#and misty will die of loneliness

[laszlo-writes]

Trying to have some comfort and enjoy one of my favorite films - Penelope starring Christina Ricci, of course - when I’m hit with the absolute sucker-punch of a line “once the queen is dead, the game is over.”

Fellas, one of these days I’m really going to do it :))

[loveableghosts]

I'm thinking about those OC's I have & do nothing with because there's no way in hell I could put their worlds to justice.

[rosapexa]

2087 - 2091: The final chapters

In 2087 Lexa and Johnny were both wounded by an encounter with Arasaka (no, they didn't stop to piss them off). With Johnny being severely wounded and Lexa barely surviving herself.

Lexa was so desperate and full of rage, that Arasaka killed her beloved husband (again), that she wanted nothing but revenge.

After the events of Dogtown and stealing Songbird's knowledge about the Blackwall (Lexa hacked into So Mi's mind, while she was unconcious and basically defenseless) before sending her to the moon, Lexa already experimented with the Blackwall. Not as much as she actually wanted to. Because Johnny basically pleaded with her, since he was afraid, the Blackwall would kill her, like it almost killed So Mi. And for Lexa allthough the power of the Blackwall was so tempting (and she tasted that power when raiding the Arasaka tower during Mikoshi) it was more important so keep what she had with Johnny.

But Johnny was gone and she didn't really care anymore, if she lives or dies as long as she can take revenge on Arasaka. And using the Blackwall's power seemed to be the only way for her.

But allthough Lexa had the knowledge how to use the Blackwall, she didn't have the Cyberware to use it's full potential. And there was no Ripper who could give her, what she needed.

So she turned to the one place, which had that knowledge and the will: Militech.

They thrown her out years ago, but her brother, David, took their father's high place in Militech, after his death and was leading Militech's Netrunner division. And Lexa also knew, they still tried to make another Songbird but failed every time. They never found the right individual, with the skills and will.

Lexa made her brother an offer. They give her what Songebird had and all the improvement they might have theoretically made over the last 10 years and she will do everything what Militech asks from her. As long as they let her get her revenge on Arasaka. She even promised to not leave any traces to Militech.

David agreed and after the surgeries and a brutal recovery, Militech had again (yes, i was always convinced Meyers=Militech) their netrunning mass destruction weapon.

As promised Lexa did everything, what Militech ordered her to do. She didn't care about the consequences to her body or her mind. And at the same time, she relentlessly and brutally attacked Arasaka. None of their Netrunners was safe anymore and she made it almost impossible for Arasaka to operate in the net.

Lexa was miserable and lonely in this time. She didn't really feel any joy except when she went against Arasaka and when she used the Blackwall. She started to lose herself in being nothing but the Netrunner Gh0st. The rare times she didn't spend in the net she just was by herself, missing Johnny and just buried herself in her memories of him, relived their times together.

Even David felt so sorry for his sister, that he tried to get through to her. He tried too get her out of her shell, her loneliness, but with the exeption for maybe once or twice, he was unsuccessful.

Unfortunately David was not sorry enough to tell her the truth about Johnny. He wanted sometimes. But then again, Militech was still his priority.

The thing is Johnny wasn't dead. Once again that man was too stubborn to die. But it took him months to recover. And after that, he wanted to find his wife again.

But no one knew, where she went. Not Victor who took care of Johnny's recovery. Not Misty with who Lexa left Nibbles, before she disappeared. Not Dum Dum, who has always been her closest friend besides Jackie after All Foods in 2077. Not even Panam or Mama Welles knew, where Lexa was.

In 2088 though Johnny got a mail from an unknown sender, who told him, that Lexa was alive and working for Militech.

At the same time, that same person left a hint in one of Arasaka's runners, during one of Lexa's attacks, that Johnny was not dead.

Both didn't believe it first. Lexa was so sure, Johnny was dead and Johnny couldn't believe, that Lexa went back to Militech. But she was able to contact him anyway (without Militech's knowledge) and she was beyond happy and yet also shocked, when she found out, that Johnny really was alive.

And she was scared, because of how much she changed, which she didn't tell and show him at first. She told him, she used Militech's assets to get revenge for his death, but didn't tell him completely at what cost. Johnny knew, she was hiding something. He just knew her so well, but didn't pressure much, because he just wanted her back.

She also found out, that Militech knew that Johnny wasn't dead. They and David found out after her surgeries and during her recovery.

Lexa was furious, but also knew she needed a plan to get out of Militech, instead of just lashing out.

So she and Johnny came up with a plan to once again raid a corpo tower. This time Militech. She from the inside and him along with Maelstrom from the outside.

Lexa was able to connect herself with basically everything in the Militech building in the core of the bulding. It was convenient for her and every other Militech runner, but now that was also Militech's biggest mistake.

She opened every door and disarmed every automatic defence system or turned them against Militech, so Johnny and Maelstrom could basically just march into the building. But it was also draining her. She had the surprise attack and the Blackwall on her side, but she also trained a lot of the Netrunner's in that building over the last year. So the ones who were left relentlessly attacked her.

When Johnny reached her, he was relieved, happy but also shocked to see her. He couldn't believe what she did to herself. But most importantly he found his wife and wanted nothing more than to take her home.

Getting in was one thing, but getting out another. Especially since Lexa wasn't able to help much anymore.

But surprisingly, David let them go. Maybe he found his conscience in this moment again or his past love for his baby sister. Or maybe he was just sure, Lexa would soon die anyway, but he just let them go as long as they would stay away from Militech.

Johnny agreed and David promised in return to make sure, that everyone thinks, Lexa is dead. And he kept his promise.

Again a long recovery was ahead of Lexa. Victor did his best to help her, but he didn't even understand half of the things in her body. But the improvements Militech made over the years to this kind of Cyberware, protected her better from the side effect, when using the Blackwall. So at least she got a chance.

Johnny took care of her, as he did after Mikoshi. He was so worried about her, because her condition was even worse, than back then. Not only physically but also mentally. And allthough he understood why she did, what she did with her body and mind, he was also angry with her.

Lexa on the other hand dealt with a lot nightmares (some things behind the Blackwall should no human ever see) and tried to get her beginning Cyberpsychosis under control. And she was now so ashamed of what she had become. She was scared, that Johnny might not be able to love her anymore. That he wanted to leave her. And she told him, he's free to go. She understood, if he couldn't stand her anymore. And while Johnny told her, how mad he was at her for doing this to herself. How worried he was, that she was so reckless with herself, he also made it clear, he won't leave her and that he never even thought about that. He still loved her as always and to never tell him again, he's free to leave, because she is his and he is hers and nothing will change that.

It took time, but Lexa got so much better, physically and mentally, that she could live almost normally again. Allthough she never fully recovered. And she stayed away from the Blackwall. She never touched it ever again and did less and less Netrunning. Because it was mostly too exhausting for her, but also it never felt right again.

As promised they never crossed Militech's path again. But they also stayed away from Arasaka and basically every trouble.

In 2091 Lexa and Johnny decided it's time to start a new life. Nothing in Night City felt right anymore and they still feared they might become the target of someone again. And surpsingly even for themselves, they craved a quiet and peaceful live after everything they've been through. And the only way was to leave their old lifes behind, Arasaka, Militech, Samurai, Netrunning, Night City, everything.

Lexa one last time entered the net and tried to find every information about both of them and deleted them. She left several viruses and programms, that constantly searched for their names and deleted everyhthing.

They said goodbye to the ones important to them and then cut all ties and disappeared.

No one knows where they are. And where they are no one knows who they once were.

But they are happy!

Oh and the very rare times, Lexa's viruses to delete them from the net failed, the same person who informed them in 2088 that their beloved ones are alive, deleted those infos then.

She helped to make sure, that Lexa and Johnny will never be found, if they didn't want to.

And over the years, they will be forgotten and be nothing more, than maybe a little whisper in Night City stories about legends. But these whispers will also fade away eventually.

[cho-aaacho]

(Flufftober 2023) Rainy Day

Main Masterlist I Archive of Our Own

Flufftober 2023 Masterlist I Prompts List

Tags : Fluff, Romantic Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Rainy Day, Surprise Kissing, Under the same umbrella, Flufftober 2023, Reader is genderless.

(Flufftober 2023 Day 4)

In the stillness of the afternoon, the rain echoes a cold sensation into the atmosphere. The misty window painted a picture of autumn allure, its icy touch tantalizing against the skin.

As the sun vanished behind the curtain clouds, Albert mused in his world, giving him a melancholy atmosphere. The aroma of expensive coffee wafted on the right side; a rich chocolate cookie beckoned before him; and a fresh newspaper was a special treat for him.

His loneliness was a perfect day for him. In this state, no one ventured to disturb his serenity. Everyone was aware of how busy he was, and they knew how he spent his days relaxing himself.

His reflection on the misty window gazed back at him as a warm smile bloomed on his lips. He softly rubbed his cheek with his big palm and then sniffed the rich aroma of his coffee.

A few minutes later, his pretty eyes wandered to the table. He had the urge to check his phone back and forth, again and again, until he was bored. With a subtle click of his tongue, he's ready to leave the RPD cafeteria before...

"Having a bad day, Captain? Allow me to accompany you!"

Your radiant smile enveloped him as you observed his distress from across the table. Five minutes ago, you had lunch with Chris and Joseph, but after witnessing the burden on your captain's face, you decided to follow your heart and summon the courage to talk to him.

He seemed to love hiding an enigma that beckoned your curiosity, and this time his seriousness and distressed expression made you worried about him.

So... you decided to help him; maybe you can force him to release his stress and discuss his problem with you. As a member of S.T.A.R.S., you want to help everyone, especially your dear, handsome captain.

His azure orbs are fixed solely on you. It was mesmerizing, so... beautiful that you could die with those gazes. Oh, dear Lord... you love his eyes so much.

"No," he replied in a soft tone as he extended the invitation. "Why don't you join me here? I'm sure you've got something interesting..."

Obediently, you followed his lead, dragging the chair and sitting beside him. Your gaze remained on his side profile and the mesmerizing silhouette against the backdrop of rain-smeared windows.

He began savoring his last coffee, savoring every last drop while biting the cookie beside his cup. "Do you remember the first time you stepped into the RPD?"

"Um... it was two years ago. You introduced me to everyone and—"

A playful chuckle curled on his lips; you don't know if he was deliberately laughing or just simply mocking you. He shook his head, finding something wrong with your answer. "No. Not that part. But that part."

You blinked rapidly, trying to piece together a puzzle from his memory. Oh... yes, that moment... It wasn't one of those sweet moments; rather, it was an awkward episode about you and him.

"It was a rainy day, much like today," he said, the rim of his coffee cup clinging to his mouth. "Back then, you and I were stuck in this cafeteria. We barely talked at that time, so... I only called you by the rank; nothing special. We needed to go back to our office, but... there was only a single umbrella left in the cafeteria."

"Oh..." You returned his smile, wrapping your arm around yourself. "I had no idea that you still remembered that moment. It's embarrassing, you know, because that umbrella was so small. So we huddle closer together."

He chuckled teasingly and gazed at you with love. His eyes darted to yours, trying to find a spark in your eyes. "You want to try that again? Come on, I'm bored. I have a proper umbrella this time."

He rose gracefully from his seat and glided toward the entrance of the cafeteria. 

Chris and Joseph, those mischievous duos, shared a hushed laughter as you and Albert passed their table. You are sure that they will fuel this gossip for the entire RPD.

Now you find yourself at the entrance of the cafeteria, with your handsome captain by your side. A tender caress of a thousand raindrops kissed your skin, sending a shiver down your spine.

"Are you ready?" he inquired with a gentle gesture, extending his hand to you just before unfurling his umbrella.

You find yourself stuck between a daydream and reality and captivated by Albert's side profile. His figure gave warmth and soft vibes every time your sight line met him. Your heart beats so fast, and you can't help but wonder if you're falling under his beauty.

"Come closer," he murmurs with a mischievous smirk, leaning in to shield you from the rain. His voice is a gentle whisper in your ear, adding to the electric tension between you. "You don't want me to notice your shyness?"

"Eh?" 

He leaned in, closing the gap between your faces, until your nose and his nearly touched.

Then he gives you a gentle smile and confesses. "I've always wanted to do this."

He sighed, and his gaze lingered on your lips. "May I?"

"Oh, but—"

But before you could respond, his lips met yours. The warmth of his breath danced across your skin, leaving you breathless.

A tender kiss from your beloved captain is a good lunch to fill your hunger. Is it normal? To have a feeling in such a way with your captain? Because... Oh, Lord, you can't hold yourself.

[thepaintedlady00]

Burden

Chapter 3: A Dream of Starlight

Part 2 | Part 4

Daunts Gown

TW: Dream's an asshole (yep he's sharing titles with his sibling this bit! 😂), some light choking (not the fun kind), character death, angst, fluff

The Corinthian walked across the misty bridge, each side lined with statues of wolves and dogs. He regarded each with a fond look, having known them all once before they met their ends. Daunt's companions never lived long, something about her realm... about being by her side seemed to make them die faster. She'd gone a while without using another of those stones, but the loneliness always won out in the end. Once he cleared the bridge he stood at her newly constructed home, a simple hut at the base of the tallest tree in The Forest. Sitting guard in front of him the wolf Puck watched with glowing yellow eyes. The Nightmare tipped his hat and adjusted his glasses. "Evening, mutt."

"My lady isn't taking visitors today. Leave." The wolf growled lowly.

"I've come on official business, I'm afraid." Corinthian held up the engraved letter with a tight smile. "Dream sent me to deliver this."

The tree roots cracked as they wrapped tightly around his legs, squeezing him at the sound of his creators name. It was hardly a secret that Daunt and Dream had a bit of a... Falling out after their last conversation, though calling it such would be generous. Corinthian remembered it all too well, having been the only one beside Jessamy that had been present for it.

*

It had began almost immediately after Destruction left his post. Dream sought you out in your realm, angry and looking for answers. Answers that you didn't have. You sat with your companion at the time, Gaia, on the bridge looking out at the river that now ran beneath your feet. It was then that you felt him, his power shoving through The Forest without care or thought as he looked for you. You'd not seen him for years, not since he'd last scolded you for entertaining his favorite Nightmare, who it seemed accompanied him with low words that almost sounded like The Corinthian was trying to calm him down.

Jessamy flew out of the trees, landing next to you. "Forgive our intrusion, Daunt. Please just answer his questions... he is not in the mood for opposition today."

A warning from Dream's trusted raven? That was odd. Usually the two were far more in sync in thought and action. Dream tore through the branches and stared you down. "Did you know?"

You tilted your head to the side with narrow eyes. "You'll have to be more specific."

The Corinthian emerged shortly after his maker and set a hand on Dream's arm, an action that was promptly shoved off as he stalked forward. "Destruction is gone."

"Gone?" You questioned, disbelief and pain nearly bringing you down.

"He has abandon his realm and his role." Dream stopped just before the bridge. "Did you know that he intended to go?"

"No." He left? You thought back on the last time you spoke fully, he had seemed tired... Restless then.

"Liar."

You scoffed, a sound more meant to clear your now tight throat than anything. "Why would I lie?"

Dream took a step forward, the wood creaking beneath his foot. Gaia's haunches rose and she growled lowly beside your feet. The darkness of your realm seemed to curl around Dream as he continued moving forward until you stood face to face. "Out of spite to the rest of us, to protect him, to wreak havoc on the world. Take your pick."

With a simple show of your palm, Gaia calmed, but did not relent in her defensive stance. You stared down Dream just as you always had, but this time was different, this time he was actually showing you something... not his usual mild annoyance but his anger. "I didn't know and I wouldn't have kept it from anyone if I did. Despite your belief, I am no liar."

"I do not believe you," he spat. "Where is he?"

"I don't know."

Dream's hand wrapped around your throat, not squeezing too hard, but enough to startle you. "Where is my brother?"

You pushed yourself further into his hand, bringing your face closer to his. "I already told you. I. Don't. Know."

"Dream," Corinthian called, uncharacteristically stiff. "We're wasting our time."

Gaia was growling again as Jessamy and Corinthian all tried to get his attention, to snap him out of such a deep state of anger that would cause such a lapse of judgment. His hand squeezed harder. "You and him were close. Do you expect me to believe he told you nothing of his plans when it seems he shared everything else?"

You knew this insinuation, he'd used it to insult you many times before. Yet, he would never listen to you tell him such rumors of yours and Destructions intimate connect were just another of Desires games to make you feel unwanted. "Believe what you want, Dream, but you are not the only one he abandon. I share the same pain as you."

"You share nothing with me."

"If you're going to kill me then do it." The words seemed to shock him out of his rage, or rather the eagerness in your voice. The light came back to his eyes as he looked down at his hand still wrapped tightly around your throat. A human would have likely suffocated by now. "I have been ready to die from the moment I was made." His hand released you, but his eyes remained glued to your neck where the bruise of his violence was no doubt prominent. You let loose a breath and shook your head. "A pity. For a moment I thought you were actually going to show me some semblance of kindness."

His eyes seemed to water as he sighed, his hand hesitantly reaching toward you. "Daunt..."

The thick tree branches wrapped around him before he could touch you again, pulling him deep into The Forest as the mist grew thicker. "You are done talking, Dream Lord."

"I-" A root covered his mouth as Gaia's glowing purple eyes pierced the darkness, her low growls filling the space around Dream as you emerged from the trees, nothing more than what humans described of you. A woman of mist and her companion of shadows.

"Stop talking." You said, lowly, the trees around you shaking with your voice. White snakes slithered around his bound limbs, hissing as they moved. "I have put up with your lowly treatment for centuries. Have respected your realm and your wishes even when it made my duty strained. All this kindness, all the respect I bore you and yet you would dare to enter my realm and raise your hand against me?" Dream tried to speak against the rough wood that covered his mouth, but you were no longer listening. You were physically shaking, the pain and anger and betrayal of not one but two of the Endless filling your body. "No longer. I will not look upon your face or hear your silken voice spit cruelty at me ever again, Dream Lord. And if you ever return I will kill you. I don't care if your siblings retaliate, I don't care if your death causes the end of all life. I have had enough."

He was released in an instant as The Corinthian and Jessamy found their way to where you both stared one another down. He breathed for a moment before standing, hand once again reaching for you. "Daunt, let me-"

"Leave." You ground out, tears running down your cheeks and your hands closed so tightly together that it hurt. "Leave and never come back."

Gaia leapt from the shadows when Dream took a step towards you. She stood tall between the two of you, white teeth bared as she snapped them at him, you turned away and began to walk back into the misty trees. "My lady has commanded you. Should you refuse it will bring me great pleasure to tear you and your companions limb from limb, King of Nightmares."

Of course he did not relent and so you cast him out, along with Jessamy and The Corinthian. Once all was still again and only you and Gaia remained you collapsed, sobbing as Gaia wrapped herself around you, pressing her head into yours. For years that had been the last you saw of Dream of the Endless and for years it was the last you planned on seeing of him.

He'd sent messengers to request an audience with you and each time you'd refused. You had no wish to see him, no wish to hear his cruel words and endure his lowly treatment of you for simply existing. As you'd told him you were done. You did your duty in the dreams of men, only ever remaining on the black sands of his world to watch the sunrise when you were certain he would not come to find you.

Some of his subjects would approach you for conversation, mostly nightmares such as The Corinthian who remained your friend throughout the centuries and Gault who respected you and your purpose. On rare occasions Cain or Abel would be with the once nightmare named Gregory they would speak to you fondly and Gregory was always a friend. Then there were the rarest occasions where Dreams trusted librarian, Lucienne, would be out on the beaches and would speak with you, though you long suspected that this was of Dreams doing... a way to see how angry you still were with him.

Anger was no longer what you felt, not for a long while, now all that remained was hurt and loss. You'd lost Destruction, who'd been the only one to understand you from the beginning of your existence and then in the same day Dream... a being you loathed but respected made his feelings about you clear. You were nothing to him. You may have been forced to interact through your duties, may have joined him and his family for dinner, may have had moments where for even just a short second it felt like he didn't hate you... but the reality remained the same. Your function meant little to him, your life meant even less. All Dream of the Endless would ever see you as was a burden.

As the years passed, Gaia too grew weaker. She'd lived by your side, faithfully providing you with protection and companionship, for ten years. She'd lived the longest out of all the stones Destruction had given you before he departed. When moving became too difficult for her you sat beside her on the bridge, her favorite place, and you waited for the end to come as it always did.

Dream had realized his mistake in confronting you over Destructions departure immediately after seeing his handprint left on your skin. He'd lashed out at you because it was easy... because he'd done it thousands of times before. But something had shifted in the scarce meetings he'd had with you the years prior. He found himself thinking of you often, thoughts that began as angry turned softer... he wondered what it would be like to show you his realm, to hear your voice not filled with malice and distain, to feel the your warm skin against his. The thoughts never left him alone, and after you'd thrown him out of your realm and told him never to return they'd only grown stronger.

He'd not seen you since that night, well, not truly. There were some nights he stood on the beaches and watched you from afar. Once he'd even tried to approach you, but the purple eyed wolf had stopped him with a glare. After that he stayed away, sometimes he'd send Jessamy to watch you, or Lucienne to gauge your ire. Eventually the fleeting feeling of your presence was not enough for him, and so he began sending messengers to your realm, in hopes you'd accept his offer and allow him to approach you. That never happened.

Though he'd never admit it to anyone, Dream felt badly. So badly he took to sitting in the Waking World alone with his thoughts. Death always found him in moments like this, and with a sigh she invited him to join her in her work. Dream accepted, as he always did, opting to wait outside the locations she traveled, but unlike the times before at the end she offered him no advice or words of encouragement. She instead turned to him and pressed a hand to his chest. "You might not want to join me for this last one."

"Why not?"

"It's... It's not like my usual collections. You won't be able to wait off to the side while I do this."

Dream merely bowed his head slightly to his sister. "I should like to accompany you nonetheless, sister."

When The Forest greeted them with an open path and thin mist, Dream was surprised to say the least. He followed Death closely until they reached the bridge he'd stood on and threatened Daunt all those years ago. This time she was on the ground, holding her trusted purple eyed wolf in her arms and whispering comforting words to it. He stood at the edge of the bridge, eyes only now taking in the statues of her other fallen companions that lined the path.

This was wrong. Shaping stones were not meant to perish, and yet they all had, nearly every stone he'd given to Destruction after the first was spent before his eyes. Death approached with reverence and knelt beside Daunt. "I'm sorry."

"I know." It was the first time he'd heard her voice in so long. She sounded so sad, so tired.

"I'll make sure she finds her way," Death promised as she laid a hand to the wolfs head. He watched lift the wolfs spirit up into the sky and vanish.

Daunt cried into the fur of her lost friend, the mist curling around her and the trees around them seemingly crying out as if they too felt the pain of her loss. He took a step forward, the bridge creaking beneath his feet. "Leave."

He paused in his steps and sighed. "Daunt, please..."

"GO AWAY!" She screamed, the mist shooting out toward him, blinding his sight and pushing him over the edge of the bridge and into the dark waters of her realm. Somehow he found his way to the waters of The Dreaming, back to the docks of his own realm, but now cursed with the image of Daunt curled over her dead friend and weeping.

Dream found himself holding a blue stone as he approached Lucienne in the library. She bowed her head and looked at him with inquisitive eyes. "My lord? Is there something I can help you with?"

"I hope so, Lucienne."

*

You opened your door to glare at The Corinthian, who stood in the same spot in front of Puck's watchful eyes. "Why the fuck would I accept this invitation when I've denied all the others?"

He shrugged. "Not a clue. I'm just the messenger."

With a few steps forward you gave Puck a loving scratch behind his ears and took the intricate envelop out of Corinthian's hands, tearing it in two and tossing it to the ground. "Message delivered and denied."

"Come on, Daunt," The Corinthian said with a crooked grin. "He's got a party to crash this time. I'll be all by my lonesome if you don't come."

"I'd rather die than attend any part of his."

"Me too, but I'm forced to go. If you were to come with me, we could at least have a bit of fun." He pulled a package out from behind him. "Besides, Dream had the sense to send a gift with me this time."

You rolled your eyes. "If it's another of his gowns I don't want it. He makes them these beautiful colors on purpose just so I have to watch them turn white."

Corinthian shook the box a bit. "This ones already white. We'll match."

For a moment you prepared to decline again, but the Nightmare seemed off... seemed like he needed this fun he spoke of more than he let on. So with a sigh you grabbed the box out of his hands and turned back inside to get changed. "You owe me big after this."

Dream had crafted the dress beautifully. It was the only compliment you'd give him and it would remain a quiet one. You'd attend his party, but you had no plans to speak with him or even look at him, just as you'd promised all those years ago. Once you'd changed and gotten yourself cleaned up a bit you rejoined The Corinthian and Puck with an annoyed expression. The Corinthian tilted his glasses down and whistled. "Lookin like a real Lady now, should I bow?"

"Stop teasing and let's just get this over with please?"

"As you command, my fine Lady Daunt."

"Corinthian..." You warned taking his arm. "Don't make me smack you around."

He merely shrugged as the two of you continued down the path. "Could be kinda fun."

Dream sat on his throne, watching his creations celebrate and in all honestly he'd forgotten the cause of this party. His head felt heavy, the hours passing with The Corinthian still not returned from Daunt's forest. Perhaps this time his request had been answered, or more likely, she'd gotten tired of his insistent asking and decided to take the Nightmare hostage. Just as he was about to give up all hope he saw The Corinthian enter, with Daunt and her new wolf beside him. The residents of The Dreaming moved out of her way, whispering about not wanting their gown to lose color and Dream felt another pang of guilt fill his chest.

It was his doing, their callousness of her. They were merely treating her as he had all the eons of this world. Daunt, however remained focused on the Nightmare at her side as he pulled her in closer. He couldn't help but feel a rising heat in him at their closeness, at the sight of his nightmare whispering things in her ear that brought a smile to her face or a laugh from her. She'd never given him either... he'd never given her a reason to.

Lucienne smiled from beside him. "Lady Daunt is looking well."

"Yes," he answered tensely, his eyes now drawn down the length of her. She'd worn the gown he sent... it was not often he cursed himself for his creations, but damn this was one. Dream couldn't focus on anything else, not while that dress, slightly too sheer, hugged her form so nicely, the jewels shimmering with every move she made and the intricate vines and tiny flowers brought attention to the plunging neckline that he had designed. Did he design it this way because the dress would be beautiful? Or had he done it because he wanted to see Daunt in it... to see her skin revealed to him in such a way... No. He cut the thought off before it could fully stick in his mind.

"It is a wonder she accepted this invitation," Lucienne noted. "It has been quite some time... perhaps she has-"

"She has not forgotten, Lucienne." He sighed, leaning back into his throne with a frown. "Nor has she forgiven."

Daunt was many things, but she was not one to forget lightly. She was here, yes, but she'd not looked in his direction once, and she most likely did not intend to do more than stay by his nightmares side and leave. Dream could only hope he could find a moment with her alone before this opportunity was gone.

Dancing with The Corinthian made the heat of Dreams eyes on you feel lessened, only slightly. You'd spent a few hours taking in the sights of the beautiful throne room, of the Dreaming that you were always denied access to. You didn't see much of it aside from the palace, but it would have to be enough. As the room began to really fill with Dreams subjects you snuck away to the pier, a location you knew from little glimpses. The Corinthian sighed, placing an arm around your shoulders. "Thanks for coming with me. I'm sorry you're likely going to regret it."

You shrugged it off. "You deserved to have fun tonight."

"At what cost to you though?"

"At the very least an unpleasant conversation." You nudged his shoulder. "But, it's one I will gladly suffer to bring you some peace, my friend."

He opened his mouth to speak again when Puck's growls interrupted him and the long not felt power of Dream brought a chill to your skin. The Nightmare tipped his hat to you and sighed. "Sorry, Daunt." He turned and smiled at his creator. "Dream."

You turned away, looking out at the water as Dream slowly made his approach. "I would speak with Daunt alone. If she will allow it."

Saying nothing you waved your hand and Puck followed The Corinthian down the pier, away from the two of you. You told yourself this was to keep the witnesses of his murder lower, but in truth you were afraid they would see you as weaker in Dreams overwhelming presence.

His black clad figure settled in beside you, his hands clasping behind his back. "It is lovely out here."

Silence.

"I was surprised to see you..." He admitted. "I did not think you would accept my invitation."

More silence.

"I see you have a new companion, if I'm not mistaken that is the last of the stones you carry?"

Silence again. Did he expect you to answer?

Dream turned his gaze to you, a loud sigh echoing in the air. "Daunt... please speak with me."

This time you relented slightly. "I've nothing left to say to you, King of Nightmares."

"I... I regret my actions all those years ago." His admittance was surprising, but it did little to ease the pain he'd caused. "My brothers decision affected me more than I thought and I was... I was looking for a way to release it."

"Fortunate for you, that you just so happened to know where the cosmic mistake resides."

"That is not what you are," he answered softly. For a moment you almost believed him.

You shook you head and ground your teeth. "You've made it quite obvious what you think of me. You and Desire see me as little more than a thorn in your sides, a mistake, a burden meant to make your lives miserable."

Dream was quiet for a moment, the comparison to his sibling must have struck him deeply. "Perhaps that is what I thought of you once. But I see now that I was wrong."

"You see now?" You scoffed. "Don't insult me."

"Let me show you then?" He offered, moving his hand toward you an action that made you flinch away from him. He dropped his hand after that and gestured to the water. "Please?"

Just this once, you'd indulge him. Just the last time you'd let yourself give into the whims of the Dream Lord. Once inside the waters you were guided to a dream... a memory? You both stood in a theatre, empty save for a few people going over lines and the set design. On the stage a woman clothed in all white with a very unconvincing dog at her side stood. A man, the writer, you presumed stood in front of her, giving her notes on her performance. You glared at the figure and felt a fear rise up in your chest. Of course this was another game... another trick meant to make you feel inferior. "Is this meant to be me?"

"Yes."

You turned quickly. "I did not come here to be insulted."

Dream stopped you with a gentle, feather light grip on your arm. "Wait."

The writer sighed. "She's not meant to be evil."

"But she's trying to stop the story, isn't she?" The actress asked. "Doesn't that mean she's evil?"

"No." He laughed. "No. She doesn't want to stop the story, she merely wants us to... to understand it better. Every time she cuts the heroes off from their parts of the story, their quest what happens?"

"They find another way."

"A better way. They see things they hadn't before, they add things to their plan they take things away. Don't you see? She is the reason the story is any good at all!" The writer gestured to the actress. "I think she knows our stories, our creativity better than we do... she challenges us to do better - be better, to achieve not just our measly little goals but to achieve the greatness we are so intimidated by!"

Tears stung your eyes when you both returned to the pier. Still you refused to look at Dream, refused to show him this weakness... and to have to admit that this was the nicest thing anyone had ever given you. "I was wrong to assume you meant the humans... the creators of this world harm. Because of you they find courage, the thing that idea alone cannot give. Your function forces them to face their worst fears, to separate them from what they believe is who they are... their life's work... and you make them find the courage to seek it out and make it better."

"If I didn't know any better I'd think this was a dream."

"I didn't think you had dreams," he said quietly. "I never thought to ask."

"I do." Immediately you shook your head at him. "Not how you're thinking."

"How then?"

"When I sleep I see misty figures on a vast plain of nothingness. There's nothing of substance in them, nothing really or imagined."

For a moment he was silent and then he turned to face you. "If you could go anywhere while you slept, where would it be?"

"Dream…"

"Tell me, and tonight it will be so."

You thought for a moment, turning your head away from his blistering gaze on you and up to the clouded sky you'd been doomed to stare at since the beginning of your existence. "The stars." It felt so foolish. "I would walk among the stars."

A glitter of sand swirled around you, a halo framing your head before it settled into a soft trickle, coating you in the soft tingly feeling of it. "Breathe, open your mind to me."

It was easier than you thought it would be, though you'd quickly written it off as your mind succumbing to Dream's power and not even entertaining the foolish notion that you'd trusted him. For a moment all you could see was darkness, but a cool breeze kissed your skin and a hand gently squeezed yours. "Open your eyes."

Nothing could have prepared you for what you would see when you did. Stars, endless shining stars of every size and shape, twinkled in the cosmic clouds. The ground beneath your feet was a reflective mirror of ice, glowing dimly beneath the ethereal sky. A shuddering breath left you as turned, looking in every direction as if the white mist and nothingness would be lurking around the corner. It was so beautiful.

For the first time in years you looked at him, his star filled eyes practically glowing here. He said nothing, simply holding his palm out to you, a blue stone sitting in the middle. It was then that it dawned on you... the stones from Destruction... "They were yours?"

"They were from my realm, but they were always yours." He frowned slightly. "If I had known that they died... This one will not fade, I assure you."

"Why are you doing this?"

Dreams eyes glistened with repressed tears. "Because you were right. I've been nothing but cruel to you... no better than Desire in making you feel lesser than us at every turn when you have simply done your duty as we do. I was wrong to write you off as an adversary and my actions against you that day... they are unforgivable."

You'd never heard Dream apologize before, and though he'd likely not do it fully you could feel his regret in the air between you. Taking the stone from his hand you looked at it closely, holding it carefully. "Thank you, for tonight, Dream."

"It is what you were owed." He answered. "If you wish it, from here on my gates are open to you."

You smiled, soft and hesitant, but you smiled. "I've not yet forgiven you... but I will not forget this, Dream of the Endless."

He bowed his head. "Goodbye, Lady Daunt. I hope to see you again soon."

"Goodbye, Dream Lord..."

[sunattacksthemoon]

5, 6, 10, 11, 20, 22 and 25

ask game

5. what would you be a god/goddess of and what would people sacrifice to you?

So I tried asking my my sister and mum bc I had no idea what to answer and that was the most excruciating conversation I have ever had with two people. So I’m on my own for this one. Honestly I’ve got no clue, I’ve thought about this for a good bit and I’ve come up with nothing. I keep coming back to something nature related, idk what but something to do with the forest and trees. For sacrifices or like things to put on my alter ig, I’d say willow tree branches and honeysuckle. Maybe fruits? Plums specifically, anddddd idk play me some music and I’ll be peachy.

6. name five iconic quotes that make you feel things.

I’ve actually got a list of these

“I am very interested and fascinated how everyone loves each other, but no one really likes each other.” The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

“They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.” - The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe

“Loneliness flays the soul, doesn't it? Strips it piece-by-piece until it feels like there's nothing left to lose, and in a way, reaching that point can seem relieving.” - Best Friends Brother by bizarrestars

“As you wish” - The Princess Bride by William Goldman

“You are beautiful, but you are empty,” he went on. “One could not die for you. To be sure, an ordinary passerby would think that my rose looked just like you—the rose that belongs to me. But in herself alone she is more important than all the hundreds of you other roses: because it is she that I have watered; because it is she that I have put under the glass globe; because it is she that I have sheltered behind the screen; because it is for her that I have killed the caterpillars (except the two or three that we saved to become butterflies); because it is she that I have listened to, when she grumbled, or boasted, or ever sometimes when she said nothing. Because she is my rose.” - The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

10. describe yourself as if you were a storm.

I’d be a thunderstorm, no lightning and lots of rain. Lotsss of thunder tho. It would last for a good while but would eventually turn into just some light rain. I think I’d be a summer storm, like the ones in the middle of July, where it’s super hot and it’s misty.

11. what type of flower (other than a rose) would you offer someone you were trying to court?

Their favorite flower, idk I’ve never given anyone flowers before, like romantically. Every person I’ve been interested always said they didn’t like flowers. But I’m the type of person that wants people to like their gifts so I’ll just listen to people when they talk and if they mention liking something I’ll take note and get them gifts based off that. I want people to get use out of the things I get them. So gifts are always tailored to the people I give them too. That goes with flowers and other things like playlists.

20. tying your hair up using ribbon, yay or nay?

I wish, I have super thick hair but it’s pin fucking straight so every time I try to but a lil bow or clippy in my hair it falls out. Literal bane of my existence. But ideally in another life I’ll be able to have ribbons in my hair.

22. tell us, in detail, about a curse a witch would put on you.

Hmmmm idk I think it would be based on my fears or faults ig. So I’m thinking they would take my ability to speak. Idk what I did to deserve a curse but y’know shit happens.

25. favorite childhood story? (doesn’t have to be a fairy tale)

Alice in wonderland, I’ve got the white rabbit as a lil charm on my necklace. On the same chain as my moonstone. Both very sentimental things for me. I’d also say Calvin and Hobbes or Pooh bear. Goodnight moon but that was when I was really little, I also remember liking Shel Silverstein as well. Idk I know that a lot of little kids books made me unbelievably anxious. Or overall upset. Like when my mum read me the ugly duckling I was so sad. And Dr. Seuss was my enemy.

[kipaparappa]

This year

this year i am turning 26 and honestly, never in my mind i would expect that I could live this long.

I always dream of having someone that truly loves me. But now because I feel like I am in no age to dream about impossible things, I'm going to write all my imagination, longing, and wish on a person.

Since I was small, I have never familiarized myself with the idea of love, meeting with someone, having a special bond, etc. I have this extreme self dysmorphia resulted in never-ending self destructive thoughts, undeserving, low to non-existent self esteem. I just felt like I wasn't fit for this world and never entitled to achieve anything good in this life

But I am a dreamer when it comes to love. Whether I deserve it or not, is another whole new story. But as I grow up with a lot of scar filling every corner of my heart, my own self-loathe, all I could ever wish for is someone who is willing to accept the ugly part of me. my ugly part is just very ugly that I can't even bear to love them, just yet. I still come back with a knife making my mental bleed so that I don't feel too happy or too comfortable with this world, to push my ugly side away, even just for a bit.

I am dramatic when it comes to mental health, struggle, bullying, self-deprivation, everything that hits home for me, I turn into this big emotional ball. Being overly sensitive in this society is highly unacceptable-- and I have been experiencing that for the longest time I've lived. And I am afraid that I am going to be judged by my future partner (if he ever exists) for my inability to navigate my way out when I am too misty over my own emotions.

In my mind I always dreamt about this perfect world/situation where this very part of me is forgiven. When my sensitivity is valued and not to be hidden. When someone understands my struggle and gives me the warmest hug once my body turns cold from overwhelming emotions I frequently experience. When someone doesn't take my tears for granted. When someone would forgive my presence for existing in this world. When someone would sit next to me when I feel empty until I feel less lonely. When someone puts effort to keeping me company. When someone worries with my loneliness. When they feel hopeless if something bad happens to me. When someone can lift my burden off my shoulder and put half of them onto their shoulder so that I don't have to bear it alone..

when someone.... actually

cares

for me.

I can only dream...

I always feel unloved for my whole entire life. So the thought that a certain someone actually cherishes me, is afraid when I am gone, genuinely enjoys my company, my presence, has a strong emotion for me, actually comes to me even when I am unable to reach them out, fight for me, just make me feel like... I am in fact make a difference existing in this world... I am needed to exist..

seems to be a little too dramatic to ask.

Now that I am (about to turn) 26, its really no time for me to dream for a fairytale-like story. Life is not a glamorous journey. It requires hard work and perseverance to achieve everything.

maybe I am just not fated for my own dream...

I try to kill my emotions, hundred times.

Now I just let it live in a little corner of my heart

But now I am 26

should I just.... completely give it up?

just how many more times should I die until I finally can rest in eternal peace....

[storiesbyrhi]

Eddie Munson Headcanons 13/?

What if the reason he repeats again and again is because of you?

When you hit high school, freshman year, Eddie is a junior. He starts Hellfire just to get to know you. He never tells you that he's unbelievably in love with you. Eddie thinks you're god's gift to the earth, and he's just... well, a freak at best, and trailer park trash at worst. He's just not good enough for you.

The following year, your sophomore, he's meant to graduate. Eddie panics. How's he gonna live without seeing you every day? Who is going to protect you from bullies and loneliness? So, he flunks on purpose.

You, of course, have no idea. Nobody knows you're in love with Eddie Munson. Except Eddie. He sees that misty-eyed expression on your face. He wants to give in. He's just not good enough for you.

You're a junior and he's repeating his senior year. It's a mystery how he's failing again, because you know how smart he is. All you want is for him to graduate and get the hell out of dodge. Go be the big beautiful rockstar you believe he is. Alas, the end of the year comes and Eddie has failed again.

There's a part of you that wants to scream at him for not trying harder, but you're too in love. Instead, you're soft and gentle and promise to help him even more next year. "Well do this together," you say, so much hope and love in your eyes that Eddie wants to fucking die. He's just not good enough for you.

You're a senior and so is Eddie. He may never have had a girlfriend and he may play to a crowd of about five drunks and he may befriend small children, but Eddie Munson is going to fucking graduate in 1986. You're manifesting it.

His plan worked until '86. You were terrified of him failing again, so you're at his side constantly. Begging for study dates. Quizzing him over the phone. And, he knows this shit. He could write these essays and pass these exams in his sleep. But after four years of pretending he isn't painfully in love with you, he's tired.

After four years of watching out for you, driving you home, buying you lunch, giving you mix tapes, he's giving in. Maybe, just maybe, if he lets him believe even a little bit of the good stuff you say about him, he'll believe he's good enough for you.

[probablyfunrpgideas]

idea : a dnd session where evrything is normal exept the demon lord is lonely and just causes chaos to seek attention

Sounds cool! (Assuming there’s such a thing as a normal d&d session). I think demon lords would have a special kind of loneliness because they’re all about horrific strength, and that doesn’t really make friends. Even a rival is hard to find, since the Abyss is a place where you win or die.

Demon lord most likely to need a pal: Fraz-Urb’luu. Deception and betrayal are his bread and butter! Without an army of minions, it’s easy to imagine him feeling a little lost in his misty realm of illusions.

Thanks @edgywithaheart and to everyone out there who contributes ideas!

[lovenona]

albatross

synopsis; only fools hold things sacred. or – part six of the odyssey, a pirate! jujutsu kaisen cinematic universe

contains; allusions to monsterfucking (crowd roars approvingly), one use of ‘puppy,’ minor blood play, sukuna is so fucking sexy, multiple graphic descriptions of blood + gore + violence, graphic animal death (a lot of birds tragically die for symbolic reasons), minor character death, creepy gothic vibes and bad energy, more heists because we’re at sea, undercurrents of angst + depression + loneliness

word count; 23.3k

are you listening? 

the voice calls from both above and below. it wraps itself in the misty fog, curls beneath snail shells and damp stones. it is not a voice that requires a body; it is a voice that requires a listener, a victim, a seer. it holds want and impatience. it demands what it cannot seek. 

are you looking? 

it is hard to see between the sheets of fog rolling along the cliffside. like a wall of grey against the sky, the misty fog blinds you, obtrusively, unabashedly. it does not seek your destruction, no. it is not a sky which demands your undoing. but still, still, it does not care who you are and where you go. if you asked it to part, it would not answer. the fog here does not know your tongue. it is beyond it. 

you are led along by silver strings. invisible, faultless, you feel them tug at your fingers and toes with every step forward. you are meant to go somewhere in the endless expanse. where, you could not say. but you are driven forth by this incessancy, this need, to find whatever lies at the end of your journey. 

something caws in the shadow of the undergrowth. a roar in the distance, not unlike the rocking of waves against the shore. and yet you are unbothered by the immediate knowledge that you are the only thing here left alive, that there will be no rescue, no lover. 

another step into the fog. are you looking, are you listening, do you know echoes through the atmosphere like unwritten songs left forgotten. perhaps it is the voice of the one-eyed pirate calling out to you. perhaps it is your own tongue whispering back. perhaps it is only the wind and no one at all. 

the ground levels beneath you. the mist adheres to your skin until a steady chill seeps into your clothes. you are close, you feel it, to the thing you need, the somewhere you pray for. 

but wait: you sense it, beyond the fog, not one figure, but two. both waiting, watching, not whole without the presence of the other, two sides of the same slippery coin. both reaching out to you, both just a blink away from visibility, both with their eyes on the place between your ribcage and your soul.

are you listening?

wait.

look, now. 

a shaky breath exhales near your ear. you blink. you wake.

––

vague light peers down the steps like a halfhearted beacon. someone snores in a hammock across the room and the roar of the ocean echoes beneath the floorboards. you pause, unsure where you are, what it means, until consciousness crackles through your limbs and everything else falls back into place. 

shadows dance across the ceiling. a certain silence unwinds itself and threads its tongues beneath strained hammocks and sleeping bodies. if you did not know better, you might have presumed that this was the dream, that you were still stuck in the shadowed place between here and somewhere and nowhere at all. it leaves an uneasy feeling in your gut. 

you do not remember what you dreamt, not anymore. you are left with nothing but the fear that you’ve forgotten something important. it is like a word that sits on the tip of your tongue, but you cannot grasp it, no matter how hard you try. it is like the moments when the printing master would ask you to run the press and you would forget a single letter in the type. 

another deep snore from across the room. you adjust your shirt and return to the deck. 

a cloudy afternoon meets you at the top of the stairs. the blue skies you’d seen last are replaced by muted grey, an endless expanse of unintelligible clouds and monochrome feeling. a breeze sprints down the floorboards and sets forth the sails. all seems as it should be. but the clouds still press down, watching, waiting, aching for you to listen, for you to know.

“i was wondering when you’d wake up,” sukuna muses. you find him lounging in the doorway of the captain’s quarters with an amused grin and watchful eyes. jogo directs traffic on the deck and uraume plays lookout and you attempt to rub the fatigue from your eyes. 

“i don’t remember falling asleep,” you say. you barely know how long it’s been: an hour? a day? it had been sunny when you left to pay your hammock a visit. a hazy memory recollects in the back of your mind: returning to the malevolent shrine after weeks under a hot and unruly sun, bathing in the deep purpose of your next steps. you thought you’d only gone below deck to look for something. perhaps that, too, was a figment of your imagination. 

clearly, your trials on gojo’s island had done more to you than you know, because even after falling into the deepest of dreams, you reckon it might be nice never to move again. 

“you passed out almost immediately,” sukuna shrugs. “didn’t think we’d see you again.” 

“how long has it been?” 

“not long. less than a day, lucky you.” he straightens, flexing his arms as he comes to meet you by the railing, where together you watch the rest of the crew wander the deck. jogo’s voice, rocky and displeased, floats through on the wind. everything is as it has been, as it should be. someone asks about dinner and another responds in kind. no one wants to clear away the shit stains littering the back of the ship: it is another cloudy afternoon on the malevolent shrine. 

but you are not with them anymore, not now. you can sense the dynamics shifting, even if you cannot name them: the casual ease in sukuna’s demeanor when you speak to him and he speaks to you. the inkling of respect in jogo’s greeting when you passed him upon your return. 

(and if they fail? jogo had asked, once, in doubt and desperation.

but the captain would not relent. this one won’t. i know it. 

and you did not. and you have not. and he cannot help but admire you for it, even if he cannot see the scars.) 

“so.” the word hangs between you and him and the unfamiliarity of this trust. “how long until we get there?” to tengen’s nest, this palace of sin, to the place where you will find your retribution? you have never heard it whispered, not even on the lips of the one-eyed pirate or his crew. whatever this place is, you do not know it. whatever it is, no one you knew ever traveled far enough to hear the words.

“we’re making a detour first.” sukuna’s eyes do not leave the unwavering line of the horizon, the place where a grey sky meets an even greyer sea. “if you want to get into tengen’s nest in one piece, you’re going to need assistance.” 

“what?” you try to come across as teasing, playful, even, when you turn to study his profile, the dark lines across his cheeks and the gentle rose of his hair. “you mean you’re not enough?” you gesture vaguely to his four arms, his imposing stature, his immortal victory. sukuna must be fucking with you, sure, because the king of the sea and the ruler of death has never been one to lose. he could burn every port you know without blinking. you’re sure if he wished for it he would turn you to stone.

but sukuna ryoumen is not laughing. his red eyes remain solemn and covered with clouds while he watches his sailors down below. you recognize this look from the night you told him your dream: worry, intensity, resolve. his fists clench against the railing and you want to untangle them, soothe this tension inside him, make him tell you that he is the same legend all the stories say he is. 

“tengen’s nest is not like anywhere you’ve been before,” sukuna says, the words drawn out and calculated, as if he does not quite know them himself. “trust me when i say the more people you have on your side there, the better.” 

and if sukuna, the lone sun, the only star, tells you to make friends, you know with increasing gravity that he means it. 

“so we’re getting allies?” you ask. a weak beam of light peers through a cloud and warms the deck before it disappears with a sigh. 

“i happen to know someone whose specialty is maneuvering in and out of tengen’s nest,” sukuna replies, tone as pompous as ever. you find yourself relieved to see the satisfaction on his lips. “we met quite some time ago.” 

“and they’ll help you?” your arm brushes his and you wonder if things will always be this way; if you’ll always gravitate closer, and closer, until you find that the proximity is never enough, until you do absolutely nothing about it. 

his eyes pierce you with that knowing of his, with his dominion. they’re cloudy and red and still they welcome you like a lover. you want to bottle them up, those eyes, like stories that will fade if you do not tell them. to meet him is to die, they used to tell you. to look upon his face is to gaze into the depths of human suffering. but to look upon sukuna ryoumen now is only akin to a sacred art. 

“of course they will,” he says, breath hot and demanding against your jaw. “who do you think i am?”

––

you reach this “detour” close to nightfall. darkness falls quickly beneath overcast skies and the steady hum of the insects has already begun as the malevolent shrine quietly approaches the port. the unnamed place is dark greens and navy hues, ships that bob against a dreary shore. beyond the coastline shine the dull golden candles of pubs and inns like half-hearted beacons on a quiet night. 

it’s much like home, you think, in the way it’s a town that doesn’t wish to be remembered but hopes not to be left behind. 

“uraume will keep watch over the ship,” sukuna announces brusquely. “we will be back soon.” his word is law. your old home, the rowboat, is summoned, the anchor dropped and the sails closed. this ship will not go to port: the malevolent shrine will never go to port. it is built to hover, to watch, the dark and watchful eye of every stormy sea. 

you find yourself seated between sukuna and jogo as the rowboat lowers into the sea. a gull soars past on the tide as the two men direct their boat into candlelight and shadows. mist rises up from the water, winds its way around your shirtsleeves and eyelids before it melts somewhere in the air. so silent, so still, the sea tonight could have been built from glass.  

“it’s quiet,” you say, to yourself more than anyone else. but it is: a town like this you should be able to hear from lightyears away. a town like this would echo the lush pride of gambling and the sigh of sex far and wide into the night. you know from experience that even the lowliest of towns do not sleep in silence. 

“that’s what happens when you get close to the nest,” jogo huffs, but the comment is aggressively overtaken as sukuna interjects, “there’s not much living at this end of the world.” 

close to the nest? your eyes turn from the glassy sea to jogo’s bitter form, but it’s clear from the way he and sukuna look at each other that you will get no further explanation. 

“it’s not as popular a place as it used to be,” jogo continues, perhaps to draw your attention away from the mystery, perhaps to call you his comrade. “used to be the center of trade here, gold flowing left and right. but there’s better ways to seek fortunes now. harder to get work, among other unfavorable things. so everyone’s gone to better ports and left this shithole behind.” 

“but your friend?” you turn to sukuna and ignore the way jogo stifles his laughter at the term. “they’re still here?” 

“of course.” the details of the wooden buildings come into focus; you spy the silhouettes of bodies in windows, the shadows of prostitutes on the street. “they’d never abandon a place they think they can turn a profit.” 

jogo and sukuna drag the rowboat into a nondescript area on the beach while you survey the gulls in the air and the fading light in the west. even here, on the shores of an unnamed place, no whispers carry on the wind. no one whistles a lowly tune in the night; no shouts from bar fights and deals gone wrong and barking dogs catch your ears. for all you know, you could be entirely alone here, the only real person at the lowly port at the edge of the sea. 

“this way,” sukuna gestures up the beach towards the edge of town. jogo follows quickly behind and you trail after, eyes on the shadows, evening fog curling around you all as you head deeper into the fray. leafy palms hang overhead and disguise the arriving stars. a moth flutters against your cheeks until you swat it away with a sigh. 

are you listening? an echo of the dream resurfaces to guide you, but still, now, there is nothing to hear. 

sukuna avoids the main roads through town and opts instead to circle the outskirts as he maneuvers towards his undisclosed destination. piles of unwanted bottles and extra rope lie abandoned outside houses; rifles lean against doorsteps; the baker and the butcher and the fur trader have all shut their doors. a twig snaps beneath your feet, and you cringe at the sound, at the echo which fails to follow. 

he stops before a nondescript house at the edge of a tangled wood. something hisses from beyond the trees, large and carnivorous, perhaps, but you choose to ignore it in lieu of the golden light emanating from inside the dirty windows. you think someone moves inside there, waiting, but it could all be a trick of the light. 

sukuna looks back at you both for a moment, at jogo’s obvious distaste and your own helpless curiosity. he turns back to the house, perhaps to open the door or even ask for entry, but before he can, the door swings open with a protesting groan. 

“thought so.” a woman’s voice rings out through the evening, the first human tongue. it chimes like the rattle of silver in a coin purse. she lounges in the doorway without a concern, with the bedroom eyes of a spurned lover. in the dim light you can see the spotless pistol she carries, pointed squarely between captain sukuna’s eyes. 

“what gave it away?” sukuna does not even bother to acknowledge the pistol as he approaches the house. 

“the smell.” the woman lowers her gun but does not place it back in the holster. her gaze examines both you and jogo for a moment before deciding neither of you are worth her time. “could smell the sulfur for miles.” 

(could you? you do not catch it on the wind. perhaps it has been too close for you for too long. perhaps it is you that now carries it.) 

“well? are you going to let us in or am i going to break through the wall myself?” something unfamiliar twists in your lungs at the way sukuna so shamelessly speaks with her. what is this tone, this banter, that rips through your mood? 

she chuckles, lowly, the chorus of the divine, moving from the doorway like running water and gesturing for you all to follow. you do not know why her laugh sends a shiver up your spine. her aura is akin to walking through a nightmare, or a dense fog, or a place where you cannot see the ground below you.  

“please, go right ahead,” she says, but you wonder if your unspeakable fury is worth the help she might offer. 

the woman leads you into a large back room, perhaps an old study, now functioning as a makeshift headquarters for whatever business she’s after. in the glow of the candles you see her now; silver-blue hair, braided and laid across her eyes, sleek uniform, perfect boots. even her fingernails are cleaned and sharpened as they lure you inside. 

you think you dislike her, although you aren’t quite sure why. 

so focused are you on this woman who laughs at your captain and offers her hand that you nearly miss the other two seated around the table – a blonde man, stoic and disinterested behind a pair of dark glasses, another woman, dark hair, a large birthmark across her cheek. they watch you with the same distrust that you watch them. outside, the cicadas hum, and the night closes in tight to listen. 

you say nothing. the others in their seats say nothing. it is only this woman and your captain, eyes locked in some game of cat and mouse, the deal unspoken before it’s even begun. 

“well?” the silver-blue woman sits regally on the table and crosses her legs. her perfect nails tap-tap-tap against her thigh with the same impatience you used to observe in the cruelest of merchants back home. “what do you want?”

“cutting the small talk already, mei mei?” you think you might burst from the amusement in sukuna’s voice, from the sort of tender fondness – or is that enjoyment, even? – in the way he says her name. “after all i’ve done for you.” 

mei mei waves a disinterested hand. from beneath her hair you catch her eyes, cold and calculating, and her lips, stained with the blood of the backs she broke on the path to fortune. “i’m tired. after working on my feet all day, you can’t blame me for skipping the formalities.” a lie, judging by the way there is no muscle in her body that appears ready to sleep. but you merely shuffle your feet and spare a sideways glance in jogo’s direction. you’re grateful, for once, that jogo appears to be just as uncomfortable as you. 

“you still dealing with tengen’s nest?” sukuna tilts his head, and you do not miss the way the blonde man stiffens in his seat or the crease that races across his brow before he forces himself to settle. it feels like the air has left the room; like even the strange silence outside has evaporated into smoke. it is like the name is an evil, like the place itself bears a curse.

but if mei mei is off-put by the question, she righteously does not show it. her back straightens, and with iron will, she counters, “why?” 

you are surprised that sukuna still plays with her antics, that he has not simply forced her to accept his demands. he still sports his infuriating ease and the eyes he saves only for nightfall. “because,” he says, the words drawn out and laden with syrup, “we’ve got some business there and we’d like to get in unseen.” 

“you can’t get into the nest,” mei mei’s tapping quickens as she speaks. it is not a challenge: it is a fact. 

“no,” sukuna concedes. for the first time since this expedition began, sukuna turns to recognize you as he adds, “but they will.” you are caught for an instant beneath the intensity of his gesture, beneath the sudden desire to see and be seen by him forever. but he returns to mei mei and you are left with a molten sensation you refuse to identify. 

“helping others, are we?” mei mei chuckles as she studies the space between you both. she’s too light, too easy, entirely uncaring that the man she deals with could rip her apart without a word. sukuna ryoumen is not the kind of entity that she fears, but something else entirely. “that’s not very like you.” 

he does not respond. tension rises and falls in his broad shoulders before he says, “how much?” 

mei mei hums as if the simple question set her alight. her perfect fingers tap an unfamiliar rhythm against the table while she pretends to ponder the idea. from behind her, the dark-haired woman rolls her eyes, and the blonde man pretends to be entirely unaware of the deal being made before him. 

“let’s see,” she muses, tucking a stray piece of hair behind one perfect ear, “there’s a merchant convoy that will be passing just outside the scyllan pass in less than two days. well-armed, well-manned, possibly the greatest haul of a lifetime. help me overtake it and i’ll owe you a favor. what do you say?” 

 “done.” you’re relieved to hear the impatience creep back into your captain’s voice. 

a hint of disappointment overtakes mei mei’s expression. perhaps she’d hoped for more of a barter. perhaps she’d hoped someone would ask her what exactly it was that she wanted. but rather than entertain the notion, she merely nods in agreement. “meet us tomorrow at the northernmost point of the docks,” mei mei says. “get me my fortune, and i’ll get you into tengen’s nest.” 

you do not trust her, but you do not have a choice. jogo’s head exhales steam and sukuna flexes his arms and the blonde man in the corner chokes back a sigh. the deal settles, and after the two captains shake hands, your little trio emerges back into the dark. 

“are you sure, captain?” jogo breathes, finally, once you are far enough away that the golden lights on mei mei’s house disappear into nothing. “you know who she deals with.” 

“of course not,” sukuna says, syrup and flirtation now finally absent. “we just have to charm her and play the highest bidder until we’re done.” 

a terse silence falls. and somewhere off, far away, the sea cries out for its master.

––

two well-equipped sloops sleep at the northernmost point of the port. they bob beside one another like twins or lovers, small sails flailing weakly in the breeze. compared to the sheer breadth of the malevolent shrine, mei mei’s two little ships are mere insects in comparison. they’d outrun you, sure, but they’d never survive ten years at sea. 

the plan, apparently, is simple. the malevolent shrine will not participate in the pirating; according to jogo and sukuna and anyone with a brain, the scyllan pass is too narrow and too rocky and too unpredictable for a ship of that size to pass through unnoticed. uraume will play acting captain until the bloody gold has been taken and placed into mei mei’s manicured hands. sukuna will not spare his own sailors for the excursion; with his participation, he does not need to. 

you, jogo, himself. an eye on every member, sukuna says. someone to watch mei mei’s movements and make sure that no one gets crossed. 

(“she’s a perfect asset, but unreliable,” sukuna told you over a too-early breakfast. “her only loyalty is to her money.”

“she’s a bitch,” jogo quipped. “even the devil is jealous of her. no love and no mercy, not even to her crew.” 

“so why would we trust her?” but you’re not sure it’s only the unknown that keeps you from her, the way you cannot see what she’s plotting behind her eyes.

sukuna shrugged, then, and you felt the heat radiate from his skin. “we can’t. but the winnings are big enough that she won’t run away.”)

so you approach two sloops in the harbor with uncertainty and a knife at your belt. you welcome its weight now like a tentative friend, a misunderstood connection that has since fallen into place. fog rises from the water and the overcast sky hangs like a humid carpet across what could have been a better world. 

in daylight, mei mei reminds you of an expensive blade, of the fine lining on waistcoats worn by merchants so wealthy they could buy your hometown ten times over. she is an elegance which does not belong here, a finery that puts even the highest of royalty to shame. she carries herself like she knows it, too, poising her shoulders with the assurance of one who knows her bones are made from diamonds and her braids are made from silk. 

she terrifies you just as much as she awakens your morbid fascination. because in mei mei’s stellar performance, she masks herself so entirely that you cannot tell who is the woman and who is the act.

sizing up your little party as you approach, she drawls, “quite a small crew, don’t you think?” 

“i don’t need anyone else.” the answer falls quick and easy from sukuna’s tongue. “stolen ships, i see. you barely had one the last time i saw you.” 

“what can i say? i’d be a fool to pass up a good investment.” mei mei flips her hair over one shoulder as she turns to board the second vessel on the right. her boots glisten with new polish, trousers unblemished by sand or dirt or murder. she is too clean to lead here, too perfect to exist, but you need the trouble she offers. 

you follow obediently behind and let sukuna point you towards the sloop on the left. his hand brushes your shoulder for the slightest of instances, a wordless affirmation, before he withdraws and follows mei mei to her captain’s quarters. 

it feels wrong without him, untrustworthy, strange. but jogo humorously boards the left ship without question to escape mei mei’s clutches and with a final sigh you follow.  

even with mei mei’s crew lounging about and double-checking the supplies, the sloop is still too quiet, too eerie, to be a place to call home. it does not carry the comfort of the lady erinyes or even the steady hum of the malevolent shrine. this place is sterile, elusive, like wind or quicksand beneath your feet. even jogo seems out of place here, wandering the decks as if in search of a place to hide. 

unwelcome, you walk aimlessly, circling the unnamed place to avoid the silence, crew members glancing your way before turning back to more interesting tasks. on such cramped quarters there is little else to see than clean wood, spools of rope, impatient sails, the meager entrance to the storage rooms, the small staircase of seven steps leading to a captain’s quarters the size of a generous closet. 

but then you hear it: the scratched an uncomfortable sound, the wicked whisper of demons near the top of the stairs. 

you carry yourself towards it without blinking. seated at the top of the steps, shoved between your body and the door to the captain’s quarters, lies an iron cage large enough to encase a family of boars. chained to the railing and nailed to the floor, it rattles bitterly against the floorboards like a dying ghost who cannot escape the living. inside the cage writhes a dark mass, a creature with too many heads who cries out in a thousand tongues. at first you think it is the shadows, personified at once, or a night that calls out for its mother. but as you step forward, slowly, you realize it is neither of those things but something else entirely.

crows. sleek and black like mei mei’s leather boots, a mass of one hundred crows wrestle and cry in their iron prison. without space to breathe, the creatures claw at one another as if the death of their own will finally give them the opportunity to escape. their cries only intensify as you approach, onyx eyes seeking yours in desperation, until their sound drowns out everything else, every whisper and every silence.

are you looking? a few stray feathers escape the cage and fall gently to the floor amidst the violence. 

are you listening? it is as if their call were a song, as if the crows had known your language, once, before a talented master subdued them and stole it away. 

look, now. one hundred heads writhe in desperation, the curse in their dead eyes sharper than intuition, and even when you know there is something wrong about them, you will not run away. you must only step further, look harder, until the shadow falls, their jaw closes, and –

“excuse me,” a deep voice, like warm tea and a favorite blanket, rings from behind you. “i would not recommend you go near them.” 

the fixation shatters; the indescribable dream of the shadow in agony dissolves as the rest of the sloop comes back into focus. you turn to find the blonde man from the night before standing on the steps just behind you. poised like a marble bust, quiet confidence and unquestioned self-assurance, his solemnity alone could drown you. like mei mei, he dresses himself in a pristine suit and well-fitted tie, a thick and expensive butcher’s knife strapped to his back. he is warmth and muscle and perfectly measured edges. he is a man that does not question: he already knows. 

“what are they?” you ask, risking one last glance at the crows before you obediently step away from the cage. 

“the captain’s children,” he responds. “her eyes, her messengers, her heads.” he does not offer you more, and you know from the sound of his voice he does not want you to ask him.

“where did she get them?” you pry. 

“she caught them,” the blonde man responds dryly. plucked them right out of the air, he might have added, but the stoic sailor offers nothing. i wrestled it from the sea, a memory echoes back in his voice, and you understand the crows have more to their story. 

the two of you stand silently, peering at each other, an uncomfortable tension manifesting between you with the salty sea air. you do not know what to say; he does not seem intent on speaking. but he does not move, and neither do you, and perspiration collects on your hands as you wonder what should happen. 

“thank you, uh–” you stumble eventually, suddenly unfamiliar with the sound of your own voice.

“nanami kento,” the blonde man supplies, almost bored, almost uncaring.

“nanami,” you repeat. “thank you for helping me get to tengen’s nest. i appreciate it.” 

behind you, the crows cry louder at the mention of the nest. nanami’s expression constricts slightly, listening to the wicked whispers of the birds, before he resumes his neutral tone. “i am only following my captain’s orders. however, i suggest you discuss your plans as little as possible near here.” 

“why?”

you cannot see the expression behind nanami’s dark glasses when he gestures to the birds. “they are listening.” 

the birds continue their bloodthirsty scream as nanami turns to command the deck. you follow him quietly, drawn to the heartless stability he provides. even now, you think you find the trust in him that you cannot place in his captain. nanami is cold, callous, but you know that every word which spills from his mouth is true. 

“kento,” the dark-haired woman with the birthmark approaches from across the deck, her loose dress swaying gently in the wind. “mei mei’s given the signal. we should go. she wants to get to the pass in time to catch her birds.” 

nanami exhales a heavy sigh, one that could bring even sukuna to his knees. pushing his glasses up his nose, he looks for a moment at you, at jogo, at the horizon, before he nods curtly. “you heard utahime. hoist the sails,” he announces listlessly to the crew. “we follow mei mei to our campsite in the scyllan pass. move swiftly and we may be there before nightfall, if we’re lucky.”  

mei mei acts as captain, but here, nanami kento’s word is law. the crew sweeps into motion; anchors are lifted, sails let loose as two sloops pull away from the harbor. jogo watches the action from his regal place beside the mast, and you, still searching for your crevice, stand aimlessly beside the railing, just close enough to hear the crows, just far enough to exist beyond their grasp.

the twin sloops ride swiftly beneath cloudy skies. within the hour the silent island dissolves into a dense fog as you cut through the endless expanse of grey and blue. even now, the crew hardly speaks; unlike the malevolent shrine, where a day’s work could be accompanied with cursing, with fistfights, with the breaking of glass and jogo’s exasperation, nanami’s sailors move like well-oiled clockwork. 

off on the horizon, dark clouds cluster and share stories of the sea. you reckon that soon it might rain. 

an eternity passes beneath the fog. someone behind you announces their intentions to nap before ceasing their words again. even the sea does not speak; it holds its breath, the insistent observer, and watches you as you watch it with steady and untrusting eyes. 

you smell him before you see him. cedar and red wine, elegance and surety, nanami kento finds his place beside you as a lone gull flies past the sail. he straightens his tie for a moment, debating what it is he wants to say, before he speaks so softly you must strain your ears to listen.

“be careful of your dealings with the captain,” he says lowly. “she will keep her end of the agreement, but there is no guessing what will come after. she has many children looking out for her, even in the barrell of the nest.” his head nods carefully in the direction of their cries. 

they are listening. you lower your voice and hope the wind does not betray you when you reply, “so i’ve been told. but i have to get there, no matter the price.” 

you cannot read the staunch expression on nanami kento’s face. his cheeks are too sharp, his jawline too measured, for them to give anything away. “i see.” he pauses for a moment, fiddling with the edge of his tie, before he adds, “is it important?”

“yes.” you throw your weight into the word, try and expound its importance without faltering. the faces you once knew collect like flowers and die with the spring. it is the price, nanami kento, of your pause and your undoing. 

he sighs, gentle and slow. “i see.” you wish you knew what he was thinking, but nanami kento is nothing if not enigmatic. from behind you wafts the smell of jogo’s impatient steam, of saltwater and regret and longing. “i will do what i can to get you there.” 

“i – thank you.” you swallow the confusion. 

“don’t thank me. you’re too young for this. it’s just part of my duty to look after you.” nanami’s voice echoes the anger which simmers in an august storm. it is the pressure who announces the arrival of lightning; he is calm now, but when the wind rises, he will release. 

i’m not young, you want to protest. i was an apprentice, nearly finished without a press of my own. i could have started a family by now had i been someone else. you aren’t even that much older than i am, you’d find if you asked. but you know that is not what he means. age for nanami kento references not years but experience, the accumulation of tragedies until they finally wear you down. 

“why does no one want me to go there?” you ask no one in particular.

nanami kento’s knuckles tense against the railing. perfect golden spools of hair frame his face, and even as your eyes linger on the butcher’s blade on his back, he does not strike you as someone who goes looking for danger. he is not the type that chooses to be here, living and dying on a pirating vessel, without some higher motive.

“the nest is something like hell,” nanami’s voice is hardly audible over the breeze. “it is not just thieves or war criminals or undesirable fiends – you can find those anywhere you go. but this place, these people...it is like drowning at the bottom of an unfathomable pit with no way out and nowhere to go.” 

the unsettlement returns to your body like a well-worn shirt. all at once you can feel something watching the back of your mind, something neither evil nor cold, something longing to observe. 

“mei mei said earlier that sukuna – my captain – can’t go there.” you ignore the discomfort which crawls up your spine. 

“tengen’s nest has a barrier,” nanami explains. “no curses – or anything that has been tampered with – are allowed in or out of the city. he will not be able to cross over with you to the other side.”

“a barrier?” 

nanami’s jaw tenses. “it was created as a safety net of sorts, long ago, but now it repels just as much as it attracts. every nightmare would like to get inside, say nothing of the things that have already entered.”

every nightmare would like to get inside. you think of the dream on the island, of black sails and the chilling understanding that whatever sailed upon it would not stop until it found you. you think of cold hands and sacred whispers. you think of the hollow sadness in gojo’s eyes, of the way he still clings to the last fond memories of his lover. 

“nanami,” you begin, “do you–”

“kento,” the dark-haired woman, utahime, approaches from behind. her deep brown eyes swim with concern as she nervously tugs at her shirtsleeves. “mei mei’s given the signal. it’s time to open the cage.” 

nanami swears a string of curses under his breath, but his composure betrays nothing. with a sidelong glance at you he straightens his near-perfect collar before asking, “do you want to do it, or should i?”

“no,” utahime answers, “i’d rather die than do that again.” for a moment, her eyes fall on you, something like pity flashing across her face before it recedes just as quickly. she tucks a stray piece of hair beyond one ear and turns briefly to study the sea. in the fog she could have been a muse, a lover, with the way she does not waver. where mei mei is unpredictability, utahime is steady assurance. she is the constant, the ocean, the thing that does not disappear no matter how long you pretend not to see it.

“i’m sorry for this,” she tells you, so quietly you think you imagined it, and then she is gone, nothing but the memory of a vision as she wanders off to tend to some other duty.

a disgruntled nanami kento unclenches his jaw before he gestures for you to follow him. “come.” together you climb the seven steps to the captain’s quarters and pause before the children’s cage. nanami pulls something small and silver from his pocket, turning it over gently in his hands while the crows sob in anger. when their eyes spot the key they turn insatiable, hungry and vile now that they know their time is near. 

“you may want to cover your ears,” nanami says. “or your eyes.” 

without another word nanami locates the lock and turns the key like second nature. he swings open the cage door, steps away, and lets the shadow from the shackles take flight. black feathers corrupt your vision, horrid screams and scathing calls rattling against your eardrums. the crows rise with their violence in tow, a dark mass against the overcast sky until they separate into ragged formation.

her many heads, you think, the crows hanging like a bad omen, coming to scream terror on you all. 

a few abandoned feathers lie at the bottom of the empty cage. nanami kicks them gently with his boot before turning his eyes away from the spectacle. even when he cannot observe them, you cannot look away, captivated in horror by the way the crows only kill what loves them. 

“they’re terrible,” you mumble. below, at the edge of the deck, jogo watches the crows with disturbed fascination. 

“don’t watch,” nanami advises before stepping over the empty cage and letting himself into the captain’s quarters. still, of course, you cannot listen. mei mei’s many heads glide towards the horizon, diving between one another like children, crying out to each other in the morbid language of the damned. 

from the other ship, you see a flash of blue hair as it studies the crows overhead, a mother who adores her children. 

for a moment, all is still between the sky and the crows. but in the next instance, a distant white mass of feathers against the sky draws the crows into action. with a cry they surround the creature like moths to a flame and do not leave it. the screams grow louder, the air heavy with iron and blood. everything silences as the crows greet their victim, maul it tooth and nail, drive their sin into the depths of its being, and fly back to drop its body unceremoniously onto the deck. 

writhing on the floorboards, ivory feathers stained with the hot blood pooling at its neck, lies a bird with the impassivity of a boulder. it struggles in vain to breathe, twitching and grasping for something to tether it back to life, before it releases a strangled cry, akin to a curse, and lies still. 

the crew dances carefully around the dead bird as they kick loose feathers across the floorboards and continue with their assignments. the corpse lies forgotten, unmourned. nanami does not emerge from the captain’s quarters to assess the damage; utahime shuffles to the other end of the ship so she does not have to know. only you and jogo, his body stiff with discomfort, keep your eyes on the body. 

you furrow your eyebrows. a large, white bird, wingspan so vast it could easily snatch away your pets and your children if you were not careful. 

they’re so large you think you’re dreaming, the one-eyed man’s smoky stories crawl back under your skin, his cheeks warm with whisky. like old gods of the sky, they are, those massive things. they say it’s good luck if you see one. like a gift for good wind on your voyage. 

the dead bird down below. you recognize it even when you have never seen it. albatross. 

good luck to the sailor, the ancient mariner. the crows cry out, dead men walking, and drop a second, identical bird to the deck with a horrifying thud. together, helpless, bonded through sorrow, the two birds lie defenseless, their grandeur stripped bare by the blood on their necks. with one last lingering look at the bodies, jogo steps away and looks to make himself useful elsewhere. 

a gift for your voyage, a dead god for the sea, the curse who will bring the fog and drought and silence. you cannot pinpoint the dread in your thinking, but you know the crows must have crossed an invisible line. to kill them wakes the devil, the one-eyed pirate warned you once. i once knew a man who shot one clean through the eye, and within three days his crew starved to death. serious business it is, messing with the gods.

and still feathered eons collapse on the floorboards, one after the other after another. the power dissolves into nothing but flesh and mei mei smiles her bemused little smirk as she watches her children at play. stories mean nothing where there is silver to be made. the past cannot win when it is faced by the present. this you know mei mei understands, and still you tremble with the terror.

why, the question insists, does she not fear the outcome?

the morning retires into an even cloudier afternoon and the song of the crows becomes unimpressive among the din of men and ropes and sea. with every albatross that soars across the horizon, the crows quickly and violently snatch the life from its neck and add it to their pyre. there is no god that can fare against the will of one hundred hungry jaws, no word that could make them fall silent. when utahime approaches to ask if you would like something to eat, you deny her, so ill to your stomach you forget your own name.

but that is the way of things, here, at the edge of the sea; there are no gods and no lovers. there is nothing left alive but you and the fog who witnesses it without saying. you will carry memory of the dead birds’ cursed eyes until you cannot bear to carry it longer. it is the omen to heed. it is the dream of what will come even when you think you are ready.

are you looking?

yes, you see, because you know the price of looking away. 

––

the clouds hang overhead without rain, without thunder, without feeling. they merely listen, the disinterested things, sinking further and further until their faces mold into fog. at each edge of a deep and dark river grow the gnarled limbs of ancient trees, tall and rooted and impassive. they collect along the shore, hang on the edges of cliffs, wrap their leaves around heavy boulders climbing towards the hills. on both shorelines lie numerous muddy nests laden with the bodies of albatrosses killed by mei mei’s crows just before you arrived. 

the scyllan pass. together, the two ragged coastlines of the river appear to be sharpened teeth, an extended jaw who waits angrily with its mouth wide open. its fog coalesces and sticks to your clothes, your fingers, your corpses. with evening on the way, the scyllan pass only contemplates whether or not it should swallow. 

you have been everywhere with captain sukuna ryoumen, but somehow, you reckon that even he would never willingly visit this place.

there is no predicting how deep the water goes; any ship larger than this accepts the risk of running aground. in the jaw’s shadow, the air smells like unease and rain, the same tension that festers before a storm who changes course before landfall. nanami finally remerges from the captain’s quarters as the river grows meaner and the shoreline unsteadier. he finds you seated on the staircase, knees pulled against your chest as you watch jogo assess the landscape. 

“we’ll be making camp soon,” nanami says. you wonder if his words are meant to be a comfort or a distraction. 

“why does she do it?” you gesture vaguely towards the albatrosses, now conveniently shoved to one corner of the deck. 

his face is unreadable as he assesses the pile. “do not underestimate the love of money or the power it brings.” adjusting his glasses, he pauses before adding, “be careful when we arrive. i suggest you do not wander far – consider setting your camp near utahime or myself. the scyllan pass is not the most favorable place.” 

of course, you’d like to quip, as if the weather and the scenery and the dead birds everywhere weren’t enough of a warning. but with great restraint you keep your mouth shut.

“is it worse than the other place?” you ask. “the nest?”

“we’re currently in its shadow,” nanami steps carefully around you and down the seven steps. “not worse, but still, not ideal. it is not a place one should travel alone.” he pauses, as if to say something else, a final prayer, but falls silent and returns to his duties as the sloop’s acting captain. 

the sloops dock in a fairly deep inlet not long after, a place where the trees meet the water with only a slim piece of shore in between. past the trees grow the weeds and underbrush, a dense underbelly perfect for hiding. one hundred crows are returned to their cage, their cries satiated by the blood they have spilled on the hardwood. while some opt to keep watch over the sloops, the others head into the forest, setting their bodies down wherever the space allows. 

their familiarity with the pass, their routine movements in picking the places to start their fires, makes you wonder how many times mei mei’s little team has traveled here before, how many times they have sought gold from blood and toil and tengen’s rotting nest. 

mei mei stands now on that shore, a fresh kill at her feet, her boots digging into the place where the bird’s nest used to be. even with the albatross’ massive size, she dwarfs it still, her own quick ego out-mastering the old luck of the gods. you cannot help but pause to watch her as she inspects the body, as she runs deft fingers across smooth and luxurious feathers. you understand why your captain admires her: she is just as unreadable, unpredictable, and wise. 

“they’re highly sought after, you know.” mei mei’s voice sings sultry against your ears. she does not look up from her prize. “so abundant in nature, but impossible to find on the market…do you know why that is?” 

“no.” you shuffle uncomfortably on your feet. 

a faded smile forms on ruby lips. “fear,” she says. “a lack of motivation. they’re not so hard to kill, but no one wants to do it anyway.”  

the one-eyed pirate shudders at her perspective. “they’re supposed to be good luck,” you counter. “like good omens of the sea, favorable winds and all.” 

“are they?” mei mei looks up from her bird, finally, and focuses her sharp gaze directly upon you. she kicks the albatross with an expensive boot and stifles a silvery laugh. “says who? are they really some god, or are they just whatever nonsense people want them to be?” 

frustration burns in your throat. “but–” 

mei mei shrugs. “but what? who decides what is sacred and what isn’t? what does it matter if a thing is blessed or profane? let me tell you a secret, apprentice,” she spits the term like an insult, like blackmail, like a secret, “it doesn’t.” 

“you’ll be cursed forever if you kill them,” you offer, ignoring the way she patronizes you. so perhaps sukuna told her you were nothing but an apprentice, anxious and curious and restless for something better than yourself: but why does it sound so wrong when she says it?

mei mei laughs bitterly, a silver sound, tucking a stray hair behind her ear and drawing your attention to her massive diamond earrings. for a moment, you think she will laugh herself into oblivion, that the action alone will propel her across the sea. but it ceases, just as quickly as it arrived, and she schools her expression into nothingness as she meets your eyes again. 

“only fools fear curses,” she says. the body at her feet does not protest and cry. “in this age, only the power of capital is worth fearing. everything else is useless.”

but sukuna’s strength, you want to say. but the black-sailed ship which peruses the sea of my nightmare. but gojo, the strongest man standing, his eyes as sharp as any sword at your side. would you not respect them? would you put your crows on them, too, if it meant your pockets were lined? 

what do your stories even mean against the raw truth of the future age?

“it’s wrong,” you say, but even as the words leave your lips, you know she will perceive you like an ignorant child or a petty fool. you cannot explain to her why it feels wrong, why the sight of the albatross at her feet renders you cold, but the reality of things chills you all the same.

she runs a delicate tongue across her ruby lips, tasting the cherry balm of her victory. you are nothing to her, you know. she does truly not care about your success, about your safe entry into tengen’s nest. she will help you, sure, but she does not see you, only the price that you offer. 

“what are you now, a philosopher apprentice?” mei mei replies in jest, but her words are solemn, earnest, true. “you have not seen enough now, but you will soon. there are no ethics in this world that you’ve chosen – there is your choice, and there is someone else’s. nothing else.” 

as long as we’re the highest bidder, sukuna said. you understand the depth of his words now. there is no land, no person, that mei mei reveres more than the hand who feeds her. if she does not fear what should be unrivaled, there is no limit, no edge. she is an unknown variable, driven only by the sound of gold and honey. there is no place she will not go, no murder she will not undertake to ensure that she will maintain her own safety. a legend means nothing when there is money to be made and food to be placed on her table. 

she has seen it all, tengen’s nest and the bodies hanging on the outskirts, the cruel hands dealt by fate, the lost souls who could not leave, and still she sails forth for another spin of the wheel. you pity the player as you hate the game, because mei mei is only trying to reach her destination and you are only trying to reach yours.

perhaps she does want to help you, in some dark and uncentered way. but it is too late for you now to look back. she does not see the bodies on your shoulders just as you do not see the bodies on hers.

“i should be going,” you say, finally, unable to bear the weight of it any longer. 

mei mei does not look at you. her eyes are somewhere else now, far away, calculating the moves you will not stick around long enough to see, searching through the memories of her one hundred crows. 

“rest up,” is all she tells you. “it’s an early start tomorrow, and i won’t hesitate to leave you behind.” 

through the undergrowth you turn to maybe find nanami or utahime among the ghosts and the campsites. the fog closes in, eager to join the gossip, and somewhere, a long way down the jaw, something feral howls in reply. 

but every step feels wrong. like another clamp of the jaw, another grinding of teeth, the scyllan pass shifts and closes in until it feels wrong to breathe. every voice leaves no echo, every callous ask to pass the ale scratches your skin until it leaves you raw. don’t go too far, nanami advised you, but you’d like to sit with a little time to yourself. 

lost in the ache you hardly notice sukuna ambling past, seemingly unbothered by the unsavory evening. cool, easy, he walks with the gait of one who either did not notice or did not care about every corpse on the shoreline. perhaps he’s off to keep mei mei in his good graces and fight off the next bidder; you don’t know, you must force yourself not to mind.

if he pauses, looks your way, poises himself like he wants to speak, you do not know. the world is shadow and silence. everything else exists in a maybe some other time. but you would like to think he did, with his eyebrow raised, lips quirked in jest just before he says something patronizing again. you’d like to think that he would acknowledge you here the same way he does when you’re alone. but you don’t know, don’t know, and must force yourself not to mind. 

he does not call for you. you carry on, agitated and bitter beneath the grey sky. everything tangles in knots that will not come loose; but perhaps that is the way of things the closer you get to tengen’s nest. perhaps that is the reason all sanity asks you to turn back.

the smell of gruel cooking over the fire wafts through the camp, but your appetite has long since left you. the quiet oppresses, the whispers drive you away. there is no comfort to be found in the place which does not hide. wind crawls through the trees, laden with the scent of summer’s end, the sort of wind which removes the warmth and replaces it with the dead. 

trees thin into boulders and back into leaves again, rotting and forlorn, knotted and desperate. where gojo’s island teemed with life and secrets, the forest of the scyllan pass sings a song of nothing. it is a lost place, a forgotten place, the edge of the world between here and what comes next. 

you would comfort it if you could, but there is nothing here that speaks the languages you know.

your feet travel of their own accord, led along by silver strings. invisible, faultless, you let them tug at your fingers and toes because you have nowhere else to go. the fog grows thicker, heavier, like a cloak to shield yourself inside of the jaw. it does not seek to stop you, no. it does not care where you are going. but everything disappears beyond it, trees and rocks and emptiness alike.

the silence calls out to a roar in the distance, the echo of rocks raging against the sea. you follow it, unmoved, unseeing, pulled forward and forward again. you inhale, step; the trees clear the way to the desolate coast. 

you would not call it a proper cliff, but rather a painfully desolate shore that drops sharply into the churning river. sickly trees sink their roots into the pebbled ground and bend in tune with the insatiable weather. wave on wave beats against the boulders blow, asking for revelations, asking for endings. fog curls around the edge of the shore and masks the fatal fall below. no insects sing, no birds call to lovers. it is you and this roaring sound, the perpetual crush of the waves so daunting it might as well be silence. 

it is you and the roaring sound and the boy on the stones.

he appears in the blink of an eye, no time for apparitions. one moment you were alone, and the next he stands there, peering down beyond the fog, searching for something he lost inside the waves. he seems unbothered by the wind or the fog or the unbearable sorrow of the scyllan pass. he wears a threadbare coat, pulled up over his jaw, and his silver hair reminds you of spiders and starlight. 

are you listening?

there has been an unfavorable quiet on your journey, but nothing is so silent as he. he elicits no sound when he turns his head from the waves to peer at you. the ground does not grumble beneath his feet when he steps towards you. he says not a word, not a feeling, but stands, a guardian of the landscape, the last thing left unnoticed.

he is too similar to be left alone. nearly identical to you in height, the silver-haired boy in his threadbare coat looks like he could have been someone you knew. he might have shared your birthday, known your name, asked you to dance on a warm night outside the pub. it is like you are the sun and he is your shadow. it is like you are the moon and he is the star. 

where mei mei is multitudes, the silver boy is a great singularity, a landlocked dream, the entity no one can separate from. pulled by threads, you cross the threshold until you are hardly centimeters away from him, until you can study yourself in the reflection of his deep brown eyes and he can study himself in yours. 

he draws you in; you need no understanding. there is something about your boy that transcends an explanation, that leads you into the orbit of his being without you ever having to know. he is familiar, maybe, or expected, maybe, or the remnants of a word spoken long ago. 

the world moves on, the river screams. the boy with the threadbare coat does nothing but listen.

“are you…” your voice trails off, foreign and unwelcome in the whirlpool air. the silver boy does not react; he only waits. you bite your lip in search of your inquiry. “are you alone here?” 

stupid question, you chastise yourself. of course he is. but you don’t know how to ask him are you even human? without falling into the wrong kind of acquaintance. 

“salmon,” the boy says, plainly, simply, eyes unwavering. 

“excuse me?” 

he exhales sharply. “salmon,” he says again, more forcefully this time, as if the vigor of his tone will suddenly cause you to understand. 

it does not. you stare at him, brow furrowed, taking note of the dark circles painted across his cheeks. they remind you vaguely of sukuna’s, elegant and understated lines, impositions of his power. the markings of a curse. 

“is that all you can say?” you try again. are you cursed, you want to add, but propriety tells you to hold your tongue.

silver boy in the threadbare coat shakes his head. “fish flakes.” 

okay, so there’s two. he seems safe enough, if not a little difficult for conversation. perhaps he would not have danced with you at the pub after all. you reckon he would have been too shy to ask for your hand to begin with. but you cannot shake the maelstrom of his eyes, the compelling need to dive deeper and deeper into the mystery of his being. 

“okay,” you relent. “anything else?” 

“tuna.” there’s the ghost of pleasure on silver boy’s face as he says it, a puff of pride in his chest. you consider for a moment if you should have pushed him over the edge of the cliff or walked back to camp when you had the chance. but you’re in his world now, in the pull of his tide, more or less at his strange little whims until he grows tired.

he looks at you, you try not to look at him. something deep and sympathetic inside you wants to help this pathetic boy who would have been too shy to court you. perhaps it’s because he’s too similar in everything but name. perhaps it’s because of the quicksand aura you can’t seem to escape. 

it’s that or go lie down at the camp. you figure there’s no harm in trying.

“you have a name, tuna?” you don’t miss the indignation that flashes across his perfect cheeks. 

“salmon.” a nod. yes. you listen close enough, you begin to see the patterns. salmon for yes, fish flakes for no, tuna for every mystery in between. there is a method, a knowledge, but only when you look, when you hear. 

“can you say it?” you test. he shakes his head, fish flakes, before he tilts his head in contemplation. maybe. a name is a powerful thing, you’ve come to understand, at least in the way no one repeats tengen’s nest without a chill and a shudder, the way no one pronounces sukuna ryoumen unless they are looking to die. perhaps it is the same power. maybe the silver boy just doesn’t know how. 

silver boy tugs at your hand insistently and brings it towards his torso. you let him take it, curiously, immersed in the cool touch of his fingers, the alarming fluidity of his movements. he opens your palm up to face him, gently tracing the calluses and lines. it is too intimate, too open, and you wish you could pull away.

he draws his finger across your palm, tracing lines into the skin with an artist’s care. after a moment, he looks at you, carefully, expectantly, waiting for realization to flash across your vision.

it does not. you look back at him with no understanding of the knowledge silver boy wishes to convey. 

are you looking?

the sky asks the question and knows the response. you watch your palm intently this time, ready and tense, awaiting the message. you will look now. you will peer through every frame of the earth until you come to it, the soul of things, the center that has been taken. you only saw him move before. this time you will see it, study, parse out the curse of the boy with the threadbare coat. 

he tries again. a finger traces your skin once more; the character comes into focus. his name. he pauses at each conclusion before he begins again, an intimate tracing, the formation of his name which dissolves into air. neither of you speak as he works; he only reads your face for an affirmation before the writing restarts. 

silver boy drops your hand with a nod, the deed completed. INUMAKI, he spelled in a series of intent characters. you wonder if the knowledge will free him from his crime. it is a beautiful name, a lavender name, one that would have rolled off your tongue like sweetness and honey had you courted each other in a long forgotten world. 

“inumaki,” you say; you do not miss the way his eyes brighten as the word leaves your lips. you wonder when someone last called for him. you wonder how long he has been here, alone and untethered, staring into the abyss of the fog like he could find something waiting for him there. 

“inumaki,” you repeat. “how long have you been here?” 

grief spreads through his shoulders. “tuna.” no, the river cries, are you listening? strain your ears against the dusk and listen to the song between the lines. a long time. by the threadbare lines of his coat and the sorrow in his eyes, perhaps he has been here just as long as gojo has waited on his island. but where gojo found love and lost it, inumaki’s life ended before it ever began.

“who did this to you?” you ask. you feel the collar of his jacket beneath your fingertips and smell the nighttime which still lingers on his clothes. you know you are falling into the pool, but you accept it, welcome it, listen to the story of the boy on a desolate shore. 

“tuna.” i don’t know. but even as he says it, he gestures to the smooth skin of his throat beneath his jacket. he presses his hands there like a round of charades, the act, the moment. you know this movement; you know his pain. even now your old heart aches, cold with the reminder of what it takes to change the soul. 

“his name is mahito,” you offer. “blue hair, acts almost like a very curious child – i met him a few months ago.” 

but to your surprise, inumaki violently shakes his head. “fish flakes.” not him. what does he mean, then, not him? how many others press their cold hands against fervent skin? 

you turn to look out over the edge of the cliff and into the dense and foggy river. evening falls across the scyllan pass, a petulant dark creeping in from the edges of the sky and trapping you all in its withered grip. the cooler air is unfamiliar after a lifetime under gojo’s unruly sun. it hides something just as much as gojo’s sun burned all of your secrets away. 

“someone else, then,” you mumble, fog twisting in circles around your ankles. because of course it would not have been enough to let one soul-wielder run loose. 

together you listen to the roar of the water crashing against the rocks below. in the throws of a mournful intimacy you find yourself tempted to rest your head against inumaki’s shoulder, to wrap yourself in the fiber of his being. his loneliness will drown you if you open your arms and tell it. inumaki is crowded with emotion, laden with the weight of all the things he cannot say. 

(he could not speak: he could only listen. and when he tried to tell of his woes, to ask for food and love and assistance, he found himself cursed by the gods’ tongue.) 

damn him, you think, and all of those stories, only if it hurt too much when they finally came true. 

“so you can’t speak,” you murmur. silver hair brushes against your cheek; inumaki’s head finds its home on your shoulder. you would rather die than push him away. “and everyone leaves you.”

 you remember the lilt in toji’s voice, the places his hands moved on your skin when he spoke. but even those who stayed loyal to him could not feed on the salty air, so they too would leave, their bodies damp and cold and still. how many has inumaki watched fade away? how many lovers has he been forced to lose? 

how many corpses lie beneath the rocks and the burning waves? 

wherever you tumble, the ghosts follow behind, growing in number in tune to the weight of an unwanted dream. every step closer to the center leaves you one hundred lightyears behind, caught in the tide of one hundred lives left miserable. there is no stone untouched, no soul still tethered. where is the line and where does it end? why, with every shattering of a cold and misty wind, do you feel the pain wrap around you before it nestles impatiently inside your stomach? 

do you know?

no, but you sense you will soon, the way you sense sleep creep in after a long and laborious evening. 

“i think i know,” you continue, quietly, the way a scar-crossed lover used to speak beneath the stars. “i know the loneliness. it creeps in like a damp chill you don’t notice, not until there’s no way to light a fire and get it out.” it eats you, sacred thing, adding itself little by little to your daily routine until you can’t survive without it. 

“where i came from,” you say, a somber story carried on the wind, “everyone was always leaving.” 

your head finally falls against his, his hair against your cheek, the smell of a distant comfort moving with every inhale. inumaki does not have to tell you to do anything; you would perform it for him anyways, without asking, without needing. the fog curls in, a threadbare blanket, and rests at your feet to listen. 

“i mean, it was a port, you know.” if you strain your eyes, you could begin to see it emerge beyond the fog. “everyone was always trying to get somewhere else – staying for a moment before leaving again, saving their money to get on a boat and never return. my parents, they left too. i was so young, i don’t remember them, but i know they felt the same as everyone else.” 

the wind howls, listens. inumaki melts beneath your words. 

“i didn’t mind, not all the time. i had my apprenticeship. i had friends i would see when they came home from their journeys, acquaintances who disappeared at sea. that’s just how it always was, i guess, this idea that you could never be attached to anything because it would leave. i don’t know. i always thought it didn’t bother me, but maybe it did and i just don’t know it yet.” you huff a laugh to fight off the shadow. “but i suppose that’s what happens when you’re always alone. you welcome the loneliness like a friend until you’re convinced that’s how it’s supposed to be.” 

inumaki nods against your shoulder but says nothing. you continue. “it hurt the most when my…when my best friend left. i don’t know if i loved him or anything, but i think it killed me to learn that he was just another person who couldn’t stand to be there. i don’t blame him. i was just too comfortable with the idea of having someone that for a moment i couldn’t understand why he would go without me.

“even now,” you breathe, thinking of a pair of red eyes, “even now, i’m always scared everyone else will do the same.” 

the words speak to the twist in your gut you’ve felt since joining mei mei and her crew, the fear that lives on the backs of your eyelids. it is the shadow that follows you, the truth which haunts you the same way mortality haunts the grave. it is the companion on every cold night and the lover which holds you just as solitude demands to be the maiden of honor. 

because how can you know? stability or transience, earth or water? 

“but i guess that’s how it is at sea,” you concede. inumaki remains still at your side. “just passing through faces on your way to somewhere else.” 

(but is that how he sees you? is that the rule that governs all? what will you do when your captain turns his head and sets his sights on another?) 

you cease the story; the wind gathers your words and dissolves them, adds them to the collection of secrets they will not share. it jostles the confessions of lovers, of heartbreaks, of murder plots and trades conducted beneath the sun. no one returns to applaud you, but the aching acceptance into the fold proves enough.

“salmon,” inumaki murmurs softly, yes. you both can see them, the faces who left you, the faces you passed through on your way to somewhere else. you know you cannot call yourself the victim, not always, not when you let your hometown burn, and certainly not when you passed through gojo and maki and the lady erinyes like wisps of cigar smoke. but is your willingness to return to them not enough? your need to make amends, to close the circle and weave the lostness back together, can that be true? 

you don’t know; maybe not. but that does not make the ache any less real than it could be. 

something calls softly from beyond. you awaken from the trance and turn to find a single albatross wading in the fog, searching through the twilight for what used to be its nest. its white feathers radiate moonlight, its massive frame large enough to put up a valiant fight and win. you watch it curiously. the god of the sea, the sign of good luck, unharmed and unseen by the crows, moves about the shoreline without a care.

inumaki detaches himself from your side and treads softly towards the bird. it registers him quickly, feathers bristling before they recognize him by sound and smell and name. the pair study each other, tilting their heads in contemplation, before the bird turns to set its gaze upon you. 

you do not know why it terrifies you so, why its eyes remind you of sukuna’s, but you let them assess your presence before the albatross lowers its eyes. it has accepted you both. it does not care. perhaps that alone is the blessing. 

the sky darkens; the waves carry with them the oncoming night. the albatross settles into its nest. 

“i have to go back to camp,” you say. the words scream betrayal and you know it. “i – i can’t promise that i’ll be able to fix you. but i promise i’ll try.” 

inumaki looks like he wants to say something, to command you endlessly to stay, to draw you into the whirlpool, to add you to the list of lovers he won over and lost. you know if the roles were reversed you would do the same, but he only holds his tongue and draws his threadbare jacket in tighter around him. he does not move; he watches you leave. 

you know his eyes are searing into you as you walk back towards the trees framing his desolate coast. you know he wants to hate you just as you would have hated him. you wonder if you should turn back and wave. you wonder if you should have given him something better than an impossible promise. 

a hand taps your shoulder. you turn and fall directly into inumaki’s hug, his lonely hands pressed against your back as you press yours against his. it’s desperate, wanting, filled with the words he is cursed never to say. you will find them, you breathe into the embrace. you will find the words and you will give them back to the air as they were meant to be.

inumaki’s grip on you lightens. already you chase the feeling.

“good luck,” he says, cool against your ear, and with the whistle of the wind he is gone. 

––

“so you met him.” mei mei leans demurely against a tree not far from camp. her blue hair glimmers like starlight in the shadowy dark, eyes like embers as they reflect her cigar’s orange flame. 

you pause, defensive. “him?”

a roll of the eyes. “you don’t have to play coy,” she sighs. “the fish boy. inumaki.” 

of course she would have known about him. for as many times as mei mei must have made camp here before pressing on to glorious heists and tengen’s nest, she must have already met and discarded the silver boy whose only word is salmon. 

you concede; there’s no hiding from her. “yes.” 

mei mei takes a long drag on her cigar as she digests the words, smoke curling into tendrils of desire. “he’s a fascinating one, he is. face of an angel, but he once managed to kill three of my men by asking them all to stay with him. i found them months later. they starved to death.” she exhales. “still, with a face like that, i can’t help but feel bad for him.” 

all he told to die would do it. inumaki, all alone, waits desperate for company that will satiate him. he wanted to do the same with you. you wonder what made him hold his tongue. 

“how long has he been there?” your eyes remain fixed on the amber light of the cigar. 

mei mei shrugs. “as long as i’ve been sailing this pass. probably longer.” 

you think of gojo, of a bottomless eternity, and shudder. inumaki has gazed into the depths of the fog for so long that you are surprised he still remembers who he is. the world he once lived in has faded to dust. the soul he once had cannot be remembered.

“is he stuck there?” you wonder if it is a common theme for these curses to be still in one place. 

“no,” mei mei says. “he can travel wherever he pleases. he just doesn’t know where else to go.” 

because the soul-eater might give it back. because perhaps if he waits, entertaining a futile dream, the thing he longs for with the ache in his chest might one day return. you know that feeling, that waiting, that anticipation of an event you’re certain will never arrive. it’s as familiar to you as a humid night. 

you do not respond. mei mei takes another drag on the cigar before she drops it unceremoniously to the ground and stomps out the flame. darkness falls; smoke lingers. it is you and the crow-woman with the many heads and no eyes at all. if you look, you might see them. if you listen, you might know.

“you know, apprentice,” mei mei says suddenly. she stands up straighter and adjusts the collar on her jacket. “a curse knows no boundaries. look at inumaki. he was a fine boy and they fucked him over anyways. they don’t care who you are when they find you.” she looks at you, earnestly now, eyes smoldering like coals beyond the curtain of hair. “if they don’t care about you, then there’s no use in caring about them. at the end of the day, it’s only ever about who holds the power.” 

she nods at you, solemn, and turns to leave. “only a fool fears what cannot be mastered. remember that in the nest.” cigar left for dead, she saunters off into the dark towards a dream of silver. 

you swipe at a mosquito hovering too close to your nose. now what? a great shadow clings to the back of your neck and you do not know how to shake it. inumaki’s words threw some sort of power upon you, a thick and vital strength akin to a poison. how can you lie down and forget it? how can you pretend you don’t know?

you stomp through the underbrush, headed back towards camp, horribly awake and now utterly famished. perhaps you’ll find nanami, as requested, and he’ll offer you his rations. perhaps someone’s caught a fish and will roast it over the fire. maybe you’ll even get a good night’s rest with the crows’ bloody eyes to pepper your dreams. 

maybe, perhaps, except those dreams by those fires are mere freckles in the night when you stumble right into sukuna. 

his campsite, at the crux of a few low-hanging trees and isolated from the rest of the world, boasts little more than a woolen blanket spread across the grass and a smoldering fire with his dinner still roasting above it. face rendered pink and golden by the flames, he lounges, a terrifying venus in repose, his eyebrows quirked as he watches you watch him. 

“just like old times,” sukuna says; you pretend not to notice the way he so cooly pats the ground beside him. 

“where’s jogo?” you respond instead, voice laden with all the things you have seen today, all the memories you do not know how to say.

sukuna shrugs, muscles rippling in the orange light. “blowing off steam.” 

you do not want to sit beside him. you do. “oh.” 

wordlessly, sukuna hands you a bowl of whatever he decided to cook over the fire. you do not bother to ask him what it is, swallowing without tasting, eating without knowing. it is like old times, as much as you hate to admit, even if those old times were nothing more than recent nights in the shadow of a lonely mountain. 

so you eat in silence, too aware of everything, unaware of how to proceed. perhaps it is the weather, the pause of breath before the storm. perhaps it is the blood on your eyelids. you know that sukuna will not press you for it; he never does. he only studies you instead, eager to absorb the tension in your eyebrows and the clench of your jaw like he can read every thought in the action.

(he probably can, but you ignore that, too.) 

your bowl lies empty not he ground; the dead gods lie heavy on your chest. in the distance, nanami’s and utahime’s and mei mei’s fires glow, so distant and muted that they might as well exist in different worlds. 

silence: and then, finally, sukuna lets out a monumental sigh. “get up. let’s practice.” 

his voice shakes you from a self-deprecating reverie. “what?”

sukuna pulls you to your feet and draws you back into being before you have time to comprehend it. “you need to practice more if you’re going to successfully raid a ship tomorrow. just because you won against gojo doesn’t mean you can do that every time.” 

even when you shake your head, you cannot deny sukuna ryoumen, not with those insistent eyes and those firm hands. “okay. fine,” you grumble, begrudgingly shifting yourself into your fighting stance and peering back at him with the curtest of nods. “let’s do this then.” 

between shadows and waves the unidentifiable bitterness comes pouring out. you know there is no chance of victory against your man, but still you stumble forth, blind with the nausea of the dead birds, blind with the unease of a woman whose loyalties you cannot place. sukuna sends you into the weeds with a mere flick of his wrist; you think of the crows and their onyx eyes and their hungry cries for blood. you wipe the dirt from your cheeks and think of the silence that follows you. you step forth: you try again.

the rot crawls in, sickening, unshakeable. it is the fog you can’t shake loose and the anger you cannot dissipate. you know sukuna can see the frustration in your every move, in the clench of your fist and the passion in your maneuvers, but he says nothing yet, and neither do you. you could never mirror him, anyway. you can only close your eyes and see the silver boy on the coast, entirely alone, cursed to listen and never to speak: cursed to wait, never to be loved. you can only close your eyes and feel taut muscles evade your blows, listen to his even breathing as he takes the prize again.

another loss, another fall. every failure makes your blood burn and your limbs shake. you do not know what it is that you cannot stand, only that your feeling can find no outlet. you see red when you throw your punches and violence when you move your head. you cannot win, you cannot surrender, and you aren’t sure if you want to try. 

a hand against your shoulder, another throw you didn’t see coming. your back slams against a nearby tree and knocks the breath from your lungs. you’re standing, you think, stars in your vision, pinned to the bark by something much larger and stronger than you, another failure you cannot escape. 

“your focus is terrible,” sukuna says. “what’s got you so angry?” 

you’d growl if you could. her. him. curses without endings, bodies without love. death, both sacred and profane. but you catch your breath and say, “i don’t know. everything.” 

you despise the look in his eye, the way his hands have no intention of letting you go. you despise the warmth, the proximity, because it is your weakness, your vice. you can do nothing but look back at him, watch the unreadable gaze of his eyes, the quirk of his lip and the movement of his brow. his pink hair sits unruly on his forehead. you resist the urge to push it back. 

“you’ll get yourself killed if you’re this distracted tomorrow,” sukuna observes. his hands still do not move from your shoulders, your sides. you do your best to ignore the pressure. you do not want to consider the places they could go if they wanted. 

you tear yourself from his gaze and plant your focus on the darkness beyond his shoulder. “it’s been a long day.” 

a hand creeps up your shoulder, over your collarbone, and brushes against your pulse before it comes to rest beneath your jaw. it burns, like sunlight and heaven, like the cure to your pain. it is gentle, firm, a hand that does not look for questions but demands them nonetheless. you wonder if he is reading you now, sifting through your mind until he finds the confessions you will not give him. you can’t tell what frightens you more: that he can see you or that you do not care. 

“you don’t like her.” you’d murder the amusement in his tone if you had access to your knife. 

“i don’t like her birds.” you don’t know why the heat rises in your cheeks. you do not know why you would suddenly like to crawl under a rock and die there. “watching them was horrifying.” 

he hums, a low and thunderous sound, one whose vibrations resound throughout your body. a finger traces your jawline, sweeps upward to capture your heated cheek, the corner of your mouth. there is no use in hiding the fire from sukuna ryoumen. surely he already knows your quickening pulse, your shaky breath, the delicate nature of your collapsing composure. 

“jogo thinks she’s ‘uncouth,’” sukuna meditates, “but you…” 

you’re what, you want to cry, you’re jealous? jealous of the way she fears nothing and commands all? horrified by the way in which nothing is sacred to her, not words or stories or feelings? terrified of the pull between her and your captain, of the way she moves easily through circles you have only begun to enter? disgusted with her lust for money, terrified of the way she is willing to leave anything behind? 

(or is it the fog, the dusk, the loneliness creeping in, the shattering of the world beneath your fingers? 

is it the understanding that the adventure you thought you had won’t last? 

or the shadow that crawls between you?)

you feel too small when you mutter, “i don’t know.” 

sukuna’s face lies just beyond yours. if you tilted your head, you could brush his nose, feel the landscape of his cheek on your skin. it is too close: it is not enough. the hand on your jaw tilts your face to meet his, an eye for an eye, a breath for a breath. 

suddenly the night is much too warm. 

“come on, puppy,” his words are too hot, too fiery. “say it.” 

you won’t. there are no words you can use to explain. there are no longer words to articulate what it is that moves between whirlpools and jaws, what it is that hides in your names. you will not let him find you weak, not now, not after the remorse you went through. it is mei mei’s sacrilege, her expertise. that is all. you will not let your feelings grow further.

you can see yourself blown up in his eyes. you can see every eyelash, every acre of skin. he is challenging you, you know, watching and waiting for what comes next. he wants to know why you’re angry. why you do not like what you see. why you hope that when the time comes you will be enough. 

“perhaps,” he muses, lowly, fingers ghosting against your molten cheek, “it’s envy.” 

you are going to kill him. you are going to send the four-armed bastard to his grave and say it’s never been envy but something else like fear entirely as the light leaves his eyes. but he is far too close and your weapon is out of reach and your body is not listening to your mind. the wind dances through sorrowful trees and your face is leaning in and your hands are taking his head in your palms and you’re closing off the tension.

sukuna ryoumen’s lips taste like violence and surrender. softer than expected, master of their craft, they seek to swallow you, to draw the sanity from you mouth and return passion in kind. a low rumble vibrates through his chest: he knows what he’s doing, what it is that he wants, and you hate it, hate him. 

(so you say. but you’d hate him more if he stopped.) 

it is an act of all the things you could not muster the courage to admit. it is a feeble attempt to draw him into silence. you cannot stop pulling him towards you, cannot stop your hands from threading into hair you’ve always wanted to touch and kissing a mouth you cannot stand. 

sukuna’s other hands trace the hem of your shirt, crawl up your body until they’re pressing against your old scar and your heartbeat. the sensation elicits a gasp, feeble and telling, and sukuna smirks against your lips, waiting patiently for you to drown. he kisses like he’s done it a hundred and one times before. he kisses like it’s just another form of assassination.

and lost in this haze of frustration and unknowing and fog, you want it, more than you want to remember your own name. but it’s his smile against your lips that gets you. it’s as if this is merely another fight and you are the one losing: like there can be no love with a weakness. 

you cannot win, but you will not lose. you bite his bottom lip, hard, red across the inside of your eyes, until you swipe your tongue across the wound and taste the blood. sukuna ryoumen, lone ruler of the sea, groans, a volcanic sound that echoes through your mouth and down through your bloodstream. he draws his face away, eyes blown wide with intensity, lip ruby and raw. 

“there we are,” he says, victorious, sublime. the feral grin will haunt you until you die. “now that’s more like it.” 

“fuck off,” you try to say, but it’s lost to the sensation of sukuna ryoumen’s tongue in your mouth. 

a battle without movement, a sensation too long in the making, you kiss sukuna like your life depends on it. you reckon you will whither away without hot breath on you jaw, without a blood-and-violence tongue tracing the outline of your teeth until it draws forth the gentlest of moans. perhaps it will curse you, this moment, but with one of sukuna’s godforsaken hands resting on your ribcage, you would agree to a thousand years on a desolate shore just so this moment wouldn’t end. 

it is everything. it is not enough. 

you pull away to gasp for air, lips swollen and tainted with blood. the world turns: a pair of unruly hands grasps the backs of your thighs, your balance shifts, and your back slams unceremoniously against the rough fabric of the woolen blanket on the grass.  

“hey–” you complain, breathless, what the fuck? are we seriously sparring again? but his lips return, unfettered, and silence the words before they can leave your throat. you let him resume, eagerly, his body resting against your hips and your shame lost somewhere in the fog with inumaki’s soul. the warm hand on your heartbeat resumes its explorations. the hand on your jaw tilts your head gently for the perfect angle. the others cage you in, immovable, divine, as if you would even think to run away.

“i think,” sukuna murmurs, lips migrating from your lips, to your jaw, to your neck, biting at the skin until he earns a ragged gasp, “you need to let off some steam.” 

“isn’t that what jogo is supposed to be doing?”

you would bottle those dark chuckles, those smoky rumbles if the universe would let you. it takes every last bit of your willpower not to squirm at the sound and surrender yourself entirely. “not like this.” another kiss to your pulse, another motion that stakes his claim. “he’s too uptight to try.” 

you are coming undone. you are burning to death beneath the heat of sukuna’s hands, of sukuna’s mouth, and if you let yourself go you will unravel in a thousand places under a thousand different words. if you let it happen, you will never go back. can you face it? the inevitable circumstance? the connection that you can never release? the loss that could follow?

perhaps he senses your hesitation, because sukuna ryoumen pulls away. you watch him study the tension in your brow and the overthinking in your eyes. you cannot read him. you wonder what it is that he feels. 

“what?” it is fact, not inquiry. demand, not curiosity. 

you shuffle slightly beneath him, too aware of the blanket at your back, too aware of the tiny embers of dwindling fires in the distance, too aware of the gravity of your own existence. “are you sure about this?” are you sure you want it all? that you won’t leave it behind?

“you’re my favorite for a reason.” the words are casual, precise, said with a shrug and a shake of the head. it’s like he’s thought about this before, like he’s never questioned whether he would or he wouldn’t, only what you’d allow him to do once he got there. 

you don’t know what it is about sukuna ryoumen: the assurance in his gaze, the familiar smell of smoke and danger, the warmth of his fingers on your skin. it compels you forward, his lips, his words, the truest statement he has ever spoken. you know it just by the brush of the wind and the tilt in his brow. sukuna ryoumen has never said something he does not mean.

he waits for you, unmoving, unable to imagine tumbling into the dark alone. you watch him, convinced you’re dreaming, in denial of the realization that this has always been what you wanted. 

“okay.” you exhale the word like a sigh even when there is no other answer you would have provided. you tilt your head in what you hope translates to a nod and inhale, deeply, ready to fall beyond salvation. 

“do you trust me?” you restrain a shiver when he leans in, lips ghosting along the goosebumps on your skin like he’s proud to own them. 

it is an unexpected question, one that he does not know the answer to. he knows and you know every terrible thing sukuna ryoumen could do: burn cities, sink ships, cast lovers to their graves. you watched your home burn and your friends fall. you’ve seen him most merciless, asking sailors for the impossible before punishing them all. 

you’ve seen him heartless, careless, and still you’ve mapped the disinterest in his jaw when the hopeless ask for the dead. 

you’ve found enough facets to form your own vision. you know what he is, what he does. and yet, still, you will not deny the way he is here, present, guiding your hands into the places no one else wants to go. and yet, still, he is convinced you will not fail, because only with you has he won.

(it it his apology, the phrase he will not mention. and will you deny it, the abrasive generosity of his hands? or will you accept, words fumbling, caught in the multitudes of all that has been and will be?) 

sukuna ryoumen is no saint, to be sure. but the answer comes to you as easily as breathing.

“yes,” you say. you submit yourself to the future. you tremble and discard the loneliness to the past. “i do.” 

“good.” there’s an expression in sukuna’s eyes you’ve never quite seen when he lifts his head to look at you. if you listen hard enough, you’d find that his good means his thank you. “tell me if you stop.” 

they say that sukuna’s arrival on shore marks the end of the world. sailors once boasted in heated whispers over pints of ale and mead that to gaze upon his face is to gaze into the depths of human suffering, that no one who meets him survives, that all who cross him will die. for a long time you wondered what kind of death he would bring – beheading, drowning, abandonment on scalding sand. you figured when the time came you would know. your luck would run out the same way birds migrate south, and the words would find their meaning. 

but you understand now that to die by sukuna’s hands means a different kind of death: a shudder, sublime, the echo of a cry from another sort of feeling. it is a death that moves in waves, that trembles through your bloodstream with such prowess you will never survive without it. it is a death laden with pink hair tickling your thighs, warm tongues and magic fingers who speak and listen and know. it is a death born of the twisting of the coil who has no choice but to snap. it is a death forged in passion, the world’s first prayer. 

you would tell them, those sailors from the pub under the stars, that you have gazed into sukuna ryoumen’s face and found no suffering there. you find only his pupils, blown wide with concentration, eyes readable enough to know that the infatuation is a mutual feeling. when you look upon the face of sukuna ryoumen, you tell them, there is only a bastard’s satisfaction when his hips meet your hips, when your vision blurs with tears, when he leans forward and swallows you whole.

and you do not know how you could hate him, not now, not forever. because beneath the heavenly sunlight of sukuna’s palms, you are a winter that melts into spring. 

––

“late night, i see.” 

nanami kento leans against the sloop’s railing with polite disinterest. like always, he’s schooled his face into stone and unreadability, but you sense the teasing beneath his godforsaken tie.

you allow yourself not to respond right away. it’s not like you could hide the obvious truth: the exhaustion in your eyes, the ache in every limb that will last another lifetime, the indescribable sensation that runs from your stomach to your brain, the knowledge of what you’ve done and the embarrassing shit you said hanging over you like a vice.

(look at you, puppy. it’s the way he said it, fingers scratching your cheek, perfect and condescending like he wasn’t affected. it’s the observation that haunts you. it’s the reason you’re thankful mei mei’s crows cannot read your mind.) 

“i guess so.” you join him, quietly, as the crew prepares for their most daunting haul. you pretend your legs aren’t still quaking. “so what’s the plan?”

“this royal merchant ship sails along a route that passes by the scyllan pass twice a year. it arrives at its destination with cloth and spices, it leaves laden with well over a millions’ worth in gold. we’ll be lying in wait until the target comes within our range. then we’ll make our approach, board the ship, and pray we don’t get killed.” 

you nonchalantly massage your hip. “millions? shouldn’t something like that have a convoy with it ?”

“yes,” he rolls his eyes, “it should. but the merchant ship’s got enough cannons and a sailing schedule so secret that no one has ever thought they needed more protection.” 

“how’d you figure out the schedule?”

a quirk of the lips: you do not miss the way nanami’s head tilts ever so slightly towards the cage of crows. “lots of patience and years of practice. we would have tried this alone, but it just so happened that you and your large friend came along at the right time.” 

a silence, a pause. in the dim light, sun hardly over the horizon, the air still reeks with an evening chill as mist rises from the sea. you will storm the merchant ship just after sunrise, sukuna had said long after your tryst ended. it is the perfect moment for a collision, for a single moment in time.

(and maybe, after, we’ll do this again, he’d continued, perfectly composed, hardly out of breath. it was the promise of a second, of something that would build up and hold and last, that keeps you from second-guessing the feeling.) 

the sloop cuts slowly through the pre-dawn sea like a knife through an indigo curtain. you wipe the sleepless night from your eyes and avert your gaze from the bloodstains on the deck, the large tarp thrown over the birds. they wait, now, to be bought and sold at one hundred different markets. you look away. you do not wish to see them. 

“what will you do after this?” you ask nanami. across the deck, jogo paces in silent contemplation. “with all the money you’re supposed to get?” 

the breeze unfurls; clouds gather like charcoal cotton. “i don’t know. wait for the next job.” 

“even after you get your millions?” you won’t settle, go home, start a life again?

nanami’s hand traces the hilt of the blade at his back. “my life is a series of terrible careers,” he says. “no stability. no safety. no one who remembers you back at home. i would have told you to turn back on the first night, but i know the hatred of staying too long in one place.” a deep sigh, like the turning of the years. “i can’t in good faith tell you to stop chasing the feeling.” 

you study his profile. “the feeling?”

he looks at you for only an instant. “the one that tells you there must be something better than what there is now.” 

nanami kento was not always a sailor. his past still rests in the faded elegance of his tie and his shirtsleeves and his posture. perhaps he was once a merchant himself, tied to some company or other, checking inventory and ensuring that the institutions of a capital world kept moving at the expense of someone else. perhaps he had even been an apprentice, promised to repeat the stories that had been told to him with perfect clarity. but nanami kento saw that there could be something else, something more: places that defied gravity and time. sensations that would drag him from one realm to another. tender lovers who would cherish his story. 

you understand it, the feeble anxiety that this is not where you should be, the even more terrifying understanding that you would rather die than be anywhere else. 

“ah,” nanami says gently, straightening his posture and stepping towards utahime. “excuse me. it looks like we’ve almost arrived.” 

on a clear day, the waters of the scyllan pass might have been a deep blue, a lapis lazuli more potent than any stone. now, in the cloudy dark, it churns like ashes, somber, the echo of a miserable nightmare, the dust inside the jaw. just beyond, the shoreline falls away, and the river finally opens its mouth into a wide and heartless sea. the merchant ship will wander through that emptiness on its journey home; and, preoccupied with its fortune, it will not see the sloops waiting just inside the pass.  

mei mei’s sloop quietly sails towards the opposite shore and nestles itself into an inconspicuous inlet like a bird into its nest. nanami presses onwards a moment further before directing your sloop to do the same, hiding the ship between the last few meters of the scyllan pass’s teeth and the wide open sea. 

“from this position, we’ll be able to see it first,” you hear nanami tell utahime. “at which point, we will emerge from the pass and engage. mei mei will follow to secure our position.” 

“just like her to wait it out,” utahime says. she speaks with a hint of both admiration and disgust. “she’s never done anything dangerous herself.” 

“it is the sacred right of the first-mate to board a captured vessel first,” nanami reminds her. “which is, of course, my pride and joy in life.” the irony in his voice could have killed you were you standing close enough. 

utahime sighs, mutters a string of swears under her breath that you don’t catch. and then, distasteful like an ill-fitted shirt, the waiting begins. 

even the crows fall silent. sure, nanami says, they’ve uncovered the schedule of this sacred vessel, but there’s always room for error: a hungover sailor, unfavorable winds. it has always been a game of guessing, a gamble with chance, whether two ships will cross paths in the night and succeed. there is no telling whether their knowledge will be true or not. perhaps, after all this time, the royal merchant ship hired a convoy and found a new route back home. 

(good luck, the silver boy said. you hope those magic words will apply to this, too.

ryoumen, your god said desperately. go on, puppy, say it. you hope that prayer will work now as it did then.) 

the ship silences, but the tension remains. every lookout scans the dark water, reads the clouds to guess the sunrise. paused at the edge of the precipice, you wait. jogo, silent and steamy, waits. nanami and utahime, two sailors bound by mutual emptiness, wait. it is the pause before an august storm, the silence that follows the lightning. 

a whistle so soft you hardly catch it. an inhale; a heist. 

wordlessly, the sloop emerges from its hiding place to follow the merchant vessel. even after watching ships arrive at port since the day you were born, you’ve never seen anything as grand as this: decks on decks of perfect cannons, sails that might as well be sewn from silk, enough space on deck to house a village and then some. upon its mast hangs a royal flag, a blatant symbol that the ship hopes to be ripe for the taking. 

and it is, just as nanami said, foolishly, entirely, hopelessly, alone. 

“how many sailors are on that ship?” you slide beside nanami and utahime and jogo as your sloop raises an identical royal flag in order to get close. how they managed to create a replica, you don’t have the heart to ask. 

“probably more than us,” utahime sighs. she rubs the exhaustion from her eyes.

the merchant vessel does not stir as you approach. perhaps it is the flag, a feeble symbol of your compliance, or perhaps your sloop does not pose enough of a threat to cause worry. either way, the target approaches quickly, its grandiose shadow falling over the deck as you slide closer, closer, closer. nanami stands by the railing, hand firmly on the hilt of his blade, focus stiff in his shoulders. you stand with him, hand on your knife, biting your tongue, fighting back the nausea of a terrible anticipation. jogo pauses just behind, cracking his knuckles for another day out in hell. 

in a moment, you’ll be side by side with the vessel. in a moment, the ruse will drop, and your crew will heave over the side. 

“she’s supposed to be here,” nanami mutters. “her ship should be caught up with us by now.” but they are nowhere to be seen in the open. maybe, he wants to say, they’re still waiting behind in the pass or wading far off into the abyss. either way, mei mei’s sloop has not arrived to the party. either way, you are left with half the sailors you anticipated. 

“you think that bitch would ever be honest?” jogo huffs righteously. the steam from his forehead greets the fog. “what a damn fool you are.” 

“he’s right.” you look between jogo and nanami and utahime. you may not know her, the elusive thing, but you do know those perfect boots would never risk combat if they knew beforehand they would win. “we’re going to have to start without her.” 

nanami grimaces. “of course.” the deck of the merchant ship comes within range; faces emerge from the fog, curious faces, worried faces, faces lined with wind and hardship. they do not know yet, but they will soon. maybe they even know already. 

“you did say that the first-mate usually goes first,” you say, an attempt at a jest, but it comes out frail with tension. “might as well do them the honor.” 

“don’t worry,” jogo says, lighting the fire, “you bastards don’t need anyone else if you have me.” 

another second passes. the ships sit in perfect alignment. the crew members are watching you with their hands firmly at their belts. they know by the look in your eye that you are no royal ally. they will throw you their cannons if they have not already. their rifles will emerge if they own them. you can see it clearly in that sliver of time between now and hesitation. if you wait, it will happen again. if you pause too long, caught in the weight of your own decision, you will fail. 

with practiced dexterity nanami and jogo and utahime leap over the side and meet their enemy in the fray. it is their sacred right to die first and die slowly; the captain only ever comes after.

it is now, or never. it is try, or drown. you step forward, and, holding your breath as if underwater, you jump. 

it’s no graceful landing: you are not maki or mai, swooping over rails in a perfect dusk. you merely rise to your feet and pretend there are not fifty others watching your intrusion with beady eyes. even with the knife at your belt and the sulfur somewhere behind, you know you cannot take them all. there’s not a chance you would try. but somehow, between now and your next breath, you must settle the score.

for him, for blessings. 

perhaps it is your disinterest in the rest of the world that keeps the violence from you. perhaps it is the glint in your eye, hard and violent and unfamiliar, that makes the younger sailors pause in their footsteps. perhaps it is your knife, pure with disuse, now dangling from your ready fingers as you move through a dream. but they do not engage you and you do not engage them and you do not have the patience to learn why. 

you do not see them; you have no need. anyone other than the person you seek means nothing, mere air and space that does not commit. the merchant sailors are ghosts on the sea and frail visions of the air. they are clouds between you and your destination, apparitions without meaning. they step back when you approach as the god parts the sea. 

the center stands beside the stairs to his captain’s quarters, his shirt uneven and his eyes laden with the sleep he sacrificed for the brothel. he holds himself with the poise of one who believes he exists beyond his sailors. it is written on his ruddy face, the satisfaction of superiority. in another life, you would have let him. but now someone else’s future sits on the line.

nanami and jogo and utahime flank all sides of the captain, their weapons poised against his perfect throat, but he sees you, only you, your blade and your stone eyes of the gods left for dead. he sees only your composure, too tense for anxiety, too still to go back. sweat gathers on his brow. he cannot reach his rifle.

he sees you with a coward’s fear pooling in his eyes. you begin to understand it, that thirst, that hunger, which drives sailors and soldiers alike to the ends of the earth. you understand, with the blades at his skin and his life in your hands, that you could if you wanted to. 

“we’re taking this ship,” nanami says cooly, plainly, as if the threat of murder could not be enough.  

“oh?” the captain chokes. his oily cheeks puff with every nervous inhale. “is that so? you believe you can take the royal ship of captain sotomura?” 

nanami’s blade presses harder against his neck: you will not, but you could. you repeat this to yourself like a mantra. you pretend you are him, red eyes and four arms, thoughtless without prisoners. you will receive your gold without blood. you will face your retribution. your tongue ties in your throat and your fingers shake.

“unless you want to find out what happens when you put a living body over open flame, i suggest you listen,” jogo’s voice grumbles in a whisper of smoke. you can smell the embers of his clothes and the joy in his threat. it is another beautiful morning for the mountain on the sea. 

the captain blanches; he does not speak. there is no fight to be had against the blonde man and the stone. that is the way of things in the world without land. violence will guide you through victory because no one wants to know it. violence will guide you because there are no sacred burials in places where no one will remember. 

captain sotomura knows he has lost, the poor thing, but still he cannot quite grasp it. we had no convoy, he will tell his superiors later, if he makes it home alive. we were told the route was secure – and what were we to do, with too many cannons and not enough defense? what do you reckon we do when the volcano rumbles upon us? 

the ruddy captain did nothing but act the part of an innocent man, caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. but you must discard the knowing, the feeling, because not all eyes can go home when there are some pairs you prize more than others. 

“stand down,” the captain chokes to his comrades. he will not take jogo up on the offer, even when it would have been proper to put up a fight. “show them to the stores.” 

victory, you see, can be silent. it is not always accompanied by a scream, by bloodshed. sometimes it is painless and silent and unaware. sometimes it creeps in like an afternoon shadow, staking its claim on the poor before it crawls out the other window. sometimes that victory feels weightless, like it does not matter at all. and other times, it sits heavy on your chest, a clove of guilt, one that you will rework and you will question until you forget it entirely.

the merchant ship remains eerily quiet as mei mei’s win ripples through the breeze. sailors nervously escort nanami and utahime down the stairs to prove their piles of gold. others drop their weapons with a clatter, folding their hands in a fervent prayer as jogo looks eerily upon them. others still close their eyes, praying for oblivion from a terrible dream, looking away and away when the smell of sulfur draws near. 

good luck, inumaki said. and maybe that is what this is. but it is hollow, too, like a bad omen that you will not recognize until there is no turning back. it was too quick, too easy, a perfect moment in which something important was left behind.

after a long and uncomfortable pause, the grease-lined captain sotomura, hands quaking with misery, emerges from the depths of the ship with a nonplussed nanami and a relieved utahime in tow. they exchange a brief set of words, finalizing the distribution of the wares, perhaps, until captain sotomura makes a beeline towards you, skillfully ignoring the volcano as he scuttles across the deck.

“please, captain,” he shudders, fingers twitching like he does not know whether he should reach for your hands or whether he should fold them to pray. he pauses before you, shoulders hunched in what must be his most elegant bow. “arrangements have been made, my men can help transfer the load to your ship–” 

“what?” you interrupt without thinking. 

“my sailors,” the captain repeats, gazing up at you, “we can have the money transferred to your sloop before nightfall. please, captain, i only ask that you spare my sailors. we have families to get home to. they need us.” 

captain. you want to correct him, to tell him that the real one is on the way, but something, be it the silence or the emptiness, tells you to hold your tongue. something, be it the unfamiliar swirl in your gut or the heat on your cheeks, tells you right now it does not matter, that he would not listen anyway. 

the captain always follows behind. now you understand. the sailors did not approach you because they knew the price of insubordination. 

oh, for fuck’s sake, you want to say. “thank you,” you respond instead, the sentence strange and familiar on your tongue, “but i think we will be taking your ship too.” 

“but–” fresh perspiration blooms on his forehead as he struggles in vain to catch on to your meaning. his back straightens, eyes searching yours for the irony he must find within them.

you tilt your head towards the water and gesture to the knife in your hand. a deep breath, to calm the feeling. you will be him. you pray he does not see you tremble. “i’m on a tight schedule,” you say, but the words come out lukewarm rather than cold. “there’s no time. you can join us on our voyage or face the consequences. maybe you can get let off at the next port and get passage home if there’s no trouble. i’m sorry. talk to him if you have further questions.” you gesture towards nanami, poised across the deck with piercing eyes and weapons more formidable than you. 

the captain’s eyes soften at the word home, and for a moment, he reminds you of todou, eyes fixed insistently on a place he cannot see. for a moment, you wonder if you could do it, if you could try, until reality washes in with the tide.

like an epic, the second sloop arrives with a flurry of sulfur and confusion and sunrise. you do not have to watch the captain arrive to stage it yourself. the silver woman will not run from her money, but still, she does not soil the bounty. you can picture the excitement, the vitality in mei mei’s step. she has found her paradise with the golden oxen of the sun. 

“i can take it from here,” mei mei calls, silver tongue, strutting towards you both like she hadn’t missed the fun. you and captain sotomura watch her approach, her perfect boots and her well-kept hair and her blood-stained lips too beautiful for sins. his eyes flit between you and her and back again, confusion and fear flashing through his eyes in terse morse code. 

“who–” the captain asks, but mei mei’s sword pierces him before he can finish the sentence. 

you see it in his eyes, the terrible dream, the mercy he asks for which you cannot give. he cannot receive it and you cannot say. you look away when the captain cries. he looks towards you for an explanation, for your betrayal, but you stare at the silver clouds on the horizon and pretend you do not hear him. he is out of your hands now, you tell yourself. he is a lone feather on a bloodstained deck. he falls the way every great man does, with the callous pity of one who could not see it coming. his question remains forever on his lips: why could i not go home?

(but you see it, everything. you see the future you could not be part of. you see the lives you could not save and the hope you could not offer. you look away because you already know you will not forget him. it is the meaningless nature of the thing, the history records that will not remember him and the funeral rites that will not be said and the family that will wither without. you have seen a life or ten taken since your world began. but whether it is by your hand or not it dies different.) 

“please,” he mumbles to you, “home.” but there is none left for him and there is no love for you. you say nothing, do nothing, but his blood and a bird’s call will follow you all the same.

“should have fought harder if you wanted to get there,” mei mei croons. she walks away before the blood reaches her shoes. 

so it goes. so mei mei takes her ship and her gold and her prowess. every man captain sotomura could not name dies swiftly by mei mei’s sword, the corpses thrown like nuisances into the sea. there are no hostages for a woman without trust: if they do not die, they will betray her. that is the way of things between the whirlpool and the jaw. she is every head and every heartache. she does not fear what cannot be mastered.

you look away from the curse in their eyes, the lifeless hands that disappear below. none of them will be remembered by nightfall. the crows will tend to the bodies. for now, they lie. 

so it goes. three ships sail forth from the pass by midmorning, a cloud of blood and fog in their wake, two laden with corpses, one laden with gold. mei mei stands at the helm and lets the victory drive her smile. there is no reason to mourn what she knew would happen, and so she does not see it, the sorrow on the deck or the ghosts in the air.

but you watch it all the way you used to watch the one-eyed pirate as he came and went from port: like someone else, far away. you tried for something different, you know. but there lies the remembrance of the nightmare on your lips, the cry of the merchant captain before your own hope betrayed him still fresh in your ears. 

why can’t i go home? his memory ponders. it will ask you for lifetime, and you choke on the answer you cry back. 

you hesitated once, you failed. you extended your kindness, an attempt at mercy, and you failed. perhaps mei mei was right. perhaps, at the end of things, in the lawless expanse of a rotting sea, there is no moral ground. maybe that is why there is a decay inside of you that you cannot understand. maybe, to find the ending, you have to forget where you began.

“you’re quiet, captain,” sukuna slides beside you as easily as breathing, resting an arm on your shoulder in condescending amusement. you don’t have to look at him to hear the smile on his lips, the teasing lilt in his eyebrow. 

(but still, you hate it: how even when he says the word like that, there’s a ripple in your belly that you cannot explain.) 

“oh, fuck off,” you say instead, but it’s far-gone and tired. there is only you, and him, and the denial that the word captain means anything more to you than a mistaken title or a forgotten rite. 

“you sure?” he asks, warm against your side. “no need to be so callous, captain.” you loathe the shivers he sends up your spine when he leans a little closer, presses in like seduction and lightning. you would like to plead indifference, but it’s a futile game when your consent mere hours ago said differently. you give up and let him stand too close and distract you from the sailors scraping leftover misery off the deck. 

it was her fault, you know, to do it. the hopes and dreams of a royal merchant crew were not your fights to be had. but still, the look on a poor captain’s face will follow you to the grave and the hills and back again.

it is but one step on a journey towards your destination. it is but one scar on the memory of the sea. 

“you tried,” sukuna says then. “can’t win everyone, you know. it’s a hopeless endeavor.” 

“gojo said something like that.” your voice is quiet, reminiscent. 

an envious scoff, a shake of the head. “of course he did.” he looks out towards the grey sea, the unfurling clouds and the favorable movement of the waves. you listen to the silence and the silence listens back. you know what sukuna wants to say, what he would tell you if he were someone else – that you cannot rewrite every story, that some dreams exist outside your control. even when you lie down and offer mercy the aspiration will not always come back. 

it is only about balance and chance and precision. as long as you protect the ones who matter, that will have to be enough. the rest must be noise. 

it scares you now, the poise with which you think you can accept it. it scares you now, the knowing that it will not end: and that where you go next, sukuna ryoumen cannot follow. 

“does it get worse?” you ask. the wind ruffles the silken sails and dances a waltz with the clouds.

sukuna does not say anything, not at first. you wish, against your better judgement, that he’d move his arm to your other shoulder and draw you in and cover you in sulfur safety. you wish you could be closer, like the way lovers used to do, but you do not attempt it. your shoulder is his armrest and you stand like two comrades in conversation, nothing more. 

maybe it is better that way. but you cannot stop the wanting: and you hope, for your sake, that sukuna ryoumen feels the same. 

“where you’re going,” he says finally, gently, “it will.” 

you say nothing. instead, empty, hollow, you pocket the fear and the loathing. you lean into him; he leans into you, and with the silence of two heartbeats in perfect rhythm you listen to the unruly silence of another morning at sea, the prior night still fresh and potent as a memory you need to witness again. 

and maybe you will. perhaps later, back on the malevolent shrine, you’ll come walking into the captain’s quarters, and the sunlight will kill you all over. he will make you whole and chase the ghosts off your shoulders. he will make the dream fine again, light again, dismantle the burden of being alive. 

you wonder if he thinks about it too, what with the way he slowly melts into your side, with the way he turns to you with the clarity of one who has something deeply important to say. 

“you know, i think–” sukuna begins, tongue raunchy with suggestion and warm with lust, but his musings are cut short as mei mei calls out across the deck.

“meet me in the captain’s quarters,” she says, unreadable, cold. “it’s time to chat.” 

whatever tender moment had been growing between you dissipates as sukuna’s arm falls and you both head quietly for the stairs. you miss it, that feeling, even when he’s hardly a step behind. but the clouds roll in and daylight comes and you owe it to your next destination. your bargain’s upheld: the real work begins. 

inside the reclaimed captain’s quarters, mei mei’s already pushed most of the captain sotomura’s belongings to the floor in favor of spreading her own map across his cedar desk. it’s furled at the edges with water and age, ink drawn across the page with the precision of a profound cartographer. you wonder where she stole this from. you wonder who poured their love out and died and then made it.

nanami stands adjacent to mei mei, hands clasped behind his back as he studies the map. mei mei looks up as you approach the table, and you do not miss her surprise or yours when sukuna’s hand nonchalantly returns to your shoulder. 

you inhale the warmth, an unfamiliar comfort.

mei mei clears her throat. “well,” she says, although she does not care to look at you again, “this went better than anticipated. i suppose i should thank you.” her gaze is fleeting, but still you accept the pride and pretend to ignore the violence. “now. i told you i would take you to tengen’s nest.” 

she brushes her fingers across the map and taps an empty place between drawings of stones. “we’re here, just outside the scyllan pass.” she drags her fingers down, down, to a dark spot located just beyond it. “this is tengen’s nest. if the wind keeps up, we will be there by nightfall. now,” she says, fingers tapping the region, “for those of you who don’t know, tengen’s nest is an impressively well-guarded port located in the valley of this island. if you want to get in unchecked, you will not be able to go through the harbor.”

she taps the south side of the island. “tengen’s nest lies at the mouth of six rivers and sits between two mountains. its main defenses are centered around the harbor, but with practice, it’s relatively simple to arrive from the back, unseen.” she traces her finger north along what looks like a river. “we will take you here. if you follow this river, it will take you through a swamp between the hills before throwing you into the back of the city. it’s the easiest way not to draw attention.” 

she looks at you expectantly. you study the dark spot on the map like it will manipulate your soul. 

“and this is,” you say, slow, calculating, “my best chance of getting in?”

“it’s you’re only chance.” mei mei lifts her hand from the map before her eyes meet yours. “the only place harder to reach than tengen’s nest is heaven. i’ve tried every route, apprentice. this one is the least likely to fail.” 

you study the curve of the river, the delicate lines of the swamp, hoping the cartographer will tell you their secrets. you follow the river from one end of the island to its disappearance at the harbor’s mouth on the other. on paper, it seems realistic, doable. and yet, and yet. 

“so i just,” you repeat, “follow that–”

“i’ll be going with,” nanami interrupts. “i’ve followed the path before. it’s easier with a guide.” 

mei mei restrains a hiss and taps her fingers tersely over the island. disapproving, you know, but she does not have the power to fight him. a silent argument travels between the pair, fought with arched eyebrows and stubborn wills, but she does not deny the request. 

“nanami will go with you,” she repeats, her voice unnervingly even. “to make sure you get there safely.” she says the word like a curse; your wellbeing was never a part of her deal. 

nanami’s shoulder settle; sukuna’s hand warms approvingly against your shoulder. the map lies between you all, the dark mark of tengen’s nest peering back into the room like a sacred eye. look here, it says, and listen, and maybe, just maybe, you will know. 

the shadows move swiftly towards the center of the dark. and you, oh wrath, will sink your teeth into embers and fire.

“if there are no more questions,” mei mei says, rolling up the map, “then let us be going.”

––

a heavy chill falls like a blanket over the spine of tengen’s nest. 

the entrance exists in a place where april flowers do not grow, where clouds roll like grey beasts across an even darker shore. the sky curdles with the sunset and casts a deep shadow across the water. it is a place beyond itself, poised at the edge of the sea, the edge of being. 

mei mei’s ship stalls a long ways from hell and watches in somber silence as your little party sails toward the rocky shore. it is the smallest entrance to the island, built of stones and decayed roots and desolation. it asks never to be found and never to be entered. just beyond the shore, one trail, small and inconspicuous enough to walk single-file, slouches between foreboding trees. 

somewhere beyond those trees lies the river, the swamp, the deadly road towards sin and desire and truth. somewhere beyond those trees lies a place so unspoken that to utter its name is a crime. somewhere, in the waste land and the field, lies a boy you would unravel the world to find.

mei mei unceremoniously sails the rowboat to shore, dismounts, and waits wordlessly for you to follow. you are all quiet tonight, rightfully so, because the barrier does nothing but listen. 

nanami adjusts his backpack on his shoulders and stretches his limbs once he stands. you do the same, if only to fight off the tension. your bag is small, threadbare, pulled from an old chest aboard the merchant ship and filled haphazardly with anything nanami thought you might need – spare clothes, a few sizes too big; dry goods and tasteless snacks; a spool of gauze in preparation of the worst.   

you hope you do not need it; but it is a comfort, still, to know. 

“this is your stop,” mei mei says. in the distance, rainclouds gather like old friends; a cool and humid breeze ripples across the water in tune with the sigh of the dead. “beyond the trees is tengen’s barrier. return this way when you’ve finished your business and someone will be waiting for both of you here.” she nods in the ship’s direction.

“thank you,” you say, but you do not shake her hand. it is enough, you think, to know that mei mei brought you this far. you alone are responsible for everything else that comes after.

(it will be worse, he said. good luck, warned the other. it must be enough. it will have to be enough.)

she does not respond. her perfect boots grind against the stones and she sits back in the rowboat to wait. nanami quietly wishes her well before meandering alone towards the edge of the trail. you and sukuna stand still and listen to the hollow of the wind and the rumble of the tide and know that something is ending. 

but like he has done and will do and continues to still, sukuna’s hand traces the well-known curve of your jaw, cradling your cheek with one palm and listening to your pulse with the other. he says nothing; he does not have to. if you listen, careful and quiet, you will know all sukuna ryoumen has to say. that is the way of things between him and you. sukuna does not have to speak for you to answer. he says it with his hands, the feeling, every phrase you could ever utter, every line you could ever write. 

you close your eyes beneath him at the center of a perfect sea. it is the echo of the shortest sentence you are too terrified to admit, so you tell him without words, in your two hands that reach up to rest upon his and draw circles on the skin with your thumbs. 

he sits inside the sun of the universe, your home without the fire. you memorize the warmth on his palms and commit it to memory. it is the truth the one-eyed pirate did not know, half of the answer you’ve been seeking.

(you wouldn’t know it, you’d tell them, the life within them. the kiss without an answer. the breath before a fall.) 

the light fades. within sukuna’s touch grows an urgency born of borrowed time. 

“do you trust me?” sukuna’s voice, soft like velvet and warm like the hearth, washes the fear from your fingers. but if you listen, closely, are you with me, filled with that thing i will not name? 

“of course,” you repeat, soft, so the other world does not hear. it is my curse and my right. 

“good,” he says, “tell me when you stop.” 

another pause beneath his molten touch before sukuna pulls away. you drink in the curl of his hair and the glint in his irises until you finally turn to meet nanami at the entrance to the fold. it is better not to say goodbye, you think, because goodbye would mean the reality of separation. you will see him soon, you tell yourself. when you return in a day with your arms aching beneath megumi’s weight he will be here, on this shore, arms outstretched like sunbeams. 

where i come from, everyone was leaving. but not him. but not you.

nanami acknowledges you wordlessly as you approach before disappearing into the violence of the path. tengen’s nest swallows him; blonde hair sinks into silence. you step forward, greet the trees, and feel the barrier slide over you. it hovers in the air like a horror left unspoken. it is slight, like a feather on the road, but still tengen’s barrier listens with anticipation. 

only darkness lies ahead. you look back, just once, desperate to look upon sukuna ryoumen one more time. he watches you, and you watch him, and on the wind lies all the feelings you could not find the courage for. 

when i return, you pray. if he listens closely, he will know. you. home.

you turn away and catch up with nanami’s careful footsteps. shadows move in waves between the trees, the whispers of ghosts who cannot go home. their eyes watch and the coolness of their sorrows falls. if you called out to them, they would have gathered with you and shared the secrets of their blood. but these days, they remain inside another place, another time, an endless grey field reminiscent of the world lost before. 

and so a sacred descent begins, silently, into the place where the sun cannot reach. 

(god save thee, ancient mariner – from the fiends, that plague thee thus.) 

[spookyceph]

Pull Test

Summary: Shigaraki and Kurogiri meet with the League of Villain's newest candidate.

Rating: Gen Fic, SFW

Relationships: Shigaraki & Magne

Characters: Shigaraki Tomura, Magne, Kurogiri, Giran, mentioned Dabi, mentioned Toga Himiko

Words: 2,732

Warnings: Implied/Referenced transphobia and deadnaming when Magne's background is mentioned, swearing

The manila folder dropped from the air like a dead bird, hitting the bar top with a slap. Tomura jerked back, stool wobbling beneath him, and grit his teeth as he heard the staccato sounds of his fighter taking damage in his game. Recovering balance, he hit the pause button before glaring at the warp gate that swirled into being across the way.

“Another one already?” he snapped the moment the tall figure of his caretaker stepped out of the darkness.

Kurogiri straightened both his tie and metal gorget. “I was quite impressed myself. Giran is proving to be as professional and efficient as advertised.” He motioned to the folder he’d air dropped in. “Shall we consider this new candidate together, Shigaraki Tomura?”

Tomura wasn’t in the mood to consider shit. He hadn’t been hanging around the bar for going on two hours hoping for work to come along. One of his hands strayed to his pocket. He touched the lump that was the jar of salve he’d taken to carrying at all times. The serpentine ridge of a friendship bracelet (I used red, white, and black string so it would match you, Tomura-kun!) had joined it a week ago. Of course, he’d die before admitting to lurking just to catch a glimpse of Dabi. Or that he’d agreed to let Toga show him her favorite otome games as soon as she came back from her shopping trip. He definitelycouldn’t tell the smug old ink splatter to fuck off and let him get back to his goal of a high score—not without having how wrong he’d been about those same two people rubbed in his face.

That left being a responsible leader as the only option.

Tomura growled and set his game aside. He flicked the folder open. “Fine. What’s this new asshole’s name?” Giving in didn’t require him to be gracious about it.

“Ah. About that. I believe there’s a conflicting issue in her files about that point. Her family name is Hikiishi, however, her given one, or both, may require an update.”

A look at the top of the file filled in the blanks. The picture Giran had included showed the candidate flashing a bold smile at the camera. Shoulder-length auburn hair framed prominent cheekbones. Slightly darker fuzz lined her jaw and chin. Tomura couldn’t tell what color her eyes were behind her sunglasses, but they locked with his through lenses and stock paper alike. Hikiishi Kenji, read the first line of information on the page beneath the photo. A police report, by the looks of it.

“I see. Well, for now let’s just call Hikiishi by her alias until she confirms with us.” Tomura skimmed through the info again. “Magne, right? Related to her quirk, I assume.”

The currents of Kurogiri’s mist slowed and relaxed into looser coils. “Correct.”

Tomura frowned. “What? Did you think I’d have some sort of problem with the name thing?”

“After the misunderstanding with Dabi—”

“Dabi and I talked.”

The yellow eyes glowing within the darkness widened. “Did you now?”

Fuck, he wasn’t turning red, was he? Was he? “We’re adults. We worked shit out, okay? Not everybody has a stick up their ass about being polite all the time.” He scooped up his game, more than ready to retreat into something he could control. “When are we expecting Magne?”

“Giran can bring her by tomorrow evening.”

“Fine. Let’s get the stupid meet and greet crap over with.” When only silence followed, Tomura raised his gaze from the screen to glare at Kurogiri. “What?”

The wisps curling from the smoggy bastard’s head looked suspiciously like smiles. “Nothing, Shigaraki Tomura. Nothing at all.”

-

Taptaptap.

Tomura’s finger rose and fell on the bartop fast enough to give a sewing machine needle a run for its money. The ball of his right foot bounced on the stool’s crossbar in time with it.

Taptaptap.

Giran had promised he’d be there between 9:00 and 10:00. The clock by the door pointed to 9:51.

Taptaptap.

Lots of people would be riding the trains on a Friday night. Or roaming the streets, looking for food and alcohol, karaoke, strangers to stave off loneliness. Heroes would be out in force as a result, watching for any predators stalking the herds of humanity. Tomura didn’t know how to calculate exact probability rates for shit hitting the fan, but he got the sense they were on the higher end under such conditions.

Taptaptap.

Why couldn’t he just run into party members along the way as needed, like in games? Each one would specialize in a skill, forming a well-rounded team. Everyone would follow him to the bitter end because they believed in him and not some ass goblin named Stain. Why they believed in Tomura wouldn’t matter, though money would be a reasonable guess. Idealism didn’t pay much from what he could tell.

Taptap—

“Be calm, Shigaraki Tomura. This meeting will go well.”

He bared teeth at Kurogiri. “There has to be a meeting for it to go a certain way. And I am calm, damn it.”

“So I see.” He finished wiping down the glass he held before setting it on the bar and grabbing another. “My apologies.”

Tomura twisted on the stool to give the smart ass shadow a piece of his overthinking mind.

Knock, knock, knock.

Without missing a beat, Kurogiri stuck his free hand through a small warp gate and turned the handle of the door across the room. He went back to polishing as two figures entered the bar.

For someone who charged such high fees, Giran went out of his way to look cheap and kitschy. Little round tinted lenses pinched to the bridge of his nose. A scrunched scarf like someone’s guts slung around his neck. One front tooth missing in his low-key sleazy smile. The woman following right behind him and surveying her new surroundings made for a more welcome sight. Sunglasses (her and Giran both, for fucks’ sake) hid her eyes just like in her picture, but her lips held a hint of a smile.

The essence of good manners, Kurogiri bowed to their guests. “Good evening. Welcome to our humble home.”

Tomura, to balance the scales, snorted and folded his arms across his chest. “Took you long enough.”

Giran shrugged and twirled his hand, leaving behind a smoke spiral from the tip of the cigarette between his fingers. “Our train was delayed by some prankster threatening to blow up the tracks.”

“Doesn’t sound like a prank.”

“It wouldn’t have been if the lazy bastard hadn’t been trying to pass off children’s clay as plastic explosive. One of the cops noticed the stuff was bright yellow and they rushed him. They didn’t even call in a hero.” The broker shook his head. “What’s this world coming to? People can’t be bothered to find and pay for real weapons anymore. It offends my pride as a businessman.”

Behind Father, Tomura grimaced. His short-lived venture with Stain had indeed moved people to lash out at society. The problem was most of them were fucking morons. He doubted any decent candidates the League managed to net would make up for all the secondhand embarrassment he’d suffered in the past couple of weeks from watching the news.

“Oh, I don’t know,” the woman said, tapping her chin. “I felt kinda bad for the poor guy. He looked like your average office wage-slave. I thought he was going to break down in tears when they hauled him off.”

“Serves him right for cutting corners. No conviction, no integrity these days I tell you.”

She hid a grin behind her hand. “You’re heartless, Giran.”

The broker snorted smoke from his nostrils like an exasperated dragon. “I’m practical.”

“And yet you still haven’t introduced me.”

Posture straightening, Giran tugged at his weirdly anatomical scarf. “Sorry, got sidetracked. Magne, Shigaraki Tomura and Kurogiri of the League of Villains.”

“Pleased to meet you.” Slipping off his stool, Tomura gave her a short bow. The way Kurogiri swayed slightly, as if he’d swoon from shock, made the display worth it.

“I take it I’ve earned my fee?” chimed in Giran.

Kurogiri’s misty form shuddered as he roused himself. “Of course. We’ll hear from you again soon?”

“I’ve got a few candidates lined up.” The broker sketched them a mock salute before turning and closing the door behind him.

“Please, have a seat.” Tomura motioned to the row of barstools beside him.

“Thank you. Don’t mind if I do.”

While Magne approached, he studied her movements. She strode across the hardwood floor, work boots making minimal noise with each step. Grace as well as power. She knew how to use the muscle under her shirt’s rolled up sleeves rather than relying on pure size. Although, that didn’t hurt either—Tomura put her at over ten centimeters his own height at least, and she definitely outclassed him by weight. He wondered whether she had speed to go along with strength. She slid into the next seat over and rested her chin in her hands.

“Would you care for something to drink, Miss Magne?” Kurogiri asked, jumping at the chance to play host.

“Oh, my. So formal. Sure, I’ll have whatever you recommend.”

Tomura waited until a small glass of something amber-colored had been set in front of them both (ginger ale for him) and she’d taken an approving sip before getting things rolling.

“You have quite a record, Magne.” Though he’d already memorized the relevant bits, he flipped open the folder container her information.

She glanced over, shades slipping down her nose as she scanned the first page of the police report. “Twenty-nine attempted murders, huh? Is that what they’re calling those? I’m surprised you guys bothered having me come in after reading that garbage.”

“Why?”

Like a small bird, Tomura’s stomach dipped and fluttered when Magne looked at him over the edge of her glasses. Not quite in the same way it did when he caught Dabi watching him from across the room, but close enough to classify the sensation as pleasant. Her irises shone like polished agates, made up of rich layers of browns from a starburst of mahogany around her pupils to flecks of burnished copper. Tomura suddenly understood her hiding them behind lenses. Such a beautiful detail would stick in anyone’s memory.

“Somebody who tried and failed to kill that many people would look pretty incompetent, right?” she replied. “Or like they chickened out at the last second. I don’t enjoy killing. I’ll tell you that up front. But…I didn’t hesitate with the three I did put down, let’s just say that.”

Tomura, a multiple murderer himself, examined the square set of her shoulders, the twist of scorn to her mouth towards her accusers, and found no reason to doubt her. He nodded.

“The so-called attempts were from the robberies you pulled off then?”

“Mostly, though I’m sure a few of the bullies I smacked around exaggerated just to prove what big, strong men they are.” She harumphed and took another sip from her drink.

“And the actual murders?”

Her lips puckered, as if she tasted something more bitter than whatever alcohol Kurogiri had given her. “Personal matters.”

“I see.” Tomura turned the page and ran his finger further down the information. “Your quirk has some unique parameters.”

The lines of Magne’s face eased into a smile. “Oh, the gender thing? A theory really. I haven’t had much opportunity to test it seriously. It might be nothing but my own perception…but I guess that doesn’t make it any less real, does it?” She lifted a hand from her glass and reached halfway toward him. “Care for a demonstration?”

Tomura caught himself drawing away from her, his nails latching onto the sides of his neck. Cowering—great way to display his leadership skills. “What’re you going to do?”

“Oh, just tug on your arm a little. Go ahead and put it down by your side for me.”

Resisting the urge to look to Kurogiri for reassurance, he did as asked. For safety’s sake he curled his fingers into a fist.

Magne smiled. “Ready?”

According to the knot in his stomach, no, but he nodded anyway. His arm jerked and leapt up as if it were tied by a string. Tomura gasped, almost slipping off his seat. Magne caught and steadied him.

“Sorry, honey! Got so excited to show off I put a bit too much oomph into it.” She patted his shoulder as if there weren’t dead, gray hands clutching it.

“’S’alright,” he mumbled. And it was—his skin showed no marks, his muscles and joints registered no pain. He readjusted the delicate hand decorating his wrist. Cold, waxy, and pliant. Nothing like Magne.

“So, can you manipulate people’s movements? Turn them into your puppets?”

She hummed and pushed her sunglasses back into their proper place. “Not really. I can move someone with the proper amount of push versus pull, but it’s such delicate work that they could break free pretty easily. Hold out your arm and I’ll show you what I mean.”

Still making a fist, Tomura followed her suggestion. Magne positioned her hands on either side of his forearm, spread about half a meter apart. Concentration dug a V between her brows. A thrum jolted through Tomura’s bones. He startled at the rush of tingles in his elbow and shoulder but kept his balance. Something like a low electrical current pulsed along his arm, raising its pale little hairs. Eyes wide, he watched as the limb drifted from one side to the other, then up, down—anywhere the poles of Magne’s palms guided it. He could even see, feel his skin being tugged and pressed by her quirk. Taking a deep breath, Tomura drew his fist back. He met some resistance, but didn’t have to put up any real struggle.

“Weird.” He shook his buzzing fingers out. “But kinda nice. Tingly. Like an electrical field.”

Magne tilted her head and smirked. “Oh? That’s a new one. Then again, maybe I’d have heard it before if I used my quirk for something besides bashing jerks.”

What would he have done without Father hiding the fact he blushed at the slightest fucking thing? He’d never get used to talking to people at this rate.

“Your skills would be a great asset to the League, Miss Magne,” Kurogiri said, saving Tomura from having to pretend he could be witty. “I presume Giran discussed the expenses we cover? Upon joining, you would also be welcome to claim a room upstairs, should you wish.”

Magne went still. Even her breathing stopped for a moment. “You’d let me stay here?”

Tomura knew right then he’d never live down being wrong about not letting League members move into the hideout. Kurogiri would never be crass enough to say it out loud, of course. He didn’t have to. Tomura sighed, accepting his fate.

“Two members live here already, including another woman. We can introduce you to them both before you decide.”

Gaze aimed at the ceiling, Magne touched fingers to her pursed lips. “I’ve already made up my mind.” She met Tomura’s eyes, a smile lighting up her face. “Sign me up.”

Well. He had no clue whatso-fucking-ever how they’d convinced her, but results were results. Besides, she hadn’t mentioned Stain once. She deserved free room and board for that alone.

“Ah, wonderful. We’re so delighted to have you, Miss Magne.” Kurogiri steepled his fingers. “Please let me know if you require any assistance in moving your belongings. I can warp them to whichever room you choose.”

A soft laugh huffed out of her. “No need, honey. I travel light these days. Would tomorrow evening be too soon?”

Tomura shrugged. “That’s fine. I’ll make sure Toga and Dabi are around so you can meet them.” Even if he had to staple the latter to a chair to make him comply.

“Sounds like a plan.” Magne raised her glass. “To new friends then?”

There was that word again. Offered with the same ease Toga had shown. And Dabi…he’d never said it maybe but his gift had implied…well, something. Tomura touched his pocket. The weight and shapes of the items inside it. With the same hand, he picked up his own glass and clinked it against Magne’s.

“Sure. I’ll drink to that.”

[soft-glitch]

A Tale of Peaks And Void

Chapter 1: Ominous onset

Word count: about 1200 words

Summary: High up in the mountains, on the verge of an old village lives Shadow, a reclusive woodcutter who wants nothing but calm and loneliness. But as a mysterious curse starts crawling across fields and forests, his fate intertwines with a kind-hearted shepherd's in a quest to save everything they hold dear.

- - - - -

The door creaked. It always creaked of course, usually more loudly first thing in the morning when the sun barely reached the cabin to warm its solitary silhouette.

It was like a ritual to Shadow. The door would creak as it opened and he would adjust it with care, before taking a good look at the endless forest covering the landscape. Breathe in the intangible sharpness of the fog clinging to the mountain flanks. Then get back indoors and take a moment to brew some coffee and fix himself some bread and jam.

The mornings were often harsh in the mountains. A cold, misty air would seep from the dew-covered grass, made worse by facetious winds dancing along the reliefs. Shadow was used to this, his thick wool jacket a sufficient help to withstand a day of work in the forest. He did not fear the blazing sun of summers nor the fierce snow of winters.

Something was off that day, though. The hedgehog felt it right away: a subtle hint of wrongness brought to him by the breeze, like a tainted promise of bad days to come. His quills stiffened slightly as he frowned, his intuition warning him of a vague menace from faraway.

Still, he closed the door to get breakfast. The woodcutter was pragmatic: ominous feelings or not, he needed some food to get on with his day. As the coffee pot heated on the old iron stove, the mobian's thoughts wandered. To the young bear who ordered reserves for the upcoming winter. To the old baker who would always give him a smile, tired but genuine. To his forever friend Rouge, and her eternal will to make him move closer to the rest of the village.

He shook his head and focused on preparing toasts. The bat's efforts were fruitless, obviously: the woodcutter was not one to meddle with others. His life was one of loneliness and contemplation, no matter how much his friend would complain, and it was a fate he accepted long ago. The villagers were sympathetic to him and he appreciated it, but he carefully kept his distance.

The fire gently roaring in the stove reflected in the golden bracelets he always kept on his arms and legs.

It's for their own good.

- - - - -

A branch creaked. They always creaked of course, it was a common occurrence in the woods with all sorts of critters wandering the wilderness. But Shadow was akin to a hunter, senses sharp enough to pick up the faintest hints after countless days spent in nature. He knew such a branch would not break under the lean step of a small animal.

After a glance at the tree he was working on to make sure it would not fall unprompted, he turned with a small smile. Leaning against his largest axe, he faced the tall bat nonchalantly walking to him.

"Nice to see you, Rouge." The lady grinned in return, taking a moment to look at her friend up and down. At the dawn of his thirties, the hedgehog had an inexplicably charming aura despite his abrupt demeanour —and the bits of leaves and bark constantly stuck on his shirt. To her eyes, he wasted his days living like some grumpy hermit.

"Hello honey. Figured I would find you around here rather than at your house. – Of course. The cold days are coming fast, the villagers need their wood and it requires time to dry beforehand."

The bat nodded as she glanced at his payload, a cart already half-full of chopped trunks and branches. "Have you considered taking a moment for yourself lately?" she asked, rolling her eyes at the sardonic huff in response. "Surely an ale with someone would not kill you, and I'm quite sure it would delight your neighbours. – We're not neighbours." Shadow growled as he picked his axe again. "The village needs me and I need the village. It is as simple as bees and flowers living thanks to each other. Nothing less, nothing more."

Rouge sighed at the blunt statement. Her friend was not mean-spirited, he was charitable and kind even. But his solitary nature only got worse as time passed, and not for a good reason.

“Ah well.” she sighed. “I see today is not the day I will bring you out of your shelter.” Shadow simply shrugged at the words, giving a powerful but precise strike at the tree in front of him.

“Anyway,” the bat continued as she sat on a large stump, “this is not why I came to see you. I need your help.” The woodcutter stopped his axe in-air, glancing at her curiously. Rouge was the oldest friend he had —not that he had many— and he could hear the concern in her voice as clearly as a nightingale song.

“Is something wrong?” he asked, taking a step towards the bat. “More than wrong.” she replied. “A farmer came to me because his crops are getting sick. A strange illness I never heard of, that turns plants dark and brittle like they were made of ash. – This does sound worrying.” Shadow nodded. He could not remember ever seeing such an ailment.

“It's the third case in a week.” she added with a sombre stare. “All different crops from different villages. They tried various remedies but the fields simply die. It's a slow illness but nothing seems to stop it. The other healers never saw it either, nor do their books mention it.” Now this was much more troublesome. If left unchecked, such a plague could starve families and compromise next year's reserves. Shadow gritted his teeth, the uneasy feeling from earlier growing more vivid.

“Do you know where to look for a solution? – I do not.” Rouge said with a shrug. “But maybe the wise cat knows something about it, or might have a clue to a cure." The hedgehog groaned at this. He could not stand the old one. No one questioned their unexplained powers and wisdom, not even Shadow, but they were always cryptic in their answers and painfully slow to provide. Plus their house was almost two days from the hedgehog's cabin.

"And you want me to go ask them." Shadow stated, defeat already peeking through his voice. "You know the things of nature better than anyone in this village besides me. And while I can fly, you're fast on your feet." she said with a gesture to his carefully maintained shoes. "What will you do in the meantime?" he asked, looking in the direction the village lied. "Study some samples, map where the disease has spread.” Rouge joined hands in a concerned gesture. ”As a healer I can't just leave like that, especially without an apprentice to replace me. We don’t even know if the sickness can spread to mobians. – Fine. I will go tomorrow by dawn," Shadow accepted reluctantly, "just let me finish my work for today. Plague or not, mobians need fire to live on."

With a chuckle, Rouge sat up and deployed her purple wings. "I know that well, do not worry. Come see me before you leave, and oh! If you see good mushrooms, please bring them along!" she exclaimed. "Ingredients for a remedy?" Shadow asked with curiosity. "Well yes, that too, but mostly to perfect my signature stew!" she laughed before soaring through the sparse foliage, leaving the woodcutter alone with his thoughts.

His guts were full of knots as he resumed his labour. His very nature made him sensitive to the whims of fate and magical threats, and right now his whole body buzzed as if to warn him of... something.

Maybe it was a good idea to seek Big the Wise.

[shittybundaskenyer]

✹ ▬   𝐒𝐔𝐍𝐑𝐈𝐒𝐄𝐒 𝐈𝐍 𝐑𝐄𝐃

𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐈.   — 𝓖𝓻𝓲𝔃𝔃𝓵𝓲𝓮𝓼 𝓔𝓪𝓼𝓽      |     𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐓 𝟏  — The Goddess of War, Morrigan Marlowe I.

pairing: Arthur Morgan x Morrigan Marlowe (OC)

summary: She saved him and with that he saved her in return. It was a strange symbiosis, like wildflowers in a fruitless garden, alluring curious bees. He made her garden bloom.  —  Arthur Morgan thought he was done with living, but in a gentle golden sunrise, on that cursed mountain, he's rescued by a mysterious woman. 

warnings: descriptions of injuries and sickness, blood, Arthur has TB, some self-hatred and unkind thoughts

𝑁𝐸𝑋𝑇 𝐶𝐻𝐴𝑃𝑇𝐸𝑅    |    𝐴𝑅𝐶𝐻𝐼𝑉𝐸 𝑂𝐹 𝑂𝑈𝑅 𝑂𝑊𝑁

There’s a wolf. 

Between gently swaying raspberry vines and dried grass its eyes glint. Golden, with a hint of forest green. He can see it clearly, even though his vision is getting cloudy with stinging tears that are forcing their way through until they can escape from the corners of his eyes. He was never a man who cried easily but the happenings of those last few hours are starting to clear in his mind, and loneliness is slowly sinking its sharp claws into his barely beating heart. 

The wolf scents the air, maybe it smells his fear now, or the lingering gunsmoke the wind stirs towards its way. Will it rip his throat out? That would be at least quicker than slowly choking on his own blood. 

But the wolf doesn’t move like it would attack. It just watches him, cautiously stepping closer until he can feel its fur brushing the torn up knuckles on his right hand. It brushes its muzzle over the ripped fabric of his shirt where a bullet grazed his shoulder and where Micha's punches start to bruise a dark reddish purple. 

He feels blood mingling with the tears on his cheeks, a salty copper taste lingering in his mouth as he gasps for air. The wolf snarls, but not threatening, drawing closer to his face. 

Their eyes meet and the sun slowly creeps over the horizon, painting the landscape purple and golden in the early morning mist. Arthur's chest hurts, so much that he can barely catch his next breath. The wolf sniffs his face and for a second they inhale the same air. Its ears flatten, golden eyes meeting his. 

There's something in its gaze, a warmth almost, like when he would look at sunlight filtering through the canopy of a forest on a hot summer day and let it gently caress his face.

Arthur struggles for another breath, even more desperate now. He starts shaking, wrecked by sobs and pain and the need to fill his lungs with the air that is barely pushing past his throat. The wolf nudges him then, places its head between his collarbone and neck, bares its teeth and he thinks now, it will tore his flesh open. 

He tries to reach for the light fur that grows on the wolf's head but he doesn't have that power in him anymore. His hand lies limp over his stomach, absentmindedly pressing down on a wound to slow the bleeding. Not that it would mean too much. 

His vision starts to go black around the edges but it's not from the wolf's attack. It just… rests there, like it would listen to his breathing, the slowing beats of his heart, until it rises and stomps its large paw on his chest, flaring up the pain from broken ribs again. He wheezes and the wolf growls, almost annoyed. It circles him and pushes its head under his arm and shoulder and turns him to his side. It's even worse now, the pain and the lack of air, and he moves as the wolf pleases, too weak, so goddamn weak.

The wolf rams its head into his back, making him cough until a thick patch of reddened spit and phlegm leaves his mouth. He can feel blood trickle down from his nose and he retches, helpless, and spits again.

There now, he can gulp down a breath. 

It doesn’t let him rest. Hits him with its paw and nose, bares its teeth when their eyes meet after the reddened saliva dribbles down his chin. He’s too tired to do this, too weak to keep on breathing, but the most animalistic instincts of him and the wolf doesn’t allow him his final rest, not yet. So he wheezes and coughs and chokes until he calms down, until the wolf looks at him once more, with the rising sun glinting in its eyes, and rests its head on his aching chest, huffing a warm breath over his jaw. 

Sunrise paints the landscape golden and under, the misty forests a warm reddish-purple. The world is quiet, only his tired breaths are mingling with the quietly whistling wind that twists and turns around the Grizzlies and the old, crooked pine trees. A whitetail buck grazes not too far, the sunshine glinting on his antlers. He raises his head and Arthur and the wolf stare back at him until he turns and jumps, disappearing between frost-kissed blackberry bushes. 

The wolf and the sun warms him, caressing his face and pained body, gently lulling him until the sky turns into pink, purple, and then a brilliant blue. 

He can’t keep his eyes open anymore. 

 *

 When he wakes the wolf is gone but there's a woman. 

He's in a room, laying in a bed that is covered with something soft, maybe a pelt. His senses are still muddled, but they slowly creep back to him. The ache in his body is still present, breathing is still a struggle. The light coming from a hearth and a kerosene lamp is making him blink back tears, but with his hazy vision he notices the woman quietly busying herself with brewing something, and the air is heavy with the sweet smell of burning herbs. 

And then he coughs.

The coughing fit wrecks his body, makes him gasp for air between spitting up blood and choking on it. It stains the fur he's laying on, and drips down the corner of his mouth, disappearing in his beard. 

The woman drops the kettle she was holding and rushes to him, carefully pulling him by his uninjured arm to lay on his side. He spits again, the blood finally clearing from his mouth while she holds him in place with one hand and hits his back with the other until he coughs up the mucus that's choking him. 

Arthur goes limp when it's over, wheezing in painful breaths while she regards his face and the stained pelt under his head. She reaches for his overgrown hair and brushes it out of his face, her gaze meeting his. She has doe eyes that glint golden in the light of the dimmed kerosene lamp placed on his bedside. He doesn't recognize her but somehow he feels he knows her at the same time. Maybe from another life. 

"Better now?" she asks quietly while she places his hand on the bed and gently lays him back. 

Arthur tries to speak but only a tired groan leaves his lips while a string of bloodstained saliva dribbles down his chin. He tries again.

"Not much," his voice is so quiet that only a whisper of a gentle breeze could blow the words away. But she listens and lays her palm flat on his forehead. His skin is clammy there, probably the result of a fever, and she clicks her tongue disappointedly, confirming his assumption. "If—If I may ask," he rasps out, trying to be polite, even if speaking feels like being stabbed in the throat every second, "where am I, Miss?"

She pulls back her hand and glances towards the window on the far wall for a minute, where blinking stars and an inky black sky is visible through the glass, and then back to his eyes. 

"Found ya half-dead while I was huntin'. You're in my home now, up in the Grizzlies." 

Arthur just nods and closes his eyes, not having the energy to keep them open anymore. The woman pulls back for a little and when she returns he feels a cool, wet rag on his forehead, and soon after, her hands again, sneaking under his head to keep him upright while a tin cup is lifted to his lips. He forces himself to look up at her when he feels the fresh water hitting his tongue. 

She’s a bit surprised when he grabs the cup she’s still holding, his palm wrapping around hers so he can drink all of the water. When he’s done she doesn’t pull away immediately, but regards his face, the scars and blackened bruises still lingering there. The blood on his chin over an old, jagged scar. 

“Why did ya bring me here?” he rasps, every word a stinging pain to form. She looks down for a moment, at his bruised hand that carefully releases hers. The tin cup is empty. 

“Guess life ain't done with you yet.” 

That's all she says and he sighs, regretting it the next moment as his lungs try to expand, so tired, so weak. He stifles another cough into the fur he stained with blood earlier.

“You’re wrong, Miss. I’m as good as dead.” 

Her face turns a bit worried, but she tells him she saw him fighting on that mountain. That after all he did she couldn't let him die while those other men in black swarmed the place like rats to search through the dead. 

His face falls at that, a frown drawing his brows together while she watches him. He tells her that she got herself into something that could kill her. She answers with a sad, bitter smile and that she knows exactly how cruel men could be. He doesn't ask her how or why, he only nods and turns his head to the side where he can see the stars glinting silently outside the window. He knows women who met cruel fates. 

If the Pinkertons didn't find his body, they'd track him down. Milton assured him that he would be hunted to the ends of the earth until the end of time. Agent Milton was dead now, shot down by Abigail when Arthur's strength failed in fighting him off. Still, his voice whispers in his mind regardless. 

Arthur is sure that they'll hunt him down and shoot him like a dog, or make it last like they did with Mac Callander. The sick bastards .

And this woman, they will kill her too. There's no mercy after what happened, no offer for amnesty. Just a gun and a finger on the trigger. 

"If they turn up… They'll kill us, Miss."

"They can try," is her only answer.

She lifts the rag from his forehead, puts it in a bowl of water he can't see from where he's laying, but he can hear it splashing as she wrings out the cloth. The cool touch of the fabric is back in a few seconds while she rises from the chair next to him and her pinky finger accidentally brushes his scarred knuckles as she lifts up the tin cup from his weak grasp. 

Arthur doesn't feel like talking anymore.

 *

 He spends a week sweating out his fever. The woman brews him herbal teas that taste awful and knock him out cold within five minutes. She feeds him broth when he's too weak to even lift a spoon and she tends to his wounds and bruises. 

Arthur tried to refuse her help, the food she made for him, the care she gave so willingly. He never could defeat that kindness in her, however stubbornly he tried. She just gave and cared and made sure he was living day after day, not letting him succumb into that self-destructing hole he dug for himself. Arthur marveled at how such a pure soul can still exist in such a cruel world. She told him it's easier when she's alone in the mountains, and that people are kinder here than stuck up city folk. That, he agreed on. 

And now, after each passing day he feels vulnerable. He never had to rely on someone else when he was wounded or sick—he always managed on his own, even stitched his own wounds sometimes. They always left a jagged, ugly scar, but he never had to bother someone else with them. Now, he's furious. But his anger is directed only at himself, his weakness, his foolish self that got himself sick, that worked himself to the ground, that didn't die on that mountain. 

He asks her to stop once, when she's taking out spoonfuls of broth into a bowl. She doesn't understand. Arthur looks at her when she comes closer with the bowl in hand, sitting down next to him on an old wooden chair. He tries to sit up but his broken ribs protest and he sinks back into the bed with an annoyed huff. 

"Why're ya still doin' this?" he asks while she lifts the bowl to his lips. He drinks it, his body fighting, not as stubborn as his stupid mind—it fights to live, because it always fought for that. 

"'Cause you're not gettin' better."

"You know what I mean."

"We're more similar than ya think. I was in your place once. A stranger helped me, and now look at me. I live. And you'll live too," she manages to be so openly honest with him without revealing any real detail about her past. Arthur's beyond curious, but he just takes the bowl from her now, gulps down a mouthful because he feels, for the first time in a month, truly hungry. 

She watches him while he finishes the food, smiles at him when he pulls away the bowl and his upper lip and beard is smeared with the broth. She has a kind smile, a lady's smile that was not born to live in the wilderness like this. 

He wipes his mouth with the back of his palm, the ache in his shoulder flaring up like gasoline poured onto embers.

Arthur realized a few days back that she was the only person who lived here. One night, when he couldn't sleep from the nightmares and his aching chest he listened how she walked around the house, checking the doors and lighting the lantern outside, on the front porch. 

But no one was coming home in the late hours of the night. 

He asks her then, that she lives alone or her family is just away. She looks down, a hint of sadness softening her features before she can hide it behind a fake, barely there smile. They're not coming back. 

"I'm sorry."

It's not pity, not when he's lost so much too. It's more like a deep understanding, a knowledge of hidden wounds that never can heal fully. She looks at him again until their eyes meet and he's confronted with an honesty that usually only mirrors can muster. 

"It was a long time ago now," she tells him while she takes the bowl into her hands, leans back on the creaking chair. Arthur follows her movements with tired, bloodshot eyes. She looks outside, through the small window where the curtains are only half-open, the early morning sky burning behind them in a deep red and purple. 

She rises then, takes the bowl to the washbasin in the other corner of the room. She brews coffee, its familiar scent awakening a comforting warmth in his still aching chest. She offers him a cup, leaves it on his bedside to cool a little while she takes her own and steps out to the front porch, into the sunrise in red.

 *

 She asks his name the next week, when he still doesn't start to heal. Arthur answers her with a bitter smile and his name, so strange now on his tongue that still tastes of coppery blood after coughing. 

"You wanted something to write on my gravestone, ain't ya?" 

"Don't be silly Arthur," she scolds him, walks closer from the stove where she's brewing some new kind of tea. He likes how his name sounds when it rolls down her tongue. It's soft. Strange. After so many other people had said it with hate and anger, it's nice to hear it like he could be a normal person. Not a no-good ugly bastard like him. It's also nice hearing his first name, the one that is stained with a bit less blood than Morgan , the one that shines inky black on every wanted poster from Blackwater to Annesburg.

She sits beside him, on the bed this time, and she checks the cool rag that's draped over his forehead. Her hands smell like various kinds of herbs, of the outside, of the wilderness. Arthur inhales it deeply, fights down a cough while he ignores his aching chest. He misses the outdoors. It's nicer dying in a forest than a bed. It's more fitting for him, too. No outlaw deserves the warmth of a home in his last days. 

"It's still burnin'," she sighs and pulls back her hand. 

"I'm not gonna get better, Miss." Arthur turns towards the window again, where he can see the pine trees basking in the early afternoon sunlight. Frost glimmered on their branches earlier and painted the cobwebs in the corner of the windowframe a shining silver. "I have consumption."

Admitting it to her feels like a mistake, just like being in her house, eating her food, accepting her care. He doesn't deserve all this, not when he has taken so much from kind people like her before. He tried to do good in the end, he tried , but—

"I know," she nods, a hint of sadness sparkling in her eyes. "My Pa had the same symptoms. He had it as well."

He starts to understand now, the things she said about her family. He wants to ask but he bites into his lip instead and nods. She watches him for a moment, her eyes following the tired lines of his face. 

She tells him her name then. Morrigan. Arthur remembers the Irish tales and legends Hosea used to read for him when he was still young and somewhat careless and happy . A Celtic goddess, war and fate and doom and death. How fitting for him. But not for her, not when she's so gentle. She reminds him of Boadicea, another kind soul named after women of war. 

"I've seen enough death, Arthur," she whispers and she stands up from the side of his bed, walks towards the whistling kettle on the stove, but she turns back for a second to look into his eyes and say "I don't wanna see yours too."

[gideonthefirst]

we were talking about the basis of loneliness in tuc in the discord earlier and now i can’t sleep because i can’t stop thinking about it. tuc has a lot of beautiful important themes of course but i think just. at its core. it’s about loneliness.

all of the characters are so entirely on their own - sofie and pete and kug for obvious reasons, kingston because he is there for the city but can’t let the city be there for him, misty because she’s left her home and has a secret about her very being that she can’t share, and ricky less than the others but also because all he wants to do is help and he’s slowly learning that he Can’t Always.

and so tuc is about these six desperately lonely people having to learn that they cannot shoulder their burdens alone. and that’s like. it’s a pretty common theme but what tuc does that i’ve never seen before is show how nearly impossible it is to give up being alone - loneliness is natural, it’s a defense mechanism, it’s easy, and it’s so so hard to sacrifice, but they HAVE to. kugrash has to talk to david. kingston has to try again with liz and give pete a second chance. pete has to stop shoving everyone away. sofie has to reach the top and realize that there IS someone there. ricky has to die. misty has to literally be reborn.

tuc doesn’t end with found family in the way that a lot of dnd does; most of the pcs end scenes are not with other pcs. but it ends with these very specific personal relationships (pete and kingston, pete and rowan, sofie and the rats, etc etc etc) and with characters who are slowly forcing themselves to not be lonely. and it’s because of the other pcs that that’s possible, even if the end of everyone’s stories aren’t with each other

[sir-subpar]

Welcome Home (Rave/Ruave Oneshot)

*Henry Stickcat au this time. I've never really written a fic from the point of view of animals, so I'm giving it a try. Enjoy!*

   Terrence walked through the forest. The light rain wetting the ground as well as his dark fur. He wanted to go home, back to Randy, and out of this misty rain. The two of them lived in an old, abandoned, cabin. Terrence found it originally when he was cast away from his old pack. He literally became a lone wolf. He was alone for years before he met Randy, a runaway poodle. When the two first met, Terrence wasn't sure how he felt about Randy at first, his fur was dyed brightly, he didn't know how to hunt, he was loud, and he clearly wasn't used to being on his own in the wilderness. But now, he didn't want to live without Randy in his life. Over time, the two grew close. They learned from each other. Terrence taught Randy to hunt, and Randy taught him about humanity. The silly little poodle made him happy, he was a light in his otherwise dull and lonely world. He was his mate, and Terrence wouldn't trade him for the world. 

   Terrence stepped carefully, and walked slow, not wanting to slip on the wet ground. He used his nose to find his way. Always trust a wolf's nose. The rain started falling harder, agitating Terrence. He let out a huff, he was about halfway there. He'd be fine.  Terrence tried to walk under the cover of trees as much as he could, they provided little shelter from the rain, but they'd have to do. He climbed over stray logs and fallen beaches that blocked his path, the wood cracked beneath his paws. He got past the pile of wood, continuing his tedious trip home. He took another few steps, then stopped when he heard a sound. He stood still, his ears twitched, trying to hear the sound again. The rain made it difficult to focus, but he could manage. Terrence closed his eyes. He could hear each drop of water crashing into leaves, soil, rocks, and whatever else surrounded him. Focus. He needed to focus... Suddenly he heard something! A distress call. Definitely from either a small or young animal. Terrence opened his eyes. If he was lucky, he could find it, and bring it home for himself and Randy. Terrence smelled the air, trying to pick up on its scent. Then he heard it again, to the right. Terrence crouched low to the ground, ready to ambush his potential prey. He could hear it getting louder as he crept into some bushes. He was getting closer. He continued through the bushes. Ready to pounce.

"..mew!.." 

Huh?

"..mew!.."

Terrence emerged slowly from the bushes, his curiosity causing him to drop his hunting position. Reaching a clearing in the brush. Once he fully crawled out of his hiding place, he saw it. A cat-no, a kitten. It was small, with white fur. Terrence moved closer to it, no, him. Upon closer inspection, Terrence noticed something. The kitten's eyes were closed. He hadn't opened them yet, meaning he was most likely under a week old, and yet he was out here alone. Terrence looked around. No one else was in sight. No mother cat, no other kittens, no father. Nobody. "Mew…" the kitten cried again, making Terrence focus on him again. The more he looked at it, the more his heart sank. He was alone, in a world he couldn't yet see. His family abandoned him, with nothing. He was just left there to die in the cold. Left alone, unable to do anything but cry out in vain in hopes that someone, anyone would come to his aid. Terrence stood there, gazing at the poor creature before him.

This wasn't right. He couldn't leave him. Not like this.

   The wolf eventually took action. He had to. Terrence bit into the fur of the kitten, carefully avoiding the kitten's flesh, and lifted him off the ground. It wasn't hard, the kitten was tiny. "Mew!... Mew!" The kitten cried out, frightened and confused by the sudden lack of ground beneath him. Terrence continued his journey home, now moving faster. They had to get out of the rain. Hopefully Randy would understand.

…

  Terrence ran with the kitten in his grip. His home now in view. The kitten's cries had gradually quieted. Now barely audible. Terrence reached the porch of the abandoned log cabin he called home, the overhang blocking the falling rain. Terrence crawled through the "doggie door" as Randy called it. Speaking of, said poodle was laying on the couch. His head perked up upon seeing his mate back home. "Terry!" Randy jumped off the couch, running to greet Terrence. His pace slowed when he noticed the tiny feline Terrence was holding. The poodle tilted his head curiously; Terrence placed the kitten on the floor, it shook from the cold, and meowed. "I found him outside alone. He's cold." Terrence stated bluntly. Randy lowered his head to the distressed kitten and carried him to the couch. He placed the white ball of rain-soaked fluff on the couch cushion with him. He kept the kitten close, using his own fluffy fur to warm the baby feline. Terrence was surprised by Randy's lack of needing any persuasion, but thankful for it nonetheless. "Did you see any other little kittens outside?" Randy asked. "No, I didn't see anyone else. No parents or siblings. He was just alone." Terrence replied bluntly, but his tone had the slightest tinge of pity in it too. "Poor little guy.." Randy commented sadly. Terrence shook the water from his own body, wringing out his fur, then joined Randy and the kitten on the couch. "I'm kind of surprised Terrence, I never thought you'd bring home an abandoned kitten. I figured you'd just leave it or hunt it. It's sweet of you to bring him here out of the rain." Randy noted, looking at the grey wolf. "I just… I saw him out there crying for help and I… I just couldn't leave him there. Not like that." Terrence replied, his pointed ears drooping, he knew the feeling of loneliness all too well.

 "So… we're keeping him?" Randy asked. Terrence stayed quiet for a bit, then replied with his own question. 

"Can we?" There was a slight pause between them.

"Yeah… let's try it!" Randy replied, slightly excited. He wagged his tail. 

"What should we name him? Have any ideas Terrence?" 

"Hmm…" The wolf pondered as he looked at the kitten curled up against Randy's fluffy pink fur. "I've always liked the name Henry." Terrence stated, waiting for Randy's thoughts. "Henry... I like it." Randy replied. Terrence's ears perked up. "So it's settled then." Terrence leaned over to nuzzle his nose on the kitten's head. 

"Welcome home… Henry."

Terrence and Randy laid parallel to each other with Henry curled up between them, that way they could keep him warm.

"Yep, welcome home." Randy added. The two canines rested their heads on each other, and eventually fell asleep with their new feline son, who had finally stopped shaking, and was sleeping as well. They all enjoyed the warm embrace, and slept blissfully together, as a family.

[the-fae-folk]

to dozmjir: What does loneliness feel like??? im not super good at telling what emotions im feeling. they just appear like Hey! im here! no label just really vague but powerful enough to make you feel overwhelmed emotions coming through!!

(Translated from Dozmjir) Listen, little one. Loneliness is like a pool of deep water. Some are subjected to it unwillingly, being pushed by others or having nowhere else to go, some wade in of their own volition, and still others walk backwards into the water, not knowing the danger or feeling the chill until they are far from the shore. It is like seeing others play and laugh on the shore while you yourself are in the water. They might not notice you, or they might call for you to come. But you can’t come. You don’t want to. The water is so cold that it takes all you can do to stay afloat. Swimming towards the shore would be exhausting, would take so much from you when you already have so little. But you have the distant uneasy feeling that staying here will tire you as well. At first the water is deeply cold, and it can even be quite painful for some. But in time you begin to feel nothing as your body numbs to it, it might even begin to feel pleasant, normal sometimes. But almost imperceptibly your strength wanes. Is this what drowning feels like? Numbness of the mind and body? Drifting softly through a dream of water and shimmering refracted light? How long has it been since you had a breath of fresh air? How long since you saw a kindly face and a smile? Or had a hand reach for you to take? Would you even recognize them for what they are now? Or in the dream your world has become would you turn away in suspicion and fear, preferring the dark and numb calm of the depths? Is it the cold that kills you first? Or do you drown in the depths from lack of air? Difficult to tell when all has become merely misty dreams and far distant murmurings of thought. In the end, if you are not rescued or cannot bring yourself back to reality and make for the surface and shore... you will die. Some hardly notice the transition at all, like falling asleep. Others awaken when it is too late and struggle in vain to save themselves from a watery grave. You say, Little tadpole, that you have difficulty in deciphering the strange meanings of your own emotions? Know that loneliness is not the same as solitude. Solitude can be peaceful, good, and rejuvenating for some. One person might require more solitude than others to heal and recover themselves, to relax and dream. But it is far different from loneliness, for to be lonely is to despair. Despair of people, of yourself, of kindness and connection. It is to draw back in fear from genuine benevolence for fear it might lead again to hurt and torment. It is to drift away and never return, losing yourself to the cold. There is no shame in reaching out to others. Asking for help. If you cannot understand what you are feeling, then seek out a trusted friend, a teacher, or loved one. Seek a therapist who has training to recognize these sorts of things and can help you find yourself again, like a hand you take that pulls you closer to shore where you can stand again and push your own head above the water. Do not dwell in loneliness and despair, for it is poison that lulls you to quiet death of soul, mind, and then body. It may seem difficult or fearful, possibly the hardest thing you might ever do, but if you can reach out to someone and ask their help...do so. And continue doing so even if the first person doesn’t come. Never stop, for you are worth more than a watery grave, worth more than silence and empty dread in the depths. One day, though at times it may seem far and impossible, you will stumble ashore. The sun will be shining through the endlessly green canopy above and the birds will sing as the glide and swoop through the air. Wind tickles the grass and a deer contentedly gnaws at some tasty green shoots near the trunk of a tree. In the distance you hear laughter and music, and you find that if you desired it would now be easy to run and join in. As you shake away the last of the chill and the water, you find that it is warm, that the weight has lifted and you are free to run and dance and sing, and that you are no longer truly alone...even when you are by yourself.