#and yet i approached the creative process and the structure of it as though it was!

[theajaheira]

going to make some creative choices based on how happy they will make me & not on rigorous imaginary standards that i'm setting for myself based on my own incredible love for and pride in what you make!!!

[gabeorelse]

Resource: Writing Craft Masterpost

Okay, so one of my favorite things to do when I'm not writing but I want to think about writing is to study the craft. Seriously, I'm a HUGE writing nerd and learning is one of my favorite parts of the process (besides the actual writing lmao). Below is a list of my favorite craft resources that I don't see recommended a ton but which I've found do a great job of identifying and explaining the nitty-gritty rather than just giving blanket advice like 'show don't tell'.

Ellen Brock's Youtube Channel

Ellen Brock, according to her bio, is an editor who has worked both freelance and in the publishing industry. The resource here is on her channel - TONS of free longform videos that break down structure, character arc, anatomy of a scene, dialogue, prose, principles of revision, anything you can imagine.

My favorite video: Character Arc meets Story Structure. An hour long video explaining how character arc and story structure marry within the 3-Act Structure. I made an annotated cheat sheet/study guide just based off this and it literally fixed my WIP lol.

Susan Dennard's Writing Academy - Free Resources

Susan Dennard is a published author who, disclaimer, I have not checked her books out yet (though I've been meaning to!) but I have found her blog post archive invaluable. She writes a ton on writing craft, publishing, revision, etc, and I've coopted a lot of her strategies, particularly in revision, for myself. Highly recommend.

Unfortunately, it looks like my favorite resource (her revision advice) is behind a paywall now (which, fair, she did a LOT of free stuff over the years), but I might put together a frankenstein version of my own revision method one of these days - it's heavily influenced by hers.

ShaelinWrites Youtube Channel

Another writing youtuber who really gets to the nitty-gritty. What I love about them is they are a pantser/discovery writer and they show, both through their advice and success, that you CAN be a discovery writer and not just end up in a mess of unrevised monstrosity, which is what I feel like a lot of people assume. They also do a lot of videos on writing confidence, process, and mindset which have all been very helpful to me.

My favorite video: How to Become a Confident Writer. This video really helped me get back some of my confidence and love for writing when I was struggling. They have similar related videos, and I basically watched ALL of them at various points, but this one really helped me.

LocalScriptMan's Youtube Channel

Okay, here me out. This one is a bit of a departure. I feel like LocalScriptMan kind of takes on this tough love/tough life advice persona, and I don't mind it, but some people might. He's also focused on screenwriting, but a lot of his videos apply to general writing principles, and I feel like, as with the other resources, he really gets to the heart of the craft and breaks down principles in a way I really like.

My favorite video: it's a tie between The Key to Writing Freakishly Good Dialogue and How to Actually Succeed as a Creative. I really liked the latter because I interact a lot with other authors who are querying agents or have one foot in the publishing industry, one foot not quite there (like me), and his attitude toward success changed my mind about how to approach the industry. His advice is something like 'most people keep looking for that big break, but that's very self-focused. If you want to succeed, help others and make yourself a valuable person, not only to get that big break, but because then you can do what you love: creating stories and working on projects, even if they're not your own'. This is a bit more applicable to the screenwriting community, but I do think overall the best part about writing is not just writing, but community, and I think he hits the nail on the head with that one.

Summary: obviously I am not an affiliate (these people 100% do not know who I am lol), but I get frustrated when I'm trying to find answers to my writing problems and all I get are shitty SEO based articles written by the Masterclass website lmao. So over the years I've cultivated my favorites, and wanted to share them. I hope these help anybody who needs them!

[steampunkforever]

Asteroid City is another addition to my “pandemic film that didn’t suck” list. Mostly because though it was a pandemic film, it had more to say than simple commentary on the pandemic.

For Wes Anderson this was both a continuous evolution of his style and a solid return to form. This is important for a filmmaker whose success depends on upholding his brand (to the point where the film seems to be a financial success but most of the marketing I’ve seen around it has been tiktok “in the style of Wes anderson” social media clips) yet must stay fresh or else risk becoming boring (like one half of all new Spielberg projects) or even worse, artistically irrelevant (the other half).

I won’t go into a deep analysis of Anderson’s creative periods here but Asteroid City marks a much more nuanced start of a new one. Where Grand Budapest stands as his entry into a hyperaesthetic, Asteroid City is the evolution of style within that aesthetic. Rather than acting (as the Darjeeling Express did) as a deployment of a formula, Asteroid City takes the same ingredients that French Dispatch (which served to cement the aesthetic after aisle of dogs and grand budapest) had and puts out something thematically interesting, new, and (at least for our darling Wes) experimental.

Post pandemic (though we may appreciate nostalgia still) we’re moving away from looking at the past and planting our feet squarely in the direction of the future and this movie is doing it too. Frankly, that’s the whole message of Asteroid City.

The film takes all our familiar Anderson ingredients (whip-smart kids, tragic adults, deadpan angst, kitschy set design) and literally puts them in quarantine. Under this quarantine they somehow come out different than they would in previous films. They’re creatively changed. The girl scouts aren’t like the ones in moonrise kingdom. The NYC society artistes aren’t like the ones in the Royal Tenenbaums. The claymation animals aren’t like fantastic mr fox. The movie is practically screaming at us that through the pandemic quarantine we had the chance for a cultural reset and we need to grab onto it and hold on for all we’re worth.

As a metatextual film, it couldn’t be clearer. The events of asteroid city are those of a stageplay set within the events leading up to and around the stageplay set within a television showcase exploring the creative process of theater. This is inception but for exploring one’s own creative approach. And with all his might Wes Anderson is telling us that the pandemic was a needed break and now we can wake up to the future.

It’s a good movie. Great movie, even. Anderson breaks from the boring. He maintains his brand but stretches it, playing with the fourth wall and plot structure like he did with colorgrade and academy ratio in the French Dispatch. In some ways it felt like a return to the snappiness of Moonrise Kingdom and his earlier work even as he flexed his conceptual muscles.

It’s a masterpiece, and one of Anderson’s best yet. Go watch Asteroid City, if only for Steve Carrell operating a martini vending machine, but certainly to witness the continuing creative evolution of a director I count among the greats.

[yuurivoice]

Hi! I don't know if this counts as profound but I got stuck in my creative feels so figured I would share. I create a different kind of media to your awesome work, but writing's still involved.

When I start out with a story idea, I often find it being completely derailed by the characters, the more I write them, the more I get to know them, until they eventually start writing the story themselves.

Does this ever happen to you? And if so, how do you stop them from running away with it a little too much?

That's a great question, and I've talked about it a bit before because it is definitely not the way I think most people expect writers to write, I think. lol So for me, BitterSweet is a great example of how sometimes I let my stories reveal themselves to me as I go. I may go into it with a rough idea and an outline, but BitterSweet started off as "Rival for listener's affection arrives in town, creates conflict, leads to two different routes people can listen to." and we ended up nowhere NEAR that.

As I was writing Seth's introduction to the listener, it was the first time I was sinking my teeth into him and getting to know him. Up until that point it was just "he used to do crime with Alphonse and he feels like he got sold out" but I'm big on motivations, set ups, and payoffs...and his arrival didn't have enough stank on it. lmfao

As I approached the "I don't hate him, I love him" reveal gears just started turning and ideas started flooding into my head and it was exciting. Writing, sometimes, is sorta like playing a rogue-like game for me. Never know what loot you're gonna get, or what is behind the next door. At least, when establishing the story and characters.

Once I got to BS3 I was much more deliberate and my process was outlined pretty thoroughly. I made some detours (background on Charlie wasn't planned, but people's interest in him made me pivot to an entry with the Al/Seth/Charlie story) and ran into some massive decisions, but those were all primarily choices left up to me vs. letting characters show me the way.

I don't think I've necessarily ran into any character running away too much, or straying so far off the beaten path I felt like I had to wrangle them. Even if sometimes it's inconvenient for me, they haven't led me astray yet! The issue I find is that sometimes I am too ambitious in scope, or underestimate the time and effort required to see things through to the end. Sometimes that's just on me being exhausted and struggling mentally, sometimes I just get bored, sometimes I need to move on to other stuff because of timing.

So, when I'm first learning a character and discovering what makes them tick and how they fit into what I'm trying to do they definitely get in the driver's seat for a while. Once they're well established in my head though, I'm much more likely to outline, write, perform, and post without having to make many adjustments.

Now, in terms of structure and plot, that also changes as I go sometimes. For example with the spooky season AUs, I outlined three parts for each boy, and basically after the first script in each I was like...yeah okay so this needs to be tweaked. It wasn't entirely because of character, more so I didn't really know what I wanted to do with those stories until I was in the thick of things. I might go in with a plan, but as I discover what characters really want to say, how they want to act, etc. it might not necessarily reflect what I thought the plan was. Thankfully it's never TOO far off from where we were trying to go, so it's just a matter of shuffling and planning. The AUs probably didn't help a ton because while they're familiar characters, they're also entirely different in terms of motivations and situations so I have to familiarize myself with them as if they're new.

tldr: Yeah I'm changing and adapting all the time to what the characters want to do vs. what I thought we were going to do. From little things to massive things like...oh, they were lovers, oh they were best friends, oh he nearly killed someone for him, oh he's terrified of who he was and has a shitload of trauma, oh he's healing because he's been shown unconditional love, oh he's learned how to show that love to others, oh they're like a little family now.

It's beautiful because it's coming right out of my heart and soul, rather than my brain. The deepest parts of me wanted to tell that story and I didn't even know. That's art, and I didn't even know I could do that.

[anotherghoul666]

Could I, maybe also, ask a question? The vibe check was interesting, and now I'm curious. I need to look for a new job. How might that search go?

Of course darling, anything you want you may ask!

Well you are obviously at the start of that job searching process. With the Fool right there as a first card, it's either you're still at your old job, you've decided you need to find a new one, but you're contemplating how to go about it; or you recently lost your old job or quit, and you're on the verge of starting the search. I don't think there's been any big, concrete action taken yet towards that goal, and you need to get going.

Now, the good part first: you are 100% capable of finding this new job, and finding something that will suit you better than the previous one. You find it difficult to abide by social norms / neurotypical expectations and ways of life. You gotta find something that suits your excentricity next, a space where you'll be comfortable being fully yourself. It's about time, you deserve your job to be a safe space for once. You have literally an unlimited amount of doors to check out / open in front of you, especially in today's employment climate. It's the employers that have the short end of the stick right now, so take advantage of that. Your options and opportunites will be near limitless. Approach change with optimisn and open arms. Change is good, we're aiming for a change in the established structures here, renewal and fresh air. You have everything you need within to make this happen. You have the willpower to take the necessary steps, you're conscientious enough to make intelligent choices, you're logical. Think outside of the box, maybe be more creative or wild in your search. Look for stuff you wouldn't typically look for. Try out for jobs that interest you but you don't have the qualifications for. Take wild guesses. There is unlimited potential when you channel your authentic self into a task, so use your experience and knowledge to reach for something wild and cool that inspires you.

Now for the less good part: dude, honestly, this job search experience is likely gonna suck. People are gonna waste your time. You're gonna go for ads that say one thing and once you've gone through the effort of interviewing, you'll find out something like the salary or the position isn't what was advertised. You'll get cancellations. You'll get no replies when you were owned some. You'll interview three times to never hear back from the company. You'll feel isolated and alone through the experience. Don't let that win. Break the isolation. Vent to people. Your family, be it blood family or found family, irl or online, will support you through it, but only if you reach out. You gotta rant and be pissed off freely to make this bearable. Don't do this alone.

Now, I don't like to give strict time periods for any "predictions" because that's not how I read, but! I cannot ignore that those three cards give the exact same time frame. That's too cheeky to not mention. Spring, 88 days which covers spring almost perfectly from now and before july which, guess what, is basically spring. I feel before midsummer you'll be set somewhere new. Take that with a grain of salt though because I do not read for future predictions or precise timelines at all.

[thejoyofviolentmovement]

With the release of 2019’s critically applauded full-length debut, Useless Coordinates, Leeds-based experimental outfit Drahla — currently Luciel Brown (vocals, guitar), Ewan Barr (guitar), Rob Riggs (bass) and Mike Ainsley (drums) — exploded into the UK post punk and experimental rock scenes. The British quartet’s long-awaited sophomore album angeltape is slated for an April 5, 2024 release through Captured Tracks. Recorded with Matthew Benn and Jamie Lockhart last year, angeltape is reportedly an avant-garde document oft he events that unfolded over the course of the five-year gap between albums, which saw a variety of changes — both good and bad — that steered their professional and personal lives down unfamiliar territories. Of course, instead of succumbing to adversity, the band’s sophomore album sees the band re-emerging sounding creatively rejuvenated with deeply reflective perspectives. Over the last few years, the band’s members have suffered devastating losses and yet have expanded upon their sound with the addition of their newest member Ewan Barr. Inspired and informed by their recent experiences — collective and individual — the album features a considerably darker, tonally more complex and conceptual sound. The addition of Barr signaled a significant shift in the band’s dynamic and ultimately reshaped the way they approached their angular arrangements, with the band being feeling the freedom to experiment with form more than ever before. Brown, in particular embraced the opportunity to find different ways to inhabit her contemplative lyrics. Naturally, because of the band’s new lineup, there was a readjustment period when they convened to write angeltape — but it helped to kickstart a renewed creative approach. “There was an uncertainty and anxiety in not knowing how to rekindle what we had, and what we did have just didn’t exist in the same format,” Brown explains. “I feel this is apparent in the music; the constant changes, opposing ideas and structures, the overall energy and drive of the songs. I think there’s also the sense of reconnection, encouragement and freedom, too. There’s excitement borne from us finding something together again.” The album also draws some inspiration from the work of experimental rock outfit This Heat, but the band primarily found that their greatest motivation came from listening to and following one another throughout the writing and recording sessions. “I think the process and inspiration for this album has been way more experimental and insular than taking on any external musical references,” says Brown, “This record feels like it was built on a foundation of insular inspiration.” The band’s Rob Riggs adds, “When the four of us are in a room, we each bring separate things to the table. Sometimes, a session would start a little bit disjointed but then we find a way where we could all interlock together for a moment in a song and then disperse again.” Sonically, the album’s material is rooted in the interplay of driving bass riffs and charged drum patterns provide an uneasy yet captivating contrast to Brown’s melody sing-songy spoken delivery. The material is also heightened by searing saxophone contributions from the band’s longtime collaborator Chris Duffin. angeltape‘s third and lates single, the wild and expressionistic freakout “Grief In Phantasia” is a No Wave-inspired take on post punk — or maybe a post-punk-inspired take on No Wave — built around angular and scuzzy guitar lines, primal saxophone skronk and off-kilter yet forceful percussion serving as a tumultuously and uneasy bed for Brown’s melodic sing-songy and punchily melodic delivery. According to the band: “This song was informed by others on the record and those we’d written in the past. It felt like the closing track when we wrote it, as though it summarised the chaos and the calm of the album.” Drahla will also head out on tour across the EU and UK through May and June; their first since their European dates in 202...

[denimbex1986]

'British director Andrew Haigh has spent much of his career telling intimate queer stories that defy genre expectations, finding the poetry in our ordinary yet captivating realities. His characters grapple with self-consciousness, feeling as though they are constantly being observed and judged by a largely indifferent straight society. They carry the weight of their gay identity within a world that may no longer care either way, until it suddenly does.

His new film, All of Us Strangers, explores how gay men hide from themselves. It’s a companion piece to his 2011 masterpiece Weekend, a melancholy meditation on hook-up culture centered on two British guys in their 30s whose 72-hour affair is cut short by one of them leaving for America.

In All of Us Strangers, two men again connect against dramatic obstacles after a one-night stand. The paradox of Haigh’s approach is that his meticulous realism, capturing faces teetering on the edge of rejection, reaches for the extraordinary. He has remained true to his original, gritty vision of queer life, even as Hollywood executives clamor for a certain stripe of adult gay tragedy, in the vein of Brokeback Mountain or Philadelphia, or now increasingly, YA hits like Heartstopper and Red, White and Royal Blue.

Gay vulnerability is a crucial aspect of Haigh’s creative process—especially evident in All of Us Strangers, arguably his masterpiece. Haigh adapted the script from Taichi Yamada’s 1987 novel Strangers, a metaphysical ghost story set in Tokyo. The book revolves around a divorced man who starts an affair with a woman named Keiko, the only other tenant in his apartment building, while simultaneously encountering manifestations of his long-dead parents as they appear to him from childhood.

This plot unfolds like a universal metaphor for the modern mind, alienated in an impersonal cityscape, yearning for sexual fulfillment as well as the safety and familiarity of home associated with one’s inner child. The protagonist reconnects with his estranged son at the novel’s end, subsuming his grief over his parents into the duty of fatherhood.

When the film opens, the middle-aged protagonist, Adam (Andrew Scott), is struggling to work out a screenplay about his closeted childhood. The top of his laptop screen reads “EXT: 1987,” conjuring an image of a young boy growing up on the outskirts of London with conservative parents. This is the era of homophobia streamed on airwaves with the rise of Margaret Thatcher’s election, and the spread of HIV/AIDS; one can imagine a structure toggling between past and present.

But Haigh, in line with his previous films, deliberately steers away from flashbacks. What sets All of Us Strangers apart not only from its source material but other LGBTQ+ movies is the specificity of its central question: How can queer people contend with the grief of losing parents before getting a chance to reveal their true selves?

Haigh films his desolate London cityscape like an eerie dream. His opening shot captures the apartment building Adam lives in alone—or, almost alone. There are only two lighted windows. The person occupying the other apartment is Jake (Paul Mescal), a younger, thickly accented hot guy. We meet him holding a bottle of whiskey as he knocks on Adam’s door. His flirty banter carries an apocalyptic tone as he jokes (or does he?) that they live in the type of building designed to make people want to jump right out of it. Jake insists that since they are the only people in this building, they may as well get to know each other.

There is a hurried, rapid urgency on Jake’s face, the sort of pained longing familiar to many struggling gay men, scrolling apps at three in the morning, hoping for a stranger beside them to quell the unease of loneliness. But, as Jake stands helplessly at the threshold like a lost puppy looking for a home, Adam shuts the door: he is a stranger, after all.

Quite unlike the original source material, Haigh also proves attuned to the psychosexual dynamic between father and lover that the story suggests in thoughtful editing. When Adam strolls through a park and comes across a stranger who seems as if he’s cruising in the bushes, the man (Jamie Bell) tilts his head back like a proposition. But Adam—and by extension the audience—are instead led back to his childhood home.

This stranger is not a potential lover, but Adam’s dead father in early-middle-aged form. Adam’s parents died in a bicycle accident when he was 12 years old; the scenes that follow with their ghosts play out like a lost soul searching for catharsis and resolution in a fantasy. Adam comes out to his mom (Claire Foy) in the way he wishes he could’ve when she were alive. His Mom expresses worry that he could get AIDS, but Adam assures her,“It’s different now.”

The next day, after rekindling a relationship with his parents, Adam finally welcomes Jake into his apartment. They proceed to talk about semantics of queerness, Jake complaining that replacing the word queer with “gay” has taken the “cock-sucking” out of the whole thing. Adam admits he feels like his (straight) friends have abandoned him to raise kids in the suburbs. The heterosexual suburban fantasy connotes loss for Adam, both in childhood and adulthood.

Haigh takes advantage of the novel’s urban atmosphere to present a tragically relatable fable about what it means to be gay in the modern world, drawn to places and people which ultimately reveal themselves as intangible, even haunted. The camera’s steady, unsentimental lens, however, never steers the story into soap.

Instead, the unraveling of Adam’s metaphysical experience makes for Haigh’s most experimental, trippy filmmaking to date. In one scene, Adam attempts to introduce Jake to his parents; the house is empty. Riding the Tube back to London, Adam screams like he’s just heard the news his parents have died all over again and the screen rends itself apart like a Francis Bacon painting.

In Hanya Yanagihara’s novel A Little Life, recently adapted for Broadway, tragedies constrict the central queer protagonist’s personality so tightly that he seems like little more than a collection of symptoms, almost presented as a dish to arouse the reader’s appetite for sorrow. All of Us Strangers, however, takes a different approach to trauma and characterization. The film delves into why Adam’s loss of his parents, who have never rejected him, results in profound sexual shame in adulthood. It lingers on the question rather than the answer.

What sets Haigh’s adaptation apart is his use of Yamada’s source material to contemplate why trauma exerts such an addictive grip over all of us and hinders our ability to form genuine connections with others. Adam and Jake, representing different generations of gay men, serve as foils for exploring broader themes of the universal experience of alienation among gay men throughout time.

As Adam aptly puts it about gay life to the ghost of his mother, “It’s different now,” but in some ways, it remains the same. After all, the only ghosts that can haunt anyone are those we willingly invite through the door.'

[loremmagazines]

Issue 3 - Water From Your Eyes

Meet Water From Your Eyes, the experimental pop-duo making waves from the boroughs of New York City. With Rachel Brown providing their passive yet alluring vocal style, and Nate Amos bringing his defining experimental production, Water From Your Eyes has managed to carve out a space of their own in today’s musical landscape.

Since taking on a more experimental approach with their sound, the duo received new levels of criticalreception with each new release. In support of their latest album, Water From Your Eyes sat down with me to discuss the new stage the duo’s career is in.

_____________________________________________________________

As we make our way to Koriente’s for a quick bite to eat, Rachel and Nate take me through their back-to-back schedule filled with DJ set’s, interviews, and live sessions during Austin’s Levitation Festival. Though a recent occurrence, this type of schedule is not unusual for the duo. Following the release of their critically acclaimed album Everyone’s Crushed, Water From Your Eyes has made it onto everyone’s list with features and reviews from Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, and NME.

_____________________________________________________________

Nate: A lot of the press things that happen are like, in one ear and out the other. It takes too much energy to process all of them, but there’s been a big difference between what’s happening now and early 2022.

Rachel: Yeah, I feel like now if we headlined a show in a city we don’t live in, there’s actually a chance that people will be there? We’d never done the touring thing, so it’s not like we’d been in communities outside of New York.

Prior to the critical praise received for albums such as Structure and Everyone’s Crushed, the experimental musical direction now displayed by the duo originally found itself at the cross roads of Water From Your Eyes’ pure-pop roots and Nate’s experimental solo project This Is Lorelei.

_____________________________________________________________

Having originally met through the Chicago DIY Music Scene, Rachel and Nate would work on music together, officially dating in the process. Following Nate’s relocation to New York, Water From Your Eyes would become the duo’s main focus, trading places with each of their solo project’s.

Nate: We just got really tight really quickly.

Rachel: We started dating and never stopped hanging out, until we stopped hanging out. Then we stopped hanging out.

Later ending the relationship and continuing the project as collaborators, the group would take on a transformation of identity during this period. Sighting their ramp up into “break up mode” as a possible source, the group quickly found themselves at an inflection point. musically.

_____________________________________________________________

Rachel: Yeah, that time period is very confusing. I didn’t want to work on music with Nate, so it became this thing where Nate’s solo music and Water From Your Eyes were so linked. I wasn’t paying attention at that time.

“It’s the first time we made something, and it actually made sense as a thing.”

Nate: Break/Freaking me in is a great example of this because either one of those songs could have ended up on either musical project. I think of Structure as like, the first Water From Your Eye’s album. It was a growing pain both creatively and personally for us.

_____________________________________________________________

A new level of unhinged creativity was brought forth by Water From Your Eyes this November with the official release of their remix album titled Crushed By Everyone. Featuring a reworked version of Everyone Crushed by incredible artists such as Sword II and The Dare, this album manages to take the inherent beauty found in each song and show them in a new and equally unique light.

Nate: Yeah, it kinda became a process where we’d make a list of people we wanted to see remix our songs and realizing which ones were realistic.

Rachel: We did ask The Flaming Lips, but they didn’t respond. Wayne Coyne does send us the most out of context photos though.

_____________________________________________________________

Supporting the band Squid for their North American tour, Water From Your Eyes will be making their first stop at Austin’s very own venue, The Parish, in early February. Providing a unique performance that is as nonchalant as it is captivating, Water From Your Eyes is a must see band with a discography balanced beautifully between their pure-pop and experimental roots.

Following their performance at Austin’s Levitation Festival, we here at Lorem Magazine highly recommend you check out Water From Your Eyes live if you do get the chance.

[creative-crybaby]

Sweet Dreams

PAIRING: timeskip!Ohira Reon x fem!reader 

GENRE: comfort | fluff | smut (18+)

Minors DNI

TAGS + WARNINGS: oral (f receiving), light manhandling, edging, orgasm denial, creampie, squirting, breeding kink if you squint, praise kink

Let me know if I missed anything.

WORD COUNT: 6.5k

SUMMARY: With work consuming your time, a dream brings you and your boyfriend an opportunity to be closer. All characters are 18+

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Minor timeskip spoilers here—we’re going to pretend Ohira doesn’t have a daughter yet, okay? Okay.

© creative-crybaby, do not repost or modify

There you are, Ohira thought as you approached him at the door of your shared apartment with open arms. He was certain he’d pass out before even removing his shoes, but your smile, albeit a tired one, had some of his energy returning. You reheated his dinner for him and asked him about his day while he ate. The two of you tried to keep the conversation going while you both readied yourselves for bed. As you snuggled together under your sheets, your replies became shorter and took longer to say. Eventually, one of you didn’t answer—who first, neither of you recalled, having already drifted into slumber. With what limited time long hours of work are willing to offer in return, your boyfriend cherishes whatever moments he can get with you. 

What Ohira didn’t expect was to be woken up by you fidgeting in your sleep. His head is still laying on your chest with your arms securely wrapped around his neck, but your soft whimpers don’t go unnoticed. Assuming you’re having a nightmare, he escapes your hold and lightly shakes you awake. 

“Angel?” he whispers. You stir before your eyes flutter open, your gaze finding your worried boyfriend. Darkness surrounds your bedroom, save for the moonlight peeking through the crack between your curtains. The baby blue glow bleeds onto the young man next to you like a spotlight, accentuating his bone structure and soft facial features. You relax at the sight of him: you could get used to waking up like this.

“Hey,” you croak, causing you to clear your throat. “Everything okay?”

Ohira shifts in his spot next to you before gently caressing your face. “You were moving around in your sleep. You seemed distressed. Nightmare?”

You squint, taking a moment to process his words. 

Crimson silk sheets lay in ripples beneath two nude bodies. The lights, while dim, cast a spotlight on the loving dance below. The man paints the woman’s figure with kisses, every landing of his lips well thought-out and intentional. Her mouth opens, only for a silent cry to follow. Words of desire are stuck in her throat as he recites love poems between her legs. Warm, large hands massage her breasts, and the melody orchestrated by his tongue bounces off the walls. A river of honey cascades from her entrance, the knot in her core threatening for a waterfall. 

Your eyes widen at the memory, and you try to dodge the question. “Sorry if I woke you up.”

The wing spiker shakes his head before leaning down to kiss your forehead. You sit up with him, letting him wrap his arm around you and pull you close. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” Ohira asks as you mindlessly trace shapes on his forearm. 

“Nah,” you trail off, trying to fix your posture. “I hardly remember what happened anyway. Pretty weird how dreams work like that, huh?”

It’s barely there, but your boyfriend can hear the hesitation in your voice. He also takes note of how you avoid his gaze and clench your thighs together. If he looks hard enough, he can see your flushed face with what little light the moon has to offer. He connects the dots fairly quickly, though you never were that good of a liar. 

Ohira has a kind heart. He knows your boundaries and when to give you your space and privacy. Even with his practice ending late, he makes an effort to help you with preparing dinner. If he can’t, he’ll clean the dishes instead. He’s always able to find a way to encourage you whenever you’re unsure of your latest project. If you’re overworking yourself, he’ll remind you to take a break and make the two of you some tea. When you find yourself in bed after pulling an all-nighter, you know it’s him who carried you there to sleep comfortably. You consider yourself blessed every day to have him as your boyfriend. 

That said, there were times where he’d like to push your buttons. Tonight is one of those times.

Lifting your chin to meet his amused expression, Ohira can’t help but chuckle at your embarrassment. 

“It wasn’t a nightmare, was it?” he asks, round eyes studying your face. The wing spiker doesn’t miss the way you gulp under his stare, and he knows he got his answer. When you don’t respond, he takes his hand from your chin and places it on your thigh. “Why not tell me what happened?”

All you’d have to do is pull away or continue to stay quiet, and Ohira would back off with an apology, you know that. Still, even with your panties growing uncomfortably wet, you can’t help but feel selfish. 

“You’ve got work tomorrow. I don’t want to keep you up,” you mumble. Your boyfriend’s playfulness disappears, gentleness taking its place. 

“You make it sound like taking care of my girlfriend is some kind of chore,” he says in a hushed voice. “I know work’s been a lot for both of us, but we’re trying. You’ve been nothing but supportive and patient with me. You always are.” His hand glides up your thigh ever-so-slightly. “Let me return the favour.”

His voice dropped an octave at that last part, though the tenderness in his tone and his eyes never left. You watch as his thumb traces the apex of your thigh, your cunt clenching. “Okay.”

Ohira holds you closer to him. “Okay, or yes?” 

You try to meet his gaze again on your own. Adoration saturates your boyfriend’s dark eyes, the moonlight’s glow highlighting his sincerity. His lips ease into a comforting smile, the one that made you approach him when you first saw him back in high school. The one he always has when he’d listen intently to your rants, regardless of whether or not he understood them. The one he had when he’d find you cheering him on at his games. The one he had when you confessed to him during practice. (He thought you wanted to see Ushijima instead, and being proven wrong made that smile grow wider.) A smile he gives to everyone but changes when it’s just you two. It spreads to his entire face, and you are reminded that you are safe.

“Yes,” you finally reply. This time, Ohira knows you’re sure. “I want you.”

His hand is resting on your hip now, the arm around your shoulders sliding down to wrap your waist. His smile grows, if possible; you’d kiss him if the anticipation didn’t further fuel your want for him. 

“So,” he drawls. “What happened in this dream of yours, if I may ask?”

The change in tone of his voice doesn’t go unnoticed. It makes you rub your thighs together, desperate for some kind of friction. You can’t seem to maintain eye contact with him, not when he now looks like he wants to devour you on the spot. You choose to caress his cheek, gliding your thumb across his bottom lip in hopes it’ll help you compose yourself even just a little bit. (It doesn’t.)

“We’re on a bed,” you begin, voice almost wavering.

“What a coincidence,” he chuckles, and you can’t help but copy his action. 

“You pull me onto your lap.”

Ohira does exactly that. “Mhmm.”

“You’re caressing my body.”

His large hands slowly glide up and down your waist, barely grazing your breasts and ass. “Go on.”

“And…” you trail off as your eyes flicker to find his. He’s still looking at you. “You pull me in for a kiss.”

Ohira brings one of his hands to the nape of your neck. “Like this?”

He presses his lips onto yours before you can even think about answering. You grab onto his broad shoulders for balance as you moan into his mouth. The softness of his lips is something you never get tired of, the sensation almost dizzying. Heat spreads throughout your body as his tongue enters your mouth, and you want nothing more than to rip your (and his) clothes off. The effect he has on you several seconds into kissing almost frightens you. This is way better than your dream already.

A thin string of saliva connects the two of you as you pull away for air momentarily. 

“Just like that,” you gasp before pulling your boyfriend back for another kiss. He’s almost caught off-guard by you grinding onto his crotch, and you take this opportunity to lightly pull at his bottom lip with your teeth. Groaning, he matches your speed, gripping onto your waist to guide your hips for more friction. His hard-on poking your clothed entrance almost makes you forget this is a reenactment. When was the last time the two of you got to do this?

You’re pulling at the hem of his shirt, and Ohira immediately gets the message. Separating from you to remove the article of clothing, you do the same with your top before connecting your lips once more. Your boyfriend sucking on your tongue encourages you to grind harder against him, guttural moans escaping you both.

While his hands rest on your hips, yours can’t seem to settle themselves anywhere: from feeling up his biceps to dragging your nails down his chest to tracing the outline of his abs. You can feel your slick seeping through the cotton of your panties; you’d be embarrassed if your boyfriend’s touch wasn’t so intoxicating, your brain fuzzy from the lack of oxygen. 

It isn’t until he’s fully hard do you pull away from him, lifting your hips to remove your pyjama bottoms. Wetness stains your panties, and the volleyball player can’t help but groan at the sight.

“You, too,” you pant. Ohira is in his briefs in a matter of seconds. Like you, a prominent damp patch is on the front. He sighs as you start to palm his bulge. 

“Then what happens?” he asks breathlessly, mindlessly grinding against your hand. 

“You take off my bra,” you reply, equally stertorous. The young man is already reaching for the clasps behind you as you continue to rub his bulge. Watching as you slide the straps off your shoulders, Ohira has to refrain from proceeding any further. He swipes his bottom lip with his tongue, his eyes hooded. You add your bra to the pile of forgotten clothing. “Get on top and play with my tits.”

Your back is resting on the mattress before you realize it. Your boyfriend hovers over you, leaning closer to wrap his lips around your left nipple. Back arching, you let out a whine at the feeling of his warm mouth. His hand goes to toy with the neglected breast as he holds himself up with his other arm, his hand covering the entire mound. The throbbing of his erection begs for attention, and he rubs himself against the mattress to give himself some relief. He continues with his ministrations, sighing into your chest. 

The tweaking, the light grazing with his teeth, the soft slurping; it’s intoxicating. Whimpers of his name and “Just like that’s” leave your lips like a mantra. After a while, Ohira switches breasts to give the same attention, suckling hickeys and groping and licking and pinching the soft flesh. You’re almost positive he’s enjoying this more than you if it weren’t for the borderline painful pulsing of your neglected clit. As much as you love his current treatment, you need his attention elsewhere. 

“Take off my panties,” you whisper. “Use your teeth.”

Ohira hums against your chest at your desperation before slipping your bud out of his mouth with a pop. Lowering down to your crotch, he can’t help but notice how the embarrassingly damp stain on your panties has grown since minutes ago. 

“Did I do that?” the wing spiker asks, looking up at you knowingly. 

“Shut up,” you pout, lifting your hips off the mattress. “I thought you wanted to reenact my dream. You didn’t tease me this much.”

“That doesn’t sound like me.”

“You wanna help me or not?”

Ohira chuckles at your frustration before biting onto the waistband of your panties and pulling down. The cool air has you sighing as it hits your cunt, and your boyfriend watches as the thick string of slick that connects you to the cotton undergarment follows him down your legs. When the panties are off, he sits up.

“Now what?” The article of clothing between his teeth muffles his words, but you heard his question. Your favourite part of the dream, you remember it so vividly. The anticipation is what makes his teasing hot, but that doesn’t change the fact that he’s still leaving you so fucking needy. You spread your legs apart, giving him a view of your drooling cunt. 

“Please,” you whine, and Ohira feels his cock twitch in his briefs. Still, he wants to drag things on just a bit more.

“Please, what?” your panties are discarded somewhere in your room, and the man before you can now properly grin down at you with a raised brow. “I can’t give you what you want if you don’t tell me.”

Always the sweetheart in high school, your boyfriend’s kind nature is what drew you to him. The more you spent time with him, his maturity stood out more as well. His presence is refreshing, but you couldn’t help but worry that he was always like this. You knew with the tough training he had to endure paired with a challenging coach, he had to have a strong head on his shoulders. You wanted to help him relax, act like a boy his age. And with time, he was able to let his guard down more often. You’re glad he got out of his shell, but it’d be just superb if he didn’t do this in your moment of desperation. 

Then your eyes land on his. Love and excitement replace the exhaustion that consumed them for the past several weeks, and he reminds you of the boy that you fell for in high school. Your gaze then wanders to his lips. Moments ago, you were wriggling under their touch. Their taste still lingers on your own from when his tongue explored every inch of your mouth. Now, they’re stretched into his usual innocent smile, juxtaposing his lustful stare. Your cunt clenches around nothing, something he doesn’t miss. 

Damn it, you think. He’s got me.

“Your tongue,” you say, proud for not stuttering. “I want you to fuck me with your tongue.”

Ohira’s hands slide up from your knees to where your thighs and hips meet as he lowers himself to face your entrance. He kisses your clit, eyes never leaving yours. “As you wish.”

Before the wing spiker gets a chance to start, you take his hands and move them up to your chest. He pauses, looking back up at you. 

“You were holding them while you ate me out,” you mumble your explanation, causing the man between your legs to chuckle. He gives your breasts a light squeeze before going back down.

With work consuming most of your time, the two of you couldn’t have this kind of alone time together as much as you’d like. So when the opportunity would show itself, you’d make sure to make the most of every second. Especially when it came to giving you oral, Ohira did exactly that. He took pride in making you squirm, mewl his name like it was the only thing you could remember, and gush on his tongue when he did everything just right. 

The wing spiker wastes no time, giving your pussy long and slow licks to lap up as much of your essence as he can. Kneading your breasts, he then gives your clit some attention. The flicking and swirling of the tip of his tongue have your toes curling, and you have to refrain from bucking your hips. 

“More,” you whine, hands finding his on top of your chest. Your boyfriend hums at your impatience, the vibrations going straight to the sensitive nub. Your back arches as you moan. “Please, no more teasing.”

You can feel the smug grin on his face. “But you’re so cute when you get all needy.”

He’s hovering over your cunt, and you don’t bother to stop the frustrated groan that escapes you. The expression he offers you feigns innocence; the corners of his lips curled upwards and round eyes widened ever-so-slightly as if listening to you go on about how your day went. He even leans onto one of your thighs for good measure, the tilt of his head inviting you to speak whatever is on your mind.

“What did I say about teasing?” you grumble. He nods in mock-understanding, his cheek rubbing against your inner thigh. Your eyebrow twitched when he starts peppering feather-light kisses against that area, his gaze never leaving yours. “I swear to God, Reon. Don’t look at me like that.”

He pauses his affectionate assault, a look of fake concern on his features. “Like what?”

“Like you’re my therapist.”

“Oh? And how does that make you feel?”

You hold back a snort as you try to maintain an unimpressed expression. “You offered to help, didn’t you? I already told you, no teasing. Don’t call it a reenactment if you’re off doing your own thing.”

It’s silent between you two. Your body feels heavy like it’s sinking into the softness of the mattress. You’re in desperate need of sleep, but the coil in your stomach is persistent; your brain wouldn’t be able to shut off even if you wanted it to. That said, even you could acknowledge at that moment that your tone came out somewhat harsher than you’d like. Maybe you should apologize.

“I was hoping to drag things on since we’re so busy all the time,” Ohira simpers, almost appearing remorseful. The silence returns, and you bite the inside of your cheek as guilt washes over you. “But if you’re that sexually frustrated,” he continues, lowering himself to face your core, “then who am I to keep you waiting?”

Before you can say anything, the man between your legs latches onto your clit and begins to suck. You wail silently at the sensation, your grip on his hands tightening. 

“Is this how things went in your dream?” Ohira asks, his words muffled. The waves hit your core, and you can’t help but lightly grind against his face. He gives your clit a particularly harsh suck at your actions, causing you to moan. “Did I make you feel this good?”

His questions fall on deaf ears, you being too occupied by how he made you feel. Separating your lower lips with his tongue, he plunges into your pulsing hole. His nose nudges at your clit while he explores your walls, pushing against the familiar spot that has you seeing stars. You cry out as he applies more pressure.

“Careful now,” Ohira tuts. “Wouldn’t want to wake up the neighbours, would you? Or did that also happen in your dream?”

Your brain can barely acknowledge that he’s more teasing than usual. The first time he went down on you, your boyfriend made sure it was all about you. Your insecurities had convinced you he wouldn’t like what he saw, what he tasted if he proceeded. With kind words and a soothing voice to match, he managed to calm you down before giving you a mind-numbing orgasm with his mouth. As you came down from your high, he told you how well you did, each word separated by a kiss he’d sprinkle all over your body. The two of you have gotten plenty comfortable since then, even with work getting in the way.

You bite your lip to keep the lewd noises at bay, but you could only do so much to silence the ones between your thighs. From smacking to slurping to squelching, the lustful melody orchestrated by the athlete made you flush. You don’t notice how you’re grinding harder against his face until he groans against you, adding to the pleasure. This cycle continues as you take one of your hands to cover your mouth. It barely helps, and if you could form a coherent thought at that moment, you’d apologize to your neighbours for possibly disrupting their sleep. 

Ohira, on the other hand, is loving every second of this moment. His chest swells with pride as you try to keep quiet, his grip on your breasts tightening ever-so-slightly. The throbbing between his legs is almost unnoticeable as he continues to have you moaning his name. Your pleas for more overpower every pornographic sound his lips and tongue create against your cunt, and who was he to deny you of your release?

The knot in your stomach comes closer to snapping as you feel the wing spiker go pick up speed. Tilting your head to look down at him, you find him already staring up at you. His pace doesn’t falter as he watches you come undone, your slick staining his lips and chin. He’s lapping it all up as he helps you ride your orgasm, cherishing every drop. Watching you arch your back while squeezing your eyes shut, Ohira swears to himself that he could die happy.

Your legs don’t stop shaking until you’ve calmed down. Your breathing is more or less back to normal, yet your boyfriend almost doesn’t understand you when you tell him to kiss you. You taste yourself on his tongue, wrapping your arms around his neck in an attempt to pull him closer. He’s whispering sweet nothings into your ear when you separate, making sure you aren’t hurt and if you want to keep going. 

“Why don’t you tell me what happens next?” Ohira asks lowly after you told him you wanted to continue. He’s hovering over you again, caressing your cheek with that same lustful expression. You squirm under his gaze, suddenly feeling shy. 

“That was it,” you mumble. “I woke up afterwards.”

You hear the athlete exhale deeply, and for a moment, you worry you’ve made him think you’re blaming him for being awake. When you look back up at him, though, he didn’t falter. If anything, there’s a glint in his eye that has your thighs tensing once more. He sits on his knees, never looking away from you. 

“Let’s say your dream continued,” Ohira drawls, eyes half-lidded. You watch as his thumbs hook to the waistband of his briefs, and he pulls down. His cock is out, already oozing precum. He takes it in his hand, pumping it a few times. “How would you have wanted it to go?”

You can’t answer him, your eyes locked onto the prominent vein on the underside. You would complain to your friends about the stress attached to your workload, and they’d keep suggesting fucking the tension away. An appealing idea, you’d admit –God knows how much you need it–, though the constant reminder that you have little-to-no time is disheartening. Your fingers can only reach so far inside you, and you and your boyfriend are already too tired to try anything by the time he comes home. You refuse to let this opportunity go to waste. Where do you even start–

Ohira has to say your name to remind you to answer him. You blink, and only then do you realize you’ve been staring off. You inhale deeply before spreading your legs for him. God be damned if you let your exhaustion cockblock you again.

“I’d want you to fuck me raw,” you reply. 

The demand catches him off-guard. The part of him that wants to follow along with your request grows the more the wing spiker stares down at your exposed figure. His act drops, gulping at the sight of your arousal seeping out of your cunt. He imagines being able to feel your plush walls squeeze his cock without the latex barrier. It was his turn to space out, picturing his cum leaking out of you.

“Please,” you whine. “I just want you inside me.”

The desperation in your voice has Ohira tossing his briefs into the pile of clothes hastily as he settles between your legs. You’d laugh at his change in behaviour if you weren’t as eager as him. 

Guiding his cock to your cunt, your boyfriend spreads your slick along his tip before slowly sliding in. You hiss at the sensation, taking in every inch. He’s about halfway in when you pull him back down to kiss you, hoping he’d be able to silence your cries. 

“So tight,” Ohira grunts against your lips. “Always feel so good, pretty girl.”

You gasp when his hips touch yours, fully sheathed inside you. The man above you whispers praise in your ear, trying to soothe you as you squeeze your eyes shut. The stretch stings less thanks to your orgasm, though you’re still sensitive from the previous experience. With your boyfriend holding still for you to adjust, you can feel him pulsing inside you. Your legs wrap around his waist, the heels of your feet digging into the small of his back.

“Ready,” you say in a hushed voice, opening your eyes. “You can move now.”

Ohira hums in acknowledgement before gradually pulling his hips back until only the tip is inside. You groan as he reenters at the same speed, feeling every vein drag along your plush walls. He sighs shakily as he maintains his pace, relishing the way you help him slide in so smoothly and hug his shaft deliciously. 

“Reon,” you gasp, gripping onto his shoulders. “Faster, please. Want you to go faster. I can take it.”

“Sorry, angel,” your boyfriend groans with a breathy chuckle. “You’re so tight, couldn’t help myself. So–hah–warm. Just a little longer, okay?”

Still going too slow for your liking, Ohira only adds some extra force into his thrusts. A compromise, you’d used to think, but you know he’s teasing you again. You buck your hips in desperation, and he lets out a silent laugh at your poor attempt. 

“C’mon,” you huff, though it almost sounds like a sob. “I’m sorry for my attitude from earlier, okay? I’ll do whatever you want, I just need this so fucking bad. Please, don’t do this to me.”

Ohira pauses, half-sheathed in you. He lowers himself to face you, his usual golden boy expression dancing across his features. His tone, however, is sultry, and he feels you clamp down on him at his following words. “You make it sound like I didn’t want any of this. Like I didn’t need you.”

Before you can reply, the volleyball player pulls back a bit more before slamming into you. You yelp at the force, digging your nails into his shoulders. He hisses in delight and throws his head back as he picks up the pace. His thighs slap yours with every stroke, the sound of the impact harmonizing with your gasps and moans. 

“Reon,” you keen. “Just like that! Fuck, just like that!”

Your pleas only further fuel your boyfriend, him detangling your legs and pushing them forward. The new position, while painful on your hamstrings, has him hitting deeper. Choking on oxygen, you rake your nails down his back. He grunts at the sting, his grip on your legs tightening ever so slightly as he adds more force to his thrusts. Your eyes roll to the back of your head; you swear you can feel him in your stomach.

“Atta girl,” Ohira hisses through gritted teeth. “Always taking me so well, aren’t you? It’s like you’re sucking me in. I–hah!–miss this so much. I miss you so much.”

You mewl from his praise, squeezing him tighter. Another groan leaves his throat, and the wing spiker buries his face in the crook of your neck. His lips pepper open-mouthed kisses on your skin, tingling the area. He feels your cunt suck his dick back in, making the sensitive shaft twitch. Pushing your legs closer to your chest–if possible–, Ohira manages to hit your g-spot with the new angle. He smashes his lips onto yours before you can react, muffling your squeals of pleasure. Your lungs burn as he slides his tongue into your mouth, begging for air. You pull away hastily.

“‘M close,” you gasp, slipping one of your hands from his shoulder to between your thighs. You rub your puffy clit in slow and small circles, and you wail at the increase in pleasure. “Gonna cum.”

Ohira moans at your grip tightening around his cock, making sure to hit the same spot as much as he can. The image of his cum dribbling out of your abused cunt returns to his brain, fuelling him to pick up his pace and force. You almost lose your balance if it isn’t for him tightening his hold on you. 

“I’ve got you, pretty girl,” he sighs shakily, resting his forehead against yours. “Always so good for me, aren’t you? Such a good girl. Go ahead and cum for me; I’ll let you cum as many times as you want. Anything for you.”

You choke on a sob as waves of love and pleasure hit you all at once. Your jaw slackens as you clamp around your boyfriend, squirting onto his pelvis as your nails return underneath the skin of his shoulder blades. Ohira hisses at the vice grip you have on his cock and back, soon stilling inside you as spurts of cum shoot out of him. The warm feeling of him painting your insides white makes you shudder. He slides one of his hands down and rubs your clit, helping you ride your high. Your back arches off the bed, bucking your hips erratically. 

You only realize you’ve calmed down from the euphoric sensation when you feel the mattress beneath you, hot and uncomfortable. The blanket leeching onto your back from your sweat has you groaning tiredly. Ohira is now lying next to you; he’s still trying to catch his breath, his body rising and falling with every gulp of air he takes. With the moonlight complimenting his frame, you can’t help but ogle. 

I hit the jackpot, you think, blowing air out of your nose. Ohira turns his head to face you, his usual gentle smile gracing his features. 

“What’s so funny?” He asks quietly like you’re about to share a secret. 

“My boyfriend’s a gentleman with the body of a Greek god,” you reply, the corners of your mouth twitching upwards. “Lucky me.”

The wing spiker chuckles lightly before raising an eyebrow in amusement. “Flattery will get you nowhere.”

“You’re stuck with me regardless.”

“Whatever you say.” The wing spiker moves between your legs, spreading them slowly. He sucks in a large breath at the sight before him: blobs of his cum oozing out of your cunt. He mindlessly swipes the sticky substance with his finger, causing you to shiver. “I’ll go get you cleaned up, okay?”

You hum with a nod, and Ohira climbs off the bed. Even when you’ve calmed down from the high, your legs continue to shake. Thighs sore from the unfamiliar position, you cringe at the way they stick to each other with your slick and sweat. The brisk air swimming in does little to help, and you once again curse yourself for not being able to open the window wider. Your boyfriend’s cum seeping out of you makes you quiver once more. You try to keep it in while he’s still absent, but the attempt has you aching more. You can barely move.

Ohira’s footsteps increase in volume as he approaches you with a wet cloth. Sitting down next to your frame (with a “There we go,” might you add), he leans down to give your forehead a light kiss. 

“Could you spread your legs for me, love?” He asks, his voice holding its usual softness. 

“Already?” You can’t help but coo jokingly. “At least let me feel my legs first, babe.”

Ohira chuckles. “You know what I mean. C’mon, I’ll help.”

Groaning, you try separating your legs, your boyfriend taking the one closest to him and placing it on his lap. The lewd sight of his cum dripping from your hole appears before him once again, and you feel his cock twitch against your leg.

“I was serious about needing that break, ya know,” you deadpan, though there’s still a bit of humour in your tone. 

“Of course, don’t worry,” Ohira assures. He swipes the cloth across your cunt, the coolness making you hiss. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

“Not in any way that I don’t like, no.”

“As long as you enjoyed yourself.”

A smirk makes its way to your face. “I very much did, I don’t know if the moaning and begging were any sorts of indication.”

“Weren’t you all shy and embarrassed not that long ago? What’s with the sudden change, huh?”

Ohira finishes cleaning you up, smiling down at you in adoration. You return the expression. 

“I love you,” you whisper.

“I love you, too,” he says back, kissing you sweetly. You can’t help but sigh, wrapping your arm around his neck to pull him closer. Your head follows his when he pulls away, not wanting the blissful action to end. The wing spiker removes your hand from his neck, playing with your fingers. “I’m going to go and get you some water, okay?”

You pout as he stands to leave once again, making grabbing hand motions his way. “Noooo, come back. Lemme hold you.”

“I’m just going to the kitchen, honey,” he states, amused by your sudden clinginess. “It won’t even take a minute.”

“Could you at least open the window a bit more?”

Ohira nods before getting back up and heading to the window. He cranks it two-thirds open before looking at you for confirmation. You let out an almost silent “Thank you,” savouring the breeze as it coats your body with goosebumps. He smiles at you, walking back to the bathroom to put the cloth away.

You don’t fully realize that he’s still naked until he returns with a glass of water. Your eyes follow the curve of the small of his back to the soft yet firm flesh. If you squint, you can make out the stretch marks on his hips in the darkness of your room. They contrast beautifully against his darker skin, and the urge to kiss every single streak increases by the second. You aren’t sure whether to be in awe or jealous. 

“What are you staring at?” your boyfriend asks, quirking a brow as he makes his way back to your bed. His cock, now soft, is directly in your line of vision. The idea of sucking him off as a thank you merges in your head, and you almost forget to answer him.

“Oh, you know,” you reply (not so) coolly, scooching over with what little energy you have left. He settles down in the now-vacant spot, another “There we go,” slipping past his lips. This time, you can’t help but giggle. 

“I really need to stop saying that,” Ohira mumbles. “I sound like an old man.”

“It’s cute,” you beam, looking up at him fondly. He returns the look, helping you sit up before bringing the rim of the glass to your lips. You take small sips, relishing the coolness sliding down your throat. You catch your boyfriend’s fixed gaze on your marked chest, your nipples now hard from the chilly air. You lightly push the glass away, amused. “Admiring your handiwork?”

“You were staring first,” he counters playfully, putting the cup on the nightstand. 

“Touché.”

You chuckle tiredly, leaning against the athlete’s side as you wrap your arms around him. The two of you enjoy each other’s presence, the rustling of dead leaves from outside the only, albeit barely, audible sound. He leans down to press his lips on your temple, and you exhale deeply at the sensation. 

“So,” Ohira trails off, his voice dropping slightly. “I’m guessing that means I lived up to your dream, huh?”

You nod, beaming. “So much better. Could’ve gone without the excessive teasing, but I’ll let it slide since you, once again, exceeded my expectations.”

“Glad I could be of assistance,” The wing spiker quips, rubbing the nape of his neck. His gaze then trails down to his lap. “To be honest, I think I needed that, too.”

Neither of you speaks afterwards. The outdoor air has removed the smell of sex from your room and cooled down your body temperature. Still somewhat worn out from your previous activities, you do your best to drape the blanket over your naked body. Sweat, along with other bodily fluids, stain the sheets. You can clean them tomorrow, you figure. Ohira notices and takes your shirt from the clothing pile to have you put on.

“Are you okay?” You ask, your volume lowered. He’s pulling your shirt down onto your body before grabbing his shirt to change into as well.

“I can feel my legs just fine, thank you,” your boyfriend jokes, though you hardly feel like laughing. He walks over to the drawers, grabbing fresh clothing for the two of you. “I think it’s safe to say we hardly get to actually see each other lately.” He smiles down at you, almost sheepishly. “Guess I should thank you for having that dream, huh?”

The wing spiker takes his time helping you put your clothes on, and all you can do is watch him as you think of what to say. You tug at the duvet when he’s done dressing, signalling him to get under it with you. He does so, mumbling his catchphrase once more.

Resting his hand on your cheek, Ohira leans in and kisses you deeply. You return the love, eyes fluttering closed. Your body instinctively moves to sit on his lap, though you stop when the aching worsens. You groan, shifting back into place. When he pulls away, his lips linger above yours.

“Have I ever told you how lucky I am to have you?” he queries.

“That’s my line,” you counter with a grin before yawning. The man next to you pats the pillow behind you, motioning for you to lay down. You do so, him shifting his body to do the same. He invites you into his arms, and you shuffle closer to him, the warmth from his body embracing you as well. You sigh as your fingers skate along his bicep. “We should do this more often, I think. It’s not much, but we get to do more together.”

Your boyfriend hums at your idea. “As long as you aren’t too tired, I don’t mind.”

“I can try to wake up with you, too. When was the last time we had breakfast together, really?”

“Hey, don’t force yourself, okay? You still need rest, too.”

When you don’t respond for several seconds, Ohira exhales from his nose.

“I can always try to get a day off,” he says. “Sometime next week, and we could try to align our schedules. We’ll do whatever you want for the day. How does that sound?”

Silence follows once again, and the wing spiker only then notices that you’ve stopped tracing patterns on his arm. Tilting his head down, he finds your body rising and falling with every rhythmic breath you take. Smiling tiredly at your form, he pulls the duvet over the two of you before pulling you closer. He blinks in long intervals until the intervals disappear. Then, he joins you.

© creative-crybaby, do not repost or modify

[nanowrimo]

Writing Without Writing

Sometimes our writing needs a new grove to it. Though we might not think of it, our hobbies and artistic exploration will help us with our writing goals and this week's NaNo Prep: Develop a Story Idea. NaNo guest Chris Fordham holds us to a new light that our writing process could be more than writing.

Focusing all of your creative efforts into producing a long form piece of prose is certainly a good approach. Writing challenges such as NaNoWriMo encourage a surge in word processing activity to generate a new story, but is it the only way to write effectively? To constantly hammer the keys, to live and breathe the story in exclusivity?

One of the best lessons I took away from my university course on creative writing, was that being a big reader expands your abilities to weave a story. An avid reader has access to a wealth of examples of descriptive language, world-building, and dialogue beyond their own life experience. Whilst this is all absolutely true, and certainly, something I'd encourage, I wanted to write about another avenue to better writing. When it comes to my writing, I find it important to explore other creative mediums alongside my current long prose project. 

Making sketches or art of any quality (not necessarily needing to be a masterpiece), temporarily switches your mind off from the story. The reason this could be a good thing is that whilst the hand is guiding a pen or brush for a while, it is learning something about small details. When you're making a picture, you are trying to interpret some idea or feeling about the subject. It is much like using words to do the same. If the picture you're making is related to the story you're writing, you may even reveal something of a character or scene to yourself that you were as yet unaware of or struggling to resolve. Photography too can be used in such a way. The majority of people will have access to some form of camera, probably used in the main for simple snapshots and selfies. Training your eye as an artistic photographer also gets you thinking about smaller details and how they all add up to a more complete whole.

Music and poetry are perhaps media more easily relatable to using words. Composing a song or working within an unfamiliar poetic form or rhyming scheme forces some interesting wordplay. You can learn something from writing a lyric to a tune, even rewriting the words to an existing song. Cadence is pivotal in music and a component of great poetry; it simply describes the flow or rhythm present in a verse. There is no reason why lines of a story can't be written within the structures of a poem. Consider a lyrical ballad such as “Annabel Lee” by Edgar Allen Poe, or the songs of Bob Dylan, they are stories but set to a rhythm, stories with a beat to them that moves beneath the sounds themselves. Some of Virginia Woolf’s writings are described as prose poems and exercise this lyricality well. Removing the stanza line breaks doesn’t break the rhythm.

There is a multitude of other hobbies and interests out there that help train your brain to look at things differently. What I’m saying here is that your word count could benefit from you stepping back and remembering your other hobbies. A thousand words can be great or they can be filler depending on their content. Sometimes the exact same subject matter or dialogue can be conveyed in a lot fewer, paced, and placed sounds. Whether the words deeply explore intricate but relevant detail or pack a weighty punch in shorter, more poetic lines, the influence of these other media may play a role in finding them.

Chris Fordham is a jack of all trades, master of none in terms of creativity, mainly focusing his efforts as a musician in a number of projects around Northampton, UK. Chris dabbles in writing poetry and prose. He studied creative writing and philosophy at the University of Northampton. In his spare time he also takes photographs, sketches and paints with watercolour. He’s taken part in the November NaNoWriMo five times, successfully completing it within the challenge deadline on three occasions.

Top Photo by Gabriel Gurrola on Unsplash  

[lovelivingmydreams]

My king au headcannon Part two

So this is the follow up to this post  Which is a headcanon for this au created by @rondoel Enjoy!

Something to think about The king was meditating. He was trying to familiarize himself with the mindscape again, get a better feeling of it and see what his halves had done since the split. He was sorely disappointed. There were pages upon pages of ideas, but he found no evidence of them in the fantasy realm. No traces of the epic quests the ‘light’ half had envisioned, despite how well worked out they appeared. An ‘Ultimate Storytime’ should have left traces in the kingdom. Remus at least lived out his ideas even if they were only ever half formed and lacked substance beyond the initial impulse that brought them about. The results of these outbursts weren’t all that impressive either. He didn’t examine the ideas too closely. Obviously his perfectionistic half had abandoned them for a reason and so they weren’t worth his time. The one named Roman had spent some time in the fantasy realm, but he didn’t considered it his main duty. Instead he’d wasted time on crafting ‘ideas’ and ‘bonding’ with the others. Even the impulsive Remus had prioritized interacting with Deceit over expressing himself. Disgusting. Not that he could truly fault either of his halves. Other than his purpose every trace of him had been purged from their minds during the split. They hadn’t known to distrust the others the way he knew they should’ve. Obviously the others were to blame for all this.

As he thought of them he could feel his minister’s energy surging and subsiding in subtle burst and raging waves. One of Roman’s nickname for him ‘Stormy Knight’ seemed to suit the boy quite well at the moment. The minister was mostly alone, aside from morality. Someone had to babysit him he supposed. Suddenly he became aware of music… something strange yet familiar. “Disney. Medley.” A faint memory offered him. He remembered Disney. It was his aspiration to create worlds and adventures just as amazing for Thomas to escape to when the real world inevitably bored him. Clearly he hadn’t been gone long enough for that to change. Though he didn’t recognize the melody that was currently playing, even though he could tell that it wasn’t something obscure and nearly forgotten to Thomas. The entire imagination responded to the melody as if it was an old friend. Almost as if it was born here even. There were voices singing, a magnificent harmony. Powerful and foreboding. He followed the sound of the voices and soon saw a structure appear. As he approached he found it was a massive statue expertly carved from marble. Center stage stood a figure he recognized as Thomas holding his hands in front of him to form a heart. A brilliant smile on his face. It was heartwarming to see his boy like that. To Thomas’ left stood grown Morality with one arm thrown over his shoulder and another pulling the hooded side, Anxiety, his minister, into the group. The young side allowed it with a small smirk and gentle eyes directed at their protégé. On Thomas’ right stood Logic, a steady hand on the boy’s shoulder as he adjusted his glasses, which did not conceal the fond look on the man’s face. On Logic’s right stood Deceit, his back slightly turned to the rest and adjusting his hat, but also with a soft, caring expression gracing his features. Then right behind Thomas, standing slightly taller than they would have in reality, seemingly standing on a stage behind the group, but close enough to still be part of the ensemble, was him. Or the two sides that had been him for a while. Roman looked regal and was posing as though he had not a care in the world, his eyes proudly overseeing his subjects. Not minding the presence of Remus who was hanging of his ‘brother’s’ shoulders and making a face. It was an idyllic picture that never was and now never could be. There was beauty in it’s tragic impossibility. At the feet of the stone depictions were stone letters. Fam in cursive and then in big bold lines ILY. And leaning against the L was the minister, singing the song that had lured King away from his meditation. The shadows around him were aiding in his musical endeavor drifting around him and the statue. King took in the marvel once more, wondering how the nervous side had managed to create such a blessing with what should’ve been a cruel curse for at least a few more days before King would grant the young one his council and guidance. He hadn’t enjoyed being cruel to him. Not entirely. Sure, he had opposed creativity in the past and deserved to be disciplined. But king also knew how integral he was to the process. Roman’s discoveries regarding that weren’t lost to him. He couldn’t silence Anxiety completely. He would not get Thomas to go on adventures at all if he did so. But he had to teach him his place now, before he got any ideas of fighting him. The minister had been about to try just that and might have been successful too if he’d gone all out at once. But luckily he seemed unaware of his own abilities, or at least unwilling to use them on what he still thought to be the twins he’d known all his life. Alas he’d never get the opportunity again. “It all can be sold!” the shadows chorused around the teen-like side, captivating baby Morality with their movements as the little one clutched to the dark uniform and distracting King from his musings. “As a specimen yes I’m intimidating!” One voice continued, drifting around the side who was swaying to the music playing in his headphones with his eyes closed, holding onto Morality and then the dark clad side sang himself. “You can blame my friends on the ooootheeeer siiiiiiiiiide.” And just like that the shadows dispersed. Mostly anyway. They still swirled around the minister, but they were more of a dark aura than when they originally manifested. Anxiety seemed to be in better spirits than when he came to offer his ridiculous apology to Roman. King barely resisted the urge to roll his eyes at the memory. What a waste of time. Still it had been sincere, at least it seemed to be. And King wasn’t completely insensitive. He could understand that it would be hard for this young one to let go of his halves when he had never known them as one. Perhaps, King could cut him a little slack. Though he would have to remain vigilant… Hmmm, why did that word feel so odd when thinking about… Right, Virgil. Everyone had names now. Not that he cared much for those. Names were too… Names were for friends, allies. He didn’t need a name, nor did his subjects. Lest any of them forget who was in charge. King wouldn’t. Never again. The infant noticed that they were no longer alone in the room and tugged at Anxiety’s hair to get his attention. In response Thomas’ guardian pulled off his headphones and looked down at the heart. “What’s wrong popstar… or… Well, doesn’t really fit right now I guess,” Anxiety chuckled a little sadly. “Guess I’m more the dad now than you, huh?” he mused. “When this is all over, I promise I’ll never complain about you treating me like your kid again.” There was an uneasiness forming in King’s stomach. Anxiety was close with Morality, both Roman and Remus remembered that. But… how close was Morality with Anxiety? King knew that their ‘moral compass’ could be as two faced as Deceit. No, this could be part of an elaborate plan to gain his trust, he’d fallen for it once before. And of course they’d send Anxiety to do their dirty work now that all of them had already shown him their true colors. Little Morality pointed at King and Anxiety looked up, curious at first and then his eyes widened in fear. He put the child behind him and stood in a strange mixture of a respectful bow and a defensive stance. Arms slightly spread to shield his friend and head raised so he didn’t quite let his eyes leave King’s frame. “I…I’m sorry if I was too loud,” Anxiety offered with trembling voice, assuming he’d angered his king someway. Good. King approached, not sure if he was in the mood to scold or to praise just yet, but stopped about three steps in front of Anxiety as his foot hit something. He looked down and saw that the floor surrounding his minister was covered in sketches. He looked up at Anxiety with a raised brow, curious to hear what had brought on this little storm of creativity. And he found him staring at the sketches around them in horror. Then he seemingly felt the structure behind him, he turned and looked up in horror, trembling even harder. He looked back at King with wide eyes. “I…I didn’t mean to…” he started. “Then I look forward to see what you create for me when you intend to do so young one,” King mutters calmly, as he bids one of the drawings to come to his hand. As far as he can tell it’s two children playing in a forest. “Tell me about this one boy,” he instructs as he shows Anxiety the drawing. The side takes the sketch with a frown and looks at it for a moment before a small smile of recognition appears on his face. “I’d manifested for about two months. Remus felt it was about time I came on an adventure,” he starts explaining, and as he does the drawing rises up and gains colors and details that weren’t there before. Anxiety didn’t seem to notice, too captivated by his own memory as he described how freaked out he was by the forest and all its creepy creatures. Remus never let a single one touch him though. Still, it was stressful for him and he didn’t come along as often as Remus would like. The painting showed two preteens, Remus and Anxiety, the later clutching a comfort item, pillow or blanket, King wasn’t sure, maybe it was a stuffed animal. They were running around and laughing. But in their shadows Anxiety was curled up in a ball and Remus was making a gesture as if he’d just popped out and screamed ‘boo’. A lovely memory with a shadow side. But that was the nicest thing Anxiety could create with the power King had granted. Once the story was done and the painting finished, King snapped his fingers and conjured a dark wooden frame with a vine pattern around it and hung it on a non-existent wall. “I’m sorry, I know you said to get rid of the feelings, but I… I can’t… I always mess up like this please I…” Anxiety flinched when King reached out for him. Curling into himself, expecting another curse or some other punishment perhaps. Which is probably why his posture relaxed and his face was overcome with confused surprise when all he received was a brief pat on his hair. “You may not have gotten rid of those feelings but you did something even better,” King laid a hand on Anxiety’s shoulder and looked down on him. “You made something out of them. I am very pleased with you,” he informed his disciple. Anxiety looked up at him confused. “Really?” he asked, his voice breaking over the single word. Before King could answer, a displeased cooing pulled Anxiety’s attention away. He turned around and picked up the infant who immediately latched onto his neck and stared at King over his shoulder. Clearly the infant retained enough of Morality’s adult thoughts to be wary of him. Good it wouldn’t be a proper curse if the traitor wasn’t aware of the danger King posed to him and his precious family. King grinned menacingly at Morality, hoping it’d confirm the child’s worst fears about his intentions for who he apparently considered a son. What could be worse than agonizing over the fact that your sins would result in an innocent paying for them? For that innocent to be your child of course. “Please Pat, behave alright?” Anxiety muttered as he got up and turned back to the king. “Sorry… Your majesty. He’s a bit clingy,” the young man offered nervously. “Not your fault. I don’t quite understand why Logic and Deceit would leave the care for such a fussy child to their youngest.” Not quite true, King could perfectly see how they thought they had to concentrate on finding a weapon against him that they hadn’t tried already. But still. One would think that the two oldest should be in charge of protecting both their young ones, instead of letting them wander off into the territory of their enemy. If Anxiety had failed to entertain him with his tale, who knows what he would’ve done to amuse himself during this second visit? Maybe he’d put morality in a bit of a dilemma… He might still do so if he ever needed for Anxiety to see that his ‘dad’ didn’t love him as much as he always claimed. “Taking care of him keeps my mind occupied. I don’t want to give Thomas nightmares or anxiety attacks. He doesn’t deserve to suffer for our messes,” Anxiety explained. King might be mistaken, but that almost sounded accusatory. He elected to ignore it. Once his rule was properly reestablished, he could revisit the subject if at all necessary, which he doubted. “Well, creating art seems to do the trick just as well,” he mused as he called forth another picture. Anxiety guessed what he wanted, looked at the picture and started to talk about the movie night and a popcorn fight, then a duel with cardboard swords and laughing about memories of middle school. The colors once again revealed a pleasant day, with a shadow of self-doubt and fear of abandonment. The shadows showed Anxiety pleading on his knees while Roman threatened him with a sword. This time the frame King made was golden and held roses. “C…Can I ask something milord,” Anxiety asked timidly. “Questions are always welcomed in the realm of creativity,” King decreed. Questions created possibilities. “What happened? Before the split I mean? The other’s won’t ever tell me.” That surprised King. And from the way Morality stiffened, he had to assume it was the truth. They’d really not taken the chance to sway Anxiety’s opinion in their favor? For a moment he considers spinning a grand tale of betrayal and heartbreak, but he found the very thought of recalling the details of the events leading up to the split… unpleasant. “I trusted them and they turned against me because they disagreed with my vision for Thomas,” he informed Anxiety calmly, hoping it was enough for now. “I’m sorry. That… That is terrible,” he whispered hugging Morality closer. The young minister couldn’t see it but there were tears in Morality’s eyes. Which pleased King. Let the bespectacled traitor be afraid this may end up being the last hug he’ll ever receive from his precious Anxiety. Was this why they didn’t tell him? Because they knew that there was no spin they could give to their deeds that wouldn’t destroy the trust they’d built with the one among them who already feared being betrayed. “I… It was a long time ago. I think… Logan seemed very ashamed of what happened. Even Janus seems to feel bad. I’m sure… can’t we all…” Anxiety struggled to express his desires, but a new drawing showed what he wanted. King and Logic shaking hands amidst the others, all back to normal and smiling relieved. Faint shadows of Roman and Remus with an arm around one another’s shoulders right behind King. The fact that his minister’s powers had conjured it showed that the desire felt impossible. King dismissed this drawing in favor of another. Anxiety sighed, accepting that the subject was finished, and continued to regale him with stories of the twins. Sometimes it was a sad memory where the shadows revealed his care and worry for them both. Like a fight over a failed audition where shadow Anxiety was trying to patch up shadow Roman. Or a fight about a nightmare where the shadow of Anxiety was embracing Remus. Then memories of the other’s came. A debate about negative thoughts where shadow Logic laid a hand on shadow Anxiety’s shoulder as a gesture of pride. A staring match with Deceit but their shadows were reaching for each other. One memory had no shadows. The ‘lights’ were in Anxiety’s domain and reaching out for him as he sat huddled in on himself on the ground. The image was conflicted enough on it’s own. Then King picked up a drawing of Morality. “That’s the first time you came to talk to me remember Pat?” Virgil coed to the child who’d been rather quiet during the creation of this gallery. Anxiety recalled how he’d been upset about another fight with Roman and he’d come over and sat with him in silence. Then he’d offered him one of his cookies. It had surprised Anxiety, he knew how much Morality loved his cookies. Sharing one was his standard gesture of love and appreciation. But Anxiety felt like he didn’t deserve either at the time. He felt trapped in a role he didn’t want to play. And because of Morality talking to him that day, for the first time, he thought that maybe he didn’t have to be. Anxiety talked more about how the thought was quickly dismissed as unrealistic but King found that it was hard to focus. The colors revealed a painting of a side being offered a hand by Morality. He didn’t even notice the shadows this time. It was like he was trapped in his own memories. Then suddenly, he was back in the present and heard something beside him. A wailing child and someone gasping for air like they’d ran a marathon at full speed. He looked down and found Anxiety curled up in a ball, rocking back and forth with a crying Morality sitting next to him clutching onto his arm. Before he could wonder what had happened he could feel the others approaching at high speed. He stepped back, not wanting to be found too close to the distressed side. He could not allow them to think for even a moment, that he felt a second of worry for the minister. He didn’t, but he didn’t need the implications of such a show of weakness to bring his strength into question. “Patton! Virgil!” Deceit called out, causing Morality to calm down and just let out a few more sniffles. King set up a disinterested mask and turned to the approaching sides. “Oh good, deal with this. They bore me,” he drawled calmly as he stepped aside. He was barely acknowledged which he normally would take offense in, but he’d let it slide until he knew what had happened just now. And if it had anything to do with that terrible feeling that had struck him when he saw Anxiety’s drawing. Logic kneeled next to Anxiety and Deceit spoke with Logic’s voice. “Virgil, can you hear us?” The boy nodded. “May we touch you?” Another nod and Logic placed his hands on the side’s shoulders. “Breath Virgil, in for 4, hold for 7 out for 8, you can do it.” One more nod and the side started to follow the rhythm that was tapped on his shoulders, stuttering trough the 4th count of holding his breath. “That’s alright, try again.” King observed as the two patiently helped Anxiety to breathe normally again. Somewhere along the line the troubled side started to whisper ‘sorry,’ and ‘so stupid’. “You are not stupid, your feelings are valid and we are here to help you with them. We shouldn’t have left you on your own. Especially not with him around,” Deceit growled, now in his own voice, before turning to King. “I don’t care what you do to me, but leave Virgil out of this! He has nothing to do with this.” Before king could retort. Claim the responsibility and remind Deceit that he’ll play with his minister however he likes, the boy spoke up himself. “Not his fault. Just, random attack,” he muttered. Deceit and King looked down and found Anxiety holding onto Logic with Morality trying his best to stand on wobbly legs while holding onto the purple sash adorning the minster uniform. Logic and Morality were staring at him accusatory, but Anxiety was pleading with Deceit. “You don’t have to defend him Virgil. We know what he’s like… And we’ll do a better job at protecting you now. I swear. Let us look out for you for once, please,” Deceit pleaded. So interesting. For all Anxiety’s fears of being abandoned and betrayed, the others seemed to fear for his safety before their own. Had they changed? Or had Anxiety not yet given them sufficient reason to be muzzled? Or was it his drastic decision of muzzling himself that had made them cautious of messing with his part of their duties? “I’m not. Jan look at me. You’d know if I was lying. He was just listening to me. He didn’t do anything bad. I promise.” Deceit frowned confused. “He didn’t do this to harm you? To cause you to create…” Finally Deceit really looked at what King and Anxiety had been working on and the statue Anxiety had done all by himself. “Virgil what…” “I don’t know, I was listening to music and all this just sort of happened. His majesty was helping me finish some drawings,” he explained, confusing King. Was he… what’s the term? Covering for him? Then Anxiety got up, picking up Morality and looking at Logic who followed his movements, hands hovering around him. As if he were afraid that the younger side would fall apart at any moment. “Please, just go back alright, I’ll be fine. Thanks for helping but you should focus on making sure Thomas is alright,” Anxiety explained bravely, not quite looking at the others. Had recalling all his doubts and fears made him suspicious of the others? This could benefit King greatly. “Run along now. And take Morality. I have matters to discuss with my minister. In private,” King informed Logic and Deceit. Anxiety looked from King back to his tutor and confidant and offered him Morality. Logic shook his head with wide eyes. “Logan, it’s alright. You look after Pat for a minute. I’ll be back soon. Just… Please trust me?” Logic hesitated, sighed in defeat and took the child. He moved to leave, but paused. He turned and laid a hand on Anxiety’s shoulder, a moment passed while the two held each other’s gaze. Anxiety nodded and patted Logic’s hand. “I will be safe. When am I ever not?” Something that would have been a chuckle rippled through Logic’s chest as he stepped away and started walking back to the commons, glancing back every ten steps or so. “Virgil… I…” Deceit started, unable to finish the thought. “I know. I’ll be okay.” And with that final assurance and a distrustful look towards King the last of the traitors left. “Why?” King wondered. It seemed obvious to him that whatever Anxiety just went through was actually meant for him. And not only had he taken the hit, he had covered for him as well. “I’m anxiety, taking on the insecurities and fears of the others is part of my job. I don’t take it all, just the really bad bits when I can take it. And… it took me forever to open up to the others about my own attacks. It wasn’t my place to share about yours. It’s nothing personal. Just me being professional I guess,” he shrugged casually. King allowed himself a small smirk and once again reached out to pat Anxiety’s hair. Once more the boy’s first instinct was to flinch, but he still let him do as he pleased. “Well done my boy. You have potential,” he told him before returning his attention to another drawing, leaving the one of Morality frameless. Later he might tell the little one a bit more about the betrayal. But first. He needed to get to know him better. “Now how about this one.”Being petted like a dog was degrading, humiliating. Trying to not just be civil towards him but formal and respectful was torture. But it was better than what he feared would happen every time the King moved his hand towards him. Virgil didn’t like being changed against his will and this king would do as he pleased with him. Which is why he had to keep him happy and away from the others. He ignored the urge to smile every time he received the king’s praise. He is not going to develop Stockholm Syndrome just because off a few half-baked complements. This guy is still a threat to Thomas… Even if the others, maybe made a mistake in the past and have a hard time owning up to that right now. Fact remained that Virgil’s job was to keep everyone safe. That meant making them not want to decapitate the king over an anxiety attack he hadn’t triggered on purpose. Still… What had triggered the attack?

[btsficsforthehumble]

adj.: 1. Modern, unfamiliar, or different

2. Not based on or conforming to what is generally done or believed

pairing: reader x ot7

genre: college au; angst, fluff, smut, poly, ot7

Summary: You begin your first year at a prestigious university, set out on achieving your academic goals when a series of men step into your life that change the way you view the definition of love.

Part Five

Warnings: none in this chapter

Word count: 2.3k

A/N: New characters, yay! Just an fyi but I would like to start posting one chapter every week... thots?? Also, I've been thinking of adding a taglist? sksk I know it would be small but I personally love to get tagged when new chapters come out for my faves. If that's something ya'll would like comment so I know!! Alright, back to your regularly scheduled program :)

----

Literature was next. Now this? This you could handle. Always being a bit of an avid reader, you could devour a novel in one night --- and you often did. Finding the hidden meanings between the lines of text, like unwrapping a present, gave you a thrill. You were the person who could debate for hours about the meaning of a symbol in a book, as annoying as that is to everyone else.

Maybe it was the promise of escape, where you could be transplanted into another world, detached from your own, that appealed so much to you about reading. You could lose yourself, feeling the rush of the love affair or the thrill of a dangerous adventure. Coupled with your analytical nature, you felt more than at home in a literature classroom.

With this in mind, you make your way to your next class with more vigor than usual. When you arrive and take a seat, you pull out your materials and wait for class to begin.

Several minutes later, your professor walks to the podium in the front of the room to introduce herself. After several minutes of reviewing the syllabus, she explains the structure of the class. You were to be placed in small groups, to discuss the readings and write a paper at the end of the semester. This made you a little nervous --- having to rely on others to some capacity for your grade always gave you a bit of anxiety.

She began reading out the names of the students belonging to each group, so you listen carefully as to not miss your own name despite your anxious thoughts swirling inside your head.

“... Eum Hee-Young, Gal Ae-Cha, Ree Mun-Hee, you are group seven. Kim Seokjin, Y/l/n y/f/n, Kim Namjoon, you are group eight. Ok Youngsoo…” her voice fades off as you glance around the room, trying to meet the gazes of other searching eyes as your group was announced.

Your eyes meet those of a guy who looked maybe a year or two older than you, with round, wire frame glasses. His mahogany hair was pushed off of his forehead, parted to the side giving him a youthful but put-together look. He holds up eight fingers, looking at you expectedly, and you nod quickly. He picks up his belongings, preparing to move to you as you had empty space in the seats around you. As he slings his backpack over a shoulder, you scan your eyes around the room to try to catch the other member of your group.

To your surprise, your eyes meet those of the same boy you had ogled over yesterday in your calculus class, before it had started. You shyly hold up your own eight fingers, to which he gives a decisive nod to, and begins to make his way to you as well. You can’t help but notice the planes of his back as he bends down to grab his backpack, his wide shoulders tilting making them seem even larger. He is wearing a simple blue button down and jeans, but even through that you could tell his shoulders tapered to a narrow waist, making him have the perfect masculine inverted triangular build.

Slightly embarrassed at your thoughts, you glance at your other partner, now close to you. His oversized yellow knit sweater swallowed him a little, but with the glasses gave him a cute bookish look. His large frame juxtaposed his cute appearance --- he was on the taller side and seemed built as well. You made eye contact, and gestured to the seat next to you for him to sit. The other boy now approaching, you both watch as he takes the other open seat in front of you.

Your group now assembled, you tune back into your professor who was explaining the first text you were to read together. She told you that it was a short love story that relied heavily on symbolism and became a prominent symbol in and of itself in movies and television. Your first assignment was to analyze the symbolism of the text, and come to a more complex conclusion than what the surface of the text presents. You could feel yourself becoming slightly excited to jump into the assignment as she explained.

“You will be given the rest of class to get acquainted with your group members. They will be permanent, bar any issues that may arise. The first assignment is due at the end of next class. While on this first assignment I will be more lenient with grading, please do your best and set a good standard for your groups. Okay, go ahead everyone,” she finishes.

At her dismissal of your attention, you glance back at your group members. The boy with glasses speaks first. “I’m Namjoon, nice to meet you guys.”

“Seokjin, or just Jin,” the other boy gives.

“I’m y/n, nice to meet you both.”

“So, what year and major are you? I’m a third year, and a journalism major,” Namjoon offers. As he speaks, he gives you both a grin that displays deep dimples on both cheeks. He was very cute, you decided. He had a nerdy charm to him, with a build on the beefy side that made you want to cuddle him.

“I’m a first year… and to tell the truth I haven’t decided on a major yet,” you admit, but give them both a smile.

“Ah, hoobae, you are lucky you are with us pros then! I’m a fourth year, and a business major,” Seokjin says with a wide smile.

“Sunbaenim, are you in calculus before this? I thought I recognized you from there,” you downplay a little. You knew he was in that class since you had spent time checking him out in it, but didn’t want to seem creepy.

“I have a recognizable face.” At this he gives a smug look, but is clearly using a joking tone. “Yeah, calculus with Yoo at nine?”

“Yep. That guy goes so fast,” you frown. “But anyways, how do you guys feel about this assignment?”

Namjoon enters the conversation again, “Honestly I’m kind of excited for it. It’s been a while since I’ve done any reading that isn’t research related, which kind of sucks.”

“That does suck. I love to read, that’s why I took this class, actually,” you empathize.

“Yeah? What do you like to read?” Namjoon leans towards you a bit, excited at the prospect of talking about reading it seems.

“Oh, um… I’d say my favorite genre is probably any type of fantasy, I like being able to be in a different world for a bit. Oh, I also like historical pieces, that stuff is always so interesting.” You were a little hesitant to share, afraid he’d judge your preferences.

“I love historical pieces. I think that’s one of the things that lead me into journalism actually, it’s basically writing history for those in the future to look back on. I just think that’s really cool.” His eyes seemed glitter as he talked about something he was obviously passionate about. You felt yourself developing a soft spot for the boy, finding his friendly disposition and slightly nerdy personality to be incredibly endearing. It didn’t hurt he was also very attractive.

“What about you sunbaenim? Do you like to read?” you ask Seokjin, whose head was oscillating between you and Namjoon.

Surprised the attention shifted to him, his eyes widened to give him an owlish look. You are really surrounded by some beautiful men, you think. What do they put in the water here? It would be normal to run across a cute guy here or there, but this is kind of ridiculous. Seokjin himself has a face that is so beautiful it looks like it should have been carved out of marble!

Focus! You have to scold yourself. The boy you were just admiring in your head is now answering your question and you are too distracted to even process what he’s saying.

“... not too crazy, occasionally I guess…” His body language told you that he was slightly embarrassed at not being as enthusiastic a reader as you and Namjoon.

“I’m sure you have hobbies that are cooler than reading then, if I was athletic or creative I wouldn’t read so much either! Namjoon-sunbaenim, I’m sure you agree,” you encourage with a smile, wanting Namjoon to follow suit in making Seokjin feel comfortable.

Thankfully, he catches on quick. “Oh, yeah, I am way too clumsy to do anything more high stakes than page turning,” He chuckles. You and Seokjin both smile at Namjoon’s subtle self-deprecation. They both were sweet, you think. Your earlier fears about working with others subside. “I guess I could say that I do have another hobby though, I actually help out at the school’s radio station for fun,” Namjoon adds shyly.

Jin tilts his head in surprise. “Oh really? I have a friend who…”

He gets abruptly cut off by the professor’s voice echoing through the room, which causes him to stop his thought.

“Hopefully everyone is acquainted now, and is ready to get to work next class. I expect good things from you all this semester. You are dismissed,” your professor says with finality.

The three of you quickly gather your things, ready to merge with the swarm of students streaming out of the door. You give them both a smile, and say, “It was nice meeting you both. See you next class!” to which they give their own farewell.

As you leave, you check your phone out of habit. It seems your intuition is right, as usual.

*Miss me yet?*

Does Taehyung really have nothing better to do?

*What exactly is there to miss?*

You hope that after your curt response he’d get the memo. This guy is such a fuckboy, you think. While you don’t know why he set his sights on you for now, you hope he gets bored soon. While you give that tough persona to him, the truth is you are more sensitive than that. The idea of being used for sex once and then discarded was unappealing, and Taehyung seemed like the type to do just that.

----

Finally home after attending two more classes for the day, which were thankfully much less eventful, you slip off your shoes and let your bag slide off your shoulder to thunk on the floor. You were tired. And hungry, apparently, because your stomach makes some concerning noises as soon as you slip your light jacket off. You make your way to the kitchen at the sound, ready to make a nice dinner and decompress.

When you get there, you see one of your new roommates sitting at the stools for your kitchen counter. This roommate was one that you had connected with immediately, drawn to her blunt but fun-loving aura. Her short stature, shorter than average, gave no warning for her and ‘gives-no-fucks’ attitude. You could tell however, that inside she had a soft heart. Even in your short time together, you had seen glimpses of it here and there.

You learned when you had met that she had moved to Korea from America last year, making her a second year at your university. Her features stood out from the crowd, with brown skin and large curls that framed her face in a halo. She was really quite beautiful. Tia, but called Bean by her friends, which now included you, made you feel welcomed to campus and you were thankful for her.

Wanting to not scare her as you walked into the kitchen, you gave her a greeting. Her head pops up from where it was buried in her phone, which had been drawing her into her own world.

“Hey chickie. Long day?” she asks. Apparently your exhaustion was pretty obvious if she could tell right off the bat. You sigh, bending over to pull some vegetables out of the fridge.

“I just want to know who let me schedule four classes on Tuesdays. They should be in jail,” you complain.

She gives you an amused look, watching you now stand at the cutting board to prepare your food. “I think that person was you, sweet thing.”

“Ugh, don’t remind me. If I could go back in time and slap my past self I would,” you grown with your head tipped back. She lets out a laugh at your expense.

“Don’t laugh at me unnie! I’m going to pass away from exhaustion over here!” you try to say seriously, but can’t help but let out a little giggle. “What were you doing with your head buried in your phone, huh? Are you talking to someone?” you tease, pointing your knife at her with your other hand on your hip.

“Why, do you wish it was you?” She wiggles her eyebrows, giving you a side smirk. You knew she was deflecting, so you lift your eyebrow and give her a flat expression, waiting for her real answer. “Ugh, it’s nothing. There was just this really cute girl in my class today, and I tried talking to her but she didn’t really seem like she liked me… and I may have just been looking at her social media,” Tia admitted.

Now at the stove, stirring your dinner, you look over your shoulder to say something that would hopefully ease her anxiety. “You know that you can come on strong sometimes, maybe she’s just a little shy, ya know? Maybe try again with a softer approach,” you offer. “What is there not to like?”

She gives you a wide grin to match your own at your last remark. You both giggle, any tension in the air from Tia’s concerns gone. Dinner now finished, you grab two bowls and serve you both. You both slip into easy banter, almost like you two have been friends for years. You hope that you will be, someday.

[the-dead-sea-trilogy]

a major update on the series

i have news that is both good and bad.  [the fic is not getting cancelled, don’t worry].

after a lot of deliberation - and i mean going back and forth for over a year now trying to write Icarus and the Blistering Sun, the prequel to The Devil and the Dead Sea - i have made the difficult (but i think really important, for reasons i will get into) decision to postpone Icarus and rearrange the order of the series.

Mother Earth and Her Infinite Sky, the sequel to the Devil and the Dead Sea, will be the book to be released next.  NOT Icarus, as I have previously been stating.

This is good because I think it is a better, more cohesive choice for the series from a narrative standpoint.  This is good because we get to see our boys being in love on a team right away once it’s out.  This is good because I am excited about writing a story about our boys being in love on a team to immediately follow DATDS.

This is bad because it means I have to put the prequel on hold (again) and full publication will be pushed back, again.  My life is super hectic rn, so at this current time, I’m not able to offer an estimate on when Mother Earth will be released, but I do have the first few chapters written already.

Read below the cut if you want to know some more reasons, both from a narrative and personal standpoint, on why i made this decision and why it was actually really hard for me to do.

if not, all you need to know is the series is not getting abandoned. the order is just getting rearranged, which means publication is being delayed again.

i intend to help this along and keep you guys interested (and myself accountable) by continuing to occasionally post WIP updates and writing updates like these, as well as a tiny one shot compilation like i’m doing for my Legend of Zelda series, if you follow that.

until then, stay safe, love yourselves, and two wishes remain.

-jirachi (silv)

Narrative and Personal Reasons The Dead Sea Trilogy is Getting Rearranged

I work really hard on making a cohesive story with thought, poetry, and themes that I can hand to you guys, and I want to use this time to give you some insight on that and why it’s taking so long.  The narrative reasons are the easiest to explain and kind of go hand in hand with the personal reasons, so I’ll approach it from that angle.

The Narrative:

Ever since I started writing Icarus in November 2019 after DATDS, once NaNoWriMo was over (yes, I tried it), I just kept hitting walls.  And stopping and starting.  And I couldn’t understand why I was hitting so many walls, and I realized it maybe had to do with the narrative structure of the series not being as cohesive as it could be yet.  What I came to realize is that:

A big thing in this trilogy is the idea of the cycles of Birth, Death, and Rebirth.

“And y’know, that’s like, the nature of the beast, inn’t it?” Archie said. “Night and day. Water and fire. Land and sea. Birth, death, rebirth—”

“And we’re in the death stage right now…”

“Then one day we’ll be reborn.”

There was a pause. Archie was right.

-Epilogue, DATDS

Icarus was always intended to be the Birth story.  Archie and Maxie meet, have their first sparks of inspiration, first sparks of their relationship, and first sparks of their rivalry.  It’s all supposed to ignite there, I mention a couple times in DATDS there being a “spark” in Maxie.  That was intentional.

Devil is the Death story.  They literally say this in the Epilogue.  Archie and Maxie purge all the bad blood between one another, die to their pretenses of themselves so that they can kickstart the process of building things new.  In dying to their own egos and having an exorcism of sorts (oh you mean a literal exorcism?) they saw into one another and realized how much they really loved one another the whole time. 

Mother Earth is the Rebirth story.  Archie and Maxie build their new team, learn about what it means to love each other and what they need to do to make their relationship work.  (Among other things that have to do with rebirth).

The issue:

When I started writing DATDS many, many years ago, I never intended/anticipated there to be a prequel, let alone a sequel.  But I fell in love with this story, fell in love with these characters, and it just kept growing and growing and I love it so much.  However, this means, as it stands currently,

I started the cycle with Death.

That isn’t a bad thing - DATDS works as a beautiful introduction to this story.  However, this means in order for the cycle (and narrative) to make any sense, it just flows so much better to have Mother Earth be next.  Because otherwise, I’m going

Death (Devil) -> Birth (Icarus) -> Rebirth (Mother Earth)

And that just.. doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense when you look at it like that??  Having two “birth” moments in a row seems really wonky, and this is probably the source of one of the (many) issues I was having with it.

Not to mention the strange time jumping that would be happening between

ORAS Canon PRESENT (Devil) -> 15 years PAST (Icarus) -> 1-2 Years FUTURE (Mother Earth)

The solution? Simple

Death/Present (Devil) -> Rebirth/Future (Mother Earth) -> Birth/Past (Icarus)

It loops back around from both a timeline and a narrative/symbolic standpoint.

The bottom line:

Devil set up a rebirth story beautifully.  The stage is set for Archie and Maxie to walk down from the mountain and start their new lives.  It just doesn’t make sense for me to put that on hold.  Especially when things in Mother Earth will end up making it easy to loop back around to Icarus.

And, as much as I didn’t want to end the series on a “sad” note, the fact of the matter is Icarus ends in a moment of “Death,” where Archie betrays Maxie and sets up the spiraling chain of events that lead up to Devil, closing the cycle and making it all a complete circle.

That, and it will be incredibly easy to end Icarus with another Epilogue where things suddenly aren’t as sad anymore, even though they ended sadly once long ago, and it can all come together in a reflective way.

There are other reasons I was hesitant to remove Icarus from its second slot, ranging from “I didn’t want to end on a ‘sad’ book” to “I took a lot of creative liberties with Colress as a character and throwing him in at full force in Mother Earth without any sort of warning is gonna be.. strange, to say the least, and at least introducing him slowly in Icarus wouldn’t make him seem like a complete psychopath” but also Colress is.. just kind of like that.

But also ultimately, even though I love Colress as a character and he does have an arc I’m interested in, this ain’t about him.  Much to his dismay, I am sure.

[he already robbed me of valuable covid writing time once by holding me hostage and forcing me to write 120,000+ words about his Team Plasma hot girl summer so he can die mad about it i guess]

What I’m trying to say, ultimately, with this, is that I put a lot of thought and work into what I do.  I’m putting so much effort into this story because I care about it, and I want to give you guys (and myself) the best story I can possibly make.  That is just, now gonna require more time than I anticipated, especially with this change.  And I wanted to give you guys some insight into why delays are happening and why such changes are being made.

Because to be completely fucking transparent, I was really struggling with Icarus.  And once I made this realization, it all kind of made sense why.  And I think once Mother Earth is complete, things in Icarus with start coming together for me.

In the meantime, stay posted, keep an eye out for the other updates, and I absolutely cannot wait to share Mother Earth with you.

[southeastasianists]

When Youk Chhang started writing letters to Zaha Hadid, it seemed like a quixotic mission. Chhang was beseeching the world’s most celebrated architect to help him build a genocide museum and research center in a small, wounded country. Eleven years later, books full of Dame Hadid’s designs for the center rest in his Phnom Pehn office, like precious secrets. Chhang has made significant strides in his quest, though the most important step remains.

The fact that Chhang made it to this point—that he even is alive—is a triumph. Like many other Cambodians from his generation, he suffered through horrors during the Khmer Rouge regime: He was tortured for picking mushrooms, and watched as his pregnant sister was cut open and killed under the suspicion that she had stolen rice. The teenager escaped to the Thai border in 1982, as fighting continued, then to the Philippines, and eventually the United States. He finally returned to Cambodia in 1992, where he worked as a UN election observer as the nation began to recover from over 20 years of genocide, brutality, and war.

A world away, Hadid was having a career breakthrough. Years after gaining attention in the architectural world for her creative designs, none of which were ever built, the architect finally found clients to realize them. Her first landmark building, an angular concrete fire station later used as an exhibit space, was completed in Germany in 1993, beginning a long run of success.

In 1995, Chhang became the director of the Documentation Center of Cambodia, or DC-Cam. In his time there, the nonprofit group dedicated to remembrance and reconciliation has GPS-mapped 20,000 mass graves, interviewed 10,000 victims and perpetrators, and collected more than a million documents about the genocide. DC-Cam’s work provided evidence for Khmer Rouge war crimes tribunals and helped Cambodia acknowledge the trauma it suffered through.

DC-Cam also created plans for a genocide center, dubbed the Sleuk Rith Institute, that would combine a museum, policy center, and school. The effort is as much about the future as the past. “It should be a place to heal, a place to commemorate. A beautiful place to look forward. We will turn a horrible past into a better future,” Chhang says. He wanted to break from the usual pattern of big genocide memorials around the world: depressing, heavy, and overwhelmingly male, both in terms of their sensibilities and who conceived them.

Chhang long dreamed of approaching Hadid to design Sleuk Rith, which means “the power of leaves,” referring to religious texts written on palm leaves, many of which were destroyed by the Khmer Rouge. Hadid had a record of making celebrated modern buildings with inventive, dramatic curves, and Chhang saw that as a way to break away from the sharp, masculine angles and doleful sensibility of many museums related to acts of genocide around the world. (When told that someone liked the U.S. Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., its designer, James Ingo Freed, was quoted in The New York Times saying, “You’re not supposed to like things like that. So I say: ‘Oh, yes, you did see it? Too bad for you, it was such an awful experience.’”) Hadid was born and raised in Iraq, and Chhang thought might help her understand Cambodia's situation, he says.

She also happened, by then, to be one of the most famous architects alive.

So Chhang, like a starry-eyed fan, began writing letters to the London office of Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA), asking if she would consider designing the institute. The firm saw requests from people around the world and could only accept a tiny number of them, so Chhang turned up the charm. “I made her a birthday card with a picture of Angkor Wat. I sent her folktales from Cambodia and a story I heard from a woman in a small village,” he says. He implored her secretary to make sure his letters found their way to Hadid personally.

Eventually the architect invited Chhang to the firm’s London studio. He flew there by himself, stayed with a friend to save money, and met with Hadid and about 15 other architects. Impressed at the pitch, the firm accepted the project and sent a team to Cambodia to learn about the country to inform their work.

In 2014, after two years of work, the firm unveiled a design based on five intersecting “volumes,” or sections, each dedicated to one main function: a library holding DC-Cam’s documents, a graduate school on genocide and human rights, a research center to influence policy and discourse, a media center, and an auditorium. The primary building material is wood, which helps distinguish it from similar sites, usually made from stone, metal, and glass. “There was a deliberate intention not to follow a typical path of memorial architecture as it’s normally or historically expressed—the heavy austere monumentality that’s in some ways depressing,” says Craig Kiner, a senior associate at ZHA who helped lead the design process. “It’s much more light and uplifting and delicate, which is something we talked about at great length with Youk and the team. It represents tranquility and hope and healing—for everyone in Cambodia but also for everyone who visits the building,” he says.

Unfortunately, Hadid herself will never get to see the building realized. She died of a heart attack in 2016, leaving a grand legacy and a number of designs that, like the Sleuk Rith Institute, are yet to be completed.

DC-Cam is now trying to turn the striking plans into a real place. Raising money for construction is a central need, but it is one that Chhang reframes. “It’s not a question of cost. It’s a question of the principle of engagement. We want it to be for victims and survivors. They [developers] want it to be a business.” Chhang says that the developers he’s negotiating with want to put Sleuk Rith on a small property, but Chhang insists that it needs about 15 acres, so it has a peaceful environment. “I think it needs a landscape. For them a landscape is a waste of villas.”

It would be easy enough to find space for the institute in the countryside, but Chhang insists on it being in Phnom Penh, close to the country’s political center, accessible to everyone from Khmer Rouge victims to Cambodian officials to international leaders and tourists. Finding a big-enough plot within the city limits is an as-yet-unmet challenge. As for whether the institute will look suitably dignified in a bustling city going through an often chaotic development boom, Chhang is unworried. “When you are beautiful, it doesn’t matter what you wear,” he says. “I like competition. I’d like to see a nearby casino compete with Zaha’s design. Let’s see who’s the winner. I have complete trust over Zaha’s design.”

Chhang says he’s confident DC-Cam will reach an agreement with developers and funders and get the center built, possibly one “volume” at a time. “People have talked about Sleuk Rith costing $55 million or $65 million. But there were two million lives lost. The cost is almost nothing,” he says. Projects like this often take a decade or so, he says, and DC-Cam has put six years into realizing Sleuk Rith, though he declines to adopt a specific timeline. “We work on this every day. I work on the costs every day,” he says.

Kiner says ZHA is working with DC-Cam to smooth the building process. “It’s something that we’re very committed to delivering,” he says.

Though Hadid’s name and reputation attract a lot of interest from developers and the public, not everyone appreciates the center’s approach. “Like almost every project in Phnom Penh, these images simulate that the building rises majestically from the lower structures around, embedded in a lot of greenery,” says Moritz Henning, a Berlin-based architect who studies Cambodian postcolonial architecture and published a guide to Phnom Penh architecture last year. “Why does every project have to be unique, stand out from its surroundings, or better: rise above its surroundings?” he wrote in an email.

“For me, the architecture refers much more to religious buildings, to Gothic cathedrals (and in this respect it fits, people there also wanted to make people small) than to Cambodian architecture,” he says. “Please don’t misunderstand me, I’m not against the Sleuk Rith Institute. I think it would be great to have a place like this in Phnom Penh. But I’m very skeptical if this is the right way to go.”

Chhang sees the design-forward but still monumental approach as a way to draw the world’s attention to Cambodia and, likewise, connect the country with humanity as a whole. “The genocide center isn’t just about Cambodia. It’s about Armenia, Bosnia, Burma. That’s why I chose contemporary design, why I chose Zaha—to bring Cambodia out into the globe,” he says. “In Cambodia, there were lots of young girls like Anne Frank. There’s a lot of ways you can see the similarity. Why? Because we are all human beings.”

[manjuhitorie]

Hitorie Interview - Skream! Magazine - Feb. 2021 Issue

First and foremost, I'd like to address REAMP as a whole. I couldn't help but pick up on signs inner turmoil and sorrow over wowaka's unfortunate passing, among a brand new resolve. What's your opinion on this such take?

Shinoda: We voluntarily chose to vent those feelings without any beating around the bush. This band has taken a huge twist in terms of the one who sings, writes, and produces the music, after all. There’s no point in hiding that, we felt. To be completely honest, even after all this time we still haven’t exactly regained our balance at all. Sad is sad. In order to express our choice to push onwards, the cards we had in our hands are.... -Actually the word “cards” was a poor choice. We merely had no other option but to express our feelings outright. ygarshy: We weren’t in the place to put together a theme or concept for the album or anything like that either. We felt baffled and confused by the very fact that we were making songs at all, but nevertheless I felt we had to do it, we just have to. We were wishy-washy so, we decided to hold the times we 4 made songs together close to our hearts, and use that as our foothold: to just try and write as we always do. Shinoda: Squeezing a song out was our one and only objective. Yumao: Yeah. The universe wowaka alone had created and his structures and all that.. To be honest, this new album is cut off from it... We chose to not agonize over trying to recreate it, and to rather let whatever we could just flow out of us.

I have a question about the timeline. After wowaka’s passing, when did you make the concrete decision to keep Hitorie alive?

Shinoda: To be real, we still haven’t even made that decision. Yumao: We haven’t concretely said “Let’s keep this up.” or anything. Our mixed emotions are still churning, or how to say it... When we wrote the music we become immersed and even excited about it but, once our songs were laid out on the table we came back to our senses, like “Uhm? Is this okay?” ygarshy: Even now I’ll have sudden thoughts like “Hm? What am I doing here?”, even when we toured as a trio for the Hitori-Escape Tour 2019, I never thought ‘Let’s keep going on like this’ as well, owing to the circumstances. Just, if we didn’t do it we would’ve lost out minds is all. Shinoda: He speaks the truth alright. ygarshy: If we had to make a thoughtful commitment, I think it would’ve taken us hundreds upon hundreds of years until we finally made a move.

Was there not any type of critical moment during the tour wherein you realized “We can do this?”

Shinoda: Truthfully, during the tour I was so deep into it that I barely even the foggiest memory as to what was going through my brain back then. What I can say for sure is that 2 years ago on June 1st at the Memorial Concert (At Shinkiba Studio Coast), before that day I hadn’t stood on the stage in months. For the past 10 years of my life I haven’t gone that long without the stage. So when I got up for the Memorial Concert, despite it being a tragic event, I felt that when I’m up on stage with this band my mental state is the most stable it ever is. We even all went out for Chinese food after that.

The three of you did?

Shinoda: Yep. We drank our heads off and talked about how “We could totally manage a tour too, eh?” Yumao: Since our HOWLS tour (Hitorie Tour 2019 “Coyote Howling”) was cancelled, we felt we owed something, that we had to do something. We may be sad but, even more important than that was the urgency of the situation.

So there was no resolve or concrete decision to tour and make an album then.

Shinoda: Yep, looking back, I think that’s right.

Were you writing songs while touring?

Shinoda: We started writing around March of 2020? Yumao: Due to COVID-19 we had a lot of free time on our hands, so we took the oppurtunity. Though it wasn’t as if we said “Alright, let’s get going!”, we just all knew it was imminent, and that we had to do it at some point. That point was then.

Which was the first song you wrote?

Among the ones which made the cut, “Marshall A” was the first one consummated at the studio. Though “Utsutsu” was the first one made in my head. Around the end of the tour in 2019 the idea for the phrases took form. I felt that if I was to ever write for Hitorie again, this would be it.

”Utsutsu” stresses sorrow way thicker and heavier than any of the other songs in the album, so it makes sense that it came first.

Shinoda: It gets my feelings across, doesn’t it... The lyric and sung melody of “Utsutsu da ne” were around since the beginning.

Did you each make a song voluntarily?

Yumao: Yessiree. It was like “I’m’ere writing, so you'd better pick it up too." Shinoda: We had the slogan "Let's make 10 songs in one month". Yumao: Even if it was one chorus of a song, that would be okay. Shinoda: In the end, the ratio of songs I, ygarshy and Yumao completed was 8:1:1 (Though in the album itself it became 6:2:2). It might seem unbalanced, but this is perfectly balanced for us. ygarshy: Shinoda just makes a heap ton of songs. Shinoda: From there we picked and chose.

Did you have any standards for which would make the cut? Such as befitting of the current Hitorie or not?

Shinoda: That too was all over the place. Personally when I write, I place importance in how it will pan out with Hitorie as a whole but, I also contemplated what would fit our band's current climate. "Should the guitar not be too distorted?" "Should it not sound too 'rock band-ish'?", my mind was going crazy, I thought it would be best if it was entirely chilled out and mellow. There  was a moment when a switch flipped.

It is true that songs such as 'tat' do take that direction, but after listening to the complete album I have to say, the rock band-ish style is in full bloom. There's a lot of distortion too.

Shinoda: Yep, it's distorted. Yumao: And it's rock (giggling). ygarshy: Listening to Shinoda say that just now made me upset.

Why is that?

ygarshy: Because I had purposefully intended for it to be distorted. Everyone: Ahahaha!

So you like distortion (laughing). To push this point further, would it be true to say that those are core aspects of Hitorie's style? Shinoda: Ahh, there’s definitely truth in that.

Yumao: The one most mindful of that had to have been ygarshy. Whatever we release next can’t be too distant from classic Hitorie, he was the one who secured how best to keep the string in tact.

Where was the poster song ’curved edge’ made in the creative process timeline? Shinoda: We upheld the slogan of 10 songs a month for about 2 months, and ‘curved edge’ was the final one. I wanted to make a classic Hitorie style riff-based song, but I didn’t want high-tempos. ‘curved edge’ was where I finally found the perfect balance between my wishes and Hitorie’s standards.

Hitorie never made songs with unwavering low tempos that take off into an uplifting dance breakdown at the chorus up until now after all.  

Shinoda: Yeah. We all made the silent agreement to absolutely not try and make songs like wowaka’s.

I can definitely detect wowaka’s influence on your music, which is natural after being in a band together for so long. So, you kept it at.

ygarshy: We’ve each grown a keen sense for this. Suppose we were to show wowaka a song we wrote that mimics his style... He would make a really disgusted face. We just know, we just have a sense for it.

Shinoda: That’s the thing he despises the most after all.

ygarshy: That’s right. It would be but as a parody. And we wouldn’t want to do that.

ygarshy, you wrote the songs ‘Image’ and ‘dirty, correct. The melody of them feel nostalgic and longing, yet simultaneously evoke a rush and shivers.

ygarshy: In my current state letting the music flow out of me is all I’m capable of. Last spring, or summer was it, where we were showing each other our songs I.... Felt sad. So sad. Like “Why am I writing songs for Hitorie? Why is this what it’s come to?”

Yumao: Yep yep.

ygarshy: That’s why “dirty” and “Image” both are not very elaborate pieces. There’s much room to mix up chords or arrange it to be complex but, I just really had no heart to do that. Whatever popped out of my head wasn’t tinkered in the slightest, my wish was to keep in its organic simple form.

So when you handled the arrangement of music as a band, did you change as little as possible?

ygarshy: For the two songs I brought in, they were nice and stayed as close to demo version as they possibly could. “dirty” especially has a garage-style melody and tone which clicks immediately, so the lyrics and singing were molded to follow suit. Shinoda: Him (ygarshy) and I are the same age and all, so I pretty much can grasp whatever he goes for. Like he was probably going for those late 1990’s declining vibes. ygarshy: Exactly. I had thought to myself that I wanted dirty lyrics, and he actually delivered just that. I’d like to hear the story behind the two songs Yumao wrote as well, “YUBIKIRI” and “faceless enemy”. Both melodies are pop.

Yumao: That just kind of happens with me. Shinoda: He makes my contemplating and agonizing look stupid, because those songs are just as clear as fresh water. Yumao: All I did was squeeze out whatever I could (laughing). To be honest, I think my songs will be the most unacceptable to Hitorie’s listeners. I may be a member of Hitorie, and understand Hitorie like the back of my hand but, from the start I knew I’m incapable of writing songs to Hitorie’s standards. I took a realistic approach. ygarshy: Though I really enjoy the music Yumao wrote before Hitorie. So when he brought it those genuine honest pieces, I was so happy. I think I like the songs more than he himself does.

The fact that you chose to keep Yumao’s songs in the album despite them not being perfectly Hitorie fashioned, sounds like proof that you’ve found your answer for this album.

Yumao: Pedaling to the mettle is what I have to do, it’s all I can do. No matter if it’s acceptable or not, I’m doing what I can. That’s one message behind my songs.

Your song “YUBIKIRI” as the final track of the album has a lot of impact as well. It’s a bright and cheery song yet somehow it brings a tear to the eye.

Shinoda: Doesn’t it?

Yumao: It’s very cheery and it’s the brightest of the mix, isn’t it. When I wrote I was riding the groove in over my head, so I asked Shinoda to make the lyrics sound immature, like something a teenager would click with. I felt knotted up inside, and I needed something to break the chains for me. Completely divert from what Hitorie should or shouldn’t do, I alone needed to express and vent myself. And that’s how this song happened.

Shinoda: Yumao made that direct request of me, so I steered my word choices far away from any purple-prose. The keyboard was played by NariHane of Passpied, and when those 3 were off recording the music without me, I finished the lyrics. That’s how quickly they were zipped out.

After completing a whole album, how do you feel, do you think you will be able to continue on like this?

Shinoda: I don’t know yet. We’ll have to hear the people’s opinions. ygarshy: And what are we going to do after hearing them? After performing all these concerts? is one apprehension I have but,.. everything feels so up in the air.

Yumao: I know we haven’t said anything conclusive but! I want people to know we have a mountain of hypotheses on how we could move forward, on how we could keep Hitorie going, on how we could keep wowaka alive but, for now this album was just a do-or-die for us!

Shinoda: We made it, that’s all we needed.

Yumao: Yep. It was an absolute for us. I want to get that point across. This album is our declaration: that “We’ve taken one step forward”!

[magicalforcesau]

Dancing with Ghosts in Your Garden~ Chapter 14: Year 2 October

ao3 link

October replaced September quicker than perhaps anyone was fully prepared for with its winds that forebode a blistering winter and nights that contained greater depth. Many students clung to the final vestiges of pleasant weather by studying outside or taking walks through the gardens that Professor Plo Koon so tenderly kept watch of. That, or they were merely trying to catch a gander at the aurors that lingered around the grounds yet again. 

This was what Kenobi was clearly trying to do when Cody found him perched against one of the checkpoint towers of the courtyard, pretending to be enthralled by a game of Gobstones, while two aurors walked by him. 

Cody was never much for Gobstones, as it wasn’t nearly as exciting of a recreational activity as say, Quidditch, but it did have it’s fanbase. He did know enough to be aware that one never played alone. Such a caveat never stopped Kenobi, though, because being an only child meant getting creative. Cody recalled finding Obi-Wan a few times their first year, alone and playing Gobstones, and couldn’t help but wonder if this was how every day was for him back home. He guessed it made the time pass by. Unfortunately, this meant that Kenobi was destined to be both the winner and the loser in every game of Gobstones he played by himself.

He clearly wasn’t invested though, instead tilting his head to try and listen to what the nearby aurors were talking about. He’d gotten so distracted that he knocked a marble off track, earning him a foul squirt in the face that jarred him back to the present. Obviously, Kenobi was much more interested in uncovering information about Deena Riss, the agent who nearly killed him just weeks ago, than he was about a courtyard game. 

Cody wrinkled his nose as he sat down across from him, “Not sure why you insist on playing this still.”

“You know, some would call Gobstones the thinking man’s Quidditch.” He said without looking up from his marbles. 

“There’s no stinky smells in Quidditch.” Cody retorted. 

He fixed him with a smirk, “Clearly, you haven’t smelled yourself after a match.”

“I’m usually a little too focused on the victory bells,” Cody said, even if he knew that Gryffindor had a long way ahead of them to improve, “No time for fixating on the bad stuff.”

Kenobi didn’t comment on Gryffindor’s losing streak from the previous year, though he easily could have, and instead drew his eyes back to the furthest point in the courtyard, where two female aurors discussed theories quietly. One took notes while the other surveyed the structure of the castle for signs of break-in. The search, in question, was focused on finding the cursed item that would supply such an enchantment. 

Beyond that, students were given very few details much to their disappointment. To Cody, it was ridiculous, particularly considering how many near-death experiences had occurred the previous year. Had they known a bit of what was coming, they might have been able to prepare, to devise tactics, to think about the next steps.

He cringed. He was spending too much time with the Ravenclaws. 

“Then again, I suppose Ravenclaw is in for quite a year if you play how you did at tryouts.” Cody eyed Kenobi for any unusual reactions, but as usual, his best friend’s reaction was rather neutral. Instead, he made his play and knocked a marble to the central circle. 

“I would just like to avoid any lethal falls this year,” Kenobi cringed as he missed his next shot for the “opposite team” and inhaled the stench that the little marbles held. “Blast.”

“Seriously, I’ve never seen you play like that before.” Cody tried again, “What got into you?”

“Cody, have you possibly considered that Rau was just not as proficient as he said he was?” He said as he finally looked him in the eyes again, “I mean, if he couldn’t score a single goal on me, what does that say?”

“I think it says as usual, you’re underselling yourself.” He crossed his arms, “If you were on my squad, I’d have none of that, especially if it took six bloody years to see your true potential.”

“Well, I’m not on your squad, am I?” Kenobi fired back a little too aggressively, dropping one of his marbles onto the cobblestone with a clack, “So, you needn’t worry about how I measure up.”

“That is a load of poppycock and you know it.” Cody rolled his eyes, “I am constantly surveying everyone’s team for pockets of strengths and weaknesses, including yours. If I’ve got to play against you, it’s my business.”

“Maybe it’s the growth spurt, Cody,” Kenobi said tiredly, “I don’t know, maybe when that enchanted witch electrocuted me with several volts of powerful magic, something screwed in place. Regardless, I highly doubt you’ve got anything to worry about.”

Realizing he obviously wasn’t getting more answers on this matter right now, Cody tucked it away for later and glanced to the side towards the aurors again, “Get anything good from them?”

“As if they’d ever share anything with a student,” Kenobi scoffed, though the intrigue that glistened in his eyes was not lost on Cody. 

“You can level with me, you know,” Cody said, “I’d rather have a clue on the chick who zapped you at the very least. Besides, I’ve always delivered whatever news I’ve found to you.”

He had him there, even if this was a bit more pressing than who was coating mayonnaise on the toilet seats of the boys’ restrooms. Especially when the culprits had been Cody’s younger brothers. 

He looked both ways and leaned forward, keen on keeping whatever he learned quiet and shrouded by the game of four-square that was going on just a few meters next to them.

“They haven’t found the enchanted object yet, but they’re clearly very hasty in doing so.” 

“So, they’re afraid a student will find it.” Cody deduced.

“Or already has.” He offered gravely.

“Have they bothered to talk to you yet?” Cody asked, “I mean, you were the one who actually looked into her demonic eyes, after all. Not sure how you’re sleeping straight, by the way.”

“I’m much too tired from my respective duties not to sleep, actually.” Kenobi said, “But while I haven’t talked to the aurors, I have talked to Yoda.”

“And? What did he say?”

“Mostly tried to gage if I was alright.”

“Yeah, and what? Two weeks after it happened?” Cody frowned, “I know he’s got small legs, but he can move faster than that.”

Then again, the little green Headmaster did walk very slowly with a cane. It was tough to imagine him moving at a walking pace, let alone in a sprint.

“He’s had a lot to deal with, Cody.” Kenobi reasoned, “My parents and the Ministry believe all of this is his fault, when they were the ones who pushed for a Parent’s Day in the first place!”

Cody’s father had moaned about the inefficiency of the Ministry his entire life. Jango, who worked in acquiring and processing goods and services through the Floo networks, never felt the Ministry represented blue-collared workers and always had their noses stuffed in books too long to realize what was actually happening in the world. It wasn’t the best job in terms of money, but he had side dealings that Cody was not always privy to.

“You won’t get any argument from me on the absurdity of it.” Cody said, “But Yoda is supposed to be all-powerful and if there were officers on site, how did this even happen in the first place?”

“There are a few theories,” Kenobi explained in a tone that made it clear he was positively enraptured in the overwhelming mystery that blanketed them, “For one, there could have been a mole- whether it be in the Ministry, the parents, or Hogwarts staff-”

Cody groaned, “Not another turncoat.”

“It’s always possible,” He said, “Now that Dooku has revealed himself and is surely gathering his forces, I’d say we will see others turn in the future. For some, I don’t think it’ll be much of a transition at all.”

“Just like putting on a new coat,” He said.

“Or robe.” Satine interjected as she approached, black and blue robe in hand, complete with a trusty prefect button pinned to the upper left lapel. She stretched it out to Kenobi, who winced as he accepted it.

“I did feel quite drafty.” He muttered. 

“Where have you been?” Cody asked her.

He was always a bit bemused when Kenobi and Satine weren’t side-by-side. They no longer shared the same class schedule this year, but still seemed to always patrol together and spend whatever extra time they could manage together.

“Am I not allowed to see other friends?” She teased, but took her seat between Kenobi and Cody.

“Just as I’m not allowed to have a peaceful game of Gobstones, apparently.” Kenobi said as he slipped his robe on and wrapped it around himself to preserve any lingering warmth from inside the castle. 

“There’s no such thing as a peaceful game of Gobstones.” She rolled her eyes, “Have you seen how up in arms the first years get when they lose? I swear, I think the smell goes straight to their heads and makes them act like little banshees.” 

“That’s because first years are the only ones who still play.” Cody chuckled. 

Kenobi scowled, “You simply don’t understand the art of the game.”

“It’s marbles with a stench, Ben.” She rolled her eyes and looked between them, “Though I know that’s not what the two of you have been discussing so avidly.” 

“Kenobi is spilling the beans on what intel he’s gathered from snooping.” Cody said. 

“I haven’t been snooping!” He protested, “As prefect, it’s my responsibility to be aware of what’s going on within the castle, particularly if the safety of the student body is at play.”

“Is that why you’ve had your nose practically pressed against the stone every time they walk past?” Cody teased, “I think that’s taking surveying the grounds a little too serious, mate.”

Kenobi ran a hand through his hair, “Headmaster Yoda believes that the curse placed on the mystery item doesn’t quite activate immediately.”

“That’s what’s making it so difficult to find.” Satine said in awe.

“That would take a master-class wizard to achieve that.” Cody said.

“Or witch.” She added.

“Right you are on that,” Kenobi said. 

“Have they gotten anything out of Deena Riss?” Satine asked.

“How could they?” He said, “The various aurors I’ve encountered have mentioned in passing that they noticed nothing different about her all day. However, my father wrote me the other day saying that after “intense interrogation”, she remembers nothing from the week leading up to Parents’ Day nor the actual day itself.”

“I’m not sure I want to know how that interrogation went.” Satine murmured quietly. 

“She was possessed for an entire week and no one knew?” Cody burst out and Kenobi nodded eagerly. 

“That’s the issue with this mysterious object. Whoever is holding it must not really ‘activate’ until the opportunity to fulfil the purpose begins.”

“So, what was her purpose?” Satine asked, “Clearly, she hadn’t wanted you.” 

“Clearly not.” Kenobi said, “But she was gunning very eagerly towards the Great Hall.”

“Everyone was there.” Cody said, “That’d be a terrible time to strike on a target.”

All three of them turned as Anakin happily chatted away alongside the likes of Jax Pavon and Ferus Olin as well as a few other eager students. All of them were practicing their pumpkin carving, as Professor Windu was offering extra credit to those who could charm one into moving this year. The boy didn’t seem the least bit nervous or afraid of any incoming trouble or danger. It was funny, because all were thinking the same thing in terms of who Deena’s desired target likely was. 

“Or the least suspected time.” Satine said, “The day was coming to a close, everyone had their guards down, including you and me. Nobody would suspect that a great attack like that would happen amongst so many powerful wizards.”

“As opposed to operating in the dark as he did last year, it seems Dooku is taking broader attacks.” Kenobi agreed, “Even if not directly at his own hand.”

“Coward.” Cody grumbled and clenched his fists, “It just boils me that this sort of bunk keeps happening right under our noses.”

Speaking of bunk, he’d gotten so excited in his annoyance, he’d accidentally cracked one of the marbles between them and all wrinkled their noses and coughed profusely as the entirety of the spray poured out. The only one who had the energy to be annoyed that it happened was Kenobi, but moreso because he’d have to purchase another set next time they were at Hogsmeade.

“Relax, that trip is coming up soon.” Satine said and pinched her nose, “You’ll be playing your horrible excuse for a board game once again.”

They stood to their feet and cleaned up the mess, walking side-by-side into the castle. Each took a deep sigh as the warmth seeped to their bones and replaced any chill that the early fall wind embedded. 

“What’s really crucial, is we figure out what that object is and where.” Kenobi said, “Because if what I’ve learned from Charms is correct, it’s that one can only be possessed if they’re in actual possession of the object.” 

“Better not ruin Hogsmeade.” Cody sighed, “I’d like at least one normal event this year.”

***

Anakin was unsure how he could possibly lose out on the extra credit contest that Professor Windu held for pumpkin charming. He’d made it out to be quite cheeky, if he did say so himself, charming it to wink at passerby’s. The idea was to collect the most votes from the designated judges and he felt he had a pretty good chance with his standings and all. 

“Quite a flirty pumpkin you’ve got there, Anakin.” Padmé smiled as she walked up to his table, fiddling with the clasp of a presumably new ruby-stoned necklace.

Now if this had been the previous year, he would have melted right there on the spot and likely said something stupid. He didn’t have such pressure anymore with the knowledge that the two of them could never be- not while he was expected to save the day in the future. Instead, he felt a large weight roll of his shoulders. 

He grinned, “Thank you! Are you judging this year?”

“No, that’s more of a prefect thing.” She said, “They want to make sure that contests are unbiased here.”

“Works for me,” He shrugged, “Better that than that old stiff Win-”

“-Oh! Professor!” Padmé exclaimed loudly and Anakin whirled around to meet the ever hard-nosed professor as he stared down at him. 

“Window!” Anakin replaced hastily, though he didn’t deliver it with the confidence that he would have liked, “Stiff window. You know it’s a little toasty in here. Perhaps if the windows weren’t so stiff that wouldn’t be a problem.”

“I’m sure.” Windu said flatly and then brightened a bit as he looked to Padmé, “Though we are lacking a judge due to Onaconda Farr falling ill, Padmé.”

“Oh my, is he alright?” She asked instantly, a hand clutching at her necklace.

“He’ll be just fine. Madame Nema has the proper potions to ensure that the flu is gone by tomorrow.” He said, “That being said, it doesn’t help us much for right now.”

“There’s a cure for the flu?” Anakin burst out, which caught both by surprise.

“What do you mean?” Padmé asked, “The flu is harmless if treated properly.”

“It kills people from where I’m from.” Anakin said, “Or it can, depending on the person.”

“That’s awful.” She placed a hand on his arm that definitely didn’t make him stand a little taller.

“Never me, though.” He pounded on his chest for show, “I take my vitamins.”

“Right.” Windu said impatiently, clearly not interested in that, “Do you want to judge or not?”

“Sure!” Padmé said with a smile, “It wasn’t long ago I was doing the second year pumpkin carving contest, after all. So, I’ll see if they measure up to my year.”

Windu actually smiled at that, much to Anakin’s surprise. “That might be difficult, Padmé, seeing as you did actually manage to make yours change colors.”

Anakin’s eyes flickered down to his winking pumpkin and frowned, feeling a burning lack of pride when he looked back up to find Windu’s aloof stare at his pumpkin.

“Well, some years we have winners and some we don’t.”

Anakin bit down hard on his bottom set of teeth. He would show him! He still had time before the actual contest began and while he had worked quite hard on learning how to make the pumpkin wink on his own, he knew he could do better. He needed to wipe that undaunted expression off Windu’s face. Besides, it seemed to count a bit more now that Padmé was watching.

“Don’t mind him, Anakin, I think your pumpkin is cute.” She said as though she’d just got done reading his mind.

“Enough to vote for me?” He tried.

“Nice one,” She snorted, “But as a judge, and hopeful prefect one day, I need to remain entirely neutral. I wish you the best of luck though if that means anything.”

“Why would you want to be a prefect one day? Have you seen how boring all of them are?”

“Thank you, Anakin.” Obi-Wan sighed heavily as he and Satine lined up to join the other approaching prefects that were ready to judge the second years on the pumpkins they’d been working on.

“Dang,” Anakin said, “That’s the second time I’ve done something like that.”

Padmé giggled, “Perhaps, you need to be more mindful of your surroundings, little guy.”

“Not you too.” Anakin whined as both Obi-Wan and Satine laughed.

Padmé looked to Obi-Wan and Satine and held a certain desire for approval and respect in her eyes, but more so towards the latter. “I’m filling in for Uncle Ono as a judge since he’s sick.”

“Uncle Ono?” Both Obi-Wan and Anakin asked at the same time.

“Oh, that’s just a nickname I gave him when he was my mentor.” Padmé said with a wave, “You see, he acts a bit like an old man and while not quite a father figure, he’s more like a great uncle.”

“Well, I’m not sure there could be a better replacement.” Satine said warmly and Anakin could practically see Padmé’s smile brighten right before his eyes. He wished he could make that happen for his pumpkin. However, such a feat would not be possible with all of these judges just choosing to hover around his table.

Luckily, his mentor accidentally saved him, “What did Rex come up with?”

“Not sure!” Anakin squeaked, “I didn’t see much of him this week, actually. I think he’s still a little miffed about how Quidditch went down.”

“What do you mean? He made the team.” Satine insisted.

“Yeah, but he got stuck with being a backup.” Anakin explained, “Must be tough, seeing how he’s got to wait even longer to play. I tried to tell him that most younger kids don’t get to play straight away, but he didn’t really want to hear it from me.”

Anakin was unsure why. He was the most experienced in terms of younger students getting to play and it hadn’t been easy being the smallest person on the field. Perhaps, it would be better if Rex had to wait it out a bit. 

“Yes, well, let’s go let Professor Windu know we’re here.” Obi-Wan’s frown deepened, clearly showing the prefect knew more than he was letting on. It was no surprise to Anakin. Surely, Cody discussed some form of it with him at some point. 

Once they stepped away, Anakin whipped out his wand and got to work, brightening as Hondo Ohnaka waltzed on by. Hondo, while a good-natured troublemaker at heart, was actually quite gifted at Charms. He had to be in order to create all of those pranks he conjured up from scratch.

“Hey, Hondo!”

“There’s my favorite little chosen one! Just the man I wanted to talk to!” Hondo exclaimed as he grabbed Anakin in a headlock and ruffled his hair. 

“I am?” Who was he kidding? He was the only chosen one. That was the entire point of there only being one. Still, it felt good to be recognized, even by Hondo, who he was beginning to understand why no one got too close to. The man could stand to learn the muggle invention of deodorant. Even Obi-Wan knew and used such a thing and his family was as wizard-cultured as it got. 

“Of course!” The persistent Weequay beamed, “I wanted to go over the designs I had for my chosen one merchandise!”

“Merchandise?” Anakin asked. 

“You said it! I’ve got t-shirts, banners, bobbleheads, you name it! I’ve even got these funny blue bouncy balls that light up to look like a glowing prophecy orb when you squeeze them.” And he lifted his trademark pointy black hat from his head to reveal a ball of that exact specification. To his credit, it did resemble the prophecy orb from the Ministry. 

“Not impressed yet? Well, it’s actually enchanted to tell your future!” He wiggled his fingers towards Anakin as though to sell it even further. He handed it off to Anakin and when he gave it a good squeeze, Hondo’s recorded voice proclaimed loudly, “I foresee the transfer of many galleons for goods and services in your future!”

Anakin chuckled as he squeezed it again and it said, “Your grades will pick up with the help of one of Hondo’s specially trademarked copy quote quills! For a limited time only!”

“That’s brilliant, Hondo!” Anakin said. 

“I thought so!” He leaned against the table, “And as chosen one, I’ll need you to, of course, flaunt around some of the merch. You know, show that you’re truly interested in it and I’ll give you, say, 10% of the very generous profits?”

“Profits?” Anakin hadn’t even thought about it that way. However, he could benefit from earning some money in the wizarding world. He had just about everything going for him except immeasurable wealth at the moment. 

“Yes, Hondo is good for supplying his end of the deal. Just ask every one of my partners!” He then seemed to think better of it then laughed awkwardly, “Though you certainly don’t need to.”

“I want 15%.” Anakin said, “And you’ve got to help me enchant this pumpkin to be more impressive.”

Hondo had clearly expected Anakin to go higher in his price demands, but while he was in need of cash someday, he was twelve right now. All he really needed was a solution to his current predicament. This way, he was at least beginning to take a little stock for the future. Obi-Wan would be quite proud of him right now if he knew what Anakin had just negotiated all on his own. 

That didn’t mean he wanted Obi-Wan to know, of course. Somehow, his mentor would spin a lesson out of all this and likely one that Anakin wasn’t in the mood to welcome.

“You’ve got yourself a deal,” Hondo stuck out his leather-clad hand, all but covered save for his fingers, and Anakin shook it. “What do you want to do with your pumpkin?”

“Can you make it predict the future the way your balls do?”

Hondo opened his mouth with a wry grin on his face, looked down at Anakin as though remembering his audience, and then snorted before shaking his head, “I can do my best to jinx it. After all, speech magic requires a very specific level of concentration, time commitment, and skill.”

Anakin looked down the aisle of various carved pumpkins, noting that Rex was actually all the way at the opposite end with the prefects and Windu looking at what he’d done. He couldn’t really tell from where he stood, but they seemed happy with whatever he’d delivered. 

“You’ve got roughly one minute.” He said.

Hondo clapped, “Brilliant! Hondo loves a challenge.”

Sure enough, the mischievous pirate whipped out his wand from the back of his pants, which hardly seemed like a safe place even by Anakin’s standards, and waved it in an incantation that he’d never seen before and said now say it with me, “Loquela speculo!”

 “Loquela speculo!” Anakin repeated verbatim and followed Hondo’s wand movements. 

When nothing happened immediately to Anakin’s still-winking jack-o-lantern, he turned to Hondo, whose wand merely glowed gently as if he performed a simple Lumos spell. He couldn’t help but feel a tad disappointed at the result.

“Awe dang! Stupid Windu... He never has any fun, so you know he’s not letting this one win. I bet he eats these pumpkins raw when he’s done with him. There’s weird people like that, you know. That, or he just takes pleasure in setting all of our hard work on fire like the boring dolt he is.”

“No,” Hondo said and held his wand towards him, “Say something!”

“Oh!” Anakin lit up and leaned forward like it was a microphone, “Anakin Skywalker is the coolest, toughest wizard around, and deserves the extra credit.”

“Anything else?” Hondo asked in a hushed voice.

In fact, he conjured up a few other important points for his pumpkin to make. 

***

While he always struggled with Charms, Rex was quite proud of the pumpkin he’d produced in time for the competition. He’d barely made it in time, but managed to place his pumpkin on the table assigned to him just as the judges were arriving. He was relieved that it was limited to prefects, because he still wasn’t sure he would have appreciated more of Cody’s “tough love” for something outside of Quidditch. Instead, he received the opposite impression from Obi-Wan, who had a careful look of understanding in his eyes.

“What have you got here, Rex?” He asked with a genial smile on his face that he wondered if he knew reminded everyone of Qui-Gon’s.

“Nothing too flashy,” He said, “But I did a lot of reading on how muggles decorate their pumpkins in the states, so I gave this guy a paint job to look like a skeleton and bewitched it to stick its tongue out. 

Sure enough, it acted just as it was designed in a repetitive motion, sticking out an orange and mushy-looking tongue. It wasn’t perfect and acted a little slow, but he was still glad that he managed to pull it off after numerous attempts.

“Very nice, Mr. Fett.” Professor Windu said with a nod of the head, “Creative use of the insides, too.”

That had been what he used to construct the tongue. And glue. So much glue.

“Thank you, sir.” He said and looked to the judges to see what they would think. While Windu surely had the right to veto any ridiculous choices, it was purely up to the prefects to decide who had the best pumpkin, which would be on full display on Halloween. It was always odd to Rex that such a piece of decor would be decided by second years, but he guessed there had to be incentives for everyone.

Satine smiled at him, clearly pleased with the reference to the muggle world, even if it was to a more Americanized tradition. She wrote something down on the little notepads they were given as did the others. He noticed that Fenn Rau, the Ravenclaw fifth year prefect, tried to peak over her shoulder to see what she wrote. Obi-Wan nodded kindly at Rex before moving along to the next table. 

He had been surprised to see Padmé Amidala looped in with them, but she did seem like she fit in already, taking the other position by Satine. 

He nervously glanced down the row of students for the first time since he’d arrived. He hadn’t been afforded the opportunity to greet the competition, but was thankful for it. Now, what’s done was done and there wasn’t much that could be done about it. Truthfully, as much as he could use the edge, he wasn’t sure why he cared so much about a silly contest. 

They stopped one by one to each of the tables that followed Rex’s and got a good chuckle or two as they did for his. He had to give the prefects credit- they were excellent at maintaining decorum regardless of who it belonged to. Even house rivalry didn’t seem to have a say for any of the Gryffindors or Slytherins as they went down the line. Then again, he supposed one of the reasons they were chosen in the first place was to be fair.

Ventress was also notably absent, which made sense too. 

He couldn’t help following them down to the end of the line, of course, where Anakin and oddly enough, Hondo Ohnaka stood by his winking pumpkin.

It was Anakin, so obviously the charm was a great deal smoother and more organic than Rex’s, but it was pretty simple for his usually extravagant best friend. 

“Is that all?” Zeb asked from where he stood in the back. As the largest of the prefects (so much so that his uniforms never quite fit his lavender skin right), he was used to doing so. 

Then, Anakin’s face morphed into a smugness that was irritatingly becoming second nature to him lately, and sure enough, the pumpkin began to talk- mouth moving appropriately to the words and all. There was even the flicker of a tongue involved just for show and it certainly looked a lot less handmade than Rex’s. 

“Anakin Skywalker is the coolest, toughest wizard around, and deserves the extra credit.”

The prefects all looked amongst themselves in surprise as Rex and the other competitors accepted their defeat with grace. He had to admit, Anakin was always able to pull something incredible off at the last minute. 

“Padmé looks nice today.” The pumpkin added and everyone turned to the third year girl, who seemed just as surprised to be recognized.

Rex would have rolled his eyes if he weren’t so impressed, but not out of annoyance. Just because clearly, Anakin’s plan to forget about his crush on Padmé was going terribly. Satine murmured a comment about that being a bit much, but was cut off by the pumpkin interjecting in Anakin’s voice.

“You too, Satine.”

“Well, it’s clearly not a lying pumpkin, I’ll give it that.” Fenn Rau said.

“Agreed.” Tarkin, one of Slytherin’s prefects added ardently.

“I’ll third that.” Caleb Dume merely shrugged when Obi-Wan shot him a surprised glance. “What?” 

Obi-Wan shook his head dismissively, “Anakin, did you truly do this all on your own?”

“I am quite ahead in Charms, right Professor Windu?”

Professor Windu, despite his greatest attempts, seemed floored by this, and rightfully so. They hadn’t learned anything of this level in class yet. Yes, Anakin did have a tendency to easily skip ahead in charms, but this required precision and quite frankly, time to memorize and perfect on his own. 

Rex wondered if anyone else caught the broad grin on Hondo’s leathery-looking face. That never usually foretold the sincerity of a moment, that was for sure. In fact, when Rex looked at Obi-Wan, he seemed to be noticing something similar.

“Obi-Wan Kenobi is the best mentor of all time.” The pumpkin said next, which distracted the older boy for a moment into looking at Anakin, who was giving him his most earnest expression of innocence and happiness. 

It was a pretty good show, Rex had to admit.

“Gryffindor is going to win the house cup!”

“And it tells the future too!” Zeb roared excitedly, “Cody’s going to like the sound of that.”

“Sure is.” Padmé added with a smile towards Anakin, “How’d you manage this?”

“I have my secrets.” He shrugged showfully and his smile reminded Rex of a Cheshire cat’s. “As all great wizards do.”

“Yes, well, you’ve clearly been skipping ahead again, Mr. Skywalker.” Windu still didn’t want to lead on that he was impressed by the pumpkin, but couldn’t help it, “And while I should be telling you that doing so without instruction can be dangerous, I must admit that-”

Anakin’s recorded voice cut him off with more to say, “-Stupid Windu... He never has any fun, so you know he’s not letting this one win. I bet he eats these pumpkins raw when he’s done with them tonight. There’s weird people like that, you know. That, or he just takes pleasure in setting all of our hard work on fire like the boring dolt he is.”

Anakin and everyone shot wide eyes to the chatty pumpkin, which despite the glares received by its enchanter, kept going on and on as though a broken record:

“Stupid Windu… Stupid Windu… Stupid Win-” Until finally Anakin put everyone out of their misery by tossing the thing to the floor so that it broke completely into several chunky orange pieces. 

Everyone was silent and still, too afraid to fully acknowledge the quiet rage that was surely Mace Windu, former slayer of darkness in his days, and capable of instilling the harshest of detentions. Still, Anakin was nothing if not properly placed in his respective house, because he was braver than most when he slowly looked up from the pile of pumpkin guts and into the Charms professor’s bulging eyes. 

“You always struck me as the type who could take a joke, Professor. Am I right in that?” He pointed to him with a weak attempt of a laugh.

“Does this look like a joking face, Skywalker?” His frown deepened, if that were even possible.

“Er… You don’t want me to actually answer that, do you?” Anakin quit while he was ahead, or behind. Sometimes it was tough to say.

“Ten points from Gryffindor.” He said and nodded towards the mess, “Clean this up.”

“Yes, sir.” Anakin eagerly leapt at the opportunity to do anything that did not include idly standing there waiting. Hondo also seemed rather keen on busying himself, which Obi-Wan crossed his arms at.

“Why do I get the sense you were involved in all of this, somehow?” He asked.

“Kenobi! You wound me!” He placed his hands over his heart, “When have I ever disgraced the good name of our beautiful Charms professor?”

“Whenever you decide to sell those corny gags, for starters.” Windu fired back, “Which don’t you have someone to scam, Hondo?”

He grasped Obi-Wan’s wrist suddenly and his eyes bugged out comically, “Would you look at that! 7 o’clock already? I must be going to… Er… Study.”

Satine and Obi-Wan shared unconvinced looks as he made himself scarce. Nobody questioned it, of course, and the prefects shuffled away to place their votes. Rex bent down to help Anakin clean up the remnants of the slime that lingered on the floor.

“Reminds me of what I’d imagine brain and guts to feel like.” Anakin said.

“You could have found that out if you’d reached out in the Ministry.”

“No thank you,” Anakin cringed at the memory, “I’d rather just theorize, as Obi-Wan says.”

“And did you just theorize that spell to make the pumpkin talk or did Hondo have a hand?” Rex asked.

Anakin sighed, “You should have seen the way Windu was judging my pumpkin before. It was criminal how spiritless he looked.”

“Well, you weren’t completely wrong, or should I say, the pumpkin wasn’t.” Rex smirked, “Windu is definitely not going to let this one win.”

“Yeah, but it was worth a shot.” He shrugged.

That being said, not a minute later, the prefects had come to a decision and when Rex caught a glimpse at Professor Windu’s strained demeanor, he already knew the result. Anakin didn’t seem to be as perceptive as Rex and didn’t make a whooping noise of victory until Padmé Amidala read it out loud. In fact, she barely had time to finish before Anakin launched himself up and away towards the eager and excited prefects and other students that were ready to congratulate him.

“I know, I know, it was crazy, but I just had to add a little razzle dazzle to it.” He said.

“How though? You’re what, twelve?” Tarkin asked.

“I think there are certain strengths that everyone is just naturally leaning towards. Obi-Wan is great at homework, Satine at lecturing, Cody at Quidditch, and my friend Rex is a great listener!”

Great listener?

That was supposed to be his unifying strength that he offered to the world. Anakin got exceptional talent and fortitude and he got listener?

“But…” Rex’s jaw felt like it was going to hit the floor and when the sea of students parted and it was just him, Windu, Obi-Wan, and Satine left, Windu clarified.

“It was up to the majority.” Windu said, “I believe in a democratic system, even if I don’t always agree with the outcome.”

And with that, he walked in the opposite direction, shaking his head in clear disapproval and possibly to smash some more pumpkins. Rex could understand the compulsion suddenly.

Obi-Wan walked forward and placed a hand on his shoulder, “I quite liked the tongue gag, Rex.”

“Yeah,” Satine added, “You’re getting a lot better at Charms.”

“A lot better doesn’t get me those extra points.” He grumbled as he walked towards the Gryffindor common room. Should Anakin or any of his brothers seek him out, which he highly doubted they would, he would be going to sleep early that night- especially after putting so much time into a pumpkin that didn’t insult a professor. 

***

It was much quieter on the pitch without Gryffindor around. Rex didn’t mind his house’s more rambunctious energy, but he sure could appreciate a break from it every once and awhile. While this year the fall weather was starting to turn into a crisp winter air, it didn’t stop any of the Quidditch teams from running drills and it certainly wasn’t stopping him from getting some extra practice in himself.

He’d asked Breha rather politely if he could run a few warm ups on the opposite end of the field to where Hufflepuff was currently doing passing drills. Whether it was because Hufflepuff hadn’t started working on their yearly strategy yet or because she was new to being captain this year, they seemed not to mind at all that he was there.

Rex’s broom, the Cleansweep 15, had all sorts of bells and whistles that his old model back home could never compete with. Even still, it would never be the most impressive broom on the team thanks to the random generosity of the Kenobis. What he didn’t have in materials he was planning to make up in skills. That is, if he ever got a chance too.

“You’re here early,” He should have heard Cody coming, even if his brother’s broom was a rather quiet model. It only stood to reason that his Quidditch-obsessed brother would also head to the field before it was time for practice. Rex didn’t bother with a greeting, just a shrug of his shoulders as they hovered awkwardly in front of the goalposts, “I’m surprised Breha let you on the field, rumor has it she has a plan up her sleeve for a Hufflepuff comeback.”

“Hufflepuff won’t make a comeback, not while the Fetts are still in school,” Rex couldn’t help, but comment with a roll of his eyes. Not only had he heard about every match they’d had since Boba had been in school, but he’d seen their team himself in the matches from the previous year and they weren’t working with much at the moment.

“At least we can agree on that,” Cody barked a laugh and clapped a hand on Rex’s shoulders, “Let’s clear off here and get ready for practice. Now that we’ve got a full team I know Gryffindor will be unstoppable,” Rex felt some of the weight on his heart lift, perhaps he’d been a little dramatic about his position on the team. He was still important and valued for his own skills, not because of his relations to Cody, their captain, or Anakin, his friend.

“There you are!” Anakin zoomed past them fast enough for his head to be taken clean off, “Woah!”

“The broom’s still a beauty,” Cody’s eyes sparkled as he admired Skywalker’s gift with reverence, “With that speed we may not even need to try this year.”

“One good broom isn’t everything,” Rex argued, clutching his own broom a little tighter.

“Of course not!” Anakin agreed even though he didn’t seem to have any problems showing off, “A broom like this is only useful in the hands of someone super skilled, like me!”

“You can barely control that thing as it is,” He managed through gritted teeth, but Anakin took the opportunity to fly circles around them.

“I’m a natural,” Anakin shrugged, “After a quick warm up I’ll be the ace of the team!” Rex expected his brother to cut in, so much so that he turned to look at him. Cody, however, looked absolutely unbothered, giving Rex a shrug.

“The kid has raw talent, truly unmatched.”

Rex looked back and forth between his best friend currently doing a flashy maneuver and his brother who for once didn’t seem bothered to lecture anyone, “I thought talent didn’t come for free,” He rolled his eyes before descending to the ground like a bolt of particularly frustrated lightning.

Anakin landed not a second later. Nearly being launched face first into the dirt by the momentum.

“Let’s go get changed!” Anakin chirped, spirits high even as Rex sat heavily on the bench.

“Go on then,” Rex crossed his arms, “I suppose I’ll start my own practice of sitting here looking pretty.”

“Is that what you’ve been mad about?” Anakin rolled his eyes sitting down next to Rex, “You shouldn’t feel so bad about being the backup Seeker! Everyone else starts there too!” Rex looked towards the sky, trying to squish down the frustration of so many days of training over the summer amounting to sitting on the sidelines.

“Cody should let the best play,” Rex said finally, “He’s too worried about Quidditch politics.”

“He does!” Anakin exclaimed suddenly and Rex reeled back in shock, “You’ve not really met, Moteé yet, but she’s a great Seeker! Helped us out loads last year, I’m sure. Of course I was too busy doing my job to really watch her.”

“You haven’t ever seen me play, how would you know I’m not better,” Rex defended and Anakin seemed to have realized himself because he sobered a bit.

“I didn’t mean to say you were bad, I’m sure you’re great!” Anakin turned further towards him, but Rex just crossed his arms tighter, “You just need experience first, and then I’m sure Cody will let you play for real!”

“He let you play with no experience,” Rex finally cut in with the true core of the problem. The lack of consistency displayed by his own brother, try as he may to deny it.

Anakin just looked at him with an embarrassing amount of sympathy, “Rex, I’m different,” He reminded him, as if his ‘chosen one’ title didn’t fall out of his mouth practically every time it opened, “Things are just going to work out differently for me than they will you. The team needs me-”

“If they need you so bloody badly then why don’t you go join them!” Rex couldn’t take it anymore and cut him off. Anakin’s expression darkened.

“No need to get your panties in a twist,” Anakin stood angrily, “I’m just trying to make you feel better.”

“Well you’re not,” Rex growled, “So why don’t you go play with your fancy new broom and leave me alone.”

“Fine!” Anakin snatched up his broom, “Geez. Talk to me when you’ve gotten the stick out of your bum.”

Watching Anakin walk away didn’t make Rex feel any better, but he really didn’t want to listen to anymore chosen one talk. Anakin’s new ‘friends’ may lap that sort of thing up, but he’d rather go back to the previous year where it was just the two of them talking about the tunnels or muggle comic books. As for Quidditch, maybe he shouldn’t have even bothered trying out.

***

Anakin’s meetings with Qui-Gon had become routine. Although Anakin still wasn’t much for research, he found it interesting to hear whatever new theory Qui-Gon had come up with about the possession conspiracy. He was running a little late, dodging between students in the hallway and having an unfortunate run in with a snogging couple in one of the secret tunnels. So, he went ahead and pushed the door to Qui-Gon’s office open without any sort of hesitation or announcement.

Qui-Gon’s head was on fire.

Anakin’s heart immediately leapt out of his chest at the sight of him. Sitting on his knees head completely disappearing into the crackling green flames. It was only the color that kept him from performing what would surely be a number of botched water charms. He’d seen green fire before and it hadn’t harmed him so he would have to assume whatever Qui-Gon was doing made magical sense. Instead Anakin found himself just standing in the doorway dumbstruck until Qui-Gon pulled back.

The professor turned, face covered in soot, and smiled as he noticed him, “Anakin, come in! I suppose my meeting with the Department of Muggle Artefacts ran a bit late.”

“Yeah that’s fine,” Anakin finally shuffled away from the door, letting it close behind him, “I was running a bit late myself.”

“All things do tend to work out if you allow them to happen,” Qui-Gon grabbed a previously cold teacup and Anakin watched as it warmed itself up at the touch of his fingertips.

“So you were in a meeting?” Anakin questioned slowly.

“Why yes,” Qui-Gon nodded, “I have an old friend who works with muggle objects in the ministry,” He explained as he took a sip, “We like to have meetings from time to time to compare notes, it greatly improves both of our knowledge of the muggle world.”

“Right,” Anakin glanced back over to the fireplace. He was much less interested in the why in this scenario than the how, “Why only send your head?”

Caught off guard a moment Qui-Gon blinked at him before laughing, “It would seem that way wouldn’t it?” Qui-Gon set his tea cup down, the heat immediately leaving it and waved at Anakin to follow him to the fire place, “Very smart of you to figure it out on your own,” he praised, “It is remarkably similar to Floo Travel.”

Anakin watched as Qui-Gon reached into the pot above the fireplace, the sand filtered through his fingers for a moment before Qui-Gon sprinkled it into the low burning fire. The effect was immediate, just like he’d done the previous year.

“Instead of stepping into it and saying a place, you take your wand and-” He knelt down again and waved his wand, “Coniunctionem,” He said with a swish of his wand, “Then you just say where you’d like to be connected too,” He turned back to the fire, “Professor Windu’s Office,” Before Anakin could protest Qui-Gon gestured for Anakin to stick his head into the fire.

It was sort of like looking through glasses with a green lens. He could see Windu’s office, as well as anyone could, sitting in a fireplace. When he tried to look over his shoulder he could only see the stone wall which made him feel like he’d been disconnected from his body entirely. Added with the feeling of Qui-Gon tapping on his shoulder, he felt a little relieved pulling himself back into Qui-Gon’s office.

“There you have it,” Qui-Gon himself peaked through the fireplace for only a moment before sitting back, “As I thought, he’s on patrol.”

“I’m quite glad,” Anakin admitted, “I’m not sure he’d much like seeing my face appear in his office.”

Qui-Gon stood, offering a hand up to Anakin who took it to be nice, but always seemed to have the energy to spring up off the ground at a moment's notice.

“You know, rather than sticking your head into the fire to learn about muggle stuff, you could just ask me,” Anakin suggested, “I’m basically an expert,” Qui-Gon looked over his shoulder at him, eyes twinkling.

“Oh I have no doubt, my boy,” Qui-Gon nodded, “But we weren’t just discussing any old muggle artifacts,” He admitted, “I’ve asked him to keep tabs on any possible odd or end that could be a tool used by Dooku.”

“Could it really be anything?” Anakin asked and Qui-Gon shrugged.

“Dooku never had such a fondness for muggle things the way I did,” He explained reclaiming his tea, “But it never hurts to have a few more eyes looking out. It’s very likely that whatever object he used, would be something very mundane.”

What sort of object they were looking for, Anakin didn’t know. He doubted it would come from the books Qui-Gon was reading and subsequently having Anakin look over, but they had little else to go on. Still, if he was to be the chosen one, he supposed he’d have to get used to doing a little digging on his own. At least if his first year in school had been anything to go on. Whatever they were looking for, he hoped they could find it soon.

***

Sometimes, Obi-Wan wondered if the professors at their school could stand a lesson in decorum. Qui-Gon was always fairly perceptive, but sometimes it felt that the older they got, the less conscientious they became of public reaction. He supposed in a way, that was a good thing, because in Yoda’s position, he couldn’t stand to fear the response of his students every single time he made a decision. However, there were some moments when it seemed best to consider just how valuable presentation was.

For instance, when Yoda stood unceremoniously before the student body at dinner time and announced that they’d decided to forbid any “unofficial” on-site holiday festivities this year, it didn’t go over well in the slightest. In fact, it was a direct hit at the two events that students looked forward to most: the upperclassmen bonfire and Qui-Gon’s Christmas party.

An outcry of boo’s and complaints filled the once jovial air, effectively sucking away any pleasantries from the incoming weekend. Instead, students were faced with the reality that all of their preparation for costumes and fun was for naught. Obi-Wan wondered why they didn’t announce this sooner. 

“Understand your frustration, I do.” Yoda said, though it was to no secret that the professors never much favored the bonfire. “But safety, we must place first.”

Obi-Wan, himself, wasn’t too sad and honestly, neither was Satine by the looks of it. They’d had their dose of Halloween “fun” the previous year and each would say they’d had their fill of the whole experience. That being said, Obi-Wan was quite sullen about this cancelling out Qui-Gon’s Christmas party, as despite the equally terrifying outcome last year, it was usually a good time. 

“You think the Ministry’s pushing him into it?” Satine asked, which Obi-Wan knew to mean whether or not Obi-Wan’s parents were pushing him into it.

“Perhaps, but I doubt that’s the entire story.” Obi-Wan said, tongue feeling like led whenever he had to walk the careful line of discussing his family. He glanced over to the Gryffindor table, where most of the booing generated from. Anakin, unsurprisingly, was amongst them as though such a decision affected him terribly. 

Both he and Satine were obviously prepared to jump in with their fellow prefects should their protests get too out of hand. Then again, some of the fifth year prefects seemed a bit upset as well. 

“Obviously, they fear another Dooku attack.” Satine said. “I suppose they have a decent point. A bunch of students gathering right outside of the Forbidden Forest with a raging fire? It’s a target if I ever did see one.”

“I know, but not everyone is going to see it that way.” He said and Ventress caught his eye from across the room. As always a hard frown painted her features, but she looked even more like she loathed everyone in the room more than usual.

She’d been quieter this year than usual, he had to admit. Usually, she delivered some crude taunt to him or his friends on a semi-regular basis. Now, she was more keen on slipping into the background. He recalled that his parents said that Ventress was ready to graduate already and was sick of the radicalization of Hogwarts’ education system. That was to say, she didn’t like that she was stuck taking Muggles Studies because the other extracurriculars were filled up. 

Still, Ventress stood to her feet, not bothering to partake in the frustration that was shared across most students, and slipped out of the Great Hall unnoticed. Obi-Wan was about to voice his curiosity to Satine, but was drawn instead to the bold stance that the new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor took by standing front and center.

“Silence!” He used his wand as a microphone, causing his voice to boom over the rowdy students that only continued to cry out. “I said SILENCE!”

Everyone stopped, halting completely in their place. Kit Fisto was considerably young for a professor and typically carried himself like an older brother would, but now was facing each of them like they were the darkness he was used to defending himself against. Once they fell into line, he dropped some of the tension from his shoulders tremendously and panned the dining hall with his glassy dark gaze. 

“It was not long ago that I was in your shoes,” He said, kicking out his foot a little as though to emphasize this claim, “And I would have been tremendously disappointed as well if my holiday plans were stripped away from me in the name of fear.”

Everyone looked at each other curiously, not used to a professor being so direct and earnest. 

“It is a bummer, too!” He added with a nod, his smooth and accented voice reminding Obi-Wan of someone who would spend all of their time at the coast. Not the rocky, windy beaches either, but the warm and sunshine-infused expanses of luxury with waves that ranged high and surfers that braved them. “But you know what’s worse? A bunch of dead students.”

“Fisto-” Windu gritted, but Kit Fisto actually held up a hand to Mace Windu. This action, while startling to everyone else in the room, was all the more shocking to the usually fearsome Windu. 

“-None of us want that.” He said, “And in lieu of missing out on your parties, I’d like to make it so we don’t have to fear that sort of thing happening again. So we can all have what we want next year.”

It wasn’t what everyone wanted to hear, but no one could seem to disagree or look away from Professor Fisto as he now walked up and down the aisles. Each student turned their heads to follow his movements, both nervous and hopeful to catch his gaze. Obi-Wan arched an eyebrow at Aayla Secura, who sighed dreamily as Fisto walked by her. When she caught him, she scowled and gave him a hand gesture that any professor would have stripped Ravenclaw 5 points for if she’d been caught.

“Well, what is it?” Because of course Anakin was brave enough to interrupt.

Fisto didn’t seem the least bit bothered, of course, and smiled a winning row of teeth at his question. 

“Dueling and defense, that’s what.” He said, “How many times could some experience have helped you out last year, Anakin?” 

Anakin gave this some consideration and even started counting on his fingers before he finally said, “A lot, actually.”

“So, that’s what we’re going to do. It’s not enough that there are people walking around these grounds trying to solve a mystery of what happened before. It’s not enough that the tunnels that web this castle together are now monitored. It’s not enough that our staff is prepared, but our students need to be as well.” Professor Fisto looked at all of them with bold sincerity, the long green tentacles that draped down his back wiggling a bit on their own accord at the ends, “And I swear to you, I will do everything in my power to unlock the strength in each of you, should you join the Dueling Club.”

“A Dueling Club?” Satine asked incredulously, but her voice was drowned out by the sudden burst of applause that nearly every student fell into.

Fisto, clearly a bit of a showman, bowed at the positive response, and waved at the crowd. Obi-Wan quite liked how Professor Fisto taught DADA thus far. It was certainly a warmer and more inquisitive atmosphere than Dooku’s by the book structure. That, and, this could possibly give Obi-Wan some more much-needed experience at attack and defense spells; especially if the Ministry and professors believed they’d be necessary.

As he looked over at the row of professors that were ostensibly quiet in comparison to the loud rejuvenation of spirits from the student body, he couldn’t help but sense particular disdain for this idea from Windu. It was to no surprise from a professional aspect. Windu was far more of an experienced candidate to host such a class. As the DADA professor, Fisto would teach the basics of attack and defense dueling spells in class, starting in year 2, but Windu had several years as an auror to back up his case to form a club. 

Then again, until this year, dueling wasn’t really required in the wizarding world. They’d been engulfed in peace for as long as Obi-Wan’s parents had been alive. They always spoke so kindly of their time growing up and so bitterly of the present. To them and many others, times were changing.

***

“So glad you could meet me for tea, Professor Dyas.” Qui-Gon commented after they’d both found themselves comfortably sitting in the divination professor’s tearoom. It was a calming atmosphere, which came at no surprise to Qui-Gon when he first visited. Sifo-Dyas cared more for the balance of the future than even Qui-Gon did, so he was always placing a great emphasis on feng shui. Soft music played on loop from an enchanted music box in the corner. There was no clutter, as such would create a “stressed” tone according to Dyas and he even had his own little brook of natural water flowing eternally at the perimeter. 

In spite of that, it was perfectly clean without so much as a speck of dust covering the smooth hand-carved furniture that decorated the minimalist design of the flat. Despite possessing tables and chairs, the two men sat, as they always did, crossed-legged at the center of the room on top of plush lavender satin pillows. Their cups of tea and the kettle that naturally filled on its own, rested between them at the center of the hardwood floor. 

“As am I, Professor Jinn.” He answered with his eyes closed. He hadn’t yet touched his tea and Qui-Gon knew by now that this was all part of the ceremonious presentation that led to studying the prophets and the visionaries that captivated them so. 

Many, including professors at Hogwarts, were wary of the legitimacy of Sifo Dyas’ practices. Divination was a dwindling passion in the wizarding community, in part to its dark and ambiguous nature as well as its questionable validity. Qui-Gon felt that the average wizard took too much at face value, which certainly contributed to their disbelief of the more colorful interpretations of the future.

He had no such qualms of meeting with Sifo Dyas, as he’d become a good friend over the years. He was older and wiser in many respects and could certainly relate to his pain over Dooku’s betrayal. The two had been great friends when they’d attended Hogwarts together, after all. The difference, Qui-Gon supposed, was that in the end, Sifo Dyas did not seem nearly as surprised by Dooku’s change in path. 

If his students believed he spoke in riddles, talking to Sifo Dyas was a straight anomaly of deciphering and interpretation. His students often complained about this when taking divination, which was why Qui-Gon only recommended it to those that would take the care and time to try and understand it.  

It did not help Sifo Dyas’ case that he hadn’t been outright correct on any of his “bold declarations” just yet. For instance, it was becoming an annual affair that he claimed the end of the world as they knew it was arriving. Such an announcement consistently put a larger damper on any staff gatherings and was considered a nuisance amongst most. 

It was only really Qui-Gon and Yoda who, at this point, gave him any earspace. 

He hadn’t always been so… Eccentric according to Dooku, at least not when they were in school. However, it was when they went their separate ways and Sifo Dyas endured a terrible accident that left him nearly braindead for a month that he returned a different man. Allegedly, he’d seen the fates for himself and touched the fabled scroll of destiny. Since then, he’d been trying to chase that high of realization and had visions of grandeur. 

“You worry for Anakin Skywalker still?” Sifo Dyas asked gently, “I can feel your concern oozing off of you, Qui-Gon.”

It would likely not require a third eye to see that.

“The boy activated the chosen one orb, Sifo, of course I’m concerned,” He sighed dejectedly, “And Dooku is no doubt still trying to find an angle to get the boy.”

“But he has set his sights on a different target for the time being,” He squinted an eye open, revealing curiosity in its depth.

“It’s still in hopes of capturing the boy, I know it.” Qui-Gon said, “What other purpose could he have for this other target?”

“I must agree that in order to retrieve a pearl, one must snap the shell,” Sifo Dyas nodded like that had been exactly what Qui-Gon said, “He’s already tried luring it open, after all.”

“He’s still just a boy, Sifo Dyas.” He grimaced, “I just wish this reveal regarding his importance to our community could have been delayed to when he was stronger, when he was ready to fight.”

He hummed and finally leaned forward to pick up his tea, “Maybe so, but we cannot change the past nor can we alter the future. All we can do is-”

“-Prepare ourselves, yes, I know.” He tried not to sound annoyed. It wasn’t Sifo Dyas’ fault that Dooku wanted Qui-Gon out of the way in order to get to Anakin. 

“Let’s look at our tea leaves. Perhaps, the fates have decided to bestow us with some added information that can possibly supply you some comfort in this confusing time.”

In his experience, this was a rarity. The future often only added more questions and concerns than the opposite. That was the entire point of being unknown, he supposed. While he was normally open to it, Qui-Gon wasn’t sure he wanted to know for a change.

“Mine has been giving me an apple for the past few months,” He sighed, “Good knowledge. The ministry doesn’t seem to agree with the leaves, but perhaps one day.”

Qui-Gon tilted his own cup, “I see an hourglass and a couple of people?”

It wasn’t always completely clear or set in stone, so he leaned over and showed his cup to Sifo Dyas, who tried his best not to appear fazed by what was in front of him. Qui-Gon knew it wasn’t great.

“And you took this on behalf of Anakin, right?” He asked.

“Yes.”

“As is necessary,” Dyas corrected, not unkindly, “Very interesting.”

“What is it?”

“The friendship symbol is typically a good one. It means that Skywalker has many great friends or people significant to him. However, the hourglass always insinuates that time is running out. It’s a warning. An omen.”

“Time is running out with his friends?” Qui-Gon asked.

“It means he will lose someone close to him.” He said darkly, “A friend that is like family.”

It should not have come as a great shock to him. The heroes of legend and old always had to overcome great losses in their path to victory. However, none were as young or inexperienced as Anakin was. 

“Any advice from the spirits?” He dared to ask. 

“No,” Dyas shook his head, long tendrils of gray hair shaky wispily as he did, “But coming from an old friend, I do advise that you continue to be kind and patient with him. He will need all the support he can get if what the leaves and the prophecy say are true.”

“Am I truly the correct person to be his support?” Qui-Gon asked, “I come with my own baggage of danger now.”

“Meaning you will understand him better than most.” He lifted a third tea cup that was set to the side this entire time, “And your tea leaf, as I’ve gone to the liberty to supply, symbolizes a guardian. You shall protect him with your life as you’ve always been destined to do.”

***

Anakin was buzzing at the news of a Dueling Club coming to Hogwarts. He’d been surprised there hadn’t been one in the first place, but figured it was better late than never! After dinner that night, he sat on the edge of his four poster bed and tried to pick which quill he was going to sign up with.

“I doubt Fisto is going to care much if you choose blue or black ink, you know.” Rex teased as he returned from brushing his teeth.

“I know that.” Anakin retorted, though he did land on the traditional black ink in the end, “I just want to make sure I’m the first on the list. This club was practically made for me, after all.”

Rex sighed wearily and slid between the covers of his bed, “Yeah, I know.”

“Dooku isn’t going to know what hit him the next time he tries to come for me!” Anakin said happily, “Not if Fisto trains us the way he says he’s going to.”

“Qui-Gon could barely hold his own against Dooku, mate.” He reminded him. 

Anakin frowned, “And?”

“And, you’re not Qui-Gon.” Rex turned to face him.

“I know, but someday, I’ll be stronger than any of them. That’s the plan, isn’t it?”

“You might have mentioned it once or twice.”

“Is something wrong?” Anakin finally asked, throwing his legs over the other side of his bed. He was confused. It was beginning to sound like Rex didn’t believe he was capable of defeating Dooku when the time came, which was ridiculous since Anakin remembered the prophecy that said so from atom.

“Granted with power his enemies cannot learn...”

Rex sighed again, he was much too exhausted for any twelve year old to be. Still, he sat up and seemed to realize that this discussion was going to happen whether he wanted it to or not. Anakin, for his part, wasn’t quite sure what was going on at all.

“Aren’t you a little scared?” Which wasn’t what he’d expected to hear from him.

“I’ve got no reason to be.” Anakin said.

“Yes, you do.” Rex fired back, “You’ve had how many attempts for your life so far? Not including the one just a couple weeks back. Last year, you were terrified.”

“That was before I knew I was going to win, Rex.” Anakin laughed, “I can’t lose! I bring balance to the wizarding world and everything is okay!”

“You seem to be ignoring the part where you lose something big!” His friend pointed out, “Or how your father has to die? That’s not a walk through the park.”

“A hero’s journey never is.” Anakin sniffed, preferring not to think too critically about the rest of the prophecy right now.

“That’s true,” Rex admitted, “I just don’t want you to get too in over your head with all of this. I mean, I’m assuming there are going to be students of other years there.”

“I’m sure Obi-Wan will join.” Anakin said, “And Cody.”

“Satine won’t.” Rex said, “Are you sure you’re not afraid?”

Anakin thought back to the grave expression on Yoda’s face as he said he was doing all of this for safety measures. He thought about how jostled Obi-Wan had been from the impromptu attack during Parents’ Day. He thought about how there was still likely a missing item that was used to enchant said attacker somewhere in the castle. 

He thought about the dreams that despite his greatest efforts, never fully went away. 

However, he had a reputation to uphold, and it wasn’t like Dooku was going to be able to get back into the castle. Everyone was on the lookout for strange behavior and it was going to give him some peace of mind to actually learn to fight the bad guys that were gunning for him.

“No, it’ll be fine.” He said, voice only hitching slightly at the end.

Rex didn’t appear too convinced, but was also too tired to question him by the looks of it. Anakin found it best that they change the subject.

“Do you think it’ll be like those Spaghetti westerns but with magic?”

“What does food got to do with anything?” Rex asked.

***

“I cannot believe they are essentially hosting a fight club within school grounds!” Satine raged as she passionately paced back and forth across Qui-Gon’s office. He’d declined moving to a different one when he was promoted to Head of Ravenclaw house, much to Satine and Obi-Wan’s relief. Coming anywhere else to vent about their strife would have taken some getting used to.

Well, it was really only Satine who was presently venting, while Cody and Obi-Wan sat on the couch sipping tea amongst themselves, but the point still stood. 

“Where would you prefer they host it?” Cody smirked, “In a cave in the Forbidden Forest?”

“Hogsmeade?” Obi-Wan joined in, “Right outside of Zonko’s?”

“At least they’d get a good laugh before getting scorched.” Cody chuckled, which prompted Obi-Wan to laugh along until both cleared their throats awkwardly when they met the fiery gaze of their best friend. 

“This is serious!” She insisted and turned to a contemplative Qui-Gon, “What if someone gets hurt?”

“Satine, I’d say students are allowed the opportunity to learn to defend themselves.” Obi-Wan said, “You’ve seen all the nonsense we’ve had to deal with first hand. What happens if Dooku does manage to break into the school?”

“A couple of second years are not going to be able to take him out, I’ll tell you that!” She said, “But you know what could happen? They could use that magic on themselves or worse, accidentally hurt someone.”

“It’s not like it’s a requirement to join.” Cody said.

“Yes, but everyone’s going to, because the concept of warding off evil and dueling amongst ourselves is treated like an art in wizarding culture, when in reality, it was the number one cause of unnecessary deaths back in the dark arges.”

“That’s because they were dark ages!” Obi-Wan countered, “Good people who obey the rules and respectfully learn how to use offensive spells are always an excellent force to have.”

“It’s one thing to be taught, Ben,” She implored, not quite understanding why this was being so heavily debated right now, “We’re taught offensive and defensive magic in Defense Against the Dark Arts and in Charms on the regular.”

“Well, we are.” Cody gestured to him and Obi-Wan, “You opted out of DADA for this year.”

“Despite having excellent marks.” Obi-Wan added quickly, though it didn’t ease Satine’s mind on the situation. This was not a question of her talent, she knew that, but a debate on their beliefs on how to carry out justice. 

“It’s the concept of arranging a club so that students can duke it out with each other and be bred with the mindset of fighting being the only answer we have.”

“Sometimes, it is!” Obi-Wan said.

“Of course you believe that!” Satine said, “I caught your name at the top of the list. Just below your apprentice, might I add.”

“I’m trying to become an auror,” He said with more patience than she probably deserved right now, “I’ve got to prepare myself for what I might face one day. Would you rather I be unprepared and fall because of it?”

“Yes, Ben.” She said sarcastically, “That’s exactly what I want for you.”

“That would be quite a drag.” Cody edged in, “But you are going to get some training later after you graduate, presumably.”

“Exactly!” Satine said, “Which is fine, because you’ll be an adult capable of making those sorts of decisions and processing them. However, Fisto wants to pit the twelve year olds against the seventeen year olds!” 

“Are we sure about that?” Cody asked.

“I’ve done my research.” Satine said, “It’s going to be based on skill level, which means that theoretically, yes, a second year could be positioned against a seventh year if they had that level of skill.”

“They won’t though.” Cody waved her off, “That’s impossible.”

“Really? And who in this room had a mentee that is set to be the most powerful wizard of our age? To bring balance and save us from the wrath of the Sith?”

Everyone looked at Obi-Wan, who no longer looked like he had the leg up in this debate anymore. She knew why. Everything that happened to Anakin last year scared Obi-Wan terribly. He’d grown quite soft for the boy and while it was nice to see him be such a great role model, Satine knew he didn’t want Anakin to undergo any unnecessary risk.

“The Sith won’t care if they’re young or old either.” Cody said, “Maybe it’ll be good to show kids at a young age what they’re up against.”

“We aren’t even sure of that.” She said, “And they haven’t even grasped most of the fundamentals yet.” 

“You cannot reason with the Sith, Satine.” Qui-Gon said gently.

“I understand that!” She said, “But what becomes of our values and our morals if the only thing we are focused on is this fight against an impending and mysterious evil when we know deep down that it’s only going to cause more fights amongst those that abuse power, create the illusion of vigilantism, and false security?”

She was breathing deeply and heavily when Obi-Wan stroked his chin thoughtfully, “I don’t entirely disagree with you on that. Anakin already has a bit of a hero complex this year.”

“Anakin has a tremendous amount of pressure on him at such a young age, Obi-Wan.” Qui-Gon said, “I’m sure he’s trying to handle it as best as he can. It’s easy for such a sudden rise to fame to overwhelm anyone, let alone someone of his youth.”

Satine could tell that Obi-Wan wanted to say more on that in disagreement, but chose not to tread on that topic in favor of addressing Satine’s arguments, “And logistically speaking, students aren’t going to be dueling anyone, if Hogwarts is as protected as it needs to be.”

“I’m sure what Professor Fisto is getting at is a very last-stitch emergency effort.” Qui-Gon said wisely, “After all, the moment we have our children fight our wars for us is the moment we’ve already lost.”

Satine didn’t have the energy to bring up muggle wars and how that was exactly how they worked on principle. Instead, she dropped into the seat beside Obi-Wan.

“You know I respect your aversion towards violence.” He said quietly, “But I looked into that witch’s eyes when she planned to attack the Great Hall… We are up against the sorts of people that aren’t willing to negotiate.”

“Yeah, if everyone was like you, Satine, we wouldn’t have any wars.” Cody said in a tone that was supposed to be encouraging, but to her, sounded a bit condescending. She didn’t take it personally, of course, knowing that’s not what he meant. She didn’t fight them any further, knowing deep down that it wasn’t going to change anything. The Dueling Club was happening, approved by the Headmaster, himself. All the petitions in the world weren’t going to take away from the fact that they were back to a state of worrying about looming threats. She couldn’t help but wonder what sort of effect that was going to have on them when they were older. 

***

“Mark my words, this year, we’re making it to Hogsmeade!” Anakin happily declared to Rex that crisp October morning. It was a Saturday, which meant they could essentially do as they pleased and with the prefects being distracted by chaperoning the first Hogsmeade trip of the year, he didn’t see why it would be so hard.

“Yeah, I’m sure Obi-Wan is going to be real keen on letting that happen.” Rex said with an eye roll.

Anakin sighed, “Come on, we haven’t committed a single ounce of mischief this year! I’ve been so unreasonably good that I’m fairly certain that Windu is chomping at the bits to give me detention for something dumb.”

“And your logic is that you should give him a reason.”

“Now that he’s not out trying to kill me, sure, why not humor the bald grump?” He leaned against Rex’s bedpost and smirked, “Besides, since there’s no bonfire to crash this year, we’ve got to get sweets somehow.”

Could the debate be made that Anakin Skywalker did not, in fact, learn his lesson from the previous year? Perhaps, but he rationalized that he wasn’t off exploring unknown corridors in Hogwarts, but known ones! And Rex was just as good as a map of Hogsmeade, describing many enchanting details from his brothers’ stories. Really, there was no risk to be made here. Besides, Anakin was already top of their dueling club age bracket.

They’d only had the preliminary meeting, but he’d seen the competition and knew this much to be true. He loved Rex, but he often stumbled on his wand formations. 

“Our paper on the classical uses of the dancing feet spell is due this Tuesday.” Rex reminded him. 

“Now, you’re beginning to sound like Vizsla.” Anakin pointed out, “And do you really want that?”

“Seeing as he doesn’t even go here anymore, no.” Rex said, “What ever happened to him anyway?”

“Not sure,” And Anakin wasn’t about to give much thought to the little creep either. Out of sight, out of mind, and he intended on seeing Hogsmeade once and for all. Hondo told him there was a killer joke shop that he needed to check out. “Come on, Rex, the possibilities are endless!”

He wasn’t going to bring up the fact that one of those possibilities was Dooku likely plotting to kill him or that there were still ongoing investigations about the enchanted undercover spy. Even if Rex didn’t want to go, he figured he could ask one of his new friends to tag along for the ride. 

However, a wry smile finally broke across Rex’s face, “What’s your plan?”

Now that sounded like the Rex he knew and loved, not the one who had been distant more recently and quite short with Anakin and his brothers. 

“You know me, it’ll work out.”

“Mate, that’s my exact concern,” He laughed, “I do know you and I know it rarely ever works out if we fly by the seat of our pants.”

Anakin tapped his finger to his chin thoughtfully, “Well, I suppose the tunnels aren’t going to be of much use to us anymore, huh?” 

“No, I’d say not.” Rex said, “Echo and Fives tried to see if they could trick the knights that guarded the tunnels into letting them pass so they could skip Potions and one of them marched them straight back to Palpatine’s class!”

“And they listened?” Anakin wasn’t sure what a bunch of mindless guards could actually do. It wasn’t like they were wizards.

“They have swords and axes, mate. You would too.”

“Good point.” He said, “Well, we’re allowed to hang out outside. It’s still reasonably nice out where we wouldn’t be drawn under question.”

“Sure, sure,” Rex agreed.

For the first time all year, Anakin pulled out his map. Despite it being a replacement for the one responsible for his misadventures the previous year, the ends were still torn and the writing faded. Had Anakin been bestowed the responsibility of preserving important relics, he reckoned the wizards wouldn’t have many heirlooms left. Still, it ticked on as it was intended to do so and Rex could see a huddle of students walking down the front lawn of the school in the direction of the gates. 

“You walked straight out those gates last year.” Rex said.

Even though he believed himself to be wiser and braver than that foolish stunt, Anakin still nearly shivered thinking about the attack. It made him all the more determined to never be caught off guard like that ever again. 

“Yeah, but look, there are prefects standing at the gate this time.” 

“Aurors too, I’m sure.” Rex said.

Unsurprisingly, there were aurors still lingering around school grounds. However, neither boy figured it was to quash out any younger students hopes of crashing the Hogsmeade trip. As for the prefects, it was unsurprising that Obi-Wan and Satine were the two posted at the gates. 

“You’d think they would at least pretend they like fun.” Anakin sighed, knowing Cody surely had something to say about them volunteering for the worst shift together. 

“They’re prefects, not actors.” 

“Another good point.” Anakin said, knowing with certainty that he wouldn’t be slipping by either prefect unnoticed, “And I’m not taking another poly juice potion ever again.”

“Pretty sure they’d be pretty suspicious of two Padmé’s anyway.” Rex said, “Besides, you dumped the rest of it right?”

Anakin looked at him for a long moment, considering his options, before snapping his fingers, “What if we got our hands on an invisibility cloak?”

“That is not an answer!” Rex said, “And where the hell do you reckon you’ll stumble upon one of those? They’re incredibly rare, even by wizard standards.”

“I don’t see you coming up with any ideas.” He accused, “I can’t always be the brains of the operation.”

“Thank God for that.” His friend quipped and then ran a hand across his shaved head as he thought about it, “What if we used the Floo network?”

Anakin’s eyes brightened as he recalled the curious means of transportation that wizards used. To do so, all they would technically need was a fireplace and some Floo powder. His eyes lingered towards the door that led down to the sitting area of the common room. There was certainly a fireplace there that could be utilized. However, he wondered if it could really be that easy. 

“Then again,” Rex deflated, “The protective enchantments on the school forbid outside travel.”

“How do you know? Have you tried?” Anakin asked.

“That’s what Professor Yaddle was going on about last week.” Rex said, “Though some of the professors do have their own private Floo Network that they can use to transport themselves.”

“Qui-Gon must have one of those. I know, because I used it!” Anakin didn’t mean to sound like he was boasting, but it had been his first time using it in such a way and he felt it warranted celebration. Rex didn’t look as impressed, but didn’t dismiss him either. Instead, he just seemed to keep thinking. While he did that, Anakin looked back to the map and got an idea.

“Dooku had one too.”

Rex blinked, “That’s right, he did.”

And as it were, Dooku’s office was nothing more than just a storage facility. Some would say it was a painfully boring end to an otherwise impressive legacy, but Anakin felt he deserved to lose his cool office the moment he joined the Sith.

“You think it’s locked up?”

“Seems like there’s only one way to find out.” Anakin answered firmly.

They were going to Hogsmeade.

***

Obi-Wan had to admit he was a little disappointed not to be going to Hogsmeade this go around. As the sky was overcast and the wind was starting to pick up, he began to regret not bringing his scarf to keep the chill from going down his neck. Satine had been much wiser on that front and appeared effectively bundled up in a wool gray peacoat, a knitted magenta cap, and boots that matched. 

“Were you expecting a snowstorm so early?” He’d teased, but began to eat his words as he rubbed his hands together. Gloves. He really should have thought of gloves too.

Satine, always a perceptive one, raised an appraising brow at him, “Better than making the wrongful assumption that it would be like a summer day, apparently.”

She was being dramatic, of course. He’d still chosen to wear his robes and full uniform, which wasn’t exactly light summer wear. That being said, he could have done to wear more. 

“The Daily Prophet predicted an autumn canicule.” He clarified.

“That Perre Needmo will write just about anything to reach a higher viewer base.” She grumbled and Obi-Wan knew her frustration had more to do with the exposé Needmo had done on “disadvantaged” muggle-born youths- of which Satine claimed to be riddled with inconsistencies and offensive stereotypes. Obi-Wan had made the mistake at the time of asking if she believed she was being a bit hard on Needmo, since it seemed the article came from a place of genuine concern that muggle-borns be at the same playing ground as half-bloods or pure-bloods.

Needless to say, she alternated between reaming him out and not speaking with him for an entire month over that quarrel. Even still, she hadn’t quite looked at Needmo’s writing in the kindest lighting after that. 

“The press have always been sensationalists.” He said.

“Indeed,” She sniffed, “I’m surprised you volunteered for this shift.”

He shrugged, “As much as I do enjoy our Hogsmeade ventures, I think it’s only fitting that the fifth year prefects get practice shepherding students.”

“And you want to be closer to them.” Satine added with a nod towards two cloaked individuals that neared towards the Forbidden Forest’s entryway. To their surprise, Yoda was standing along with them. He didn’t look like much since both aurors were of immense height, but everyone knew him to be the most formidable wizard on property.

He glowered, “Do you always have to be right?”

“Yes,” She deadpanned before breaking out into a bright smile that added much needed levity to what was becoming a dreary day, “Though I’m not the one snooping around official ministry business.”

“I do hope that’s not moral superiority I hear in your voice.” He rebuked, “Lord knows you have been known to stick your nose where it doesn’t belong.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” She replied curtly, crossing her arms and ducking her chin up, as though dismissing his claims altogether. Still, he was drawn to the coy look that gripped the corners of her mouth. He did enjoy their banter every now and then.

“And you?” He asked.

“What about me?”

“We all know my ulterior motives behind choosing this particular post today.” He nodded and smiled at Eeth Koth as he passed them to go onto Hogsmeade. When he passed, he fixed Satine with what he hoped to be his most scrutinizing stare. He’d gotten enough experience with asking Anakin if he’d done his homework, “What’s your excuse?”

“Does one need an excuse to perform their duty?”

“When you’ve been eyeing up that new quill set from Scrivenshaft’s? Unlikely.” He returned and she gave him a curious look, “What? I pay attention.”

“I’ve never said anything about needing a new quill set.” She tried.

“No, but you got that look in your eyes.”

“What look?” She transitioned to placing her hands on her hips.

“You know the one.” He waved a dismissive hand, “You practically glow with anticipation and excitement; try as you might to appear poised and controlled. I see it whenever you’re particularly enamored.”

“Is that so?” Obi-Wan was unsure why Satine seemed a bit taken back by that, but could only assume her ears were red from the pounding wind. 

“But of course. So, really, what’s the deal?”

“If there must be a reason, I suppose it’s that I didn’t feel quite like dealing with the band of nimrods who kept insisting on purchasing me a butterbeer.” She said with a shrug and made a point to look anywhere else but at Obi-Wan.

“Cody would have scared them off had they gotten lewd.” He knew because he would have done the same. Instead, he focused on pushing away the green and angry feeling that the unsolicited heckling brought him. The disrespect of it all, really! 

“I don’t doubt that.” She said with a spike of her own indignance, “I’m fully capable of shutting them down on my own. I simply did not feel like handling it today.”

“I understand.” He said kindly, “Well, I’m more than welcoming for the company. Who knows how many arguments we can have in this time?”

She took a few steps towards him and much to his surprise and discombobulation, looped her arm through his. “Not many if you freeze to death.”

***

Anakin and Rex were totally dead if they were caught along their winding journey to the publicly denounced Professor Dooku’s former office. Maybe even literally dead if Windu were the one to catch wind of their scheme. That being said, it was thrilling to be back on the chase of exploration once again. Being in the limelight more often than not kept Anakin from enjoying certain aspects that being unnoticed had once afforded him. 

Like discretion. 

As he knocked into a portrait in his haste, awaking a very disgruntled knight, Rex shot him a glare that said he was never all that discrete in the first place. 

“WHO GOES THERE?” The loud knight proclaimed.

“You’re dreaming.” Anakin tried meekly, though as he scanned the map, he noted that Windu’s name was approaching their direction. 

“I’m dreaming?” Thankfully, he still sounded groggy from slumber. Anakin briefly wondered if portraits even had dreams.

“Yes, you just slayed the mythical Krayt dragon.” Rex added.

“THE KRAYT DRAGON?” He bellowed and Anakin and Rex shushed him hastily, which somehow worked in lowering his tone, “How did I accomplish such a feat?”

“With your tenacious will and iron-clad fortitude, sir knight.” Rex continued and Anakin gaped at how good his best friend was at this.

“Why, that’s incredible.” He yawned again, “Everyone must have been so pleased with my dedication to duty.”

“They were just about to give you the medal of standing honor.” Anakin said, thinking back to all of the fairytales his mum used to read him before bed. He always recalled the knights getting some sort of reward at the end if they weren’t swallowed whole by the beast. “And the princess was just about to give you a kiss.”

Rex wrinkled his nose at that. Maybe wizarding fairytales went a bit different.

The knight seemed to buy it, though, because he nodded thoughtfully before leaning back up against his post, “I should be getting back to her then, gentlemen. Good day to you.”

“And goodnight to you.” Rex said with a breathy sigh of relief. 

The instant they heard snoring again, the boys dashed down the hall without pause. Anakin glanced at the map every now and then, checking to ensure no one had drifted into Dooku’s office for their own accord. It seemed everyone was transfixed with the exterior of the castle today- students, professors, and aurors, alike. He could hardly blame them and smiled as he promised to join them soon.

Dooku’s office was relatively untouched- save for the removal of any evidence or “danger” as procured by the aurors that investigated the scene. There were still countless pictures that donned the walls, unmoving as always, save for an empty space just near where his desk would be. 

“You know, it’s kind of amazing no one figured out he was batty beforehand,” Rex murmured as he poked at the shriveled heads that hung together in a corner. Usually, talking heads… Talked, but these seemed transfixed to be completely soundless as they moved their mouths. 

“Yeah, really, what kind of normal guy keeps all of this goofy jewelry?” Anakin asked as he opened a case that showed several rows of rings, bracelets, necklaces, and even a crown. All of which, in his opinion, were gaudy and in poor taste. “I think he needs to take a good look and remember what century we’re in.”

“They’re probably family heirlooms.” Rex said as he joined Anakin. 

“They’re probably all cursed.” Anakin said and pointed at an empty space at the lid of the box, where an outline of dust revealed the curves of a locket had once been placed there, “Clearly, someone shared his sense of fashion.”

Rex snorted and shrugged, “Come on, let's find the Floo powder and get on to Hogsmeade. This place gives me the creeps.”

Anakin couldn’t disagree, try as he might to appear brave in the face of danger. There were only so many judgemental portraits a boy could look at, especially since he couldn’t seem to shake the fear that Dooku was going to walk in on them at any second- even if that was ridiculous. Still, there was likely someone else within the castle out for Anakin and they would not enjoy him stepping around in their master’s former office. 

His eyes drifted to a mauve jar that rested atop the stone mantle. 

“There!” He pointed and Rex trotted over to retrieve it.

“Alright, we need to be specific with where we tell it to take us.” Anakin said as he took a fist full of the dust and held it outstretched, “What’s a place in Hogsmeade with a fireplace that’s connected to the network?”

“You’re asking me?” Rex asked in surprise, “I’ve never been there either!”

“Fine, fine, just name a place then and we’ll see if it works.”

“Technically, we’re supposed to go one at a time.” Rex said.

“Do you want to be left alone in Dooku’s office?” Anakin countered.

“Fair point.” He nodded, “Er… What about-”

Whatever thought he’d been on was abruptly interrupted by the sudden screaming from the once silent heads across the room.

“INTRUDER ALERT! INTRUDER ALERT! INTRUDER ALERT!” They bellowed in tune with each other with thick accents that could not be immediately recognized. 

“AHHHHHHHHHHH” Anakin and Rex shrieked in kind, dropping the Floo powder in their distress. Before either could think better of it, a quick green flame surrounded and encompassed them, silencing the room in their immediate departure. 

***

From Satine’s six year tenure at Hogwarts, she long-since learned that there were many things that never changed. The professors, in their own way, never really changed. Their curriculums, while expanding and growing as new ways of magic came about, always retained the same values at the core. Cody would always love Quidditch, Obi-Wan would always love sweets, and she would always love to tease both boys about this. 

But if there was one thing that also never changed, it was that the first trip to Hogsmeade was one of the most taxing times of the year for prefects. This was because there was always a fresh batch of third years that needed to scramble and acquire their permission slips, lingered behind, or got lost. Third years were to be escorted by prefects whereas fourth through seventh years could see themselves to Hogsmeade. 

She had to admit, everything seemed considerably in order as she watched her fellow prefects depart alongside the group of first-timers. She and Obi-Wan exchanged knowing smiles, remembering their first time at Hogsmeade and just how exciting it had been.

She and Obi-Wan were to remain posted at the gates in the event that any stragglers came running after the large party or any younger students tried something sneaky. She didn’t protest, finding it much more enjoyable to huddle close to her best friend, rationalizing that she was merely doing so in reaction to the unexpected cold. 

However, both perked up when they noticed a rather disheveled and distressed Padmé Amidala running and stumbling down the walkway, waving a piece of parchment at them as she approached.   

“I’ve got it! I’ve got my signed permission slip. It just came!” She breathed heavily. The poor girl probably ran straight from the common room. Usually, her hair was extravagantly woven in various creative fashions, even to a greater extent than Satine, and her casual wear was anything but. Now, however, she simply wore a puffy purple coat and black leggings and her hair was tamed with a knit cap not unlike Satine’s. 

Satine reached out and took the slightly wind-crumpled piece of parchment and confirmed to Obi-Wan that it had been signed in fine ink by Padmé’s mother and father. 

“Is it too late?” Padmé asked desperately.

“The group did leave.” Obi-Wan said appraisingly and then turned to Satine, “Unless one of us were to escort you.”

Satine looked between Obi-Wan and Padmé, knowing good and well she was unable to refute the girl’s eager eyes. Still, there was a teasing look to Obi-Wan that she did not approve of in the slightest. 

“Will you be alright standing out here by yourself?” She asked.

“Are you doubting my capabilities of standing here?” He returned, “I’ve done it before.”

“I’m just asking!” She said defensively and then narrowed her eyes at him as she saw another chill pass through him, “Well, if you’re going to stand here all alone, at least take this.”

Before he could say anything, she unraveled the scarf from around her neck and draped it over and around him, careful not to look into his eyes as she did so. Really, he would be no good to anyone if he froze solid standing there. 

He cleared his throat after she stepped back to inspect her work, “Yes, er- thanks! Have fun!”

“We will!” She said and waved back at him, a bit too pleased with herself for silencing him from any teasing that might have ensued. 

“Thank you for escorting me.” Padmé said as they trudged down the path that led to Hogsmeade. The hill that Hogwarts was perched on was quite dramatic at the decline, causing many students to take a tumble. Even without the hazards of ice or snow, it was easy to take a fall. 

“Everyone deserves to enjoy their first trip to Hogsmeade.” Satine affirmed with a warm smile towards the girl, “If you want my opinion, it’s a bit ridiculous to me that you even need a permission slip to go.”

“I guess they’re afraid something might happen.” Padmé said.

“And yet, no permission slip is required to play Quidditch.” Satine sighed, “That’s much more deadly than the quaint village that sells sweets and supplies.”

“Hey, I didn’t say it always makes sense around here.” She grinned, “I think Quidditch is exciting, but it’s far too crazy for me to involve myself in it.”

“You’re better off for it. I swear my friend, Cody, has knocked enough brain cells from his head to form a separate functioning brain.” She said. 

Padmé laughed, “That could partially be in lieu of playing for Gryffindor, specifically.” 

Satine smiled, “Is that so? Do you also have the desire for reckless endangerment?”

“I’ve had my fair share of adventures,” Padmé shared with a coy smile, “Not sure what my parents would have done with me had I not received a Hogwarts acceptance letter. It’s probably very comforting that I’m a bit too far out of reach to go snooping around in their political dealings.”

“Your parents are politicians?” Satine asked, “For the Ministry?”

“Oh, no, actually,” Padmé laughed a bit awkwardly, “They’re the King and Queen of Denmark.”

Satine swore her eyebrows almost shot straight off of her forehead in surprise, “That makes you-”

“-Crowned Princess, yes.” Padmé nodded along like this was just any old chat between two friends, as though she’d just told Satine that her parents were accountants. 

“Wow, that’s incredible.” Though Satine knew that the third year’s casual demeanor likely came from a place of wanting to downplay her background. Everyone at Hogwarts was to be treated equally, after all. That was how it was supposed to be, anyway. “I wonder how many other global leaders are witches or wizards.”

“Oh, you’d be surprised.” She laughed, relieved that Satine wasn’t making a big deal out of it. She’d heard that the girl came from an affluent family, but didn’t quite realize that when people referred to her as royalty, that it wasn’t a joke in the slightest.

“How’d you wind up at Hogwarts, then?” She asked.

“I could have gone to Durmstrang or Beauxbaton.” Padmé said, “But I was raised in London with my cousin, Sabé, who’s also a witch as you well know.”

Satine did recall a girl who looked scarily similar to Padmé attending their Zillo Beast protests from the previous year. Usually, where Padmé went, her look-alike (as she was branded by many) was not far behind. 

“It’s because of my parents’ careers that it took so long to get the letter.” Padmé shrugged, “I get that they’re busy, but I was truly sweating it out.”

“I can tell.” Satine laughed, “Then again, I’m sure I wouldn’t have handled well if my mum hadn’t been prompt in giving me my permission slip to Hogsmeade. I was chomping at the bit to see it for the first time.”

Padmé’s eyes glittered as the cozy town drew closer. To Satine, Hogsmeade always reminded her of the sketched portraits of Christmas villages that one might find on a greeting card. It was picturesque and never without its charms. While there wasn’t yet any snow perched atop the thatched buildings that spread out across the settlement, she could still feel that same level of joy. Students scattered about everywhere; the young enamored at the various shops and sights while the older students huddled together in various pubs. 

“I grew up my whole life with magic,” Padmé murmured, “And you know, a lot of purebloods will say it gets old or the grandeur dies out, but I can’t say it’s done that with me.”

“Me neither.” Satine smiled wistfully, “I think if it does, you’re taking for granted the gift you’ve been given.”

“I agree.” 

***

When the emerald flames died down and the chattering of their teeth ceased, Anakin waited a significant amount of time before he deemed it safe to open his eyes again. When he finally did, and noticed the screaming (both of the talking heads and their own) had stopped, he realized that they weren’t in Dooku’s office anymore. His head felt like it was swimming and swore he was only still on his feet due to the death grip Rex had on his arm, but even with that taken into account, he didn’t know where they were at all.

“I know neither of us have been there, but I really don’t think this is Hogsmeade.” Anakin said as he nudged Rex into flickering his eyes open too. When he did, the shorter Gryffindor dropped his arm from Anakin’s.

They were standing in a fireplace, which still smelled of soot and burned wood from their journey, but had otherwise not been in use for a very long time. In fact, as Anakin stepped out from the fireplace, he noted that nothing here looked like it had been used for a very long time. The walls, which had once been painted a pale white were now immensely cracked, even revealing large chunks of interior infrastructure from within. Cobwebs donned just about every corner of the room, even the boarded up windows and dusty candlesticks that remained mounted to the wall. 

As he walked around, cautiously of course, the floorboards creaked beneath him and quite a few felt loose. Dust and dirt fluttered in the air and he could hear the sounds of tiny rodent feet scratching in the ceiling above them. 

He peered through the doorway, which the old door had a jagged hole through it, and noticed there were multiple floors. And while Anakin was brave, he wasn’t sure he trusted those stairs to be reliable.

“Somebody needs to do a little spring cleaning.” Anakin said and cast his ignited wand over a corner, cringing as a rat scurried away. 

“Wait a second, I think I know this place,” Rex scrutinized as he drifted into what was likely supposed to be a kitchen. It was hard to tell, of course, due to the lack of light and the debris that lined the floor and walls. Cabinet doors were ripped rather violently and shards of glass glittered in the minimal light.

The window in the kitchen, while mostly boarded up, allowed a flicker of natural lighting in. Through the crack, one of Hogwarts’ towers could be seen.

“We can’t be far.” Anakin reasoned.

“This is the Shrieking Shack!” Rex snapped his fingers, delighted that he’d thought of it, “Never knew there was a Floo Network fireplace here, though.”

“The Shrieking Shack?” Anakin repeated, dumbfounded.

“Yeah, it’s the beaten up old house just over the hill from Hogwarts, right between Hogsmeade and Hogwarts geographically.” Rex explained and pointed with his wand at the map, “See?”

Anakin had never paid the shack much mind, seeing as he naturally assumed it was some sort of tool shed. Besides, his sights had been set much higher in the form of Hogsmeade in the past.

“Forbidden Forest, Shrieking Shack… What’s next?” Anakin asked.

“The Whomping Willow!” Rex finished as he gestured to a large spiked tree through another crevice.

“Good grief.” He sighed. “Ugh, so we’re only halfway there?” 

“Closer than we were before.” Rex shrugged and looked around in awe, “You do realize how big of a deal it is that we’re here, right?”

Anakin followed his friend’s line of sight, frown deepening at the chipped ceiling above them. 

“No student has ever set foot in here.” He said in growing excitement, “Not even the ghosts will come here. It’s supposed to be incredibly haunted while also impossible to penetrate.”

“How can it be haunted if ghosts won’t come here?” Anakin asked.

“There are ghosts beyond Hogwarts, mate.” 

Anakin considered that and crept around another corner to a door that led down to what he could assume was the cellar. As he reached out for the dusty knob, he felt pause. Why did Dooku’s fireplace take them here? He thought back to that moment in his office. They’d dropped the Floo powder, but they hadn’t said anything of note. They just…

Shrieked.

Oh, these wizards took things a little too literally sometimes. 

He twisted the knob and descended down the rickety stairs, gripping the railing for slightly more support. It didn’t look much different from any other typical basement he’d seen and reminded him quite a bit of a meat locker. It didn’t help that it smelled quite foul and was freezing, of course.

He waved his wand around, looking for anything that would justify the shack’s reputation as being haunted, but didn’t find anything of note. He found what seemed to be an old work bench in the corner, surprised to see that there were weapons crafted here. On the table, was a long and cob-web covered sword, which was otherwise quite impressive. Anakin couldn’t resist, picking it up and waving it around, finding the fit of the hilt to be perfect for his smaller hand.

“Some say it was intended as a bunker during the old wars.” Rex’s voice startled Anakin to the point of jumping a bit.

“Jeeze, Rex!” Anakin’s voice jumped an octave, “Warn a guy that you’re coming if you see him waving around a pointy object.”

“Sorry.” Rex scratched the back of his neck and took his own turn with the sword, “Interesting, isn’t it? I’m sure it’s just some rotted old house that existed before Hogwarts, but there are some dark stories tied to this.” 

Even though he knew he would regret asking, Anakin simply couldn’t help himself, “Like what?”

“I dunno, the usuals,” Rex said quietly, “Everyone’s got a different claim. Werewolves, demons, zombies… You know, urban legends.”

Anakin nodded, but didn’t tear his eyes away from Rex, who twisted the sword between his fingers, “The most common is that someone died here.”

“Let me guess: murder.” Anakin said.

“Well, it wasn’t old age or anything mundane like that,” Rex said, “Legend has it that a student murdered another student here in cold blood and that the body was never found in full… Just the head.”

“What happened to the killer?”

“No one knows.” Rex said, “But the body of the dead was never put to rest since they never found it.”

“Well, they had to have figured out who did it if they had the head.” Anakin argued, “That’s evidence!”

“Sure, mate, someone was arrested.” Rex said in a low voice, “Trouble is, the convicted killer just kept swearing they didn’t mean to do it… As if decapitation just happens, right? Well, he swore in court of law several times that he didn’t have a choice, that there was this voice in his head compelling him to do so. Dark magic.”

Anakin’s eyes widened. “Oh.”

“So, obviously, that was a load of hogwash and they threw the creep into Azkaban where he still likely rots.” 

“You think he’s still alive?”

“My dad claims it's a waste of taxpayers’ money, but they keep the foulest of criminals around for as long as they can so they can properly suffer.” Rex said. 

Anakin swallowed, “Well, if you slice someone’s head off, I guess you deserve to.”

“Yeah, but that’s just the dumb story Cody used to throw around. Not sure exactly how true it is.”

“I’m surprised the school allows it to stay.” Anakin said.

“Well, the family of the kid apparently swore they weren’t allowed to get rid of it.” Rex explained, “It was the victim’s final resting place, after all.”

“Still,” Anakin shrugged as they drifted up the steps again, “Someone could have fixed it up a bit.”

“Not sure if they did or not.” Rex followed him, “I do wonder why there’s a Floo network here. Someone had to be using this place for something.”

When the sword that Rex had previously placed on the desk again fell on its own accord, rattling loudly on the floor before shaking a bit in place, they both looked at each other and sprung the rest of the way upstairs. They were surprised to find that the whole shack was shaking- a boom from outside banging over and over again to make the ground unstable.

“Let’s get out of here!” Anakin yelled over the commotion, “I don’t really want to get involved with fighting a tree right now.”

“You won’t win anyway.” Rex said, which normally would have made Anakin indignantly disagree, but judging by the size of the Whomping Willow when they got outside, he wasn’t the least bit argumentative. 

***

“This place is even cuter than I thought!” Padmé exclaimed as she and Satine walked down the High Street of the village, gaping at each of the little storefronts. It was quite possible that Satine had a more extensive knowledge of the village than even Yoda, himself, though she didn’t doubt that Obi-Wan was likely an even match.

“It really does have its charms, doesn’t it?” Satine smiled and the older girl seemed relaxed as she walked leisurely at her side- a rare sight indeed. “I suppose before we leave I should pick Ben up some Every Flavour Beans for his efforts of standing guard.”

“How sweet of you.” Padmé teased lightly and Satine rolled her eyes in good nature. 

With that, she stepped inside Honeydukes again and went straight for the appropriate candy aisle, where shelves upon shelves of delectable treats lay side-by-side in a rainbow of possibilities. Padmé had been tempted to follow her in again, but was stopped inside by the ever tall and intimidating Professor Shaak Ti, who stared down at her.

“I don’t remember collecting your permission slip, Miss Amidala.” She said. 

Despite not doing anything wrong, Padmé still felt uneasy.

“Now, now, Professor Ti, I believe this one was escorted personally by a prefect.” Professor Palpatine, who was curiously exploring around Hogsmeade as well, smiled genially at her.

“I would still need her permission slip.” She said.

Thankfully, Satine was in and out of Honeydukes rather quickly and read the scene quite quickly, staring up at the two professors with straight posture and firm insistence. “My apologies, Professor. I was looking for you everywhere.”

So, the blonde prefect extended the folded piece of parchment towards her, “A little late, but better late than never, no?”

“I agree, Miss Kryze.” Palpatine said and while Padmé smiled, she noted that Satine was not as quick to meet his jubilation. 

“Very well, but do try to be more prompt in the future, Padmé.” Professor Ti offered in a not unkind voice. 

That being said, Padmé didn’t quite release a breath of relief until both professors were on their way. Satine didn’t seem the least bit fazed by the encounter, which made Padmé admire her all the more for it.

So, she blurted out the first thing on her mind before she could stop herself, “I was afraid I’d ruined my chances just then.”

Satine turned to her, brow furrowed as she considered her. Padmé had to look up a good deal when she looked at Satine. She hadn’t yet hit a growth spurt and the tall blonde essentially had a head over her. “Ruined your chances of what?”

She laughed shakily, embarrassed as she had been when she initially revealed in such a candid manner that her parents were royalty- that she by association, was as well. She thought she’d skirted away from awkward conversation though until this moment. Satine had been so easy and gracious about the reveal. Maybe it was just because she was older.

Still, Padmé was a firm believer in honesty being the best policy.

“I was afraid I’d ruined my chances at becoming a prefect.” She bit her lip and waited, because while she knew Satine would have no say in such a thing, seeing as she wouldn’t even be a student here anymore when that time would potentially come, it still mattered to her what she thought of it.

“Oh, no!” Satine smiled, “They would be fools not to pick you, Padmé.”

“You… You really think so?” She asked, trying not to sound like some stupid kid.

“I wouldn’t lie about that.” She said and then frowned as Sebulba, Ody, and Groff set off stink pellets towards some unsuspecting third year girls. It wasn’t the least bit helpful that Hondo seemed to be in the center of it, ready to blast Sebulba into next Tuesday for ruining his “business” deal.  

“I’ve got this,” Padmé smirked and then waved over at Sebulba, “Hey, sweetie!”

Sebulba, if it were possible, turned pale and immediately scurried off towards the Three Broomsticks without so much as acknowledging the two girls any further. His two cronies followed in haste without any questions. As it were, they were all still a bit off-put by Padmé.

Hondo, confused just as many about what happened, waved them off and tried to find his next buyer. It would only be a matter of time before the owner of Zonko’s would refuse Hondo service yet again. Padmé was shocked he hadn’t been banned at this point. 

Satine laughed merrily and placed a hand on her shoulder, “Using your powers of random revulsion to good use, I see.”

“I might as well,” She shrugged, “It’s certainly better than when he would hit on me.”

“Yes, well, boys are a breed of their own, aren’t they?” She chuckled and began to lead them towards the tea shop, “Do you like tea?”

“I love tea!”

“I think we’re going to get along just fine.” Satine said as she led them inside. “Usually, this is heralded as a date spot, but sometimes, I think it’s more fun to go with friends.”

“Do you and Obi-Wan go here?” And really, Padmé couldn’t help but ask.

“Sometimes,” Satine shrugged, “He’s a bit of a tea snob though.” 

***

The remainder of Obi-Wan’s shift by the gate had been pretty slow. He greeted the incoming students, glanced over to where the aurors had been finishing up their search through the area, and tried not to appear too ensconced in the warmth that Satine’s scarf provided. Briefly, he wondered if she’d enchanted it to smell so nice or if it was just the residual of her perfume. As it were, it was quite helpful, as the wind had only picked up even harder since he’d been left on his own. 

As students passed through to return to Hogwarts, he paid each of them a careful eye. Sure, one wasn’t supposed to detect if someone was enchanted before the curse was activated, but he couldn’t help but scrutinize everyone who passed on by. 

Even Cody had received the other end of his staredown until he realized who he was looking at. It was only fair that he’d received such a confused stare back.

“Got something in your eye, there, mate?” Cody asked with a laugh. Under his arm was a new broom polishing kit and what appeared to be yet another jersey. Cody was a sucker for Spintwitches and couldn’t seem to ever leave the store without purchasing something each time.

“No, I’m just being paranoid.” Obi-Wan sighed, “It’s been quiet.”

“Too quiet?” Cody teased and stood to the side so other students could pass through them. “What happened to Satine?”

“She ended up helping a last minute attendee get to Hogsmeade.” Obi-Wan smiled, “And I bet she stopped in Tomes and Scrolls for some reading material.”

“Or you’re hoping,” Cody smirked, “Seeing as you know she’ll likely share whatever it is.”

Obi-Wan would never confirm nor deny such an accusation. Instead, he shrugged, “But really, it’s been uneventful. I remember a time when that was the normal, you know? Now, it’s like something is brewing.”

“With Dooku out there, most likely.” Cody agreed.

“You’re not helping.” He said.

“I never said I was trying to, in my defense.”

It was a lame defense, but a true one and Obi-Wan couldn’t help but smile and shake his head at his friend, allowing his gaze to drift over to the rolling green countryside for a moment. In doing so, he noticed two small figures dashing up the hill in a hurried and panic-induced sprint. The leader, he recognized on sight from the shaggy mop of blond hair.

“Stand here.” He ordered Cody and marched down the hill to meet them, “What the bloody hell are you two doing outside of the castle?”

“The… Whomping… Willow… Tried… To… Kill…” Anakin wheezed as he bent over.

“Us.” Rex finished for him, though Obi-Wan looked beyond them to see that the Whomping Willow, while temperamental by reputation, was calm and standing up straight. Still, it was difficult to dispute the branches stuck in Anakin’s hair and some of the scrapes on Rex’s arms. Despite Obi-Wan telling Cody to stay, his best friend naturally did the opposite of this.

“Rexy, you look awful!” He laughed, “What’d you lot get yourselves into?”

“The Shrieking Shack that’s what!” Rex blurted.

“That’s impossible!” Obi-Wan said with wide eyes. He’d heard his fair share of rumors about the Shrieking Shack and none of them were good. While never one to be superstitious, he knew it was usually unwise to toil with grounds that had been determined as “cursed”. 

“Yeah, none of the doors work getting into the shack!” Cody said and Obi-Wan turned to him.

“How would you know that?” He asked with crossed arms.

Cody scratched the back of his neck before scrambling for a reasonable answer, “Er- Same as you! Everyone says that!”

Now, Obi-Wan didn’t believe that for a second, but he was quite enraged with Anakin for once again stepping out of bounds when there were murderers out to get him. Did this boy truly not grasp the danger he was constantly in?

“25 points from Gryffindor!” He said firmly, “Each.”

“What? That’s so unfair!” Anakin whined. 

“Yeah, Kenobi, maybe you should rethink-” Cody cut off from what he was saying off Obi-Wan’s glare and took a noble step back from him. Even Gryffindor’s Quidditch captain knew when to give it up, it seemed. 

“We didn’t mean to get into the shack!” Anakin said, “Honest! It was dusty and creepy and gross! I never want to go there again.”

Well, that was good news to Obi-Wan, but it didn’t change his frustration on the matter. They were lucky they hadn’t been killed! Or worse! His mind flashed back to when he found out Anakin had been kidnapped and felt his heart clench.

“Regardless, you’d clearly been trying to go somewhere unpermitted.” Obi-Wan looked between the two of them and then off to the small settlement in the distance, “Hogsmeade, if I had to guess.”

“Wow, he’s good.” Rex murmured, which earned him an elbow in the ribs from Anakin.

“Which you’ll be lucky if you’ll even be allowed to go when you reach your third year at this rate.” Obi-Wan said, “Have you no idea what risks you were taking?”

“Once again, had the fireplace in Dooku’s office worked-”

“-Dooku’s office? What in the blazes are you doing in there?” He asked.

“I think we already know the answer to that one, mate.” Cody said and Obi-Wan didn’t spare him a glance this time. Instead, he took a calming breath and released it, surprised that it wasn’t cold enough to create frost.

“I have no choice but to give you each detention for your efforts.” He said, “It was far too dangerous.”

“Detention!” Both of them gasped, but then Anakin sighed, “Well, at least we get to do it together. We’ll probably be able to sneak out.”

Obi-Wan pinched the bridge of his nose, “Can you not wait to make such plans when I am out of earshot at the very least?”

As the boys offered him a very half-hearted apology, he released another heavy sigh. What the hell was he going to do with him? If everyone had the same courage that Anakin had, no one would be thinking sensibly at all. There was an attempted murderer on the loose! Surely, that crossed his mind once or twice. Instead, the boy just seemed focused on his own little bubble of happiness. 

In a way, he couldn’t blame him. Surely, much more was in the future in terms of stress for Anakin than detention. 

***

Gryffindor common room was buzzing with activity.  Most classes had ended for the day which lended itself perfectly for a wizard’s chess tournament complete with a betting pool. Anakin had opted not to play, while he may be good at other things, he hadn’t completely grasped all the techniques for chess. Plus he still found it a bit boring to play. Watching it though, especially as Zeb stood by waiting to drown the winner in a barrel butterbeer, was always entertaining.

“Hey, Skywalker!” Fives leaped over the back of the couch nearly crushing a poor 3rd year girl. Echo as usual was close behind and both were dressed for Quidditch practice, “You about ready to head to the field?”

“Disappointed I’ll miss the end of this,” He gestured longingly towards where he’d managed to bet a sickle on the current leader.

“I wouldn’t hold your breath there mate,” Echo observed the board, “Doesn’t look like you’re winning anything this round,” As he said it, the players seemed to realize themselves. Check was called and soon after, checkmate and a barrel of the sugary drink splashed across everyone in the general vicinity. Anakin managed to pull his feet up just in time to avoid a truly unfortunate fate for his socks and shoes. After all, they hadn’t gotten around to learning cleaning spells yet.

“Aw did I miss it?” Rex, who had disappeared to change into his practice gear, managed to leap over the river of butterbeer that hadn’t quite soaked into the carpet yet, managing to land precariously on the arm of the couch. His eyes skimmed the board before grinning, “Guess I’ve got a few new galleons.”

“You could have told me Lyra was going to win,” Anakin groaned as he considered how he had maybe a few sickles lying around.

“Should have seen it coming,” Rex shrugged. Anakin wasn’t sure how Rex saw it coming, it wasn’t like his friend was much for playing the game in the first place.

“Well we’ve seen the end here, let’s get on to practice,” Echo and Fives both pulled out their wands and from the tip of them a silvery mat rolled out like a red carpet.

“Don’t step off of it or you’ll be smelling like butterbeer the whole time.”

Anakin didn’t need to be told twice, stepping out onto the magic and trying not to look like he was admiring such a spell. Rex and the twins followed behind him and soon they made it out of the portrait hole.

“You lot ready for today? We’re playing a mock match,” Fives had clearly been the only one of them listening to Cody for the past week.

“How's that going to work?” Rex asked. Anakin knew he’d been a little edgy around the prospect of Quidditch matches, but none of them could resist the prospect of actually playing a round.

“Probably backups vs. starters,” Fives answered, “Cody actually didn’t say, but that’s usually the first real game of the season.”

“Guess we’re enemies today Rex!” Anakin chirped as he ran down the stairs two at a time.

“Honestly wish Cody would switch things up,” Echo contemplated, “He should look to craft more even teams.”

“Well clearly it’s really just to warm the starters up for our first match,” Fives countered, “Really, who thought of starting Gryffindor off with a match against Slytherin? That really sounds like it should be more of a finale.”

The doors opened for them like magic, of which it probably was. Anakin looked back to see Rex trailing a little further behind and he waved him forward.

“Aren’t you glad it’s a pretty nice day?” Anakin offered, his friend was still clearly a little sour about his position on the team, but he did cheer up at the brisk air and the cloudless sky.

“No clouds, eh?” Rex squinted under the sun’s rays, “That’s always good news for a seeker.”

Down at the pitch Anakin wasted no time grabbing his broom and racing to the field. Getting his new broom was one of the best things that had ever happened to him, save for his Hogwarts letter. It was just as beautiful as the one in the window in Diagon alley and it flew faster than he ever imagined a piece of wood could. He took to the air the second he cleared the bleachers and did laps around the field so fast it made him dizzy.

His own chunk of freedom wasn’t to last however because they were called back to the ground. The starters fell into their usual positions on the field. Anakin pulled his beater’s bat out of his pocket. Cody was the only one not ready on their side of the field, instead he was positioning the backups, especially the new ones, on where to stand to start a game.

“Rex move up a little bit!” Cody called.

Rex looked miffed and muttered something along the lines of, “I know where to stand,” Cody was known for being picky though, even Anakin had gotten told many times to stand exactly on the line.

Cody explained the details and rules of the game briefly. Anakin didn’t bother paying attention as he was now a seasoned player. Some of the newbies were hanging onto every word, Anakin wondered if there were any players who hadn’t seen a Quidditch match just like him the previous year.

***

Rex was the youngest of seven so it stood to reason he was used to being babied whether he liked it or not. This was one of those times that the thought really drove him up the wall. Cody was still explaining the basics of the game, which he wouldn’t doubt was important given that a few members of the team were listening very closely, but the occasional glances in his direction seemed very intentional.

He was exceptionally pleased when Cody finally turned and took his own position alongside the Gryffindor starting chasers. They all kicked up and Cody threw the Quaffle up as high as he possibly could.

Rex didn’t much care who got the Quaffle when it came down to it, this was his chance! He’d best the whole starter team by himself and then Cody would eat his words. His brother may yammer on about how important Chasers were in the game, but really one good Seeker could make up for a whole row of terrible Chasers, if they were fast enough.

The snitch wouldn’t be spotted yet, it was sort of the name of the game. It was incredibly rare for the snitch to be caught so soon. Rex knew this wasn’t where his strength lay anyways. He flew high, eyes skimming for any sort of gold glimmer and keeping a watch on Moteé for any sudden movements. The opposing Seeker liked to drift around the outskirts of the field and Rex found that particular technique fairly worthless in the long run, but he could respect that she preferred it that way.

The game was progressing, his own team was struggling on the defensive, but had managed to score a couple points. Moteé paused in her circling. Rex followed her line of sight and there! A spec of gold  hovering just above the bleachers. He wasted no time shooting towards it, and neither did his opponent. They were quickly neck and neck, but Rex swerved suddenly, catching her off guard and she fell back just enough for him to gain a few inches, which is all he needed.

What he didn’t expect was for a bludger to slam into his head. He saw stars, but still managed to wrap his fingers around the cool metal before crash landing into the teacher’s box. He shook his head trying to clear his vision and he saw boots tap down onto the bench in front of him and Moteé came into his vision.

“You okay?” She asked, offering him a hand up that he took, stumbling a moment before the world righted itself. The two of them flew down to the ground where the rest of the team had landed.

“You good there Rexy? Moteé?” Cody asked, giving them both a once over. They both nodded so he moved on, “Alright time for notes!”

Despite a possible head injury, Rex felt very satisfied with the work he’d done. The little gold ball was fluttering weakly between his fingers and he couldn’t help but grin. He mostly ignored Cody as he discussed tactics with the other chasers, but tuned back in as his brother approached him.

“Alright,” Cody eyed both of his Seekers up, turning first to his starter, “You did alright there, but you should never let the other Seeker throw you off your game, you would have had it otherwise,” She nodded with a small smile, Rex couldn’t help but look a little smug as he handed over the snitch, “Rex,” Cody tucked the golden ball into his pocket, “You would have made a good catch if you hadn’t nearly lost the game for your team,” Rex’s thoughts screeched to a halt as he looked at his brother dumbfounded.

“What?” He asked and Cody shook his head pointing at the scoreboard, it had been a close game.

“Our team was seconds away from scoring on you, meaning you would have lost if you were a second too slow,” Cody explained, “A better tactic might have been attempting to distract the other Seeker or lead her off the correct trail.”

“That’s a little risky,” Rex disputed, stepping up to his brother, “What if it hadn’t worked, then you would have won regardless of the shot or not. I think it was enough of a risk to go ahead and catch the snitch. In my opinion, that was the right play.”

Cody put his hands on his hips, “Arguing about it will get us nowhere. I’m providing you notes on how to improve. Whether or not you use them is up to you.”

“Not really...” Rex mumbled.

“What was that?” Cody leaned towards him.

“I said, ‘Not really’,” Rex spoke again louder, squaring his shoulders, “If I don’t listen to you blindly you’ll never give me a chance anyways, it’s not up to me.”

“I’m suggesting that you make your Quidditch decisions with your team in mind, not yourself,” Cody put up a hand to stop him from speaking further, “You already have the skills of a good Seeker, but now you need to work on your other aspects. Do you understand?” Cody asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Yes captain.”

Cody moved on stopping in front of Anakin. He ruffled the 2nd year’s hair and grinned, “Excellent shot there, would have probably worked on anyone who wasn’t a Gryffindor,” And he moved further down the line. Rex looked away. There were no notes, he supposed, for the team favorite, even though Rex would have suggested he aim for the hand rather than the head.

***

In Officer Adi Gallia’s experience, there was never a peaceful moment in Azkaban.

It was simply not the way of the fortress of torture- neither for its inmates or its guards. It was a place so bleak and so depressing that those that worked there could only legally operate on limited hours to avoid any secondhand suicidal thoughts. Most of their job consisted of punishing the foulest, most vile, people in the entire world, and fighting back against the most human part inside of them: empathy.

Because while the top floor of the triangular prison only consisted of the harshest and most sinister creatures to ever see the light of day, watching the life and soul get stripped from people day-by-day was never an easy thing to get used to. In fact, most speculated if the guards that worked the floors of the top unit were missing pieces of their souls anyway. It did take a specific kind of numb to voluntarily condemn oneself to witnessing torture and agony every day.

While not necessarily a silent time, thanks to night terrors or wails of anguish that regularly plagued the inmates, it was the least active time of the cycle. They weren’t referred to as days here, not when the sun was obscured at all times. Whether this was an intentional spell or merely the will of nature, no one truly knew. There was no rest for the North Sea- rocking torturous gray waves against the sturdy triangular fortress at its center. It was almost like the sea was trying to expel the foul stench of evil from its body. 

A single bulb flickered at the end of the hall. 

There was one inmate that never seemed to sleep. 

He was the first that all new-hires were warned of on the spot; the one that everyone was discouraged from speaking to lest their mind get warped from his silver tongue. He was as beguiling as he was articulate and was certainly not what anybody expected when they recalled his reputation.

Mass murder of the highest count. There was no death sentence in their judicial system, but if anyone were to have received it, it would have been him. It was pointless bureaucracy that stalled him from getting the final kiss.

It had been years since one was sentenced, but finally, after years of deliberation, he was given a scheduled date: tomorrow.

Some said he was like a loose animal- hungry for the kill. Unlike most wizarding assassins, he preferred the physicality of taking a life vs. using magic to end it quickly. He’d gotten quite creative with it, especially towards the end. 

It had taken several aurors to stop him, to tame him enough that he was subdued. His trial had been a record-breaking 20 minutes long, with most of that time merely spent reading off the numerous counts of murder stacked against him. And for his part, he said nothing. When questioned if he worked alone, he smiled. 

In spite of that, no evidence supporting the theory had ever been found. 

Shockingly, he’d never laid a finger on a single inmate, hadn’t even tried, since he was first arrested and dropped in a cell. Some of the senior staff members recalled that he’d been brought quite literally locked in a magic-proof box with several meters of chains wrapped around it. He hadn’t even said anything then, just committed each of them to memory with striking yellow eyes that stood out starkly in comparison to his deep red and black skin. 

He was deemed so dangerous that he wasn’t allowed to have much of anything in his cell. All furniture was magically sealed to the floor, making it impossible to move (or in his case: throw). 

Beyond wrestling a bit when he was first experiencing the dreadful sensation of having his soul toyed with by the dementors, there were never any problems. Some believed he’d given up while others swore he was planning. His eyes were never vacant like someone who’d thrown in the towel. Instead, he meditated and usually read newspapers. 

Books, as it were, could somehow be forged into weapons. 

Gallia was too young to have known much about him when he was in his prime, but she’d read the reports countless times thereafter. To her, it became clear that this was not simply a loose gun, but a cold and calculative killer. However, she was no auror and it wasn’t her place to determine his punishment, but to enforce it.

As the lightbulb at the end of the hall burned out into darkness, she sighed heavily. Clutching her wand tightly, she and her assigned partner approached the cell from opposite ends of the hall. Ideally, when dealing with a high-level criminal, an entire team was required to address an issue. However, the many callouts and casualties from their line of work often lessened this possibility. Because of this, staff had to be hyper vigilant and never grow too comfortable.

Her partner, an older Ongree named Pablo Jill, wasn’t quite on the same level of caution as her. He rattled his nightstick against the reinforced steel bars and whistled as though summoning a barn animal.

“We should call for the box.” Gallia said, which she knew to be the only proper way to keep such a slippery inmate still while they tended to his cell. 

Jill gave her a sidelong glance, which was telling since his eyes were already extended out on opposite sides of his tapered head, “Why?”

“To change the bulb.” She answered simply. 

“Well, what’s he need that for?” He banged on the bars again, “Have any light reading to catch up on, bud? Any correspondence to follow up? Are you writing a letter to any of your friends?”

He found himself quite funny for that one, though Gallia heard no laughter from inside the cell. Anytime an inmate laughed, it never meant anything good for them.

“Because if we don’t and something happens to him-”

“-The world rejoices.” Pablo Jill finished.

Gallia admitted she was always by the book in terms of procedure. Jill often remarked that it showed how young she was in comparison to the older staff. She was unsure whether Jill had simply been an incredibly brave Gryffindor in his day or if he was simply so desensitized that nothing really mattered enough to worry about anymore. That being said, she got no pleasure in being the keeper of the keys, so to speak, and bringing down the book on people. Anyone who did, she felt, didn’t allow much moral high ground for themselves. 

“If he kills himself in there, that’s your ass.” She asserted, because it was true. It was against regulation for an inmate to be out of sight and considering his cell was pitch black, this certainly counted. While no one would be particularly heartbroken over the death of the notorious killer, the wardens of Azkaban would be very displeased that he was let off so easily. Not when he was to be sentenced to the kiss so soon.

If there was one thing Pablo Jill did still respect, it was the wardens, and quite possibly solely because they held his job in their hands.

“Fine, go get them and the box.” He sighed heavily and ignited his wand, “I’ll keep an eye on the bastard.”

She nodded and turned on her heels to do just that, thankful that he chose tonight to be easily convinced. Usually, Jill put up a bit more debate. Then again, it was possible he wasn’t a fan of stalling the process any longer than it needed to be.

***

Darkness… They feared it, but he embraced it, thrived on it, became it. 

Until, in darkness he forged his own light. Not in the form of pitiful hope or sense of moral justice, but in the fires he burned along the way. 

They were wrong to trifle with him, to think him a fool. It would be their own hubris that would undo them. It would be by their own hand. He could see it so clearly, as though it were happening. 

Or maybe, it was. 

***

Gallia returned with two additional officers and the sealing box, which was a rather medieval contraption still utilized on the most dastardly and powerful wizards, preventing them from using any magic while inside. Her two larger companions looked at her in confusion when Pablo Jill was nowhere to be found. 

“You think he went on another impromptu lunch break?” The gruffer of the two guards sighed heavily, as such a thing was a common occurrence for seasoned officers. Azkaban was a fortress of a prison and each cell was impossible to escape from after years of learning from their own mistakes. The only weapon each prisoner had was their tongue.

That was not to say it was never a useful one. 

“No, he explicitly said he would stay behind.” She said and walked closer to the cell at the end, frowning as she noticed the light emanating off the cell was back to flickering. Or at least, it appeared as such, since there was no longer any random pockets of darkness.

She was even more surprised to find that most of the inmates on the floor were awake when not five minutes ago, they were out cold. Oftentimes, the dementor’s presence exhausted them into uninterrupted sleeps plagued by nightmares- but sleep nonetheless.

In her opinion, they were moving much too slowly. 

“Well, I’m not sure where he got off to.” Said the other officer as he trailed behind them, making a point to give a very rowdy Twi’lek the stink eye. Gallia couldn’t make out the exact nature of his language, but it sounded very much like he was reciting a chant. The same rhythm of the Devaronian across from him and the bald witch on the other side. Come to think of it, they were all chanting.

While not completely out of the ordinary, it was unsettling. 

“You know, I swear we changed the lights on the floors last month.” The older officer said suddenly warily.

“Wouldn’t be surprised if they skipped the Dathormiarian. He’s a savage beast that can’t be contained.” Said the other.

“Or killed, apparently.” Gallia said as they surveyed their surroundings and then stopped, “But what if they did change his light?”

“Then… I don’t know how it’s burned out. They’re enchanted to last years.” He shrugged.

Adi Gallia couldn’t help but feel her heart quicken at the thought. Instead, she picked up a sprint that was unexpected by the other officers. Perhaps, when they replaced the lighting fixture, someone forgot (or was convinced otherwise) to take the old with them. Perhaps, the bulb never burned out at all. Perhaps…

She wasn’t sure why it felt like the stretch of hall seemed to get longer and longer or why the chants were in time with the flickering light that she fixated on. 

As time slowed, she realized it wasn’t just a coincidence, but Morse code.

Revenge of the Sith. 

When they finally got to the end of the hall, punched in the security clearances to get into the special sector, and opened the door, they saw the light, still flickering. However, it was not the only thing dangling from the ceiling. A set of warden issued boots, attached to a lifeless and brutalized body, swayed back and forth. 

And on the Ongree’s face, which was frozen in a horrible combination of shock and terror, broken shards of what was no doubt a lightbulb was buried into his eyes. 

Other than that, an empty cell that looked far too ordinary. 

She whipped out her wand before she could think otherwise, but an illumination of sudden green light filled the air, instantaneously and permanently silencing her backup. And in that light, she could see the reflection of a smile that broke across black and red stained skin. 

The scream never even left her lips. 

***

It was a particularly plain morning, Satine was barely yet awake, eyes blinking blearily as she worked beside Fenn Rau to keep the hallway foot traffic moving. Rau was going on about Hogsmeade and Tea Shops or something. She didn’t much care what he was talking about and more so taking advantage of his chipper mood this early in the morning.

“Would you like-” Rau was saying before he got cut off by a much more familiar Ravenclaw prefect.

“Satine!” Ben was running, eyebrows pulled together and eyes wide. She hadn’t seen him look this concerned since Anakin’s disappearance last year. He wasted no time wrapping a hand around her wrist and pulling her through the door of an empty classroom. Satine caught the shocked look on Rau’s face, unsure whether or not to follow, but she was surprised to see Ben nod and wave for him to follow.

Satine had noticed Ben and Rau didn’t always seem to see eye to eye, but whatever made Ben edgy around him was nearly gone as pulled out his wand and cast a Muffliato charm on the door as it shut.

“What’s happened?” Satine asked, torn between placing a hand on his shoulder or crossing her arms. She crossed her arms.

“There’s been a breakout in Azkaban,” Ben said gravely. Rau took a step back in shock, hand twitching towards his wand. Satine thought back to what she knew about the wizard prison.

“Has this ever happened before?” Satine asked slowly.

“Never,” Rau answered with a frown at the same time Ben shook his head.

“The dementors there make you completely demoralized,” Ben couldn’t help but explain, “Either you go insane, or you become a husk.”

“Not to mention you have no wand, and there are tons of guards,” Rau continued, “So I think the better question to ask is: Who’s gone and broken out of Azkaban?” Both turned to look at Ben, whose face looked pale and though it didn’t look like he wished to answer such a question, he still did.

“The mass murderer known only as Maul.”

Rau did grab his wand then. Satine looked between them. The name sounded familiar, but wizards didn’t bring up the names of those who had done such despicable things often. It was something she admired about them before, but now she felt a bit out of the loop.

“A mass murderer,” Satine sighed, “Well, the aurors should catch him easily right? Every good wizard knows how to block a spell, even if it is a killing curse,” Even as she said it, she knew something was off. Ben and Rau exchanged looks before Ben stepped towards her, his hand outstretched like he wanted to grab hers, but he let it fall to his side.

“You weren’t yet introduced to the wizarding world when Maul was at large,” He started softly, “I was quite young when he was captured.”

“How young?” Satine asked.

“Three,” He answered, “He’s not like other wizard convicts, he’s one of the worst criminals we’ve managed to lock up actually.”

“He’s gruesome,” Rau added, voice hushed as if Maul, himself, would hear if he spoke too loud, “I did a paper about him once. He’s magical of course, but he seems to favor other ways of doing the deed.”

“That much is true,” Ben grimaced, “I hadn’t quite grasped the ability to read yet, but I certainly will never forget the pictures from the daily prophet. He's the type of person who enjoys the suffering of others.” Satine grasped her own wand then and was surprised that Ben had yet to.

“How did you find out?” She asked and as if a lightbulb clicked on inside Ben’s head he answered quickly.

“Headmaster Yoda’s going around finding Prefects,” Ben pointed at both of them urgently, “Student’s are to pack an overnight bag and meet in the Great Hall immediately. We’re to help corral them, but to be in the Great Hall by noon.”

“Alright,” Satine nodded immediately, she turned to see Rau looking very much like he hadn’t signed up for a death mission, but when he caught her gaze he straightened, tucking his wand away.

“Well if they’re counting on us, let’s go!” Rau turned and headed out into the hallway. Satine grabbed the sleeve of Ben’s robe to stop him from following.

“I’ll see you at noon,” She told him, eyes roving over her face, “Do not be late,” He smiled suddenly, worries overturned for the moment as he tapped the face of his watch.

“I’m never late,” And then she was left alone for just a moment, breath caught in her throat, before she followed behind him.

She took out her wand, pointing it at her throat and calling upon magic to amplify her voice as she parroted the instructions over and over again to the masses. Most students had taken heed of the call, rushing off to their collective common room, but it took far too long to check every nook and cranny of her own emergency route. She found herself rushing up Ravenclaw tower as the time ticked closer. She’d seen Rau on the way here, bag packed and heading towards the hall. She hoped the other prefects were having better luck than her.

She was quick to pack a bag, throwing in a pair of her nicer pajamas, a toothbrush, and a change of uniform. She tossed in a few more items almost as an afterthought, forgoing her homework as she was near positive the professors would extend the deadlines of anything she didn’t already have done. Even if she could have focused with a bloodthirsty killer on the run, she’d likely have her work cut out for her as a prefect.

She paused in the Ravenclaw common room, it was oddly quiet without the usual chatter or the fire crackling or even the flipping of pages. Her usual spot looked desolate and Obi-Wan’s looked cold, neither was particularly comforting to see.

“Are you alright?” She jumped at the sudden voice, whirling towards it with her wand outstretched and a jinx on her tongue, but she lowered it quickly when she saw Ben with his hands up sheepishly, “Apologies, I didn’t mean to sneak up on you.”

“No matter,” She stowed her wand back into her robes and regained her grip on her bag, “You’ve got everything?” He wasn’t carrying much just his usual school bag and although she had a theory he’d expanded it with a charm, she still had to ask.

“I don’t need much,” He shrugged as if reading her thoughts and she moved her gaze back to his face so that they both stared at each other in the silence.

“Do you think he’ll come here? To the school?” She asked and he hesitated before answering.

“I hope not,” He grimaced, “There’s nothing here that he should want,” but that was rather incorrect. There were bodies, and if he enjoyed bloodshed that may be all the prompting he needed. Such a thought made her sick, how anyone could enjoy wasting a human life like that, for what? Sick thrills?

“As do I,” She agreed that it was certainly the last thing they needed.

Any other thoughts they had were interrupted by the strike of the hour shaking the tower and they looked at each other in mild alarm.

“So much for never late,” Satine couldn’t help but jest as they both practically tripped over each other to get out of the common room.

“We were together at twelve, I’d say that counts,” He argued, pushing the door open with quite a bit of force, but holding it open for her like a gentleman all the same. She rolled her eyes as she stepped through, patting his shoulder in thanks.

“Whatever you say Mr. Prefect.”

They rushed through the halls, seeing no one, but the ghosts drifting to and fro. Even they seemed more alert than usual, despite no threat to themselves. She figured the Headmaster had a word with them.

Professor Windu was standing at the door to the Great Hall looking rather stern as they approached. They slowed to a halt both trying to catch their breath.

“You two are late,” He reminded them, “The other prefects have already arrived.”

“Sorry Professor,” She told him at the same time Ben gave a little half bow.

“Apologies, Professor Windu.”

“Well the past is behind us, I know you two wouldn’t have been messing around,” They both shook their heads and he looked at them a moment longer before continuing, “Help the other Ravenclaw prefects take roll, we don’t want a single student unaccounted for,” And without another word, he stepped aside, bringing his wand out and releasing a few spells on the door before they could slip inside.

***

Anakin wasn’t sure what was going on. One minute he and Rex were heading to class like usual and then the next they were being told to hurry to the Great Hall as soon as possible. Everyone he asked, even the older students were just as lost as he was, but the prefects and head boy and girl were all looking concerningly grim.

“Geez maybe somebody died,” Anakin picked at the red and gold tablecloth in front of him. They were all sitting at their respective house tables, in year order. It was more organized than even the back to school feast.

“Don’t say things like that,” Rex gave him a look from where he was digging arm deep into his duffle bag that looked exactly the same as the ones he saw the other Fett boys carrying, “That’s a very real possibility you know.”

“Still this is boring,” Anakin sighed, “We’ve just been sitting here for an hour, I never thought I’d want to be in class.”

Just then, there was a sudden rush of silence from the Ravenclaw table. Anakin turned and watched as a particularly subdued Qui-Gon as well as Headmaster Yoda escorted Stass Allie out of the Great Hall. Chatter burst forth the moment the doors closed. Speculations spread quickly and rather loudly through the Great Hall.

“Two professors-?”

“She’s gotta be in trouble-”

“What if she’s who the aurors are looking for-”

Such lines of thinking promptly fell quiet as the prefects descended on their tables like a predator to its prey.

“I don’t think we’ll be having any gossiping here,” Zeb pushed a few second years over so he could squeeze in between them.

“Well I don’t think anyone would be gossiping at all if we knew why we were here in the first place,” Anakin shrugged. Zeb just shook his head.

“Can’t tell ya, gonna have to wait for Headmaster Yoda to get back,” He shrugged, but when he suddenly noticed a bunch of second years leaning in, he nearly fell backwards off the bench, “Won’t be havin any of that,” He shot them down.

“So you know something,” Anakin pointed out.

“So what if I know something, doesn’t mean I’m gonna tell you lot,” He crossed his arms, towering over them in a way that probably should have been intimidating.

“Well if you know something, I’d bet all the prefects do,” Anakin considered, “Which means Obi-Wan knows, so I’ll just go ask him-” Anakin moved to stand, but was promptly pushed back down.

“Absolutely not!” Zeb snarled, “Us prefects have enough ta deal with right now, without little kids sticking their nose into things.”

“Like what? Boring us to death?” Anakin leaned his head on his hand, scowling up at the Lasat.

“Like keeping a bunch of brats safe from-” He cut himself off, but Anakin’s eyes lit up.

“Oh so this is a big deal then,” He turned to Rex, “What do you think?”

“Well it could be Dooku, but he’s not stupid enough to waltz right on to school grounds,” Rex reasoned.

“Will you both shut up?” Zeb hissed, “I’m not gonna tell you and that’s final!”

The door to the Great Hall swung open once more and Headmaster Yoda returned alone, Professor Windu seemingly switching places with the old green troll. Headmaster Yoda certainly looked much less cheerful than he normally did, even on a particularly rough day. All the prefects who had taken a moment to sit down, stood, and they all moved to the back of the room as if they were preprogrammed to do so. The head girl, a Slytherin, and head boy, a Hufflepuff, both moved to be on either side of the Headmaster.

“Grave news, I have,” Yoda started, with a sigh. In that moment he did truly look his age, as he turned, looking into nearly every face in the room before continuing, “Explain, I will, for those who do not know. But keep you in suspense, I will not,” With the tilt of his head and speaking as clear as he could, Yoda made sure every student was listening, “Broken out of Azkaban, Maul has.”

***

Cody didn’t bother to pay much attention to Yoda’s announcement. He’d run into Obi-Wan in the halls earlier and well, sometimes it paid to be friends with prefects. At this point it was more of a question of how and a question of what happened next. He couldn’t remember much about the murderer at all, though given Kenobi’s wide eyes he was pretty sure his friend did. It was obvious to him that there was a chance he would come here, to the school. Why else would they all be stuck in the Great Hall?

He was happy when Yoda stopped talking, the old man wouldn’t give them any real information lest he scare them, especially the first years. Which meant if Cody knew anything, he and his friends would be holed up in the library the next chance they got, not that that was particularly new.

They were finally allowed to get up from their house tables. Cody would have been first to volunteer to move them to the sides of the room, if this weren’t a magic school, but instead the Professors just waved their wands and the furniture was gone and replaced with a pile of blankets, pillows, and sleep mats.

“Cody do me a favor?” Satine’s shoes clicked on the floor as she approached him. She was being tailed by Professor Fisto which raised a few questions, “Watch my things for me?”

“Sure thing,” He grinned, “I’ll set up camp for us!” She gave him a small smile back and he watched as she was led out of the Great Hall.

Shouldering another bag was no problem, and although he was surprised at first that she hadn’t forced it into Kenobi’s hands, it was obvious when he noticed Obi-Wan arranging sleeping supplies for the first years.

“Come now,” He was saying, “You get to pick wherever you’d like.”

“Mr. Kenobi,” A Ravenclaw first year tugged on his sleeve, “I forgot my toothbrush,” Wordlessly Cody approached and stuck out his hand for Obi-Wan’s bag, it seemed both his friends would be rather busy.

“Oh, thank you Cody,” Obi-Wan looked grateful to lose the extra weight, but wasted no time chatting with him. He instead leaned down to the girl’s level, “Well my dear, we can’t go back to the common room right now, I’ll see if we have any spares around.”

He managed to find a nice spot in the Great Hall, tossing their bags down and laying out three mats. It didn’t take long though and before he knew it, he was left with nothing more to do than twiddle his thumbs. They were going to be stuck in here for hours and Cody wasn’t known for sitting still.

He let his eyes drift across the room to his brother Rex. Rex was crouched down next to a first year who was scrubbing at their eyes. He felt a lurch in his heart as he looked around the room and saw similar sights all around with a lot of the younger years. If this was a little scary for Cody, surely this was terrifying for the eleven year olds who’d just left home for the first time. None of them were particularly prepared to take on a murderer, but definitely not a first year. He stood and approached Rex and the first year joined the two on the floor.

“Have you ever heard the story of The Three Brothers?” Cody asked and the first year looked over at him, tears glittering in their eyes and shook their head, “Well you’re in luck because as Rex here could probably tell you, I’m a pretty good storyteller! So what do ya say? Wanna hear it?” He grinned and the kid nodded, swiping at tears again and readjusting their position to look at him better, “Once upon a time, three brothers were on a long and perilous journey,” As he began the tale his voice carried across the hall. He’d found something to do with his time after all.

***

“You wanted to see me Professor?” Satine asked hesitantly as she stepped out from the safety of the Great Hall. Qui-Gon gave her a sad sort of half smile and put a hand on her shoulder to steer her into a quiet corner.

“Stass is going to need your support,” He told her. Immediately a million different scenarios played out in her head. Of course she’d seen her friend be escorted out of the Great Hall, but didn’t have much time to stop and worry about it, “Aayla’s with her now, but she requested you too. Despite us needing all hands on deck, these are extenuating circumstances,” He showed her into an empty classroom where Professor Windu was standing awkwardly by the door.

Stass was sobbing, definitely the kind of crying that came from nothing good. Aayla had her arm around their friend, but seemed to have nothing to say.

“What’s happened?” It gave her a bit of déjà vu to ask. Stass just shook her head so Aayla looked up at her with sad eyes.

“It’s her cousin,” Satine’s heart dropped, “She was working at Azkaban when, well you know,” Satine really wished Aayla would continue, would go on to say that she’d only been injured, but she knew the kind of tears you shed over a death were far different than those shed over an injury. So she pulled up a chair and sat beside her friend.

***

Obi-Wan had answered just about every question under the sun ever since Headmaster Yoda’s announcement and although he had ample amounts of patience, he certainly didn’t mind getting a chance to sit down on his mat as a late lunch quite literally marched its way through the room.

Cody, who had just finished reenacting a game of Quidditch from the 1960s, plopped down next to him, grabbing a drink goblet off the tray running past them.

“Glad for a break,” He practically chugged the thing, “Thought for sure I was going to run out of stories.”

“You’ve still got years of Quidditch to get through,” Obi-Wan pointed out, but Cody shrugged.

“Yeah, I guess, but not every game’s super interesting,” Obi-Wan looked over at Cody like he’d lost his mind, “To other people! Yeesh, I thought that was obvious.”

“We’ve still got a possession situation going on,” He reminded him, “I think it’s only fair that I check to make sure your heads screwed on right.”

“You’re a few bludgers too late, I believe,” Obi-Wan turned to smile as Satine approached them, but then caught her expression and practically catapulted from the ground.

“Satine! Are you okay?” His hand hovered over her arm, not sure what exactly to do, but he could see the redness in her eyes, “Have you been crying?” She caught his stray hand in both of hers and he nearly jumped at the contact.

“Yes I’m fine,” She emphasized, before letting go of his hand, slowly. He could still feel the trailing lines where her fingers brushed gently over his skin. She sat down and after a moment of standing there looking like a fool, he reclaimed his spot on the ground.

“So what happened with Stass?” Cody asked and Satine looked at him sharply.

“How did you know something happened?” Satine countered.

Cody shrugged grabbing a random tray with prefilled plates and handed them out before letting it continue it’s flight path,“She gets taken out, then Aayla, then you, it’s not the potions NEWT.”

Satine stared a moment longer before she poked the chicken on her plate with a fork, “It’s her business,” but then added, “Her parents came through the Floo Network to pick her up,” Obi-Wan dropped his fork in shock, “Ben?”

“I’ll have to send her my deepest condolences,” He told her sincerely, but Satine looked at him like he’d read her mind.

“I’m sorry,” She exclaimed in a hushed voice, “How did you know someone died?”

“You said her parents got her via Floo Network?” He raised an eyebrow, “Magical travel is always halted during a crisis, Maul can use it too obviously. So to prevent him from getting away no one can use it-”

“Except in dire situations,” Satine ran a hand through her hair, “I can’t believe I gave it away, I’ll have to apologize.”

“If it makes you feel better, everyone will probably know by tomorrow,” Cody added grimly, “Their obituaries will be in the Prophet, front page if it’s related to Maul.”

They all ate in silence for a few minutes. Obi-Wan frowned at the meager dollop of banana pudding that apparently qualified as a dessert, he could have really used a large slice of cake or a strawberry tarte to lift his mood.

“Mr. Kenobi?” He lifted his head to meet the eyes of a Hufflepuff first year, she looked nervous to even bother him so he smiled as sweetly as he could.

“Ah yes? What is it?” He set aside his plate.

“What should we do if we have to use the bathroom?” She looked embarrassed to ask, but Obi-Wan just continued to smile and gave her a short nod.

“A good question!” He told her before pointing all the way at the end of the room where Professor’s Windu and Fisto were standing around, “Just let them know and they’ll escort you there,” The girl followed his line of vision with a nod.

“Thank you!” She gave him a short hop into a quick bow before beelining straight towards Professor Fisto.

Obi-Wan ran a hand through his hair and picked up his plate before catching Satine’s eye. Her face looked a little pink and he tilted his head at her.

“Is there something spicy in this?” He asked, poking his fork into the chicken, “Warn me now because I haven’t been able to catch a drink goblet yet.”

“I don’t think you have anything to worry about mate,” Cody laughed and Obi-Wan wondered what he’d missed.

***

The afternoon was dragging on. There were only so many rounds of wizards chess you could play before tearing your hair out. Rex was repairing their chess pieces while Anakin let himself fall onto his back.

“Never thought I’d rather be learning,” Anakin sighed, at least then he’d be able to leave class. Free time wasn’t so fun when it wasn’t free, “I should have grabbed some of my comics.”

“Shame you didn’t,” Rex said as he managed to repair the queen, “I’d have liked to learn more about Spiderman.”

“He’s the coolest,” Anakin agreed, “A superhero, just like I’ll be,” Rex raised an eyebrow.

“I dunno if you could pull off the suit,” Rex told him, “Pretty sure you’re destined to be a stringbean.”

“Aw no fair,” Anakin complained, “You haven’t even seen my design yet!”

“I really don’t have to-” Rex started before pausing, his fingers twitched as he broke the spell he was attempting, “Wait a minute… Does it seem a little dark in here?” Anakin sat up. The sun was getting ready to set, but it should still be shining. Anakin inspected the sky, it was probably just a cloud-

The Great Hall fell into darkness.

Students screamed, Professors attempted to cast charms, but nothing happened. Anakin heard Rex shout “Lumos!” But despite their close quarters, he couldn’t see any of the light at all.

Anakin gripped his own wand, he was the chosen one! Even if his heart was pounding and he wasn’t sure what to do, he had to do something.

“Look,” Rex, Anakin realized he could actually see Rex now, was looking up. Everything looked like it was under a red light and when he followed Rex’s line of sight, he saw that the darkness had been joined by red mist circling two empty spaces. The spaces opened like eyes, if eyes could be yellow, shining down on them like some sort of omen.

“Expelliarmus!” Professor Fisto’s spell cut through the screaming right before everything stopped. The sky of the Great Hall was as if nothing had ever happened. Their eyes were drawn towards Professor Fisto as he held not one, but two wands in his hands.

Headmaster Yoda reached up and took the newly claimed wand, looked it over a moment, before staring straight at Ventress.

“A word, young Ventress.”

***

She was disappointed that it hadn’t quite worked out. A little longer and she could have mimicked Maul himself to stand in the center of the Great Hall. They were wasting their time cowering like sheep. Ventress knew that it would only make them more appealing to someone like Maul and she didn’t see the harm in the prank. It gave them something to do in here. She bared her teeth at the little green shrimp as she stepped towards the professors.

“What? Can’t a girl have a little fun around here?” She stood with crossed arms and a cocked hip and smirked, “You really want to keep us trapped in here? If Maul wants to kill us, he will.”

“Precautions, we must take,” Yoda told her. She reached out for her wand, but the wrinkled frog pulled it well away from her, “Get this back, you will, tomorrow.”

“Oh great,” Ventress rolled her eyes, “Now there’s a murderer on his way and I won’t be able to defend myself, I’m sure the ministry would love to hear about it,” She smiled wickedly. He wouldn’t give it back, she knew, but she could make it so he considered it. Make his life a little harder, “Am I dismissed? Headmaster,” Yoda looked up at her, a sort of hidden pity that made her sneer, but he nodded so she turned.

Yoda wasn’t what Ventress would call much of a threat, but she’d play his games if that was how he liked it.

***

After the events of Ventress’ meanspirited prank, it was surprisingly easy to convince the student body that it was time for bed. Obi-Wan lay, staring at the ceiling. He was sure Cody wasn’t asleep yet, because he wasn’t yet snoring, but Satine was harder to guess. At least she was before he heard the rustle of fabric.

The way the stars shined reminded him of his younger years, before Hogwarts. He had a very good view out his bedroom window of the sky if he sat in just the right angle. Now, he could name all of the stars and constellations. He learned most of them his first year, the same year he’d met his friends.

“I didn’t expect my time at Hogwarts to be like this,” Obi-Wan found himself admitting. He heard Satine shift to look at him, but he kept his eyes on the sky.

“What did you think it would be like? I didn’t have much time to fantasize about it,” She asked and he let the cogs in his brain click back to when he was that little boy dreaming of castles and snakes.

“I always thought you could take brooms to class,” It was Cody that spoke and they both turned to look at him, “Yeah, I thought you could just zoom around the hallways. Hevy convinced me that you learned how to apparate in first year; quite disappointing to find out he was lying.”

“I always thought the other houses didn’t associate with each other,” Obi-Wan decided on saying, “Every story my parents told me of their time in school, it was full of Slytherins, but the other houses were hardly ever mentioned.”

“I never thought I’d make Quidditch captain,” Cody admitted quietly and two heads snapped in his direction.

“You work harder than anyone though!” Satine whispered frantically, “How could you ever think that?”

“Hard work doesn’t always get you what you want,” He said with a half shrug, “Of course, it was always worth it to try. I still can’t believe I got it.”

“I never imagined I’d be a Ravenclaw,” Obi-Wan said.

“We know,” Both his friends responded instantly.

“Seriously! I used to dream of wearing the green lined robes, I practically had a speech planned for once I was sorted,” He laughed.

“I’m very grateful you didn’t make a fool of yourself, if only for the second hand embarrassment I would have felt,” Satine shuddered.

“You didn’t even know me then,” He rolled his eyes.

“It still would have been terrible,” Cody shook his head.

“You know, I thought I had my whole life planned out,” Satine’s soft voice drifted through the air, “I had my high school courses picked out and I had been trying to get my hands on brochures for universities.”

“Those are muggle schools?” He had to ask.

“It would have been my whole life, practically decided for me,” She explained, “So imagine my surprise when it was just tossed out the window one day.”

“I’m not sure I’d have liked that,” He frowned, “I’ve always known how my life would turn out to be.”

“That’s not true,” Satine pointed out, “You’ve decided to be an auror and you’re a Ravenclaw.”

“And I have two very good friends,” He added and he felt Cody punch him gently in the shoulder.

“Right on, mate. I’m not sure what I’d do if I had suddenly been told to go to muggle school,” He considered.

“You’d have joined a muggle sport,” Satine assured him, “And you Ben? Would still be a nerd and a bookworm.”

***

Satine woke up on her own accord just as sunlight had begun to trickle into the room. She wasn’t keen on getting up, but soon she’d need to help wake the rest of the students. Breakfast would likely be served and then they’d either start the day as normal or they’d be confined to the Great Hall again.

She pushed herself up and reached out to wake Ben, as he’d need to be up as well. He looked younger when he slept, hair strewn out on his pillow, worry lines smoothed out. She hated waking him up, but she still did, shaking his shoulder. His eyes flew open, much quicker than hers ever did in the morning, and met hers after assessing the situation.

“Satine-” He started, his voice still thick from sleep.

“Good morning, I-” She stopped dead as he sat up looking around at the sleeping students, it was only then she noticed what he was wearing, “Did you seriously sleep in your uniform?” She hissed and he looked over at her in confusion.

“It would be rather improper to be seen in my night clothes,” He scowled at her.

“Did I not have the misfortune of seeing you in your carny clothes last year?” Satine reminded him in a whisper.

“That was an emergency!” He hissed back, “The whole school was coming down!” She rolled her eyes at him.

“Well you could have at least taken off your shoes,” She gestured to his loafers and he shrugged.

“If we’d have been attacked in the night, I’d have been prepared,” He told her.

“You’re impossible, truly,” Satine huffed, but offered him a hand as she stood up.