#and if you're very lucky

[lectorel]

Rabbit Heart

(Inspired by the Mage in a Wolf Pack original fic series on AO3, you'll need to read a few of those first.)

Jaime . . . floats. One step out and to the left of himself, ice-numbed to sensation. Wake. Work. Obey. Cast, in the short moments when he was given back a sliver of his strength. Bow. Obey. Eat. Sleep. Wake. Lay Limp. Wash. Work.

Hums, sometimes, tuneless little things that taste like memories. ‘digger, digger, singer of songs…’

This doesn't change, when he is passed to other masters. The lines change, but the pattern stays the same. Wake. Cast. Work. Strip. Obey. Sleep. Wake. Eat. Jaime exists entirely unmoored from time and place, in the smothering fog of over-extension and apathy. 

He rarely notices when one master becomes another. Mostly when the new had a taste for flesh the old had not, or the reverse. His current masters are kind, in the careless way hunters are prone to. A person is given orders. An object is used. There is power in breaking a person to heel, but all ruining a tool proves is carelessness. 

If he is sick, if he’s injured, he’s likelier to make mistakes or mishandle a spell. So he is fed, and given clothes to cover his body, and treated if he is injured. He is a useful thing, to be maintained and then forgotten when unneeded. 

Like all tools, there are some uses he is better suited to than others. Jaime is not allowed to heal - no hunter would be careless enough to let a mage, even a collared one, work magics on their bodies. But neither is he required to bind and chain unwilling captives. Instead, he is set to warding chicken coops, warming water for the wash, repairing damaged walls and decaying fences. Simple things that require neither force nor strength of will.

They don't travel - or at least never enough of them at one time that he is left without supervision or required to accompany them. Jaime has never bothered tracking the passage of time, but he thinks he's been in this place for a while. He mostly remembers now how to get from one building to another, can plan a path to accomplish his duties without too much doubling back.

It is an easy life, and Jaime knows that easy never lasts. Sooner or later, he will be put to the work he was first collared for. There is no point in waking.

Jaime floats, and his body obeys.

***

Runa had noticed the problem by mid-summer, but back then, she’d believed her pack would fix it. It’s nearly winter now, and her faith has run out.

The adults of the pack refuse to see it, refuse to understand, because the mage had hurt uncle Dimitri. They were angry, and they wanted someone to blame. The mage was an easy target. But all the pretending in the world couldn’t change the truth. And the truth was, he’d never acted out of malice.

Malice would require the mage to remember people existed when they left his line of sight. The mage had to be ordered to bathe himself. and occasionally ended up frozen in place because he'd forgotten what he was ordered to do and the collar’s bindings forbade him from acting without permission. All he’d done was obey his Alpha, the same as Runa is supposed to obey Lada.

He isn’t capable of intending harm. There’s something fragile in him, like the lightning-struck tree Runa found two summers ago. From afar, it had seemed healthy, as if it had escaped the storm with only a few branches lost. But when she’d gotten closer, she’d seen the long seam where sap had boiled and split the tree open from the inside. It had survived the first winter, but it’d never woken after the second.

The mage, too, is slowly dying, and Alpha had ordered everyone not to help him.

Runa had never disobeyed her parents or her alpha. Not really. Little rules sometimes, like going to bed on time or taking turns, but never the big rules. The ones that even the adults had to follow. And the rules about the mage were big rules - Alpha had explained that to all the puppies in very careful words.

But Runa had already known the rules - if you can’t kill something cleanly, you don’t kill it at all. If someone isn’t pack, you don’t bring them into the den. If someone wants to leave, you have to let them. If a person’s hurt, you need to help them.

Alpha is the one who broke the rules first, her and all the other adults; she put the mage in a collar like it wasn’t the exact thing the pack had killed hunters for doing to uncle Dimitri. Alpha is wrong, and she keeps pretending she’s not, keeps saying that the mage is an exception.

It’s dangerous to have magic now, in the Heartstone pack. Alpha has made it that way. And Runa is the only one who knows it’s Toby, not the mage, who keeps the candles lit all night.

There are uses for collared mages. Alpha made that very clear. Runa isn’t going to let the pack collar a second one.

Alpha makes the mage sleep in the storage shed, with only a worn fur to keep out the cold. With the first storm of winter threatening, the pack will either need to move him inside soon, or let him freeze. The adults are still fighting about it, which makes now the only chance Runa has to get them all away.

The night is dark, only a single sliver of moon to light it, and the wind cuts through Runa’s sleeping shirt like a knife. Toby whines in his sleep, but doesn’t wake. The shed door isn’t locked properly - Runa jammed it a few days ago, when she oiled the door hinges to keep them from creaking. She slips inside, soft as a fieldmouse through grass, and shakes the mage awake. 

“We’re going now, sweetheart,” Runa says softly, pulling the mage to his feet with her free hand. “Can you hide us?”

The mage blinks, once, twice, eyes only half-focused on Runa and Toby’s sleeping form. Runa holds up the command token, thumb pressed to the center symbol, and pushes her will into it. Unlock. Not a full release - only the collar’s keybinding, locked away among Alpha’s things,  could do that - but enough for something like awareness to flood into the mage’s expression. 

“We’re leaving, all three of us,” Runa repeats, and asks a second time, “Can you hide us?”

“. . . You’ll be faster without me,” the mage says, after a long, long moment. “If you steal me, it will be. Bad.”

Runa tilts her head in acknowledgement. “Staying would be worse.”

 “If you do, when they catch you, they will kill you,” He looks at Runa for a single second, gaze darting to Toby’s sleeping form and then away before she can interpret the expression he wore. Runa hears an echo of familiar candace in those words, and wonders if he’s ever heard the rabbit song, before the Alpha chained him. 

“They might,” she acknowledges. Six months ago she couldn’t have imagined the possibility. Now, though, all her certainties about her family have been shattered. However - “But first, they must catch me.”

[uncanny-tranny]

The leftism/anticapitalism leaving people's bodies the zeptosecond you imply that disabled people who aren't "productive" still matter in society and need to be treated like intrinsic equals who have a place in this world:

[jkvjimin]

JEON JUNGKOOK + fire stage performances 🔥 (cr. 0613data, namuspromised, moreloveforhobi)

happy birthday, steph! @cosmicdreamgrl 💗

[mblue-art]

so like... teeth... fangs, even.........

(silly) xtra under the cut

smfh tfw ur trying to joke but friend snitches you tf out

[hellsitegenetics]

Someone showed me this blog because I'm a scientist who sequences stuff for a living but joke's on them because I'm quite neutral about genetic sequences in my off hours; what I do really like are moths.

String identified: t g ca ' a ctt c t a g t ' t ca ' t ta at gtc c ; at a a t.

Closest match: Limnoperna fortunei genome assembly, chromosome: 7 Common name: Golden mussel

[hyakunana]

Ah yes, the Prismatic experience when they deliver your main subclass in the starter pack 😌

[chrisbangs]

231003 ♡ Happy Birthday Bang Chan!

[rjshope]

I love I love I love myself I love I love I love myself I know I know I know myself Ya playa haters you should love yourself Brr

Happy birthday @raplinenthusiasts 💖

[starving-mimi]

I have. Theory. That Wilson is hot. NOW NOW IT IS JUST A THEORY DONT @ ME, THE ANON, ON THIS BUT-

your theory is wrong, sorry

[tswwwit]

I think it was sort of implied Bill had exes (or more like ex- one night stands? Maybe even ex- acquaintances with benefits?) so my question is 1) are any of them still alive 2) will dipper meet them 3) if so will dipper /know/ that he met them, and how does he feel about that? Bonus points for descriptions of their various improbable anatomies (picture dipper meeting a sentient pile of hornets and wondering how exactly it and a triangle managed to bone down XD).

Maybe!

Possibly!

Depends! Bill might not be totally up-to-date on the 'how to healthy relationship' course - but even he knows opining on previous flings conflicts with domestic bliss. So if Dipper does meet one of the exes, he could figure it out from context clues, perhaps. Or some bystander could let him in on the hot gossip. Or the ex could be very up-front about their previous relationship to this impudent little flavor-of-the-week fleshbag.

Bill's absolutely banged some things so physically different that trying to figure out the mechanics makes Dipper's head hurt. He's not gonna think about it for multiple reasons.

[epicfirestormer]

[lasshoe]

Incorrect Ted Lasso + The Parent Trap (or an AU where Rebecca follows Ted to Kansas)

[jaarijani]

hello lovelies!! I'm heading to finland in less than a day!!!!! I'm so excited 😆 I'll be handing out these little guys at Backas, Allas and Ruisrock so please come say hi and take them off my hands 😁💕

[fallentofable]

If anyone is currently looking for a series to fall in love with, I cannot recommend The Silt Verses highly enough! It is a character-driven folk horror podcast about two people, Carpenter and Faulkner, who are disciples of the Parish of Tide and Flesh. They are from an outlawed faith, on run from the law, traveling up and down the white gull River, hoping to find signs of their God among the reeds. The story is constantly jumping at you with the most phenomenal twists and moments, and you will find yourself falling in love with each of the characters. Each and every moment of the story is rewarding, and the episodes often left me shouting out loud for just how awesome or vile or downright disturbing each second was.

If you want a story that'll wrap its way around you and consume your every waking thought (and many of your sleeping ones), listen to The Silt Verses.

[alexis-royce]

Would Diegesis and Pages get along? What about Liam and the Academic?

Diegesis, maybe go ask a Spirifer for something to eat before you try that again.

[Bonus Panel with Lee and The Academic over here.]

[aro-culture-is]

aro culture is getting so fucking tired of people using the fact that there's a queer romance in something as a reason you should watch it. like haven't allos had enough of romance? queer or otherwise? I'm not saying queer representation is bad, of course, I'm just fed up with asking what a book is about and in response all I get is "oh it has queer people in it" cool! what is it about? having queer representation is not the be all end all of media can we please have ONE thing without romance in it. please.

.