembered the way you used to smile whenever he playfully nibbled on your lower lip.

He missed it.

He missed you.

“Oh! S-Sorry, how rude of me,” you chuckled nervously, carefully lowering your camera so that it hung freely around your neck. The strap dug slightly into your exposed skin, but it was the safest way to carry it without accidentally dropping it. “I’m Y/N. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“Y/N,” he murmured, savoring every letter of your name.

He knew it. He knew it. It was impossible for you to be anyone else.

His eyes began to sting as the reality of what was happening finally settled in.

After 175 miserable years—

You had come back to him.

Looking exactly as you had the last time he saw you.

“The pleasure is mine,” he said softly, reaching out to take your hand in his own, gently, fearful that the moment his fingers brushed against your skin, you would disappear.

But you didn’t.

You were still there when his lips pressed lightly against your knuckles, inhaling your scent as discreetly as possible.

So this is how you smelled when you were full of life.

Without an illness slowly stealing you away. Your blood had the sweetest scent he had ever known, and he couldn’t help but close his eyes at the steady, rhythmic beat of your heart echoing in his ears, proof that you were alive, proof that you were here.

Taehyung had never believed in God, but now, with you standing before him— he could only describe this as a miracle.

Masterlist.

[animentality]

I was thinking about that ask I answered earlier, and I decided that it's very interesting, how Gortash was raised in the House of Hope, watching people willingly sign away their souls, while he was never given the choice.

And how, bitter and angry and regularly tortured by Nubaldin and god knows what else, he would grow to absolutely despise these people, coming here, choosing to tie themselves to this place for eternity after death, and vowing he would not do the same.

He would escape, knowing in his heart twisted by violence and enslavement, that people must want to be controlled.

Not himself, of course.

He's special. He refuses to be a slave ever again. But others? The people who bargain with their souls and throw everything away?

If that's how they are, then he might as well use them. He might as well see them the same way as devils do. He might as well treat them as though they are mere mortals, and he is a god of Faerun.

I also want to say, that that's the logical conclusion for him to draw. The more emotional conclusion, is that he HATES the world for how it's treated him. How he was lower city scum, a child born in poverty, destined to die in poverty too, treated as less than nothing by the wealthy patriars of Baldur's Gate, born with the silver spoon firmly clenched between their teeth.

He would also hate the lower city scum, for his parents are its representatives, and what kind of people would sell their own child to pay off minor debts?

People who deserve to be subjugated and controlled.

And forced to love their children. To take care of their children. And if they won't, he will (he canonically has a soft spot for orphans).

See, that's why Gortash should've gone to the House of Hope, and not Bane.

His soul was promised to Raphael first, but it also frames him as a far more interesting villain than the current canon Gortash. Canon Gortash ends there. He's angry, he's bitter, he's determined to inflict his punishment on the world. He's a good villain, in theory (not gameplay wise, as he's easy to kill), but the buck stops there.

But if you add this...terror, of returning to Raphael?

And the idea that he only ever served Bane and committed all these atrocities because he was desperately trying to acquire enough power to take on Raphael's House of Hope and steal back his contract?

It humanizes him. It makes him a three dimensional villain, the way Ketheric was. It makes you understand, when you go to the House of Hope and find out how they treated him, how a person could be so warped.

Gortash as a character being arrogant and dehumanizing to everyone around him - that's fine. That's not bad. That's fun, actually.

But a Gortash who is arrogant and dehumanizing...and deep down, terrified beyond his wits, at the thought of being reduced to that slave, trapped in the House of Hope again...

And ALSO. Willing to sacrifice literally the ENTIRE WORLD just to save his own skin...

I mean come on.

That's like...next level writing.

That's not even woobifying him. It just gives him depth.

And they...they just...they just didn't do that.

And I don't understand why.

Just kidding, I do. It was because they rushed the game's release so they could make a boatload of cash after years of laboring on it.

He literally has a note on him, saying he wants to go back to the House of Hope...why else would he go, other than to steal his contract back?

But you know.

Cut content.

So Gortash is just some prick you can kill. He wears a no fear coat for some reason, not that it really matters. It's just loot, basically.

Oh well.

[rwprincess]

Two Worlds Collided

Masterlist

A/N: Oh, an anachronistic songfic from RWPrincess? But this time it’s about John Bender! :D Inspired by Never Tear Us Apart (originally by INXS in 1987, but I particularly like this Paloma Faith version)

Word Count: 2K

Synopsis: Bender met reader at the Breakfast Club and the two seemed like opposites, but they shared a common hidden sadness. Over the years, feelings and relationships change.

CW: Swearing, sexuality, Bender being a general asshole

Bender had met her the same way everyone in the Breakfast Club had, on the Saturday detention on March 24th. He had seen her in the hallways prior to that as he was always observant. He had seen everyone in the Breakfast Club before that day; but he hadn’t given her much thought. Now, he was paying attention to little else. He had no idea why he was drawn to her; they were both so different and he could never picture himself with a goody-two-shoes like that. But the way she had reacted to his more vulnerable, real moments, how she tried to make a connection with him...that stuck with him. He knew he should have learned from his disastrous blow-up with Claire that two people who were so different just wouldn’t work out. He repeated this to himself over and over, like a mantra, but it never changed how he actually felt.

After the breakup, the Breakfast Club had a split between those who chose Bender and those who chose Claire. Of course, Andrew sided with Claire unconditionally, but John considered that as no big loss. Allison tried to play the middle ground and Johnson had sided more with him, but he was surprised at the wholehearted backing he received from Y/N. He had assumed that she would either try to be neutral like Allison, or pick Claire. She had no reason to side with him, he had always come off as an aloof ass. But she had, and he was eternally grateful for that. He had originally decided to get together with Claire because the notion had a hot, forbidden quality to it. They spent time insulting each other and making out to make up for it. It was as passionate as it was destructive, so of course it couldn’t last. However, when he was alone and reflected to himself, he had been attracted to Y/N all along. She was hot, yes, but he had plenty of good-looking girls to choose from. He was more drawn to that kind, quiet inside she had displayed that day. How she had gone out of her way numerous times to reach out to him and had been genuinely nice to him. Most of the time, someone only did that to gain something for themselves. Whether it was to use him or to make themselves feel better, it depended on the person, but with Y/N that never felt like it was the case.

Don't ask me

What you know is true

Don't have to tell you

I love your precious heart

He thought back to the first time he saw her on that Saturday, walking into the library and looking so out of place. He was already adjusting into his spot when she entered and she froze in front of all the tables like a deer-in-the-headlights, as if she had just materialized there and had no clue what she was doing. He remembered feeling both attracted to that doe-eyed look and scoffing internally at it. While she wasn’t part of the cliques that Andrew and Claire were, she had a very sheltered look to her and he was envious of that type of innocence. Her ignorance must have been bliss compared to the hell he lived each day at school and at home. She was just as out of place as the preppies or ultra-dweeb Johnson, but instead of being offended by that notion, she looked terrified. She meekly put her items on the front-row desk opposite to him and he thought about all the fun he could poke at everyone here, including her. However, the first blow did not land well. Bender loved making people uncomfortable, but he didn’t necessarily want to make them cry. He’d made some off-handed remark towards her. He had been circling her and eyeing her, employing the discomfort he liked inflicting, trying to ‘guess’ why she was in detention. “I bet you were caught fooling around with a teacher, right? Always the quiet ones that you’d least suspect…”

John Bender rarely regretted his words or actions. He knew he was an asshole and let unfiltered thoughts through so that he could be the center of attention. In doing so, he had to stand by all the shit he said, even when he crossed a line. This was one of the scattered occasions in which he felt remorse, though. She didn’t reply, not verbally, anyway, but she looked scared shitless and was rooted to the spot. Tears instantly sprang up in her eyes and she looked as if she were about to hurl right on his combat boots. He backed off after that. He didn’t apologize, because that’s not something John Bender could have on his reputation, but he didn’t target her. There was something so sincere about her reaction and he saw himself reflected in that expression. Not the tough-as-nails persona he projected, but his secret self who had seen too much too early in life and could barely stand another blow. He didn’t know what her deal was, but there was a heavy sadness behind those eyes that was far too real for him to tamper with.

When he had shown the group his souvenir for spilling paint in his garage, courtesy of his father, she must have seen that reflection back. No one in that group actually knew him. They all thought he was a lying sack of shit; what could he say? His reputation preceded him. But he caught her gaze as he backed away from the group, and the sadness in her recognized the sadness in him. He felt an odd sort of click, a mutual understanding, but he turned away from them all and trashed the library.

I, I was standing

You were there

Two worlds collided

And they could never tear us apart

That was months ago, and out of everyone he met that day, she was the one who truly stuck by him. He’d surprisingly connected with Johnson, sure. Everybody likes to get high and Bender was the supplier. And he and Allison had similar interests, but she wouldn’t give up Andrew and with that territory came Claire...there was just no going back to that. But Bender still had Y/N, and he could never understand it. The first time he had brought her into his friend circle, he tried to justify it as sticking to his word and ‘having the balls to stand up to his friends’ like he had told Claire to do. He also reasoned that it was some sort of social experiment. As much as he liked to portray himself as someone who couldn’t care less, Bender was entirely social. He craved attention and admiration for others and could read just about anyone like a book. Maybe that’s why he didn’t mess with Y/N after that first comment landed so wrongly. He felt like he knew exactly what she was thinking and feeling and decided to back off. However, it wasn’t just some ‘watch and see how she interacts’ set up; Bender genuinely wanted her there. He wanted to integrate her into his life.

She was still extremely quiet, mostly a speak-when-you’re-spoken-to type, but he started to peel back layers in her personality. He found that, despite that lurking sadness, there was an unending pool of optimism. She tried to see the best in situations and in people. She meshed incredibly well with his friends because she listened instead of judged. She would nod along like she knew exactly what they were talking about and how they felt. He started to develop an attachment to her. While he was still dating Claire, he told himself it was akin to having a pet. Y/N was like a goldfish that he could tell his problems to and know the secret would be kept. But after Claire, he realized that wasn’t the case...particularly when he sought Y/N’s comfort above all else. He divulged the entire last big fight he and Claire had to her, and she was just so...reassuring. After that day, he began to see her in a different light. He argued with himself over what his feelings and intentions actually were, but he couldn’t keep them at bay for long. She was good for Bender. He had never felt lighter.

Of course, Bender had not known stability in his life ever, and the risk of falling for Y/N and having it mean something and being accountable to one person overwhelmed him. He did what he knew best: he fought it and ran away from it. At first, he tried to avoid her, just distance himself. But he’d gravitate back; being without her was too heavy to bear. He wanted to try to actively push her away, to fuck up this relationship with his words, just like he did with everything else. But when he opened his mouth to try to lie, to say he didn’t need her or want her around or whatever, he would look into her eyes and it became impossible. He remembered the way he had shaken her to her core the first day they met, and he couldn’t allow himself to bring that sadness up again in her.

We could live for a thousand years

But if I hurt you

I'd make wine from your tears

Eventually, he gave in. While he was able to control his words to not say anything harmful, he wasn’t able to contain them from slipping up and telling her, “Dammit, I love you!” It wasn’t in a context that could be taken as joking or being said flippantly; she knew immediately what he meant and that he meant those words, wholly.

She took his face in her hands and told him, “I love you, too.” There was no turning back, and as the years passed, they fell deeply in love. He'd dug up her secrets and fears, but she seemed to trust him enough to not use them against her in any way. They both dreaded the prospect of never getting out of Shermer and falling into the same circular trap their parents had. However, he reassured her that the moment they had the opportunity, they would bust out of there. He lucked out that Claire had never asked for her diamond earring back. It was probably one of many and she had forgotten she had even given it to him as a token. He decided to pawn it to top-off the savings he and Y/N had accrued. "You're too good for me, you're sure as hell too good for this place,'' he told her. The trade-in was enough to get them out of town and start anew, but only one of them could really ‘move up’ for now. While they argued back and forth about who should get to pursue which dream, Bender rationalized to her, “I was barely cut out for high school. I can’t really do college. And that’s okay. You’re the brains in this relationship, I’m the beauty.” He winked at her and with her laughter as response, that sealed the deal of who was going to school.

I told you

That we could fly

'Cause we all have wings

But some of us don't know why

She searched the crowd, holding her diploma. Bender had supported her both financially and emotionally these last four years and now they had the degree to prove it. She felt pride in being able to take over from him and let him follow a new path. He had always been good with his hands, but despite his protests, he was good with his mind too. He was a sharp-thinker and she knew that he could make a career that he loved out of that. She’d be there to push and brace him as he had done for her. Finally, she spotted him. When their eyes connected, she felt that same crackle that she had the first day they had met, all those years ago. Before the friendship and the love, she knew there was a spark there, that they were two of a kind, even though they were so different.

I, I was standing

You were there

Two worlds collided

And they could never tear us apart

[benvoliosantodomingo]

@ofrosso asked for / any mythology au  mentioned / @romroses (based on the myth of theseus and the minotaur) 

how strange, that the only thought bellamy should have as he makes his way towards his inevitable death, is that crete is unseasonably warm for so late in the year. a gentle breeze rustles through the trees that provide him with shadow as he makes his way towards the imposing structure of the maze, but it provides little comfort, does little to dry the sweat that his already starting to bead on the skin of his arms, spots where the parts of his armor don’t quite meet. maybe it isn’t warm, he thinks, as the imposing blocks of grey slate that house the beast come into his view. maybe this is what the thrill of the kill is supposed to feel like. maybe his body is just trying to prepare him, to heat him into a frenzy from the inside like a blacksmith’s forge.

he sees no sign of roman, and for a moment he wonders if the prince was lying to him, perhaps he’d decided to use bellamy’s own plan against him, to trick him into the beast’s jaws for certain--bellamy was a prince in his own right, one that had been cast aside, had only just arrived in the kingdom of his father, but a prince nonetheless. it would be a boon for the montague line, to be able to claim his blood.

he’s startled out of his thoughts by a hand on his arm, one that stills his efforts to draw his sword. roman wears a black hood in an effort to obscure his features, clutches something between his hands. “are you sure about this?” he whispers, and his fingers tighten just a fraction around bellamy’s arm--as if he is trying to divine surety by the flexing of muscle, the temperature of skin. “no one has ever come out of that place alive--they don’t care if your father is poseidon or the king of athens. they will kill you if they get the chance.”

bellamy exhales slowly and spares a glance at the structure in front of them. you would never know the horrors inside, if no one saw fit to illuminate you of such. he turns back to roman and nods his head in the affirmative. “i cannot sit back in the comforts of my father’s palace, while people sacrifice their lives. i value my life exactly the same as theirs.”

roman sighs and mutters something about bellamy being too noble for his own good, but does not hesitate to move into action. he loops his fingers around bellamy’s sword belt, and begins the work of tying a length of red string tightly to the leather. “genevieve gave me this.” he says in way of explanation. “i’ll be holding the other end while you’re in there. all you have to do in order to find your way back is follow it.”

it’s simple--so simple it's a wonder that no one else had considered such a thing before now.

after the work of keeping the two of them together through the darkness is finished, roman looks at him for a long moment before throwing his arms around bellamy’s shoulders. “be careful.” he says, and bellamy can only nod in response. they both know he can’t make any promises, that speaking out loud of his survival would only be tempting the gods, who have already been angered enough. “for my sake, if not your own.”

the two of them manage to open the doors, revealing only by the light of the moon one of the great stone walls of the maze. roman hands him a torch from a sconce on the wall, but he makes no move to follow after bellamy as he comes to the first turn. from this point on, bellamy is alone with the beast, to live or die.

he can hear the thing, even if he can’t see it as he works his way slowly through each path. it howls, but not like a wolf trying to communicate with the pack--whatever lies at the heart of the labyrinth sounds like it cries out in some kind of pain--or maybe bellamy’s kind heart just wants to ascribe some kind of reason to all of the senseless death that has occurred within this place, for so many years. in the dark, with his life hanging by the string that pulls gently at his waist, he thinks it would be easy to believe just about anything.

it's difficult to keep track of the passing of time, but he’s fairly certain that he’s only been traversing the passages for a short while when he comes to his first dead end. a longer stretch goes by before he comes to the second. all the while, he could swear that someone was following his every step--that he could feel the distinct weight of a gaze on the stretch of skin at the back of his neck where his armor does not reach. if it is the creature, he wonders why it doesn’t just strike, while his back is turned? maybe it's stalking him, in the same way that predators track their prey across the forest floor, putting them into the perfect position before they go in for the kill. maybe it's just the spirit of one of the people who had come to an end here, taunting him for thinking he possessed the skill necessary to take on such a thing.

i must be close to the heart of it now, he thinks to himself, after a small eternity seems to have unraveled itself not unlike the spool and string. he wraps his fingers around the hilt of his sword, as he has before taking each corner, and makes the turn on an exhale of breath--only to be presented with a figure that resembles a human being, more than any kind of half-animal, or any of the other horrific tales he’s been told. they have the pale skin of a human, streaked with dirt and the dried blood of numerous victims, green eyes that come to rest on bellamy’s own unflinchingly, a shock of dark hair. for a moment, he is simply transfixed by the way each muscle moves as they stalk closer to him, a cruel smirk pulling at the corner of their mouth, revealing sharp canine teeth.

“you truly must be stupid,” they speak, but bellamy does not move to draw his sword--he entered the maze for the purpose of defeating the creature that has been hunting his people for sport, he did not come in here to cause pain to another human being. not when the evidence of pain inflicted becomes clearer and clearer to his mind--all they’ve probably ever known are the walls of this place, the terrified screams of those abandoned to it, those who would go to any length of cruelty to keep themselves alive.

were they born with this blood on their hands, like the stories they tell to the citizens back in athens? or were they created by this darkness, by this elaborate cage designed to keep them away from everyone else, to give them no choice but to live with their rage, survive by their rage?

“maybe so,” bellamy replies. “but i had to try. my people don’t deserve to be brought here like lambs to slaughter.”

they sneer and stalk closer, like they’re waiting to see if they can inspire some kind of reaction from him.  “you’re a prince, you’re all bred like hunting dogs, with cruelty in the marrow of the bone. what do you care about the lives of fourteen people, when you have a city’s worth?” come on, each step seems to say, bare your teeth, prove you’re just like the others.

“i set my life the same as theirs--and i have no intention of hurting you. i came here to hunt a creature, i was lied to.” he pulls the sword from its sheath, and lays it down on the ground that remains between them. “if you really require the blood of my people, take mine. i was fathered by the sea-god, i claim the house of the king of athens. surely the ichor that courses through me will saitate you.”

he expects them to spring into action, in the same way a predator who has made up its mind to strike does the deed quickly and with efficiency. they only pick up the blade and swing it once through the air experimentally, before placing the tip at bellamy’s throat, holding it there. “in case you haven’t noticed, that is a feat not easily accomplished.” their voice is quieter, a husky sound from the back of their throat. “i must have slaughtered hundreds of your people by now, and i still feel it.”

hunger. bellamy’s mind supplies. it has made beasts of lesser beings than them, terrible, howling things that have done what so many could not--learned to live with constant pain.

“what about freedom?” bellamy manages, even though every exhale of breath brings the skin of his neck closer to the tip of the blade. “maybe what you’re feeling isn’t hunger at all. maybe you’ve been trapped your whole life and you’ve been raging at the walls, at the constant twisting and turning.” he grins, slowly moves  his hand to the string tied to his belt. it's a risk, they could easily use bellamy’s own blade to sever his connection, but it's one he feels he must take.

“i could get you out. the prince, he’s nothing like his father. he could protect you. i could protect you.”

they blink at him, and bellamy’s declaration sits in the stilted warm air between them for a moment before it seems to enter into their mind, before they can make sense of it in any capacity. “why would either of you choose to protect me?” they ask, their cadence blunt and sharp not unlike the blade in their hand.

bellamy grin turns into something softer, something bold in its tenderness. “because, that’s who i am. i look after people who have been hurt. and if you let me take you out of here, if you take my offer of shelter and safety, then my labor is done. my people are safe. you can be more than this, you could even be forgiven, one day.”

they chuckle and roll their eyes as they lower the blade, let it drop to the floor with a clang. “you really are stupid, princeling. for being noble enough to charge in here, for thinking that there’s redemption for me somewhere.” they meet his gaze, and for a moment, in the hazy glow of the torchlight, bellamy thinks he sees something like hope flash across green eyes. “you’ll need someone to look out for you, in return.”

bellamy touches the bones of their cheek gently, clears away some of the accumulated dirt and blood. they flinch, expecting a blow before such a gentle gesture, but they do not pull away. “without a doubt, my friend. do you have a name? something i can call out in my time of great need?”

the corner of their mouth pulls up in something like a smile--a hesitant thing, a beautiful thing in bellamy’s humble opinion. “they called me marcelo, once.”

he nods, gently moves his hand to rest on their shoulder. “follow me, dear marcelo.”

[gilbirda]

<<Previous Chapter / Next Chapter >>

Chapter 9: Truth

The following days were filled with uncertainty. Rumours about what happened rampaged through the school, and as the people involved were rather unapproachable, the students and teachers chose to fill the gaps with any kind of information they could come up with.

In the end, when Marianne heard the story told at the girl's restroom by some people she recognized were of Roland's fanclub, the tale had been warped into a fantastic and epic delusion where the blond teenager had rescued Marianne from the evil molester that took advantage of her. And that as she was grateful for the rescue, she was considering presenting as the Queen in next week's Spring Ball dance to go back to Roland.

Nothing was further from the truth, she thought, as she hadn't seen Roland since he had the nerve of crashing into her life to destroy it once again. She became even more vocal about her hatred at home, fighting daily with her father about the issue.

She knew she was self destructing. It didn't take a genius to see that, but she didn't care anymore. Marianne had lost everything she had to fight for and it wasn't in her nature to just sit down and let other people tell her what to do or what to think.

It was exactly this what her father didn't seem to understand. He still insisted that she was being unreasonable, or at least he said so when he tried to be civil. When they fought he usually chastised her for defending her aggressor and that she shouldn't have tried to be alone all the time, that if she had asked for help sooner then it wouldn't have come to this.

“At least with Roland you were protected,” her father said one time and Marianne had to control herself to not throw her slice of steamed ham to his face. Instead, she chose to keep eating dinner like he hadn't said anything at all. It was usually the best course of action, but she found she was being less and less patient as the days rolled around.

At school she noticed this, and it worried her. She hesitated less when jumping into a fight, finding herself more often than not involved in a vicious fight with fellow students. It came to a point where she spent more time at the infirmary than out, almost breaking her arm many times.

It was like the status quo from the last two years had broken and all the tension flooded the hallways. Everyone voiced their opinion about the issues out in the open, unafraid of the outcome. And if things went wrong, you could always blame Marianne and Bog. It didn't matter how, but it always worked.

***

Bog watched her come and go from his window at the Library, uncertain of what he was feeling as he noticed her new bruises and wounds. Her behaviour puzzled him. But well, that wasn’t anything new, it was precisely her unique personality what initially had attracted him to her that fateful day that they met.

It seemed like an eternity ago, but it hadn’t even been a full month since she was brought to the Library to work for him. His heart ached at the memory, for a moment wishing he had the power to go back and redo his actions - like not falling in love with her, for starters. With her eyes and her kissable lips and her even more beautiful personality. He wished that it didn’t hurt so much to think about her even after everything she did to him.

Bog sighed. Wishing wouldn’t get him anywhere.

For now, advances in the “investigation” about his illegal activities within the school seemed to be frozen for the moment; and despite having been interrogated once about what he did with Marianne after school, fortunately his days weren’t disturbed by it. He could hide as much as he wanted in the Library. It was like his dreams about being left alone finally came true.

But he didn’t want to, he found out one day. He had stopped being angry and started thinking about her instead, daydreaming about what it could have been in another place, another time. If she was older. If he wasn’t so hideous and easy to blame. He started also to think that her shock from a few weeks ago was real and that Marianne really didn’t know anything of what was happening; that she really did love him back and that both were tricked by fate to fall for the wrong person.

That thought usually took him to dark places, though. Maybe Marianne deserved more than him? Maybe he shouldn’t have accepted this job? Maybe his place wasn’t to love or be loved in return. A long time ago, when he suffered for the last time in high school, he discovered that by banishing the stupid dream of love from his life he helped himself maintain a certain kind of order in the midst of all chaos. Maybe this was just a reminder of that.

Thinking about it, Bog decided that he was closing the Library for the day. No one would notice anyways.

As he closed the door he heard noises coming from the janitor closet, which wasn’t far from his position. How weird. Weren’t the kids supposed to be in lunch time?

The librarian approached the closet and stopped in his tracks when he recognized Marianne's voice in there. What the hell was she doing there?

“C’mon, Buttercup. You know you want it.” Oh.

Roland.

Bog pressed his lips together and clenched his hand tighter around the keys. Yep, he had to forget about her and never ever go back that road again.

“Go away,” she clearly said.

Sure, Bog thought to himself, ready to go to his car and, who knows, maybe don’t come back tomorrow to school? Send a note to the Director accepting any conditions if he let him resign sooner than -

“Go away Roland!” the girl’s voice was muffled by the door, but he heard the fear painting her words. “Don’t touch me!”

That was what made him act without thinking. Bog rushed to the door and opened it with a firm yank, knowing what he would find there but not prepared at all to actually see it.

Marianne, sweet and strong Marianne, was trying to cover her bra with what was left of her shirt; her eyes wide opened in pure fear, drops of tears in the corners, refusing to go down. Roland’s hand was way up her skirt between her legs, making Bog’s stomach turn upside down. How dare he-!

“Bog?” she turned to look at him, actual relief in her face.

“Marianne-,” he stopped himself when he saw them. Bruises on her neck, finger shaped, going around over her creamy skin and morphing into scratch marks on the back of the neck.

“Mind your own fucking business,” the blond teenager woke him up from his shock. Bog turned to the boy and, with great satisfaction, grabbed him by the shirt and threw him down the corridor, as far away as he could.

“Let’s go,” he said in a low voice, grabbing the scared girl as gently as he could given the circumstances. “Can you walk?”

She blushed, knowing what he meant by that. “Yeah. I’m not… I’m not injured.” He nodded and kept them going forward, one hand still in her arm. If he noticed that, he didn’t comment on it. “Where are we going?” she tried her voice, grateful that so far it hadn’t shaken a bit.

“To the infirmary.”

***

Half an hour later, fully bandaged and noticeably calmer, Marianne found herself in the infirmary. Alone. With Bog.

It has been such a long time that now it was plain weird. She spent days hating him, feeding the raw emotions, tiring herself to sleep by thinking again and again about the pain he inflicted on her that fateful day when he told her that her love for him was fake. An act.

By now she was tired. It became so normal to avoid him and anything that had anything to do with him that eventually she could live on like nothing ever happened with the librarian. But now, having him so close and unable to focus on anything else, everything, the feelings and the pain and the love, came back with a bang.

She blinked slowly, watching Bog’s long and pale fingers work her numerous scratches with professionalism, with a care that kind of surprised her after how mad he looked the other day. And there was the issue that he saved her from Roland. He saved her from -

Marianne breathed in slowly, trying to keep the panic attack at bay. Right now was not a good moment to start crying and shaking. Think about something else, she said to herself.

“So…,” her voice cracked and she tried to clear her throat.

“Hm?” the man didn’t look up from his work. Marianne tugged at the shirt she had on, trying to hold it close as it has lost the first four buttons.

“It’s been a while, huh?” Oh my God Marianne. Is this the smartest thing you could think of?

His body tensed and his hands stopped bandaging her left foot, where she had a nasty scrape from a recent fall. She swears someone tripped her on purpose.

“I think so…” he finally answered her, resuming his work. The girl bit her lip, unsure of how to proceed.

“How…,” she swallowed, “how have you been?” I missed you.

The librarian finally looked up to her an blinked slowly. “How do you think? I’m an accused child molester.” He said in a monotonous voice, like it wasn’t something important at all.

“Okay, if we are going to talk about this-”

“I didn’t know that we were talking about anything.”

She frowned. “Don’t be like this, Bog.”

“Oh yeah?” he put down the antiseptic and gauze he was using once he finished with her foot. “And how do you want me to be after -”

“It wasn’t me.” She interrupted him, fixing her eyes on his striking blue ones. “Roland was the one that told my father. It was a trap for me too.” She continued at his confusion.

Bog blinked from his kneeling position, looking up at her. One second ticked by, then two, and three; by the fourth Bog took a deep breath and took off his glasses to rub his eyes, finally breaking eye contact with the girl.

“I’m tired of all of this.”

“Me too,” Marianne moved a hand to caress his cheek. “I didn’t mean.... for any of this to happen.”

The librarian opened his eyes at the touch, looking back at her brown eyes, unconsciously leaning on her hand. He smiled softly, unknowingly making the girl’s heart stop for a moment, and turned his head slightly to put a kiss on her uninjured palm.

“Now I know,” Bog said still smiling.

They looked at each other feeling buried feelings arise, the love they had for each other still intact even after feeding the hate at the situation. Marianne wanted to say so much, touch him so much, but before she could open her mouth she saw his eyes go down and his body tense as a noticeable blush darkened his pale skin.

“You… uh…. sorry -”

“Huh?” she looked down to see what was the problem, realizing that by placing her hand on his cheek she had let go what was left of her shirt and her black bra was uncovered to be seen by anyone. Or Bog, in this case.

“This is awkward,” she rushed to close her shirt, a blush on her own cheeks. “Sorry, I-”

“No, no. Is not your fault.”

The memory of Roland’s hands forcefully opening her shirt, how they touched her skin like it was some kind prize he deserved, how he squeezed her chest as he said how much she should be grateful-

“Here,” Bog’s voice took her back to the present. In front of her was the shirt he had been wearing before, but to her peace of mind, he had a inner sleeveless t-shirt on. “I think I brought a spare one, but it’s in my bag back at the Library’s door.”

“Thanks,” she smiled gratefully at him.

“Ok, what’s going on here?” the nurse said, arriving just in that moment. He probably was at lunch break too, that’s why there was no one in the infirmary when they got there. “Boggart? Weren’t you forbidden to get near that girl?”

“He saved me,” she cut into the conversation, knowing where this was going. “Roland Green was about to rape me in the janitor’s closet.”

The nurse blinked in surprise.

“What?”

“You heard me,” she frowned, turned back at an unsure Bog, who was just standing there in all awkwardness. “Go get your shirt. Then we are going to talk with dad.”

“Shouldn’t I be the one to notify that?” the nurse said, frowning at the exiting man.

“Do that if you wish. I’m tired of this circus and I’m going to talk with the Director anyways.”

***

Marianne was peacefully waiting for Bog to return, feeling contentment for the first time in a while. Things were going to be okay, for once, and Bog didn’t hate her after all. They would talk with her father and Roland would leave her alone at last.

“Marianne?” she turned to the infirmary door to find her father there, very red and flustered, his breathing heavy and ragged, like he had been running to get there. “I heard what happened. Are you okay?”

She frowned, feeling a horrible sense of déjà vu.

“Let me guess, Roland told you?” Dadga nodded. “Then don’t believe him.”

“There you are again with that. Leave Roland alone! You can’t seriously hold a grudge for so long!”

Marianne sighed, getting up with unstable legs.

“I don’t care what you think, father,” she spat as she looked at him in the eye. “Roland’s been lying to you all this time and Bog was framed for stuff he didn’t do.”

Dadga looked like he was about to retaliate when he noticed the way too big shirt on his daughter. “What are you wearing? Is that a man’s shirt?”

“Oh, yeah,” she looked down, noticing that the hem of the shirt was below the edge of her skirt, making it look like she wore nothing else under Bog’s shirt. “Bog lent it to me. Mine was in pretty bad shape after what Roland did.”

“Did that man seriously get near you?”

Marianne narrowed her eyes. “Is that the only thing you register from my words?”

“I told him that it was forbidden-!”

“Dad, are you serious?”

“We are going to the police.” He grabbed the girl by the arm, not noticing the bandages under the fabric of the shirt.

“What?”

“Then I’m doing what I should have done years ago and get you a therapist. This is beyond absurd.”

She planted her feet on her ground, trying to pull free her arm. It hurt a lot and probably her wound had reopened with all the action.

“Are you implying that I’m making this up? That I’m crazy?”

“What I’m saying is that you are unstable, Marianne,” the Director pulled with more strength, almost making her trip with her own feet as he dragged her out of the building. “Your violent behaviour must come from somewhere. You seemed fine after your mother’s funeral but I see it was the beginning of this mess,” the man scoffed. “It made you vulnerable and men like Boggart would surely use it against you.”

“Are you fucking hearing yourself!?” she screamed feeling a bit scared now. “I’m not crazy, dad!

“Shut up!” he slapped her cheek, surprising the girl. He never hit her. No when she started the fightings or when she talked back to him. “I’m trying to help you! Why are you being so difficult with everything! All the time complaining and whining, behaving like a brat! I tried to be calm and understanding about it but this is enough!”

Marianne blinked and slipped to the floor in shock. She put one hand on her cheek, the one her father wasn’t grabbing with shaking hands, feeling the skin that had been hit get warmer by the second. She had been hit many times but it never hurt this much. Because it was her father who did this.

And then she knew. He was never going to understand, to get out of his stupid idea of what was happening. He would never see Roland as anything but the perfect boy he didn’t have; he would never accept that his daughter as she was, that he would think for the rest of his life that she was unwell and it was all a phase.

Or would he? Because she knew a way that this cycle of violence could end. She didn’t like it but...

Marianne swallowed hard and stood up slowly, feeling the blood of the reopened wound flow over her skin and stain Bog’s shirt. She looked at her father in the eyes, erasing the world around them, the noise, the people, the painful past. She had to do this, it was the only way to end this circus. Because even if the tale she was about to tell her father was a painful memory, she was sure that it was the time to share it.

“Dad, Roland tried to rape me.”

Dagda stopped glaring at her and opened his mouth in surprise.

“Girl, if this is a lie to -”

“He said “Marianne, don’t you think it’s time to fulfill your part? I deserve this” . He told me -” her voice broke, but she took a deep breath and continued: “He told me that that’s what a good girl do. That he could make me a woman. He said that I owed him my first time because we had been together long enough. That I was being selfish by making him wait.”

“I can’t believe this,” the man whispered to himself, but Marianne didn’t stop there. She was on a roll.

“He took my shirt off and was starting to take off my bra when I snapped out of it. I had been feeling uncomfortable with the topic for a while, I knew I wasn’t ready. Fortunately I managed to stop him in time.” She took a shaky breath. “You know what’s the worst part? I really thought he was right. We were supposed to do it. It is what couples do, right? I only had to endure it even if I didn’t want to do it because if I didn’t he would look at me with so much disappointment.”

“I didn’t know any of this. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because you said I had to get him back! Dad, you may not remember it, but you were more obsessed with Roland than I was! He was everything you talked about for days!” Tears formed in the corners of her eyes, but she didn’t let them stop her. “It was like you wanted him as a son more than you loved me!”

“I certainly did not!”

“But you did! You said that I was being unreasonable, that there was nothing that Roland could have done to make me that mad.”

“Because Roland is not a bad guy! He is young, yes, and he might have made a mistake or two, but-”

“Are you seriously saying that he couldn’t be able to rape your own daughter? Are you really that blinded?”

That stopped Dagda in his tracks, making him finally see his daughter. She was crying, and his girl never cried, not even in Violet’s funeral. Her hands were clenched tight and her lip was broken where her teeth bit with too much force. And her eyes…

Her eyes told him what he needed to know. She was telling the truth.

“But -” he started to say. It was confusing. How could he not notice any of this before?

“She is right,” a voice said behind him and the Director turned to find a girl around Marianne’s age walk towards him from a big crowd that had formed without any of them realizing. “About Roland.”

Marianne looked around them, finding that they were, in fact, in the inner courtyard of the school and that the whole school was watching them fight. She blushed, feeling the rush of adrenaline go down after saying what she wanted to say.

Where was Bog, though?

“What do you mean, girl?” Dagda asked.

“Roland. I didn’t want to, but he sweet talked me into… uh…” she blushed, but everyone got the message.

“Me too,” another girl said, walking to stand by the first girl’s side. “I did it because I thought he loved me. Next morning he acted like he didn’t know me.”

“Me too,” a third girl said.

“And me,” another one.

In less than a minute, around twenty five girls were standing in a circle surrounding the father and the daughter, looking at Marianne with shame in their eyes. The brunette recognized a few of the girls that first trash talked about her when the break up happened. The whole Roland fanclub was there, speaking about their rape stories with a brave face, hand in hand, voices cracking with the knot in their throats. But it was like a dam had broken and they couldn’t stop talking about it, about Roland, about how wrong they were about him.

About Marianne.

[mittensmorgul]

I always thought Anna said "only an angel can kill an angel" because the idea that a human (or anything else) could ever obtain an angel blade was so ridiculous, they didn't even consider it. As for Cas not knowing who was killing angels, I now personally interpret that Cas was such a blind soldier (or recently back from obedience training with Naomi) that the idea a fellow angel would be working against them just didn't compute until he saw it for himself. Shaky, I know, but it's all I got 😜

Confession: I am watching 4.16 AT THIS MOMENT. As I type this. It’s on the tnt loop this morning :’D

First off, it’s not Anna who says that line, it’s URIEL. Aka, the antagonist of this episode:

URIEL: Alastair was much more powerful than we had imagined.CASTIEL: No. No demon can overpower that trap. I made it myself. We've been friends for a long time, Uriel. Fought by each other's sides, served together away from home, for what seems like forever. We're brothers, Uriel. Pay me that respect. Tell me the truth.URIEL: The truth is, the only thing that can kill an angel...A blade slides out of URIEL's sleeve into his grasp.URIEL: ...is another angel.

What Anna says, before she stabs him:

CASTIEL: You can't win, Uriel. I still serve God.URIEL: You haven't even met the man. There is no will. No wrath. No God.Between each phrase, URIEL punches CASTIEL. The last time, he raises his fist and is stabbed through the neck from behind.ANNA: Maybe. Or maybe not. But there's still me.

I just wanted that clarified, because it does change the tone of the line, and informs how much stock we should put into that judgment, you know? Considering the level of manipulation Uriel employed throughout s4 to this point, it’s pretty blatantly Part Of The Grand Plan, and therefore should be examined critically because of that. Uriel... wasn’t stating this as a blatant fact, but more in the way of a villain monologue confession “Yes, ’twas I that burned down the house!” sort of deal, you know? Okay, back to the actual question! :D

My working theory is “It’s Chuck’s fault.” I mean, the show just confessed that everything bad is actually Chuck’s fault. But it’s kinda been saying that since s4, too. Yes, a lot of s4 (and 4.16 really began this framing) as “a betraying element in Heaven who sided with Lucifer causing dissent and disobedience among the angels, but when asked, all the angels and archangels stated their reason for going forward with the apocalypse was that it was God’s Will, you know? This was the Grand Plan. But it went deeper than that, too.

When asked why now, and when Dean asked why me, the answer at the bottom of it all was because I’m tired. Raphael in s6, Gabriel in s5... they just wanted it all to be over. They were tired of trying to understand and live by God’s Grand Plan.

But Gabriel has also said, in 5.08: Why do you think I've always taken such an interest in you?Because from the moment Dad flipped on the lights around here, we knew it was all gonna end with you. Always.

It was always gonna be Dean and Sam. Gabriel started messing with them years earlier. We know Chuck began writing the Supernatural books at the beginning of the series, with The Woman In White, but that he’d been setting things in motion for the apocalypse to happen since long before that, at least as far back as 1973. Or possibly the earliest timeline point in canon-- When Sam met Samuel Colt and Dean killed a phoenix with it in 1863. You know, Chuck had to set all that up if wanted Sam and Dean to actually have a chance of releasing the Leviathans, you know?

Even the orders Chuck supposedly left the angels with when he flapped off for parts unknown long before the start of canon were contradictory, forcing them to choose which set to follow. Cas’s line has always been that the purpose of angels was to watch over humanity, while other angels (Michael, Raphael, et al) have always insisted that their purpose was to enact the apocalypse to bring God back to the world. So what did Chuck actually tell the angels? BOTH things are probably true. The angels CHOSE what to do with the time that was given to them, and Cas always chose humanity, while others always chose obedience to the Grand Plan to end it all. It was still always a CHOICE. Even 5.22 framed it as a choice-- Lucifer told Michael they could just walk away, but Michael was convinced that they had to go through with the fight because it was destined. He could’ve chosen differently, but everything that had led him to that point had convinced him that he was making the right choice in fulfilling that destiny. Only TFW overrode that choice.

Because Chuck manipulated EVENTS and SITUATIONS. And then left the choices to PEOPLE. He reminds me so much of Ruby in s4: I just gave you the options, and you chose the right path every time.

We’ve seen the mind-boggling level at which Chuck can manipulate events and people-- snapping his fingers and everyone on the planet can just lie again. But compare what he is willing to snap his fingers over, and what he makes excuses for and refuses to snap his fingers over. And what he ACTIVELY MANIPULATES into being despite his stated intentions, you know?

He actively manipulated 4.18 into being. Yes, it was Ruby manipulating Sam throughout s4 into total reliance on her, total alienation from Dean, and making him believe that her way was the only way to “stop Lilith.” She’d stated it from the start, from s3, that the only thing she wanted was “Lilith dead.” And that was TRUE. She just... dodged telling them the WHOLE truth.

I think Chuck is very much the same. Very much the angels in s4 and s5 like Zachariah who “avoided certain truths to manipulate you.”

And in retrospect, Chuck would’ve had the power to just snap his fingers and make every angel just forget they had an angel blade for half a year (or a year, or even several years as he ramped up the events of the apocalypse). But he also could’ve snapped his fingers and made the angels content to watch over humanity for an eternity, you know?

Because the real question Sam and Dean shouldn’t have been asking wasn’t “Why Us?” The real question was “why NOW?” If all of these events had been destined since the beginning of time, why was Heaven and Hell scrambling to make it all happen now?

Cupids had to make John and Mary Winchester meet, fall in love, and produce Sam and Dean. Demons had to interfere throughout Sam’s life (we learned from Lucifer in 4.22). And events of s2 had to be arranged to push Dean to sell his soul for Sam in 2.22, but really it had been the events of Dean’s entire life that had prepared him to actually do so.

The entire apocalypse could’ve fallen apart if ANY of these things hadn’t happened in the prescribed order, you know? Which we saw the proof of in 14.13. One wish on that pearl that pulled John out of his original timeline before the beginning of canon as we know it was enough to undo the work of angels and demons. The apocalypse just... never happened in that wish-changed universe.

So for something that was “always destined to happen,” it was shockingly easy to undo, you know? Just like Zachariah had the power to implant false memories in Dean and Sam in 4.17, just like Gabriel had the power to force them to “play their roles” in tv show after tv show, that’s kind of what Chuck’s been doing their entire lives.

In 5.08, Gabriel didn’t force words into their mouths, you know? He didn’t dictate what they would choose. Their free will remained intact. He was just nudging them to make the choices he wanted them to by dropping them into specific situations. And they still resisted, still kept trying to find another way out. I really do think 5.08 is an excellent metaphor for just how Chuck has been meddling in their lives all along (and again, that aspect of Chuck is very “Gabriel,” you know? He does have the other archangels’ characteristics as well, but his Chuck persona-- the part of him that waffled and denied he had the power to fix anything in 11.20-11.23, the part that taught himself guitar and wants to be pals with creation-- is basically Advanced Gabriel.

And just... deciding the angels shouldn’t have swords for a while could’ve just been an “interesting writing choice” for him at the time. Maybe he just wanted to see what would happen. Maybe he thought taking away their main weapon would make it easier to bring on the apocalypse.

Because I’m sitting here watching Alastair nearly killing Cas right now, and I find it IMPOSSIBLE to believe that in that situation, if Cas had an angel blade, he wouldn’t have pulled it out and stabbed Alastair with it. Instead he relied on Ruby’s knife to inflict pain on Alastair, even though it wasn’t able to actually kill Alastair. But an angel blade WOULD’VE killed Alastair, you know? And in theory, it would’ve killed Lilith, too...

During a season where most of the angels truly believed they were trying to STOP the apocalypse from happening (only a few knew the true plan, confessed by Zachariah in 4.22), if there HAD been a confrontation between an angel and Lilith before the end of the season, it would’ve been a matter of a bit of a stabbing and then BOOM no apocalypse, ever.

And this whole situation that Uriel created in 4.16 was framed as “we must stop the demon responsible for killing the angels!” As if his secondary plan was simply to foment dissent and distrust among the angels while intensifying the drive to battle the armies of Hell.

And through all of this, Cas’s lesson via Anna is about learning to choose for himself, to think for himself. Basically... he’s learning how to be human, and what it means to have free will.

It’s only after he’s resurrected by Chuck in 5.01 that he suddenly has an angel blade again. And it’s only after that point that ALL the angels suddenly have them. When NONE of them had angel blades throughout the entirety of s4.

So when Uriel said that in 4.16 (which... I’m literally watching that scene RIGHT NOW), I think it was literally true. Uriel had the only angel blade in existence as of that moment.

[sherry-smith]

Trapped Among Mortal Things

Lack of knowledge leads to questions. Questions lead to answers. Answers lead to knowledge. Knowledge leads to trouble. Seems easy, doesn’t it? Seems logical.

It wasn’t always like this, not until Earth was created. In the beginning, the true Beginning, trouble didn’t exist. That’s due to the fact that knowledge didn’t exist either, at least not what people currently label as knowledge. Crowley, of course, remembers what it was like; They create you, They fill you with the bare minimum you’re required to know - your name, your identity, your purpose - and then you’re free to go. There was no such thing as lack of knowledge because no one was aware that maybe, just maybe, they didn’t have the keys to unlock all the secrets of the universe; no one was even aware that there were secrets of the universe in the first place. This means, obviously, that questions didn’t exist either and, by extension, nor did answers.

It is believed that questions were invented by Lucifer when he asked why angels should submit to human beings. That’s not quite true. What he really did was use free will to point out that there was no reason for humans to be put on a pedestal and venerated as the Almighty’s finest creations. The War in Heaven begun and ended, and questions still didn’t exist; without them, free will seemed rather pointless.

Actually, questions were invented by a pretty stubborn and curiously clueless Archangel. At first all he did was knock at the Lord’s door - despite everyone telling him it was a hopeless mission, that They weren’t there anymore - and requested, in utter reference, for permission to descend in Hell. It was an odd request, admittedly. He claimed that he couldn’t bear the thought of those poor souls suffering from the wounds inflicted to them during the War; no matter the horrors they had committed, no matter how awful their sins, they still were creatures of the Lord and, as such, deserved some kind of comfort. Of course, the permission wasn’t granted - nor denied, which seemed good enough for the Archangel.

So he crossed Hell’s entrance. His sincerity and good will meant nothing to the fallen angels, least of all to Lucifer, still too full of pride to admit his defeat, or even accept help of any kind. Raphael was thrown out without hesitation. It took him a while to realise the price that little visit had costed him; his innocence was forever lost, and, as a memento, his wings turned as black as the darkest night.

Being stubborn, the Archangel - not quite Fallen, nor quite full of Grace - knocked again at the Lord’s door, furiously, desperately. «Why? - he cried out - Why would You invent pain and suffering? Why would You cast them out instead of proving them the Holiness of Your Love?» He didn’t know it yet, but in that moment he invented questions, and all their dreadful consequences.

He also didn’t know that They were still there, contrary to the popular belief. The door slammed open, shockingly. Raphael felt a tingly warmth in the middle of his chest as a hand pushed him, and then there was coldness, as he fell for miles and miles. He had understood the theory behind pain, but feeling it? Feeling pain is a whole other matter than understanding it.

He landed in a pool of boiling sulphur, horribly disfigured and deeply broken. Raphael was no more, and the Almighty disappeared for good. It truly was the end of the War in Heaven.

Lack of knowledge leads to questions. Questions lead to answers. Answers lead to knowledge. Knowledge leads to trouble. Easy as that.

Crowley never regretted inventing questions, not once. He’s always thought it was quite a clever move of his. The real problem was that nobody had bothered inventing answers yet, so at first one couldn’t see the brilliance of being able to ask questions; they seemed rather pointless.

Despite not existing yet, Crawly had a vague idea of what an answer should look like; it has to make sense and be satisfying, even when you don’t like it, no, especially when you don’t like it. But he couldn’t invent answers himself, having invented questions already, so all he could do was wait for someone to do the job.

Crawly was quite sure that knowledge was somehow linked to answers. At that time, knowledge did exist - as established previously - but it wasn’t part of this particular equation yet. The chain was more like: free will leads to questions, questions lead to trouble. Crawly was aware of the missing link, having thought about the issue for a long time. He was therefore delighted upon discovering that there was a tree in the middle of the Garden of Eden that could grant mortals knowledge. He was even more so upon discovering that Lucifer - no, not Lucifer, not anymore, Satan now - was looking for somebody to go up there and make some trouble. Obviously, he volunteered.

He didn’t really need to make trouble; he just had to lead the humans to ask questions, that was all. He crawled to Eve, mostly because she seemed more interesting than Adam. She also seemed to have a better understanding of her own free will.

«You see that tree? It’s called the Tree of Life and its fruits grant you the ability to tell the difference between good and evil. Such a pity God forbid you to eat them.»

«Why?»

Technically, you can’t see a snake smiling, but in that particular case one could feel the serpent’s cheeky grin. «Indeed. Why?»

He slithered away, hiding himself between the bushes to watch the Fall of Man from a safe spot. If he was lucky, soon enough humans would’ve invented answers. But that’s not what happened.

It is believed that answers were invented by the Almighty in response to a stubborn Archangel’s question, when he explained to him that, hadn’t They invented pain, there would have been no balance in the universe, things could’ve never worked in the long run; it was ineffable. That’s not quite true. They tend to ignore questions, so it wouldn’t have made any sense for Them to come up with answers.

Actually, answers were invented by a pretty clueless and curiously atypical angel. He was supposed to smite demons on sight and yet, once Crawly started talking to him, he was too polite to even ignore him. Yes, as soon as he heard the snake’s doubts, he had started babbling about the ineffability of the Great Plan, which was such a tedious subject; but at least he wasn’t rude, nor entitled. And then…

«Didn’t you have a flaming sword?»

«Er.»

«You did, didn’t you? It flamed like anything. It looked very impressive, I thought.»

«Er, well…»

«Lost it, have you?»

«Oh no! Not exactly lost, more…»

«Well?»

«If you must know, I gave it away.»

Two things crossed Crawly’s mind. First of all, this was no common angel. What kind of angel gives away his God-given weapon to mortals who, on top of it, had just been punished? It was a miracle he hadn’t fallen. But, to be fair, those days God was nowhere to be found; probably They weren’t paying too much attention.

Second, he had answered his question. “Have you lost your flaming sword?” “No, I gave it away.” Simple as that. He hadn’t batted an eye, as if answers had always existed. In the end, there was no need to wait for humanity to sort it out.

He couldn’t help but smile. Things were about to get really interesting. And this angel, this Aziraphale, seemed really worth to be liking.

Lack of knowledge leads to questions. Questions lead to answers. Answers lead to knowledge. Knowledge leads to trouble. But it’s not so easy.

It’s not so easy, because sometimes lack of knowledge leads to blissful ignorance, which may lead to either happiness or violence; sometimes knowledge leads to satisfaction or peace; sometimes questions lead to more questions, or answers lead to even more questions, in a vicious circle that can’t be broken because sometimes, sometimes, there are no answers, no matter what.

Crowley shouldn’t keep asking questions - one thinks he should know better. And yet… And yet he still does. He never stopped. His curiosity, his need for answers, turns always out to be stronger than any fear of consequences, however big or frightening they might be.

But they’re drowning everybody else?

What did he say that made everybody so upset?

What the deuce are you doing locked up in the Bastille?

Should I say thank you?

He likes asking questions to Aziraphale. He knows that, no matter what, he’ll always get an answer back. It’s comforting. It almost makes him forget how bad questions can be, it makes him feel like it’s not wrong to pursuit knowledge, like he himself - his own strange existence - is not wrong for being curious.

However, thing is, sometimes Aziraphale is not enough. He doesn’t understand the Ineffable Plan no more than Crowley does, and that’s frustrating. So, he plays with fire; he talks to the Almighty Themselves. He’s aware of the dangers but he’s not afraid. After all, what’s the worst that could happen to him? He’s already fallen.

God, You listenin’?

He’s not sure why he still bothers. There’s nobody up there, there hasn’t been for such a long time that one might even question the existence of a Creator in the first place. And Crowley probably will, one day, given his nature. But not quite yet. For now, he just looks at the starry sky and wonders where in the damn universe are They hiding.

For now, he just looks at the starry sky. He thinks about how long it would take to travel to the end of the universe, how long would it take to search it all, every planet, every nebula, every galaxy. He decides an eternity is not enough.

(He think about mountains and brave little birds and spaceships travelling at the speed of light)

What he does know for certain is that the universe itself won’t last that long. Protostars become red giants, which become white dwarfs; supergiants become nebulae or supernovae, neutron stars and black holes. He knows, for he had built them, a very long time ago; he created those intricate patterns, those complex chemical reactions that lead one way or another depending on as little as a the presence or absence of a single atom, those delicate physical laws that maintain everything in balance, a graceful dance across the light-years. There’s so much beauty out there, but it won’t last; the universe runs towards entropy and there’s no stopping it. Even if there’s no Apocalypse to destroy the Earth, life is ultimately doomed in such a cold and hostile environment. What’s the point of it if… there’s no point at all?

Hey, God, can You show me the Ineffable Plan? Not all of it, You can just spoil me the ending, will You?

Crowley feels lost, without references, without meaning. He tries not to think about it. He tries to keep himself busy - some little temptations, lunch at the Ritz, a bottle of wine - but ultimately he feels like a tightrope walker, torn between cheap materialism, existential dread and hopeless cynicism.

And so he asks, question after question. And so he longs for all the things he’s lost and all the things he’ll never reach.

Trapped among mortal things (even the starry sky will end) why do I yearn for God?

[katherine-rambles]

Since some of my friends are fiiiinaallly watching RGU, spoilers under the cut re: the last few episodes and Anthy. If you’re on mobile, just, uh, scroll really fast I guess? I don’t know why cuts don’t work on mobile...

Is..... is Ohtori.... Anthy’s grave...? 

The kofun burial mound, the coffin, Akio’s determination to try again and again... The swords........ 

Did Dios ‘sacrifice’ himself in order to keep Anthy ‘alive’...? 

Okay okay okay. So two paths to go down here: a metaphoric death (1) and a literal death (2). 

1 - metaphoric death

Looking around at the internet, I’d say other folks have this side covered pretty well; I wanna get to the other one because I have Ideas about that

2 - literal death

In this scenario, we’ve got the archetypes as having some sort of... power over the metanarrative, right? But not complete power, because their power is the belief of those who buy into the narrative. Anthy takes the brunt of the anger for allowing the Prince to escape his obligations to ‘the people’, because those obligations were going to kill him. That anger turns into Anthy being literally, actually run through with lots of implements that kill her. 

But the Prince, newly liberated from his obligations, has a lot of power that he’s now not really using. He can’t save Anthy-- he was too late for that. But he can preserve Anthy. Keep her alive. Turn what would normally be a painful but brief moment into... an eternity. Dios’s powers to change the world are used to stop the world from continuing to happen. To halt time and physics themselves. To stop Anthy from bleeding out. She’s not doing great, but at least she’s not dead. That counts for something, right? Here is where I think Dios turns into Akio; change becoming stagnation. 

Well, they both realize this is a terrible situation. Akio can’t leave Anthy, because then she’ll die. And visa versa. Without the Witch to blame for the Prince’s absence, Akio has no protections from the obligations that gave him the power to change the world in the first place. And without the Prince as a protagonist, the Witch isn’t a credible threat, she loses the Prince’s heartsword: then she loses the power, since it all runs on belief. They’re trapped. Even if Akio lets Anthy die, then he’ll probably die later, trying to fulfill the obligations put upon the Prince. Because a Prince that got lost is still A Prince. It isn’t whether or not Akio wants to be a prince; it’s about what people will demand of him no matter how he chooses to act. If people know that the Prince is free, they expect the Prince to serve them. 

(There’s also a bunch of corollaries here: why Ohtori seems so removed from seasons and time in general can be explained if it’s all tied to Anthy’s literal moment of death. Ohtori academy is both the future where Anthy didn’t die [the academy] and the future where she did [the kofūn]-- and as a princess, she’s entitled to some sweet burial digs, I guess. This also goes some way to explaining the campus’s labyrinthine nature; it’s a superposition of states that are probably always in flux.)

So... they know heartswords are key to this mess. It’s the heartswords that impale Anthy-- perhaps not in the most literal sense, but in the sense that the weapons, insults, & degradations were intentionally meant to cause her harm. Anthy originally hid Dios’s heartsword/obligations/powers within herself; this is the Witch “trapping” the Prince. 

They’re looking for power to free themselves. To do so, they must open the Rose Gate-- the key to this situation is nabbing Anthy from the coffin (the potential future that awaits if time is allowed to continue properly) before the heart/hate-swords can fully kill Anthy. The final Duel, then, is a physical portal to a moment stuck in time: the moment of Anthy’s dying. Anthy can’t do it; she’s being stabbed to death. Akio can try, but his power is trapped with Anthy; so he needs someone else’s power. 

And thus the duels. Take a promising bunch, mold their lives to maximize their motivation, pit them against each other: whoever comes out on top must be the strongest. Take that sword, attempt to break Anthy free. Repeat ad nauseum until something works. 

Where Utena comes in, what she shakes up, is her willingness to free Anthy no matter the personal cost to herself. Anthy has just LITERALLY backstabbed Utena. In Anthy’s mind, there’s no possible reason that Utena could want to continue, now that Utena’s seen the ‘true’ Anthy. Up until this point, the only person who has seen and accepted that side of her has been Akio.

So now we have two people who have seen just about everything Anthy thinks is true of herself. Akio has used that emotional leverage as free reign to be Awful. Anthy, I’m sure, struggles with her pain as much as she struggles with the belief she deserves it, which Akio is able to leverage into his comfy life. He, is actually just kinda fine going with the status quo: he’s not the one dying for eternity. And hey, this gig’s not half bad. Utena wants to be his princess? Sweet. No skin off his back. He’ll tire of Utena just like he tired of Kanae, I’m sure, and then Utena would just be another pawn in the next round of duelists. As long as the swords don’t work to open the Rose Gate, Akio can honestly say that he’s trying, while still actually never succeeding. Maybe he is actually trying, or maybe the duels are no longer anything but an amusement to pass the time. It doesn’t really matter: it’s gone on for so long that they’re all talking about Eternity, something Eternal, how to achieve Eternal Things. (And implied, for Anthy, is eternal pain/death.) 

Utena is a pretty powerful gal, but it isn’t her power that changes things. (Her heartsword does break, after all.) No: it’s her belief in Anthy; her deep-seated conviction that Anthy shouldn’t be in so much pain. Utena is willing to sacrifice herself if it would help out her friend. She doesn’t care that she's been hurt, she doesn’t care that she may die, she doesn’t care that Anthy wants her to go back to safety. She believes Anthy is worth saving. 

And it’s that, I think, that finally motivates Anthy into breaking the cycle. Dios cared about Anthy, sure; but he didn’t do anything when she put herself in the line of fire. He didn’t jump to save her as he did to save the princesses-- because to a prince, a potential marriage match is more important than a sister. Not necessarily (originally) a personal fault; it’s part of the Narrative-- his power derives from that idealized vision of a prince saving princesses. He never later decided to try diverting the hateswords by fessing up to the fact that he’d been living the high life by faking his princely death. 

Anthy breaks the cycle by walking away. Instead of protecting Akio, as she’s been doing all this time, she gives him back what she took in trying to save him. Well-- insofar as she ever actually took anything. Instead of standing in front of the barn, she walks away, to let Akio deal with his own problems. 

Utena convinced Anthy that Anthy herself is worth saving, too. That Dios’s self-inflicted damage was the same as Anthy’s curse: doing for others what they can (or should) figure out for themselves. I mean-- if those people could kill a Witch, why couldn’t they protect their own princesses? For that matter, why are the princesses so incapable of protecting themselves? That seems like something royalty should generally learn how to do. 

Now, in this setup, that leaves the last moments of the final duel a little in the lurch. If Anthy stops the cycle by getting out of the way, and Utena inspires her to do so by getting in the way... then what? Well, I think that means that there’s no target for the heartswords. I mean, yes, Utena puts herself in the line of fire; but that line of fire exists because of Anthy’s original decision to ‘save’ Dios. When Anthy decides to stop doing that, there becomes no swords that were ever aimed at her. The universe settles into a shape that allows for the past, but it’s now the present in which Anthy is alive, Ohtori never was a kofūn and is only a normal academy, and Utena's stay at Ohtori becomes fuzzy to everyone involved because it’s the crux of a space-time paradox. But importantly, in this reading, it means Utena didn’t have to save Anthy in the ‘resettled’ past. So the universe makes sense of this, essentially, by diffusing Utena’s impact, and Utena is off doing what Utena would’ve been doing had she not been in the duels. 

(A generous continuation from there would have Utena already having made friends with Anthy; and at least the official epilogue art, there’s some indication that that may have been the case. An angsty epilogue would have Utena never know nor recall Anthy’s lived past. A cruel epilogue would be something akin to Donna’s departure from Doctor Who, wherein Utena’s recovered memories destabilizes the universe and would lead to her death. I think, in this reading, it’s unreasonable to assume Anthy couldn’t track Utena down fairly easily, though.)

Anyway, now I want to write a lot of fic that I know I have no patience to write. C’est la vie.

[dem-obscure-imagines]

True Love’s Kiss

Diaval x Reader

True Love’s Kiss

Prompt(s): “Omgomgomgomg Diaval one shot where the reader is Maleficent's daughter !!!!” and “A Diaval x reader imagine, please?? I just read the Nutcracker one and fell in love!!”

Note: I have been wanting to write for Diaval for literally forever omg.

Warnings: None??

Word Count: 1035

Diaval had realized very quickly that a side effect of Maleficent’s magic on him had been the lingering immortality that had been inflicted on his human form. To put it simply, Diaval didn’t age. At all. Mentally or physically. No matter how much time passed, he was trapped in the form of a young man or bird or whatever beast Maleficent decided she needed.

You had been born into Maleficent’s life at a very happy time. Her days in darkness were over, and her reign as the dark queen of the woods had come to an end. Instead, Princess Aurora ruled over the lands, both human and fae. Kind and loyal was she, ruling with love instead of an iron fist like her father or the dark magic of revenge like the former queen. All of the inhabitants of the land were happy, and this included you.

Diaval watched you grow and learn. And though he didn’t change, you did, flourishing into a beautiful young woman. He had been your protector for so long, always watching over you like a shadow, and yet, you had barely ever talked to him, really.

Before you knew it, you were preparing for a ball to celebrate your eighteenth birthday.

Your god-sister Aurora was helping you get dressed in the castle, although the party was to be held in the Moors. They needed some time to get the party ready, of course, and they couldn’t have you there to spoil the surprise.

“Do you feel any different?” Aurora asked. “Eighteen is a big year.”

“Not really, no. I mean, I feel like I should feel different, but I know I’m the same.” You replied thoughtfully.

“I didn’t feel any different on mine either.” She admitted with a grin. “Everyone says you’re supposed to. They all ask. It’s best to just agree with them.”

“Thanks for the words of wisdom.”

“Don’t mention it.”

Just under an hour later, you and Aurora stepped into the Moors.

“Bout time you showed up, princess.” Diaval greeted you immediately, taking your hand in his and pressing a tender kiss to the back of it. “Happy birthday.”

“Thank you.” You smiled. You couldn’t place how, but something felt different. Something about the handsome shape-shifter was different to you. Perhaps your burning cheeks should have been a clue, but the feeling was forgotten when your mother approached. Her arms wrapped tight around you.

“My little birdie is all grown up.” Her voice sounded sad and proud, and the maternal look in her eyes made your heart sink and soar. Maleficent’s careful fingers stroked the feathers of your wings. Like your mother, you too had been gifted with large wings that had carried you high over the Moors many a time. And at the thought of your wings, you were itching to fly.

So after socializing with the many creatures and fae that had gathered to celebrate your newfound adulthood, you took off, racing to your favorite tree in the entire canopy. It had the perfect branch for sitting with the best view of the sunset.

Pink and orange hues danced at the edge of the horizon, and after sitting there for a while, you realized you weren’t alone. A particular raven had found a spot beside you on your branch as he often did.

You glanced over at Diaval, a small smile gracing your features. He looked at you, tilting his head a few times and then hopping closer. He leaned forward and poked your hand with his small beak. You raised an eyebrow. Seeing that you didn’t understand, he poked you again.

Carefully, you lifted your hand. Magic, glittering and yellow, danced around your fingertips for a few seconds, waiting for instruction. You focused on Diaval and then whispered.

“Into a man,”

Diaval’s wings stretched into arms, feathers replaced by fingers as his tiny bird legs elongated into something more human.

“Thank you.” He seemed grateful for the transformation.

“Is it true that you once hated being a human?” You asked him. He was almost hesitant to reply.

“Back then, I didn’t really have a reason to be human. It felt weird to be so much larger and more awkward and unable to fly.” He chuckled. “But if I were a bird, how would I be able to talk to you, princess?”

“Why do you always call me princess?”

“Because to me, you are one.”

You didn’t really know how to respond. And then you did.

“Diaval?”

“Yes, princess?”

“Aurora always talks about…introducing me to Philip’s friends.”

“And?”

“I don’t know. I just…In my heart, I’ve always been afraid that they could never compare to you.” Now it was Diaval’s turn to be speechless. His eyes tore themselves away from the sunset and instead landed on your fair features, searching for something to tell him if your words were genuine. “I know it’s foolish to think you could ever-”

“Princess, I never thought I could be enough for you. You’re a magnificent magical being, and I’m a bird that is occasionally not a bird.” He swallowed, hands shaking as he reached out for yours. Your fingers fit perfectly between his, and in that moment, Diaval had never been so thankful for fingers. For arms. For vocal chords and lips that allowed him to do more than squawk. “But if you’d have me, I swear to treat you like the princess you are.”

“I wouldn’t have anyone else.”

The moment your lips met his, it was like a million fireworks erupted in the darkening sky. The feeling was more potent than any magic you had ever felt, more precious than a million gemstones, and more eternal than the man kissing you.

In that moment, Diaval never wanted to be a bird ever again. He would kiss his wings goodbye forever if it meant he would be able to kiss you.

“Do you think your mother will be alright with this?” he asked once you had separated.

“I think my mother knows true love’s kiss when she sees it. And believe me, this was that.”

“I think so too.” He whispered, hand still tightly wrapped around your own. “Happy Birthday, princess.”

It was a happy birthday indeed…

[musingsofthefox]

Game Content : Chapter 6

This is the most recent chapter in my Teen Titans fan fiction (in case anyone’s curious) :D

You can also read it here: 

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12249275/1/Game-Content

Starfire had decided to walk alongside her friends for a few miles. It didn’t seem healthy (even if it was her own power) to waste unnecessary mana points. Besides, she missed the conversation, and even though they were eternally grateful for the aerial view on her behalf, they missed her, too.

“Did you see when I blasted ten of em’ in a row?” Cyborg asked her, wondering if she’d gotten a good view of the fight.

She nodded. “Oh yes, I especially saw when one of their helmets went flying. Their faces are quite gruesome.” She shivered to think about it. “I wonder what must have happened to them? Or are they a strange alien from another planet? I have never heard of ‘Orc’ or ‘Goblin’ infested planets before. Although, I assure you that if I did, they would have been wiped out a very long time ago. Their primitive weaponry and weak constitution would have fallen to the Mithronians of Maldustia centuries ago. That’s what happened to the slug people of Beta 462.” She chatted on.

Robin smiled and nonchalantly took her hand for a moment as they walked. She gently grasped his back, careful not to break his littlest finger like the last time she squeezed it in joy. It did not take long to heal thanks to Raven’s powers, but caused him more pain than she’d ever thought she could inflict upon her love.

“I think there’s something up ahead.” Beast Boy commented, cutting through the war talk and the lovey-dovey hand holding. “It looks like a sign?”

In fact, it was a marker upon a dark mound of dirt. The mound was very small, and upon further inspection was actually a makeshift flower pot for a dangerous, thorny looking plant that wove its way around the marker. It bloomed black roses and, with its red thorns, gave the impression that it was not to be touched. In the clearing where the marker stood, there was no sound. All of their skin prickled. The marker was illegible, probably in some ancient tongue and written in runes.

“This feels...funky.” Cyborg commented, shifting the axe on his shoulder. Robin unsheathed his broadsword.

“You’re right. We should stay defensive and look for clues. This could be a quest. I don’t want to fail because we missed anything or got caught out by the enemy.”

They nodded and, following their leader’s command, split up into a four way search. From the marker they each decided they would scan the woods from a diagonal perspective, going to all four corners of the clearing. That way, they could cover some equal ground.

While they walked, Beast Boy called behind him, “Doesn’t this remind you guys of the Fantastic Four?”

“It would,” Robin commented. “If we weren’t the Fantastic Five.”

“Yeah,” Beast Boy agreed, a little sheepishly. “But, you know. Just for now, I mean-”

Starfire screamed.

Everyone turned at once, as if they were frozen in space while Starfire’s scream echoed off of the trees. While her scream had scared them out of their wits, that wasn’t the worst part. Starfire was gone.

“Starfire!” Robin yelled after her. “She was right here, where did she go!” His voice took on the protective tone that it usually did, and both Cyborg and Beast Boy’s hearts were pounding horribly in response.

Where, indeed had Starfire gone?

They, in a panic, scanned the skies, the treeline. Where was she? Where had she just dissappeared off to???

Suddenly, Cyborg stopped moving, he was staring down intently at his feet in horror.

“What? What!?” Robin asked him, demanding he share any information. Beast Boy rushed over to see what the fuss was about.

Instead of answering, Cyborg took both of their heads in his massive hands and forced them to look down at his feet. In unison, the three of them exclaimed: “WHAT???”

Starfire was below them. As if they were standing upon a glass floor, she stood about ten feet below them like she were in an aquarium, waving up at them from below. It was clear she was shouting something, but they couldn’t hear her.

Robin lay down on his stomach and pressed his face to the ground. Now that he thought about it, it had always been glass, but it had looked like regular earth beneath them from the transparency. He tried shouting something to her, things like “are you okay” or “how the hell did you get down there” but of course, she couldn’t hear him either.

“We have to figure out how she got down there and get her back.” He said, resolutely standing back up. “Go toward her corner of the clearing and try to fall in.”

“Fall IN?” Beast Boy questioned.

Robin nodded. “We’ll try to find the opening and go from there.”

“Okay…” Beast Boy agreed, running off in the direction toward where Starfire had fallen.

Beneath them, she ran in sync with their pursuit, trying her hardest to remember where exactly she fell through.

After her initial shock of falling, especially since she was trying not to waste mana on flying, she had allowed herself to gently float to a stop before hitting the ground. The place she was in was EXACTLY like the clearing she had been in, except above her it was as if her friends were all flying. A rare sight, and kind of ironic (if Starfire had had any concept of irony). There were still forests on either side of her, and another sign in the middle. The runes, this time she noticed, were upside down. When she’d realized what had happened she immediately ran toward her friends, only to find that no matter how hard she yelled, they wouldn’t look down. Not until Cyborg had.

Now, as she ran with them toward where she fell, she could finally hear them. Their shouts were getting louder, as if unmuting a video and turning the sound up slowly. She was just thinking that maybe she’d fallen through an actual hole in the glass ceiling, and they were getting very close to it, when Robin faltered and fell, coming right at her. She caught him mid-fall and kissed him joyously.

“Robin!” She cheered. He blinked and then smiled.

“Hey, Starfire.”

From above they heard Beast Boy shout, “Dudes! Run! Er...fly!” and also noticed him pointing behind them. From the trees, here in the ‘lower’ half of the clearing, dark mist was forming. Like black tendrils of smoke, something wicked their way came. It fizzled and smoked, hissing at them like a cloud of angry snakes, and yet no specific form was visible. However, from the mist glowed a thousand yellow eyes.

“Eeep!” Starfire blasted at it with her starbolt vision, but it did nothing except separate the mist in half. After that didn’t work, she held onto Robin and flew straight up where he fell. When they got very close to Beast Boy and Cyborg’s feet, they unfortunately slammed face first into the ceiling.

Robin rubbed his head in confusion.”What?” His hands felt the ceiling above them, yet there was no longer a hole. “Is this the right place?”

“Yeah dude!” Beast Boy stuck his arm down and grabbed Robin’s wrist. “It’s right here, now stop messing around and come on.” He attempted to pull them out himself, as if it were some sophisticated portal, but it turned out that the glass spell was smarter than that.

Instead of pulling them out, Beast Boy’s arm was stuck. It was odd for him to feel trapped and yet  see nothing holding onto him. He blinked and yipped. “What do I do???” Cyborg, scratching his head nervously as the slow, dark cloud came closer and closer. “I think it’s a one way ticket.”

Beast Boy, now really unhappy about “trying” to fall into the glass trap, looked up at Cyborg in fear. “Don’t you dare.”

“Sorry, bro.” Cyborg kicked the poor green Titan and he tumbled head over heels into the trap. “Cannonball!” Cyborg shouted, and he too allowed himself to fall.

Robin, now realizing that the only thing left to do was fight, had Starfire set him down and he unsheathed his sword. Although, I don’t know how much good it’ll do.

Beast Boy landed gracefully on the ground as a cheetah, ignoring the forced push and readied for battle, too.

Cyborg patted the cheetah’s head and laughed. “If we do this, we do it together.” Beast Boy responded with a slap of his tail, which honestly Cyborg found to be fluffy and didn’t mind.

“How do we defeat what is not there?” Starfire asked. When one of the pairs of eyes flew straight for Cyborg, and he swept his axe right through it, it kept going, it's two halves were circling overhead like erratic bats. “I think I just made more.” He commented.

Robin wondered why it had only sent out one scout, the mass was hovering just before them.

Silent.

Watchful.

It gave him the creeps.

“Wait…” Beast Boy reached into his pack. “What about...this!” With flourish, like a Yu-Gi-Oh dueling master, he summoned ‘Revealing Light’, a card which was supposed to illuminate foes that were hidden on the battlefield.

The cloud hissed again, fizzling and finally (and rather alarmingly) it split apart into a thousand small, dark wraiths. Each one screaming loudly and so high pitched that the team thought their ears were going to start bleeding.

“What did you do that for???” Cyborg loudly chided his small, green friend. Beast Boy sheepishly shrugged.

“I thought it would work!” He shouted over the noise.

Robin, although wishing that Beast Boy would have consulted them a little bit first, thought that maybe his friend had the right idea. Well, not THAT idea, but he was headed in the right direction. Clearly this monster couldn't be defeated with weapons, and therefore their only resource was cards. Now, other than the creature, the only thing else in this clearing was-

“The sign!” He shouted, the creatures getting louder and louder with every second. “Get to the middle!”

Only half-hearing him, they followed his lead anyway toward the middle of the clearing. Starfire shot a few more of the little devils with her Starbolts out of principle. Now that they had all multiplied as much as possible, she was making a little progress at cutting them down or burning them away, but there were (what seemed like) millions! She’d never win, not before their screams drove them all to madness.

After reconvening at the middle of the clearing, they had to resort to putting their hands over their ears. Beast Boy, the most sensitive to sound, looked like his eyes were about to start tearing up. “Whatever you’re going to do??? HURRY!”

Robin plunged his hand into his knapsack, rummaging for the deck of cards. Finally he had them, but unlike his friends he couldn’t save his ears in the process. As he combed through the deck for the one he wanted, his hearing went out.

It was a shocking moment, to say the very least. No ringing, no popping noise. Just nothing. At first he thought the monsters had stopped on their own and had snapped his eyes up from the deck. He was almost relieved when he realized that his friends were still covering their ears. His heart thud rapidly in his chest.

Gone? His hearing was just...gone?

His knees shook, and for the first time in a long time, he was genuinely afraid. He almost cried out, needing to tell his friends what had happened, but he decided that helping his team was more important right now. With a lump in his throat, and heartbreaking thoughts about the word ‘deaf’, he told himself he’d deal with it later.

Finally, he found it. ‘Hermit’s Dictionary’. It was a translation card, one that he’d used in previous games to get Raven to reveal her complicated spell cards. In this case, he used it on the sign, the one wrapped in black rose vines. The runes shifted, slowly revealing that they were NOT runes. Instead, they were lines. Each line moved, repositioning, reshaping and bending itself until it spelled out:

Reading is All You’ll Ever Do

Once we Get inside Your Head

You’ll hate our song, we don’t Sing well

You’ll Wish that you were Dead

Roses are Quite Beautiful

They are my Raven Song

She’s just out of reach, Poor Fools

Your Defeat will not be long

If you’re smart enough to break,

Our Little hidden Room

You need to think, Dear Fools

The Key is in the Bloom

Ignoring the jabs at their intelligence, Robin frantically went to the rose that grew delicately out of the vine on the marker. It was beautiful. Black, but when the light hit it, it was a dark plum color. Malchior is really going for those Raven references. He thought bitterly. He gently took the flower, attempting to see what kind of key the poem was talking about. He turned it this way and that, but there was nothing. In frustration, and fury, he ripped the flower from its vine.

Beast Boy shouted something at him, but he couldn't hear it. Instead he saw Beast Boy grab the vine.

Meaning he took his hands from his ears. Robin saw the moment where Beast Boy’s hearing went out, because his head snapped around, and fell on Robin’s face. Beast Boy opened his mouth to say something, but shook his head and took the vine in both hands now.

He pulled hard, and unwove it from the sign. It was buried deeply in the ground, and his hands started to bleed, but now that he knew what was at stake, for both Cyborg and Starfire... losing their hearing? He kept pulling.

Finally, he broke it free, and the four of them could see that it was in fact a weapon. At the end of the vine was the sharpest, blackest stone. It formed in a diamond at the end with wicked hooks littered all over it.

Beast Boy turned from his friends and, with an animal scream he could no longer hear for himself, swung the weapon in a huge circle at all the screaming wraiths. When they were hit with this particular weapon, they fell like black water to the earth. Raining upon them, the mist turned solid and each wraith, in no time, was nothing but black droplets on the grass and sand.

Beast Boy panted and dropped the vicious vine. His hands hurt like Hell, red blood adding to the black painting, but he had done it. Starfire and Cyborg would be fine. Even if he and Robin weren’t.

“Nice going, BB.” Cyborg said beside him, patting his shoulder. “How did you know you could do that?”

Beast Boy’s head snapped up, and so did Robin’s. They both gave each other a look, breaking out into the widest smiles. They could hear again!

Beast Boy cheered. “Whoo! YEAH!!!”

“What?” Cyborg asked. “What did I miss?”

“Nothing, dude.” Beast Boy laughed, coming down from his euphoria. No need to worry the other two with what had almost happened to them.

Robin came up next to him and nodded his approval. “How did you figure that out? The message said that the rose was the key.”

Beast Boy pointed at the message. “Well, first of all Malchior hates us. Duh. Of course he’d try to mess with us. He writes that the rose is Raven, and he never wants us to get her back. Obviously, the rose was a lie at the end. Also, he writes we need to “think”, and calls us fools. Dick.” He pointed at the vine now. “So I thought about it, and if it wasn’t the rose, it had to be the vine.”

Robin crossed his arms and smiled with approval while Starfire hugged Beast Boy and cracked his back. Cyborg laughed. “Nice, little dude.”

“Now…” Robin cut back into the conversation. “How do we get out of here?”

“You think it’s opened up now?”

Starfire pointed at the sign. It was crumbling, like sand it started to fall and disappear. Above them the glass ceiling made a cracking sound.

“Oh Shi--” The shattering of glass drowned out Cyborg’s comment and they all shielded their heads with their arms.

When it was over, Robin narrowed his eyes at his teammate. “Language.”