#and i think that's part of why this PARTICULAR rumor continues to swirl around and shows up in media

[shu-of-the-wind]

i wanted to bring up that a lot of people (including me) get trained to deal with seizures in INCORRECT WAYS (see: putting things in people’s mouths). i mistakenly wrote a scene with someone putting a belt in someone’s mouth and an epileptic reader very kindly corrected em but like. i am. so mad because as a teacher THAT’S LITERALLY HOW I WAS TRAINED TO DEAL WITH IT IF SOMEONE HAD A SEIZURE. so like. it’s not just writers that are getting it wrong it’s literally teachers training other teachers to do this WRONG and that is TERRIFYING to me.

If you're writing a character with a medical condition you're not familiar with, please reach out to people with the condition. We won't get angry, we will be relieved.

I have epilepsy, and if I read one note scene about people shoving things in the mouth of someone having a seizure, I may scream. That's how I broke one of my teeth, someone shoved a wallet in my mouth. Fucked up a molar bad enough it broke into THREE PIECES. Another resulted in the frequent replacing of a filling in my front left tooth.

You cannot choke on your tongue. You can, however, inhale the vomit that the object is preventing from escaping. Yeah, a lot of us vomit while we seize. We also chew tf outta our tongue and bleed and drool, and putting things in our mouth is a very good way to kill us.

Don't hold the seizing person down. That's how I nearly shredded my triceps and pulled several muscles. It's very bad! Roll them on their side, move things out if the way, support their head and put something under it for cushioning. If they're scratching their face up, cover the hands in loose fabric, like a shirt. I claw at my face and all that's needed is a gentle barrier between my face and hands.

Talking to those of us who live with these conditions will provide more insight than any doctor can give you. They have the science, we have the experience. We will not be insulted by you ASKING politely. We will be relieved.

Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

[lifblogs]

Whumptober 2021

No. 1 ALL TRUSSED UP AND STILL NOWHERE TO GO

"You have to let go" | barbed wire | bound

Title: A New Weapon Fandom: Star Wars Rating: Teen and Up Audiences Word Count: 2173 Summary: Anakin is lured aboard a Separatist ship from rumors of a new weapon. WARNINGS: Graphic Depictions of Violence READ ON AO3

Anakin collapsed to the reinforced durasteel deck aboard the Separatist ship he’d chosen to board. Someone was screaming; maybe it was him. His body writhed and tensed even as some part of him was telling it to stay still, that if he relaxed and just breathed it would hurt less. Was he hurting? All he unequivocally knew was that his body was in overdrive. What had happened to him? Shouldn’t he be dead?

Panels had slid back from the deck, strange-looking guns rising up, aimed directly at him. He’d been surrounded, and before he could do anything there had been a clack from all of them and then they’d fired. He should be dead, right? Or… Perhaps not. He had expected the whine of a laser, a blaster, but there had just been a scratching and screeching that hurt his ears.

Then… pain. Yes, that’s what he was feeling.

There was a dark tremor in the Force, the very feeling that he’d followed to this particular ship, and he struggled. The pain dug deeper, his arms trapped at his sides, his legs together. There was no mistaking the blood coming out of him, darkening his robes.

Through vision beginning to darken, and ears preoccupied with the sound of his dry sobs, he just managed to hear even steps and see an older man in dark clothes and a refined cloak walk in.

Dooku, he wanted to hiss out, but all he could do was try to quiet himself with a loud gulp that he nearly choked on.

“Young Anakin Skywalker,” he said, “I thought I might find you here. Or perhaps you were meant to be here. I hope you don’t mind that I took the liberty of testing my new weapon on you.”

Eyes swimming with tears, Anakin finally managed to appraise himself as he choked out, “Not… at all.” Metallic wire was haphazardly wrapped and tangled around him, trailing off and away across the deck. Part of the metal itself was adorned with sharp barbs, and what could���ve been tens of them were embedded deep, his blood turning the metal’s shine dull.

Sickened, struggling to breathe, he rested his head back down.

Think, Anakin. Think!

The pain was immeasurable. Sore and sharp at once, and seemingly all-encompassing. The very act of breathing put pressure against his barbed restraints, and the pain shot everywhere, like long needles had been stabbed through the length of his body. Pain in his thigh went up to shoulder. Pain from his hip went down to his toes.

The Force was clouded around him, frustrating him just as much as his sudden helplessness.

Grimacing, and then letting out an accidental high-pitched noise, he asked, “Are you sure… these can hold a Jedi?”

Dooku held out his hand, and Anakin’s lightsaber—which had fallen from his grasp—flew into his waiting palm, fingers surely grasping the hilt, clearly planning to keep it from him as long as possible. Anakin growled, but he couldn’t do much more than that.

“If you’re thinking of getting cocky, now is not the time.”

“I don’t know. I think it’s the—mm! Ahh! Agh!—perfect… time.”

His body started shaking, and he was sure he’d lost consciousness for a few seconds. That was difficult to tell though what with those moments of darkness feeling exactly the same as his waking state.

Count Dooku seemed to have been saying something (something stupid, more than likely) and he was cut off as the ship shook and he was tossed to the side.

Screams, followed by more of those dry sobs, came from Anakin as he was thrown a few feet and rolled, crashing into one of the gun turrets, cracking the back of his head against it. His vision sparked, but then cleared at least somewhat.

Those’ll be the shields.

Anakin tried to grin through his agony, even as a now-righted Dooku lifted him into the air and further wrapped the wires around him. He screamed through gritted teeth, jaw clenched so tight his teeth hurt.

“You think you’ll win this,” he observed.

Shuddering, he ground out, “I know I will.”

“Because Kenobi’s coming?”

Anakin’s eyes widened. A cry left him as he was unceremoniously dropped to the deck.

“Don’t look so surprised,” Dooku said with a wave of his hand, the guns lowering back into their hatches, and the panels sliding back into place. “I knew he would come. That’s why I trapped you here. These new weapons of mine served their purpose. I had the intel carefully leaked through appropriate sources back to the Republic. I knew it would draw you in—you, who is always so desperate to prove himself the hero. And in turn that would call to your insufferable master.”

“Former master.”

“Your strong connection would say otherwise, and the strength of that is just what I required.”

“Required for what?”

“Now, now, boy. A Sith Lord must not divulge all his secrets. Patience. You will see, but I fear you will not like it very much.”

“Just seeing you… is the worst part of this,” Anakin snapped.

“Quiet. Don’t act like a child.”

Another growl left Anakin.

The ship shook and shuddered, BOOM!s emanating through to their level. And then the ship listed, Dooku and Anakin both going flying.

Anakin’s lightsaber slipped from the Count’s grasp. Touching the Force, Anakin reached for it, but the wires around him got caught on a beam. He hung, and then smacked into the bulkhead. His vision swirled, and too much saliva came up in his mouth as an uncomfortable warmth and sense of chaos filled his stomach. The ship tilted again, and he was away from the bulkhead. All the weight he had from the artificial gravity pulled him down, making the barbs dig and rip as their positions changed, effectively twirling him in the air. Sweat that had been going down his neck and face now went to the ends of his hair. Blood dripped onto his jaw, his cheeks. It was splattered on the bulkhead, as well as the deck. It reached his left ear in moments, and dribbled in, making Anakin grimace at the odd sensation, and at his ear being blocked.

Panicking now, barely aware of his physical surroundings, Anakin did his best to trust the Force. His lightsaber ignited in a brilliant blue beam as it flew towards him, and it sliced through his mechno-arm. Just as planned, without his mechno-arm—which was now sparking from the few centimeters that were still attached to him—some of the wires hung loose. Not many, but possibly enough, he hoped.

Yet he was still trapped, hanging, bound in barbed wire on a ship that was getting bombarded with laserfire.

Obi-Wan, where are you?

Thankfully it was easy to tug at the wires now, groaning as the barbs came out of his skin. His left hand and arm came free just as he dropped from the beam. He caught himself with the Force just before he slammed into the deck.

Beyond that, Anakin wasn’t sure what to do. Pain had him collapsing, and part of his torso and his legs were still bound, wrapped and entwined with deepening agony. Dooku was approaching, even as the ship shook.

“You might… want to take care of that,” Anakin got out.

And then he couldn’t speak, feeling as if a hand was around his throat, blocking his airways. Knowing it was the Force, he fought his instincts, and refused to uselessly claw at his throat with his one hand. Instead he reached out, trying to do the same to Dooku. But he was lifted into the air, the grip tightening, hurting. His eyes bulged, his tongue wanting to come out of his mouth. With a pounding head, and screaming, begging lungs, all went black. There wasn’t even time to feel afraid.

~~~

“No! No, please! I just got promoted!”

The voice Anakin heard was tinny and high-pitched: a B1 battle droid.

The hum of a lightsaber effortlessly moving and slashing through metal followed, along with pieces clattering to the deck.

The Force roused Anakin as lightsabers whirled and all but screamed as they clashed.

Anakin blinked open his eyes and saw that he was on the bridge and Dooku and Obi-Wan were dueling. Obi-Wan had a slash down his left arm, and one across his lower back, but his Soresu was still effortless. One with the Force.

With the help of the Force, it only took a mere second for Anakin to take in everything: he was still bound in barbed wire from the hips down, and his left hand was restrained to a support rod with metal binders; nothing made specially for a Jedi (Dooku had probably been counting on him staying unconscious for awhile). His left ear was still blocked, and it was as if his eyes had trouble focusing, the scenes before him moving around and blurring, listing—like he was drunk. The burned and ruined parts of battle droids were around him. His former guards, perhaps? As to the whereabouts of his lightsaber, that was easy; it was on Dooku’s hip.

With Dooku distracted, Anakin breathed in deep, and with the aid of the Force snapped his binders. He reached out for his lightsaber.

Carefully, he managed to slash the rest of the barbs off of him once it was in his hand and the brilliant blue blade was ignited. He stood, swaying, his vision going fuzzy and sparking for a bit.

He was jolted forward as laserfire continued to bombard the ship, but no longer the bow, all of it aimed at the stern. His guess was that the engines had been hit.

Letting go, Anakin jumped into the fight, the Force putting him where he needed to be. Even while hurt and bleeding he blocked a lightsaber blow that had been about to slash down into a fallen Obi-Wan’s head.

“Anakin, stay back! You’re injured!” Obi-Wan cried.

Anakin ignored him, anger from his pain flooding through him, and all he saw was Dooku’s smug grin. He stumbled, but managed to fall into Shien, his lightsaber high. Though, he wasn’t used to doing it with his left hand, so after being pushed back relentlessly, he tried to adopt a form of one-handed Jar’kai. Yet his mind wasn’t working right, everything was fuzzy and confusing, and his blows began to miss and raising his arm was difficult.

Obi-Wan came to his aid.

Everything spinning, Anakin collapsed.

All he could do was lie on his back, free, yet helpless as Obi-Wan fought off the Count. He drove him into a retreat. Anakin rolled onto his stomach, trying to pull himself up to go after him. He barely even managed to drag himself a foot across the deck.

Obi-Wan retracted his lightsaber, clipped it on his belt, and was then by him.

“No, Anakin. Don’t move. We don’t have to go after him.” Then, Obi-Wan spoke into his comm, “Admiral, a pick-up would be really nice right about now! And Anakin needs immediate medical attention.”

“A gunship is on its way to your position. Can you get to the hangar on the lower deck?”

“We’ll certainly try.” Then, to Anakin, as he began to pick him up and put him over his shoulders: “Alright, it’s okay. We’re getting out of here.”

Anakin cried out from the pressure of being carried by Obi-Wan.

An explosion rocked the ship while they were in a passageway, waiting for a lift.

“Wha…?” Anakin moaned, even as his head tried to come up with what it could’ve been.

Blood.

He was getting blood on Obi-Wan’s robes.

Oops.

The shuddering grew worse, and Obi-Wan nearly fell.

Right. That.

“Dooku set off an explosion. My guess is in the hangar. He doesn’t want us getting off this ship.” Obi-Wan raised his comm. “Admiral, change of plans. We’re getting to an escape pod. Use a tractor beam to pull us in. Have a medical team ready.”

“Right away, General.”

The rest of the trip was a blur (quite literally) as Obi-Wan fought and destroyed droids, and the ship heated up, and metal screeched. The fires were coming.

Time was a slow slurry filled with excruciation, yet before Anakin truly realized it they were in an escape pod being pulled in by one of the Venator-class ships nearby, probably the Resolute.

Obi-Wan brushed Anakin’s sweaty and bloody hair back from his forehead.

“I’m sorry it took me so long to get to you,” Obi-Wan said. “Oh, this is all my fault.”

Anakin wanted to reach out for him, but his body decided that that took too much energy, and he simply gave a rough swallow. “It’s not your fault.”

“I’m sure we can get you all patched up.”

“You too.”

Obi-Wan looked at his arm in surprise, as if he’d entirely forgotten that Dooku had gotten a hit or two on him. “Right. We’ll both be okay.”

The escape pod was brought into the hangar aboard the Resolute. Help came.

[busterkeatonfanfic]

Chapter 31 Part I

Buster tried his darnedest to get her a date for the party. He first suggested John Barrymore, apparently forgetting (or not caring) that Barrymore had once been his greatest rival for her affection. Nelly’s opinion of him hadn’t changed since Tempest; hanging onto the arm of a crude drunk all night was not her idea of a good time. She said no. He next suggested Buster Collier. She’d never met him, but he’d been in so many pictures that she knew his face well, though she couldn’t say what the films had been about. Buster Collier had been going with Constance Talmadge until recently. The break-up wasn’t personal; Buster told her the two were still friends.

“Certainly not, then,” said Nelly. “She’ll want to know who I am, how he met me��no. She’ll know something’s fishy.”

The suggestion of Charlie Chaplin followed. She gave more consideration to it. Charlie was charming and easy to talk to. In the end, he was out of the question given the many rumors about his sexual excesses and questionable behavior with women. She didn’t think it was a wise idea and Buster had to agree. The two were friendly but not pals, and he admitted he didn’t know how far to trust Charlie either. In desperation, he floated the idea of his brother, Jingles.

“Are you kidding?” she said. Buster had told her enough about his family that she’d gotten a pretty good picture of Jingles, who lacked his big brother’s confidence in all areas of life and was a hopeless failure with women. “No one will believe that for a second.”

“Well, I’m out of ideas,” said Buster, sounding annoyed on the other end of the phone.

“Let me ask Bradford. He was my dance partner for Tempest. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t go for girls, anyway, so he’d be perfect.”

Nelly didn’t know that her proposition was any better than Buster’s. To his guests, Buster had treated her presence at his party in October as no big curiosity, a matter of course, but she couldn’t help but wonder what he’d say now to them now, what he’d say if Natalie in particular asked why he’d invited two big nobodies like her and Bradford. Natalie might rightfully wonder why they among hundreds of aspiring actors were there. Buster’s quick mind would probably come up with an explanation that passed muster, but Nelly worried. He’d mentioned once, an offhand comment that was far more significant to her than it was him, that Natalie had fits of jealousy over him. Nelly’s instincts told her that attending the party was a bad idea, that she’d be too much temptation to Buster and he’d give their affair away with a look or a word or, worse still, a tender caress. Regardless, she couldn’t refuse even if she’d wanted to. He’d hinted about a birthday surprise and she couldn’t let him down, not to mention she was dying to know what he’d cooked up. Aside from the tabletop phonograph and occasional record, he’d stuck to his promise not to shower her in gifts and she knew he wasn’t about to present her with something in front of his wife and guests.

Uneasiness gnawing, she directed Bradford to the Villa at dusk on Friday night. He was just as keen as she was to break into pictures, so he’d agreed to drive her to the party and be her date without hesitation, especially after she explained she only wanted to go as friends. He’d gotten a minor role in the newest D.W. Griffith, the picture she’d tried out unsuccessfully for, and was happy to tell her about it while they drove, far less stoic than he’d been with her on previous occasions. His chattiness, she guessed, was due to his eagerness to meet and charm as many stars as possible and he was having trouble controlling his excitement. As Bradford recalled how he’d spoken briefly to Griffith on the set earlier in the week, she wondered, as she’d been wondering lately, about her career path in Hollywood. There were murmurs at the United Artists canteen about a Mary Pickford talkie with Sam Taylor directing, not Shakespeare. It gave her mixed feelings. On the one hand, maybe Mr. Taylor had forgotten about directing Pickford and Fairbanks in The Taming of the Shrew. On the other, she’d been relegated to the prop house for Lady of the Pavements, the new Griffith. A niggling fear had begun to creep on her, that her much more mundane talents at management and organization were impeding her career as an actress.

As the long white drive of the Villa became visible in the distance, she asked Bradford the question she’d been dreading, knowing he’d have his own questions in turn. “When we get there, would you pretend like we’re going together?” she said.

“Pretend like we’re going together?” said Bradford.

“Yes,” she said, running her fingers over the thin chain-metal handle of her handbag. “Just, you know, hold my hand or put your arm around my waist while we’re there. Dance with me more than the other fellows. Maybe a kiss on the cheek once and awhile, that kind of stuff.”

“I’ll do it if you really want me to, but why?” he said, sounding mystified.

Nelly weighed whether to tell him the truth and decided she didn’t have a choice. “I’m seeing someone who’s going to be there and I don’t want his wife to get suspicious,” she said, being careful with her words.

Bradford chuckled. “Now I get it. I was wondering why you asked me of all people.”

She felt defensive. “You’re the closest I have to a friend, a friend who’s a fellow. I’ve been too busy to get to know very many people. It’ll be no different than if you were acting.”

“Relax,” he said, leaning over to elbow her in a friendly way. “You think I’d miss this? I don’t care what you want me there for, frankly. I’m at your beck and call.”

Her shoulders relaxed; she hadn’t been aware that she was clenching them. “Thank you,” she said. “I do like you just fine, I just didn’t know who else to invite. You’re the first fellow who came to mind.”

“Relax,” said Bradford again. He continued talking amiably as his Ford crept up the Villa drive. He wanted to know how she knew Buster and she reminded him of her involvement with Steamboat. “When’s that coming out, anyhow?” he said.

“Any day now from what I’m told,” she said, her mind only half on the conversation. Butterflies tickled her abdomen from the inside.

The circle drive with the fountain in the center was ringed with expensive cars, Packards, Rolls Royces, and Lincolns. There was a man leading a woman wrapped in a white fur stole up the steps and into the house. Bradford grinned like a little boy as he drank it all in. He helped her out of the Ford which was dismally out of place, but there was no sense in worrying about it now. She reminded herself that she was an actress and could every bit pretend to be a person who belonged to the ranks of the stars. With this in mind, she ascended the steps with her arm hooked in Bradford’s elbow and let him open the door for her. “Thank you darling,” she said, practicing that acting as he took her arm again. She hoped that the figure dressed in the beaded navy-blue dress and standing beyond the vestibule had heard it. Natalie was greeting the guests ahead of them. Seeing her, Nelly felt a little on the faint side. She’d rented her dress at Carmela’s again, this one $25 and less eye-catching. It was sleeveless and of bright purple damask. It had no beading or ruffles, just modest ruching around the waist. She’d accented it with her own glass amethyst pendant necklace and ivory silk stockings. She had wanted to look less noticeable, but the light in the vestibule made the satin threads in the dress dazzle and flash. She’d done a formidable job of keeping worry about her mistake with Buster at bay the past week, but Natalie’s nearness and realness brought it home. Slim though it was, a chance existed that this woman’s husband had made her pregnant. Before Nelly had time to gather her wits about her on this matter, she and Bradford were advancing to greet Natalie.

“How do you do?” said Natalie, and Nelly and Bradford echoed her.

Bradford answered Natalie’s unspoken question. “We work with Mr. Taylor at United Artists.”

Nelly could only manage a desperate smile as she took in all the flesh-and-blood details of Natalie and remembered how Buster had looked in the mirror as he’d thrust himself into her. She wondered if Natalie recognized her from the party last autumn and was relieved at the sound of the front door opening behind them and the excuse to move on from the hostess so she could greet her next guests.

“Holy mackerel,” Bradford said under his breath, as he led her into the foyer and looked around him.

Nelly took stock of who was at the party already. She saw Norma Shearer, Bebe Daniels, Marion Davies, Pickford and Fairbanks, and before her eyes had gotten any further, Buster. Her heart went at a clip at the sight of him. She’d expected him to be upstairs and make a grand entrance as he’d done at the previous party. He was wearing a smart brown suit and his hair was neatly combed, every errant strand in place. He swirled a glass of whiskey and took a sip, talking with Norma Talmadge and a dark-looking man with Spaniard features. “That must be Gilbert Roland,” she said, mostly to herself.

“Hmm?” said Bradford.

“Norma Talmadge’s boyfriend. She’s married, but everyone knows she’s seeing Gil Roland,” she said, reciting the gossip she’d heard from Buster.

“You’re back,” said someone cheerfully.

She turned and beamed when she recognized Charlie Chaplin. The sight of him reminded her how fun it was to be among the brightest stars in Hollywood and her discomfort about Natalie eased. “Hello again,” she said. She held out her hand to his extended one and he kissed it, his lips soft and cool on the back of her hand. She giggled, thinking she really would have been in trouble if she’d attended the party with him. “This is Bradford. He’s with me at United Artists.”

“Oh, that’s simply heartbreaking. Don’t tell me you’re taken!” said Charlie, his hand going to his heart.

“I’m afraid so,” she said, leaning her head on Bradford’s shoulder briefly to demonstrate. “I’ll still save a dance for you.”

“If you’d be so kind,” he said, his accent rich and irresistible. “But why haven’t I seen you at United Artists?”

Nelly smiled and squeezed Bradford’s arm. “We’re undiscovered I’m afraid, but D.W. Griffith has his eye on Bradford. They spoke just this week. Me they’re keeping locked up in the prop department right now, but just you wait.”

Charlie winked. “Well, we’ll have to do something about that, won’t we? Will you be about next week?”

She could hardly believe it. And she’d been so worried about her career. “Of course.”

“Good. It’s settled. I’ll catch you when the band starts, hmm?” he said. “Lovely to see you.” He pressed her hand and turned away, disappearing into the crowd.

Her head whirled. One minute she was worried about Natalie Talmadge finding her out, the next Charlie Chaplin seemed to be promising her some sort of a future in films. And there was a band!

“Drink?” said a butler she didn’t know, stopping in front of them with a tray on which were arranged a number of delectable-looking drinks, all of oranges, deep reds, and yellowish creams.

“Thank you,” she and Bradford said, choosing drinks after a few moments’ consideration. She went for the cream-colored one.

Another butler materialized with hors d'oeuvres. She plucked up one of the bite-sized trifles and popped it in her mouth. She tasted dill and some kind of fish. Bradford sampled one too before returning to his drink. She didn’t recognize the butler. Buster must have hired help for the party. Bradford wound a hand around her shoulder. “Thanks for all this, darling,” he said. The endearment was scripted for anyone within hearing, but he meant the words.

“You’re welcome,” she said, sipping her drink. It had the flavor of pineapples, a California taste if there ever was one.

Her eyes roamed over the guests again. She recognized Constance Talmadge, Harold Lloyd, Buster Collier, John Gilbert, and Gloria Swanson. There were many men she didn’t know, some of middling looks, some downright unhandsome; those were the directors and big shots. Her gaze flickered to Buster just as he looked over at her. He gave a small, unsmiling nod and returned to his conversation. A mild pang struck her at the coldness of his acknowledgment, but she was relieved that he was being careful. She and Bradford kept to themselves, smiling and responding in kind whenever a guest nodded and said hello. She missed Louise Brooks and wished she had a girl friend to keep her company.

They were on their second drinks when attendees began to nod at each other and move in the direction of the living room. Exchanging looks, Nelly and Bradford followed. The living room, fully decorated when she’d last seen it five days ago, had been denuded of all furniture. Against the loggia on the southwest wall, a full orchestra was arrange in a suite of chairs. The members held instruments of all sizes and shapes, violins, saxophones great and small, trumpets, clarinets, a drum kit, a piano, an upright bass, even a huge tuba sitting somewhat uneasily in one man’s lap. There were at least two dozen men in the band at Nelly’s quick count, dressed alike in black tuxedos and bow ties. With the furniture and grand piano moved out, the living room was more spacious than ever.

“Why, it’s Paul Whiteman’s Orchestra!” Bradford said into her ear, voice hushed. He nudged her and flicked a finger in the direction of a fat man with a round face standing to the right of the orchestra.

Nelly was dazzled. The realization that one of her favorite bands in the room burst through her like a beam of sunshine. She couldn’t find words for her awe, but clutched for Bradford’s hand and squeezed it. The orchestra was burbling in a tuneless way as violinists tested strings and trumpets and saxophones tried out notes. A kind of restlessness pervaded the scene, musicians keen to begin, partygoers eager to dance. This went on for a few minutes until Buster threaded his way through his guests and stood facing the crowd with his back to the band.

“Nate and I want to thank you for coming tonight,” he began. “It’s an honor and a—” He looked over the crowd for a few moments as though he were thinking about what to say next. “An honor, a pleasure … you know, that kind of stuff. Anyway, I’d like you to give a hand for this gentleman and his little band here. They’re not very well-known, but if you’ll just, uh, pretend a little I’m sure it’ll make them very happy.” He straightened his tie, took one step forward, and fell on his face. There was laughter. As Buster stood up and brushed himself off, Paul Whiteman took his place. He was even less a man of words than Buster, saying only to the guests, “Thank you very much for having us tonight.” He walked to the left of the musicians and addressed them. “Gentleman …”

Two men assembled at the front of the orchestra near the upright piano. Nelly wondered for a second how they transported it from gig to gig, but forgot the question when Whiteman lifted his baton, held it in the air, and dropped it. The two men and the one at the piano began scatting a capella.

Wot-dot-dot, doh-dot, dot-dot-doh

Wot-dot-dot-dot, dot-dot-doh …

The man at the piano laid his hands on the keys just as one of the singers started in a smooth baritone, “You’ve heard of the Charleston, the Black Bottom.”

“I’ve got a rhythm that’s really got ‘em,” chimed the other singer. “It must be something new.”

“Gonna start it for you,” sang the man at the piano. It goes like, One, there it is.

His companions joined him:

One-two, there it is,

One-two-three, can’t you see where the merit is?

One-two-three-four, everywhere it is,

One-two-three-four, five steps!

At this, the snare sounded a beat and the whole orchestra burst into voice. Bradford grabbed Nelly’s hand and waist and swung her into motion. She yelped with delight. The rhythm was too fast for her to think about whether her feet were doing five steps; she just clung to Bradford and tried to keep up with the foxtrot he was leading her in. Over his shoulder, she could see that all the other dancers were smiling, Marion Davies dancing with Charlie Chaplin, Gloria Swanson paired with John Barrymore. She felt a sudden, uncanny sense of belonging as she and Bradford galloped along. A clarinet soloed, followed by a violin in a high, reedy voice like a grasshopper.

One, there it is,

One-two, there it is,

One-two-three, can’t you see where the merit is?

One-two-three-four, everywhere it is,

One-two-three-four, five steps!

One, got to learn,

One-two, got to learn,

One-two-three, there is not such a lot to learn,

One-two-three-four, aren’t you hot to learn?

One-two-three-four, five steps!

As the singers carried on, it was all Nelly could do to keep her rhythm and her breath. She was panting and laughing when the final note sounded. She and Bradford withdrew from the dancers to get a drink of punch from the bowl on the table in the foyer. As soon as their thirst was quenched, though, she took Bradford’s hand and hurried back into the room. She wasn’t going to miss a moment of the Paul Whiteman Orchestra’s set if she could help it.

The orchestra had begun a sweet, wistful melody led by trumpets. She recognized it at once as “Mary,” one of her favorites. Rather than dancing, she stood on the edge of the crowd with Bradford and watched. The trumpets piped and her heart was overfull as she soaked in the music and her surroundings with all of her might. Dancers kicked up their heels in a slower foxtrot as the full orchestra echoed the trumpets’ melody. She could have watched all the beautiful stars before her in their tuxes and brightly colored dresses, but she had eyes only for the orchestra and Whiteman’s graceful conducting. It was a marvel the way he brought different sections of the band to life with just a flick of his baton.

One of the singers stepped forward as a violin finished off the melody. He was perhaps a little taller than Buster, but slightly husky, with ears that stuck out and eyes as blue as a spring sky.

What are you waitin’ for,

What are you waitin’ for, Ma-ary?

What are you thinkin’ ‘bout,

Who are you thinkin’ ‘bout, Mary?

The bees are buzzin’,

They’re buzzin’ right in my ear,

And they keep on asking,

Hey, what’s the big idea?

He was the one with the smooth baritone like poured honey. All his notes flowed together without a single hitch. She recognized his voice from many of Whiteman’s records.

“He’s incredible,” she said, standing on tiptoes to whisper it in Bradford’s ear. He nodded in return.

Why do you lead me on,

Why do you be so con-trary?

You wouldn’t let my castles

Come tum-tum-tumblin’ down

Think of the things in store,

What are you waitin’ for, Ma-ary?

The violins concluded the melody and the brass took it up again. Her senses were filled with trumpets and the snare, then the orchestra singing as one voice.

She didn’t notice how spellbound she’d become until applause startled her back to reality. She clapped along with everyone else and the singer gave a bow and a modest smile. Bradford was bending to say something about the music when Nelly felt the cloth of a suit on the bare skin of her left shoulder. She turned to see Buster. He looked ahead, nonchalant, and her heart gave a fond trot.

“How d’ya like your birthday present?” he said quietly, still looking ahead.

“Oh, don’t kid me.” Even as she said it though, she knew in her heart of hearts that he wasn’t joking. The band was for her.

Still not looking at her, he gave the slightest of smiles. “Pretty good joke, huh?”

Her eyes welled. “I don’t know whether to kiss or kill you. You’re out of your mind and I don’t know how I’ll ever begin to thank you.” When she looked at him again, he was finally looking back, his brown eyes so affectionate she was in danger of throwing her arms around him in front of all of Hollywood, including his wife.

“Who’s your boyfriend?” he said, but his tone was curious, not suspicious.

She wiped the trace of tears from her eyes and turned to Bradford, who by then had noticed their conversation. “This is Bradford,” she said, laying a hand on his upper arm. “Bradford, this is Buster.”

“How d’you do, Mr. Keaton?” said Bradford, extending a hand. He glanced from Buster to her as they shook hands and she saw him connect the dots. Her insides went hot and cold. In hindsight, her casual introduction of Buster was a dead giveaway.

“Where’s Louise?” she said, moving on and trying not to punish herself for her mistake.

“Brooks? Or my sister? Sis is here somewhere. Probably trying to corner Ramon Novarro by the punch bowl.” He removed his cigarettes from his breast pocket and pulled one out. “Brooks, you know the score. Wife thinks there’s some funny business going on between us and if I invite her to another party I’m dead meat.”

Trying to be friendly or playing an angle, Bradford butted in. “How’s your new picture, Mr. Keaton?”

“Buster,” he said, taking a drag off the cigarette. “Going alright I guess. Can’t complain. You in pictures?”

Bradford chattered away about D.W. Griffith and Nelly looked around them briefly to see if anyone was paying attention to their interaction. None of the Talmadges were near. She spotted Natalie and Norma chatting with Douglas Fairbanks across the room. Constance was standing nearer and speaking to a man Nelly didn’t recognize, but her back was turned to them.

“Wanna dance?” said Buster, fingers curving into her elbow.

She gave an anxious glance at Bradford, worried about him overhearing, but remembered he already knew. She said in an undertone, “I don’t think we ought to. Not for a few more songs at least. You should dance with a couple other girls first.”

Buster squeezed the crook of her arm and dropped his hand. “Alright, if you say so. I’ll be back.”

Half an hour later, he had taken her advice. The band had played “I’m Coming Virginia,” “Mississippi Mud,” and “Grandma.” Her next two dances had gone to Bradford and she’d sat “Grandma” out. Buster had danced with Constance Talmadge, Bebe Daniels, and Marion Davies. The crowd of guests had gotten louder as more cocktails circulated. Nelly had accepted a third drink, but was tempering herself and had taken only a sip. The blue-eyed singer stepped forward and commanded the crowd’s attention.

“We just added this one to the repertoire. It’s from a musical they’ve got in New York right now called Present Arms. Harry and Al and me, we’ll introduce you to it,” he said in a smooth, affable voice. He smiled, showing white, even teeth and snapped his fingers at the orchestra to cue them, eyes on the audience.

She was so focused on him that she was startled when someone seized the drink from her hand. Buster walked away from her and set her drink on a side table on the periphery of the room. “Come on kid, I’ve waited long enough,” he said, setting his hand on her waist when he returned. The orchestra was in full swing, the brass section taking up a melody that the strings underscored and singing out cheerfully. A clarinet butted in every several measures, rich and mellow. Nelly had danced with Buster a dozen times in her apartment and his bungalow, but as he folded her hand into his, she remembered just their first dance at the party in October. She’d been spooked then about her changing feelings for him and nervous lest Natalie think something was afoot. Now that they were really having an affair, the dread and nervousness were like a thousand pin-pricks to her skin. She was sure it must be obvious that Buster and she were more than simply acquaintances.

Buster led her in a medium-tempo foxtrot, his eyes cast upward, as though dancing with her among all the other women was no big deal. Only his thumb massaging her palm gave him away. He smelled like aftershave and cigarettes. She tried to pay attention to the dance, the rhythm of her hips and her feet and not the sensation that every person in the room was staring at them and wondering about the girl Buster was dancing with.

He leaned in, his cheek almost resting against hers. “Loosen up,” he said in her ear.

She put her mouth by his ear in turn. “I feel like everyone’s watching us.”

He gave a calm, closed-lipped smile. “Everyone’s too busy getting ossified and cutting a rug to pay us any, baby.”

“I still don’t feel—”

“Hush,” he said. “Just enjoy yourself.”

The brassy trumpet and an oboe bantered for a while before the full orchestra cut back in.

I’m a sentimental sap that’s all

What’s the use of trying not to fall?

I have no will

Aw, you made your kill

‘Cause you took advantage of me

It was the blue-eyed singer again. In the background, the two others crooned softly. Nelly closed her eyes for a beat and watched herself as Natalie might, were she able to peer inside Nelly’s head. Buster. The Villa. The Paul Whiteman Orchestra.

I’m just like an apple on a bough

And you’re gonna shake me down somehow

So what’s the use?

You cooked my goose

‘Cause you took advantage of me

Her purple dress. A room full of stars.

I’m so hot and bothered that I don’t know

My elbow from my ear

Suffer something awful each time you go,

Much worse when you’re near

Playing billiards in Buster’s game room. Buster enclosing her in his arms on his bed.

Here I am with all my bridges burned

Just a babe in arms where you’re concerned

Buster’s lips and tongue and fingers and hands. His prick.

So lock the door and call me yours

‘Cause you took advantage of me

The shower. The down blanket and the stars sparkling over Beverly Hills. Buster’s body warm against hers.

The brass section sang out again, boisterous, confident, the strings wrapping its melody. Nelly moved her feet, scarcely conscious of the dance. Her head was still planted in the clouds when it ended and Buster’s hands let go. She couldn’t help glance around her, wondering who’d been watching. To her relief, the one person who caught her eye was Bradford, who had just let go of Marion Davies. He kissed Marion’s hand and said something in her ear that made her laugh, then walked back over to Nelly.

“Don’t make me jealous now,” he said, kissing her cheek.

“Look who’s talking!” she said, giving him the smile and all the weight of feeling she would have to Buster had she been able.

“Don’t forget your Orange Blossom,” said Buster, pressing it back in her hand. “I’ll be back for you in a little bit.” He turned away and she saw him catch John Gilbert by the arm and demand something that made Gilbert roar with laughter.

“How’d you enjoy your dance with Miss Davies?” said Nelly to Bradford.

“Oh, I expect I’ll be playing the lead in her next picture,” Bradford said, winking to show that his boast wasn’t serious. “How was your dance with Mr. Keaton?”

“He dances well,” she said, playing along.

A cool hand on her arm made her turn. Nelly blanched when she saw who it was.

“Have we met?” said the blonde woman, her smile warm.

“I don’t believe so. You’re Constance Talmadge.”

Constance smiled. She had a small, prim mouth outlined in a rose-colored lipstick. Her hair was waved and golden, her throat sparkling with a sapphire and diamond choker.

One of the singers was singing, “Baby face, you’ve got the cutest little baby face …”

“That’s right. And you?” said Constance.

Nelly reminded herself that she could act with the best of them. She put a hand on Bradford’s back. “Bradford and I work with Mr. Taylor at United Artists.”

“I’m in the new D.W. Griffith,” Bradford offered.

“Oh, that’s fine,” said Constance, sounding interested. “What’s your role?”

Bradford smiled. “Well I’m just an extra at the moment, but Mr. Griffith said Thursday he’s going to fit me into more scenes. He found out I can play piano and thinks he can use me for a bigger role.”

“I loved you in Breakfast at Sunrise,” Nelly said to her. “It’s such an honor to meet you.”

“Why thank you.” Constance was as friendly as could be, but there was something about her appearance that made Nelly uneasy. “Is this your first time at one of Bus and Nate’s ‘dos?” she asked.

Nelly put on her best casual smile. “My second. I was here last fall.” She didn’t offer to explain how she knew Buster and hoped that Constance wouldn’t inquire. Distantly, she heard the orchestra and saw the bodies around them moving in time to the music.

“Oh, then you’re old hat. Have you tried the crab croquettes?”

Nelly said that she hadn’t. She was wondering where the conversation would go next when Bradford broke in. “Miss Talmadge,” he said, his voice brimming with charm. “Would it be too forward to ask you to dance?”

Constance smiled. Nelly could tell she was genuinely charmed. “Even if it was, I’ll say yes.”

“Wonderful.” He palmed her waist which was clothed in blue silk and chiffon. Glancing at Nelly as he took Constance’s small, white hand in his, he said, “Sorry, darling. Don’t be jealous.”

Nelly could have kissed him. With only one thought in mind, she elbowed her way out of the crowd and to one of the butlers, she helped herself to a minty green drink from his tray. She tossed it back, grabbed an Orange Blossom, and gulped that too. To his credit, the butler was too well-bred to react. She would have explained to him if she could that she wouldn’t be able to enjoy another second of the party without being drunk. The encounter with Constance had brought her jitters to a fever pitch. Nodding her thanks to the butler, she took another Orange Blossom in hand and went to track down the washroom.

The blue-eyed singer’s baritone followed her down the hall.

Birds are singing merrily

The sun is shining peacefully

Because my baby don’t mean maybe now

She locked the door behind her and set the drink on the edge of the sink as she relieved herself. Her make-up needed no touching up, and her cheeks were flushed with drink. Buster had engaged the Paul Whiteman Orchestra as a birthday gift to her and she was going to relax if it was the last thing she did. Technically it wasn’t her birthday for a few more hours, but even if they didn’t know it, everyone out there was dancing in honor of Nelly Foster’s twenty-seventh year on earth. She exited the washroom feeling more secure with this thought. Bradford was playing his part perfectly. The Talmadges didn’t suspect anything. It was okay if she loosened up as Buster had urged her to do.

[falseroar]

Is This Your Card? Part 16: Alone with the Seer

((The table quickly turns on the District Attorney, but Celine proposes an idea, a way that the attorney could help her discover what’s really going on in this house. Despite some objections from the others, Y/N decides to take her up on her offer if it means possibly getting to the truth.

(This part contains a couple of references to Silent Watch, and changes up the relationship between the DA and the Seer from canon.)

Here’s a link to the masterlist for the whole au and to the most recent part.))

“Mirror, mirror, on the wall

Watch as I betray them all”

The words on the card had an immediate effect on the table, and feebly you said, “I don’t…This isn’t—”

“Isn’t what?” Celine asked when you hesitated, and you swore you could hear the taunt in her voice.

But you couldn’t answer her, couldn’t just admit that your card was the bloodstained one lying in the middle of the table, the word “werewolf” an accusation and condemnation all in one.

“You’ve been awfully quiet this whole time, Y/N,” Celine pressed further, and you could feel the energy ripple around the table, the accusing stares that you met one by one as the others piled on.

“With those beady little eyes,” Chef said, his gaze going to your bruised eye in particular.

“And wearing those rags?” Benjamin scoffed, leaving you to fight the urge to look down at your wrinkled and disheveled clothes from last night’s party.

Your gaze went to Abe next, saw his eyes flicker over you before he said, “Maybe I shouldn’t have trusted someone so god damn gorgeous.”

Wait, what?

In between you and him, the Colonel seemed to realize that it was his turn to speak up, but he only waved a hand and said, “I’ll pass.”

On your other side, Damien remained silent and tense, his eyes on the card in front of you. You couldn’t be sure what was going through his mind, whether he would have spoken up for you if he knew a way to do so without causing more trouble—or if his sister wasn’t here.

“This card doesn’t mean anything,” you said. “It sounds more like a taunt than an accusation, doesn’t it?”

“…True,” Celine said, surprising you. “It’s as though someone singled you out, to observe what’s happened here this weekend. As I suggested earlier, I believe this is just one part of a bigger story, and I sense that you have a far greater role to play in all of this. I trust you can help me find an answer, Y/N. Will you help me?”

“…I want to know what happened to Mark, the same as everyone else at this table,” you answered, and she smiled.

“Perfect. Come with me.”

“Alright, that’s enough,” Abe said, before she could rise from her chair. “How exactly do you expect them to ‘help’ you?”

“There are ways to find the answers we seek. I am a practiced seer, and with that comes experience with the arcane arts. Believe me when I say that I have seen things that you could not possibly begin to understand,” Celine said, drawing herself up to her full height to better glare down at him.

“Try me,” Abe muttered under his breath, before raising his voice again as he stood. “So what, you’re going to drag my partner off to do some ritual that will most likely lead to their death?”

“No one said anything about dying,” you said, ignoring the way the butler and the chef both looked at the “Death” card lying right in front of you.

“This isn’t up for debate, partner,” Abe said without looking at you, his eyes still locked on Celine.

Partner. Abe’s second card was just barely visible underneath his “Hermit” card, but you didn’t have to see it to remember the long list of names typed on it.

Before you could think of anything reassuring to say to him in front of everyone else, the Colonel stood as well, both hands flat on the table.

“Well, I trust Celine with all my heart! I don’t see any reason why anyone should doubt her!”

While Abe and the Colonel glared at each other, Benjamin raised a finger and said, “Well, I have to agree with our hunter. This just doesn’t seem natural.”

“Yeah, like any of this is ‘natural,’” Chef countered. “We might be dealing with a werewolf, have you all forgotten that?”

You wished you could forget, same as you wished half the table wouldn’t look at you when he said it.

“If it makes you feel better, you guys can stand watch outside the door,” Celine said. “But my work cannot be interrupted.”

“Oh, believe you me, I’ll be keeping a close eye on every single one of you.” Abe stared around the table. “Doesn’t matter how natural or not all of this is, I’m sure I’ve dealt with worse.”

That apparently settled, Celine gestured for you to follow her and walked out of the room, but you weren’t the only one to rise from the table.

Damien, who had been silent this entire time, passed you at the door frame and caught up to Celine at the foot of the stairs with a cry of, “Celine, wait!”

“Yes, Damien?” Celine asked curtly, her tone suggesting that she only stopped because her twin brother had blocked the way up the stairs.

“Are you alright? I know this news can’t be settling well with you.”

Celine brushed past him, her voice empty of emotion as she said, “I’m fine for now.”

You and Damien locked eyes, briefly.

Celine had been Mark’s wife, up until the fallout earlier this year. You didn’t know the details, you doubted anyone outside of the couple and perhaps Damien did. Even the tabloids had failed to pick up anything beyond baseless rumors and swirling gossip as Mark retreated away from the world at the same time. You’d barely seen him after the divorce.

Of course, you had barely seen him before the divorce, too.

Leaving it up to Damien to chase after Celine and try again, saying as he went up the stairs, “But all of this talk of the occult, I thought you had—”

“Given it up after I married Mark?” Celine answered as she paused at the top of the stairs.

“Well, yes,” Damien said. “I just thought…you wouldn’t become wrapped up in all of this. We don’t know what’s going on here, Celine, someone sent those cards, they knew us and they mur—Mark is dead.”

“There’s more to this world than you could ever hope to imagine. I just had my eyes opened to a small portion of it, and I can’t just close them now, little brother,” Celine said. “Especially not now, when it could help us find out who killed Mark.”

She turned and continued on down the hall without waiting for a response, and after a moment to sigh and run his hand through his hair, Damien called after her, “Just be careful!”

You reached the top of the stairs and glanced at Damien, who failed to meet your eyes. You could have asked him why his sister would be here, or if he knew why Mark’s card said what it did. You could have asked him why he had said nothing at the table, when everyone else turned against you.

But you didn’t ask, and he didn’t offer any answers.

Instead, he just added softly, “You too.”

Like you would follow Celine into yet another small room that you had never seen before or shut the door behind you if you were trying to be careful.

“It has been a while, hasn’t it, Y/N?” Celine asked as she opened a black leather bag and began placing a series of items on top of the small table in between you, starting with a tattered, square piece of fabric whose corners hung down over the side of the table. “Since we had a chance to talk alone like this.”

“Couldn’t have anything to do with what you said you would do if I ever set foot in this house again, would it?” you asked. “Something about a fur rug, wasn’t it?”

Celine gave a fond smile at the memory as she lit the last of several candles, which did little to break the darkness in the room. The flickering flames caught her eyes and sent a shadow over her face as she said, “Well, it certainly didn’t stop you, now did it?”

“I didn’t think you’d care, all things considered. Why should it bother you who your ex-husband chooses to invite to some party?” You crossed your arms and sat back in your chair, fighting to appear calm and collected even though every hair on your body felt as though it were standing on its end.

“What bothers me is that I warned you, I warned you something like this would happen when I told you to stay away from Mark and my brother,” Celine said, her voice rising slightly before she regained control of herself. “And you didn’t listen to me.”

There were more items on the table now, besides the candles. A large crystal ball, several strange, wooden shapes covered in markings you couldn’t understand, a couple of dark, pitted stones that seemed to absorb the light from the candles. And, clenched tight in her right hand, a silver amulet.

“I had nothing to do with Mark’s death—”

“Oh, and it’s just a coincidence that he had your cards on him, just before he took a silver bullet to the chest?” Celine asked. “I knew, as soon as I saw you for what you were, that you would mean nothing but pain and ruin for Mark and Damien if I didn’t—”

“What does Damien have to do with this?” you interrupted, your own hands clenched tight to fight back the urge to change, to get out of this room.

“What do you think would have happened, if someone had found that werewolf card on you? If your little secret left this house?” Celine asked, her voice lowered and trembling. “The district attorney, friend to Mark Iplier and the mayor himself, revealed to all the world to be a werewolf. And suddenly everyone’s wondering how much they knew, if Damien was simply ignorant of the true nature of the monster he backed and helped put into office, or if he knew. Everything he worked so hard for, ruined in a single weekend because he just wouldn’t listen to me.”

“You told him to stay away from me, too,” you said. It wasn’t a surprise, just another confirmation of how much the Seer hated you.

“For all the good it did,” Celine muttered. “Instead, he just went and offered to hide you away in his own home every full moon. Like keeping you safe was the problem here.”

“…What about Mark?” you asked. “Did you ever…?”

“Tell him you were a werewolf?” Celine laughed without a trace of humor. “No, it never came up. His work kept him busy enough that he didn’t have time for anyone else, so that was never a problem.”

Was that a trace of bitterness in her voice? Or maybe you just imagined it.

Your eyes ran over her fingers again, noting that there wasn’t even a line to mark her missing wedding ring anymore.

“Why are you here, Celine?”

Celine paused and then sighed, her breath nearly extinguishing one of the candles closest to her before she opened her eyes again and met your stare.

“I couldn’t shake the feeling I had about this party, ever since I heard about it. I felt, I knew that something terrible would happen this weekend, I tried to warn...But it happened anyways, and I don’t think it’s stopped happening, not yet.” She ran her hand over the two cards in front of her, and with a start you recognized the bloodstained cards Abe had placed on the table earlier. “You can feel it, can’t you? There is something at work here, a presence that…that reminds me of you.”

“What?”

She pointed at your chest with the hand still holding the silver amulet and said, “That curse that clings to you, it reeks of the same darkness that lurks in these walls. It’s how I knew there was something wrong with you, the moment I met you.”

You reached up and gripped your shirt, remembering that night in the woods. Those solid black eyes that had taken your friend, the silver touch that left you reeling until the moonlight changed your life forever. The night you learned that there were things out there, entities that would do anything to enter this world, cruel beings that didn’t care who they hurt along the way to whatever goal they set their sight on.

There was something that clung to the air of this house, that pressed down at every moment, leaving you with the itch in the back of your spine that screamed it wasn’t safe, that left you feeling so close to changing at every moment. If there was even a chance that Celine was right, that there could be something like that in this house…

“What do you think we could do?” you asked. “To stop it?”

Celine tapped the crystal ball with her finger and said, “To start with, we need to know what we’re dealing with. I believe that your curse means that you already have a connection with things not of our world—”

She cut you off before you could protest and continued, “Whether we like it or not, you’re the best option we have right now. I’ll do what I can to help, but I need you to concentrate and tell me what you see.”

She waited until you reluctantly nodded and then spread her hands out over the cards, the silver amulet still tucked between two fingers as she closed her eyes. Her lips moved, but you couldn’t hear any words, only feel the darkness begin to gather in the corners of the room, threatening to snuff out the light of the candles, whose sputtering flames illuminated the swirling mists within the crystal ball at the center of the table.

You found your eyes drawn to the crystal ball, to the images that flickered within the mists inside echoed by the shifting shadows in the corners of your eyes.

The images grew stronger the longer you looked, until it was like you were there again, standing in the foyer looking up the stairs as Mark spoke to the small gathering with his drink in hand.

“—surrounded by such close and trusted friends—”

His eyes met yours, his words twisted and broken by the memory of his body on the floor until you wondered if they had always sounded so hollow and bitter.

“I locked the door to your room once I was sure you were safe and sound in bed,” Damien’s voice said in your head, contradicting the image in your mind of reaching the open bedroom door just as the butler rounded the corner, tray in hand.

The next image that floated up was Damien and Abe arguing in your bedroom, their voices muffled and distant. You watched in confusion, wondering when this happened until Abe’s voice swam into focus and you heard him say, “—have a little voice in the back of your head that whispers every time you’re around the attorney that maybe today’s the day they—”

His words drifted back into the muffled haze that surrounded you, leaving only another layer to the sick and twisted ache in the center of your chest and you shut your eyes, not wanting to see the words on his lips or Damien’s response.

You stepped back and found yourself looking down at the Colonel, seated on the bench outside with his eyes hidden behind his glasses, his smile wistful as he said, “I guess we both needed someone to keep us this side of sane. I had hoped she would help me—”

You saw the Chef, knife in hand as he spoke of his failed restaurant, heard Benjamin’s lament about a partner who betrayed him, too many voices swirling together until, suddenly, you found yourself standing outside again, this time in darkness.

You could hear a voice, muffled and going in and out too much to make out any individual words, only the rise and fall of the speech of a man you had never seen before, leaning on a shovel as he spoke to you and Abe and the Chef, his eyes alight with urgency. Something important, something…

You blinked, the room returning to focus as you whispered, “The gardener.”

“The what?” Celine asked, her biting voice cutting through the mist that still seemed to fill your head. “Did you see something? Someone? Tell me!”

“The gardener, he’s seen this before,” you said softly, dreamily as though you were still half-asleep, but you felt certain you were right about this. The gardener would know what to do.

Celine, on the other hand, only seemed to grow angrier at the sound of your words, like you hadn’t given her the answer she was looking for. “Is that it?! No, you need to go back, there has to be more—”

It must have been the remaining haze in your mind, that made you ignore the obvious presence in the room growing stronger with her every word, how the darkness in the corners had left the flames of the candles like pale echoes of any real light, that made you think now was an okay time to ask your next question.

“The Colonel’s Lovers card. Who else knew you two were having an affair, besides Mark?”

There was only a moment, barely a second to register the surprise on the seer’s face, before it quickly turned to rage.

((End of Part 16. In Celine’s defense, she genuinely wants to do what she believes is best for the people in her life. The DA just...doesn’t line up with her idea of “what’s best” though.

Link to Part 17: The Groundskeeper.

Tagging: @silver-owl413 @skyewardlight @withjust-a-bite @blackaquokat @catgirlwarrior @neverisadork @luna1350 @oh-so-creepy @weirdfoxalley @95fangirl @lilalovesinternet-l @thepoolofthedead @a-bit-dapper @randomartdudette @geekymushroom @cactipresident @hotcocoachia @purple-anxiety-blog @shyinspiredartist @avispate @missksketch))

[treatian]

The Chronicles of the Dark One:  Breaking the Curse

Chapter 10: Unexpected Wrongs

Given the circumstances, the last person he expected to hear calling out "hello" in his shop was David Nolan.

It had been well over a week since his little chat with Dove, and since that moment, the bird had been a wealth of information. He'd informed him that David's physical therapy had been complete, and he was due to return home yesterday. This information was apparently quite easy to obtain as there was a "welcome home" party planned for David with nearly everyone in town who meant something involved. But Dove had gone above and beyond to provide him with proper information. He'd wandered into the party on his own. It wasn't difficult, he'd told him in a message. With so many people coming and going and with the guest of honor having no memories of who was and wasn't a friend, no one seemed to notice Dove when he crashed it. Emma Swan and her son were attending. It seemed he'd learned his lesson as he admitted that going allowed him to keep an eye on Emma at the same time he did David.

But it was the oddest thing, he'd told him later that night. He hadn't seen David at the party. Not at all. By all accounts, he'd certainly been there at one point, but he'd left by the time that Dove had arrived. Where to? No one seemed to know. He hadn't returned, and his wife, Kathryn, appeared to have not made much of the sudden disappearance. Throughout the day today, the reason why seemed to be obvious. Word on the street was that David had left his wife. Rumors seemed to swirl as they always did in this small town. Some people said that without his memories, he was having a difficult time adjusting and had left her, spent the night at Granny's. Others said that he was only pretending not to remember because he always had wanted to leave Kathryn. There was even one that stated that he had been seen with none other than Mary Margaret throughout last night and today. That particular rumor was his favorite. But with no evidence to back it up, he had no reason to believe it was any more believable than the other rumors.

He went about his day as he normally would, as Mr. Gold normally would, getting messages from Dove about Emma and questioning him on David when he could. It was evening, close to closing time when he heard his shop door open and close, and to his shock, the voice of one David the Shepherd turned False Prince James turned David Nolan call out "hello." He felt his heart jump. David was here. In his shop. Again. Of course, if he did his job right all those years ago, he shouldn't remember that last part, at least not right now. He shouldn't be able to remember the way he'd stormed in here years earlier demanding his daughter. He shouldn't remember stealing his own sword or waking him up after the first time. But of course, if Regina had done her job right, he also shouldn't be completely without memories.

He didn't know what he thought of all that. He had his own theories surrounding David's lack of memories, theories just like everyone else seemed to have; some of them thought he was faking, but he didn't believe it for a second. He was convinced it was part of the Curse breaking, Regina's mistake, or simply a fluke. He had theories galore but no way to prove any of them. He should have had something. So, who had done their job wrong? It was his first interaction with him for well over a decade. He was curious. He was curious about a number of things, and he wondered if it was possible to discern anything for himself.

"Hello?" he heard the False Prince call out again. The sound of it made him sigh in relief. The real David wouldn't have been so polite with him as to call out gently or even wait in the front. He'd done his job right. Regina…he didn't know what David's lack of memories meant. He also didn't know what would drive the Savior's father in here, to begin with. With that in mind, he palmed his cane and shuffled out to the front of his shop.

David didn't notice him enter. He was too busy noticing something else. The tiny glass unicorn mobile. He was staring at it as though mesmerized. It unsettled him. If he didn't know any better, he'd think that he recognized it from somewhere. Interesting. As David reached his hand out to touch it, he took a deep breath and held his ground, prepared to find out once and for all what he knew.

"Charming," he called.

David pulled his hand away and glanced over at him.

For a second, his breath hitched as he looked into his eyes to see if the look he saw was a response to his name. But closer examination proved there was genuine confusion in his eyes at the word.

"I'm sorry?" Charming…the word meant nothing to him. Which meant he returned to his original conclusion. He didn't remember the first time they'd met.

"The mobile. Isn't it charming?" he explained, using Mr. Gold's salesmanship to cover the test. "Exquisitely designed, masterly crafted… I can get it down, if you like."

"No, no. I mean, it's…it's very nice," he explained, coming over to him with a face of complete innocence. He didn't bother trying to feign being hurt. He'd known from the beginning, whether it was Prince Charming or David, that he didn't want to buy anything. "But actually, I'm looking for the Toll Bridge. The Mayor said there was a fork in the road by your shop, but-"

"It seems Miss Mills has led you astray." The question was why. Where was he going? Did she know something he didn't? He had Dove watching Emma; perhaps he needed to get one of his cousins to keep an eye on David.

"Yeah, yeah, you would think the Mayor would know her own town."

He smirked. What Regina didn't know about this place and how they'd all gotten here…he could fill entire volumes of books with that information. "One would think…out of the door, turn right, two blocks you'll find a trail. Can't miss it."

David smiled. "Thank you!" Without uttering a good-bye, David turned, but he hadn't made it to the door before something had stopped him in his tracks, caught him off guard. He swallowed as he followed David's gaze. The windmill. He was looking at an old wooden windmill. He was staring at it. Intently.

"See something you like?"

David took a step closer to it. "Where did you get that?"

"That old thing?" he managed to ask quietly, even if his heart was thudding wildly in his chest. "That's been gathering dust for…forever." Or just the last twenty-eight years. It was one of those things he'd acquired in the Curse, something that Mr. Gold had memories of purchasing, but he knew the memory was false. That wasn't a big deal. Most of the items in this shop had that kind of history. What was making him nervous, however, was the memory that went with that particular item.

David took another step forward and spun the windmill around, watching the blades of the fan turn and turn, nearly as mesmerized with it as he had been with the mobile. "I think…this belonged to me."

"Really?" he swallowed. "Are you sure?"

"Yes…I remember."

Fuck.

He'd seen so much good since Emma Swan arrived, so many promising signs that the Curse was breaking and all was going the way he planned. And then, right before his eyes, it had happened. A step in the wrong direction. A less than promising development. The windmill David had spotted, he knew its history. It's false history, of course. But David hadn't known it. He shouldn't have known it. And yet, something about that windmill caught his attention. It drew him forward it urged him to reach out his hand and twirl the old wooden blades around, staring at it like it was some sort of hypnotist's tool. A part of him had been tempted to interrupt, had recognized he was getting somewhere, and distract him before anything could come of it.

But before he could put a stop to it, David declared, "After I bought our house, I hated this windmill, my wife sold it to you…Kathryn." David had turned to face him then, his eyes round and filled with tears but not tears of joy. They were tears of regret. "I'm right, aren't I?" he asked almost sadly.

Sadly…where exactly had he been going tonight? He had his suspicions. And if those suspicions were correct, he would much rather have told him that he was wrong. But that was dangerous. Regina was close to this situation, befriending Kathryn, encouraging David in the wrong direction, he could lie, and it would be all too easy to trace it back to him, and then what? He'd have no reason for doing it other than wanting David to continue spending time with Mary Margaret, and everyone knew that Mr. Gold did not goad on relationships. Lying was too risky. Which meant…

Fuck.

He grit his teeth together as he went to the place he kept his inventory cards. After looking through them for a moment, he pulled one out, but it was just for show. The card he'd pulled out was actually for a diamond ring. He didn't need to read the one that belonged to that windmill to know it was true. His false memories told him all he needed to know.

"Amish made wooden windmill, late twentieth century, weathered but otherwise good condition. Recommend repainting. Purchase cost fifty dollars store credit, estimated value once repaired, eighty dollars. Original seller…Kathryn Nolan."

David swallowed, his throat bobbed with obvious emotion. Which emotion and why, he wondered. "It's true," he sighed, looking back at the windmill. "Ah…" after a few seconds, David reached up to wipe at his eyes. Now there was no denying that he was crying.

Fuck.

"Toll bridge is two blocks and to the right, you said…there's a path?"

"Can't miss it," he confirmed. And just like that, David Nolan left his shop, turned right just outside the door, and walked away. He slammed his hand down onto the glass case in front of him, anger ripping through him, urging him to hit something, destroy, break, smash. But again, he resisted. He'd only just barely finished having his back door repaired, and this time there would be no way to explain that kind of reaction or the damage from it. All he could do was brace himself, finish his work, go home…and do a lot of internal cursing.

Fuck!

[mmand0]

Rise of the Fallen: Cal Kestis x Reader Fanfic

Ch. 2: Aboard the Mantis

As you and Cal made your way to the Mantis, you pull him into an empty dark alleyway. "What the hell do you think you're doing carrying that thing around?" you hissed as you clenched his poncho tightly. "You could have gotten yourself killed!" You sighed and let him go. "Look. If this ship is badly damaged, you need to hide that, or else we're both dead. Got that?"

"Yeah, got it, sorry. Glad to know you weren't trying to kill me at least..." He chuckled, straightening his poncho. "We're almost to the Mantis."

A group of bounty hunters walked by loudly talking about a rumor of a force-sensitive human that has been elusively traveling the galaxy. Your heart begins to pound and your stomach churns. The three of you wait until they were out of earshot, then proceed to your destination. "Force-sensitive human?" Cal asked, looking at BD. "What's that all about?" BD made a series of beeping noises, indicating its confusion. You remained silent, attempting to keep a calm demeanor. "Do you know anything, Y/N?"

You shrugged. "Not really. It's a vague report, and there's always rumors like that being passed around in the cantina." Cal glances at you suspiciously, then at BD. You can feel his suspicious stare, but continue to walk calmly. "Look, kid, if you've got somethin' to say, say it. Unless you're just admiring my good looks, then proceed." You chuckled as the three of you approached the ship.

Cal blushed and cleared his throat. "I- well, I didn't mean to-"

You stopped and turned to face him. "Just teasing you, kid. You're not bad to look at yourself," you winked before walking to the front left side of The Mantis. Cal was frozen for a moment, unsure of how to take the compliment. BD climbed on his shoulder and beeped at him, breaking the spell.

"Jeez. We can take down any enemy, but can't take a compliment?"

"Boo-Beep!"

"Ok, fine I can't take a compliment..."

Cal shook his head and jogged to catch up with you. You were already inspecting the ship and moving to the other side when Cal arrived. "How bad is it?" You inspected the dents and burn marks on the left side, peeking beneath the belly of the Mantis.

"Not too bad. I've got spare parts, but it will come with a price."

"HEY!!!!"

The three turned to look at Greez who was scrambling to get out of his ship. "CAL! You had one job! This ain't Han!!" He yelled angrily. His face scrunched up as he glared at you. "Who's this? She a friend of yours or somethin'?"

"I'm not a friend... yet.  Just someone who can fix your ship. I'm Y/N."

"What happened to Han, Cal? I told you to get HAN!"

Cal sighed and brushed his hair back. "He's-"

"Han Solo is a dirty cheat, and he owes me money. He's gone for now, and I have no idea where he is. So if you don't want my help, good luck finding another mechanic."

Greez inhaled deeply, attempting to calm his nerves. "Sorry. I just- I'm very particular about my ship, and we can't just trust anyone."

"Yeah, I get it. Harboring a jedi can be pretty dangerous," you said chuckling slightly. Before Greez could say another word, Cal raised his hands to stop him. "We're good, Greez. I think we should trust her." Greez closed his mouth and placed his hands on his hips. "Alright, Cal, if you say so."

"Great. Before I can start, how about we talk about exchange of services?" you said crossing your arms. "If you've got the goods, I'll even make you a drink in your ship while we talk business."

"She can make you that bloody rancor drink you like, Greez," Cal said, patting his shoulder. Greez grinned widely at you. "Now that I like. Climb aboard, my lady! I'll prepare the bottles for you."

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Inside the Mantis, two women huddled around a map, murmuring as they pointed to different planets.

"Welcome to the Stinger Mantis! The most beautiful piece of metal that ever flew in the galaxy!" Greez boasted, arms wide open to show off his beloved ship. The women raised their head and looked at you. "This is the rest our crew: Cere Junda and Merrin. Everyone, this is Y/N. She'll be replacing Han." The women looked at Cal with confusion.

"I see. Well, welcome to our ship. We are grateful for your help," Cere said, smiling warmly at you.

"Now, Y/N here, she's a bartender and she has kindly offered to make us some drinks," Greez said, heading to the kitchen. He began to rummage through the storage, mumbling to himself as he searched for bottles. "Ah! Here it is!"

You began to make drinks for the crew, your movements quick and relaxed. Cal watched your fluid movements as he sat down at the round table. Greez sat next to him and gave him a nudge. "Quit starin', Cal, I don't want your drool drippin' on my table," he whispered, snickering. Cal blushed and pushed Greez lightly. Cere and Merrin suppressed a smirk, exchanging looks with one another as Cal turned red. You began to serve the crew with bloody rancors except for you and Cal.

"I think that was enough bloody rancor for you. Try this instead." You push a cup filled with a light blue liquid. "It's my specialty." You settle at the edge of the bench next to Cal, and raised your glass. "To new friends," you said smiling at the crew. They follow your lead, and proceeded to drink. Cal hesitantly sipped his drink, and was delighted to find that it tasted like berries with a hint of mint. "Good?" you asked. Cal nodded, smiling at you.

"Now, let's talk business, shall we?" Greez said as he placed his cup on the table. "What's your price, kid?"

You stared at the blue liquid in your cup, swirling it around as you gathered your thoughts. What could you say without raising suspicion? Although you knew Cal had a lightsaber, there was a chance that these people could turn on you. They seemed nice enough... Cere is rather quiet and reserved, but Merrin looked rather intimidating. You finish the rest of your drink, hoping to find some courage.

"I need safe passage to Kashyyyk."

The crew stopped drinking, and stared blankly at you.

"Kashyyyk? Why Kashyyyk?" Merrin asked.

"I hear there's a group of folks fighting alongside the Wookies. I want to join them."

"And why are you interested in their fight?" Cere asked, her brows furrowing. You looked at Cere and sensed her suspicion. As you two stared at each other's eyes, Merrin had been exchanging a look with Greez and Cal. You sighed, and leaned back into the cushion. "Look, Tatooine... it's not safe. I need a purpose. I don't want to be stuck working odd jobs around the galaxy and in cantinas forever. I was sold as a slave, and ended up here. My parents... well, I don't really know where they are. Never knew them." You sighed heavily, eyes watering slightly. "There's... There's something more out there."

Cere nodded slowly. "I see... We understand. Perhaps you might be a good fit with our crew, Y/N."

"Hmm... Alright, kid, we'll get you there," Greez offered his hand to you. "You got yourself a deal." You smiled and shook his hand.

"Great. We'll start tomorrow. It's getting too dark, but not dark enough for another round, eh?" Greez winked at you, making everyone roll their eyes. You laughed and stood to collect empty cups. "Give this kid another!" He wraps an arm around Cal's shoulder, pretending to punch him with this other arms. He pushed Cal to let him off the bench, and headed towards you. Meanwhile, Cere leaned forward, eyes locked on Cal.

"She's hiding something, Cal," she whispered.

Merrin nodded in agreement, "She feels... confused."

Cal sighed quietly, running a hand through his hair. "Yeah, I feel it. I'll get to the bottom of it, don't worry."

For the rest of the evening, the crew drank and ate together. Greez a little more than everyone else. As the women excused themselves for the evening, you bid them good night, and stood to stretch and yawn. "Guess I'd better go, eh?" you said. A slightly inebriated Cal stood as well and looked at the snoring captain of the Mantis. You noticed how red his face had gotten from two drinks, making you chuckle.

"Don't drink much do you, Cal?"

He laughed in response, scratching his head. "No, not really... It was good, though. Thank you. Much better than that bloody rancor."

"Told you! Anyway, glad you liked it. I think it's time for me head back home. Thanks for a good evening, Cal. I haven't had fun with people like that in ages." You leaned to kiss his cheek, and patted BD's head. "Good night, see you tomorrow." You began your trek to town, leaving an awestruck Cal standing in the Mantis with his mouth open.

"Hey, hey, look at you, kid! I think she likes you!" Greez had been awake, watching their interaction in secret. He patted Cal's back, bringing him back to reality.

"Y-yeah, I guess so." Cal smiled and touched his cheek where your lips had been. "She's... something, isn't she?"

[violinsweetiemiss]

Sunrise Mist Part 1

Hello all~Here is part 1 of my second Songxiao reunion oneshot, set in modern day time. Any and all comments are appreciated!

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The city of Beijing is one of the busiest in the world. From early morning until late night, the streets are crowded with moving vehicles and pedestrians, all set on completing their busy packed schedules. But hidden among the silver gleaming corporate buildings of the booming corporate district lay a building that sat apart from the rest. The building had been designed to resemble a temple from ancient times, its elaborate decorations and gently curved rooftop sparkling gold in the sun and giving off an air of mystery. The building was a museum, housing artifacts and treasures from all across China. The museum’s popularity had exploded since its grand opening, quickly gaining the attention of the masses for its incomparable collection of ancient jewelry, pottery, ceramics, and weapons. No one had any clue how the museum owner had managed to collect so many treasures on his own. The man himself was rarely seen in the public eye, so little was known about him. He was just as mysterious as the building he watched over. From what people had seen of him however, the museum’s owner was a young man who typically dressed in grey, black, or dark green. He carried himself with an air of solemn grace and dignity, cold and refined. It was as if he belonged to another world altogether. The only other thing people know about him was his name.

Song Lan.

The man behind the curiosity and rumors was currently sitting in his office at his desk where he could typically be found, his eyes carefully examining the display offer he had received in the mail earlier that day. It wasn’t the first time he had received such an offer, and he knew it wouldn’t be the last. A soft frown pursed his lips before he tossed the stack of papers aside, once again dissatisfied with the contents of the offered materials. Few applicants were able to satisfy Song Lan’s standards. After having lived for a couple thousand years and multiple eras, those standards had been pushed rather high. Taking a glance at the time, Song Lan rose from his seat and brushed dust from his dark grey suit. It was time to make his daily inspection of the museum’s many exhibits.

Museum employees bowed to him as he walked by, soft murmurs of “Mr. Song” greeting Song Lan’s ears. As usual, he only bobbed his head lightly in response, his gaze fixated on each of the precious artifacts kept locked behind panels of glass. No one else knew, but Song Lan had personally gathered each of the treasures in the large museum over his long lifetime. Some were gifts from people of all social statuses he had helped during various dynasties, some were pieces of art he had bought on the street during Republican times. By far his favorite collection though, was the Cultivation Room. 

Placed strategically in the middle of the museum, the viewers were naturally drawn to visit the room built to resemble a crystal cave that allowed each item within the room to shine under the sparkling lights built into the ceiling. To Song Lan, the items in this room meant far more to him than any of the other museum artifacts combined. These were the treasured weapons from cultivators who had long passed, swords, musical instruments, knives, and so forth. It was an era that had long faded away, but it was the one that Song Lan had grown up in, and so loved best. And in the middle of the crystalline room, sat the most treasured weapon of all. 

Shuanghua.

Xiao Xingchen’s powerful sword sat covered with its elegant silver scabbard, the light swirling patterns on the scabbard sparkling under the museum lights. Song Lan had placed it in the middle of the room, where all viewers’ eyes would be drawn to it immediately upon entering the room. It seemed that he had been right; in a short period of time, Shuanghua had become one of the most popular exhibits in the entire museum. Song Lan had been hesitant about putting the sword out on display at first. After all, it was Xingchen’s beloved sword, and all that Song Lan had left of his best friend. But in the end, after some thought, Song Lan decided that Xingchen would have preferred his sword to be out here in the open instead of hidden away in Song Lan’s house. And so, here it was, well protected behind layers of extra thick glass for all the world to see in the middle of the first row of exhibits. Song Lan sighed as he stepped forward and laid a hand against the thick protective glass. Shuanghua seemed to glimmer slightly as he did so, as if it recognized the nearby presence of an old friend. The sword didn’t belong in a glass case, hidden away from the world. It deserved to be wielded by its master, glittering in the sun as Xiao Xingchen’s slender hands expertly twirled it in the air.

Xingchen…

This sword really was all that Song Lan had left of the other cultivator. He had once held onto the shattered pieces of Xingchen’s soul, but not long after Song Lan had established a sect, he had awoken one day to find the precious pieces gone. Song Lan had been terrified of course; the pieces of Xingchen’s soul were priceless, something that could never be replaced. But after many days of searching and trying to find answers behind the disappearance, Song Lan had come to a conclusion.

The pieces had disappeared because Xingchen was going to be reborn.

It was rare, of course. Few souls that became as broken as Xingchen’s were sent to reincarnation into another life. But perhaps the heavens had taken pity on Song Lan’s loneliness and determination to see Xingchen again, and so had given the two cultivators another chance. And so, Song Lan decided from that day on that he would wait for Xingchen to reappear again, even if he had to search through every corner of the world to find who Xingchen had been reborn into. Ten years had turned into a hundred, then one hundred had turned into a thousand, but still Song Lan had waited, and he would continue to wait until Xingchen appeared in front of him again. Song Lan sighed again softly. 

Xingchen, how long are you going to make me wait?

Song Lan’s gaze shifted to the other side of the glass and noticed someone standing on the other side looking at Shuanghua. He shouldn’t have found it odd; they were in a museum after all, and this exhibit in particular was well known to visitors. But as Song Lan looked at the figure on the other side of the glass, something just seemed...different, somehow. The glass distorted the image of the other person somewhat, but Song Lan could make out the image of a young man, dressed in a black shirt and a long grey coat. The man had a narrow face and short black hair, and a pair of thin glasses sat perched on the bridge of his nose. Song Lan felt his breath catch in his throat as he took in the man on the other side of the glass. Despite the slightly blurry image, the man carried an air of familiarity to Song Lan.

Who is that?

As if in a daze, Song Lan felt his legs moving, carrying him towards the other side of the glass display, his gaze never leaving the blurred image of the other figure gazing at Shuanghua.  Something told him that he had to, just had to see the other man face to face. At the same time, the other man was moving towards the end of the glass case in the same direction as Song Lan. Song Lan began to run, something screaming at him to move, quicker, before the other man disappeared. Despite increasing his speed however, as Song Lan rounded the corner, he saw the other man head towards the exit. Song Lan rushed for the  man, but before he could catch up the mysterious figure disappeared into the crowds of visitors. Panic filled Song Lan’s chest as he ran to the door and looked around frantically for the tall slender figure he had seen from the other side of the glass. But no matter how he tried, the man was gone. Song Lan let out his breath slowly in disappointment as he sank down into a wooden bench by the wall. 

If only I had moved faster!

Song Lan couldn’t help but wonder who that man had been, and why something instinctively inside him had pushed him to see that man face to face. 

Could it have been…?

No, Song Lan reminded himself, Don’t jump to conclusions. You’ve done that too many times and been disappointed just as many times. 

Perhaps he had just been thinking about Xingchen so much, his mind was beginning to convince him of things that weren’t true. 

After he felt like he had been sitting there for an eternity, Song Lan felt a voice speak nearby.

“Sir?” Song Lan turned to see one of his staff members looking down at him.

“Are you okay?” The staff member asked. Song Lan blew out his breath slowly and nodded, waving a hand dismissively. 

“Everyone is looking for you.” The staff member said, “The celebratory performances are about to start.” Song Lan almost sighed again as he remembered what today was. It had been three years since the museum had opened, and to celebrate its success he had arranged for a set of special ancient themed performances. Song Lan hadn’t bothered to spend his precious time to pick the performers; all of that had been left to his staff members. After living for so many years, mundane matters like arranging for performances had long since become boring to him. He rose from his seat and headed for the main hall of the museum. Perhaps watching the performances would help take his mind off his troubles.

________________________________________________________________

Song Lan sat down near the front of the performance area where a seat had been reserved for him, a placid polite smiling mask settling over his expression. He had long since gotten used to being like this; he had led one of the top cultivation sects in the world and lived through multiple eras in his country’s history. It did him no good to show all his thoughts on his face. Song Lan’s gaze traveled slowly down the program he had been given, one finger running down the list of performers. His gaze lingered by one of the names, the tip of his finger tapping lightly against the shiny paper.

Dance Performance, Dream of an Ancient City-Song Jiyang.

A tiny, dry smirk turned up the corner of Song Lan’s lips. 

Ancient city? Interesting…

For Song Lan, the only ancient city he could ever remember was Yi City. Even now, he could still remember the grey, lifeless city, its tattered flags blowing half heartedly in the cold wind. For as long as he lived, Song Lan would never forget the events that had transpired in that broken lifeless city. And if Song Lan closed his eyes, he could still remember...swallowing hard, he pushed his thoughts away from the dangerous direction they were headed in. 

Focus.

The lights dimmed around him, and Song Lan redirected his attention to the stage as the performances began. For the most part, he found them nothing special; some singers, some group dances, it was nothing he hadn’t seen before. Then, the lights dimmed again, and a sole figure stepped onto the stage, his back to the audience. Song Lan couldn’t see clearly from the low lighting, but he could just barely make out a slender figure dressed in white traditional robes. Long black hair trailed down his back, tied back ever so slightly with a white ribbon. The performer held a fan in his hand, also white in color. Although the dancer was slender, Song Lan could make out the faint ripples of muscles under the white costume, likely the result of years of formal dance training. Song Lan blew out his breath slowly, his chest tightening at the sight.

White robes...Xingchen...

One of Song Lan’s staff leaned over and whispered into his ear.

“This is Song Jiyang. He is one of the most famous traditional dancers in the country right now.” He told Song Lan. Song Lan nodded, but his gaze hadn’t left the man on the stage. He had only paid minimal attention to the previous performers, but for some reason, this man had managed to fully capture his attention. Song Lan was puzzled; who was this Song Jiyang, that something instinctively inside Song Lan pushed him to remain fully fixated on this dancer? The lights rose, and the strum of an ancient zither filled the air. The man turned and began his dance, and Song Lan suddenly knew why his attention had been so fixated.

With a slight flick of his fan and an elegant spin in the air, Song Lan could easily see why Song Jiyang was one of the most famous dancers in China. The way he moved was nothing short of elegant and graceful, his posture perfect as he moved, his footsteps as light as a feather dancing across the stage. Song Jiyang’s slender fingers flicked the white silk fan open and closed expertly, hiding his face briefly behind the fan before spinning again to reveal his face to the crowd. But even that was not what captured Song Lan’s attention. Song Lan’s gaze slowly settled on the dancer’s face, and he almost felt his heart stop in shock.

Song Jiyang had a narrow face, small lips that were currently curved up in a tiny smile, and dark black eyes that sparkled under the performance lights. Something told Song Lan that this was the man he had seen from the other side of the glass display case. But that, still wasn’t what had shocked Song Lan. 

No, it was the fact that he knew that face. He knew it so well, had spent so many days talking to the owner of that face in the past, that Song Lan almost felt like he knew it better than his own. And the last time he had seen the owner of that face alive, the man, Song Lan’s best friend, had screamed in horror at the realization of what he had done, and used his own sword to end his life. The memory was blurred by Song Lan’s controlled state at that time, but nothing could wipe even that faint memory from Song Lan’s conscience. Emotions rushed through Song Lan, so much that he almost physically choked at the flood of feelings running through him.

Xingchen.

It was him, it definitely was him. Especially when he was clothed in pure snowy white robes, his hair fluttering in the breeze generated by his dancing, there was no way Song Lan could be wrong. Song Lan wanted to rush to the stage from his seat, to grab the other man by the shoulders and demand answers. Why had it taken so long for Xingchen to be reborn? Where had his soul been wandering all this time? Didn’t Xingchen know how much Song Lan had suffered while waiting for him to return?

Still, Song Lan forced himself to stay in his seat. It was difficult to say whether Song Jiyang remembered anything about Xingchen. After all, this was Xingchen’s reborn soul, not Xingchen himself. There had been some cases where reborn souls remembered their past life,  but Song Lan would accomplish nothing if he made a scene, just to realize the man didn’t know him. But then, all those thoughts flew out the window as he watched the next part of Song Jiyang’s dance. The other dancers on stage drew together in two lines, hiding Song Jiyang from view as he stepped briefly to the back. A few beats of music later, they parted again, and Song Lan’s heart leaped into his throat as he saw what Song Jiyang had been doing. 

In the time that he had been standing in the back, the young man had taken a strip of white cloth that he had been hiding somewhere, and tied it around his eyes before returning to the dance. Somehow, he continued dancing even blindfolded, the ends of the white cloth fluttering in the breeze as he leapt into the air, the fan snapping open at the same time. Song Lan felt tears fill his eyes as he remembered that exact same face, eyes also covered with a white strip of cloth, cold and pale with death.

He remembers. 

It was the only way to explain it. One could argue it was a coincidence, but Song Lan knew better. Even if Song Jiyang choreographed his own dances, it would be a stretch to say he so happened to think of a blindfolded dance, with a white costume theme and using ancient instrumental music. No, there was only one way to explain it, and that was the near impossible thought that Song Jiyang had memories of his past life. Song Lan barely noticed as the dance came to an end, but as Song Jiyang stepped off the stage and began moving towards the back rooms that had been sectioned into makeshift dressing rooms, Song Lan quickly rose from his seat and stepped into his path. The young dancer looked confused as Song Lan appeared in front of him before his gaze flickered over to the employee badge Song Lan wore.

“Ah, Mr. Song.” Song Jiyang said with a polite bow, “Thank you so much for having me here today. I enjoyed it very much.” Song Lan gazed at the other man for a long moment, the rush of emotions in his chest making it near impossible to breathe. 

“Mr. Song?” Song Jiyang peered at him curiously, a small but concerned smile on his lips. Song Lan took a deep shuddering breath. It was only a small motion, but it had been so many years since he had seen Xingchen smile, just that was enough to send more tears rushing to his eyes. Looking away briefly to regain his composure, Song Lan reached out and wrote in Song Jiyang’s palm.

Have you been well? Have you been eating properly? Sleeping properly?

Song Jiyang’s brow furrowed slightly at the question, but he nodded and smiled again.

“I have been well, thank you for asking.” He said, “But...why are you asking me these things?” Song Lan bit his lip, hesitating for only a moment before writing again.

Xingchen. 

A startled expression rushed across Song Jiyang’s noble features for a moment before he smiled in confusion. 

“I’m sorry?” He said. Song Lan frowned and wrote the same characters again, jabbing a finger at Song Jiyang’s palm for emphasis. 

Xingchen! 

Song Jiyang looked at the desperate expression that was surely forming on Song Lan’s face, the smile slipping from his face.

“I’m not sure what you mean.” He replied, trying to pull away from Song Lan. In his panic, Song Lan’s fingers snapped around Song Jiyang’s wrist, desperate to keep the man he had been searching for so many years from leaving. 

“Sir!” Song Jiyang’s voice rose, slight irritation entering his sharpening gaze, “I do not know who this Xingchen is who you are talking about, but my name is Song Jiyang. I have never met you before today. You must have mistaken me for someone else!” For a long few seconds, the two men stood frozen in the back hallway. Then, Song Lan finally felt the other man’s words sink in. 

He doesn’t…remember? But that’s impossible…! 

His grip slackened on Song Jiyang’s wrist, and the other man quickly took the opportunity to pull away. Song Lan watched in confusion as the dancer rushed away and disappeared around the corner.

Did I make a mistake? No, my calculations were all logical! Xingchen...why did you say those things?

________________________________________________________________

His heart pounding in his chest, Song Jiyang rushed into his dressing room and slammed the door shut behind him. His entire body trembled as he leaned against the door, all of his strength sapped from his body. Swallowing hard, Song Jiyang looked at his hand, his wrist still warm from Song Lan’s touch. He could still see the desperate look in Song Lan’s eyes, the confusion and hurt that had filled the other man’s expression as Song Jiyang had declared he didn’t know him. He should’ve known this would happen if he came here to perform, and yet...Song Jiyang blew out his breath slowly and sank to the cold ground below him.

Forgive me, Zichen...

[zecaeruwu]

An Evening Gift

Klaude / Lucette fluff. After Klaude (Karma)’s good ending

Prompt: “Gift exchange” from @cherieofthedragons

*********

Klaude darted through the bustling streets, nostrils full of the scent of artisanal food and of flowers and of everything that Angielle had to offer. A cluster of voices pierced through the winter air, some in his native tongue, and others in languages unknown to him. For the most part, they ignored Klaude, focused on seeking out the stalls they’d come here to visit.

When he first met Lucette, he had thought the rumors were true – that she was cruel, vain, and heartless like her mother. As the pair spent time together, Klaude had the opportunity to witness Lucette blossom into an impeccable heir, one that Angielle truly deserved.

Behind her barriers, the princess had proven herself to be kind, loyal, and courageous. He wished he could have tacked down each laugh, each embrace, each memory, so as to not have a single one inevitably float away from his mind over time.

Lucette picking out the chameleon cupcake that one sunny afternoon, the pair sharing the confection while sharing snippets of their upbringing.

Their endless nights of sword practice.

Lucette and Waltz scouring the city to acquire him a present. A beautiful rose pendant, which, as a matter-of-fact, had saved him from himself.

After Lucette had broken his curse, Klaude had immediately known he wanted to purchase her a gift in return – a simple necklace; one that would match the splendor of the rose pendant Lucette had gifted him many months ago.

And so here he was, losing himself in the array of products as he ventured through the busy marketplace. Klaude pulled out a piece of folded paper, the store’s address scribbled in cursive on its surface. He wanted to get there and back to the mansion, all before Lucette even realizes he has left.

This was meant to be a surprise, after all.

The redheaded prince hurried and hurried, ducking under people, dodging around them, breath coming faster and faster, until he skidded to a halt in front of the merchant’s shop.

Clutching his own rose pendant in his hand, the Brugantian prince peered into the shop through its display windows, labored puffing defogging its snowy tint. The drawers were neatly piled high with trinkets, hair ornaments, earrings, a bracelet. He could see why Lucette had visited this shop in particular – the pieces of jewelry were splendid and the way they glittered was tempting to the eye.

Klaude shivered in the raw evening air. It was getting dark, the final, flamboyant exhibition of the setting sun staining the streets a rich shade of vermillion. There was no time to linger – it would soon be dark. He pushed open the door and stepped into the store.

*********

“I want that necklace.”

Those were the first words Klaude heard upon entering the shop, the heated air a welcoming sensation on his icy cheeks. He turned to follow the path the little girl was gesturing at, and his heart sank the moment he saw what it was.

Not that one!

Klaude started fidgeting uncomfortably.

That one’s for Lucette!

The prince had his eyes on that white lily pendant right before he had left to Brugantia, and swore to himself that he would purchase it immediately after his return. He hadn’t paid for it at the time; it was why he was here in the first place. For all proper purposes, it could be bought by anyone who had the money. But there it hung, and there the money rested in Klaude’s leather pouch, and he wanted to get it paid for.

Now.

“Sweetie, I don’t think we can afford that one,” came the voice from a middle-aged lady, who Klaude assumed was her mother.

The girl, likely in her early teenage years, rolled her eyes. The conversation would have continued, but another gust of frigid wind blew through the opened door, causing the mother and daughter duo to glance back. Klaude hastily closed the door shut with a soft thud.

A smile touched on the lady’s lips at once. “Prince Klaude! I didn’t expect to see you here.”

Emerald eyes lingered on the pouting child for a moment before they were diverted back to the mother. Klaude flashed her a charming smile. “Hello, miss. I have come to make a purchase.”

Perhaps, if he were very lucky, the woman would be able to persuade her child to leave the lily pendant alone. Pick another or leave altogether; Klaude didn’t care which. As long as that one remained for him to take home to Lucette.

While he was lost in his thoughts, realization dawned upon the girl. “Prince Klaude? The Prince Klaude of Brugantia?”

Oh no.

Acknowledging his existence for the very first time, the girl spun around and stared squarely into his eyes. “You are truly as handsome as they make you out to be!”

He wasn’t here for compliments. Klaude had a mission to accomplish, and along with potentially making it home before Lucette noticed.

“Yes, darling. I am intending to purchase the necklace you were looking at. It is a gift I hope to give the Princess of Angielle, as a token of my love.”

A look of jealousy briefly flickered across her face – one that disappeared so quickly Klaude could have sworn it was a hallucination. The girl snatched the lily pendant from the merchant’s hands. “You wanted this?”

The prince tensed, biting his lip.

“I will pay for anything you want in this store, as long as you allow me to purchase that lily pendant,” he offered, his usual confident grin now a tad more wobbly. Even his voice sounded a little more desperate this time. He couldn’t help it. It was only a few seconds, but it felt agonizing to wait for a reply as worry swirled through his head.

“I’ll give it to you…”

Thank the gods.

“…If you give me a kiss!”

Klaude’s face blanched at the suggestion. After all the months of proving to Lucette how loyal and devoted he was, he could only imagine how angry Lucette would be if she knew he even was offered this deal.

No, angry would not even be the word for it – she would be furious.

The law of Angielle didn’t specify that whatever the royal family wanted, they got. If the girl had somehow acquired the pendant and carried it away before Klaude had arrived, then so be it. He would have chalked it up to bad luck, and tried to find something else to gift her.

But here she was, knowing that Klaude wanted it for Lucette, and that smarmy smirk, the obnoxious tilt of her head to the side, all of it implying that she had no intentions of stepping aside. That was sheer rudeness and Klaude wouldn’t stand for that. The prince’s smile thinned for a heartbeat as a plethora of curse words zoomed through his mind, but he caught himself.

He was better than that.

Surely, he could somehow convince the mother to reconsider? Perhaps attempt to simply charm the girl that has been nothing but a bothersome insect? It would be a tough task, but –

“Excuse me?”

The girl had reached up to Klaude’s ponytail. Lacing her grubby fingers through the hairband that so delicately held his luscious maroon hair together, she gave it a spiteful tug.

The shopkeeper and the mother stared in horror, no words escaping their mouth as to why someone her age would treat a prince in such manner. Not that the child paid any mind to that either, choosing to instead launch a full-scale onslaught, mercilessly entangling the strands together.

Cringing from the pain and embarrassment, he resisted every fiber in his being to unsheathe his sword and wreck havoc. It was a long while since he had last wielded a sword in public, and the prince’s patience was wearing thin.

“I’ve always wanted to be kissed by a prince. Just one kiss!” The girl’s voice, sickeningly sweet yet dripping with poison, snapped his conscious back to reality.

He tried to shake him off but she continued to pester him. “Darling, the princess wouldn’t appreciate me going arou- OUCH!”

A searching, frantic hand savagely grasped Klaude's hip, and he yelped as sharp nails pierced his skin.

The girl continued with the scratching, fighting, clawing, an unwilling prince attached to her grip, in a fervent attempt to catch his attention. Klaude allowed himself the luxury of screaming as each scratch ignited a searing throb in her outraged fundament. The prince could feel the flowering of a few bruises on his skin, but he continued to resist.

“JUST ONE KISS!” Her deafening command shattered Klaude’s eardrum. She yanked the prince towards a display cabinet, and the back of his skull slammed up against the glass. The cabinet shook; something clattered loudly to the floor. The prince caught a glance of his reflection from the glass – disheveled and much the worse for wear. He then looked helplessly at the mother, then at the merchant, both of which were cowering in a ball of nervousness.

For Klaude, the harrowing prospect of indefinitely being the victim of the girl’s anguish was too much to bear.

“All right, all right! Just one kiss. But only one! I expect the necklace afterwards… And to be left alone.” The words tumbled hopelessly out of his mouth, faster and faster, like a string of firecrackers.

Although not completely pacified, the girl finally ended the assault, releasing her suffocating grip at long last. She tilted her chin up.

“On the forehead,” he compromised, defeated, as he brushed his hair back and disdainfully leaned in.

None of that mattered, not if it meant he could deliver the pendant.

Even if it meant his handsome face would be studded in bruises. Even if he had to face Lucette’s wrath when he inevitably shows up late. Even if Rumpel would tease him for kissing some little girl. Even if…

“KLAUDE!”

The voice cut right into Klaude and he looked up to see Lucette at the door, staring wide-eyed. Noticing the perplexed crown princess, the girl gave Klaude a strong push. The prince collapsed to the floor in silent agony, his body physically overwhelmed from the crushing blows. Slowly, the world came back into focus.

“Hello, darling.” He drew himself up and sluggishly lifted his head.

One of Lucette’s brilliant amber eyes twitched. “Do I want to know?”

Klaude said nothing as he tried to get back up. He noticed how mute the young girl had become in the presence of Angielle royalty, and he most certainly also noticed the aptly royal shade of purple her face had turned into. A few broken words fell out of the child’s mouth, something about cutting off Lucette’s bangs to teach her a lesson for ruining her moment.

He dismissed the idea with a firm shake of his head. “Not really, my love. I was only here for a quick transaction.”

Klaude shrugged and haggardly waved one hand, tilting his head towards the door. The mother, not missing a beat, picked up her belongings and hurried her still-blubbering offspring out at the same time.

She looked dubious. “Klaude, if there is something you still intend on buying, please take care of it. We must head back.”

Klaude took two hurried steps over to the shell-shocked salesman and handed over the money, thankful nothing had happened to it during his unprovoked torture. While Lucette deliberately kept her attention elsewhere as the prince finished his transaction, Klaude gingerly tucked the white pendant into the pocket of his identically colored pants.

Reaching for Lucette’s hand, Klaude nonchalantly swept his tousled hair back, in an attempt to salvage whatever grace was left. Happy shivers danced down his spine from the way Lucette’s hand closed over his, the way their fingers intertwined.

His beloved princess gave the shopkeeper a quick wave, which was returned with a respectful bow, and they stepped out of the store.

*********

“How did you know I was down here?” Klaude wanted to know.

Lucette shrugged. “You were always there for me when I needed you. I intend on doing the same.”

Klaude’s jacket was disheveled, his hair caked with dirt; his hands moved abstractly before him. Despite all that, Lucette’s words caused his heart to soar.

He wasn’t sweet and perfect in his crisp royal garments in the comfort of the palace, but oddly disorganized and shaken in the dark streets of Angielle. Yet, Klaude knew, right then and there, it was the perfect time to present Lucette with his gift.

“Actually,” he admitted sheepishly, “I came to buy you a gift.”

Lucette’s mouth parted the slightest in surprise. Her rosy cheeks were stained a delightful pink from the howling gales, a sight Klaude had grown to love over the months in her presence. The glamorous prince decided, then and there, that fuchsia would be the color for the season.

“I wanted to get something special for you. Something to represent how grateful I am for your existence, and to serve as a constant reminder of what you mean to me.”

Klaude clasped her hand tighter and gave the princess a graceful twirl, standing Lucette face-to-face in front of him. Gentle flecks of snow floated down from the darkened evening sky, some of which cloaking the dimmed illuminated streets, others sprinkling all over their hair.

“The white lily has several meanings,” the prince pushed on. “It is used in Christianity as a symbol of purity. The Romans saw it as a symbol of majesty, and the Greeks believed the white lily was derived from the queen of the gods.”

He reached into his pocket, retrieving the necklace. Klaude's fingers traced a delicate pattern around its edges, while dots of snow began coating the pendant and glossing over its surface.

“It is beautiful.” Her voice was uncharacteristically soft. He could tell she really meant it.

Klaude beamed, flattered at the genuine appreciation he was receiving. Leaning forward, placing his face right in front of hers, he reached around Lucette’s neck to fasten the necklace.

“It has unparalleled charm and beauty.” His voice was barely a whisper in the chopping wind. “The lily is often used to convey that intense feeling of bliss that is felt when you are with the person you love the most. The person whose smile could send you straight to heaven.”

The prince stared earnestly at the princess’s blushing complexion. She was beautifully regal – flushed, and smiling from Klaude’s exaggerated display – a kind, caring lady who he wholeheartedly adored.

“Lucette, you are all those things to me and more.”

And as quick as the gusts of wind blowing around them, the prince leaned forward and touched his frosty lips to hers. They were both tremendously labored with running their respective kingdoms; despite it not under the exact circumstances he had hoped for, it was nice being able to steal her away for a while.

So there they stood, hand in hand, lip to lip, heart to heart. It could not be forever, that he knew, they both had so much to do. But both treasured whatever time they could, while they could, and Klaude savored it deep within his heart.

[purpletigertaetae]

The Transfiguration Tutor

Pairing: Namjoon x Reader

Word Count: 4307 words

Genre: Hogwarts AU, Slice of Life (as “life” as you can get in an AU) Fluff

Rating: PG

Warnings: None, I mean there's a lot of fluff, but not really any warnings

Notes: Okay, I’ve jumped out of my comfort zone SO MUCH with this fic (and this header that I made in like 0.2 seconds because I’m dumb and couldn't find anything I liked) Like I already don’t fluff well (If we’re being honest I don’t write anything well 😂), but this added Potterverse into the mix, which just GAH. This was actually supposed to be a oneshot for Namjoon’s birthday, but I’m so late I can't even use that excuse anymore. I’m so nervous typing this... But Enjoy! I hope you all like it! Also PLEASE GO CHECK OUT @thebluesyren‘s Moodboard! It’s what helped inspire this!

You stared curiously at the Ravenclaw prefect sitting in the library. His silvery hair parted carefully on the side, his thick rimmed glasses perched on his nose, and his thick lips twisted into a wry smile as he poured over his Charms textbook while twirling his quill over and over in his hand. You had been trying to work on your Potions essay until you saw Namjoon enter the library. You had carefully watched his every move while he gracefully maneuvered across the haphazard chairs and desks to find an empty corner. You watched as he approached the empty desk only to trip over his own two feet. He had smacked his hand on the desk to steady himself but had slipped some more, let out a stream of curses, and then he was lying on the floor his books around him; the ruckus causing everyone around him to giggle.

“Shh!” Madame Pince huffed from her desk, irritated by the noise.

Namjoon had stood up, brushed and smoothed his robes, sent a dimpled smile towards Madame Pince, and gathered his books to sit back down.

That was an hour ago. You had given up on your homework completely, doodling on extra parchment while staring at the clumsy genius. Slughorn would have to wait.

So, this was the boy who was supposed to tutor you in Transfiguration. Your grades, while stellar in every other class, were slipping in McGonagall’s class and she had worried you would not pass your final exams this year. She had told you to seek out a Kim Namjoon, well rather she had gushed over a Kim Namjoon and had told you to ask him for help.

“Kim Namjoon has the highest grades of this year. He will go far. You on the other hand, Miss Y/L/N, will need to improve drastically if you wish to continue on your path as a healer. You will need tutoring in transfiguration. And my recommendation is, you should ask Mr. Kim for help.” From McGonagall, that was high praise, and cause to worry on your end. You had decided that today would be the day you would talk to Namjoon, but you had been in the library for two hours, he for one, and still you were afraid to approach the handsome boy you were slowly getting softer for.

---

Three hours later and you literally had finished every essay due for the upcoming week except transfiguration. Namjoon, however, still seemed stuck on Charms. You looked at his face, forehead wrinkled in confusion, and decided that maybe you could strike up a deal.

You packed all your things and made your way over to his table.

“Namjoon right?” The boy looked up at you, confusion evident over his face. “Hi, I’m Y/N? Professor McGonagall told me to find you for some transfiguration help?”

His striking features smoothed out and a dimpled smile graced his face. “Hi Y/n. Yeah, McGonagall had talked to me, but uh, now isn’t a great time. I’m still struggling with the Charms homework.”

“Oh, is this the cheering charms essay? Here, let me see if I can help you!” You slid into the seat next to him, dropping your bag and books onto the table, while peering over his shoulder.

You carefully pointed out all of the information he had gotten wrong and explained the theory to him. Namjoon just watched you, eyeing you as you spoke, pointing to different passages in the textbook; your striking features looked lovely in the candlelight. Your eyes sparkled as you explained a particular passage to him. Your lips looked soft, and he caught himself wondering if that was true. Was he maybe falling for the intelligent woman sitting next to him?

“Earth to Namjoon? Namjoon? Namjoon!” He snapped out of his daydreams and looked at you, “Yes?”

“Did you get anything I told you?”

“Uhhh,” He scratched the back of his head, grinning sheepishly.

You rolled your eyes good-naturedly and sighed, “Namjoon, you’re going to have to pay more attention! Now focus!”

“Wait, y/n,” he placed his hand on your forearm, stopping your writing, “Why don’t we become study buddies?”

“What?”

“Well, think about it. You need help for Transfiguration and I definitely need help with Charms. How about we help each other?” Namjoon leaned back against his chair and looked you dead on, a small smile playing on his face.

You examined the boy in front of you and then the empty parchment that was meant for the transfiguration essay you hadn’t even started. You definitely needed help, and you wanted a way to repay him. Helping him with Charms would be the ideal way, and maybe you could even become closer friends.

“It’s a deal.” You thrusted your arm out and shook to seal the deal.

Namjoon sat up and grabbed his quill again, rifling through the textbook to find where he last left off.

“Great! Can we finish Charms first and then go onto Transfiguration? I haven’t started Transfig yet so we can work together!” Namjoon started rambling, but you cut him off swiftly.  

“That’s fine, but I’m warning you. If we’re stuck here all night, you owe me a butterbeer!”

Namjoon looked at you and grinned, “Deal. So, I understand the incantation for the cheering charm, but I definitely am confused on the theory and execution.”

You sighed deeply and then dove in. This was going to be a long night.

---

Four hours later and finally you both closed your books and leaned back in your chairs, resting your eyes.

With your eyes still closed you asked, “What is the effect when the Cheering Charm is too strong?”

Namjoon replied huskily, “Fits of hysterical laughter. What is the incantation to conjure a flock of yellow birds?”

“Avis, and a gunshot sound and smoke are aftereffects of the spell.”

“By Merlin, I think she’s got it!” Namjoon cracked open an eye and sent a genuine dimpled smile your way.

“Well, I’ve got the theory down for sure, but I’m going to need help with execution-”

“Now? Y/N… I’m tired!”

“No, not now. I’m wiped, but tomorrow? After dinner? We can find an empty classroom.”

“That sounds like a plan!”

You sat up and started packing up your bag, Namjoon copying your actions.

You both left the library, some of the last ones to leave, said goodbye to Madame Pince and started strolling back to the Ravenclaw tower in a comfortable silence.

As you climbed the stairs, Namjoon broke the silence.

“Y/n, you excel in all your other classes, why do you struggle in Transfig? Not that I’m judging or anything! I’m just curious.” He began scrambling in fear of having offended you.

You laughed at his expression, and then spoke, “I don’t know, to be honest. Defense, Herbology, Charms all came easy to me. Transfiguration doesn’t. It requires a type of concentration I just don’t have.”

Namjoon looked at you thoughtfully.

“I can understand that. Charms requires a sense of certainty, a sense of grace that I definitely have not acquired,” he spoke as he tripped over his own two feet.

“See what I mean!”

You chuckled as you approached the Common Room entrance. You slipped in and noticed that it was basically empty, just three students snoozing near the fire.

You both climbed the stairs and then stopped right before you were to go separate ways.

“Good night Y/N. Thank you for helping me.”

“Ditto, good night… Joon.”

Namjoon turned to make his way to his room, cheeks bright red. You had called him Joon. Only close friends had called him Joon. He looked over his shoulder at your retreating figure and mused. That name coming from you had sounded so sweet. He really wanted to hear it again.

You turned and walked to your room blushing hard. Joon? Where had that come from? The boy was endearing, and you definitely were soft for him, but this was uncharted territory. Though… he was a gentleman and one you really wanted to get to know better. Who knew, maybe this would be the start of a beautiful friendship. You shook your head and got ready for bed. This would be a thought for another time.

--

Namjoon and you continued your joint tutoring together for the next couple of months. You saw each other so often that a friendship began to blossom. You would talk late into the night, discussing your aspirations as a healer and his aspirations to become part of the Ministry. Most of the time you even joined him for his rounds; his partner always “forgot” though you both knew she was always with her boyfriend. Your blood boiled but Joon would always shrug it off with a smile, “it’s nothing I can’t do Y/Nie, though you’re welcome to join me.” You two would roam the castle, ending up in the astronomy tower and gazing at the stars before walking back to your dormitories. Rumors began swirling about the two Ravenclaws in love, but you both remained oblivious and ignorant. People could think however they wanted.

As you both approached your final exams, you began spending even more time together; his friends became yours and your friends became his, until one large group sat together for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It was a mixed group; his friends were spread into all the houses: two in Gryffindor, two in Hufflepuff and two in Slytherin. But they all got along, and they definitely were a band of brothers that soon became your closest friends.

The last Hogsmeade trip, was right around the corner, right after exams. Namjoon had wanted to go with you for the longest time, but every time he would chicken out and everyone ended up going as a big friend group. This time though, he was adamant to spend some time with you. He caught up with you as you walked back from the Herbology greenhouses to lunch.

“Hey Y/nie!”

“Hey Joon! What’s up?”

“I have to run, but will you come on rounds with me tonight? I wanted to ask you something.”

“Sure!” With your confirmation, he ran off, leaving you confused. What did he want to ask? You worried that maybe he was doing well in Charms and didn’t need your help anymore. You worried in your classes, when he sat next to you but wouldn’t talk to you; you worried at dinner, where he was noticeably absent; you worried up until you met him in the common room for rounds. He ushered you out and into the corridor and you both began walking. Usually the silence between you two was comfortable as you walked, but today it was suffocatingly uncomfortable until you burst out.

“Kim Namjoon if you don’t ask me what you’ve been wanting to ask me soon, I will kill you!”

“Y/n just be patient. I’ll ask you soon.”

“Do you not want to help me anymore? Do you not need my help anymore? Do you not want to study together anymore? Do you not want to be friends anymore? What is it?! Please! Let’s just work together until our exams are over and then I promise I’ll be out of your hair! Can you just tell me what you wanted to ask?!” Your voice grew more and more agitated as you continued on and on until you ran out of breath. Namjoon beside you just remained quiet with a small smile on his face.

God, you were so cute when you were angry.

He waited patiently until you finished your tirade, walking and observing quietly. When you quieted down, he spoke.

“Are you finished? Calm down Y/Nie, I still want to help you with Transfig, and I definitely still need your help in Charms. I don’t intend to fail my exams and I don’t intend for you to fail yours. We’re still friends! And… oh look we’re at the Astronomy Tower! Let’s quickly take a look and then we can continue this conversation.”

You stared at him dumbfounded as he ran forward. He was about ask you something. Why on earth did he stop? Ugh, he was infuriating sometimes.

You marched up the stairs behind him ready to chew him out until you saw him looking out on the balcony. When you laid your eyes on him, your eyes widened and you audibly gasped. He looked ethereal. The moonlight made him glow, bouncing off of his skin as he stared into the sky. The stars were mirrored in his eyes and his hair shone like silver; he really was stunning. He turned back to you and beckoned you forward with his hand, patting the railing next to him. You walked up to him and looked up at the night sky and whispered, “Beautiful.”

You could’ve sworn he said, “you too.” But when you turned to him, he was still looking up, admiring the sky. For what seemed like eternity, you both were silent, admiring the swirling stars twinkling merrily.

Every now and then you would glance over to him, wanting to break the silence, but his beauty would take your breath away again and you would look back up, not wanting to ruin the moment. Finally, you lost patience and broke the hushed silence to whisper, “Joon, what did you want to ask me?”

He looked down at you. His expression filled with something you hadn’t seen before. Was it love? Unbeknownst to you, you were mirroring the expression back at him. His tongue flitted out, wetting his lips, and your eyes flickered down to the movement, admiring the curve of his lips. Your eyes flicked back to his, as he cleared his throat, and his eyes flitted down to your lips as he leaned forward slightly. You tried to say something, but your breath got caught in your throat as you looked up at him. You hoped for something, anything to break this spell, but in this moment, you wanted to test the softness of his lips with yours. You wanted to feel his hands resting on your hips, not on the railing. You wanted him to bare his soul to you and you wanted to bare your soul to him. Maybe, just maybe you were falling in love with him, your moonchild. He opened his mouth to speak and suddenly you were afraid of what he might say. Your stomach filled with butterflies as this handsome man began to speak.

“Y/N, I wanted to ask you if you wanted to go to Hogsmeade with me after exams. You know I really need to buy some new robes and I could use a friend’s eye.”

Your heart, which had been somewhere in your throat, instantly sank like a rock. He what? He made it very clear in that moment that he considered you just a friend. All of this, baring your soul, the environment, the moon, the stars, the whole thing you had made up. He was just admiring the stars like he always did, and your imagination was running wild again. You tried to rearrange your face into a friendly expression, trying not to betray the heartbroken mess you felt inside. “Sure! I’d love to help you!” Your voice caught in your throat, but you shoved your feelings away and cleared it a couple of times, swallowing the lump thickly.

“Joon, it’s late, I’m tired, I think I’m going to head back. I’ll see you tomorrow?” You turned and left, trying to keep your tears at bay until you found your bed.

Namjoon, on the other hand, couldn’t stop cursing himself. The timing was perfect, the atmosphere was perfect! He could’ve kissed you and everything would have been perfect! But his bloody brain spoke again. He chickened out! He mentally slapped himself. He would have to do better. God, he had wanted to kiss you, you had looked like an angel in the moonlight. He mentally cursed again. He should’ve just stopped at asking you to Hogsmeade after exams. What possessed him to say friend? He clutched at his hair in despair and looked back up at the sky one last time. The stars still glinted, and Namjoon knew that this had been the perfect moment. Argh, stupid brain, stupid mouth, stupid Joon. He turned away from the balcony and trudged back to the common room, feeling sorry for himself. He needed to figure out a way to see this through properly. You and he belonged together, that he was sure about. He just needed to grow some courage and ask you out.

--

After that night, the entire group knew something was wrong. On the surface, you and Namjoon still studied together, still hung out together, but the dynamic had changed. It was as if you both were toeing on eggshells around each other. However, final exams were fast approaching and the time to think about relationships was gone. Everyone had decided to grace the library with their presence and the careful silence was broken too often. You and Namjoon were always left searching for an empty classroom to study both theory and practical applications. Your first exam was Transfiguration and Namjoon’s first exam was Charms. Needless to say, both of your nerves had been shot. You both had attempted to stay up late the night before, hoping to cram, but by eleven, you knew that you needed sleep. Namjoon and you had called it a night and decided to try to get some rest for tomorrow.

You tossed and turned in bed that night, unable to calm your racing nerves. If you failed this exam, you were done. If you got anything lower than an Exceeds Expectations, you could kiss your Healer dreams goodbye. Plus, there was the issue of Namjoon. You definitely did not want to let him down. He had spent countless hours tutoring you, becoming your friend, and maybe more. How would you face him if you failed? You turned over and watched the clock on your bedside table tick over and over, the repetition providing relief to your otherwise churning thoughts. Watching the clock, you finally fell into a fitful sleep.

The next morning you were up at the crack of dawn. You dressed quickly and found your way down to your favorite abandoned classroom. That’s where Namjoon found you over an hour later pacing back and forth, mumbling transfiguration incantations to yourself under your breath.

“Y/N!” He grabbed you by the shoulders and peered into your eyes.

You were jolted out of your fervor, “Namjoon? What are you doing here?”

“Hobi told me you were here working yourself up! Y/N I need you to stop worrying!”

“Stop worrying? How do I do that? This is the Transfig final! If I don’t pass this, I’m done! There goes everything, my healer dream, all that we’ve worked for! I’ll have wasted your time too! I just…” You rambled on and on without even a breath. Watching you, Namjoon’s eyes widened.

“Baby, hey no! No!” He pulled you into his chest into a tight hug and kissed the top of your head. Somewhere within you, butterflies erupted again. He was holding you awfully close.

“Y/nie, you are brilliant, you know this material and I know you’re going to ace this exam. You hear me?” You snuggled into his chest further, nodding tentatively at his words. He rubbed your back comfortingly and peppered your crown with kisses. “You are my intelligent, gorgeous, brilliant girl and I know you will achieve all your dreams.” Namjoon softly spoke sweet nothings into your head while you calmed down from your impending panic attack in his arms.

Something, though, niggled in the back of your mind. Did he… did he call you his girl? What did that mean? You wanted to dissect his words further, but the great clock chimed 8:00 and you knew you had to assemble for your exam. You tensed at the gong, pulled away from Namjoon, smoothed your hair and patted down your clothes with shaky hands trying to calm your nerves.

“Y/N you are going to do great, you hear me?”

“Thank you Joon. Good luck to you too.”

Namjoon caught your hand in his and you both walked, in silence, to the Great Hall where you were then separated. Namjoon would take his Charms theory and practical exam first while you would take your Transfiguration theory and practical exam. You two would meet up again at lunch.

As you entered the side room, your eye caught Namjoon’s one last time. He shot you a thumbs up, which filled you with hope and you gave him a silly grin back. At the silly exchange your heart lifted and you, for the first time, felt confidence lightly flutter through you. You might just pass this exam.

Once you were seated and the exam had been passed out, you took a deep breath and flipped over the paper. Question 1: What is the incantation to conjure a small flock of yellow birds? Please state and describe the aftereffects. You grinned, remembering back to your first meeting with Namjoon and began furiously writing.

-

You came away from the theory exam feeling pretty good, albeit a little confused. Every question you had answered you could remember Namjoon’s deep voice patiently explaining and reexplaining. For some, you could even see Namjoon’s face in your head smiling that dimpled smile at you, his loud laugh when you cracked a joke. Namjoon had permeated this exam for you and his personality had maybe gifted you with the correct answers.

When your test group regathered, it was time for the practical exam. There were 15 booths set up, each with their own examination proctor. The proctor would ask questions and you would have to execute the spell. When you entered your booth, you were faced with a wizened old woman who introduced herself as your  examiner.

“Hello Miss Y/L/N, I will be your proctor for today. My name is Professor Caldwell. Are you ready?” You nodded, gulping nervously. “Then, let us begin. First, can you conjure this cup into a small dragon?”

You let out a small laugh, remembering how you had learned the spell in the first place. Namjoon had dragged a chest in to the classroom thinking that the bigger the object the easier it would be for you to conjure. However, you had ended up chasing a relatively large dragon around the classroom while Namjoon tried and failed to put out the fire on his robes. Shaking your head, you cast the spell, “Draconifors!” and the quill began to change. Smiling, the proctor looked at you and continued on. You attempted spell after spell, only stumbling once or twice until Professor Caldwell placed her test papers next to her and stood up to shake your hand warmly. “Congratulations, Miss Y/L/N, you have completed the test.” You looked into her warm brown eyes, edges wrinkled with smile lines, and hesitated.

“Miss Y/L/N? Do you have any questions for me?”

“I- uh, Yes, I do. But I am not sure you can answer.”

“Go ahead, and I will make that judgement myself.”

“How-,” Your voice came out squeaky with nerves. You cleared it and started again. “How did I do? Did I pass?”

“Well, Miss Y/L/N, I’m technically not supposed to answer that, but on my end, you’ve definitely passed. Barring your theory score, I’d give you an Outstanding for the spell work you have shown me today. Congratulations!”

At her words, your heart soared, and the widest grin spread across your face. You shook her hand tightly, thanking her profusely and raced out into the Entrance Hall, looking for Namjoon.

As you pushed past the throng of people, you both locked eyes and before you knew it, you were sprinting to him. People around you parted as you rushed up to him breathlessly. Instinctively, his arms opened, and you threw yourself into them, jumping up to hug him. You placed both hands around his broad, his wide smile calming your racing heart, as his arms came around you and caught your thighs, holding you up while you wrapped your legs around him in a bear hug. He laughingly set you down after hugging, “So I’m guessing that the exam went well? Mine went really well!”

“It went amazingly well.” You grabbed both his hands and looked up into his eyes, happiness overflowing your being. He started to pull away, but you stopped him. “Wait, one second,” He looked at you confused, and you giggled, “There’s something I want to try.”

With that you leaned up on the tips of your toes and pressed a featherlight kiss to Namjoon’s soft lips. As you left his lips, you whispered, “Thank you. For everything.” You turned to leave, but Namjoon tugged your arm back into his embrace, and pushed his lips back on yours. You let out a sigh you didn’t know you were holding and wrapped your arms around his neck while his hands slid around your waist as he deepened the kiss, throwing all his emotions into it. Your soft lips melded together, as if finally meeting. After what seemed like an eternity, you two separated and leaned your heads against each other, caught in your own little bubble, until…

“Finally!” Yoongi and the rest of your group let out cheers and then the entire Entrance Hall was clapping. Joon and you turned bright red, and you hid your head in his chest, embarrassed by the attention. Namjoon let out his barking laugh and kissed the top of your head. “Jagi, I need to ask you something, and this time I refuse to mess it up. Go to Hogsmeade with me?” You nodded enthusiastically, still smiling widely and Joon caught your hand tightly and brought you in for another kiss. Turns out finding a tutor for Transfiguration really did help you.

A/N: ITS SO LONG, I’M STILL NERVOUS ABOUT THAT. God, I gotta get better at writing. Lemme know what you think. And Back and Forth isn’t done, I’m just lazy about updating. I promise I will update that soon!

[codyfernaesthetic]

Dichotomy

Part 4:

The Sanctuary holds a massive celebration in honor of Michael Langdon’s return from Outpost 3. Mallory attempts to adjust to her new life with the help of new friends.

Author’s note: Hello! Shorter chapter this time, but I didn’t want to put it off any longer. I have big plans for Dinah and other minor characters so I wanna draft that out and get all of it together. Until then, here’s the ballroom scene! I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!

Warnings: Language, mild sexual themes, mentions of anxiety

Mallory didn’t have long to settle into her new home when a knock came from the door. Rhoda quickly rushed forward past Mallory who was already making her way and opened it. Outside the threshold was an older African American woman, short and stout; brown freckles were dotted across her round cheeks and nose, framed by dark curly q’s with stripes of gray splashed throughout. She wore a black, purple brocaded vest over a flowy white shirt, a violet skirt decorated with black silk trimmings stopped below her knees in the front and fell past her ankles in the back. Her shoes were royal purple, large black stones sparkling in their center. In her right hand she carried a large, worn leather bag.

“Hello, dear.”

She entered without Mallory having the chance to grant permission. As Rhoda shut the door, the woman held out her hand, “You must be Mallory. My name is Lydia Porfirio, perhaps you’ve heard of me?”

Mallory took her hand with a small twinge of uncertainty, until taking another moment to think and realizing where she recognized her.

“Yes!” She exclaimed with a smile, “Coco sent me to pick up your summer collection that she got for her birthday.”

“Coco?”

“My...” her face fell, a wave of further realization crashing over her, “former employer.”

Lydia patted her hand sympathetically, “She didn’t survive, I’m assuming?”

She shook her head and muttered, “No.”

She released her hand and set down her bag, saying, “You look devastated over it. I’ve known too many assistants who would’ve loved to murder their employers. Hell, I know I did when I was working for some no talent hacks before selling my soul to ol’ Beelzebub,” she removed a pair of black gloves and set them on the bed, “So, I suppose you two must’ve been good friends.”

She began opening the bag, pulling out measures and sewing kits and patterns; all the while Mallory watched, dumbfounded, unsure how to voice the forming ideas in her mind.

“So, this is all a Satanist thing.”

She stopped. She turned her face to her with a wry smile, “What was your first hint?”

Mallory hesitated, then asked in a low voice, “What does that make Mr. Langdon?”

Lydia cocked her head to the side, as if registering her question. She slowly stood straight, sudden realization in her eyes that Mallory truly didn’t know, “Michael Langdon is the Antichrist.”

Her head spinned as she grappled for the edge of the love seat, “I think I’m gonna be sick.”

“Now, hold on,” Lydia grabbed her by the arms and gently helped her sit down, “just take a deep breath, honey.”

She threw her head back and commanded Rhoda, “Go get her some water.”

She rushed to complete her task and knelt down in front of Mallory, presenting the glass before her. She waved it away, rubbing her temples, her breathing shallow.

“Why am I here? Why didn’t he just kill me?”

She wished she’d stayed dead the first time. She wished she never had to learn about Coco. Everything she knew was twisting and morphing before her eyes and she didn’t understand why.

“You must be something very special,” Lydia consoled, “Only the richest people got a chance to come to The Sanctuary. I know it’s a lot to take in, but you really are a lucky girl.”

She tried to chuckle, but it only came out as a mirthless, throaty grunt. She rubbed her eyes, a sharp pinprick headache forming at the base of her skull.

“I hate to do this to you,” Lydia stood, twirling a tuft of hair, “but I do need to start working if we want you in something presentable for the celebration.”

She looked up at her, “What?”

“I was sent here to make you a dress. I’m assuming you just came here with the clothes on your back.”

Mallory shook her head, disgusted and tired, “I can’t.”

Lydia answered sympathetically, but with a warning undertone, “It’s not optional, dear.”

She wrung her hands and closed her eyes, she never remembered praying to anyone or anything before, but now found herself calling out into the universe. Like an ant screaming to the top of a mountain, begging for anyone at all to hear her and help.

“Ok.”

*.*.*

The grand ballroom of The Sanctuary sprawled the length of a football field, its floor pure black marble, shined to reflect the domed ceiling towering above. Chandeliers of silver hung from the rafters, red rubies spilling down them like drops of blood. Murals were scrawled across the entire circumference of the ceiling, resembling the art of the Sistine Chapel, but with a much darker overtone. The people of Babel stood in pride, beholding their beautiful tower that touched the stars, defying the will of God; another, the grizzly scene of the murder of Abel, his brother Cain violently crushing his head with a stone. But in the center of the dome was the most vivid of them all. The scene was a perfect cloudscape, hues of gold and violet and orange dazzled and danced between puffs of white, the sky above radiant with white light, with the exception of one lone aberration. A figure with his arms outstretched, encrusted head to toe in clothes of fine silk and jewels, wings sprinkled with starlight, golden hair swirling around his angelic face, branches of lightening cracked around him to form a terrifying halo. Below him, his reverent epithet, the words, “Lucifer, The Morning Star, Conqueror of Earth, Harbinger of the Apocalypse”

The denizens filled the room, clad in gothic balllgowns and crimson waistcoats. The women’s hair was pinned and braided with jewels, and the men wore ostentatious rings of black diamond and silver, every outfit attempting to outdo the other. Long tables of rich food and decadent wine were placed all around. However, all eyes were focused on one man who stayed off to the side, surveying the crowd of his loyal subjects. Michael Langdon hung back from the crowd, arms behind his back in typical fashion. He was every inch an imposing, demonic king. Upon his head he wore a crown of silver thorns, entwining into three spirals at the top, tipped with rubies. His flowing, golden hair framed piercing eyes rimmed in black; black eyeshadow sexily smoked out on their corners. He wore a long, velvet coat, decorated with silver buttons and accents of leather over a black shirt with a thin mesh V sliding down his broad chest; a silver pentagram pendant around his neck, and leather boots, laced in silver.

Men and women eyed him, some with reverence, others with lust, but all watched him with hungry and desirous eyes. A particular rumor was buzzing around about the Devil’s son and the Cooperative’s plans for him, and all wanted to know how their King and Savior would go about fulfilling the plan.

But their heads turned with his as he stared awestruck at the ballroom’s threshold. Mallory stood there, escorted by Rhoda, panic seizing her as all eyes latched onto her at once. Lydia was a fast worker, though she had worked from a previously created pattern. Mallory’s gown transformed from a black satin bodice at the top to red strips swirling around the bottom like flames, her dark hair curled and done up with red jewels. She might’ve been the most simplest dressed there, but she might as well have been the only one in the room with the way Langdon’s eyes were locked on her. They tried to ignore him and continue conversation as he strolled towards her. Langdon, sensing their gaze, turned and waved them off, signaling that they best continue their revelry, and mind their own business; but some still gave Mallory dirty looks.

He appraised her; clinically, or so she thought. She balled her hands into fists, trying to hide how badly she was shaking.

“Your dress is lovely. Lydia works well under pressure.”

He tilted his head like a curious owl spying on his prey from up in his hideout; icy blue eyes drilling into her with such scrutiny that a pleasant heat pooled into her core, mixing with frozen shards of fear.

His lips pulled into a genuine smile, “May I have this dance?”

She tore her eyes away from his gaze and took his hand with trembling fingers, panic and rage swirling in her gut. Violins began their sweet, hypnotic tune. With one flowing movement, his left hand gripped her waist with a firm, but gentle touch, while gracefully whirling them onto the ballroom floor. She felt his eyes burning into the top of her head, her gaze fixed on the steps of their feet on the black marble floor.

“It’s very rude to not look your partner in the eyes.”

When she said nothing in response, he stopped abruptly. She braced for the worst, terrified that she had angered him, and would be severely punished for her insolence. Instead, his hand snaked further around her waist and up her back, drawing her closer til there was no space between them. His fingers pressed into the bare nape of her neck, a strong pressure, yet teasing. His warm, full lips made contact with the curve of her neck, pressing a tender, innocent kiss. Without her consent, a gasp of surprised pleasure escaped her throat. Within an instant he moved back to his original posture, a devious smirk adorned his face now that her eyes were well-fixed on him. His hand slipped back to her waist, but no effort was made to separate their bodies. They returned to their dancing without a word, the ghost of his lips haunting the dip of her neck.

“Did you ever dream of this when you were a child, Mallory?” He asked, his eyes lingering on her neck, brushing his tongue over his bottom lip, “Being in a beautiful gown, at a ball, in the arms of a king.”

Suddenly, a vision came upon her. Black, bat-like wings stretched out from behind Langdon’s form, spanning across the entire room. Serpentine black horns climbed from his head. His eyes became as red as blood. The same grasping darkness she’d encountered in the tunnel sprung up from the ground and entwined itself around her legs.

“And the fact that the same king holding you close,” he continued with a heady voice, “Could twitch his finger and end your existence, does that scare you?” His mouth twisted into a grin, “Excite you? You know who I am, what I am capable of,” he leaned in closer and whispered, “Are you frightened, Mallory?”

She gulped back tears, the terror threatening to overtake her. The darkness tightened its grip.

“You will speak to me,” he commanded with a dangerously gruff voice.

She grit her teeth and looked him in the eye, power coursing through her, pushing back the darkness.

“I am not afraid of you.”

When the words left her mouth, the vision vanished. The normal sights, sounds, and smells wafted all around her, bringing her back to reality. Langdon took a step back, still holding her right hand. He tilted his head in a slight bow, as if agreeing to a challenge.

“Good.”

[knifeshoeoreofight]

How about a late night stream-of-consciousness chatfic from last night?

me: reg text

@icosahedonist: bold

There’s a particular path Sid likes to take in the mornings to jog with his dog. It’s quiet and barely used.  And it’s pretty. He likes to go as often as he can, to clear his head. Even in winter. 

... I think Sid is a..............how about a kid's hockey coach? It's not well paid, and there are rumors his program might be cut, and he'd be out of a job. He's stressed out about it.

Geno is a KHL star who retired early. He's got a lot of money but no idea how to have an actual life outside of playing hockey.

He's ended up in wherever-the-fuck Canada because..............

uuhhhhhh

maybe there's some kind of rich people ski resort.

But he's brooding so he ends up walking this trail that ends up winding through a local park.

He need to walk as part of his knee rehab maybe.

He notices the dog first. It's this squat little pitbull mix, goofy looking and cute, and always looking thrilled with life.

One time it lunges for him, tail whipping wildly and tongue lolling, trying to make friends. "Come on, Peanut," the owner chides. "Leave him alone." Geno has to laugh to himself. Peanut. What a name. (If only he knew that the dog's full name was Peanut Butter, and that he'd been named by one of Flower's daughters).

(because he's a brown dog and Uncle Sid likes PB & J, of course!)

And one day he hears the same guy calling and calling his dog, but this time it's loud and anxious, interspersed with piercing whistles and beseeching "Here, boy!"s

oh no

He jogs a little, turns a corner and there's the guy, hands cupped to his mouth, calling.

"Lose dog?" Geno offers. the guy turns to him, frantic. "Yeah, there was a squirrel, and we've been working on this in obedience class?? But he bolted, and I--" the man's breath hitches. Geno is quick to offer to head the other direction down the trail and help look.

He's a ways down the trail when he practically runs into Peanut, who is jogging down the trail looking bewildered because his dad? was just right there? but now he's not??? !!!!!!!!

Geno calls his name and Peanut happily lollops up to him, grinning and excited.

(a friend!)

He grabs him by the collar and quickly walks him down the trail towards Sid. It's hell on his back, Peanut is kind of low to the ground, and he eventually decides to just pick him up, sturdy as he is. Peanut just puts his paws up on Geno's shoulder and peers happily around from his new vantage point, tail bap-bapping violently against Geno's middle.

"Fuck, Peanut, you stupid dog!" Sid cries as Peanut practically mauls Geno as he flails to get back down on the ground and oh boy! Kiss his dad all over! His dad! That's his FAVORITE person!!!!!!!! Geno has to laugh. Sid's scolding is obviously totally out of fearful relief. His (pretty, hazel, luminous, oh no) eyes are red-rimmed and too bright as he clips a leash on his dog and thanks Geno profusely.

Geno really takes a moment to look at Sid for the first time. oh. no. He's....he's got black hair curling out from under a lumpy knitted toque (it was a gift "for Coach," from one of his peewee girls, in their team colors)

knitted with love, no doubt

so much. Coach Crosby is adored.

Anyway this guy has pretty eyes and a prettier mouth and a cute hat and a cute dog and Geno can just feel the flock of butterflies take up residence in his stomach.

he walks back with Sid to his car, even though the park's parking lot is in the complete opposite direction of the resort. His knee is beginning to ache a bit and he knows the slog back will be murder, but. Sid.

He's asking Sid about himself, trying to remember how to be charming, how he chatted up beautiful people all the time in clubs and bars before he got hurt. Before he left Russia and the KHL behind.

Meanwhile Sid is about 70% sheer relief that Peanut has been corralled and about 30% oh wow TALL, and oh wow ACCENT.

he noticed Geno wince when he stumbles over a ridge of compacted snow at the edge of the parking lot and it triggers his Coach Senses. Is Geno hurt, what hurts, how long has it been hurting etc etc

Geno is shamefacedly forced to admit that he's rehabbing his knee and he maaaaybe overdid it. this will obviously Not Do as far as Sid is concerned and before he quite knows what happened, Geno is sitting in Sid's beat-up truck, Peanut ensconced between them (thrilled that there's TWO people, his favorite things, in the car, his favorite place, oh boy)

Sid apologizes if the trucks a little funky, he hauls around a lot of hockey gear as well as a wet dog. Oh no, Geno thinks. Hockey. He had really wanted to stay away from hockey.

(why did you go to fucking Canada then, Geno?)

(HMMMM)

oh no, cute guy with cute dog who loves hockey... whatever will geno do???

And he finds out Sid is a hockey COACH, even. Sid gets talking about his kids on the way up, and even though Geno hadn't wanted to hear any hockey talk, the love of the game and his charges just kind of, radiates from Sid. Geno can tell this guy loves what he does. So damn much, He's.....probably amazing with kids.

(fuck)

the answer seems to be fall in love

A couple days later, Geno kind of Accidentally Ends up at the community rink. It's part nervous hope he'll see Sid again, it's partly that the yearning to put on skates and just, fly, never really left him.

He's been okayed for skating months ago. But he hasn't felt ready to face a rink again until now.

The rink is run down, but clearly busy and loved. There are little teeny kiddos with brightly colored figure skating bags in the foyer, putting neon fuzzy soakers on their blades after their lessons. God, their skates are so tiny.

There's a lot of happy yelling coming from the ice, and when he walks through the doors to the rink, after he's recovered from the emotional hit that is the sting of cooled air, the smell of the ice, the rubber flooring, he sees a hockey practice is happening on the ice.

He's not been around little hockey players in a while. He's forgotten how funny tiny kids look in gear. Especially the goalies like little robots in all their pads. And there is Sid on the ice, somehow making a set of trackies look good, gliding gracefully between his miniature players as they wobble through their drills.

Geno climbs into the stands to watch and wait for the public rec session after this. There are a smattering of parents watching.

A nice mom greets him. "Which one's yours?" she asks, and his heart does a funny thing in his chest.

*lies face down*

"Uh, none," he has to admit. "I come for public skate but I come too early." He waggles his beat up pair of rental hockey skates.

The nice mom continues to chat with him, telling him how WONderful Coach Crosby is with the kids, how they just ADORE him.

Geno makes faint noises of acknowledgment and tries not to let both his crush and his dormant love of hockey unfold any further.

she has an active ear, geno gonna get sid's entire life story and every scrap of gossip by the time the kiddos are done

Then, the mom sadly adds, "But, this is probably the last winter we'll have this, you know?"

And then Geno gets to hear that the rink is in disrepair and the town can't afford to repair it to code. It's going to be shut down at the end of the season, with no timeline for it to reopen.

uh oh

Sid's going to lose his job, he realizes. He looks at where he can see Sid as he carefully helps a kid back upright, pulling a kleenex out of his pocket to wipe their tears and snotty nose as he makes sure they're okay, just a little scared from the tumble they took.

He thinks about his untouched millions in the bank. How bleak he'd felt, with nothing to work towards and no need to strive for anything anymore.

Well. This he can do. This is easy.

"Who in charge?" he asks the mom. "Where can I find?"  She blinks but tells him the board of trustees is having a meeting next week.

What a helpful lady.

the helpfulest!

Geno already has his phone out, and is already busy canceling his flight home in two days. He's going to be here a while longer, he thinks.

And scene.

(you can imagine the rest: geno saves the rink, but like, secretly, and he gets to know sid better, and they fall in love, Geno skates again, and finds out how good it feels to get back on the ice. He meets Sid's beer league friends. They definitely at one point kiss in Sid's questionable old truck. Peanut anoints him Best Person Ever After Dad.)

(eventually somehow Sid finds out, there's a dramatic conversation, maybe with snow swirling around them, etc. It's a little angsty but things get resolved and theres a Big Damn Cinematic Kiss.)

hmmmmm but... what if sid knows who geno is, and it doesn't take too much figuring out to know who had the cash to save the rink, and he never says anything bc geno never says anything, and it doesn't seem like he did it just to get into sid's pants (altho that is a bonus for sure)

that too

he just waits for Geno to tell him when he's ready.

Couple years down the line, they're 1. Moved into the gorgeous lodge-style house Geno buys. 2. Engaged, with plans for a December wedding. 3. Looking into adoption.

when geno tells sid about his past, and all the money that geno just "mysteriously" has, it's anticlimatic. sid may be a hockey coach in nowhere, canada, but he's heard of evgeni malkin

He gently kisses Geno's forehead. "I know, babe. It wasn't hard to figure out. I knew you'd tell me when you were ready."

and anyway, he didn't fall in love with geno bc of his money. when geno asks what it was, then, sid smiles beautifically and says, "your ass."

AHAHA yess

(but it was actually his heart, of course)

(bc he's too fond of chirping to let an opportunity go by!)

Geno: "Hm, smart, is best ass."

"Need to lock up." "Lock down?" "Yes, that."

[folightening]

"We really need to stop meeting like this"

Summary: 4+1. Four times Loqi was already stuck when Cor found him, and one time he got stuck after.

Pairing: Cor/Loqi

Rated Teen

Words: 2177

*****

-1-

It was absurd. Just... Not at all what Cor had expected to find when he came out here.

"Are you going to help me or stand there staring?"

Loqi's annoyed tone snapped Cor out of his musings and back to the situation.

The young Imperial general was tied to a pole like some kind of sacrifice. Or some kind of criminal in ancient times about to be burnt at the stake. Upon looking, Cor could see that his armor was behind him. How exactly this had happened, he wasn't sure.

"Some kind of obscure cult decide you were the perfect sacrifice?"

"Very funny Leonis." Loqi laughed, unamused and sarcastic. "My so-called comrades left me here. I have yet to figure out why."

Maybe it had something to do with his wonderful personality. Rather than state that opinion, Cor crossed his arms and kept the grin off his face. Neutrality was his best option for now.

"Why exactly should I not leave you here?"

If Cor untied him, Loqi was more likely than not to run off and continue doing Niflheim's bidding. Which made him an enemy better left where he was.

"Can you leave me here in good conscience, knowing that I am likely to be devoured alive by one of the many creatures living around here?"

The tone, the way he looked at Cor with wide eyes, lips parted in disbelief... Loqi knew what he was doing.

"You are far more heartless than the rumors say."

Cor closed his eyes and cursed the very fact that Loqi Tummelt was part of his life. A highly aggravating, persistent part that he couldn't seem to rid himself of.

"I'm not heartless," Cor argued. "I have no reason to release an enemy soldier from being tied to a pole."

He turned to leave, shoving aside his nagging conscience telling him not to leave Loqi there.

"If they're respectable people," he said, "your comrades will release you before anything happens."

"My comrades are the people who put me here!"

"I'm sure they'll be back." Cor stopped and turned to regard Loqi again. "Your comrades wouldn't leave you to die."

Loud laughter was not what he had expected to hear.

"You are Lucian; you wouldn't understand."

Cor stared at Loqi.

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"Exactly what I said. Trust me, they are not coming back for me."

It could be a lie. Or people from Niflheim were more cruel than Cor had thought. Either way, it was decided.

"I'm going to regret this."

-2-

"Mind telling me how you got into this?"

Loqi was stuck. Cor was staring at his backside. His very nice, shapely backside... But that was beside the point.

"What does it look like?" Loqi snapped. Cor could barely hear his muffled voice. "I was attempting to retrieve an item that fell down here, and got stuck."

As if to prove his point, Loqi pushed himself back and only succeeded in granting Cor an even better view of his ass and thighs. If he cared to look.

"I think something shifted and prevented me from going either direction."

"Have you tried-"

"Yes, Leonis," Loqi interrupted. "I have tried everything that makes any sense."

Cor studied the rock around Loqi, kneeling down beside him to get a better look.

"Don't you dare try anything," Loqi warned.

As tempted as he was to place his hand on Loqi's ass in retaliation for the partial insult, Cor refrained. Nothing worth the headache would come from following that particular urge. It was rude to touch people in such a manner without permission anyway.

After a few minutes of examining the stones around Loqi, Cor came to the conclusion that he could indeed safely move the rocks enough for Loqi to get free.

"If I move-"

"Don't you move anything!"

Cor huffed and crossed his arms despite Loqi's inability to see the motion. Moving the rocks was the only way to get him out.

"Do you want out or not?"

Unsurprisingly, there was a few moments of silence before Loqi responded. The choice between accepting help and retaining pride... Cor understood well how Loqi was feeling.

"Yes..."

"Then shut up and let me help."

-3-

There had been rumors of the Niffs sending someone out here to investigate some ruins. Cor had been uncertain, but it definitely looked as though a magitek engine had landed here earlier. Which meant he had to continue and see what he found.

Wary of the possible MTs in the area, Cor held his katana at the ready as he walked forward. There was no way of knowing how many of those robotic soldiers would be here or which officer he'd be dealing with.

If he was lucky, it would be Loqi.

The sight that greeted him ten minutes later made him stop in his tracks and simply stare.

He found General Loqi... tangled in vines... Cor evenly exhaled and tried not to think about the pose Loqi was in.

Loqi looked down, their gazes met, and Loqi's cheeks flushed.

"What are you staring at?" he yelled. "I can- dammit- get out of these myself! Then I'm going to defeat you!"

Watching Loqi's attempts at freeing himself only bind him more brought up feelings Cor deemed entirely inappropriate for the situation. He crossed his arms- a common occurrence when dealing with Loqi- and smirked.

"You're doing a fine job of it," Cor said. "How'd you get there?"

"None of your business!"

Typical Loqi.

"I doubt the vines grabbed you on their own."

There were some strange plants out there- usually native to Tenebrae- but he'd never heard of one that grabbed a person on its own.

Loqi's face flushed more and Cor willed himself not to look away from the sight. That would be admitting to those inappropriate thoughts and attraction.

"Fine," Loqi snarled. "I fell, landed in them, and somehow managed to get tangled up."

A reasonable explanation. Judging by how things looked, Cor doubted Loqi was going to be getting himself out of those vines. All he could do was wait for Loqi to realize that.

"Let me know when you want down."

"Fuck off Leonis."

It was another hour before Loqi finally slumped in the vines. Cor raised an eyebrow at him but didn't say anything.

"Why haven't you left yet?" Loqi panted at him, face flushed from his efforts at untangling himself.

"I'm not going to leave you here."

"You just enjoy seeing me like this."

"Night will be falling soon," Cor pointed out.

It wasn't as if he hadn't helped Loqi before. Or as if they didn't have some sort of relationship. Even if it was built on attraction, sex, and a promise that they wouldn't fall in love. Enemies with benefits, Loqi had called it.

"Fine," Loqi grumbled. "Get me down."

The vines broke under his blade, Loqi fell into his arms, and the ground beneath them crumbled.

-4-

The echo of Loqi's shout didn't provide any information where the general was. He'd run off much faster than Cor had been expecting the moment they'd recovered from the fall and Cor hadn't seen him since. It did, however, cause a fear that Cor hadn't felt since he saw the smoke rising from the Citadel as Lucis fell to grip him.

It took half an hour for Cor to find Loqi. Stuck again. Down in a hole that Cor assumed had opened up beneath him. These old ruins had a tendency to shift and change without warning.

Unsettling relief swirled in him and he ignored the evidence that what they had was something more than they'd said it would be.

"You have a knack for getting yourself stuck," Cor remarked.

"Shut up."

After how long he'd been down there and the time he'd been in the vines, Cor thought for sure that Loqi wouldn't be as stubbornly against his help this time.

"I can get myself out," Loqi announced.

Cor doubted that very much, but didn't say anything.

Instead, he sat down and watched as Loqi attempted to find a handhold in smooth stone. Eventually, the floor would lift again. Or close, whichever had happened. Cor couldn't just leave him and continue on with that uncertainty lingering over him.

"So what happened?"

"The floor just vanished," Loqi snapped. "Now be quiet so I can concentrate!"

For a few moments, Cor was.

"You're lucky there was something down there."

The look Loqi gave him definitely fell into the 'if looks could kill' category. Cor was immune to especially Loqi's by now.

"You know it'll close over you eventually."

"There is some trick to getting back out. They would build some way of getting out in the event that one of their own fell in."

Cor wasn't so sure of that, but he'd leave Loqi to his hoping. He stood again and looked around. In his experience, controls for traps weren't in reasonable locations and ancient ruins didn't have them to begin with. But it was worth looking around.

Maybe he'd find whatever the Niffs were looking for and could keep it out of their hands.

Or he could pull something out of Noctis' armiger. There would be something useful in there.

"Dammit!" Loqi shouted. "This is ridiculous!"

That settled it. Cor reached into Noctis' still unfamiliar armiger, digging around until he found a rope. Hopefully they weren't in need of it.

Once he had one end tied around a sturdy column, he tossed the other down and ignored Loqi's glare.

"You know we're going to have to go on a date after this," Loqi said.

"Sure."

+1

The battle had been going on longer than it usually did. With the rest of the base in the battle as well, Cor supposed that wasn't surprising. Nor was the fact that Loqi continued his attack even when it was clear he had already lost. Whatever else they did, in the end they remained on opposing sides of a war.

Barely dodging another missile, Cor resisted the urge to yell at Loqi. That wouldn't do him any good.

Instead, he avoided fire from the base itself and searched for a way to end this before they both died. Incapacitating his mech would force Loqi to eject and hopefully get out of the flaming ruins.

It took a few well-aimed swings of his katana for the pink mech to fall to the ground.

The top didn't open.

"Shit," he heard Loqi over the speakers. "Shit!"

"Loqi?"

It still wasn't opening. Loqi's mech wasn't responding the way it should have been.

Cor ran toward the fallen mech before he could stop to think about what he was doing. The fire was spreading fast, eagerly following the oil that he had foolishly caused to spread across the cement. In his experience, it wasn't too long before the mech exploded without any fire helping it along.

"Loqi, talk to me! What's going on?"

"It won't open! I can't- I'm-"

That sounded dangerously close to hysterics. Panicking was not going to help Loqi.

"Loqi. Stay calm, I-"

"I can't get out!" Loqi yelled at him. "You expect me to remain calm right now?"

"Panicking will just make it worse."

His katana could open it, in theory. It could cut through enough to force it down like this in the first place... Cor looked over the top, scanning his options and ignoring that he could hear something suspiciously like crying.

"Get down Loqi."

The last thing Cor wanted to do was hurt him in his efforts to get him out. He had no idea where exactly Loqi was in there. Just an estimate based off Loqi's stature and the size of the mech.

"You good?"

"Hurry up!"

Keeping as close to the top as reasonably possible, Cor stabbed through the metal on the side and sliced across. It didn't take long to get it open enough for Loqi to squeeze through.

"Come on."

Loqi scrambled out and the two of them ran out of the base as the mech exploded.

Just hearing Loqi's crying had been bad enough. Now he could actually see the tears and how much of a mess he was.

"You're alive and safe now."

"I- I almost..."

Loqi cried harder and Cor grimaced. He had never been terribly good at comforting people, even after helping look after Noctis. That and, despite the relationship, he didn't think Loqi would accept any.

"I'm not ready to-" Loqi choked on the word and Cor pulled him into a hug.

Petting Loqi's hair was the only thing he could think of to do. The armor prevented him from rubbing his back or holding him any tighter.

"No one is ever ready to die," Cor said. "Even when they think they are, when the time comes..."

Loqi looked up at him and Cor brushed a few tears from his cheek. Cor managed a smile.

"Great reminder that you're human."

Loqi buried his face in Cor's shirt again and Cor ignored the way he could feel Loqi's armor pressing uncomfortably into him.

[talechaser-ffxiv]

04 - Doll

Another day, another social event to attend.  Some grand gala held by yet another of Ul'dah's social elite, she didn't bother to keep track of the details.  An invitation had arrived, her name was written on the card, that was all she needed to know.  So here she was.  One day she would have it in her to refuse.  She cursed her noble upbringing and the rules that came with it, which had been crammed into her head since a young age.

Sasae despised these events.  The forced smiles, the feigned laughter... hers most of all.  She hated having to pretend.  She hated having to play along with society.  She was content to just stand in the corner and sip her wine in peace.  At least she didn't have to worry quite so much about seeing her parents... they tended to avoid any event that she was invited to.

Perhaps that was truly why she went--the more parties she attended, the less influence her parents had among the nobility.

Sasae took another sip of her wine, her gaze sweeping the room once again.  No one had taken notice of her yet.  That was always a relief.  She hated having to wear the mask, to put on airs and pretend everything was fine.  She hated having to pretend to like people.  She preferred her privacy, her solitude.  Anyone that wished to violate that, she was all too eager to crush beneath her heel.

She refused to be anyone's doll ever again.

The music changed, and she found herself glancing towards the performers.  She had to admit, they were good.  If there was one thing she did enjoy at events like this, the music was often it.  The musicians were perhaps her favorite.  They just stayed quiet and played music, providing something that she could listen to rather than the catty gossip and egotistical posturing all around her.  Granted, it didn't stop her from eavesdropping; living in Ul'dah had taught her that having even the slightest nugget of information about your opposition could give you an edge... or cripple your efforts, if the information were false.

She made a mental note to provide a tip for the musicians before leaving.  Today's gala was especially dull, and no new gossip had arisen.  The music was the only good part.  The music and the wine.  At least no one had deigned to bother her this time.

"Hello, milady.  It is a pleasure to see you again."

Sasae could feel the faintest twitch in her brow.  So much for that thought.  She didn't even need to look to see who it was.  She knew that arrogant voice anywhere, one of her many 'suitors', and perhaps the one with whom her father had nearly arranged a marriage.  Prior to the 'incident', anyway.

Asobo Yuresobo.

"Why the cold shoulder, Lady Sasae?" Asobo asked.  She could hear the smarmy grin plastered on his face.  "After all, last I heard, we were to be betrothed...  I had your father's blessing, the arrangements were to be made... and then I hear nothing for moons."

"How tragic."  Sasae kept her gaze turned away from Asobo, preferring to watch the band play.  "I never heard of such an arrangement.  Perhaps you are thinking of someone else."

"Hardly."  Sasae had to keep herself from scowling.  She hated how he towered over her.  He lacked the height of a Hyur or a Roegadyn, but they at least didn't loom over her drooling like a street cur hungry for scraps.  "How could I mistake beauty such as yours?"  She had to keep herself from reacting as she felt his hand brushing through her hair.  Were this just another mongrel on the street, she would set him aflame immediately.  But here, there were too many eyes.  Not only that, but his wealth gave him an inflated sense of ego, and it meant that reprisal would be nonexistent even if anyone did notice.

She simply had to play along.  She hated this game with all her being, but this was how the world worked.

"Quite easily, I would think..." she mused aloud, still not looking towards the Plainsfolk.  "After all, were you not just professing your affections to Lady Namomo just last week at the banquet?"

"Merely a courtesy, I assure you," he replied nonchalantly.

"Then there was Lady Cicila at her dinner party..." she continued.

"It is good manners to express appreciation to one's host."

"Lady Ririmu at her cousin's masquerade ball..."

"I wished to congratulate her on her betrothal."

"Not to mention Lady Sanana, Lady Kokomo, Lady Ulele, or Lady Namimi..."  Sasae couldn't help but marvel at how he was willing to play off each of these as if these women weren't already present at the gala.  And all the while that smile hadn't left his face.

"None of whom can hold a candle to your beauty, Sasae..."  Asobo took her drink from her, and as he did, Sasae could feel him take her hand.  It took everything she had to keep her anger under control.  She disliked unnecessary physical contact, especially without her consent.  She could feel her hand heating up from an innate desire to burn him, but she forced herself to keep it contained.  No doubt he would misconstrue it as something idiotic, anyways.

"I must decline."  She pulled her hand back, despite how she felt his grip tighten initially.  "I have no interest in you, and your wealth and social status are of no consequence to me.  You are mistaken.  There was no betrothal, and there will be none.  If you wish to ask my father, then by all means, go ahead.  The answer will not change."  She finally turned her gaze towards him, and she could see him still smiling.  She hated that smile.  It was infuriating.  Did he even care what she had to say?  "If you will excuse me... I have elsewhere to be."

She turned to leave.

"Lady Sasae."

She stopped reflexively.  She could feel the anger rising within her.  It was getting to be more and more difficult to contain.

"Your drink, Lady Sasae."

Sasae turned to face Asobo, staring at the wine glass as he held it out to her.  He was still smiling, that same arrogant, slimy smile that she despised so much.  Sasae remained silent as she took the glass back, staring Asobo in the face.

"...why, thank you."

She turned the glass abruptly, throwing the wine in his face.  Seeing his smile drop was easily the most satisfying experience, to say nothing of the dark red streaking down his face and hair.  She handed the glass back to him, and he took it almost reflexively.

"I do believe I've had enough to drink today."

Sasae turned on her heel, ignoring the stares as she left Asobo behind.  She strode right out without even a second glance back.  She'd had more than enough socialization for the day.

At least the vision of Asobo's wine-soaked visage would leave her in a good mood for quite some time.

Sasae sat in silence before the fire, watching the flames dance within the fireplace.  She was alone in the darkness, alone with her thoughts of what had transpired at the gala.  Anger swirled within her like an inferno, yet despite it, she felt cold as ice.

She'd heard the stories.  She'd heard of how Asobo had collapsed at the gala not even one bell after her departure.  He was alright, much to her chagrin, but the panic to follow was of particular note.  There were rumors that the wine had been poisoned, and already she could imagine the unfortunate workers from the kitchens being blamed for the ordeal.

The implications were not lost on her.  Asobo didn't have a single glass of wine for himself.  Her wine had been fine as well.

At least, it had been until it ended up in his hands.

Heavy footfalls caught her attention.  She recognized them.  After all, she had employed him previous times in the past.  He hated her, she knew that much.  She didn't care.  Let him hate her.  If anything, she was all the more thankful that he couldn't see her face right now.  She didn't want to see the look on his face if he noticed.

She was done with being seen as a doll.  She was done being played with.  And she refused to be broken.

"...another 'offer'...?" she heard the Au Ra ask, his voice gruff, displeased, but she knew she could depend on him.  He was efficient.  And she knew that this was a job he would gladly take.

"...yes.  Twice the usual rate, more if you manage to keep it quiet."  Sasae's grip tightened on her skirt, her teeth grinding painfully as she fought to contain her anger.

"...and the job is...?"  His voice was cautious.  She didn't blame him.  She knew he didn't like being used like this.  Sasae had to take a breath to compose herself, silently praying he didn't notice the slight quaver as she inhaled.

"...I want you to get rid of Asobo Yuresobo."

March Writing Challenge - 04 - Doll

[selenelavellan]

Atlantithan pt 2

Part One

Dirthamen, Falon’din, Mana’din, and Glory are @feynites

The ache of seeing Longing after so long apart lingers in Selenes chest for days after the encounter.

She hesitates to say she is tempted to find him again, but....her mind fills with memories she had thought long forgotten. Despite the comforting darkness of her home, her eyes keep drifting upwards during patrols. Recalling the days when they used to frolic in the warmth of shallow afternoon waters. How he used to enjoy stretching out on sheets of ice in the north. Those few months when they had been caught up in the errant thoughts of a pod of whales and discovered just how extensive the migration patterns had become.

Before Purpose had found them, and dragged Longing back to his family.

Selene frowns in distaste as she recalls how little resistance he had given to that particular demand, and turns back to her routes. Careful to not let her mind drift too far, paying attention to the flow of magic around her and ensuring the energies are moving as they should.

There is a large, glowing jellyfish waiting near where one of her wards used to be.

Where she had first found Deceit.

“What are you doing here, Longing?” She asks quietly, still shrouded in the shadows only a few feet from him.

“We had found you here before,” he answers, voice echoing through the empty space around them. “It seemed likely you would return, at some point.”

“You should not be here.”

“I have no fear of monsters,” He assures her.

Selene bites down on her bottom lip, contemplating her options. Even if she leaves now, old habits would suggest he would just wait for her again. Which means she may need to design a new route, a new pattern of wards to keep them all hidden from prying eyes. Glory won't be happy to hear about that.

“Why now?” She asks instead. “It has been centuries. Why search for me now?”

“Falon'din has died.”

Selene blinks.

“I...don't know who that is,” She admits. “Does their death mean your family's empire is finally over?”

“Falon'din is...Falon'din was the name chosen for Purpose. The empire will continue on; my daughter has decided to step in to deter potential power vacuums.”

A sharp sting of betrayal races through Selene as she darts out of the shadows, spines and eyes alight with fury and sticking out in all directions from her back, arms, and tail.

“You had a child?!”

She knows she is glowing more brightly than he is, making her into a target in these waters but the shock of his words keep her from being able to hold back as clouds of emotions pour out of her.

He doesn't answer right away. Preoccupied with her sudden presence she imagines. With the change in her appearance; no longer soft and warm and welcoming but instead in this new body with its defense mechanisms and naturally occurring armor with glamours enchanted into it to cover the scars of her ‘death’.

“...Yes,” he finally manages. “I think you would like her.”

“I think she will not like me when I strangle the life out of her other parent-you bonded to another?! You knew I was still alive, just as I knew you were and you went and-and-gods you just went and got right on with your life without me I suppose! Just found someone more useful to you-better suited to your families plans and-and-and-!”

“I did not bond with another,” Longing says slowly. “I did not procreate to make a daughter. She found me, and I raised her on my own.”

Selenes eyes dim, her shoulders relaxing slightly with the admission.

“...she found you?”

“Yes.”

“And she did not have a mother? No Nanae or other parental figure?”

“That is correct.”

She lets out a low breath, finally pulling the light back into herself as she settles her nerves.

“...What is her name?”

Longing considers for a moment before answering. “I suppose it is Mana'din, now.”

Selene nods slowly, arms crossed loosely over her stomach. “Ok..Well...Congratulations, I guess.”

“You would have been a good mother,” Longing declares bluntly, nearly knocking her off balance.

She can feel her face begin to warm, her scales turning a pale pink rather than their usual purple hue. “That's-I wouldn't-...” She sighs. “Yeah. Shame about all that pesky murderous massacre business.”

“I am sorry for that.”

“I know you are,” She admits. “But it doesn't change what happened.”

He stills for a moment, considering.

And then he shifts back into an elf. Tail and limbs long and sleek, with an appearance nearly identical to those of Fear and Deceit.

Near enough that she asks about them.

“They are aspects of myself,” He says.

Selene drifts around him in thought “I don't understand. If you are you, how are they also you? How do Fear and Deceit form from Longing?”

“There...was an incident,” he explains in familiarly vague terms. “I have not gone by Longing in some time now.”

“Oh? What is your new name?”

“I am called Dirthamen.”

She nods, finishing her slow circle.

“Do you like it?”

“I have grown accustomed to it.”

She nods again.

“When I was searching, there were no spirits or rumors of anyone named Devotion. Is there another name you are using as well?”

“There is,” She hums.

“Will you share it with me?”

Selene tilts her head in consideration.

“No. I do not trust you to have it,” She admits.

She can feel his mood drop through their bond, as physically close as they are right now, and a small niggling feeling of guilt rises in her chest.

“...yet,” she finally adds.

He perks up slightly at the addendum, and she has to resist the urge to giggle at the familiar quirk. It is adorable, and the desire to pull him into her arms is not a small one.

“I have missed you,” She whispers instead.

“Come back with me,” he offers.

“Absolutely not.”

Dirthamen lets out a soft sigh, and rests his head on her shoulder. The spines recede as he does, and Selene mildly wonders if her body might not be particularly traitorous on this front, now. He slides a finger curiously down another spine, watching as it twitches slightly in response.

“My brother can no longer hurt you.”

“Your brother was not the only danger in Atlantithan,” She points out.

“I will keep you safe,” he promises, lips pressed gently to the skin of her shoulder, and Selene shivers at the sudden warming sensation that spreads through her at the contact.

“I do not wish to be kept safe. I wish to live freely.”

Dirthamen lets out a soft sigh, and does not push the matter further. Instead, he settles against her, slowly wrapping her in arms and limbs and holding her tightly to him. 

There is not much use in hiding the joy his swell of affection spikes in her, so she doesn't bother. For a moment, she closes her eyes and allows herself to relax into him, letting him embrace her the way he wishes, as she pulls the shadows around the two of them in case of any passerby's.

She lets him pull her thoughts into the same stream his own are occupying; warm waters and laughter and touches that ignite hidden pleasures in secret coves and tides they used to sneak away to for days on end. Memories of the elation he felt as a father, to the pride he found in his daughters strength, to the loss he felt when she left to fill the hole his brother had left in the empire. Selene finds the holes left in him, gaps that ooze an all too familiar substance, wounds that might never heal, a loneliness that echoes her own after they had last been separated. Their own bond thickens; strings of light stitching seams that did not use to exist. She can see Fear and Deceit; one wandering the dreaming, the other sitting in a throne with a false face hidden beneath a mask, and for a moment they look back at her in turn, and she can see her Longing reflected back in each set of their eyes.

Aspects.

She understands a little better, now.

He pulls her back up, lips resting against her own. Not quite a kiss, but a closeness they've both ached for for too long. Their bond reaffirming with each passing moment as his fingers link through hers, his aura expanding around them and swirling with her shadows in a way that lets her feel his weight falling away from him. Her own follows with it, tensions and tears eased by his presence, by his touch, by his mind.

“Vhenan,” he sighs against her mouth, affection turning back to love, to trust, to promises of days to come.

As though nothing had ever happened.

Selenes eyes open.

“That is not my name,” She murmurs, twisting away from his grip. He releases her immediately, floating in the same spot they had been occupying together only a second ago.

Foolish, she thinks.

“Longing, I can not...” She sighs. “Dirthamen, I can't just continue as though nothing happened. As though we are still where we were then. I am not that person. You may not love what I have become.”

His head turns to the side, considering. “You could be right,” He admits, and she feels something in her go cold. “But I do not think I could truly stop loving you, all the same.”

“You don't know that-”

“Are you so concerned the scars you are trying to hide will repulse me?” he interrupts “Or is that you are worried you may not love what I have become?”

She swallows.

She could not stop loving him, no matter what he has done. She knows; she has spent the last several centuries trying to do exactly that, and after less than a day together she is already nearly willing to forgive him.

It is a dangerous notion.

Not just for her, but for the family she has formed for herself. For the others that she keeps safe. For the people who run from the city and seek refuge in her waters.

“I am covered in more damage than you have seen,” She evades. “In truth, there is very little of my stomach left that is not made of scar tissue.”

“You have yet to be perturbed by a single one of my forms; yet you believe I would not be attracted to you because of a discrepancy in the texture of your skin?”

“I think you would be conflicted when you realized it was caused by your own twin soul.”

Dirthamen swallows, eyes and fingers drifting down to graze lightly over her stomach. “I...”

Selene sighs, swimming back and away from him. “I need to get back to my patrols.”

“May I visit you again?”

She hesitates. If Glory were to find out he were so close, and that it is her fault...

“In the dreaming,” She finally answers.

He accepts her offer, and shifts back into a significantly less noticeable jellyfish as he begins his trek back towards the city.

She spares him one last glance, her own fingers drifting where his had, and lets out a long breath.

Time to go back to work.

[clairekatswritingcorner]

Her Guardian Angel

Word Count: 5,102

Summary: Alexys discovers a stranger in her house who ends up turning her whole world—and her heart—upside down.

*Author’s Note*: A commission for @bad-blue-moon-rising! I always love writing for her because her ships are just so great and lovely ;~; this is yet another fantastic one, involving an angel and a prophecy that was destined to bring them together. Beyond adorable and heartwarming and cute!! I hope you enjoy!

Another day had come to a close, and Alexys couldn’t help finding herself a little relieved. She was headed home from work, following the same route she always did, acting more on autopilot than anything else. As much as she enjoyed her job, doing what she could to save and heal as many animals as possible, sometimes even she needed a break. She needed time to recollect herself, to recoup after a long day of dealing with all the people and animals that had crowded the clinic. She often soaked in their energies as they mixed in with the other smells and sounds that swirled around her. She was a fairly sensitive person, both socially and emotionally, and being around too much commotion for too long tended to wear her out.

Even the simple, short stint of silence she had on her way home was refreshing. It wasn’t unusual for her to finish her shift late, often staying after hours to help wrap up last minute duties or manage emergency cases that had come in just as they were closing. She was never one to turn away a patient, no matter the circumstances; she had always been the type of person that put others before herself.

Sometimes she was glad to be able to offer any kind of aid in the first place, but occasionally she’d overtax herself in kindness. In those cases, it was nice to make her way home after night had fallen, blanketing the world in its quiet shadow. She loved basking in the beauty of the glittering night sky. An inky black expanse dotted with pinpricks of dazzling stars that complemented the moon’s gentle glow. It was so infinite, and so radiant, and so peaceful…sometimes she wished she could disappear into that sky and become a star of her own.

Such wistful, silly thoughts must have been a byproduct of her exhaustion. They were childish, and outlandish, and unrealistic…but sometimes the best thing she could do for herself was indulge in the impossible. She’d always had a lot of impossible things to ponder on thanks to her father. A man who many had criticized, whose memory was marred by their defaming rumors, who was dismissed for his philosophies and the prophecies he preached. Even if Alexys hadn’t entirely settled her feelings towards her father and his beliefs, the idea that he was truly crazy had never crossed her mind. At least not entirely.

Thomas Daggett was a smart man, an irrefutable fact that was evident by the intricacy and complexity of his writings. Essays and books and folders full of warnings about Heaven and angels and a coming crisis…yeah, on the surface it all sounded like some sort of dream, or eccentric speculation. But between reading his works and recalling what she could of her own hazy memories, her suspicion only continued to grow. She was able to piece things together about him, and about what he’d been saying all along, that cast considerable doubt on his apparent lack of credibility.

As eager as she was to uncover the truth of her father’s teachings, she still couldn’t discuss her discoveries, her postulations, her interpretations with anyone. Having to maintain such strict silence only became more frustrating with each new finding she made. She knew it was best to keep to herself, especially concerning the nature of this particular subject matter. But she couldn’t seem to shake the thoughts and feelings that pestered her, whose influence only intensified with time. Maybe she was taking things too far, just like many had accused her father of doing; look how well that had turned out for him. But she also figured doing some investigating, some theorizing of her own couldn’t hurt, right? She hoped it wouldn’t; she certainly didn’t want to end up falling prey to the same unfortunate fate.

Getting sidetracked by all that complicated nonsense ruined the relaxation she’d been looking forward to enjoying on the way home. Finally arriving at her apartment, she glanced at the sky once more as she approached the front door. Her eyes fell upon the austere sight of the moon and an eerie chill seized her spine, making her skin crawl. What an unexpected sensation, and an unwelcome one at that…maybe this was just going to be one of those nights. The kind where things felt off, and she couldn’t really sleep, and she knew she’d be going into work tomorrow with even less rest than she had the day before.

She sighed and pushed the door open, shuffling inside and putting her belongings away as she switched on a few lights. She was hoping to feel some sense of relief from whatever oppressive force had affected her outside, but something still felt wrong, unnerving, uncomfortable. She was on edge, body tense and senses sharp; it almost felt like she was being watched. She hadn’t seen anyone outside when she got here, and all the lights in her apartment were off when she’d come in. Her fatigue must have been taking a greater toll on her than she thought.

She took a few deep breaths and tried to settle herself, focusing her senses on the things around her. Tangible things like the couch, the side table, the lamp. She glanced at the coffee table that was situated in front of the couch, currently littered with the papers and books she’d chosen to sift through this week. Maybe she shouldn’t think about those and risk the possibility of her thoughts becoming even more unsettling and jumbled. She went to the couch and pulled a blanket over herself, closing her eyes. Surely she just needed a little rest, that was all; she’d be back to her normal self in no time.

But with her eyes closed, her nerves only seemed to worsen. There was something in here with her, something in the same room, something she’d missed. Had she stared right at it and not noticed, could she be hallucinating something sinister due to the amount of exposure she’d had to her father’s research? She wasn’t sure if she wanted any answers, or if it would just be best to force herself to sleep through this inexplicable episode. Maybe she really was more tired than she’d assumed and was already falling asleep, suspended in the limbo between awareness and unconsciousness. Such circumstances could easily explain away the cause of this overwhelming paranoia, this atmosphere of fear, couldn’t they?

“Alexys?”

Her eyes shot open and she sat up straight, clutching the blanket with white knuckles. There was someone here, or at least something, some sort of sentient being that knew her name. Her eyes whizzed around the room looking for the source of the voice, ears trying to remember and relay which direction it had come from. Eventually her gaze fell upon a desk in the corner of the room, yet another surface that was piled with books and papers and other evidence of the work she’d been dedicating herself to in her spare time. Her lungs froze and heart pounded as she examined the unfamiliar form that had become her temporary company.

“Alexys Daggett?”

“How do you know my name?”

Her voice trembled as much as her body, but thankfully she’d managed to get that question out. The form remained perched on the back of the desk chair, at least that’s what it appeared to be doing, and if it was an animal it may not have been that bizarre. But if it was an animal that spoke, she couldn’t judge by those standards, and although it was still mostly obscured by shadows she started to think whatever she was looking at resembled the form of a man. His voice had certainly sounded that way, and the more effort she dedicated to figuring out exactly what she was looking at, the less she had left over to panic with.

A grown man perched on the back of her flimsy desk chair while it sat unaffected, like there was nothing on it. Maybe she really was having a vision, or hallucination, or a dream; this certainly would have been the most realistic one she’d ever experienced. Part of her wanted to get up and turn on another light nearer him, so she could properly see what he looked like, but she was too paralyzed by fear to even blink. He didn’t seem bothered in the slightest, though, as if he was an old friend who’d stopped by for a visit. But she was sure she’d never known anyone who acted or sounded like him, and when she finally saw his face she confirmed she’d definitely never seen him before.

He stood up on the back of the chair before stepping to the floor with an ease and grace that startled her. Perhaps it shouldn’t have, considering he’d just been balancing his entire weight on the back of such a weak object with supernatural steadiness. He was simply dressed, like any normal guy you might pass on the street, and he had shoulder length red hair with a matching goatee. In her opinion he was very handsome, but she wasn’t sure now was the best time to be having such thoughts, since he also happened to be an intruder that had broken into her home.

“How did you get in my house? Who are you?”

As the gears in her brain started turning again, she was hit with a fresh wave of confusion and panic. She scrambled to the edge of the couch, getting as far away from him as the furniture would allow. She thought about climbing over the back of it for a moment, using the seat as a shield between them, but when he started moving toward her, her limbs locked up. What was he going to do to her, why was he here, why was all of this happening? A small part of her mind wondered how he’d managed to get in without leaving any kind of visible damage or disturbance, but she was currently dedicating more attention to self-preservation than determining the logistics of his break in techniques.

“Calm down, calm down,” he spoke with a soothing voice, holding his hands up in a gesture to demonstrate he meant no harm. He knew before he’d even come he probably wasn’t going to be received well; he almost never was, considering the nature of his arrival. People weren’t particularly fond of discovering such an unexpected intruder in their home, and were usually even less fond of what he had to say. “I’m not going to hurt you. There’s no reason to panic, I’m not here to do anything bad to you.”

“Tell me who you are!” Alexys demanded, grabbing a pillow and holding it in front of her. If nothing else, it could serve as a momentary distraction if she ended up having to hit him with it and make a hasty escape. “What’s going on, I don’t understand what’s—”

“You’re not supposed to understand,” he informed her, coming to a standstill. There wasn’t any point trying to get closer to her while she was like this; he needed to gain her trust. “I mean, it makes sense that you don’t understand. It’s to be expected. And I know I’m not something you expected either, but please, you need to hear me out.”

The longer he dodged the subject, the more worried Alexys became. He seemed to recognize the mounting panic in her eyes and started speaking again before she could make her demand a third time. “My name is Simon. I’m an angel.”

Well, he wasn’t being very angelic right now. “Is that some kind of joke? Angels don’t break into people’s homes, and if you really were an angel, wouldn’t you have wings—?”

Once she got started her interrogation was like a steamroll, so Simon jumped in at the first breath she took. “It’s not a joke. I am an angel, and I do have wings, but I don’t think showing them off for you would make the best introduction. Look, I’m not here for me, I’m here because there’s something I need to tell you, something you have to hear.”

If he’d been willing to show her, at least it would have solved the mystery of whether or not he was lying; but maybe he had a point. It wouldn’t do her any good to find out the truth just to get overwhelmed and transition into another fit of hysterics or something. She honestly didn’t know how she’d respond if it turned out he was telling the truth, or if he showed her something like that…she was still just trying to get over the shock of someone breaking into her home. He had been doing that weird balancing act a moment ago, but maybe that was an illusion, or a trick of the light? Too many questions, too much confusion; Alexys was starting to give herself a headache.

“Am I correct in assuming you are Ms. Alexys Daggett, daughter of Thomas Daggett?”

An alleged angel who also happened to know her father’s name…now things were starting to get too coincidental. Alexys relaxed a little, but only a little, adjusting into a more comfortable position. Her fingers were starting to ache from her iron grip, and she’d twisted her spine in a weird angle against the back of the couch. Now she was starting to breathe a little easier, and think a little clearer, but the more she was able to comprehend, the more apprehension pooled in her gut. Her father hadn’t had the most pleasant relationship with such heavenly beings, at least according to what she’d read in his writings. If one really was standing before her now, she may be in more trouble than if he’d just been a regular burglar.

“What’s going to happen to me if I say yes?” That was a safe enough answer, right?

The redhead narrowed his eyes a bit. “I can’t tell you until I know if you’re really the person I’m supposed to deliver this message to.”

Going back and forth like this was already agonizing, and there was something about this man…the way he spoke, the air he carried. Now that she’d had a moment to breathe, Alexys realized she really didn’t feel any sense of danger coming from him. At least, nothing that he was going to direct at her. “Yes, I’m Alexys Daggett.”

He nodded and continued. “Once again, I’m Simon. Just in case the first introduction didn’t stick. I’m an angel, the same kind you’re probably thinking of, and I’m here to give you some very important news.”

Important news from an angel? Was she turning into a prophet now? “And what kind of news could an angel possibly have for someone like me?”

“The stuff you’ve been reading, the information your father left behind,” Simon gestured to the clutter on the coffee table. “It’s all true. The adversity he faced, the circumstances that led to his death, all the things he feared and fought against. Your father wasn’t a liar, and he wasn’t crazy, he was just an unfortunate soul that was forced into the midst of all this. And now, that position has been passed to you.”

“Position? The position of being thrown into some sort of incomprehensible mess?” Alexys asked a bit sarcastically, but Simon’s tone didn’t change.

“The heavenly realm isn’t as heavenly as people think it is. Not anymore. Storms have been brewing, conflicts mounting; a terrible war is coming. Your father knew about it, and although he was damned from the start, it was all part of God’s plan.” It sounded like a speech from some overzealous religious fanatic, but Alexys recalled reading about the things he mentioned in her father’s books; her blood ran cold.  

“You are his daughter, and you’ve inherited his legacy. In other words, whether you want to or not, you’re involved in this. You adopting your father’s role is another essential part of God’s plan. Even if it’s not a very pleasant one, it was inevitable.”

“So, I’m going to die just like him?” This was definitely turning out to be worse than if he’d just been a petty thief. “I’m going to face the same fate?”

“The way things turned out for Thomas was regrettable, to say the least,” Simon admitted, almost seeming a little melancholy having to recount such events. “But that’s why I’m here now. Or at least part of the reason. You are correct in assuming that you will end up encountering the same threat as your father. The position you’re in is a risky one, one that almost guarantees enemy interference at some point.”

“What sort of enemy could angels be fighting?” She realized after she’d spoken how silly her question sounded. “I mean, are you telling me that demons are going to start coming after me?”

“Not a fight between angels and demons—a civil war between angels.”

Alexys’s eyes widened. “What does any of this have to do with me? Why didn’t this position end with my father?”

“It’s just how things are meant to be,” he reiterated cryptically. “But there’s no need to start panicking. Like I said, I was sent here with a purpose. That purpose is to protect you, to guard you from the threat looming on the horizon and lurking in the shadows.”

She was getting all sorts of answers from him, but none of them were as straightforward as she would have liked. More than that, she wasn’t even sure if she could believe any of it, if she should…but if he was wrong, did it really matter? If he was right, going along with what he said was essential to her survival, so perhaps she’d be better off just doing that. There was no denying many of the things he’d said corresponded with things she’d gleaned from her father’s writings, the experiences he’d left behind as a warning more than anything else. She’d never entirely doubted her father despite all the pejorative things she’d heard about him. Maybe all of this was validation of the hope she’d secretly held in her heart for him all this time.

The more she thought about it, the more she started to consider that things might not be so bad after all. She didn’t want to be used as a bargaining chip in some feud between supernatural beings, but if this guy was going to stick around, maybe things would be better than she expected. At least for a little while. As awful as that sounded, it wasn’t just because she found him attractive (although that was definitely part of it). There was something about the look in his eye, the aura he emitted that filled her with a calm unlike anything she’d felt before. No worries or stress or disappointment lingered in her body, not as long as he was here. Then again, this feeling could have been nothing more than another involuntary reaction to the ludicrousness she was being presented; but something in the back of her mind encouraged her to take his words at face value.

Even if she decided to believe him, how was all of this going to work? Was he going to live with her, follow her everywhere she went, monitor her every move from dawn to dusk, even as she slept? She enjoyed the comfort his presence provided, but he was still a stranger claiming to be an angel, and it wouldn’t be wise to jump to any conclusions too fast. Just because his answers seemed to coincide with the things she’d learned from her father, shedding some light on the incomprehensible nonsense that he’d been ridiculed for in the first place, she still needed some sort of reassurance, some kind of proof. In her heart she wanted to have faith in this man’s words, and she felt like she really could entrust him with her life. But she needed to know more about the person who’d be serving as her guardian angel (quite literally) before she gave her full consent.

“Let’s say I accept what you’ve told me and decide to go along with this plan.” She crossed her arms, trying to make her expression more neutral and unreadable. “I still need to know more about who and what you are. You claim to be an angel that goes by the name of Simon, was it? Why were you the one sent to protect me? What exactly is this protection going to entail?”

“My name is Simon,” he repeated once again, stepping around the coffee table cautiously. The quiet, careful girl didn’t react in any noticeably negative way. He took that as permission to approach her, sitting down on the opposite end of the couch. “And I am an angel in every sense of the word, or at least the one you recognize. I use this appearance on Earth so that I blend in, don’t draw attention to myself. I have to work discreetly, keep the evil angels off my trail, especially since I’ve been working in such close proximity to people like Thomas and yourself. You’re both essential to bringing this contemptable conflict to an end before it gets out of hand. Some of the information your father discovered through his experience and research is extremely valuable, and extremely dangerous. That is, if it fell into the wrong hands. There is a truly terrible dark soul that exists, and it’s managed to make its way here, to the mortal realm. Just by the name I’m sure you can predict what kind of threat such an object poses not only to the entirety of humanity, but existence itself.”

“It doesn’t sound very pleasant,” Alexys agreed, once again squeezing the pillow she’d set in her lap. “It’s not inside me or anything, is it?”

“No, absolutely not,” Simon answered with a vehemence that alarmed her. “You would know if it was…I would know if it was. If that were the case, I wouldn’t be here to protect you, but to dispose of you.”

“Well that sure makes me feel better,” she quipped with a fearful tremor in her tone.

Simon got back to his explanation before she could start worrying again. “Excuse my wording, sometimes I get a little carried away when I discuss stuff like this; I don’t usually share it with humans. And it’s important for you to understand the gravity of the threat we face; how dire the situation has become. All hope isn’t lost; the fact that you’re sitting here with me right now is evidence of that. Things have only deteriorated in your father’s absence, and it was impossible for me to contact you before the time was right. But now I’ve spoken to you, I’ve delivered the message I was instructed to pass on, and I can be here to protect you. With you on our side, under the watch of those that can help you, I’m sure things will start to turn in our favor.”

“What does this dark soul have to do with me?” Alexys asked, her voice still quivering. “And you never explained exactly what it is you’re protecting me from.”

“Just knowing about its existence puts you at risk,” he elaborated, trying to make his tone more understanding and comforting. “Learning what you have from your father and now me, the knowledge you possess is invaluable and desired by everyone involved in this conflict. You needed to be aware of it in order to play your designated part, something you’ll come to understand over time, but not before you’re ready. Right now, knowing what you know is enough. But it’s also enough to get you in trouble, to make you a target of the malicious angels that want to get their hands on that soul.”

“Other than being evil, what makes it so special?” She tilted her head in curiosity. “Why don’t they just steal another sour soul, something easier to obtain.”

“This dark soul contains a power unlike any other. It has no counterpart in all of creation, and its power can be harnessed as a weapon that will change the tide of this war in favor of whichever side ends up claiming it. Naturally, the enemies who want to create a sort of second Hell on Earth, cannot be permitted to have it. Armageddon really would come to pass if they did. They want to wreak havoc on humanity due to how favorably God looks upon his creation rather than them. They’ve been corrupted by envy, and bitterness, and there’s no reasoning with them. They’re going to fight until there’s no one left to keep doing so, or we manage to gain the power to stop them for good.”

Alexys took some time to reflect on all he’d just said, resting her head on the pillow and staring at the couch’s dull upholstery. Simon started to think she’d zoned out, and he was going to have to do something to snap her back to reality, but she started speaking before he had to. “So I’m part of a fatal feud between angels just like my father was. His involvement ended up being his downfall, and now the only one left to fill his spot is me. I have to do that because I’ve looked into the things he left behind, which happen to include information about the nature of this conflict, whether I realized it or not. Since I never completely doubted him, there was always a risk I’d find out the truth, and now I have. And both he and I have something to do with finding this dark soul, practically the only thing that has the power to prevent this war or cause it. The angels that want to cause humanity harm will try to take advantage of what I know, and what I can do, so now you’re here to make sure they never can or will.”

“That just about sums it up,” Simon nodded, a little more relieved now that she appeared ready to cooperate with him. “I may not look like a very formidable body guard, but I promise I’ll never let anyone or anything hurt you. Apart from how much you mean to this cause, I don’t like seeing innocent lives being taken or wasted just because of petty otherworldly squabbles. I guess petty might not be the best word, but the rebel angels aren’t fighting for a noble cause. Their behavior can’t be tolerated, and neither can any harm coming to you. I know this seems very intimidating, and scary, and complicated, but you don’t have to do anything more than you’ve already done. You’re aware of the truth, you know where you stand in all this, and now you’ve got me to watch you like a hawk. I’ll make sure nothing ever even comes close to bothering you.”

Such knightly words…they made Alexys blush. She covered her cheeks with the pillow, peeking at the redhead lounging across from her. He spoke clearly, and softly, and regarded her with tender eyes. He’d answered her questions to the best of his ability, and now he vowed to preserve her safety at all costs. She’d never had anyone dedicate or even offer a level of devotion remotely close to this before. She knew he was just doing his job, at least that’s what he’d said, but she also couldn’t help feeling a little flattered. She couldn’t help repeating the thought that he wasn’t that bad looking, either.

On the other hand, Simon really did care for her. It surprised him, the way he felt when he’d first laid eyes on this human girl. Going about her life like always, completely oblivious to the chaos that was closing in around her. He wished she could have held on to that peacefulness, but he also knew that all of this was happening for a reason. It was necessary, as disappointing or upsetting as that may be, and he thought about the possibility of trying to find a way to make this up to her.

Now she was responsible for the same struggle that had claimed her father, ruining both his potential in life, and his reputation in death. It was a grim sacrifice, one that Simon wished could have been avoided, but this time he’d make sure it was without fail. The timid girl that sat before him was a treasure to be guarded, a jewel to be defended, a life to be preserved.

“I hope you don’t mind, but I will be staying with you from now on,” he interrupted the silence, yanking Alexys out of her thoughts. “I’ll try to make myself as scarce as possible, if you’d like. I noticed you’re not living with anyone here, so at least you won’t have to come up with any stories or excuses. I won’t pester you any more than I have to, and I’ll do everything I can to make this transition as smooth as possible.”

“I really don’t mind your company,” she blurted, the red in her cheeks deepening. “I mean, it’s not going to bother me. You staying close to me. I don’t do much except for work and shop and hang out here, so having someone around will probably just make my life more interesting. Well, I guess the whole angelic war thing is interesting enough, but I’d consider that the bad kind.”

Simon chuckled and gave her a friendly smile; Alexys could feel her heart kick into overdrive. “It’s good to know you don’t consider me part of the bad kind. I know this is sudden, and surprising, and a little confusing, but it will all come together in time. For now, I think the best thing would be for you to tell me a little bit more about yourself. In terms of your day to day life, so I can get an idea of what kind of routine I’ll be adapting to.”

So that’s what they did. The two spent the rest of the evening exchanging idle chatter and learning as much as they could about one another. The air around them changed, from that of tense strangers to old friends. Even if the rest of her life could collapse at any moment, Alexys was happy. When she finally went to sleep, her dreams were filled with the image of that kind angel and a hope that one day she might get lucky enough to know what it was like to be enveloped in his warm, soft embrace.

[minijenn]

Universe Falls Chapter 49

AN-So its abuot time I fucking post this chapter on here, huh? What can I say, I’ve had a busy day :P But anyway, I gotta say I’m still quite proud of this one. It was a struggle for sure (and ridiculously LONG) But the parts of it that shine just shine so much! So if you haven’t already read it yet, enjoy!

Previous: http://minijenn.tumblr.com/post/170522545399/universe-falls-chapter-48-part-2

Chapter 49: Northwest Mansion Nightmare

N PLWKERY TSTVVAESF VNB JBSARUX N FZGNERY URZC HY CLGLGZP OPKPWGPS R KVIEFVR HYXF PLGNTVK MOAC'V GRJVK ZAI EBTVK LVIIVTL GFHU FYKM PCDX AK FW

Northwest Manor was bustling with activity as its various staff and servants bustled about, preparing for the immaculate celebration held within its lavish gates. The aptly named Northwest Fest was by and large a legendary party, one that carried a very high reputation that extended far beyond the boarders of Gravity Falls alone. And like all the parties prior to it, this year’s formal event was rumored to be every bit as posh and elegant, if not then some, and those were exactly the kind of rumors that both Preston and Priscilla Northwest wanted circulating as they oversaw the preparations for the event.

“Preston, I must say, the guest list for this year’s party has so much diversity!” Priscilla remarked to her husband as she overlooked said list.

“Yes, a nice mix of millionaires and billionaires,” Preston nodded proudly as one of his many servants handed him the day’s newspaper. His calm manner abruptly shifted, however, upon noticing another servant incorrectly setting the nearby table nearby with fine china and pure silverware, which the billionaire was quick to correct with an admonishing swat with his newspaper. “Put the oyster fork at an angle! We’re not animals, man!”

“E-excuse me, Mr. Northwest?” another servant anxiously interjected, two other staff members hauling in a large covered glass case behind him. “T-those rare, uncut gemstones you ordered have arrived.”

“Ah, yes, good,” Preston said rather dismissively. “Let me see them.”

“Oh, uh, w-well, sir…” the servant continued, wringing his hands nervously as the other staff removed the cover from the case. “They… they’re not exactly what you ordered…”

“I’ll say they’re not!” the billionaire exclaimed hotly upon taking a look at the collection of precious stones before him. Instead of the smooth, radiant gems he had been expecting, these stones were clustered and clumped together with no real order or organization at all, giving each set a haphazard, almost even ugly appearance. “What on earth all these… hideous things!? I specifically ordered the finest raw gemstones available, not these grotesque chunks of rock!”

“Ugh, just look at them!” Priscilla interjected, quite mortified herself. “What will our guests think if they see those gaudy excuses for gemstones?!”

“They won’t be thinking anything because they’re not going to see them,” Preston staunchly concluded as he addressed the servant. “Take those back to the jeweler immediately and have them send us some real stones to put on display.”

“W-well, normally I would, sir, b-but… these were the last gems the jeweler had…” the servant gulped fretfully. “T-they said they found them buried not too far away from a canyon a few hours out from town and that they’re actually quite rare, but-”

“But nothing!” the billionaire huffed, quite displeased. “I suppose that since its far too short notice to get replacements, we’ll just have to put last year’s gemstones out on display like we’re a bunch of simple peasants! And as for those… unsightly hunks of rock… just put the entire case in some hallway that no one’s likely to wander down during the party. We’ll figure out what to do with those disappointments later.”

“Speaking of which, where the devil is-” Priscilla cut herself off upon spotting her daughter finally making a rather tardy appearance. All the same, Pacifica smiled brightly as she strode into the room, already clad in the sophisticated light green ball gown she planned on wearing to the party the following evening. Her mother, however, was far from pleased. “Pacifica! What did I tell you about that dress?! The theme for the party is sea foam green, not lake foam green! Go change!”

“B-but… I kind of like it…” the heiress frowned, having already anticipated this scolding. Still, she had hoped her mother wouldn’t have noticed when she had put the dress on, but clearly, Priscilla’s sharp eye for fashion beat her own tastes in this case.

“Mind your mother, Pacifica,” Preston gave his daughter a critical glance. Still, given the fact that this was a rather minor detail, Pacifica hoped that she could somehow win out in this debate, even if she knew her chances were rather slim.

“B-but I-” Her soft protests were succinctly cut off by the sharp, high ring of a small bell, courtesy of her father. A bell that she was all too familiar with and knew well to obey. “Y-yes, father…” she muttered meekly, glancing down in embarrassment for even trying.

However, before Pacifica could even head out to follow her parent’s rigid orders, the entire dining room began to shake as if it was being rattled by a major earthquake. And yet, this was no natural occurrence as the dining ware on the table began to clatter violently, a bizarre, undeterminable gale striking up solely inside of the room as everyone present gasped in terror over the alarming sight surrounding them.

“Oh no!” Preston exclaimed fearfully, well aware of exactly what was going on. “It’s… happening.” The billionaire didn’t have much more of a chance to react to this newfound catastrophe before the opulent objects filling the room, plates, forks, knives, spoons, trays, chairs, and more, all suddenly lifted up into the air, flying around at random as they seemed to launch themselves on their own accord. Many of the servants fled altogether as this dangerous cascade of inanimate items swirled around the room, but even so, Preston did his best to fend the attacking objects off, though to little avail. “You are my possessions! Obey me!” he ordered, only for several plates to go zooming towards him in particular. The billionaire let out a frightened cry as he joined his wife and daughter in hiding under the table in the hopes that it would shield them from this chaotic onslaught.

“This is a disaster!” Priscilla cried, aptly panicked as the silverware continued flying just overhead. “The party’s in just 24 hours! What are we going to do?!”

“Surely there’s someone who can handle this sort of nonsense!” Preston lamented, only for his cry to receive a timely answer as a copy of the newspaper flopped down onto the ground right in front of him. Its headlining article featured a giant bat attacking Sherriff Blubbs and Deputy Durland atop the town’s bell tower. Though what stood out most was the young boy, roughly about Pacifica’s age, whom he had seen around town a handful of times this summer, fearlessly fending the bat off while the officers behind him cowered in fear. Clearly, from his brazen, undaunted expression, he seemed to be right at home warding away such supernatural danger, which was something that gave Preston a much-needed idea for how to handle the current plight the upcoming party was facing. “And I think I know just the person…”

Things had been rather uneventful around the Mystery Shack as of late, a welcome change of pace, particularly for Dipper as he used this relatively peaceful rainy morning as a rare chance to relax. He had already set up shop in the den, surrounded by a plentiful abundance of snacks and sodas to keep him company as he sat comfily in front of the TV.

“You asked for it, you got it!” the TV blared excitedly. “An entire 48-hour marathon of Ghost Harassers, on the Used To Be About History Channel!”

“Be strong, bladder. We’re not gonna move until sunset,” Dipper remarked, more than content to do just that. Until, of course, his plans quickly fell through.

“We interrupt this program to bring you breaking news!” the local town news commandeered the broadcast, deviating away from the ghost hunting marathon, much to Dipper’s immediate disappointment.

“Aw, what?” he frowned crossly, only for Mabel to suddenly run in, Candy and Grenda trailing blithely behind her.

“It’s starting!” she quipped, hopping onto the chair beside her brother and forcing him to move aside.

“Turn it up!” Candy exclaimed, squeezing onto the other side of the chair as her and Mabel essentially sandwiched the already rather perturbed Dipper between them.

“Make room for Grenda!” Grenda shouted boisterously, leaping on top of them all and recklessly knocking over a lamp in the process. The girls were just in time to see the beginning of the news story, featuring Toby Determined reporting on the scene outside of Northwest Manor, standing amongst an already very large, very eager crowd of townsfolk. “Well, tonight’s the night, but I’ve been out here for days!” the reporter exclaimed, his clothes tattered and muddy from doing so. “The Northwest family’s annual high-society-shindig-ball-soiree is here! And even though common folk aren’t let in, that doesn’t stop us from camping out right outside the gates for a peek at the fanciness!”

“Ooooooh!” all three of the girls mused, stars of amazement in their eyes as they stared at the screen, enthralled. Dipper, on the other hand, couldn’t have been any less interested in this rather soft, largely unimportant news.

“Ok, can someone please explain to me why people actually care about this?” he asked dryly, rolling his eyes at the brief snippets of poor-quality clips of past Northwest parties on screen.

“Northwest Fest is pretty much the best party of all time!” Grenda informed in her usual loud way. “Rich food, richer boys!”

“They say each gift basket has a live quail inside!” Mabel added just as enthusiastically.

“Give me your life, Pacifica…” Candy sighed wistfully as a clip of the heiress played during the newscast.

“You guys have got to be kidding,” Dipper deadpanned. “In case you’ve already forgotten, Pacifica Northwest has been a complete jerk to us all summer. She’s almost as bad as Gideon, minus the whole trying to kill us thing.”

“Oh, come on, bro-bro, you’re overexaggerating,” Mabel huffed. “Pacifica’s nowhere near as crazy or evil as Gideon is.”

“Maybe not, but she’s still the worst.” Dipper was suddenly interupted by a random knock on the door, but even so, his sour attitude towards the heiress didn’t change as he got up to answer it. “And that’s not just jealousy talking; I’d say that to her face.”

Ironically enough, however, the face he was met with upon opening the door was none other than Pacifica’s herself. “I need your help,” she said, saving the pleasantries and getting right to the point.

A very brief beat of rather awkward silence passed between the two of them before Dipper quickly acted upon what he had previously said. “You’re the worst,” he quickly told the heiress before abruptly slamming the door on her without bothering to hear her out whatsoever.

The trio of girls inside gasped in horror at response to Dipper’s careless rudeness towards Pacifica, especially given the fact that her family was hosting the most incredible party in town. Still, he hardly seemed to care as he turned towards them, arms crossed and caustic expression set. “See?”

Unfortunately for him, Pacifica wasn’t willing to give up that easily as she knocked on the door once again, this time much more insistently. And despite really not wanting to, Dipper knew that she likely wouldn’t go away until he at the very least heard her out. “Alright, what do you want?” he asked coldly as he opened the door again, sending her a quite transparent glare.

“Look, you think its easy for me to come here?” Pacifica asked, dressed in clothing that would largely obscure her identity, including a scarf over her hair and sunglasses over her eyes. “I don’t want to be seen in this hovel. But my dad made me come all the way out here because there’s something haunting Northwest Manor.” At this, the heiress removed her sunglasses, a hint of desperation in her otherwise haughty manner as she continued. “If you don’t help me, the party could be ruined!”

“And you really think that matters to me, like, at all?” Dipper raised an eyebrow as he leaned against the doorframe. “Honestly, I don’t know why I should even trust you. All you’ve ever done is try to humiliate me, Mabel, Steven, and Connie.”

“Hey, its not my fault you four are easy targets,” Pacifica scowled, every bit as bitter over this exchange as Dipper was. “Just name your price, ok? My dad will freak out if go back without any help, so I’ll give you anything!”

“Hi, Pacifica!” Mabel quickly interjected, rushing to the door before her brother could get a single word out. “Excuse us!” At this, she was quick to pull Dipper back into the shack despite his confused protest. “Dipper! Don’t you see what this means?!” she asked him in a fervent whisper. “If you help Pacifica, you could get us into the greatest party of all time!”

“What?” Dipper asked incredulously. “Mabel, this is Pacifica we’re talking about here. Helping her out will just end up turning into a huge disaster, I know it.”

“But it’s Candy and Grenda’s dream!” Mabel pleaded, nodding back to the starry eyed duo behind her. “And you know… it’s kinda mine too and you’d totally be the world’s number one best brother ever if you got me and my friends into this party and I’d totally owe you and shower you with the biggest, happiest hugs I can give and-”

“Ugh, alright already!” Dipper interjected, quite tired of his sister’s enthusiastic rambling on the matter as be begrudgingly turned to address Pacifica again. “I’ll bust your ghost. But in exchange, I’ll need three tickets to the party.”

The heiress let out a disgruntled growl at this, but nonetheless she conceded, reaching into her purse and retrieving the aforementioned tickets. “You’re just lucky I’m desperate.”

“Woo!” all three of the girls chanted in absolute elation in the living room, completely overwhelmed with excitement about the immaculate party that lay ahead of them. “Desperate! Desperate! Desperate!”

“Grenda, get the glue gun!” Mabel commanded with a huge, zealous grin. “We’re making dresses!”

“Ugh, I can’t believe I agreed to this…” Pacifica muttered, face palming as she prepared to leave.

“I can’t believe I agreed to this either…” Dipper remarked just as crossly, almost completely certain that he’d come to regret this choice some way or another.

Warm, plentiful laughter rung out between Steven and Connie as they emerged from the house, Lion trailing not too far behind them. The pair had spent most of the morning hanging out around the temple, with Connie practicing her sword skills on her own while Steven readily cheered her on. Still, soon enough the rousing rounds of swings and swipes soon came to an end as they decided to head down to the shack for a bit to see what Dipper and Mabel were up to.

“Well, time to assume my secret identity,” Connie joked, putting her glassless glasses back on. “Thanks again for letting me practice at your place, Steven. It’s a shame I can’t practice at home…”

“Well, why can’t you?” Steven asked, curious as he continued to hold the umbrella up for both of them, shielding them from the rain as they walked down the hill.

“Because my mom would totally flip if she caught me with a sword,” Connie remarked with a small chuckle, even though she was being serious. “And besides, Pearl hasn’t given me a ‘take home’ sword yet like she has for Dipper. Probably because I haven’t really gone on a lot of missions with you guys since we’ve started training, which I understand.”

Steven took pause upon hearing this, seeing that while Connie was apparently complacent with this fact, there was still a hint of longing in her expression all the same. Longing that he couldn’t help but feel compelled to fulfill. “Hey, wait a sec,” the young Gem stopped, prompting both Connie and Lion to do the same. “May I?” he asked, turning to the pink beast, who obediently lowered his head to allow his owner to reach inside his magical mane. Connie watched in apt curiosity as Steven felt around inside the pocket dimension for a moment, before finding what he was looking for and pulling it cleanly out of Lion’s forehead: Rose Quartz’s legendary sword.

“Here-eth,” Steven began, playfully yet dutifully bowing before the rather surprised Connie. “You can borrow-ethhhh my mother’s sword-ethhhhh.”

“S-Steven! That… that’s so nice!” Connie exclaimed with a small, albeit taken aback smile. “If grammatically incorrect. But…” At this point she was quick to switch into the same medieval tone Steven had been using. “Thou canst just giveth me thine mother’s sword!”

“Why not… -ethhhh?” the young Gem asked with a confused frown.

“Because its really important-ethhh!” Connie argued as they finally made it to the shack.

“That’s exactly why you should have-ethhhh it! You can have it to practice-ethhh with-ethhhh.”

Connie hesitated as Steven presented the sword to her once more, its large, pink form suddenly seeming quite intimidating as she looked upon it. This was by far a special blade, one that held more history that she could likely ever even hope to understand. Even with her skills progressing at the rate they were, she still felt largely unworthy by merit alone to wield such an impressively powerful sword. And yet, as she looked back to the young Gem who was so kindly offering it to her with such a hopeful smile, she found it was becoming increasingly difficult to turn that offer down. “Are you sure-ethhh?”

“Positive-ethhh,” Steven nodded with a confident, steady grin. One that was finally enough to convince Connie to take the illustrious, surprisingly light sword into her own hands.

“Thhhhhhank you!” she exclaimed with a laugh, finally capping off the pair’s playful barrage of medieval speech.

“You’re welcome,” Steven said, his smile finally falling a bit as his tone became serious. “It’s just… I was thinking… We gotta be ready if we need to fight Malachite or Peridot o-or Bill or… or those creepy Gem fusion experiments. And seeing as how you’ve already got the skills, all you really needed was a sword. Which means we’re bound to be ready for whatever comes our way next.”

“Well, there’s no real way of knowing that for sure,” Connie mused thoughtfully as they prepared to head inside the shack. “But still, I’ll take good care of it.”

The pair exchanged another warm smile as they opened the door, only to find a scene of colorful chaos unfurling before them. Mabel, Candy, and Grenda were congregated in the den, mutually awash in frantic excitement as they scrambled to put their home-made evening gowns together in time for the party. As Candy and Grenda collaborated on pouring copious amounts of glitter onto a swath of already very shiny fabric, Mabel rushed towards the stairs, energized as ever.

“Hi, Steven! Hi, Connie!” she greeted the confused pair quickly as she ran past them. “No time to talk! Our pom-pom supply is running dangerously low and I gotta replenish it ASAP!”

“Uh… what’s going on?” Connie asked as Mabel rushed off.

“They’re getting ready for tonight,” Dipper said as he came over to join the pair.

“Tonight? What’s tonight?” Steven asked curiously.

“There’s some stupid party happening at Northwest Manor,” Dipper explained, still rather vexed over the matter. “And I somehow got roped by Pacifica into getting rid of a ghost that’s apparently haunting the place in exchange for getting those three tickets for it.”

“Oh my gosh, the party!” Connie exclaimed with a recollective gasp. “I can’t believe I forgot about it! Ugh, my mom got invited for being one of the ‘top tier medical professionals’ in Gravity Falls, which means I have to go too, as much as I’d rather do literally anything else.”

“Same here,” Dipper staunchly agreed. “The last thing I want to do is spend an evening with Pacifica, of all people.”

“Tell me about it,” Connie crossed her arms with equal distain. “It’s kind of hard to believe Pacifica would ask you for help, Dipper, seeing as how she’s made it really clear she hates all four of us. Not that the feeling isn’t completely mutual, seeing as how she’s just about the worst.”

“That’s what I said!” Dipper exclaimed, exasperated. “But unfortunately, I couldn’t really turn her down; Mabel would have never let me live it down if I didn’t get those tickets for her.”

“Aw, I don’t know what you two are so upset about,” Steven interjected with a small smile. “This party sounds like a lot of fun! You know, aside from that whole ghost thing you mentioned, Dipper.”

“Yeah, it’ll be ‘fun’ alright,” Dipper deadpanned, rolling his eyes. “About as fun as getting a root canal.”

“Or getting hit by a bus,” Connie added before they both broke out into a bout of rather cynical laughter. Steven didn’t really join in on it as someone knocked on the door, but even so, as he went to answer it he offered the pair some more encouragement over the evening they were both so clearly dreading.

“Well, even if you guys don’t think so, I still think you’ll both have a great time at the party,” the young Gem said warmly. “I sure wish I could go. But I wasn’t invited, so I guess I’ll just have to-” Steven cut himself off as he opened the door to see a rather impatient doctor standing outside. “D-Dr. Maheswaran!”

“Yes, yes, hello, Steven,” Priyanka greeted dully as she stepped inside. “Hello, Dipper.”

“Uh, hi, Dr. Maheswaran,” Dipper replied, glancing over at Connie in confusion as she hurriedly hid Rose’s sword behind her back before her mother could see it.

“M-Mom!” she exclaimed, eyes wide with alarm at this unexpected intrusion. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m here to pick you up so we can go get ready for the party this evening, remember?” Priyanka remarked in a huff. “It’s only a few hours away and we have much to do before then, to the point that I even had to leave work early. But it’ll all be worth it if I can land the Northwests as the sponsors for the purposed new wing at the hospital. Which means I expect you to be on your best behavior tonight, young lady.”

“Yes, mother…” Connie grumbled, far from keen on the idea of sucking up to Pacifica’s family like her mother seemed to be.

“Now say goodbye to your friends,” the doctor ordered, reaching out to grab her daughter’s hand without any warning. “We’ll have to hurry if we want to-” Priyanka stopped short upon hearing the noisy clatter that came as a result of Connie loosing her grip on the sword she had been concealing as it fell to the floor.

“Oh no…” Connie groaned, face palming as she realized she had no time to reclaim it before her mother turned to see it lying in plain sight on the ground beside her.

“Is that… a sword?!” Priyanka gasped, picking the sheathed blade up in complete appalment. “Connie, where did you get this?!”

“I-it’s-” Steven nervously began to explain before Connie quickly interupted him.

“I-I found it! It was just… lying outside and I wanted to show it to Steven and Dipper.”

“Wait, but isn’t that Rose’s-” Dipper was immediately cut off by Connie as she slapped a silencing hand over his mouth while her mother seethed with fury all the while.

“How could you possibly think this is ok?!” the doctor exclaimed, completely livid as she paced back and forth the foyer with the sword still in her grip. “Do you know how many children I see coming into the hospital every day who’ve cut their faces off playing with swords?”

“Uh…”

“None!” Priyanka snapped hotly. “Because they have parents who love them and don’t let them play around with deadly weapons like some kind of gang member!”

“B-but-” Connie tried to protest, but her mother immediately shot her down.

“No buts! I don’t even know why I have to tell you this! You should know better! No playing with swords! Under any circumstances! Now, come along, we still have to get ready for the party. I’ll have a talk with your father after he gets off work tonight to calculate just how grounded you are. And we’re using the abacus!”

And with that, Priyanka abruptly turned on her heel and walked out, taking Rose’s sword along with her, much to Connie’s dismay. “I hate that abacus…” she remarked sourly before her tone turned fretful. “Steven, I’m so sorry! She took your mother’s sword!”

“Maybe we could get her to change her mind?” Steven suggested with a reassuring smile.

“She never, ever changes her mind,” Connie huffed, rubbing her temples. “We’ve got to get that sword back ourselves.”

“How are you going to do that?” Dipper asked with a frown. “There probably isn’t a great chance that Dr. Maheswaran will let the sword out of her sight considering how upset she was about it.”

“Oh, you’re right…” Connie mused worriedly for a moment before excitedly snapping her fingers. “Wait! I know! The party! We can wait until she’s distracted tonight and then, Steven, you and me can sneak off with it without her even knowing!”

“That’s a great idea, Connie!” Steven chimed brightly. “There’s just one problem though… I’m not invited to the party.”

“Connie!” Priyanka shouted quite impatiently from outside. “We need to leave, now!”

“W-well, you’ll just have to figure out a way to get in!” Connie urged as she began to hurry out. “I’ll see you tonight!”

“Hopefully…” Steven said, halfheartedly waving her off as she rushed to join her mother. “Wait a second! Dipper, didn’t you say that you convinced Pacifica to give you some tickets to the party? Do you think maybe you could get just one more from her so I could get in too?”

“Steven, it was basically a miracle that she even agreed to give me tickets for Mabel, Candy, and Grenda,” Dipper said with an apologetic frown. “I highly doubt she’s gonna be willing to fork over another one, even with me taking care of her ghost problem for her.”

“You’re probably right…” Steven sighed in disappointment. “But what am I gonna do? I gotta find a way to get into that party somehow!”

“Did somebody say party!?” Both boys were quite started as, out of nowhere, Amethyst suddenly dropped down from the ceiling, grinning wryly as she landed in between them.

“Amethyst? What are you doing here?” Dipper asked in apt confusion.

“Oh, ya know, just napping up in the rafters, just like I do all the time,” the purple Gem remarked, stretching herself out as she fully woke up. “The ones here at the shack are way more comfy than the ones up at the temple, believe it or not. But it’s been kinda hard to get any rest around here with everyone being so loud for some reason. Seriously what’s up with all that?”

“Oh well uh…” Steven began rather anxiously, not wanting to admit to any of the Gems that he had lost track of his mother’s sword. “E-everyone’s just… really excited about the Northwests’ party tonight and-”

“Ugh, that yearly snooze-fest?” Amethyst stuck her tongue out in disdain. “I don’t know why anyone would get excited over that. It’s barely even a party! Just a bunch of rich stiffs standing around yapping about how much money they have. The only good thing about it is that the grub is all you can eat, which is an offer I always took them up on whenever we went to it back in the day.”

“Wait, so you guys have been to this party before?” Dipper asked curiously.

“Yeah, a few times,” the purple Gem shrugged. “But only because we kinda sometimes filled in as bodyguards for those Northwest losers way back when before we learned that they’re a bunch of crooked jerks. Crazy thing about it is that we still actually get invites for their party every year, even though he haven’t gone since Rose was still around. Guess they never bothered to take us off the guest list, not that we’d go anyway seeing as how those prudes didn’t keep their-”

“A-Amethyst!” Steven suddenly interjected, eyes wide with newfound hope upon hearing that his guardians had invitations to the exclusive party. Which meant that there was a chance he could help Connie out after all. “Did we get invited this year too?!”

“Uh… yeah? Pretty sure Pearl has the invites up at the temple. Why?”

“B-because I wanna go this year!” Steven urged, his manner still rather tight as Amethyst looked to him in confusion.

“What? Why?” she asked caustically. “Did you hear what I just said? That party’s lame, Steven. You’d get bored in the first 5 seconds, just like I always used to.”

“W-well… maybe its not as boring as it used to be anymore!” the young Gem argued earnestly. “And besides, Connie’s going! And so are Dipper and Mabel!”

“That’s right,” Dipper nodded, supporting the young Gem in his effort to try and win the purple Gem over on the matter. “Amethyst, would it really be fair if the three of us got to go to some huge fancy party while Steven just spends the night home, bored and alone?”

“Like a poor little sadsack?” Steven added, pouting pleadingly.

Amethyst didn’t answer right away as she looked between the pair, arms crossed and expression dry. Still, her manner didn’t stay that way for long upon watching the young Gem’s lower lip start to quiver as a sign of his genuine desperation. Which was something that none of the Gems, not even Amethyst, was able to resist. “Ugh, ok fine!” she groaned in exasperation. “I’ll help you convince Garnet and Pearl into going with us to that dumb party. But only because their food is really good. And also ‘cause I’m in the mood for busting up some of the Northwests’ expensive fancy property.”

“Yes!” Steven cheered, quite relieved as he gave Dipper a thankful high five. “Thanks so much Amethyst!”

“Yeah, yeah,” the purple Gem remarked with a casual wave of her hand as she took her leave to inform her teammates of their plan. “Just don’t come cryin’ to me when you end up clonking out on that ballroom floor from how boring it all is. Which will happen. Trust me, I know, I’ve done before.”

Sure enough, with Northwest Fest set to start in roughly an hour, a massive crowd of spectators had congregated around at least a mile radius from the mansion’s securely locked gates, ones that were meant to keep the common folk out while the exclusively wealthy guests enjoyed the finery inside. Of course, this year’s party did carry some exceptions to these upscale standards, namely the group Pacifica unceremoniously escorted in through the mansion’s stately front doors.

“Welcome to Northwest Manor, dorks,” she announced dryly as Dipper, Mabel, Candy, and Grenda all got their first glimpses of the immaculate ballroom. “Try not to touch anything.”

The girls hardly heeded the heiresses as they rushed past her, clad in their flashy home-made dresses as they rushed to take in every lavish sight surrounding them. The mansion’s grand hall was quite a splendor, with high vaulted ceilings, expertly crafted woodwork and spotless marble floors. With most guests having yet to arrive, the only ones milling about at the moment were maids and servants as they put together the finishing touches for the festivities, including the massive apple cider fountain and lengthy buffet of hors d’oeurves. Overall, the setting of the party alone lived up to the stories of its splendor, splendor that the girls were more than happy to explore as they cheerfully ran about.

“Everything’s so fancy!” Mabel quipped, stars in her eyes as she spun around in her fluffy pink gown. “Fancy floor, fancy plants, fancy man!” she finished as she zealously patted the face of a nearby butler.

“Mm, yes, very good, miss,” the butler conceded dutifully before walking away.

“The rumors were true!” Candy proclaimed, running by with a quail-filled gift bag in hand before Grenda and Mabel hurried after her, chuckling cheerfully all the while.

At the same time, Preston and Priscilla entered the room, calm and composed over their nearly-complete party preparations, even despite the previous night’s setback. “Ah, if it isn’t the man of the hour!” Preston addressed Dipper cordially as the couple approached him. “I trust you can help us with out little… situation before the guests arrive in an hour.”

“I’ll do my best,” Dipper assured rather confidently. And really, he had every reason to show confidence for the task ahead as equipped as he was with the journal, ghost tracking equipment, and even his sword as an extra precaution. On top of all that was the general level of experience in fending off supernatural danger he had gained over the course of the summer alone, which made him feel more than equipped to deal with a simple, run of the mill ghostly haunting.

“Splendid! Pacifica, take our guest to the ‘problem room’,” the billionaire said to his daughter before dropping his voice down to a mutter while Dipper was distracted. “And uh… he’s not wearing that is he?” he asked, rather unimpressed with the boy’s common, almost sloppy attire and overall manner.

“I’m on it,” Pacifica nodded, wasting no time in dragging Dipper off to the mansion’s quite extensive guest dressing room. And, despite his extensive protests, she eventually managed to get him fitted in an appropriately formal suit, something that Dipper found to be incredibly uncomfortable and restricting even from the moment he first put it on.

“Ugh, it’s like this collar is strangling me,” he grumbled, pulling at the offending, quite aggravating collar. “Who do you guys think you’re impressing with this stuff anyway?”

“Uh, everyone?” Pacifica retorted just as sharply as she quickly adjusted Dipper’s tie. “You wouldn’t understand. High standards are what make the Northwest family great. And part of those high standards is that we always look our best.” To prove her point, the heiress motioned down to her own fashionable lavender ball gown, one that she knew and was quite proud of the fact that it was the best that money could buy.

“Oh really?” Dipper remarked with a wry, knowing smirk. “That’s funny seeing as how you guys didn’t look all that great when we exposed you for lying about founding the town.”

“Ugh, whatever,” Pacifica scoffed, rolling her eyes. “We’re still way better than pretty much anyone else in this town, even if we didn’t found it some stupidly long time ago. And in case you haven’t noticed, everybody still loves us, so its not like you guys ‘revealing the truth’ even changed anything.”

“Has it ever occurred to you that maybe the only reason why people supposedly ‘love’ your family is because you guys are ridiculously rich?” Dipper asked rather crossly.

“No, its because we’re respected,” the heiress corrected pointedly. “There’s a difference.”

“Oh yeah, sure, ‘respected’,” Dipper deadpanned. “For pretty much nothing but being rich.”

“Oh, just shut up already and come on!” Pacifica snapped, quite frustrated especially as Dipper kept up his smug, triumphant grin. Still, both of them were rather eager to get this ghost hunting mission over with, if for nothing more than to cut the begrudging, yet momentarily necessary tie between them. Which was why they continued on to investigate in a state of cross, bitter silence, one that neither of them felt compelled to break, lest even more biting, hostile words spark between them. Words that, ironically, were the exact opposite of the kind of sentiments that would spark up between them soon enough.

Though it had taken some doing, Steven and Amethyst had managed to convince Garnet and Pearl into going to the Northwests’ party. Still, despite their agreement to show up, none of the Gems were very excited to be there as they arrived early, just as they always used to do when they used to attend the party in the past. They had almost ended up arriving in their usual attire, but upon Steven’s insistence, they had begrudgingly shifted into more elegant wear for the evening. Garnet had taken on a smooth, sleeveless, sleek magenta gown, one that filled out wide past her knees and had a large slit revealing her shapely left leg. Pearl’s dress was more modest; a graceful, pale blue, silky ensemble, with straps and an additional skirt from behind. Though Amethyst usually abhorred getting dolled up, she had made an exception for Steven, putting on a shorter purple dress with loose skirts and low straps on top of tying her hair up into a messy, yet still presentable (thanks to Pearl) bun. As for Steven, he was clad in a rental tux that Greg had managed to score for him at the last second, but even still, he was quite ready for the party himself, even despite his apprehension for even having to be there in the first place.

“I still can’t believe we agreed to come to this shallow parade of overindulgence and excess,” Pearl huffed disdainfully as the group approached the mansion’s entrance. “I thought our days of attending these despicable Northwest parties were long over.”

“We all agreed to make an exception this year for Steven, Pearl,” Garnet reminded, even though it was clear she was none too pleased to be there either. “So we’ll just have to suck it up for a few hours.”

“Yes, I know, but still…” the white Gem dropped her voice down to a whisper as she clutched the Gem leader’s arm. “All of this shameless touting of refinement, power, and position over others? You can’t deny that it’s a little like-”

“Homeworld, I know,” Garnet’s expression darkened somewhat. “That’s one of the many reasons we stopped going to these.”

Despite their quiet conversing, Steven still picked up on what his guardians were talking about and he couldn’t help but feel somewhat guilty for stirring up bad memories of their former planet by essentially using them as his ticket into this party. Part of him wanted to tell them his true reasoning for wanting to come, namely to help Connie reclaim Rose’s sword, but he couldn’t very well admit that to them out of shame that he had lost something so precious and important, especially since it was his responsibility to keep it safe in the first place. So instead of telling the truth, the young Gem decided to do one of the things he did best: cheer them up.

“I-I know you guys aren’t looking forward to this, but I still think we could end up having fun!” he quipped with a warm smile. “I mean, we’re all here together, and Connie, Dipper, and Mabel are coming too so maybe the party won’t be as bad as it used to be when you guys used to go to it.”

“Oh yeah, speakin’ of which,” Amethyst interjected curiously as they all presented their invitations at the door before being let inside. “How did those three get invites to this ritzy blowout anyway? I always remember this thing being super exclusive, to the point that they only let rich, snobby jerks in. And last time I checked, Connie, Dipper, and Mabel aren’t rich, snobby jerks.”

“Oh, uh, well-”

“Steven!” the young Gem was interupted almost as soon as him and the Gems stepped into the ballroom by Mabel, who had managed to spot them from the other side of the hall. She didn’t hesitate to excitedly run over towards him, though she did slow her pace somewhat, her cheeks flushing red upon noticing the rather dashing suit he was in. “W-wow…” she said as she came to a stop, trying her best not to come across as flustered and doing anything but. “Steven, you… y-you look, uh… you… um… G-great to see you!”

“Uh, its great to see you too, Mabel, even though I did just see you a few hours ago.” Steven chuckled, fortunately not paying her stumbling much mind.

“Heh, yeah… Oh my gosh!” Mabel quickly changed topics, averting her gaze from the young Gem lest she turn incoherent again as she addressed the Gems instead. “You guys all look so pretty! I love, love, love your dresses!”

“Well, thank you, Mabel,” Pearl smiled kindly. “Your dress for the evening is very… creative as well!”

“Aw, thanks so much! I made it myself!” Mabel cheerily gushed, pulling off a playful curtsy. “Still, this is so crazy awesome! I wasn’t expecting to see any of you guys here! Isn’t this party the fanciest thing you’ve ever seen?!”

“Mm… we’ve seen fancier,” Garnet noted rather dryly, eliciting confused frowns from both Mabel and Steven.

“Mabel! You gotta get over here!” Grenda suddenly called, her deep voice echoing from across the ballroom.

“Oh! Hold that thought!” Mabel exclaimed as she started to run off, though not before bidding Steven and the Gems a quick farewell as they waved her off. “I’ll catch up with you guys later! I hope you have fun!”

“Ha, like that’ll ever happen at this lamo snob party,” Amethyst grumbled, crossing her arms petulantly.

“What’s up?” Mabel asked Candy and Grenda as she joined them before a large, stately book resting on a stand.

“Look what we found! It’s the guest list!” Grenda grinned, eagerly flipping through it before stopping a few pages in. “Whoa! Check out this hottie!”

“Marius von Fundshauser!” Candy read, already completely enthralled with the wealthy young man from his picture alone. “He’s a baron from Austria!”

“Forget the quail, I’m putting him in my gift basket!” Mabel quipped, more than ready to indulge herself with another summer crush. Especially if it helped her get her mind off her ever-growing feelings for a certain young Gem.

“Hold up, ladies,” Grenda interjected, her tone surprisingly serious. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I think this boy might be out of our league.”

“Grenda is right,” Candy nodded just as rationally. “He is a white whale. Hunting him will destroy us.”

“Well, there are plenty of other cute boys coming to this party,” Mabel vouched with a conceding smile. “So let’s make a sister’s truce not to waste our time on Marius. Deal?”

“Deal!” Candy and Grenda both agreed as they all put their hands together in mutual agreement on this plan. Still, all three of them laughed somewhat nervously as they broke their hands apart, none of them entirely sure if this was a deal they intended on keeping.

As her father had instructed, Pacifica led Dipper to the so-called “problem room”, which, even upon an initial glance, was exactly what he had been expecting. It appeared to be some kind of lounge, just as stately as the rest of Northwest Manor was with hand-crafted hardwood furniture, walls lined with paintings hailing the family’s allegedly proud history, and mounted animal heads, and a large roaring fireplace that cast the entire room in a shadowy, almost blood red glow.

“This is the main room where it’s been happening,” Pacifica informed as they stepped inside, her usual confident manner somewhat diminished in place of fledgling fear.

“Yeah, this looks like the kind of room that would be haunted alright,” Dipper concluded as he pulled the journal out and turned to the fortunately extensive section on ghosts. “I wouldn’t worry about it though. Ghosts fall on a ten-category scale. Floating plates sounds like a category 1, which is pretty far from being anywhere close to dangerous.”

“So what?” Pacifica asked with a teasing smirk. “Are you gonna bore him back into the afterlife by reading from that book? Or are you going to pretend to stab him with that cute little toy sword of yours?” she asked, nodding to the Ancient Sea Blade he had securely strapped to his back.

“First of all, it’s not a toy, its real,” Dipper corrected, half tempted to draw it and show her. “And secondly, I only brought it with me as a precaution. If it really is a category 1, then the most I gotta do is splash that sucker with some anointed water,” he said, holding said small bottle of holy water up. “And he should be out of your probably-fake blonde hair.”

“What was that about my hair?” Pacifica scoffed, glaring at him disapprovingly.

“Shh!” Dipper quickly interupted her as he pulled a small, ghost-tracking device out of his backpack, one that was already beeping in response to the apparent supernatural activity in the room. “I’m picking something up.”

The heiress simply sighed in aggravation but all the same she hung back, allowing him to investigate further as he followed the readings the device was giving off. Dipper stopped short in front of the fireplace as he briefly glanced up to the large painting of who appeared to be an 1880s lumberjack until the device’s signal suddenly went dead. “Ugh, come on, stupid thing,” he muttered in annoyance, beating the side of it until it began beeping once more. “There we go. Huh?” He was met with immediate confusion as he glanced up again, only to find that somehow, the lumberjack in the painting had suddenly disappeared from the frame in what couldn’t have been more than a few seconds at best. Something that Dipper already knew well from experience, was far from normal. “Uh… Pacifica?”

The heiress didn’t even heed him as she instead let out a frightened scream on the other side of the room, one that was quite warranted given the pool of blood she had just spotted near her feet, one that was being fueled from above. Both her and Dipper let out shared gasps of shock as they glanced up to see blood, thick, dark, and real, swelling from the seemingly dead mouths and eyes of every single one of the taxidermized animal heads on the walls. A steady, unnatural gale-force wind started to swirl around the room as bright, sinister flames began bursting out from the confines of the fireplace, almost as if they were trying to latch onto Dipper and Pacifica as they rushed to meet each other near the center of the room. The danger seemed to escalate more and more with each passing second as the animal heads, still dripping with unexplainable blood and blank, unseeing eyes glowing a sharp, warning red, began to raise their voices in a deep, unearthly, ominous chant.

“ANCIENT SINS! ANCIENT SINS! ANCIENT SINS!”

On and on this mysterious mantra continued as the objects in the room began to take flight, books, furniture, and antiques all rising into the air before they haphazardly glided around the appropriately terrified pair. “Dipper, what is this?!” Pacifica cried about the incredible din surrounding them, her trembling hands held close to her as her long hair whipped about in the hurricane winds.

“I-it’s a category 10…” Dipper replied, absolutely shaken. After all, the last time he had witnessed a supernatural disaster this dire or intense was when he had watched his own body be taken over by a vicious dream demon while he floated outside of it, distraught and helpless. And while this haunting was nowhere near as immediately catastrophic as that had been, it was still every bit as deadly, a fact he was starkly reminded of as his only real option for taking care of it, the vial of anointed water, abruptly shattered right in his hand.

“ANCIENT BLOOD AND BLACKENED SKIES,” the animal heads changed their chant into something new, but every bit as dark and sinister. “THE FOREST DARK SHALL ONCE MORE RISE!”

“What do we do?! What do we do?!” Pacifica practically screamed as she grabbed Dipper by the suit jacket and shook him desperately.

“I-I… I don’t know!” Dipper answered truthfully, realizing that he was actually quite unprepared for something of this caliber.

“What do you mean you don’t know?!” Pacifica shot back in disbelief. “Aren’t you supposed to be some kind of supernatural expert or something?!”

“Who on earth told you that?!”

“Uh, the town newspaper did!”

“Whoa, really?” Dipper paused, rather pleasantly surprised to hear this. “That’s… actually pretty awesome.”

“Focus!” Pacifica snapped harshly. “We’re about to be killed by creepy dead animal heads and flying furniture, remember?!”

“Don’t worry,” Dipper assured as evenly as he could, given the circumstances. “It can’t possibly get any worse than this!”

Of course, he was immediately proven wrong as the fire violently sparked up again, forcing the pair to dive under the nearby table to avoid getting burned. And they did so just in time as, out of nowhere, a powerful black skeletal arm emerged from the flames, still completely consumed in them as it smashed down onto the ground. The rest of the charred skeleton subsequently pulled itself out of the fire, something akin to skin and clothes forming around the bones as they formed the visage of a large, burly man, the lumberjack from the painting himself, who was clearly deceased based on his rotting, grisly form. A sharp, deadly axe had cleaved his head, the obvious cause of his death that still remained in his undead form. And his manner was every bit as outraged and heated as the burning inferno he had emerged from as he belted out his first proclamation in a deep, rumbling voice.

“I smell… a NORTHWEST!” the ghost growled, blue flames igniting in place of where hair and a beard would normally be as his one remaining eye shot open. Dipper and Pacifica made sure to remain hidden out of the ghost’s view under the table as he began to storm around the room, another axe materializing in his hand as he dragged it threateningly across the floor with each torturously slow step. “Come out, come out, wherever you are!”

“Hurry!” Pacifica whispered to Dipper sharply as he frantically flipped through the journal for answers. “Read through your dumb book already and figure out a way to get rid of that… thing!”

“I’m looking!” Dipper retorted just as harshly as he pulled out his blacklight. “And its not dumb, ok? This book is gonna save our lives! Alright, here we go; Advice:” Hoping that the category 10 ghost page would hold the key to ousting this great, newfound threat, he held the blacklight over the page, only to get the lone, disconcerting message of “Pray for mercy!” instead of anything tangibly useful. “Aw, seriously?!”

Matters were only made worse as the table, their only real cover from the ghost and his deadly axe, suddenly hovered away, leaving them directly in the menacing specter’s line of sight, much to their shared horror. “You should not have come here!” he shouted, not even hesitating to swipe at the pair with his weapon, which they only barely dodged.

“This way! Hurry!” Pacifica exclaimed, grabbing Dipper by the arm and quickly pulling him up before they rushed out of the room. The ghost was in hot pursuit, his fiery manner sparkly with murderous intent as he relentlessly chased them down the mansion’s maze-like halls, ready to strike.

Northwest Manor’s massive doors finally opened to the illustrious group of invited party guests as Preston proudly stood by to greet them all, his wide, cordial grin completely hiding any implications that ghostly danger was currently lurking through the mansion’s halls. “Welcome, dukes, duchesses, sultans and sportsmen! And—ugh… Mayor Dewey…”

“Preston!” Dewey exclaimed brightly, rushing forward as he threw an arm over the billionaire’s shoulder. “We’re so honored to be here, isn’t that right, Buck?”

“Not really,” Buck dryly stated, his arms crossed and his shades still on despite his formal attire.

“Ha! Isn’t my son just hilarious?!” Dewey chuckled with an incredibly forced laugh as he snapped a finger at one of his aids, not noticing Preston’s quickly growing aggravation with him. “Now, smile for the campaign promotion!” The mayor did so brightly, even if the billionaire made his annoyance quite clear before finally acting upon it as soon as the aid snapped a photo.

“Alright, Dewey, that’s enough of your ‘campaigning’ for one evening,” Preston scowled scornfully, pushing the mayor back into the crowd. “Now then,” the billionaire continued, quickly regaining his composure as he addressed the rest of his guests. “Tonight we will enjoy only the finest of tastes and only the snootiest of laugher.” Someone in the crowd let out an incredibly haughty chortle in response to this remark as Preston nodded in approval. “That’s the ticket!” he exclaimed, motioning for the guests to finally step inside.

Despite the party’s exclusivity, there were still quite a few attendees who filed in, most of them quite prominent in some regard, be it wealth or reputation. Within this group were some of the town’s most esteemed medical professionals, and among them was Dr. Maheswaran, with Connie almost sullenly following in after her. After since her mother had confiscated Rose’s sword, she had been trying her best not to fall even further out of Priyanka’s good graces than she already had. Hence why she had been obedient, almost rigidly so, all the way leading up to their arrival at the party itself, in the hopes that her mother would loosen up her newly tightened reigns for the evening. And fortunately enough, her vigilance paid off, as that’s exactly what Priyanka did.

“I have to go meet with the other doctors before we propose the hospital sponsorship to the Northwests,” the doctor said to her daughter, her tone as serious as ever. “I trust that you can mind yourself like a proper young lady without getting into any more trouble for an hour or two, right?”

“Y-yes, ma’am,” Connie nodded apprehensively, keeping her poise and manner as polite and compliant as possible as to not give away her intention of going against her rules.

“Good,” Priyanka nodded in staunch satisfaction as she began to walk off. “And remember what we talked about on the way here!”

“Don’t worry, Mom,” Connie assured with a rather fake smile. “I-I don’t think you’ll need to worry about me stumbling across any swords around here!” Her smile immediately fell into partial guilt as soon as her mother fully turned away, since she knew she would soon be seeking out the very sword that had gotten her into all this trouble on her own accord. Still, she didn’t let herself linger on that guilt for too long as Steven managed to spot her amidst the crowd and didn’t hesitate to come running over.

“Connie!” he called with an elated smile as he caught her off guard with a sudden hug.

“S-Steven!” Connie chuckled as the broke apart. “You actually made it!”

“Yeah, it turns out the Gems actually get invited to this party every year,” Steven’s smile quickly turned to wonder as he got a better view of Connie’s attire for the evening: a floor length turquoise dress with short sleeves and a dark sash, one that complimented her neatly-done updo quite nicely. “W-wow… Connie, you look great!”

“Thanks…” Connie blushed, her reddened cheeks matching the young Gem’s own. “You look really nice too. B-but there’s no time to talk about that now! We gotta get your mother’s sword back while my mom is distracted!”

“Right,” Steven nodded, resolved. “So where is it?”

“She left it outside in the car,” Connie reported with a worried frown. “Which means that we can’t just go out through the front door to get it, everybody will notice. There has to be another way out of the mansion…”

“Then I guess we’ll just have to find it!” the young Gem grinned encouragingly. “Come on!” And with that, Steven grabbed Connie’s hand, reigniting the warmth in her cheeks as they slipped through the party’s growing crowds towards the back of the ballroom, where the beginning of the hallways leading to the inner sanctums of the mansion awaited. Neither of them had the faintest clue about the manor’s layout, which was why they had to settle on picking a random hallway and seeing where it led. They managed to do so without Priyanka, or really anyone else for that matter noticing them, mostly since everyone was already so distracted with the fancy offerings of the party itself. And as soon as they were out of the party proper, they both noticed that the mansion’s lofty halls were much more spacious, quiet, and even eerie than either of them would have thought they would be.

“Whoa, this place is even bigger on the inside than it looks on the outside,” Steven remarked as they made their steady way down the corridor they had chosen. “And that’s saying something seeing as how it looks huge on the outside.”

“What do the Northwests even need such a huge mansion for anyway?” Connie asked, making her disdain for the wealthy family as apparent as ever. “They probably don’t even use half the rooms in here and if they do, then they’re probably just filled with stuff they never look at or use.”

“You’re sounding like the Gems did earlier,” Steven remarked with a small, bemused smile. “They… really aren’t that happy to be here.”

“Well, who can blame them?” Connie huffed. “I’d rather be anywhere else but here either, but at least this party his good for one thing: helping us get that sword back.”

“True,” Steven nodded. “Though I don’t really know what we’re gonna do with the sword once we get it back… Lion didn’t come with us to the party, so I guess we’ll just have to sneak it back inside and hope your mom doesn’t see-” The young Gem stopped short as a display case resting against the nearby wall caught his attention as they were passing it. A case that was filled with what seemed to be rather clusters of conjoined gemstones.

“Steven?” Connie frowned as she also paused, noticing his apparent surprise. “Is something wrong?”

“Oh, uh, nothing,” Steven glanced away from the case briefly. “Its just… these rocks look an awful lot like the ones those Gem experiments in the Kindergarten had…”

“Really?” Connie asked, concerned. “You don’t think…?”

“…No, they couldn’t be,” the young Gem shook his head. “We bubbled all of them up. A-and even if there were any left that we didn’t find, how would they have ended up here?”

“You got me,” Connie said with a small, reassuring smile. “Now come on, we gotta hurry and get that sword!”

Steven nodded in firm agreement, only taking a very short final glance back at the gemstone display case before he hurried after her. Still, as they continued their way down the narrow mansion hall, neither one of them noticed as one of the odd, strangely familiar-looking gem clusters slowly began to glow, its kin all steadily starting to do the same.  

Given their tarnished history with the Northwest family in general, the Gems had decided early on to make their contempt towards their party very apparent. They refused to engage themselves in interacting with any of the transparently pompous guests as they instead hung back together near the other end of the ballroom, their disdainful, disapproving scowls clear as they refused to show any signs of willingly indulging in this wasteful finery.

Well, that is, save for Amethyst.

The purple Gem had essentially overtaken an entire buffet table, scarfing down all of the expensive entrees she could get her hands on, much to Pearl’s ever increasing aggravation.

“Amethyst, could you please try to control yourself for a change!?” the white Gem asked, her arms crossed as she continued standing alongside Garnet nearby.

“No can do, P,” Amethyst said as she essentially poured an entire punch bowl on herself. “These Northwests may throw some lame parties, but at least the snacks never disappoint. I gotta admit, I almost kinda missed this.”

“Well, I certainly haven’t,” Pearl concluded, turning her nose upward coldly. “Now get down from there, you’re making a mess!”

“Good,” Garnet spoke up, undermining the white Gem with a nod of approval, much to her teammates’ confusion.

“Huh?”

“Go ahead and make a mess,” the Gem leader clarified staunchly. “It’s not like the Northwests don’t deserve it after everything they’ve done over the years.”

While Pearl was still rather lost by this bizarre order, Amethyst was more than happy to follow it through. “What, you mean like… this?” she grinned as she dropped a very expensive china tray onto the ground, shattering it upon contact.

“That works,” Garnet nodded in approval as she discreetly summoned her gauntlet. “So does this.” With a simple flick of her fingers at the window behind her, a large crack rippled across its otherwise pristine surface as the Gem leader simply smiled in smug satisfaction.

“G-Garnet!” Pearl gasped, appalled by such destructive behavior.

“Aw, c’mon, Pearl, don’t be such a stick in the mud!” Amethyst goaded, tossing another plate to the ground. “After all, you were the one who painted that awesome tag on their wall a few weeks ago. How is this any worse than that?”

The white Gem hesitated briefly, but in the end, her usual desire for order was quickly overruled by her longstanding contempt for the Northwests and all those like them. “Well…” she began by summoning her spear. “I suppose a tiny little scratch wouldn’t hurt too much…” With this, she placed the tip of her weapon against the smooth marble floor before she began to slowly drag it, leaving a long, marring scratch across the pristine surface. “Oops. Did I do that?” she grinned, already exhilarated by this act of rebellion.

“Yeah, that’s the spirit!” Amethyst cheered, continuing her own form of vandalism as Garnet and Pearl both took to theirs, all three of them reveling in taking their age-old scorn towards the Northwests out, even if it was in a rather simple way.

It stood to reason that a party as fancy and upscale as Northwest Fest would have food and appetizers that were every bit as fancy and upscale to match. And though Amethyst had partaken of the many buffet tables around the ballroom, fortunately she hadn’t gotten to the fondue fountains yet, which was where Candy had been firmly planted for at least the past ten minutes.

“Cheese, chocolate,” she said to herself, essentially entranced as she moved her stick between the two melted substances. “Cheese, chocolate-”

“Candy, listen to me carefully,” Mabel finally interjected as she stepped over to her, halting her constant switching. “You’re caught in a sweet-savory loop. You need to stop now, before you’re lost to the chocolatey cheesiness forever! So put the fondue fork down.”

“I want to… but I can’t…” Candy mused, still completely transfixed on her fondue stick. That is, until most of the ballroom’s attention was garnished by a butler near the front doors.

“Announcing Baron Marius von Fundhauser!” he proclaimed, stepping out of the way to reveal the young baron. Upon a very first glance at him, Mabel, Candy, and Grenda were all instantly enamored, all three of them awestruck by his stately, royal attire and long, silky auburn hair. Clearly, he carried the air of a majestic baron in both title and manner as he strode into the ballroom confidently, the girls’ watching him in utter captivation all the while.

“Guten tag!” Marius greeted the trio with a friendly smile as he passed by them, apparently not noticing their jaws unanimously hanging agape in amazement.

“Guten take me now!” Mabel exclaimed, lovestruck as she started hurrying after him, only for Grenda and Candy to quickly stop her.

“Mabel, we had a truce!” Grenda frowned, still clearly serious about keeping said truce.

“Yes, yes, a truce,” Candy nodded, somewhat less so as she forced a complacent smile. “Uh, Grenda? Can you go fetch us some fancy napkins?”

“Wow, ok!” Grenda blithely agreed, innocently heading off to do so.

“Listen, Mabel,” Candy began, dropping her voice down to a whisper as soon as Grenda was out of earshot. “I don’t know if I can follow this truce. He is too adorable!”

“Ugh, I know, right?!” Mabel gushed tightly, almost relieved for Marius’ welcome arrival and Steven’s subsequent, unexplained disappearance from the party. “But what do we do? He’s unattainable! I mean did you see his hair!? It’s like he was straight out of a shampoo commercial!”

“What if we flirt with him as a team?” Candy suggested. “With our cuteness combined, one of us might have a chance!”

“It’s the perfect plan! But… what about Grenda?”

“I love Grenda, Mabel, but these boys are fancy! Her aggressive flirting style might scare them away!”

The pair glanced over at the larger girl, who was in the midst of “fliting” with another boy, though in her own unique, incredibly forward way. “What’s on your shirt?” she asked, pointing to his chest until he glanced down, at which point she proceeded to bring her finger up and flick him hard in the nose. “Ha! Gullible! Loser!”

Upon seeing this display, both Mabel and Candy nodded, both of them immediately on board for their plan to win Marius over between just the two of them. Really, the figured that it would be better for everyone if they left Grenda out of this loop, as much as they didn’t want to hurt her feelings. After all, the baron was exactly that, a baron. They couldn’t risk the chance of Grenda scaring someone as prestigious and esteemed as Marius off, or worse yet, offending him or hurting him at her own expense. And if, in the process of keeping their attempts at courting Marius between just the two of them, either Mabel or Candy ended up catching his eye and his affections, then, they supposed, that would just be an added benefit.

With the party in full swing as it was, few guests bothered to wander anywhere in the mansion past the main ballroom where all the festivities were being held. And yet, if any guest happened to start wandering the manor’s halls, then they would have likely caught sight of a fiery lumberjack ghost relentlessly chasing a pair of fearfully fleeing kids with nothing less than the absolute intent to kill.

Fortunately though, Pacifica knew the winding corridors and lengthy halls of her mansion home well as she navigated herself and Dipper through them while the ghost sped after them, chuckling threateningly all the while. Despite their efforts to shake the spirit off their trail, he kept on them tightly, his exact motivation for wanting their ends rather unclear, though that was hardly what either of them were concerned with as much as staying alive.

“What are we gonna do?!” Pacifica shouted amidst her growing breathlessness as they continued fleeing. “We can’t keep running from that thing forever!”

“I’m looking!” Dipper shouted back, the journal in one hand and his sword in the other. Of course, it was of little use against the incorporeal ghost, but at the very least it was good for fending off the stray pieces of furniture and dinnerware the specter sent flying their way.

“Well look faster!” the heiress snapped impatiently, worriedly glancing over her shoulder as they rushed through one of the mansion’s several inner gardens. The ground was still muddy from the earlier rain showers, which made their trek through it somewhat haphazard, but all the same, they managed to make it to the other end with the ghost still only a few dangerously short feet behind them.

“Come on, come on…” Dipper muttered, frantically flipping through the journal as much as he could until he finally found what he was looking for. “Aha! I got it! Haunted paintings can only be trapped in a silver mirror. And look!” he pointed ahead to the pristinely white parlor they were running straight towards, or more particularly, the large mirror conveniently hanging from its wall. “There’s a silver mirror right there!”

“Wait!” Pacifica exclaimed, grabbing Dipper’s arm before he could so much as even step foot into the room. “Don’t go in there! This room has my parent’s favorite carpet pattern! They’ll lose it if we track mud in there!”

“What? Are you serious?” Dipper scoffed, unable to believe that the heiress was even remotely concerned with something so unimportant. “Pacifica, we don’t have time for this!”

“W-well we need to make time!” Pacifica retorted, her eyes wide with fear that seemed to go beyond the threat the ghost posed. “We’ll find another way!”

“Why do we need to find another way if there’s a perfectly fine way right in front of us!?” Dipper argued crossly, trying to press his way past her into the room.

“Because my parents will kill me if I don’t listen to them and mess up their rug!”

“Why are you so afraid of your parents?!”

“You wouldn’t understand!”

By now, the argument between the pair had escalated quite a bit in intensity as they roughly grappled with each other, Dipper desperately trying to get into the room while Pacifica desperately tried keeping him out. They could both hear the ghost steadily approaching by his deep, ominous laughter alone, but he had largely been forgotten as Pacifica unexpectedly grabbed the journal, hoping that prying it away from Dipper would be enough to convince him to move on. And fortunately for her, this plan worked as she pulled it away from him, surprising him quite a bit as their eyes met in a very short beat of awkward tension before the heiress took off running down the adjacent hallway with the journal in hand.

“Hey!” Dipper shouted, adamantly running after her. “Pacifica, give that back!”

“Oh what?” Pacifica smirked back over her shoulder, triumphant and relieved that her impromptu plan had succeeded. “You want your dumb nerd book? Then come and get it, Pines!”

Dipper couldn’t help but let out a small growl of frustration at her teasing, still rather taken aback by the heiress’ stubbornness and boldness as he ran after her nonetheless. And of course, all the while, the lumberjack ghost continued its haunting chase after them both, more than ready to rain his fiery fury down the moment he inevitably caught up with them.

After traversing and admittedly getting lost amidst the mansion’s many hallways, Steven and Connie had eventually stumbled upon a back door that led to the large parking area roped off for guests behind the manor. And, though it took some doing to find Dr. Maheswaran’s vehicle amidst the myriad of limos and sports cars, they eventually reached it, only to find a setback they admittedly hadn’t anticipated.

“It’s locked…” Connie frowned in disappointment as she tried pulling the trunk open. “Ugh, we should have seen this coming. There’s no way my mom would leave something like a sword in her car without keeping it locked up tight. What are we supposed to do now?”

“Hm… I think I have an idea…” Steven said, looking to the lock thoughtfully. “Do you have a hair pin or something like that?”

“Um, yeah?” Connie complied in confusion, pulling a non-essential pin out of her updo.

“Thanks!” the young Gem grinned as he started wedging the pin into the lock.

“Where did you learn how to pick locks from?” Connie asked, her brow furrowed as she watched Steven work.

“Amethyst and Mr. Pines taught me after I walked in on them trying to open a safe they found somewhere,” Steven explained with an innocent smile. “So they taught me how to pick locks in exchange for not ‘spilling it’ to anyone else about the safe. Tough I’m still not sure why they wouldn’t want anyone else knowing about something like that…”

“Uh, probably because they stole that safe instead of finding it, Steven…” Connie pointed out.

“…Oh. Well, at least I learned something useful,” Steven shrugged as he successfully unlocked the trunk. Sure enough, Rose’s sword lay within, and despite a moment of initial trepidation for breaking her mother’s strict orders, Connie took the blade nonetheless, strapping it over her shoulder before shutting the trunk behind her.

“Ok, we got it,” she said, letting out the deep breath she felt as though she had been holding in since this entire situation began. “Now we just have to sneak it out of the party without my mom seeing…”

“And without the Gems seeing either,” Steven noted as they began making their way back up the hill to the mansion. “I sorta didn’t tell them about this whole sword thing, and I feel like they probably wouldn’t be too happy if they found out its pretty much the reason why I begged them to come to this party in the first place…”

“I guess we’re gonna be on double duty when it comes to being stealthy for the rest of the night then,” Connie said with resolve as they reentered the manor the same way they had left it. However, the pair stopped short as soon as they stepped inside upon seeing what lay before them. The highly decorated hallway was in shambles, wall tapestries torn and decorative displays laying in shattered remains on the ground without any rhyme or reason at all. “Whoa…” Connie mused, her voice dropping down to an apprehensive whisper. “What could have done all this?”

“D-didn’t Dipper say something about Pacifica asking him to help out with a ghost haunting the mansion?” Steven asked nervously, drawing a bit closer to Connie out of fear.

“Yeah but… a ghost wouldn’t have been able to do this much damage… would it?”

“I… I don’t know, maybe,” Steven shook his head fretfully, remembering well just how much destruction the convenience store ghosts had cause at the start of the summer. “We should go find Dipper and ask him if he’s seen-”

The young Gem was cut off as a low, rather inhuman moan echoed from the end of the hall in front of them. The pair froze, their hands unceremoniously intertwining tightly as a large, looming shadow draped itself over the wall, its source unknown as it grew in size and intimidation. Neither Steven or Connie dared to even breathe as the unearthly groans raised in volume, the shadow coming to a stop as a massive arm slammed down into the open before the rest of its twisted body emerged from around the corner. Simply put, it was a mass of multiple mismatched limbs, all strewn together into a hulking, massive, discolored body, if it could even be called that at all. And, resting at the center of where its face would have been if it had one, was a very familiar cluster of conjoined gemstones.

“C-Connie?” Steven whispered, gripping her hand tighter as this monster began lumbering its way towards them through the mess it had made earlier. “I-I think that’s one of the Gem mutants I was telling you about…”

“What? Are you sure?” Connie asked, her voice just as quiet, even though they had clearly already attracted the mutant’s attention.

“Preeeeetty sure at this point,” the young Gem nodded stiffly, knowing this creature looked quite close to the ones they had encountered at the Kindergarten the other week.

“Well then, we got this sword back at just the right time,” Connie scowled towards the mutant as she swiftly drew Rose’s sword, wielding the massive blade with both hands as she took up an offensive stance. Steven watched in amazement as she rushed forwards, seemingly undeterred as she pulled the mighty sword back before delivering a clean swipe straight through the mutant’s weighty midsection before it could even try to attack. With a pained whine, the forced fusion imploded, its shard-composed gemstone tumbling to the floor before Steven ran forward to bubble it and send it away.

“Looks like you were right,” Connie said, still gripping Rose’s sword tightly as she looked around for any more. “Those rocks really were Gem mutants after all.”

“Yeah, but why would they be-” Steven was cut off as a loud crash sounded out from the other end of the hall. This was immediately and unsurprisingly followed by the emergence of even more gem mutants, both big and small, rounding the corner en masse as they walked, crawled, sidled, anything they could to inch their way towards the aptly frightened pair. “Uh, C-Connie? I think now would be a good time to run!” Steven warned, grabbing her by the arm as he tried to pull her down the other way.

“No, Steven, I can take them!” Connie protested, already positioning her sword to strike.

“I-I know, but still!” Steven pleaded, fearful for her safety more than his own really. After all, the last thing he wanted was to see her get hurt as a result of overconfidence in her newly acquired blade, even as powerful as it was. “We gotta get the Gems! They can help us take care of these things before they can make it into the ballroom and end up hurting someone!”

“…You’re right,” Connie begrudgingly relented, sheathing her blade. “So come on, then! We have to hurry!”

“Right!” Steven readily agreed, leading the way out of the hallway that had already been claimed and decimated by the marauding gem mutants.

As Steven and Connie began their hasty flight through the mansion’s lofty halls, Dipper and Pacifica continued theirs, with the former still chasing after the latter in the hopes of reclaiming the journal before the ghost could catch up to them.

“Pacifica!” Dipper shouted after the heiress, quite surprised at how fast she was. “I’m serious! Give me back the journal, now!”

“Why should I?” Pacifica countered just as harshly. “So you can go running back to that room, get mud all over the floors, and get me in trouble with my parents? Because last time I checked, that’s not what you’re here for!”

“You’re right, I’m here to get rid of that ghost!” Dipper reiterated, severely annoyed. “But I can’t do that if you won’t let me just because your scared of setting off your parents for some weird reason!”

“I already told you!” the heiress shot back, gripping the journal in her arms tightly as she continued running. “You don’t understand!”

“Then help me understand!” Dipper urged, both out of frustration and genuine curiosity as to why she seemed so adamant about all this. Interestingly enough though, this was what finally got Pacifica to stop in her tracks, her expression startled and strangely soft as she turned to face him.

“W-what?” she asked rather quietly, taken aback that anyone would even inquire about the matter at all, especially him. However, before Dipper could even reply, a brand new threat made itself apparent as it slammed down into the space directly behind Pacifica from the high ceiling above. It was a tall, lanky creature, with six disproportionate arms and no face to speak of as it balanced on a pair of long, mismatched legs amidst towering over the frightened heiress, letting out a low, threatening groan all the while. Pacifica let out a horrified scream at this grotesque creature as it started to advance on her, her long dress tripping her up as she clumsily fell to the ground, shielding herself with her arm as the creature raised one of its many arms with the intent to strike. And yet… it was a strike she never felt.

Hesitantly, Pacifica opened her tightly shut eyes and took a glance back towards the monster, only to see something that shocked her just as much as its sudden appearance had. For standing squarely in between her and the multi-limbed creature was none other than Dipper, his sword raised as he firmly, fearlessly pressed back against the many hands pressed against it. Yet all the same he held his ground, his footing steady and his expression fierce as he warded off the mutant, eventually managing to push it back enough to give himself enough space to properly fight it. All the while, Pacifica remained practically frozen to her spot on the ground, her eyes wide and her jaw dropped as she watched in absolute awe as Dipper rushed towards the monster with a courageous shout, lashing out with his blade as he maneuvered with skill and ease. The creature was unable to keep up with him as he dodged its slow, sloppy movements, and in what seemed like no time at all, the tip of his sword had punctured the monster squarely in its back, resulting in its hideous form poofing into nothing more than a mismatched cluster of gem shards.

“A Gem mutant?” Dipper frowned in confusion as he carefully picked the compiled stone. “How’d this get in here? Pacifica, do you know anything about this thing?”

Strangely, he received no answer from the heiress as he glanced back to look at her, only to find that she was staring up at him, seemingly captivated, though for what reason, he had no idea. Still, try as she might, Pacifica couldn’t convince her body or her mind to respond properly as her thoughts raced randomly and her cheeks began flushing warm and pink as she kept her eyes on the boy who had effectively just saved her life. She couldn’t deny that, with both his suit and hair as mildly yet endearingly disheveled as they were, resolve and adrenaline still sparking in his eyes, and the sword still held confidently in his hand, he did look the slightest bit dashing, almost heroic even, though she’d never dare to admit that out loud.

“Uh… Pacifica? Are you ok?” Dipper asked, making the heiress realize that she had gone far too long without taking her eyes off him.

“W-wha—oh, uh, y-yeah!” she exclaimed, clearly flustered as she rejected the hand he had offered to help her stand in favor of doing so on her own. “I-I don’t know why you think I wouldn’t be. That weird arm thing wasn’t even that scary.”

“Oh sure it wasn’t,” Dipper remarked with a wry, rather playful smirk. “That’s why you screamed in terror as soon as you saw it, right?”

Pacifica shot him a disapproving glare at this, though it wasn’t as harsh as it admittedly could have been as she shoved the journal back into his arms. “Here, take you lame nerd book back,” she huffed, still trying to suppress her ongoing blush. “So… uh… where’d you learn how to do that?”

“Do what?”

“You know…” she held her hands behind her back as she nodded to his sword casually enough. “That.”

“Oh, sword fighting?” Dipper clarified, glancing to his blade before sheathing it. “Me and Connie have been taking lessons from Pearl for the past few weeks. It tends to come in handy when you deal with stuff like this a lot, which… yeah, I kinda do.”

“And… your family’s just… ok with you running around with a dangerous sword all the time?” Pacifica asked, slightly baffled by such apparent freedom.

“Uh… yeah?” Dipper shrugged, unsure of what she meant by this question. “Why wouldn’t they be?”

The heiress didn’t answer as she glanced down somewhat, her brow furrowing in both confusion and what almost felt like envy, though that couldn’t possibly be right. After all, how in the world could someone as well off and highly esteemed as her be jealous of someone as common and unrefined as him?

While it was quite likely that the ghost had lost track of them in the chaos that had just ensued, Dipper didn’t want to take any chances, which was why he took the lead in moving on. However, they barely even rounded the corner before they were held up again, though this time by it fortunately wasn’t by the ghost or any Gem mutants, but rather by Steven and Connie as they all accidentally happened to run smack into each other.

“Wha—Steven? Connie?” Dipper frowned in confusion upon seeing the pair at such a random juncture. “What are you guys doing here? Why aren’t you back at the party?”

“W-well, we got my mom’s sword back,” Steven began anxiously. “But then we ran into a ton of Gem mutants, just like the ones we fought at the Kindergarten!”

“Wait, you mean there are even more of those things running around here?” Dipper asked incredulously as he handed the remains of the mutant he had defeated over to Steven so it could be bubbled. “We were just attacked by one. How’d they even get into the mansion in the first place?”

“I don’t know…” Connie mused, her tone and expression growing quite suspicious as she glanced over at the nearby heiress. “That’s a really good question, isn’t it, Pacifica?”

“Oh what? You think I have something to do with this?” Pacifica asked harshly.

“Well, seeing as how all these Gem clusters were in a display case in your mansion, so it only makes sense that you’d know something about how they ended up here.”

“Well, I don’t,” the heiress huffed, her hands on her hips. “My parents probably bought them for the party and didn’t know they were actually gross, grabby, nightmarish freakshows.”

“Actually, they’re shattered Gems who were forced to fuse with each other,” Steven said with a sympathetic frown for the mutants’ plight.

“…I literally have no idea what any of that means,” Pacifica said, clearly out of the context loop. “Still, I don’t know anything about how those things wound up here.”

“Oh yeah? And how do we know you’re actually telling the truth?” Connie asked, still rather distrustful. And really, she believed she had every reason to be, given just how dangerous these Gem mutants were and just how not coincidental their presence in the mansion seemed to be. “After all, your family has a known history of lying when it comes to their dirty little secrets, so it wouldn’t be surprising at all if you inherited that bad habit right alongside all the money you don’t deserve.”

Pacifica let out an appalled gasp at this, outraged and offended by such an accusation as she took a bold, almost threatening step forward. “Ok, you know what, Maheswaran, I’m gonna-”

“Whoa, ok, hold it!” Dipper quickly interjected before any sort of scuffle could break out, both him and Steven rushing in to stand between the two incensed girls. “Connie, I know you’re uh, not really a fan of Pacifica, but as much as I hate to admit it, I don’t think she’s lying about this.”

“Seriously, Dipper?” Connie scoffed. “You know how she is, we all do! Heck, for all you know, she could be lying to you about this whole ’ghost’ thing too!”

Dipper was actually quite prepared to correct Connie on this, not noticing Pacifica flinch slightly behind him as she realized this accusation was at least partially true. However, he really didn’t have to as the lumberjack ghost’s laughter began booming through the nearby corridor once again as he started to catch up with his victims.

“Its time to stop running, Northwest, and face you DOOM!” he shouted, finally appearing at the end of the hall with blue flames sparking all over his frightening form. All four of the kids let out a shared scream of terror as the spirit soared towards them at a breakneck speed, and all of the discourse concerning mutants and lies was quickly left behind as they unintentionally split up. Steven and Connie took off in the hallway they had just ran down, wanting to get back to the ballroom and find the Gems now more than ever with the appearance of this new ghostly threat. Still, the spirit paid them no mind as he continued pursuing his original targets, who were both desperately searching for any way they could find to subdue the ghost as they fled from him. In their frantic rush, they haphazardly turned a corner, only for Pacifica to end up tripping over her dress once more. She happened to grab Dipper by the sleeve in a last ditch attempt at steadying herself, only for them both to end up falling towards the nearby wall. Or rather, right through it. The ghost didn’t see this fortunately, as he glided straight on by while the pair tumbled into an apparently hidden storage room inconspicuously hidden behind a large tapestry.

“Huh? What’s this place?” Dipper asked as both him and Pacifica picked themselves up, glancing around the apparent collection of the Northwest’s various treasures and portraits.

“I… don’t know…” Pacifica admitted in apt confusion. “That’s weird. I don’t even know where this room is…”

“Hopefully the ghost and those Gem mutants don’t either…” Dipper remarked, taking a cursory peek back into the hallway.

“Yeah, maybe we’re safe,” the heiress let out a somewhat relieved breath, not noticing as the large sheet covering a painting behind her began to swell forward on its own accord. Dipper fortunately caught sight of this just in time as the sheet began to take on the clear, massive shape, one that reached out over Pacifica slowly and threateningly.

“Pacifica! Watch out!” he warned, drawing his sword as he rushed forward to defend her. Pacifica let out a frightened gasp as the ghost tossed the sheet away, laughing menacingly as he towered over her.

“Your fate is sealed!” the specter proclaimed, his blue flames rising as he prepared to strike the terrified heiress down once and for all. Dipper had just about reached her, unsure of what he was really going to do against the ghost with his sword alone, but he stopped short immediately upon noticing a discarded antique lying on the floor nearby, none other than a small, pure silver mirror.

“Prepare to die, Northwest!” the ghost shouted, his axe raised to deliver the final blow. Pacifica quickly braced herself for what would likely be a very painful end, only for Dipper to end up saving her from it at the last second. However, instead of doing so with his sword, this time he did so with the mirror, and the moment the ghost’s weapon made contact with it, everything seemed to happen at once. The entire room was engulfed in a blinding flash as Dipper was knocked back into Pacifica, who herself was pushed back towards the room’s small, low to the ground window. The pair was still completely in the dark about what was happening as they were practically launched out of the window, entangling themselves in its curtains as they rolled down a short hill, finally landing together at the bottom of it, breathless and rattled, but largely unharmed.

“W-what happened?” Pacifica asked her and Dipper both pulled themselves up. “Did you get him?”

At this, they both looked to the mirror, only to find an incredibly relieving sight: the ghost was trapped securely inside of it, demanding his freedom in an absolute fit of rage as he pounded against the other side of the glass to no avail. “Ha! Yes!” Dipper cheered, satisfied that at the very least one threat had been neutralized.

“We did it!” Pacifica exclaimed just as triumphantly, throwing her arms around Dipper without really thinking about it. Needless to say he was complete caught off guard by this unexpected hug, especially given the fact that it was coming from the heiress of all people. Still, what baffled him even more was the sudden rush of warmth he felt in his cheeks, coupled with the odd, yet strangely wistful feeling of not wanting it to end. It did, however, as Pacifica realized exactly what she was doing, her blush even brighter than Dipper’s as she quickly pulled away, averting his gaze as she awkwardly cleared her throat, wishing she could calm her racing heart and confused, flustered thoughts down already as she pulled out a dollar. “Uh… c-can I pay you to pretend that never happened?”

Despite being held up by the occasional minor Gem mutant, Steven and Connie eventually managed to navigate their way back to the main ballroom, only to stop short in surprise upon realizing that no one at the party was even remotely aware of the dangers lurking the halls just behind them. The pair ran into the midst of the celebrating crowd, more than ready to warn them all to flee the premises before it was too late. However, before they could even get a single person’s attention, they happened to accidently bump into the last person Connie had wanted to encounter at the moment.

“M-Mom!” she exclaimed in surprise upon running right into her mother’s torso. The doctor paused, looking away from the conversation she had been engaged in to her daughter instead, only to freeze with shock and motherly fury upon noticing the large pink sword strapped to her back.

“Connie!” Priyanka gasped, appalled. “How did you even—what are you doing with that?! I made a rule, no swords under any circumstances!”

“But mom-” Connie tried to argue, knowing that she needed to be armed in the dire circumstances they were facing.

“No,” the doctor interupted rigidly. “I told you once, and I can’t believe I have to tell you again! But its clear to me now that I can’t even trust you to so much as listen to me even after I put my foot down! So you leave me with no choice; you’re grounded until further notice. Hand that sword over, now.”

“But Mom, you don’t understand, I-”

“I said now!”

Connie flinched, clearly startled by her mother’s incredibly harsh tone as she let out a defeated sigh. With no other choice, she took the sword off her back and relinquished it, largely feeling as though she was handing over a piece of herself in the process. And as Steven caught sight of her utterly dejected expression, he found he could no longer stand by in silence.

“Er, Dr. Maheswaran, wait! You can’t take that sword away from Connie! She needs it—we need it to-”

“That’s quite enough,” Priyanka cut him off, sending him a fierce warning glare. “I’m not going to argue over this sword nonsense any longer. It’s done.”

“Mom, please-” Connie pleaded desperately only to be shot down one final time as her mother began to walk off, sword in hand.

“Done!” she reiterated, glaring back at her daughter with what was nothing less than absolute disappointment. Disappointment that left Connie feeling crushed even more than losing her sword had.

“So… what now?” Steven asked gently, placing a hand on her shoulder.

“I guess we just go find the Gems and let them save the day, as usual…” Connie sighed, wrapping her arms around herself as she morosely headed off to do just that. Of course, what neither of the pair was aware of was that the Gems had actually taken their ongoing vandalizing spree up onto the roof, where they were currently in the process of spelling out the word “snobs” in huge letters using paint Amethyst had “happened to find”, much to the enjoyment of the still large crowd gathered outside the gates below. But even still, Steven and Connie began duly, almost solemnly even pressing their way through the party, knowing that with the horde of Gem mutants drawing ever closer and Rose’s sword no longer a viable option, they were the only hope they had left.

With the ghost finally subdued and captured, Dipper and Pacifica blithely went to go report their shared success to the heiress’ parents. And while the Northwests weren’t as openly elated or excited as the young pair, they were still quite relieved to know that their haunting had been taken care of and their immaculate party saved.

“Well, Pacifica, you really found the right man for the job,” Preston remarked, snapping his fingers to signal to the nearby butler to shake Dipper’s hand in his place.

“We can’t thank you enough,” Priscilla said before a brief pause that ended with her nodding to the butler. “That’s enough.”

“Hey, just holding up my end of the deal,” Dipper grinned as he took the mirror the ghost was in and prepared to head out.

“Wait, leaving already?” Pacifica asked in slight disappointment. “You’re at the world’s best party, dummy. Are you sure you wanna go so soon?”

“Well I’d love to stay,” Dipper said with a smile just as playful as the heiress’. “But I’ve got a category 10 ghost to dispose of and then I should really go help Steven and Connie out with the rest of those Gem mutants.”

“Oh that’s right, I almost forgot just how adventurous your life is,” Pacifica rolled her eyes with a lightly teasing smirk.

“Heh, yeah,” Dipper chuckled, not paying too much attention to where he was going as he kept his sights on the heiress behind him. Which was how he ended up walking straight into one of the garden’s pillars. Pacifica was unable to contain her laughter at this, something that flustered Dipper quite a bit as he backed up and tried to play his clumsiness off as intentional. “O-oh, uh, l-like you said: a-adventurous.”

“Oh yeah, running into a pillar,” Pacifica quipped, still chuckling. “That’s totally an epic quest right there.”

Despite still being somewhat embarrassed, Dipper couldn’t help but finally join in on the heiress’ ongoing amused laughter, something that only died down between them as he sent her a small wave of farewell, one that she returned with a warm, genuine smile. He held up a similar smile as he departed, unable to deny that this misadventure, despite all of its harrowing moments, had ended on a much better note than he had could have ever expected anything pertaining to Pacifica Northwest to. For instead of being just as closed off and callously coldhearted as she had always come across to him before, it seemed as though there was another side to her: a playful, daring, capable side that came across as so much more authentic than the haughty front she usually seemed to put up. And even more unexpected than that was the fact that he had found himself taking a genuine liking of that side of the heiress, one that he hoped to see again in any of their future encounters. “Call me crazy, but… maybe she’s not so bad after all…” Dipper remarked to himself once he was out of the heiress’ earshot, surprised that he was even admitting something like that, but pleasantly surprised nonetheless.

His satisfaction was soon cut short, however, as a mocking, knowing laugh sounded from within the mirror in his hand. “What are you laughing about, man?” Dipper asked, glancing down at the trapped ghost in apt confusion. “I defeated you.”

“You’ve been had, boy,” the ghost said with another bitter laugh. “The Northwests lied to you, just as they did to me and my kin one hundred and fifty years ago.”

“…What do you mean?” Dipper ventured, genuinely curious as the ghost began to recount his tale of woe.

“One hundred and fifty years ago this day, the Northwests asked us lumber-folk to build them a mansion atop the hill. We were told it would be a service to the town, that once a year they would throw a grand party that would be open to the people of Gravity Falls, and all would share in the bounty of their wealth! It took years of backbreaking labor and sacrifice, but the promise of such a luxorious feast kept all of us going as we worked towards the manor’s completion, aided by a group of strong, magical, yet kindly women the Northwests had contracted to help the project along.”

“Wait, magical women?” Dipper interrupted, intrigued by this point in particular. “You mean the Crystal Gems?”

“Yes,” the ghost nodded disdainfully. “The Crystal Gems were invaluable in helping us raise these stately halls, but on the night we needed them most, they were nowhere to be found to stop the injustice committed against us lumberjacks. For when it was time for the grand party the Northwests promised the common folk of the town, they coldly refused to let us in. And with the trees we had cut to build the mansion gone, the mudslides began. While they partied and laughed, I was swept away by the storm and met my end to the very axe I had used to build their undeserved empire. And so I said with final breath: ‘One-fifty years I’ll return from death, and if the gate’s still closed to the town, wealthy blood will stain the ground!’ A curse passed down across every generation of Northwests, even to this day.”

“So… wait a minute,” Dipper said once the ghost was finished, quickly putting the pieces together of how everything he had just heard related back to the present. Which, in turn created a picture he was far from happy with. “The Northwests knew this haunting was coming, and they tricked me into helping them to avoid ghostly justice? …I’ll be right back…”

With the state of the party as seemingly secured as it was, Pacifica had returned to her expected spot by her parents’ side as they mingled with their wealthy guests. Yet her thoughts were hardly in the fancy festivities going on around her as they usually were during Northwest Fest and instead they were focused on the boy she had spent the earlier half of her evening with. She found it so incredibly strange that just a few hours ago, she had barely even spared a second thought towards Dipper, viewing him as just as common and ordinary as anyone else. Yet now, after the past few hours of narrowly surviving a deadly haunting with him, she couldn’t deny that he somehow fascinated her in ways that confused yet excited her all at once. And as she thought about his brazen swordsmanship, his clever readiness for almost any situation, his awkward yet almost frustratingly endearing laughter, Pacifica couldn’t help but sail through the evening with a distant, almost dreamy smile on her face, one that was filled with an unknown yet brimming longing to see him again.

A longing that was incidentally fulfilled sooner than she thought it would; though in the last way she could have wanted it to.

The Northwests were in the midst of entertaining dignitaries in the foyer when the mansion’s front doors suddenly burst open, revealed an incredibly indignant Dipper behind them. “Northwests!” he exclaimed angrily as he marched in, mirror still in hand. “You have some explaining to do!”

“Dipper! You came back!” Pacifica instantly perked up, a bright smile on her face as she began to rush over to him. Though it was quick to disappear as he shot her a particularly harsh, glare, one that was a very far cry from the warm smile he had left her with.

“You lied to me!” he accused furiously before addressing the entire family. “All of you did! All you had to do was let the townsfolk into the party and you could have broken the curse! But you just made me do your dirty work instead!”

Pacifica took in a sharp breath at this, knowing that he had discovered the one wrench in all of this that she had hoped he wouldn’t find out, especially as the newfound camaraderie began forming between them. But before she could even try to explain anything, her father was quick to only make things worse.

“Look at who you’re talking to, boy,” Preston began coldly, essentially ignoring the incredibly hostile scowl Dipper was sending up at him. “I’m hosting a party for the most powerful people in the world. Do you really think they’d come here if they had to rub elbows with your kind?”

“My kind?” Dipper repeated with an appalled scoff, not even bothering to contest the billionaire any further. After all, he had expected as much from the head of the Northwest household, but he had foolishly come to believe that their daughter was different, that she wasn’t just another pompous, heartless sob, that she had at least some redeeming shred of actual humanity in her. But as he had just discovered, none of that was true at all. “Looks like I was right about you all along,” he said to Pacifica bitterly, not even caring about her genuinely distraught expression. “You’re just as bad as your parents. Another link in the world’s worst chain!”

“N-no! Dipper, you don’t understand!” Pacifica protested earnestly, determined to set the record straight. “I’m sorry, they made me lie to you! I should have told you everything from the start, but-” The heiress was abruptly cut off by the sharp, sudden peal of the bell in her father’s hand, one that instantly silenced her back into submission as she glanced down submissively, ashamed by her own inability to resist it, ashamed by the fact that she had even agreed to this deceptive charade in the first placed, ashamed by everything really, but mostly, she was ashamed of herself.

“Enjoy the party,” Preston remarked mockingly as Dipper turned to head out, not even bothering to send Pacifica a second glance in his palpable fury, something that made her heart ache even more than just about anything else. “It’s the last time you and your kind will ever come.”

As vehemently outraged with the Northwests as he was, Dipper knew there wasn’t much he could do get back at them for their despicable actions. So instead of frustrating himself further, he sullenly took the mirror outside, following the journal’s instructions to create the proper setup needed to oust the ghost from the mortal plane. “Stupid Northwests, making me do their exorcism for them,” he grumbled to himself after placing the mirror at the center of the circle of candles. With everything in place, he began to read the journal’s spell to get rid of ghosts, though given the circumstances, he was hardly invested in the matter whatsoever “‘Exodus demonous, spookus scarus, aintafraidus noghostus’-”

“Dipper… Dipper!” the ghost called from within the mirror. “Please let me have my revenge on the Northwests. You hate them just as much as I!”

“Hey, I feel for you, I really do,” Dipper conceded and it was true, for more reasons than one. Even aside from the fact that they had both been made fools of by the Northwests, this ghost wasn’t exactly the first being trapped inside a mirror he had taken pity on. “It’s just… my sister and my friends are in there and you seem just a little unstable…”

“Very well, boy,” the ghost hung his head in apparent acceptance of his fate. “But… before you banish my soul, may these tired lumber eyes gaze upon the trees one final time?”

“Uh, I guess,” Dipper said, somewhat confused by this odd request though he obliged nonetheless, picking the mirror up and holding it towards the nearby forest. “Go nuts, man.”

Upon getting even just a glimpse at the trees, the ghost laughed wildly as the sight of the forest empowered him enough to ignite his flames brighter and hotter, to the point that their heat rapidly spread to his mirror prison itself. Dipper didn’t even have time to be confused about what was happening before the mirror’s handle suddenly turned red hot, burning his hand to the point that he was forced to let go of it. The glass shattered the instant it made contact with the ground and with it the ghost exploded from its ruined shards, paying no mind to the startled boy who had accidentally released him as he set his sights on the mansion once more.

“Yes! Vengeance!” he proclaimed with a triumphant laugh, speeding towards the manor with the intent of finally fulfilling his bloodthirsty vendetta.

“Oh no!” Dipper exclaimed, aptly alarmed as he remembered who else was still in the mansion. “Mabel! Steven! Connie!” Despite his lasting anger at the Northwests, he knew well that he couldn’t let the ghost accomplish his violent ends so long as innocent people were in danger. Which was why, after making sure his blade was strapped securely to his back, he rushed back up towards the mansion, unsure of what he was going to do to stop this disaster but determined to try rather than do nothing, as he assumed the Northwests were very likely to do.

With their freeform destruction on the roof complete, the Gems returned to the party proper, mischievous grins on their faces as they continued their own form of “revenge” by turning over tables, piercing through expensive paintings, and breaking priceless antiques. Of course, they were always discreet enough in doing so that no one really noticed, but still, they couldn’t deny that they were all three having genuine fun in their righteous form of destruction against the wealthy family. When it came right down to it, it almost felt nostalgic, at least to Garnet and Pearl as they recalled helping break apart the similar upper-crust regime of Homeworld centuries ago. And though this was indeed on a much smaller scale than that, they still couldn’t deny that it felt incredibly cathartic all the same.

Not too far away from the tapestry the Gems were currently tearing apart, Mabel and Candy were carrying out their strategic plan to flirt with Marius, with the former boldly taking the lead as she approached the baron with a wide, cheerful smile. “Hi, I’m Mabel!” she greeted loudly, catching Marius somewhat off guard. “So, Australia, huh? Do you guys eat kangaroo meat over there, or, uh… a-are they strictly pets?”

“I am from Austria,” Marius corrected with a confused frown.

“Haha! Yeah!” Mabel let out a forced, awkward laugh, panicking as she tapped Candy’s shoulder. “Tag! Tag!”

“I am Candy!” the other girl said to the baron as she took over just as brightly. “I love the tiny hats you wear on your shoulders!”

“Hi again!” Mabel cut back in, roughly pushing Candy aside in light of this. “If you were a boat, do you know what kind you’d be? A dream boat, that’s what kind.”

“You are tagged out!” Candy protested in a harsh whisper as she elbowed Mabel.

“I tagged back in,” Mabel pushed her back crossly.

“You can’t do that!”

“I can tag myself! Its allowed!”

“No, its not!”

“Yeah, it is!”

As the girls continued to bicker amongst themselves, the very confused Marius nervously retreated, unsure of how to react to them so clearly arguing over him. They also failed to notice that someone else had watched this entire embarrassing display, and she was far from pleased with what she had just seen. “Ahem!” Grenda interjected, hands on her hips as she cut through Mabel and Candy’s argument. “What exactly was all that?! You were flirting with Marius without me!”

At this, the pair exchanged a tense glance, knowing that there was really no playing any of this off as they had been caught red-handed. “W-we are sorry, Grenda,” Candy began, genuinely apologetic. “It’s just…”

“Your flirting style can come across as a bit… intense…” Mabel continued rather hesitantly.

“Oh, I see!” Grenda scoffed, thoroughly offended by this opinion. “You think I shouldn’t be myself just because I’m at this stupid mansion! I thought you liked my style!”

“We do!” Candy affirmed. “But these boys might not!”

“Oh, then I guess they wouldn’t like this either! Hey, Marius!”

“Yah?” the baron asked curiously as he wandered back over to the group.

Grenda paused briefly, looking to her friends with a critical glare as they both shook their heads with silent pleas for her to stop before it was too late. But of course, as angry as she was, she refused to comply with them and ‘flirted’ with Marius anyway. “You’ve got something… on your shit!” Of course, the baron glanced down, only for Grenda to launch her finger upward to hit his nose rather unforgivingly. Mabel and Candy gasped in shock at Grenda’s apparent audacity, and, with all three of them equally frustrated with each other, they all stormed away from each other in a huff without sparing another word. Still, none of them paid much mind to the rather stunned baron they had left behind, who looked off in the direction of the girl who had so aggressively “flirted” with him with amazed stars of newfound infatuation in his eyes.

After what felt like ages of searching in vain for the Gems, Steven and Connie eventually gave up, opting to rethink their options when it came to dealing with the infestation of Gem mutants. An infestation that was more than likely to make it into the ballroom itself sooner rather than later.

“We’re running out of time,” Connie noted, peaking down the nearby hallway for any signs of approaching mutants. “If we don’t hurry, then those mutants could end up hurting someone!”

“Yeah, but what can we do?” Steven asked fretfully. “We can’t find the Gems and your mom took my mom’s sword… Huh, that’s… actually kinda ironic now that I think about it…”

“I’ll tell you what we’re going to do,” Connie said with firm resolve, ignoring her issues with her mother for the moment for the sake of the greater good. “We’re going to handle this problem ourselves, sword or no sword, whether my mother likes it or not!”

“Excuse me?”

Both kids let out a startled gasp as they spun around to find none other that Priyanka herself standing right behind them, having sifted her way through the crowd in search of her daughter only to find her at the exact wrong moment. The doctor still had Rose’s sword tucked under her arm, her expression completely shocked and outraged over what she had just heard, but even so, Connie had no intention of retracting what she had said.

“M-Mom, I… You have to listen to me listen to me,” she began somewhat unsteadily, though her confidence started to grow as she reached for the sword. “I really, really, really need that sword! If you don’t give it to me, then a lot of innocent people could be in huge danger!”

“What? Connie, no!” Priyanka staunchly refused, holding the blade up as her daughter continued trying to grab it. “What has gotten into you? You know I never go back on a rule, young lady.”

“But there has to be some exceptions!” Connie argued fiercely. “I’m not some… rule-driven robot!”

As soon as she had said this, a brutal crash sounded from the end of the nearby hallway, one that was immediately followed by the appearance of a very large Gem mutant, one that didn’t hesitate to lunge forward towards the group near the ballroom. “W-what on earth is that thing?!” Priyanka asked, protectively gripping her daughter’s shoulder tightly.

“It’s a Gem mutant!” Steven exclaimed, determined to help Connie fend it off as his shield formed over his arm. “It’s why you have to let Connie have that sword back, Dr. Maheswaran! So she can beat it and protect everyone here!”

“Wha—b-but-” the doctor’s protests were cut off as the mutant pounced, one of its many hands reaching out and grabbing the closest thing to it, which just so happened to be Connie. “Connie!”

“M-Mom!” Connie called back as the mutant began dragging her towards it, its grip on her strong, despite her attempts to break free from it.

“I’ll save you!” Steven exclaimed, rushing forward before slamming his shield into the mutant’s side, forcing it to relinquish its hold. “Keep away from my Connie!”

The mutant let out a threatening groan as it shoved the young Gem back roughly, still towering over the group as more creatures began filling in behind it, pressing the trio back towards the ballroom. “T-these things are beyond reason!” Priyanka shook her head, unable to believe what she was witnessing.

“Mom, if you would go back on your rule this one time!” Connie pleaded, feeling largely useless against this threat without a sword in her hand. “I just need to help Steven get us out of here!”

“No! Mother knows best!” Priyanka reiterated harshly, still keeping the sword away from her daughter, even despite the growing danger.

“W-we can’t let these things into the ballroom!” Steven cried, struggling to maintain his stance as the largest mutant continued pressing against his shield. The smaller mutants were starting to maneuver their way around the group, crawling up the walls and ceiling as they essentially surrounded them, though they still didn’t work their way into the ballroom just yet. Upon seeing this, the young Gem gasped but reacted accordingly, abandoning his shield for a bubble instead, though the mutants continued pounding against it just as viciously.

“W-we’re trapped!” the doctor exclaimed, quite alarmed by this turn of events.

“We don’t have to be!” Connie proclaimed, her expression adamant as she turned to face her mother, refusing to give up in these dire straits. “Really, Mom. I know how to do this!”

“No, you don’t!” Priyanka argued, just as resilient on her side of the matter as her daughter was.

“Ugh, yes, she does!” Steven cut in quite impatiently, knowing they were wasting very precious time fighting like this. “She’s been training! She hasn’t just been playing around with that sword! She’s been taking classes learning how to use it right! Even though she’s always studying, or practicing tennis, or playing violin, she still works really hard to be a good sword fighter and she is!”

“No,” the doctor quickly denied, refusing to believe anything of the sort. “No, no, no, no, no. I know my daughter! I know what she’s doing every second of the day. All her activities, all her internets, everything. I know she’s definitely not some sword fighting hooligan!”

By this point, Connie had gotten to the point where enough was enough. For as long as she could remember, she had always rigidly stuck to whatever her parents had told her, complying perfectly for the sake of winning their approval and pride more than anything else. It was tedious, laborious, even difficult at some points giving their very high standards for her. But now, such standards could no longer apply. Because not only were they in a life or death situation, but things had changed. She had changed. It was a shift that everyone who knew her, everyone who came in contact with her had been able to see, especially herself. Everyone but her own mother, it seemed. “You don’t know me at all!” Connie finally exploded, beyond frustrated with her mother’s stubbornness by now. “You still haven’t even noticed my glasses!”

“W-what about your glasses?”

“They don’t have lenses anymore!” Connie huffed, taking her frames off and sticking her finger straight through them. “I haven’t needed actual glasses for almost the entire summer!”

“What?!” Priyanka asked, completely baffled. “Your eyesight just… magically got better?”

“Yes!” Connie shouted adamantly as Steven shrugged in slight embarrassment, given his involvement in all this. “I’ve been dealing with magic and monsters and things like these,” she pointed to one of the mutants beating against the side of the bubble. “Ever since I met Steven! That’s why I need you to just trust me and believe that I know what to do here!”

The doctor paused, her expression softening somewhat as she looked to her daughter with genuine conflict before looking back to the pressing danger that was so clearly surrounding them all. “B-but… you-”

Before Priyanka could get another word out, the entire mansion itself seemed to shake, accompanied by what sounded like a massive explosion coming from the ballroom itself. All of the party guests let out a collective gasp as the room’s large fireplace swelled dramatically, and from its sparking embers, the lumberjack ghost emerged, laughing manically as he prepared to rain righteous devastation down upon the entire party.

“Generations locked away, my revenge shall have its day!” he shouted boisterously, blasts of blue light bursting from his palms. As this apparent magic struck several of the party guests, the effects were immediate, their bodies starting to freeze before slowly turning into hollow, immovable, non-sentient wood.

And from that moment, the entire ballroom erupted into complete and utter chaos.

Aside from the petrifying blasts the ghost continued firing off at random, his power also brought the mansion’s many taxidermized displays to life, with the dead animals terrorizing every guest who had been lucky enough to escape being transformed into wooden statues. Nature itself soon started to overtake the hall, with vines and tree limbs bursting through the floor and entrapping more unfortunate attendees for the ghost to cast his horrific spell upon them. Almost as soon as this disaster had begun, the Northwests had been quick to tuck themselves out of sight, unable to do anything else but watch as their elegant party and their mansion itself began to crumble right before their eyes.

“Preston, what are we going to do!?” Priscilla cried mournfully, though her husband remained stoic in his cowardly plan.

“Prepare the panic room,” he remarked coldly, punching a taxidermized squirrel off of his shoulder.

While the Northwests had no intention of doing anything to stop this violent onslaught, the Gems were quick to notice it, forcing them to quickly put their ongoing vandalism aside as they leapt into action. “Whoa, isn’t that guy one of those lumberjacks from way back when?” Amethyst asked, summoning her whip as she beat back a mounted deer head. “Pretty sure that dude should be dead by now, shouldn’t he?”

“He is” Garnet confirmed, gauntlets at the ready. “That’s a ghost.”

“Well, he’ll be even less than a ghost once we’re through with him!” Pearl exclaimed boldly, finally calling the specter’s attention. “You! We demand that you put a stop to this senseless destruction and release these innocent humans at once!”

The ghost did take pause at this, though only to turn to the Gems with an expectant, almost smug grin as he glided towards them. “Ah, the Crystal Gems, what ages have past since we last met?” he asked almost calmly before a certain bitterness started to enter his tone. “I suppose its only fitting that you would stand to defend those treacherous Northwest scum even all these years later. After all, you did the very same thing one hundred and fifty years ago by not rising to the occasion to ensure my brethren and I the justice we deserved!”

“We’re not defending the Northwests,” Garnet countered, her gauntlets in tight fists. “We never would. Especially after we found out what happened that night.”

“So you DO know!” the ghost exclaimed, his flames rising in fury upon hearing this. “And yet you still did NOTHING to stop it!”

“If we had been there, we certainly would have!” Pearl protested firmly. “But we were away on a mission that night; we only found out about the Northwests breaking their promise from the other lumberjacks the next day! And believe us, we’ve condemned them for their horrible actions against you all ever since!”

“Oh you have?” the ghost scoffed, clearly not believing this claim. “Then answer me this: why are the mansion gates still closed, one-fifty years on!? Why have you not forced the Northwests to right the wrongs of their sinister past? Why have you failed to do what you promised: to protect this town and its people from the evil lying right within its own borders?!”

The Gems exchanged a rather surprised glance at this, none of them quite sure of what to say at such a strong accusation of their apparent failure. But really, when it came down to it, there had been nothing they could have really done to correct this unfair situation. They couldn’t force the Northwests to open their gates to the common folk, they hadn’t been able to keep that initial rejection from happening in the first place and they couldn’t keep it from happening now. It was a delicate situation, a very human situation that the Crystal Gems had found themselves ill-equipped to deal with and still did. And, based on their lack of an answer, that was a conclusion the lumberjack ghost had already angrily reached.

“You three are no better than the very Northwests you claim to condemn,” he remarked hatefully and dismissively. “And for that, you deserve nothing more than to share their DOOMED fate!”

The Gems only had time to let out a shared gasp before the ghost struck them with his power, which, alarmingly enough, effected them in the exact same way it would any human. In mere seconds, all three of the Crystal Gems were nothing more than wooden statues, stuck frozen in offensive poses against a foe they were powerless to defeat.

“Oh no!” Steven gasped, completely distraught as he happened to watch this entire display from the edge of the hallway him, Connie, and Priyanka were still in. “The Gems!”

“Steven, no!” Connie stopped him before he could rush out, still mindful of the Gem mutants as well as the ghost. Unfortunately, it seemed as though these threats were starting to combine as mutants began pouring out of the other hallways, sulking into the ballroom and openly attacking the dwindling number of non-wooden guests right alongside the ghost himself.

It was this absolute state of pandemonium that Dipper returned to as he burst back into the mansion, breathless and soaking wet from the ongoing thunderstorm outside. He stopped immediately within the doorframe however upon taking in the disaster before him, with undead animals and marauding mutants running amok amidst the myriad of already petrified party guests. Dipper didn’t get much of a chance to analyze the situation however before a nearby Gem mutant lunged at him, prompting him to act on instinct in drawing his sword and stabbing it cleanly through right before it could reach him. However, there was little his blade could do to help the poor soul who was inching across the floor, his body already half wooden as he desperately tried to escape his fate. “P-please, help me!” the guest cried before the inevitable happened, entrapping him in an immovable, unaware wooden form.

“Whoa! That is messed up!” Dipper exclaimed in apt shock upon witnessing something so horrific, though the ghost was quick to divert his attention as he let out a rather fitting proclamation.

“Just one way to change your fate!” the specter shouted amidst turning even more terrified guests into wood. “A Northwest must open the party gates!”

“A Northwest?” Dipper gasped, realizing that this situation wasn’t as hopeless as it seemed. “Pacifica!” Knowing that there really wasn’t any other viable option for quelling the ghost’s intense, deadly fury, Dipper took off, cutting through any Gem mutant in his path as he went in search of the heiress, hoping that despite her earlier deceptiveness and dishonesty, she could still turn the tide in this mess once and for all.

At the same time, Steven, Connie, and Priyanka hung back a bit from the ballroom, mostly to avoid being detected by the ghost more than anything else as most of the Gem mutants had already pressed their way past them. Still, all three of them were quite shaken by the chaos playing out before them, especially the doctor as she shook her head in frightened disbelief.

“And now there’s a ghost too?” she asked, dumbfounded. “You mean to tell me that you kids deal with deadly threats like these on a daily basis?!”

“Um… yeah, kinda,” Steven shrugged with an awkward smile, hoping the truth wouldn’t set the doctor off even more.

“But like I said, we know how to handle it!” Connie argued brazenly. “We have experience, we can stop all this and save everyone, I know we can! I just need you to let us do that!”

Priyanka didn’t answer, instead peaking out into the tumultuous ballroom and then back to her daughter, clearly unable to make a choice about what to do or what to say. “C-Connie, I… I don’t…” she trailed off, true concern and fear in her eyes as she met her daughter’s still quite adamant expression. And while Connie was somewhat surprised by her mother’s near-allowance, she knew that she couldn’t afford to wait for it any longer.

“Ugh, there’s no time for this!” she groaned, finally doing what she had wanted to do from the very beginning. In a move to quick for Priyanka to stop her, Connie pulled Rose’s sword out of its sheath in her arms, gripping it tightly as Steven pushed the bubble forward into the ballroom proper, anticipating the fight that was about to commence.

“Ready?” he asked, glancing over his shoulder at Connie, who had already taken up an offensive pose as Gem mutants started crowding around them.

“Drop the bubble,” Connie nodded readily as Steven did just that.

With their only line of defense gone, Steven and Connie both leapt into action, the latter lashing out first to the mutant that tried to jump at Priyanka, only for her blade to end up slicing cleanly through it. At the same time, the young Gem beat a handful of smaller mutants back, but as he nodded to Connie once more, they both prepared for a maneuver that they had only ever practiced before, but finally felt ready to put to use in a real fight. With deft precision, Connie leapt to Steven, using his shield as a boost to gain the proper height to land a brutal finishing blow on a taller mutant, poofing it instant. Priyanka could only stand by and watch in dumbfounded awe as her daughter, usually so intellectually minded and well-mannered, sliced her way through these savage creatures with a kind of skill that was far beyond anything she had been expecting. Still, with the majority of mutants having taken to the ballroom, Steven and Connie knew they had no time to rest on their laurels as the danger running rampant throughout the party was still quite high.

“Steven, let’s split up to take care of the rest,” Connie ordered, stilling gripping Rose’s sword tightly. “Then maybe we can try to figure out some way to get rid of that ghost and free all those people.”

“Right!” Steven nodded affirmatively, his shield still positioned on his arm as he prepared to follow Connie out into the fray.

“Mom, stay here and don’t let that ghost see you,” Connie continued, her tone just as authoritative as she turned to her mother. “Steven and I have this covered.”

“C-Connie, wait!” Priyanka exclaimed, stopping her daughter by grabbing her shoulder. Connie shot her a rather upset glance at this, fully expecting her mother to try and restrain her and hold her back, just like she always did. But instead, she did something entirely different. “Be careful,” she urged, pulling her daughter into a loose, caring, but rather solemn embrace.

“…I will be,” Connie promised, letting out a small, somewhat remorseful sigh before the hug broke apart. “Now come on, Steven. We have a party to save.”

Seeing as how Pacifica had been nowhere to be found amidst the unfurling chaos of the ballroom itself, Dipper had no choice but to rush through the mansion’s halls in search of her, knowing that he had not a moment to waste. Fortunately, his search didn’t have to go on for too long as he happened to take a quick peek in the hidden room they had first captured the ghost in, only to find the heiress sitting there alone in the dark, knees pulled to her chest and her head bowed low in apparent shame.

“Pacifica!” Dipper exclaimed, rushing over to her, even despite that fact that she seemed to pay his entrance no mind whatsoever, even as he leaned down right next to her. “I’m so glad I found you! The ghost is back and he’s turning everyone to wood and he just started rhyming for some reason? B-but anyway, I need your help!” he urged, grabbing her wrist in an attempt to pull her up but she was quick to bitterly pull it away. “Pacifica?”

“You wanna know why this room was locked up?” Pacifica began, still averting his gaze as she coldly nodded up to the set of paintings sitting a few feet away from them. Paintings which depicted Northwests of the past taking part in deceptive, duplicitous, downright dastardly acts across history. “This is what I found in here. A painted record of every horrible thing my family’s ever done. Lying, cheating… and then there’s me. I lied to you just because I’m too scared to talk back to my stupid parents!” In a fit of apt rage, the heiress took off her expensive earrings, tossing them disdainfully towards another painting of her own parents before letting out a sigh of defeat. “You were right about me… I really am just another link in the world’s worst chain…”

Dipper took pause at this, unsure of really how to respond to the heiress’s palpable, genuine guilt. Immediately, he couldn’t help but regret his former harshness towards her, especially now that he knew she had only been following her parents’ rigid orders in tricking him. And yet, instead of offering an apology right away, he ended up going with a different tangent instead. “Well… you don’t have to be...”

“Huh?” Pacifica finally glanced over at him, confused.

“Just because you’re your parent’s daughter, doesn’t mean you have to be like them,” Dipper clarified, offering her a small, encouraging smile. “You don’t have to keep this terrible chain going; you can choose to break it, you can choose to be better than them!”

“Heh, you make it sound so easy…” Pacifica said with a bitter laugh. “And for someone like you, I guess it probably would be. You don’t have your parents standing over you almost every second of the day with some stupid bell, drilling it into your head that you have to be perfect, that you have to uphold the family reputation, that you have to be just like them otherwise you won’t ever be worth anything to anyone!”

By now, the heiress’ usual composure had completely crumbled as she let out a tight sob, with tears that she quickly tried to wipe away only for more to end up following it. If she was perfectly honest with herself, she felt doomed, doomed to repeat the treachery of her ancestors, doomed to keep this cycle of corruption going, doomed to be just another lying, cheating, heartless Northwest. It was a line of thinking that she had once been proud of, a legacy that she had willingly wanted to uphold. But now, it felt suffocating, agonizing even, as though it was pulling her down into a darkness she wanted no parts in, but would inevitably end up drowning in, no matter how hard she tried to resist it.

And yet… maybe she wouldn’t.

For as she felt herself slipping deeper into the darkness of this despair and awful repetition, an unexpected hand suddenly took hers, somehow steadying her and pulling her up out of that darkness by its mere contact alone. Pacifica drew in a small, tearful breath as she glanced up at Dipper, his expression sincere and sympathetic as he kept his firm, yet gentle grip on her hand all the while.

“Pacifica…” he began, his tone solemn yet steady. “You don’t actually believe any of that, do you?”

“I-I… I don’t know…” she shook her head truthfully, knowing that it was all she had ever been taught by her parents. Then again, it could have all just as easily been yet another lie, another fabrication to add on to the countless others her family was so infamous for. “I… I don’t… want to, I just… I guess… I just want to feel… free for a change…” Like you, she wanted to add, knowing that Dipper was perhaps one of the most unfettered people she had ever met. He could do what he wanted, say what he wanted, all without the fear or worry of anyone telling him that he couldn’t, that he had to conform to some strictly set standard that stood against everything he believed in. It was a bold, foreign concept to Pacifica, one that fascinated her to no end and made her wonder what it would be like if she was granted that much open, endless, liberating freedom herself. Freedom that she had only ever gotten close to as a result of being close to him.

“Well… then that’s up to you,” Dipper said, still smiling kindly to her. “Like I said, you don’t have to be what your parents say, especially if they’re trying to train you to be just as horrible as they are, no offense.”

“Believe me, none taken,” Pacifica remarked, unable to hold back a brief, sardonic laugh at this.

“But still,” Dipper continued, letting go of her hand, though he still kept his other one positioned on her shoulder, something that she couldn’t help but smile about. After all, it was probably among the most genuine physical affection she had gotten from anyone really, including her own parents. “You can way more than they want you to be. Heck, as far as I’m concerned, you’ve already proved that by just realizing that what your family’s doing is wrong. I’m sorry about what I said earlier, but… I do mean it when I say I think you can be someone better. It’s not too late.”

“It’s too late!” the ghost’s triumphant shout could be heard all the way from the ballroom, startling the pair out of their tender moment as they hurried out to see what was going on. The alarming sight before them elicited a horrified gasp from them both as the entire ballroom had been overtaken, either by unruly, encroaching plants or still meandering Gem mutants, all spread out around the multitude of now wooden, immovable party guests with no single survivor seeming to remain. “You’re all wood!” the ghost proclaimed with a victorious laugh from his spot at the top of the stairs overlooking the ballroom, which is vengeance had completely claimed.

For a moment, all Dipper and Pacifica could do was look over this horrific scene in apt terror as they tried to spot anyone still living and free amidst the apparent forest of wooden statues. But there seemed to be no one left, for Steven and Connie were nowhere to be found, and the Gems, Candy, Grenda, even Mabel had all fallen victim to the lumberjack’s petrifying curse. Which, of course, was something that Dipper refused to let stand as he swiftly drew his sword, determined to finally put this violent specter in his place once and for all.

“Dipper, wait!” Pacifica shouted, failing to hold him back as he rushed out brazenly, taking up a stance of opposition not too far away from the ghost itself, much to the heiress’ apt alarm.

“Alright, ghost,” Dipper began boldly, grabbing a discarded silver platter with the hopes of trapping the ghost inside of it. “Prepare to get-” He was abruptly cut off as the ghost blasted both the platter and his sword out of his hands, showing that the spirit had no patience to even trade barbs with the boy who had trapped him in the first place. “No, wait!” Dipper exclaimed in sudden fear as the ghost remorselessly hit him with his inescapable curse. The effect was immediate, working from the ground up as it all too quickly turned his flesh into hallow, unfeeling wood, much to his apt panic. “N-no! No, stop! Someone, help!” he cried desperately, crippled by a hauntingly familiar sensation of rapidly losing all his senses entirely as his chest became nothing more than frozen bark before it spread up his arms and finally to his face. “Help, please!” His final, agonized plea hung onto the air as an echo as he finally froze, completely turned to wood and stuff in an eternal pose of stricken terror as he reached for help that would likely never come.

All Pacifica could do as she witnessed all this was let out a sharp gasp of both shock and anguish, unexplainable tears welling up in her eyes as she watched Dipper succumb to the threat that her family was solely responsible for. One of the few people who had managed to inspire her, to encourage her to move beyond her family’s harsh standards, who showed her genuine warmth and kindness that hadn’t been bought but rather earned, was now nothing more than a wooden husk and she knew it was all thanks to her. Which was why she had to do something. She couldn’t just walk away and leave Dipper, and really every other innocent person in the mansion, to such a grisly fate. She had to stand up, to right the wrongs of her family’s past, to truly be someone better than any of her predecessors had been, including her own parents.

She had to open the gates.

And yet… she couldn’t. As much as she wanted to, she knew well what would happen if she even tried. Her parents would never forgive her, in all honesty, they’d probably punish her more than she could possibly imagine. They didn’t take disobedience kindly, especially when it came to massive matters like this. Seeing as how she couldn’t find them amidst the crowd of statufied guests, she knew that they’d find out about her blatant defiance somehow, they just would. And then, any shred of empirical freedom she thought she had would disappear completely; any hope she might have had to become a better person, to improve herself and rise above her family name, would vanish entirely. She’d be trapped, just like she always was, in that cycle of lies and greed and selfishness that had poisoned the Northwest name for decades.

And the possibility of that happening was something she desperately didn’t want to risk.

So instead, Pacifica let fear take over as she took a step back into the shadows, out of the ghost’s range, away from the disaster she could so easily solve with just the pull of a lever. However, she failed to see one of the few other survivors rushing along the edges of the hall, trying to take out the remaining Gem mutants while remaining out of the ghost’s sight, until they happened to haphazardly crash right into each other.

“Ugh, Pacifica!” Connie snapped, pulling away from the heiress with a cold scowl. “Get out of my way! I have to—wait a second,” she stopped short, lowering her sword somewhat as concern filled her expression. “W-where’s Dipper? Wasn’t he with you earlier?”

“H-he was…” Pacifica glanced down guiltily, trying her best to hold back her returning tears. “But… but he… t-the ghost… I wasn’t able to-”

Connie cut her off with a sharp, startled gasp as she glanced out into the ballroom, instantly spotting Dipper’s now wooden form near the center of the hall. “Dipper!” she exclaimed, aptly distraught as she turned back to Pacifica, clearly livid. “What happened?!”

“H-he just… ran out there! I wanted to stop him, but I-”

“Oh yeah, sure you did,” Connie deadpanned harshly. “Like I’m gonna stand here and believe that you actually even thought about sticking your neck out for someone else. Heck, I bet the only reason you’re so torn up about what happened to Dipper is because you lost your only ghost hunter, right?”

“Augh, you don’t know anything do you?!” Pacifica retorted just as fiercely, her gloved hands clenched in tight fists at her sides. “You think the only person I care about is myself, but you’re wrong! Believe me, I’d love to just run out there and open the gates so that ghost would set everyone free, but I can’t! Because if I did, then my parents would… t-they’d…”

“They’d… what?” Connie asked, her glare softening somewhat as she noticed just how visibly anxious Pacifica seemed to be.

“Forget it,” the heiress said dismissively, wrapping her arms around herself as she glanced out towards the ballroom sadly. “You wouldn’t understand…”

“…Somehow, I think I would…” Connie admitted with a hesitant sigh, looking to the hallway she knew her mother was still hiding in. “My mom is… pretty strict. She didn’t even know about my sword fighting training until tonight and when she found out about it, she refused to let me fight, even against all these Gem mutants running around. But… I knew a still had to fight, that I was one of the only ones with any hope of stopping all this, and so I am.”

“E-even though your mom said no?” Pacifica asked, rather amazed by such a concept as blatantly going against parental orders with no apparent regret.

“Even though my mom said no,” Connie confirmed with a nod, pausing for a moment as she looked to the rather conflicted heiress with newfound pity. Perhaps, despite what she had been led to believe, Pacifica wasn’t really spoiled or cruel from her own choosing; maybe that was just how her parents had raised her, had forced her to be. And as someone who knew all too well just how heavy a burden trying to live up to parental standards was, maybe, Connie realized, the two of them weren’t so different after all. “I think I realized that… sometimes my parents aren’t always right. And when they’re not, that’s when I have to just… figure things out for my own, you know? And maybe… maybe that’s something you need to try for yourself, Pacifica.”

The heiress said nothing in response to this, her brow furrowed as she kept her sights on Dipper afar in the distance more than anything else. Connie raised an eyebrow upon seeing this, surprising something of an incredulous smile as she realized what was going on here, though she said nothing about it at the moment. “I gotta go find Steven,” she said, repositioning her grip on Rose’s sword as she hurried off. “Try to make the right choice, ok?”

Pacifica took in a deep breath, steadying herself as she slowly nodded, even after Connie had left. “Ok,” she whispered, resolve to do this, determined to save them all, to save him.

Whether her parents liked it or not.

“A forest of death,” the ghost concluded grimly, still presiding in his spot above the ballroom. “A lesson learned, and now the Northwest Manor will BURN!” The specter erupted into vengeful laughter as flames rose up from him, igniting the large portrait of the Northwest family hanging from the nearby wall first, though it quickly began to spread, more than ready to burn everything, and everyone, in the mansion to ashes in minutes.

Or at least it would have.

“Hey, ugly! Over here!” Pacifica shouted as she emerged from hiding, figuring now was as good a time as any to put an end to all this. She stood before the ghost boldly, unfettered by the powerful, hateful spirit as she stepped towards the lever that would open the mansion’s outer gates. “You want me to let in the townsfolk? Cause I’ll do it! Just change everyone back!”

“You wish to prove yourself?” the ghost asked challengingly. “Then pull that lever and open the grand gate to the town! Fulfill your ancestors’ promise and right this wrong once and for all!”

Pacifica was prepared to do just that, her expression hardened as she began reaching for the nearby lever. However, her hand froze right before she could grab it as an underground hatch leading down to the panic room opened up a few feet away, her father, mother, and one of their countless butlers anxiously peeking out of it. “Pacifica Elise Northwest! Stop this instant!” Preston exclaimed in a harsh, incredibly disapproving whisper. “We can’t let the town see us like this! We have a reputation to uphold!”

“A reputation?” Pacifica looked to him, appalled. “Our entire mansion’s about to go up in flames and a bunch of innocent people right along with it and you’re worried about our reputation?!”

“Well, of course I am!” Preston scowled adamantly. “And you should be too, young lady! Our family is built off of power and position, we can’t have common nobodies off the street running rampant in our mansion! Now come into the panic room. There’s enough mini-sandwiches and oxygen to last you, me, and a butler a full week.” At this, he quickly dropped his voice down to a whisper so the nearby servant couldn’t hear him. “We’ll eat the butler.”

“You’re wrong!” the heiress snapped, her former fear of standing against her parents quickly fading as she realized just how many self-serving lies she had been fed her entire life. Lies that she refused to eagerly buy into any longer. “The only things our family was built off of are cheating and dishonesty! I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to learn that, but I have! And its about time everyone else did too!”

“You dare disobey us?” Preston scoffed in disbelief. “Where did this shamefully disrespectful attitude of yours come fro—oh wait, I know…” The billionaire’s tone turned disdainful as he shot a glance towards the center of the ballroom, where Dipper’s wooden remains stood. “It was that foolish Pines boy, wasn’t it? He was the one who inspired you to start thinking like a no-account vagrant instead of the elite young lady of status that you truly are! Well, worry not,” he said, pulling the bell that Pacifica had come to dread and loathe so much out of his suit pocket. “I know of the perfect to fix that…”

Pacifica flinched, pulling her hand away from the lever on instinct upon hearing the bell’s clarion ring, a ring that seemed to echo throughout her entire childhood and always carried one, singular order: behave. A ring that had groomed her into what her parents wanted her to be: submissive, unquestioning, accepting of all the atrocities the Northwests were responsible for in the past and were still committing even now. A ring that she hated, with every fiber of her being, but she knew better than to resist it.

Until now.

Because now, that ring wasn’t her master any longer. It couldn’t be. She remembered the advice both Dipper and Connie had given her, advice that mixed together inside her mind that she could be more, that she could do the right thing even when her own family never had, that she could change.

That she could be free.

And no matter what the cost might be, that freedom was something she was finally ready to take.

“Dingly, dingly!” Preston growled, ringing the bell harder as he noticed Pacifica was paying it no mind and reaching for the lever once more. “Is this bell broken?”

“Our family name is broken!” Pacifica proclaimed, slamming her foot down as she finally grabbed the lever. “And I’m gonna fix it!”

Putting every last ounce of reservation and fear behind her, the heiress pulled the lever down hard, at long last finally opening the gates up to the common townsfolk outside. The people of Gravity Falls gasped in amazement at this unexpected turn of events, but of course, none of them hesitated to rush forward, delighted to be allotted inside the legendary Northwest Fest for the very first time ever.

“Yes! Yes, its happening!” the ghost happily cried as the townsfolk excitedly ran up the hill to get to the mansion itself. “My heart, once as hard as oak, now grows soft, like more of a… birch or something.”

As a result of the ghost’s satisfaction, his curse upon the mansion quickly faded away, the taxidermized animals becoming still and unmoving as the wild plants disappeared back into the ground they had emerged from. At the same time, all of the petrified party guests seamlessly and painlessly were returned to normal, from the wealthy dignitaries, to the Gems, and to Dipper, who let out a sharp gasp as he returned to normal, rather startled by this shift as he happened to glance across the hall over at Pacifica. The heiress remained where she was by the lever, but even so, the huge smile of warm relief she sent him was undeniable, knowing that to see him alive and well again made all of her struggling against her parents more than worth it.

“Pacifica,” the ghost addressed her, briefly diverting her gaze away from Dipper right as he returned her smile. “You are not like other Northwests and for that, you should be proud. I feel… lumber justice…” And with these final words of contentment relayed, the specter finally disappeared from the mortal plane, leaving only his axe behind as it slammed into the ground, the only remaining physical sign of the devastation he had wrought.

Of course, almost as soon as the ghost had vanished, the multitude of townsfolk reached the manor, flooding in through the front doors in a flurry of chaos and excitement. They had no mind for manners whatsoever as they ran about, indulging on buffet tables, leaping into cider fountains, and laying their hands on whatever expensive knick-knacks they could find. Still, their arrival had added an undeniable and much-needed element of reckless fun and freedom to the party, one that absolutely appalled Preston and Priscilla as they stood by, helpless to stop what their daughter had so brazenly done.

“Good lord, the riffraff! Its everywhere!” the billionaire cried, aghast at the state of his once pristine party as he ran about, trying and completely failing to reclaim some sense of class and order.

At the same time, the Gems, upon recovering from their formerly petrified states, were quick to see the wild debauchery going on all around them, something that aptly confused them, given how they knew Northwest parties to usually be.

“What’s going on here?” Pearl asked, her spear dissipating as she watched Manly Dan toss a keg of cider across the hall.

“I dunno, but this is my kinda party!” Amethyst cheered, laughing as a few of the town’s teens rode an empty platter down the nearby stairs.

“Looks like everyone else has followed our lead,” Garnet remarked with a wry smirk, placing hands on both of her teammates’ shoulders. “You know what that means.”

“Woo! Time to bust it up!” the purple Gem rowdily whooped, rushing forward unrestrained.

“N-now Amethyst, let’s try not to bust things up too much!” Pearl warned as she began to run after her, though she quickly stopped with an incredulous scoff. “Wait, what am I saying? This is the Northwests’ mansion we’re talking about here! Let’s bust it up to our hearts’ content!”

“Now you got it,” Garnet nodded in amused approval, joining her teammates as they gladly leapt into the ongoing chaos and fun all around them.

Meanwhile, Mabel, Candy, and Grenda were all in the midst of recovering from their own bouts as wooden statues, though none of them knew much about what had really occurred. Still, as soon as they had properly gathered their bearings, Grenda was quick to turn on the pair, sending them a disapproving scowl as she addressed them.

“Ahem,” she began somewhat coldly. “Don’t you two have something you’d like to say?”

“…Grenda, we are so sorry,” Candy relented remorsefully.

“Yeah, we shouldn’t have left you behind,” Mabel added just as empathetically.

“It’s ok,” Grenda conceded, her bitter manner quickly dropping upon noticing their sincerity. “Maybe I do need to work on my flirting. But for now, come on. Let’s go dip our heads in some cheese and chocolate. Friends?”

“Friends,” the other two girls happily agreed as they all joined together in a group hug. This moment of reconciliation soon came to an end however, for before they could make their way over to the fondue fountains, they were abruptly halted by a certain baron.

“Wait! Don’t go!” Marius called after them, approaching Grenda in particular with a fond, longing smile. “Grenda, was it? I must speak with you. There is something about you, I-I can’t get you out of my head! You’re so bold and confident! I know you are probably out of my league, but… might I give you mien phone number?”

“I don’t have a phone!” Grenda brightly exclaimed, elated by this offer. “Write it on my face!”

The baron proceeded to do so as Mabel and Candy watched on, neither of them having to pretend to be happy for their friend’s successful romantic catch. “Whoa-oh! Go Grenda!” Mabel exclaimed with a surprised grin.

“I guess we shouldn’t have sold her short,” Candy concluded. “I call bridesmaid!”

“What? I call co-bridesmaid!” Mabel countered before both of them shared a warm laugh. Despite their earlier scuffle, their friendship had been easily repaired, with all three of them knowing that no boy, no matter how cute or fancy, was worth damaging something so valuable to them all.

“Is that the last of them?” Connie asked Steven as he finished bubbling away what seemed to be the last of the Gem mutants. They had finished proofing and capturing them all around the same time the ghost had disappeared, which meant that now the party and its guests could truly be safe to enjoy the remainder of their evening.

“Yeah, I think so,” Steven nodded, offering her a small, congratulatory smile. Connie didn’t get much of a chance to return it, however, before her mother approached, her manner strangely anxious as she met her daughter’s somewhat unreadable gaze.

“C-Connie,” Priyanka began gently, looking between her daughter and the sword in her hand. “I… is this… really what you’ve been doing all summer? Training to fight these… things?”

“Yeah…” Connie nodded, glancing down guiltily. “Mom… I’m really sorry about lying to you. It started off as a tiny secret, and then it felt like I didn’t hide it, you wouldn’t let me see Steven or Dipper or Mabel ever again…”

“Is… is that how you feel?” Priyanka asked, her tone genuinely upset at the thought of unintentionally causing her daughter such worry and fear. “Are we too controlling?”

“…Maybe…” Connie admitted with a small shrug, deciding to be completely honest with her mother on this.

“I just… wanted to be a good mother,” the doctor said remorsefully, almost sadly even. “I-I just wanted to protect you.”

“But I can protect myself now!” Connie urged firmly. “You saw that I can! You just… need to start trusting that I can handle some things on my own.”

Priyanka sighed, a bittersweet smile crossing her face as she knelt down and placed a hand on her daughter’s shoulder. “You are growing up awfully fast, aren’t you?” she said, a hint of pride filling her tone. “Okay. We’ll pull back on the rules. And I’ll try to keep an open mind about this,” she nodded to the sword in Connie’s hand. “And that,” she looked towards the bubbled Gem Steven was sending off to the temple. “And… him…” She finished rather tightly, nodding to the somewhat confused young Gem himself.

“That’s… all I really want,” Connie said, finally smiling herself.

“I know, its just… it scares me that you can’t talk to me about all this!” Priyanka pressed with apt concern. “I need to know what’s happening in your life. I need to be able to step in when you’re in over your head. Would you just promise me that you’ll stop all the lying?”

“That’s a rule,” Connie nodded, resolved to meet her mother halfway in doing just that.

“I love you, honey,” Priyanka smiled as she pulled her daughter into a warm, protective embrace.

“I love you too, Mom,” Connie retorted just as contentedly, more than happy to let her mother intervene if the need ever arose.

Steven wore a soft smile himself as he stood by, watching this heartwarming display. However, his grin did fade somewhat as he happened to glance down at Rose’s sword in his arms, particularly at his mother’s iconic symbol on its scabbard. He couldn’t help but wonder, as he watched Connie and her mother share such a tender, genuine moment, if he would have ever known a similar relationship with his own mother if she was still around. But as it stood, this was a gap he’d never truly have filled, a kind of protective, motherly love he’d never fully get to know. Or at least he thought.

For the young Gem was soon drawn out of his solemn thoughts as a familiar hand landed on his shoulder. Steven glanced up to meet Garnet’s gentle grin, followed by Pearl’s and Amethyst as they filled in beside her.

“Y-you guys!” he exclaimed in apt relief to see them unharmed. “You’re ok!”

“Of course we are!” Amethyst quipped, playfully elbowing him. “What, you really think we’re gonna let some undead lumber loser beat us down? Please, you know us better than that!”

“Are you enjoying the party, Steven?” Pearl asked, flustered changing the subject though she was still smiling down at her young ward nonetheless.

Steven paused, looking down at his mother’s sword one last time before smiling back up at his guardians. “You know what? Yeah. Yeah, I am.”

With the ghost gone and the heiress’ parents preoccupied, Dipper and Pacifica had found it rather easy to reunite and debrief from their harrowing experiences, both of them more than happy to watch the unfurling freedom of the newly-opened party all around them. “Man, if your family hates this, then they’re idiots,” Dipper remarked with a small laugh as several townsfolk ran by noisily but happily. “This is great!”

“Enjoy it while it lasts,” Pacifica huffed, crossing her arms. “Next year, I’m sure they’re just gonna lock everyone out again.”

Dipper paused, briefly noticing that the heiress still seemed rather remiss after everything had happened. Fortunately though, he quickly thought of a sure-fire way to change her sour tune. “Hey, guess what we’re standing on.”

Pacifica glanced down, her face lighting up with a vindictive grin as she noticed their muddy shoes were planted firmly on a repeat of her parents’ favorite white rug. From that point, neither of them were really able to hold their laughter in as they freely tarnished the carpet, spilling food and punch onto it without any care in the world, all in a sign of defiance to the billionaire’s rigid, self-righteous rules.

“Hey, so, uh…” Pacifica began somewhat awkwardly as their laughter began to die down. “I just wanted to say… um… thanks, I guess, for what you said back there. In a way, I guess it kinda inspired me to finally stop listening to my parents’ self-entitled garbage and start listening to myself for a change. And I gotta admit, it… feels kind of… nice.”

“If anyone’s thanking anyone around here, I should be thanking you,” Dipper said just as warmly. “If it wasn’t for you, then I’d still be a boring old hunk of wood right now.”

“Yeah, that totally would have sucked,” Pacifica remarked with something of a flirtatious grin. “I couldn’t imagine you, of all people, being so stiff and boarding.”

Dipper couldn’t really hold in a burst of heavy laughter at this, something that only served to fluster the heiress even more than she already was. “What, did you come up with that one yourself?”

“Hey, at least I tried. It’s not like puns are really my strong suit.”

“Yeah, I can tell.”

“Oh shut up,” Pacifica smirked, pushing him playfully as he continued laughing. “But seriously though, I should probably go and find someone to clean this mess up. I’ll be right back!”

Dipper waved her off with a fond smile that he was unable to chase away, even if he had wanted to. As catastrophic as this night had turned out to be, at the end of it all, it had all been worth it to form a true, genuine bond with Pacifica, who, as far as he was concerned, was so, so much kinder, braver, and better than he had ever thought her to be.

His contented musings on the heiress didn’t last too long, however, before a certain old hillbilly ran up, seemingly just as zany and excitable as ever. “Woo! Scoobity-doo!” McGucket exclaimed, hopping up and down in his usual wild way. “Hornswaggle m’goat knees!”

“Whoa, hey, McGucket!” Dipper greeted with a bright smile, happy to see the hillbilly out and about in the aftermath of recovering his memories. “How have you been? Are you—whoa!” he was succinctly cut off as McGucket suddenly pulled him aside, his kooky act falling to the wayside for a much more serious one as soon as they were out of everyone else’s earshot.

“Dipper! I’ve been lookin’ for ya!” the hillbilly began intently, his expression and tone both dire as he put his glasses on and pulled out the old laptop, which looked nowhere as bad off as it had been before. “I fixed the laptop and-”

“You fixed it?! Dipper interupted, his eyes wide with surprise at this news. He paused, however, forcing himself not to be too overwhelmed by it as he remembered exactly why he had strived so hard to unlock said laptop in the first place. “Y-you… you didn’t happen to find anything on there about how split Gem fusions up… did you?”

“Er, uh… no?” McGucket frowned, confused by such an odd question before he returned to the matter at hand. “B-but anyway, I’ve been doin’ calculations, and I think somethin’ terrible is comin’! The apocalypse! The end times!”

Dipper simply let out a disappointed sigh at this as he glanced to the laptop somewhat bitterly, knowing he had wasted and lost so much for something that wouldn’t have even been able to help Lapis in the first place. But given that his spirits were relatively high from the party, he didn’t particularly feel like lowering them at the moment to look into the hillbilly’s frantic warnings, which in and of themselves, might not really hold any weight at all. “You know what, McGucket? How about we talk about this stuff tomorrow?”

“But-” McGucket fretfully tried to protest, only for Dipper’s already waning attention to quickly be diverted.

“Dipper!” Pacifica called from the party proper, smiling brightly as she beckoned for him to join her.

“Be there in a second!” he called back to her before turning to the distraught hillbilly once more with a small smile and a shrug. “It’s a party. Let’s have some fun for once, huh?”

“N-no! Wait!” McGucket exclaimed, though his pleas were in vain as Dipper left, dangerously unaware of what he had just uncovered. The hillbilly quickly opened the laptop up, its screen blaring the words “Imminent threat” in bright, glaring red as a countdown steadily blinked upon it, showing that only less than 24 hours remained. “Oh, this is bad!” he shook his head nervously. “Something’s coming! Somethin’ big!”

The hillbilly continued to look over his worrisome findings, completely unaware of the tapestry behind him, one that seemed to almost foretell of the very danger he feared was soon to come: a burning landscape with suffering humans upon it, and a long triangular shape presiding over the chaos, its singular eye watching all.

“Hey,” Dipper greeted Pacifica blithely as he rejoined her near the makeshift ‘dance floor’ the townsfolk had set up at the center of the ballroom. “What’s up?”

“Uh… well…” the heiress blushed, anxiously averting his gaze. “I was just, um… Well… Oh, how do I put this…? I was thinking maybe… y-you and I could… you know…” Unable to spit it out, she instead nodded to the several pairs freely moving about the dance floor, biting her lip as she noted his initial confusion, followed by his dawning realization.

“What, you mean, dance?” he asked, looking back to her rather surprised.

“Y-Yeah, I mean, i-if you wanna…” she crossed her arms, feigning stoicism over the matter. “W-we don’t have to. I just thought it would be like, fun or something.”

“Oh, well, uh… I-I’m not really that much of a dancer,” he admitted, starting to become rather flustered himself in light of this offer.

“So? Neither are any of them,” she nodded back to the dance floor again, where the couples upon it were basically just spinning around in tandem without any rhyme or reason at all. All the same, he hesitated, his eyes wide and his cheeks just as red as hers as he met her awkward, apprehensive expression. “W-what? Are you embarrassed or something?”

“N-no!” he shook his head quickly. “Are you?”

“No!”

“W-well then, I guess we should…”

“Yeah…” she took in a deep breath, slowly taking the hand he shakily offered out to her, In truth, neither of them were exactly sure why there were so nervous, even as they emerged onto the open floor together. After all, they really had no reason to be; this was just going to be a loose, friendly, freeform dance. Nothing less, and nothing more.

And though it took a moment or two of mental preparation, they soon started to fall into this mindset themselves as they began to spin, hands intertwined as they rotated in wide, dizzying, almost chaotic circles. It didn’t take long for them to start laughing, their faces still somewhat red but this time it was a welcome warmth as they “danced” about, the ballroom around them and the multiple pairs of eyes curiously watching them soon forgotten just as much as their initial inhibitions were. As wild and unkempt as it was, there was no denying they were both having fun, enjoying each other’s company, something neither of them thought could never happen before this fateful night. Yet here they were, a highly-esteemed heiress with a tarnished family history and a middle-class boy only really known for his knowledge of the supernatural. An unusual pair, for sure, but that hardly mattered to either of them at that moment for as far as they were concerned, they were the same. Just two kids, spinning around an elegant ballroom, hands intertwined as they laughed together with freedom in their minds and happiness in their hearts.

Happiness that would someday become something that nothing, not the past, the present, or the future, would ever be able to destroy.  

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