#at a time where their actively trying to get people to stay off the road

[jedi-bird]

My new star wars books have been delivered, just as the rain is starting. They are currently sitting downstairs "decontaminating" so I can start reading them hopefully soon (brain has been refusing to focus on books lately which pisses me off). Family stuff is...shit again. I'm tired and stressed, so sleepy tea has been made and I'm just trying to relax.

[whispereons]

Oracle!Reader Part 23

Masterlist - Part 1, Part 22, Part 24

Warning! This is a SAGAU imposter au so this is pretty gory and not happy all the time. Plus yandere but that's the expected for SAGAU.

Xingqiu and Chongyun both showed muddled emotions at your words of leaving Liyue.

“That may be best for you…” Chongyun says first as he keeps his gaze on the floorboards.

“Yes, I agree. Although I never expected that you would have to leave Liyue so soon, it's clear that you aren't safe here.” 

Xingqiu’s words that were full of understanding still had disappointment sprinkled in.

“We can't do much to help you when it comes to Ningguang, but Mondstadt is a different story. Do you have the talisman on you right now?”

Chongyun takes a few steps closer as you lift the amulet for him to see. He rubs one finger on it, examining the symbol that appears at the action.

“It's still at full charge, good. The road to Mondstadt can either be empty or full of demons depending on the day. But once you get to Wangshu Inn, it becomes much safer.”

“Because of Xiao, right? Despite how the situation looked when I first met the Adepti, I'm on relatively good terms with them now.”

It was a bit risky telling them this, but they both deserved to know at this point.

“When are you planning on leaving? Is your meeting with Ningguang today?” Switching the topic, Xingqiu brings the focus back to the most pressing issue.

Nodding, you answer. “My meeting is with her today, but I'll probably have to leave either at midnight or early tomorrow morning. The sooner, the better.”

“Then I can offer you some help that should make staying in Mondstadt a bit easier.” Xingqiu grins as he takes out paper and some ink. “I happen to know someone-”

“Albedo, right?” Cutting off Xingqiu as you think back to his connection, you continue. “Together you made the book, uh what was the name again? A Legend of a Sword? It got pretty popular in Inazuma. I remember there was a whole festival on light novels that you both attended too.”

Once you stop, you notice Xingqiu squinting his eyes at you before replying. “That's really creepy, you know? If I didn't know you were the Oracle, then I would have believed you to be some stalker.”

“If I was, then I wouldn't be stalking you of all people.” You snapped back as he grins while shaking his head.

“But yes, I'll send Albedo a letter in advance so that he can arrange for you to be settled nicely over there. I won't mention the Oracle situation as the Creator didn't want you to be known widely like that.”

It's been so long since you last heard the title ‘Creator’ be mentioned despite the fact that all of your problems come from their supposed existence.

Only goes to show just how ingrained the Creator is in this world.

“Thanks Xingqiu. Albedo is the chief alchemist and well respected among the community, so I should be in safe hands.”

Xingqiu merely hums in response as Chongyun tugs the amulet closer to him.

“Just trying to apply a better talisman on it.” He mumbles in accordance with your stare as he settles himself closer to you.

He's basically pressed against your side, but you strangely don't feel uncomfortable to have him close.

As the pair focus on their own activities, your mind wanders off to Albedo.

Albedo, the chief alchemist and homunculus created by Gold, the famous Khaenri'an scientist. Khaenri'ah, which also held so much information that could be connected to Celestia…

It was a long shot, but you could try digging for information about Celestia from him. The deal that Celestia made with Teyvat still bothers you to no end. With the age of this deal unknown, you might even have to look into the primordial dragons if it's even older than the Archon war.

A light shining brought you back to the present and your eyes flickered down to where the amulet shined in Chongyun’s hands.

Once it died down to reveal a more intricate symbol than before, Chongyun nodded, satisfied with the final product.

“This one is a lot stronger and should last longer now. I know you can fight well, but the demonic energy in Bishui Plain and Qiongji Estuary has shown to rise around this time of the year.”

Carefully taking the amulet from him, you thumbed the symbol with curious eyes. “I get it, thank you. Does it activate on its own, or do I have to activate it with something?”

“It'll work on its own. Depending on the amount and degree of demonic energy around it, the workings will change.”

Motioning with his hands, Chongyun’s calm voice explains the working to you. At the end of the rather lengthy explanation, you nod and condense the information in your mind.

“And now that Instructor Chongyun is done teaching you, I'm happy to say that I'm done with the letter. Have been for a while, but I saw no need to interrupt the oh so fascinating lecture.”

Raising the letter, Xingqiu lazily waved it as Chongyun bristled but ultimately said nothing.

“I can send this once I get home. Unfortunately, neither me nor Chongyun will be available to accompany you through your journey.”

Xingqiu tsk’d at his own words while Chongyun turned his head away, visibly sulking.

“My family was just hired to check out Wuwang Hill and my attendance for this is mandatory. Xingqiu’s father is forcing him to stay and attend meetings with his brother for the week as well.”

All you could do was smile sadly in response.

Before long they were both forced to leave by Baizhu who insisted on total privacy for the reviewing of your medication and discharge.

Watching them climb down the stairs from the window in your room, you listen absentmindedly to Baizhu.

Changsheng still refused to see you. Something Tevyat was clearly displeased with, as the once sunny weather quickly turned cloudy. The cold-blooded creature must be huffing in annoyance by now.

“And this is the overview of medication and supplements to take, with the doses and dates to take them.”

Casually looking over the paper received from the shady snake bastard, you hummed for a moment before stuffing it into your bag.

“All of it is paid for by your special benefactor. And the drug you requested has already been paid with by your body, as we both know.”

‘Must he phrase it like that?’ You internally questioned as you snatch the medication and shove it into your bag.

“I'm glad for it. Maybe even more so if she didn't pin so many babysitters onto me.”

At your grumble, Baizhu’s smile wavered at the edges. Either he truly hadn't known why there was extra ‘security’ or he was a great liar. You suspect it's a bit of both.

“Then if everything has been covered, I’m happy to say that you're officially discharged as of-” He merely glanced at the sun still high in the sky before finishing. “1300. I sincerely hope that the next time we meet you'll be in a better physical state.”

“And I sincerely wish we never have to meet again.” The words you utter are full of sarcasm, something Baizhu simply chuckles at.

“Now what could I have possibly done to deserve your ire, dear Oracle?”

“It's what you haven't done. A little heads up about all the guards would have been nice.”

“Oh, but I did!” His smile seems a little sharper as he leans toward you, his glasses sliding down to the bridge of his nose. “Didn't I let you know early on that there were quite a lot of guards?”

With an annoyed scoff, you snap back. “You said it was due to the two temples nearby, not cause Ningguang wanted to keep an eye on me.”

Raising his hands with wide eyes, Baizhu tried to placate you. “I'm not part of the Millelith, how on earth could a physician like me know the true reasoning?”

Holding his gaze, you tried to discern what he was truly thinking at this moment. Malice? Amusement? Mocking kindness?

But at that moment, all you could see was genuine surprise in his eyes. It only served to confuse you further.

Was Baizhu truly innocent in this? Your instincts in situations like these were usually correct. Besides, what would Baizhu even gain from deceiving you?

Still, that didn't explain why Baizhu was always so damn shady, but maybe you should chalk it up to an unfortunate side effect of being contracted with a snake.

“Well, then let me reiterate my earlier words. While I still hope we won't have to meet again. I do wish for us to want to meet again.”

Baizhu lowers his arms while fixing his glasses to laugh, the sound is surprisingly tender. “And how do you expect me to tell when that would be? I’m no mind reader.”

Standing up, you stay silent as you slip your bag over your shoulders and move past him. The door opens with a creak as you tilt your head slightly to meet his eyes.

“To put it simply, I’ll want to see you when you discover whatever is hidden in my culture sample.”

The door clicks shut as you leave Bubu’s Pharmacy for good.

----------------------------

After a brief but firm pat to Qiqi’s head, you walk down the stairs casually. The slight rustling of the leaves, the fabric of curtains drawn, and the quieting of chatter are all brought to your attention.

Ningguang’s spies and the Millelith guards are all watching you like rabid dogs, waiting for you to slip up and give them an excuse to arrest you right now. 

Smiling without hesitation, you get to the last step and pretend that the forced conversations around you aren't scripted, and that the eyes locked on you are of a curious bystander and not the ones of detectives.

Bringing your attention back to the list you have clenched in your hand, you read the first errand on the list.

Return books to library.

Easy enough, and it's even easier when people seem to automatically avoid being in your path.

Is this what a day in Xinyan's life feels like? It's honestly not that bad.

At least you thought so until you got to the counter and waited for the receptionist to return.

Five minutes pass. Then ten minutes, which quickly turn into fifteen in a blink of an eye. You can feel your mood worsening.

Deciding to test something, you walk away from the library and turn the corner. Peeking around the corner, you watch as the ‘customer’ that was standing in the corner all those minutes gets to the counter. Almost immediately, a swarm of people return to it.

Sighing heavily, you ignore the weight of suspicious stares and turn the corner back into the library. Getting back into line feels humiliating, but it's just a quick errand, you tell yourself.

No one moves out of the way, but the quick glances they send you make them pale with each minute.

Not a soul dares to stand behind you.

It's finally your turn, and you place your books on the table with the last bit of patience you had. She doesn't meet your eyes and mumbles something.

“I'm sorry, what did you say?” Leaning closer, you try to catch her words, only for her to yell.

“It's lunchtime now so I can't accept any more returns or purchases. H-Have a good-d da-ay!”

Flabbergasted at the sheer audacity, you watch her flip a sign on the table and flee the area.

“Fuck this shit.” Colorful curses leave you as you drop all the books haphazardly on the table and storm away.

Crossing it off the list, you follow the main path to the next errand.

Collect reward from Guild

That commission should have given you one hell of a paycheck the last time you checked. Primogems may be worthless now, but you could use the Mora the commission provides.

Plus, you needed to let them know to change it to the Mondstadt region.

Lost in thought of all the technicalities and paperwork you would have to fill out, you weren't focusing on the fleeting whispers around you.

“Is that them?”

“Who else could it be?”

“What a monster…”

“-as long as we get paid.”

“Who cares about-”

“It's me or them.”

“As long as it's them and not me.”

Your experience at the guild was a much kinder one. Katheryne was the epitome of professionalism, just as you remembered her to be. Not that you expected much else from a robot.

After handing all the written work to her, you finally noticed the absence of a certain person.

“Where’s that grouchy Lan? She's usually here, isn't she?” Checking the vicinity, you try to spot the brown recognizable bob.

“The Branch Master Lan is currently undertaking a commission at this time.”

“About the unseen razor, right?”

“That can not be disclosed to unauthorized-”

“It's fine. I’ll see you later, Katheryne.” Turning around, you leave without another thought. Lan wasn't anywhere near the ‘threatening’ list you've created since you last saw her.

Pick up plushie

Crossing out the previous task, you look at the present one with mixed emotions. On one hand, you were happy to get a chance to see something related to Earth, to your world. But at the same time, you couldn't help but wonder if it would serve more as a distraction than anything else. The memories it brought up never failed to leave your heart troubled…

Remembering the money you spent commissioning it ultimately tipped the scales, and so you dragged your feet to the little old lady’s toy shop.

It was empty just as the first time you were there as she hummed. If she was a vision holder you'd guess Hydro judging by the tranquility she radiated.

Her eyes meet yours and a happy smile slips onto your face without much thought.

“Here to pick up the toy, dearie?”

“Yup.” Popping the ‘p’, you watched as she gathered a delicately wrapped box from under the other boxes and presented it to you.

“Enjoy the nostalgic memories a toy can bring.”

You politely thank her before taking the present and walking away. The weight of the box is heavy with dread, and you can only find solace in the fact she didn't refer to it as ‘happy’ memories.

Once sufficiently out of sight, you take to grasping the lid. But you couldn't bring yourself to remove it.

Too many memories. All of them are rushing in and filled with conflicting feelings that would surely crush you. The fear and selfishness of the broken promises and unfulfilled desires would throw you off your game.

With a little too much enthusiasm, you stuff the box of the cat plushie into your bag.

Most likely to stay forgotten and distant from the present you're facing.

Scratching it off harder than the rest, you get to the last errand.

Refill supplies

A smart and mature move considering how you used the whole Medkit during the chase. The soggy bandages and washed away ointment really hurt your heart and wallet.

Revisiting the same shops you went to the first time proved to be ineffective. Either they were completely sold out or no longer supplying them.

Forced to visit more stores, you had to walk around the city a lot more than you cared to. Each store had one of the two situations, and the skittish actions of everyone around you were just the cherry on top.

At one point you even tried to buy the individual items separately, and even that failed.

It's not like you could just wait till next week for the first shipment. You weren't even sure you would live till then.

Eventually, you found yourself sulking on the lower docks, turning the situation around in your head.

If only you lived in Liyue for a little longer, maybe you could have found some of the hidden shops. Befriend a store owner and get a hidden one.

Just who the hell would even go out of their way to get every medical first aid part when it's such a crucial item for so many people in this era?

A name finally comes to mind and your expression sours at the thought. Not that you’d let it show, Celestia knows how many guards are watching you at this moment-

A sudden, rapid series of taps on your shoulder has you spinning around in surprise.

A young boy stands before you. The clothes he wears has visible wear and tear as the fabric frays from the edges. Yet you can't help but think you might have seen him before.

Placing a finger on his lips, he uses his other hand to grab hold of your elbow and tug you along.

Surprised but not suspicious of the kid, you let him lead you deeper into the docks. The dark red of his eyes seem to glow within the shadows as his dirty blond hair acts as your beacon of light.

The smell of fresh fish turns rotten, and the dirt caked under his fingernails stains your clothes. The complete and straight planks become jagged and creaky as you follow him farther.

But you stayed silent.

You recognized a path to the seedy part of the city when you see it.

Instead, you examine the younger boy with a critical eye and finally connect the dots. He must be one of the kids you saved with Yiran.

A smirk creeps up your face. It seems you managed to use your time wisely in making connections after all.

Following along the twists and turns, you don't worry too much about the Millelith. Most of the guards probably couldn't even get this far. If you had to guess, it would only be the detectives who could keep up.

It's not like the hidden underworld of cities as popular as Liyue Harbor are any big secret to them.

Stalls and various shops fill the area as flickering lanterns and other extra lighting give you a wider view.

Multiple people call out to the boy as he silently waves to them. The gaze of the homeless and shady people around aren't warm, but aren't hostile either.

Not that you were exactly expecting a warm welcome, but at least you didn't have to worry about sudden personality changes.

Money could buy you information, but it wouldn't buy you trust in these parts.

He finally stops at a little nook in the corner of the area. The door is worn down with scratches and marks yet the light you can see under it is warm.

Silent as before, he points at you, then to the rows of shops in a sweeping motion before stopping at the door.

Pinching your brows in slight confusion, you chew on the gestures to understand it. High-pitched laughter that suspiciously sounds like children eases into your ears as the boy squirms in place.

“Did you want me to knock on the door when I'm done shopping? That you'll lead me back to the surface?”

It was the only thing that you can think of. And despite your hesitation, the boy nods, clearly relieved that you understood the message.

He must truly be mute, no doubt from whatever horrors he must have faced that lead to the scars poorly hidden by mud on his arms.

You were thankful either way. Just leading you here was great but getting an exit too was even better. Now you could avoid getting mugged and/or murdered on your way back.

“Thanks man, I'll be quick.” With that, you walk away, already following the invisible path to the shops that caught your eye.

As much as you would have liked to explore the various items and weapons they had, you didn't want to keep the kid waiting.

After having to buy a rather expensive medical kit, a minor downside to finding the first medical anything since you left Bubu’s pharmacy, you pick up a minor stitching case.

You could have really used one during your latest and probably not last chase. Stuffing it into your bag, as people eye the magical item with desire, you quickly find the home.

Getting to the door, you step closer than before and take note of the older voice. A woman that's chuckling, and a lingering sense of guilt invades your mind.

Quickly rapping your knuckles on the wood, you step away as the home goes dead quiet.

Multiple little eyes peer at you from windows below you as you lazily grin and wave. They all scatter as giggling resumes and the sound of playing returns.

But not the woman’s voice. You didn't expect it to. It's hard to face the only person you've poured your raw wounds from a child's death to.

The kid finally steps out with multiple clicks of locks echoing around the small space. Smiling, you take no offense to the action. You weren't here for trust, and they weren't helping you out of it either.

His crimson eyes glisten with interest at your bag. He wants his pay, and you're more than happy to oblige.

Stuffing your hand into the bag, you feel the familiar clink of Mora gathering in your hand. Pulling it out, you place an appropriate amount into the pouch he already has prepared.

When you drop it all, he takes it closer to him and picks up a piece. The first thing he does is try to bite it, and the familiar memory of you testing coins the same way makes you smile sadly.

Counting the Mora, he frowns, clearly displeased with the amount. He holds his hand out, and you can feel the other children’s stares digging into you.

“I'm going to give you two things that aren't Mora, okay? But you have to keep it a secret.”

He narrows his eyes, no doubt suspecting you of being a shady person. That's probably why he brought you here first and demanded payment before returning you.

Like this, he has back up and cornered you further into payment of his choosing.

“Do you have a cooking pot?”

He frowns in confusion before nodding slowly. Lifting one finger in a pause motion, before heading back inside his home.

He returns while holding a clean cooking pot. It doesn’t take long before he places it over the open fire you already started.

Small eyes follow your every step as you dig out ingredients from your bag. Mentally going over the ingredients you had originally prepared for your celebration feast if you survived tonight, you drop them into the pot.

4 ham, 3 crabs, 3 shrimp meat, and 3 matsutake potatoes are dropped in.

Turning around, you count to five as the boy gives you a confused stare. But you only wink at him before turning around to look at the pot, as his eyes widen at the sight.

Adeptus’ Temptation sits innocently in the pot as the rich aroma wafts around the area, drawing curious hungry eyes.

Leaning down, you whisper to the boy.

“Get your friends and bring the pot back into your house quickly. This food is blessed and safe as you watched the whole process. I suggest you let the sickly and injured children eat first.”

He looks between you and the pot with conflicting emotions. On one hand, he can't trust you too much, but even the smell of the food was clearly tempting him.

It's the shuffling of feet getting closer that makes him bang on the door, signalling for the other children to come out and help him bring it inside.

By the time the shabby adults come into view, it's just you and the boy ‘talking’ as they grumble and turn around.

The kid still looks displeased. You don't blame him completely, since how can he trust that the food you cook isn't spiked with anything nefarious.

You're not even sure if it can heal people that aren't acolytes. It doesn't work on you after all.

At least they'll all enjoy a hot meal, even if it doesn't work.

Sighing, you take out your last resort from your bag, sadly selecting it and pulling it out. The secret weapon you've been saving since your time in Inazuma.

The colorful assortment of candy wrappers makes the kid’s eyes sparkle with the childlike glee that was absent since you met him. Probably long before you met him.

“It's not just Liyue candy, some are even from Inazuma.” The thought of giving up your hard-earned candy hurt you, but you let it go. 

The candy you squirreled away during the Inazuma festival, and the discount ones you bought at cheap prices at Liyue’s markets, were both never going to be eaten anyway.

His hands reach out to snatch the candy greedily from you but you raise it out of reach at the last second. He stomps his foot in childish indignation as you chuckle.

“Sorry, but I need you to bring me back to the outside before you scam me out of any more goodies.”

Finally giving up, he grabs your elbow again and leads you back through the streets. You enjoy the sights as he leads you zigzagging through the stalls.

You can't help but wonder if any detectives are still watching your boring little interactions. Admittedly, you played into the kid's desires more then you had to.

But you couldn't stop yourself from doing so when all you could see in him was yourself when you were that height.

The sun comes into light as the dim lanterns fade away. Like this, you can see his features once more as the stomping of soldiers return.

His eyes scan the area at the sound, but he keeps his hands open for the sweet treats. Smiling, you drop the candy into his open palms before he rushes off with a beaming boyish grin.

Stretching as you walk up the planks to the surface, you finally cross off the last item and drop it into the nearby trash can.

You try to ignore how it disappears when you turn the corner.

------------------------------------

Time ticks down slowly, and you aren't looking forward to seeing Madam Ping just yet. Besides, you made a long-overdue promise to someone else beforehand.

Starting up at the somewhat hidden Funeral Parlor, you push the door open with a casual; “Hey, I'm here to meet up with the Director of this fine and totally not macabre establishment.”

The receptionist blinks at your sudden words before a cheery voice responds from behind her.

“You sure took your time, Y/N. I almost wondered if you up and died before I got a chance to have you purchase one of our very convenient and practical deals!”

Yet again, Hu Tao was right on the money about you being close to death. Idly, you wonder if you look half as dead as you feel.

The receptionist is more than happy to slip away as her boss bounds up to you with that elemental ghost hovering around her.

Flower pupils stare into your eyes, giving you a vague sense of unease as Hu Tao examines you from various angles. 

“Yup, yup! Just as I suspected. You are in desperate need of escape, and it seems the only way you'll be getting it is in death. My honest suggestion is that you buy a coffin from us and lead a hedonist lifestyle to enjoy the few years you have left.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.” You dryly respond as she nods approvingly. 

“A business needs to be honest for it to succeed in the long-term. Trust of the customers is one of the biggest key factors.”

Not willing to argue on a topic you were admittedly clueless on, you follow her deeper into the Parlor.

“Then you got any good deals for a traveling adventurer like me who could be dead halfway across the world?”

She sighs, exaggerating it to the utmost while circling you. “I thought deeply on the topic and while the Wangshsng Funeral Parlor has grown enough to reach all of Liyue and a good amount of Mondstadt and Sumeru, we still haven't grown enough to pair up with each region.”

Passing by multiple doors, your eyes scan for a clue on where she was leading you.

“But considering you're the most eager customer I've had concerning their own death, I decided to present you with a special deal.”

“Wouldn't suicidal people also be enthusiastic in this topic?”

“They're usually more focused on the moment and their own afterlife, instead of the corpse they leave behind. Besides-!”

Whipping around to look at you with a knowing grin, she lays a hand decorated in rings on the handle.

“You aren't that far from being called a suicidal person yourself, Y/N!”

Before you can question her on those words, she swings the door open to show multiple rows of various coffins.

“The special offer I'm giving you is to purchase a coffin and I will personally escort your wandering soul to the border for proper peace.”

Tearing your eyes from the admittedly impressive collection of varying caskets, you have the sense to ask her a question. “So, what's the point in me buying a coffin if my body ends up in the waters of Fontaine? And how could I even trust that you have the ability to escort souls?”

From what you remember, Hu Tao should have no clue about your oracle status, so logically you should act oblivious to her connection with the border. Would you even be able to cross the border? It’s not like you were born on Teyvat like her other customers.

Unless Zhongli told her, but that would require more of an explanation on his behalf that he wouldn't want to do. 

“Very good question, dear customer!” She spins around to face you once more, her long twin tails swinging during the motion.

“Even if your body is irretrievable for whatever reason, the Wangsheng Funeral Parlor will deem your casket full after I guide your soul.”

The atmosphere visibly shifts after she speaks. The room darkens as the lanterns flicker, her back lowers in a familiar position as a cold phantom touch caresses your hand.

“You of all people should know why and how I'm able to guide souls. After all, I wouldn't expect anything less from an Oracle of the Creator.”

A crooked grin makes its way to your face as goosebumps raise on your skin. Hu Tao’s ‘threatening’ words of knowing your identity were like the sweetest song to your ears.

Finally, all your hard work in creating connections and stabilizing your identity has paid off. Acolytes you've barely begun conversing with already see you as an Oracle.

“Should I applaud you or something, Director? Or should I just accept the deal and make us both happy?”

Hu Tao laughs at your words as you take confident strides to stand by her side.

“I would appreciate the second option much more!” Signature flower pupils drink your smiling visage in with delight before her hand grasps yours in a tight hold.

“Now, if you will, I'll introduce all these amazing coffin and casket types for you to ask about and choose between.”

There's no time to protest, not that you would as she pulls you along excitedly as butterflies made of Pyro brush against your cheek.

------------------------------

Somehow you and Hu Tao had managed to look at every single coffin type in existence. A style, color and even additional design to it has already been decided.

You're just left with choosing the best wood for it.

Hu Tao wanted to stay with you throughout the whole process, but an important matter came up again, making her complain loudly as she left.

But before she did, she insisted on sending one of her employees to help you in choosing, as ‘the wood is a vital part of the process!’. 

So now you're left waiting in the absolutely quiet room, with only the sound of your own breathing accompanying you.

Looking down at the two coffins made of different wood, you waited for this employee. A small smirk played on your lips as you heard the door audibly click shut.

The thumping of shoes coming closer was silent, but the slight hitch of breath gave away how close your new consultant was.

“White cedar wood and Teck wood are both very fine choices. Though I would consider the Catalpa wood two rows down to be the best choices considering your position.”

Hot air fans your skin as the knowledgeable words spoken in that low timber light your nerves aflame.

Turning around, you look into amber eyes that remain steadfast on your face. His outfit is pristine and there's not a single evidence of the battle he was left to fight on him.

“If that answers your last question for the coffin customization, then would you mind stepping outside with me?”

Waving your hand, you dismiss his words without hesitation. “We can do so after I check out the Catalpa wood you recommended.”

Your head angles to the side to look at him with a teasing grin. “I know it's your retirement, but you of all people should know that rushing a job is never good.”

A long-suffering sigh leaves Zhongli as you walk away to the Catalpa coffin, before he follows you. 

More than happy to kill time like this, you feel the wood under your fingertips in a smooth stripe.

“Catalpa wood was and is still often used as an outer coffin for the jade inner coffin that Liyue officials were buried in. Not only can it be carved fluidly, but it is also very resistant to decay, unlike other ornamental wood. Its stability is quite underrated, with only the drying to be a tad problematic. And even that will be for us to deal with.”

Vaguely you wonder if this information was inserted into the game based off China’s own history or if Teyvat really did age throughout many years to build its own history.

“That’s why I recommended this type of wood to you. While you’re not officially a member of the Qixing or other affairs, your position of oracle is enough to warrant such a valued coffin.”

“Are you trying to convince me to buy it for your job, or are you trying to flatter me for your proposal?”

“You may see it as both, neither, or one of the two. I'm simply here as the consultant. I am to assist you with all of your decision-making inside this building.”

A huff of laughter leaves you before you tap on the casket. “Then I'll go along with what you want and take this wood.”

Zhongli nods, not bothering to write it down as his memory must be far greater than you care to imagine. 

His gloved hand is displayed to you in a silent question, but before you can move, he removes the glove.

Quizzically, you raise an eyebrow before placing your hand on his now bare one. Peering at his face from your place you note the slightest blush on his otherwise composed expression.

Smiling to yourself, you allow his fingers to intertwine with your own as he guides you out of the side door. Following him blindly up the staircase, past a set of rooms, another staircase till you finally arrive at the roof.

Zhongli squeezes your hand one last time, clearly relishing in the touch of your calloused fingertips before letting you go.

“I've waited patiently for you, Y/N. What is your answer to my marriage proposal?”

His eyes stare at yours with unshakable firmness. In a sense, it's endearing, and you make it clear by smiling widely.

“It's a no from me.” That resolute expression cracks and his mouth drops open before it's slammed shut at your bright laughter.

But even his poorly concealed embarrassed expression can't smother the blood rushing to his cheeks as his ears hang onto every addictive note that leaves your lips.

This has taken a long time. Like super long. I haven't dropped this series, just have lots of school work to complete and exams to study for. Like I literally have one tomorrow. My editor did me a solid and highlighted the parts that I had to fill in after I gave the mostly completed document for editing. When I have to write the next chapter, it'll take a bit as I gotta reread for recalibration. Taglist is open as always!

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[lnfours]

Helloooo prompt (maybe reverse) "i pictured you with other girls in love... then threw up on the street." With Lando x reader (she is a legal expert for McLaren) having a fight because he underestimate her job. So during a social event, after seeing her smiling and talking with Charles about her work activities, he gets jealous and afraid of losing her.

god anon, thanks for killing me! tom’s-gf has been found dead!!

this also got so long omg i’m sorry

10k celebration

lando felt sick. physically ill, almost like he was going to throw up.

“you okay, mate?” oscar asked his teammate and friend, worry etching his face. lando was unaware of his paleness, his eyes visibly sad as he looked over towards where you were standing with charles.

he had his arm wrapped around your waist, head leaning down towards your face so he could hear what you were talking to him about. you had a bright smile on your face and he could tell you said something funny with the way his friend’s eyes squeezed shut, both of your giggles almost loud enough to be heard over the noise.

“lando?”

his attention flipped back to the aussie next to him, shaking his head and furrowing his eyebrows as he desperately tried to fight off the nauseating thoughts of you and his friend that snuck into his head. anxiety was a fucking bitch.

“yeah, i’m good. why?”

“you look pale,” oscar stated, “and you keep looking at y/n and charles with this weird look in your eyes, almost like you’re sad.”

lando shook his head, swallowing the sip of his drink, “nah, i’m good, mate,”

oscar quirked an eyebrow, “did something happen between the two of you?”

lando immediately was transported back to the hotel mentally, where a little over an hour ago the two of you had it out. he was frustrated, and he took it out on you, which he shouldn’t have done. and one thing led to another…

“seriously, lando, i don’t fucking tell you how to drive the car! why’re you trying to tell me how to do my job?!”

“i’m just saying that maybe you should try getting behind the wheel of a literal rocket before you complain about your job to me.”

he didn’t mean to sound like he was underestimating you or your job, he knew you worked hard for the company. he knew how many late nights you had pulled at the office to get extra work done and to stay ahead of things. he wasn’t entirely sure why he said what he said, but now he was really wishing time travel was real so he could go back and undo it.

lando’s silence was an answer, “mate, just go talk to her. i’m sure she’s over it by now, whatever it is. you know her, she doesn’t stay angry for long.”

oscar was right. you got over things quickly, only really needing twenty minutes before you moved onto the next thing. but right now, the anxiety was eating at him as he watched charles lean in closer to you for a photo. he just had this overwhelming feeling that you hated him and that this was it. it was the end of the road for the two of you.

oscar grabbed the glass from his teammate before shoving him forward, “my god, go!”

lando compiled, shoving his hands in his pockets as he concentrated on not letting his legs give out as he walked towards you two. your eyes landed on the worried looking brit, your eyebrows furrowing. your confused look caused charles to turn around.

“hey, mate,” charles said, “you’ve gotta hear about this story y/n just told me-“

“actually,” lando cleared his throat, “i was wondering if i could borrow her. i’ve got to talk to her,”

he sucked in a nervous breath as you responded, “yeah,” you grabbed your purse off of the bar behind you, looking over at the man next to you, “i’ll be right back.”

you led lando through the groups of people, the fresh air filling lando’s lungs as he desperately tried to feel better. you stood in front of him, searching his eyes.

“you look pale,” you frowned, placing the back of your hand on his forehead, “you feeling okay?”

his heart was going a mile a minute, his hand grabbing yours. your eyes met his in silent question, “i’m sorry.”

your expression softened, “lando-“

“no,” he said softly, “i’m sorry. i know how hard you work, and i had no right to yell at you or tell you that your job isn’t hard. i could never do the things that you do. you’re absolutely incredible and i’m sorry,”

you let him ramble on, waiting for the right time to speak, “you never complain and it was dick move for me to yell, just please…”

he felt like he couldn’t breathe. you frowned, knowing what was going through his mind all too well. a small tear dropped from his eyelashes and your heart shattered in your chest, “lando,”

he licked his lips, teeth sinking into his bottom lip to keep it from quivering. his shoulders shook and you reached out to him as he let out a quiet sob. you wiped the tears away from his cheeks before wrapping your arms around his neck. he breathed in the smell of your shampoo, immediately clinging to you as he buried his head into your hair.

you rubbed his back, “it’s okay. i promise, it’s okay,”

he sniffled softly, “you’re just the best thing to ever happen to me, and i don’t want to lose you over a stupid argument. i’m sorry. so so sorry,”

you pulled away, meeting his glossy eyes and giving him a soft smile as you wiped away the fallen tears, “it’s gonna take a lot more than a silly argument to push me away.”

he let out a soft chuckle and you smiled, “there’s that smile.”

he rolled his eyes playfully, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand, mumbling a soft, “shut up,”

you reached up and planted a kiss on his lips. his mumbling against yours when he pulled away to breathe, “i love you.”

“i love you more, handsome.”

[onyourhyuck]

Sin & Obsession. | L.MK

— Prologue: “I never knew you’d have such a slutty side to you, Y/n. What else are you hiding underneath that good girl façade?”

— Summary: You’re a faithful good girl. You attend church and you stay out of trouble. Mark is a guy that attends your church and what you don’t know is that he’s been obsessed with you for a while…

— Genre: Dark smut / Romance. Slight horror aspect (?) Mark Lee is a stalker. Mention of Christianity and faithfulness. Christian!Mark. Church mention. Mark is very much obsessed with Y/n. He stalks her. He has deep affection for Y/n but like super borderline I guess? Watching Y/n masturbate while he is hiding in her closet. Mark jerks off. Mark panty thief. Pantie sniffing.

— Notes: Part 2 anyone?

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You’re a faithful Christian. You’ve always been. You were born and raised in your cradle as a good faithful Christian who prides herself in your religion daily. You bring religion everywhere you go with you. One thing you like is that you do mid-week service and as well as attending every Sunday to the church.

You get along with everyone, you speak to everyone, and you try to get involved in your community activities.

However one thing you don’t know at all. You’re completely unaware of what people actually want from you. Mark Lee is a guy that goes to your church and he’s had his eyes on you for quite some time. He attended the church a little bit longer than you and then you moved into the area and started going to this church that he is going to.

He’s always lived in Canada. So when he heard you move from such a far away person to Canada to start a fresh chapter he couldn’t help but fall for you and your own words. It was love a first sight for Mark. You were beautiful, charismatic, there was something about you when you speak about God like he was your best friend. He genuinely thinks it’s beautiful, and he admired your religious side too. He was a faithful committed Christian too, himself. However you were slightly different.

You are a good girl everyone can see that when they look at you. You dress like one, you dress pretty good and wear what makes you feel great. At this point Mark thinks the clothes aren’t wearing you, you’re wearing the clothes. You make them look very good. He won’t lie.

When you come to church in a dress Mark would confess that he truthfully did take a look down at your breasts once or twice. He can’t help it. You wore to church in a white dress and what do you expect him to do? Not to stare down there? Mark thinks it would be very rude of him if he didn’t look down at your beautiful perky and busty tits. He didn’t speak to you much but only admired you from the sidelines. In fact you probably only spoke to him once and that’s when you started attending the church getting to know everyone.

Mark prefers to be mysterious and watch you from afar where you don’t realise he is actually watching you.

That day when you left with that white dress on, something within him has snapped. It’s been a good long few months since you moved into the area now. Probably five months or more. Mark couldn’t help but follow you that day when you left. It was very out of character for him. Mark knew he shouldn’t just follow you to your house and just watch you get home. He said to himself ‘I’m just following Y/n so she can get home safe, yeah.’ But that would also be half truth and half a lie. He just wanted to stare and admire you for a little moment. He wanted to know what area you actually live in: which turns out you don’t live too far from the church. You are down the road it seems.

And that’s what started the faithful Christian’s obsession with you. Mark’s obsession began the moment you wore that pretty white dress to church, and every Sunday whenever the church service ends he follows you home. Every Sunday. Every time he would follow you back home. You never seem to notice either and Mark starts to believe you’re not that great at self awareness. He took pleasure in following you and watching you when you aren’t aware of it. It’s like something within his heart was searching for that thrill, the adrenaline rush of stalking you and admiring you.

This went on for weeks and weeks. Sometimes even months. Mark never knew he would be so infatuated by seeing you walk home from church. Sometimes Mark even wonders when he goes home later in the week what you’re doing. At this point Mark has memorised your Sunday schedule off by heart. He never knew this could bring him such happiness to be close to you. Even though he can’t bring himself to speak to you because you’re shining alone in your own light.

He was afraid of messing up. He didn’t know how to approach you. In fact Mark never knows how to approach girls but you’re different from the other girls he knows. You’re a fair, beautiful, modest and humble. You’re mature and as well as religious. Mark knows that people who are devoted to their religion cannot be approach the normal way and so, Mark is fine with being in the sideline shadows watching you. He saw you come to your step and open the door unlocking it. Somehow Mark saw you forgot to lock the door it looks like you’re search for something. He couldn’t help but smile a little.

The urge to go in was there, so he follows it.

It wouldn’t hurt right? To go inside your house unannounced without you knowing it. Only for a minute, Mark said. He can allow a minute inside your house because he was getting greedy. He wonders what the inside of your house actually was like. When he enters it he wanders around the living room.

Mark can hear you in the kitchen actually, you seem to be shuffling the black trash bag. It seems like it was pretty big and you struggled. He would offer to help you but it looks like you can handle it and plus — he wouldn’t want to get himself caught.

It was pretty dark already. Mark couldn’t help but think you didn’t even notice anything strange of someone coming inside her house. Like you must really have some slow self awareness. He wonders if you’re just slow or maybe you trust the world too much.

‘There are some pretty weird guys out there Y/n…’ Mark thought deeply as he shakes his head. He would scold you and tell you to not leave the door open like this even if it was for a second and you’d be back to close it.

Furthermore the obsessive curiosity about wanting to get to know you more has irked some wrongful convictions. Heading up the stairs when you were in the downstairs bathroom, Mark took his time snooping around your bedroom now. Your bedroom smelled exactly how he imagined it to smell. Smell of you. It kills him knowing you sleep here where you are all alone without him because he has the deep feelings to hold you but he cannot do that. He doesn’t even speak to you. If anything Mark is pretty much all in knowing you would not feel the same way. Mark took this moment to heart observing your beautiful decorated room.

Fair lights were hung out against the windows and your bed frame. Your double bed looks so soft like a floating cloud in middle of nowhere in this space. You have a giant wardrobe and that instantly excites Mark. He saw that pretty white dress, and your shirts and tank tops. Mark took his time exploring your wonderful clothes. Some of them look so small on your nice curvy figure. You’re shaped like a hourglass and he freaking loves it.

Mark takes his time not to think of you so much like this. He doesn’t want to be known for only looking and staring at you because of your beautiful body and appearance no, he really likes you on the inside too. If anything Mark’s feeling were a form of an attachment because of your character and not your traits.

But when he came across your cupboard where you keep all your lingerie Mark feels something growing inside him. Something so dark and uncontrollable.

He didn’t know what to do when the sight of your beautiful perky bras were in front of him. They smell of wonderful vanilla and laundry washing. It was so soft and the smell was overwhelming like the starting of spring season upon the winter. It dissolved into his nostrils the more he brings the bra forward and he touched it.

Mark wanted to die of embarrassment honestly. He saw what he was doing. He was becoming a perv. He was perving on you in your own house and you don’t even know he was inside your bloody house but a part of him was even more thrilled somehow. Because you don’t know any of this was happening. Mark grew more and more undeniably into you. He grow stronger, his feelings for you grew even more and Mark cannot hold back when the pairs of panties he opens up to look at them. It was the final straw. Your panties. He takes the one that took his eyes most. A pair of innocent white panties. The soft fabric melts in his hands and he brings it back up to his face. The guy who wasn’t meant to be here in this place anyways, was now sniffing your panties like it was all he was created for. Mark groans against the fabric. He could just imagine them on you and it makes him grow by the thought down below.

Your name was running through his mind. He was just so obsessed with you at this point if you’re not his Mark doesn’t know what he will do. The way his nostrils flare when your scent mixing in with the laundry detergent makes him feral. Mark was a feral beast under the disguise of such a loyal respectful young man he shows himself to there told. Deep down he was a lustful sinner, just for you. Mark never thought that he was so unlucky to be a human. You’re wearing these panties everyday. He wished he could be the one you wear him around like this, Mark just wants to be so close to you that he’s under your skin. It was such a weird thought. But he’s always been into these weirdly true metaphors. He enjoys poetry, because you are poetry itself to him and his eyes. Mark should thank God for creating you.

Maybe you’re the one for him, Mark thought. Maybe you’re the one he was meant to be with and Mark pleads it is you. Because if another guy was with you that was not him, Mark doesn’t think he can accept that reality as real.

When the footsteps approach the door Mark was so caught up in his horny-thoughts because he was sniffing and caressing your panties while at the same time he has gotten pretty hard on for it. He almost forgot where he was. Your house. The man flinched to the nearest closet and stays hidden between the many jackets and clothes. Luckily it was dark but he could see a peak of light slap against Mark’s eyes. He was glad he could see you walk in. The minute you came into his view as he was hidden in your closet unaware of your complete knowledge; he smiles seeing your beautiful long hair and your legs and thighs. You wore such pretty tight shorts on at home. He never once thought to his living days he would see you wear this much less clothes on. He was not complaining at all. It’s already bad because Mark has your panties in his hands still. He happened to take them with him and he’s pretty rock hard in his jeans.

What happened next blows Mark’s mind. The guy only looks away for a second. Only a second and you’re on your bed spread nicely with your legs wide open. He never thought he would get to see this either but this truthfully shocks him. Mark is seeing you strip yourself off your clothes — he saw your bare back first which was enough to have him sweating in the closet as he was peaking at you. Your shorts slipped off the ground and you turned on your laptop. He could hear a few good moans coming from the video you’re watching.

Mark couldn’t believe it. He’s watching you pleasure yourself on your bed wide legs open with you pretty pussy out. He saw the way your hands were skilfully pressing on your clit teasing it. You look hella frustrated he won’t lie but Mark couldn’t agree more he wished he could be right there to eat you out. To lick you clean and clean you out off your frustrations. Mark wished it was him between your legs and not your poor hand now because you’re flicking your fingers forward and pushing your pelvis up for more freedom and pressure. The moans on the videos got louder but Mark was only paying attention to you.

You were with all his attention on.

“I never knew you’d have such a slutty side to you, Y/n. What else are you hiding underneath that good girl façade?”

He whispers to himself barely audible for anyone else. It was just words for himself and you were too busy to even hear him because your moans were overlapping with the video you’re watching with your eyes. You struggle and squirm now as your fingers became a faster pace for your clit to take even all the abuse you’re inflicting on it. Mark watches you intensely. He could tell you’re enjoying this so much, even though it must be very lonely for you, Mark enjoys watching you masturbate right in front of him and so he couldn’t handle it. The sounds of your moans were tempting him to do sin. Mark without any second thoughts he unbuckles the jeans and slips it off to the ankles letting his boxers fall down too. Mark tried his best to get a good view with his eyes on the peak on the closer. The darkness makes it hard to see the light. However he managed to get a good view again of your beautiful pink pussy that looks so wet and he likes to assume it’s dripping just for him.

He imagines what he could do. The stuff he’d do to you when he was there. If he was there pleasuring you. He would make sure you’d never forget the moment if he ever had the opportunity to pleasure you, Mark would make sure it’s one you cannot move from.

He was greedy and he was getting greedier by the sight of you in front of him. Mark slowly strokes his long hard length now to the sounds you’re making. The feeling of your walls fluttering open when your fingers curl inside you. You have on your mind a lot of things and these things aren’t something you can share with other people. You want to be fucked. It’s simple but it’s a lot harder because you cannot find the pleasure you’re seeking. You want to tell yourself to surpass this side out of you. However it gets stronger the more you ignore it. You arch yourself when you push out your hips now, they practical hump the air around it with force of your hips shoving out and your fingers continue to abuse your swollen clit.

Mark is clutching on his tip rubbing down the slit like it is a gown of sorts. He was watching you become a spilling mess. The gentle spillage of your water but you’re not exactly cumming yet. Mark can tell you are edging yourself because you don’t want this to end as soon as possible. You must be really frustrated. Mark wonders what goes inside that head of yours. He always thought you were someone who didn’t have these urges even though it was human nature to he strongly believed you had none of those. Mark wasn’t sure why. Maybe it’s because he only sees you at Church. He doesn’t necessarily know you well enough to speak to you. But he does like you a lot.

This crush he has on you is something more than a crush but at the same time it’s still a pretty new thing he’s experiencing. Mark never once went in a house that he wasn’t invited to and watched a girl get herself off. Never.

But he was glad it’s you. Mark can’t help but push down his hand even more in the length. Soon enough the two of you were pleasuring each other with the sounds. However, you were watching the screen of your laptop instead. Mark was wishfully watching you wanting to be inside you so bad. The sight of your pussy looking so tempting. As if it is taunting him to just fuck you right there and come out of the closet. But he knew he can’t do that.

He can’t explain himself to you if he was in your closet like this. You would definitely never want to see him again.

The panties he kept with him, Mark licks and smells them. He works his way with his tongue between the slant of your panties. They smell so good. They smell of you.

He loves them so much Mark doesn’t think he can give them back to you anymore.

Your eyes roll back from the pleasure when it became clear that you’re no longer able to hold back. He took the sign to faster his hands on his giant rock hard cock. Mark moves the hands against the slit and pushed down the thumb. He caressed himself quickly while he’s watching you so intensely now. Mark held in his hitch voice just so he could not get caught by the pleasuring noises he was having and making. Instead he just focused on your itching voice piercing the room by echos of your moans.

You sound heavenly when you’re panting after you finally orgasm. Mark could not put this moment above anything because this was one of the most pulsing and best orgasms he had. He lets out a wispy groan, “Y/n….” Mark came right on with you on his hand. There was a lot of seed in his palm. Mark never comes this big of a batch. He was surprised but this was thanks to you.

He saw the trembling thighs of yours as you close them holding your own sex as you roll over with a pausing high pitch moan. He loves when you’re stimulating yourself to the point you couldn’t touch your own clit again without flinching and letting out a pained out wince.

It’s attractive to see you torture yourself with the overwhelming amount of pleasure.

Mark was worried now, he just knew from the moment on this wasn’t going to be just a mere crush he has on you.

How will he confess to God what he has witnessed? Even if he did tell what he did was wrong. Mark loved it so much, he wouldn’t go back to change it. If he went back to the past — he would do it all over again…

Now he knew for sure,,

This is the beginning of the Sin & Obsession he has on you…

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@onyourhyuck please refer from translating copyrighting and plagiarising my work thank youu <3 Reblog this fic and follow me for more it helps a girl out.

[oneshotnewbie]

Could you write a one shot where there is a really bad storm hitting Seattle. Maya and Carina are stuck at the hospital and the fire station, and are trying but unsuccessful at reaching Reader. So they are both worried out of their minds. Then Maya has to go out on a call and find it was R who wrecked their car trying to get home before the storm hit. (Could be severe or non-severe injuries) R goes to the hospital with Maya in the aid car and Carina joins them in the ER.

Authors note: I heard the song "What the water gave me - Florence + The Machine" while writing this story. I would advise you to listen to the song as well while reading through this story to get the feel of a real Station 19 rescue mission like in the series. Of course it's not a must! ♥

ᕚ---ᕘ

The sky over Seattle steadily darkened as pitch-black thunderclouds rolled in like a tidal wave. The wind began to howl as if playing its own somber tune, rushing restlessly through the skyscrapers of the city. Streets were quickly emptied as people rushed home for shelter. The trees bent under the force of the storm as if begging for mercy, but the storm was relentless. It thundered as if Zeus himself wanted to keep the crowds in their place while the rain fell in thick, large drops and threatened to drown Seattle. The sound of the wind, the falling of the rain and the thunder symphoned in a unique melody and conveyed a frightening atmosphere.

The telephones of the active fire brigade beeped in unison, a warning of the approaching storm that came in way too late. The tough captain of the fire department swallowed hard as she could not reach you, who worked just a few minutes away from her. But you did not answer, the connection was already disrupted, appearing to be off. "She wanted to be here fifteen minutes ago, Carina," both her and the brunette's worries grew with every minute through the phone as they imagined the worst possible scenarios without having any sign of life from you.

"Calm down, Bambina. There is probably total chaos on the streets. Fallen trees, flooding. Maybe she is just stuck in a traffic jam or an emergency came in."

The fire station was flooded with red alarm lights, while the walls shook from violent gusts of wind, preventing the young blonde from speaking further. Raindrops pelted against the roller shutter door, which opened more with every second, allowing the lightning strikes to break through their vision. -Fire engines 19 and 23. Ambulance 19 to Cedar Road Lane 6. Car struck by tree, person seriously injured and trapped.-

The firefighters rushed around, donning their suits and gear before grabbing their helmets. Like-minded, they rushed to the waiting vehicles, only Maya stopped briefly. „Please let me know if you hear anything from her. Stai attenta, bambina!" (Be careful, bambina!). She nodded, knowing that Carina could not see the gesture and hung up before hopping into the squad cars and starting the sirens. Pressing the accelerator, they raced through the whirlwind around them, trying to avoid the tree branches as much as possible.

Lightning flashed across the dangerous-looking sky, and thunder rolled at the same time like an angry demon. Maya clung to the steering wheel as she tried to keep her eyes on the wet, blurry road. They made their way through the flooded streets, branches flying through the air and trash cans tipping over and spilling across the sidewalk.

It was as if the world around her was collapsing in a chaotic dance of wind and water. "Listen guys, I know you want to help the person in the car, but first and foremost, think about your health and your life," the storm roared so loudly that it seemed like it wanted to tear the entire city apart and hardly anyone understood what the captain was saying over the radio. "This is one of the worst storms in years, a state of emergency has been declared and normally no one should be on the roads, so it is a mystery to me why anyone would be so dumb to be driving,"

Her team was clearly tense, the radios crackling in their ears, but they nodded to the captain as confirmation that they had understood the message. Maya did not want to lose any man or woman in her group to the storm. "We are approaching the scene of the accident. Be ready for anything, people. We can do this!" she said calmly and encouragingly while the fire engine´s sirens blared through the dark night.

When the team from Station 19 arrived at the scene of the accident, they were confronted with a dark and serious scene. The car is crammed in by a huge tree and is badly deformed, the hood of which is completely smashed and dented while some branches have pierced through the windshield and turned the interior of the vehicle into a field of rubble.

The fire team jumped out of the emergency vehicles and fought through the wind and rain to reach the car. But the captain remains rooted to the spot in front of the stern of the wreck, looking absentmindedly at the license plate, which was hanging askew. "Y/n.. IT IS Y/N!" she shouted unhindered amid the raging and deafening thunder and her team stopped their tasks in shock, Andy and Gibson focusing their gaze from the thick tree over to the woman in the driver's seat, who Warren was already trying to find vital signs on.

Maya lunged forward, her heart pounding with worry. Her helmet was almost blown away by the wind as she stepped closer, the flashlight shaking in her hand as she shone the light through the shattered window. Her heart seemed to skip a beat as she recognized the familiar features amid the devastation. She was confirmed that she did not have a number twist on the license plate, but that it really was you. Seriously injured and trapped in the car. “Y/n!” she cried, her voice filled with a terror she had never known before. Maya knew she had to stay calm now, that she had to be the professional captain, but her heart was screaming with fear and worry.

The other members of the fire department worked quickly and precisely. "Dean, Montgomery. Grab the hydraulic cutters! We need to get her out of here as quickly as possible. Her vital signs are at risk of plummeting!" shouted Warren. They used cutting tools to fight against the metal of the car on the passenger side and the resistance of the tree while Maya knelt next to the wreckage and held your hand, which was probably thrown out of the broken window after the impact and was now lying on the scratched paint of the outer door. "It looks bad in there! Be careful not to hurt her any further, approach carefully!"

Your eyes were dazed with pain and fear, but you were breathing, albeit weakly. Hearing her voice, you seemed to find some peace for a moment, your dull eyes glued to hers. Desperately wanting to say something, you opened your mouth from which blood began to ooze, but your crushed and injured lungs did not even let in air.

"Hold on, darling. Do not say anything, I am here. We will get you out of there, I promise." The blonde whispered, her voice firm to reassure you even as her own thoughts were caught in a chaos of worry and despair. The minutes stretched endlessly as her team struggled to bend the metal and free their captain's fiancée. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the metal gave way. Using their combined strength, Vic and Warren pulled you from the wreckage, carefully, yet as quickly as possible. As soon as they freed you, they carried you to the ambulance. Maya followed them, never taking her eyes off you. Your condition was serious, but you were still clinging to life. "Carina is coming. She is going to be at the hospital, she will be by your side the second you get there. But you have to fight now, okay? Fight for us."

The rain continued to beat down on you, the storm was still raging, but in the midst of this darkness and chaos there was a glimmer of hope- you were saved, and she would do anything now to help you fight through this storm. But it was hard to keep positive thoughts as the storm continued to sing its destructive song. She closed her eyes tightly as she rode in the ambulance and prayed, with your bloodstained hand in hers, that the next morning would bring a certain light to your health.

[solcorvidae]

Modern Witcher AU: My Headcanons (part 2 of ?)

Jaskier was put in a ton of winter sports as a kid. He knows how to ski and ice skate very well. He can snowboard but prefers skiing.

Geralt, on the other hand, never learned to skate. He and Eskel have not been able to find skates that fit their boot size since they were teenagers.

Geralt likes yard work more than other household chores. He likes maintaining the garden and arranging a nice living space to hangout in and Jaskier is very appreciative.

Jaskier is usually super busy in the winter months. He attends get togethers, dinners, parties, etc. Geralt does the opposite. He and his family head home for some time to relax and catch up with one another after being on the road. They don’t often do big activities or social events, mostly staying in the house with each other for the duration of their stay.

Geralt, Eskel, and Lambert shared a room until Geralt started to get into his teen years. Their childhood room had a bunk bed for the two oldest boys and a single bed for Lambert. Lambert eventually took over Vesemir’s office and it was converted to his new room. Now, they each have normal bed frames that sit on the floor.

Geralt wears a dark brown, felt, pinch front cowboy hat. He is very attuned to the etiquette and superstitious beliefs around wearing one.

Eskel and Jaskier are the same height (6’0)

Geralt is 6’3 but often people assume he’s shorter. He slouches when he sits and tries to take up as little metaphorical space in the room as he can. When he stands up, his posture is straight as a board and this adds to the surprise many people feel when they see how tall he really is.

Eskel is the opposite. He has a large but warm and inviting presence when he enters a room. He makes himself known and takes up a lot of space with his big personality. People often assume he must be taller than he really is and are often surprised when they stand next to him and see eye to eye.

Lambert is 5’11 and bitter about it.

Eskel has textured, somewhat oily skin but shockingly left his acne struggles in his teen years.

Geralt was blessed with little to no acne most of his life—including as a teenager.

Lambert hasn’t quite grown out of it and still gets the occasional (relatively mild) blemish. They usually appear when his disposable razor starts to get dull and begins to irritate the skin--Geralt tries to get him to invest in a safety razor, to no avail.

All three boys share a bathroom at Vesemir's house and Vesemir has his own tiny ensuite bathroom. He doesn't care if they trash their own space as long as it doesn't start growing mysterious molds…

Everyone having different hair colours (especially Geralt) meant that it was difficult to blame each other for hair left in the bottom of the tub/sink. But oh did Lambert try.

They are banned from using Vesemir's bathroom unless they absolutely have to. The shower however, is non negotiable. It is off limits altogether.

The only exception to this rule is when any of the boys are sick. When one of them is ill, Vesemir sets them up on the floor with blankets and a pillow so they don't have to keep running to the bathroom in the middle of the night. It also helps that he can keep an eye on them and monitor if they start getting worse or need to go to urgent care—Eskel was particularly bad for lying about not being sick for a long time.

As a child Geralt would wake up every night in the middle of the night from the dead of sleep and be afraid to fall back asleep on his own. He always climbed to the top bunk where Eskel slept and he felt safe. If Eskel wasn't there or he didn't want to wake him, Geralt would walk to Vesemir's room to fall asleep in his dads bed where he felt just as safe. It took him a long time to grow out of this habit.

Even though his boys are all grown up, Vesemir would never turn them away from any sort of "childish" comfort, especially when they're going through a particularly hard time. If they ever needed a hug or wanted to fall asleep in his room, all they had to do was ask.

[Modern AU Headcanon Masterpost]

[mortuarywriting]

If I outline what the fuck i wanna see in my self indulgent au will it give me the kick in the ass to write it.

Obviously relative spoiler/high notes/plot points below

The premise is, so far, nobody has seen where Simon lives. As far as they- they being Gaz, Soap, and Price- know he has a flat in Manchester.

Well leaving base one night(ish, time negotiable), the road they were all taking in their separate vehicles is closed due to a nasty accident. Gonna be blocked for 24 hours kinda mess.

So Ghost offers to let them all stay at his place, if only for a bit or the night if they prefer

Everyone just kinda. Well this isn't what we were expecting but alright. So they follow his car, it's pissing down rain and you can't see shit before you but the tail lights you're following but they've committed and by the time they pull off the road they're fuckin nowhere. House is fairly isolated, separate garage building, coop in the backyard, and a thatch roof cottage. Whose Nan's attic is Simon living in???

Except, not a random old biddie. Just a random fat American?? It's obvious they're familiar enough with each other, giving each other shit and that there's a whole "you got back from a mission here is our you came home routine"

Whole mess. The group stays the night because now they're nosy and wanna find out what the relationship is. You both say roommates. They don't wholly believe that.

Simon and roomie sleep downstairs, he can't sleep in a bed yet after the mission and roomie makes sure there's enough background noise that he doesn't snap into combat mode everything is about to go to shit.

Next morning roomie and Simon team up to make a hodge podge of all kinds of breakfast food and between them all there are no leftovers. Concerns are had if everyone ate enough (and then biscuits and gravy settled).

Its back to routine and roomie goes out to grocery shop to stock back up on "i need to feed myself and a whole ass army dude" levels of food and snackies.

While Simon is trying to get Soap and Gaz to stop making excuses to stick around (all good-natured fun) there is a call. Roomie prefaces this with they're fine!!! But uh. They did get hit by a car. A bit. Enough that there has to be a report. Come get the groceries?

And this is the part where they find out Simon and roomie are married. Have been for y e a r s. Technically the town knows them under roomie's last name as a couple.

After the dust is settled and everyone is back at the cottage the explaining happens. Yes, they're married. Vegas happened. It's been a long time and they kinda glossed over the whole "he's a dead man" legal bit for it. Roomie still gets married rights. How do you think he has a lease as a dead man roomie legitimately wants to know. The cottage is in their name, his isn't on it to keep it all off the record if people come knocking for him.

(He does actually have a Manchester flat, though. Landlord takes cash payments however many months at a time and doesn't ask questions. Roomie gets mail from it every once in a blue moon.)

Relationship is largely "we're married but for tax benefits"esque because they're both some flavor of ace. If he's in town roomie checks on if he wants to go to the Saturday munches or not but that's sir not appearing in this fic.

But yeah. Just fun self indulgence.

Could go write the Vegas bit. Write work "being brought home". Bonding activities. List of things for when he retires. Potentially kidnapping. S o many fun options but I just. Gotta write it.

[linkeduniverse-writing]

General LU Headcanons Part 2

Here's part 2 of my general headcanons and how I see/write the boys! This one will have Sky Warrior and Wild!

Part 1 Part 3

Sky

Always sleep the exact amount of time needed to feel fully rested

He won't wake up before that, unless they're under attack of course

He's a really heavy sleeper and snores quite a bit

He doesn't know what to think of the fact that destroying his stuff has become kind of a habit now

Between Hyrule showing off, Wild cooking with explosives, of all things, and Time accidentally dropping his bag into a pit

He's not even upset about it, because they've all been accidents, and nothing valuable has been lost, but still

They always help him get his stuff back, but it just keeps happening for some reasons

He starts to think it's payback for Demise's curse

He loves getting lost in towns

It's a way of discovering a new place that he grew fond of, for some reason

Especially when he finds little places in towns that are clearly not visited often, it feels like he discovered a beautiful little secret

He feels special

He'll sometimes try to get or carve a little trinket to the others from places they've been to, as he's really into gift giving

He has a lot of composure when it comes to injuries, but he doesn't like the smell of it

He'll help if they need to, but he'd rather do the caregiving part than first aid

It's even worse with illnesses

He gets kind of paranoid, but at least that makes him really good at keeping a good hygiene, even in a not so clean environment

He won't be on babysitting duty if germs are involved, but he'll keep everything nice and clean to make sure no one else contracts it

Warrior

Light sleeper

He moves a lot in his sleep, and sometimes wakes himself up like that

He's one of the first one to rise up in the morning but always stays in bed late

He likes listening to the sounds of the world still peacefully asleep around him

Despite being a high graded knight, he doesn't easily trust the military

Or maybe it's because he's so high ranked that he can see how corruptible it can be

And after hearing some of the stories the other told him, he's even more on guard

He does trust his soldiers tho, and hopes his teammates will trust them too if they end up in his Hyrule

He always indulges in shenanigans when Wind is the one asking for it

Hyrule can wear him down too, but not as much

He pretends it's to keep an eye on them, but the guy loves his fun too

Very fond of old people

Will always help them carry groceries or cross a road or something

And always with a dashing smile. They reward him with candy sometimes, and he keeps it all to himself

He knows how to charm his way into getting answers from people, but he sucks at bargaining and can get scammed easily, which is why Legend comes with him whenever they need a supply run

He learned first aid during the War, and learned to improvise when he needed to, so he's the first one to start checking on everyone after a fight

He'll do a general check up on everyone, rank injuries by severity, and then get to work to tend to them

If at least two others are in good enough shape, he'll point them to where they need to help, so everyone can be taken care of before it gets too bad

Hyrule's composure and Wild's endless potion stash are his best allies in this situation

Wild

Nightmares

He swear they're more memories than nightmares

He rarely remembers them, to his endless frustration

He wakes up early most of the time, but often in a good mood

He loves making breakfast for everyone, but loves it even more when one of them joins him to help

He just likes sharing stuff he knows, so sharing knowledge about his favorite activity? Sign him up

He kind of stopped hoping he could teach anything about cooking to Hyrule tho, but he understands potion crafting at least

Wild makes most of them so they don't have to buy them

He doesn't know shit about traditional medecine tho, he runs on potions only

Very ingenious, but always in the wrong way

As in, he has a curious mind and good ideas, but it's always to do some fucked up dangerous stunt

Twilight tries to stop him most of the time, but he lost all of his authority on him the day they all learned he shot himself out of a canon on his first adventure

Wild has been on the loose since then

He often go on exploring trips on his own when they set up camp in a new place, he needs his alone time

He loves the group! But he got used to being alone for months, and sometimes being around that many people for too long can be too much

They don't mind, tho

Ironically, he hates seeing injuries, but doesn't mind scavenging monster viscera to make stronger potions

A broken finger? A deep cut? He's not looking

But butchering a bokoblin and carving out its organs with a rusty knife? Yeah why not

He wishes he had more time to craft more potions, or to go collect more materials for said potions

So he could just hand over the potions to everyone instead of holding onto wet bandages to stop the bleedings, or hold his friend down when his other friend puts bones back in place

It's gross. He's gonna focus on the potions

[raayllum]

I've been thinking about the two-headed snake from the beginning of the show, and the Law of Chekhov's Gun is telling me that it's going to be coming back and causing problems sooner or later. Thought/theories?

The soul switching spell is definitely one of the most interesting plot and thematic elements the show has introduced and it looms over most of the fandom's thoughts regularly, I think. So let's go over it:

Plot

Obviously the biggest question here is "did Viren use the soul fang serpent to successfully switch Harrow's soul with Pip?", which people have speculated for years with about the same information (s1-s2) until s5 recently kicked things up a notch in terms of like having something new to turn over. @kradogsrats has a great meta here in regards to what exactly we can glean from 5x02 and how it may re-contextualize what we already 'know'. I highly recommend giving it a read.

That said, two things are true to me regarding the "is Harrow in Pip" theory:

Something happened in that room

Harrow is not going to come back

With these in mind, it's important to note that we know that TDP develops its seasons in batches simultaneously. The team didn't go from s1 to s2 to s3, but instead developed all three around the same time. Obviously production and some stuff was going around in order, but the only decisions that have been noted as changing was 1) Callum and Rayla were decided upon being a couple when storyboarding 2x04 as it wasn't originally in the cards and 2) Ezran going back to Katolis at the end of S2 was a surprise.

I make note of this because season two is absolutely the last point in show where you could angle things so that a Harrow who survived in Pip could come back and it wouldn't be Fucking Weird, basically. This is for two reasons:

1) We spend a good chunk of the season worrying about what the boys will do when they find out and actively mourning Harrow, with only one episode (2x07) not touching on it at all. That is a lot of time to spend on a character death you're going to ultimately undo. Conversely, we get less episodes dedicated to Rayla's relationship with her parents (1x05, 3x03, 3x08) in the first arc because it is widely implied that she's going to get them back; no point seeing her heavily mourn them when that's going to get reneged.

2) Harrow coming back wouldn't have much of a plot or character standpoint on the bulk of the trio — Callum largely received his dad/family related closure back in S2 and it'd let Runaan off the hook, so his and Rayla's relationship would be easier, not harder — but it'd nuke Ezran from both an emotional and a plot standpoint. His main arc is intrinsic to being royalty of a prince-turned-king, pushing him to make more decisions and figure out how to manage the difficult road to peace.

If Harrow comes back, he'd either stay on as an advisor (but that'd still kinda take weight off Ezran's shoulders that's currently there and arguably should be) or step away, leaving his young son to shoulder it alone. The first lessens Ezran's emotional poignancy within the theme(s)/show, and the second makes Harrow like, a bad father in ways he absolutely never was in life.

As pointed out in Krads' meta, Viren is likewise surprised when he sees Harrow alive and well in his 5x02 dream, and we get this exchange:

While we could read Harrow's initial "Surprised to see me" (because if the show points something out in dialogue, they really want you to Know) as "surprised to see me [out of the bird]" the show itself quickly does away with that reading. Viren is surprised that Harrow's survived, period. That doesn't bode well for "Viren is 110% sure that he, himself, put Harrow 100% into that damn bird". But like I said, something had to have happened, and Viren's behaviour with Pip is real fucking weird otherwise if he didn't at least try for something.

[ Side note: I also think it's worth noting what, exactly, is happening in the initial stages of Viren's dream with Harrow. This is decidedly not real Harrow, but the Harrow Viren wished for: someone who would not only forgive him, but embrace his dark magic use (aka him) rather than reject it. Not only is Harrow here alive because of Viren, but this Harrow loves Viren for what he did, and accepts Viren's act of devotion not only as one of family, but reciprocates it: "You're not just a servant. You're my family. You're a brother."

And Viren, for his part, is giving the reasonings behind Harrow's refusal ("I was frightened" / "They were coming to kill you") on both ends, without actually addressing the dark magic elephant sized rift in the room, still citing that it was about circumstance rather than principle or perspective. Moving on. ]

Remember how I said S2 was the last possible point things could've been shifted to accommodate a "Harrow comes back in full" plotline (most likely)? Yeah, well the other side of that is that S2 is the last time the show could've accommodated a retcon of "Viren didn't do anything to Harrow, actually, at all" the way that fans have often implied, and it's largely because of this otherwise very unnecessary scene all the way in 2x09 (in which other changes, like Ezran turning to go home, and Rayllum's romantic route, had been more than well decided):

This to me is the singular biggest sign that something did happen, and it's something we will uncover in the future, because otherwise, there is literally No Reason to not have Pip in Katolis upon Ezran's return. If the writing team truly intended to fully nullify Viren and 'retcon' the Harrow-bird situation, keeping Pip in Katolis and having him interact visibly and non-life alteringly with Ezran was the way to do it. But Pip has been MIA since 2x09 and has not interacted with anyone other than Viren since 1x04, and so it remains a Mystery that, likewise, the 5x02 Harrow dream went to completely unnecessary stakes to remind you of Pip's existence in the first place.

Moreover, you simply do not have a main character who can Talk to Animals (a power that outside his connection with Zym has not been incredibly plot relevant in ways that couldn't otherwise be achieved since like... 1x08-1x09 itself) and then Remove an animal he could talk to unless you decidedly Do Not (or cannot) have that conversation happen yet.

Which reaffirms what I said earlier: we can be 100% sure that something happened, and we can be at least 95% sure that Harrow is not being fully brought back in order to not lose narrative weight to Viren and Runaan's responsibility in his death and in Ezran's series' long arc.

So what did happen?

One possible answer (that I've posited, of course there are many) is that Harrow's soul got split in two.

We've seen people be separated from what would let them 'go on' before (Sarai's last breath yelling no as her spear sinks into Avizandum's chest; the Moonshadow assassin troupe in TTM). This would allow for a part of Harrow to exist in his own body (since there's a hot second between the spell being over and when Runaan's binding falls, though that might just be linked to bodies > souls, but the Lotus flowers are clearly linked to souls, so...?) and for part to exist in Pip. Pip could offer a solace and goodbye, that part of Harrow ultimately needs to be freed (literally) and left to be at peace, which could be effective and tie in both Ezran and Callum's emotional needs about their father.

Of course, this is all speculation. Harrow could be brought back as an advisor after everything, helping but not telling Ezran how to rule because the new generation should pave the way; something else could've been put into Pip entirely that we just don't have the Star or Deep magic context for.

Thematically and symbolically though, I think a lot of the actual concept of "switch souls with somebody else" > actual Pip-Harrow plot line has been brought back somewhat in full already, so let's talk about it.

Theme / Symbolism

The switching spell is, textually, a warped collision of Callum and Claudia's brains, and we see it repeatedly echo throughout both their arcs from S1-S5:

Some of this is quick-paced and obvious, such as when Callum literally switches places later just this episode and says he's Ezran, preparing to die in Ezran's place. (This is one of the reasons Callum, Claudia, and Viren circle each other so closely in the series; not only are they our three primary mages; Viren and Harrow's rift happens indirectly on Viren's end, after all, because of Callum and Claudia's collision here.)

Some of this is more of a slowburn — Claudia, collapsing on the floor and clearly having done a number on herself to spare her brother; Rayla with Callum's scarf to make Sol Regem chase her instead; Callum, taking Finnegrin's deal that was originally to set himself free in hopes he'll let Rayla go — or taken onto the shoulders of other characters (Ezran and Viren's literal king exchange in 3x04) simply because the idea of Exchange is so intrinsic to the series and to dark magic use in particular. Sometimes transactional, sometimes selfless, occasionally necessary in the eye of the beholder.

However, in a more literal sense, it sets up the series' long association of dark magic with snakes, and all that comes with it (poison, losing your soul, knowledge, chains, etc):

When Callum does dark magic, he's crushing a snake's rattle tail, a literal warning sign. Claudia for the entire first arc has a literal (snake) chain on her wrist that she uses for dark magic. The fact that the series routinely uses Christian symbolism for its villains (Aaravos eating an apple, Viren dying and being resurrected, sacrificing your "only beloved son" etc etc) only heightens this more negative association.

We also get mentions from the Book 2 novelization that the true sight serum Viren uses to try to see the mirror is 1) inherited from Kpp'Ar, which never bodes well and 2) made from the venom of eyeless vipers under moonless nights by the Oracles of Ophidia, just to double down on the "snake shit obscures your sight with dark magic and madness" angle.

But at the end of the day, thus far, snakes are just a symbol.

The more interesting way the soul-switching spell has come full circle though, already, through the possession plotline. Case in point:

Aaravos sets up his pawns to suffer and take the fall for him in the past (Ziard) and present (Claudia). He's hidden within Viren's body before (3x07 siege of Lux Aurea). He takes this to be a more literal, threatening embodiment through his possession of Callum. His soul and will overtakes Callum's body. Callum asks to die so Aaravos can't use him; in this lens, Callum will be dying for not just Aaravos' mistakes, but Aaravos' choices. Aaravos will 'hide' inside Callum's body and enact his will through it, and it'll lead to bloodshed either of Callum or of Rayla (or both) inevitably while Aaravos, in S6, will presumably get off scot free. (To be clear, Callum's not going to die, but this is the idea/risk of the concept and one of the reasons why it's so terrible.)

Which makes sense, honestly. The soul switch spell is the first real dark magic spell we get to see the context for, as Ziard's 1x01 spell takes time (3x01) as well as the moral reservations against. It just makes sense that Aaravos, the 'originator' of dark magic for lack of a better understanding, would then take said spell to its natural conclusion in which case even the consent of the vessel isn't just violated, but completely terminated and disregarded. Because, y'know — dark magic is awful, and it always has been.

[obsolescent]

Times Like These

Pairing: Leon S. Kennedy x GN!Reader

Author’s Note: A short oneshot for today! I got this idea while at the beach the other week. Leon gets to have a peaceful, relaxing time on vacation. Also trying out a new format, took some nice photos there. Enjoy!

Content Warnings: None, fluff, domestic bliss, gender neutral language for reader, Leon is trans but just his chest scars are mentioned.

September, in your opinion, is the best time to visit the beach. Not too hot and not too many visitors either, which is ideal for your boyfriend, Leon. He gets antsy around crowds of people, but due to his line of work, it’s understandable. 

You two prepared the car for the trip down to the gulf, bags and suitcases stacked in the back of Leon’s Jeep Wrangler. It takes around five hours to drive to your destination, a relatively comfortable, easy, and short road trip, the silence filled with Leon’s divorced dad rock music.

Arriving at the condo midday, you two settle in for the week-long stay, before making your way down the short boardwalk to the beach. Once you’ve finished setting up your canopy and chairs, you make a beeline for the shore, shell bag in hand.

Leon follows you, sitting further back to avoid the brunt of the waves. You sit on your knees, finding out quickly that it’s the optimum way to remain upright while the waves wash against you while digging for shells. 

Securing the net’s string around your wrist, you begin to dig into the sand, searching. Brushing against something, you wrap your hand around it, pulling up a lightning whelk shell, fully intact! “Aha! Look, honey!” You exclaimed, showing off your successful find.

“Oh, wow! Fully intact, too. Good job sweetheart,” Leon says, smiling at you. You grin back, going back to digging. As you move further in, the waves begin their assault against you, periodically a whap against your back while you hunt. Not paying it any mind, you continue, whereas Leon has taken notice.

“Baby, the waves are hitting you pretty hard, do you want to move up some? Get away from them?” He asks, concern lacing his voice. “No, I’m okay! They aren’t bothering me!” You reply back, slightly distracted by your current activity. 

“Well, why don’t we swim some? Your bag looks pretty full.” He was right. Glancing down, you hadn’t realized how many you had already found. You nod, cinching your shell bag closed, you bring it back to your spot on the beach. After dropping it off, you head back to the shoreline, Leon having gotten up already and wading into the water.

Following him out, you swim out where the water is up to your chest, beginning to float. You let the waves rock your body, a lulling rhythm as you lean back, closing your eyes and letting yourself float on the surface. 

You feel something brush against your back, startling you. Letting out a shout, your body jolting and beginning to move away, before arms encircle your waist. “Jus’ me, baby,” Leon whispers in your ear, having swam up underneath you, now cradling your body against his.

“Almost gave me a heart attack,” You mutter, relaxing against his hold. He chuckles, “Gotta keep you on your feet, don’t I?” He responds. You let out a giggle, squeezing his forearm that keeps you against him. You two float there, staring up at the azure sky. The sounds of seagulls flying overhead and the lapping of the waves creating a peaceful ambiance.

Leon sighs, closing his eyes and letting the burdens and stress float away with the current. “This is so nice,” You whisper, laying your head against his shoulder. “Yeah, it is. Even nicer with you here with me, baby.” He kisses the top of your head, smelling of saltwater and faintly of sunscreen.

You hum, nodding your head. Glad to have this time with him. It’s not often he’s allowed some time away from work, especially not for a week. But he was promised the entirety of his vacation wouldn’t be disturbed, allowing him alone time with you.

You two stay there, treading water, for what seems like hours. You begin to grow tired, knowing it wouldn’t be wise to fall asleep in the water, regardless if Leon is holding you up. You decide to swim back to shore, wanting to also take a closer look at all the shells you found. 

“I’m going to head back, okay?” You detach yourself from him, heading for the shore. “Don’t get tide get you!” You call out. “Don’t worry, if the current sweeps me out to sea, just collect the life insurance.” Him and his dry ass humor. “Leon!” You yell, snapping your head back towards him. He just laughs, amused at your reaction. 

Reaching land, you sit down on the towel laid out, dumping out the contents of your bag, assorting them from biggest to the smallest. Not long after, Leon joins you, body glistening from the ocean water, his chest scars faint against his skin. He begins toweling off his hair as he sits down on one of the beach chairs. As he works on drying his body, he begins watching you work, a content smile spreading across his features.

Your hands make quick work of organizing the shells, moving fast as concentration furrows your brow. Leon then notices the color washing over your features, turning to look at the sun bathing the beach in a variety of colors that leave him awestruck. 

You glance up at Leon, taking notice of him staring off into the eventide, seemingly lost in thoughts. His body relaxed, face serene. You get up and make your way over to him, holding your hand out. “Let’s take a walk along the shore,” You say, catching his attention. He grins up at you, grabbing your hand and pulling himself up. 

You walked alongside him, hand in hand. The sun begins to dip below the horizon, bathing the sky in hues of gold and orange. Something like this, so domestic, seemed far out of reach for Leon. He allows himself to fantasize, hopeful that one day times like these won’t last just a week at a time, but every day for the rest of his life, with you by his side.

[anneapocalypse]

Why Anders and Fenris can't be friends (in the game)

Recently I made a short post that was supposed to stay that way, but instead it took over my brain for several days so I'm going to expand on it. In that post, I said:

"Why can't Fenris and Anders get along? Why can't they see what they have in common?" Because it's a story about how people can be practically and philosophically correct about a specific thing, and also get so mired in their own pain and trauma that they can't relate to people whose pain and trauma comes from a different source and who are right about something else, especially if trying to reconcile those two things would threaten their sense of self. And that is, imo, both more interesting and more true to the human experience than if they simply looked past all that without any difficulty.

So, with that as our starting point, why don't Anders and Fenris find common ground by the end of the game? Wouldn't that be a strong character arc for both of them, and aren't both characters lesser for not getting there? Is this an oversight, rushed development, bad writing?

I think the answer to these questions lies in the journeys that Anders and Fenris are each on over the course of the game, and in this post I'm going to explore both of their arcs a bit, where they’re both going and why their paths are divergent in the game. Specifically I mean to argue here that they cannot find common ground during the game because Fenris spends the game finding safety, while Anders spends the game becoming progressively less safe.

Disclaimer time! This post is not meant as a refutation of anyone’s ships or headcanons! You do you. What I hope to explore here is why things go the way they do in the game itself.

I’m also aware that this game has been out for over a decade, that there is nothing new under the sun, that both of these characters provoke strong feelings in a lot of us, and that some fans are just tired of hearing about them in general. If the latter is you, please feel free to scroll right on by; no need to inform me.

This analysis will necessarily involve discussing both characters’ flaws as well as their strengths (as well as those of some other characters), but it’s coming from a place of love and appreciation for these characters as complex and multi-faceted. Please refrain from expressing character hate on this post.

Content warnings: discussion of slavery, the Chantry explosion, abuse and trauma generally.

Anders' Journey

It has been said that Anders' character arc in DA2 is a downward spiral while Fenris is on a slow road to recovery. And I basically agree with that, but I don't think of it as a downward spiral in terms of negative character growth, precisely. While I do think there are ways in which Anders becomes less able and willing to empathize with others over the course of the game, I consider that more of a side effect of what's happening to him than a sign of him being on some kind of moral downturn.

To me, the downward spiral is that Anders spends the entire game losing hope.

As an apostate in Kirkwall (and a possessed one at that), I think it is important to recognize that Anders is never truly safe. It seems likely to me that the only reason he remains free for so long is because he happens to befriend some very powerful and influential people in Kirkwall—most notably, Varric Tethras, who is known to pay people off to keep his friends safe from the city's various criminal organizations, and I don't think it's unlikely that he's payed off templars as well.

Even in his closest circle of friends, Anders isn't completely safe. And it isn't Fenris who poses the greatest danger to him! The one character who actively suggests they turn in Anders (and Merrill) to the templars is Sebastian in Act III—and it's Fenris who brushes him off, telling him to "work it out with Hawke." I don't think Fenris would lose any sleep if it happened, but he actively declines to be a part of it. While Fenris is not above turning in mages generally (he will rat out Emile de Launcet to the Knight-Commander if brought along for “On the Loose”), there's no evidence that Fenris has ever made an active attempt to turn Hawke's mage companions over to the templars; if nothing else, he has too much respect for Hawke.

There's another companion who we know has turned mages in. Aveline and Anders get off to a pretty sour start right in Act I when Aveline asks if she can "consult" with him, and Anders guesses (rightly, it seems) that she just wants information on how to fight and kill mages. Needless to say, he is not forthcoming with help. Their Act II banter begins with Anders pointing out that she isn't a particularly mage-friendly Captain of the Guard, where Aveline counters that she’s only turned “a handful” over to the templars. Between Act II and Act III, there is a mounting tension between the two of them, with Anders in the final act doing his best to nudge Aveline away from defending the templars. Not even ideologically—he knows that's a losing battle with Aveline—but by bringing up Meredith's overreach and the fact that even Donnic doesn't agree with the Knight-Commander. When explaining to Hawke why he hasn't included them in the Mage Underground, Anders cites Hawke's connections to the nobility and to the Guard. It's no mystery who he's talking about.

There are people among Hawke's companions who pose an actual danger to Anders—and Fenris is not at the top of that list, no matter how much they may despise each other. And I think Anders' interactions with Fenris are especially vitriolic, not in spite of that fact, but because of it. I'd say similar of Merrill, the other companion Anders arguably has the most acrimony with. Neither Fenris nor Merrill poses any true threat to Anders. They are both elves who do not benefit from drawing attention to themselves; Merrill is a blood mage and Fenris an escaped former slave. While both of them hold views that make them philosophically or potentially dangerous, neither has ever actually acted against Anders.

Now, Anders does argue with Aveline and Sebastian. Repeatedly. He's not shy about stating his opinions and questioning theirs. But notice how the way he argues differs with each character. With Aveline, he appeals to her sense of order and propriety. With Sebastian, he appeals to his sense of righteousness. We see this particularly in Act III, once things have gotten especially dire. And he does start out similarly with Fenris, trying to draw a comparison between mages in the Circles and slaves in Tevinter—a tactic which utterly fails to move Fenris, and Anders drops it pretty quickly.

I think Anders' dialogue with Fenris gets especially nasty a) because Fenris is a rival against whom Anders can afford to vent his anger with less restraint, and b) because Fenris's existence makes Anders feel threatened in an entirely different way than Aveline and Sebastian. Anders knows that the Captain of the Guard and the noble-turned-Chantry-brother are not on his side, and it is in his best interest to be persuasive toward them, but also philosophically they're opposed to him in a way that he finds easy to refute. He is very firm in his convictions that the Circles are unjust and that they are a corruption of what Andraste taught and fought for. He may have little chance of actually persuading Aveline and Sebastian, but he's also in no danger of being persuaded by them. In other words, they may threaten his physical safety and that of other mages, but they do not challenge his core beliefs, his sense of self.

But Fenris does.

Anders has spent most of his life locked up for being a mage, running away and being caught, and subject to profound abuses. Since his final escape and joining with Justice, he has found purpose and hope in fighting for the cause of mage freedom. If his cause is just, then it is worth living for and fighting for, what he has lost he can endure, and what he’s had to do for that cause is justified. If he admits to himself that magic is itself a power that can be abused, that magic has anything to do with the atrocities Tevinter, that calls his purpose into question. If the unchecked use of magic has the potential to create a society just as unjust as the one he knows, that unravels his present idea of justice, which is quite literally part of his identity!

And maybe if this were a different story, Anders' arc would be about confronting those challenges and deciding how to move forward with them. But this isn't that story, because this is a story set in Kirkwall, where the templars' abuses of power over mages are happening right now, right in front of him, and every effort he makes to change that is systematically crushed.

This is really critical to Anders' arc! He is not a character who has spent the whole game achieving his goals and then escalating those goals. Almost everything he has tried to do has failed. And it's really not due to any strategic failing on his part; the Circle is just too powerful. His attempt to save Karl introduces this theme right at the beginning. Anders does his best; he does everything he can. But he is up against forces he cannot stop. Karl is doomed by the narrative so that we can understand what Anders is facing.

And it does not get any better! There's another tumblr post out there about how every companion quest for Anders is basically you go to see how he's doing, and he's doing bad. And it's true! Because things just keep getting worse. His Act II quest "Dissent" gives us a firsthand glimpse of the abuses taking place inside the Circle. "Dissent" is sometimes read as an example of Anders' paranoia, because both the Knight-Commander and the Grand Cleric had rejected Ser Alrik's plan to make all mages tranquil. I don't fully agree with that reading. Anders knows that such a proposal has been drawn up, and he is absolutely correct about that. He just doesn't know it’s been rejected, and frankly from where he’s standing, he has every reason to worry it might not be. Furthermore, Anders tells Hawke that there are templars within the Circle, most notoriously Ser Alrik, who are misusing the Rite of Tranquility even by Circle standards and who enjoy torturing and abusing mages—and then we see exactly that firsthand with Alrik and Ella, so Anders was entirely correct in that case.

By Act III, the Mage Underground has been completely dismantled, the Knight-Commander has openly seized control of Kirkwall, and half of Anders' own social group will still barely admit there's a problem. His ambient dialogue as early as the end of Act II is "I can't go on like this." It's hard not to feel the sheer despair radiating off Anders by the third Act.

His attack on the Chantry is not something he was always planning and working toward. It's a last resort he undertakes because every other avenue has failed. In seven years, he has helped to free individual mages, but he has made no progress toward dismantling or frankly even improving the Circle as a whole; in fact, it's only gotten worse. Now the lives of every mage in the Circle are threatened as Meredith seeks the Right of Annulment for little more than suspicions of blood magic. Individual rescues are not a solution. His written appeals to the public have had little practical effect. If he wants to save Kirkwall's mages, he has very few options left.

And if you listen to the way Anders speaks—if you look at his face after the explosion as he waits for Hawke's response—he is not happy about this. He is not dancing on the ashes. In fact, he looks heartbroken. There is collateral damage from the Chantry explosion and Anders knows there will be and he does not take that lightly. This is foreshadowed very well in a piece of banter with Isabela:

Anders: There is justice in the world. Isabela: Is there? You want to free the mages. Let's say you do, but to get there, you kill a bunch of innocent people. Isabela: What about them? Don't they then deserve justice? Anders: Yes.

Anders accepts this justice. He leaves Hawke out of his plans regardless of whether Hawke would have supported him because he means to accept the consequences for himself. He accepts whatever sentence he is given without resistance.

Regardless of how you feel about Anders' attack on the Chantry (and I'd prefer not to fight with anyone about that here), I recount all of this to make the point that his arc in the game is a long slide into despair and desperation, and for what I think are very understandable reasons. And over these seven years, it's pretty clear that Anders feels increasingly alone in his efforts. He feels like everyone is against him. There are things he feels he cannot tell even Hawke, no matter how supportive Hawke may be, because of Hawke's connections.

These are basically the worst possible conditions for a person to be able to extend patience and empathy to someone of very different experience with whom they are ideologically at odds.

Anders straight up doesn't have any energy, or emotional bandwidth, or whatever you want to call it, left for that. When he says, "I am the cause of mages. There is nothing else inside me," he means it. He is drained—emotionally, spiritually, probably physically, in all possible ways. He is particularly caustic in the back half of the game, and at times says some truly mean and petty things to and about other characters and I will not defend those things, but it is so understandable to me why he gets like this, stretched absolutely to the breaking point and ready to snap.

Anders' journey in Dragon Age II is a tragedy. Depending on the choices Hawke makes, it may not be the end of his story; there is still the possibility that he lives to see a changing world in which he himself can begin, after all these years, to breathe easier, to heal. I think that's going to be a long process, but it is absolutely possible.

Within the timeframe of the game itself, I don't think it is possible for Anders to go on the journey he's on and also figure out how to get along with Fenris. In fact I think those two things are antithetical to each other. Post-game, the world is wide with possibility. But not in the game itself. "Learn how to play well with others" (especially others who are diametrically opposed to everything he believes in) is so emphatically not the story being told with Anders in this game, and the entire climax of the game is built on top of the story it's been telling us with Anders. Because of that, I cannot see "Anders and Fenris become friends" as what could have been or what should have been. It's not just an add-on in this case; it's a change that rewrites the whole story.

Fenris's Journey

Upon arriving in Kirkwall, Fenris's history does at first glance share a lot of commonalities with Anders: he is an escapee who's managed to evade his captors for a few years now, and in Kirkwall he finds reason to settle down, though he is not out of danger yet.

But their paths start to diverge pretty much immediately.

First, let's just acknowledge that Kirkwall is, objectively, a safer city for Fenris than it is for Anders. That's not to say it is truly safe; Danarius is still hunting for Fenris and has connections in Kirkwall, and no human city is particularly safe for elves. Fenris finds himself pursued at some point in every act, culminating with Danarius himself in Act III.

Fenris is, however, much more able to defend himself against hired mobs of slavers operating illegally in the south than a lone apostate is able to defend him against an army of templars who have the backing of the city guard should they decide to actually come for him. Fenris's pursuers do not rule Kirkwall, and they don't have the guard on their side; they do not have a base of operations just a short boat ride away, and they are not sending troops to daily patrol the streets and look for a person of his description.

Had Fenris stayed in Tevinter, that would be exactly his situation, and if Anders had fled north, the templars tracking him would likely have faced more difficulty apprehending him. But this story doesn't take place in Tevinter, it takes place in Kirkwall, and Fenris has some advantage here just by nature of have escaped to the south.

Is Fenris truly safe in Kirkwall? No, and that's the setup for his whole character arc. The critical difference is that Fenris's arc is toward finding safety, while Anders' is not.

Let us note also that there is no one in Hawke's immediate friend group actively threatening to sell Fenris back into slavery. The Captain of the Guard, while she needles him about squatting in Hightown, also does not take the side of slavers. Even the pirate is against the trafficking of people. The only one in that group who has the potential to do such a thing to Fenris is Hawke, and only if Hawke decides to recruit Fenris, pretend to be his friend for seven years (even rivalries are still fundamentally friendships, just more challenging and complicated ones), before selling him out for, at most, a sum that should frankly be an insult to Hawke at that point in their career.

Hawke’s mage companions feel like threats to Fenris, yes, because his life experience has led him to conclude that no mage is truly safe. Anders and Merrill in particular represent the additional dangers of abominations and blood mages, respectively. But Anders’ core convictions pose a particular challenge not only to Fenris’ worldview, but to the very sense of safety he has only just begun to have.

Fenris spent most of his life enslaved and subjected to profound abuses. Since his escape to the south, he has found a sense of safety in the black-and-white concept that mages are dangerous and only non-mages can be trusted. If this is true, it means that in a world where mages are locked up, he can be safe. If what happened to him is, even in a broad sense, not unique to a land ruled by mages, then it could happen anywhere. (And unfortunately, that’s true. The slave trade is alive and well in the south, illegal though it may be, as we see in our many encounters with slavers.) If he admits to himself that many mages are just like him–subject to profound abuse and deserving of freedom—that sense of safety he is building for himself as a free man in the south is shattered. While he is still on the run, actively evading capture, this is not a possibility he is emotionally able to entertain.

It may be said that Fenris’s arc is about learning to let go of his anger; I disagree with that reading, or at least I think it is a very incomplete one. For one thing, it misses the very important point that the person his anger is for is still alive and actively pursuing him for most of the game. It’s easy to take Flemeth’s remark to Fenris, “The chains are broken, but are are you truly free?” as like, a philosophical statement, but no! He literally is not truly free so long as he still has to live as a fugitive, always looking over his shoulder, always waiting for the inevitable. He tells this to Hawke right in Act I: he will never truly be free until Danarius is dead, and if Danarius doesn’t show up eventually, Fenris will go hunt him down himself.

He is angry about this. He carries a deep rage not only for what has been done to him, what has been stolen from him, but also that even now Danarius is still taking from him and fucking up his life. Listen to the fury with which he says, “I was a fool to think I was free,” during “A Bitter Pill” in Act II.

And he needs that anger. Right now, that anger is still protecting him. It gives him the courage, as he says, to “turn and face the tiger.” His hatred of Hadriana compels him to seek her out and kill her rather than running again. And killing Hadriana is absolutely the right decision! There is nothing to be gained from leaving her alive, she certainly doesn’t deserve his mercy, and taking her out of the picture eliminates one more tool Danarius can use against him.

Where this scene shows Fenris’s need for growth is when he then lashes out at Hawke, regardless of their response. His anger isn’t the problem; his anger is valid and necessary. The problem is that it sometimes targets the wrong people: mages generally and his own friends in specific. But until Danarius is dead, Fenris cannot let go of that anger because it is necessary for his survival.

If you’re a Fenris fan, you know that moment in Act III in the Hanged Man, when he’s come to meet Varania and he sees Danarius. The expression on his face when the camera zooms in is nothing like the way he looks at Hadriana, with unfettered rage. The look when he sees Danarius is pure horror. He’s been waiting for this confrontation for ten years, but I think in that moment we realize he has also been terrified of it. He remembers what happened the last time he had a taste of freedom and Danarius came for him, and though he knows he has grown since then, those emotions are still there—the horror of having turned on the people who sheltered him, the shame of realizing how deep his conditioning was, the revulsion at what Danarius had made him. Anger has kept those feelings at a distance, but now, with Danarius before him at last, he must confront them all over again. Only this time, with friends at his back, he will fight.

With Danarius dead, it’s finally over. And whether Fenris chose to kill or spare his sister, he is now forced to confront the person he’s had to be to survive until this point.

The point of Fenris’s restlessness and dissatisfaction following his victory isn’t that killing Danarius was wrong or pointless. On the contrary: we have seen throughout the entire game that there was no other way for him to truly find freedom. At the risk of getting too clinical here, trauma (which includes long periods of unrelenting high stress) tends to leave people with emotions and coping mechanisms that were necessary for their survival at the time but become maladaptive once they are away from their trauma stressors. We have already seen this with Fenris, in the way his anger sometimes targets the wrong people, and Fenris himself is aware of this, at least in his interpersonal relationships: on his own initiative he seeks Hawke out to apologize after lashing out at them. In Act II, I think we even see the early stages of Fenris beginning to extend his circle of empathy after “Dissent,” when instead of calling Anders a monster, he suggests that Anders realize his limitations, adding that it was a suggestion, not a condemnation. I think it helps in that moment that Anders seems to take responsibility for what he did, or almost did, to Ella, even if he understandably does not react well to Fenris’s “suggestion.”

And now that Danarius is dead, Fenris is beginning to realize that while his fight for freedom is over, his path to healing has really just begun. There’s a reason he isn’t ready for a romantic relationship with Hawke until Act III, and it isn’t just that intimacy was triggering or the brief recovery of his memories upsetting. Until Danarius is dead, Fenris’s emotional growth really can only go so far, because he is still at least partly stuck in survival mode, and the anger and the blanket concept of “mages dangerous” are coping mechanisms he has developed in order to survive.

With Danarius dead, now Fenris can begin to let go. Now he can go further in examining who deserves his anger and who does not. Now he can begin to truly heal. And can he learn to sympathize with mages one day and stop seeing magic as the ultimate evil? I actually do think the answer is yes. But that’s at least a five-step plan, and his arc in the game is mainly concerned with accomplishing step 2. Step 1 was “Get out of Tevinter.” Step 2 was “make Danarius dead.” The next few steps are a lot less cut and dry, involving a lot of difficult emotional work. He has begun that process, but it’s a work in progress.

With friends to support his journey, I do think Fenris can still come a long way. I just don’t think he could possibly have gotten there before Act III.

Conclusions

Fenris and Anders are on very different journeys over the course of Dragon Age II. They cannot be friends or sympathize with one another in the timeframe of the game, not because they have nothing in common, but because neither of them are in a position to let their guard down in the ways they would have to in order to connect with each other. Neither of them have reached the level of healing they would need in order to do that, and it’s not possible for either of them to reach that point in the journeys they’re on during the game, with the stories the game is telling.

That doesn’t mean, however, that it’s not possible for them to reach that point in the future. Under the right circumstances, both of them may have the rest of their lives to heal and to grow.

[therealvinelle]

This is a question about how Twilight vampires’ gifts would respond in a bizarre but common-ish scenario.

So I don’t know whether Vinelle you’ve have this kind of experience, but I live in a quite crowded city. Sometimes, when I am walking in a narrow lane, and someone is walking toward me from the other side. And then the passerby and I would dodge at the same time in order to make way, but both of the passerby and I would somehow sidestep towards the same direction, blocking each other in the result.

If Twilight’s vampires were in this lane, which vampire could avoid sidestepping towards the same direction as the passerby? Only Edward? Aro probably can’t because he has to touch the passerby. Or do you think other vampires might avoid this?

And note that I know vampires are faster/have faster reaction time than normal humans so this presumable scenario is uh let’s say the passerby in the said question somehow had a similar speed and reaction time as a Twilight vampire.

Thank you again and have a great day! Sorry for my bizarre question though.

Oh this must be the greatest ask I've received in at least a month. Anon, I love you.

To answer this question, I'm dividing the answer into three: vampires whose gifts will definitely prevent the crab evade, vampires whose gift might prevent the crab evade, and people whose gifts would help only in very specific circumstances

Vampires whose gift will prevent them stepping towards the same direction as the passerby

Alice Alice sees the passerby's decision to sidestep, and continues merrily ahead.

Edward While Edward will tune people out whenever he can, once he's noticed a person he is aware of their thoughts. If he has noticed the passerby he was about to collide into, he is aware of their thoughts, and so knows that they're sidestepping. He doesn't need to do the same, and continues ahead. If he somehow fails to notice, he also continues ahead and the sidestep is avoided.

Siobhan As Siobhan does not wish to collide with people, the universe makes it so she never does. She somehow has never experienced this scenario, and when Carlisle gives her an odd look she insists it's merely because she watches where she's going.

Victoria If there's a chance the other person will get aggressive if Victoria gets in their way, she's staying away from streets for today because there are scary people out there. In fact she's staying out of crowded places always, because there might be scary people out there so her gift is telling her to stay clear just in case (remember she nearly had a panic attack at the prospect of playing baseball with the Cullens), and so I move her from the special circumstances section to this one.

Vampires whose gift might prevent them stepping towards the same direction as the passerby

Afton If I'm going to be extremely charitable towards Afton, then "invisible unless people are looking at him" can be interpreted as being very unnoticeable. His power is to be a wallflower, in which case the passerby doesn't take enough notice of him to do the sidestep. Afton has to hop out of their way to avoid a collision, and the sidestep has been prevented.

Fred It is Fred's gift to fill people in his immediate surroundings with a sense of revulsion which makes them evade him. When he tunes it up to full there is a wide berth of people avoiding him as he walks, and he never needs to sidestep anybody, the sidestep of course occurring when he's not actively using his gift (as I understand it to be a subtle sense of discomfort when the gift is on standby).

Renata Like Fred, she must turn her gift on. Once she has, people trying to get in her way find themselves walking off in random directions instead, hopefully not into the road.

Vampires whose gift would help only in very specific circumstances

Aro If it's someone he has never touched before, he's out of luck. If, however, the circumstances are that he has, then he'll know whether they are the type to move out of his way or not. His guard, for instance, are certain to move out of his way while Marcus is too dead inside to notice and Aro's the one who has to hop out.

Bella If Bella has a prophetic dream about this exact scenario (or a metaphor for it) then she's not sidestepping. Hooray for Bella.

[yellowsugarwords]

A scenario where the s2 cabin group stop to rest by a campfire for a little but but while they get ready to sleep they see Clem stay a bit farther away from the others and away from the campfire. How do they all react?

more angst YES

Luke: Luke stretched, easing himself onto a log around the fire, keeping his hands warm. Just past the flames, Luke glanced up, spotting Clementine in the distance, shrouded in the darkness, seemingly laying her bag down on the road. “Clem?” She glanced up, pausing. Without another word, Clem roped her bag and wandered over. “Come, sit.” Luke said, gesturing to the open spot beside him. Quietly, Clem did. “What are you doing all the way over there?” Clem shrugged. “It seems nice and quiet.” “And here doesn’t?” He asked, gesturing to an open spot near the fire. Clem merely looked at it, but didn’t respond. “Is everything okay, Clem?” She hesitated for a moment, looking down at her hands in her lap. “It’s hard to relax when I’m around everyone.” She said faintly. “It’s hard to trust that I can stay that close.” Clem knew she could trust Luke. To anyone else, she wasn’t sure if she would confess such a thing. Luke frowned, pitying the young girl. “Hey,” he said softly. “If you’re not tired yet, just hang here with me. Stay warm, then you can go over there to sleep.” Clem nodded, even though Luke knew he would watch over her the moment she went to bed. He didn’t want her to be that far away. Her worried about her.

Nick: Nick knew this would only be temporary, but it didn’t make things any better. He hated nights like these. Sleeping on the dirt killed his back, but it was better than nothing at all. Before he crawled into his sleeping bag, he turned to the fire to ensure it was safely burning. That’s when he spotted Clementine, a ways off into the darkness, away from the fire, curling into her sleeping bag. He glanced around, noting everyone else was asleep, and drew closer. “Why are you all the way out here?” “It’s quieter.” Clementine said, without turning to look at him. In reality, she didn’t want to get too attached. She knew she shouldn’t. It was only going to cause more hurt later. Aren’t you cold?” “I’m fine.” Clementine was laying down, clutching her makeshift pillow, eyes closed. Nick frowned. He felt for her. He knew what it was like to isolate yourself. She must have struggled through so much. She was too afraid to get close to them, emotionally and, now, physically. “Try to have a good sleep.” Clementine said nothing, curling into herself, already feeling the chill of the cool night air.

Pete: Pete would sigh to himself, stretching his back after setting up his sleeping bag. He had made the fire and hauled the wood, and he could really feel it in his muscles. As he turned to rest by the fire, taking a sip from the wine bottle they had saved from the cabin, he spotted shuffling in the distance. His hand instinctively went to the knife on his hip until he realized what it was. He took a quick swing and wandered over. “Clem, what are you doing?” He turned, seeing just how far she was from the fire. “You’ll freeze over here.” “I like the cold.” Pete hesitated, then sat down, registering what was going on. “What’s really going on?” “I like privacy.” “Clem,” Pete pushed gently. He knew a broken person when he saw one. He also knew an anxious, distrustful person. “I know something’s eating at you.” Clementine closed her eyes. “It’s just hard to sleep that close to other people.” She confessed. Pete nodded, his heart pained for the child. “I’ll stay and take guard if you’d like to sleep closer to the fire,” he offered. Clem hesitated, eyes opening. “Maybe.” Was all she said. Pete knew he couldn’t push it, so waited for her to make the decision herself. One day at a time. One step at a time.

Carlos: Carlos ensured Sarah was in her sleeping bag, ready for bed, before he turned to the fire. He was going to control it more and sit awake, unable to sleep after such a day. His mind was too active. Just as he went to tend to the flames, he heard rustling in the distance and turned, spotting Clementine curling into her sleeping bag and falling asleep. He didn’t hesitate and went straight to her. “Clementine?” She opened her eyes without moving her already-resting head. “Why are you all the way out here? There’s plenty of room.” “I’m okay.” Clem said, closing her eyes again, as if to ignore him. “I like it out here.” “You’ll get too cold during the night.” “I’ll be fine. I’ve slept in worse.” Carlos frowned, hands on his hoops at how stubborn she was being. If she was his child, he would’ve pulled her right to the fire. But, she wasn’t. Instead, he left without a word, but set a folded up extra blanket beside her in case she needed it throughout the night.

Sarah: Sarah found nights like this scary but exciting. It felt like a sleepover. She’d barely had any of those before the world seemed to collapse at the seams. What made it actually feel like a sleepover was Clementine - someone around her age. They could gossip all night over whispers and soft giggles. As Sarah turned around, searching for Clementine so she could pull her sleeping bag closer, but couldn’t see her. In fact, she couldn’t see her anywhere. “Clementine?” She called nervously, not wanting to wake the others. “What?” Came a soft reply, off in the distance. Sarah picked up her bag and drew closer, spotting Clementine in the corner of their small, enclosed area. “What are you doing all the way over here?” “I like the privacy.” She said passively. Sarah hesitated, turning around and staring at the fire, lighting up the filled sleeping bags full of their team. With a deep breath, Sarah laid her sleeping bag down and curled in. “I’ll join you.” Clem didn’t dispute her decision. Clementine watched with one eye open, shocked she was even willing to. “Gosh, it’s freezing over here.” Sarah mumbled, curling herself deeper into her bag. Clem smirked and closed her eyes, feeling cozy with her friend by her side.

Alvin: Alvin sighed, stepping away from the fire to cool off. He had been the one to arrange the logs around the fire, keeping everyone close to the heat. As he wandered away, he spotted Clementine, resting in the corner, curling into her bag. “What are you doing all the way out here?” Alvin asked, setting his hands on his hips. Clementine glanced up, sitting upright in her bag. “It’s nice over here.” “Nicer than by the fire?” “Quieter.” Alvin hesitated, slowly connecting the pieces together. He had seen it before with Sarah; isolation. She was overwhelmed with all of the changes. She was too young to deal with everything the day had offered her. What this world had offered her. “Well, at least let me bring you another blanket, okay?” He asked gently. “Then, I’ll leave you be.” Clementine only nodded, not wanting to argue. Besides, it was chilly in the corner. Maybe it would be nice. Besides, Alvin had always looked out for her right from the moment they first met. He always knew what was best.

Rebecca: Rebecca groaned as she eased herself into a seat. She needed to sit up for a while before attempting to go to bed. Her back was already killing her thanks to her pregnancy, and needed to sit upright to stretch before she fell asleep on the dirt road they were stationed on. Noticing shuffling in the distance, Rebecca’s heart tensed. Then, Clementine emerged from the shows, adjusting her hat and going for a sip of some of their clean water. “Clem,” Rebecca said, an eyebrow raised. “Come here.” Clementine hesitated, then caved and drew closer. “What are you doing over there?” Now, Clem raised a brow. “Getting ready to sleep?” Rebecca scoffed. “No you’re not. All the way over there.” Clementine said nothing. “Bring your sleeping bag closer.” “I like it over there.” Rebecca paused, studying her expression. It was blank, empty, as though there was nothing left inside of her. “Are you going to be warm enough?” Clem nodded. Just as Clementine turned around again, Rebecca stopped her. “Take this at least.” She said, handing Clementine a tattered old blanket. ‘It’s the only extra we have.” Cautiously, Clem took it, nodded in thanks, then continued on her way. It wasn’t a lot, but it was all Rebecca could think to do.

𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘬 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘴𝘮 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 💌☕️♡

[lousypotatoes]

But They're Always Tryin' To Waste Me

Pt. 1 Pt 2 Pt 3

Song Recommendation:

Mary On A Cross - Ghost

"So what'd ya think?"

"I'm sorry, but what the fuck was that!?"

"You call that a commercial? Seriously what in the actual fuck is wrong with you!?"

Y/N and Vaggie glared at Alastor in anger.

Charlie and Vaggie were sitting on the couch, while Y/N was standing to the side, the three of them just finished watching Alastor's terrible commercial.

"Uh yeah, one note..." Charlie said awkwardly. "Alastor I mean - First off, thank you so much for making this, seriously amazing, but um maybe the tone is a bit...off?"

"A bit? He made the hotel look like a complete joke!" Y/N said.

"We want people to want to come here," Charlie explained. "This makes it look ummm..."

"Bad," Vaggie bluntly said. "The word you're looking for is bad.

Y/N nodded in agreement.

"Funny, I was going for hilarious!" Alastor said.

"It explained nothing about how we're trying to save these sinners," Y/N spat. "Which is the whole fucking point, by the way."

"Y/N is right, Alastor." Charlie reasoned. "The commercial was to let sinners know we are trying to help them."

"Well, my dear, I haven't been active in Hell for some time, and everyone remembers me from my radio show!" Alastor said. "The proper medium to express oneself! But you insisted on this noisy picture box advertisement, so I had a little fun with it."

"Oh fun. You had a little fun with it?" Vaggie snarled. "Well, this is not what we want to represent us. When you showed up here a week ago, you told us you would help run this hotel!"

"Instead, you're mocking us," Y/N added, her arms crossed. "No one's gonna come to a place where a powerful Overlord like you thinks is a fucking joke!"

Suddenly, Angel raised his gloved hand.

"What now?" Y/N groaned.

"If'n ya filmin' a commercial," Angel Dust said. "Can I suggest you take better advantage of the talented celebrity you have right here?"

"Angel, you're a porn star." Vaggie said.

"A famous porn star!" Angel corrected. "I'll have the horniest sinners knockin' down these walls to get in!"

"For the last time, we are not filming you sucking another's guy dick as a commercial!" Isabell said tiredly, getting up and walking over to the bar, needing a drink.

"Why not? Sex sells, don't it?" Angel asked. "I swear if you film goin' at it with mister fancy talk-creepy voice here, you'd be rollin' in participants willin' to stay at this tacky hotel."

"Haha! Never going to happen!" Alastor laughed.

"What'll it be?" Husk asked, wiping down the counter.

"Literally anything that makes me forget about Alastor." Y/N groaned.

"Now you know how I feel," Husk grumbled, pouring Isabell a glass of scotch.

"Mmm, that's good," Y/N hummed in delight, finishing the whole thing. "Pour me some more, please."

"Alright," Husk said, pouring more into the glass.

"Hey, I have a question." Angel said suddenly. "If freaky face over there is so powerful, then why can't he just make people stay here?"

"Oh, trust me, I can!" Alastor said ominously.

"Why do you think I'm here?" Husk said. "You actually think I'd be cleaning bottles and listening to you fuck's bitch and moan all the time if he wasn't forcin' me?"

"I like being forced." Niffty said suddenly, making Y/N almost spit out her drink.

"Keep that to yourself, Niff." Husk said.

"What, you don't love being here with me, Whiskers?" Angel asked.

"Call me "Whiskers" again and I'll jam that bottle down your throat! Husk exclaimed.

"Kinky," Angel said suggestively. "C'mon keep talkin' dirty."

"Angel, please let Husk do his fucking job," Y/N sighed. "And no, we can't force sinners to stay here, they have to choose to."

"I'm choosing to be here, and I think it's all stupid," Angel said. "We're in Hell, Toots. That's kind of the end of the road, ain't it?"

"Well, maybe it doesn't have to be." Vaggie said. "Just because nobody has made it out before doesn't mean it's not possible."

"And if you think it's stupid, why don't you just leave then?" Y/N asked.

"'Cause I need a place to crash and crack's expensive." Angel answered.

"Of course you would say something like that." Y/N scoffed.

"Vaggie! Y/N! Holy shit!" Charlie exclaimed suddenly.

"Ahh! What?" Y/N and Vaggie said at the same time.

"Get over here!" Charlie said, gesturing for them to follow her.

"What's going on?" Y/N asked as her and Vaggie followed Charlie.

"My dad just called. He said that the leader of the Angel Army wants to meet. He asked if I could go instead." Charlie said, very fast.

"But-But the extermination just happened," Vaggie said. "What could they want this soon after--

~cue music~

Charlie: I can do this, somehow, I know it. I'll get Heaven behind my plan.

Vaggie: Charlie wait!

Charlie: There's just no way, I could blow it. Not this once in a lifetime chance.

Vaggie: It's just a meeting.

Charlie: To change their minds, and touch their hearts. Or whatever angels have.

Vaggie: This could be bad

Charlie: Cheer up, Vaggie, this could be swell. Something tells me that today will be a happy day in Hell!

Y/N: Okay, hun, just don't sing to them.

Angel: That bitch is halfway down the street.

Y/N: Is she-?

Angel: Oh, she's dancin'.

Vaggie and Y/N: Ugh, no!

~end music~

"Oh, I really hope the meeting goes well," Y/N said.

"Yeah, me too," Vaggie mumbled.

"Is everything okay, Vaggie?" Y/N worried.

"Yeah, I'm just worried the angels won't listen to her,"

"I'm sure they will," Y/N smiled.

Sprawling herself onto the couch, Y/N thought of the best idea.

"Oh my God, Vaggie!" she said, sitting bolt upright. "I just had the best idea ever!"

Alastor, Husk, Angel, and Niffty were all sitting on the couch in front of Y/N, Vaggie standing beside her.

"Okay, so Charlie is dealing with something super important right now," Y/N paced. "So, while she's gone, we are going to make a new commercial. One that represents her vision and our goal here."

Angel lazily raised his hand, a smirk on his face.

"Angel, if you say anything about us making a porno for the commercial, I will cut you."

Angel put his hand back down, a small frown on his face.

"Any questions?" Y/N asked.

Nobody said a word.

"Great, now we need a camera, Alastor?"

Alastor snapped his fingers and an old-timey camera from the nineteen thirties appeared in Y/N's hands.

"I meant a video camera," Y/N grumbled.

Alastor hummed in disapproval, but snapped is fingers again, this time a modern video camera appeared in Y/N's hands.

"All right, let's go!"

Y/N watched from the sidelines as Vaggie filmed a scene with Husk and Angel.

"And...action!" Vaggie whispered.

"'Welcome to the Hazbin Hotel, can I help you with anything?'" Husk read, the script right in front of his face.

"'I've been a bad boy, and I need a big, strong daddy to put me in my place...'" Angel said, climbing up onto the bar. "'On the path to redemption."

'"Well you come-'"

'"Oh yes!'"

'"...To the right place.'"

"Cut!" Vaggie called out.

"Okay, Angel you need to be less horny, if that's even possible," Y/N criticized.

"And Husk, can you maybe not have a script in front of your face?" Vaggie asked.

"I ain't no act, I can't memorize this shit!" Husk angrily.

"Well, we could improv this shit, baby cakes. Rawrr." Angel purred.

Husk then pushed off Angel off the bar, landing with a big thud.

"Whoops," Husk said.

"Husk, come on!" Vaggie said.

"Okay, we'll just come back to this scene," Y/N dryly said. "Husk, Angel, uh, just work on it a little more."

"I'm not makin' and promises," Husk said.

"At least try to work on it," Y/N frowned. "Please?"

Husk looked at Y/N not liking the frown on her face.

"Fuck, fine," Husk grumbled.

"Thanks," Y/N smiled.

"Niffty you're up!"

Niffty sat on the floor, trying to stab some cockroaches with a long, sharp needle.

"Alright Niffty," Vaggie said, trying to get Niffty's attention. "Niffty? Niffty!"

Niffty finally started to listen.

"Your line is, 'We have the cleanest rooms.'" Vaggie said gently. "Okay?"

"Got it! I'm ready!" Niffty exclaimed.

Vaggie started to record, Y/N watching the scene from behind her.

"Action," Vaggie said.

Niffty's face went black, her one eyeball staring into the camera.

Y/N, Vaggie, and Angel stared at her with confusion and a little bit of fear.

"Uhhh..cut,"

Niffty giggled. "How was that?"

"Niffty, sweetie, you have to actually say the line," Y/N explained. "Let's try this again."

"Okay!"

"Action,"

Niffty's face went blank again, making Y/N pinch the bridge of her nose in frustration.

"You're doing great, Vagina," Angel whispered.

"Cut!" Vaggie snarled.

"Okay, um," Y/N mumbled. "Maybe we can fix it in post."

"Do you even know what that means?" Angel asked.

"Yes, I know what it means!" Y/N snapped.

"Uh-huh," Angel said.

Before Y/N and Vaggie looked at the tape, Y/N decided that she needed another drink.

It was her fifth drink that day.

"Y'know, you should really slow down," Husk said, pouring her some whiskey.

"Slow down on what exactly?" Y/N snarked.

"This whole thing your doin'," Husk grumbled. "Tryin' to please everyone. You're just gonna exhaust yourself."

"It's kinda my job to make sure everyone here is happy," Y/N sipped on her drink. "Besides, it's for Charlie, so I don't care what happens to me in the process."

"You should," Husk said. "That kind of shit is important."

"Maybe to other people, but not to me," Y/N mumbled. "I stopped caring about what happens to me a long time ago."

"Hm, been there," Husk murmured.

It was silent for a moment, Husk looking down and Y/N drinking her whiskey.

"I should probably get back to Vaggie," Y/N got up. "Thanks for the drink, and the advice."

"Uh-huh, anytime," Husk said, pouring himself a drink.

Y/N smiled to herself and walked off.

Y/N and Vaggie sat in the living room, watching the footage they recorded on the TV.

"This was the worst idea I've ever had," Y/N cringed.

Vaggie groaned in agreement.

"Seems like you two are having a bit of trouble there, hm?" said a voice suddenly.

"Ugh, este pendejo...why are you even here?" Vaggie said.

"For the entertainment," Alastor said, sitting down next to Y/N, making her scoot away. "I came here because I love seeing wasteful souls struggle to accomplish something meaningful and fail spectacularly. Like you two are doing now!"

"Good job!"

Y/N picked up the camera and began recording. "Here's Alastor, a pompous piece of shit who-"

The video camera started to glitch and spark, making Y/N gasp and drop it.

"I wouldn't try that my dear," Alastor said sinisterly. "This face was made for radio!"

Y/N scoffed, not at all phased by him.

"That's it! I don't give a fuck who you are. If you're staying here, you're going to help. Because it won't be so 'entertaining' to watch over an empty hotel will it, asshole?"

"Fair enough," Alastor said. "I'll tell you what! Let's make a deal."

Vaggie laughed sarcastically. "Do you think we're that stupid? Making a deal with a demon like you?"

"Not for your souls, just a simple deal," Alastor replied. "I do this for you two, and you never ask me to engage with this frivolous television technology ever again!"

Y/N contemplated her what she would say.

"Or...Charlie can come back to absolutely nothing!" Alastor said smugly. "The choice is entirely up to you two."

Y/N sighed. "Fine. Vaggie?"

Vaggie nodded her head in agreeement.

Alastor took the video camera, making is disappear in a swirl of green smoke.

"Now then," he said, snapping his fingers.

Suddenly, movie cameras and lights appeared, shadow demons were behind the cameras. Everybody's outfit changed into something more like Alastor's taste, which was obviously from the 1930's.

Y/N stared at her outfit in delight, quite liking how it looked on her.

"Alright everyone!" Y/N exclaimed. "Let's make a fucking commercial!"

Vaggie and Y/N waited by the front door, while everybody else was sitting in front od the TV.

Finally, they heard the door open.

"Charlie!" Vaggie said, running up to her and hugging her.

Y/N automatically knew something was wrong when she saw the look on Charlie's face.

"How did it go?" Y/N asked. "Did they listen?"

"Oh, uhhh," Charlie listened. "They sure did...hear it! But, um..."

"Oh! Come here," Vaggie interrupted, grabbing Charlie's arm. "We have something exciting to show you."

Y/N followed behind as Vaggie pulled Charlie over to the couch.

"Alastor pulled some strings and it's about to air," Vaggie said, as Y/N stood next to Niffty.

"I pulled a few limbs too!" Alastor laughed.

"Wait, the commercial?" Charlie asked. "You all made a new one?"

"It was Y/N's idea," Vaggie said.

Charlie looked over at Y/N with the brightest expression on her face.

"Oh, don't give me all the credit," Y/N blushed.

"It was one of my better performances, if I do say so myself," Angel said.

"That's...that's amazing!" Charlie said, tears in her eyes.

"Shh, it's starting!" Angel said.

"Welcome to the Hazbin Hot-" Y/N said on the TV before it got interrupted by a news broadcast.

"Are you fucking serious?" Y/N angrily shouted.

Everyone else besides Husk and Alastor had the same reaction as her.

Besides Niffty, of course, she was laughing happily and clapping.

"Breaking news in Hell today!" Katie Killjoy said. "We have just received word from the Heaven Embassy that the next extermination is sooner than ever before."

Y/N's eyes widened in fear and disbelief.

"Do you know what that means, Tom?" Katie asked.

"No. What does it mean Katie?" Tom Trench replied.

"It means we're all royally fucked!" Katie said, climbing up onto the news table, her neck bending in a scary way.

The next show on the TV showed the extermination countdown going from three hundred fifty eight days down to one hundred seventy six days.

"Wait...what? Why!?" Angel asked in disbelief.

"This has to be some sort of sick joke," Y/N muttered in fear. "It has to be."

Everyone in the room (beside Niffty) all had a panicked look on their face.

They were all thinkin the same thing.

"We are literally going to die,"

IM SORRY THAT IS TOOK ME SO LONG TO UPLOAD

MY AMAZON PRIME LOGGED ME OUT AND IVE BEEN REALLY BUSY WITH MOVING IN AND PACKING

thank you for everyone who stayed patient :)

stay safe and drink lots of water <33

xoxo, Izzy

Taglist 💃

@mysticwitchcraftco @diffidentphantom @wendigonamecaller @barrythestrawberry041 @jx3-xd

@froggybich

[disaster-biraven]

Sent to you - Timari

Masterlist

For @the-coffee-fandom

The sunrise was breathtaking, as the cotton candy clouds streaked across the sky. But Marinette wished nothing more that she was missing it right now. She raced toward the Akuma as Chat leaped away, both dodging beams sent toward them. Chat had the misfortune of being struck twice already, sent to who knows where in Paris. It was a massive force of luck that his soulmate was already in the city of love. The first time he was hit Ladybug was resigned to finish the battle without him and nearly sobbed with relief when he returned minutes later.

“I uh- already knew her. Thankfully she hasn’t caught on to what the Akuma does, but, well-” She had never seen Chat quite so helpless. He had come face to face with a bemused Kagami and was only able to explain it was an Akuma before he rushed off to aid Ladybug. While he was on top of the world his girlfriend was his soulmate, it was confirmed to her while he was wearing a mask. She would soon figure out what this Akuma’s goals were.

“Is a reveal-” Ladybug understood what Chat meant. To meet her soulmate in the mask would be heart-wrenching.

“Please?” With a nod of her head, the black cat swept her into a hug.

It was apparent that Ladybug needed to retrieve the horse miraculous as soon as possible. Knowing how the balance between her and Chat worked, she'd be lucky if her soulmate was even in the same time zone, let alone continent. She told Chat the plan while moving to a spot impossible for the Akuma to reach her. Since it was so terribly early, there weren’t as many pedestrians on the sidewalks and roads, she noticed, relieved. Chat was struck for a third time and this was her sign to retreat. Kaalki was needed more than ever.

Equipped with the glasses, Ladybug felt more reassured when facing the Akuma. Chat distracted the lady as Ladybug came up behind her, reaching for the letter clutched in her hand.

“Bug no!” But Chat’s warning came too late as the Akuma whirled around and struck Ladybug dead on with a beam.

~

Her intuition on the timezone was correct, the sun went from peaking over the buildings to nowhere in sight. She lay on the roof of a building in the dead of night, with the sounds of a fight to her left. As she sat up, the two people didn’t seem to notice her. The city was vaguely familiar but obviously American. She turned back to the fight. One of the guys seemed close to her age and wore a domino mask and suit, fighting with a bo staff. The other person was trying and failing to fend him off with a knife about a foot long. As she observed the fight, the hero of some kind disarmed the thug and knocked him out cold. Without missing a beat he turned toward her in a defensive stance.

“I come in- peace? Look I was sent here by a villain of my own, so-” She itched to return to Paris immediately, but this was her soulmate (hopefully, if not her soulmate was knocked out cold) and he deserved some sort of explanation. “I really need to return to that fight. In Paris. Um, where am I?”

He blinked a few times, before lowering his staff.

“Gotham, I’m Red Robin, one of the vigilantes that work with Batman.” He looked at her considering something. “So why here? I mean we are vaguely aware of the situation over there with your emotional terrorist.”

She knew that she had contacted Wonder Woman a month after being guardian to let her know the miraculous was active again and the dangers of someone in the Justice League getting akumatized. She had asked her to brief everyone so they knew to stay out of Paris unless asked. But to be reminded Batman and his people knew about her was too much for the moment.

“Well, I didn’t have a choice. This particular akuma sends people to their, well, soulmates.” She prayed this didn’t backfire. “Surprise?”

Whatever Red Robin was expecting it wasn’t that. He put up his staff and clicked something in his ear.

“Oracle? I’m headed to Paris with one of their superheroes, it shouldn’t take long.” She assumed there was a response on the other line.

“Yes, and no promises. I’ll debrief completely after I get back.” With that, he turned back to Ladybug. “I believe you, and for that reason, I have to help. After this one villain is defeated we can set up a long-term plan with the rest of my team.”

Ladybug’s knees almost buckled with relief. Although they said outside help was unwanted, it was desperately needed. Looking at the Gotham vigilante it was clear he expected to be told no. “Fine, since there is already an Akuma we don't have to worry about akumatization right now. But we need to try and keep you helping on the down low. The last thing we need is for it to become common knowledge quickly. Hawkmoth and the press knowing would complicate things in battle. Who knows how Hawkmoth would respond and what he would try.” She tried not to blush with the blinding smile he gave her at that. She gave him a quick rundown of how the horse miraculous worked, and what plans she had so far to defeat the Akuma.

~

To say Chat was thrilled to see her was an understatement. He winked at her when he saw Red Robin behind her. Chat told her how when she got hit he retreated until she came back to reduce the number of times he saw his soulmate. Ladybug called for her lucky charm, which was a rope that could easily be used to lasso a bull. While Red Robin and Chat distracted the Akuma, Ladybug tied the rope into what she needed.

After the lady was caught and deakumatized, Chat and Ladybug let Red Robin in on the ‘pound it’. With a meaningful look, Chat departed in the direction he had returned from so many times. Back when they were formulating the plan she had told him they could reveal tonight after he had told his soulmate. He protested, wanting her to be the first, but she made good points on how she could wait. Pulling Red Robin to the secluded balcony above her room she asked if he wanted her to reveal her identity.

“You can wait a little longer if you want, I know your identity is tied with the whole bat clan.” She said before he felt obligated to also reveal. “But Chat is telling his soulmate who he is so I thought I’d offer.” She winced hoping she made sense.

“My team will want to meet you first, but don’t worry you’ll find out who I am soon enough Ladybug.” He was grinning from ear to ear as she opened the portal instead of responding.

With the help of the bats, it only takes two months to take down Hawkmoth, or the Rat as the bat brothers deem him. Free from their ties to Paris, Marinette and Adrien move to Gotham for college. Adrien started working with the Waynes on a business front, and MDC started working with the Wayne Fashion Department more and more. Marinette and Tim decided to keep their relationship private until their bonds were confirmed the traditional way at 20.

When Marinette had first met the Batfamily, it had been in the mask. Nightwing had greeted them in the bat cave and swept her into a greeting hug. A younger boy with a scowl and a katana had all but interrogated her before being ushered away by Nightwing. Batman was more restrained than Robin but asked more questions. She had taken it with grace, understanding she was an unknown. After the identity reveal she had grown really close to Cass and Steph, often hanging out with them when Tim was working.

The Ladybug and Black Cat miraculous had to be retired, but Marinette and Adrien were offered to join the Bats in protecting Gotham and a spot in the Justice League. They accepted both as the Fox and Snake heroes. As time went on, Paris continued to heal from their scars from Hawkmoth, and Marinette and Adrien were able to get parts of their life back. Kagami had joined them in Gotham after she had graduated early, becoming an Olympic fencer.

Life had gotten better, and their family expanded as they lived on. Tim and Marinette couldn’t have asked for a better way to meet, often joking that without the Waynes they’d still be fighting Hawkmoth.

author's note: Hope you liked it! If you did, feel free to check out my other works on ao3!

https://archiveofourown.org/users/disaster_biraven/works

And please feel free to join the Discord Server below!

[cynical-tuba]

VTM Dark Ages mini session, Leo asked Edmund his Sire how he himself would be able to pay for a woman's education while keeping her out of Cainite business. Leo this is the year 1349 but Kine aren't that advanced for women's rights. Damn ok dad I'll give it some thought.

I tried to keep this short but I want to explain the set up of a morally questionable old man and a stoat tailed Caitiff

Then Bishop Lasombra Michel was like come on Emir let's go to Cowley. Emir invites Leo without mentioning he's bringing the Lasombra without a creepy bone in his body. Surprise Leo. But he said he'd meet us there.

The pair arrive at the cathedral to see Saffiyah, Emirs adopted Gangrel daughter, and a Leo's sister figure, covered in blood, half transformed from killing *dozens* of inquisition members. She's broken, this didn't feel right. Emir comforts her in light of her killings. Michel steps out of the Cathedral very serenely and leads Emir and Leo inside.

There are more bodies in here of all men whose robes were once white stained in blood. The three come across tapestries. A Nosferatu is being defeated by a man. A Lupine has had it's head torn off, St George stabbing a dragon, and lastly a woman bound being burned at the stake. Emir sees these people as reminders of his guilt. The figures in the fabric crawl out at him, staring, trying to break out of the threads.

The three continue onwards behind a door where they encounter a holy man. Leo who has Aura perception active, sees the halo around him, he's awestruck by this and isn't sure how to react as the man lunges at Emir slicing his throat. Michel's shadowy tendrils envelope him, burning as they restrain him. The tentacles trigger Leo's Derangement phobia of the dark and he fear frenzies out of the church.

Emir grabs the man, fueled by Anger and Brutal ecstasy he uses cobble to road to drain the man's courage as he's crushed to death and shredded by the abyssal tendrils.

Leo meanwhile stops his frenzy as he hits the cold air. He has realized he has grown a stoat tail. He keeps this hidden under his robes and long winter cloak. (Home brew rule as Leo as a result of a double embrace with Edmund the Ventrue and Tertius the Gangrel he has a lesser degree of both clans flaws. For Leo the animal feature he gets in frenzy is random)

There stands a concerned Saffiyah and her friend Wei Tian the Watcher Salubri who came just in time to the scene. Emir and Michel come out. The five of them descend back in walking over piles of bodies, and enter a basement where they had kept tortured Super natural people. The Cainites are staked.

Among them is Hilda, a Nosferatu librarian of Oxford. Leo tries to pick her up, and due to a botch in the dice pool of 1... He sways and his tail is shown to the room... He's supposed to be posing as a Ventrue. Now the elder Lasombra has seen his tail that's it.

Most people in the room are concerned with getting Hilda back to town. This would be a horrible place for her to wake up in. Saffiyah, the strongest, carries her. Michel tries to get Saffiyah to stay with him. but he's more useful to carry Hilda. Also she doesn't want to, there's some complicated backstory dynamics I'm breezing over but he's controlling of her. Michel wants them to bring the stakes Nosferatu to his haven.

But Leo volunteers to stay with Michel in her place, assuring Emir he will see him later.

Michel and Leo begin to walk around the cathedral and it's depths for any hiding survivors or artefacts. Michel asks Leo what power he could have. Leo, teetering on the line of survival mode/appropriate/ Sincere says Flute. He was never good with wood wind instruments after all. Michel finds that to be a bit silly, digs deeper. Leo says flying could be fun,

Michel suggests Vissistude, like Kresimir the Tzimisce.

--------

Michel: if you could learn any skill you wouldn't learn what Kresimir could do with his hands?

Leo: the flesh crafting? Oh and the other thing he does.

Michel: oh no what is that

Leo:... The puzzle boxes?

Michel: *sigh*

-----

And Michel begins to asks Leo about the tail. What is it? Why does he have it? Interesting like a Gangrel feature Leo doesn't know what he's talking about. It's an accessory. (⁠ ⁠ꈍ⁠ᴗ⁠ꈍ⁠) He says as the tail nervously twitches. He tries to play stupid. This leads to this line of player dialogue

Me: he's going to yeet me into the abyss... I'm so dead.

@spell-fox : ಡ⁠ ͜⁠ ⁠ʖ⁠ ⁠ಡ

Me: wait. Wait no he's... OH HO HO YAAAAS

Michel is direct and wraps a shadow tentacle around his stoat tail. It feels soothing. Leo pulls it away, annoyed. (What a game) Michel gets closer, explaining the legend of Caitiff. The clanless. Have you heard of them Leo? No. They are said to be able to learn any skill with ease and foretell Gehenna. Anyone who believes in that legend would surely kill one. One should be careful. The two don't find any artefacts but we're sure found out about this old man. Before they parted here's another banger quote:

Michel: what an excellent horse

Leo: do you need assistance returning?

Michel: I have my ways. I could give you a ride Leo. (Ominus abyss implications)

Leo: no, I'm alright. I have rosemary. She's spiky. She bites if you stroke her the wrong way.

Michel: That's good, you don't want a pet that's too compliant you want a pet that fights back (◡⁠‿◡)

Why are Lasombra like this.

Meanwhile Emir takes Hilda to the library, a third faction in Oxford, Hilda's faction. They remove the stake and feed her. She has no idea what she's missed in the last year. Change in government, Horsa the previous baron is dead. Wei tian will fill her in. Emir takes his rat, his soul mate who originally was bonded to Hilda and returns her to her Nosferatu mom now they could be reunited. It made the entire room of players emotional.

Emir and Leo met up, discussed what happened and Emir admitted to draining their adversary of courage before he met his god. This disturbed Leo.

Leo went home showed his stoat tail to his (still) ghoul husband Godwin who pet it until he fell back asleep.

Emir and Tertius had a chat about the events. Leo has a cute tail and you missed it Tertius moods follow the moon. He has a new derangement because of killing Emirs sire of course.

Oh my god there's probably a million spelling and grammar errors I'll fix it later my stomach hurts