#and in the cave their rapport was so natural and easy

[kingquest]

II

There's a slow, burning tension in his leg. It pulses, aches, like a knot strung too tightly around some distant extremity, the pain reverberates through his bones and marrow and finally congeals somewhere in his head. Dizziness threatens to suffocate and lethargy pools with his blood; he's too distracted to notice the newfound scrapes and tears trailing up his torso.

His helmet weighs heavy against his chest. He stirs, struggling to pull his head up. He stares blearily at his boots, only half-noticing the binds that tie them. He glances at his leg, which by all accounts should be splattered against moonrock, only to find freshly applied bandages instead. A fibery gauze has been wrapped underneath his clothing, snug and bloody.

He tries to pull himself upward, but his muscles reject him. His back falls onto a rocky surface behind him, followed by his hands and elbows, both also bound.

"Morning."

He freezes. White noise gnaws at the following silence. Adrenaline shoots through him, his fingertips lighting up with stars, but no matter the strain, no matter the exertion, he still can't fucking move. It takes all of his willpower to jut out his chin just enough to get a better angle, to peer out from behind his mask to find the voice, and in the end the tendons in his neck scream nearly as loud as the bullet wound. His effort is finally rewarded with the sight of a terran sitting atop a storage device in front of him, a thermos in one hand and his own gun in the other. She smirks at him.

Recognition comes slow. The memory of how he got here is trudging behind. Still, when the other shoe drops, so does his gut. He tenses, fighting against the ropes, only for a headache to strike back with a vengeance.

Skullcap droops.

His target sneers.

She says, "I was worried you might not wake up. Some people don't."

She leans forward, the gun not leaving her hip. She squints.

"Seems like the paralyzer's still in you some. I'll have to let my tox man know."

Skullcap says nothing.

"It'll probably fade," she says. She sips at her drink, shrugging. "If it doesn't, well, I can at least say I tried to opt for mercy."

She sits, waiting. Her eyes roll over him, like she's sizing him up. She adjusts the gun ever so slightly, taking a glance at it. Skullcap keeps his mouth shut.

"I knew you were coming. I mean, obviously. What'd he say, 'alive, not dead?' Bet he wants a crack at me himself." She laughs, tilting her thermos back.

As she swallows, she goes silent, almost expectantly so. She tilts her head, pursing her lips. The back of her heel bounces off of her seat.

"You're making this so boring. The silent, intimidating thing doesn't work on me, babe. I've already got you cornered." She sighs. "Come on, don't you have any questions for your predecessor? Or were you just going to shoot me down?"

Skullcap doesn't have an answer for that. He watches her, his head hung low. His hands clasp and unclasp behind him.

She scoffs.

"If you're not going be any fun about this--"

"How do you figure this is mercy?"

Vaira's brows raise. Then she huffs a laugh.

"For one thing, I didn't take your silly little helmet off."

He sighs. It teeters on relief.

"That, and you're still breathing. Moron." She swings her legs. "Is it not enough that I wanted to meet you? I hear he's put quite a bit of stock in you."

Skullcap bristles.

"Though," she says, "he did send you on a bit of a suicide mission."

He clears his throat. "How's that?"

"Either he overestimates you or he underestimates me. And I'm fairly certain it's not the latter." She examines her nails. "The way I see it, it's more than likely there's a bug on your ship. Aside from the literal vermin you keep, of course. They're tracking you, so if you end up keeling over somewhere, they've got a better idea of where I am."

This flood of information is too much at once. He hesitates, processing. His kneejerk response is defensiveness. "It's... not vermin."

She laughs. "Do you even have a license for that thing? If it's your partner, you know you'd need a contract with the guild, yeah?"

Her words buzz around in Skullcap's head. They refuse to stick. He just stares at her, adjusting his arms.

She waves dismissively. "Don't worry. I won't tell anyone. Besides, we've gotten so off track anyhow." In a quick gesture, she leans behind her, his gun unmoving. She plucks a tablet out from somewhere, scanning through it.

"Shocked we couldn't get a proper name on you. I would've dug further, but," she gestures to her surroundings. "Let's see. God, Typhor? Of all places? I suppose that was a given, but... still." She grimaces.

She glances up at him, scrutinizing. She adds, as if speaking to herself, "I wonder if he pulled you by your scruff from the dunes or if you actually wax pious. I've seen those scars of yours; my initial assumption feels apt, but I could be wrong. Either way, he's got you hooked somehow."

Skullcap pushes himself forward, heat gathering in his throat and jaw. "Now, look--"

"--You've had some decent jobs," she says, as if he'd said nothing at all. "But you've also had some real shit ones. I heard you shot someone in court." She clicks her tongue.

He stifles a groan. "None of this is any concern to you. It isn't your business."

"Honey," she says. "I've already strip-searched you. And dressed your wound--"

"From your bullet."

"--Which was an act of kindness on my part that none will see the likes of again. May I remind you, you were sent to disable me, or perhaps even kill me, so therefore I consider myself privy to all your dirty little secrets. Unless you'd like to do something about it?"

Skullcap stares at her. She leers.

"I thought not. Now, where were we?"

"Can you just cut to the goddamn chase? Please? If you're gonna kill me, get on with it, but if not--"

"Do they not have rapport in Typhor? Or do they just shoot people down like bloody dogs when they disagree?"

Skullcap's head tilts, indignant. She sighs.

"I suppose you're right. Even still, there's nothing wrong with a little conversation. I'd prefer that over a bullet in my head. And it's not like you introduced yourself. You just stormed into what you assumed was my hideout, gun drawn. Where are you manners, Skully?"

They watch each other wordlessly. Her nails tap rhythmically against the aluminum of her thermos. Her brow is quirked. His helmet hangs low, his eyes cast over in shadow. If no one knew any better, it'd be easy to assume there was nothing behind the gaping holes of his headwear at all.

It dawns on him that she, however, isn't so easily fooled. It's like she stares right through him, past the metal and chrome. Like her pupils are little scalpels, probing and dissecting. He believes that she's true enough to her word, that she didn't remove it, only because he's not sure if it would even matter if she had. She's playing like she's already seen everyone else's hand, and yet the only other player at the table that's losing is him.

He grunts. She huffs a laugh.

"Perhaps they don't teach you any of those on Typhor either." She shifts her legs, refolding them. "Would you prefer that I go first?"

Silence. He is trying to stop himself from sinking lower onto the floor.

"Very well." She straightens herself, extending her hand as if she wasn't several meters away and his hands weren't already bound. "Allow me to make your acquaintance. My name is Vaira Talwar and I'll be your mark this evening. Welcome to my home away from home."

Vaira gestures to the cave surrounding them. The humidity compresses into him; he's able to make out a distant dripping of water. The caves probably lead to a reservoir, or something of that nature. Must be how she's survived.

"I'm sure you've met my partner on the way in. She was very excited to meet you."

He stutters then, as if buffering. His helmet raises to see her better; her expression is stone, smug. He was warned of no accomplice. Her eyes brighten considerably, as if the helmet's somehow conveyed his alarm. Her mouth twists into a smirk.

She sets her drink down, raising her fingers to her lips. She whistles a sharp, airy sound unlike anything he's ever heard, and in an instant, the dim light behind him is blotted out by a massive silhouette. The shadow cuts through the cave's stilled air as dust swarms behind it, loose particles filtering in from underneath his helmet. He coughs through it, unable to wave away space to breathe, and once the debris settles and his breath is steady enough to see, he is filled with a deep understanding, one that piles onto to the preexisting load of dread hanging in his chest.

Vaira's arm is outstretched, covered with a metallic sleeve he doesn't remember seeing her put on. It's armored fabric, perfectly able to support the massive talons of her apparent partner. The thing's feathered head tilts at him, brassy and angular. Its beak comes to a wicked point and, at a passing glance, seems to have been gilded with gold. Vaira clicks her tongue at it and it shrieks, its golden eyes not leaving him. She places the gun down long enough to run her fingers through its feathery chin.

"Aquila, Skullcap. Skullcap, Aquila." She leans forward, cupping her hand over her mouth as if relaying a secret. "And of course, she's a guild member. Licensed and everything. I'd hate to get fined, or worse!" She barks a laugh. The eagle ruffles its feathers.

Skullcap simmers. Of course, she takes notice.

"Come on. Don't be so chuffed. It's not my fault they didn't warn you, is it?" She adjusts her arm and Aquila shimmies to her shoulder. Vaira points to her claws. "If you're wondering what exactly you've got running through you, take a look."

At second glance, the points of the bird's central nails shift into an almost transparent finish; a middle-ground between grey and pink. They're hooked inward and almost... hollow looking. Like fangs, he realizes. The weight from his chest spreads through him like nausea.

Vaira, unphased, coos at the monster upon her shoulder. It preens in return, chittering from somewhere within its throat.

"I've always been the type to work from above," she says, "but Aquila can see what even I can't. It's why we work together so well." Vaira pauses, not once casting a wayward eye back to Skullcap. "I've got a mate who distills her toxins. The bullet breaks down with its own velocity and melts like butter on impact. Penetrates, but not enough to shred through entirely. Just enough to dig through to an artery."

She turns back to him now, her grin slow and easy. "It's a bounty hunter's best friend."

Skullcap opts to stare. He would rather not give her the satisfaction.

Her expression gradually flattens. Her eyes roll. She shakes out her shoulder and Aquila jumps, swoops over him, and perches behind his rock; her shadow looms before him.

"I weep for our mutual friend's taste. Seems like it's worsened since I knew him. Maybe he thinks boring would keep him safer. Or at least, less likely to lose his new favorite toy."

"I'm mostly wondering what this is all leading up to."

She pauses. "Oh?"

"At this point," he says, "You've had ample chances to kill me. Between your gun, my gun, and whatever the hell she is, the way I see it, you're either stalling or you're lonely."

Vaira's brows raise. Her lips purse. Skullcap can't quite read her expression. He talks past it regardless.

"So," he says, "which is it? You keep talking about him, but as far as I'm concerned, you're the one who ran out on him. Just now figuring out crime doesn't pay?"

Her cheeks twitch. The corners of her lips draw deeper into her face, panning out into a barely restrained simper, before the first peal of laughter escapes her lungs entirely. She's overwhelmed just as quick, nearly doubling over and off her seat. He watches her wipe a false tear from her cheek with her shooting hand's pinkie and even as she composes herself, she's racked with occasional chuckles.

"You think--" she pauses to laugh, "--You think I'm lonely? You think I'm lonely because I quit my job?"

"Now I didn't say that."

Vaira throws her head back. She leans forward again with an amused sigh, shaking her head.

"Listen babe. You've got me all wrong. Let me tell you something." She leans forward, almost conspiratorial. Her voice drops to a whisper. "I've never felt more free in my goddamn life."

She drops her legs from the container, sliding off into a stand. She takes a step closer, his gun dangling at her thigh.

"And maybe," she says, "maybe if you'd open your eyes for once, you'd see I'm trying to pay you a fucking kindness. Mercy, remember?"

He squints. "I don't follow."

Vaira takes a deep, dramatic breath. Her thumb digs into her brow. "Fuck, mate. Are you really this dense? I'm trying to give you an out."

"What the fuck are you talking about?"

"Do you even hear yourself?" She scoffs. "Of course I've had ample time to kill you. I could've done it a dozen times now." She lifts the gun, shuts an eye and takes aim. "Bang. You're dead. Or, bang," she points somewhere lower, "Dead again. It's so easy I could do it in my fucking sleep. But I haven't. Because here's the part you're missing, you stupid arsehole; we can be of mutual aid to each other."

He feels like she's struck him across the helmet with the gun. He works through the false tinnitus.

"What about any of this is mutual?"

"Must I spell it out for you?" She rolls her eyes, taking a step forward. "I'm letting you live. I'm letting you live so that you can let me live. And if we're lucky, we can both get out of this rotten deal we've found ourselves in."

"You mean... this?"

"No," she says, "his deal."

He hesitates, considering this for a moment. "There's no deal. I'm a freelancer."

"I thought that too. Like I said; I'm your predecessor, mate. In every sense." Her expression shifts. Humor leaves her in waves. "I was independent until, one day, I woke up and I wasn't."

They hadn't told him that, either.

"So, what?" He shifts his weight, the joints of his hands afflicted by pins. "You just up and left?"

She turns to stare at him for a moment. "How long have you been under his employment?"

"You're avoiding the question."

"I'm gauging how I'll answer. You go first."

His breath gets caught between a groan and a sigh. Every exchange is a new defeat.

"Two jobs," he says.

For an instance, a fragment of a second, something close to sympathy--or empathy?--softens her features. As soon as it comes, her natural sharpness returns.

"Then you don't know what he is. You can't see how deep in it you are yet."

"So," his brow furrows behind the helmet, "you're saying that if I help you now, you'll be doing me some favor by... what, saving me from the very same man that hired me to catch you?"

"Something along those lines."

"Right," he says. "Alright. Question."

"Shoot."

"Is your head screwed on right?" He lifts his neck, measuring his own strength. "How dumb do you think I am?"

A laugh rumbles in her chest in spite of his tone. "I don't think you want me to answer that."

"Har har." He huffs. "Can we be serious? I mean, why in the name of anything would I believe you, Kingfisher? After all of this?"

She brushes her hair back. She inhales slow. "Look. I know this seems like a classic case of the devil you know versus the devil you don't, but I'm trying to play in good faith. I'm turning a new leaf, yeah? I don't know how much of my reputation you've caught wind of, but--"

"--You killed eight people. Nine, if we're counting the decoy from the cave. 'Far as I know, that's all I need to know."

"Eight still," she replies, "But even then, they were eight bad people. Eight people who have been around him much longer than I have and still want nothing more than to exist in his shadow, hoping he'll even pass a glance towards them." She purses her lips with a sigh through her nose. "I'm not naive nor insane enough to suggest that what I did set them free, that it was justified somehow, but if I was so deluded as to fall completely victim to his bullshit like that, I'd rather die."

He hums. "Is this supposed to get me to believe you?"

She rubs the bridge of her nose. "Alright. Sure. Think of me as awful or evil or whatever the hell you want. Go on. I don't need to explain myself to you and, quite frankly, I don't care to." She shifts, jutting a finger out at him. "But I need you to know--to realize--that whatever you think I am or however you see me, he's ten times as bad. He's the worst kind of person there is, hell, even calling him a person would be an undeserved compliment."

He watches her jaw clench, the strain of the tendons in her cheeks. Her gaze drifts, following a thought unseen, before she trains herself upon Skullcap again.

"He's a monster," she says. "The kind that makes running with an inevitable bounty seem like a far better alternative."

A chorus of thoughts speak over each other, everything suddenly hurtling toward him too quickly. It muddles together, registering more like the echo of blood against the shell of his ear. His focus becomes overwhelmed by parsing through each voice before it dissolves into nothing, his judgement clouds over. He feels himself approaching a threshold of a decision, whether to believe her or not, and while his senses scream at him to deny her, to resolve himself against her, there's something else there, something that's pleading with him to hear her out. It comes anytime he looks at her now, anytime she stares back, and despite her hard expression, despite the tension in her frame, her eyes refuse to settle. They wander, searching, almost uncertain. Or desperate, he thinks. He's seen desperate before in marks, but not quite like this. Not quite so... reliant.

Frustration burns like acid in his gut, rising through his chest and drying his tongue and he's not sure if it comes from her or his own mental strife. His boot wiggles in its binds.

"If you were anything like me," she says, like she's read his mind, "you'd have your eye on this gun. You'd be waiting for me to slip up, for my grip to falter. Waiting for your chance. You wouldn't even be listening to me, you'd just watch and wait."

"Look--"

"--But you're not like me. I've read your files. I studied your cases, waiting for you to show up. I had a hard time figuring out what drives you at first, but I'd neglected to consider Occam's razor. A good shooting hand can pay for most meals, can't it?"

He doesn't respond.

"But you don't go for the messy jobs. You'd rather take shit pay for something that'll let you sleep at night. Sure, you're a killer, but you've got a conscience. More than most of us can say for ourselves."

"What's your point," he says.

"You want to know what I'm saving you from?" She lowers herself to her haunches in front of him, her forearms resting over her knees. "I'm saving you from becoming like me. So you don't have to look at yourself in the mirror and ask yourself how your decent heart ever turned so black."

He mulls on that. The flood of thoughts have softened to an erratic buzz.

He clings to his instincts, clearing his throat. "But you don't care about that. You're not even doing this for me. You're doing it to get an extension on your clock. And at the same time, you want to drag me down with you." He pauses. "I'll end up like you all the same. Running for the rest of my life."

Her brow twitches. "Isn't that better than losing your integrity? Or, hell, your sense of self?"

He isn't sure. The acid builds.

He shakes his head, pushing his doubt away. "The way you talk about him like that, it--it's ridiculous. I've got no reason to suspect him the way you say."

A memory unclogs itself and bubbles upward, but his trust is an ever-moving metronome. He hesitates, uneasy. He swallows harshly before opting to share. "You were right. He wants you back breathing. But he didn't seem angry so much as he seemed... disappointed. Or something between the two."

Her eyes narrow. "Betrayed?"

"Kinda," he says. "The impression I got was he wanted to, well, negotiate your terms."

Vaira's brow creases. No words follow. She instead focuses intently on his helmet, almost studious, her mouth pressed into a firm line.

"All I'm saying is--"

"--You're wrong," she says. "Your impression was wrong. You were lied to."

"How do I know that? Better yet, how do I know you aren't lying?"

"I don't have any reason to lie. I could've just killed you."

"You have every reason to lie," he says. "But I reckon that's a fair point."

"If you're so concerned with thinking I'm bullshitting you, then I'd like to make myself tremendously clear, for a moment. If we're being honest and all that."

Her voice lowers. She leans forward. "If you decide to take him at his word and bring me back to him, if it even crosses your mind, I swear to everything in my life I hold dear that I will not stop fighting you until one of the two of us is dead. And if you get the upperhand somehow, if you get your chance, I want you to promise me you won't miss."

He flinches. The air gets caught in his chest.

She adds, "They'll punish you less for that, if it helps. Better to lose one plaything than two."

The thoughts in his head have gone quiet all together. The metronome's gears grind.

He speaks again after a spell. "Say I believe you," he measures his words carefully. "Say I'm in. What then?"

Her expression clears ever so slightly. "Then we find the bug on your ship."

"My ship," he repeats.

"The three of us won't fit in mine," she says, simply. "We find it, tear it out, and leave it here. They'll send someone else in your place and by that time, we'll be long gone. I know a few good hiding spots, I'm sure you do too. You can drop me off somewhere, if it so bloody pleases you. It's easier for you; no one knows your face, your name. I could change mine I suppose, maybe swap species entirely."

"You might have the cash for something like this. But I sure as hell don't."

Vaira snickers. "Well, that's easy. I'm greedy, not stingy."

"We're still fucked, Kingfisher, no way around it."

"You've been fucked," she says. "You've been fucked since he found you as my replacement. I'm trying to unfuck you, 'Cap. This is our only chance."

His helmet lulls. Anxiety leeches the warmth from his hands.

"You offered a pretty good deal earlier, you know. If I shoot you, everybody gets off square, justice gets dealt. This shit fades, we'll be in my ship, I get a gun and it's over. What's to stop me from doing that?"

"You won't," she says.

"I won't," he repeats.

"No." She's smirking now, white glinting past her lips. "Because you're not like me."

His head jerks back. "What's that got anything to do with it?"

"For starters, you didn't notice that I lowered the gun ages ago."

His eye follows her arm. His gun sits between her knees, rocking back and forth, its grip held loosely between her thumb and index finger.

Skullcap exhales slow.

"That ain't any fair."

She snaps the gun back into her palm before he decides to prove her wrong. It's twirled into the holster on her leg and she stands with it, her hands finding her hips. She towers over him, shifting her weight to one leg.

"What is, in this business?"

From the ground, he isn't in a position to argue with that. He redirects instead.

"You sure keep acting like my opinion matters any, like I got some say."

"You're not a hostage," she says. "We'd be working together."

"Sure doesn't feel like it from here."

Vaira hums. "Do you trust me?"

"What do you think?"

"Then the feeling's mutual," she says. "And until you trust me, I can't trust you. But."

"But?"

"I'd like to. And I understand that earning your trust is not an easy feat, but we can work on it."

He laughs dryly through his nose. "You could start by untying me."

"You're so cute." She sighs. "Fine. Little by little. I'm not such a hard arse that I'll drag you there again this time. I'll free your legs once I'm ready."

"On the flip side of things, then." He readjusts, finally able to bend his knees through the binding. "What if I say no?"

She shrugs. "Would you prefer being left to die?"

He gestures loosely with his shoulders. "But wouldn't that be easier? What exactly do you gain from taking me?"

Her head tilts. She narrows her eyes, as if in thought. Her cheek twitches.

After a moment she says, "I'm not entirely sure." She sucks air through her teeth. "Maybe you're right. Maybe I am lonely. It's nice having someone to talk to after so long. Or, well, someone who talks back." She glances at the shadow behind him. "Sorry, my love."

The bird snaps its beak.

Skullcap dwells on her words. It was an intuition he'd pulled out from somewhere, but with hindsight, perhaps it'd been projection. For the first time he considers if this is some universal hunter experience, why so often those of his creed join together as a group. He reflects on his many hours spent within silence, between his own breath and the groan of his ship's hull. Sometimes he didn't mind it. Sometimes he did.

He wonders how Vaira spends her time alone. He wonders how she copes.

These ideas come at a surprise to him and he wills them away. They recede, but not far.

"Right." She bursts through his bubble and he jerks back into focus. "Well, I'm going to collect my things. Let me know what you decide. Or if you, ah, need anything."

She turns on her heel, stepping beyond the storage device, deeper into the cave. He hears the pull of metal across dirt and rock, the opening and closing of clasps unseen. Her head bobs distantly, wandering deeper into the stretch of cavern than he realized initially existed.

Aquila's nails drag across the rock above him, as if to remind him of her presence. He doesn't concern himself with it. Instead, he deflates with a breath he hadn't realized had accumulated, shrinking into the stone at his back. Neither his judgement nor his morals have any answers left to give him now. He visualizes his thoughts as a mass of white, intangible and empty. He opts to go limp, then, letting his head fall back with a clunk as he stares at the clusters of moonrock above.

He can't help but ask himself what she would do in his position. Then he realizes, of course, she'd already given him her answer. A gun provides an easy solution to any ethical dilemma.

Her earlier threat suddenly returns to him and settles anew, like something raw in his stomach. He suppresses a shudder. Skullcap has to remind himself that easy does not always mean just. Too many unanswered questions. Too much doubt.

His thoughts then, naturally, turn to the emperor. Skullcap cannot reconcile his own predicament with even the smallest proximity to Zusk; it's like his parts can't fit right in the picture, like if he willed it, the matter would simply dissolve before him. But as he considers it, he can't quite visualize how Zusk would address any transgression against him. The various middle men he's sent to deal with Skullcap can only convey so much about him, let alone his motives. Vaira's bias threatens to sway him; was that his intent all along? Or just an inadvertent flaw illuminated by hindsight?

Skullcap didn't know. He doesn't know. The uncertainty churns away at his insides and his knuckles dig into his forearms. He isn't sure what's worse: stuck, forced idle, waiting at an unknown precipice or not knowing which way he'd run even if he could.

So he opts to breathe. To focus on each breath as if it were his last, to savor them like a last meal. Every inhale welcomes a new exhale, another tick of the clock that he can claim as his own, something definitively his.

Until he's forced to move, to act, at least he will have this. At least this solution was still his own.

[obaewankenope]

The Second Life of Sandu Shengshou, chapter 2

[Ao3] 

Getting to Cloud Recesses earlier than the guest lectures that had been the beginning of a whole lot of fucking drama is, Jiang Cheng accepts, easier than he expected only because his parents seem inclined to grant him any wish now he’s not dead anymore.

Apparently, there’s rumours that the son of Jiang Fengmian and Yu Ziyuan either a) never really died and eloped with some rogue Cultivator (he’s twelve, what the fuck?) who then spurned him, b) is a fierce corpse that decided to just act like nothing was wrong at all (that’s not how fierce corpses even work, and Jiang Cheng would know since his brother is the Yiling fucking Patriarch) or, c) is a doppelganger with the exact same ability to be absolutely murderously protective of his siblings, going so far as to threaten his own parents if they so much as looked at his shixiong wrong.

The rumours are, naturally, a little bit right and a whole lot wrong. Well, one of them sort of is which is honestly better than he expects of people who know fuck all about him. Jiang Cheng isn’t a doppelganger of course—isn’t he though; it’s not like he’s the same twelve-year-old who died an ignoble death on a night-hunt because he’d been insistent that he could handle it, shut up Wei Wuxian!—but he is absolutely willing to throw down with anyone who bad mouths his brother; including his mother.

His mother, the purple spider who still terrifies him because she’s his mother, but who stops and looks at her son with wide eyes and an honest sort of pride at his very fierce desire to fight her. Gaining some outward display of approval from his mother apparently is as simple as growing a backbone. Who knew?

His mother’s behaviour toward Wei Ying has definitely changed for the better since Jiang Cheng has taken it upon himself to make it very fucking clear that no-one is permitted to hurt him. As much as Yu Ziyuan is the Madam of Lotus Pier, Jiang Cheng is the Sect Heir and he’s lived as a Sect Leader during shitty times, peaceful times, and absolutely soul-destroying times. His mother respects the fact that her son can stop Zidian without being its master.

Jiang Cheng is going to have to address that too because he sort of misses Zidian even if he’s okay with only Sandu right now. He’s thrashed Wei Ying half a dozen times since he “came back” with moves that he knows his brother won’t learn for another year. It’s had the added bonus of encouraging his brother to really go all in for studying how to beat him again, and made his parents look actually sort of proud of him.

The fact that he and Wei Ying both team up to encourage A-Jie to improve her own sword work draws surprise from many because everyone knows A-Jie is going to marry the peacock and will just be an ornament in Koi Tower rather than an actual fighter. Jiang Cheng and his shixiong both resolve to make sure A-Jie is more than what others expect her to be because no. Jiang Cheng lost both his siblings because of others expectations and biases of them. Fuck that.

A-Jie doesn’t thank them in the beginning because she has spent years accepting the fact that her cultivation isn’t high enough, but Jiang Cheng knows that a core can be strengthened through a variety of ways. A-Jie needs to be passably good with a sword for focus reasons, and also because sometimes having a sword helps stave off danger because no one likes a sword pointed at them, but the primary tools Jiang Cheng and A-Ying agree A-Jie should learn are talismans and arrays.

Talismans are useful for any cultivator, especially when the cultivator knows someone as insanely creative as A-Ying or someone with an unfair advantage like Jiang Cheng. He definitely isn’t smug about “coming up” with new talismans that are definitely ones A-Ying would have thought of eventually. He really isn’t.

Gusu Lan invites the Sect Heir of Yunmeng Jiang to Cloud Recesses two months after he makes the request of them. He politely informs Lan Qiren—acting in the place of his secluded brother until his eldest son can take his place—that A-Jie and A-Xian will be accompanying him. The fact that he doesn’t word it as a request for Lan Qiren to extend the invitation to his siblings is irrelevant because Jiang Cheng refuses to leave them in Lotus Pier without him there to make sure they’re safe.

Sect Leader Lan responds that the siblings of Jiang Wanyin are welcome also to Cloud Recesses.

How wise of him.

Of course, Jiang Cheng is well-aware that Lan Qiren will regret allowing A-Xian to enter Cloud Recesses and get anywhere near his precious second nephew, but Jiang Cheng doesn’t care about how Lan Qiren will feel about it when he knows Wei Ying will be happy with Lan Wangji.

After Jiang Cheng has a chat with Wei Ying about teasing and flirting and how they’re one-in-the-fucking-same when it comes to a certain Lan. He’s well-aware the conversation is going to be excruciatingly awkward for them both but Jiang Cheng raised a nephew alone and rebuilt a Sect; he watched the world change and grow and helped it do so. He can tell his brother that when he talks about how nice a certain cultivator’s eyes are, his ears, his fucking nose that Wei Ying wants to marry said cultivator even if they happen to be made out of fucking jade and have no facial expressions to speak of!

Wei Ying is very confused and assumes Jiang Cheng has a crush.

He pushes him in the river and leaves him to swim to shore, shouting at A-Xian that he’s an idiot who won’t know love when it literally ties them together with a white ribbon in a damned cave.

Yeah, Jiang Cheng learnt about that little event thirty-seven-years after it happened! He’s still a little sore about not being told his brother had gotten married at fifteen.

Just a little, mind.

* * * *

Acting Sect Leader Lan Qiren and Lan Xichen greet Jiang Cheng and his siblings when they are presented in the Welcoming Hall of Cloud Recess. Lan Wangji is standing off to the side, near his brother but further back, clearly showing that he is there because it is his duty and not because he cares about Yunmeng Jiang invading Cloud Recess.

Jiang Cheng doesn’t really care about how Lan Wangji feels about their arrival disrupting the Second Jade’s seclusion. He’s more interested in shoving Lan Wangji and his brother at each other while also possibly dropping as many hints as he can that Wen Ruohan wants to destroy Cloud Recesses because he’s an evil bastard who needs to die, die, die.

Just a normal day for Jiang Cheng.

“Welcome, Jiang-gongzi, Wei-gongzi and Jiang-guniang,” Lan Qiren says and he sounds mostly sincere about the welcoming. Jiang Cheng knows that won’t last the moment A-Xian opens his mouth. “I hope your stay at Cloud Recess will be peaceful and beneficial to you.”

Jiang Cheng and his siblings bow in unison, a practised move that he roped A-Jie into who then roped A-Xian into by giving him that look of hers neither of them can resist.

“Jiang Wanyin, Wei Wuxian, and Jiang Yanli are honoured by your hosting of us at Cloud Recess,” Jiang Cheng replies, still bowing, and he’s pretty pleased that he doesn’t mess up the words or sound unnecessarily aggressive. Decades of playing politics makes interactions that would have once had him a nervous mess at twelve seem like a breeze.

He could probably even talk to Wen Ruohan without cursing in the bastards face. Jiang Cheng straightens from his bow. No, no he couldn’t, actually. Wen Ruohan is too much even for Jiang Cheng to handle without attempting murder outright.

Sect Conferences are going to be a challenge.

Rooms have been prepared for them and they are directed to them by Lan Wangji who, Jiang Cheng notices, keeps an exceptionally tight grip of his sword. A grip that seems to tighten even more whenever Wei Ying smiles or laughs with his Shijie. It’s almost nauseating to realise that Lan Wangji was interested in Wei Ying from the start.

Jiang Cheng is appalled. It’s not romantic. Nope. Not at all.

His brother is horrifyingly oblivious if he didn’t notice this about Lan Wangji. Even now, three years before they would have originally met, Lan Wangji seems interested in Wei Ying in a way the Second Jade obviously isn’t in Jiang Cheng or A-Jie

Jiang Cheng sighs.

Why does Jiang Cheng have to suffer having such an oblivious genius for a shixiong?

He’s going to have to include A-Jie in his scheming for shoving Lan Wangji and Wei Ying together. His sister, Jiang Cheng knows, will assist without hesitation. A-Jie has always gone above and beyond for her XianXian. So much so, she died for him.

That will not be allowed to happen again.

First things first, Jiang Cheng needs to figure out a way to talk to Lan Xichen and build up some sort of rapport with the soon to be Sect Leader. One of the biggest issues he faced in his first life was the way Yunmeng Jiang was isolated from the other elite sects; partly due to Jiang Cheng being Jiang Cheng but also due to scheming bastards who he will not allow the chance to start scheming this time around.

That means he needs to engage with Lan Xichen, Zewu-Jun, First Jade of Lan, and not make a fucking fool of himself. Easy.

It is not easy.

Getting the chance to talk to Lan Xichen is easy but the chance to talk to him alone without Lan Qiren or Lan fucking Wangji following and joining in and talking—well, Lan Qiren joins in, Lan Wangji just stands there like an ice sculpture that someone didn’t even bother trying to make look human—is next to impossible.

In the end, Jiang Cheng employs both of his siblings as distractions just so he can at least say five damned words to Lan Xichen without one of his relatives lurking.

He doesn’t want to know how A-Xian keeps Lan Wangji distracted, he doesn’t, but A-Jie at least will distract Lan Qiren with discussions on the running of a sect. Bless his sister. Also bless his brother, but silently; A-Ying’s ego is big enough as it is.

Lan Xichen is, at least, pleasantly polite about talking with Jiang Cheng alone which is nice. Nice and with the expression on Zewu-Jun’s face, apparently alarming. What does he think Jiang Cheng is going to do; attack him in Cloud Recess?

Jiang Cheng is an angry twelve-year-old with a lifetime of experiences. He’s not stupid, just rash sometimes.

“I assume Zewu-Jun is aware,” Jiang Cheng says with all the seriousness a twelve-year-old can muster; a lot when that twelve-year-old is a scowling ex-sect leader, “of the rumours surrounding my being alive.” Lan Xichen nods. “They’re wrong. Mostly.”

“Your request to visit Cloud Recess was intriguing young master Jiang,” Lan Xichen says with that bland smile of his that absolutely screams discomfort at the topic but a stubborn refusal to admit discomfort. Jiang Cheng had seen it a lot in relation to Jin Guangyao in those later years. “Sect Leader Jiang informed us of your death and your return. It has caused some discussion among the Elders.”

Some discussion is probably Lan-code for quiet shouting about wicked sorcery to bring him back to life or something equally fucking stupid from them. Jiang Cheng doesn’t roll his eyes but he wants to.

“I have no idea how I came back,” he tells Lan Xichen because it’s true, he doesn’t. “I remember dying and then waking in a forest clearing with a fierce corpse trying to eat my face.” Lan Xichen doesn’t grimace at the mental image like A-Ying had, but there’s still a flicker of horror.

“That must have been an unexpected surprise,” Lan Xichen says with all the tact of a Lan.

“Bigger surprise was my own parents taking turns trying to kill me,” Jiang Cheng replies with a shrug and that makes Lan Xichen grimace a little.

Jiang Cheng finds the expressiveness of this still-teenaged Lan Xichen to be very fascinating. In an academic sort of way. Lan Wangji, even as a teenager, is more like a wall of ice whilst his older brother has more emotional nuance. It’s interesting.

“That’s not the important thing,” Jiang Cheng continues, ignoring how Lan Xichen’s expression very much says that is the important thing. It’s not, but he can understand how Lan Xichen thinks it is.

Parents trying to kill their child is sort of a big deal, but Jiang Cheng honestly is just pleasantly pleased that he has parents still. It’s almost novel.

“What, then, is the important thing, Jiang-gongzi?”

There’s a little note of frustration in Lan Xichen’s words that makes Jiang Cheng want to smirk at the other. It’s a reminder of dull Sect Conferences where Jiang Cheng got to watch Lan Xichen become steadily more and more annoyed with people. He finds it somewhat reassuring to know that the Sect Leader Jiang Cheng came to know in a distant acquaintance sort of way isn’t all that different from this young Sect Leader now. Well, Sect Heir, still, but Jiang Cheng knows that’s not going to last much longer.

“The important thing is that I’m a lot older than twelve and have been for a long, long time,” Jiang Cheng says, holding up a hand when Lan Xichen frowns at him. “My mother attacked me with Zidian which protects against possession, so no, I’m not possessed. I’m still me, just not the me who died on a fucking night-hunt I shouldn’t have actually snook out to join.”

Jiang Cheng watches Lan Xichen closely. The First Jade isn’t reaching for his sword, or liebing, but also doesn’t seem to be reacting at all to Jiang Cheng’s words.

Maybe he’s in shock?

“I became Sect Leader at seventeen, after Lotus Pier was attacked and my Sect was decimated. Only my brother and sister and I escaped because of my mother.” Jiang Cheng’s voice doesn’t break or tremble as he says this out loud for the first time. It doesn’t. It just gets a little... Just a little.

“I lost my core and my brother, the idiot, gave me his and I went to war. We won but my brother paid the price for fear and hatred, and I didn’t save him. I lost him” Jiang Cheng confesses, quietly. “I lost them both.”

There’s tears in his eyes and the Jiang Cheng of ten, twenty years ago would have wiped them away angrily, denying that he was crying at all. But Jiang Cheng had died an old man who suffered so much and learnt to value the happiness he seldom had.

He doesn’t wipe away the tears.

He lets Lan Xichen see them.

He's earned the right to be unashamed of feeling.

“I came back and I don’t know why but they’re alive and they’re safe and I need your help to keep them that way,” Jiang Cheng tells Lan Xichen with more seriousness than he’d ever possessed as a twelve-year-old. “I need you help to protect everyone.”

Lan Xichen finally speaks. “From what?”

Jiang Cheng scowls. He knows there’s a hatred in his eyes, he can’t and won’t hide it. “Wen Ruohan,” he spits the name like he’s coughing up poisoned blood. “He tried to take over the cultivation world. Attacked Cloud Recess and Lotus Pier. Your brother was captured in the attack here.” Lan Xichen looks at Jiang Cheng with the horror of an older brother who is tasked with the care of a younger.

“He survived the war,” Jiang Cheng tells him, because Lan Xichen was many things in Jiang Cheng’s life, but right now in this time, Lan Xichen is an older brother who hasn’t done anything against Jiang Cheng or those he loves. He can be kind.

The relief on Lan Xichen’s face reminds Jiang Cheng of the relief he felt after those three months. It stings.

“Why are you telling me this?” Lan Xichen asks. “What do you believe I can do?”

Jiang Cheng is silent. The question of what he wants Lan Xichen to do is difficult to answer. It’s not that he wants Zewu-Jun to do anything specifically; Jiang Cheng is well aware that Lan Xichen has obligations and duties here at Cloud Recess. He doesn’t want to ask Lan Xichen to help him kill Wen Ruohan before the bastard starts a war, but he sort of does because help would be nice.

Really, what Jiang Cheng wants Lan Xichen to do boils down to don’t fall for a lunatic with a chip on his shoulder just because he’s the son of a whore, and don’t let said lunatic kill one of the only decent people who has some fucking integrity as well as, maybe, don’t just sit by and let an entire people be wiped fucking out in an outright act of genocide. Also, support your brother and be happy for him being with A-Ying without being biased against my brother.

He can’t actually tell Lan Xichen any of that, of course, because Jiang Cheng doesn’t know how to.

He’s silent long enough that Lan Xichen finally speaks again.

“Jiang-gongzi?”

“Protect Cloud Recess from attack,” Jiang Cheng blurts, saying something at least. He wants to tell Lan Xichen more, he needs to tell someone but Zewu-Jun isn’t who he wants to actually talk to about all this.

His siblings are.

“Ward it, protect your treasures better, your library,” Jiang Cheng bites out. “Don’t ignore your responsibilities even when you’re grieving. Don’t let your brother suffer for being righteous. Don’t let my brother suffer for doing the right fucking thing! Just- just don’t fuck up.”

Jiang Cheng stands quickly. Lan Xichen rises also; he looks distressed. Or worried.

“Thank you for your time, Sect Leader Lan.” Jiang Cheng bows. His body feels like he’s jumped into the cold pool that he knows exists at Cloud Recess. There’s a sharp ache in his chest and his lower dantian burns. “I must go.”

Lan Xichen isn’t finished with his own bow before Jiang Cheng is rushing out the room.

A-Jie and A-Ying aren’t in the guest rooms they’ve been given for their visit. Jiang Cheng takes the opportunity presented by this to throw himself into their shared room and slam the door behind him. His knees fold of their own accord and Jiang Cheng ends up leaning against the wall by the door, knees tucked to his chest as he tries to just breathe.

Thinking about what he needs to do is one thing, saying it out loud is something different. Lan Xichen had asked him what Jiang Cheng wanted him to do.

Jiang Cheng doesn’t even know what he wants to do.

Writing to Cloud Recess and arranging his brothers introduction to Lan Wangji was something Jiang Cheng did because he wants his brother happy. Lan Wangji makes A-Ying happy. He’s planning on dragging Jin Zixuan to Lotus Pier at some point for A-Jie, but that requires more planning than a letter to Cloud Recesses did.

Jiang Cheng has lived an entire life where he ended up almost entirely alone. He had only a nephew for sixteen years and a Sect he had to rebuild in a place that was burnt to the ground. A-Ying came back and it still took Jiang Cheng so, so long to accept his brother again and not drive him away with his anger and inability to communicate.

Things are better now, in this second life, but the first has left Jiang Cheng wounded in ways he can’t explain.

Before everything went wrong, the three of them were inseparable. The Twin Prides of Yunmeng who were wrangled by their beloved A-Jie. Jiang Cheng has already endeavoured to improve A-Jie’s cultivation, with A-Ying’s help, and he is determined for them to be known as a trio rather than a pair.

The only people Jiang Cheng can really talk to about what he has lived through are the two people he loves more than he has ever loved anyone else besides his nephew.

A-Jie, Jiang Cheng knows, will handle what he tells her better than A-Ying. A-Ying will learn of how he was an excuse to destroy their Sect and how he, Jiang Cheng, blamed him for years for things A-Ying was tricked into.

Jiang Cheng is terrified he will drive his brother away with the truth.

But Jiang Cheng knows A-Ying deserves to know.

He just hopes A-Jie will be willing to wrangle them both a little longer and keep A-Ying from fleeing out of misplaced guilt.

Jiang Cheng let’s out a choked laugh, wiping at his face with his sleeve. Who is he kidding, A-Jie can wrangle them both with a look; Jiang Cheng knows A-Jie will be able to keep A-Ying from running from them.

Jiang Cheng will help.

He lost his brother once before, he will never let that happen again. Never.

* * * *

Jiang Cheng is introduced to the Elders of the Lan Sect and decides, almost immediately, that he hates them. They’re stuffy, obnoxious, and make him long for the days when being angry and intimidating made up the majority of his tools for interacting with other Sects.

Unfortunately, he’s twelve.

The Elders expect Jiang Cheng to answer their questions and don’t like it when he does because there are no records of any cultivator having returned to a previous time in their life, it is not possible!

Jiang Cheng, personally, doesn’t really care if they think its possible or not because he’s living proof that it is.

There’s very little he can do to convince them so, in a burst of temper, Jiang Cheng snaps at the Elder currently denying his existence.

“The late Madam Lan didn’t die until Lan Wangji was six.”

The Elders fall silent. Lan Qiren is in the room and he goes pale at Jiang Cheng’s words.

Another Elder, not the one who drove Jiang Cheng to snap, asks him: “how do you know this?”

“Lan Wangji told my brother and I about her after drinking a cup of wine that had been mistakenly placed in front of him at an Inn we were staying at,” Jiang Cheng answers. “He did not recall the conversation in the morning and my brother and I decided not to mention it to him because it clearly distressed Hanguang-Jun even fifty years later.”

“Fifty years...” Lan Qiren says softly, staring at Jiang Cheng.

“Summon Lan Wangji.” The Elder who had been denying Jiang Cheng’s existence as someone who had died and returned to his life ordered. “I do not believe this fantasy. Let us ask Lan Wangji if he has informed Jiang-gongzi of his mother.”

The way the Elder says ‘mother’ has Jiang Cheng wishing he could give the man a tongue lashing that’d make his mother weep with pride. So much disdain for one who is gone.

How un-Lan-like of that Elder.

Lan Wangji arrives quickly and comes to stand near to Jiang Cheng. He’s close enough that Jiang Cheng can see the tension in the Second Jade at this unexpected summoning.

Lan Wangji has—this time—done nothing wrong and whatever he’s expecting of the Elders, the order to discuss his mother is definitely not something he ever expected judging by the actual emotion Jiang Cheng witnesses cross Lan Wangji’s face. There’s a raw sort of pain in his expression that Jiang Cheng understands on a level he doesn’t think any of these fucking Elders have ever experienced.

Losing a parent hurts. Losing one that loves you hurts worse.

“When did you drink alcohol with Jiang-gongzi?” That same Elder demands of Lan Wangji, not mentioning Jiang Cheng’s brother.

“Alcohol is forbidden in Cloud Recess,” Lan Wangji replies. The Elder scowls at him.

“When, Lan Wangji, did you drink with Wei Wuxian? ” The Elder presses and Jiang Cheng really doesn’t like the way he says A-Ying’s name. “When did you act so shamefully?”

“Lan Wangji has not drank alcohol at all,” Lan Wangji replies. “Not with Jiang Wanyin. Not with Wei Ying.”

If there’s one thing Jiang Cheng will take from this clusterfuck of a meeting with the Lan Elders, it will be hearing Lan Wangji call his brother Wei Ying.

“Lan Wangji does not lie, Elder Yu,” Lan Qiren says, before Elder Yu—Jiang Cheng will remember him—can say anything. “It is a well known fact that my nephew has never lied.”

“This is true, Lan Qiren,” another Elder says, her expression serene. “If it is true that Lan Wangji had not drank alcohol with either Jiang-gongzi or Wei-gongzi, then we must accept Jiang-gongzi’s word as truth. Just because such an event has never been recorded before in the history of cultivation does not mean it has no happened, or is impossible.”

Jiang Cheng decides that he likes this particular Lan Elder. They have a brain, that’s nice to know.

“If Jiang-qianbei is willing,” the Elder continues, “then his wisdom will be welcomed.”

Oh, Jiang Cheng definitely likes this Elder.

Lan Wangji is dismissed and Jiang Cheng, having thought on it in his room before his siblings returned after his talk with Lan Xichen, keeps what he shares with them both vague and informational enough to have them curious and eventually respectful.

Except Elder Yu. He seems to just dislike everything Jiang Cheng has to say. Fortunately, the other Elders are more interested in hearing about Jiang Cheng living an entire life, dying and then waking up as a twelve-year-old.

He doesn’t mention the Sunshot Campaign or what happened to his brother and family. He does mention his Sect being attacked and his becoming Sect Leader, but he doesn’t tell them the when, who, or how of it all. The Elders seem more interested in the academic aspect of his return.

Jiang Cheng can use that.

The Lan Elders are, since they’re Lans, pretty well respected across the cultivation world. Their belief and interest in his circumstances will help him in the long-run.

Jiang Cheng learnt the hard way that sometimes you have to set a plan in motion years in advance. This time, however, he’s the one setting the plan and he’s not going to fuck it up.

The Sunshot Campaign will happen, it has to; the Wen are too powerful even without Wen Ruohan in charge and his heirs are fucking nightmares. Jiang Cheng will have to fight a war and see his disciples die in it. He will see his siblings fear for him and for each other. All of it, for a second time.

But the end result will be different, Jiang Cheng is determined to make it different. The Wen were powerful and not all of them deserved their fates. The Jin cannot be allowed to steal political power in the vacuum that the obliteration of the Wen, the destruction of the Jiang, and the decimation of the Lan allowed them to take. The Nie cannot be harmed by the violent death of their Leader.

So many things need to be taken care of early on.

One of those things is the payment for a prostitute to be freed. Another is a child to be collected by a Jiang disciple before another can set them down a dark path.

Jiang Cheng has more than just his hope that things will be better in this second life; he has a century’s worth of experience, knowledge, and skill and the stubborn will and determination to make the impossible a reality.

Fate and destiny will not rule him. They will not rule those he loves.

Jiang Cheng will fight the world for those he loves. The world will learn to back down because, this time, Jiang Cheng won’t.

[nyeac-nyeac]

You Are My Island

Pairing: Mermaid! Jaemin X Reader

Genre: Fluff

Words: 3371

Summary: Jaemin and the Dreamies are a group of playful youths who like splashing around the coast where the other merfolk usually avoid. Jaemin wanted to collect the most knick-knacks from the basin by the shore and he couldn’t possibly allow himself to lose against Jeno, could he? Of course, that doesn’t really matter if he’s trapped by the receding tide. What really matters is if you will help him get out.

A/N: @jaeminlore, remember that mermaid au I said I was gonna write? Probably not. Well, here it is. I took my sweet time with it... I was on my main when I sent mermaid!jaemin into your asks during jaemin soft hours, so... yeah, this is one is for my kpop stuff and fanfiction. Hope you like the story!

“A hundred, ninety-nine, ninety-eight,” Lucas was eagerly counting down from his spot on the sandbar overlooking seven scattered piles of what could only be trash.

The array of seven brilliantly coloured tails zipping speedily over an algae-covered wall in sporadic intervals was enough to make him dizzy. Every time one of the beating tails reached the sandbar, the translucent fins would beat up a storm to cut the momentum they’ve built up and make a sharp turn around. Clouds of fine sand would billow up from the ocean floor, accompanied by powerful sprays of gravel. He could imagine how much sand he was ingesting while he was floating above it. Ten always said Lucas can’t live in the sea without eating a pound of sand and a few questionable things everyday. He hadn’t been proved wrong yet.

“You’re not counting!” The flaming red blur chided in Donghyuck’s voice. He was brandishing his long fins and nearly smacked Lucas in the face with them, then darted for the wall again in a burst of bubbles. Lucas had to wriggle a little bit higher in the water to rise above the expanding and contracting cluster of dirt, coughing hard enough that he was almost throwing up sand he had inhaled earlier. His throat burns but he was grinning when he croaked out the numbers to continue the train of thought that was carrying the countdown. The Dreamies were competing in a game to see who can gather the most knick knacks from the basin. The winner got to skip out on cleaning out the caves.

“Move some of Renjun’s pile to mine, will you?” A low voice called to him, “I’ll bring you crayfish!” Lucas only caught sight of the flash of sunset pink scales belonging to Jaemin before his tail begun carving the currents and launched him through the oncoming sand clouds.

“You can’t do that!” An indignant voice whined out loud. He saw Mark pausing in the miniature sandstorm to stare after Jaemin. His dumbstruck expression twisted into something much uglier when he heard Jaemin shouting back to Lucas, “I’ll throw in some oysters for you!”

“No!” Mark countered instantaneously as he threw down the loose rocks and assorted litter he was cradling in his arms. He waited until he was right in Lucas’ face to wail out with a stern finger pointing down the latter’s nose, “Do not help Jaemin cheat!”

“Come on, man... He promised me oysters,” Lucas replied weakly in his already scratchy voice. A shameless but sheepish smile pulled at the edges of his lips, his tail flicked nervously.

An audible groan of frustration left Mark’s lips as he whipped around and swam away from the sandbar as fast as he could. “I’m telling Renjun!” He yelled. Whether to Jaemin or had he intended for Renjun to overhear, Lucas couldn’t know for sure. Although, he could hear Jaemin answering with a boisterous laugh which gave way to a lot of playful shouting.

Above the water, things were much more serene. The ebbing morning tides sucked in the ocean breeze, became crested with white sea foam as they crash back down on the sand beneath your feet. Pushing, and then, pulling. Fine sand shifted and slipped away, the whole earth beneath your feet seemed to shift along with them.

The morning sun peeked over the horizon. A warm golden drop of burning light rippled against the rust-coloured sea as the sun’s rays seared a myriad of orange and pinks into the retreating night.

You shoved the veil of violently windblown hair behind your ear, stepping over wet sand with a beach chair under one arm, a bag of chips and your flip flops in hand. You looked back and your footprints had become faded indents when the rolling waves washed onto the shore, taking any distinction they had as footprints out into the sea. Your feet were sinking into the gentle pull of seawater. Fine sand burrowed between you toes as you lift your foot from another print you leave in the ground, sending dollops of wet sand flying.

This summer was different. You usually liked watching the sun rise. You didn’t feel like it was worth watching today because your brother and father weren’t here to enjoy it with you. This was the usual routine for the three of you every summer which your mother was too lazy to join in on. You three would grab a few beach chairs, armfuls of junk food and sneak out of the house while your mother was still sound asleep. Swathed in towels, you walked lazily towards the beach behind your brother and father, one hand digging through the chips they had so unwisely entrusted to you. There was this basin isolated from the beach by steep rocks. Just past the rocks was a narrow stretch of sand that was a smidge whiter than the rest of the beach, a thick line of trees to provide some natural shade, a small pool of water that was slightly less murky than the tide that washes onto the beach. Like a slice of paradise cut from some idyllic beach somewhere in the Southeast. It’s from here where you watch the early sunlight kiss the water and talk about life with two of your closest family.

Your brother will be attending university soon in a different city and your father decided to spend this summer helping your brother find a place to stay. While you were overjoyed for him being accepted into the university he applied for, you dreaded returning home to your father and stepmother without your brother. Of course, there’s nothing wrong at home, per se, you love your stepmother. You just couldn’t stomach it when you noticed how differently your family acted around her and around your mother. At least, with your brother around, his endlessly energetic personality made everyone get along. You and your father, on the other hand, have as much rapport as rocks.

Sitting, now, in your beach chair with the sun in your eyes, the salt of the chip on your tongue tasted foul.

Jaemin’s heart was hammering wildly against his ribcage. He knew he wasn’t the sharpest of their school but he definitely didn’t think he was stupid enough to allow himself to be trapped this way. Innocently oblivious to the passage of time while he was rushing to beat Jeno in the little game they were playing, the receding tide trapped him on the wrong side of the wall. His slender form of pale pink scales swam back and forth at the base of the rock wall that cut the basin off from the rest of the ocean, tail brushing and beating against the grey wall in the hopes of knocking something loose from the wall.

He’d been trapped in the basin for nearly five days, feeding on the meagre few shellfish and small fish swimming around to keep himself from starving. In this dry summer, the seawater that washed into the surf hardly rose any higher than the basin wall. But with five lengthy days, he wondered why hadn’t his friends come for him yet. One way or another, they’d have a plan. They always do.

He stuck his head out above the water and was slapped in the face with the sudden chills of the ocean air. He blinked rapidly, his eyes quickly watering from the sting of the open air. Resorting to squinting out of his left eye, he could make out the serrated teeth that rimmed the top of the wall, the seawater lapping against its jagged edges.

That’s hardly enough room for him to even jump across. Crawling over the wall was obviously out of the question, unless he wanted to shred himself into ribbons and become easy pickings for the gulls.

Of course, failing to escape wasn’t the only thing rattling his bones right now. In the past few days, he’d observed a human female wandering down into the basin on some mornings. He spied her loitering around the rocks away from the beach on a couple of evenings too. If Jaemin ever got discovered, it’d be the end of him. He wouldn’t be a free merfolk anymore. Instead he would be made to become a test subject for experiments, a captive animal for research, a strange creature people pay to see or illegal goods sold for a pretty buck. All of that scared him to the ends of his fins.

He was about to start crying with the path his imagination was starting down until a muffled splash interrupted him. The breath stalled in his chest. Something disturbed the water. Something big, like a person. The already cold water seem to drop a few more degrees once the fact registered in his head. His entire body went stock still, then he curled slowly in on himself. He drew his tightly clenched fists to his chest and tried to seem as small as possible.

Jaemin’s frozen form hit the sand bed, startling him into action. In a flurry of clumsy movements, he quickly darted behind a small shelf of coral. Then, plastered himself to its surface, trying his hardest to hide his colourful pink tail in the otherwise plain looking surroundings. The shadows of regret were creeping up on him as he flicked the fins of his tail nervously. He was starting to think it would’ve been better if he hadn’t moved.

It saw him. It saw him. It definitely saw him.

Fear bubbled within him, sending violent shivers down his back and up to the roots of his hair. He did the best he could to dodge the human’s sight. He would peek around edges of the corals. Every time he believed the human turned away, he darted away to a new hiding place. The human, feeling his movements disturb the water, would follow them sluggishly.

They went round and round the basin until Jaemin made a mistake. He misjudged the window for him to move and the human turned around too quickly. The world felt like it was slowing down as they stared. The human’s dark hair fanned out around her head, falling gently around her shoulders. Her charcoal black doe eyes were wide as they travelled down his body and lingered on his tail. He watched on in apprehension, nearly too afraid to move. Even if he did, what could he do? He’s trapped. Now, he finally understood that human expression he heard from some migrating merfolk— shooting fish in a barrel. It was an expression that unsettled him very much.

The human girl opened her mouth. He almost bolted and it took every strand of his determination to force himself to stay still because he was curious about what she was trying to say. Instead, air bubbles escaped from her lips and her entire body seized up, making him jump. The girl flailed and kicked her way up to the surface. She swam to the shore and stopped returning to the water.

He stayed in the same spot for several minutes before he decided to risk it and raise his head above the water once more.

There she was sitting on the shore, with a colourful towel over her head. The girl flinched when he surfaced. Jaemin’s head bobbed along the surface as he glided closer towards her. The expression of awe melted from her face and she moved further away from the water, her eyes never leaving his own. Little by little, his body rose from the water. Her eyes trailed after the cascades of water that slid over his glistening skin. He could see them clouding up when they stopped at his hips where instead of being joined to a pair of human legs was an iridescent tail that looked as if it could be made of all the pinks of the sunset.

With all the courage he’d mustered, he blurted out, “Can I borrow your leg magic?”

The girl’s eyeballs nearly popped out of their sockets when he spoke. He noticed that his voice was exponentially louder than it was underwater. Perhaps his newfound volume had startled her, or maybe she didn’t understand him at all. He hadn’t considered that they may not be speaking the same language.

But the girl replied almost immediately, “What the hell is leg magic?”

"You know," he mumbled, waving his hand at her legs, "the magic you use to walk around on land."

“I don’t use magic to walk,” she answered.

“Aw, come on. I just need it for a bit to get back into the sea,” Jaemin puckered his lips into a pout and pleaded.

“There’s no such thing,” she said with a shake of her head.

He closed his eyes for a moment and grasped his webbed hands together. In case she thought he wasn’t being serious, he lowered his voice, “I promise, I promise I would return them to you as soon as I enter the water.” He then imitated the most adorable expression he’d ever seen on a baby sea lion. He hoped his cuteness was as charming as he thought it was. Jaehyun said it was passable and Jaemin was sixty percent sure he just said that to be nice.

The girl was beginning to look a little miffed. She got up to her knees and leaned closer to the water, “And I’m telling you that I don’t have any magic. If you want to get back to the sea, I think my neighbour has a wheelbarrow I can use to carry you.”

Jaemin was puzzled by the foreign word she just uttered but nodded anyway, “Yeah, okay. You do that... with your wheel-ey thing.”

She nibbled on her lips and wiggled her finger at him, “Be right back. You stay right there!”

“Not like I’m gonna be going anywhere soon,” he whispered to himself after she shot up from the sand, darted into the trees and disappeared behind the large boulders where the strip of sand ends.

Jaemin drifted idly back and forth in the water for several minutes. The girl was nowhere in sight. The sun had almost completely risen and the sky was starting to turn blue. It made him wonder if she actually planned on coming back to help him. Maybe he should just wait some more for his friends to get the leg magic from the shaman to come on land and rescue him.

Behind him in the low hanging trees, there was a loud clang. He sank swiftly into the water and dove straight into the sand, burying himself like a stonefish. His heartbeat picked up again. He squeezed his eyes tightly shut, praying that whatever made that noise went away quickly.

A few daunting seconds later, he felt a slight disturbance in the water. Then, a muffled voice reached his ears, “Oi! Fish boy, you there?”

Relief flooded his body. He lifted his head from the sand, snorting some sand from his nostrils as he leaped to the surface. He never thought he’d be so happy to hear the voice of a human. The girl let out a small scream when he broke the surface so suddenly and kicked a chunk of the beach into his face. He spluttered and shook off the wet sand, the bright smile never leaving his face. “You’re back!” he cheered.

The girl looked like she wanted to hit him.

She sighed, “Well, apparently, pushing a wheelbarrow isn’t as easy as it looks. I couldn’t get it past the rocks, so I’d have to carry you to it. How heavy are you?”

He blinked and shrugged. One thing to be proud of in merfolk culture is that nobody cares about how much you weigh because nobody knows how much they weigh anyway.

Again, she looked like she wanted to hit him. She mirrored his shrug and waddled apprehensively to him. She turned her back to him and hunkered down. “Come on, put your arms around my shoulders.”

The girl shivered when he did, exclaiming in mild shock, “Oh my god, you’re really cold.” Her hands fumbled a bit, trying to support his tail. She proceeded to sit in the water after she shifted his weight onto her back.

“...you’re the heaviest fish I ever held,” she grunted as she struggled to stand.

“Hey,” he scolded softly, “The correct term is merperson. I’m still only part fish, you know.”

“Sorry,” she mumbled sheepishly.

In the end, it turned out that Jaemin was indeed quite heavy in human terms. Definitely way too heavy for the girl to stand with him on her back. They continued floundering about until the sun was hanging dead centre in the crystalline blue sky. After some deliberation, she had Jaemin latch on to her while she stood in a deeper part of the basin, so she’d be standing when she dragged him out of the water.

“Are you gonna be okay out of the water?” she inquired before she moved out of the water, “You won’t asphyxiate or anything, right?”

“Asfee- what?” he gave a amused smile. That was a funny sounding word.

“Asphyxiate. It means to choke to death,” she repeated.

“Oh,” his smile fell ever so slightly. That’s not funny. It’s not funny at all. He knew he won’t choke from not being able to breathe with his gills but to think that word had such a dark meaning.

“Haha... I’ll be fine, I think. Merfolk are part human, so we have to have some lungs, right?” Jaemin proceeded to suck the air into his lungs through his nostrils and breathed out in a loud sigh. The cold ocean air felt alien and it burned against his windpipes but the raw feeling of air rattling inside his chest in that small instant was so unexpectedly... delicious.

He sucked in another lungful of air and laughed, “Welp, I’m not asfeeshating! So, let’s go!”

It took a lot of groaning and complaining, but the two of them finally reached the beach beyond the rocks. The human girl rattled off an impressive vocabulary of expletives all the while she was dragging him through the thicket of trees. Jaemin was certain that he lost all of his scales on the underside of his tail from having it rub against every bump and surface they came across. But hey, he‘s probably one of the few merfolk who had ever had a sunburn.

There was a really tiny-looking boat on the sand before them with a weird round thing at the bottom. It’s the whatchamacallit... the wheel-y boat.

He would admire it but he didn’t have the chance because as soon as the girl saw it, she dropped him into it with a shout. They progressed very slowly towards the water’s edge, twisting this way and that while she was trying her best not to topple him over. When the seawater made it to the girl’s torso, the wheel boat lurched and he was dumped face first into the ocean floor.

He lifted his head and blinked at the open waters. With an ecstatic whoop, he shot up from the sand and swam tight circles around the girl’s legs. His newfound freedom compelled him to leap out of the water as he swam, drenching her with his splashes.

He came to a halt in front of her, relishing the stunned look on her face. He took a moment to marvel at how her irises catch the sunlight and turn into the warmest shade of brown. He’d never seen anyone’s eyes do that before. An idea struck him and he unhooked his favourite piercing from his ear, the one with the thin golden chain, and he fastened it to her ear. His heart did little somersaults in his chest as he watched her cheeks flushed red.

“I’ll come back with real leg magic next time!” Jaemin shouted his promise to the flustered human and dove into the foam of the waves.

The little merman was unclear if the noises in his heart was the exhilaration from finally gaining his freedom... or if it was the anticipation from the promise of seeing her again.

[strahd-von-asthmavich]

The Dread Lands of Ravenloft - Mod Van Richten’s New England In-Table Campaign [Session 2]

Session Highlights Catalogue

The Mists continue to lure the adventurers to Vallaki. Along the way, they cross paths with the well known seer that tells them what they need to do to start on course.

Side Note: Any art that I share of NPCs within these highlight posts is my (Mod Van Richten) original and fan art. Any art that I use as characters for my players that wasn’t created by myself but by other artists online is kept private and within our friend circle.

Abrascus Barbarian (3) Path of the Ancestral Guardian Race: Tortle Background: Haunted One

Direthorn Rogue (3) Swashbuckler Race: Drow Background: Urchin

Flopsy Barbarian (3) Path of Wild Magic Race: Rabbit Man Background: Experiment

Mangus  Monk (3) Way of the Open Hand Race: Half Elf Background: Urchin

Neracahne Wizard (3) School of Evocation Race: Eladrin Background: Noble

Nyra Rogue (3) Phantom Race: Fairy Background: Noble

Hear about the curious start to their newest quest under the cut:

The start of their trip to Vallaki goes without a hitch... until they’re suddenly halted at a crossroad. One of the wheels of the wagon is broken, nearly leveling the party that’s seated inside. After further investigation, they find that the wheel is knocked out of alignment by strange wooden needles. These needles come from needle blights.

As soon as they deduce this, they’re surrounded by two needle blights and eight twig blights. As they all try to figure out tactics, each member of the party (including the NPCs) shows each other just what they’re capable of (except poor Mangus, who didn’t get to hit a target). Their newest companion in particular, Escher, is a powerful spellcaster whose magic seems to be of a darker nature.

After the blights are killed, they’re confronted by a Vistana who offers to help them repair the wagon. While they wait, she does offer that they should go to Tser Pool for some food and to rest. At the encampment, they all hear an interesting story about a suspicion regarding red-headed women.

Girls born with red head are notoriously unlucky. This all started hundreds of years ago, when someone that the storyteller calls “The Devil” (which is also associated as a substitute for Strahd) lost the love of his life, who also had red hair. From that moment on, red heads were sought after, when they weren’t trying to conceal themselves or hide away. At hearing this story, Nyra insists that Ireena needs to cover hair in order to protect herself. Neracahne gives her her cloak to do this.

The adventurers are soon reminded of the person that Stanimir had told them to see if they were in trouble: Madam Eva. She resides at this encampment and was actually expecting them. When they see her, she tells them their fortunes by drawing Tarokka cards. They each get their own fun readings, some easily being interpreted as prophetic.

There is, however, a fortune that’s meant for all of them. This information is meant to help guide them, for they’ll need certain items and allies to aid them in their new journey.

The fortune goes as follows, with five Tarokka cards:

“This card tells of history. Knowledge of the Ancient will help you better understand your enemy.”

7 of Stars - Illusionist

“A man is not what he seems. He comes here in a carnival wagon. Therein lies what you seek.”

“This card tells of a powerful force for good and protection, a holy symbol of great hope.”

3 of Glyphs - Healer

“Look to the west. Find a pool blessed by the light of the white sun.”

“This is a card of power and strength. It tells of a weapon of vengeance: a sword of sunlight.”

8 of Stars - Necromancer

“A man of undeath locks away his gravest mistake in a place right under your noses. On a hearth made in delusion, among a web of lies and wrath, he relies on naivety to keep secrets locked away. But beware, your weapon is useless without a spark.”

“This card sheds light on one who will help you greatly in the battle against darkness.”

High Deck - Executioner

“Seek out the brother of the devil’s bride. They call him “the lesser,” his vision blinded by a river of wine, but he has a powerful soul and holds more worth about him beyond his understanding.”

“Your enemy is a creature of darkness, whose powers are beyond mortality. This card will lead you to him!”

High Deck - Marionette

“The devil sits on his dark throne, entertaining himself with a macabre reception of undeath.”

Madam Eva also warns the party to not expect creatures of undeath to be as easy to defeat as they are in the Material Plane. After all, this domain is owned by a vampire. Undead here are harder to keep dead after what one would assume is the killing blow.

Shortly after their fortune, their wagon is ready to go again. Mangus insists that he should be the one to drive now, since Escher has proven to be a terrible driver. Even with Escher arguing with him that the wheel breaking was not his fault, Mangus still ends up being the one driving to Vallaki from now on. Through that, however, the party now has a map to reference whenever they have somewhere they want to go to.

Through the fortune, they all realize that Ismark plays a bigger role in aiding them they realize, piecing together that he’s what the “Executioner” card represents. Meanwhile, Ismark looks uncomfortable at the notion that they need him, and he seems to want to dodge the idea that he has more purpose than he’s always made to believe.

Mangus proves to be a pretty good driver, even though he purposefully runs over a bump to startle Escher. The party also begins to aggressively interrogate Escher, after he’s caught smiling at Neracahne again in the wagon. They manage to make him talk about himself, even though he insists that he only knew of Neracahne after she’d told him her name.

They also question him over his magic, finding out that he’s a necromancer. They accuse him of being evil, but he insists that it’s just a stereotype. Flopsy agrees with him and says that being evil is relative. Flopsy’s a little flustered when Escher implies that he seems smarter than they all think he is.

By the time the traveling ends for the day, they pass through the gates at the crossroad that forks between the road to Vallaki and the road to Castle Ravenloft. Coming towards the gate from the other road, Mangus sees a young woman walking alone. Nyra also sees her from inside the wagon.

As soon as the woman’s known to the rest of the party, Escher is suddenly in a rush to get out and urges Mangus to stop the wagon. He runs outside to confront the woman, and they talk to each other about how he’s concerned about where she’s going and that it’s dangerous.

At this, the players are curious. They ask her what her name is, and she tells them: Adelaide. Escher is quick to try and shut down any personal questions that they try to ask her. He’s angry that they’re so bold to keep asking about the relationship between the two of them.

Finally, they make him cave in. He tried to lie and say that Adelaide was his sister, but in the end, he tells them the truth, after more and more questions. Adelaide is Escher’s daughter.

Escher doesn’t find the party the least bit favorable after being accosted for the most mundane things. The only one he still seems to have a good rapport with is Neracahne, who didn’t question him or accuse him of anything.

After the interrogation, it’s time for the party to rest. Direthorn sleeps outside in a tree, and Flopsy takes the first watch, with Direthorn taking the second so that Flopsy can sleep.