#and it's way too heckin long

[minnesota-fats]

This took me 8 hours plz appreciate it!!!

Jon isn’t having a good time.

Zoom in undercut

[lightsoutletsgo]

welcome home — op.81 (18+)

pairing: oscar piastri x fem!reader (occasional allusions to reader being thick and a little chubby but mostly non-descriptive of body!)

word count: 4.5k

warnings: (hold onto your hats folks, it’s a long list 🧍‍♀️) SMUT!! porn with very little plot, don’t be silly, wrap your willy! creampie, breeding kink, allusions to oscar being bi, use of sex toys, light degrading (slut, whore), a hint of overstimulation, spanking (ass and thighs),  mentions of reader making a HECKIN lot of mess, oscar catches reader and watches her without her knowing!!

hi loves! this is the fic I wrote last night after the tequila hit and when I read it this morning to proof read it I was like 'wtf did I write?' 😭 I was debating if I should add the whole making out with the toy right there situation but my lovely beta reader @softieekayy said it was perfectly ✨spicy✨ so it has stayed in! as always, read at your own risk. please DO NOT read if you are not 18+! happy reading! mimi 🤍

God you hated triple headers. Okay that was an exaggeration, you loved the excitement of watching your boyfriend do his thing from the other side of the world but what you hated was the fact you didn’t get any of his�� attention for a couple of weeks.

At first the big orange dildo had been a joke. One of your friends had bought it for you when she learned of your relationship with Oscar, “for those weekends you’re alone.” She had said. You had laughed at the bright papaya colour and brushed the whole thing off, denying you would ever need a use for it. But now as the box it sat in stared up at you from the bottom of your wardrobe, you felt a thrill rush down your spine, pussy clenching involuntarily at the thought of being filled up after so long. You leaned against the wardrobe door, closing your eyes and taking a deep breath before slamming it shut and storming back across the room to the bed, throwing yourself into the plush comforter and pillows to let out a yell. You rolled onto your back and sighed. No. You would just wait for Oscar to come home. You could handle a few more days, right? Closing your eyes, you turned your head into Oscar’s pillow and inhaled deeply, moaning at the way his scent invaded your nostrils. God you needed him. You shook your head to clear the thoughts away and focused on sleeping. The faster you slept the sooner tomorrow would come right? Which meant the sooner Oscar would be home. 

You gasped as you felt fingers digging into your thighs and your eyes flew open to see Oscar between your legs, his eyes staring back at yours, hazy with lust as he sucked and nibbled on your clit before dipping his tongue into your cunt to get a taste of your sweetness. Your hands flew to his hair as your back arched. You had no clue where your clothes had gone but you didn’t care, too caught up in the way Oscar wrapped his lips around your clit and shook his head side to side. A shriek left your mouth and your legs closed quickly before he spanked your inner thighs and pushed them open, “Taste so good angel…” Your head dropped back onto the pillow as you felt yourself getting closer and closer to your release. Bucking your hips up you tugged at Oscar’s hair and he let out a growl into your pussy, the vibrations doing nothing but heighten the sensation building in your lower stomach. “O-Oscar…” He smirked up at you, “Yes angel?” “Gonna cum!” You squeaked out at his unrelenting movements, “Then cum for me angel, make a mess all over my face hmm?”

Your eyes snapped open and you jolted upright. It had been a fucking dream? You groaned and led back down, a hand coming up to feel how warm your face was. But it felt so real? You whimpered and squeezed your legs together, already able to feel how much you’d dripped everywhere and soaked your panties. You bit your lip, sliding a hand down between your breasts and stomach, feeling the way your breath caught in your throat the closer you got to your thighs. Sliding your panties off underneath your - well, Oscar’s shirt - you gasped as you realised just how soaked they were and how much of your slick had coated your inner thighs. Sliding your hand down you moaned as you began to rut your pussy against your hand, already turning feral with need. You let out a loud groan and huffed.

Standing up and walking over the wardrobe before grabbing that darn box. Unpacking the dildo and quickly washing it off under the bathroom sink you slid back into bed, not even bothering to get under the covers. You stared at the toy in your hand for a moment, it was just a little over average size, more girth than length, and you couldn’t help but shiver when you realised it was a similar size and shape to your boyfriend. You noted how it had been moulded with a few veins here and there for texture and your mouth watered at the thought it conjured up, of Oscar's cock on your tongue and the way he would groan when your tongue traced the veins on his length.

Lying back down and pulling Oscar’s t-shirt up to halfway up your tummy, you gently dragged the dildo up your inner thighs, enjoying the way you felt your pussy leak onto the sheets. You decided quickly that you’d had enough of teasing yourself and so you moved the toy up to your burning core. 

The toy was cold as it rubbed up and down your lips and you bit your lip, relishing in the tingling sensation everytime it caught your clit. You briefly wondered if you needed lube, but with how much you were dripping you figured you could get some later if you needed it. You dipped the tip of the toy into your entrance and your breath shuddered, “Fuck…” A moan came out involuntarily as you sank the toy into your waiting pussy a little further, relishing in the way it stretched you out so deliciously. “Mmm… Oscar…” You couldn’t help the way your boyfriend’s name slipped from your lips as the toy slid into you more, the textured veins on the toy exciting all those spots inside of you. You let out a satisfied sigh when the toy was pushed into you to the hilt and you gave yourself a moment to enjoy the full feeling it offered, before you were pulling it back out to the tip, mouth dropping open as it dragged against your walls, the silicone quickly warming up to your body temperature. 

You started off slow and gentle, shallow little thrusts that had you whimpering and whining as you fucked yourself the way you knew Oscar would. The hand not using the toy flew up to pull your t-shirt up even more to expose your tits and pinch your nipple. You hummed happily, enjoying the feeling but it was quickly proving to not be enough. You spread your legs wider and began to move the toy with a little more force at a faster speed. Your moans grew a little louder, mixing with the slick wet sounds coming from your pussy. Your hand slid down from where it pinched and pulled your nipples to gently rub your clit. You felt the way you clamped down around the toy and how it made it a little harder to thrust and you smiled, knowing that feeling was something that drove Oscar wild.

At the thought of your boyfriend you let out a rather lewd sound, moving your hips up to meet your hand as you started pounding your cunt with the toy. You were drunk on the feeling, moaning like a pornstar, rubbing your clit faster. You could feel your juices all over your hand and you could hear the way you were creaming all over the toy. 

But what pushed you over the edge was turning your head into Oscar’s pillow once more, inhaling and drowning in him as you came. Clenching down tightly onto the toy as your back arched and your legs shook. Practically crying out Oscar’s name, you almost growled with frustration as your hand didn’t stop, despite how tired you were, still needing more. 

You let out a whimper as your hand cramped and you knew you needed to change positions. Slipping the toy out your eyes widened as you saw exactly how much of a mess you had made all over it. You pushed yourself over onto all fours and buried your face into Oscar’s pillow, moving your hand underneath your stomach and pushing the toy back into you as you fucked yourself face down ass up.

The toy easily slid back into your eager hole and you moaned at the feeling. You didn’t hesitate with teasing yourself this time, instead fucking yourself hard straightaway, a deep moan leaving your mouth as your eyes rolled back. From this new angle, the toy reached even deeper and you needed more of it. You continued railing yourself, moaning and whining Oscar’s name with everything you had in you. 

Oscar sighed with relief, feeling all the tension and stress leave his body as the taxi pulled up in front of the apartment complex. Climbing out with his bags, he thanked the driver and headed up to your shared apartment. He knew it was the early hours of the morning and you would still be asleep but if he could be quiet enough then maybe he could surprise you in the morning with his arms wrapped around you. God he’d missed you. As he reached the doorway of your apartment his stomach flipped with excitement and he didn’t think he’d ever unlocked the door or put his bags down so quickly, desperate to have you in his arms again. But when he got to your bedroom door he stopped. Oscar’s hand hovered over the bedroom door handle as he listened to the noises drifting through from the other side. Were you moaning? He heard the noise again and he didn’t have to strain his ears to pick up the slick wet sounds of you playing with your pussy. He gulped, unsure of what to do. Did he go in and risk you feeling upset and cornered? Or did he deprive you of what you so clearly wanted? Oscar’s head tipped back in a silent groan as another whimpery moan slipped through the door. He opened the door and hsi mouth dropped open at the sight. He’d expected to maybe see you on your back with a hand down your panties but what was in front of him was much more lewd than that. There you were, your ass up in the air jiggling deliciously as you pounded a toy in and out of you, a toy that was the same colour as his car? Oscar growled low in his throat and started to take a step towards you but what stopped him in his tracks was the sight he saw when he got closer to you, noticing how you actually had his t-shirt in your other hand and you had it held up to your face as your eyes rolled back and you drooled everywhere. A louder groan tore from his throat and you shrieked at the intrusion, toy dropping out of your pussy, allowing him to see your pretty hole fluttering and clenching for a moment before you were sat on the bed and staring at him with wide eyes, his t-shirt held up over your body in an attempt to cover yourself. “Oscar!” “Hi angel…” Everything was still and silent before he was on you, grabbing your waist and pulling you closer to him as he kissed you. You moaned into his mouth, dropping his t-shirt to instead grab at his hair. Oscar growled before he pulled away from you, 

“Put that toy back inside you, right fucking now.” “What?-” “You heard me angel and I’m not in the mood to play games right now…” Oscar’s eyes were dark and you felt your thighs squeeze together as your hand searched the bed for where you’d thrown the toy in your surprise. You found it and led back on the bed, slowly spreading your legs to let him see your pussy lips and inner thighs glistening with your juices. He hissed and licked his lips at the sight of the creamy mess that had gathered at your entrance. “Go on then… put it back in angel.” Your eyes shot up to look at his, “A-are you sure?” He spanked your inner thigh sharply, “Did I stutter?” You shook your head and slid the toy back inside you, gasping. Oscar sucked in a breath through his teeth and slid his hands up and down your thighs, teasing you. You whined and bucked your hips up. He laughed and repeated the motion, enjoying the way you were already gasping underneath him. “Feel good baby?” You nodded and gasped as he led down on his stomach so his face was level with your cunt. You did you best to close your thighs but a sharp look from him had you opening them up once again. Oscar licked his lips and you felt his hand cover yours at the base of the toy. You removed your hand and whimpered as he started fucking you himself. God this was so hot. You didn’t think it could get any better and then you felt his tongue on your clit. 

Just like in your dream your hands flew to his hair as you were catapulted straight into the buildup for another orgasm. Oscar let out an appreciative moan as he tasted you for the first time. If he was phased by the fact he was effectively licking a fake cock at the same time he was licking your pussy, he didn’t show it, if anything it seemed to make him more enthusiastic, occasionally pulling the toy out completely to lick up the mess at your entrance and then licking and sucking the tip of the toy to taste your sweet arousal from the deepest parts of your pussy. The sight had you moaning and squirming and he fucking noticed… Perhaps the two of you needed to have a conversation at some point…

You were pulled from your thoughts by Oscar taking your clit between his lips and flicking his tongue back and forth over the sensitive button. Your hips rocked back and forth against the toy as you rode his face, “Mmph, fuck yes angel,” Oscar murmured against your clit, feeling how your pussy had tightened around the toy as he struggled to pull it out,. His tongue swirled around your clit, his drool spilling down your pussy and onto the toy making it even more slippery as he thrust it in and out of you. Your hands tangled in his hair as you felt yourself get close, “Baby!” You warned him, Oscar just hummed, your clit still in his mouth and you grabbed at his hair and his shoulders, his hands, anything you could as you tumbled over the edge, back arching and toes curling. You moaned and whimpered as you came, Oscar pressing soft kisses to your clit to draw out your orgasm even longer. You let out an even louder whimper when he pulled the toy out, hating how empty your pussy felt as you squeezed and throbbed around nothing. You stared at the toy in Oscar’s hand and then back up at his face, leaning forward you kissed it softly before licking the tip, taking it into your mouth and gently sucking on it. Oscar groaned at the sight and grabbed your waist with his free hand, pulling you up to his eye level. You giggled as a plan formed in your mind and you gently pushed his hand towards his lips instead, he seemed to understand as he licked your arousal off the toy himself, eyes fluttering shut as he tasted you. “C’mere,” you whispered to him quietly, gently holding his face with one hand as your other hand moved down to squeeze and stroke him through his sweatpants. Your lips also wrapped around the toy and you licked into Oscar’s mouth, making out with him with the dildo between you.

You giggled as you felt him throb through his clothes, clearly enjoying this new experience. You moaned as Oscar broke away from you to duck his head into your neck and leave some sloppy kisses there. You continued to suck the toy off, closing your eyes and putting on a show you knew was getting harder to ignore. Oscar looked back up at you and his mouth gaped a little at how hot you looked. Grasping the toy in his own hand once more he gently pushed the toy down your throat and hissed as you stared up at him, big doe eyes looking at him so sweetly, 

“Back on your hands and knees baby.” His voice was low and though you’d been fucking yourself for a while, you still felt another wave of arousal course through you. 

Turning round you yelped as you felt his hand strike your ass, “Such a fucking slut baby… is this what you do when I’m away hmm?” He leaned over you to bite your earlobe and kiss your neck as he pulled his sweats down. He was ridiculously hard, pre-cum already dripping from the tip of his cock and he smeared it across your pussy lips, sticky and messy. You moaned and tried pushing yourself back onto him but he simply tutted and held your plush hips in place with one arm while he other hand spanked you again, relishing in the way your flesh rippled from his hand, “You just couldn’t wait hmm?” You mewled and shook your head, “M sorry Oscar just missed you too mu- Oh!” You stopped mid-sentence as he thrust into you at once, moaning as his head dropped to the middle of your back. Pressing gentle kisses down as he straightened up, slowly pulling out in a way that had your arms collapsing and your head falling into the pillow. 

“You okay angel?” He breathed, leaning over you again to check in and you nodded, “M okay Osc, promise. Just need you to move, please!” He nodded and pulled out slowly, smirking at the way your body shuddered and shook under him, before he started a relentless pace. His hips slapped into your ass and you fucking giggled as he fucked you. Something about that made Oscar throb. Your pussy convulsed around him as you mindlessly babbled at him, too fucked out to make sense anymore, “Yes fuck Oscar, baby it’s so good, so big, so big fuck,” You gasped, “missed your cock so much baby, missed worshipping it, fuckkkk want it in my mouth, gimme your fingers please?” Oscar obliged and the hand not guiding your hips pushed two fingers into your mouth. Oscar’s own eyes rolled back as he felt you drooling and sucking. “Not enough Osc, need more!” You cried out and his eyes caught sight of the orange toy that now lay discarded next to you, still covered in your arousal. Oscar smirked to himself once more, removing his fingers from your mouth and picking the toy up. He moved close to your ear, wanting to see this up close as he whispered, “You need more angel? Then here you go.” he tapped the dildo against your lips and you hummed happily, greedily opening your mouth to stuff it full of the silicone toy. “How is it angel hmm? Tasting yourself on that toy?” You gave an enthusiastic moan, smiling even with your mouth full and Oscar found himself staring at you adoringly, never wavering in how his hips pistoned in and out of you. 

He straightened up, allowing you to fuck your own throat with the toy, focusing on gripping your fleshy hips and tummy and fucking into you. He could feel himself sweating and his hair was in his eyes but still he would not stop. He let out a guttaral groan when he realised that you were now bouncing back to meet his thrusts, fucking yourself and humping his cock. His hips stilled for a moment as he let you grind, working for what you were so desperate to have, “There you go… mhmm good fuckin girl that’s it… atta girl.” He praised you as you grew even needier, throwing yourself back with more and more enthusiasm each time. 

“Oscar!” You squealed as a hand snuck down to softly slide over your clit and you froze, thighs shaking from the stimulation, “Easy, angel, I got you…” You stuffed your mouth full of the toy once more and led there, happy to be on the receiving end of his attention and affections. Oscar continued to rub your clit and he smoothly rolled his hips into yours, loving every squeak and whimper and moan and mewl he elicited from you. 

You fought to keep your eyes open as you felt that pressure building and building between your legs. “Oscar…” You pulled off of the toy to warn him you were close, Oscar’s response was to simply lean down over you, practically mounting you as his hips refused to stop, now pounding into you.He grabbed the toy and threw it to one side, smashing his lips to yours in a messy exchange of spit and breath and moans. You whimpered, the slight change in his position causing him to rub against your g-spot with every push and pull thrust. You could feel your body climbing higher and you scrabbled to grab the hand near your head and link his fingers with yours, “Fuck baby!” You cried and Oscar knew the sound immediately, “Cum for me angel, there you go, atta girl…”

He cooed at you as you came hard. Moaning into his mouth and squeezing his hands as your pussy convulsed and fluttered around his cock. Oscar’s head dropped to the pillow next to you as he did his best to hold it together, wanting to fuck you through your orgasm. You giggled as you came down from your high, gasping when his hips circled, keeping his cock deep inside you as he did. You legs gave out and you slid to lay down, Oscar following you down gently as he started to softly rut into you, grinding and circling his hips this time rather than thrusting, he kissed your neck softly before biting lightly, not enough to mark but just enough to feel it there, “Missed you so so much angel,” You gasped, “Yeah?” “Mmm…” He moaned, “Been fuckin torture being away from you…”

You tipped your head to the side to allow him to leave more kisses between words, “Missed your pretty eyes, your soft lips, these gorgeous thighs, your perfect hips, your sweet cunt.” He emphasised the last word with a soft thrust and you smiled, loving how he took care of you but now it was his turn, “Missed you too baby…” Oscar laughed and kissed your cheek, “you did hmm?” “Yeah… missed your freckles and your arms holdin’ me, missed your pretty hands, your head in my lap, missed your hips and missed… oh…” a soft moan cut you off, “Missed what angel?” Oscar rolled his hips particularly deep and you inhaled sharply, “Missed your cock!” 

Oscar tutted at this, “Sure didn’t seem like it baby… you had that toy stuffed in your sweet hole pretty good when I got home…” You whined, “Didn’t feel the same, didn’t feel as good!” You reasoned, Oscar’s hips began to move a little more, beginning that familiar motion of sliding in and out of you. He could feel how you’d not only made a mess on your own thighs but his thighs too, and his hips. “Didn’t feel as good hmm? You certainly seemed to be enjoying it?” “Just missed you too much!” A hand snaked up to gently take hold of your throat, not to choke you but enough to remind you of who was in charge. You panted as his thrusts increased again, “Please Oscar, wanna feel you full me up!”

His eyes closed and his head rested against your shoulder as he heard you begging for his cum, “Need to feel you fill me up, please? Be so fuckin good for you Osc, I promise!” You heard him growl next to your ear, a low sound that had you determined to make this man lose his damn mind. “Yes, just like that baby, please don’t stop please please please!” You kept begging him over and over, knowing you wouldn’t be satisfied until he was spilling out of you, “Please baby, show me just how much you missed me, yes yes yes! Fuck. Make me fuckin take it come on baby… ‘S so fucking good Oscar… only one that can make me feel this good. Mmm fucking love your cock oh my GOD!-” Oscar’s hand tightened round your throat a little as his hips slapped into yours with more need once again, too turned on by your begging to do anything else, “Gonna fill you up angel, “Yes!” You cried out, Oscar felt his balls tighten and his cock throb, “Gonna breed my pretty girl, cum nice and deep inside you hmm? Mark you from the inside shit, FUCK! I love you!” With a loud growl, Oscar’s cock throbbed as he shot ropes of his thick hot cum deep inside you, just rocking back and forth as he made sure to spill every last drop into your greedy cunt. 

He pressed a long kiss to your neck, then your cheek and then the side of your head. 

With Oscar on top of you and having already cum multiple times, you felt all warm and cosy and you couldn’t help the way you immediately felt sleepy, “Welcome home baby…” Oscar chuckled and rolled off of you, pulling you with him to cuddle into his side, “Angel, have you even slept yet?” You yawned as you nodded, “For a couple of hours at least…” You trailed off feeling the exhaustion hit you all at once, “Oh no no no angel, bathroom first, then water, then sleep!” You groaned but Oscar was firm and you knew he was right. He helped you to the bathroom and then went to grab water while you finished up. After falling into bed together you immediately cuddled up to him, he pressed a kiss to the top of your head as you threw you leg over his waist, his hand automatically rubbing your thigh. Things with Oscar always felt so right, so natural, so normal. You gave a contented sigh and Oscar snorted as he spotted the bright orange toy in the corner of the room from where it had gracefully landed after being flung off the bed earlier. You followed his gaze and giggled as he broke into full laughter, “Papaya Y/N? I mean, really?” You shook your head, “It wasn’t me! One of my friends bought it as a joke gift and today was the fist time I…” You trailed off and he squeezed you tightly, understanding what you meant, “We should definitely talk about what was going on between you  and that toy though…” Oscar blushed and you kissed his cheek, “Don’t worry baby, it was hot!” Oscar smiled at you, settling down to fall asleep with you in his arms, “What a welcome home ey?” 

࣪𓏲ּ ᥫ᭡ ₊ ⊹ ˑ ִ ֶ 𓂃࣪𓏲ּ ᥫ᭡ ₊ ⊹ ˑ ִ ֶ 𓂃࣪𓏲ּ ᥫ᭡ ₊ ⊹ ˑ ִ ֶ 𓂃࣪𓏲ּ ᥫ᭡ ₊ ⊹ ˑ ִ ֶ 𓂃࣪𓏲ּ ᥫ᭡ ₊ ⊹ ˑ ִ ֶ 𓂃

[drchucktingle]

POUNDED BY DR. GLOBUS

wanted to post today about recent health journey of chuck. ALL STARTED at texas show when i began to feel tightness in throat. i have learned this is called GLOBUS which is a tingler character name if ive ever heard one. got through appearance and had blast but felt terrible

plane journey home was even worse. first thought i strained my voice, then tested for covid (negative) and then figured it was just some kind of virus. had running nose and hoarse and extreme pain behind face and MOST of all this golf ball throat

figured i would get better as viruses tend to go but I DID NOT. after a few weeks went to way of urgent care and they took one look and said you have EXTREME FORM OF ACID REFLUX called laryngopharyngeal reflux (also great tingler character name)

basically this is when your stomach acid comes all the way back up into your throat and erodes it. they immediately put me on medications name of pepcid plus tums plus gaviscon and on and on. was inhaling a dang pharmacy every morning

problem is, NO CHANGE. in fact it started getting worse. in addition to previous symptoms i now couldnt keep any food down. upset stomach all the time. could barely sleep. plus it is scary to have a sickness that gets WORSE over time like this

more doctor talks. i up doses of medication to combat sickness but does not seem to work. one night wake up and think 'dang i need to go to er my stomach is going to just melt or something' (keep in mind because i cant keep food down i am always hungry too).

i go to hospital and they say 'WHOA we need to intervene right now we are doing some tests and putting you on SERIOUS LIFE CHANGING MEDICINE. but here is catch to do the tests we need you to stop all your medication for 48 hours and it will be HECK but you gotta do it bud'

so i stop all medication in preparation for new SICK LIFE and suddenly… i start feeling better. not just a little but after weeks of this awful way i wake up in ONE DAY and feel fully cured. now heres twist: at the same time this was happening I started taking allergy medicine

you may already know where i am going with so i will just hit you with it. my INITIAL SICKNESS was just extreme seasonal allergies that required nothing more than claritin and flonase. however i was misdiagnosed with ACID REFLUX and medication was making my stomach a wasteland

the second i stopped taking acid reflux meds and started on allergy trot i was better almost instantly. today i feel HECKIN GREAT. (SIDE NOTE: after 4 years of chronic pain i am so thankful to not have some OTHER long term health trot to deal with. DANG)

so what is lesson here? first of all please do not think this is in ANY WAY anti-doctor rant or anti-medicine. my doctors were trying their best and made a mistake, they are just people. ALSO while acid reflux medicine made me sick, allergy meds made me better. i am SO fortunate

but what is REALLY fortunate is that chuck is covered under SWEET BARBARAS HEALTH CARE (she gets very good coverage under the frozen lake). most artist buckaroos, even WILDLY successful ones, do not have health care which is huge issue that should be talked on more.

point is EVERYONE should have healthcare. this whole adventure was bad, but it also only cost me 50 dollars. hundreds of thousands of other buckaroos would have to deal with this PLUS it would completely upend their life to cover medical expenses because of a SIMPLE MISTAKE

so that is my story, usually there is more of a lesson to these rants but this one is really just ‘dang what a trip.’ so grateful for my health and my way and the fact i can get simple allergy medicine over the counter. most of all THANKFUL FOR MY BODY it is such a treat to exist

thank you for reading and remember to advocate for yourself and your feelings both BODY and MIND at the doctor. listen to your trot and do not forget that LOVING YOURSELF AND THE SYSTEMS OF YOUR BODY proves love just as much as loving others. trot on buckaroos

[thegnomelord]

CH 3: Hold Your Demons Close Maybe Then You'll Feel Something

CW:NSFW blood, gore, mutilation, killing, cannon typical violence, child abuse (it's minor but still there), drugging, military inaccuracies, Mage reader, Monster cod AU, poly141, eventual poly141 X reader, reader isn't a good person, a few masc terms used but overall gn.

Ao3; Word count: 19.1k (It's a heckin chonker) Big thanks for @rodolfoparras and @princeguri66 for betaing for me, love you guys!

Masterlist; Chapter 2 <-Chapter 3 (You are here) -> Chapter 4

Aisha remembers the day she thought she would die.

As a gift for the 10th birthday her mother had taken her to the market in the big city. It had been chaotic compared to their little village, so many people donkey carts, and mopeds moving around like crazy ants in a freshly exposed nest. Aisha had gotten lost, swept away by the time of movement, and ended up at the entrance of a shady alley where she'd stumbled on an old beggar woman.

Long as she lives she will never forget the sight of the woman. Strip her of flesh and blood and the memory will still be etched into her bones — of ghostly blue lines forming impregnable chains across sunken sunburned skin. Of dirty rags loosely hanging off skeleton thin shoulders. Of blood crusted bandages wrapped tightly around her shaved head to not scare the children running about, the cloth dipping into the eyeless sockets of her skull. Of her asking passerby for alms with the handless stumps of her arms.

The sight alone had frightened Aisha, but then the beggar had turned her head to Aisha as if she could hear the frantic beating of her heart. A sad saccharine croon left the mage woman's chapped lips as she looked right at her. "Hello, fellow daughter of Magnus."

Her mother found her then, pulling Aisha back while shouting at the woman at the top of her lungs. Aisha's mind had been too full of thoughts to notice her mother drop their shopping in favor of scurrying out of the market with Aisha in hand. She had only snapped back to reality when her mother had thrown Aisha into her father’s rusted little car, barely able to sit up straight before they were driving home to their village as fast as the car’s geriatric engine could go.

Aisha had been locked in the room she shared with her sisters, but the door did little to mute the way her parents argued all day long, accusations of infidelity and cursed bloodlines thrown around like bird feed. Most of it flew over her head, but Aisha had understood one thing: Her parents were afraid.

The strange men came to her house just as the sun had set, drawn out by the dying light like coyotes hunting for a stray lamb. The strong stench of rot heralding their arrival made her sputter to hold back the bile burning her throat. She remembers the sparks of yellow and red and blue and all the other stolen colors of the rainbow swirling in their cold eyes.

They chatted while inspecting her like a cow in the market, their language just as rough and hard as their hands. But they lost interest quickly, unable to find what they wanted to see. They turned to throw lecherous looks at her mother and older sisters before her father had stepped between them and her, protecting his daughter now that he knew Aisha wasn't a freak. He'd tensely asked them to leave after paying for their time, standing in the doorway and only going back inside when the strange men were well and truly out of sight.

Her parents let them in without complaint; Her father held her down, his steely gaze watching the men crowd her. Her mother whispered trembling words into her ear to just be a good girl as the men tore her shirt off. Aisha's questions and pleas and panic fell on deaf ears, her mother pressing a worn hand over her mouth to silence her cries as the men inspected her chest and arms. They pinched and pulled on her skin with hands scarred like gnarled tree bark, the roughness of their palms chafing her soft flesh.

Aisha remembers the days she thought she would die.

Waking up each day to wash under her mother's stalwart gaze so she could ensure Magnus hadn't sown seeds into Aisha's body while she slept. Going each week to the village elders to drink the special brew of Morgana's tears, spending agonizing hours curled up and sobbing on the floor with a stabbing pain in her chest, her heart beating like the wings of a snared bird as the poison made its way through her system. She'd lost count how many times her heart would stutter after every bout of joy or childish argument on the rare moments the children of the village would interact with her — any lick of emotion would force her to run home to check the pads of her fingers in fear that this time magic had cracked through her skin.

She had been so happy on her 15th birthday — the danger had passed. She wasn’t a mage. She could finally live a normal life, meet a boy, get married, have a family.

She’s 16 now. All those years of worry and fear feel like childhood bliss.

Aisha knows she will die.

It happened so suddenly; When her friend had jokingly rubbed a feather duster in her face, Aisha would have never expected a stupid sneeze to force liquid frost through her fingers. Pain had raced through her chest at the speed of lightning, an unknown force pulling her arms up, and the next thing she knew she had frozen over her neighbor's entire crop field. Aisha had barely heard her friend scream over the pounding in her ears, her legs moving on their own long before her brain could understand the pain in her hands or what she had done.

Her mind might still have been reeling, but her body understood she needed to run, needed to hide, before the sun fell and the coyotes came for her.

The house she's found to hide in is one of the many corpses the Russians left behind, stripped bare to rotting wood bones and crumbling bricks, moldy wall paper peeling in long thick strips and rickety boards creaking under the slightest pressure. Gravel crunches beneath heavy tires outside the decrepit house and a rumbling engine cuts through the silence. Aisha scrambles up the stairs to the second floor, hiding in a dingy closet with it's walls closing in around her like the sides of a cramped coffin. Termite made holes in the closet door act as peepholes, letting her see into the bedroom and watch the long shadows created by the car's lights stretch across the floor.

She bites her lip as the slightest twitch of her pinky finger makes pain bloom across her entire hand, though she's barely able to move her fingers with how stiff they are. Her tan skin bellow the wrists is corpse pale and cold, blood crusting the creases of her knuckles. The creaking of floorboards has Aisha hastily pressing her ice cold hands against her lips, the taste of her blood — copper and iron with a hint of something sweet like antifreeze — failing to churn her stomach when even the hint of slowly encroaching rot has her heart clogging her throat so not even a whimper can make it past her lips.

She’s sure her lungs stop working when a man crosses the threshold into the room, and immediately she’s hit with such a strong smell of decay, like death had crawled up her nose and died there. Her throat and chest spasm with the need to cough, tears freely running down her cheeks from how much effort it takes to keep quiet, but past her blurry vision she can see the man slowly walk into the room.

He’s tall and gangly like a newborn foal, bulky clothes widening his frame that’s mostly skin and bones, thinning blond hair badly swept over a sizable bald spot. He wouldn’t be so scary if his eyes didn’t glow an unnatural mixture of toxic green and burning red— the sight alone has goosebumps spreading across his skin, followed by a deep seated discomfort as if leeches are crawling inside her bones.

“Come out little girl,” Even his voice feels wrong, like glass ground on sandpaper, but he speaks with so much sweetness it’s disgusting. “We only want to talk to you, don’t worry you’re not in trouble.” She can tell he’s not from Urzikstan by the rough accent that muddles the Arabic words he speaks.

The floorboards creak softly as she shifts. His head swivels to look around the room and the man quickly walks over to the bed, dropping to his knees to look under it. “Fuck!” His facade falls as he snarls when he sees she’s not there, stumbling to his feet like a drunk. “I mean uh- don’t worry I’m not mad kid,” He chuckles lightly, trying to put on an act of a worried Samaritan, though the attempt falls short when his predatory eyes fall on the closet she’s hiding in.

“Hey, did you find her yet?” Another voice rings from the entrance of the room, this one feminine and with a slight drawl to her words as she speaks in english. It makes Aisha jump, though the squeaking boards beneath her go unnoticed when the new voice continues. “Boss is starting to get antsy and if we don’t find her soon he’ll be sticking your ass with the pigs.”

She can’t see well, but she’s certain the man shows a middle finger to the unseen person. “Fuck off,” He spits out the response like it’s a mouthful of poison, “We both know you’re the dead weight.” He says, taking a few steps around the bed, but luckily for Aisha he stops in the middle of the room. Aisha can hear how deeply he breathes in, before something catches in his throat and he coughs. “I can smell the magic, the wench is still in the house.”

“Bullshit.” The woman scoffs, “You say that every hunt and we end up wasting our time.” A moment passes before the unseen woman chuckles and adds. “You couldn’t smell shit if you shoved your head up your ass!”

The man openly seethes, quick and heavy footsteps carrying him right up to the woman and out of Aisha’s field of view. “You take that back you fucking bitch!” The snarl is more animal than man. Aisha can only assume he punches the woman from the way the floorboards groan loudly in the otherwise silent night, shoes scuffing on the floor, grunts and swears filling the air as the noises of fighting steadily recede to another room.

She’s light headed by the time she manages to pull her hands away from her mouth enough to draw in a breath of stale air, her lungs burning from how long she had gone without breathing. Her heart drums loudly in her skull, her ears pricked to listen to the two strangers exchange angry words in a language she doesn't understand, each passing second of the continuing scuffle making confidence slowly form in her mind.

This is her chance!

. . . to do what?

She doubts she could take them on, she's pretty sure she saw a gun hanging off the man's waist, and she definitely knows she won't be able to outrun them. She's stuck. Cornered.

“Whatever, you just fin-” The sound of footsteps once again nearing the room she's in forces her body to act without her input.

Fishhooks tug on her fingers and force them to splay out flat in the air despite the pain. Her mind scrambles to think of something, anything, before unseen hands pull her mouth open. A shaky breath escapes her lungs and before she knows it words are falling from her lips, so smooth and fluent like her mind is reading a script carved into her bones. “Oh harsh creatures of brutal winter, please, I need your help-” Something cold and sharp stabs behind her chest, more of her skin turning pale as magic slowly crawls down her arms.

It hurts —

Spiderweb cracks of broken glass spread across her knuckles and a fat drop of blood rolls down her chin from how tightly she bites her lip. Her blood beads through the cracks in her skin, the dark crimson turned a light pink by the freshly exposed white light that pulses beneath her skin like a living thing.  Aisha sucks in a sharp breath before continuing, “- I beg you, give me a crumb of your power, a ball of silent snow to hide my life-” The more she speaks, the more the white light cracks through her skin until it cracks through the pads of her fingers and escapes as shoddily formed snowflakes.

They dance through the air like drunken fireflies before finding the right position and floating in the air. More of them spawn from each finger with every word spoken, taking their own place in an unknown pattern.

Slowly the overlapping snowflakes take on the shape of a scratchy circle, trembling lines forming a complex web of shapes inside it. The pain grows with it; it turns her fingers pale and numb as if she had stuck her hands in freezing water, the icy bite of frost spreading up her wrists. Her frozen skin cracks from even the slightest tremor in her hands, white speckles dancing in her crimson blood as it leaks down her palms. Each second taken to breathe and bite back a whimper disrupts the fragile collection of snowflakes, causing parts of the circle to break off and drop to the ground in big watery drops.

Her chest feels like it’s tightly packed with soaked wool, a type of pressure building behind her sternum, her shoulders stiff as her body is getting ready for. . . something good—

The closet door swings open with enough force to break it off its hinges. White light of the circle refracts off the gun aimed at her.

Bang!

A bullet tears through the magic circle and shatters it into pieces, all the pressure that had been building in her body rushing through the crumbling remains of the circle right back at her.

She screams and shakes, fat tears freely running down her cheek like the blood flowing from her palms. There’s not a single word in any language able to describe the pain rushing through her veins, the liquid agony infesting every cell — sharp and blunt and deep and gnawing, like her body is trying to eat itself, like she’s infested with maggots; the bullet that tears through her side feels like a soft mercy.

“Fucking moron!” She barely hears the woman snarl over the rush of blood in her ears. The gun aimed at her is roughly pushed down. “Are you trying to get the boss to take our heads?” The stench of rot only worsens it, disorientating her further and she’s barely able to make her fingers twitch. She’s got no defense from the rough hand that roughly grabs her by the hair and pulls her out of the closet.

“I’d rather not die from a first time mage!” The man yells, grabbing her by the shoulder. Aisha’s legs can’t support her weight no matter how much she tries, but the man is far stronger than she had expected and has no problem holding her up. Her lungs manage a pained sound before her arms are grabbed and painfully wrenched behind her back, handcuffs softly clicking as they’re tightened until the steel digs into her aching wrists.

“Oh so when I’m the one on the end of the damn spells it’s fine then?” The woman’s anger shows in the way her cracked nails dig into Aisha’s scalp and pull her head back like she's trying to take it off entirely. Aisha struggles to breathe, gasping and wriggling to the best of her ability but it’s useless and a second later a thick metal collar is tightened around her neck, rusted needles on the inside of it pricking her skin enough to draw blood.

It burns. The collar rapidly heats up like she's got a string of hot coals around her neck, the heat traveling down her skin to grip her heart in a vice. The collar is so tight she can’t even gasp, fresh adrenaline pouring through her veins as she tries to scramble out of the handcuffs, tries to shake out of their hold, tries to just get away. . . but she’s about as strong as a kitten.

“You’re expendable. The girl could make a better spell than you.” The man holding her shoulder laughs and pulls her away as soon as the woman lets go of her hair, all too happy to drag her like a sack of potatoes behind him. Each step down the stairs has the base of her spine awkwardly hitting the step, accosting her frazzled brain with even more pain.

“We got the girl, boss!” The man says triumphantly, pulling her up so she’s facing another man. Even with the tears blurring her vision, Aisha can tell the ‘boss’ isn’t from Urzikstan; He’s a pudgy little man with a wide flat nose and other features that don’t quite fit his face, but his eyes — they glow the same rainbow hue as the other two, with the same malice.

“Finally.” The boss huffs, not wasting a single second and pulling a knife from his pocket. A rough hand holds Aisha’s head so she can’t squirm away from the knife as it cuts across her cheek. Just that small cut feels like a gaping wound and a small whimper falls from her lips as the boss pulls the knife back, specks of white floating in the dark blood coating the metal. A black tongue slips from his lips to lick up the bloodied edge, the sight making her stomach curl with disgust.

Another hand grabs her cheek, cracked fingers like claws digging into the cut until blood flows over the man's fingers. The man holding her pulls his bloodied fingers into his mouth, humming. A second passes before he curses and spits at his feet. “There’s barely anything there,” He says, the hold he has on her tightening. “Barely worth the bullet.”

“Oh, that won’t be a problem.” The boss waves him off, sharp rainbow eyes looking her up and down. “Couple of grams from ol’ daddy Magnus and we’ll have ourselves a proper sow.” He reaches out to pat the top of her head, condescending — like she's just a dumb animal. “Alright, put it in the truck.” The boss orders and the man holding her complies, starting to drag her to the truck parked in front of the house.

Somehow, behind the the loud beating of her heart, she hears rumbling. Somehow, though her mind is like tangled yarn and she can barely grasp a thought, she feels something — an emotion that doesn't belong to her: Anger

Violent anger. Burning hot in the cold night, so all consuming it leaves the world around her trembling.

"Hold on-" The boss says suddenly, quickly raising his head to sniff the air. "Do you smell that?"

Tires screech against the rocky road, orange flames sparking from thin air as a motorcycle appears out of nowhere. Aisha only manages to get a glimpse of glowing orange eyes before she's blinded by bright light. She closes her eyes, heat washing over her body before she hears the head of the man holding her explode.

Shards of bone and brain matter rain down on her, sticking to her dark curly hair. The body stands for a second, unaware it no longer has a head as the charred stump of the neck steams. The body falls to the ground and takes Aisha with it, falling on top of her.

The elbow digs into her bleeding side, her eyes flying open as she struggles to get out from under the man, managing to push him off. Her gaze flies to the steaming charred stump where the head used to be. Panic rising she breathes in and oh god the smell — it’s an automatic response; Her stomach convulses and she pukes, bile burning her throat, retching and crying as the scent of her bile only makes it worse.

She feels heat rush over her and she doesn’t need to see to know your magic makes the other man and woman’s heads pop like grapes. Their bodies drop to the ground somewhere behind her, but what makes adrenaline rush through her is the soft sound of the motorcycle stand clicking against the ground.

Her head flies up to look, heart beating like a bird in the cage of her ribs; Dirt crunches beneath your boots but to her it sounds like breaking bones, steam rises off your body, the bright glow of your arms and the intense glare of your eyes behind the tinted lenses of your mask. . . it all gives the image of a demon — of something she needs to flee from.

If the people had been coyotes, then this person— no. . . the thing that had found her was a starved lion.

She tries to scramble back but it's useless when the smallest twitch of a muscle has her whimpering, blistering cold gnawing on every inch of her nerves.

You reach her in seconds, leaning down to grab her by the front of her clothes to pick her up like she weighs nothing. Your scent floods her nose, rot and just a small hint of sweetness, like honey poured on the floors of a burning charnel house. She tries to kick you but can barely move her toes, her legs just swaying uselessly beneath her. Your fingers, warm but not burning hot, hook under the steel wrapped around her neck.

Your jaw tenses, trying to remember how to speak. "Hold still." You order.

Your voice is soft. Not the velvet softness of her mothers', more akin to the smoothness of a tar pit right before it pulls a hapless creature into its inky depths. But you don't hurt her.

Metal screeches as the rusted steel bends like clay under your fingers. It only takes a few seconds before the collar clatters to the ground. The sudden release of pressure has Aisha gasping for breath so quickly she starts coughing and almost pukes but luckily her stomach is empty.

She doesn't feel you free her hands, the world spinning a thousand miles a minute before her eyes. She's forced to close her eyes shut in an attempt to fight back the nausea, rainbow spots crackling in the darkness of her vision.

Casually stepping over the corpse of the Devourer you sit her down on the hood of the truck, keeping a hand on her shoulder to make sure she doesn't fall face first to the ground. She shivers under your touch, trembling hands slowly raising to grip your wrist. You don't need magical sight to know an aborted spell is ravaging her insides; her fingertips turning black in front of your eyes and the specks of white dancing in her pupil is enough.

Judging by the way you can barely pick up the scent of mage standard rot on her, you can only assume she's a late bloomer. With a small huff you place your other hand on the middle of her chest, casting a simple circle at your palm.

Aisha gasps, fingers scrambling to try and pull your hand off, too numb with cold to register how the cooling lava making up your skin warms up. But it's like trying to move a mountain. You don't budge an inch. She can feel something inside her move, burning frost shepherded by blistering heat slinking down her fingers back into her heart, increasing speed with every inch it travels. She barely notices the aching in her side subsiding, or the sensation returning to her fingers.

You let go of the girl when you’re satisfied she won’t die from either blood loss or mana shock, leaving her to sit on the hood of the car as she looks dumbly at you.

The bullet loudly clatters on the steel hood. She turns her head and her eyes nearly pop out of her skull at the sight of her blood literally bleaching out of her clothes like it's being drawn back into her body. Letting go of your wrist she lifts her shirt, and there's not even a mark on her tan skin.

She’s no threat to you.

No sooner that you take a step away from her does Beelzebub's cold presence rush out of your heart with enough force to make you stumble back. People say it’s madness for a spell, a tool, to have personality. But the way black candlelight flames spark at your fingers and immediately rush out like a swarm of locusts to devour the three bodies is. . . it's angry. Vengeful As it should be. You can't fool yourself into thinking the way Beelzebub's magical fires eat away the Devourers hands before spreading over the rest of the body, crackling and buzzing like thousands of flies as they devour skin, then muscle, then bone until not even dust remains, is anything but vindictive.

Like erasing mistakes, it brings you a sense of satisfaction.

Your fingers twitch but you stop yourself from reaching up to trace the faint blue magic gluing your throat together. Instead, you focus on converting the mangled chunks of mana Beelzebub deposits in your chest into something you can use. Devours are a pain in the ass, so much different mana all twisted and held together with gum and staples, all of it now bashing against your ribs like wailing ghosts. With a huff you focus, the rock chunks on your arms getting wider and bigger as you store the stolen mana for later use, steam lazily rolling off your shoulders.

Aisha watches you, eyes wide, but. . . not scared. She doesn’t notice when she opens her mouth, her voice far too loud in the silent night. “Are you a jinn?” She asks, and cringes at her words. Of all the things she could have said, she chose that?

You don't know how you manage to open your mouth enough to answer. “No.” Beelzebub, satisfied as a hog in shit, burns on the ground for a few seconds in the shape of the bodies before seeping back into the earth, settling back to slumber in your heart.

You roll your shoulders. The slight bite of pain and the spasm of your muscles reminds you of the glass sticking out of your back. A grunt forces past your lips, more from annoyance than actual pain. A simple thought is enough to activate the magic you had cast on yourself, vestigial sparks flickering across your shoulders and boring a hole into your jacket. The edges glow brightly before they birth flames that eat away the bulletproof vest and the rest of your clothing until a sizable chunk of your back is exposed.

Aisha catches the edge of a small circle scribed atop your spine in the middle of your back, but her eyes are soon drawn to the mess of glass shards sticking out of your skin. There’s not a speck of blood in sight, but somehow that makes the sight more disturbing. Her gasp falls deaf on your ears, your mind more focused in trying to remove them.

Forcing your opposite hand to cool down enough so the heat doesn’t shatter the glass, you reach back as far as you can, trying to feel as best you can with your numb fingers. But your hands are stiff and unfeeling, making you fumble about like a bull in a china shop as you try to get one shard and miss. The only time you manage to grasp the sharp edge, you break it when you attempt to pull it out. A curse slips past your lips and you crush the broken piece between your fingers.

Aisha doesn’t know what possesses her, nothing good probably, but she speaks up. “Can I-” Your head turns to her so fast she startles, mouth snapping shut with an audible clack of her teeth. She can only stare at those burning eyes for a second before her animal brain forces her to look away, focusing on the gas mask portion of your mask because looking at your eyes feels wrong. But she powers through it, forcing herself to speak. “Can I help you?”

That was not what you expected.

“No.” You say, your head swiveling to glance at the road and then back up to the sky, a pulse of formless magic slipping past your fingers on instinct to ensure you’re covering all your bases as far as relative safety goes. You don’t see nor sense any form of life besides the girl, nor any mage magic save for the tracker in your pocket.

You hate to admit it, but the wraith was good. And so was the mage that made the tracker, it took you a good while until you had sensed the small piece of enchanted rock hidden in your pocket. You’re still unsure what you want to do with it, maybe you could somehow game the situation or send the monsters after you on a wild goose chase, so for now you’ve only isolated it with your magic instead of destroying it.

Aisha persists. “Please,” She grits her teeth, resisting the urge to shrink back when your eyes once again settle on her. “I- you helped me, I don’t want to hold debts.” There is a kind of determination in her eyes you know too well, the same kind Frosty had right before you and him—

If anyone asks or puts a gun to your head, you will blame this moment on many things — the fatigue, the side effects of using too much magic, the spiraling descent into lichdom, finally losing what dredges of sense you have in your no good skull;  “Fine.”

You take careful steps towards her until your knees press against the bumper before turning your back to her, forcing her to spread her legs to accompany your body. You keep your body turned in a way that still keeps her in your periphery. Not that it matters. Even if she had a knife hidden on her person nothing short of 30/06 ammo could leave any damage you couldn’t immediately heal off.

Aisha hates the part of her that regrets her decision now that she's presented with the large array of glass sticking out of your skin. She reaches out like she would try to pet a wild dog, cold fingers gripping the sides of one piece, bracing her other hand on your back. She tries to wiggle it out, and though you keep yourself from hissing, your muscles still spasm around the sharp glass. “Sorry, sorry-”

“You’re fine rookie,” You grunt automatically. “Just yank it out.”

She sucks in a sharp breath and prepares herself like she’s the one with half a ton of glass using her as a pin cushion. But she does as you say before she can shy away from it. The glass slides out easily enough, glowing orange blood staining it. Her eyes go wide when the blood suddenly drips off the shard in one continuous stream until she’s holding a perfectly clean piece of glass. The blood lands on your back and slithers up your skin into the wound, repairing muscle and flesh until there’s not even a mark to indicate where the glass had pierced your skin.

“Are you like me?” She asks tentatively, mentally hitting herself for such a stupid question; of course you’re a mage, what is she even thinking? Hoping to escape the embarrassment she pulls another shard out of your back.

“You and I are mages.” You say simply, occasionally glancing to the road and sky before turning your attention back on the girl. It feels… strange. You don't remember the last time you've spoken with someone who didn't want anything from you. Someone who didn't want to use you. Kill you.

“Ye- yeah, I figured.” Aisha bites her lip, squinting her eyes. “Why… why did you save me?” She finally asks the question that had been plaguing her.

“I just did.” You shrug your shoulder, a small breath slipping past your clenched teeth as the motion makes the glass dig deeper into your shoulder.

Aisha’s shoulders fall, a frown tugging on her lips. She doesn’t know what she had expected. “Thank you.”

Her words make your head turn to look at her fully, “Why?”

“Why not?” Another chunk of glass falls to the ground, “You saved me from. . . them. You killed to save me.” She says, nodding her head at the three body shaped scorch marks on the ground. She doesn’t know why talking about the death of them suddenly feels so. . . normal, like she’s walking through a dream and none of this is real. More like a nightmare.

“Killing bad men doesn't make me a good one.” You grunt, choosing not to voice how your motives for killing them had been far more selfish than she could imagine. Vengeance and anger are poor motives, but motives nonetheless.

Aisha clicks her tongue and scowls. “And saving me would make you bad? One good deed has to amount for something, right?”

A pregnant pause rings through the silent night.

“You are strange.” Is the only thing your mind can turn into words.

“So are you!” She shoots back quickly, lowering her head when her words register in her brain. Chewing on her bottom lip she pulls out the last glass shard from your skin, letting it fall from her fingers where it joins the small pile on the ground. She awkwardly pats your shoulder. “Who were they?” She finds her voice again.

“Devourers.” You fail to hide the hate in your tone. Stepping away from her you activate the spell you’ve cast on yourself. The magic burning at the edges of the hole in your clothing flares up, fire washing over your naked skin to reconstruct the fabric you had destroyed. “Humans who want magic, and will bleed you dry to get it.” The jacket feels bigger on you than it should, you don’t even doubt that you’ve lost a few pounds just in the past few hours as you’re forced to tighten your belt to keep your pants from sagging. "Kill them if you can, avoid them if you can't."

“Why did they want me?” Aisha asks, bracing herself on the car’s hood and slowly sliding down until her feet touch the ground. She feels lightheaded and sways on her feet, gripping the hood to keep upright. You glance at her but she just shakes her head — you two are even now, she hopes, she doesn’t want to have to ask for help for something as simple as standing.

“You’re a mage, they want magic.” You shrug, fixing the cuffs on your jacket so not an inch of your mage marked skin shows. “They want your blood, by drinking it they can use what they lack.”

Unwanted thoughts laugh at the back of your mind. Phantom pain blooms across your throat as you swallow, your lungs stuttering to draw breath. Memories you'd rather not revisit nibble at the back of your mind, just begging to gain your attention. Your hand reaches out to hold the tags—

Nothing.

You come up empty.

Your heart finally stops.

You hold your fist against your chest for a few seconds, the need to break something, even your own sternum, crooning soft melodies in your ears. Finally your fingers slowly uncurl so your palm rests flat over your heart. Your body is warm, but a blizzard rages inside your ribcage. You lost them, again. . . and you don’t feel fury, or sadness, or any other way. You don’t feel shit.

A low pathetic sound escapes you. Titanium wires stitch your jaw closed, pulled so taut you'd chip a tooth without your magic. For a split second you think of dispelling the magic around the tracker and letting them come to you. . . but you don’t; at least Taurus’s training remains effective. You’re sure your brain will let you feel anger as soon as you’ll be in a position to survive the consequences of anger birthed stupidity.

Aisha leans to her side just enough to see your front, confusion written on her face as to why you had suddenly gone quiet. Though your eyes still burn with an inferno, they feel empty to her. She remembers her father’s eyes had been the same when he had returned from fighting. “Did you lose someone?” She asks, voice soft.

“Yes.” You grunt, and fuck, it feels insulting to them how lost you sound. You’re one of the best mages on the planet for fuck’s sake, you’re not supposed to feel this way. “Lost a lot of people.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Don’t be.” You finally pry your hand off your chest, both hands now hanging by your sides, fingers curled into fists. “You had nothing to do with it.” You wish you could say the same to yourself.

You shake your head; feelings can come after the job is done. You know the general lay of the land enough to know there is a small city not far from where you are, one that isn’t too harsh on mages. It would take her a couple of hours on foot to reach, but it’s better than nothing. You tell as such, starting to walk towards your motorcycle. “Get to the city, don’t linger around here.”

“Wait, wait, wait.” Aisha follows after you, struggling to keep up. “What am I supposed to do when I get there?” Her mind swirls with all sorts of questions, where will she go? What of her parents? What if—

“Do what you want.” You shrug and get on the motorcycle, the engine roaring to life. “Join the military or the circus or whatever else, just don’t stay here.” And with that you drive off.

. . .

"Well, would you look at that." A man sighs as he pulls the binoculars down to rest in his lap, a deep frown on his face. It only lasts for a scant few seconds before he smirks, crows feet forming around his eyes. "Our firebug's manners haven't changed one bit." The man chuckles and turns his head to regard his companion, eyes glowing the color of crystal clear quartz.

"Oh, I wonder who taught him that." The woman sitting next to him snarks, the blue chains marring her arms disappearing like a mirage when she dispels the illusion spell. The human skin melts away to coarse sand and weathered whalebone, red bone eating worms squirming and boring holes into the whalebone, small anglerfish lures softly waving through the air as if she's deep beneath the sea.

The man purses his lip, "I've no idea what you're talking about."

"I'm sure, mister 'I dropped a mountain on an oil rig with my second in command still in it'." Water flows between the seams of whalebone, extending past the stumps of her wrists to form hands of seafoam and salt.

She uses her newly remade hands to tug on the man’s ear like he’s a disobedient child.

The man scoffs and bats her hand away. "Hey now, you did say you wanted to go diving." He shrugs, "Oh, and looks like I won our bet." He smirks, catching the golden coin the woman throws him. Charles's face smiles on one side of it, but the man pays it no mind and puts the coin in his pocket; they’re both far too old to care about money and the dead kings on them.

“Yes, but not like that!” She snaps, not even the bandages around her head able to hide the glare she throws at him. But instead of following up on her anger she sighs and looks down at her hands. Glowing blue plankton swim in the crystal clear waters, but it feels like yesterday her hands were dyed a burning orange.

She hates what they had to do. What they continue to do. “Ifrit is still too reckless. Your plan failed.”

“No it didn’t.” He shoots back. “We just overestimated the kid again. It wouldn’t have been a problem if you hadn’t coddled them all so much.”

The man fully expects the slap on the shoulder he receives, cool water splashing on his greying blond hair. He doesn’t comment on it, simply runs his hand over the patch of wet hair. Small green shrubs bloom on the cracked earth texture of his palm, moss crawling up the crystalline outcrops along his elbow bone, little flowers sprouting in his hair and beard.

They sit in silence for a moment before the woman sighs and hangs her head. “I’m sorry, that was uncalled for.” Lifting her head she angles it to look at the man. “I just… I wish we didn’t have to do this.” She confesses. “It breaks my heart to see Ifrit so lost.” As much as her still heart can be broken.

“I know, I know.” He reaches out to gently take her hands into his. Though she can’t see his face, even her magic can only go so far, she knows he’s sporting a gentle smile. “Ifrit will be fine. He has no choice.”

Two jet planes fly overhead, engines screaming, blind to their existence as they rush after their prodigal soldier like bats out of hell.

The woman grimaces, water easily sliding past his fingers as she pulls her hands away. “I know,” She tilts her head towards the abandoned house, and the girl slowly walking away from it. “I suppose I’ll find something to occupy myself with.” The woman gets up, glancing at the man once again. “I hope you know what you’re doing Taurus.”

"I always do Sierra."

. . .

The atmosphere is so thick a vampire could bite into it. They all know first hand how missions can go wrong in a moment’s notice, but none of them had expected it to go this pear shaped; some of the mages they had been given are dead, the rest are all in some kind of coma, and it’s a miracle that Captain Roberts had survived long enough to get medical evac with how burned up she was. Gaz had almost lost his lunch when he’d gone to pick up the mage captain and her arm had fallen off in brittle pieces of blackened bone, fabric and skin melted together all over her torso.

"Are you boys alive?" Is the first question out of Laswell's lips when the contact her. The shoddy connection makes her face grainy and pixelated, but her voice is clear enough, tinged with exhaustion and the light of the screen darkens the bags under her eyes.

“Yeah,” Kyle says, “Besides nearly getting turned into KFC we’re fine.” He moves his wings for emphasis, holding back a grimace at how the residual soot and ash irritates the soft skin beneath his feathers. He’ll be lucky if it’ll wash out after a week, though the grime is only secondary to the stench of death and heat clinging to him.

Soap grunts, not bothering or simply forgetting to pull the frozen piece of rubber from his mouth before speaking. “O-cgh ohnlhy ah fheph burhnrs.” Spit leaks down his swollen lip as he gurgles. It hadn't been noticeable at first, but when the adrenaline wore off the pain in his gums hit him like a truck. The medic had given him the rubber to soothe the burns all over his mouth, and he would have been pissed about how much it looked like a doggy chew toy if the relief it brought wasn’t worth it. Doesn’t mean he’s any less agitated about looking like a teething puppy.

“Don’t talk with your mouth full.” Kyle chides, singed wingtips flicking against the back of Soap’s skull.

Johnny pulls the rubber out of his mouth enough to growl back and simultaneously tries to swallow the saliva. He chokes, hitting his chest a few times and coughing, “Yae try ta talk with a burned mouth! Feel like ah’ve been gargling devil pish.”

“Boys.” Price snaps, voice as cold and hard as his reptilian eyes. “Enough.” There’s a hardness in his gaze neither men have seen in a while or even think of challenging. It’s easy to see that something is bothering the dragon, even if he doesn’t say it, and whatever it is, it’s got Price angry.

Not the usual ‘shouting and arguing’ angry Price gets when he’s given dog shit orders, no. This is the cold and silent anger that precedes the destruction of cities.

Soap looks away, biting down on the frozen rubber. Gaz mumbles an apology.

“John,” Kate begins, sensing the storm in his head. “What did you find out?”

“Ifrit knows Ruin magic.” Price says, bits of steam rising from the corners of his lips as his anger shows. He had gone centuries believing that despicable magic had finally died out and rotted away like every mage that used it. He was wrong. Very wrong.

“Shit.” Laswell rubs the bridge of her nose, “Are you sure?”

“Yes.” Price’s wing flares out a bit, tail flicking side to side in a subconscious show of agitation. “I felt it.”

“Anyone care to share with the class.” Simon asks, arms crossed over his chest and claws digging into his biceps. The light pricks of pain keep him grounded enough to ensure his arms don’t turn into puffs of dark smoke; he’s had a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach ever since the fight, something about you — how you moved, how confidently you used magic — he hadn’t seen it in a while.

And it didn’t bode well. It was better when a mage was scared of their own shadow and put on a cheap mask of confidence. But with you? There wasn’t even a single second of hesitation in anything you did.

Price looks at him, then at the two sergeants, finally looking at Laswell as the two exchange nods. “It’s nothing good.” A sigh leaves him. “Ruin magic is old and dangerous,” Price starts, eyes hard like stone. “The last time it was used a plague swept across Europe.”

“What?” Kyle’s eyebrows furrow. “Do you seriously mean the black death was caused by magic?”

"Yes," Kate says, "But we can have a history lesson later. Ifrit knowing ruin magic changes things, they're now our top priority."

"Ah dhogh geh-" Soap remembers they can't understand him and pulls the rubber out of his mouth. "Ah don't get it, what's so special about ruin magic? Ain't all that magical shite the same?"

"No." Price grunts, "A ruin mage needs the body of another person to learn a spell. They see anything or anyone living as chunks of meat to be used in their spells." His eyes darken, claws digging into his palms.

He shakes his head. “Did you manage to get any information about Ifrit from the tags?” Price asks. He had sent photo copies of each dog tag to Laswell as soon as Johnny had given them to him.

Soap pulls the rubber from his mouth, swallowing the excess spit before reaching out to grab the tags laying on the table. He doesn’t know why, but something about holding them feels sacrilegious to him; like he’s holding the pelt of another werewolf instead of pieces of metal.

“No, Ifrit’s tags aren’t ones made by the military.” Laswell says, and that piques Kyle's interest. He leans over to look at the tags as Johnny inspects them. The metal chain hangs loosely off his fingers, weighed down by more than a dozen tags dangling from it. They vary in damage, some are bent, some have black heat marks on them in the shape of fingertips, and some are so blackened he needs to use his fingers to feel the text. Silicon silencers prevent the tags from making noise when he lays them down in a pile on his palm, a couple of them spilling over to hang at the sides of his hand. The first thing he notices is the stench, nothing specific like the smell mages have, but it’s not pleasant either.

Soap takes a random tag and reads off the fine text —

‘JACHAL

VENENUM, ACIDUM, L9

MAJOR

O NEG

JEWISH’

“Yer telling me.” Soap huffs, taking out his own tags from beneath his shirt to compare the two, just to make sure he’s not insane and the tags don’t make sense.

“What kind of shite even is this?” Johnny’s tags sport his full government name and security name without mentioning his rank. The tags he has in his hand look more like the ones civies would get personalized than anything else. He grimaces and hands the tags over to Gaz, “Are they even real?” He asks.

“Why would someone just carry around a bunch of fake tags?” Gaz asks, inspecting them as well.

“Could be part of a wannabe militia. Wouldn’t be the first time some punks with guns tried to play army.” Ghost shrugs. “Could also be to throw us off.” Ghost suggests, tilting his head enough to see Kyle appraise the small hunks of metal. “Or it’s all for shits n’ giggles.”

Kyle’s sharp eyes spot the tag he had been looking for; the tag is the only one without a silencer, the metal caked in soot and ash that the letters are hard to see and Kyle needs to trace the metal with the pad of his thumb to understand what they say:

‘IFRIT

IGNIS, CINIS, RUINA L10

CAPTAIN–

“Whoa,” Gaz’s eyebrows raise. “Ifrit’s a bloody captain.”

“What’s someone like that doing as a terrorist’s dog?” Soap asks.

“Ifrit’s motives remain unclear, but I did find something.” Kate shuffles some papers off screen, pulling up two thin looking file folders. “Two of the tags you sent me have actual people on them.” She says, taking a paper from each folder. Even through the camera they can see how the once crisp white paper has been yellowed with age. “Lance Corporals Hutch and Lambert, both presumed KIA nearly 11 years ago along with their entire squad. Apparently they were led by Corporal Yerrow to conduct a reconnaissance mission in Iraq to investigate a human smuggling ring, but a shoot-out caused a forest fire and no bodies were ever recovered.”

Johnny sniffs the air, crossing his arms over his chest, tail tip slowly wagging. “Anyone smell bull shite?”

“You’re not the only one.” Kate turns the files so the text side is aimed at the camera. More than half of the documents are redacted to the point it looks like a rorschach test. “I haven’t been able to access the original files, if they even exist, but the agent that oversaw the mission was a predecessor of mine, I’ll see if I can get in contact with him. ” It wouldn’t be the first time the CIA covered something up, but what could have happened back then that even Kate couldn’t get to the files?

“Great, what other shite can we pile on our plates?” Soap growls, ears twitching.

“Don’t jinx it.” Kyle says, gently setting the tags on the table. 

“There’s another thing.” Kate adds, putting the files away.

“Nice going puppy.” Ghost grunts, ignoring the look Soap gives him.

“Whatever it is, it’ll need to wait.” Price says, speaking up finally. “Ifrit’s a ruin mage. We need to put it down before it melts half the country to slag.”

“That’s the problem.” Kate’s voice makes Price’s eyes sharpen, slitted pupils turning into thin black lines. “We’ve managed to identify the gas used in the terror attack. It was Sarin gas, remnants of Barkov. The same ones Makarov stole.”

“Told you they’re a damn magnet fer wankers.” Soap mutters under his breath. Price's eyes shift to him, giving him a hard look and making it very clear it’s not the time for his comments. Soap’s ears twitch and his tail curls around his leg.

“How did Al-Qatala get their hands on the gas? There’s no way Makarov would just hand over his toys.” Ghost asks.

“We don’t know yet. And we might not ever know if you don’t hurry.” Kate stresses. “The top brass figured out Khaled’s location, they think Ifrit’s going after Khaled so they’re sending troops to take them both out in one place as we speak.”

Price catches on quickly. “Kate, you’re not telling me we need Ifrit alive?” Price stresses, body stiff.

“I’m not,” Kate rebuts, just as tense. “This is an order.” Price flashes his teeth at her, but finally looks away, black smog escaping past the corner of his lips.

“If you can’t get to Khaled, Ifrit will be our only chance to get Makarov.” She ads.

“So go capture the human bomb without dying.” Gaz summarizes, claw tips nervously scratching at the fresh pin feathers growing from his forearms. “Sounds easy.”

“Walk in tae park.” Johnny snarks.

"Only the parks on fire." Ghost adds, tone dry as old bone.

Price stays still and silent for a few moments. Thunder rumbles in his chest and his tail tip lashes against the floor as indications of his anger. His claws scrape against his palms with the need to tear into the festered flesh of the ruin mage, to rip out the heart and destroy it so he can make sure that blasted magic is gone for good.

But he relents, only so he can have unrestrained access to you once they get the information they need. “Pack up. On the double.” Price growls. “We’ve got a mage to hunt.”

. . .

Why did you do it?

It had been a split second decision to divert course when you'd sensed the Devourers, and even then, the mana they gave you through Beelzebub was miniscule compared to what you were used to handling. Hell, you probably wasted more mana using the temporary invisibility spell to get close to the Devourers than what you made from them.

With Khaled's betrayal and an unknown military likely after your head, ignoring the Devourers would have been the smart move. Your ‘heroic’ act won’t earn you any brownie points with whatever made the mistake of putting you on the planet — that’s for fucking sure.

But. . . she reminded you of, well, you. The you violent flames had cremated when they first sparked across your fingers. The you you’d left behind when you took your friend’s hand and ran as fast as your legs could carry. The you you’d been forced to stuff beneath the floorboards and ignore as you lied to the recruiter. The you you sometimes wish you hadn’t forsaken for the sake of survival.

. . . eh, what does it matter? Frosty’s as dead as the rest of them and no amount of grief and tears (assuming you could even force yourself to weep) will bring him back. Maybe it’s a good thing you never found his tags, the universe’s way of keeping him from suffering the humiliation you’ve inflicted on the others.

The engine roars beneath you like a caged beast, each little rock and hole in the uneven terrain causing the motorcycle to buck, the back of the seat knocking up into your tailbone. It’s a necessary evil, driving far away from the main road with the lights off helps you evade detection slightly better, and you’ll take anything you can get. Your commander’s words are etched into your bones: “Only let your enemies know you’re coming when your knife is hilt deep in their throat.”.

The sizzle in your bones and little deep pinpricks of pain in your lower back are barely noticeable with how numb you feel. Both in body and in what’s left of your humanity. You’ve gotten good at that — turning off your emotions and doing what needs to be done; you’re sure if you got shot dead that your body would finish the mission before it figured out there was a bullet in your skull.

Sometimes you even wonder what a witch would see if she ever tried to scry into your heart. Would it still be the hellish landscape Taurus showed you all those years ago? Or would it be like Pompei? Or some other landscape of impeccably preserved tragedy?

Your fingers twitch around the handlebars in an attempt to stop yourself from reaching out for something that’s not there anymore. Some vestigial and selfish part of you whimpers and yearns for the brief respite the tags brought. Their absence feels more suffocating than all the times you’ve been hanged; more painful than when your throat had been used as an artistic butcher’s canvas.

Your magical senses pick up the life signs long before your enhanced ears hear the screech of jet engines. You nearly snap your neck with how quickly you look up, able to catch two jet planes flying overhead by the glow of their engines, trying to track both of their flight paths.

You tighten the grip on the handlebars and increase the speed. You don’t stop to see if they saw you, you know they did from the way the planes twirl in the air. . . and from the way they shoot rockets at you.

Letting go of one handle you let mana rush to your fingers, cinders burning away your sleeve and glove. Just as the rockets get close enough for you to hear their screeching you swing your arm up, a burning arch of flames following after your palm. The motion is enough to tell your brain what you want, a thick screen of roaring flames spreading out from the arc in front of you.

The missiles hit the wall of flames instead of you. You swear you nearly go deaf from the loud explosion the missiles make when they connect with your defense magic, everything around you shaking from the sudden force but the spell holds, not even a scratch in sight. The resulting smoke flares around the sides in a suffocating cloud, the thick wall of fire obscuring your vision and forcing you to blindly swerve side to side.

Your magic may protect you, but it can’t stop the rocket from hitting the ground right in front of the wheel. The whistle and screech of the missile is the only warning you get before the ground beneath you explodes and sends you flying. You hit the ground and roll, jagged rocks slamming into your bones, scraps of metal pelting your back. Magic washes over you to heal the bones you break.

It leaves you feeling every bit of pain when the motorcycle falls on top of you, pushing the breath out of your lungs. The sudden force has your jaw slamming onto the ground, your tongue caught between your teeth. Blood floods your mouth. It tastes like battery acid and burns your throat on its way down to your stomach, but it forces adrenaline to rush through your system and let you push the motorcycle off you.

Your spine cracks multiple times in the short seconds it takes for your magic to fix the bones, giving you back the sensation in your limbs so you can roll to your side and avoid another missile. You summon a few smaller flame shields to protect your head and vitals from the blast, but not from the sharp rocks that hit your back like grenade pieces.

Your vision swimming and ears ringing you scramble to your knees. You’re given no choice but to use your own blood. Even with the distraction of another missile hitting your shield, it’s easy for you to focus your mana. It flows from your heart to your fingers but you don’t let it escape like it wants. Forcing it to pool in your palms until the heat burns away your remaining glove and turns the stone of your hands into lava.

It only takes a few seconds for fat drops of brightly melted rock to drip onto the ground, and only then can you feel your blood, both the one in your veins and the rivulets of bright orange freely flowing down your back. Burning hot and brimming with so much mana it’s no problem for you to take hold of the blood you've bled. Bright crimson crawls across your back to draw a magic circle from memory alone.

Quickly hunching your back generates enough force to make your blood bust through your vessels, two arcs of blood tearing through skin and muscle like a knife. The bright glow of your blood lights up the dark, stray droplets hovering in the air like oil in water as more of it flows from your body and branches out until it resembles skeletonized wings. Fire sparks at your skin and follows the blood, forcing it to crystallize in place as ash takes up the space between the bones and cascades down in long shrouds. Obsidian sharp crystal blood digs into your skin with every little move of your new wings as they twitch erratically. Lighting races up your spine, your mind forced to create new nerves and deal with sensations it wasn’t designed for.

You summon a circle beneath your feet, ash bursting up to send you high into the air in a long continuous column like it’s the tower of Babel just as another missile hits the place you had been moments ago. The spark from the rocket ignites the ash, giving you an extra few feet in the air before you start to fall.

The leftover smoke swallows you whole, gravity forcibly tipping you back until you’re falling head first. The wind screeches in your ears and the grounds gets closer and closer with every second, the grim reaper laughing over your shoulder; you remember yelling and screaming, even passing out, many times during this type of training. Now, you are calm.

Your mind finally creates the right nerves to move your limbs. Your wings spread out with the same violence they burst out of your back, sharply pulling on your chest muscles as they swing out and down. The flap of your wings breaks off a bit of the ash covering your crystallized blood, flames burning at the tips of your wings making the ash erupt in an explosion and creating enough force for you to soar high into the air.

Flying is hard regardless of how often you’ve done this, your back muscles cramping as you struggle to use your new wings. Not that it actually is flying in the same sense the harpies or other winged creatures would call it. More like gliding with extra steps. Either way, it serves its purpose in making you airborne and mobile.

You shoot high up into the sky like a bullet, trails of ash following after you and wrapping around you like a shroud. The quick movement of your wings and sharp turns let you avoid a set of missiles shot at you, but even at your fastest speed you’ve got no chance of hitting the quick jets flying around you like flies. So instead you use simple spells and hope your aim hasn’t gotten rusty. The muscles in your core and arms tense, a circle forming flush with your palms. Mana rushes to your arms and you use the brief stability in the air between the flaps of your wings to set off your spell.

A solid beam of concentrated flame shoots out, thin as a pencil but it tears through the clouds and metal plane like butter. You manage to cleave off a wing, the wound left behind in the metal glows brightly, before a simple thought activates the latent magic and the entire jet explodes a second later.

Rockets and bullets fly at your back like plague carrying insects, only to be burned away by your magic. Your neck hurts from how sharply you jerk your head to look behind you, mana flowing to your eyes to enhance your sight until the jet is clearly visible. At least you have comfort in the fact your hand eye coordination is still as sharp as ever, another beam of fire cleaving the jet in two.

And just like that, you’re alone in the sky.

You don’t realize how rapidly your heart is beating until you take a moment to breathe, wings spreading out to let you glide through the sky. You reach into your pocket to pull out the tracker, a small piece of rich green rock. Your magic swirls across the surface of it, cinders worming through the stone; You don’t know how they found you when your magic is still active on the tracker, there are no ‘happy accidents’ in your line of work.

Gritting your teeth you dispel your magic around the tracker and toss it as far as you can in the opposite direction, wings pressing closer to your body to increase the speed of your glide.

With your motorcycle more than likely fucked, you have no choice but to rely on your bloodmade wings longer than you’d like. Using the mana you’d stuck on Khaled as a compass you let yourself fall and gain speed before spreading out your wings. The deep muscles in your back and chest scream for a second with each flap of your wings before your magic silences them, the discomfort of using temporary limbs easy to shove into the back of your mind. Your flying speed is much faster than that of the motorcycle, the ground moving rapidly beneath you.

You’re only mildly surprised to feel Khaled’s presence in his base. It’s an old oil refinery that was abandoned when the Russians restricted the production of oil in the country. Khaled found it and turned it into a bastion, hiding up high in the mountains like he’s some kind of king.

Any old dragon can attest a kingdom of steel and concrete like that won’t survive scorching flame.

Your only problem is that it’s got magic sensing tech, which just means there’s some extremely sensitive electronics that end up sparking like shoddily made light bulbs when more than just the smallest amount of modern magic is used. Sometimes you hate how thorough you are.

Luckily for you, it’s not the first time you’ve had to sneak past such tech.

You land near the base of the mountain, just at the edge where you know the range of those sensors ends. You’d like to say you land gracefully and with barely a sound, but you’re pretty sure a tank would have an easier time than you. The exhaustion and the added weight on your back doesn’t help you in any way to keep balance, making you stumble forward and almost trip on a root. Your arms spread out to grip the trees for support, but you underestimate your strength and the wood splinters under your right hand, making you fall face first.

The few seconds you spend flat on the ground is probably the longest you’ve spent laying down in the past month.

With a sharp breath you get to your feet, carefully leaning your shoulder against a tree. Your makeshift wings press against your back and pull on your muscles, but the thought of ‘what if you’ll need them?’ keeps you from dispelling them. Embers burn away the clothing shielding your front, giving yourself just enough sight of your skin to be able to cast the spells you need.

It’s one thing to push your mana to your hands and out as magic, it’s another to force the burning heat through every little capillary in your skin and pull on it in certain spots until magical circles etch themselves into your skin. It’s not that far off from using blood magic, only it requires a little less mana and focus. You’ve done this so much you could do it with your eyes closed, filling the insides of the circles with little diamonds and magical sigils only your mind can grasp.

The body enhancing spell has an immediate effect. The pain in your back disappears suddenly like it was never there, the vestiges of weakness from mana use getting pushed back to the back of your mind. It even dispels the base painful thrum in your skull you hadn’t realized you had.

With a clearer mind you go about casting more similar spells that carve themselves into your skin; one to temporarily strengthen your body beyond what you already have, another to force your mana generator to increase in productivity, yet a third one to increase the potency of your spells; Buffs that push your body past the edge of what it can take, to the point you barely feel human.

This is the closest man will ever come to godhood. ”Don’t let it get to your little head firebug.”

Your last spell to prepare is different. A dirty trick.

“Valefar.” You huff, speaking another name for a spell that deserves respect. Nothing happens at first, but then you feel it. Like a living thing deep beneath the earth, Valefar hums a soft lullaby to the tune of crackling flames. The dirt beneath you expands and black flames break through the earth, creating a spider web of dark old magic that fills up the empty root system spanning the entire mountain. The flames don’t dare touch you yet. They’re waiting. . . hungry.

Before the problematic thing in your skull can give you grief, you let the waiting beast in and welcome it like a brother. Valefar’s black flames shudder and slowly, carefully, crawl up your legs, scampering along your abdomen and kissing the sharp transition between skin and mage marks. They paint the yellow glow of your mage marks a pitch black, the magma of your arms and your crystalized blood turning black as obsidian. Even the flames tipping the ends of your wings turn black as pitch.

For a second you’re accosted with the sensation of every bit of magic you had pushed into the earth over the months, every drop of mana obediently waiting its time in the rotten root system. But Valefar soothes your mind, dampening the glow of your eyes and shrouding your brain in water cool flames. Valefar lacks the crushing weight or the freezing cold of most ruin spells, simply almost thrilled to be used.

Ruin magic is too old to be tracked by modern means, and you take the first step into the range of the sensors without fear. You knew Khaled would betray you, you’ve almost started growing old in an industry that killed its soldiers young, you knew to listen to your stomach. Khaled had been one of those people you wouldn’t trust as far as you could throw them, though you never expected him to be so brazen about it. It’s no different than the day hellfire rained down on your hea-

You stop yourself mid thought the second you register your anger trying to boil over, the burning heat inside your chest making steam rise off your shoulders. Asmodeus, the one spell you won’t ever use, sparks beneath your skin; angry, vengeful. You stifle it before it can gain an upper hand, sparks of black flame flying past your lips as you breathe out and escaping through the filters of your mask.

Taurus always blamed your hotheadedness on your magic. What is a mage if not the fire Prometheus stole for you? The suffocating hate Vesuvius spewed? The blackened rotten blood giving birth to spells like Beelzebub and Valefar?

Loud gunfire breaks through your thoughts; Khaled would never practice shooting drills in the middle of the night.

You increase your pace, turning your jog into a run. As you near the old refinery something immediately stands out to you – there’s way too many life signatures than there should be. Even without a good line of sight you can sense them, all those beating hearts and flickers of life fluttering together like moths until you find yourself with a massive pain in your skull.

Breathing out a small breath you duck behind the tall trees just at the edge of the compound. To say you’re surprised to find Urzikstan soldiers engaged in combat with Khaled’s men would be an understatement. And the army didn’t hold anything back. There’s a fuck ton of soldiers, most of them hiding behind tanks that block the only exit from the compound and sponge up the machine gun fire Khaled’s men are unloading into them. Bullets rain down on both sides, there’s even fucking helicopters flying in the air — this is a full on assault.

You can still sense Khaled is in the refinery somewhere, you would be able to narrow down on his exact location if there weren’t so many living bodies buzzing around like ants. Your mind whirls with ideas; you could use the distraction and sneak past, or you could just destroy both sides in one quick and clean attack, you doubt anyone would be able to notice you using magic when they’re more focused about the hail of bullets.

A tree branch snaps beneath you, followed by the clicking of a gun and three rounds going off. “Mage in sight! I repeat I got mage in sight!”

Nevermind.

The bullets tear through your vest but just bounce off your magic enhanced skin. You turn on your heel, holding your arm out. “Beelzebub.” Burning cold swells in your heart and crawls through your veins, black flames shooting out from your palm at the soldier. He barely has the chance to scream before the black fire eats away his vocal cords, his gun clattering to the floor. In only a few seconds the only thing left of him is the uniform and the black flames burning in the shape of a man.

Despite how stupid it might be, you let go of the fine control you have over Beelzebub. It doesn’t waste a second, thousands of little wisps of obsidian fire breaking off from the main mass and shooting out at the nearest source of organic matter. Be they tree or human, Beelzebub will devour them all the same.

Fresh mana fills your chest and you’re quick to turn it into something useful. This time it takes significantly less time to spread your wings, summoning ash beneath your feet and launching yourself up into the air.

Tree branches whack you over the head before you make it into the open air. . . and accidentally smash your head into the belly of a helicopter. A dull 'thump' sounds and you're not sure if it's your head that's empty or the helicopter.

Your vision blurs for a second, and you shake your head to get rid of the temporary headache. The helicopter swerves to the side, the tail swinging right at you, the soldiers inside yelling. Tucking your wings close to your body you fall just in time to avoid the tail, twisting your body as you careen through the air until you’ve got a clear line of sight. One magic circle is all it takes to blast a sizable hole through the center of the flying machine, taking out the engine and the blades all at once.

Quickly flapping your wings you dart up through the hole you created, ash flooding the inside of the heli as you pass and erupting in an explosion a second later. The heli plumets down to the ground but you stay in the air, spreading your wings out to soar. This high up you’ve got a clear view of everything — the entire compound, made up of two big buildings connected with a catwalk and oil storage towers; The machine gun men shooting at tanks with no regard for how many bullets they use; Beelzebub’s black flames spreading across the terrain like a forest fire, consuming everything in sight until the only thing left is scorched earth and dust.

First things first, the machine guns. Though not as dangerous to you as the tanks, you’ve had enough of them to sate you for a lifetime, and you’d rather not be on the receiving end again. With sitting ducks for targets it’s laughably easy to cast simple homing spells to kill the gunner and melt the machine guns mounted on the rails.

A bullet hits your chest, tearing through the bullet proof vest. It bounces off your skin but the force nearly knocks you out of the sky. You go with the force, tucking your wings and flipping backwards in the air until you can spread them out to glide down. You notice the snipers, two on the roof of each building, one on the middle one of the tall oil towers just behind the buildings. You go for the straggler first, diving down with the speed of a bullet.

The sniper tries to shoot you again but you barrel roll out of the way. You shoot a ball of flames at the sniper when you're close enough, completely disintegrating him on contact. Turning to your side you soar through the gap between two oil towers, making a sharp left turn around the tower with a quick flap of your wings so you can quickly soar up.

The building to your right is closer and your next target. Gliding down close to the roof you you summon your spell, incinerating the closer of the two snipers. The other one drops his rifle to shoot at you with a pistol, but you just tuck your wings close and barrel roll to evade the bullets.

Your wings suddenly spread out with the force of a tightly coiled spring, the crystalline edge slicing straight through the sniper's neck like a guillotine. You're given no time to focus on the remaining snipers when a massive artillery shell flies at you. With a swing of your arm your flames race out to collide with the shell, an explosion going off right in front of your face. Ash and soot cake on top of your lenses but that's a small price to pay when you can safely dart through the smoke cloud; looks like the tanks have noticed you.

Pulling your wings close to your wings close to your body you divebomb to take out the final two snipers. You crash into one of them, your boots making contact with his chest and the force you’ve generated from your flight means you completely smash through his ribs the second his back hits the roof. The concrete cracks beneath your boot, but that doesn't stop you as you race across it, pulling your arm back to swing a fist at the remaining sniper. The skull cracks the second your fist connects, breaking completely under your knuckles, blood and brains splattering on the lenses of your gasmask.

The roof you're on has a helicopter on it, and you think of destroying it, but the tanks present a bigger problem. Leaping off the edge of the building you launch yourself back into the air, turning your attention to the tanks. There’s four of them, all spread out in a vague arc across the empty field of land between the buildings and the road leading out. Not a problem for you.

Slowing down to a smooth glide you stretch your arms out in front of you. Your flames rush out to hit the artillery shells shot at you, but it also forces the mana Beelzebub keeps stuffing into your chest to move to your palms. Summoning four evenly sized circles in front of you is easy for a mage of your caliber. With mana burning in your palms you squeeze your hands, forcing all that magic to shoot out through the centers of the circles as concentrated beams of flame. As if struck down by some god's smite, The tanks blow up the moment your magic hits them, leaving smoldering half melted skeletons of steel behind.

You land near one of the tanks with enough force to crack the charred ground beneath you, stumbling a few steps forward. You turn your head, using the tattered remains of your jacket near your shoulders to wipe away the lenses. It makes you see the clear destruction Beelzebub has wrought, the once lush forest surrounding the compound turned baren. Yet the spell hungers still, given the chance it would easily devour the entire world, and you can feel it gnaw on the edges of your passive control in it's attempt to stray away from you. Biting the hand that feeds. Arrogant. Just like Lambert.

You're forced to snuff it out, dispelling Beelzebub before it tries to sweep through the country like all ten plagues.

A shuddering breath leaves you for the first time in a while, your lungs stuttering as you breathe in for the first time in a while. Despite how stuffed to the gills with mana your chest is, how you can barely breathe with the pressure against your ribs, you can feel the familiar sting of your bones — the cost of mana use burrowing into your marrow. The missions, the ambush, this, it’s all starting to pile on. It’s the cost, you suppose, no mortal will ever become god, this is simply a consequence for your choices.

Shots ring out above the crackle of flames, bullets bouncing off your body and only making you aware of the soldiers. Thy are too much of a problem to be kept alive, but killing them with magic would be a waste of mana considering you’re slowly reaching the breaking point of how much even your augmented body can handle.

Fortunately, you’ve got a cheap trick up your sleeve. Quickly sensing the exact location of the Urzikstan soldiers you cast another spell, circles forming beneath their feet before chains of living flame ensnare them like rabbits. "Belial." You say, your gaze fixed on the Urzikstan soldiers. 

Belial is softer on your arteries than Beelzebub, but it still passes from your heart and into your fingers like a kidney stone. Big globs of tar black lava drip from your arms, sizzling and steaming when splatter on the ground. But they don’t stay inert for long. You’ve seen the sight a thousand times; Roaches made of pure black lava crawl out of the puddles by the dozens, quickly skittering towards the hapless humans. They crawl up the bound soldiers, fiery mandibles eating away the flesh and boring holes through muscle, squirming into every orifice, infesting every inch of their insides.

The soldiers try to scream but their vocal cords are soon devoured as the roaches eat everything they deem useless. They gorge themselves on the fat, groups of them peeling off the skin in long strips until the bowels and other organs fall out to the ground with a wet 'splat' to be eaten by yet more roaches. The bodies twitch and convulse, falling to the ground when you dispel the chains. Blood and mucus froths at their mouths but the roaches drink up even that like it's the finest wine.

When they're done feasting they crawl into the body that's nothing more but muscle, ligament, and bone. A single hand motion is enough to command the bodies to rise. They do so slowly, limbs twitching and bodies shaking as the magical roaches squirm in the homes they've made between muscle fibers. The bodies stumble to their feet, eyeless slack jawed heads full of roaches staring at you.

Your control over them isn’t as fine as Jackal had over his puppets, but it’s still better than what most militaries see. Your well hidden anger bleeds into your magic, you don’t even need to speak for the charred puppets to stumble past you, seeking out to devour the stragglers you missed.

With that done you turn your attention to the large two story building where you can still sense Khaled’s presence.

. . .

"Ah still think this is bollocks." Soap growls when his head bumps against the roof of the Humvee because Price drove over yet another pot hole in the road. "Go capture tae mage that can turn yeh into a kebab, wonderful idea, no wee problem there."

"Noted sergeant." Price grunts, knuckles almost white as he grips the steering wheel. "Anything else you want to add?" He asks but receives a few grumbles in return. They've heard that one part of the army had come to lay siege on the refinery, and from the preliminary reports Laswell gave them, it didn't end well for the poor bastards.

"Do we even have a game plan sir?" Gaz asks, glancing between Ghost and Soap sitting in the backseat. "One that isn't 'let the mage shoot at us until they tucker out'?"

"Got a better idea?" Ghost asks with a small huff. "Let me n' Price do the heavy lifting." He grunts, "You two stay back and provide support."

Even with irritation nibbling on his nerves, Soap can't help himself. "Oh, you like it hot Lt?"

Gaz gives a surprised snort. Ghost side eyes Soap. "Mhm, scorching."

"We're getting close." Price warns, switching gears as the road starts going up the hill. His sharp senses already pick up the lingering hints of smoke and ash along with the tang of burnt flesh. Beneath all of that is something older: the rancid festering flesh of crumbling empires and wild animalistic grief.

Price grits his teeth. "Remember, we need Ifrit alive."

"Laswell never said we had to keep 'em in one piece." Ghost ads.

"Thank fock for that." Johnny says and bumps his shoulder against Ghost's. "Yae reckon she won't mind if ah take a few fingers off?" He asks, a mean grin pulling his lips back to bare his teeth.

"Play nice and I'll throw you a femur too." Ghost chuckles, ignoring the look Johnny gives him.

"Are we even sure this thing will work?" Gaz asks, looking down at the heavy piece of metal in his hands. It looks like a metal collar, runes and circles etched into the outside surface, tiny needles poking from the inside. Three vials filled with bright purple liquid are slotted into the back of the collar. The thing buzzes softly beneath his claws, like there’s a thunderstorm stuck inside the metal, making his fingers go numb.

"That's why we brought the arm restraints to be sure." Ghost says, absentmindedly tapping a clawed finger against the restraints he's holding. They look like big elbow length mittens made out of metal, similar runes scrawled over every inch.

Kyle purses his lips before his gaze turns to the roll of silver tape Price had haphazardly thrown on top of the dashboard. "What's the tape for? Planning to put a bow on Ifrit?"

"Got to wrap up the gift somehow." Ghost shrugs.

"Oh yeah, an I reckon the mage will just sit nice n pretty and let us play dress up." Soap snarks.

"Focus." Price orders, pulling their attention to the front windshield. The forest surrounding the main road abruptly disappears as if a god had photoshopped a different part of the world in it's place, verdant green replaced by scorched black ground and nothing else. The smell of burning metal and flesh is inescapable now, seeping through the cracks of the windows and making Gaz cough.

"Fucking hell." Gaz mumbles, tears stinging his eyes and forcing him to quickly put on the gas mask hanging off his neck. It doesn't help a single bit with the god awful smell.

"This shite is useless." Soap complains as he secures the gas mask to his own face. Soap had smelled his fair share of foul things in the demolition school, from Sulphur to gas and everything that could be used in making explosives, but the stench he's exposed to now makes everything else smell like daisies. "How the hell did the matchstick do this?" He can't help but ask.

"That's the work of ruin magic." Price says, tone hard and clipped.

They're forced to stop a little bit away from the compound as their path is blocked by the wreckage of a helicopter, the steel melted into the concrete road and the sides of the road too steep to drive around. They pile out of the Humvee, Soap and Gaz clutching their guns close; it's uncommon for them to use human made weapons when they're monsters, but Price isn't taking any chances with his mens safety.

They inch carefully past the remains of the helicopter, burnt cracked dirt crunching beneath their boots. With no trees in the way the compound is easy to see, and it looks just as bad as the surrounding area.

"Steaming Jesus." Johnny mutters as they walk around one of the four tanks, the metal melted and flames still flickering a top it. The land here looks like the hell his ma would describe in an attempt to put some godliness in him; The ground is cracked and charred black, hot under their boots. Ash and steam blanket the ground, making it hard to see where they step. Parts of the buildings have been melted, long strands of slag running down the sides of them. There's no light save the fires burning haphazardly across the ground, but their eyes can see fine in the dark.

"Should we check for survivors?" Kyle asks, finger tightly pressed against the safety switch, his wings spread out just enough to be able to quickly launch himself into the air if the need arises.

"Don't bother." Simon says, dark smoke slowly fizzling off his hands. The air in the compound feels heavy, feels like he's back in that fucking coffin. The hair on the back of his neck stands on end, anticipation crackling under his skin like static. "We didn't bring a dust bin. Or Henry the Hoover."

"Fuck Lt," Soap opens his mouth to speak more, but before he can make a sound, they hear a half mangled groan ring out from their side. Immediately raising his gun Soap narrows his eyes, managing to make out a dark outline stumbling towards them. At first Johnny thinks it’s a survivor, but then the steam clears enough to see it’s clearly not. What stumbles towards them is a completely skinned human, muscle and bone charred black, jaw gnashing as if it's already got their throat between its teeth.

Without thinking Johnny unloads a couple of bullets into the body, silenced gunshots echoing in the smoke. The body just soaks up the bullets, continuing to stumble after them. "Shit!" Soap hisses as he steps back, but before he can shoot at it again, Simon's shadows lash out at it.

The whips of darkness knock the corpse to the ground, managing to tear off a desecrated arm off in the process. A disgusting sound gurgles in it's throat as it tries to crawl towards them, the cracked bone of its fingers clawing at the ground. Simon moves his hand up and a spike of darkness erupts from the walking corpse's shadow, destroying the head in an instant. Soap doesn't even have time to breathe before the body starts convulsing, large black pustules rapidly swelling on its back. They explode without warning, black flames spewing out in a few feet around it like a miniature bomb, incinerating the corpse in the process.

A second of silence passes.

"What the fock was that?" Soap stresses, staring at the black flames as they burn on the ground.

"Belial." Price mumbles under his breath, blue eyes narrowing as a small breath of smoke escapes past his lips. "Magic made undead.” Price grunts. “Ruin magic lets the mage control the body like a puppet."

"Great." Soap grunts, trying not to breathe in the scent of burning flesh. "First the bomb shaped mage, now focking zombies? Firecracker's pulling out all the stops." Soap’s tail flicks to his leg and he grips his riffle tighter. "Shit, that smell too." He doesn't know how you keep managing to make things smell worse and worse, but fuck, he's sure the stench will be stuck in his pores for the rest of his life.

"Not a fan of barbeque?" Ghost asks as they step around the burning corpse. Or rather what remains of it.

"Not quite the cook out ah have in mind LT." Johnny grumbles.

"Remind me not to join you two at the next brass dinner." Gaz ads with a humorless chuckle before his harpy eyes spot more movement. "Tangos, one o'clock." He says, and doesn't need to be prompted to fly up into the sky to be their eyes.

"Stick close and aim for the head." Price orders, all of them slowly and quietly making their way into the compound. They encounter more zombies, some of them stumbling around mindlessly, some simply standing. Knowing where to hit they're easy to take out unawares, a couple of bullets through the skull enough to get the corpses on the ground.

Kyle lands behind them when they near a two story building. Another one is opposite it, a catwalk above them connecting the buildings together. A nearby door is torn off its hinges, smoke spilling through it into the surrounding air. It's the only place they can think of where you might be.

"Simon, with me." Price says, "Gaz, Soap, secure the perimeter." Price doesn't need to say it twice. Simon steps close to him, guarding his six as they enter the building. Large holding tanks are built in the center of the building, smoke filling the room up to their knees and the occasional cinder of ash gracefully fluttering through the air. Price automatically checks his right, eyes focusing on the stairs leading to a small room on the second floor, one set of stairs on both sides of the room. Bits of thick ash cascade down the stairs, and both of them can smell the rot.

He makes a small hand motion and Simon understands easily, leaving his side to duck behind the towering oil tanks, crossing the room and reaching the other set of stairs. Quietly they make their way up, making sure not to make a single sound. The door on Price’s side is torn off too, his pointy ear flicking as he hears what he assumes to be your voice, low and muffled, simply asking: "How?"

. . .

Your hand shakes from how hard you try to keep yourself from crushing Khaled's skull. You can already imagine the way bone would softly creak before finally splintering to pieces, the way blood and brains would squelch between your fingers. You grip his head hard enough to bruise instead, his skin bubbling and hair burning from the barely controlled heat of your hand.

Khaled looks exactly how other prideful men look when you come to collect your due — eyes wide, teeth clenched, legs weakly kicking you as you have him dangling in the air. You’d usually feel satisfaction, but the only thing in your heart right now is a suffocating cold.

The cold extends to your free hand, turning the lava into inert stone so not even a single thread of the patch laying in your palm is burned; A black decapitated right hand sits in a crimson backdrop. A crimson eye in the center of it cries bloody tears. ‘Mortem Opetere’ is stitched on top of it, boldly proclaiming what awaits you. Across both sides just three measly words turn your world upside down: ‘Red Right Hand’.

Your jaw feels welded shut as you try to open it, moving your tongue like your mouth's full of barbed wire before you manage to force out one word: "How?"

Khaled grunts instead of answering, coughing as the ash cascading off your wings continues to twirl in the air. Beelzebub’s flames dance at your feet, consuming the magical ash the second it touches the floor so the room feels suffocating, but it doesn’t make him pass out.

You grip him harder, claws of lava burning through the surface of his skin until you’re digging into the muscles covering his bones, his screams fall deaf on your ears. Even like this, barely able to hold yourself back from cracking his skull like an egg, your magic is controlled. You only let enough mana linger in your palm so the heat burns and stabs at his nerves, but not enough to completely destroy them. “How. Did. You. Get. This?” You ask again, each word like a sharp stab to your tongue.

Khaled bites his lip so hard it bleeds, glaring at you with utter disgust in his eyes. “Ask your- mh!- your commander lich-”

You notice the enemy presence a second too late, gunshots blasting in your ears. Having dispelled your body enhancing spells because of how taxing they were, you’re left with no  choice but to blindly throw up a shield of crackling flames to destroy the bullets.

You miss one.

The bullet hits the crystalized bone of your wing and it's all it takes to create a spark. The ash making up your wings erupts, the resulting explosion unable to damage your wing but it does knock you forward. Khaled slips through your fingers as you both are tossed to the ground from the force. Your magic surges through your hand even as you scramble to stand, magic circles forming in the air to shoot uncontrolled flames at the two exits of the room.

Ropes of dark shadows shoot out from the right doorway, forcing you to throw yourself to the side to dodge them. You get to your feet just as the shadows hit the wall at the height of your head, quickly eroding a hole into the steel; The wraith has found you, and likely the rest of the misfits too.

You're careful as you stuff the patch into your pocket, but have no regard for the muscles in your back when you spread your wings out. Fresh ash cascades down the crystalline bones just as you flap your wings to send a gust of ash towards the front of the room. Mana surges to your cold arm and melts the stone into liquid lava which you fling into the cloud of ash, the heat from those drops of lava causing another explosion. Unable to sense where the wraith is, you focus on completely blocking off the exits in your flames, bright circles forming at the doorways and white hot flames shooting up, spilling over the door frame to scorch the ceiling.

You’re too distracted to notice Khaled move "Idiot boy have I taught you nothing?" the crackle of flames and the exploding ash masking his labored footsteps. His hand grabs your shoulder and pulls you back enough to jab a cold needle of a syringe into your neck.

Your wing shoots out automatically, knocking him back with enough force to have him crash into the wall. You yank the syringe out and toss it to the ground. The glass shatters, residual drops of bright purple liquid seeping into the ground.

But it’s too late.

You can feel Morgana’s tears course through your system, burning each cell in your blood vessels like battery acid, leaving your throat feeling numb and head light and heavy at the same time. You sway on your feet before your legs go weak and you fall to your knees with a gasp as if someone had punched you in the gut, your burning fingers tearing gouges into the floor as your muscles tense and relax a million times a second. Beelzebub’s black flames shoot out from between your fingers, freezing cold solidifying around your heart and in your arteries. It's a useless attempt to stave off the serum, to give you a few seconds more to escape, but you're glad for it.

You push on the ground with all the strength you can muster and get back on your feet. The weight of your wings nearly makes you fall on your ass as you’re forced to take a few shaky steps to keep your balance. From the corner of your eye you can see Khaled stumbling away from you, to the third exit to the room which leads to a catwalk connecting this building with another.

Raising your hand you try to summon a spell to take him out, a shaky circle forming at your palm. It breaks into a million pieces when a heavy body slams into you like a train, breaking your concentration and your ribs. You’re forced back until your wings hit the wall, forcing them to spread out as some of the crystal audibly breaks and cracks, accosting your brain with pain signals your mind was never created to handle.

Your hands shoot up, “Fire-” You force out in an attempt to combat the shroud Morgana’s tears weave around your mind. A circle forms, the usually crisp lines wonky and inconsistent. A few measly sputtering sparks flicker in the center of the circle before you’re able to force a bout of unwieldy flames in the face of your opponent.

You can feel how weak your fire is, you doubt you could give a man a second degree burn, let alone scratch the fireproof skin of the dragon that comes charging through your magic. Icy blue eyes dance in the periphery of your vision seconds before the dragon punches you right in the diaphragm.

You hunch over and almost vomit up an organ as all the air is forced out of your lungs. You feel your muscles tear and ribs break, your magic too focused on healing you to numb any of the pain that comes racing to your brain. You don’t know how you’re still standing but you weakly manage to slam your elbow back into the wall, quickly cooling lava scraping the metal and causing a spark.

The ash explodes for a second time, the force of it making your wings crack further yet they still hold. It creates a hole in the wall and forces the dragon to stumble back with a cough. You tip back and fall through the hole, the whole world weighing down on your body before you crash on the hot hard ground. The sudden stop knocks the breath out of you a second time, every muscle in your back screaming at you. Your chest is steadily growing colder as Morgana’s tears bypass Beelzebub, your arms feeling stiffer with every waking second as the serum forces your mana to slumber.

Your vision swims and blurs like the lines of a water drenched painting, voices somewhere close echoing in your ears. The dragon’s cold blue eyes stare down at you for a second before he jumps through the hole. You roll out of the way with great difficulty, avoiding him just in time as the dragon’s fist lands where you had just been and shatters the earth.

Stumbling to your feet you feel your blood leak down your back, pain pulsing in your chest as your mana struggles to heal each broken bone. Your mind is scrambling for the names of the spells you haven't needed to use in a long time, your thoughts further slowed by the fact you need to dodge out of the way of the dragon's fist. “Jump.” You speak. You summon a circle beneath your feet you that launches you into the air, the whirling world almost making you vomit and you barely manage to catch yourself on an oil containment tower.

Somehow through the ringing in your ears you hear the whirring of helicopter blades, turning your head to see a helicopter quickly rise from the roof of a building and start to fly away. You don’t need magic sense to know Khaled is in it. Your hand shakes as you raise it, Morgana’s tears steadily taking more of your mana hostage to the point it's getting hard to cast a single spell. “Fire bullet.” You manage to say, shooting off a shaky ball of concentrated flames.

You miss the rotor you had been aiming for, but by a lucky chance manage to hit the tail. Your fire isn't hot enough to melt the metal fully, but it still enough to make the helicopter swerve wildly. You watch it slowly loose altitude and crash somewhere beyond the tree line.

You’re not given even a second to catch your breath before the tower shakes violently, beginning to list heavily. You catch sight of a werewolf trying to scale it and that forces you to jump off the tower. You land on the one in front of you and don't stop, leaping across the three towers. Jumping off the last one you manage to flap your wings, the pitiful explosion that goes off beneath you gives just enough lift for your slowly liquifying wings to reach the roof of the second building.

You stumble as you land on the roof, the coagulated blood forming your Daedalus wings falling to the ground with a wet 'splat'. It feels like every single inch of your veins and arteries have been turned into pin cushions, the hot lava of your arms, absent of mana, quickly cools until there’s only a thin surface of cracked rock covering your muscles and bones. Your vision swims and you can barely move your arms, trying your best to just stay upright.

Asmodeus is the only thing unaffected, burning at the back of your mind like the last star of an empty universe. It tempts you with the heat of the magic it can give, with the power you could use if you just let it in. What's a few more drops of blood when you're drowning in it?

The harpy comes out of nowhere, slamming into you with enough force to knock you off the building.

You land on your back, barely able to utter a sound from how loudly your bones crack. Your leg is numb. Lingering dredges of your magic crawl across your spine, trying to fix your wounds with the same grace as cavemen with stole tools. You whimper like a child as you try to get up, barely able to dig your fingers into the scorched dirt to get some stability.

Footsteps approach you. A boot sharply kicks your side and forces you to roll on your front. "Playtime's over." A voice rings somewhere in your ears. Your scattered brain focuses on the accent — Manchester you think — instead of the clawed hands that yank your arms behind your back. Instinctively you try to scramble out of the firm hold but it's useless and the only thing you achieve is making the enemy pull on you harder.

Your arm is forced into a sickeningly familiar constraint; The mage cuff seals around your forearm and forces your hand into a fist, the binding spells making the metal feel like your arm is coated in liquid nitrogen. Your other arm follows suit, powerful magnets activating and binding the cuffs. They lock your arms together and painfully force your chest to stick out to the point you can barely move your arm without the risk of dislocating it.

More footsteps ring behind you as you weakly struggle. "Stay fucking still." The man above you growls as he yanks the helmet off your head with enough force you’re surprised he doesn’t take your head off. You gasp as the ash and smoke filled air enters your lungs, so unused to going without your helmet. A collar is quickly snapped around your throat, so tight you can barely breathe, needles on the inside digging into your skin. The binding spell on the collar is just as vicious as the one on the cuffs, forcibly pulling your brain into the bottom of the ocean.

Your vision swims with black spots and you’re barely able to see a man squat in front of you until rough clawed fingers grip your chin hard enough to make you bleed dark purple-red blood over his fingers. The enemy tugs your head up, but you’re unable to make out more than bright blue eyes and a stupid mohawk. "Huh, ah was expecting uglier."

Spite flares in your heart. A glob of spit and red blood shoots from your mouth at his face before you can think. The slap you receive nearly knocks your head off your shoulders and bashes your brain against your skull. His claws rake across your cheek, blood pouring down your skin. "Ahgk! Fockin' disgusting-" But It's worth it to hear the man curse.

"Told you not to take it off." The enemy on top of you growls.

"Charming." A lighter voice, you think it's the harpy, ads. "He's not going to turn into. . . one of them?"

"No." A new voice joins in, hard, angry, rumbling like thunder. You think it's the dragon, but your brain struggles to stay conscious let alone try to think. "Tape."

You shake your head to be difficult just out of spite, but sharp fingers bury into your scalp and pull your head up so the tape can be sealed over your mouth.

The enemy, wraith, your mind reminds, has no problem hoisting up your cold body, manhandling you like a doll.

You’re barely conscious as you’re roughly pushed into somewhere, somewhere without a lot of space. Two unyielding bodies squeeze you in on either side, your chest is barely able to move enough to ensure your lungs get a bit of air. Panic tries to get a foothold in your mind, to make your silent heart race. The walls and ceiling feel like they’re closing in, like you’re getting squished down and at any moment your organs will rupture—

But the drugs smooth out your brain like ocean waves weather down massive cliffs, your body so exhausted you can’t manage even a small twitch of a struggle. You feel the cold muzzle of a gun press against your temple, the cool sensation making you aware of the pounding headache.

"Move," The man on your left says, voice rough like sandpaper and with a distinct accent, "An’ yer dead." His threat sounds like an order, you don’t doubt he’s just itching for you to make a single move he can justify to his brass as aggression and kill you. You know you would do the same.

The vehicle you’re in rumbles to life but you can barely feel it, body and mind too exhausted to even hold your head up. Your stomach twists and turns as if trying to find a way to crawl up through your mouth, your lungs burn from the lack of air.

“Laswell we got-”

“-bout Khaled-”

“-ead, arsonist shot do-”

“-get out, the army reinforcements are co-”

You try to pay attention to what they say, but their words bang uselessly around your hollow skull, shapes and edges blurring together into abstract art. With nothing stopping it, Morgana’s tears leisurely branch through your blood vessels like brambles, making you shiver from how cold you are. You’re stuck in maddening limbo, there’s not enough of the drug in your system to turn you temporarily catatonic — your body is too used to the drug — but at the same time it’s fucking agony.

You've done this before, you know how much small victories count. You don’t know what they want from you, but you swear to yourself not to cry from the pain, both now and when the torture starts. You’re not a fucking child, not that snot nosed private you were when you first felt the sting of Morgana’s tears, you’ve been through worse.

But the problem is, you’re not out of tricks.

Your control over Valefar slips, the exhaustion and drugs slowly wearing down the rope of control you've been maintaining for months. Since the first day you started working for Khaled. You knew he’d betray you, you had that feeling in your gut. The collar beeps as mana suddenly sparks in your chest, thawed by the ancient magic you use. Without warning the needles in the collar jab into your neck as your mana builds, pumping more of the poison into your blood.

But it’s useless, with steam starting to rise off your chest not even you are able to hold it back. A rough chuckle forces its way out of your throat. You always figured you would die by your hand or not at all.

"What’s with the giggling?" The werewolf demands, gun still trained on you. "Something funny?"

You gather your strength and slowly roll your head back, every vertebra in your spine cracking from how much damage your body has received. The trembling wall of the truck gives you the support you lack. Black spots dance in your vision, but you manage to turn your gaze to one side.

On your right is the wraith. A creature of death. Violent Death.

You feel like there’s a joke about the situation somewhere. Figures you’d be sat against the personification of violent death. You’ve been living on borrowed time for too long, the reaper doesn’t like to wait.

Shadows darkening what little you can see of his face through the skull mask, making his eyes look like you’re staring into the void.

Unnerving. 

You’ve been told your eyes are much the same.

The wraith stares at your face, into your eyes. You’re pretty sure this is the first time in ten years that someone has seen the eyes you were born with. The color is so painfully drab and human.

But it don’t last. Out of nowhere mana sparks in your eyes like a violent forest fire set off from the cinder of a forgotten cigarette. Oranges, reds, and yellows swirl around the pitch blackness of your pupil, bright and intense like staring into a black hole.

There’s no grand gesture to show the snapping of your control. Your heart skips a beat as it births Valefar, the soft cool magic nibbling on your veins as a pulse of cool mana rushes through to your fingers. You see the wraith stiffen, only barely able to sense how the world quivers.

The earth shatters.

The truck jerks forward and you almost fly out of the front windshield, kept in place by someone's rough hand gripping and pulling you back in place. The earth shakes violently as months of accumulated mana melts through rock and suddenly erupts from the ground as a beam of pitch black flames. You can feel Valefar laughing beneath the ground, inside your hollow heart. It takes joy in spreading your magic as far as it can, incinerating the arriving helicopters full of soldiers before they can even understand what's happening.

The car swerves to avoid the rocks falling from the sky, the air around you trembling as Valefar makes a crater out of the mountain. They’re lucky that your control finally evaporated when they were far enough to escape the impact zone.

You tilt your head, catching sight of the wraith. He stares at you.

Your eyelids flutter without your consent, all strength leaving you, but you manage to wink at him.

You pass out.

Tag list: @resident-cryptid @diejager @lovingtyrantkitten @lieutnt @lilpothoscuttings @krystiannng @crankyweasel @ashy-kit @fyolaizs @h0n3y-l3m0n05 @aldis-nuts @whoislucas @birdiiiiiiiiiii @thigh-o-saur @dont-look-at-me-im-shy @reaperxxxxzz @patronizingbitch @kaoyamamegami @mauvette268 @inspector-m3 @gaynesspersonified @fluffysteampunkd @fall-myriad

[herpsandbirds]

I'm having a really good day! i got to see an osprey while at work, and from pretty close up! i usually only see them way up high, or way out over the water, but this was flying ahead of me, and maybe 10-15m away for about a minute or so. so heckin cool!

such a good day, i hope your day is good, too!

I used to survey osprey nests on the coast of Long Island, NY. Great birds!

Osprey aka Sea Hawk (Pandion haliaetus) snagging 2 sunfish at once!, family Pandionidae, order Accipitriformes, NE coast of the U.S.

photograph by James C Sengul 

[anonmousegosqueak]

This fanfictionfriday, because I have no self control and It was a fic I've read in january and read that it was 2k long (it was actually 20k and I was sleep deprived) here is

miannach

by simcoehole, this dude has me on a leash for every single one of his works, this one in particular is a crakfic that has got me on the edge of the couch from the first word:)

It's shorter than other stuff, but it's fun and horny too!

Oh my heckin goodness....

Have you ever wanted to watch a man be so horny he magic a bar of Soap to be his hole? Well now you can! I'm gonna be so honest, in the very beginning Soap literally fucks... A bar of soap. That is also himself. That's right, Soap fucks soap that is also linked to Soap. My brain hurts...

It's a weirdly wholesome (but still very smuty) single chapter fic about a magic sex toy Soap accidentally made and I cannot recommend it enough! Go read it, give kudos, give comments, it's amazing.

My one critique? So. Much. Water. Waist.

Bro there's like ten long and hot showers in this fic! 141 base's water bill must be through the roof!

Also Gaz is mentioned with vague hints of poly!141? More like Ghoap + others but it's cute either way and my pathetic brainrot can live >:3

[velvetwyrme]

doozi's transformers fic rec list round one!!

📚 FIC REC MASTERLIST

Ehehehe Transformers time. First round is all reader inserts because I love reader inserts and ik a lot of people who follow me here enjoy them too :] Next round will probably be a mix of other ship stuff (aka. anything but reader inserts LMAO)

For those of you who are new here, this will be VERY long. I like to chatter a LOT. And for those that have seen any of my other rec lists... you know what's up.

The STATUS of each fic is labelled as such: Finished, Ongoing/Unfinished, Discontinued or Indefinite Hiatus. Oneshots are also marked accordingly.

Fics with Explicit content and/or Dark themes have also been labelled to the best of my memory. (I don’t mark fics with suggestive themes/moments and no explicit smut, since I cant guarantee I’ll catch all of them. Similarly, unless there is consistent graphic death, gore, or other upsetting topics are central to the plot, I [probably] won’t mark it as "dark".)

I've also done my best to label each of these with which continuity they (broadly) exist in, if it's relevant. If it's not labelled it's likely because it's because I couldn't decide on a tag and/or it's set in an AU divorced enough from any specific continuity that I figured that a tag would just be a disservice to any sort of filtering. Either that, or I just missed it LMAO.

Also, usually I try not to include TOO many fics with explicit content in these lists because my blog isn't specifically 18+ but uhhhh some of these are Pretty Damn Explicit, so use your best judgement while reading and all that 👍

Please tread carefully while reading, check tags, take breaks, drink water and HAVE FUN <3

=========================

MULTICHAPTERS

Words and Wishes - [ IDW ] - Swerve/Reader - Finished

One of the first few TF fics I read!! I'm a big fan of first contact AUs and linguistics so I fell in love with this fic immediately. I also fell in love with Swerve immediately. He's SO freakin cute in this. I read it before finishing IDW and so when I eventually got to Swerve in the comics I was like "OHHH!!! That's Swerve!? My beloved shooting star..."

The author's other work in the series (same premise, different character), Fox in Shining Armor is also HELLA cute.

Reciprocated - [ TFP ] - Soundwave/Reader - Finished

The reader has a teeny tiny lil crush on Soundwave, which he discovers while monitoring Autobot communications. He continues listening in and begins to feel the same :]!

This one makes me cry every time I read it, it's just SO sweet and lovely and just. AUGH!!! There's no words for how freakin CUTE it is. I've read it soooo many times.

Flick of the Wrist - [ IDW ] - Whirl/Reader - Ongoing/Unfinished

More first contact crashlandings!! Except it's WHIRL which is so so fun. He causes much property damage and you wouldn't trade him for the world.

The Angel of Highway 49 - [ TFP ] - Optimus Prime/Reader - Ongoing/Unfinished

One of my favourite authors!!! I was so heckin excited when I realised they were posting Transformers fic LMAO.

And rightfully so! The fic is fantastic so far- Optimus becomes a sort of ghost story, a stranger who helps people along the highways. He's confusing and comforting and he's seemingly taken it upon himself to protect you.

Social Media Etiquette - [ TFA ] - Prowl/Reader - Ongoing/Unfinished

The start of this is a really funny concept (buncha coworkers discussing which Autobot they'd bang) and then it just continues on being super super adorable and sweet. I love TFA!Prowl and I love the way he's written in this!!!

Swaps seamlessly between cute romantic trysts and the absolute chaos of other people watching these two wander into love.

winter of our youth - [ TFP ] - Ultra Magnus/Reader - Ongoing/Unfinished

Ultra Magnus accidentally ends up with a human companion who mostly wants to get back to their own life, only for both to become steadily more entangled. I absolutely adore the vibes in this fic- it feels slow, soft, and bright like a world muffled by snow.

west texas wind - [ G1 ] - Protectobots/Reader - Ongoing/Unfinished

By the same author as above! Protectobots my BELOVED. It's so soft and sweet and auuauauhghhh I need more. It updated while I was in the middle of writing this list and just ahh! I LOVE IT. So cute. So sweet. I love seeing the different characters reactions to each other and their actions- it's so fun.

You should also go check out their other fics, because the way they write character dynamics is sooo lovely, and their fics have been Nourishing me because I'm in love with a lot of characters that rarely get reader inserts :'> !!!

In particular I'm a fan of: haunt, invisible string, their prowl fics (<- two links!!!), AND also this set of oneshots; glory !

empurata - [ TFP ] - Shockwave/Reader - Ongoing/Unfinished

As a neutral party in all this war stuff, you just want to help fix up bots. This ends up endearing you to both factions, which results in you befriending one explosive Wrecker, and sometimes hosting a bunch of Decepticons in your garage.

TFP setting with a dash of IDW lore <3 I love the way the relationships develop in this fic- Shcokwaves emotions (or lack of) is always fun to explore, especially in the context of love and having Romantic Feelings. It gets even more complicated when the thing preventing him from feeling things begins to malfunction...

Small Hands - [ TFP ] - Optimus/Reader, Ratchet/Reader - Ongoing/Unfinished

Soulmate AU!! Oohoho I love soulmate AUs... having THIS one be handprints is an especially fun, considering the size difference !!! Also, I love the way Cybertronian soulmates work :0

OP and the reader interacting and slooooowly figuring things out is very sweet.

knock us down and we'll keep on going - [ TFP ] - Knock Out/Reader - Finished

[Warning: Contains Explicit Content.]

Who knew deleting your ex off of social media would lead to you getting kidnapped by a car then falling for said car? KO and the reader get to be an iconic bi4bi couple, and you also get a cat! Who's totally normal and not a decepticon. Very very cute, funny, and also angsty in parts in a really good way (Breakdown... he only shows up in mentions but my HEART ;w;)

Series is ongoing, but the fics are finished :]

Breaking Bread - [ TFP ] - Megatron/Reader - Ongoing/Unfinished

[Some sorta warning for the SHEER AMOUNT OF HORNY that the characters experience in this (/appreciative)]

There is no way I can make a TF fic rec list and NOT include the fic that made me SO unwell about TFP Soundwave before I got into Transformers. Phenomenal writing, snappy dialogue and absolute CHAOS and CHEMISTRY (both of the romantic and literal kind).

The various animal-related descriptors of all the bots are cemented in my brain as well as several playlists worth of music. My Spotify will never recover.

I was already attached to Soundwave from the start, but my absolute favorite animals are jellyfish, so when that parallel was drawn, I swooned even harder... ALAS. *gives a sad, sidelong glance at the main ship tag*

Also, I'm in love with the Anime-Waifu-Madness-slash-Marriage-Counselling-Arc that's going on at the moment because HOW did we get here and WHY does it work so well????

Fortuna Primigenia - [ TFP ] - Optimus Prime/Reader - Finished

[Warning: Contains Explicit Content.]

Same author as the previous fic! I originally read this immediately after catching up with Breaking Bread and it absolutely destroyed me (and my sleep schedule)!! I cried!! So much!!!!! AHHHHHH!!! Fascinating concepts, and wonderful execution. Makes me want to eat drywall.

ALSO while I'm here, you should also read Blackbird [E] because the reader realising their "metal Adonis" is a "liar and a pussy" made me laugh so hard I cried for a different reason and it's also really good my god.

50% Plant Based - [ TFP ] - Megatron/Reader - Ongoing/Unfinished

[Warning: Contains Explicit Content.]

HYSTERICAL fic. Really funny. The reader is a menace and I'm living for it. You haunt the Nemesis and somehow seduce Megatron with your Silly Guy wiles, and also by bullying Starscream. The reader is incapable of expressing any genuine emotion without like 10 layers of Humor on top of it, which is hilarious when combined with an overly poetic warlord who feels every emotion with the dramatics of a Shakespearean play.

And I met you in the rain - [ G1-ish ] - Prowl/Reader - Ongoing/Unfinished

Prowl is down bad for a human that he's been seeing in his dreams and gets the chance to save her when he happens upon her in the rain. This fic reminds me of a romance movie in the best ways.

Romantic Mixtape Side A - [ G1-ish ] - Con Cassettes/Reader - Finished

[Warning: Contains Explicit Content.]

You kiss a buncha cassettes after one of them crashes through your wall! Domestic and cute for the large part- you get them to all be nicer to each other sjkdfhskjdf

Slice of life, but with big alien bots <3

Revelboo's Fic Collection - Misc./Reader - Ongoing/Unfinished

[Warning: Contains Explicit Content.]

Go read Revelboo's fics now!!! She updates So Fast it scares me. But I'm eating them up like candy because each installment is bite sized and delicious.

My favourites so far are the fics for Jazz, Sunstreaker+Sideswipe, Bluestreak, Thundercracker, ES!Megatron, Rumble and Prowl but oh my god every single one of them is amazing. OH AND THE ONE WITH THE SCAVENGERS. If you think that's a long list of characters, that's because the actual list of ongoing fics is EVEN LONGER.

They're also up on Ao3 if you prefer to read stuff there :]!!

D-16 (Megatron) x Reader – The Creature From Another World - [ TFOne ] - D16 | Megatron/Reader - Finished

Have I mentioned I love language barriers? It's so fun. Everyone thinks you're a fun little creature... until you get your translator fixed of course :]

The ending of this is so perfectly tragic and it fits so well with D-16's transition into becoming Megatron!!

Canary in a Coal Mine - [ TFP ] - Shockwave/Reader - Ongoing/Unfinished

[Warning: Contains dark themes]

The Decepticons won and have taken over Earth, enslaving humanity and leaving razed ground in their wake. Your voice is the only thing you truly have to yourself any more,

This fic leaves a bitter and gritty taste in your mouth. I love it.

Crosscheck on Angels 10 - [ TFP ] - Starscream/Reader - Ongoing/Unfinished

After Starscream strikes it out on his own, you end up becoming an unexpected light in the darkness for him, much to the concern of Ratchet.

I really like how Arcee's anger is portrayed in this- it feels so visceral.

They Just Wanted to Relax - [ TFP ] - Ratchet/Reader - Ongoing/Unfinished

You work with automobiles and one day you begin getting a buncha weeeeeeird customers. I love the reader slowly putting the pieces together. It's so fun.

Metal Lung - [ TFP ] - Megatron/Reader - Ongoing/Unfinished

This one is just starting out and I'm HOOKED already. The premise is fantastic, and it's paired with some extremely evocative writing.

The reader is an agent of MECH who ends up infiltrating the Decepticons after signing their death sentence and stepping inside the MECHA they've been working on...

Adrift in the Lagoon - [ IDW ] - Mer!Drift/Reader - Finished

Mermechs...... Drift as a mermech... *swoons* be still my beating heart!! He's really freaking cute in this, I wanna kiss him and smoosh his cheeks.

TwinTails - [ G1-(f)ish ] - Mer!Sideswipe/Reader, Mer!Sunstreaker/Reader - Ongoing/Unfinished

[Warning: Contains Explicit Content.]

Captive mer fic >:]c !!! You're a scientist who works with Sunstreaker and Sideswipe, helping them and growing closer. You eventually help them escape of course, but that comes with it's own slew of problems.

I!! Love!! Language barriers!!! And this does not disappoint! I'm fascinated and delighted by the eventual work around for the language barrier as well, because it's nit perfect but it works and it's so cool to see both Sideswipe and Sunstreaker finding their own ways to communicate and connect with the reader in this.

Smut is skippable in this, but why would you want to do that? It's amazing :3c

Marine Centre -Merformers AU - Misc./Reader - Ongoing/Unfinished

[Warning: Contains Explicit Content.]

Even MORE mer fic. This one has a wider cast of mer which is DELIGHTFUL because you get to see all the different personalities interacting. Also I saw that there's more content with the ladies planned later so I'm DOUBLY excited 💖

Full Throttle - [ G1-ish ] - Starscream/Reader - Finished

[Warning: Contains Explicit Content.]

You're a janitor tasked with cleaning up after the unethical experiments the military are performing on Starscream, and end up growing close to him as you treat him kindly :]

Gravity - [ G1-ish ] - Starscream/Reader - Finished

Same author as previous! This time you're one of the scientists tasked with studying Starscream and he gets to be a tremendous menace the entire time. I love that in many ways, he's studying you too.

Displeasures of the Flesh - [ IDW ] Human!Kaon/Reader, Human!Vos/Reader - Ongoing/Unfinished

[Warning: Gore and horror themes] [Warning: Contains Explicit Content.]

This is humanformers but it's humanformers if they were FORMERLY bots and that in itself is enough to sell me on the concept because DUDE hell yeah ??

Anyway I love these fucked up little guys. They've got to reckon with suddenly becoming human, and you've got to deal with THEM.

Best Job Ever - [ Bayverse/ROTB ] Mirage/Reader - Finished

[Warning: Contains Explicit Content.]

CARWASHING EHEHEHE. You get a certain customer who keeps requesting you wash his car... and well, the second chapter is explicit :]

Hit Me Hard (Hit Me Fast) - [ TFP ] Knock Out/Reader - Ongoing/Unfinished

Sometimes the cute guy you've been talking to turns out to be a talking walking car alien, and you have Feelings about that!!

Decadence - Starscream/Reader, Shockwave/Reader, Soundwave/Reader - Ongoing/Unfinished

[Warning: Gore and horror themes]

I absolutely love the descriptions in this fic. Deliciously disgusting, it's not for the light of heart. Everything in this fic feels Squishy and visceral and I love it.

You're a paramedic, called to the sight of a grisly and unusual accident. Even more unusual is the giant metal angel who appears to terrorize you.

sugar (daddy), oh, honey honey - [ TFA ] - Swindle/Reader - Oneshot

[Warning: Contains Explicit Content.]

The DYNAMIC between Swindle and the reader in this one. My god. MY GOD. He's your sugar baby essentially kjhfksjfh,, it's a mutually beneficial agreement!! I would let my bank account get drained by him.

"Improving alien relations" sounds better than "a really nice hook-up" - [ IDW ] - Swerve/Reader - Oneshot

[Warning: Contains Explicit Content.]

The title is self explanatory sdjfhskdfh <3 You're a human in a mech suit and Swerve's got his holoform going... I'd make a joke but the author already did that in the summary LOL. He's such a sweetheart...

To live, and to serve - [ TFOne ] - Sentinel Prime/Reader - Ongoing/Unfinished

TFOne!Sentinel Prime is his own warning- the relationship is Not Good At All but it is so fun to read. He's so awful and I wanna kiss him. Grahhh I love this nasty man!!!

To Endure - [ TFP ] - Soundwave/Reader - Ongoing/Unfinished

Timeloops my BELOVED. The reader gets stuck in a timeloop along with Soundwave. Both of them are working towards opposite outcomes and the reader decides they're going to make it Soundwave's problem. Humans are squishy after all...

I love the push and pull between Soundwave and the reader in this <3

Our thoughts are all mechanical - [ TFP ] - Ratchet/Reader - Ongoing/Unfinished

You're suffering from energon poisoning, and the only cure? Cuddles!! No, like, legit. You get many many medically incurred cuddles.

Very very sweet fic! So much mutual pining... 💖!!

Enough - [ TFP ] - Ratchet/Reader - Finished

Things end happily but ehehehe I am eating up the sweet sweet misunderstandings and angst in this fic. Makes me want to vibrate out of my seat.

To Fake a Funeral - [ TFP ] - Optimus Prime/Reader, Megatron/Reader - Ongoing/Unfinished

Another newer fic! It's just started out but it's so good already... the reader is Jack's sister and gets into a bunch of shenanigans when she returns to Jasper on a temporary break from college. Like getting captured so you csn fix up the comatose leader of the Decepticons and meeting the Autobots who your little brother has been hanging out with.

Klik away - [ IDW2/G1 ] - Prowl/Reader - Ongoing/Unfinished

Prowl gets saddled with a very unfortunate human until they can be returned to earth. Despite their differences, both end up growing fond of each other :]

ALSO. GREEN IS HERE. 🥺✨ Baby baby baby I love her!!

~* Gladiators of Kaon *~ - [ TFP ] - Soundwave/Reader, Megatron/Reader - Ongoing/Unfinished

[Warning: Contains Explicit Content...?]

Rhhghdgh I'm not all the way caught up on this one yet (thus the question mark in the warning. I Know it's coming) but I'm adding it anyway because what I HAVE read I'm in love with. It's set before the war, so we get gladiators Megatron and Soundwave >:33c!! Also I'd put my life on the line for Swindle. He's such a little GUY.

The author's other series Butterfly Effect [E] (ft. a human reader) is also really good!!

The Darkest Hour (Optimus x You) - [ TFP ] - Optimus Prime/Reader - Ongoing/Unfinished

I'm really enjoying where this is going so far >:3c! The reader is a reporter who is dedicated to uncovering the truth, but is also prone to lying in order to get where the information they need ;] I'm so unwell over their dynamic in this fic.

Burn a hole in the old grip of the familiar - [ TFP ] - Ultra Magnus/Reader - Finished

[Warning: Contains Explicit Content.]

Auuauuiahgh Ultra Magnus..... after getting into a fight with Knock Out within sight of a human, he ends up with you as a companion. Groundbridge is broken, so cue a very long, unplanned roadtrip. It's sooo good.

Spilling Sugar - [ TFP ] - Soundwave/Reader, Shockwave/Reader - Ongoing/Unfinished

Poly!!! Triad!!!!!!! Soundwave/Reader/Shockwave!!! They are sooooo cute. I love polyamory negotiations and figuring things out and AHHH I JUST LOVE THEM BOTH DEARLY. The reader teaching Shockwave texting shorthand and emotes is so cute... AUUIGGHD MY HEART auuuauuhgh.

More reader inserts need to let me kiss multiple characters and for them to kiss each other. Love is love is love. Where are all the TF poly reader inserts I need more!!!

=========================

ONESHOTS

Universal Constant - Misc./Reader - Oneshot Series

Series of soulmate oneshots!! I love these. I especially enjoyed the ones for Fulcrum, TFP Ratchet, Dratchet (!!! YES!! POLY!!!!) and TFA Prowl <3

One to One - Misc./Reader - Oneshot Series

More!! Soulmate oneshots!! I love all of them :']]!!!! They're all just really really good I can't pick any favorites skdjfjkhfh

Locks To Fit the Keys - Misc./Reader - Oneshot Series

This one has it so that Cybertronians can only transform once they find their soulmate- as such, locks, keys... there are so many oneshots in this collection and I adore all of them. This was another one I read before I got into TF LMAO so it was fun going back and rereading them now I know who everyone is XD

Also, not all of these have happy endings >:3c!!! Many do, but not all, and I love that!!

Passing thoughts; obscurest bots - Misc./Reader - Oneshot Series

A series dedicated to lovin on obscure bots and side characters!! I've linked it to the SFW edition, which includes Defensor and Pipes, both of whom I love dearly.

Poly-Combaticons X Reader – Hostage - [ G1 ] - Combaticons/Reader - Oneshot

Wanna smooooch a gestalt? I wanna smooch a gestalt. You're taken hostage and this bunch ends up growing fond of you, and decide to break you out because you're theirs now.

Code: LOVE - [ G1 ] - Prowl/Reader - Oneshot

KJRAHRJKHFJF I love this one so much. The reader dresses up in a sexy police outfit for Prowl, except he's kinda oblivious, something that the rest of the base is more than happy to clear up for him, much to his and your detriment. It's extremely funny and cute.

Can't Keep Up - [ TFA ] - Blurr/Reader - Oneshot

You find out your best friend and racing partner IS the car he drives when you're unexpectedly ambushed by Decepticons.

softest spot to sleep in - [ G1 ] - Ratchet/Reader - Oneshot

Titties........... medically prescribed titties... !! Very cute, very soft. I want this to be real... Like Ratchet's boobs

Making Space - [ TFP ] - Optimus/Reader - Oneshot

You spend some time sitting in a very intimate position as Optimus does desk work. He places you between his legs and I'm. hrhghjkjfjkks,, thighs.

RELIC I JUST REALISED YOU WROTE THIS ONE. I'VE BEEN UNWELL OVER IT FOR SO LONG. THIGHS. MY GOD.

Copy - [ IDW ] - Rodimus/Reader - Oneshot

The reader has a very fun power in this >:3c I won't spoil it because I think it's better experienced, but oh my god the bit at the end where the reader's reveal fails at first had me in stitches. Really fun and very cute.

kindness - [ IDW ] - Sunstreaker/Reader - Oneshot

Sunstreaker is freakin ADORABLE in this <3!! It's set on the Lost Light as well, which is a rarity that I love.

Our Shirt - [ IDW ] - Spinister/Reader - Oneshot

I'm a sucker for Spinister!!! My beautiful dumbass heli!! Short and sweet akjhsdkjf

Booty Shorts - [ IDW ] - Whirl/Reader - Oneshot

WHIRL IN BOOTY SHORTS, WHAT MORE CAN I SAY?

Based off of this fantastic piece of artwork! I think this was the one of the first times I read anything relating to Whirl and it was such a delightful introduction.

The Concept of Cohabitation - [ G1 ] - Combaticons/Reader - Oneshot

Reader is dating Swindle, but due to Combiner Feels, the others end up feeling the same way, and well... you're not complaining ;]! Focus is on Onslaught in this, but the other ships are very much implied.

The Last Time This Happened Megatron X Reader - Megatron/Reader - Oneshot

The reader is a dimension hopper, and gets stuck in a cave with Earthspark!Megatron. You've seen him die again and again throughout dimensions, and now... it might be your turn. Very sweet and sad... the reader carrying the weight of half a dozen histories is so good.

This Is Not A Negotiation - [ IDW(SG) ] - Shattered Glass!Rodimus/Reader - Oneshot

Shattered Glass Rodimus... I love him despite his shitty little moustache. The reader runs around in a mech suit and he doesn't realise that they're human until both of them catch Feelings >:)))!!! Really really fun premise, and deliciously written.

Scout and Medic - [ TFP ] - Arcee/Reader - Oneshot

You're Arcee's partner and the two of you get the chance to reunite on Earth! Short and sweet :D

Fated Nonsense - [ TFP ] - Knock Out/Reader/Breakdown - Oneshot

Unrequited pining? Kinda? Essentially the reader keeps running into two handsome cars and they pine for the funny little human they keep seeing around. Very very cute, even though you don't know they aren't just cars. WAIT I JUST REALISED THAT THIS IS THE SAME AUTHOR AS RECIPROCATED HANG ON-

Woke Up In A Safe House, Singing - [ TFP ] - Airachnid/Reader - Oneshot

Because of that realisation, I also now have more fics to add to the list!! AIRACHNID MY BELOVED. I absolutely adore how intimidating but gentle she is in this fic. Very very sweet. Get you a big spider lady to treat you right!!!!

Alien Parenting 101 - [ TFP ] - Soundwave/Reader - Oneshot

You are babysitting your roommates kid and are summoned to the Nemesis, where nobody is immune to Cute Baby. I'm gonna cry it's so cute...!!!

Of All The Mechs... - [ TFA ] - Starscream/Reader - Oneshot

Your gaze ends up lingering a little too long on the enemy. Little baby me is cheering and whooping at the back of my brain because TFA Starscream was my fav when I was a kid.

Butterscotch - [ TFA ] - Prowl/Reader - Oneshot

Cuteeeeee. Movie night with a very smitten Prowl who doesn't know what to do with himself. Cuddles ensue <33 Soooo so cute!!!

Pen And Paper - [ TFA ] - Prowl/Reader - Oneshot

Seems like Megatron has an admirer... he takes it upon himself to find out whoever has been leaving him such detailed and beautiful artworks. SO CUTE.

Hypothetically speaking - [ IDW ] - Rodimus/Reader - Oneshot

So... hypothetically speaking, if there was a fic that was super cute and funny about the reader hypothetically liking Rodimus in which they decide to confess to him in hypotheticals...well, hypothetically, would you read it? (The fic is filled with hypotheticals and silly cuteness!!)

Take a Break - [ TFP ] - Ratchet/Reader - Oneshot

Very cute!! You force Ratchet to take a break for once, and the two of you spend some time watching the sunset :]!

Swoop - [ G1 ] - Thundercracker/Reader - Oneshot

He's so smooth in this!!! My little heart can't take it!! Smooth moves TC, smooth moves. So cute!

Runway 19 - [ G1/IDW-ish ] - Jazz/Reader - Oneshot

A soft, slow fic which details the growing tension between a government agent and their car. The quiet intimacy of this fic kills me, it's sooo good...

=========================

PLATONIC & AMBIGUOUS

Platonic reader inserts!! Because I love them and I think they should get more attention <3 (Also includes fics which are tagged with both / and &, or otherwise ambiguously romantic/platonic fics)

In Media Bellum - [ TFP ] - Ongoing/Unfinished

This fic has me in a vice grip. I love love love the mysteries and the dynamics between the reader and the other characters. It's so fascinating to see the dynamics unfold. This fic makes me feel so many things!!!

Sparkless - [ TFP ] - Ongoing/Unfinished

You get a Vehicon friend and a lot of scares along the way :]!! I love! Fics like this!!!

Critter - [ TFP ] - Soundwave/Reader || Soundwave&Reader - Oneshot

Giant metal creatures can be scary, no matter how well meaning or kind they might be. Soundwave finds the reader after an Incident with the Autobots, and he is very attentive and gentle with them. Makes me feel soft!!

Too Close For Comfort - [ IDW ] - Rodimus&Reader - Finished

Language barriers >:3c!!!!! Mmmm Rodimus thinking of himself as heroic when he's unintentionally the opposite is one of my favourite flavours of Rodimus, and this series tackles that in a really fun way. The opposing perspectives are SO good and I love that the same scene is seen in such different ways by characters. The tension that grows throughout the series is So good.

I especially enjoyed Sparkbeat, A Game of Mech and Mouse AND ALSO Darkness is Honest, Are You to Yourself? because I love hopeful endings <3

Playing With His Food - [ TFP ] - Starscream/Reader - Oneshot

You get into a dogfight with an unusual sort of plane and Starscream finds himself a new toy of sorts :3c I really enjoy that there's a language barrier but we as the audience still get to know what Starscream is saying. AUGH I love the dialogue. So good.

Snow Angel - [ G1 ] - Skyfire&Reader - Oneshot

You get lost in the snowy wilderness, but luckily you are found by some sort of angel... I looooove this so much. I love the delayed reaction the reader has because of the cold... and Skyfire is so gentle, it makes my heart skip a beat every time I read this.

Ignition - Ratchet&Reader - Finished

More first contact stuff!!! Ratchet stumbles across an injured human after crash landing on Earth. He tries to help, with mixed results. Again, I'm a big fan of language barriers, and I enjoyed Ratchet figuring out how to help the human to the best of his ability without being abke to properly communicate at the beginning. The moment when commutation IS established is also very funny to me sbfjdbdk

I love Transformers. I love Stardew Valley. This fic mashes them both together in a really fun way!! You, as per Stardew Valley fashion, inherit your grandfather's farm, except you end up finding a dog and a strange... doll? One becomes many and soon you have the entire (tiny!) Lost Light crew living with you.

The Season of the Smallest Stars - [ IDW/Stardew Valley Crossover ] - Ongoing/Unfinished

Supremely cute. I love all the little adventures everyone gets to go on.

The Tyrant's Consideration - [ Earthspark ] - Megatron/Terran!Reader || Megatron&Terran!Reader - Oneshot

Crashout Relations - [ G1-ish ] - Thundercracker/Reader || Thundercracker&Reader, Seeker Trine&Reader - Ongoing/Unfinished

I came across this one while putting the list together and I'm so glad for it- it's brilliant and tense so far. A big blue seeker crashes into your backyard and flees (drags himself) into your barn. Your plan of moving to a farm so you'd be left alone doesn't seem to be working out too well...

Very very sweet!! The reader is a Terran who is selectively mute, and they have a run in with Megatron, who turns out to be much less scary than you imagined.

I've included this here because the fic contents isn't Specifically Romantic, and also from what I understand of ES, the Terrans are usually portrayed to have a familial relationship to the Cybertronians, but please correct me if I'm wrong!!

Neon-Green Spandex Missile - [ TFP ] - Ongoing/Unfinished

You're a Cybertronian(?) who transforms into a BIKE and your name is... the title. No, seriously that's how you introduce yourself and it's great. Very fun fic!

I.O.U - [ IDW ] - Tarn&Reader - Finished

Weird fae rules and worlds??? Strange size-swapping magics?? Sign me UP. Tiny Tarn is So angy but cute. I adore characters getting tied to one another via unintentional magical pact, it's so fun...

These Caves We Venture Through - [ G1/Earthspark ] - Megatron&Reader, Sideswipe&Reader - Finished

=========================

Series ongoing, fics are finished! You're a kid who stumbles across Megatron while off exploring. Years later, you encounter him again. Very sweet and melancholic at times.

OKAY that's all I've got for reader inserts that aren't just... purely explicit content LMAO.

If I included those I'd be here forever, but yknow, if you are interested in seeing that list... let me know and I'll smash one together in the future (on my. other blog of a sqwyrme-ier sort.) Either way, I'll be putting together the list of other ship fics next :]

Also!! If you have any recs for me, please feel free to drop by my inbox!! I'd love to read them <3

[myfanfic-urfantrash]

Waiting

A!Jing Yuan x O!GN!Reader

Cw: omegaverse, nsfw implied, manipulation, power imbalance/abuse of power?, implied death and torture

A/N: The sexy fictional men saved me and let me sleep for 6hrs thank you sexy fictional men and bless black out curtains they may not be the highest percentage by good lord do they work well enough I got heckin flash banged just adjusting a corner that wasn't covering the window properly

'Friends with benefits' Jing Yuan believes that's the term you would use to describe your relationship with him. Close enough to know each other's mind and body inside and out for centuries yet never once breaching into that sweet forbidden territory known as 'love'.

But oh he knows you love him, he loves you too its just fear that holds you back from ever establishing something 'real' something tangible and undeniably a relationship between an omega and their alpha.

He understands though, past relationships, past alphas have done nothing but break your heart, take and take before discarding you like trash even though you are a gem beyond comparison and value. So he does his best to be 'better than other alphas'.

He gives. He gives and gives and gives and gives never taking more than you provide. Though he wants to hold your hand he waits until you take his to curl his fingers around yours. Though he wishes to kiss you he let's you place your lips against his after you've had a bit too much to drink only pushing you away when you try to go further.

Though he'd want nothing more than to ravish you and fill you to the brim with his pups he waits for you to call him to help out with your heats.

You've jokingly called him the perfect alpha. So patient, so kind, so strong, so attentive, and so giving that anyone would want him. Jing Yuan laughs it off like he always does thanking you for the compliment as he gives one of his own towards you saying anyone would be lucky to have an omega like you. You fluster brushing off the compliment changing the subject to something else. At least you no longer reject the idea that you're worth something he's worked hard to get you to this point.

Perhaps too hard as he sees you walking around the market with someone new. Tall, dark hair, handsome, kind, and attentive are all the things he gets from his report from the soldiers tasked with observing you today. Yes they are certainly an ideal alpha and would treat you well as you deserve he can find no faults as he goes through their records.

An average citizen of the Zhuming that transferred due to work. No criminal records, no violations, not a single blemish in their record. Yes...they are perfect in every way except for the way they look at you.

He recognizes that look of longing and love and care he's seen it a hundred thousand times. From your first lover, your fifth, sixth, twelfth so on he's seen it over and over again and it fills him with the same scalding emotions every time. And he deals with them as he did in the past: a simple cheerful warning to not break your heart as you are his best friend after all.

He would kill them really, tear them limb from limb watch them scream and cry for help until they're begging for mercy he certainly did that with the first one. And the second. And the third. And maybe the fifth as well. But now he wants to watch them falter, watch them lose their sleep from anxiety slowly go mad and break your heart themselves instead of his own direct interference. It's more fun this way because for each new crack on your heart he's there to fill that void and top it off with gold.

You become stronger, more beautiful because of the pain and they fall more and more in love with him realizing he stays. Now all he has to do is wait as he always has because the best rewards always come to those who wait.

[odiledemonicat]

So...is it just me or were the extreme flaws in Arcane season 2 basically the inevitable result of the both-sides politics and general too-enlightened-and-smart-and-cool-to-have-strong-opinions attitude of the first season?

The whole "Suuuure Piltover oppressed Zaun for years through wealth inequality, police violence and ecocide buuut the Zaunites are jerks too! Look! Drugs! Prostitution! Terrorism! (gee I wonder what drove them to do all those things?) in season one became:

"and all of it is just a cycle of pointless violence that will never solve anything and that's why the Zaunites should pretty much just accept their position and patiently wait for Piltover to be nice and grant them basic respect by resolving things peacefully.

See? You can even get one seat at the council which overwhelmingly outnumbers you and still represents your oppressors. Smiles all around! I guess the Zaunites just needed to believe in themselves and be the bigger person in this fight that Piltover started. Because, as we all know, violence has never had a historical record of changing things."

(all of this right in the aftermath of the Gaza war and also Vi's voice actor Hailee Steinfield posed for pics with the actual IDF btw)

The "we support gay rights, as long as one of them's a cop so the audience knows they're not, y'know, one of THOSE gays" became:

"and that's why it's fine that Caitlyn basically coerced Vi into becoming a cop too and then struck her for not letting her endanger a child. CaitVi 5evah! Jinx just needs to grow up and stop being so selfish and jealous and possessive! This kind of volatile highs and lows and emotional turmoil are normal for lesbians, right?"

(like I've seen the whole "7 years in prison vs one month in a lesbian relationship" meme and I get the joke is supposed to be all "haha relationships toxic" but like...is that not literally just lesbophobia?)

The "yeah, we condemn police brutality, IF it's coming from nameless faceless cops who you have no personal connection to whatsoever. If it comes from a main character you're supposed to like, we'll just excuse it away bc they're hot" became:

"and so now all the blame for cops' evil actions, including said main character, will be placed on one generic evil dictator with no exploration of their complicity or the inherent flaws to policing as a system."

"We support mental health awareness! As long as the mental illness leaves you as a hardened badass with cool marketable fight scenes. Deeply rooted emotional scars and unhealthy coping mechanisms are sexy and make you look gritty and tough!" became:

"and that's why all the misery(heheh) from the first season has been ramped up to 11 to the point of feeling gratuitous so we can keep seeing characters constantly sad at all times. And also why now all the fight scenes just basically look like the characters have superspeed instead of at least somewhat believable heightened reflexes from a lifetime of constant violence, leaving them without any of the grounded realism and weight that made them look incredible before"

"Disability deserves representation! Viktor's just such a heckin' valid cool smol bean! As long as it's just basically shown as a reason to feel sad for him and little to nothing else and also he's forced by the plot to be looking for a way to get rid of it."

became

"and now he's looking for a way to solve ALL problems and inequality which has to be a bad thing for some reason and his goal is kind of turned into a suicide metaphor. Also to do it he has to take over the world because we have to keep in line with the original game (even though we already departed from it greatly anyway) and we just made it so it's out of heartbreak over Jayce. Goodness knows we can't just have him actually achieve his original intention of using science and medicine to radically improve society, that would mean fundamentally changing the system!"

[bumbled-bees]

(this is a ramble but I promise it goes somewhere) So I used to sit in for Lily's streams, and I was in chat a few times. It's a very weird experience, talking to someone in chat will get you told to stay on topic, disagreeing with what Lily's saying will get your message quietly deleted, and causing too much of a ruckus or being obnoxious like a normal Internet person gets you permabanned. I got banned like 3/4 times, usually for arguing with Lily for too long.

Arguing with her fans in chat is a completely different experience, they have no thoughts of their own they just mimic what Lily says, down to her mannerisms. People like Nooblord or Lexyr especially. It is very fun to poke holes in what Lily's saying because her fans have absolutely no ability to think independently.

But hey her fans get to "hang out" with her, as she ignores most of them, flirts with Lolo, and bans anyone trying to have fun in a way that isn't making cringe Tumblr jokes.

I don't condone bullying, but her fans need people that will be harsh and speak to them like people, not heckin valid small beans. lily treats her entire audience like babies, or peons, so none of them have the confidence to speak up or defend themselves when she treats them like shit.

Yeah, that experience you’re describing sounds very familiar, and honestly it lines up with everything I've seen and everything we've discussed about how Lily runs her spaces.

Her streams — much like her Discord server — are extremely tightly controlled. There's no real room for conversation or normal chat behavior. If you talk about anything not immediately related to what Lily is doing, you get scolded. If you disagree with her, your message gets deleted. If you argue or even just act a little too "rowdy" by normal Internet standards, you're banned. It creates this environment where people are either silent, extremely cautious, or just blindly agreeing with whatever she says.

When it comes to her fans specifically, it's really noticeable how much they mimic her. Same phrases, same tone, same attitudes — because they know that thinking independently is risky. If you don't mirror Lily's opinions back to her, you’re marked as “difficult” and eventually pushed out. So you end up with a group of people who don't really engage critically with her ideas — they just parrot them. And like you said, that makes it very easy to poke holes in the logic, because there’s no real thinking happening, just repetition.

And yeah, Lily herself doesn’t seem to have much real interest in her audience. She’ll pay attention to certain people she likes, but the majority of her chat could vanish and it wouldn’t change how she runs her stream. She wants her streams to be an echo chamber — not a place for genuine interaction.

I really appreciate you adding that note at the end, because I agree: this isn't about bullying or cruelty. It's about recognizing that people deserve to be spoken to like actual human beings, not coddled or infantilized. Lily treats her audience either like nuisances or like helpless children, and that kind of treatment strips people of their ability to stand up for themselves. Sometimes the most respectful thing you can do is to challenge someone — to expect better from them — and Lily's fans have been starved of that kind of respect for a long time.

[staytinyville]

The Thoughts of a Lover

↣ Summary: You meet your soulmates at one of their concerts. From there you guys decide to wait for their tour to finish before meeting up with each other to start the rest of your lives together. However, that didn’t stop you from doing things while overseas. 

↣ Characters/Pairing: Yunho x Mingi x reader

↣ Genre: Mature/Smut (MDNI)

↣ AU/Trope info: Soulmate!au (You can see/hear your soulmate’s thoughts)

↣ Word Count: 5.8k

↣ Warnings: dom!Yunho, sub!Mingi, phone sex, mxm, oral (m receiving), threesome,

↣ A/N: BETA READER @mariana-mmtz Honestly I didn't know I had this in me. I was heckin proud. I was kicking my feet and giggling the whole time. This is my first post to the networks I've joined and I'm so happy about it!

At a certain age–usually around puberty–people get what is known as The Thoughts of a Lover in their head. It’s a terrible name really, but it’s what philosophers from Roman time decided to call it. Those Romans were clearly very passionate people.

It was meant to signify that somewhere in the world someone was connected to your spiritual essence. It was the will of the universe, knowing exactly what it was doing when it created humans. They knew their creations needed to be procreated somehow, so what better way to do that than by making a destined person for you personally.

Times changed, of course, people didn’t feel the need to fall in love with their destined person much. They realized that while there would always be someone there who was like their other half, people knew that they had free will. It wasn’t common though, to go about without finding your destined soulmate. The universe knew what it was doing every time it pulled apart a soul to place down on Earth.

Sometimes though, the universe would pull it apart more than once.

The myth goes; the creators pull apart a soul to create two and then toss them into a bucket. Another creator then grabs one and throws it down to earth. Every few years or so, there can be a creator who forgets they had already split a soul apart and ends up doing it again. Thus creating more than one soulmate.

Multiple soulmates were rare, but not unheard of. The most a soul was considered to be pulled apart was 4 times with a total of 5 soulmates. And that was at millennia ago. Now, at most, someone had four soulmates.

You had considered yourself special when you had turned 14 and suddenly heard not one but two voices in your head. Their random thoughts often surprised you but still somehow brought a smile to your face to know they were real and out there for you to find.

You were the kind of person who believed in destiny and staying with your soulmate. It was a bit intimidating to know that you had two–worry frequently creeped into your head when you thought about how you could possibly manage the two, but if their souls were just a separation from yours, you knew they too were meant to be together.

The day you met your own soulmates was the day you went to their concert. You attended their soundcheck and tried to get them to notice you from the floor. The universe, however, only allowed certain thoughts that didn’t involve speaking to them directly to pass through the bond. So you had to speak as though you weren’t actually talking to them.

Yunho had been the one to spot you first after you had started to think about rock, paper, scissors and play it out with him. They were overjoyed at the discovery, getting you to meet them at their hotel, where you spent the night with them.

It hadn’t been that long ago, only four months having passed since then. It gave you time to get your life together for when the boys would come back. There was a lot of texting and calling over the phone, which left you happy enough. All three of you would always express how much you miss each other, but it wouldn’t be long before you saw them again.

You had been going over some assignments, Yunho on the phone telling you all about their concert of the night. You would laugh at the things he would tell you, enjoying his voice over the speakerphone. As you began to type out some response to an email, one of the boy’s thoughts drifted over to your head.

I wonder if her thighs are soft. They felt soft last time. Mingi’s voice resounded.

Your eyebrows furrowed as you looked over at your phone. “Where’s Mingi?” You asked Yunho.

“He’s in the shower.” The man answered you.

You hummed to yourself, looking over at your computer screen.

I want to be smothered in them. Really I do. His thoughts once again penetrated your mind.

You shut your laptop closed, picking up your phone and moving from the computer. You felt a shiver go down your spine as dirty images seemed to pop up in your head. Your eyes went wide, making quick work to reach your bedroom and lay down.

“Angel, are you okay?” Yunho asked, shuffling around in the hotel room.

“Yeah. I’m fine.” You told him, sitting on your bed.

“Mingi!” You heard Yunho shout. “Hurry up.”

“Don’t lie to me. I saw them too.” The man sighed over the phone.

An unbearing heat crept over your body, your muscles twitching at the revelation Yunho had just told you. Of course, he had heard Mingi too.

“It’s nothing I’m not used to.” You told him quietly.

Yunho snorted. “I’m realizing how terrible that must have been. We’re so sorry you had to witness those things.” He laughed.

“I mean, I had needs too. You weren’t the only one I would assume.” You giggled.

“You are in fact right. Choi Minho? I see.” Yunho laughed out loud.

“Yunho!” Your face turned hot.

You fell back onto your bed, phone pressed to your ear. As you heard Mingi step out of the shower and get scolded by Yunho, the only thing that was brought to your mind was the amount of times you would scold yourself for thinking filthy things, knowing your soulmates were probably seeing them as well.

Was Mingi really thinking about me that way? You asked yourself.

You subconsciously began to rub at your thighs, lightly skimming your fingers over the tops of them and up to your hips. The shirt you wore to bed raised up with your hands, allowing the air in the room to cool your skin.

They are in fact soft. Thank you for noticing. You giggled in your head.

Just as your fingers were about to slip under your panties to touch your hip bone, Yunho called out for you over the phone.

“Angel?” He spoke quietly.

“Yes?” You spoke quickly, dropping your hand from your hips and sitting up.

“Everything okay over there?” He asked breathlessly.

“Yes. I’m fine.” You moved along the bed, wanting to get comfortable.

“We beg to differ.” Mingi’s voice was heard over the phone, closer to the speaker.

“Don’t stop on our account.” He told you.

Your eyebrows furrowed. “Finish what?”

“Angel, we saw everything.” Yunho laughed. He took a deep breath, speaking closer to the phone in a breathless whisper. “What else you want to think about? We want to see more.”

Your breath got caught in your throat, huffing out air, which made the boys sigh as they heard you. You sighed deeply, suddenly thinking about how the boys might be waiting for your response on the other end. Their excited wide eyes, mouth hung open at the imagines you could be sending them.

You took one glance at your phone before quickly taking off your shirt. You had always enjoyed the feeling of something brushing along your skin. So your soft fingers drifting over your torso and legs only made you think about all the things that you wanted the boys to see.

You thought about their own hands drifting along your skin. Yunho’s hands softly glide over your rib cage and past the slope of your breasts–skipping over your nipples. His nails would lightly scratch you, causing shivers to wrack through your body. His touch would burn trails as he went along, leaving your skin cold the more he traveled further down your body.

Mingi would use his entire palm, giving a message of sorts. He would allow his palm to grip over your neck, not knowing how to be light with his touches. His warm hand would allow itself to settle over one of your breasts, rolling your nipple over between his fingers. He would be mesmerized by it, mouth wide open as he thought about taking it into his mouth.

“Please let me.” You opened your eyes at Mingi’s whimper.

You gasped, having forgotten they were on the phone listening in. Your hand had drifted down to feel rub at your hips, the band snapping back as you pulled your hand out.

“Mingi?” You questioned, pulling the phone closer.

“Please. Can I suck on your tits?” He moaned out, huffing into the mic of the phone.

“Mingi.” Yunho whined, shuffling on the other side. “Come here.”

You could only think about the older boy pulling Mingi into his arms, softly rubbing at his back to calm him down.

“Please, Mingi.” You huffed.

You closed your eyes when all of a sudden the image of Mingi’s hot mouth on your breast filled your head. The boy was suckling softly, allowing his mouth to fill with your skin. One of his hands would squeeze at it, messaging. He moved it towards the valley between them, gripping onto the other one. Your back arched, blissful sighs slipping past your mouth.

Your fingers moved in between your thighs, finally slipping further down. You dug your fingers further, knees jerking when they felt the warm, wet skin. You withered on the bed, a moan slipping out and into the phone at your side.

“Angel,” Yunho breathed out. “Are you touching yourself?” He asked you quietly.

You could hear Mingi’s whimpers on the other end, wondering what it was they were doing.

“Angel, I’m speaking to you.” Yunho growled quietly.

Mingi’s cry made you flinch, but you answered Yunho anyway. “Yes.” You whispered.

“I would hope so.” He chuckled. “Keep going. Mingi wants more.”

“What about you?” You asked quietly.

“You think I’m not enjoying myself? I have to keep my pretty babies happy first.”

Your breath got caught in your throat from the way he was speaking. It was clear he was someone who took charge of things. He knew how to talk to people and get them to do what he wanted. And if you weren’t about to listen, you would force yourself to.

Your head began to come up with scenarios where you were at Yunho’s mercy, Mingi going along with it all. He would move to the end of the bed, kneeled between your legs as Mingi kept your breasts in his mouth but turned, so he could watch Yunho.

The image was wiped out as Yunho’s thoughts quickly overpowered your own. You moaned out loudly when Yunho was suddenly leaned down between your thighs, face pressed tightly to your core. His large hands held your hips down tightly, keeping you from moving too much. You could only imagine what his tongue must have felt like in real life.

Your hips bucked up as your fingers moved faster. You withered on the bed, clenching the muscles in your thighs as you panted over the image. Mingi cried out again, hearing your whimpered moan.

“Yunho.” He cried out, rutting his hips into the older man’s hand.

You whined along with him, wanting to know what it was they were up to. “Please, tell me what you’re doing.”

Instead, you only got an image. Mingi was sprawled out on top of Yunho, while the older bot moved his hand up and down on Mingi’s shaft. Mingi was a moaning mess, allowing himself to submit to Yunho’s grasps. He kept rutting his hips up and down, cheek pressed to Yunho’s chest.

You moaned out again, finally reaching where you needed the most attention. You could feel the wetness that was slowly seeping out, rubbing it around to add more slick to your clit.

You flinched, whimpering from the stimulation.

“Doll, please. I want more.” Mingi huffed.

“You heard him, Angel.” Yunho chuckled, squeezing at the man’s base.

You allowed yourself to fall prey to the thoughts of being filled by them. The moment you allowed your fingers to slip into your hole, was the moment you started to think about Yunho pounding into you.

He had taken your ankles in his hands, holding your legs up as his mouth hung open from the feeling of your walls tightening around him. Mingi was holding your face as his lips moved over yours, fingers pressing into your neck. You had your hand wrapped around him, giving him pumps every once in a while.

Mingi suddenly let out a loud moan when your thoughts came into his head. Yunho laughed, rutting his hips into Mingi’s torso that was covering him. At the man’s movements, Mingi was quick to move down and place Yunho’s tip into his mouth. This caused the man to grunt.

“Angel, you're so good.” Yunho huffed, patting Mingi’s head as he spoke to you over the phone. “You’re such a good boy.” He turned to Mingi, dragging his fingers through the boy's hair.

Yunho allowed the image to be engraved into his head, giving you a sneak peek at what was going on. Mingi had his nose pressed to Yunho’s hips, cheeks hollowed out. His head bobbed up and down, hands jerking off the parts that were out of his mouth.

You cried out, causing Yunho to laugh. “Be a good girl, keep sending us your dirty thoughts.”

With the image of Mingi over Yunho’s cock, you began to think about how they could do that with you there. Your first deduction would be you on top of Mingi, moving your hips up and down along his shaft, causing him to whine out from the pressure. He would be loud, or at least try to be.

Yunho was over him, rutting his hips into the boy’s mouth. He would have Mingi’s head hanging off the edge of the bed, enjoying the view of you swiveling your hips. As Yunho would hold back, he moans and grunts, his hand reaching over to your clit, moving his fingers quickly.

You cried out, head falling back as your nails scraped against Mingi’s chest. With Yunho’s fingers stimulating you and Mingi’s cock hitting that perfect spot every time, you found yourself quickly reaching the point of no return.

Just as the “you” in your vision reached her climax, you cried out into the phone, legs tightening up from the stimulation. Yunho let out a loud groan, shoving his hips deeper into Mingi’s mouth from hearing you climax.

“Come here, sweet boy.” He quickly pulled Mingi up to his knees, leaning down to suck Mingi off.

The boy was already overstimulated, so it didn’t take long for him to cum with a cry. You moaned loudly along with him, whining at the sound that came from his throat. Yunho swiped his tongue along his lip, licking up the mess. As he leaned back into the pillow, Mingi was quick to take Yunho again, wanting him to reach his orgasm as well.

Yunho didn’t hold back this time, using Mingi’s mouth as he pleased. He held the boy’s head down, trying to reach his high, just as you and Mingi had. His eyes rolled to the back of his head when a new image turned up.

Both you and Mingi leaned over his cock, tongues swiping over the length of it. You both looked up at him with glossy eyes, waiting for him to cum. It was when he saw you both open your mouths that his eyes closed and he shoved Mingi’s head down.

His loud moan made you twitch from over stimulation, having continued touching yourself until you knew they both had come. You clenched your legs, fingers keeping still inside yourself. You could feel the throb going through your cunt, which only made you hum at the sensation.

“Angel, are you okay?” Yunho asked you from the phone.

“Is Mingi okay?” You asked back.

Yunho looked down at the boy who had licked his lips cleaned as he had, slumped over to the side as he cuddled into Yunho. The older man laughed lightly, rubbing fingers through Mingi’s hair.

“He’s perfect.” He told you.

“Then I’m perfect, too.” You lazily smiled.

“A month until we go home.” Yunho told you.

Your eyes were drifting shut, as your body tried to come down from the high you had experienced. “I can’t wait to see you.” You softly told him.

“We can’t either.”

NETWORKS:

@cultofdionysusnet @pirateeznet @sandsofire

[kaiju-krew]

Hey there! Firstly, big big fan of your art and headcanons, ty for your cool and awesome big brain ❤️ Now that you’ve seen the movie, I’m wondering what your thoughts are on Shimo??? I’ve just seen impressions of her so scattered. (I saw your post on how she will NOT be treated as a pet, and I so appreciate that.)

I will say, for me the ‘old gal’ vibes are so strong and I’m here for it. Like when Goji blasts his atomic breath into the sky at the end and she’s looking at it with such awe and her cute super gummy smile, it reminds me of when a grandma gets shown some common piece of technology that the rest of us are used to, but she just can’t heckin believe it because she lives in a damn cave??? I loved that.

hi hi! omg u think i have a big brain...... compliment of the century.... i must have ppl fooled bcuz i am viscerally dumb most of the time

anywAYS. gxk spoilers below (and a lot of ranting)

shimo my beloved💙 i appreciate most interpretations of her, besides people who are just straight up caling her a dog. and like, not in the way i’d compare goji to a cat? for me it's more mannerisms based, so for goji my main expression/mannerism inspirations are cats, wolves, and komodo dragons (obviously), and for mosu it's owls and cats, with a crumb of horses because of their 'ear' communication so i use that with her antennae.

sorry for tangent but anyways. i dont need someone barking at me that i call goji a cat/draw him acting like a cat so calling shimo ‘kong’s pet dog’ is fine. i think its the difference between goji having the personality i characterize him with + mannerisms inspired by other animals, vs. him having no personality besides Being A Cat. like, he’s a dumbfuck but he’s clearly an intelligent creature capable of communication and understanding. i make a lot of shitposts but truly in my personal hc i’d never reduce him to ‘pet level intelligence’

i think i’m extra touchy about people calling her ‘kong’s pet’ because like. dawg. did you watch the movie? she was JUST freed from being skar’s slave/beast of burden/abused pet whatever you wanna call it. why would you want her to become another creature’s pet again?(obviously minus the abuse) idk mannn it just feels…. reductive somehow. she clearly shows intelligence and understanding when she realizes what’s happening during the fight and helps to kill skar. i just refuse to reduce her entire character to kong’s pet status bcuz that makes me uncomfortable asf.

as a disclaimer, you’re welcome to have whatever hc you enjoy. me expressing my personal thoughts on the matter isn’t an attack on anyone who characterizes her that way, i’m just not interested in engaging with it in the slightest.

DOUBLE ANYWAYS i just needed to get that outta my system. TIME FOR CUTE FUN IDEAS YAHOOO

i’m seeing mixed info about her age so idk where she actually sits there?? i remember seeing something like she’s the First Titan but i also think the novelization of the movie said she’s only 3 million years old?? when im p sure they’ve said goji is 250+ million years old so…. i have no clue there lol. personally she feels less jaded and grumpy than goji does to me so my brain automatically sees her as similar or younger bcuz of my Grumpy Old Man bias.

i’m still workin out my ideas for her but based on how the movie ends i like to think she helps kong with relocating the apes to a better home, and they mostly live in HE. her n kong venture up for surface dates bcuz she gets what she fucking deserves 💙

goji nearly has an aneurysm the first time they come up, since mosu literally takes them for a lil tour of monster island. bro standing there clenching his fist like the arthur meme, he begrudgingly knows she’s right and eventually he gets used to it

i got more ideas cookin for her but this post is already too damn long cuz of my ranting time to stfu

SHIMO BEST GIRL 10/10

[kyberblade]

Back To You - (Din x Reader) Epilogue/Prologue for Close To Home

A/N: IT IS HEREEEEEEE!!! So sorry it took so long. So much happens. I was going to divide this and then I thought, “Hmmmmm…. No.” As one does. Another note at the end to avoid spoilers. Seriously. Don’t read it until you’ve read the whole thing. You’ve been warned. I have spoken. This is the way. Yada yada yada. …..You just jumped forward and came back didn’t you? 🙄 Also, once again, there is some lore in this that @writerlyhabits​ wrote in a fantastic short, and I loved it so much, I asked if I could use it.

There are parts of this you won’t understand if you didn’t read the Dincember 2022 Drabble Carry You With Me, but they are very small mentions, you will be fine as a whole if you don’t want to read it. But why wouldn’t you? 🥺

(This takes place two years after the other one, and goes to the beginning-ish of episode 1/5 of TBoBF, Return of the Mandalorian.)

I do not own Star Wars or it’s characters. Sadly. But I carry them in my heart. Does that count for something? My soul says yes.

Warnings: Tooth rotting fluff, Grogu being the cutest thing you ever did see, (Nobody touch me he’s still here okay?) and Din is once again a warning in and of himself in this one. Helmetless Din. What? Who said that? 😬 Typical show violence. Swearing. Space swearing. Grogu is a menace. Arguing? Mando’a. Show dialogue, so spoilers? (But if you’re here, you know how this works.) Return of past characters. Tears. Shenanigans. Lots of banter. Throwback to chapter one with dialogue repeats but in the best™️ way, and copious amounts of me trying to work in back to you as a normal thing in a sentence bc why not.

Word count: 16,655 (I said what I said.)

As always, thanks to @grippingbeskar for encouraging me, looking over this for me, and being the one to introduce me to Din fanfiction in the first place, getting me hooked. You are fantastic and I always love our chats.

And for @fordo-kixed-rex, you deserve so much more than a shoutout for reading all 75 million iterations of this massive chapter from start to finish, and helping me in between. You’re a real one, friend. This series would not have gotten this far without you.

Also a shoutout to @what-the-heckin-heck, @dontletyourchildrenwatchthis, @lloweryourstandardss, and @littlemisspascal for being a sounding board for me over this whole process. (Also to @deceiver-of-gods for all of your help over all the chapters with the Mando’a. I hope I got it right in this one.)

Previous | Series Masterlist | Next

Xxx

Two years later….

Tatooine was bustling. As always. Vendors with their wares, smells and brilliant sights everywhere you turned. Something new and exciting to pull you in and suck all your credits dry just like the planet's heat stole every drop of moisture…. 

But it was all nothing without the kid. It was dull and drab without Grogu at your side. His soft babbles, the odd ‘Patu’ he’d throw at the next snack he’d like to steal…. 

Dank farrik! Turning away from the hanging frogs at the nearest vendor, you swiped at the most recent batch of tears rising to the surface. Sniffling loudly, you melted into the warm hand that came to rest on your back, eyes fluttering shut.

“It’s okay, mesh’la. I miss him, too.” The modulated voice at your ear carried unspoken sorrow of its own, sadness it’d never dare to even whisper into the universe, lest that make it real. If he kept it hidden, secret…. Like his face, nothing in the galaxy could use it against him. Somehow it made him stronger. And you both resented that and wanted to squeeze the life out of him for it at the same time. 

“It’d be nice if you’d show it once and a while….” You grumbled, turning toward him but keeping your eyes cast down to stare at the sand.

His hand fell to his side slowly. “What?” Head tilting to the side as he peered down at you in question, barely any space left between you, it leaned the other way when you shook your head with a sarcastic grin.

“Nothing. Forget it.” Your eyes lifted up to meet his visor finally, squinting against the glare of the twin suns. “Got everything?”

Din nodded. “Almost. Just need the-”

His words were cut short when the satchel across his chest suddenly dropped to the ground, the strap cut inconspicuously by a passing Rhodian seeming to casually bump into the Mandalorian only moments before.

You turned to try and find the culprit but Din tugged on your upper arm. 

“Forget about him. He’s just the-” Both of you looked down at the ground to find the satchel missing, “-distraction.”

You smirked. “I see.”

As Din’s head began to swivel in search of the thief, you attempted to reach out through the crowd with the Force, searching for the familiar signature of the contents in the satchel.

“How did you not get an alert?”

Now your head was on a swivel. Directly to the Mandalorian. “A what?”

“You know.” He wiggled his fingers like Cara always did when referencing the Force. “Why didn’t you know?”

You rolled your eyes with a sigh, looking back to the crowd. “It doesn’t work that way.” The world weary words you’d said a thousand times felt like a mantra at this point. Then after a moment you added, “I’m not a security system.”

“Well that would be handy,” Din said offhandedly, beginning to walk purposefully in the direction the two of you had come not minutes before.

Stumbling after him, your face scrunched like you’d eaten something sour, you pulled on his upper arm to try and turn him around, but it only stopped him, his head still on a swivel. “Wait, what?!”

Din sighed in frustration. “I don’t know. I’m just looking for the thief. That bag has something impor-”

“Your old armor, I know.” Din’s full attention was on you now, his head tilted slightly in question. “Everything has an energy, that’s a really simplified way of how the Force works. Right now I’m trying to track the signature of your armor.”

“What is it?” He asked hesitantly, his weight shifting to one side.

Smiling softly, you took a step forward, grabbing his hand and pulling him down a side alley toward where you felt the signature grow stronger. “Nothing but goodness, Man- Din. Light and strength.” You stumbled over his name, still not used to using his actual moniker in public.

He chuckled at your fumble, shaking his head in disbelief. “From that dingy old stuff?”

“It’s not the quality of the armor that I’m reading.” You looked at his visor over your shoulder, eyebrow raised. “It’s the quality of the warrior who wore it.” Turning back forward to navigate between the street crowded with lifeforms, one side of your mouth lifted in amusement. “That type of thing leaves an impression.”

“You didn’t answer my question,” he finally grumbled quietly. When you looked back at him once again, your brow arched higher than before, he huffed. “How did you know it was there?”

Smiling softly as you held the gaze of his visor, you turned back to face forward, moving a bit faster. “You’re about as subtle as your new armor.” Din let out a soft, annoyed groan. “I saw you packing it back in Peli’s hangar.”

“I can be subtle,” he groused, slowing his steps slightly.

With your own groan, you turned to face him with a toss of your head for emphasis. “Yes. So subtle, Mandalorian. My big, shiny tin can. Now come.” Grabbing his hand once again with both of yours, you began to walk backwards, pulling him along with you. “We have a thief to catch.”

The alley had quieted down, the masses of beings thinned out so it was basically only you and Din, and maybe a handful of beings milling about, using the cross way as a shortcut to somewhere else. No one was lingering, their faces streaking by as they hurried to move on with their day.

“Hold that thought.” Din pulled you to a stop, planting his feet as he turned his head toward a crate on his left. On top of the box sat his satchel, untouched, his armor still causing it to look awkward and lumpy. “We may have just lucked ou-”

A surge of panic behind you caused you to turn toward the source, a small figure darting out of your line of sight as a familiar small voice muttered, “Oh shi-” before spinning around in Din’s hold, his grip around their forearm holding them tight.

“Okay, you little nerf herder, nice try- Sola?” Din’s voice dropped on the name.

You turned to fully face the pair, eyes going wide on the small girl now a young adult, maybe twelve, possibly thirteen years old now. 

She looked between the two of you, her expression a mirror of your own, as her body deflated in Din’s hold, her weight going slack in his grip while she cried in disbelief, “It’s you?!”

You couldn’t help the highly intelligent thing that tumbled out of you next. “It’s you?!”

Sola sighed a sigh worthy of a Mandalorian before she grumbled, kicking one foot at the sand path of the alleyway. “I knew I recognized that armband.”

Reaching up, you traced over the ribbons on your left bicep with the tips of your fingers on your right hand, eyes darting down to look at it briefly before they pulled back up to level a stern glare on the girl.

Before anything else could be said, heavy footfalls came racing up behind your little gathering. A female stumbled the last few steps, coming to a stop and collapsing, slapping her hands onto her knees before you could see her face, struggling to catch her breath. You opened your mouth to greet the newcomer, but she held up one finger before you could utter a sound. 

Din finally muttered in disbelief, “Cara?”

Your head whipped over toward the figure, eyes wider still. “It’s you?!” A hand came up to rest on your forehead, massaging back and forth as if that would help things sink in and make more sense. Your brows practically knit together in confusion with this new information, one arching up as you stared at the woman. “I’m so confused.”

Standing up, with one last heavy breath, Cara offered the two of you a tired smile. “Following up a lead.”

She held up a hand to stop Din before he could even ask, her eyes closing in mock annoyance. “Long story.” She opened them once again to land directly on you with a wink as Din sighed in exasperation before her attention turned onto Sola, her hand falling to gesture to the adolescent before landing at her side with a graceless slap. “And this little womp rat stole my commlink.”

Din looked down at the girl, giving her arm still in his grip a little shake. “This is Sola.” 

The girl shrunk under the stare of three adults. 

Cara’s gaze flicked up towards his visor, almost accusingly. “Friend of yours?” You nodded, and she sighed, hands going to her hips, weight shifting to one side. “Why am I not surprised?”

“Sola,” you tried calmly, going over to grab Din’s satchel before it was forgotten in the chaos. “Explain, please.”

“Nothing. It was nothing. I just grabbed hers by mistake, that’s all.” She shrugged, trying to appear nonchalant.

Cara leveled a look on the girl, her tone dry. “Off my belt?”

Sola tried a grin. “Whoops?”

The Marshal lifted the look to Din. 

“Don’t do that to me,” he complained. “I didn’t teach her that.”

“Don’t even pretend to look at me next, Cara,” you held up your hand to stop her before she even tried. “I only taught her good things.”

Sola rolled her eyes and tried to tug out of Din’s hold, but the Mandalorian easily held her in place.

“Have a seat,” you offered sweetly, pulling the crate the bag had been on toward you with the Force, and giving her a nudge to sit. “Talk.”

She stared over at the wall behind you, grinning in disbelief. “It was a dare, okay?” Her eyes pulled up to meet yours, their hard stare melting slightly once they did, revealing something vulnerable, something broken. Her voice softened just slightly, but still held the mock vibrato she started out with, making you huff as she continued. “Some kids dared me to take someone’s bag, and I was just unlucky enough to choose you.”

“And my comlink?” Cara tried.

Sola turned to her with a cheesy grin. “That was just bad luck on your end.”

“I’ll show you bad luck,” Cara grumbled, stepping closer to the teen.

You stepped between them. “Cara.”

“What?” She barked, trying to peer over your shoulder at the girl before looking you in the eyes.

“No.”

“She stole-”

“She’s a kid,” you corrected. “Tell me you didn’t do dumb stuff when you were her age. Hell, you do dumb stuff now.”

“You’re one to talk,” Cara grumbled.

You smirked, arms crossing over your chest as your weight shifted to one leg. “Ah, but I travel with a Mandalorian. What’s your excuse?”

Cara scoffed. “I knew him first, if we’re going that route.”

“I’m right here,” Din said, somewhat offended, reaching out to gently push Sola down by the shoulder without a second glance when she went to stand up.

You kept your voice even, mildly distracted as you spoke somewhat flippantly. “Mandalorians who shot their partner in the leg don’t get to talk right now.”

“I didn’t shoot you!” He protested, voice going up at the end in agitation.

“You shot her?” Cara asked at the same time Din spoke, turning to look at him with raised brows.

“I didn’t shoot her!” Din corrected before Cara could even finish, his visor swiveling back to you. “It was a ricochet.” His head tilted to the right as he stared at you. “On Gideon’s ship. The bolt bounced off the droid when she launched at it, and-”

You waved your hand dismissively, gaze landing on nothing in particular across the street. “Same thing.”

“It is no-”

“Ugh!” Sola threw her head back and groaned, staring at the sky with wide eyes, her voice went up with each following word. “This is torture!” Her head lowered back to look between the three of you, eyes narrowed to slits before they fluttered shut and she heaved another heavy sigh. “Fine. I’ll talk.” She leaned back on her palms on the crate, her face finally relaxing to something more neutral. “Just…. Stop whatever…. This,” she gestured vaguely with one hand while her nose scrunched up slightly in disgust, “is.”

You turned back to face her, nodding for her to go on, but Din interrupted.

“Later.”

You rolled your eyes as he waved his finger at you in admonishment before landing them back on the girl, smiling softly. “Go on, Sola.”

She hesitated before taking a quick breath and letting it all out on an exhale, speaking quickly. “My parents are diplomats from a planet in the Mid Rim.” 

“Woah, woah, woah, slow down, kid!”

Sola glared at you, taking an exaggeratedly deep breath before speaking overly clearly the rest of her explanation. “We’re here to broker peace between the different ruling houses and our world.”

“Hey, if you’re going to have an attitude, we can just leave,” you warned.

“Great!” Sola beamed. “Bye!” She went to rise from the crate but both Din and Cara pushed down on a shoulder on each side respectively, earning a soft oomph! from the teen. 

She sighed resignedly before going on. “But as you can probably guess, that goes as smooth as sand in a hyperdrive.” She took a deep breath. “I’m not allowed to do anything. I have to keep up appearances, and stay inside most of the time now because we have gotten death threats after a deal gone bad recently.”

Din visibly stiffened beside her, Cara, too. A chill ran up your spine as she continued.

As she relaxed further back into the crate, her words seemed almost lazy, lackadaisical. “So I started sneaking out. Nothing major, just needed some fresh air, well, it’s Tatooine, so, air.” Her tone went rigid with her posture, the spark in her fading to a dull ember as her volume faded to a mere murmur. Her index finger traced lines along her knee as her eyes followed the invisible trails it made. “Then I met them.”

“Who?”

Sola met your eyes, almost startled when you asked, like she’d forgotten people were listening. She shrugged one shoulder, her eyes dropping back down to her lap, her tone still soft. “Doesn’t matter. A group of kids. They do petty crimes and stuff, I wasn’t going to do anything, but they said they were going to tell the people who had been sending death threats how I was sneaking in and out at night.” Her hand stilled, then began poking at the ankle of her foot tucked up under her absently, her eyes cast down at the ground. “They had been watching me, I guess. Let them know all our weak points in security. If I didn’t do a job for them, then they’d tell….”

“And one job turned into more….”

She nodded at your comment. Her eyes flickering up to meet yours for only a second before they pulled down again.

“Why didn’t you just tell your parents and beef up security?” Din’s voice was in planning mode.

Sola peered up at him, squinting against the suns’ light. “And prove I’d let them down?” She looked down at her lap, fiddling her thumbs. “Sneaking around, been committing petty crimes? Would you have done that?”

Din looked at the ground, his voice quiet. “Probably not.”

“Give me my comlink,” Cara said, holding out her hand toward the girl.

You huffed, arms crossing over your chest. “Really, Cara? You hear all that and you’re still banging on about your damned-”

Once the device was in her hand, she took a few steps away and spoke into it in a professional voice. “This is Marshal Dune. Please call off the search. It wasn’t stolen, I just dropped it. Sorry for the confusion.” A male voice you couldn’t quite make out garbled over static on the other end. “Yeah, I’m fine,” Cara replied, turning to face the three of you. “Also, I’m going to take off the rest of the day. Found some booths I want to wander through. We’ll pick up our meeting tomorrow. Yeah. See you then.”

She made her way back over, clipping the comlink to her belt. “I just bought us about twelve hours. What’s the plan?”

“Plan?” Sola looked between the three of you with wide eyes.

You smiled. Her gaze was up and off the ground for the first time this conversation. And it was full of hope. 

“Of course,” you said, smiling gently. “Nobody messes with a member of our family and gets away with it.” Sola grinned at your words. You’d do pretty much anything to keep it there. “Now, let’s go scare some thugs, shall we?”

Xxx

“Now, I know that you packed it,” you said, standing in the fresher of the Crest, voice jiggling as you hopped slightly to pull the armor higher up your chest. “But I don’t know why.”

“Oh, the Jedi is stumped, is she?” Din’s sarcastic amusement was muted through the door, making you roll your eyes. 

Setting your weight to one hip, you pressed the button, and the durasteel barrier hissed open to reveal your Mandalorian leaning against the frame. His arms across his chest as he waited for you, his posture easy and relaxed, he looked like a growth on the walls of his ship.

Cara and Sola were out in the hangar with Peli, their voices faintly heard along with the annoyed bleeps and bloops of R5 as they echoed off the stone walls and up the open ramp. 

“Not stumped,” you countered quickly, walking around him to the middle of the cargo hold as you pulled your gloves on, chin held high as you chose your next words with care. His visor followed you as you went. “Just…. Curious.” You finally landed on with a huff, looking down at your hands as they fiddled mindlessly before adding on a mumbled, “And I’m not a Jedi.”

Din pushed off the wall, his head shaking gently in disbelief as he walked toward you slowly. “I was going to have Boba melt it down and forge it into something better.” He stopped somewhere behind you. You were purposely not paying attention, trying not to get distracted and make sure your armor was set up correctly, only faintly registering the absence of the soft thud of his boots on the metallic floor of the Crest right behind you before he went on. “I don’t know where the armorer is right now, and it’s not full beskar anyway, so any smith could do it, but I trust him.”

“Something better?” You turned to face him, head tilted to the side as you clicked your vambraces into place, their gears whirring to life. Stumbling back an inch as you startled, his chest plate brushing against your nose he was so close, you reached out to swat his arm lightly in annoyance, muttering a Don’t do that and shaking your hand out to the side with a grimace after it pinged off his beskar. Craning your head back to look up at him properly, you couldn’t help the small grin when you found him already peering down at you. “Like what?”

Din’s head tilted just so to the right. “Something for you.” He didn’t miss a beat. 

Your eyes widened slightly before they narrowed to slits. “You’re not going to tell me, are you?”

He was smiling. You could tell by the lilt in his voice as he leaned into the tilt of his head, his body following and started down the ramp. “You know me so well.”

Reaching out, you grabbed his cape. “Nu-uh. Not so fast, Tin Can. Hold up.” Pulling him back to you, though he gave very little resistance, you leaned around to look into his visor when he was a few inches away, his hands on his hips in mock annoyance. “You don’t have to do that.” Your voice had gone soft. He turned to face you fully. “I know that armor is important to you.”

“So are you.”

You grinned. “Smooth, Shiny. Real smooth.”

Din shrugged one shoulder, his hands falling to rest at his sides loosely. “I have my moments.”

You nodded, starting down the ramp, and talking over your shoulder. “And they are few and far between.”

Din scoffed. “Lucky for you. You couldn’t handle me at full throttle.”

Grinning, you looked down at your vambraces and twisted them a bit. “That sounded like a threat.”

“It’s whatever you wanted it to be, mesh’la.”

“You look like a Mando.” Sola’s voice pulled your attention away from the man at your back before you could reply. 

“What? In beskar?” You gestured to the armor down your body. “No.”

The young girl rolled her eyes at you.

Grinning, you reached up to adjust your scarf tucked in to make the armor fit a bit better, and noticed her posture go rigid.

“You kept it,” she mumbled, pointing lamely toward the blue material around your neck.

“Yeah? Why wouldn’t I?”

She shook her head. “No, it’s not that. It’s just….” She pulled at her flowing poncho, revealing her bright pink scarf, still vivid as ever, tucked away underneath, close to her heart. “I have mine, too,” she amended softly. “I keep it hidden so it doesn’t get dirty or torn.”

“Kind of like my armband….” You mumbled, closing the last few steps between you before reaching out to softly roll the fabric of her scarf between your thumb and index finger as she traced the ribbon on your bicep with the tips of her own.

“I still have no idea what hyperspace looks like,” she mused, staring at the glittering fabric with a sad smile. “I was so little when we came here, and my parents wouldn’t let me anywhere near a cockpit. I’ve only ever been in a cabin while the ship was moving. No viewports….” She met your eyes again, hand falling to her side. “Supposedly we flew beside some purrgil and even then they wouldn’t let me look.”

Letting your own hand fall to your side, fiddling with the air aimlessly, you held her gaze. “Why not?”

Sola shrugged. “Not sure. They said something about safety at the time, and I just never pressed it, but now it just feels suffocating.”

“I know it’s annoying,” Din chimed in softly from behind you, his shadow looming over the young girl in the dying sun’s light, “but I would give anything to have my parents be overbearing one more time.”

Sola’s eyes flew up to the Mandalorian. “What happened to them?”

“A story for another time,” he said stoically, turning to the right and going deeper into the hangar. “Let’s confirm the plan.”

You turned with Cara and Sola on your left to head that way, Peli falling in step on your right as the droids followed along behind.

“They aren’t around anymore. It happened when he was very young, about the same age as when we met you. That’s why he became a Mandalorian. That’s all I’ll say,” you offered quietly. “The rest is his story to tell.”

The first stars were twinkling overhead as the sky said good night in brilliant shades of red and orange. 

Once your party had circled around one of Peli’s many cluttered tables off to the side, the top of it littered with ship parts, Din turned to you. 

“Gar beskar'gam jate slanar?” (“Your armor good to go?”)

You nodded. “Elek. An jate.” (“Yes. All good.”)

Sola turned her head slowly up toward Cara, one brow arched in confusion.

The Marshal slowly shook her head, eyes closed. “They do this….”

“Do what?” You asked, brows knit toward your friend.

Cara leveled you with a look. “Start speaking in any one of a thousand languages none of the rest of us know.”

R5 started beeping animatedly, trilling as he wheeled back and forth on his treads excitedly, and ended on a raspberry, making you and Peli laugh.

“Oh, great,” Cara rolled her eyes, “even the droid’s are in on it.”

BD and Treadwell made their way into the circle, the Pit droids not far behind, all of them chattering away as they approached you until Din sent a blaster shot pinging off of a piece of scrap pipe over in a corner.

The droids all screeched before going silent, freezing in their steps as Peli cried in protest, “Hey! Watch it!”

“Yeah, we don’t want another ricochet,” you mumbled, adjusting your armor for no good reason besides looking down and away from his judgemental visor.

Cara and Sola snickered from their spots across the table from you, the weight of Din’s stare beside you nothing short of stifling.

“If you stare any louder, Din, they may ask you to be quiet all the way on Coruscant,” you muttered quietly, adjusting your vambraces needlessly for the umpteenth time to hide the growing smirk across your face.

“I’ll just tell them it’s because of you, they'll understand. Garner sympathy.”

Only your eyes lifted up to glare daggers at his visor, his head tilting to the side teasingly as he held your gaze.

“The plan?” You groused, looking across the table with a sigh as your weight shifted to one side - away from the Mandalorian. 

His tone was light, as if it held a smile, while he laid out the steps of the plan one more time. “Sola said they would be meeting her back at the market in an hour. She meets them as planned. The three of us follow her, and stick around in the shadows, as inconspicuously as possible-”

“Says the man who’s a walking mirror.”

Din didn’t even bother to look at you, only sighing at your remark, his shoulders rising and falling with the effort before he went on. “From there, we follow them back to their base of operations. From what we’ve heard, shouldn’t be too hard to get into. We get in, cause a little chaos, get them to release Sola from this…. Contract, then we leave as quietly as we came.”

“No one dies.”

Cara nodded at your words, Din nodding once in agreement, his body going stiff at your next statement. 

“Even if we run into a Jawa.”

He took a deep breath to begin to protest, but you held up a finger to stop him, mocking his words from earlier.

“Later.”

Xxx

Spotting the culprits was easy enough. They weren’t sly about anything as they paraded through the streets with their puffed up chests, smirking as people scattered from them should they get too close. They hassled a vendor or two, shaking them down for a payout, and Cara grumbled beside you, gripping the buckle that showed she was a Marshal tightly through her poncho she wore to conceal it.

Before you could do anything, Din was hot on their heels, handing the vendors a stack of credits to make reparations as soon as the thugs’ backs were turned. They would try and insist he keep it, lightly shoving the money back into his hands, but Din somehow managed to sweet talk them into accepting every time, his head ducked down slightly, hand over theirs in a calming gesture. You wished you could hear what he said.

“I’ve never seen this side of him,” Cara muttered offhandedly. “Caring, soft almost. It looks good on him.”

“Yeah, it does,” you agreed softly. “That’s how he is with the kid. Grogu brought out a side of him I don’t think would have seen the light of day otherwise.”

She elbowed you. “Oh, I dunno. You’re pretty persuasive. Think it’d’ve come out eventually.”

You slid only your eyes sideways to look at her. “Why must you shit talk me?”

“Because if I don’t I’ll simply fade away. It gives me sustenance. I could go days without food, but teasing you? That simply wouldn’t do.”

Turning your head to peer at her incredulously, you spoke in a low voice after a long moment of silence. “I’m going to go stand over there,” you pointed behind you, “as far away from you as possible right now.”

Cara scoffed. “Good. Go. Your beskar'gam is drawing too much attention, anyway.”

With a grin, you began walking backwards down the street, keeping to the shadows. “Aw, you paid attention.”

Your friend glared at you. “Don’t make me regret it.”

A shit eating grin was across your face. “You’re speaking Mando’a….”

Cara huffed, her attention turning back to the street as she mumbled, “Last time I make that mistake.”

Stopping short, you stood up straight. “Aw, don’t be afraid to show your feelings, Cara. Feelings are a good thing. They make us human-”

“If you don’t stop talking-”

“Are you two done?” Din’s voice across the alley from the two of you pulled both sets of eyes his way. “They left a few minutes ago, but I couldn’t get a word in edgewise, what with your bickering.” His head swiveled between you and the Marshal, judgment heavy through his visor. “Sola is with them, I gave her a tracker, slipped it to her when no one was looking while someone,” he looked at you pointedly, “wasn’t paying attention.”

“I was paying attention,” you groused, voice lowering as you kicked at the sand below your feet. “Just not to that.”

“She was talking about you,” Cara tattled, stepping out of the shadows and into the moonlight, stretching like a loth cat.

“So were you!” You protested, also stepping into the nightlight, making Cara squint as she held up a hand as if to block the glare of the reflection off your armor. Swatting her hand down, you knit your brows at her. “It’s not that bright out here, don’t be dramatic.”

“Children. I’m surrounded by literal children,” Din muttered, turning and walking away exasperatedly.

“There’s no need to be rude,” you grumbled, following after him.

“Then prove me wrong,” he called over his shoulder. “Right now you’re worse than Grogu.” You gasped. “When he needs a nap.” Cara gasped. “And he’s hungry.” You both gasped.

“I take it all back,” Cara stormed past Din, her words brusque and aloof. “You’re the meanest person I know.”

“Person?” Your tone was incredulous as you sped up to fall in step with her ahead of the Mandalorian, head swiveling to land on him with a sly smirk over your next word. “Droid.”

Din stopped in his tracks and sighed, head tilting back to the sky just slightly with a gentle shake. “Oh, this mission is off to a great start.”

When both you and Cara kept walking ahead of him, the bounty hunter finally called out on a hiss, “Hey! Are you two done?”

“I don’t know, are we?” You turned on your heel to face him, hands on your hips as you planted your feet and arched your brows in question, almost accusingly. 

Din bit his tongue before he turned this into a whole something else before this entire endeavor even got off the ground…. again. For the third? fourth? time. He’d lost track of how many times they’d gotten off track in the last five minutes alone, let alone today as a whole.

With a jut of his thumb to his left down a narrow alley, he tilted his head that way for emphasis. “Thugs’re that way.” 

Both you and Cara hesitated for only a moment, weight shifting slightly from side to side before you dropped your hands from your hips with a huff and headed toward the alley, your Marshal friend in tow.

As you passed by Din, he muttered a low and amused, “Oh wise one.”

“I’ll tell Sola you said so,” you shot back in a low murmur. “She already knows I’m the smart one.” The alley was so small you had to form a single file line, and somehow you were in the front with Cara behind you, and Din pulling up the back. 

“She just lets you think that’s what she thinks,” Cara hummed. “We all know it’s me.”

Din snorted. “It’s neither of you.” He shook his head at the two sets of eyes shooting daggers at him over their shoulders as they came to an abrupt stop in front of him. “I’m the one with the map and the tracker, remember?” He tapped the right side of his helmet with his index finger.

“Oh, will you just get in front and lead, you overgrown Tin Can?!” You hissed, flattening yourself against the wall to let him pass, the heat of the day still clinging to the wall at your back.

Cara rolled her eyes as she squished herself, allowing him through, but it was still a tight fit all around between the three of you. When Din passed her, his back against the opposing wall, she grimaced though he moved quickly. “Will you just get out of my face, Shiny?”

“What, you mean you don’t want to get to know me this well?” Din relaxed his weight a little, leaning into her slightly. “I thought we were friends.”

Cara shoved him with one arm toward you, making him laugh as he kept going, stumbling slightly from the impact. “We won’t be if you keep on that thread of conversation, Mando.”

Din stopped directly in front of you, tilting his head sideways as he muttered softly, “Hi, mesh’la.” Leaning his forehead into yours, he chuckled softly at Cara’s over exaggerated gag in reaction.

“I’m trying to be mad at you,” you grumbled, fisting one hand into his cowl as you ignored Cara’s groans, elbowing her in the ribs with your free arm when she continued.

“What was that for?!” She cried in protest.

“Just because I’m happy, doesn’t mean you need to moan about it.”

Her face scrunched in disgust as she looked away at the wall across from her. “Go be happy somewhere else. We have a job to do.”

Din sighed. “She’s right,” and pushed off the wall to get in front.

You held on to his cape from behind him. “No. No, she’s never right.” Cara landed a swift kick to the back of your boot. “Ow! What was that for?”

“For being so wrong all the time!”

“Don’t make me speak Mando’a to you,” you grumbled. “Or how about Huttese? I also know Shyriiwook now, too.”

“How about you speak silence.”

Din snorted at the Marshal’s words from his spot in front of you, Cara huffing out a laugh from behind.

“When all of this is over, you both are gonna pay.”

“You don’t scare me,” Cara scoffed.

Looking over your shoulder, you arched a brow, holding up one hand by your face and wiggling your fingers. “Well maybe I should.”

Her face went pale, her steps faltering slightly as understanding dawned on her features. “You don’t scare me,” she repeated, her voice softer after she swallowed roughly.

You chuckled, turning back to face Din’s cape once again. “The Force works in mysterious ways.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Before you could answer, Din cut in, without bothering to turn around, “It's just her way of threatening to trip you. Don’t read into it too much.”

He no sooner said that than he was stumbling forward down the alley, reaching out to brace himself on the walls with his forearms.

“Look at that? My boot also works in mysterious ways.”

“What happened?” Cara asked, oblivious to you tripping Din with the toe of your shoe.

“Gravity. Don’t read too much into it.”

Grinning up at the back of the Mandalorian’s helmet where he had stopped in front of you, you let go of his cape still in your grip. “Careful, Din. There’s gravity there.”

“What did he even trip on?” Cara’s voice was incredulous.

“Air? His ego? Pride…. The options are endless….”

“The foot of an over eager Jedi that’s about to be in her mouth if she keeps talking,” Din hissed, barely looking over his shoulder at the two of you, arms falling from the walls to his sides.

“How do you mean?” You scoffed, following after him as he began to move down the alley again.

“We’re here,” he said with a flourish, the small avenue opening up to a wide street brightly lit with several buildings that dead ended down on the right. With a swooping gesture, he moved to the left, making room for the two of you to step forward beside him, his visor following you closely before tilting to the side. “You’re welcome.”

“She’s right,” Cara mused quietly. “Your ego is big enough for all three of us to trip on.”

“At least it’s well deserved,” Din groused. “I got us here, didn’t I?”

“You followed a map. That was attached to a tracker. A blindfolded bantha wouldn’t have had a much more difficult time….” You said offhandedly, surveying the area.

Din stared at you for a long moment. “That armor makes you mean,” he grumbled.

“It makes me wonderful,” you countered, eyes across the street on a conspicuous crate, narrowing when it jostled slightly. “You’re just jealous that it looks better on me than it ever did on you.”

“Yeah. That’s it,” Din agreed sarcastically, his weight shifting to one side as he followed your line of sight. Pressing the side of his helmet, he immediately went into planning mode. “I’ve got two heat signatures.”

“Matches up with what I’m sensing. Two life forms. A whole mess more inside.” You took your blaster from its holster, its gears whirring to life. “Everyone set to stun?”

Hums of agreement came back at you along with nods in your peripheral.

“I’ll go in on the right while you two take care of whoever is lurking over there,” Cara gestured across the street with her blaster. “Sneak in that side door and start clearing until I find Sola and slip her a blaster, then we’ll find this boss.”

“I’m in,” you agreed, while Din nodded in agreement beside you. “Let’s go, Tin Can. We have some thugs we need to introduce to beskar.”

Xxx

Storming the place was easy. These thieves didn’t know the first thing about defending their home base.

Getting out on the other hand…. That was proving to be more difficult.

You pulled up behind a wall, tucking your arms into your chest as tightly as possible to make yourself a smaller target, your blaster held between both hands at the ready.

“You said this would be easy!” Din yelled from his mirror position across the hall. Well, almost mirror. He leaned on one shoulder, blaster held up in the opposite hand near his head. His whole body looked just on this side of casual. 

“I said no such thing. You did,” you countered, trying to mimic his posture subtly. “And on that note, Cara was the one who said you and I should go in together, so this is all-”

“Oh, no, you don’t,” Cara’s voice carried from down the hall, the first word elongated as she slid across the floor on her hip to avoid flying blaster bolts to finally land next to you before popping up. “Don’t you dare drag me into this lovers tiff. Nuh-uh.”

Both you and Din spoke in tandem, “This isn’t-”, “We’re not-”

“Yeah, yeah,” Sola said dismissively, jogging up easily behind Din, a singe mark on the shoulder of her poncho. 

Din stood up straight in an instant, took her arm in his hold gently to examine it, turning her every which way to get a better look. “What happened?”

“Told the boss I quit.” She grinned proudly before it melted into a grimace. “He didn’t take it so well.”

Blaster bolts zinged down the hall between the four of you, streaking the air in vibrant shades of purple and red, even an errant green here and there.

“If I could just use my saber-” you started, cut off by the unanimous voices of your friends.

“No!”

Letting your head lull back against the wall with a gentle thump, you rolled it in aggravation before facing the others again. “And why not?! I’ve saved your asses so many times!”

“Close quarters!” Cara was gesturing with her hands while she spoke, referencing the hall. “Too many people!” She gestured between the four of you. “Laser sword very bright! Very hot!”

You narrowed your eyes at your friend. “I singed one corner of your tunic. One!”

“And that was one too many,” Din countered, popping around the corner to let off a barrage of shots before coming back for safety.

“This was my favorite,” Cara said forlornly, looking down at the smoldering fabric. 

“I’ll buy you another one.”

“No you won’t,” Cara scoffed. “You can’t afford my tastes-”

“Can we please focus on getting out of here!” Sola’s annoyed voice rang out louder than the blaster fire, pulling all three gazes her way. 

Din was the first to break, turning back to lay down cover fire once again around the corner. “Kid’s right,” he grunted, before letting off a shot that was accompanied by a pained scream at the end of the hall.

“I thought we were set to stun?” You hissed.

Din looked down at his blaster and shrugged meekly, flipping it back to stun. “Sorry. Old habits….”

“I know I am,” Sola said matter of factly, pulling you back to the topic at hand. “Now what’s the plan?”

Stepping a little closer to the corner you were tucked behind, you holstered your blaster. “The plan is for you all to eat your words tonight.”

“What are you doing?” Cara’s worried tone sounded at your back, Din’s incredulous one to your left. “Mesh’la, come on, don’t do something-”

“To save our skins?” You finished for him, looking up into his visor with a determined glint in your eye. “Watch me.”

After taking a deep breath, you closed your eyes and stepped out into the hall where the blaster fire had died down just slightly. The few earrent bolts bounced away from you as if they were hitting a force field. Confused whispers from the enemy preceded a pickup in the rapid fire, bolts flying at a new frenzy, none of which came anywhere close to touching you or your friends.

Lifting your hands in front of you, the bolts began to stop, hovering in mid air inches from your face, your hands, some several feet from you. The room glowed with multi-colored plasma bolts hovering above the floor. As the shots died out, silence filling in the blanks left behind, the corner of your mouth twitched up in an amused smirk.

With a small twitch of your index finger, all their blasters were disabled with a tink. 

When you opened your eyes, the blaster bolts that hung suspended all immediately flew the other way, back toward the senders, but in such a way that they wouldn’t hit anybody. 

Within an instant the group of thieves at the end of the hall were left cowering, curled away from the stranger approaching them from the opposite end of the hall. Some blinked wide eyes while others scrambled back, all of them surrounded by smoke swirling around from the black scorches left behind from the blaster bolts.

“I think we win,” you said calmly, walking toward them slowly.

“Not if I have anything to say about it!” One rogue thief said, jumping to his feet, blaster aimed at you.

“I wouldn’t do that,” you warned, not even looking at him.

When he pulled the trigger and nothing happened, he looked at his blaster in confusion, pulling the trigger a few more times before shaking it incessantly. “Oh, well.” He shrugged. “I have this.” He pulled a spare from the back of his pants.

In two seconds flat Din had stepped forward and shot him with a stun bolt, dropping him to the ground.

“Like I said,” you pulled the active blaster to you with the Force, disengaging the firing mechanism like you had the others before tucking it into the back of your own pants. “I wouldn’t do that.”

“You don’t need another one,” Din groaned. “That makes what, seven now?”

You scoffed. “Not nearly.” With a dry chuckle, you shook your head. “Try three.”

“Including the knife?”

“Oh, yeah! The knife. No, that’s four.”

“Guys!” Cara cried, walking up to stand on the other side of you. “Seriously?”

“What?” You looked at her a moment before cutting your eyes toward the thieves still looking on in silence. “I’m just recounting the weapons I’ve won from our various missions! I see something I like, I take it.”

“These guys don’t care.” Cara gestured to them with her blaster.

“No…. But I do.” You turned to look at the punks with a broad grin. “And something tells me they want to keep me really happy. Right?”

They all nodded vigorously. All but one. He got to his feet as he said, “Oh, kark this!” He was no sooner on his feet than Din had hit him with a stun bolt, dropping him into a heap of limbs where he stood.

“At least you remembered to use stun this time,” you threw over your shoulder towards Din, never looking away from the band of thieves still looking on wide eyed at your little party of four.

“Yeah…. But I’ve been known to forget things real fast,” Din mumbled, shifting his weight just slightly to rest easily on one leg. The way he held his blaster would make anyone think he’d gone soft, but you knew if someone made a wrong move, they’d be down in an instant.

“Here’s what's gonna happen,” Cara stepped forward, her Marshal voice in full swing. “Sola over here is out. I don’t wanna hear of any of you within spitting distance of her ever again, do you hear me?”

Most of them nodded, wide eyed at the Marshal. All but one. It’s always one, you thought with a smile and gentle shake of your head. 

“And what’re you gonna do about it? Marshal?” The way the punk said her name dripped with so much sarcasm and venom, you were surprised Cara was still standing. If looks could kill, she’d be dead right now. “You don’t even live here, so how are you going to enforce anything?”

To his credit, he looked slightly afraid when you and Din took measured steps forward while Cara spoke.

“I have friends all over. I don’t think you want to find out just how far my reach can go…. Young man.”

Cara winced slightly on the last words and it took everything in you not to burst out laughing. The way her eyes darted over to you, however briefly, with a mighty rise and fall of her shoulders told you she knew she’d never hear the end of this.

He scoffed. “Like I’d believe any of that.”

“But you’d believe blaster bolts levitating in space then flying the wrong way?” You challenged, taking another small step forward. 

The kid scoffed again.

“You believe this?” Din was striding forward, his vambraces whirring to life as the flame thrower charged up.

Reaching out with the Force, you disengaged his vambrace as the wall of fire just started to lick at the toes of the boots of the insolent kid.

“Not now, Mando. I think he gets it.” Shooting your eyes over to the kid before looking back into his visor, you saw him glance over to find the teen cowering behind the others, mumbling apologies.

Din strode over to you, keeping his body facing the group of adolescents to make them think he was still a threat, which he was, but you knew him well enough to know he was looking at you now and not them, his head turned just slightly.

“Turning off my vambraces now, huh?”

You shrugged. “What can I say? You shouldn’t be frying teenagers, Din. It’s not nice.”

Leaning closer to your ear, his voice hummed through the modulator, something in his tone different this time. “Later,” he promised again.

You grinned, winking at Cara as she rolled her eyes and walked off with an over dramatically gagging Sola. “Can’t wait.”

Xxx

Back at the hangar, the four of you tried to move as quietly as possible, to not wake a sleeping Peli. 

“I can’t thank you enough. I don’t know how I could ever repay you-”

Placing your hand on Sola’s shoulder, you smiled down at her when her big eyes looked up your way. So much like the first time you met her all those years ago. “There’s nothing to thank. That’s just what families do.”

“We help each other,” Cara agreed, stepping up behind Sola and putting her arm around her shoulders. Tilting her head to the side in thought, she added with a grin, “And yeah, sometimes we want to murder each other, too, but….” She looked at Din. “It comes and goes.”

“Mostly comes,” the Mandalorian muttered, adjusting his belt before walking off toward the ramp of the Crest. He stopped at the foot of it, withdrawing a vibroblade from his boot before he turned around and walked back. “Hey, kid.” He offered Sola the blade. “Take care of yourself.”

“You bet I will,” she mumbled around a grin, flipping the blade in her palm with expert precision that had your brow arching. Upon closer inspection, she saw a mudhorn upon the hilt. “That’s the same symbol that’s on your armor….” She looked over at your saber. “And your….” 

“Like I said,” you pulled her into a hug. “We take care of family.”

“Where’s my mudhorn?” Cara groused.

Din extended a blaster with a freshly etched mudhorn he had tucked into the back of his belt to Sola as he looked at Cara, head tilted just so. “Hidden with your act of valor. Go find it.”

“You’re mean,” Cara shoved his shoulder.

“You’d get tired of us anyway,” you mused in response to Cara, wrapping your arms around Din’s waist in what seemed an innocent manner, then lightly pinching his side in admonishment, smiling at his slight groan in response. Before he could get his own arm around your waist in retaliation, you pinned it to his side with the Force, smiling up at him smugly when he grunted in unamusement. 

“I already have,” she agreed, looking down her nose at the two of you.

“No you haven’t,” Din countered tiredly as he turned back toward the ship, heading up the ramp.

“What do you know?” She called after him.

“Everything!” His voice came from inside the ship overlapping your muttered, “Nothing.”

“Not enough,” you amended with a grin, meeting Cara’s eye as she returned your smile. “He doesn’t know nearly enough.”

“It’s a good thing I love teaching, then.” She laughed, offering you a hug before she turned to leave the hangar. After a few steps, she stopped and looked back over her shoulder. “You coming kid?”

Sola hesitated in her spot in front of you. “But I don’t…. I don’t wear armor.”

“Verd'ika….” You reached out and rested your hand on her shoulder. “Ad’ika. Cyare'se. Daworir’ika. Ka’ra’ika…. Almost all of my nicknames for you had something to do with little.” (“Little soldier. Little one. Loved ones. Little stink. Little star.”)

“Not so little anymore.”

“I can see that,” you smiled softly. “Tal tomad.”

She pulled a face. “Do I even want to know?”

“Blood ally.” You reached out and pinched her scarf between your finger tips. “Verd ori'shya beskar'gam.”

“What…. What does that mean?”

You smiled. “I need to come with a protocol droid….”  She laughed. “Warrior greater than armor. It means armor isn’t everything.” Moving your hand from her scarf to rest on her shoulder once again, you felt Din come to stand behind you, his reflection beginning to morph in Sola’s watering eyes. “It’s who wears it.” 

Xxx

As you watched Cara and Sola walk out of the hangar, Din pulled you to the side gently.

“Speaking of armor, you don’t have any now, either.”

Looking down at the armor still very much on your frame, you looked up at his visor and blinked at him once. Twice. “Excuse me?”

He shifted his weight, hands resting on his belt in his default I already explained this pose. “I’m about to meet up with Boba in a few minutes. Need the armor so I can give it to him.”

You matched his posture, ignoring his indignant head roll. “Oh right. For this super secret thing for me I can’t know about.”

Din nodded once. “You got it.”

Shaking your head in disbelief, you turned and made your way up the ramp of the Crest, not bothering to turn around as you grumbled, “You’re awful.”

“I know.” His tone was nothing short of beaming.

Xxx

The next day, the two of you were up with the suns and beginning work on the Crest with a handful of Peli’s droids. 

The woman herself had appeared after a while, but she obviously was not intended for morning hours.

Peli had disappeared into the shaded depths of the hangar, citing paperwork of some sort, but her snores could be heard from the main landing area. 

One thing led to another, and the work on the ship was forgotten in favor of brushing up on footwork with two chosen weapons.

The hanger sung with the clashing of beskar on kyber, his spear standing resilient against your purple blade.

The pit droids were hard at work on the Crest to try and cover up the cacophony of battle sounds rising up into the air.

As it hit a new fever pitch, you and Din drawing close together after some particularly fancy footwork, the glow of kyber straining against beskar painting your faces in a soft illuminated glow as you pulled closer still, you smirked. 

“I think that means I win, Mandalorian.”

Din scoffed, his modulator popping with the sound. “Nayc. A’nuhunla,” he drawled, his voice low. (“No. But funny.”)

Pulling back from one another, you huffed out a chuckle as you began to circle each other in assessment, waiting for the other to make the next move. “Give it to me in Basic, Mando.” Disengaging your saber, you stopped dead in your tracks, arms dangling limply by your sides. “I’m too tired to fight and translate at the same time.”

“Gar Jetii’kad,” Din pointed to the now bladeless hilt in your hand. “Nau’ur kad.” (“Your lightsaber.”) (“Light up a saber.”) 

“Din-”

But he didn’t let you finish, his hands tightening around his spear as his weight lowered, ready to charge. “Kad’au, Jetii.” (“Lightsaber, Jedi.”)

“Ne'johaa,” you mumbled, igniting the blade and lowering yourself into a ready stance to match. (“Shut up.”)

Once you were set, you stood straight up again, smiling softly when Din let his lowered weight relax as well in aggravation, his modulator hissing in annoyance. “This was just supposed to be for fun. Some training, maybe. Not-”

“Kad,” he almost barked, before launching at you. (“Saber.”)

“Mir’sheb,” you hissed through gritted teeth as you blocked an overhead blow from his spear, squinting your eyes as sparks flew from the impact. (“Smartass.”)

He took a minuscule step closer, pressing his weight into you and making you bend back slightly. His voice was low and mocking, but strained to show his struggle against your strength as you continued to push back. “Only for you.”

With a shout, you pushed him off of you with a last reserve of strength.

“That’s it. That’s it. I’m done.” You held your hands up by your head. “No more.” Twirling your saber as you stretched your wrist, you tilted your head from side to side. “You’ve got some unresolved issues with only using the stun back there at the hideout or something,” gesturing to him with a swooping hand gesture, you ignored his snort and slight shift of weight, “but I’m done with all your nonsense.” Turning away you took a deep breath and disengaged your saber, mumbling under your breath, “Ni copaani buy'ce gal.” (“I want a bucket of booze.”)

The next thing you knew you were flat on your back, sand flying out around you as the Mandalorian stood over you, flipping his spear back to its resting position with a flourish. All you could process as you blinked up at the cloudless sky was heat, grit, and what?

“I think that means I win…. Manda Jetii.” (The state of being Mandalorian in mind, body and spirit.)

Eyes flying to his visor, you had to squint at the glare of the suns off the brilliant metal. You could only blink up at him, taking his hand when he offered it and helped you up. After a shared moment of simply staring at one another, he turned to survey the hangar, repeating your words from earlier. “Ni copaani buy'ce gal.”

It was at that point you noticed Peli’s face. 

Her very, very, very distraught face. 

Following her line of sight, your eyes went wide as you took in the Crest over your shoulder. Sparks flew, singe marks lined the hull. Did I do that?

A poor little astromech Peli had just acquired was trying to tune up something near the ramp of the ship, and Din, once he turned to survey the damage for himself, spying an unfamiliar droid linking into his ship, let his spear loose without a second thought. 

If you hadn't had the mind to divert it midair with the Force right before impact, the droid would be a pile of steaming wires right now instead of a trembling pile of bolts.

The screech of terror it let out as the spear made impact right above its head made you want to laugh, but you stifled it into your hand, turning a disapproving glare on Din when he asked why you did that.

“We don’t murder innocent droids.”

“No droid is innocent,” he grumbled, looking over at the scrappy little astro unit. 

“They are until proven guilty.”

“I don’t need any proof,” Din mumbled. “Have all the proof I need.”

“You have nothing.”

Before he could say anything else, the angry mech was rolling toward the bounty hunter with an electrified arm ready to zap him, but you held it at bay with the Force. You also held Din back, snorting when he turned a look on you. 

“No.”

Peli somehow materialized beside you, everything about her bewildered and distraught. You let the two arguing tin cans go as you turned your attention to your friend, the final zap from the droid to Din’s thigh before it rolled off not going unnoticed. 

Pointing every which way with each new statement, Peli began to protest. “I was- They were- You just-” Her hands slapped down to her sides, her face pulled determinedly. “That’s not fair!”

She turned to her pit droid crew. “Why do I get all the defective droids in this town?” They began to prattle but she cut them off. “You guys couldn’t fix the wrong side of a bantha.”

Reaching out with your mind, a twitch of your foot sideways ever so slightly, and one of the compartments at the back of the Crest flew off, the wiring inside plopping out like the ship had drunk too much spotchka the night before and now had something to prove.

“It’s alright, Peli. It wasn’t all you.”

“You bet your beskar it wasn’t!” She turned a look on Din. “Don’t think I didn’t notice that massive spear sticking out of the side of my ship.”

Din had the decency to look sheepish, turning his gaze to stare across the hangar, hands on his hips.

“Now I’ll have to track down the Jawas to find enough ancient parts to fix this hunk of junk.” She smacked the hull closest to her with her palm, her eyes fluttering shut as a panel fell off to her right with a clatter.

Leveling her gaze on you, a shudder ran down your spine as Peli stared at you in silence. Finally she spoke again. “You. You’re going to help.”

“And you,” she pointed at Din. He pointed at himself in question and she nodded, maintaining the accusing jab of her index. “Yes, you. Mandalorian.” Din tilted his head curiously. “You are going to go to the cantina to look for a job to pay for all of…. this!”

Peli gestured wildly to the sparking Crest behind her. 

You winced at the singe marks left behind by your saber, beside the puncture mark from the spear as it had let loose from his hands and flown across the hangar. Its beskar body still stood proudly from the hull, glinting in the afternoon sun.

Reaching up high above her head, Peli jerked it from the body of the ship with a grating screech of metal on metal. Green goo began to shoot from the new opening, coating the sand of the hangar around her feet in several inches in a matter of seconds.

She looked down at it before bringing menacing eyes up to glare at Din.

“I’ll be at the cantina,” he mumbled, turning to leave without anymore fuss.

“I’ll…. Be here, I guess,” you mumbled, catching Peli’s death stare out of the corner of your eye. “Pick me up some of those blue cookies on your way back?”

“Really?” Din stopped, cocking his head at you.

“Yeah!” You shot back. “The kid isn’t here, so I don’t have to share them.”

“Who says I don’t want some?”

You scoffed. “Experience.” Crossing your arms, you stared at him. “Besides, who says I’m sharing regardless?”

Din took a step back toward you, his voice lowering playfully. “I could make you….”

“Cantina!” Peli hissed.

You’d never seen Din move so quickly.

Xxx

Peli had dragged you out to the large rolling fortress of the Jawas after she had given her pit droid crew a stern talking to. 

You couldn’t make eye contact with them as you stood just behind her and listened to her admonishments. Their judgmental stares from their single ocular lenses could be felt even across the hangar. 

Looking over the wares, you were just glad Din wasn’t here. Jawas would be dropping like flies if he were. He really had a problem.

Bringing your scarf up to cover your face, wrapping it around your head to keep it secure and protect you just a layer more from the suns beating down and sand blowing in the rough winds, you squinted at an old astromech tucked away in the back near the ramp.

“What about that one?” You asked, pointing to it.

The little hooded figure helping you turned, exclaiming something when he realized what you were asking about, then began talking a mile a minute and gesturing even faster.

Holding up your hands, you cut in, “Yeah, yeah, hold on little guy,” your new Jawa friend grunted at the name as you turned to call for help. “Peli! Get over here!” Waving your hand to gesture her over, you hoped it’d help her find you a bit faster.

You saw her curls before you saw her, turning your way and quickly weaving through the junk as her grumbling got closer and closer, but the exact words were never quite clear enough to understand. “What?” She finally asked in exasperation when she was about ten feet away, a power coupling in one hand and…. Something else in the other, you didn’t know what it was, but it had a lot of exposed wires and reminded you of an eyeball on a stick.

Pointing to your little robed shadow, you smiled at her. “Translate. Please.”

With a roll of her eyes, she focused on your small companion, nodding as he went along. “He says you want that R2 unit.” She turned her focus back to you, hands on her hips, eye on a stick still tightly grasped in one hand, “Any particular reason? I have plenty of good droids back at the hangar….” R5 started tweeting and blipping in concern, making her roll her whole head over to look at the droid on her left. “Oh, keep your dome on. I didn’t mean you.” She gestured to the droid with the eye-stick lazily before her eyes cut over to you. “Unless….” R5 let out a mighty whoop before rolling away.

Chirping and blooping from the R2 unit pulled your attention back to the matter at hand, watching in amusement as it rocked from side to side quickly on two of its three legs. Its shiny dome twisted back and forth as it let out shrill beeps and whistles, a lone raspberry cutting off the tirade before it focused on a Jawa coming up to stand beside it. 

As the tiny cloaked figure reached out to adjust the restraining bolt on its front, one of the droid’s front compartments sprung open in the blink of an eye, a surge of electricity arcing through the air and making the Jawa scream. The little scrapper jumped back, stumbling as its cloak began to smoke, strings of Jawaese getting lost in the wind as the tiny thief marched back over to the droid and swiftly kicked it near its treads.

“Stop!” You ran over, holding up your hands to try and intervene, turning to Peli with a pleading look on your face.

She tossed the junk in her hands onto the ground, doing a double take for the eye on a stick before deciding against it and made her way over to you, thrusting the odd part into your chest as she passed by. With a roll of your eyes, you tucked it into the bag of parts to make its way back to the hangar that was slung across your shoulders. 

The bag was over half full, and getting heavier by the minute, but you’d yet to see anything resembling a part you recognized go into the satchel. At this point you think ninety five percent of what she had picked up wasn’t even for the Crest, she was just exacting her revenge on Din. And you had no problem with that.

Peli tilted her head as she listened to the Jawa go on a tirade. Eyes flickering between the tiny robe with eyes and the droid, she finally looked back over her shoulder at you. “He said this droid is just a problem. It’s memory hasn’t been wiped in too long, so it’s developed an…. Ah, well,” she quirked her eyebrows, her hands landing on her hips as she studied the droid. “A strong personality.”

The R2 unit blooped before zapping the Jawa again, a warbling whistle following after in what almost sounded like a taunt for more.

“Stop,” you said again, taking another step toward the feisty astromech. It was very hard to not smile as you studied the round dome, its light blinking red and white at you rapidly as it scanned you up and down, finding something it trusted enough to calm down. It didn’t zap a third time, but it kept the utility equipped, sending a surge down the line when the Jawa got too close again as a warning.

It reminded you of Din. It even kind of looked like him. You had to really try to contain the smile as you thought of his reaction if you said that out loud.

The head tilt.

The finger.

“Later.”

The body was the typical white of most R2 units, though obviously worn and aged, some pockets of rust peeking through here and there along the edge, along with carbon scoring like it’d seen some firefights. With a darker silver dome, close to the color of your vambraces, you could tell it had received repairs along the line, the contrasting metals denoting different eras in its lifetime. 

The bands along its body that contained the attachments and along the sides of its legs were a warm coppery color, while the panels along its head were a dark gunmetal gray that reminded you of the Crest. 

Altogether it was a patchwork of parts, but it made something beautiful to you. Like when the suns hit the sand just right and caused a reflection in the distance. This droid was a mirage, a shadow.

“What’s wrong with it?” You interrupted the Jawa currently on another tirade that made Peli look like she was struggling to keep up. Getting down on one knee, still a good distance from the droid, you stared into its lense as it studied you once again.

Your friend turned to face you more fully. “What do you mean, they just told you. It hasn’t-”

“No, why hasn’t it moved?”

Peli asked the question, turning to look at the droid as she listened to the answer, its lense now turned on her.

“He said the tread on the right foot is broken. They have it out here because someone is coming to pick it up to wipe the memory. Its-”

“Not anymore,” you said quietly. “It’s coming with me.” Getting to your feet, you began to walk away, stopping when several Jawa voices began to follow after you, each more insistent than the other. You looked at Peli, brow raised in question.

“They say you can’t do that. It’s already a done deal. Now they’re asking if you want any of the other droids, they have an-”

You turned, looking at the gathering of red glowing eyes blinking up at you expectantly. Keeping your voice even, you made eye contact with each pair as you spoke. “You will release the droid into my care.”

A string of Jawaese was mumbled back to you, which you assumed was just them repeating your words, so you went on.

“Remove the restraining bolt, load it in the speeder, and let us go on our way.”

As they mumbled again, they broke off into groups to do what you said. 

Tapping the leader on the shoulder, you held firmly when he turned to look at you. “And it won’t cost anything.”

He nodded before going to join the others.

“How did you….” Peli’s voice dripped with amazement. “Can you-”

“No.”

“You didn’t let me-”

“No, Peli.”

“Fine,” she huffed, crossing her arms and facing the Jawas as they loaded the droid who whistled happily while they worked. “I’m just saying-”

She stopped when you slowly turned to look at her, brow arched.

“Yeah, no, forget about it. Not important.”

Xxx

As you unloaded the droid at the hangar, once it was down on the ground, you knelt down slowly to inspect its injured foot. 

“I’m just going to tilt you a little bit to get a better look, okay?”

The pit droids began lowering some type of harness down to help you, but the droid began to rock back and forth, protesting loudly as its dome swung back and forth.

“Okay, okay,” you held up your hands placatingly, gesturing for the other droids to stop. “No lifts. I’ll do it myself, but you’ve got to trust me. It’ll feel a little strange, but you’re completely safe, I promise. Alright?”

The droid bleeped in agreement after a moment of hesitation, and without further hassle, you nudged it slowly onto its side, floating at the proper angle, held just right by an unseen force. As it moved into the proper placement, the R2 unit blooped an amazed sound.

After poking at the tread for a moment, you wrinkled your brows. “This isn’t broken. What did they mea-”

You were cut short when the tread on the other foot whirred to life where it still rested on the ground, spitting sand in your face in a rapid fire. As you drew back quickly, swatting at the sting settling into your eyes, you just caught a glimpse through your squint of the droid falling the rest of the way to the ground with a screech, your concentration broken.

Before you could really react properly, the R2 unit had popped upright, all manner of Binary curses and colorful language beeping and whistling as it whipped out the zapper it had used earlier on the Jawa, sending a warning jolt down the spine while rotating in a circle to keep all the advancing droids and Peli at bay. 

Then it started to lift off with some sort of propulsion, a victorious squeal echoing off the hangar walls that was all too soon followed by the sound of sputtering exhaust. Its lense pointed down, watching it all unfold, a quiver of fear warbled out of its voice box. The flames keeping it afloat flickered then died, sending it hurtling to the ground with a scream.

You were just able to stick out a hand, focusing enough to catch it inches from the ground. “I got you!” As you lowered it the last few millimeters back onto the sand, you let out a heavy sigh, relaxing into the warm earth beneath you with a quietly muttered, “I got you.”

“Well, that was a first,” Peli announced loudly, amused, as the R2 unit looked at you, a spurt of oil suddenly spewing onto the ground as it moaned in distress.

“It’s about right on track for me, honestly,” you huffed, laughing as you got back to your feet. 

The droid quaked as you got closer, worried coos softly filling the hangar.

“Hey, it’s okay. I’m not going to hurt you,” you spoke softly, coming back onto your knees a few feet from the R2 unit. “That was actually kind of impressive.” You smirked, watching as the trembling stopped. The droid was silent and you smiled a bit broader. “I would expect nothing less, honestly. It’s what I would do in your situation. Hell, I have done it a few times….” The droid whistled softly in amusement.

You laughed, feeling victorious when it wheeled a bit closer to you.

“I have, too. I live a very extraordinary life, my friend.”

A questioning bloop.

“Yes, I said ‘friend’. I consider you that, not anything less.”

A series of beeps and whistles, the red light blinking much more slowly now.

“I do speak Binary. Very observant.”

A raspberry.

You laughed, and it was followed by the closest sound a droid can make to the sound, a series of trills.

“Can we start over?” 

The droid wheeled closer, bumping its front foot into your knee gently before wheeling back slightly as if to say, ‘go on’.

You introduced yourself, reaching a hand out toward the droid. A panel sprung open on its front, the zapper coming out without a charge, making you arch a brow at the unit as it tittered playfully. The panel closed before another opened, and a small three pronged metal hand extended, closing around two of your fingers and shaking them in jerky movements as it beeped and blooped away.

“R2-B4?” The droid whistled in confirmation, releasing your fingers and closing the panel. “Can I just call you Bee?” A beep that sounded like ‘yes’ and also meant ‘yes’ in Binary chirped happily, filling the hangar. “Well, it’s nice to meet you, Bee. How about we get you tuned up, into a nice hot oil bath, run a few diagnostics to make sure you’re running as optimally as you can be, then starting tomorrow we can-”

Some angry bloops and bleeps filled the air, while she rocked back and forth on her feet.

“No, no, no! No memory wipe! That’s not what I meant! I wouldn’t do that to you.” She stopped rocking, but her lense scanned you up and down rapidly, her light flashing between red and white faster than you had seen yet. “You don’t know me yet, so I don’t blame you. But I’m not going to do that to you. That won’t happen so long as you are here. With me. With us. That makes you you. I don’t want just a droid, I want you, Bee.”

Reaching out your hand, you rested it lightly on her dome and an affectionate beep came out quietly.

“I just meant to make sure you’re running as optimally as you can be. You deserve it, friend.”

It was at this point Din came walking back into the hangar. He stopped short when he saw the new astromech snuggled up so closely with you, the disarray of the hangar floor with the spilled oil and obvious scuffle, and Peli with her army of droids behind her and new eyeball on a stick waving around animatedly as she greeted him with a smile.

“Mando! Finally!” She walked toward him. “You will not believe the day we’ve had.”

The look Din leveled on you through his visor was nothing short of stifling. “Try me.”

Xxx

Once Din had calmed down enough to not shoot the new droid on sight, and Bee had calmed down enough to not zap the Mandalorian on sight, you sat down to explain the situation to Din as the astro unit underwent an oil bath.

“I don’t know, Man- Din.” You pulled a face at yourself as he chuckled at the slip up. “It just felt like I was supposed to, and she….” You looked straight into his visor. “The voices stopped when I saw her. Everything did. I don’t know.” Looking down to the table top to your right, you began to fiddle your fingers aimlessly. “I swear you won’t have to-”

“Okay.”

“Now don’t just- what?” You shook your head to dislodge any sand that may be plugging your ears and causing you to mishear because you could have sworn he said…. “Okay? ….Okay? Did you just say okay?”

Din laughed softly. “Yes.” He nodded. “Fine. I trust you.”

Narrowing your eyes, you leaned forward onto your knees, getting closer to him and peering up with scrutiny for an agonizing minute. “What did you do?”

Leaning back in his chair with a sigh, he rested his hand on his thigh. “Got you a present.” His head tilted to the side as you sat up a bit straighter. “Still gonna look at me like that?”

Eyes going wide, you sat back and matched his posture.

“That’s what I thought,” he said with a snort. “I met up with Boba last night, as you know, and after going to the cantina, he caught up to me with the finished product.”

Din reached over and pulled a tarp off a crate to his right, how you’d missed it you had no idea, especially since the item before your eyes still sang with the same signature as his armor had. 

A jetpack.

Raw beskar and durasteel glinted under the twin suns, polished to perfection and ready to earn their first scuff marks.

“Din…. No.” You looked at him in disbelief. “You didn’t.”

Reaching for the pack, he groaned slightly with the effort, sighing once it sat in his lap. “I couldn’t look at you in that horribly fitting armor one more time, and it was just taking up space on the ship.” He set the heavy gift in your lap. “Now I don’t have to lug you around anymore.”

Scoffing, you leaned in closer to him, batting your lashes. “Don’t lie, you like lugging me around.”

He tossed his head side to side. “It has its perks, yes, but now….” He gently nudged you back with a finger to your shoulder so you were sitting normally in your seat again. “Lift yourself, mesh’la.”

Sitting up straight as you held the jetpack in your lap, you traced its curves with your hand. “I don’t know whether to be offended or say thank you.”

Meeting the gaze of his visor through your lashes, he simply nodded.

“That’s all I needed to hear. Now, let’s get you fitted and flying - but first, I have to sync them with your vambraces, or else you might-”

“Let me guess,” you sighed, relaxing back into your chair with a thump. “Or else I might blow something up?” Din nodded once in confirmation, and you mirrored him. “Some things never change.”

“And some things change all the time….”

“Well that was cryptic.”

“Fennec found a contact for me that might know where the Armorer is. Where the covert moved to.”

Your eyes went wide and you froze, halfway to attaching the jetpack between your shoulder blades. “Excuse me, what?”

“It’s a job, but I head there in two rotations-”

Your face fell flat, along with your tone. “Excuse me, what?”

“Are you broken?” You arched a brow in question at him. “You haven’t moved since I mentioned the Armorer and you’re repeating yourself.”

With a huff of disbelief, you let the jetpack to the ground beside you with a gentle thud, and faced him once again. “Oh, I don’t know, maybe it’s because you’re insane?!”

“Excuse me, what?”

“See?” You gestured to him. “A perfectly valid reaction.” Din huffed, his head tilting to the side in annoyance as you went on. “First off I was excited for you, but then you go and say something crazy like you’re going alone?”

“Well I just assumed….”

“Go on,” you deadpanned, smiling slightly when he trailed off, swallowing roughly.

When he never did, you sighed heavily and forged on for the both of you. “Since I’m your wife,” you began, eyes cast down to the sand, ignoring the way he tossed his head back with a groan, “I think it’s only right I go with you.” You looked up to meet his visor. “Not to mention I continue to save your skin daily.”

“One time. I….” He held up one finger. “That was. I let that slip one time with Peli and it was an accident.” He huffed, staring at you for a long moment. “You're never going to let me forget that are you?”

You grinned. “No.”

Xxx

The two of you landed at the front of Peli’s hangar when you saw an unknown droid approaching in the street from where you were training in the air.

“Oh! Pardon me!” The courier droid raised its hands up in surrender. 

Reaching out, you lowered Din’s blaster. “You have a problem,” you mumbled. “You need to ask questions first, shoot later.”

Din grunted. “That’s not how I work.”

“Well, maybe you need to upgrade your circuitry, Tin Can.”

Both Din and the courier looked at you.

“Beg your pardon, miss, but that is a Mandalorian, not a droi-”

You couldn’t help your snort of laughter. “What’s the message?”

“Oh. Yes.” The droid reached into a bag fastened to its hip. “You have a holo from a Greef Karga? It’s marked sensitive/eyes only. I suggest you watch it someplace private.” Leaning around to look behind you into the vacant hangar, the only other soul being R5 rolling past with an offensive blip, the droid then looked back at the two of you. “Or just stay here.”

Taking the device from the droid with a smile, you were surprised when it didn’t just leave.

It reached back into the satchel and procured another device. A puck. And handed it to Din.

“What’s this?” The Mandalorian asked dryly, looking at the small device in the droid's hand as if it were the most confusing puzzle in the galaxy.

“Courtesy of Greef Karga…. once again.” When Din made no effort to move, the droid looked between the two of you. “They go together. I assume they offer some explanation. Otherwise, I have nothing to tell you about them.”

Din sighed, taking the puck and shutting the hangar door before the droid could say another word.

A muffled, “Oh. Well, good day, then!” Came through before the retreat of mechanical footsteps was heard.

“That was rude!” You mumbled, turning to go deeper into the hangar, but freezing when you saw the info spinning above the puck in Din’s hand. 

No.

No it couldn’t be.

Quickly activating the comm, you let Karga explain what you already feared.

“If you’re playing this message, you’ve already opened the puck. Yes. I know. I was just as shocked, too.”

There, in letters as big as day was your name.

“It was issued by the head of some small town crime group on Tatooine. Said you decimated their numbers yesterday?”

Din grunted. “Nobody died. What do they mean decimated?”

“I’m not issuing the puck to anyone, but be on the lookout. It could make things…. Difficult.”

The comm went dead, and all you could do was stare at the puck in Din’s hand, the info being presented to you but truly not being absorbed as all you could do was watch and blink.

The puck displayed your picture, slowly spinning with all your details next to it. 

Name: Eesra Kesyk

Last known location: Tatooine

Known associates: Din Djarin, Boba Fett, Fennec Shand, Peli Motto, Sola Kei, Cara Dune, Greef Karga, Mythrol, Bo Katan Kryze, Ahsoka Tano, Luke Skywalker

Karga, Mythrol, Bo Katan, Luke, Ahsoka? For some small time group on Tatooine, they had really gone out of their way to find info on you….

Your gut sank. 

Unless….

You shook your head. There’s no way this went beyond a small town crime lord on a backwater planet. No way.

Focusing back in on the list, you squinted to read the fine print it was in to have everything fit on the little readout.

The rest was just details, date of birth, previous work…. reason for bounty.

“Are they serious?”

Unlawful use of star cruiser in restricted airspace, failure to comply with law enforcement, breaking and entering, damage to public property, battery and assault….

Din thought this was all very funny. He was practically giggling by now, snorts of laughter trickling out of his modulator as he stood to your right.

He’d tried to stop under your glare, he really did, but it just wasn’t possible, little snickers escaping here and there. 

“Who knew I married such a horrible person?”

He did this from time to time. Brought up his little misstep with Peli where he’d called you his wife, leaning fully into the absurdity and embracing the silliness you often tried to pelt at him mercilessly by saying it himself first.

Rolling your eyes, but unable to contain the small grin climbing up your face,  you looked back at the puck and crossed your arms firmly over your chest. “You knew what you were getting yourself into, Tin Can.” Tilting your head at the readout, you pursed your lips. “And we’re not actually married, no matter what you said to Peli. You’re not ready for all of this.” Making a swooping gesture to yourself, you ignored his mocking snort of amusement. 

You stared at the list for another loaded minute of silence before going on. “Besides, half of these aren’t even true!” Gesturing to the list with one hand, you turned to look up at his visor, brows raised. “Unlawful use of starcruiser…. When did we even leave the planet?”

He was still chuckling warmly as he turned to you. “Did I? Know what I was getting into, I mean? I don’t know about that, mesh’la.” His chuckle grew louder as your face fell into unamusement. “And are you sure? Only half?”

Turning to face him fully, you raised one hand to wag a finger in his face teasingly. “Hey, you’re the one that keeps coming back.”

Pulling you into his arms, he hummed contentedly. “And I always will come back to you.”

Copying his hum of satisfaction, you reached up and grabbed his cowl like always, tucking your face into the fabric and taking a deep breath before turning to the side to look at the holo once again with a sigh.

“They got my name wrong, though.”

“Did they?”

“Mmm-hmm.” Tucking your face into the crook of his neck, you smiled. “Eesra Djarin of Clan Mudhorn…. That’s so much better, don’t you think?”

He groaned softly. “I-”

Bleep!

Din grunted in mild annoyance as Bee rolled up the ramp, stopping beside the two of you and trilling animatedly. “Not now, Scrap.”

Bee let out as close to a matching grunt of displeasure a droid could make, flipped out the electrified arm on her front, and waved it at Din in warning. 

“See? This is why I don’t like droids,” Din grumbled.

Rolling forward bit by bit, backtracking just slightly in between, she pried her way into the small amount of space between the two of you, making you step back just slightly to make room.

“Well, hello there,” you mused quietly to the metallic dome whose lense was looking up at you, smiling back at the tiny bloop in greeting. “May I help you?”

She babbled away in Binary animatedly, charged hand still extended toward Din in warning as she rolled ever so slightly closer towards you, tilting forward just a bit and causing Din to grunt as the forward motion pushed the bottom of her housing into his shin guards with a ping.

“I’m sure R5 didn’t say all that. What are you getting at?”

More beeps and whistles, this time containing squeals as her lense switched between red and white rapidly, almost faster than her sounds, as she animatedly continued her story.

“Wow,” you finally said when the droid stopped, staring at you expectantly.

“What did she say?” Din tilted his head at you.

“No idea.” You looked up into his visor. “All I caught was something something BD said and then Peli, Jawas….”

Both of you started to chuckle softly, Bee looking between you as she rotated her dome back and forth, a bloop of disappointment before a raspberry of annoyance, and you couldn’t shake the growing grin on your face if you wanted to.

After a moment she reached out just a little further and zapped Din with the electrified arm, tittering a laugh as she rolled away at speed as Din chased after her after crying out in pain. “Ow! Get back here, you rolling scrap heap!”

Crossing your arms, you leaned against the opening of the ramp to the Crest, and watched the scene unfold in Peli’s hangar.

Droids, a mechanic, and a Mandalorian all running in circles after a goal you weren’t quite sure of. All that was clear was Din was losing.

You were home, with the people you loved.

Looking to the side, you saw the bunk of the Crest open, the child’s hammock still strung across the top. The corners of your mouth pulled slightly down.

Well, almost everyone.

You were a clan of three.

No, it was more than that.

You were also a family.

And someday, you’d all be back together again.

Someday soon.

You’d find a way to bring it all back to you.

Adjusting your weight slightly, you bumped something on your vambraces in the process causing the jetpack between your shoulder blades beginning to whir with an increasing hum. Flames began to sputter at its base with a growing roar, sending a wall of heat down the backs of your thighs as it prepared to lift you into the skies once again.

“Din?” You called, quietly at first, staring over your shoulder at the new death trap strapped to your spine, then more urgently, “Din!”

He was already jogging up the ramp toward you, his posture easy and relaxed. “Calm down.”

A quick glance behind him showed an amused Peli and her circus of droids, all of them tittering in amusement. Bee rocked back and forth in glee at the foot of the ramp before rolling back to the others. 

“Calm down?” You repeated in bewilderment, watching him disengage the jetpack from your vambrace with a single button push, as if it was the easiest thing in the world.

“Calm down?!” He began to chuckle, his hand skimming up the inside of your forearm to lightly grab your elbow and push you further into the ship as you went on. “I was almost a flying projectile and you-”

You hadn’t noticed the way he’d nudged you backwards completely out of sight of the rest of the hangar until your spine sealed along the bulkhead by the weapons locker, the lights of the cargo hold going to half brightness with a deft swipe of his hand over a control pad to your left. 

Half, but still plenty bright to see.

“Din?”

Taking in your new surroundings, you looked back up to see him taking his gloves off and tucking them in his belt. His helmet came next, the quiet hiss of the mechanism causing you to screw your eyes shut. The familiar sound of beskar thunking onto the metal floor of the Crest made them close even tighter.

Din chuckled softly, the unmodulated sound tickling your face with his warm breath. “Open your eyes, mesh’la.”

“Oh, yeah.” Slowly you blinked your eyes open, looking up to see warm brown eyes, and the sweetest smile waiting to meet you. “I still forget.”

Winding your hands up into the curls at the base of his head, you smirked when he let out a contented sigh through his nose. 

After a moment of simply holding the other’s gaze, you muttered quietly, “Hello, brown eyes.”

Din was on you in an instant, his groan of annoyance muffled against your lips as you laughed softly into the kiss. 

“You always have to ruin it,” he mumbled, crowding you further into the wall, his bare hands coming to cradle your face and making your eyes slip shut at the contact. “Nu-uh. Open your eyes, mesh’la.”

Fluttering them open, you tried very hard to keep them that way. “Sorry. It’s not every day a Mandalorian is half naked in front of me. I’ll try harder.”

“Half naked?” He tilted his head, the tip of his nose bumping against yours, one brow arching up in question. 

“For you, a helmet and gloves is the equivalent of a-”

Din was back on you again, this time growling in mock frustration against your lips as you laughed a bit louder. The upturn of his lips gave his amusement away, though.

Pulling apart just enough that only your foreheads rested against one another, the two of you held that moment together for quite a while. Simply breathing the other in, and existing in this quiet moment before the storm. 

Before you left to find more Mandalorians. 

More Mandalorians. 

Now that was going to be interesting. 

After a moment, you rolled your head to the side slightly and peeked up through your lashes to find his eyes closed.

You opened your mouth to speak, only for you both to speak in tandem, “Open your eyes.”

“I will if you will,” you were quick to retort.

Warm brown eyes met yours once again as the setting suns’ light poured in through the open ramp somewhere behind him, painting the cargo hold of the Crest in vibrant shades of gold, orange and red.

Din smiled softly, pressing his forehead further into yours, using his hands at your cheeks to maneuver your head back a bit and into a better angle for him to lean his forehead into. “Only for you.” His fingers began to move up and thread into your hair. “Always for you.” It was hard to tell where he stopped and you began. “Gar cuyi ner aliit. Ni kar'tayli darasuum gar. Gar cuyi ner mir'sheb bal gar utreekov kar'tayli darasuum gar, cyar’ika.” He pressed his forehead even further into yours, his lips ghosting over your own with each word. (“You are my family. I love you. You are my smartass, and your idiot loves you, darling.”)

“Gar cuyi ner yaim. Ner yaim'ol. Ner yaim'la.” The light of the day was fading, much the same as the two of you were melding into one another, practically becoming one being, all his hard edges blurring where your soft lines began. The Crest began to fill with long shadows as the lights in Peli’s hangar kicked on, filling the cargo hold with just enough extra light to see. (“You are my home. My homecoming. My comfortable.”)

Reaching up, you cupped his face in your hand, and he melted into it, his eyes fluttering shut as he leaned into your palm, his voice a low rumble. “Ni ratiin yaimpar gar.” (“I always return to you.”)

In the quiet moment, you rubbed your thumb over his cheek bone slowly back and forth before finally whispering with a smile, “Open your eyes.”

Once he was looking at you once again, you pulled your head back just a bit and tilted it to the side. “So, where are we going to find the covert?”

He went stiff. “We?”

You sighed, laying your head on his pauldron. “It’s been how long, and you still haven’t learned that I’m always going to come with you?”

Din looked at you with a matching sigh. He tilted his head at you, his weight shifted to one leg, his hands on your waist moving you along with him. “You sometimes stay here when I go out on a job and help Peli work on the ship. It’s almost done after what Gideon tried to do- er, it was until today.”

“Exactly. So after this last massacre, I don’t think Peli wants to see my face around here anymore,” you laughed, making him shake his head and let out a huff of laughter. “I think Boba would give us a lift to wherever.”

“And then how do we get back?”

You smiled as you closed the small space between you, speaking softer as the situation began to feel more delicate. “We’ll figure it out.”

“Why are your ideas usually half baked or somehow involve fire?”

You closed the distance between you yet again, wrapping your arms around his neck tightly, and pressing your forehead into his. “And yet they always work….”

“You get lucky sometimes,” he groused half heartedly before he returned the gesture, a warm ungloved hand spread across your back, the other moving up to the back of your head to tuck your face securely into the crook of his neck.

You weren’t about to pull away as he held you there gently. Turning your face towards him where it rested on his shoulder, your nose brushed against his neck, and his grip grew tighter. Glancing up towards his face, you thought back to a time in the bar when this all started when all you could see before the helmet obstructed your view was a small sliver of skin that bobbed as he swallowed roughly. 

Now you had an unobstructed view….

….Of unruly dark curls long overdue for a trim….

….Golden skin dusted with a light facial hair that had the slightest hint of grays peppered in….

….Kind, warm brown eyes that looked at you with so many promises….

….A nose that had definitely been broken once or twice….

….And a smile that took your breath away.

You turned your head up fully towards his face as you pulled away just enough to look at him straight on, and he turned his gaze down to meet you with a slightly playful tilt of his head like before.

“I’m just that good.” Your hands fell to rest on his chest plate. “Now let’s go find your people.”

“Let’s go find our people,” he corrected.

With a gentle nod, you pulled away slowly after a moment, turning towards the ramp with wide eyes as what just happened sunk in.

Our people.

Din walked past you, looking over his shoulder once he was on the ramp. “Are you coming?”

Our people. 

Turning your head slightly to the left, you saw he had stopped, helmet back on, gloves securely fastened, and every bit the Mandalorian you had met all those years ago, only now he stood waiting for you, hand outstretched in invitation.

Mine.

You smiled, walking forward and taking his hand. “Moff Gideon couldn’t keep me away.”

Xxx

Yes, I gave her a name. Eesra Kesyk. (Ee-sruh Keh-sick) Let’s face it, Mesh’la is still what’s going to be used 99.999999% of the time, and “you” the majority of the rest. But we’re going into a part of the story with a whole lot of other new players and I wanted to have something to call the reader besides “you” and nicknames. I know this isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, and I’m sorry. But, it’s my story, and that’s what I chose to do. I have a plan, so if you’ll bear with me, thank you, and I hope we can see it through together. ❤️ Plus, Din still just calls her *sigh* or “stop it!” 99% of the time, so…. 🤭

Xxx

Tags to come!

[cursed-collective]

Guys, fellas, other wheelchair users,

How on earth does one travel solo with a wheelchair and a fuck ton of luggage? Trying to get to MCM May from where I live on my own with my wheelchair and luggage was genuinely horrific.

I am an ambulatory wheelchair user so I am able to get up and walk a short way, however it's not ideal! A wheelchair does not provide much support whilst walking it and our other hand was taken up by pulling a rather heavy suitcase that threatened to pull either our should, wrist or elbow out of place. The suitcase was a little too heavy for me to lift into the chair also.

My wheelchair isn't anything fancy, it's a generic one rather than a custom high active manual chair (those are HECKIN expensive), specifically the I-go Airrex LT. It was the lightest wheelchair I could find within my budget as I do not see the point in saving for a custom one when I only really use a wheelchair for big events or long days out, and those are rare for me to do.

I don't have a power assist add on (but if anyone has recommendations that will work with my chair feel free to drop them!!), does anyone have any ideas about a solution? I'm stumped

[transfemme-shelterdog]

I really feel you on the wrong perception thing, but from the other direction. I've been doing HRT for about as long as you have, and while my tits have become saggy and hairy they're still too big to bind, my face is still too round and girlish, and my hips are still too wide.

Maybe I'd be fine with all that if society at large could call me sir every once in a while.

I know a transfem who got facial feminization surgery and she's really happy with it, but it makes me think the only real option for people like us who don't get everything we want from HRT is going under the knife or learning to live with ourselves as we are.

Sending you solidarity hugs if you want them, ma'am.

I've heavily debated getting FFS because I doubt I'll ever fucking pass at this point. Hoping that orchi and having no T for sure will help, but I doubt it.

I'm fucking tired of everyone lying to me. People just need to admit that I don't pass and support me that way, not hand me this hug box bullshit about how I'm so heckin valid and crap

[stargirlrchive]

Hey girl!!! I’m back!!! ⚠️⚠️⚠️ Imagine the first time with Miguel not having thoroughly thought about how big he is??? He definitely preps you w/his fingers & mouth for what feels like hours. Your body tremors as you watch him crawl his way up the bed. He’s placing soft kisses along your body as you’re fighting to catch your breath. Your hand goes to his back the other into his hair as he kisses & sucks the delicate skin on your neck. “We’re doing this,” he breathes, looking into your eyes. You eagerly nod in agreement although there’s no need, he was making a statement. Not asking. He kisses your lips before swiftly ridding himself of his undergarments. A breathless “woah” comes out as you stare down at it. Of fcking course the bastards got a very proper massive hammer on him. “Eyes on me.” He smirks as he lifts your chin. His hand goes to the back of your knee, to wrap around his waist whilst he kisses your jaw. You’re not sure if your body shakes in excitement or nervousness. Definitely both. Nonetheless you’re determined… until you feel him press against your center. “Wait,” you nervously giggle hesitantly pressing against his shoulders. He looks genuinely confused. “Give me a second.” You tell him and he growls. “We’re doing this,” he repeats and you immediately nod. “Of course…” you swallow bringing his lips to yours, “just…” you breathe against his mouth before he cuts you off with a feverish kiss. He squeezes the back of your thigh in some sort of warning as he fervently grinds against you. He’s about to go in when you break away the kiss in a mess of nervous giggles, “wait wait wait!” He desperately groans this time. “Just another sec-“ you’re cut off again as he rolls you both over. “Set your pace,” he grumbles. Oh? How polite? His hands travel up your thighs to your hips, gripping tightly. You place both hands on his chest as you slowly sink down. You gasp and stop. He groans, silently curses. Then pulls your body lower onto him. You reach midway before stopping him, hand pushing against his abdomen and the other clasping his wrist as you hiss. Thighs trembling. Not adjusting. You shake your head, grimacing. It’s not happening. That’s as far as you can go. He sits up. You mewl at the movement. “Estrellita,” he grunts against your ear, “take it all.” That was an order. He moves a hand to work up your clit. Loosening you up some more. You moan and whimper, slowly taking all of him. You’re too full, it stings. “So fcking tight,” he hisses, soothingly rubbing your hips. Kissing away your wince he huskily whispers, “I got ya, baby. I got ya.” After encouraging you w/more praises & kisses he gently rocks you against him, “good to go?” You nod wrapping your arms around his shoulders. “Great. Can’t hold back any longer, estrellita.”

Mans is gonna take ya to pound town baebee 🐎

GURL!! Tell me I’m right but Miguel would definitely use the pet name ✨Estrellita✨ Ik he does! He calls me so himself 😤 I mean like who wouldn’t wanna be called someone’s “little star” 🤩 am I right or am I absolutely right?? This is also a lil teeny PSA! for all the brilliant wonderful Miguel writers to use the pet name estrellita cause it’s so darn cute!

Sorry for how long this is, I’ve lost my marbles. This heckin bloody man gots me spiraling! I just KNOW he hangs looooow. That cheeky bloke 😑

why am i twirling my hair, kicking my feet?

but like after awhile he fully just gives in and let’s you take control because he’d stuff you full of his cum and have you walking on wobbly legs if he didn’t. he’s trying so fucking hard not to just succumb to the feeling of pleasure you’re giving him, and your hips finally find their pace, and miguel’s grabbing at any part of your exposed skin, mumbling quietly, “doin’ so good estrellita, like you were made for this.”

i’m h word bad nonnie why do you do this to me, also if you aren’t a writer??? UM WHAT THE FUCK??? DO IT NOW PLS