#and the way everything came down to the rolls of the dice!! in a story with a predestined ending!!!

[sageblogsthings]

i finally finished watching exu: calamity and i’m being soooo brave about it

[hanzajesthanza]

a few of the most witcher plot-relevant and interesting things i learned from reading more interviews with sapkowski:

he originally intended the witcher pentalogy as a trilogy, but when he came down to it, he realized the time spent between the release of each book would be too long (causing people to lose interest in and age out of the series), and that each book would be very, very big. so he decided to structure the idea as a pentalogy instead, and wanted it to be called the Witcher Pentateuch, however the publisher wanted to put the Witcher Saga. and thus it was known as the saga, a name he does not like…

the events of the short stories “sword of destiny” and “something more” were initially intended to be part of the cycle—not bound with the rest of the short stories. this is owing to the fact that they are about ciri and her bond with geralt.

sapkowski was planning the witcher cycle around the time “a question of price” was being published (‘89). it was maciej parowski (as well as a fan at the time) who noticed the rising action and pointed out the idea of a hero (heroine!) being born as geralt’s surprise child, and a cycle about this hero born to the witcher. sapkowski hadn’t actually considered this before it was pointed out to him; however, he then developed the idea from there, and allegedly began to develop the cycle in this year. the very first idea of which that he had was the fight between of bonhart and the rats—a scene which would only appear in print almost an entire decade later in ‘97.

the fish soup geralt’s company makes is real and actually one of sapkowski’s specialties, something he has made a lot when he goes fishing. the recipe is genuinely his, including cahir’s hauberk which they use to strain the soup—in real life, he used gauze to strain the soup, because a colander was too much to carry with him in his equipment. this all is not particularly surprising because it is known that he fishes a lot, but it is somewhat interesting to me because he has said he usually practices catch and release. in another interview, he attests to his own cooking skills and says out of everything he cooks he’s best at making soup, particularly fish soup.

(i’ve known this one for a while, but while i’m at it!) the deaths of the characters which die in the last book were all planned, no dice-rolling involved (sapkowski often rebukes the accusations that he writes by “rolling the dice,” as if he were DMing a D&D game (which he did, actually, by the way, back in the day) ridiculing the idea that: “snake eyes popped out, so i killed them”). the deaths of the members of geralt’s company at castle stygga were very intentional as a rebuking of the “black citadel” trope. but at the same time, he says, “it was more difficult with the vampire, i admit” and there were versions of the last book in which regis survived. however, it is necessary that regis dies because it takes all of vilgefortz’ power to kill him (… so, logically speaking (although this is not D&D!) regis’ death is the primary reason why vilgefortz can even be challenged by geralt at this point—which makes me think, had regis not pulled such a stunt, vilgefortz would have killed geralt and yennefer! … this makes the line “though i mainly owe my life to…” make a lot of sense.)

[itsscromp]

Games night

Hey Hey !!!! :D, so me and bestie @callofdudes came up with this fantastic idea that was based on my headcanon of Gaz, He is definitely the best dungeon's and dragons player of the group, plus he's also underrated and underappreciated. But let's dive in shall we ??. Word count:1.5k

Gaz has always been into dungeons and dragons, ever since high school. Always playing it every weekend with his mates to see where the story goes and what mischief they can cause too. But when he joined the military he got so busy that he couldn't find the time and play a game like the good old days. Plus even trying to get the others to try and play was hard enough, Price wasn't entirely into it, Ghost was too busy and Johnny only joined to cause chaos upon chaos. But there was one person he hadn't asked. You.

"There's no harm in trying Kyle." He said to himself as he made his way to your office, you were just finalizing the paperwork you were tasked to complete.

"Y/n, can I come in ??" He knocked.

"Hey Gaz, what's up ??"

"Hey I was just wondering, the guys are busy at the moment. If you're interested, you know how to play dungeons and dragons ??"

"Oh... I don't think so. But I've always wanted to" You smiled at the offer.

"You want to play ??" His eyes lit up at that, his bestie wants to learn dnd ?? cue internal excited screaming noises.

"If you can teach me"

"It doesn't have to be anything super serious, just easy fun so you can learn." He smiled "I can teach you."

"Then let's do it, just let me file these and we'll get started."

"Alright, I'll get everything set up in the meantime."

After filing the paperwork, you headed to the barracks and found Gaz's room, he had set everything up on the floor. Dice, figurines, campaign books, character sheets etc.

"Alright, so I have a couple character sheets already made if you want to use them just to learn. Or we could help make your own, which can take some time"

"Ok, I'll just use a pre-built in the meantime and we'll make a character after." You looked through the character sheets and eye's an interesting one. A wizard ork.

"I think I'll go with this character for now" You sat down ready to start.

"Alright, so I'll give you a rundown of how it all works."

You paid attention throughout, getting a good idea of how the game works and how the characters work.

"Ok I think I've got it" You smiled

"Great !!, shall we begin ??" You never seen him this enthusiatic.

"Let's do it."

So with that, the two began your campaign, You started out in a field of meadows, with no recollection of how you got there, You even pulled off some voices.

"Who are you ??"

"I know who I am, who are you ??"

"I'm *DND character*, nice to meet you I guess ??"

Throughout the campaign, you were invested in the many twists and turns of the story, A kidnapping by a troll. The town is in shambles, with corruption on many corners. It was an absolute blast. Gaz always knows how to spice it up every time, That's why he's usually dungeon master most of the time.

"Ok I will shoot an arrow into the ork's head"

He rolled the dice and read the numbers.

"Alright... good shot, you get it right in the forehead, and you are free from danger. For now"

At this point, you were dungeon crawling and then came across treasure. Unlike most people when they see treasure, you played it smart.

"Hmm I don't know if I should take it, it could be a trap."

"Maybe you could look around and inspect it first. Just to be sure ??"

"Ok then, I look around to see if there's any traps"

Gaz hummed and rolled the dice again.

"There doesn't look to be any traps set up around the treasure, Looks like the trolls were a little too cocky this time"

"Ok then I shall take some treasue"

But like any dungeon master, they always know how to add an amazing plot twist that you would never see coming, dun dun dun !!!!.

"But something shifts behind the treasure. Looks like the trolls weren't cocky after all. They've got a giant camouflaged friend to guard their treasure." A mother fucking dragon !!!!

"Oh shit I uh, I try and tame the dragon"

"Failed. The dragon is far from friendly and protective of its treasure. It roars loudly at you, shaking the earth below, about to strike" He even did a dragon roar to add spice to it.

You knew that to get that treasure you would have to fight it, shooting arrow after arrow, even picking up a fallen soldier's sword and swinging it at the dragon, and when at the perfect moment.

"I then cast a spell on the dragon, Shattering it to nothing but bones and dust."

He rolled the dice and hummed.

"Your magic is strong, and the dragon is defeated. You live to see another day."

"Woohoo !!!"

You spent almost four hours playing the game, not bothering about the time passing or how the room got darker from the sunset, this was just too much fun. you were so invested in the story. You went so long playing that the others were wondering where the hell were you two, Reaching the barracks, they heard your voices and opened the door, seeing you two heavily invested. Johnny smiled and barged into the game, he sure as hell was joining in whether you two liked it or not.

Wha, oh hey johnny" you laughed

"Y/n is in awe as orc warrior Brock jumps, and smashes his head through a market cart as a greeting."

"Oh come on mate you cant do that" Gaz sighed

"It won't count once you reverse time. Right ??"

Sure.."

"How's the game going cave bats ??" Price smiled

"We're doing so good, I slayed a dragon !!" You said utmost proudly

"A dragon eh ??, Look at you go" Simon smirked under his mask.

"Thank you" *proud y/n noises*

Even then you continued the campaign, seeing what twists and turns you could find. Now with Brock in tow too.

"Ok... I go to the barkeep to ask for information about the latest disappearances in the village."

"The barkeep his hesitant to give you the said information."

As you thought of what to say next, along came Brock

"Brock shows off his giant muscles to the barkeep and impresses him into talking with his warrior prowess"

And it worked, with a click of his tongue. Gaz continued.

"The barkeep agrees to give you the information, satisfied with your warrior abilities."

"Good job brock"

The campaign continued leading into a dramatic and epic climax, when you and Brock were fighting this giant troll, the one responsible for the disappearances of the villagers.

"Brock takes the broken end of his blade and hacks some swings at the troll !!"

With another roll of the dice.

"It's effective, it wounds the troll but leaves your hand damaged, leaving you unable to do much more"

You thought of the next move

"Ok then *DND character* casts a healing spell that heals Brock's wounds"

Another roll

"Affective, It heals Brock's hand and he'll be able to fight again"

"But my sword is broke, what do I fight with ??"

"That's not my problem"

As Johnny thought of the next move he could do, you then stepped in with an idea already in mind, It's risky but it could work.

"I then cast another spell on the troll, but its one that I have not mastered properly yet."

Gaz was hesitant, but nether the less he then rolled the dice once again.

"Hmm, the spell if half effective and ends up taking a small tone of your stamina"

"Damn it"

The troll was gaining ground and the upper hand once again, one of you needs to make a move and end it once and for all.

"Brock looks around to try and find something to fight the troll with."

A small silence and then Gaz smiled.

"Looking around, he finds a loose tree stuck under a boulder right over the troll"

You then perked up and joined in

"I then cast a spell that fuses the boulder and the branch, giving brock a weapon to fight the troll with."

"Great thinking y/n" Gaz smiled

"Brock then uses this new weapon to then finish off the troll once and for all, hitting him right in the head."

Hopefully one last dice roll

"Effective, the troll has officially been downed and the town is now safe once again."

"Woohoo !!!"

"We did it !!!"

"Congratulations you two" Gaz smiled once again.

Johnny raised his hands to the both of you and you eagerly high five him.

"We then both return to the town were they sing and praise our heroics"

The town is thankful for your help and you two are commemorated for your actions !!"

And with that, the campaign came to an end, you had such a blast for your first time playing Dungeons and Dragons, Gaz could not be happier than he is now, He had someone to play this amazing game that he holds so dear. You made it a ritual that every weekend to play the game again seeing what new adventures you'll all get up too.

Taglist @callofdudes

[belovedstill]

emoji writing prompts

(inspired by this post)

96 prompts up to your interpretation. take literally, reverse, mix and match! (works well with taking ask suggestions, using random number generators, or rolling dice)

1-6 genre or tone:

🥰 fluff

💔 angst | sad ending | angst with a happy ending

🔞 smut | explicit | suggestive

🔍 mystery

🎃 spooky | horror

😎 crack | humor | meme inspired

+ 1-90 prompts:

🌸 hanahaki | pining | mutual pining

⌛ time travel | reincarnation | time loop | time is running out | immortality | time hijinks | this time they will do it right (do they?)

✉ epistolary | chat fic | letters | postservice au

🧙‍♂️ magic | urban magic | fantasy | be careful what you wish for

☕ coffee shop | restaurant | food industry

🩹 hurt/comfort | fix-it fic

💭 mind-melt | mind-reading | telepathy

🏳‍🌈 queer | queerer | unique queer experience relevant to exactly one person

🌊 merfolk au | stranded on an abandoned island | pirates

🍀 everything goes right | luck doesn't exist but somebody really does make it seem like it does

🥀 unrequited love | dealing with loss | grief

📆 slice of life

📦 delivery | package sent to the wrong address | swapped luggage/suitcase | there's some kind of mix-up happening | move in

🎬 celebrity | actor | PR hell | youtuber | streamer au

💻 internet | social media | bloggers | fandom au | two customers with radically different reviews on a product and they take it personally

🔪 revenge | murder | assassin

📞 wrong number | wrong address | wrong person | customer service | tech support | long distance

🩺 doctor | sick fic

⚽ sports | team | competition | challenge | dare

💍 engagement | marriage | arranged marriage | marriage of convenience | accidentally married | poorly-timed proposal

💋 first kiss | first relationship | first romantic experience | teaching one another how to Romance

👑 royalty | nobility | servant | butler | unequal power dynamic | undying loyalty

🎨 any artist au

🎁 gifts | surprise | keepsake | christmas | holiday | birthday

🤰 pregnancy | mpreg | alternative offspring acquisition options

👶 baby | kidfic | de-aged | age regression | accidental kid acquisition | single parent(s)

👥 resurrection | came back wrong | dark alternate character | came back right but everything else is changed

🦋 butterfly effect - change a seemingly insignificant detail in source material and write how it affects the story

🐾 pet au | animal transformation | pet acquisition | animal-to-human transformation | object-to-human transformation | object-to-animal transformation (you get the drift)

👻 ghost | afterlife | paranormal | supernatural | modern supernatural | mixed supernatural genes

😈 demon | a different kind of hell | pact | soul as acceptable transaction payment | the villain's in charge now

🤡 idiots in love | platonic buffoons | only one brain cell among them | they're so stupid

🏳️ surrender | hope | bargaining

❔ oblivious | didn't know they were dating | mistaken identity | amnesia | nobody remembers them

🛡️ protect | guardian | bodyguard | rescue

💼 office | workplace

✂️ separation, chosen or forced | abandoned | cutting ties

🎓 school | university | academic professions | mentor

🏠 domestic | roommates | neighbours

🧩 soulmates (ideas) | platonic soulmates | destined to be enemies | 3+ soulmates

🏖️ beach episode | change of scenery | more than 'a lot' self-indulgent

🏩 pwp | escort | sex worker | stripper | sugar relationship

🤝 found family | putting differences aside to work together

🧬 appearance/body/behaviour modification | shrunk down | made bigger

💾 found a lost disc/usb drive/notebook/diary | lost phone | decades-old journal/letters found among the belongings of a person who's no longer there

⚖️ getting justice, one way or another | rebellion | protest | doing the dirty work so others can thrive | balance | lawyers au

⚙️ android | futuristic | science fiction | physical workers | making it work

👁 obsession | abduction | kept captive | hostage | stalker | drugged | private detective au

⚠️ make it as messed up as you want | forbidden | taboo

🕳️ something is missing | unsettling | out of the corner of the eye | nearly, almost, not quite | not enough

🤞 must pretend | spy | secret identity | identity reveal | undercover | fake dating | secret relationship | fake-married | fake [insert role] | essentially, they must pretend to be somebody they're not/to be in a dynamic they're not

✨ under a spell | truth compulsion | forced to say the opposite of what they mean | a curse made them do x

🐌 slowburn | sped-up slow burn | over the years

🧸 childhood friends (to a dynamic of choice) | separated in childhood, reunited in adulthood

⚔ enemies (to a dynamic of choice) | meddling enemies | rivals (to a dynamic of choice)

🔁 transmigration | isekai | swapped places | role reversal | body swap

🔀 crossover | fusion | characters from X piece of media put in the world of the last piece of media you've enjoyed | make it your favourite piece of media from your childhood

⁉ miscommunication | misunderstanding | wrong place, wrong time

🔆 harem | reverse harem | poly relationship

🛏 bedsharing | accidentally falling asleep on one another | passing out | dream-sharing | invite to stay over

🔮 fairytale | mythology | folklore | legend | prophecy

😶 love triangle | two-person relationship/love triangle (they know each other as two people) | one-night stand turns out to be the new boss/professor/awkward dynamic

🔒 forced proximity | locked in a room | trapped together | handcuffed together | snowed in

🤲 huddling for warmth | sharing body heat | touch starved

💬 rumours | lies | misconceptions and dealing with them

💥 set off the (conflict) bomb | right before the blow-up | argument | fight | pranks

✊ superheroes and supervillains | superpowers | the chosen one(s) | deemed to be the cursed/unlucky one

🔥 rebirth | sacrifice | sacrifice of something other than their life | destruction | letting go | ritual | change

💁‍♀️ spite fic (write literally anything you like that fandom/somebody else complained about that you disagree with) aka "they're wrong and i'm going to keep having fun"

#️⃣ love at second/third/nth sight | meet ugly | annoyed at first sight | reluctant

🖤 blind date goes right | blind date goes wrong | stood up | matchmaker

🚗 travelling together | commute | road trip | hitchiking

❕ confession | interrupted confession | confessing when it doesn't matter anymore

🚫 getting what they want but not in the way they want it | not like this

🖊 doomed from the start | it was always going to end like this | it didn't have to end this way

🐱‍👤 did a crime on accident | did a crime very much not on accident

👭 doppelgangers, lookalikes | twins | they meet their alternate self from an alternate word/different time

👂 as they go through their day, they hear a voice and it's strangely familiar (oh no) | the voice in their head actually has their best interest in mind | two souls trapped in one body fighting for control

❌ the plot is trying to incite an event for them but they refuse to have any part in it and they will outrun it

🍸 alcohol/substance use | in vino veritas | choices were made and all that's left is regrets | choices were made and there are some gains actually | remembers nothing of what they did while drunk (others may be kind enough to spare no detail)

👍 support group | dealing with issues | compromise

82. 👪 meet the family | meet the friends 83. 💰 CEO | rich x ordinary | two different worlds collide 84. 🌠 rarepair! | rarer! | unlikely friends 85. ⚡ The Realisation | oh moment | oh no moment | learning something crucial yet horrifying they wish they could forget | the antagonist was right after all 86. 0️⃣ last day alive | apocalypse | they truly only have each other left 87. ✔ it was somebody's plan all along | they sure were aware the whole time it was somebody's plan all along | scheme | trap | gotcha | test 88. 🎲 choose an action for character to take and roll d20 - that's how well it goes, write it 89. ➕ anything at all inspired by an emoji not from this list sent in an ask or randomly generated 90. ® get a string of 3+ random emojis from an emoji generator (e.g. this one or this one or any other) and write a story based on them

if you're disappointed that a prompt you wanted to find isn't on the list, take it as a sign to write it 👀

and if none of these spark creativity, check out Hatch's Plot Bank with 2300+ plot ideas

screenshots of the emojis under the cut

[djarintreble]

the last in line || e. munson (part eight)

series master list

eddie munson tag list

pairing: eddie munson x fem!reader

a/n: hi friends! its been so long!! if you've seen my blog, I've been so busy with school. I'm in my last year of college and its been hectic... I plan for this series to be a good 15-20 part series so thank you for being patient with me as I balance writing with school!! thank you for all the love. Even if I haven't been active, I see all the comments and love and reblogs. thank you, I love you so much !! summary: instead of going to the game's after party, you decide to ask Eddie to take you home. he decides to show you his favorite diner on the way and you both end the night closer than expected.

tags: some mature language, discussion of drugs, so much fluff, greasy burgers and milkshake(s), dnd explained by someone who's never played, Eddie the dramatic, the end of this part is what we all have been waiting for, I forgot I was writing a slow burn oops, this is a long one so get a snack and buckle up,

word count: 6.6k, yeah I didn't know where to stop. here's my gift in return of you all having to wait so long for me to actually write. ilyyyy

The halls of Hawkins High felt eerie at night. You walked alone through the main hallway as the building seemed to shift tones. The stories of Hawkins being haunted danced in your mind as you peered down the next hallway. Nothing but a myth yet here you were curious to the secrets the walls held.

You didn’t know where you were going but you followed the sounds of laughter and occasional yelling down toward the end of hall. As you ventured closer, your nerves seemed to take over. You wondered if you were making a mistake by observing the famous hellfire club; If you messed up everything by leaving the jocks and creating social suicide earlier today. Something told you, however, no matter what happened today, you’d find yourself detaching from that group of basketball players. At least with this option, you weren’t alone. Besides, the leader of the so-called cult caught your eye and you couldn’t help but allow yourself to be drawn to him. 

The theater room came into view and you instinctively straightened out your skirt and tucked a strand of hair behind your ear before walking into whatever was waiting for you. 

Right before you stepped in, the entire table jumped up in disbelief, screaming over something that was thrown onto the table. You stayed behind the door in case you were interrupting something. 

“IT WAS SO CLOSE!”

“COME ON”

“WHY DID YOU THINK THAT WOULD WORK” 

The screaming unraveled into a mix of grumbles and muttered words underneath Eddie’s narration. 

“Well gentlemen, we all learned a valuable lesson this fine evening; don’t let Gareth make the final roll.”

“Fuck off” Gareth muttered as he gathered his dice and figure off the table. 

“Looks like you will have to wait until next week to see just how bad Gareth’s decision was to the mission. Now get outta here I got shit to do before I can leave.” He said the last part somewhat joking but still prompting them to pack up. 

It seemed that the night was over for them as well. You missed it. A part of you was upset as you were really looking forward to watching. It made sense though, some of the boys had rides that were at the basketball game so they’d have to finish. 

You finally opened the door to reveal the party. At the sound of the old creaking door, the boys turned around. 

“Hey we’re cleaning up don’t loc- Oh! Y/N! Hey! Uh- welcome to the hellfire club. Hate to say we’re just finishing up now.” The freshman, Dustin, spoke up. 

There were six boys lined up on the sides of the table with Eddie at the end, sitting on a made up throne. When you finally locked eyes with him, the look he was giving you was hard to read. It was almost a smirk with a hint of intrigue. He was leaning back in the chair with one foot propped up and his arms held onto the armrest of the chair as he stared at you. You haven’t seen him this confident or relaxed before. 

“I’m sorry I missed, I thought I’d at least be able to see the end. The game went on longer than I thought.” you said as you gained the confidence to walk further into the room.

“It’s alright, princess.” A few days ago, you’d roll your eyes at his mocking nickname but it was growing on you. “How was the game?” He spoke over the collection of noises made by the boys packing up as if they weren’t there. It was just you and him. 

“Besides getting pushed down at the end of the halftime dance, it went well. We won.” you shrugged. 

“You got pushed?” Dustin asked with a tone of concern. Gareth held back a laugh and the other boys let out mumbles of concerns and annoyance toward the jocks. 

“I’ll get used to it. I did it to myself when I decided to join your table at lunch.” 

“Still don’t understand why you did that.” Eddie said quietly. You wrapped around the table over next to where Eddie was sitting. He leaned back more into the chair and you couldn’t help but admit to yourself that he looked quite nice with this view. You shook the thought from your mind and put your hands on your hips. 

“They were talking shit. That’s not my thing. I’d rather hang out with people that don’t make a joke out of me.” You trailed off at the end but Eddie caught on to what you were saying. He sat back up from the throne and looked at you with a face of concern. 

The boys began to trail out, reading the room. They whispered among themselves bets between the two of you and what Eddie meant earlier by things to do; thinking, knowing it involved you. He wouldn’t admit it, you couldn’t see it, but they saw just how smitten he was over you. 

“Did they say something about you? Is that really why you left?” He asked quietly. You shrugged.

“Something about you only wanting me around for your virgin sacrifices.” You rolled your eyes. You knew it wasn’t the case, in fact, in reality, it was them that only wanted you around because you were new. But as you’ve told yourself, and they would soon know, new doesn’t equal naive. 

“They got some goddamn nerves.” He muttered as he got up. He started folding up his screen along with the books and binders that created a barricade on the table. It was the first time you got a good look at the table. A fictional map was laid out across the table along with collections of dice and figurines. Drawings that presumably were drawn by Eddie himself scattered around. “I’m sorry, Y/N.”

“So this is Dungeon and Dragons…” You began, changing the subject. You dragged your finger across the map and lingered over a particular drawing. It was of a creature, you couldn’t name, but it wore a rugged robe and was missing an arm. It had shriveled skin that almost made it look skeleton-like. Some sort of red magic or flames surrounded him in the drawing. “Did you draw this?”

You looked back up toward Eddie who stopped packing up to observe your reactions to the table. He was looking for any sign of judgment or you being weirded out at one of his passions. Instead, you gave him a look of awe and curiosity. He put his weight onto one side and crossed his arms across his chest. His confidence returned once he settled for your reaction. 

“Maybe,” he shrugged.

“I didn’t know you could draw. This is amazing. I don’t even know what it is but I’m just impressed it was made by you.” You smiled at the metalhead as you picked it up and gave it to him to pack. 

He wasn’t used to someone acknowledging his drawings. Let alone complimenting them. Sure his uncle always said he was an artist, his fridge covered in doodles created by a younger Eddie, but hearing it from someone else was different. Even the club treated his art as accessories to the campaign and was too involved in the story to process the hours it took for Eddie to draw and shape such props. He never took it to heart, he liked that it was a more private hobby. He was trying to justify why he felt this warm feeling inside. It was because of his art, not the person complimenting it. But that was a lie. One he was all too well learning to master. 

He didn’t even know how to admit such a thing; The fact that he loved hearing how you spoke lighter and faster when you praised his art work or recognized a song or artist he loved. The fact that he was definitely falling for you and he doesn’t know how else to express it than to just ignore it. He wasn’t prepared for this, no more than a test in Mrs. O'Donnell's next week. At least that one came with a study guide. 

“I dabble.” He remarked before taking the drawing from your hand. “This is Vecna. He’s the main villain of this campaign. He was killed by the hands of Kas early on in the story. See, what they don’t know is that he will return next week and they have to try and defeat him once again.” He had to stop himself from explaining in heavy details of why and how. He would refrain until he’s had time to sit and teach you the basics of the game. 

“And you write these stories?” You asked, impressed with how much time and dedication this took from Eddie. 

“Yeah, well they have overall lore and storylines you can follow but really the story unfolds as we go. That’s what most of the fun comes from.” He smiled. 

“And if I played, I could be a princess?” 

“We can make that happen.” Eddie smiled. It made his heart swell knowing you were intrigued by it.  

“So hey… there’s this after party happening at Andy’s.” You began as you helped pick up some of the figures on the table. Looking up, you saw Eddie give you a trivial face. “I realized I’m not one for parties and my supposed ride is going. So if you’re not doing anything, I was wondering if you could give me a ride home? I'm starving. We could grab some food as well.” 

The boy’s face softened. You were choosing him over them yet again. He laughed quietly and shook his head. You caught on and giggled softly. 

“What?”

“I just- you’re something else, L/N. You really are.”

“What do you mean?” You asked, giving him the last of the figurines as he placed it in his bag. Eddie stared at the bag with a smile before looking back up at you. 

“You could be anywhere tonight. Hawkins just made it to the championship and they’re all out celebrating but you’d rather hang out with me. I just don’t get it.” 

You frowned at the idea Eddie didn’t think he was worth your time. He was in fact someone you considered a friend. If there was one thing for certain in your short time here in Hawkins, you had two real friends. Chrissy and Eddie. An odd bunch for sure but everyone else were merely acquaintances when they weren’t pushing you during half-time shows or mocking you at lunch. Why would you want to spend your time getting drunk with a bunch of fake jocks when you could hang out with someone who actually got you. Someone who sparked your love to explore music. Someone who saw you as more than a new face. Of course he was worth your time. 

“So is that a no?” you teased. His eyes shot wide and he was quick to recover.

“N-no! I mean yes, no- ugh” he cleared his throat. Never did he ever feel this awkward at this table. This table made him feel like a king. You were his kryptonite. “No, I would love your company. I didn’t have anything going on myself. I am starving. Do burgers sound nice? I can introduce you to the best diner in town.” He looked back down picking up the last of his items in order to avoid eye contact and the possible rejection. 

“That actually sounds perfect.” You smiled. He couldn’t hide the smile that came along with your acceptance. 

-

It was a fair drive to the diner that consisted of a few songs from Black Sabbath’s master of reality album. One he told you was a short but classic set of songs to add to your music library. You caught yourself nodding to ‘Into the Void’, which proved his point. 

The diner resided on the outer part of town. You noticed Eddie tended to be attracted to these smaller hole-in-the-wall places and it made sense. You could see the appeal. It was those kinds of places where popular locals avoided and the same ones found their way back again. People like Eddie who liked to know everyone by name and they knew him by his. Where they knew his order and it was already being made the second they heard the bell ring at his arrival. It was a comfort, it was familiar. This was what this diner resembled. 

The letter “n” was not lit, making the sign spell out “CRYSTAL’S DIER.��� Two cars occupied the lot in addition to Eddie’s van. It made sense as it was right after 8. 

After the reoccurring excuse of the broken door handle, Eddie opened the passenger side for you and followed as you entered the place. The smell of grease and salt filled your senses. Soft music played from the old jukebox in the corner. The floor had the black and white checkered tiles that clashed with the purple and blue run down wallpaper but it still somehow made sense for a place like this. Whoever Crystal was clearly didn’t have the skills for interior design, seeing they made their way into the food business. Only time would tell if that was a good choice. 

“Well if isn’t it Mr. Munson?” a shorter lady stepped out of the kitchen in a light yellow dress. Her white hair tucked into a hair net and paper hat. Makeup painted her face but didn’t hide the years of smiles that made her wiser. She placed the coffee pot that was in her hand down on the counter before wrapping around and making her way toward Eddie. “I was about to go find your old uncle to check up on you. How are you doing, son?” 

“I’m doing good, Ms. Crys.” his voice at an unfamiliar pitch. She pulled him into a hug to which he gladly accepted. The height difference made Eddie bend his knees and lean over which put him at an awkward angle. She kept him in this hug for a few seconds before realizing your existence. 

“And you finally brought a friend. I was getting tired of serving for a party of one.” She playfully elbowed him. He dramatically rubbed his arm with a frown.

“I have brought people here before, Crys. Stop making me sound like a loser.” 

“Hello, doll. I’m Crystal but everyone calls me Crys. You must be new in town, I never forget a face.” 

"I’m Y/N. It’s nice to meet you. I just moved in last week.”

“Well it’s a pleasure, sweetie.” Crys led you to a table in the corner that had a wrap-around booth. Eddie and you made your way into the booth and scooted in so that you both sat with only the corner of the table separating you two. It gave you both an angle to see out into the diner and look back up at Crys, who waited for you two to get situated. “I’m taking it that Eds here is treating you right? If not, I’ll take care of it.” 

A nervous laugh came from your left as you caught a glimpse of Eddie fidgeting with the napkins Crys just dropped onto your table. It was unusual seeing Eddie this flustered. It contrasted with the cocky persona he inhabited when you first met. It made you wonder if things would have been different if this was the side of him you saw from the beginning. When thinking about it, you in fact did that very first time. The moment when you pointed out the Dio shirt that he hand sewed into his denim jacket. For a split second, you caught him off guard. That was when you first saw this side of Eddie. It was when he was trying to avoid you that the other persona took place. It was his attempt to push you away. Clearly it didn’t work. 

“Yes, ma’am.” You laughed as you gently nudged Eddie and gave him a smile before looking back at Crys. “He’s been showing me all the good places in Hawkins, including your diner.” The smile she gave you in return was different than before. This one revealed more wrinkles around her eyes. That comment must have meant a lot to her. 

“Well in that case… dinner is on the house tonight. Order whatever you would like, sweetie.” She tapped the table with her notepad before walking away. 

With that you grabbed a menu, suddenly aware of how hungry you were. You looked back up toward Eddie who just stared at you. 

“What?” you whispered, smiling in curiosity toward the metalhead. His grin widened and he simply shook his head. He picked out a menu himself and shrugged before hiding his face in it.

“Nothing.” he said, nonchalantly.

“Eddie”

“hm?”

“What?” Reiterating as you laughed and kicked at his feet from under the table. At that, he placed the menu back on the table to look at you. You saw the hesitation in his eyes before he rolled them. 

“The cheeseburger is a must. Ask for the diner special and she puts this sauce on it that just-“ he sighs in satisfaction. Words unable to describe the effect of this special sauce. 

“What is it?” you asked, laughing at his actions. 

“I don’t know, Ms. Crys says it’s a secret. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was simply cocaine, it’s addictive.” He picked back up the menu and lightly tapped it against the table as he looked back around the diner. 

The joke reminded you of the favor Chrissy asked you earlier that week. You have yet to tell Eddie that she was hoping to deal with him. The main reason being was that you hoped she changed her mind, It just didn’t seem to be a good combination with what she described she was dealing with. Secondly, you forgot about it every time you’ve interacted with Eddie this week. Your mind was… usually occupied whenever you’ve talked to the boy in front of you. Part of you even forgot about his side job; it only being mentioned by the Hawkins basketball team. 

“Now it’s my turn to ask what’s going on in that head of yours.” He got your attention. 

“And I’m guessing I’m not allowed to change the topic like you just did?” You teased. 

“Nope. Spill it, L/N.” He leaned back into the cushioned benched, raising his arms up to rest his head in his hands. His relaxed and confident side reappeared. 

“That just got me thinking of something I’ve been meaning to ask you.” Your laugh became more nervous, not knowing how bringing this up would go. 

“What? Cocaine fries?” He almost snorted at his own joke. You rolled your eyes, barely trying to hide your grin.

“Well the first part. You know- your business.” You didn’t mean for it to come out as awkward as it did but here you were. The last part was said quieter than you meant to. 

“Where I sell drugs, yes. That business.” He nodded. 

“Yes. That business. I was wondering about a deal- n-not for me. no. uh I’m not into all that. It’s uh- for a friend.” You didn’t know why you couldn’t get it out any less awkwardly. It wasn’t everyday you pitched a drug deal for a friend. 

“Y/N, if you wanted to smoke, all you had to do was ask. Free of charge with me.” Eddie laughed, clearly amused. He shifted his weight to where he leaned more forward, placing his arms on the table and tilting his head toward you. “But if it’s for a friend… How can I be of service?” 

“It’s for Chrissy.”

“Chrissy?”

“Yes, Chrissy. She uh-“ Before you could finish, you were interrupted by the now familiar sound of a notepad hitting the table and the lingering presence of an expensive perfume. 

“So did I give y’all enough time to figure out what you want? Dave is getting bored back there in the back and threatened to leave if I didn’t give him another order to work on.” She rolled her eyes with a hint of amusement. 

“Wouldn’t want to leave Dave getting paid for nothing do we?” Eddie spoke up, giving his menu one more tap against the table before sliding it toward Crys. “I’ll have my usual. Thanks, Mrs. C.” 

“You got it. Chocolate milkshake and double burger-” She trailed off as she wrote down his order. “And you, sweetheart?” She asked.

“I’ll take a chocolate milkshake and the cheeseburger-“ You looked over at Eddie with a smile. “And can I get the diner special?” 

“Why yes, glad to know Eds here is endorsing it still.”

“He said the sauce is a secret.” You smiled, intrigued for her response.

“Nah, I’ll tell you. As long as he’s not around.” 

“What?” Eddie gasped, offended by her answer. “I’ve known you my whole life. You’ve known her for 15 minutes and she gets the secret diner special recipe?” He imitated getting stabbed in the chest and dramatically fell over in the booth. “I have been betrayed.” He croaked out from under the table. 

Mrs. Crys rolled her eyes, clearly used to his dramatic flair he tended to have sometimes. “Oh get up, Eddie. I’ll let her know so she can make it for you long after I’m gone and you can bother her about the recipe. I’m simply passing the ropes here.” She joked. You laughed along but also questioned her exact meaning behind that. 

“This kind of betrayal strikes right to the core.”

“Save it for you games, I’m gonna go get started on that food for ya.” Crys laughed as she walked away, yelling at Dave in the back to start on the patties.

“I will never forgive you for that.” Eddie shuffled back up in his seat. He cleared his throat and looked back at you seriously. “So Chrissy Cunningham.” He started.

“Oh yeah, she uh… she’s been getting these really bad headaches apparently. She said she’s also been having these intense dreams and not able to sleep? The medicine she’s been using hasn’t been doing the trick so she was wondering what you’d have that would help her calm her nerves and maybe help with that.”

“Mhmm…” Eddie sounded concerned. 

“I told her I didn’t like that idea. She wanted me to ask so that Jason wasn’t made aware and I don’t know if drugs is the answer. I want her to go to a doctor but she also said that’s a no. Something about her mom…But she’s my friend and I wanted to see what you thought.” 

Eddie also could see the problem with this. He understood distracting from the pain. He usually would never turn down a client. But there was something about the situation that didn’t sit right with him. He also didn’t like the idea of this particular client’s boyfriend finding out. 

“I’ll meet with her and give her a small dosage of the good stuff.” 

“The good stuff?”

“The good stuff.” He smirked. “It’s harmless and she’ll probably not even like it. But just to make her feel better. If she comes back for more, then we’ll figure something out for her.”

“Are you sure?”

“Business is business.”

“Promise me you won’t give her anything crazy, Eddie.” Part of him wanted to be offended by that comment but he had to remember that you were already stressed to bring this up and you were simply being concerned for a friend. He knew you knew he wouldn’t. You just needed reassurance you weren’t doing the wrong thing by bringing this up. 

“I might like the money from it, but I still have boundaries when it comes to my clients. I know a cry for help when I see one, trust me. I wouldn’t give her anything she couldn’t handle.”

“Okay good.” Relief poured over you. It didn’t help that you were not familiar with the whole drug dealing business. The number of church camps and awareness you’ve seen throughout your life always scared you away from it. You almost felt embarrassed with how you were acting toward the whole situation. 

“Just figure out a good time she’d want to meet and I’ll make sure it’s in a secret place so Jason won’t find out.” He said, his tone more serious than before. He didn’t like the idea at all. Chrissy turning to this was way more than just headaches and weird dreams. He would know. There’s a reason he turned to them himself. 

“I’ll let her know. Thank you, I’m sorry I am so awkward when it comes to that.”

“Drugs?” He said in a mocking tone. “Crack? Marijua-“

“Stop making fun of me.” You laughed. “I get it, I'm naive or whatever they say.” 

Eddie just gave you a lazy smile, thinking about the fact that he’d never imagine discussing a drug deal with a particular pastor's daughter. Sure he dealt with church kids all the time. They were usually his best clients, as reputable as Jason. Something about sitting here with you as you tried to keep hush about it made him almost fall over in this stupid feeling he’s been getting familiar with. He was a bad influence for the pastor's daughter… but he couldn’t help that it looked so damn good on you. 

If anything, you were a bad influence on him. He’d quit dealing on the spot if you asked him to. He’d walk into Sunday service and even thank God for you. He’d do that and more if it meant getting to keep you close. This feeling, this type of chemistry was one he was not used to. Better yet, one he didn’t believe he deserved. It being handed to him so freely was a shock of its own. You haven’t walked away yet. Maybe you wouldn’t have to. 

“No, you’re different.” 

“Is that a bad thing?”

“Not at all. You’re just the kind person I- Hawkins needs.” He said. 

“Oh good.” You said softly. 

Silence fell over the both of you. The jukebox was playing a song with occasional cuts in the track that seemed to harmonize along with the sounds of the kitchen and muffled dialogue that you assumed was between Dave and Crys. There was only one other person in the diner and it was an older man who sat up against the bar sipping on the same cup of coffee since you both entered. It was a good kind of quiet. The kind that you wish you had access to more often. The kind that made it easier to think. 

All you could think about right now was the boy in front of you and how much you wish you could ask him what he meant by you being the kind of person HE needed before he changed it to all of Hawkins. You wished but you knew it would encourage a conversation you weren’t ready to have. You had to remind yourself you’ve only known him for about 2 weeks. Not 2 years. And you also had to be okay with the thought that maybe… maybe he didn’t feel the same. 

The silence was broken by Crys who sat her tray on the table. Greasy burgers and fries were still steaming from the kitchen. It distracted you from the fact that she only put down one chocolate shake. 

“Yeah sorry about that, kids. There was only enough stuff to make one shake. But I brought two straws. I figured you wouldn’t mind.” She winked over at Eddie who returned the gesture with a blank face. 

“Oh that’s alright. I can take a water and let Eddie have it.” You said, trying to ease the tension you felt from Eddie’s side of the booth. 

“Nonsense, Y/N. I’ll just get a Dr. Pepper.” Eddie added.

“How about this… Share the shake and I’ll get you your other drinks. You are making this too complicated.” Crys rolled her eyes, annoyed that her little trick was spoiled.

As she left, you both looked at each other with wide eyes. A silent gesture seeing who would take the shake first. 

“Well if you won’t, I will.” Eddie shrugged and grabbed the shake, putting his straw in it and taking a big sip. “Ahhh” he sighed and sat it back on the table. 

“Well now I feel like I’m missing out, hand it over.” You replied, taking it and using your own straw to try it. 

It really was a good chocolate milkshake. 

“I see what you mean.” You took another sip. “This is one hell of a shake.” 

Eddie laughed and began to eat his meal. You picked up your own burger and tried it. The sauce was the perfect touch along with the melted cheese and greasy patty. A diner masterpiece. 

The meal was enjoyed in silence. Besides the back and forth sips on the milkshake and a loud slurping noise coming from Eddie, you both went back to being in your heads. 

It took everything for Eddie not to think of this as a date. Especially when Crys pulled the milkshake trick. He’s seen her do it before. He would be lying if he said he didn’t think of it being a date before they even walked into the diner. He was careful with what he said and made sure to pay attention to see if any part of you was uncomfortable with the situation. All he could read on your face was contentment. Maybe it wouldn’t have to be said. Maybe you thought this was a date too. He would settle with a silent agreement. 

“Well, it’s getting kinda late. I better take you back to your place before your dad burns me at the stake.” He laughed, digging into his pocket for his wallet. 

“Wow I didn’t even think about the time. Yeah we should get going.” You also went to dig through your purse for some cash before Eddie jumped up and walked to the counter and gave Crys some money. 

“I thought dinner was on the house. Now I feel bad. Here take thi-“ You went to give him some cash before he pushed your hand back and shook his head. 

“Don’t worry about it. That was her tip anyways. Equals to the meals. Shall we?” He motioned to the door. You scooted out of the booth and walked toward the door. 

“That was really nice of you.” 

“The least I can do for all she’s done for me and my old man.” He smiled back toward you. “Bye Mrs. Crys, don’t work too hard.” 

“Bye Eddie, tell your uncle to come see me sometime. I’ve missed his pretty face.” She stopped to greet a new customer who sat at the booth before acknowledging you. “Bye hon, it was nice to meet you. Welcome to Hawkins.” 

“Thank you. It was nice meeting you!” You replied. You both began to leave and before the door shut, you heard Crys yell out “one chocolate milkshake coming up!” 

Eddie opened the so-called broken door for you to hop into his van so you could head back toward your place. You had a gut feeling you might be in trouble for how late it was but also there was a part of you that didn’t care. This night was worth it. 

The sound of the ignition starting pulled you out of your thoughts and you gave Eddie a big smile as he pushed the cassette back into the player. It began where it left off, a new song beginning. A gentle guitar solo crescendoed in which contrasted with the song that previously played. 

The van pulled out of the parking lot and began down the dark road that was surrounded with trees. You remained quiet as Eddie began to sing along with the song.

“My name, it means nothing, my fortune is less. My future is shrouded in dark wilderness. Sunshine is far away. Clouds linger on. Everything I possessed, now they are gone. They are gone.” He sang under his breath, tapping the steering wheel like a drum. 

This was probably your favorite version of Eddie. It made you happy when he would get lost in his music. It was a part of him, he didn’t even have to think about the lyrics or the pattern of the drums. He just knew it. All those hours he spent alone with headphones over his ears and his head stuck up next to a cassette player were shown on his face when a familiar song began. His whole body would relax. You couldn’t help but smile watching him as he drove down the empty road, singing mindlessly. You felt honored to know he felt comfortable revealing that side of himself to you. 

“Like the view?” He finally spoke up, acknowledging your stare. The smile he gave you as he peered over was cocky. 

“Yeah, actually.” You responded. 

“Oh.” Is all he responded with a hint of surprise in his voice. He was thrown off by your honest answer.

“I like seeing this side of you.”

“What do you mean?” He asked, his voice softer than before. Eddie usually didn’t care what others thought of him, or so he told himself. Your opinion, however, was slowly becoming one of the most important ones. 

“I’ve only seen you like this with your club and Mrs. Crys or Randy from the music store. Then around other people you try to act all- well the way you were around me when we first met.” He laughed. 

“And that was?” He entertained.

“You were all ‘Hi I’m Edward Munson. Yeah I’m a freak so what- Social conformity, Devil this- that,I don’t care, Hey princess, don’t talk to me. I’m a pain in the ass.’” You said in a deeper voice, attempting to sound like the metalhead. 

“Wow I really am a pain in the ass.” Eddie shook his head. “And I sound stupid.” He laughed along with your antics. 

“Shut up, that’s what you were trying to be but that’s not the real you.” 

“I was a pain in the ass though.” He restated. The van pulled into your driveway and he turned off the headlights as you both continued talking. You took off your seatbelt and shifted over to face Eddie more, him mirroring you. 

“You were.” 

“And now?” He leaned his head against the back of the chair as he looked at you with sincerity. The movement allowed the one light outside to shine right on his face, making his brown eyes shimmer slightly and his curls highlight the frame of his silhouette. 

“Not anymore.” You smiled at him. “You are one of the only good things I look forward to since moving here.” 

That statement alone was enough to make Eddie’s chest burst. He wasn’t used to being a person someone actually looked forward to seeing. Sure he had his little sheep who followed him around. They were growing on him; little Dustin began to feel like a little brother lately. 

Sure his band depended on him. But man, it was different hearing you say that he was considered a good thing to look forward to. 

“Oh- T-Thank you.” He started fidgeting with his rings. 

“Seriously, Eddie. You have a big heart. You’ve managed to find all these people in Hawkins that feel misunderstood and make them feel seen. Those kids in your club look up to you. Crys, Randy, they care for you. That’s the real you.” 

“Making me sound like some kind of hero.” He laughed, still looking down at his rings. 

Without thinking you reached over and grabbed his hands to make him look up at you. The heat of his hands contrasted with your cold fingers. His wide eyes followed yours. 

“You better believe me here, Munson. You’re a good guy. Take the compliment.” You leaned back over to your seat, letting go of his hand. The lack of heat suddenly becoming unbearable. 

“Thank you, Y/N. It’s good to hear it sometimes.” He said, honesty laced in his voice. 

“And what about me?” You smirked. Eddie smiled and looked away before looking back at you. “Am I who you thought I was? What’s your verdict?” The attempt to lighten the situation succeeded. His dramatic sigh reassured you. 

“You are not who I thought you’d be. I saw they knew you and I wasn’t going to even give it a chance. But you’re not like them. I tried to stay away from you but you kept coming back.” He rolled his eyes, jokingly. “I was an idiot for trying to push you away in the beginning.” 

“I thought you hated me.” You laughed. 

"I didn't hate you.” 

"No?"

"I was intimidated by you...never would I have thought a nice, pretty girl like you would want to be around me.” 

oh. 

Eddie waited for an answer. Surely he read the van properly. You both were being honest and well- he had to be honest with himself. 

“I-“ a light flickered out of the corner of your eye. You glanced over to see a silhouette moving from your kitchen and the light flickered again revealing your father looking out. He was signaling you to come in. That gut feeling of this not ending well for you came back. “I gotta go.” 

“Right… Here let me get the door.” Eddie jumped out, walking around the front of the car hoping his face didn’t reveal how he really felt. Discouraged by your response and the wonderful timing of your father. Nevertheless, he had to stick to the broken door story and now he was being watched. Your dad needed to know that Eddie was a good guy. So he’d show just that.

When Eddie shut the door, you used that time to groan and cover your face as you wanted to yell at how that scene played out. You know how Eddie might take that. 

The door opened and Eddie gave you a small smile before walking next to you toward your door.

“You don’t have to walk me to my door, you know.” 

“I know.” He shrugged. 

“Thank you, Eddie.” 

“For what?” He raised an eyebrow.

“For being you. I like being around you… more than you think.” You smiled at him before reaching up and giving him a small kiss on the cheek. “Goodnight, Eddie.” 

The boy was frozen. He was replaying your small gesture over and over in his head as he stood on your porch. You kissed his cheek and he did nothing but stand there with his eyes wide as you opened your door and stepped inside. He should have pulled you in for a real kiss, maybe kiss your forehead. He could still feel the impression your lips made onto his cheek as he walked back to his car. A sense of comfort and relief laid over him as he drove back to his shared trailer with his uncle in complete silence. 

You, however, had little time to replay what you did because the second you walked in, your dad cleared his throat from the kitchen. 

“Hey dad.”

“Carver’s boy called the house about an hour ago concerned because you were supposed to go to some celebration dinner but didn’t show up with your ride. I expected you’d find a way home. I didn’t realize you’d come back very late in that boy’s van.”

“Dad, I promise I was in better hands-“

“I told you I don’t like you hanging around him.”

“I know but-“

“I know we just moved here and you’re having a difficult time with being new, but you are an influence on this church and I don’t want this falling back on you.”

There it was.

This sort of expectancy to act as if everyone was watching your every move. Well... they were. But why did that mean you'd have to stay away from the people that are socially unacceptable. It broke your heart that even your father, a man who use to claim everyone was capable of good, would sit here and tell you to stay away from someone. The people he praised were the exact people that needed to be exposed for their double life.

This was your biggest struggle when it came to your dad's profession and your own beliefs. Why was it that the good looking people with bad intentions always get the spotlight when there was people like Eddie who had no real intention of hurting or destroying anything? Why was he seen as someone to avoid, unworthy of change, judged? Why were people like Jason praised and seen as someone worthy of everyone's time and respect?

What was worse was the constant expectation that you, too, were to align with this. No, you didn't want to. Why did you have to walk away from a good friend in order to please those who had a better eye to the public? Wasn't that the exact opposite of what you were raised to do?

You wanted to walk away. Go up to your room and ignore this discussion. Bite your tongue and save it for another day. But you couldn't. Not when you just kissed the boy, who is claimed to be a bad influence, on the cheek. You chose him. He was your friend. Maybe you would be the first to actually stand up for him when others chose to do what was "right" and walk away.

"You don't want it to fall back on me? Or fall back on you, dad? Maybe my influence isn't such a bad thing. He's a good guy. I wish you would trust your daughter on this... not some pastor's son who is definitely not at a celebratory dinner right now." You left him with that as you turned away to walk up to your room.

You chose Eddie the second you left the lunch table that day, you weren't going to walk away from him now.

-

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[legolasbadass]

The Shadows Which Fire Throws

Summary: Thorin thought he had lost everything when the dragon came and forced the dwarves of Erebor out of their homeland, but when his brother Frerin perishes in the climactic battle in their years-long war against the orcs, Thorin discovers the true meaning of loss. A few years after the Battle of Azanulbizar, Thorin travels from village to village, seeking work as a blacksmith so he can help support his family. One day, he catches young boys playing near the forge, and the sight brings back memories of his childhood in Erebor and his brother, whom he misses dearly.

Relationship: Thorin & Dís & Frerin

Rating: G

Word Count: 2.5k

A/N: This is my entry for @thorinsspringforge! Thank you to my amazing friend and partner for this event @lathalea for all your support and feedback. She created a wonderful moodboard (see above) for the event, so make sure you give her some love for that❤️

The fire of the forge burned in Thorin’s eyes as he swung the hammer down on the anvil with such force that he felt the blow reverberate through his body. Another day of work. Another day of enduring suspicions from Men. The skills of the Dwarves were revered in all Middle-earth, but the Dwarves themselves were looked upon with disdain—like a foreign curiosity that did not belong in this part of the world. 

Thorin, once the heir to the most powerful kingdom of Dwarves, was now forced to wander the villages of Men and beg for work. An ache stabbed his chest as the sight of Erebor returned to his mind, unbidden. The halls bathed in golden light. The roaring fires and the songs of the blacksmiths echoing through the forges. Thorin tried to banish the memories by focusing on the task at hand—by reminding himself that he was but a blacksmith now and Erebor was lost, but that only reminded him of just that—everything he had lost. With each blow of the hammer, images of his homeland tore at his soul. But working as a blacksmith was the only way he managed to feed his family, so he swallowed back the pain and carried on. 

It was spring now—but that hardly mattered. It was always warm in the smithy, and Thorin cared not for the little things which made the passing of seasons so marvellous to ordinary folk. Leaves turning to fire and gold and coming to rest on the forest floor. A blanket of glittering snow enveloping the land. Flowers waking from their sleep, bathing in the morning mist. It only reminded him of how quickly his life was slipping by him. And Thorin did not want to be reminded of that. 

Outside the dark smithy, the village carried on as it always did. Farmers visiting from nearby lands and stopping at the dilapidated inn around the corner for a pint or two. Carts rolling on the muddy streets toward the market, where bakers and butchers and even a weaver or two sold goods to their neighbours. Travellers seldom stumbled upon this corner of the world. It was forgotten. A mere shadow of what it had been in days of old.

Just like him.

On the other side of the narrow street from the smithy was a group of young boys. They were playing a game involving dice Thorin knew from his childhood. Thorin found that fascinating—how children of different races, in all corners of the world, played the same games—but he might have found more joy in the sight if it did not remind him so much of his late brother. 

Frerin had been such a lively boy, always pranking his siblings—and unsuspecting adults. Always smiling and laughing. Thorin supposed he must have been that way, too, once. At least, that was what the stories his mother had recounted and his memories told him. But he often felt like those memories did not even belong to him. They belonged to another life. And now, only the cracks in his heart remained as proof that once, he had been that young boy. Full of life. Full of hope. Even his body sometimes did not feel like his own. His mother used to say that there was honour and glory to be found in scars, for they marked a warrior’s victories. Thorin’s body was a map of all the fights he had survived, yes, but there was nothing glorious about it. It was a reminder of all the people he had lost—all those he had failed to protect. 

The sun was rising, lighting the mountains on fire, as the dwarves made their final approach toward the Dimrill Dale. Toward the last battle of this terrible war that had already cost them countless lives. The other houses of dwarves had sent troops to aid the Longbeards from all corners of Middle-earth. Before they marched upon the gate, King Thrain spoke to the soldiers ahead of the battle. He spoke of avenging the late King Thrór, Thorin’s grandfather, and of reclaiming the halls of their forefathers. He spoke of honour and glory, but as Thorin glanced back at Frerin, all he could think of was to protect. His brother was far too young for war—too young for all the atrocities the world had thrown at him—but it was too late. 

Thorin instructed Frerin to stay by his side. He promised he would keep him safe, but even as he spoke, he knew he did not have the power to make such a promise. Only Mahal could have saved him then, but that was not as reassuring to the exiled prince as it once would have been. 

But Frerin smiled back at him. He was afraid, but he was even more determined. Durin’s folk do not flee from a fight, he had said, speaking the ancient words of their house, which their father had so often spoken to them in their youth. 

The swoosh of a blade. Splashes of blood. His sword stained black. It reminded him of a quill dipped in ink before it is thrust into parchment by a poet to write words celebrating life and love and beauty. But this was no such tale. 

This was a tragedy. 

He remembered being a young boy in Erebor, standing in the training grounds, his brother and sister at his side. Always at his side. Together, they mastered the sword, the axe, the bow, and all other such arts their teachers deemed fit for the heirs of Durin to learn. Back then, it had all seemed like a game—a game with no real consequences other than a few bruises the next day. A game at which you always got a second chance. But as the battle drew on and the bodies piled up around him, Thorin knew this was no game. There would be no second chance. 

When the first scream tore through the air, Thorin’s blood froze in his veins, and he felt the blow of the mace as though it had struck his own chest. With a deafening cry that could have brought down the mountains from Angmar to Methedras, Thorin tore through the orcs to stand between his brother and his enemy and raised his shield to cover them both. A pale orc with scars carved deep into his twisted, evil face looked down at him. Thorin used all the strength remaining in his body to defeat the orc, not stopping even when his shield was ripped from his hands and he was forced to defend himself with an oaken branch. And by the time Thorin defeated the orc and he could rush to his brother’s side, it was too late. 

The snow-covered ground was soaked with blood. 

Thorin remembered running through the forest just outside Erebor as a young dwarf, trying to catch up to Frerin and Dís. It was a game; he would close his eyes and let them hide, and then he would have to find them. Thorin was getting old for such activities, but he could never refuse his siblings. The air smelled of bluebells and cornflowers, and golden beams of sunlight snuck through the green canopy overhead, lighting his path deeper into the woods. That day, Thorin was having more trouble than usual finding his siblings, but he was not worried. He could hear their muffled giggles, telling him they were not far, and Thorin knew that no matter the obstacles, they always found their way to each other eventually. 

Frerin always came back to him—until now. 

When the wicked worm attacked Erebor, desecrating their fathers’ halls and robbing them of their home, Thorin thought he had experienced the most terrible tragedy. But as he stood in the grave that had become Azanulbizar, holding onto Frerin’s limp, lifeless body, he finally understood the true meaning of loss. His tears mingled with the blood and dirt on his cheeks. He looked up to the cloudy sky; the moon was hiding that night, but a few stars looked upon the desolation. Was Mahal up there, watching them? If he was, why did he not help them? Had one of Thorin’s ancestors offended Mahal somehow, and thus doomed their line forever? 

When, many hours later, Thorin was forced to bid his brother farewell, he took from his belt a dagger, and as his blood-stained hand wrapped itself around the hilt, he vowed to carry it with him for as long as he lived. Thorin wished Dís had been there, for he truly believed that the three of them together could face anything. They could have protected him together, just like when they were innocent dwarflings. 

“Thorin?” 

A gentle voice, like the melodious singing of the first birds in spring, pulled him out of his thoughts. He looked up from the anvil to find Dís standing in the doorway, the golden light of the setting sun making her silhouette glow. A soft, sad smile tugged at her lips as she watched him uncertainly.

“What are you still doing here, brother?” she asked. “Night is falling.” 

“I must have lost track of time,” Thorin replied absently, trying to chase away the memories still floating in his mind, to no avail. “I will join you in a moment.” 

Dís nodded, and as she turned around to wait outside, the silver beads in her raven hair and beard gleamed in the last rays of the sun, and Thorin was reminded of how the sun used to shine upon the highest peak of the Lonely Mountain.

When Thorin stepped out of the smithy some time later and locked the door, night had fallen. Only a thin stream of gold peaking over the horizon remained. 

“Will you tell me what is on your mind?” Dís asked hesitantly. 

Stone walls. The hard floor of the training ground as laughter echoed all around him. Pine needles burning under the dragon’s fiery breath. His shield crashing against the bloodied rocks. 

“I was thinking of Frerin.” 

A shadow fell over Dís’ fair face, and she reached out to squeeze his hand. They had rarely spoken of him since the war. In the months following Azanulbizar, all had wept for Frerin, but the pain was too great, and his memory became a wound that refused to heal. His father had always buried his emotions, and with time, Thorin decided that he must do the same. That was the only way he could survive this agony. And now Dís was married, and soon she would have her own family, so it did not feel right to burden her with his grief. It did not feel right to taint her new life with the horrors of the past which refused to let go of him. As such, he was not sure why he uttered their brother’s name on this spring evening, as night swallowed the village in its blue cloak.

“I miss him terribly.” Dís admitted after a long moment of silence, her voice low, as though she was afraid to speak those words. She surprised Thorin again when she said, “Do you remember when we were children, how the Mountain would sometimes wake and Amad would sing to us to comfort us?” 

Thorin remembered; as a child, the tremors had frightened him, for he had not understood them. His mother would wrap her arms around all three of them, and her voice would banish all evils lurking in the depths of the Mountain. He remembered her fair voice—so similar to his sister’s—and the gentle touch of her hands against his shoulder. He would have smiled at the memory if it did not hurt so much. He desperately wanted to stop talking about it, but he owed it to Dís, whom he had disappointed too often. Despite the tears clouding her vision, she seemed to derive comfort from the memory. 

“Of course, I remember. You would press your little body against me and I would not be allowed to let go until you deemed it was safe—and that often meant holding you until you fell asleep.” 

Dís smiled wistfully, and when she reached out for his hand and leaned her head into his shoulder, Thorin momentarily felt once more like a young dwarf whose only heroic feat to date was chasing his sister’s nightmares away. 

Dís went on, her voice heavy with emotion. “When her singing was not enough to comfort me, I remember her telling me that as long as we had each other—you, me, and Frerin—then all would be well.”

The scream. The blood. His brother’s eyes looking back at him for the last time. 

“I am so sorry, Dís. It is all my fault.” 

His sister’s misty eyes sought his gaze in vain. “You did everything you could to protect him.”

If he had, Frerin would still be here. Thorin had failed him—he had failed them both.

Dís’ sniffling pulled him back to the present, and though Thorin barely had enough strength to maintain his composure, he pulled his sister into his arms and held her tight, hoping he could offer her the comfort he sought so desperately. 

“Even after all this time, I hate myself for not having been at his side. Perhaps things might have turned out differently….” She shook her head. “But I was not, and we cannot change the past. So I beg you, brother, do not torture yourself needlessly. I cannot bear the thought of you suffering in silence.” 

“And you need not worry yourself on my account. I am fine.” 

Dís looked up at him and raised her eyebrows, knowing it was a lie. She was silent for a moment; the wind tore at her blue dress, and in her eyes, the light of the stars and moon shone brightly. “No matter what happens—no matter how much our lives may change—I will always be there for you, Thorin. Please do not ever doubt it. I could not save Frerin, but I am at your side. Always.”

A wistful smile lit up his tired face. He remembered when Dís was born. A storm raged on all day, but as night fell and her cries filled the royal chambers, the sky turned quiet, and the pale light of a crescent moon shone upon the mountain. He remembered, too, how her presence never failed to brighten even the darkest of days. Even after the dragon stole their home and they wandered through the wilderness, cold, starving, and exhausted, Dís could make anyone laugh. She could make anyone feel like there was a reason to keep going—like there was a reason to keep living. She was always the strongest of Durin’s heirs, and now, as Thorin pulled her into his arms, a weight was lifted from his shoulders. A weight that he had been carrying for longer than he could remember.

“And I am at yours, dearest sister.” 

Her smaller hand took refuge in his as they walked in silence the rest of the way. High in the sky, a crescent moon illuminated their path. 

Tag list: @lathalea​ @linasofia​ @mcchberry @fizzyxcustard​ @bitter-sweet-farmgirl​ @i-did-not-mean-to​ @xxbyimm​ @middleearthpixie​ @enchantzz​ @myselfandfantasy​ @notlostgnome​ @laurfilijames​ @swoopswishsward​ @quiall321​ @dianakc​​

Let me know if you’d like to be added or removed from my tag list! 💙

[vaguely-concerned]

I have genuine Deep Thoughts about this for all the characters in the Evil Campaign and I have been struggling to put it into words for so long, but like... selfishness/striving for self genuinely does seem like. the main redemptive force in that particular story. Which is so fucking interesting, considering the way it plays around with/subverts how Star Wars cosmology is most often posited in canon. I keep saying 'the Evil Campaign is a story about a group of very bad people whose sole saving grace and hope for salvation is that they love each other', and I think this is part of what I mean. The selfishness of love, and personal love; of deliberately choosing oneself and each other. The most immediate example is Aava's struggle for selfhood and freedom and individuation and separateness from the structure that has enslaved her — so SHE can get to choose what she'll be a part of, so her love along with all of her feelings and being can be unfettered. (Through victory my chains are broken, and so on, I guess!) 

But it’s also there in Blue and Zero and their dance around each other that has its own gravitational power on them both, ‘I want you and you want me but neither of us trusts it yet so we’ll just keep circling around each other and hoping’ vibes. But once they figure that mess out between them and connect with each other truly and honestly, I genuinely think they’d go the full ‘I would choose you. In every lifetime and over everything and everyone else in the world, every time, I’d choose you; as far as I’m concerned you ARE the world’ IMMEDIATELY, in a vaguely unsettling and stark but also weirdly moving and human kind of way. Again, the selfishness of love. Weird codependent love with a likely triple digit body count attached, to be sure, but very real and mutual love haha. Specific love and connection, built on ‘you are specifically you and I am specifically me and together there’s a specific we’, not a universal undifferentiated love. 

I feel like the arc was left abandoned about half-way through because of the point where the podcast ended, but that really does seem to me to be where we were headed, that’s the aching yearning thing that lies beneath their whole dynamic, for all the bullshit and fuckery (most of it Blue’s lol, a little bit of it Zero’s) resting on top. Maybe there would have been a lot more twists and turns along the way, but as the story stands I choose to take the near-miracle final dice roll in the last ep as an indication that Blue's need to be loved does win out over his ambitions and ego, when push really comes to shove. Not gracefully so right away, necessarily, but hey when has he ever been graceful about anything lol. I think he would choose his friends at the end of the day, not because he’s secretly good (lmao imagine!) but because that’s the kind of selfish he is deep down.  

You know the person who keeps choosing selflessness — who consistently subsumes his will and his self and his power, who surrenders his selfhood entirely into a larger cause? Who keeps deprioritizing his own personal feelings and connections to serve his role in something ‘greater’? You better believe it’s Synox baby!!! Which is why I’m not so sure there is a way out for him, or that he’d ever take it — or even recognize it if it was offered to him. (fucking ouch) 

And it makes me so fucking sad b/c in a way he’s doing exactly what he was ‘meant to’ as a clone, from his designers’ point of view, and what the jedi needed and profited from when it came to the clones during the war, however the moral implications of that might have sat with them. He’s still ‘following his programming’, he’s doing it all ‘right’, he serves and is ready to die for a higher ideal (an ideal that sucks absolute ass, to be clear lol, but is a dark continuation of what he was ‘born’ to serve, the Republic sliding quietly into the Empire). It’s why he’s such an interesting mirror to Bacta, whose individuation was born out of love and connection and, yes, loss. (Loss at Synox’ hands, even.) Synox clearly does care for the people under his command at least, but in his view of the world he’s not allowed to make that ‘important’ — soldiers serve and die, just like under the Clone Wars, but it’s all for the Empire and so it is justified. (Everything must be justified, if it’s for the Empire.) I don’t know if Synox can let people in close enough that he can experience a true personal loss when and if they die, because depersonalizing yourself that far means extending that to others too, even on your own side. And also I think that if Synox allows himself to think like that now, he would have to look back at what he’s done properly and I don’t feel like he would psychologically survive it. So. ‘Good soldiers follow orders’. And Synox did, he does, and he will, every time. And I feel like it’s going to doom him.  

(Considering Kat’s stated feelings within the podcast on the Sith/Jedi theology divide, I cannot imagine this emergent theme is entirely accidental hahaha. One of the most interesting and subversive examinations of the selflessness/selfishness dichotomy of light and dark in Star Wars in any medium, hands down. I don’t know that it’s The definitive answer in canon or anything (and frankly I think the franchise sprawls too much for such a thing to even exist), but it’s a novel and fascinating lens to read it through and I fucking love the story it produces. It really brings home how much Campaign Star Wars is transformative work, and the power in transformative work to examine and deconstruct the narrative framework of canon. Also sort that under 'Campaign Star Wars is a deeply queer work right down to the structural level', I suppose!) 

 + Headcanons for how defecting from the Empire would work (or not) for all of them under the cut to save people’s dashes at least a little!

Blue has the moral backbone of a chocolate eclair and conspired with rebels to fuck over a rival minister after like. a month, tops, in the job. He has NO principles or larger loyalties beyond ruthless self-interest, craving for recognition and needing his friends to love him, and he could just as easily do all of that with the rebels if that was made more convenient to him by circumstance. Give him a couple of hours to spin it until he's convinced himself 'no no I always meant for it to happen like this actually I’ve been playing 5D space chess all along don’t worry about it', and I think he'd be good to go as long as he had Zero with him lmao. Just remove him from his main means of exerting power (i.e. all that money, his position) and he's basically ineffectual and pathetic (affectionate). I don’t think he’d ever become a fundamentally better person no matter what happens, exactly, (maybe not even a particularly worse one, either) but he could be rendered a more harmless one pretty easily, is sort of what I’m getting at. You could harness his admittedly impressive drive and general nonsense into good-ish-ness (or at least less-badness) without that much of a narrative push. He has his own grand plans, and he probably would have worked just as easily in the Republic as he did in the Empire. Neutral awful posterboy.  

Zero's a simp (laudatory, honorific). He's here for the sake of love I mean a fat paycheck of course, he goes where Blue goes. and that's so valid of him. No tears spilled on his part methinks. He doesn't fuck with the Empire at all, really, he's just doing some compartmentalizing about it so he won't have to think about it. He’d jump at the chance to get out of there and bring his emotional support little bitch boy with him. 

Aava doesn't even want to be here!!! *teary voice* she should be at the club. She should be femme fataling it up in freedom and do her witch shit in peace. Out of the cast she’s also the person who’s not here of her free will at all and doesn’t profit from her position in basically any way. It’s all but stated that freeing herself is her deepest motivation. I suggest that they should all team up and kill Aava’s shitty abusive Sith mom together (Louphan you are not valid) and then run off together.

Meanwhile, in leaving the Empire Synox would have his whole sense of self obliterated in a way I'm not sure he could even survive, if it somehow happened. I love him. he's the worst of clones. he’s the best of clones. he's the funniest bitch in the whole show to me. Nightmare straight man of my heart. I still believe in my soul that he's a Spiffie and it brings me unspeakable joy to consider. But for all my love I really don’t think he’s ever making it out, he’s trapped by his own nature and history at this point. If he did make it out, it would be because the others fought to bring him with them (at least Aava and Blue seem quite fond of him (Zero less so haha), so it isn’t entirely impossible!).

This meta started life as a tag ramble under  drefvalentine's hilarious post over here! I’ve really been trying to capture this in non-fiction words for like a year now and today something finally just clicked into place for me, hopefully there is some kind of sense in this. Finally I can let go of it in my brain, at least, what a relief haha 

[stuck-in-the-ghost-zone]

ohhhh my god mac. mac. part 2 of the cullen games. that was SO GOOD. i knew it wouldn't be that easy to kill edward bro i KNEW it couldn't be the real edward in the arena but god it was so satisfying just for a second to think that maybe he was dead. man. this campaign is everything. one minute arthur was agonizing over his own humanity and about to kill a woman and the next he was throwing it back on a tree branch. supermassive black hole playing in the background while arthur played vampire baseball. the boogie bombs. what the fuck was that <3

and OH MY GOD THEO WITH THE INSANE ROLLS????? BRO JUST DIDN'T DIE??????? WHAT THE FUCK????? CHARLIE'S DICE WERE BLESSED BY GOD OR SOMETHING THEO JUST DID NOT DIE. THAT'S MY BOY!!!!!!!!!!! also I Understand his true faith thing. i get it now. i'm losing my mind over it. fellas is it gay to have such devotion and complete and utter faith in your best friend of all time to the point where you are literally immune to vampiric mind control?????? fellas???? is this gay???? is it??? who knows. thats INSANE though dude i so thought emizel and theo would have to try killing each other but theo just went "nope <3" and it was so fucking epic oh my god. theo is the GOAT!!!! FR!!!!!!

and arthur oughghgh arthur slowly losing more and more humanity by consuming these other vampires. what if i exploded. HIS WINGS BRO. HIS WINGS WERE SO SICK. THAT WAS THE SICKEST THING EVER. OH MY GOD. AND THE SNIPER RIFLE WAS ALSO PRETTY SICK NGL. god im obsessed with arthur he's literally such a mary sue character and i love that for grizzly actually. arthur just kept getting more and more cool and angsty throughout the campaign. i love me a man with cool wings who is also riddled with guilt and struggles to keep hold of his humanity <3

SHILO........ THE FUCKING. GUY OF ALL TIME ACTUALLY. ugh. dude. lemme tell u i went insane when charlie told bizly to remove shilo's innocence specialty after turning "edward" ugly. fucked up oh my goddd i love shilo fucked up moments <3 i love when shilo is fucked up and also loses all his innocence <3 also FUCK YOU BIZLY FOR DESCRIBING BEN'S LAST MEMORY. WHAT THE FUCK DUDE. WHAT THE FUCK. BIZLY WHEN I GET YOU. oh i am so so scared of what he will do as the dm for prime defenders. mac im scared. if he can make me almost cry with one (1) fucked up little guy i am TERRIFIED of what he can do guiding a whole story

EMIZEL MY BABYGIRL <3 he is my everything. my right hand arm. man. my confidant. my silly rabbit <3 THE LIL NOTE HE LEFT IN HIS OWN ASHESSSSSSSS BROOOOOOOO losing my mind im going to be thinking about that forever and ever. my favourite part was him sucking gabriel to death <3 i love those two and their homoerotic fights. i know gabriel is dead but how fucking funny would it be if he somehow came back next season just to fuck with emizel. i would love that so much. also theo is totally still alive trust me he is going to find emizel and they are going to kiss next season. trust me charlie slimecicle told me himself 👍

man. that was SO FUCKING GOOD. god. im excited im so so excited for if/when another suckening season comes out. i love these guys!!!!!! i want them back ASAP i miss them already!!!! i do like emizel and arthur but tbh shilo reallyyyyy really grew on me. innocent lil guy who gets his entire worldview turned upside down and then does extremely fucked up things and loses some of his humanity along the way but still has so so much love in him and will continue loving and caring despite how shitty the world is. what if i exploded and died right now i fucking love shilo bathroy so much i am putting him in a microwave in my mind and spinning him around i am throwing him against a wall so he makes a loud thud like a sopping wet beanie baby full of milk i am grabbing him in my teeth and flailing him around like a chew toy <3

OK. WONDERFUL. prime defenders next 👍 im so ready i am sure there will be no heartbreaking storylines and no angst and people will not die and it will be a good happy fun time for everyone!!!!!!

DUUUUUDE THE FUCKING. THEOS ROLLS WERE SO INCREDIBLE . BECAUSE THERE IS A RUNNING JOKE ACROSS EVERY SINGLE JRWI CAMPAIGN. THAT CHARLIE SLIMECICLE IS FUCKING CURSED . HIS ROLLS ARE ALWAYS SO FUCKING BAD AND KNOWING THIS GOING INTO THE THEO FIGHT I WAS SO FUCKING STRESSED DUDE. I WAS SO STRESSED. I WAS LIKE FUCK MAN CHSRLIE IS ROLLING FOR HIM HES GONNA DIE HERE. AND THAT SCENE WENT ON FOR SO FUCKING LONG . GOOD GOD. I love you theo soda i love you so dearly. ugahbhhhh. also yeah fellas it's totally fucking gay. they did a qna after the last ep and talk about the true faith thing and how it works mechanically and jonesy and i left matching comments on it that looked like this:

dude yeah arthurs whole.diablerie arc was so fucked up. he lost so much of his humanity at the midnight circle. god. broke ass ugly vampire still manages to be the coolest fucking guy ever. the curse of being a grizzly pc.

DUDE THE FUCKING. "I NEED YOU TO REMOVE YOUR INNOCENCE SPECIALYY" THAT GOT ME SO BAD. SHILOOOOO I LOVE YOU SHILO D:

also there is totally 100% a way gabriel can come back next season because IN THE FUCKING. DEFINITION FOR DIABLERIE IN THE HANDBOOK it says . when you do that theres a chance for the soul of the vampire you killed to stick around and haunt your ass. I need this to happen

I also love shilo so much i think if I had 2 pick a favorite it would be him. i just. he makes me so sad. he's my fucked up little prince I love him so much :( he's never gonna get to go home again dude. hhughghghhghh :((((

[magicknightraytheon]

An Autopsy of Roguesci: the coolest way to lose an eye in 2005

If you've been online since the 2000s, you'll have noticed a shift from a web of many independent forums and websites to everything being concentrated on a few social media networks. The content grab started long ago, so many storied subcultures are being lost to digital decay. It's with this in mind that I want to tell the story of the Explosives and Weapons Forum.

Many websites served to dispense advice on gray area or outright illegal activity. There were the pyro forums, specialized toward both legal and illegal fireworks. Beyond fireworks forums there were sketchier places that dealt in more weaponized explosives, drugs and petty crime: Totse, Rorta, Bombshock. They attracted many a fan, but few a practitioner - everyone knew that the information was not the best. Try anything and it would be a dice roll between making something that can go pop, making a dud and blowing your fingers off in an accident in the midst of a felony.

In 1998, megalomania established Roguesci: The Explosives and Weapons Forum, a site to rule above all of these trash boards...or at least that was the expectation.

Roguesci, like others, grew from the mid 90s BBS subcultures and seemed to have been inspired by the writings of an Aussie who went by the name of "Lowry". Lowry was an Aussie pyro who made a little how-to file of various improvised weapons and fireworks (very dangerous to mess with, for chemistry reasons, so just don't). He resurfaced at some point with an obscure partial reup of his site, not knowing that a more complete PDF was going around and that there was another pyro forum with his old contacts.

But these BBS and Usenet lists had a problem that would carry on through the years: Low quality posters and files spread dangerous misinformation. Even widely published and famous books were full of information.

Roguesci would be the site with standards and the go-to for conversations about explosives, chemical warfare, improvised firearms and collection of historical chemistry texts.

So mega brought in his friend nbk2000, a lifetime hobbyist weaponeer, who self-identified as a psychopath and a Nazi to deliver HED, "hot electrion death" (bans) to all "kewls": Kids and young men who spread "cool" dodgy instructions for making dangerous chemicals. Advice was to be peer reviewed and unskilled members expected to lurk and study before posting. Using "crapbooks" like the Anarchist Cookbook was also a quick route to a ban.

(the joke "NBK likes to give HED" was prohibited on the forum)

Under their rule, the site thrived. It hopped from free hosting to its own dedicated domain with official explosives guide to explosives and their synthesis, written by mega himself.

The site thrived throughout the mid-2000s but ran into some scandals with an early user killing several people with a bomb, and whispers of users getting injured in lab accidents (I can't tell who but one user was said to have lost some fingers).

Dangerous content was its draw and vague connection to murders weren't going to slow it down. But its weakness was in a cult of personality around the vice admin, NBK.

To roguesci users, NBK was a mysterious, charismatic drifter who held the highest subject knowledge. Sometimes hated for his debates about the worthiness of non-white people. Usually respected because he had the most entertaining posts. His famous work was a pdf file and website of his name that mixed his own advice with reprints of a few books and contained "rules to profit by" for criminals. NBK had spent most of a decade writing what he said would be an encyclopedia of improvised weapons and advice for criminals.

NBK maintained one of the most popular non-technical threads, "Why I Hate Rent (rant)" detailing his beliefs that paying rent or property tax was slavery. He escaped this slavery by squatting at abandoned houses, and he blogged about his experiences in the thread.

One of his actually brilliant ideas came in handy when a guy robbed his squat: he kept his money in a safe made with a pipe and padlock. It was mistaken for a pipe bomb and dropped by the burglar.

Then one day, mega announced that NBK had died. There was no elaborating. Users poured out performative mourning (sentiments of respect and resentment were mixed, but the latter not shown as much).

Later on it turned out that NBK was alive but needed legal help: he was being charged with the murder of a guy who he was living with, and had fled to Canada where he tried to stay with another forum member (who promptly turned him in).

NBK2000, or Arthur Charles Carnes, was later convicted after using his history in weaponry to argue that he would have done a far better job of murdering the guy than whoever did (most likely nbk in a less composed, dumber incarnation of himself than he presented online).

NBK2000 unmasked: nerd

According to a forumite's investigation, NBK's friend (the victim) had falsely converted to Judaism so that he could sell kosher meat to the local Jewish community. NBK had decided that this was race treason.

The forum went down and reopened, with some in-house web crawling to preserve the information for the final shutdown that we knew was inevitable, and the inevitable came in 2009 with the site disappearing forever. Rumors of a reopening circulated but it seemed like there was too much heat on mega, and its heyday was long past.

A few users and mods tried to open successor sites and bring the community back together. They also disappeared.

Another of the old Roguesci mods, fierce opponent of seatbelts after a few near miss accidents, died after being thrown through his windshield in a car crash.

Another one lost an eye in an explosives accident.

Roguesci prided itself on having higher standards of accuracy than all the other pyro and weapon freak boards. But it fell short of its own self image and its prided top dog that the user base looked up to (in public at least), NBK, was actually a bit of a dumbass. Many forumites were dumbasses posting things they'd regret, but at their high point, they also distributed information on how to produce illegal weapons that could have killed thousands of innocent civilians if the wrong readers took interest.

In its wake, I've found nothing that is even similar in scope. The condensation of the internet to big social platforms and the ruining of search engines makes it almost impossible, and ironically with less conspiracy-riddled eyes it's obvious that if you wanted to engage in such hobbies, you could just get an ATF license and use explosives legally without resorting to hardware store chemicals that will blow your hands clean off your body as your skin melts off. That's right: explosives and munitions are legal if you fill out ATF forms and pay a fee.

[bracketsoffear]

Ashes propaganda:

According to their origin song, "Lucky Sevens," they started out as an orphan whose arson apparently impressed mob boss Smooth Mickey enough that he became Ashes’ “Uncle” and recruited them into his gang, the Lucky Sevens:

“Well, the name’s Smooth Mickey, I been watchin’ your work / An’ I like the way that it burns”

“Uncle Mickey will show ya the way / We can use your pyromaniacal talents”.

Ashes rose up to become a mob elite helping the Sevens rule the planet Malone with extensive use of matches and gasoline:

“The fire burns bright / In the heat of the night / ‘Cause the Sevens are in luck”.

However, when Ashes confronted Smooth Mickey about collaborating with the Sevens’ enemies, the Aces, Mickey framed Ashes and had the Sevens burn Ashes alive:

“Your dice may be loaded, but they melt in the heat / The fire burns bright / Under you tonight / ‘Cause Ashes, you’re outta luck”

“Oh, the fire scorches your flesh / An’ the smoke fills your lungs / Looks like ya rolled snake-eyes / Ashes O’Reilly / I guess your game is done”.

Dr. Carmilla gave Ashes mechanical lungs and made them immortal, and Ashes came back to take revenge. Mickey revealed that the Sevens, the Aces, and the police were all working together to control the whole of Malone…so Ashes somehow mustered up enough gasoline to BURN DOWN THE ENTIRE PLANET:

“Loaded dice don’t help when your world’s aflame / The fire burns bright / Everywhere tonight”.

They then joined The Mechanisms, a band of immortal space pirate musicians just as likely to perform for hapless mortals as they are to destroy a world for shits and giggles.

The most relevant case of this for Ashes is The City—Ashes decided to become Hades and rule over the Acheron (which, as previously discussed, was a source of immense eternal suffering for billions of people) just for the heck of it, with Jonny even saying that The City is “‘Ashes’ playground’” and the brains in the Acheron are their “‘toys’”. As described in the short story "Eskhatos," after arranging Ulysses’ death, Ashes burns down the Acheron to kill yet another planet, again for their own gratification: “‘Ulysses was pretty much the last thing on this planet worth playing with, and not good for much at that. From here on it’s just stagnation. Or at least, it would be. The Acheron controls everything: water, power, even the automated farms. When it burns…’”

Ashes' actions in The City aren't just Desolation because they burned down the computer network keeping The City alive, dooming everyone on the planet to a slow and painful death. They also enacted Desolation by destroying the potential of The City. They had the means to work their way into the Olympians' ranks and take control of the lifeblood of their world, not to mention knowledge of the tree Ulysses once wanted to use to inspire a rebellion. They and The Mechanisms could easily have overthrown the Olympians--it wouldn't even be that out-of-character for them to incite or assist a rebellion of that nature, as seen in Once Upon A Time, because it would be entertaining/funny/good material for their songs. Instead, they decided to make things worse by enforcing the stagnant oppression of The Olympians until it got boring for them, stringing Heracles and Orpheus along by promising them what they wanted in exchange for the heist that got both of them killed (and almost certainly was just a setup anyway), then burning down the whole thing so nobody else could "play" with their "toys" (despite the reason it's not worth "playing with" anymore being partially them).

.

[realfinemood]

Template by raysoffrost

Just a whole lot of babbling about my girl and her violent traumatized friends! Spoilers for the game, specifically the ending and a whole lot about Lae'zel's story and Astarion's romance, and also a bit about a squid.

[Did I romance Astarion this playthrough? Yes. Was it Brecca's most important relationship? Absolutely not.]

Lae'zel - Lae'zel was Brecca's best friend in game from the start, even if that start was having a sword pointed at her. But given the situation it was the objectively correct reaction to her so she didn't mind. Not only was Lae'zel a great fighter but seemed to already know a solution for the exact problem they were having? Perfect, sign her up. Even later on, when they seemed about to turn and Lae'zel came to kill her, Brecca was just impressed at her thought out plan, even if she's glad she convinced her to wait the night just in case.

(They've decided to never talk about how the second day knowing each other, Lae'zel went on about wanting to taste Brecca's sweat.)

Brecca had zero knowledge of Githyanki before meeting Lae'zel. But she trusted Lae'zel and went along with it, despite hating everything about the creche once they got there and agreeing with Astarion that the "cure" was absolutely going to be something like getting their heads cut off. [Getting a nat20 to beat the DC30 persuasion roll to convince Lae'zel to get out of the machine before it killed her was honestly the highlight of dice rolls the whole game.]

Brecca would've been wholely supportive of Lae'zel's new mission to take down Vlaakith on its own, but finding out they had been using a captured person's power this whole time made it her 100% on board the Free Orpheus plan. When it turned out they needed someone to turn into a mindflayer, Brecca was terrified Lae'zel would hate her for refusing to make that sacrifice herself - thankfully she didn't seem to blame her. Nothing could be more satisfying than Lae'zel killing the Emperor while Brecca was busy getting Orpheus to the brain. She hopes that when Lae'zel takes down Vlaakith, she takes what she learned traveling with them with her.

Wyll - For someone who has recently decided to be a better person but isn't 100% sure how to do that, Wyll was a shining beacon of How To Be A Good Person. In the beginning, Brecca definitely had him on a pedestal. But the more time she spent with him, the more she saw how being a hero meant sacrificing himself in ways that just weren't fair. She refused to let him chain himself to another pact to save his dad when there was clearly another way, and surprised that everyone else seemed to see it differently. When they went to find Ansur, she let Wyll take the lead as she certainly couldn't claim to be the hero when he was right there, and fully supported his decision to be the Blade of Avernus and help people on his own terms.

Astarion - Despite Astarion bitching and complaining about all her goodie goodie choices in the beginning, Brecca liked him in a "best friend who also annoys the hell out of you" way. She liked him because he's funny and good at shit she's not and yeah he's an asshole but still fought and had her back anyways and that was the important thing.

[The gnome slave comments were almost breakup material admittedly - my characters are either big gnome fans or gnomes themselves, take your racist nonsense elsewhere my guy.]

As for the romance itself, she's 2/2 on not realizing she was attracted until she was hit over the head with it. His lines are terrible, but they're at least so obvious even she can tell it's flirting. She definitely doesn't believe he liked her from the start, unless headbutting someone trying to slit your throat is romantic. She felt like something was off, and didn't like the implication that he was paying her back, but believed when he said it was just an excuse. When he finally explained that he was doing it for protection, the one thing she'd promised to do from the start, she didn't feel betrayed or manipulated. Just upset that he'd thought he had to pay with something she could've done without for something she was always going to do anyways.

When they finally confronted Cazador (something she kept putting off the more Astarion seemed interested in doing the ritual himself) he convinced him he could be the better person and set the 7000 free. She definitely didn't fail to persuade him and pissed him off by refusing to help, causing him to leave the party saying he hopes she dies screaming. After the world is saved, they (and Shadowheart) join them in the Underdark to help get them started in their new lives. And once that's started, they're off to find a way to let him walk in the sun again.

Shadowheart - Brecca took a long time to warm up to Shadowheart. The constant digs at Lae'zel in the beginning and the refusal to share anything about herself was a huge hurdle. But once they started going in the Shadowlands it made sense to bring her, and she started finding the actual person under there. Her amazingly terrible powers of persuasion failed her when they found the Nightsong, so she was extremely proud when Shadowheart decided on her own to not kill her. They grew closer after that and while Brecca doesn't know if she agrees with her choice to end her parents suffering, she plans on helping her start her new life and is welcome to stay with her and Astarion as long as she needs. [Shadowheart and Astarion both died during each other's final important fight and I like to believe they're close friends. As she never spoke up in the ending, I chose to believe she ran after Astarion while Brecca handled Karlach.]

Karlach - In another life, they don't get sick from almost transforming the night Karlach wants to talk at the fire. Or Karlach asks her to spend the night at the party before Astarion gets a chance to. It's probably for the best, as Brecca doesn't take not being able to fix her engine well, and takes Karlach's acceptance of dying even worse. She's beyond grateful that Wyll stepped up at the end and convinced her to go to Avernus with him, because helplessly watching Karlach die would've broken her.

Jaheira - They got off to a rough start, Brecca super not a fan of being told to go somewhere for safety and being restrained the first step in. But she got over it and Jaheira appreciated her jokes about her age (she wasn't actually trying! She's a halfling, a century is really long time!) and decisions that apparently reminded her of Minsc. Now she's happy to have a new elf grandma.

Gale - Poor Gale was in a different story from the start. Brecca smiled and nodded through his magic talk and long speeches, gave him shoes to eat when needed without complaint, and was down to fight Mystra for him because what the hell. What was intended as friendship apparently meant way more to Gale, resulting in an extremely awkward and confusing conversation about not telling him about Astarion. In the end, he left to find the crown with a confusing offer to let her be his Chosen if she ever came around to the Become a God plan. Because nothing says Chosen of the god of magic like a barbarian who knows one spell.

Halsin - Brecca genuinely isn't sure why Halsin apparently likes her so much. He's been a kidnapped damsel in distress twice and both times she's taken probably way longer than she should've to come get him. Also sure she likes tall people but he's like three times her size how would that even work.

Minsc - Brecca met Minsc way too late to have any real opinion on Jaheira's weird friend, other than confusion that he keeps insisting his hamster is talking even though she can speak with animals.

Emperor - [I the player made the Dream Visitor look like Brecca's d&d fiance. Brecca the bg3 character has not met said fiance, so has no emotional attachment to this form.]

Brecca was highly suspect of having a random person talking in their heads, telling them to eat the tadpoles when they were trying to get rid of the one they already had. But they at least seemed to be helping at the moment so she tolerated it right up until the moment she learned who they really were.

It wasn't even that he was a mindflayer - she likes Omeluum! It was he was using a captured person's power. It was the constant "I've never lied to you" while actively hiding information. It was that she was always supposed to trust without questioning, meanwhile the one time she tried to keep something private he forcibly went through her mind to find it. Nothing he showed her about Stelmane was a shock, and when he couldn't wait two seconds to see if Orpheus would help them and instead immediately turned to join the brain, she couldn't say she was surprised. Just glad that she never has to hear his voice in her head again.

[autumnalwalker]

Happy Blorbo Blurbsday!!

Do any of your character's names have a special meaning? If yes - who and what? If no - how then did you choose the names?

<3

CJ

So, most of my character names come out of random generation, but there are a few exception. Let's break it down by story.

The Archivist's Journal:

Almost all of the names in The Archivist's Journal I pulled from random dice roll tables in the back of the D&D sourcebook Xanathar's Guide To Everything. With three notable exceptions.

Pat: The friendly and nostalgic Village elder who's the first one to greet the Archivist upon washing up on the shore and repeatedly acts as a source of information and advice (albeit one fond of cryptic phrasing). His name was mostly a reference to the the book Life of Pi by Yann Martel, and its protagonist Piscine Molitor "Pi" Patel who at one point winds up on a rather strange island but who also might be phrasing the entire story as a metaphor and/or coping mechanism. There's probably also a little bit of a reference to Saint Patrick as a revered figure associated with an island.

Theo: Pat's far less cordial counterpart who's implied to be possibly immortal, or something close to it. His name's mostly a pun about the theoretical and theological implications of his existence and role in the world of the Village.

Vernon: I don't know, dude just felt like a "Vernon" to me.

Empty Names:

So, with the main cast, in my initial brainstorming document I had them listed as Characters A/B/C/D/E, and they were arranged by gender with A and E being cis but gender noncomforming, B and D being transmasc and transfemme respectively, and C being genderfluid. This is the sort of conceptual symmetry that pleases me. A became Ashan Glassheart, B became Sullivan Bridgewood, and E became Eris. C and D became Road and Lacuna respectively, breaking from that original letter association (although maybe if I ever decide on a last name for Lacuna it will start with a D).

Ashan and Sullivan's names ultimately came from https://www.fantasynamegenerators.com/, with some modification along the way. For Eris, I just started adding random syllables after the letter 'E' until something sounded good (the mythological reference was a happy accident, albeit one I embraced). Road and Lacuna's names were a bit more involved, and largely owe themselves to this post (that post also dictated which generator I used for Sullivan's name).

In trying to name Lacuna like a "22nd century cyberpunk hacker jewel thief" I remembered a word I'd been fond of ever since I first encountered it while reading Mervyn Peake's Titus Groan. It's a word that on one level just sounds really cool to me on a strictly phonetic sense, and on another level appeals to my fascination with absence/emptiness/void. I'd used it for one or two video game characters in the past and have always been on the lookout for a place to use it on a character for whom it would really fit, and I think found I finally found it with this Lacuna. Also, having named her a word meaning "an unfilled space or interval; a gap" was part of what led to the story as a whole being titled Empty Names. One part a play on Lacuna's name, and one part a reference to the linguistic philosophy/metaphysics concept of a proper name that refers to something or someone that doesn't exist. That concept in turn winds up referring in the story both to deadnames and to Road's ontological issues.

As for Road's name, that's partially a result of that previously-linked meme post about trans names commenting about non-binary names often being nouns, and partly a matter of them being a sort of spiritual successor to my oldest OC. That was a character that I'd been making up stories for since elementary or middle school (but never writing any of them down) whose thing was traveling from world to world, trying to do good, but most often by either providing additional support for the actual main character or by making some minor change that sets off a butterfly effect of consequences. They were originally a self-insert fanfic character but over time I started making up original stories just for them. Again, never wrote any of it down, just something to keep me occupied while daydreaming or trying to get to sleep that I continuously added to over time. And then in highschool I heard Greenday's Boulevard of Broken Dreams for the first time and that character suddenly had both a name and a framing device for how they got from world to world. Their name (more of a title really, not having a real name was a big part of their character) became The Walker (or just "Walker") and they traveled a seemingly infinite interdimensional highway, lined with bubbles that acted as portals to various worlds. While not the same character, Road inherited a lot of The Walker's characteristics and made the road that The Walker walked into their own name-that's-actually-just-a-convenient-alias-because-they-don't-have-a-real-Name-anymore.

The Melts:

Just a small one-off standalone story that I wrote for Halloween, but the name of the main character, Mil, has its roots in my personal life even further back than Road's.

When I was really young, I watched the movie Milo and Otis more times than I can remember. That's a movie about a kitten (Milo) and puppy (Otis) that grow up on a farm, become best friends, and then get lost and separated and grow up while trying to find their way back home and eachother. And then when my siblings and I finally talked our parents into getting us a cat, we wound up with an orange kitten that we named Milo, whom I also have a lot of nostalgia about, but anecdotes about him are a story for another time. Suffice to say, the name "Milo" and its feline association has stuck in my head for my entire life, resulting in several characters in RPGs getting named Milo (including my Guild Wars 2 charr) and an OC that was related to my oldest OC, The Walker (see the explanation on Road's name above).

Anyway, when I was coming up with the main POV character for The Melts I wanted it to be someone with biological augmentations that would be notable but not too weird. This led to the classic catgirl/catboy ears and tail; something that's just a little bit out there for a "normal" human being to have in our world, but would be considered boring and basic in that world. But I also wanted gender to be all over the place in that story, and so I made the POV character they/them nonbinary (again, simultaneously very slightly unusual in our world, but the most boring/basic/"normal" option that appears in that world story). So, the cat ears/tail led to me pulling "Milo" out as my archetypal catboy and then slicing the 'o' off of the end of the name to make it slightly more nonbinary by being less associated with a common-ish real-world masculine-gendered name.

The rest of the names in that story I left as placeholders until the entire story was written and then randomly pulled a bunch of names from babynames.com (with minor modifications) as I rushed to get the story posted in time for Halloween.

[lunarsands]

ALSMP Fanfic: Hellbent Ch 1

Characters: Scott Major, MythicalSausage

Tags: Canon divergent, We’re way off the canon origin list now, featuring derivatives such as werewolf!Scott, guardian!Sausage, enderian!Scott, vampire!Sausage, wither!Scott, merling!Sausage, floran!Scott and including the return of blazeborn!Myth and gravital!Smajor

WARNINGS: Blood, Violence, Injury, Body Horror, Character Death, So Much Death that I’ll be here for days listing warnings for them all. We got water, we got fire, we got neuro-toxins, we got stabbing. Nothing is portrayed in graphic detail, but consider yourself warned! No Fluff Only Murder.

Summary: The cycle that started with a hungry vampire and an imprisoned angel comes full circle.

Scott and Sausage – now going by Smajor and Myth – have broken the cosmic respawn system with their continuous murder of each other, and more than ten lives later they are still at it. Even an encounter with peaceful versions of themselves in a limbo dimension doesn't deter them for long, but Myth at long last gains the upper hand. He has a choice: end the feud, or… Well, that’s it, that’s his only choice. But he’ll do it one way or another…

Sequel to Bloodfall, Witherrise, Fatemirrored, and Heavensent, with references to (and later picking up after) the crossover Mirror Mirror Break Our Fall.

Part Five of the Soul Liminality Series.

(Also available on Ao3! )

[A/N: Scratch what I said about Mirror Mirror not being canon to either fic universe, it’s now canon to this one. I’ve had this sitting in my pocket for a while and it finally came together, once again with brainstorming help from @cynthrey! You know you might have too many origins/types of death of those origins to keep track of in one fic when your friend goes and makes a spreadsheet.]

---

Chapter One

Fox blood wasn’t as good as angel blood, but as Smajor clamped his wolfish jaws down on Myth’s red-furred throat, he was just as happy to swallow down another of his nemesis’ lives. Both happening to be creatures of the forest – relatively speaking, for a werewolf -- had done little to deter Scott from sniffing him out once again and hunting him down. Myth usually tried to hide and strike when the opportunity presented itself; Smajor just actively killed on sight most of the time. He admitted to admiring Myth’s newfound skill – regardless of what he became – to remain quiet, but it rarely saved him for long.

Scott had come to resent first the loss of his lovely, delicious prisoner, and then at the betrayal when vampire became angel and Myth’s own reaction had been unyielding vengeance. It seemed like they had managed to be allies for all of five minutes, and the rest of the time it was just sheer hatred for each other. Even when they came back as something that had similar traits – although the cosmic roll of the dice proclaimed them never to be the same thing at the same time – there was instant animosity. The battle of back-and-forth murder had been going on for so long that they had started losing track of some of what they had been – except for the ones that had precipitated everything. It was even hard to remember how many times they had died, so they settled on keeping count of how many times they had killed the other.

Sausage – after reluctantly accepting the moniker of ‘Myth’ because Smajor wouldn’t call him anything else now, swearing to obliterate him until he was nothing but some legend in a forgotten story – had been scratching tally marks into the metal arm guard he somehow always regenerated with whether he was humanoid or animal. Scott, meanwhile, dubbed himself ‘Smajor’ after one time when Myth had tried to call him a ‘major pain in the ass’ with his dying breath and slurred the first word instead.

Smajor had a scrap of leather that he kept on him, and currently added a new tally mark with a claw before licking the blood from his chops. Well, that was a nice even twenty in number of kills. He left Myth’s body alone for the moment, trotting away behind some trees, amused by the thought of letting him regenerate and try to escape again, then maybe he would howl and chase him through the forest for a while until biting into him again. He did very much enjoy whenever he turned into something with a good set of sharp teeth.

A few moments later he heard Myth begin to cough, then gasp. He smiled. Sounded like maybe he had become a merling and was having a little trouble breathing. There was a lake nearby… Maybe he would make it. Smajor decided to wait, and then he followed the sounds. As much as he liked killing Myth with his own hands, an unfortunate roll of the dice that led to side effects was just as fun to see, and hear, play out.

Myth turned out to be faster than he expected, however, and he heard the splash before he himself was near to the lake. He also underestimated how fast his nemesis could now swim, because as Smajor stepped out from the trees onto the lake shore, a figure was darting from the opposite shore into that tree line. Ah. Myth knew these woods, too. He would know where the next body of water was. He wouldn’t allow himself to be limited to one little puddle to be picked off when he surfaced.

Smajor smiled again and began loping around the edge of the lake. He could pick up the fishy trail and simply sniff him out no matter how many bodies of water he tried to cross. This would be a nice game. There was nowhere for Myth to go – neither of them had any place they really called home anymore, just a few hidden caches set up here and there when time permitted. Yet even that was difficult to do when one of them was destroying the landscape with their powers in pursuit of the other.

Nowhere and no one was safe at this point. The others had long since learned that if they saw either of them coming it was time to also run and hide. The few exceptions were when someone else more powerful got involved and tried to stop them, but that tended to result in double death, and another new start of the chase with different powers.

Meanwhile, Myth’d had it in his head for a while that if he could just get the right combination of abilities, he might be able to keep Smajor on a metaphorical chain long enough to take the fight out of him – or put him where he would be forced to do nothing but think about how pointless this unending feud was.

Turning into a Temple Guardian-type mer this round gave him an idea: he knew he could gain additional abilities by slaying an Elder Guardian, so he was now making a beeline for the nearest ocean via every source of water he could think of that could sustain him on the way. It would be a wondrous miracle if he could get his hands on a bucket of water and some Aqua Affinity gear along the way, but he knew he wouldn’t have much chance of finding a place to make them himself and spend precious minutes trying to roll for them in an enchanting table.

Smajor would catch up to him, as was inevitable, so he might as well go straight for an ocean monument to be prepared ahead of time with as much of an arsenal as he could get from one. It was harrowing a few times when he almost came up short between the abrupt end of a river and the next small lake, but he kept pushing himself. Eventually he would find a river that led out into the ocean, and he could get a reprieve out in deeper waters.

It did cross his mind to try to live out his life in the possible safety of a remote biome with abilities that Smajor couldn’t interfere with, but in all honesty, Myth wouldn’t put it past his nemesis to pick a way to end himself just to get new powers that would allow him to continue the chase. With the other, actual Temple Guardians and the Elder Guardians, Myth might possibly have some additional protection… However, he would prefer to not have the constant threat hanging over his head altogether.

One of these times things would have to work out in his favor for longer than a few hours.

And so, after wresting a trident from a Drowned, he made his way into a monument, unbothered by the effects of his current brethren, and slew the Elder Guardian. Once he absorbed its powers, he started making plans for how to deal with Smajor. There was the obvious: hit him with fatigue, then drag him down to the monument and secure him there, where a horrible process could be repeated until Smajor gained an aquatic-based body. Then Myth would have to think of something else, because there was every chance Smajor could have some ability that allowed him to escape, and of course he would kill Myth on the way out – or turn the tables on him, and trap him in the exact same spot.

Well, Myth needed to start somewhere, anyway, and this was at least one opportunity. As he was collecting some extra blocks from the monument itself to build a holding cell, he saw the sponges and realized a better option might be to actually keep Smajor alive down here, without risk of him becoming something that could survive in water. Myth then worked to create an extra area clear of water as a backup plan.

Soon, however, it dawned on him that he could even rest here. Smajor was currently limited to land, and if he did find a way through the water, he would first have to figure out where Myth had gone, and then have to get past the other Guardians. He allowed himself a smile and made a sweep of the monument, checking the locations of the cyclopean fish. He sonar-pinged a warning to them of a possible invader, telling them to stay on alert, then he returned to the center and burrowed into the sand to sleep. If Smajor made it through all that, Myth could still attempt to stay hidden.

~*~

Later on, he was awoken by agitated pinging from the Temple Guardians that hit his own sonar-like senses. They hadn’t noticed an intruder, but some type of ruckus on the surface was setting them off. Myth warily swam toward the outer rows of columns to make sure nothing was directly above him. He could tell that it was now nighttime from the extra darkness, although he could see through the water just fine. The sound itself wasn’t in the water, but was enough to be heard through it.

Howling.

Ah, there was a very frustrated werewolf nearby.

Myth gave a tired smile and began a careful ascent. He would have to creep through the shallows if Smajor was on shore, but he wouldn’t be surprised if he had gotten ahold of a boat just to keep pursuing his prey. Myth rather hoped for the latter so he could come up directly underneath and overturn it.

The words were muffled but the rage came through just fine. “Myth!! Show yourself, you coward!! Come and face me!!”

The noise bounced off his sonar as well, and that made it easier to find which direction it was coming from. And Smajor actually had been foolish enough – or overconfident enough – to row a boat out here. Myth sped upward and shoved both hands against one side of the bottom of the boat, nearly flipping it in one go. But it was enough to knock Smajor into the water. The wolfish menace attempted to grab for the boat; Myth was quicker and wrapped his scaly arms around him, immediately pulling him down. “If you decide not to struggle, I have a nice place for you to stay! You’ll like it, I promise. You can even yell at me all day there!”

Unable to speak lest he end up with a lungful of water all the faster, Smajor instead began thrashing his whole body. Myth used the pointy spines on both arms to dig into him to try to discourage this, but Smajor didn’t seem to care about the extra pain and kicked his legs next.  Myth’s hold was secure and they only sank deeper. Finally, Smajor snarled, releasing a rush of air bubbles as he tried to twist around and snap at his captor’s face. Myth responded with a tight squeeze of his arms, forcing out more of that precious air.

Smajor stopped struggling soon after that. Well, that works, too, Myth thought as he carried his nemesis down toward the monument. At least that makes this part easier. Yet before he got much closer, Smajor’s body vanished. Myth blinked. That had never happened so quickly after a death.  Usually there was more time before one of them regenerated as something new and then revived.

Then Myth spotted a flicker of purple particles, and he chuckled darkly to himself. Oh, huh. He’s Enderian now. That was like an automatic teleport. So he’ll die even faster if he’s pulled into water...

He turned to swim toward the nearest land mass this time. An enderman who accidentally ended up in a body of water always teleported to the first bit of sand and soil within range.

Even though he attempted to be cautious again and was ready to grab Smajor right away, as soon as his head cleared the water he could hear the sound of an aggroed enderman. A lanky, obsidian-skinned version of Smajor rushed at him, jaw unhinged as he screeched horribly and slashed at Myth’s face despite the water running off of him.

Myth sank back into the ocean’s surface but Smajor pursued, spitting and flinching as the water injured him, but was not deterred. One of his strikes finally landed and Myth yelled in pain. The Enderian grabbed him and started to haul him out of the water. Myth clutched at the gashes across his face, beginning to lose sight in his right eye. He then extended the sharp fin on his left arm and sliced Smajor across the chest, deep enough to expose the enderpearl at his heart.

Myth took hold of the pearl and yanked it out, throwing it in the next motion to teleport away and gain time to recover. However, being half-blinded as he was, he judged the direction incorrectly. He teleported out of the dying Smajor’s hold straight inland.

At least the pearl landed under a tree instead of on it. Not that it mattered all that much; Myth was in too much shock to try to make it back to water. He knew he would die there, laying gasping on the ground while he clutched his face with both hands. But at least he had gotten Smajor an extra time, as well. He used his last few breaths to pull a shaky left hand away from his eye and scratch two new tally marks into his arm guard with a sharp spine.

.

Myth revived sometime later relieved to find sight had returned to his right eye, but a touch revealed new, horizontal scars. He had suspected for a while that his body wasn’t regenerating one hundred percent, and this proved it, but at least he hadn’t lost the eye.

This time.

He decided the next thing he would do was to find a pond or something to check for certain how he looked. He wasn’t sure yet what he even was now, but it wasn’t aquatic fortunately, and he felt rather strong. It was also still nighttime, so he had the cover of darkness to sneak around in, although he did hope Smajor was nowhere nearby.

He found his steps moved faster than average, and it was reassuring to be able to dart past Creepers and skeletal archers. There might be a reason they didn’t seem to mind him, because nary an arrow was shot his way, but he chose not to worry about it.

Then it turned out he had much bigger concerns, when he finally reached a small stream and leaned over to have a look.

He had no reflection.

“Oh, gods. No. No… Anything but this…” His stomach churned at the revelation and he turned away to be sick behind the cover of a tall fern. He could feel his fangs as he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He returned to the stream and made an attempt to clean up even without being able to see himself, pretending he was just washing off his own blood from the new scars.

Blood blood blood. The thought pounded through his head. He should go find some fresh blood, from someone with a lovely, beating heart…

No. Absolutely not.

He couldn’t cross the stream from ground level but he didn’t have the strength of will to try leaping yet. He would follow alongside it for now, and just eat raw beef or fish when he found some. He would have to contend with sunrise soon enough… and yet, he was also tempted to let the sun do its own work so he could become something else. Gods forbid he come across Smajor as this, too… but at least the other would be extremely unlikely to be an angel again. He didn’t need that kind of parallelism in his life ever again, nor did he have any interest in tasting his nemesis’ blood.

Myth felt lucky when he stumbled upon a small cave just as the sky began to lighten. Maybe it was a sign to tough this one out for a little longer. There was no evidence of it being an animal den, so he slipped inside and was able to move some large rocks over to the entrance to block it off so no one could stumble across him. He slept through the day, and instinctively woke at nightfall.

Unfortunately, hunger also awoke around the same time. His new senses were telling him that all sorts of warm, pulsing veins were out there beyond the cave. He began to clear away the rocks. He couldn’t fight it… He would have to do something. No people. He would not bite any people. Livestock were fair game; he could keep telling himself that, and everything would be fine.

The thought worked up until he saw lights from a village, and he soon heard the sound of a zombie beating on a door. He swallowed after his mouth reflexively salivated and he turned to dart off in a different direction to avoid the temptation, but a different flash of bluish-white light and an explosion drew his attention, and instead he crept closer. Someone else with supernatural powers was around, although he wasn’t sensing a living heartbeat to go along with it.

The light flashed again, and he recognized it. Wither. Was someone trying to make themself useful and was taking out the zombies to save the village? That seemed vaguely noble, and better than he had done as one.

His assessment changed as soon as he caught a glimpse of the sunken eyes and bitter expression of the perpetrator, then he let out a loud laugh and stepped forward, baring the fangs he had desperately been trying to ignore. “So, it looks like irony is still on the cosmic table. We’re both back on the dark side at the same time. Do you want to put the warring behind us and team up again, Scott?” He purposely used the other’s former name.

Smajor gave a raspy laugh of his own, refraining from attacking right away. “Oh, that will go well, sure. Tell me, how many people have you bitten so far? I haven’t seen a trail of bodies anywhere, unless I managed to miss it completely. Not thirsty right now, are you? I was just doing this because I was bored, but if you want to have a snack before I raze this place, help yourself. Go ahead.” He smirked. “You ate plenty of souls before, now you can appreciate the taste of blood. Go on.” He gestured to one of the doors that were shut tight against the roaming undead. “You don’t have to worry about being invited in, I’ll blast it open for you.”

Myth refused to be baited into looking away from Smajor, although he could hear the heartbeat behind the door, speeding up with fear from realizing there were now additional dangers outside. He swallowed again but played it off with a shrug. “Nah. I’m good right now.”

“Fine. I’ll get back to what I was doing.” Smajor conjured a skull in one hand and threw it toward a blacksmith, exploding the wall and causing lava to start flowing onto the path. He raised his hand again to conjure another, then conjured a second one in the other hand.

He grinned to himself, then spun and flung both of them toward Myth before turning it into a repeating volley of thrown skulls.

The reluctant vampire was ready for him. Myth’s red eyes flashed as he marked Smajor, waiting, waiting… He switched places right before the first two skulls hit, leaving Smajor to be pummeled by his own explosions. For extra measure, Myth ran to the spilled lava, standing one step away before triggering the mark again after the volley ended, leaving a battered Smajor standing – just barely standing, that is – in the spot. He followed up by rushing over and shoving the wither backward into the lava pool.

Myth hoped it would be enough, but he wasn’t going to stick around to risk getting set on fire just to make sure the other stayed in the lava. He bounded away to the hill that overlooked the area and instead waited there to keep an eye on things. He would see if Smajor emerged as something different, then act afterward.

It wasn’t long before a figure that was decidedly on the green side stumbled out of the wreckage that he himself had caused. With his keen eyesight, Myth could see Smajor had flowers all over his hair, which seemed to be causing the newly created floran some distress. He chuckled and decided to go back down to confront him again, although he more so wanted to laugh at Smajor’s burgeoning temper tantrum to his face.

The floran was currently trying to rip all of the flowers out of his hair, but he stopped when he saw Myth approaching. “Of course this would be the one time you don’t run away. Go ahead, laugh your big, bad vampiric head off, then suck out whatever passes for blood that I have. Not like I can do anything to you with some pathetic little flowers. Just get it over with!” There wasn’t any less vitriol in his tone, despite the harmless-looking flowery exterior.

“Still not hungry,” Myth proclaimed blithely. “Maybe this is a sign for you to stop and smell the roses for a bit, maybe take some time to reflect and realize this cycle we’re stuck in doesn’t have to continue. You could settle down, raise a garden, maybe actually start caring about the land around you instead of treating it like an obstacle in the way of getting to me.”

“Oh, and you’ll just waltz off and claim a dark castle somewhere, feeding off the rest of the mere mortals around you? Remember, that eventually made someone come for me – if you want me to bring up more of the past. Maybe if you hadn’t come after my wings, none of this would have happened!”

“Oh, no, don’t you try to turn this around on me. You’re the one who won’t let it go. I will definitely find something better to do with my time than run around watching my back every second because you’re set on some unending vendetta.”

Smajor spread his green-dappled hands to indicate himself. “Look at me. This is useless. Do you want me to say ‘Congratulations, Sausage, you win!’ Because I won’t.”

“I know you won’t. And I don’t want you to. I just want you to bug off and not hurt anyone ever again.”

Smajor now held out one arm, where a smattering of pink tea roses had started to bloom. “Really? You think I can harm anyone with this happening to me?” He began brushing off the small flowers, only for more to blossom on the other arm. “Nether blast it, I can’t even control these things!”

Myth chuckled. “So, you literally have to stop and smell them. Look at that, a new hobby for you.”

“Yeah, and the other things that come with roses…” Smajor stopped fussing over his own arms and abruptly lunged at him. Myth felt a sharp pain in his chest and looked down, seeing the palm of the floran’s hand held outward and a giant thorn sticking out of it, piercing into the vampire’s heart.

Smajor smirked. “I can’t believe you fell for that and let your guard down so stupidly. As if I would ever be weak around you. Goodbye again, Myth. The most pathetic excuse for a vampire ever. You could have gloated after biting me, but I knew you wouldn’t. Wouldn’t want to experience all that trauma again by your own fangs, would you, dear angel? Off to dust you go. I’ll catch up to you later.”

Myth hated that the last thing he saw was that smug face as his body crumbled away beneath him. Now he wished he’d had the courage to bite him, just so Smajor would know how it felt to have the life and spirit drained out of him.

 [ Chapter Two ]

[ainyan]

Rolling The Dice

Part 1 and 2 || Part 3 || Part 4 || Part 5

He waited until late before reemerging, assuming everyone would have gone off to bed. Indeed, he could feel Y’shtola in her room, and the faint glimmer of light from beneath the twins’ and Urianger’s doors told him that they, too, were abed. Kal'istae’s room showed no light; hopefully she had come home, though he doubted Y’shtola or Alphinaud would have gone to sleep before ensuring the Warrior was home safe.

As was clearly the case, he saw, when he emerged into the Respite and heard her soft murmur from the infirmary side. Startled, he ghosted closer, uncertain as to why she was still out here instead of in her own room.

As he came around the bookcases that separated the infirmary from the common area of the Respite, he saw her stretched out upon her bed, laying on her stomach. With some bemusement, he noticed that she was tucked not only under the covers of the bed, but his waistcoat as well. A book lay open before her and she was reading in a soft voice. He could just make out her words, “... and the sailors finally found land, their ship wallowing its way through the sea to an island. Upon that island, a friendly group of lalafells took pity on the stranded men and women…”

He recognized the story - it was how the Nymians had become cursed by the dark mages of Mhach during the War of the Magi. He knew this story had especial significance for her, as she was close friends with some of the survivors of that millennia-gone tragedy. But to whom was she reading?

As he stepped silently closer, he discovered the answer to that question, bemused to find his own nutkin companion curled up beside her, staring raptly at her as she read to it in a soft, breathy voice. As she reached the end of the passage, he squeaked at her. “Aye,” she murmured, reaching out to stroke her finger over his head, “‘tis a very sad tale, and the happy ending is slow in coming, but it will come. We grow closer to a cure for the Tonberries' plight day by day, and Surito Carito labors without cease to push forward. I have naught but faith in him.”

The nutkin squeaked again and reared up on his hindlegs, rubbing his head against her cheek. She giggled and leaned down to press a kiss to its head. Thancred scowled as he felt a prick of envy in his stomach. Really? 

As if he could feel the rogue’s hot stare, the nutkin glanced at Thancred and gave a welcoming chirr, flirting its fluffy tail at its friend. Startled, Kal'istae glanced up and he watched with some bemusement as color flooded her cheeks. “Oh. Uhm. Thancred.” His coat moved as, he assumed, her tail twitched. “I can… explain…”

He raised an eyebrow. “Explain what? Why you absconded with my coat? Or my nutkin? Or why you’re suddenly so free with your kisses?”

“Free with my…” She blinked at him, confused. “I - uh… all three, I guess? Although, I might add, you’re the one who left your coat with me. I took that as an open invitation to coat-nap it.” He couldn’t help but echo her grin. “And your nutkin,” and she turned to scratch the fuzzy little creature beneath his chin, “is the one who came to me. As for the kiss, well, handsome lads like him deserve a good kiss.” And she suited action to her words, pressing another kiss to the critter’s nose.

Thancred settled down on the edge of her bed and she twisted beneath the coat and covers to lean on her side, planting her cheek upon her fist as she stared up at him in quiet contemplation. He studied her, flipping a mental coin as he considered his options. She gazed back, her expression guileless as she stroked her fingers across the tail of his coat where it crooked around her, snaking up so that were she to lay down, her cheek would rest upon it. He’d never been much of a gambler, but even he understood when it was time to take a chance. “Indeed?” he asked lightly. “Interesting. I’ve been called handsome in my time, you know.”

Her lavender-edged eyes hid everything as she gazed up at him, still stroking his coat. “Have you now? It may be I’ve thought that myself - once or twice, in days long past.” Her fingers played along the seam of the coat. “Perhaps in days not so long past.”

“And do I qualify now?” Kal'istae’s eyes glittered as she pursed her lips, studying his face, then nodded slowly. “So where’s my kiss?”

She sucked in her breath. “Come here, then, if you think you’re deserving of one.” Even as she spoke, she pushed herself up, sitting upright and drawing his coat across her lap, her eyes on his.

He knew this was a bad idea. No matter what Urianger said, surely, surely holding back would make the inevitable end less painful.

No. Gazing down into her eyes as she waited for him to make his decision, he knew that the pain of loss would be the same whether they were together or apart. Why the hell not? he asked himself, and sucked in a breath before leaning down.

She lifted her face, and he saw the smile curve her lips the moment before his own brushed against them. The kiss was soft, light - testing.

It didn’t stay that way.

He felt her gasp the same moment lightning shivered down his spine. He reached out to grab her arm in an iron grip, drawing her closer as he tilted his head to the side, lips parting against hers. He felt her mouth firm against his, one hand reaching up to gather up a fistful of his shirt, hauling him closer.

For all her delicate features and demure demeanor, there was nothing sweet in this kiss; it was heat and hunger, spice and sorcery. For the first time since he’d been lost in the Flow, he could feel the magic of her, could taste it in this kiss. He chased it with abandon, driven by want and need.

The kiss seared her spine, driving her to abandon her hesitation. As her tongue darted across his lips, dove between them as they parted, she could taste him: leather and oil and steel, secrets and intrigue, all tempered by an unexpected core of sweetness that tingled warmly against her mouth, sent her diving eagerly to partake of it without qualm.

When even Thancred’s prodigious lung capacity ran out, he drew away, gasping. “Gods,” he whispered, gazing down at her as she opened dazed eyes. “Gods. Kal'istae.”

“I knew there had to be something,” she whispered as she gazed up at him. “I couldn’t have wanted you so long without there being something. But I never imagined… Thancred.” There was pain beneath the pleasure. “What have we done? What have I done?”

His hand tightened before she could pull away, drawing her to him until he could wrap an arm about her, holding her against him. “Taken a chance. Made a leap of faith.” He squeezed lightly until she looked up into his eye. “We’ve done what we should have done long ago, Kal'istae.”

Her lip trembled. “Gods, Thancred, I want nothing more - but I don’t want you hurt.”

He leaned down until his forehead rested against hers and she exhaled. “You understand, it would hurt whether this had happened or not. You have always been special to me. To all of us. If - if,” he insisted when she opened her mouth, “the worst shall befall you, we will grieve. We will be devastated. And we will fight on in your name. In your memory.” He exhaled in turn. “But the future is not, as I have been so forcibly reminded, written in stone.”

She wriggled back, then lifted her hands between them, reaching up to cup his face between delicate fingers. “And what intentions do you have, Thancred Waters?” she asked softly. “Is it a bit of fun you’re looking for? If so, I’m most certainly not opposed - but if you will speak of taking chances, then there is a chance I wish to take.”

It scared him; he wouldn’t admit it to her, but the idea of it scared him half out of his mind. He’d never even contemplated what she was suggesting with anyone else - but he already had been thinking of it with her. To have it in the open between them, however - he pulled back, inhaling sharply. But as her expression fell, her eyes sliding from his - he took that leap of faith. “Then let’s take it together,” he murmured, and her eyes snapped back, shocked. “Am I nervous? Seven hells, of course I am. I’ve never - you know my past, Kal'istae. All of it. But the past is done, gone - it’s time I lived for the future. And you,” he whispered, “are part of my future.”

Again, her lip trembled, then firmed. “If you are willing, then by the gods, so am I.” Her hands were soft as they stroked his cheeks, then slid up to tangle in his silver hair. “Thancred Waters, I want to be with you.”

He reached up, cupping her cheek as he searched her lavender gaze. “Kal'istae Miurani,” he replied, with equal intensity, “I would be with only you as long as you would have me.”

She leaned in, brushed her lips over his, but when he would have drawn her in closer, she resisted. “Ah,” she murmured. “One last thing I would say.” He drew back at her serious mein. “I know you, Thancred; I know there is as much I don’t know as I do know, but you and your habits are a matter of public record.” As he muttered a curse, her lips curved, just slightly. “I only ask for your respect, Thancred. If the idea of cleaving to one woman grows too difficult, please let me know. Don’t force yourself down a road you cannot comfortably travel. I would rather release you from any obligati-”

He shut her up through the simple expedient of kissing her. Against her mouth, he muttered, “Yes, yes, you have my word - now be quiet.” His eyes glittered with laughter and lust. “You have naught to fear, my Kal'istae.”

She huffed out a breath against his lips, then closed her eyes and let herself fall into his kiss, into his embrace.

~*~

By the time they parted again, they’d managed to stretch out on the bed. Thancred lay on his back, Kal'istae draped against his side, her head tucked into the curve of his shoulder, carefully placed so that her horn did not dig into his flesh. “So why,” he asked, his voice breathy and satisfied, “are you out here and not in your room?”

“Ah.” Recalled to their rather public location in the Respite’s infirmary, she colored. “Y’shtola and Krile asked me to remain out here another night so that they might monitor me. Which means I suppose you had probably best head back to your room,” she sighed.

He reached down to grab the covers, pulling them over them as she blinked at him, startled. “Why?” he asked reasonably. “We’re not doing anything - much to my chagrin,” he added, grinning at her blush. “But that will come in time. Unless you no longer wish my company this evening?”

She stretched her arm across his waist, snuggling in, and smiled as she felt his lips brush over her forehead. “Stay, then, if you’re okay with being discovered,” she murmured, closing her eyes as she felt his hand stroking over the arm stretched over his waist.

“They’re Scions, Kal'istae. They knew before we did.” Her giggle echoed the chuckle that rumbled in his chest beneath her cheek. “Sleep, milady.” He no longer had access to his aether, but his voice had a magic all its own, and as he crooned the word again, she found herself slipping under, lulled into slumber by his warmth, his breathing, and the seductive sound of his voice.

[zhimaqiu]

A little Good Omens fic because I was bored

*I did not firmly choose the angel's name. Idk if I'll continue this or no, but if I do then I'll take something more biblically accurate

~ ~ ~

There are days when you just don't feel right. Your thoughts wander, tasks seem impossible to be done. The most recognizable feature of such days is a strange flow of time that seems to slow you down, but speed up everything else. It was such day for Aziraphale. He had invited Crowley to spend a relaxing evening together over a board of Ur, a game from ancient times, but it wasn't really going anywhere.

To play the game, they brought a small stool and put it between the sofa and the chair in front of Aziraphale's desk. The angel suggested sitting somewhere else, but Crowley argued that technically that sofa already belonged to him, considering how many times he sat, slept, drank and listened to Aziraphale's stories on it. If he was to die of embarrassment losing a board game with his angel, he wanted to do it on that specific furniture. The other place he accepted as his place of death was his Bentley of course, but after it burnt down, he wasn't entirely sure if the car he received after the end of the world could still be called that Bentley. And so they decided to make it look less elegant than Aziraphale would want it to look.

The board was cramped with four blue pieces. None waited to be put on the board, but three were already set aside. However, there wasn't even one white piece in the game nor aside. Aziraphale was turning one in his fingers and let Crowley throw the dice. A three which granted fourth blue piece to leave the board. Then Aziraphale's turn came. He rolled a zero again.

"This isn't very fun." Crowley leaned back on the sofa and crossed his arms. "You don't seem to be even slightly annoyed by this catastrophic luck. Almost seem like you do it on purpose."

"Ah, sorry. I didn't mean this evening to look like this. I'll make up for it. My mind is just somewhere else."

"That I can see," Crowley leaned over to him. "You don't have to force yourself, you know. A word and I will give you some space. For a time being."

Aziraphale smiled a little and offered Crowley a drink. Despite refusal he got up to make himself a calming cup of cocoa. This attempt of escape didn't went as well as he'd like. Crowley followed him and looked around the place. He never visited this room before, but it looked just like he imagined. Kitchen matched the rest of the bookstore: dusty, dark, cozy and small. Maybe a bit too small for two, but Crowley didn't seem to mind that Aziraphale kept brushing against him with his hips and belly as he moved around looking for ingredients. He opened a cabinet just above Crowley's head. Thanks to his flexible, sneak-like neck, the demon noticed there was a pinkish mug in a shape of a heart that stood out in the collection.

"Really?" He reached out for it and tossed it between his hands a few times. "Why would you get something as kitschy as this?"

"It's a gift." Aziraphale grabbed his hand and made him put it down on the crammed countertop. "From a girl who often visits my store and reads in a corner behind the sofa. Please be careful with it."

"Err okay." Crowley let go of the mug, but his hand stayed in Aziraphale's for a moment. It was warm. He wondered if it was natural, a neffect of stress or warmth of the other cup, now filled with water, cocoa powder and unhealthy, at least for a human, amount of sugar. "Why a heart though?"

The angel's smile was so wide that Crowley could see it even standing almost behind the angel as he stirred the cocoa.

"One time, she said I was like a second big brother to her. It's just a child's way of showing affection I think. It was the "second" that made me perturbed." He hid his lips, troubled. "Um... May I tell you something?"

"As long as it will help you get rid of this stern look of your face, yes." That's what Crowley almost said, but definitely thought. So let's rewind.

What actually came out of his mouth was more like a distorted, high-pitched "mhm."

"It's about her other big brother, you see," Aziraphale said siting back on the chair where they previously talked. "I found out she's got a guardian angel assigned. She's a golden child, really, but gets lost sometimes. Heavens thought someone could keep an eye on her. They believe she may be the next Marie Skłodowska-Curie." He laughed a little. "My concern is that they chose this... Daniel or someone."

"Daniel?" Crowley squinted. "That's a familiar name. I thought he's fallen."

Crowley stretched, taking space of the entire sofa. If a new customer walked in, he'd surely assume he must the host. If he ignored that Crowley, wearing all black, a leather jacket and tight trousers, within the visuals of the bookshop, looked absolutely out of place that is. But the demon always looked like he was the owner of every place he found himself at. Aziraphale on the other hand tried to take as little space as possible. Although lately he started to feel more relaxed around the demon. Earlier he wouldn't even imagine standing so close to him.

"Yahyahyah, I'm pretty sure he was floating a couple of feet away from me. Wings spread like two pieces of beacon on a pan. Kind of looked like enjoying himself."

Aziraphale took a loud sip of cocoa and put it down, next to the Ur board.

"I can't get it out of my head. Someone suggested he could redeem himself and they went with it."

"Suggested he could whot?"

"Redeem himself. Only because We are... They?? are short staffed at the moment. Honestly, I don't know what to think of my affiliation."

"Euh," Crowley waved his hand. "Pay no attention to that. But what's up the idea anyway? Heaven is quite unforgiving nowadays, so why? Demons are described as unforgivable. How is that guy any better?"

"Well, I do not know him yet so I don't want to judge. The Almighty must have reasons for allowing it... But I think you're the one more suitable for redemption. "

"Shut up," Crowley waved his hand and crossed arms again. Maybe if Aziraphale looked at him more carefully he'd be able to see a hint of red on the demon's face.

"In any case, it's probably an experiment. Tell me, have you ever seen that Daniel in Hell? Do you know something?"

"Not that I spend my free time in that stink-pit, but as far as I know the shit going on in there: no," he stood up and looked over the bookshelf to the entrance. He thought he heard the ring, but there was no one. Must have been the wind. Crowley continued as he turned back to Aziraphale. "What? Are you worried that he'll do something to that girl? She has her parents to look after her. There's no need for a guardian angel. Wasn't the idea abandoned 1900s? If this is a rebuild plan then it's a terrible start to chose a fallen angel as the first one if you ask me."

Aziraphale gave Crowley a worried smile.

"Oh. And what? He just took her in?"

"Yes. I can't help but feel responsible for her. In a way. She has spent so many days here. Probably more than in the orphanage. You know, when you told me that the bookshop burnt down, I thought of her. God bless everything is back to normal now and that she wasn't here when it happened."

Crowley looked at his friend carefully. He played with his hands and looked genuinely concerned, but Crowley couldn't grasp the idea of an attachment to a human. It was something he lost after the fall. The only person he became loyal to was Aziraphale, as strange as it sounds.

"What do you want to do about it?" he asked.

"It crossed my mind that maybe we could... oversee the case," Aziraphale replied glancing at him.

"We? " Crowley's eyebrows rose in surprise. "When did I sign a pact to be by your side in all of your shenanigans?"

Regardless of whether Crowley wanted it or not, his words stung the angel in the chest. He looked down again.

"Will you not help me then?"

"Of course I will!" Crowley mumbled the rest of the sentence: "Justsurprisedyoureallychose... ourside."

"Oh! That's wonderful." Aziraphale smiled brightly. "It eases my mind a bit. Thank you."

"Mm... Whatever, angel." Crowley look away for a moment then took off his sunglasses and moved the mug closer to Aziraphale. "Don't let your cocoa get cold." He knew the angel wouldn't drink it without a little stream of steam tickling his nose.

[nerdyporcelain]

°THE ABANDONED°

Okay, so my character almost died last session.

Our group and a guest player were sent on a mission to retrieve information about a transport of 30 statues (they are a mischievous thing of the past world in this setting) that was coming to town. We go there and it's a shack full of big ass crates with some random kids at the guard and three more people inside. We lure the kids away, because there's no point in fighting them and after our barbarian, Gotylda, gets brought inside after some unsuccessful seduction attempts, we go in to rescue her, guns blazing.

Now, it was a sturdy building with no windows and no way in other than the front door, so after four attempts at getting in peacefully or stealthily, we decided to fuck it, we ball. My character swings the doors open with thaumaturgy and the combat begins. After some rounds my cleric successfully brings down the Tabaxi, which just so happens to be the wife of the 'main boss' of this encounter, Captain Amarena. After seeing her love die she naturally zeroes in on Licricia, super ficking enraged (our DM loves Undertale so it could've gone two ways).

Fast forward and she fires three attacks at my girl with her great crossbow, and they all fucking hit. Our characters are only lvl 5 at this point, and DM rolls very high damage, so the second shot brings Licricia the fuck down. After that, Captain deals the damage from the last shot and two of my death saving throws automatically fail. If it wasn't enough, I'm next in the innovative, so it's time for my (possibly) last saving throw. I had inspiration so I was prepared to re-roll the dice if need be. Thankfully, I rolled a 15 and a healing potion from our guest Rogue that went next patched her back up to 6 hp before I could roll any more DST's.

For me personally it was fucking stressful (I was shaking, felt sick, couldn't look into anybody's eyes and couldn't feel my fingers) because Licricia is a character that I hold very close to my heart, I've been building her existence in my head for almost a year and half that long in the game. She's my first dnd character that's been given this much life, but her story is just beggining, so grieving her loss would be absolutely heartbreaking to me. I know if I asked, our DM would do everything in her might (that would fit the narrative) to let the players try to bring her back, and she doesn't usually try to kill us off on purpose (that being said I actually really enjoyed the aspect of a crazed lover trying to avenge her wife, very relatable). However, it still would leave the possibility of failure and ultimately having to say goodbye to my beloved character, which is scary as hell.

Now, Licricia on the other hand was fucking terrified because of couple things. One, obviously, being that she almost fucking died, and that hadn't happened in like ten years (she's 47), and that alone is freaking scary. Two, as a Death Domain Cleric she can sometimes hear the dead (something funky I came up with and DM agreed to), especially freshly after they died, or if their spirit is tied to some place. It manifests in various ways, but this time, after all the fighting has been done and Amarena died, Licricia heard a meeting between their souls, like an unexpected greeting between loved ones after years, overwhelmingly lovely in the face of death. The DM described to me that Licricia feels overwhelming sense that they have something that she won't, not in a while anyway.

Now that, that was just the most perfect cherry on top of a character insight that I've been slowly baking.

Licricia had lost her lover, Ophelia, in a rouse roughly ten years ago. She watched her get hanged and could do nothing about it, except for running away and disappearing from society for eight years. She lived through her grieve long and hard, harbouring pain and loss and learning how to live without her other half. It was the hardest period of time in her long, painful life, and when she came out at the other end of it eight years later, she believed herself to be okay. She met people and cought meaningless crushes, she trusted some for a while, she got betrayed like so many times before, she lived on. And she truly believed herself to be content, to have made peace with Ophelia's loss.

But throughout the two years she's been back in the society she drunkenly looked for blue tieflings in the crowds, listened put for a gentle melody of a harp in city squares and subconsciously wondered what happened to the engagement ring that she ordered all those years ago, but never got to pick up. She always thought herself ready to die, because it was the most natural thing in the world, and it might be a chance for them to reunite, but now that she actually saw what it could look like, everything changed. Would she meet Ophelia like that, even though she died so many years ago? Would it be like meeting an old friend or would she be angry with her for not making it to that platform in time? For the first time in a long time she knew that not only does she not mind not dying, she doesn't want to die. She got reminded first hand actually how close death is and how scared she was of letting go. Shes always believed that she'll meet Ophelia once more, but when she saw a reunion of love, she felt it's importance and she didn't want it. She felt the weight of the grieve she thought she managed to let go of, she saw her friends loot the bodies and take the rings from their fingers, and truly understood that she'll never let go, not until she gives Ophelia a proper burial, even if only symbolic.

It was unnerving, guilt ridding, she never expected herself to feel this way, to actually want to live on, to move on from Ophelia, but that is the truth staring her square in the face. She can't ignore it, she can't pretend to not want a life, a deeper meaning in her existence, a night when she could simply enjoy music without her heart sinking, a deep connection with someone, even after all those times she's been betrayed.

She is naively in love with life, still. After all those years, that wonderlusting part of her soul is still there. It's beautiful, it's terrifying, it's hopeful. Shell always love Ophelia, but she still has more love to give, to be herself truly and explore her own soul.

At the end of the session she just stood there and listened to lovers reunite, feeling, searching inwards, terrified of her new discoveries. What a perfect way to progress her story.