#but I remembered I gave it to my mother -howls mournfully-

[arealtrashact]

Hi! I love your work and would pay big fat dolla dolla bills for an art book showcasing your work! I bought that one CDQ issue just because you were featured in it. You’re amazing! AAAAH!

Thank you. That is is. 😌

That's very sweet, thank you so much !

Context : I was featured (alongside some truly incredible artists) in the magazine Character Design Quarterly a year or so ago. I talked a little about character design and what I do. It was a lot of fun !

[ren-c-leyn]

The Hidden Home

 Since I was bored, I decided to write another fusion story. Yes, that’s what I’m now calling the stories I make from multiple prompts from multiple blogs. Tonight’s tale was spun using these 1, 2, 3, prompts by @thependragonwritersguild, this prompt by @just-my-thoughts-here117, this prompt from @givethispromptatry, and last but not least, this prompt by @scrawl-your-heart-out.

 It includes a fight scene, character deaths mentioning both in passing and in the writing itself (nothing too terribly detailed), and a tavern with drinking.

 The first thing to burn in a house fire is the memory of your home in your mind. I certainly couldn’t remember what this house looked like before it was burned to the ground. Funny, how years later, the char marks remained. The remaining beams were still black, the stones of the base and the stairs still scorched, the tree that once stood outside my sister’s window still grey and bare.

 My partner stood silently beside me, eyeing the house quietly. I doubted I had told him the full tale of what had happened here. Pieces of it, how the man who had killed my family challenged me to a duel here tonight, how my sister how taught me how to hold a sword, among other things, but he didn’t press me for more. He’d ask a few things here or there, but the kitsune seemed to know when it was best to just leave things be.

 “Well, let’s get this over with.”

 “You shouldn’t do this.”

 It wasn’t the first time he had objected. I knew he was worried, scared to lose another friend. It made it that much harder to face the memories here. Knowing how much you mean to people is the worst curse imaginable. It makes it that much harder to take risks and put your own life at stake to protect them when you know how much they will hurt if you die.

 But if I didn’t end the mad man here, who knew what would happen next? He had already found me, proven it was possible no matter how often I changed my name or location. I’d never have peace so long as he drew breath. My sister, my mother, my father, my baby brother, none of them would rest easy in my dreams as long as he was setting fires to other people’s fragile peace.

 “I have to.”

 He let out a soft sigh.

 “Then we go together.”

 “He’s dangerous....”

 “We go together. But I need to know one thing first,” he replied, dark brown eyes looking into my own, “why here? What trap is he setting here?”

 I looked back at the ruins of my childhood home.

 “This was a beautiful place to grow up.... But now it’s gone forever.”

 He looked back at the ruins as well.

 “Your childhood home....”

 I gave a nod before walking up the stairs. Without a word, he fell in step with me.

 Father used to tell me “Life only gets complicated when you lose the simple things that made it happy.” I didn’t understand what he meant back then, my tutor made everything sound complicated. I understood the night of the fire, though, the night that was cruelly flickering through my mind as we stepped around old shards of glass and burnt, weather-worn debris.

 I woke up to the dog howling in my ear, there was smoke everywhere. I stumbled into my older sister’s room because mother and father weren’t answering my yells. It took a long time to wake her up. She tried to get to our baby brother while the dog guided me out. She came back out with him, but he was limp and cold. She fell into the grass, coughing. I still remembered trying to keep her awake. “Hey, look at me. Look at nothing but me. Just-just keep your eyes up and you’ll be fine!” But she couldn’t do it. She sighed a quiet sorry and closed her eyes for good.

 I stopped in the center of our ballroom, staring through memories and past my cracked and blackened surroundings at the man who had been laughing in the distance that night. His lips parted into a gentlemanly smile, the same oily one that had one my parents’ trust.

 “My, you’ve grown.”

 “Keep your pleasantries, they mean nothing to me.”

 “Jumping straight to your death? No questions, no laments? Just drawn sword and spilled blood?”

 “That’s the idea. Your reasons don’t mean anything to me. My family is dead, and you’ll be joining them soon.”

 He stared at me and then laughed, laughed like the lunatic that he was.

 “As you wish.”

 All three of us drew cold steel. Three blades glinted in the midnight moon as we stared each other down. Maybe we’d end up bleeding out on the marble floor tonight. But we’d see about that situation only if it came to that. My partner and I exchanged glares with our opponent, then charged.

 We met in the center and began the deadly dance. One of us would bait him and the other would strike. One would block and the other would come in from behind. We hunted him like the monster he was, like all of the other beasts we had put down in our career as hunters. The pair of us wore him down until he could barely hold his blade. Blood spilled, mixing with the ashes and memories. Vengeance was mine.

 A cold wind howled mournfully through the manor as we took our leave. I had what I always wanted, but it felt hollow at best. He was dead, but so were they. No one could ever undo those facts, no matter how hard they tried. I’d never see them in this life again, no matter how much blood I spilled. The realization just left me tired and aching inside. My feet dragged on the way back to the tavern we were staying.

 The common room was loud and noisy. Ale mugs were clanked together, food was served, and the fire roared in the hearth. Merry faces everywhere, everywhere but where we stood. It didn’t take long for me to long to scurry away in search for some kind of sanctuary. I had quickly found a hidden corner in the tavern to curl up in and pulled out my book, the one my sister had given me. It was only about five minutes before my partner climbed into my lap, too exhausted to even bother trying to get to our room on the second floor. He was adorable in his fox form, grey hair soft and silky. I found myself stroking his back between pages.

 Revenge wasn’t what I had hoped it would be, but this right here was more than I thought it could be. A quiet corner of a warm tavern with a good book and a good friend. Maybe the home in my past would never be again, but somewhere along this twisting road I had traveled, I found a new one. Not one of wood and stone, but a hidden one that would always be with me.

[welovekpopscenarios]

Quietus (Ghost!Hoshi x Reader)

Admin: Mimi

When Hoshi died, he thought that was the end of everything as he knew it, and that he would be doomed to a life of isolation for the rest of his miserable existence. That was until the day you walked into his abandoned house and made him feel a little less lonely.

Fandom: Seventeen

Genre: Angst, fluff

Pairing: Hoshi x Reader

Warnings: Mentions of death/blood/violence, Ouija boards, alcohol

Word Count: 4413

A/N: Hoshi is (one of) my bias and I never wrote for him before. I got inspired after the Lilili Yabbay video bc he looked like a ghost in that video, and since the spoopy festivities of Halloween are upon us, I was in the mood to write for the occasion! I put up the warnings for those who aren’t comfortable with it (obviously lol) but honestly, it isn’t that graphic or scary. It might seem a bit grizzly at the beginning, but that’s the worst of it, I promise you. That being said, I hope everyone likes this and that you have a good October/Halloween!

Soonyoung doesn’t remember the day he died. At least, not perfectly.

He remembers the unease he felt, the hairs on the nape of his neck standing up much like a cat’s when it arches its back in fright, preparing for attack, ready to strike. He remembers a large black mass entering his vision, a shadow of doom coming to swallow him whole and make him disappear from the world forever, cursed to the darkness for no reason at all other than being at home when he shouldn’t have been. Lastly, he remembers the pain, the sharp edge of a demon’s blade as it pierced the pure tissue of his heart, the searing pain crawling across his body like maggots and tearing at his skin as he struggled to fight it, fighting until he took his last breath and his body gave in to the desire of being in a painless state, turning paler and stiffer than the coldest of snows in winter.

Soonyoung doesn’t remember the day he died other than that.

But what he does remember, is waking up sometime later from that horrible, dull slumber and watching as paramedics placed his body on a stretcher and wheeled him out of his bedroom as hard men in suits held onto his weeping mother. He doesn’t think he’s ever seen his father as broken in his life as he had then, his father’s eyes red rimmed and bloodshot, trying to listen to the policemen as they rambled on about possible reasons why poor Soonyoung’s life was taken so suddenly from him. But as he looked around his room that fateful night, examining the wooden floor that was now stained darker than before, examining just like the detectives that invaded his personal space, he thought it was painfully clear what had happened. He was murdered in the confines of his bedroom as his parents were out of the house late at night.

Everything after that was just a rapid blur of watching his parents cry deep into the night at the loss of their only child to standing over the shoulders of the police as they took notes, screaming at them, wondering why no one could see him despite being right in front of their eyes. But he wasn’t, was he? He might think he’s standing, breathing, but he knows that’s not the case when he watches as he’s- his body, is put into a casket in his Sunday best and lowered into his grave on a dull and wet Wednesday afternoon. He knows that he is, essentially, gone from the land of the living, no longer able to hug his parents, to wave at his friends as they walked mournfully to school, to dance as was always his passion. Yes, everything in the days following his death was a blur of sadness, regret and confusion.

But what he does remember, clear as the crystal vase his mother polished religiously and never let him touch as a child, was the day he stood behind his parents’ small forms and gazed upon the detectives as they detained the dreaded black mass that stole his life and threw him into the backseat of the police car to be locked up for the remainder of his pathetic life. He supposes it was some sort of consolidation for his parents: they had caught the man that ruined their life forever. But it still doesn’t erase the grief of his parents discovering that it was a simple robbery, that Soonyoung had just been in the way and the man panicked when he was caught, doesn’t erase the heavy hearts caused by this terrible accident, a community shocked by the loss of the brightest boy its ever seen.

But now Soonyoung is terribly alone in crowded places, and he doesn’t know what to do.

He stays at home, lies in the bed he’ll never sleep in again, guards the parents he’ll never talk to again, walks beside the friends he’ll never laugh with again. It frustrates him to no end, this isolation, the unhappiness he feels settling deep into his gut and causing him to sob tears that will never fall down his chubby cheeks. He’s never been this alone, this quiet, and it’s such a drastic change from the boy he once was that if anyone were to see him (he prays they do) they’d ask if that really was Soonyoung. Soonyoung, who was once so vibrant and enthusiastic, was now just a dull shell of his former self. And there was never a sadder sight.

He’s met a few of his kind before; other ‘spirits’, or ‘souls’ as they’d call themselves, wandering aimlessly on the streets of his hometown before moving off. Some knew how they died, others didn’t, completely in the dark and confused, afraid. It was a slight burden off his shoulders, knowing he wasn’t the only one out there. But he was still on his own, no spirit ever staying long enough to acquaint, moving on in search of the great beyond that might never come.

Soonyoung spends his days roaming the halls of his home until he overhears the dreaded words slip free from his parents’ mouths. “Let’s move away.” He doesn’t blame them for wanting to leave – he would too if his child was killed in his home. But he still feels like a little boy, even more so now, and he needs his parents by his side, needs that constant to keep him strong. But in what feels like the blink of an eye the house is emptied and his parents have left a few months after his death. Now he guards an empty home, eyes trained on the dust gathering on the kitchen counter tops his mother would prepare his favourite chicken dinners, watches the insects crawl from the cracks in the corners of the living room where his father would read the newspaper in the cushioned chair by the window.

The house looks unbearably bigger now that it’s just Soonyoung and his thoughts. Too big, he thinks, even if he’d hear his mother complaining it was too small when he was a child. Much too big for just himself. Too quiet yet the howling of the wind was too loud for his pale ears. He barely registered the strangers visiting the house that was now on the market, too busy actively ignoring the truth blaring in his face that he was slowly losing whatever life he had, piece by piece, and yet he refused to give up on this house. His home. His home that no longer felt like a home.

Except for the day you walked through the front door, freshly cut keys jingling in your hand as the other struggled to drag your packed suitcase behind you, small grin on your face as you basked in the glory of finally finding somewhere to live close to your college near five years later.

He doesn’t recall seeing you in the house before, figures he would have remembered a face as mesmerising as yours, so utterly entranced he was at your soft visage that he felt as if his scarred, dead heart has started beating again. At first, he had somewhat hated you for stepping into his home and making it your own, changing it from the safe haven he once knew and he despised that. But as you settled in, buried your head in your textbooks, sang the sweetest notes as you cooked in the kitchen, danced foolishly throughout the house in a ratty t-shirt and shorts as you cleaned the house, hoovering up that wretched dust that covered his memories, he found he didn’t mind you as much.

The company was indeed welcomed after years of silence, the house a little less lonely now that he had someone new to watch over, and you were certainly an interesting one. He’d laugh whenever you’d bang your head on the open cupboard door in the kitchen (which was always, you never seemed to learn from that) and swore under your breath as you rubbed the bump on your head. He’d raise a brow at when you went on one of your ‘creative sprees’, and you’d ruin the floor of his parents’ bedroom (your bedroom, he needs to remember that), various assortments of glitter and paints and stickers covering the dark wood in whatever creation you had in mind that day. And he’d join you as you turned up the music to prance around the room as you got ready for the day, both dancing to your hearts delight, and for once, Soonyoung felt a sliver of the happiness he’s been deprived of.

But things got even more interesting when you walked straight through Soonyoung’s ethereal form. And you shivered. And Soonyoung nearly dropped dead (if he could).

It was the first time since becoming a spirit that anybody had any sort of response to walking through him despite having done so unknowingly on numerous occasions. And Soonyoung almost, almost missed it, if not for the little sound of discomfort you made that drew his eyes back towards you once more. He watched as your body gave a slight shudder, your face contorting into a miniscule scowl before shrugging and continuing about your day as if nothing happened. But something did happen. Soonyoung saw it with his own eyes, heard it with his own ears, and it sparked the tiniest of flames inside his soul of a body, a spark of hope, something he had not had in the longest time, hope that for the first time, he would be seen.

And since that day, Soonyoung has been nothing but a pest throughout your house; moving your letters from one place to another, pots mysteriously falling from their spot on the counter to clang on the floor, random taps resounding through your walls in the middle of the dead of night. At first you were frightened, who wouldn’t be? All these strange paranormal happenings in your house would scare anyone, and while that wasn’t Soonyoung’s original intent, he was still determined to make his presence known, to make you notice him. After weeks of observation he was ecstatic to find that you no longer feared the unknown presence in your home, and instead, with your strange quirkiness and caring side that he’s come to love, you’ve accepted him, even calling out to him if he fiddles with something in your line of vision. You’ve even given him a nickname, called after the little star decoration hanging over your mirror that he pays special attention to when you’re getting ready for the day. Hoshi, you named him, and he was sure his smile could have cracked his face if he wasn’t dead, was sure that the brightest of blushes would wash over his face. Hoshi was perfect, and it was beautiful, like you, and he was proud to wear the name.

Days turned into weeks, weeks into months, and it felt like Hoshi was stuck in the same spot; forever fiddling with things to get your attention, walking through you to earn a reaction. The flame inside his heart was beginning to dull the more time went by, losing hope that he would ever get to talk to you, to be acknowledged for once since his untimely end. He was hopeless, until one October night you held a small party with your closest friends and someone had the bright idea to bring a Ouija board to play with while you were all drunk. Hoshi thought it bizarre at first, do people just carry these sorts of things around with them like it’s nothing? But then he heard the light tone of your voice, albeit slightly slurred from the fruity drinks you’ve had, saying that you wanted to meet Hoshi, and he nearly melted. You should have been more careful, he thought momentarily, Ouija boards were dangerous and not something for drunk college students to be messing around with, but soon enough he heard your voice calling out to him, and he stood in shock for a brief second.

This was his chance, for him to finally have some way of actually speaking to you, for you to know he’s been here all along, to know what happened to him, to know how he feels, and suddenly he’s scared. After living in silence for so long he finally gets the opportunity to speak to the one person who’s brought him an ounce of joy and now he’s hesitant, his feet unwilling to move from their spot. He doesn’t understand why, his mind screams at him to make a move, but his fear stops him. But, one look at your dejected face from your friends mocking remarks about him being fake, suddenly Hoshi’s moving towards the board and placing his pointer finger upon the planchette.

“My Hoshi, are you there?” you inquire, a drunken lilt to your voice as you look aimlessly around the room, your eyes meeting his unknowingly for a few seconds before moving off. Hoshi could almost laugh at the ominous setting of the room; dark except for the few faintly lit fairy lights scattered throughout the room, fake store-bought cobwebs lining the table you and your friends sat around and bottles of drink pushed to the side to be dealt with tomorrow morning. He stared at your face, your pretty eyes wide in what looked to be slight apprehension, nibbling softly on the skin of your lower lip as you awaited his answer, and he was soon pushing his finger towards the ‘yes’ that sat in the corner of the board.

You all gasped aloud when the planchette moved, some friends quick to question each other which one of you moved it to freak the others out, but when all of them firmly denied ever even pressing hard on the planchette, it soon dawned up on you all that there was another presence in the room and it was met with mixed reactions. Some reacted in fear, wanting to put away the board altogether and go home, others in shock and awe, but you, you were the only one smiling, stretching from ear to ear and your eyes twinkling brighter than any of the lights littering the space in the room. Hoshi’s face matched your own, a heart once so dead and cold now full and bursting with warmth, so overjoyed that he could experience this moment with you, the moment he actually made contact with you. Part of him wishes to not have the intrusion of your friends on what he considers an intimate moment, but he wasn’t able to think on it too long before you were asking more questions.

“What’s your real name?”

Hoshi’s fingers moved the planchette to the respective letters of his name, spelling out S-O-O-N-Y-O-U-N-G while one of your friends wrote down the letters. Someone recognised his name, a dark tale that drifted throughout the town and city years ago, and recalled what they knew of him: a boy killed unjustly, taken too early, someone who had so much to live for be it in dancing, school or simply being the bright person he was. Hoshi’s heart deflated when your face fell the more his story was revealed to you, sorrow marring every inch of your graceful features and causing his stomach to do uncomfortable twists as if it were still a functioning organ in his body. You took a deep breath before speaking again, but this time no question was asked.

“I’m sorry that happened to you. You didn’t deserve it, and I hope the person who killed you rots wherever they are,” you said, poison lacing your honey-like voice, and once more Hoshi was shocked. He never thought he’d have those words directed at him before, never thought he’d hear it for himself than told to his parents. He didn’t know how to reply, so he said the first thing he thought was right.

T-H-A-N-K-Y-O-U

You smiled again, the lightest of blushes spreading across your cheeks and your nose scrunching momentarily in delight. Another question came to your mind, your features taking on an inquisitive look again. “Do you want me to call you Soonyoung instead?”

Hoshi chose to ignore how your name made him feel weak-kneed for a second, and answered you quickly.

I-L-I-K-E-H-O-S-H-I

It was a bit tedious, having to spell out everything while your friends freaked out beside you, filling the room with squeals and shrieks, but his focus was only on you and your reactions. You giggled at his answer, and he laughed alongside you, a giddiness coming over him that he couldn’t control. He gave a frown of annoyance when your friends elected to take over the questioning for the night, endless dreary questions like ‘have you seen other ghosts?’, ‘have you ever met a demon?’, or the most baffling one that they spent some time talking about, ‘could ghosts have sex?’ Both you and Hoshi balked at the question, whether it be for the same or completely different reasons, but you were coughing into your hand when your friend sent an obvious wink in your direction. When it seemed like they would never shut up with their curious questioning, they eventually grew bored on Hoshi’s deliberate bland answers in the hopes that they’d turn the questioning back to you. But to his horror, everyone began to announce they were going to go home before putting an end to the connection. In his panic, Hoshi’s fingers sped over the ‘no’ in the opposite corner, subsequently stopping the group from saying goodbye. Everyone paused, staring at the bold letters silently and then looking towards you who wilted underneath their gazes.

“It’s dangerous to break the circle, isn’t it?” one said, eyes flickering uncertainly around the others who returned the hesitance to mess up the circle.

“Well,” another perked up after a beat of silence, “he doesn’t seem like an evil spirit. I guess we could take our hands off and end it there, but I say we should keep talking to him for a bit, at least until he’s satisfied.”

“What do you want to talk about?” someone asked, and Hoshi pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration.

Y/N he spelled, and your jaw dropped.

“You want to talk about me?” you asked, a waver of nervousness in your voice as you furrowed your brows. His fingers flew across the letters again, your friend struggling to keep up with the letters as she wrote them down on the page.

I-W-A-N-T-T-O-T-A-L-K-T-O-Y-O-U-O-N-L-Y

“Oh.”

Your friends shared looks of bewilderment, looking to you for guidance on what to do. You thought for a moment, staring at your fingers that were accidently touching the tips of Hoshi’s spectral ones. “Lift your fingers off the planchette,” you announced, and slowly, one by one, your friends obeyed, their hold on the spirit world evaporating until it was just you and him left. They packed up their things and called cabs, not that you payed them much attention, keeping your focus on the board despite not saying anything, and wishing you good luck before they left, they bid their goodbyes and closed the door behind them.

The silence that filled the room was almost deafening, Hoshi waiting in anticipation of your next move, eyes trained on your face that was softly illuminated, as perfect as the day he first saw it. Licking your lips, painted a blood red hue in the spirit of Halloween, you began to speak.

“What do you look like?” you asked, and Hoshi should have expected a question like that but it still made his eyebrows raise in surprise. He thought for a moment on how he would show you, his parents long having packed up every picture you could possibly find of Soonyoung in the house. Then it came to him.

I-N-T-E-R-N-E-T. Surely the news would have put his pictures in the papers or on the article online. You made a soft ‘ah’ sound and grabbed your phone from its place beside you on the ground, searching his name as quick as you could with one hand to type. Within seconds the results popped up on screen, page upon page of his tragedy, all telling the same sad story. You ignored them in favour of heading to the images page, and your eyes widened at what came up. Multiple pictures of the same boy – no, man would be the better term, dark haired and smiling the cutest grin you’ve ever seen, causing his wonderful eyes to squint in the most unique way you’ve ever seen. Without realising, the words “he’s so pretty” slipped ever so quietly out of your mouth but it was not lost on Hoshi’s ears, who was positive said ears would be burning right to the tips if you could see him, the goofiest, love-struck smile overtaking his face. You smiled softly as you looked through the pictures, wondering how such a gorgeous and bright young man like him could ever have been so brutally murdered as he was. Life was truly cruel.

“How long have you been here?” you questioned, phone placed on the ground once more.

F-I-V-E

“Five years, wow…did you ever think about moving off? Can ghosts explore the world or are they tied to the place they, you know…died…?” you mumbled, afraid of offending him somehow. Hoshi chuckled sadly.

D-I-D-N-O-T-W-A-N-T

“Oh, you wanted to stay here? Makes sense, it was your home after all. I’m sorry I took it,” you said sheepishly, scratching your head with your free hand. “Are you angry at me because of that?”

The planchette was immediately moved to ‘no’, followed by I-L-I-K-E-Y-O-U.

He watched as you ducked your head shyly, a giggle of disbelief escaping you, all the while shaking your head. Hoshi smirked, pleased that he was able to elicit that kind of response like it was one of the old romance movies his mother used to play when he was young. He was also pleased he could relieve some of his feelings to you, despite you probably not taking it for face value, for Hoshi did like you, he really did. Probably more than someone in his situation should, what with being dead and near invisible and all, but he couldn’t help it. He really couldn’t. After seeing you every day for the past few months, learning all your quirks, joys and insecurities, Hoshi felt more a part of your life than he thinks anyone has been since you moved here. It was just an unfortunate nightmare that he would never get to treat you as well as you deserved to be, to hold you when college got too tough or laugh when you bump your head on the cupboard door again, never learning your lesson.

He sighed wearily, biting at the inside of his cheek. An unfortunate nightmare indeed, he thinks as he gets lost looking into your eyes, the colours of which he’d know as well as any dance routine he learned as a teenager.

“I like you too, Hoshi,” you gushed, and his lifeless heart felt like it skipped a beat, warming his body from head to toe. “Tell me more about yourself,” you asked, and for the next while, he did to the best of his ability. He told you about his old life and his new one, his hobbies as well as his dreams, and he learned about yours too, your wishes for when you leave college, your job, your friends and family. It felt like a date, almost – a very strange one, couples normally don’t talk through a Ouija board, but Hoshi was never as content as he was now, the one girl who made him smile in his miserable and dull world talking to him as if he were an old friend, an old lover. He never wanted it to end, but as life seemed to hate him, luck was never on his side. You yawned into your free hand, rubbing at your eyes cutely that made Hoshi ‘aww’ out loud and a smile of adoration tug at his lips.

“I’m tired, I think I’m going to go to bed now,” you explained, and Hoshi elected to ignore the disappointment sinking into his bones, favouring your wellbeing more than his. “I better lock up and stuff, make sure no burglar gets in and steals what little stuff I have,” you laughed softly, fatigue washing over you in waves like a lazy river. Hoshi began moving the planchette again, and you dragged your eyes to the letters, sleepy mind scrambling to keep up and make sense of what he is saying.

I-P-R-O-T-E-C-T-Y-O-U

You smiled a gentle, lazy smile once you realised what he had said, heart beating faster than usual for a person. “Thank you, my Hoshi. I feel better knowing you keep me safe every day,” you breathed out a sigh of content, one that made Hoshi feel lighter than a feather that fell from a dove, a sense of pride swelling his chest to the brim. He was glad he could make you feel good for such a simple act, but he does it diligently, from simple things like moving your closer to the centre of the table so it doesn’t fall off the edge to turning off hot appliances that you left on in a rush to leave the house. Anything to make your life just that bit easier and more enjoyable, he’d do it.

“I think I should buy a board for myself so I can talk to you more, I like talking to you,” you murmured, eyelids drooping as the drink from earlier in the night made you feel drowsy. Yawning once more, you stretched your back, heaving a satisfied sigh at the pops and cracks that left you feeling like a noodle. “Goodnight, Hoshi,” you said quietly, and Hoshi swallowed his sigh of disappointment, bitterness welling up in his mouth and tasting like a copper coin. There’s always tomorrow, he thinks, as he moves his pale fingers on the planchette for the final time that night. He’ll talk to you again tomorrow. And maybe, someday, he’ll get his wish and hold you tightly as he rocked you to sleep, whispering only loving things into your ears.

Hoshi moved the planchette over the letters G-O-O-D-N-I-G-H-T before hovering over ‘Goodbye’, and he was alone once more as sleep dragged you into its sweet clutches.

[sheikah]

There are non stop metas in Jon's tag about why J*nsa is endgame. Could you please explain why Jonerys is actually endgame? Just something to counter this irritating stream of J*nsa

Hi anon! I don’t think that people writing meta for their ship is irritating. But I do think Jonerys is endgame. My answer is under the cut because it is absolutely enormous. This took a lot of time but I hope it offers you some reassurance. 

First I am going to address book foreshadowing. A lot of this is going to be rehashing some of the points brilliantly made by my good friend @oadara who has spent a lot of time and effort discussing this. 

It’s no secret to most people in our fandom that Jon and Dany have been heavily foreshadowed in both book and show canon. 

I think the most famous instance of this is Dany’s vision in the House of the Undying in ACOK. The three visions below are widely accepted to be references to her three husbands (remember she marries Hizdahr in book!canon). The image in bold refers specifically to Jon. His mother Lyanna liked blue roses and was given a crown of them at a tourney by Jon’s father, Rhaegar. Ned reflects on this in AGOT:

Promise me, Ned, his sister had whispered from her bed of blood. She had loved the scent of winter roses. 

Jon spent the most pivotal years of his life so far at The Wall. He is the blue rose in the wall of ice that Dany sees in HOTU:

Her silver was trotting through the grass, to a darkling stream beneath a sea of stars. A corpse stood at the prow of a ship, eyes bright in his dead face, grey lips smiling sadly. A blue flower grew from a chink in a wall of ice, and filled the air with sweetness… mother of dragons, bride of fire …

What I think is also important about this quote is that the flower fills the air with “sweetness” which makes it sound like a positive image. He and Dany will not just be together like she was with Drogo or Hizdahr, but they will be in love. 

To further connect this quote to Jon we can look at the passage from ADWD when Jon is with Val:

The light of the half-moon turned Val’s honey-blond hair a pale silver and left her cheeks as white as snow. She took a deep breath. “The air tastes sweet.” / “My tongue is too numb to tell. All I can taste is cold.“

Her smelling the sweet air is a callback to Dany’s vision, and Val is connected to Dany in this moment by looking like her with “pale silver” hair. Additionally, the moonlight could be a contributing factor since it is what colors her hair like Dany’s and Dany was Drogo’s “moon of my life.”

Jon’s response to Val above about only being able to taste the cold reminds me of his death scene in ADWD:

Jon fell to his knees. He found the dagger’s hilt and wrenched it free. In the cold night air the wound was smoking. “Ghost,” he whispered. Pain washed over him. Stick them with the pointy end. When the third dagger took him between the shoulder blades, he gave a grunt and fell face-first into the snow. He never felt the fourth knife. Only the cold … 

Also in ADWD, Dany hears a howling wolf that tells me that some sort of bond between them allows her to be aware of Jon’s death even though they don’t know one another. She hears this mournfully howling wolf, which we can associate with bad things happening to the Starks since the direwolves howled after Bran’s fall and we heard Ghost howling at castle black in season 6 after Jon died. 

Off in the distance, a wolf howled. The sound made her feel sad and lonely, but no less hungry. As the moon rose above the grasslands, Dany slipped at last into a restless sleep. 

So this passage could mean that Dany sort of felt Jon’s death in a way. It reminds me of people sensing each other in Star Wars haha. But I definitely think it’s further foreshadowing of a momentous relationship between them. 

Jon’s and Dany’s loneliness is also something that foreshadows the love and companionship that will only come when they find each other.

Dany in ADWD:

Beneath her coverlets she tossed and turned, dreaming that Hizdahr was kissing her … but his lips were blue and bruised, and when he thrust himself inside her, his manhood was cold as ice. She sat up with her hair disheveled and the bedclothes atangle. Her captain slept beside her, yet she was alone.

Jon in ASOS:

Jon wondered where Ghost was now. Had he gone to Castle Black, or was he was running with some wolfpack in the woods? He had no sense of the direwolf, not even in his dreams. It made him feel as if part of himself had been cut off. Even with Ygritte sleeping beside him, he felt alone.

Other book foreshadowing placing theme together can be found earlier in ACOK, when Dany is thinking of a lover whilst alone in her bed:

Lying abed in her narrow bunk, she found herself wondering how it would be to have a man squeezed in beside her in place of her handmaid, and the thought was more exciting than it should have been. Sometimes she would close her eyes and dream of him, but it was never Jorah Mormont she dreamed of; her lover was always younger and more comely, though his face remained a shifting shadow.

This vision is probably referring to Jon, as it is too early for her to have met Daario, and we know that relationship ends. Additionally, we get this quote from Jon in AGOT:

Tyrion Lannister had claimed that most men would rather deny a hard truth than face it, but Jon was done with denials. He was who he was; Jon Snow, bastard and oathbreaker, motherless, friendless, and damned. For the rest of his life –however long that might be– he would be condemned to be an outsider, the silent man standing in the shadows who dares not speak his true name

This is significant not only because Jon is likely the shadowy man from Dany’s dreams but because Jon is ashamed of his true name, but shouldn’t be, as we know that he is not a bastard but a Targaryen, and a legitimate one at that. Since we know this, it makes Jon’s marriage to Dany even more likely. Consider this quote from Dany in ADWD:

Five Aegons had ruled the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros.

There would have been a sixth, but the Usurper’s dogs had murdered her brother’s son when he was still a babe at the breast. If he had lived, I might have married him.

Here, Dany considers that she would likely have been betrothed to Rhaegar’s son, who was named Aegon. Well guess what, anon? According to Lads leaks which have so far been true, we’re going to learn in episode 7 that Jon, Rhaegar’s legitimate son, was actually officially named AEGON.

I mention all of this because These are all fairly undeniable book foreshadowings that I don’t think GRRM would have bothered including unless it was for a reason, and that reason is to build up to a Jonerys romance and alliance. If it is this important, if their journeys for five books and thousands of pages are toward one another, why would that happen only for them to break up and be with someone else very briefly just in time for “end game?”

But the books aren’t all we have to go by. I think we have plenty of good evidence in the show now as well. 

First, the visual parallels in the show are well-known, and again these are things that connect Jon and Dany together even when they’re across the world from one another. 

credit: @sweetorganza

credit: @jondaenerysdaily

This sort of thing is done intentionally. It lingers in the audience’s mind. It reminds us that they are on parallel journeys, have faced the same types of struggles, and want the same thing for the realm. 

We can also see this in parallels of their actions and values in the show.

Both of them are leaders of their people–unwanted or downtrodden people (slaves, wildings). Both of them tragically lost their first loves. 

credit: @sweetorganza

Just from this season, we have several interesting parallels to look at. 

In episode 1, Jon insists that he won’t punish a child for the sins of of his/her father. In episode 3, Dany asks Jon not to judge her for the sins of her own father, the Mad King, as I pointed out in this gifset (the way I arranged the dialogue in this gifset would make it inconvenient to load them into a text post so I linked).

Also in episode 1, Jon asks for the allegiance of Ned Umber and Alys Karstark in the same way that Dany asked it of the Dothraki a few episodes prior:

credit: @annabelleebythesea

They are both successfully earning the love and admiration of the people.

In episode 2, Varys told Dany that she is the best hope for the people. Littlefinger told Jon that he is the best hope. It’s because they both are.

Also in episode 2, Dany said Jon sounded like “quite a man,” the same thing Sam said about Dany when discussing her with maester Aemon, right before Jon walked in conveniently as Aemon said Dany is a lone Targaryen.

credit: @annabelleebythesea

In episode 4, Dany impressed Jon by repeating the speech he gave to Mance Rayder in season 5 when he implored him to kneel for Stannis to save the wildlings. 

credit: @stevedoritoss

And this is just from these first 4 episodes of season 7. If you look here, here, and here you can see even more parallels in their lives and styles of ruling and leadership from throughout the series. And I’m sure there are more.

All of these set them up as compatible co-rulers who despite their early disagreements in 7.03 share a lot in common and will be compatible together. In this ask I talk a lot about why i think they will work well together and have a healthy relationship. 

Furthermore, I strongly believe that they are going to get married. Last season Dany herself said the best way to make alliances is with marriage. In 7.04 Jon says that he can’t swear to her because his people won’t accept a Southron ruler. Dany’s reply is important: “They will if their king does.” If Jon accepts her and loves her and they unite in marriage, then the people of the North will be more open to Dany.

Additionally, we know a few important things from the plot leaks concerning the future of their relationship. In 7.06 Dany will save Jon and his men near Eastwatch. She believes Jon to be dead but he returns and they have a bonding moment on the voyage back to Dragonstone. Jon offers to kneel to Dany if only he wasn’t so injured. Instead of accepting his kneel/the submission of his title as KitN, Dany says, “But what about your peolple?” Already, she is concerned about his people and about their perception of him. This looks forward to them ruling together and both of them caring for the citizens of both the North and South.

Finally, Jon and Dany are going to have sex in 7.07. I personally believe this is going to be a way to tell the audience, among other things, that they’re having sex so that the writers can set up a pregnancy plot. 

We also know that apparently Jon and Dany will discuss her infertility and then Dany will tell Tyrion she discussed it with Jon. So it is mentioned twice. This reminds me of how Jon was discussing being a bastard with Missandei in 7.04, explaining that his parents were not married when in fact we know that in 7.07 Rhaegar and Lyanna will get married in a flashback. So the writers set us up to be shocked. They are setting us up to be shocked when Dany gets pregnant.

As I discussed in this meta, I don’t believe Dany is truly infertile. In addition to the points I made there, I want to point out something an anon mentioned to me. While at the Citadel we saw Sam flipping through a book that featured the sort of globe thing we see in the opening credits and we saw hanging in the library when Sam first arrived. The pages he flipped through featured this and also had the planets and possibly deal with planetary alignment/etc. 

Additionally, when Bran has the vision being discussed in this reddit thread, a commenter pointed out something interesting:

As the screenshots of the tree progress from the start to end in Bran’s vision the sun is rising and setting from west to east. I’m reminded of Mirri Maz Duur’s prophecy about Daenerys “when the sun rises in the west and sets in the east…” I’m not sure what it could mean but the scene being shot that way has to be relevant somehow.  

So it’s possible that the trauma of The Wall falling in 7.07, which happens apparently right during or immediately after Jon and Dany have sex, is powerful enough to throw the planet out of joint in some way. After all, we know The Wall has magical properties. All of this together points to Dany getting pregnant with Jon’s child. 

So far I’ve tried to establish that Dany and Jon have been heavily foreshadowed, that they are similar and thus compatible, and that they will probably get married and have a child. The last thing I want to mention is that they are ice and fire of the Song of Ice and Fire.

They are the important couple. They are the two opposing parts that will come to together and unite not just kingdoms but continents under their banner. They are the two people who will bring humanity out of the Long Night and launch the next “dynasty that could last a thousand years” that Cersei mentions in episode 1. Their sex scene is going to be cut with Rhaegar and Lyanna, whose love tore the realm apart. By contrast, Dany’s and Jon’s love will put the realm back together again.

We can confirm the importance of their union now. It has always seemed obvious that the woman who is fire made flesh and the man from the North whose last name is Snow are ice and fire but now we know it. Melisandre said it to Varys in 7.03 and never told Jon or Dany that either is TPTWP because they are both chosen. Only together, a word Jon constantly used and emphasized with Dany in 7.04, can they save the world; so they WILL be together. 

Lastly, just from a simple storytelling perspective, if we know they are going to be together at all (which we do now, because the leaks have been confirmed by 4/7 episodes so far. We can trust Lads) then we can trust that they are going to only be together. Season 7 is short. Season 8 is shorter. We should think of them as one long, final season that is merely broken in half like shows like TWD do.

If Jon and Dany have 5 episodes of buildup this season, there is no time for them to break up in a believable way and move on to another romantic partner in the only 6 episodes remaining next season. Before anyone brings it up, no. I do not think that the revelation of Jon’s Targaryen heritage means they will fight or break up. I discussed in this ask what I think will happen IF they learn the truth, and I am not even convinced they will. 

In any case, with the war with the WW and the war with Cersei going on, there would not be time for Jon or Dany to break up and find another person to be with. They are going to constantly be in each other’s proximity during this time, and it wouldn’t make sense for them to break up and have time to get together with anyone else. It just doesn’t seem possible.

And I don’t think it’s in either of their character to move on to another romance quickly in the last season anyway. 

Jon Snow is a man of character and conviction. He’s loyal. He was loyal to Ygritte even after her death and he will be loyal to Dany because he will love her. And he especially wouldn’t desert Dany if/when she is pregnant. He will want to be around in the life of his child. Even if Dany dies, which I know the antis are praying for, I don’t think Jon will just hop in bed with someone else immediately.  Certainly not his sister. What reason would there be? To produce an heir? That argument stops making sense when you consider that like I said, Jon and Dany are almost certainly having a child, so that child will be the heir they need to carry on the Targaryen name and their legacy of peace and egalitarian rule. 

And of course, if Dany does get pregnant, that means she at the very least has to live long enough to carry that baby to term and have it. Because we know that Cersei has a miscarriage plot. I think this will be our only miscarriage plot. Because while Cersei represents doom and destruction for the realm, Dany represents life and rebirth. So if she does die, I don’t see it happening until the very end anyway.

Last season Tyrion told Dany that Daario wasn’t the first to love her and he wouldn’t be the last. Because Jon will. :) So Jonerys will be endgame. One or both might die. But in terms of couples and romance, I believe that Jon and Dany are each other’s last love.

[lizartgurl]

The Sands of Time (Pre-TFA fic)

Word Count: 4200+ Characters: Rey, Anakin Skywalker, Padme Amidala, General Leia Organa (at the end) Triggers/Warnings: Child abandonment

"Come back!" She screamed.

The large alien shook her, his stubby fingers leaving bruises as he gripped her upper arm. "Quiet, girl!" He growled.

"No!" The roar of the ships rockets split apart the sky, and the tiny girl's fragile heart.

-------

Tiny flecks of dirt, glass, and who-know-what peppered at her skin. The wind howled, but she could still hear him. That ugly, disgusting, monstrous beast, calling her over and again. She had to keep moving. She had to get away, and the sudden sandstorm gave the perfect cover.

She squinted her eyes, but the sand still found a way in. She shaded her eyes with her hands, blinking to clear them.

"Keep going, keep going," She said. She tried not to cry, but it felt good to cry, and the tears actually helped get the sand out of her eyes, but not when it got in her mouth.

She kept moving, running into the wind. When she couldn't hear the monster shouting anymore, she sank to her knees in the growing sand. She fell forward, and fell asleep.

-------

"Hey, hey, it's time to wake up."

She blinked. There was still some sand stuck in her face.

Someone brushed the sand away, their hand smooth and gentle, and familiar.

She looked up, there were two people looking down at her. A man and a woman.  The man had dark-ringed eyes, and his blond ringlets hung just above his shoulders. His robes were very dark for a sunny sand planet. The woman with him also had curly hair, but hers was darker and much longer, with lots of tiny blossoms. Her dress was  long and loose, a blue deeper and more beautiful than the sky.

"Wha- who-?" She sat up and backed away, slipping in the pile of sand she stirred up.

The man laughed gently, his shoulder shaking. "Are you alright, little one?"

She looked around. There was no one else in sight. No footprints besides the ones she'd just made. No traveling supplies and caravan. Who were these people?

The woman chided her husband with a look, then stood up and walked over to the girl, holding out her hand.

"The desert is no place for a little girl to wander." She warned.

The girl crossed her arms  and looked down at the sand, refusing the help. "I had to get away."

"From Unkar Plutt. We heard." The man walked over and picked up the girl under her armpits. She was set her on her feet with a resisting squeal, but didn't sit back down.

"What is your name? Can we help you?" the woman asked, not looking away from the girl.

She curled her hands into fists at her side. She didn't want to admit she didn't know.

"You need a home," The man took her hand. Strange, it felt colder, different than a human hand.

"Come on, we've found a place for you." He said, tugging her up over the hill. The woman followed, shaking her head. When the girl stumbled, the woman would put a hand on her back and help her push.

At the top of the dune, the man crouched down next to the girl and pointed.

"Look."

There, lying in the sand was a great beast, bigger than anything the girl had seen, even the ship that had dropped her off.

"That's an old AT-AT walker. It's been hollowed out for a long time now, no one will bother you about it. You can live there." He said.

"Why?" The girl demanded. "Why do I have to live there? Why couldn't I go with....with..." she scrunched up her face, but she couldn't say a word.

"They left you, didn't they?" The woman knelt next to her, wiping away a tear.

The girl nodded, and started to cry again.

"Come on," the man picked her up again, cradling her head to his shoulder, and trekked down the sand dune hand-in-hand with the woman.

"My name is Ani. This is my wife, Ami."

"What should we call you?" Ami asked. They reached the lonely AT-AT's foot, and Ani set the girl down on the sand next to Ami, searching for something on the AT-AT.

"Dunno." The girl sat down and hugged her legs to her chest.

"Augh!" Ani jerked backwards, covering his eyes with his hand.

Ami and the girl jumped up. "What is it?" Ami sounded slightly scared.

"The kriffing sun...it's in my eyes...I can't find an opening," Ani groaned, rubbing his eyes.

"Here, come on," Ami helped the girl climb up on top of the AT-AT, sitting on the foot right above Ani, shading him from the setting sun.

"There, that'll protect you from the harmful rays," Ami giggled. The girl smiled, and Ani snapped his fingers.

"That's it! That's what we'll call you!" He told the girl.

"What?" She and Ami asked.

"Ray, you know, like a ray of sunshine." Ani smirked.

Ami tapped her chin thoughtfully. Ani had paused his work to look at them for approval.

"You know, ray spelled with an "e" rather than an "a" means "queen"." she looked at Ani meaningfully, and the girl didn't understand what was so important.

"Alright little one, what do you think of the name Ray with an e?" Ani asked.

The girl shrugged. She didn't particularly care, she just wanted a name again.

"Alright, Rey it is!" Ani declared, tugging on the base of the AT-AT's foot with all his strength. "It's nice to meet you, Rey."

Rey smiled.

"It's nice to meet you too."

-------

It was nearly dark by the time Ani pulled the base off of the AT-AT, revealing a tunnel big enough for the three of them to crawl through single-file.

The belly of the beast was a little higher than Ani's head when he sat down. Compared to the desert outside, Rey found it very hospitable. Ami's however, looked about mournfully, holding little Rey on her lap.

"Well...it's cooler, by any means." She said at last.

Ani crawled around the little cabin. He simply would not sit still! "One second, there's supposed to be emergency storage in here somewhere, I don't think Plutt's scavengers would have- aha!" Ani pulled off another covering and pulled out two thin blankets.

"Look at this," he held out the tag on one of the blankets for Rey to see. "You can adjust the setting for warm or cool climates, whatever you feel like. And this old seat frame makes a perfect bed!" he patted the seat next to him, nearly stripped to the bone.

"Come on," Ani wrapped one blanket around Rey, and the other around Ami's shoulders, "Let's get some sleep, we'll work some more tomorrow morning."

Before Rey could ask what Ani would use, she fell asleep.

-------

A clanking noise woke Rey up. Her hair was tangled, and it was hard to get out of the blanket, but Ami pulled it back for her.

"Mornin!" Ani smiled at her. "Come on, the sun is up! And we have a lot of work to do." He crawled back down the leg and opened the foot again. Rey shielded her eyes as the blinding sands shone back at her.

"Go on," Ami gave her a little push, and Rey crawled after Ani.

"What are we doing?" Rey asked, helping Ami climb out.

"Today, we're going to learn how to plant a garden." Ami crouched next to Rey, tracing several rows of lines in the dirt. Each line had a space about as long as Rey's little foot. She watched Ami curiously, finding it strange it strange that her own hair was tangled and loose, while Ami's hair and even the flowers hardly seemed to have moved.

Ani snorted, and kicked at another dune of sand. "A garden? On this planet?"

"Teach her how to build a vaporator, Ani." Ami said. "She can get the water and use it to nourish them."

Ani sighed, "Okay, I'll find the parts. It's not gonna work, though."

Ami flung a handful of sand at Ani, who ran off laughing.

"Can you pull out a few small metal rods for me?" Ami said. "We'll use them to mark the rows for our garden."

Rey crawled back inside the AT-AT, searching for the item's Ami wanted. Ani was also inside, pulling out various parts. He used a pair of clippers in his belt to help her cut up the frame of the empty chair.

"Here you go!" Rey gave her handful of wire clippings to Ami, who planted them at the head of every row.

"My mother knew a few things about planting, so I'm going to teach you what I remember," Ami handed a small handful of seeds to Rey, who divided them among the rows as she pleased.

"There's a lot of sand around here," Ami patted the ground, "But this sport is firmer, more packed together. It makes it easier for the plants to grow." Ani came back with his makeshift vaporator, which had already collected a few centimeters of precious water. Rey sprinkled them over their tiny garden, and took a few drops for herself for her parched throat.

"Good job!" Ami clapped for Rey and hugged her. Rey didn't know why, she hadn't done very much. She was eight, not a three.

"Ami?"

"Yes, Rey?"

The eight-year old dug her toe into the ground. "If you teach me what your mama taught you, does that make you my mama?"

Ami paused, looking at the young girl for a long time. Ani watched his wife, biting his lower lip.

"Of course it does."

Rey threw her arms around the older woman, who hugged her even tighter than before.

Ani smiled and ruffled Rey's hair, only making it more tangled. At this Rey pouted and glared up at Ani. Ami laughed. "Come on, let's see what we can do about your hair."

-------

While Ani taught her about how the vaporator worked, and how the tools he'd used functioned, Rey had to sit very very still, letting Ami brush her hair and work out all the tangles.

"Ow!" She yelped as Ami attacked a snarl of hair.

"I'm sorry Rey!" Ami winced. "Take deep breaths. In, one, two, three. Out, one, two, three," She repeated the mantra over and over, until Rey was following it. Rey wondered if this was another thing Ami's mother had taught her.

"There, all done!"

"Wait, really?" Rey stood up and looked at Ami, who smiled and nodded.

"Here," Ani held up a reflective surface he'd been polishing as he watched Rey and Ami. Rey leaned in as close as she could to see a clear image, and turned slightly to the right to see the side of her head. One, two, three buns were all pulling her hair out of her face.

"I love it!" She squealed. "Thank you Ami!"

"You are very, very welcome."

-------

The next morning, Rey's buns had come undone. But this time, Ami showed her how to make the buns herself, and how to tie them tightly with spare pieces of cord.

"Rey! Come on, it's my turn to teach you!" Ani called, already outside.

"Go on," Ami urged her. I'll watch after the garden, don't worry."

Today's wind wasn't so strong, but it gave a cool relief from the unending heat of Jakku's suns.

"You ready?" Rey had been trying to see how long she could stand to stare at the suns, and jumped when Ani suddenly appeared beside her.

"I-I think so." If Rey stared at her and Ami's little garden hard enough, she could almost see tiny green sprouts poking through the sandy surface.

Sensing her distraction, Ani took her by the shoulders and made her face a far-off ridge.

"See those weird rock formations:? The dark blue things up against the sky?" Rey followed Ani's pointing finger with her eyes.

"Yeah."

"That is an old Imperial Star Destroyer, the ship that brought that AT-AT here." he hit the great metal beast with a dull "thud" that echoed within.

"A ship?" Rey asked. "Can it take me home?" She started to run towards the distance, but Ani quickly grabbed her shoulder.

"No, I'm sorry. It's very old, and broken. Full of spare parts like this thing here." Rey looked at the sand dejectedly.

Ani knelt down, purposely trying to get in her line of sight. "Unkar Plutt is keeping you here because he runs the junkyard. He wants you to gather spare parts for him to sell to other people."

"But I don't want to!"

"You'll have to, it's the only way you'll get some food." Ani apologized.

"Now, I'm going to go on ahead to the ship. When you can't see me walking anymore, I want you to follow after me. I'll wait for you there, and I'll help you find the best parts."

Rey looked at Ani weirdly. "Why do I have to go on my own?"

Ani smiled down at her, already walking towards the old ship. "You made it to the AT-AT on your own, didn't you?"

Rey blinked, and when her eyes opened again, he was gone. Since she couldn't see him, she started to run. She ran towards the Star Destroyer against the skyline, too scared to notice that there were no footprints to follow. When she did notice, it made her even more scared.

The dunes between her and the ship seemed to grow taller and taller, and soon a near-vertical cliff of a dune separated her from the ship.

She stood at the bottom of the valley between the ridge and the AT-AT, almost looking straight up at the sky.

With a strangled fox-cry, she turned and ran back to the AT-AT.

Hearing the cry, Ami climbed out of the AT-AT and ran towards Rey.

"Rey, what's wrong?" Ami asked.

"I can't do it Ami, I can't!" She sobbed, throwing her arms around Ami's legs.

Ami bent down and picked up Rey, holding her close.

"Shh, shh, it's alright, Rey, it's alright." Ami walked back to the AT-AT, rubbing the girl's back.

Rey sobbed, and clutched at Ami's shirt. "I can't do it, I failed, and Ani'll be so mad."

"No, no, no, no, no!" Ami assured Rey. She sat the two of them down next to the garden.

"I want to tell you right now that there is nothing wrong with failing. Failing shows you what you can and cannot do. It shows you what you need to be better at, what to work on." Ami took a scoop of sand in he hand, leaving it open to let the wind blow it away. Rey wasn't so distraught that she couldn't copy her mother-figure.

"Rey, never be afraid of failure. The most successful people fail more than anyone else, and they just keep going, and that takes courage." Ami continued.

"That doesn't mean you're not scared," She amended. "Courage means you keep going in spite of the fear. Even when everyone and everything makes you doubt, you keep going. That's what courage is."

Ami looked at Rey. "Do you have courage?"

Ray looked past Ami at the ridge. There, she could see the Star Destroyer once again.

"I do, Ami. I do."

-------

Rey set out again, on her own. But this time she felt stronger. She smiled and held her head high.

"Have courage," she whispered to herself, "in spite of fear."

She marched and she marched down the valley. When she reached the ridge this time she dug her feet into the side and crawled. Though the sand skid downwards around her she climbed, searching for firmer handholds, crawling closer and closer to the top.

And there, at the top, was Ani, waiting for her right next to the broken remains of the Star Destroyer.

"You made it." He didn't sound surprised, he sounded proud, and is smile said the same thing.

"I made it," Rey gasped.

"Come on," Ani handed her a tiny flashlight. "I found this with the blankets. Hold my hand, it'll be dark in some places, but not all of it."

"Do you promise?" Rey asked. she told herself not to whimper.

Ani squeezed her hand. "I promise."

He bent down closer to her. "Not everything is going to come to you, Rey. A lot of the time, you have to go and find it yourself. no matter what you encounter along the way. Okay?"

Rey nodded, turned on the flashlight, and grabbed Ani's hand. And together, they both walked into the ship.

-------

"Ami, Ami, Ami! Look what we got!" Rey dumped a bundle of machine parts on the ground outside the door.

"Oh my goodness, Rey, that's wonderful!" Ami told her as she started to examine the parts Rey and Ani had found. Ani added his parts to the piles. All together, the metal pieces made a wonderful clanking sound, music to Rey's ears. She began to dance around the pile, grabbing Ani's hands and forcing him to dance with her.

Ami laughed at her husband's awkward way of dancing, gently pulling Rey away from him.

"Rey, look at that." She whispered, pointing at the dirt next to the foot entryway.

Rey gasped, and ran towards their little garden. "They're sprouting!" She squealed. Ami and Ani watched as she bent over the plants, whispering encouraging things to them to get them to grow bigger and bigger.

-------

Rey did not want to get up the next morning.

"No! I won't go back! Not gonna!" She cried, wrapped up in her blanket.

"You have to, Rey, it's the only way you're going to get food." Ami told her, rubbing Rey's back.

Rey shoved Ami away with more strength than a child her size should have. Ani caught her before she could hit her head.

"Do I have to?" Rey whispered, unaware of what she'd done.

Ani knelt down next to her. "I wouldn't ask you to do this if I didn't have to. But these are the cards you've been dealt, and we want to help you play them right.

"Now come on," He held out his hand to Rey, and at last, she took it.

-------

"I don't wanna be here," Rey whispered.

"Neither do I, Rey," Ani growled out of the corner of his mouth. One big alien grunted in their direction, and Ani's grip on Rey's shoulder and Ami's arm tightened.

Ani led them to the center of the junkyard, making Rey carry the parts that they'd spent hours scrubbing and polishing and separating the best from the worst. Ami had her save the best pieces for herself, as a last resort, but he told her that if she wanted food, Plutt was going to need some of the good pieces too.

Then, Rey spotted Unkar Plutt, sitting in his little shop, bargaining harshly with several other workers for their daily portions. Plutt had a pile as big as himself at his side, but one tiny packet offered for a pile of pieces.

"Ami, I can't do this." Rey gasped. She turned to leave, but Ami grabbed her shoulders, and made her face the short line.

"Remember, courage." She whispered.

And suddenly, Rey found herself standing at the end of the food line. She looked over her shoulder, and saw Ami and Ani watching from the shade of a hut.When she turned back around, she was at the front of the line.

Plutt stared at her for a moment, then recognized her.

"So, girl...you're back." He grinned.

Before he could say another word, Rey put her first piece on the table.

"I want food." She said, narrowing her eyes at him.

Plutt stared at her for a moment before bursting into laughter.

"No!" Ani yelled from across the street.

Ami held up two fingers for Rey to see. "Two, you want two portions for that piece!" She instructed.

Rey nodded and took a deep breath. "Two, two portions of food. For this piece."

"And why should I give it to you?" Plutt chuckled, amused by the plucky little girl standing in front of him.

Rey stiffened for a moment, then she grabbed the piece again, moving to put back in her bag. "If you don't want it..."

"No!" Plutt's fist slammed down on the piece. "I'll take it."

He rummaged through the pile and found the two smallest portions he could find, plopping them down on the table in front of her.

Rey's eyes went wide, and she suddenly realized that she hadn't eaten in two days, maybe more. She greedily snatched up the packets before Plutt could take them from her. She replaced them with another part.

"One portion." She hazarded.

Plutt chuckled, and Rey knew that Ami and Ani were proud of her.

-------

Rey fell backwards onto the sand, breathing heavily.

"Good, good, that was good. Much better than last time." Ani helped her back to her feet. "Let's try that again."

"But I'm sore! And I wanna learn to shoot a blaster!" Rey said, throwing the staff and had given her to the ground. It was one of the pieces they'd found in the Star Destroyer. It was twice as tall as Rey herself, but Ani insisted that she use it to protect herself, which was why he was teaching her.

Ani looked at Ami, who shook her head. "Really, Rey, we don't have any blasters to teach you with. There's not much to it, you just point it and shoot."

Ani chuckled. "If you had a lightsaber, we wouldn't need a blaster." He said, sitting down next to Ami.

"What's a lightsaber?" Rey cocked her head curiously.

"I'll tell you later." Ani dismissed.

Rey shrugged, and weaseled herself in to sit on Ani's lap and watch the sunset.

"Ami, what're you making?" Rey asked.

Ami held up her little project, slightly bigger than her own hand. She had a few cloth scraps on her lap, scavenged from the ship and the AT-AT but too small to use for clothes or blankets.

"I'm making a doll for you, a pilot. A friend you can have when we're not here." Ami said. She'd used mostly orange scraps so far for the pilot's jumpsuit, with a white scrap across the torso. Rey took the doll, looking at it more closely.

"What do you mean?" Rey asked quietly. "Aren't you always gonna be here? I need you to look out for me."

Ami and Ani looked at each other, and squeezed each other's hand.

"No, Rey, we're not always going to be here for you." Ani said. The arm around Rey's shoulders was suddenly the coldest thing she'd ever felt.

"This is hard to understand, I'm sorry," Ami was nearly crying. "If we could stay with you, we would. We love you and we want to stay with you, but we can't...we just can't."

Rey launched herself from Ani's arms and ran inside the AT-AT. Ani and Ami didn't follow her, "Or maybe they just "can't"." Rey whispered to herself harshly, she gripped one of the blankets, and cried herself to sleep.

--------

The extreme silence woke her up the next day. There was nothing but the hollow whistle of the wind as it blew past the AT-AT entrance.

"They're gone," Rey whispered to herself.

She didn't cry. She'd cried all she needed to last night. When Rey finally gathered the strength she needed, she forced herself to climb out.

There was the staff that she'd thrown down last night. Trails of sand rained down when she picked it up and looked it over. Subconciously, she began to move through a few of the skills Ani had taught her. Back and forth, step back, lunge forward, twirl, jab, thrust, the miniature breeze the stirred up blew the sand back from the little garden, revealing the sprouts and the doll Ami had made her, now complete.

Rey grabbed the doll, staring at it for a while. At last, she tucked it into her belt. She needed to go back inside and eat something. She had a portion or two left over from yesterday, and she'd need more to eat if she was going to go scavenging for more parts.

But something stopped her.

Rey looked back at the garden, tiny green saplings contrasting against the orange sand.. And...something else.

They were flowers. The tiny white flowers that Ami had worn in her hair.

"You will find your family."

"We'll never forget you...I promise."

Rey looked around. She was certain she'd heard a voice, but there was no one nearby. One by one, Rey gathered the delicate blossoms in her arms and carried them inside.

-------

"...Anakin Skywalker..."

A much older, much more self reliant Rey looked up, the tiny droid, BB-8, at her side.

"I'm sorry, who?" She asked.

General Organa looked across the table at the girl, so full of youth and optimism in spite of the isolation and tragedy she'd been through. She couldn't help but accommodate her.

"Anakin Skywalker, a former Jedi. He was my father."

"Oh." Rey slumped a little.

"What's wrong, dear?" Leia asked.

Rey looked up at the brown eyes that seemed so familiar, yet so strange.

"The name...sounded familiar...for just a moment." Rey said. BB-8 moaned in sympathy, and Leia smiled at her sadly.

Rey reached into a pocket on her belt, running her finger over the petals of a single blossom that had never faded and died.

Just like her memory.

[gyromitra-esculenta]

The Lure

A take on the dreaded Mermaid!AU - One-shot. It’s a word salad in a way~~ Waifu don’t approve. Was supposed to be AU prompt, but... r76 anyways. And the mood song: here.

Mermaids do not fall in love with mortals. Selkies are not chained to their skins and furs. Sirens, oh, the sirens do fade to sea foam bathed in a morning sun, but were they ever anything more than that?

*

When Gabriel meets Jack for the first time, every fiber of his instinct screams danger. Jack is white, blonde, blue-eyed and his voice is deep – flows like a honey straight from a honeycomb, sugar over a dark promise.

But it is the smile that is something downright predatory. No one else seems to mind. They call it charming.

*

Sometimes Gabriel wonders if ‘Jack’ ever existed. There are no records from his birth to graduation.

“There was really bad fire,” the blonde explains. “City hall and school burned down. And city hall was practically in the clinic.”

The fire checks out.

*

They get a week of leave approved and strict instructions not to divulge anything about the program.

“Come home with me,” Jack offers and for a moment Gabriel thinks it means something entirely else. “Few days on the farm in Indiana sun, we’ve got a lake close by. What do you say?”

A trap is most likely, but pinned by the blue eyes – blue just like sea ensnared in tropical caves – he hears himself inexplicably say yes.

*

Gabriel meets Jack’s family. Older sister, Jennifer. Younger brother, Steven. Mother, Celeste. Father, Jonathan. They look and act real, welcome them both. It’s Jack that stands out, like cut from a different cloth, and there is an undercurrent of deception in his smiles.

*

The lake isn’t something spectacular, but when the morning sun hits the surface, it looks like a certain luminosity comes from the bottom, and Jack, standing in water, beckons him, smile for once gentle.

They kiss underwater.

“You know, old people say it connects to the ocean,” the blonde talks when they rest on a blanket by the shore. “They say that sea-folk sometimes come here and maybe even walk on legs with land dwellers.”

“Do you believe it?”

“Maybe,” Jack rolls to his side and props himself on elbow. His eyes seem to study him, and Gabriel feels unnerved.

*

Time to leave comes. Jack waits for him by the car down the road and Celeste sits in the shadow of the veranda. Around her neck coils a string of irregular pearls.

“I know your kind. You do right by my boy,” she states while the air wavers almost like water in the summer heat.

“I don’t…” Gabriel starts, but Celeste interrupts him.

“I know your kind,” she repeats and waves him off.

*

They return to training and injections. Summer days become a distant memory. Celeste’s words haunt Gabriel still.

‘You do right by my boy.’

But Jack isn’t a boy. Gabriel doubts he ever was.

*

When he sees Jack laugh at the man flirting with him, Gabriel feels something dark settle in his chest, just below his beating heart. It stays there even if the blonde’s eyes hardly ever leave his.

That night he has Jack singing under him. Later he dreams of inky blackness where silvery shapes pass him by.

*

He spends some time researching. Somehow, Gabriel thinks, all those stories are wrong, because sirens do walk the land.

But they are predatory things that lure the unsuspecting with their songs, that toy with their prey, and wait before dealing the killing blow. They feed on human flesh.

*

They work well together. Gabriel wakes up one night with his head cradled in Jack’s lap and the gentle song is all he can hear. Stars shine above them.

“You should rest,” the blonde murmurs, deft fingers combing his hair, soothing. “You are hurt.”

Soft sounds lull him to sleep again, pain gone, and he dreams of sun-kissed sargassum forests.

*

Jack’s father passes away. It is but a small miracle he is allowed a day to attend the funeral. When he asks Gabriel to accompany him, he agrees. His leave is approved too.

The ceremony is small and private. Later, Jack converses with his siblings while Celeste sits in her chair on the veranda. She has dark circles under her eyes but when she notices him, she stands up and clutches his shirt in her shivering hands.

“You do right by him, remember,” she pleads with Gabriel.

“She won’t last long,” Jack mentions mournfully on the way back.

*

Month later Celeste is declared missing. Her pearls are found by the lake. Divers discover nothing.

“We already said our goodbyes,” Jack responds when inquired.

*

It shouldn’t have come as a surprise, not at all, but Gabriel still feels this dark thing in his chest grow when Jack’s appointment is announced. The blonde sends him worried glances, but he steels himself.

Jack is good with people, he is a siren after all. His words are always a song, a sweet seductive tilt that has everyone on the edge of their seats, ready to please, ready to serve, but under that honey lies a deep rot of seaweed and wood, dead fish and drowned sailors. Gabriel hears it. He hates it.

*

They slowly drift away. Jack tries to reconcile. Gabriel rebuffs him.

The flicker of hurt in Jack’s blue eyes pains him.

*

Gabriel needs to remind himself that the person, no, the thing, that lies below him in a growing pool of blood, is a monster. It isn’t human.

Jack’s breaths grow labored and his eyes dim, yet he smiles against the barrel of the shotgun.

“You know… the sirens, to walk on land,” Jack’s voice catches in his throat. “They have to give something up…”

The dark thing around his heart twists and he kneels by the blonde, gun all but forgotten.

“What did you give up?”

No answer comes and the building collapses on them.

*

When he comes to, Gabriel knows he himself is a monster now. He sustains himself on something he doesn’t understand – a flicker of life, a bite of flesh, a scrap of memories.

Under a guise of night, he visits his own grave. He visits Jack’s grave next and traces his claw along the broken slab, the jagged line cutting the name in two.

*

After a year, he comes back. The stone is repaired. Gabriel leaves water lilies on it.

*

Next anniversary, the stone is broken again and painted in lines of garish colors. Gabriel scatters yellow snowflakes around and sits down.

“What was the thing you gave up?” He asks the air and expects no answer.

*

It continues and each time the dark thing that clutches his still heart fills him more and more.

*

It’s a shock, but no surprise. The monsters are notoriously hard to kill, he himself is a testament to that simple truth, and this one before him smiles with a strange sincere melancholy.

“Gabriel,” Jack acknowledges him.

“I will tear out your beating heart!” Gabriel snarls, claws poised over the blonde’s chest.

“That’s what you want. Do it.” This is a song, he realizes, one he hadn’t heard before, not aimed at himself, a sweet soothing trill of sun and wind ruffling waves, whales and dolphins playing together, and, above all, a promise of coming home, all honey and no bitterness hidden underneath.

Gabriel struggles, his hand twitching, metal sinking deeper into leather. With a howl, he tears away and almost slips.

“Why won’t you? This what you want, isn’t it? This is what you need,” Jack presses. When Gabriel doesn’t respond, he just shakes his head, turning away. “I liked the flowers.”

*

Jack sits by the corpse, his hands and face bloodied, and Amelie’s chest is clawed open, her heart missing from the gaping maw between her stretched ribs. The blonde tries to wipe his lips with his wrist.

“Sirens are territorial. They won’t suffer another after their chosen prey,” Jack looks back at him, and Gabriel feels his dead heart beat once, twice, and then still again. “Old people sometimes say that if you taste siren’s flesh, you’re going to live forever. But they say many things, don’t they?”

That night, curled in the embrace of a song, with blue of the sea looking over him and the silver of the moon calling him home, Gabriel sleeps for the first time in years. He dreams of sun, waves and an old rickety wooden landing.

*

But that dark thing piercing his heart is still there, still nestled, and it moans with pleasure rolling like storm waves when Jack falters, his hand clutching at his stomach as if trying to keep the blood in, red seeping through his fingers and blue eyes bleeding ocean water.

“Gabe,” he begs, looking up at him. “Sirens turn into sea foam, but they don’t have to. They don’t have to…” He calls him again as he stumbles over the edge of the cliff, and Gabriel isn’t fast enough, he never is, and Jack is falling, falling, and he is too slow, always too slow with his hand reaching out.

Sea foam below turns crimson.

*

Gabriel cradles the broken body to his chest and the darkness inside of him is quiet now, waiting, apprehensive. It is still there, clinging to the blonde’s skin - a flicker of life, a bite of flesh, a scrap of memories. A soul. A heart.

But Gabriel thinks he understands Celeste now. There is no use in coming home, not anymore, if home was a person. The depths will never feel welcome to him again.

‘I know your kind. You do right by my boy. You do right by him, remember.‘

‘You will not take him!’

He will not take him. So he kisses pale lips once and then lies Jack down, with waves nipping playfully at his cheek.

Gabriel returns to the sea as dawn breaks over the horizon.

*

When he breaks the surface, Gabriel comes to a stop, with sun and sea above him.

“Are you a mermaid?” The boy curiously asks. “You’re not selkie,” he adds.

Gabriel laughs, touching lightly a hand that trails in the water.

“Will you love me?” He sings, with sweet voice of a shimmering stream and a promise of quiet afternoons shared together.

“Oh, a song, you’re a siren!” The boy sits up, looking at him, excited. “Mom says I got her voice, she taught me her songs.”

“A siren, yes.” Gabriel reaches up, his fingers leaving droplets of water on the fair skin of the boy’s cheek. “Will you love me?” It is a simple question now, no undercurrent of deception or treachery in his voice.

“I could,” the boy confirms. “But mom says you have to give something up, something as big as what you want.”

Gabriel knows, and he understands what he asks.

“My memories.”

“But how can I love you, if you don’t remember me?”

“As long as you love me, we will meet,” Gabriel smiles, his eyes moving to a woman running, screaming, and his world dissolves.

“You will not take him!” She bellows.

*

Dark foam clings desperately to the body left on the shore. Come another day, it is gone.

*

What are sirens if not sea foam at the mercy of the ocean’s fancies?

The Lure – taken from a movie that should more accurately be titled as ‘The Daughters of the Danceparty’ in English – ‘Córki Dancingu’ where dance party is ‘Dancing’ – nigh impossible to translate what kind of party ‘Dancing’ is. Watch the movie: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5278832/ - it’s, kind of, a musical. It’s a mermaid movie. It’s fucking good. No, the story doesn’t spoil the movie, not in the slightest, maybe except the part where I wanted more ‘realistic’ mermaids.