#but OBVIOUSLY he’d be human in this!!!!! and so helpful for this attack specifically!!!!!!

[goatsghost]

HEY EVERYBODY DUKE’S BACK AND I LOVE HIM THANK YOU THAT IS ALL

[grailfinders]

Fate and Phantasms #13P: Robin Hood

Today on Fate and Phantasms we’re rebuilding Robin Hood in Pathfinder 2e! Last time I rand into some complications with how to build Gil. I am very grateful for the people in the comments who gave me some tips, but boy am I happy that Robin’s a bit less involved. Making a thieving rogue a Thief Rogue is a snap. We’ll also pop into the Archer, Snarecrafter, and Poisoner archetypes to make him the crossbow-wielding saboteur we all don’t know and love.

Check out his build breakdown below the cut, or his character sheet over here!

Next up: Cat! I’m a kitty cat! And I dance dance dance, and I dance dance dance.

Ancestry and Background

Unless you’re addicted to Disney, Robin Hood is a Human, specifically a skilled human, giving him a boost to Dexterity and Intelligence as well as free training in Thievery, with expertise at level 5. You also gain some General Training off the bat to become a Pickpocket. This means that you can steal closely guarded objects without the usual penalty if it’s something easy to nick- you can even do so against a creature in combat if you’re a master thief, though it comes with a penalty and takes two actions.

At level 5 you become a Clever Improviser, letting you add half your level (or all of it past level 7 to untrained skill checks. You can even use training-required actions! You live out in the forest, you have to be pretty good at just about everything.

At level 9 you can use Group Aid to help out your merry men, using the same aid action to help multiple people do the same thing, like using your hands as a boost to scale a wall.

Speaking of merry men, at level 13 your Advanced General Training makes you one hell of a Hireling Manager, giving your hirelings a bonus to all skill checks without affecting the cost of their services.

Finally at level 17 we’ll get more general training to execute an Expeditious Search, letting you spend half as long to search any given area. Also, once you hit legendary in perception that time gets cut to one fourth.

Robin also fights against illegitimate kings a lot more than your common pickpocket, so I’ve decided to make him an Insurgent. This gives him a boost in Wisdom and Dexterity, training in Deception and Warfare lore, and the Lengthy Diversion feat- critically succeeding in creating a diversion means you’ll still stay hidden for at least one more round. More than enough time to put some distance between you and the sheriff of Nottingham.

Class Levels

1. Yeah, yeah, the man’s name is Robbin, obviously he’d be a Rogue. This gives you training in Stealth, Acrobatics, Nature, Survival, Athletics, Diplomacy, Medicine, and Forest Lore, as well as Performance, Society, Intimidation, and Arcana as your intelligence increases. On top of that, you’re also trained in unarmed and simple weapons, as well as the rapier, the sap, the shortbow, and the shortsword, as well as your Class DC and Fortitude saves. You’re also an expert in Perception, Reflex saves, and Will saves.

You also get an Ability Boost in Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, and Wisdom, and you’re good enough around traps to function as a Trap Finder. This gives you a +1 bonus to find traps, as well as a bonus to your AC and Saves against traps. You’re also able to find traps automatically without searching. You can also disable traps that need a rank higher in thievery, and once you’re a master you get a +2 bonus to boot.

You also pick up your Rogue’s Racket- your subclass, basically. As a Thief, your Key Ability is Dexterity, giving you another boost there, and you can use that dexterity while making melee finesse attacks. You also would get trained in thievery, but we’ll grab Crafting instead. That’s a secret tool for later.

Later is now, btw. You can use Crafting for Snare Crafting, letting you add recipes for four common snares to your formula book. Now You’ve got sabotage ready to go! For example, a trip snare can make a creature flat-footed, which feeds right into your next feature, Sneak Attack. Hit a flat-footed creature with an agile/finesse melee attack or a ranged attack, and you deal an extra 1d6 precision damage. That’ll grow as you level up, but even if you haven’t set up your snares you can always make a Surprise Attack if you used deception or stealth for initiative, since all creatures acting after you are flat-footed as far as you’re concerned.

2. At second level you can use a Quick Draw to attack and draw your weapon with the same action. You’re not exactly Billy the Kid, but playing fair was never your strong suit either. For further sneakiness, you become a Terrain Stalker to move through the Underbrush of Sherwood Forest a lot easier. While undetected, you can sneak without a check as long as you move 5’ per turn and don’t get too close to enemies. You can get up to 15’ without an issue, but more importantly you can use this to sneak away without worrying about a nat 1. We’ll still bump up your Stealth anyway though so we can get No Face May King. Eventually.

Finally, you may have noticed that rogues don’t get proficiency with any sort of crossbow, which puts a crimp in our plans. Or it would, if not for the Archer Dedication giving us proficiency with all Simple and Martial bows, plus the critical specialization with bows we’re an expert with. Unlike D&D, crossbows are the same kind of weapon as regular bows, so now you’ve got your signature weapon, along with any other bow you’d like to try.

3. At level 3 you can Deny Advantage to flanking creatures who are lower level than you are. Those random guards aren’t really a threat to you, conservation of ninjutsu and all. You’re also Streetwise, so you can use your society bonus to gather information, and you can recall knowledge to gather info from settlements you regularly hang out in. One huge benefit to the Merry Men- you have eyes and ears everywhere.

Sometimes you need to figure stuff out for yourself though, and Shadow Mark makes it easier for you to do so by giving people a penalty to notice you’re following them. We’ll also make your Crafting a bit stronger for more impressive sabotage.

4. At level 4, you can finally Poison Weapons, like your crossbow! It takes an action, and then you have until the end of your next turn to use the poisoned weapon, wasting the poison on a critical miss. You can also make your level in injury poisons each long rest. They only last the day, but hey it’s free poison.

You can also Quiet Allies while you sneak, letting you all use the same roll while sneaking. Again, natural ones suck, so the less chance you have to roll them the better. You get better at Deception, and you can make a Point-Blank Shot, adding a +2 bonus to damage against nearby enemies when you use your crossbow. Robin has some crazy damage for a 3-star, so we’re picking up hurt wherever we can this build.

5. At fifth level your Ability Boost bumps up your Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, and Wisdom. You also get a lot better at living in the woods, growing your Nature skill and becoming a Forager. If you use survival to subsist, you always get a success, and you can provide food for yourself and up to four creatures, or twice as much on a success. This’ll also double every time you increase your proficiency in survival, to eight, then 16, then 32. For now it’s just four though.

As far as weapons go, you learn some neat Weapon Tricks, making you an expert with rogue weapons (and bows), and now you can use the critical specialization of all of them! You only get the rogue CS when they’re flat-footed though. That being said, sticking a creature to the wall with an arrow is a classic Robin Hood move.

6. You’ve gotten so good at setting up ambushes that now you can Anticipate Ambushes by moving half your speed while exploring. If you do so, you use your perception for initiative, and any creatures using stealth take a -2 penalty to the roll.

You also learn how to put on a Quick Disguise, spending only 5 minutes to hide yourself, and getting faster each time you level up your deception. We’re leveling up Society right now though, but your deception’s also pretty good.

Finally, you are a Crossbow Terror, giving you another +2 bonus to damage with crossbows, and if you’re using a simple crossbow (like a hand crossbow is) you can bump up the damage die from a d6 to a d8! So even ignoring sneak attack and poison, your bolts are already getting pretty hefty!

7. Seventh level rogues get Evasion regardless of which game you’re playing, though here it makes you a master at reflex saves and your successes are always critical.

You also gain some Criminal Connections from your Merry Men, letting you make a society check to meet up with important criminals and ask for favors if you’re in a settlement you’ve made connections in.

You’re also sometimes a noble? Or maybe you’re just pretending to be one. Either way you have Courtly Graces, letting you use society to make impressions on nobles and impersonate them. Admittedly you still need deception to hide as a specific noble… and also your deception’s good anyway… but still, it’s in character.

We’ll also take a moment to make you a master in Stealth with your skill increase, as well as perception thanks to your Vigilant Senses. Finally, your Weapon Specialization lets you do even more damage with weapons you’re good with. Hey, like crossbows! At this point you’re doing more flat damage with your crossbow than dice damage.

8. At level eight your Improved Poison Weapon doubles the damage of those piddly damage poisons you’ve got knocking around, and critical failures don’t get rid of poison on a weapon. You can also Swift Sneak around at full speed to keep your distance after delivering some of that sweet sweet death juice.

Finally, you’re a master at Crafting now, which will help as we pick up the Snarecrafter Dedication, which lets you make up to 6 snares per day for absolutely free. Now you’ve got a properly impressive number of ways to mess up someone’s day.

9. At level nine you get the Debilitating Strike free action, which you can use while dealing damage to a flat-footed creature, either reducing their speed or enfeebling them for a round. Looks like I spoke too soon last level. Now you have an impressive number of day-messing-up techniques.

You also have Great Fortitude, making you an expert in fortitude saves, and you’re also a master of Thievery. Finally, you can now make Discreet Inquiries, since being obvious about asking around on how to rob a rich guy is liable to get you thrown in jail. When you gather information, people trying to gather information about you gathering information have to beat your deception dc to do so. Don’t worry, we’ll get to deception next level.

10. Tenth level rogues get an Ability Boost in Dexterity, Constitution, Wisdom, and Charisma. You also get a lot sneakier this level as a Sneak Savant making you auto-succeed on failed sneaks, and you can Foil Senses while stealthing to auto-take precautions against special senses. No Face May King is nothing to sneeze at. Also don’t actually sneeze, that might give you away.

We promised last level, so you’re a master at Deception now.

Finally, you can use Quick Snares, letting you craft any minute-long snare in only 3 actions. You work good under pressure.

11. At level eleven you become an Incredible Scout, giving your allies a +2 bonus on initiative while scouting ahead. You know, like archers do in actual FGO. You’re also an expert in your Class DC, and your Slippery Secrets means even mind reading can’t figure you out. That’s the power of wearing a piece of cloth over your face baby!

Finally, we’ll make you a little better at Acrobatics so you can swing across gaps on makeshift ropes better. Again it’s an oddly specific thing but I think you do it a lot.

12. At level 12 you learn how to make Bloody Debilitations, packing even more damage into a single shot by dealing persistent bleed damage after making a debilitating strike. You can also use Nimble Crawl to get into position unnoticed, letting you crawl at half speed, and you’re now a master in Society for even more convincing disguises against nobles.

Finally, your Powerful Snares can have stronger DCs, either taking their own or your Class DC, whichever is higher. The big downside of a lot of equipment in D&D is how it doesn’t scale- in pathfinder, it does. Time to break it.

13. Thirteenth level rogues get Improved Evasion, making you a legend in reflex saves, and you don’t get critical failures any more. Instead, regular failures mean you take half damage. You also have Incredible Senses, making you a legend in Perception as well. Also your armor is expert now, but that’s less impressive, and so is being a master in weapons.

We’ll also bump up your Forest Lore to expert, but the only new thing this level is your Underground Network, which you can make over the course of a week normally or a full day of downtime. When you use society to gather info, you can contact one of your network in about an hour, gathering information with less public scrutiny. It also gives you a +1 bonus to your next recall knowledge check if it involves what your merry men were talking about.

14. At level 14 you learn how to use a Defensive Roll to avoid dropping to 0 HP. Once every ten minutes, you can use this free action to halve incoming damage from the attack that would knock you unconscious. Now we… kind of? have May King’s in-game use. I mean really you’d only use evade when you’re about to die anyway, so it’s probably fine.

You can also Quick Unlock locks in only one action now, and your Acrobatics are a little better than before, so you can move at full speed while prone.

Finally, we pick up our final archetype, the Poisoner Dedication, giving you the Infused Reagents class feature to make your own reagents, and the Alchemical Crafting feat to add four alchemical poisons to your crafting book.

15. At level 15 you get an Ability Boost in Strength, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma, and your Double Debilitation means you can add two options to your debilitating strike instead of one.

You also become legendary at Deception, and your Doublespeak lets you speak to your merry men without arousing suspicion from any sheriffs nearby. It’ll also work on any allies who’ve traveled with you for at least a week.

You can Kip Up as a free action to stand from prone without provoking reactions. You might be fast while crawling around, but you’re still flat-footed, which as we’ve found out by now is really bad.

Finally, your Greater Weapon Specialization helps you do even more damage with weapons you’re good with.

16. We’re in the home stretch now! Let’s get silly. At level 16 you become a Blank Slate, so any and all detection, revelation, and scrying effects ignore you entirely unless they can counteract level 10 effects. No Face May King means no face. You’re also legendary in Thievery now, which is why you’re a Legendary Thief, letting you steal items that are actively being worn over the course of a minute. You have to keep hidden the whole time, but that’s not exactly a problem, now is it?

Finally, you’re an Expert Poisoner, so now you can craft poisons up to 3 below your current level. For example, one kind of level 13 poison is Purple Worm Venom, which has a DC 32 save, lasts up to 6 rounds, and deals several d6 per round while enfeebling its prey. You can just. Make that now. It’s yours.

Wild what a game can do when it bothers to actually make rules involving poison, huh?

17. At level seventeen we’re popping back to a low-level feat to make you a Confabulator, completely negating the bonus most creatures would get from you trying to lie or cause a diversion multiple times.

You also have a Slippery Mind, making you a master of Will saves and criticalling all your successes. Finally, you’re now legendary in Crafting so you can make up to 8 snares per long rest for free, and even more terrifying poisons.

18. Did I say eight? I meant 16, thanks to Plentiful Snares. You can also Craft Anything now, so you can get up to level 18 poisons. Unfortunately the only level 18 poison doesn’t work with a crossbow, but we’ll keep you updated.

You’re also legendary in Society now. That’s not quite as flashy, but you use Society a lot so it’s a good skill to have.

19. I don’t think NFMK actually gives you True Perception, but when will I get the chance to use this feat again? Besides, something something “you’re good at deception so you see through others” means you now have a permanent True Seeing spell attached to your eyeballs.

You become a master in rogue armor as well as your Class DC, and you can use a Master Strike as a free action, adding another effect to your sneak attack once per day per creature, which forces a fortitude save. If they succeed, they’re enfeebled for a bit. If they fail, they’re paralyzed for longer. Finally, on a critical fail the target either gets paralyzed, knocked unconscious for 2 hours, or straight up dies. This is it, this is Robin’s NP from before they fixed his damage scaling.

Also, for some out of combat stuff you can make Quick Contacts in a single hour, basically you’re just rolling up with the merry men and they’re taking care of everything. You’re also legendary in Stealth, something we probably should have done earlier but w/e most games don’t hit level 19 anyway.

20. On your last level you get a last Ability Boost in Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, and Wisdom, and you also become a Hidden Paragon. Once per hour as a reaction you can become invisible for a full minute, even while attacking. Spells can’t reveal you (they couldn’t anyway), but people can still find you the old-fashioned way. Theoretically. Because you’re also a Legendary Sneak, letting you hide and sneak without any cover at all, and you avoid notice automatically while traveling.

We’ll also bump up your Survival skills a bit for better hunting, and pop back to Archer real quick for a Mobile Shot Stance. Spend an action, fall into a stance, don’t trigger attacks of opportunity while making ranged attacks. You can also make attacks of opportunity with your own crossbows if you’d like, that’d be fun.

Pros and Cons

Pros:

You’re great at stealing things, which is not only fun but a great way to get a leg up in the economy game. You can even straight up steal weapons out of your enemy’s hands, which is a funny little trick to pull. And of course, you can always reverse steal stuff to pin one of your many, many crimes on another person, getting them out of the way without ever having to fight them at all.

On a semi-related note, you’re also great at not being seen. You are impossibly stealthy, with several ways to bypass rolling entirely, and even succeeding your stealth rolls on everything but a critical failure. It’s almost like you’re robbing people while wearing some kind of clothing that hides you from viewers. A “robbing hood” if you will. Wait…

Also tying into point number two- poisons. You have a lot of them, and you can make some really nasty shit. Add in using your crossbow as a delivery system, and you become a terrifying force to be reckoned with, using a ranged attack to deliver deadly poison and immediately disappearing into thin air. The only thing stopping you from being even better at offing people is not being an assassin.

Cons:

If you’re playing to character, you might find fighting someone in close range can be a bit of a pickle, especially since we don’t pick up mobile shot stance until level 20. Rogues aren’t super beefy, so letting enemies get extra attacks on you is not a good move.

Poisons are Expensive, especially if you want the top shelf shit. You do get 20 injury poisons and 20 alchemical reagents a day for free which is nothing to sneeze at, but if you want to hit someone hard you’re going to be spending a lot of that “to the poor” money getting ingredients.

Despite being a lying roguish guy, you’re not that charismatic, so actually disguising yourself might go south if you aren’t careful. Better play it safe and stick with disappearing entirely.

[demonfamilytherapist]

Ah, thank you for the reply. ^^ I understand. (Spoilers up til lesson 16 I think?)

I was thinking about all the times the brothers had hurt MC in the beginning, and I kind of was like "What if Solomon casted a spell so the brothers would see through MC's eyes, feel their emotions at that moment of when they threatened/attacked MC?" Beel's rage over the custard, Belphie's attack, Levi in the quiz contest, possibly Satan if I recall correctly and the several incidents with Lucifer. Sometimes I feel like they pretend it never happened, which makes me super salty.

Brothers Experience MC’s Worst Memories of Them

A/N: this is a super interesting request! Obviously it was toughest for Mammon and Asmo, our two 'least murder' boys, but I tried to give them something too. I hope you enjoy it!

Content warning: spoilers for like… all of season 1. Mentions of violence, blood, and death.

-----

Solomon hummed as he stirred the pot - a potion, thankfully, and not any attempt at a meal. You’d decided to observe him to see if you could figure out if there was any fundamental flaw to his cooking techniques that would explain... everything.

“So, what is this again?” you asked.

“Something Diavolo asked me to whip up,” he said as he poured something lime green into the mixture. “Humans and demons often have different perspectives, so it’s supposed to help bridge that gap. Give a demon a more human experience. Actually, I wanted to ask you a favour.”

“Hm?”

“Since my experiences as a human aren’t exactly... typical... I was hoping I could borrow a hair?”

You shrugged and allowed it, perhaps a bit too used to Solomon’s strange requests.

It was only later, when your demons collapsed to the floor and trembled after being volunteered as guinea pigs, that Solomon realised his error.

“Diavolo requested something that would share human experiences of fear and pain, too...” he murmured, scanning over his notes, trying to figure out the cause. “I might have made it a bit too strong.”

“What exactly are they experiencing?” you snapped, placing Belphie’s pillow under his head as he whimpered. You tended to the brothers as best you could, but they didn’t wake.

“Your worst memories. Specifically, when it comes to them.”

Mammon

Mammon looked into his own eyes with confusion.

He recognised the setting instantly - your room.

What did Solomon’s stupid potion do?

He looked around and saw pizza on the floor, Beel shutting the door behind him, and your laptop paused on an episode of TSL.

Finally he looked at himself - or rather, yourself.

...What the hell did Solomon’s stupid potion do?

Your wrist was loosely wrapped in a bandage and his other self, his past self, muttered curses as he wound it tighter.

Fuck, what was this giddy feeling? He wasn’t Asmo, Mammon didn’t get off to himself that kinda way.

Was this... was this your emotion?

Giddy, bubbly, like the beginnings of a...

Mammon had felt like this back then, too. He hadn't thought that you might actually-

“...Listen. The next time your life’s in danger, I’m gonna be the one to save you, alright?”

The feeling soared - a rush of affection that left Mammon’s head floating, and while he didn’t remember you smiling like an idiot during this moment he certainly felt like he was.

Mammon was gonna need more of this potion. Seeing himself through your eyes, feeling like this, Mammon just... He could really believe he had a chance.

Better than a chance. Mammon was gonna get you alone as soon as he woke up.

“...And if I can’t manage to save ya, then make sure you die, got it?!”

The feeling faltered, sputtered, and Mammon tried to chase it. Tried to get it back, tried to fill up a chest suddenly feeling hollow, a raw and painful disappointment digging its claws in.

“It’s me or no one, understand?”

You questioned why in a voice that sounded a lot smaller in your own ears than what he’d heard and he snapped that it was his job, and Mammon... Mammon hadn’t meant to sound so harsh back then, Mammon hadn’t meant to say it so loudly.

That was the clearest memory.

Mammon slipped into others - different times, different places, the only thing consistent was him, his stupid mouth, and the heavy feeling in your chest.

So many moments Mammon hadn’t thought twice about. So many times he’d tried to dodge the truth. So much wasted potential, your happiness constantly stolen from you by his stupid mouth.

Mammon hadn’t meant to. He always just... He got embarrassed by that sorta stuff, and he’d never thought that you might like him back. Not that way.

Mammon didn’t want to fuck up the one good thing that’d happened to him in centuries. The one person other than his brothers he could get close to. So he’d tried not to change things.

As the memories went on, the they’re just a puny humans and the how’d I get stuck on babysitting duty’s went on, the pain in his, in your, chest stayed the same. But Mammon felt less and less of the feeling before it, the care, the way you looked into his eyes and your heart fluttered.

Was it because the flashes of memory were getting faster, lingering less on each one?

Or was it because that feeling was fading away?

Mammon couldn’t tell the difference between his pain and yours.

You deserved, fuck, you deserved so much better than a demon who couldn’t be honest with you, than a demon who hurt you like this, you deserved better than Mammon.

Mammon woke up with tears blurring his vision.

You called his name and when he met your eyes all he could see was the pain he’d caused you, the heartache, the slow washing away of your hope.

“I love ya.”

“Mammon, what-”

“I love ya, I love you, I do,” Mammon babbled, reaching out for you and collapsing into your arms when you offered them to him, still, despite everything.

“I love you, MC, I always have, I’m an idiot, I’m sorry, please believe me…”

Mammon didn’t care about Solomon and Simeon watching this scene with wide eyes.

All that mattered was that you knew the truth.

Mammon would never deny you that again.

Levi

This might actually be Levi’s worst nightmare come to life.

Suddenly, he's seeing himself through your eyes. Worse, he can feel what you feel.

Worse worse, it's during the TSL quiz. Before all the gaming nights, and the anime marathons, and the conventions, and the concerts, and-

Levi was stuck for a moment, unsure whose feelings were whose - if the panic, disgust, and embarrassment he felt were his or yours.

But your feelings felt foreign. Softer, kinder.

You weren't annoyed by his long-winded answers.

You weren't grossed out by his otaku ramblings.

You were surprised, almost... impressed?

Levi's self-esteem rose to levels it hadn't seen since he'd been a general in the Celestial Realm.

You also felt a little guilty... Was it because your questions were way easier? Levi wouldn't hold that against you, you were just a TSL initiate right now!

Levi only wished he'd gotten close to you sooner. He would do anything to have seen your face the first time you'd watched the TSL movies! How come stupid Mammon and Beel got to! Levi would've appreciated it more!

Oh, it would’ve been amazing! Levi would make sure that you weren’t interrupted by any of his brothers, of course you would watch the extended editions. You’d be so absorbed with the movies, Levi could look at you without worrying!

And maybe you'd be so focused he could feed you some popcorn and-

No! Too high level!

Levi was so lost in his fantasy he almost missed you pulling out your secret weapon.

Ah, right.

“I won’t stand for this!”

Levi had let his envy get out of hand.

“All you did was stay up late one night marathoning the DVDs!”

You hadn’t disliked him before you made the pact, or at least you hadn’t hated him…

“The idea that someone like YOU could actually be a bigger TSL fan than me, it’s…”

Past Levi was going to change that now.

Mammon called for him - weird, Levi didn’t remember that.

Your heart hammered in your chest, the sudden appearance of Levi’s horns and tail sending adrenaline running through you.

“No… no, I WILL NOT STAND FOR THIS!”

You cried out for Mammon, stumbled, fell backwards as Levi ran at you.

You hit the floor all wrong. Sharp pain made you and Levi hiss, your wrist collapsing under your weight.

The pain and fear left you shaking on the floor with a demon towering over you.

Ha. Even a pathetic shut-in like Levi could look scary to a fragile human…

Lucifer intervened but your eyes never left Levi. Fear pulsed through you, tears blurred your vision… it had all happened so fast, Levi felt dizzy. Or was that from you, too?

Humans were so delicate, even Levi had known that, so why did he...

Levi was left dazed. It took you calling his name several times before he realised he was awake.

He opened his mouth, ready to let his usual self-loathing comments slip out - how he was a gross otaku, worthless scum not worth your time, an awful demon who didn't deserve a pact with you - but only a choked off whimper came out, so he hid his face in his hands instead.

Fingers brushed against his hair and Levi tried to make himself smaller, half-expecting pain to follow. It was only what he did to you

You weren't like that though. The touch stayed gentle and Levi shook underneath it.

Was it okay for him to be happy with this, even if he didn't deserve it?

Beel

Beel hadn’t been listening, so it was a shock to suddenly be thrust into a body that was much... smaller.

He hadn’t had to look up at Mammon this much since he was a child! And why was he in the kitchen at the House of Lamentation? Wasn’t he just at the Demon Lord’s Castle? Why was Mammon whispering and creeping about? Why did Mammon call him MC- oh.

Looking down at himself he saw your hands, but lacking some of the marks and scars you’d earned in your time in the Devildom.

More importantly, where your shirt rode up, Beel could see your stomach - and a distinct lack of his pact mark.

Despite starting to put the pieces together, the sight still panicked Beel - he tried to reach out for your bond and only calmed down when he felt it, reassured your connection was still there.

In fact, it was stronger than ever.

He could feel your fatigue, almost like how he felt Belphie. He could feel your annoyance at Mammon, tempered by affection.

And then, Beel tasted - tasted delicious custard, his favourite flavour bursting across your tongue.

Delicious, but… did that mean…?

Beel - you - froze when Beelzebub walked in.

Beel knew he was tall, knew others had to crane their necks to look up at him, but he’d never truly appreciated what that meant until now. In your body, feeling your heart rate pick up and your adrenaline spike as the other Beel towered over you with a dangerous expression.

“Did you actually eat my custard? Answer me, Mammon!”

His voice boomed in your fragile human ears. Was Beel always this loud? Was he always this intimidating?

You’d always treated him so gently. Beel loved that about you, loved how he felt like something precious in your arms.

Beel could barely hear Mammon’s stuttered explanations over the sound of your heartbeat. Beel knew people got scared of him. He was big, his face didn’t show much expression, and everyone thought he was one empty stomach away from making them his next meal.

You’d seen past that, you’d gotten to know him; Beel, not the dumb jock or the Avatar of Gluttony, but Beel, the sixth-born, the protector.

Beel felt bad about how he’d treated you at first but he hadn’t realised… he didn’t think about…

You were a fragile human and the Avatar of Gluttony was in your face, crowding over you, stomach rumbling and teeth showing.

Beel hadn't realised how badly he'd frightened you.

You closed your eyes and Beel could tell from your senses that you were on the ground - you weren’t hurt, he hadn’t pushed you, you were just staying low and out of the way as kitchen appliances and dishes crashed and broke.

Beel felt arms around him - around you. Mammon, Mammon there to calm you down and keep you safe.

At the time, Beel had been angry with his brother. Now he wanted to thank Mammon. Mammon had protected you before Beel had even thought to.

A final, overwhelming bang filled the air, the sound of something collapsing in, and Beel knew the wall of your room was gone.

The last thing he felt was a sob choking its way out of your throat.

Beel woke up to your hands running through his hair, looking down at him with gentle eyes - a stark contrast to the position he’d just experienced.

Beel put his hand over yours and squeezed.

“I’m sorry.”

You sighed and shifted his head onto your lap, leaning over to give him a kiss on the forehead.

“I know, Beel, I know.”

Asmo

In truth, Asmo was a little excited!

Naturally he noticed he was in your body right away - Asmo had made it his mission to memorise all the details of whatever you would show him, and he was quite familiar with your hands.

It took him a little longer to identify the time - you were in the Demon Lord's Castle, and he could see himself and Simeon. Your eyes were on him - of course! - and he was posing, but not for you.

For a... oh, he remembered that statue!

This was the retreat!

You were watching him with amusement, a bit of affection (he'd like a bit more, but this was still early days, he'd forgive you) and... annoyance?

What?

The argument with Satan and the others happened, the other Asmo stormed off, and you followed after. Asmo got a rare view of his back from another's perspective, but he was much more concerned with the emotions he could feel through you.

Nervousness, he could understand - after all, you were clearly looking for a private conversation with him!

But why anger? He'd just been having some fun...

And why fear?

Asmo considered it as you began your conversation with the past him. He knew now that this had been for Belphie, so maybe you feared for his sake? The thought still weighed on him a bit, but Asmo knew your intentions were nothing but good.

If anything, it was kind of sweet how far you were willing to go for his family...

Asmo's attention was drawn back to the present - the past - by a bolt of fear.

Your body was now pressed up against a cool pillar, the sudden change in temperature forcing a shiver down your spine.

The past Asmo was leaning over you and... Asmo was confused. His face was as flawless as ever, his hair was perfectly curled, and yet...

...What was with his expression?

"I was trying to charm you. You know, like I did with down in the labyrinth. You saw how I tamed Levi's old pet snake, right?"

Asmo could hear a hint of frustration in past him's tone that made you squirm. He couldn't blame you. Normally he'd be happy to be so close to another person, but Asmo was suddenly very, very aware of how fragile you were.

"You're just a human. Yet, for some weird reason, it seems like my power doesn't work on you."

Asmo tried to argue with his past self. You weren't just a human, you were his darling MC! Unfortunately, your lips seemed sealed shut.

"Even so, if you think you can control me, well you've got another thing coming!"

Asmo knew he could be mean. Obviously! He was a demon, after all! Still, he didn't... he hadn't thought about you that way in so long, he'd forgotten you weren't always so close.

Your voice, which had sounded fine from Asmo's memory, trembled in your own ears. Maybe he just hadn't been paying enough attention to you in the past?

"Me? Make a pact with you? Hahaha!"

Asmo's tone was cutting, mocking, searching for any crack in the bravery it took for you to follow a demon off to some unknown part of the castle.

Your confidence wilted as he continued to mock you, the current Asmo trying to process what was happening.

How could he ever have treated you so thoughtlessly?

How could he ever have missed how precious you were?

How did you feel about him now?

Asmo woke with his eyes already searching for you, throwing himself towards you as soon as he heard your voice.

Asmo showered you in compliments even as you tried to calm him down, desperation creeping into his tone.

He was wrong, MC! Asmo would never tear you down like that again!

Please don’t hate him!

Satan

Satan had always regretted his actions on the day he asked you to make a pact with him.

At the time, he hadn’t considered your feelings at all. His thoughts were centred on annoying Lucifer, and you were a convenient means to that. And when you, a mere human, refused him, the fourth born, the Avatar of Wrath…

Satan knew he was wrong. His wrath had flared up with you as the target. But you had forgiven him, helped him, and as time passed and your relationship continued to blossom, Satan could almost forget how your relationship started.

At first, experiencing it through your eyes was alright.

Satan felt your sympathy for him when he spoke about his origins - your emotions flowed through him as strongly as his own, and it jarred him to look into his own eyes and feel the overwhelming urge to reach out.

The depth of your emotion, your kindness to him when he had admitted to wanting to use you… Satan let himself feel it all, hoping this experience could help him understand you.

He watched himself speak, the offer of a pact on his tongue, and even while he felt your confusion he cringed at his past self.

You were infinitely more than just a tool to use against Lucifer. He had to have been blind not to see it at the time.

Satan breathed in your determination, your hope, your love as you rejected his offer of a pact. He knew the worst was still to come but he just couldn’t help and enjoy understanding this part of you.

Truly, you were a remarkable human.

And then…

Satan watched his anger mount. Fear was not something he was totally unused to, but it was different, in a human.

He felt how fast your heart rate picked up, the foreign urge to run sending signals to his legs he couldn’t follow, trapped in your body.

“But I will make you suffer if you cross me, and it will be much more cruel and much less humane than anything my brothers would ever do.”

Satan had said all that… with such a smile upon his face?

How could he have ever, ever threatened you so calmly? If any demon spoke to you like that now, Satan would tear them apart.

“I’ll slice of your nose and ears, rip off your arms and legs, and feed you to the lower-level demons!”

No no no, he wouldn’t, he would never!

Your fear raced through him and Satan didn’t know how to process it.

Never in his life had he felt so helpless. Helpless against the demon before him. As the intensity of your fear increased Satan struggled to remain an observer, barely recognising himself as the past Satan approached you.

Satan’s back was against the wall, the Avatar of Wrath looming over him, and he couldn’t calm his breathing down. If things kept going like this, he would- you would- Satan needed to get you away from here, away from those bright green eyes and snarling mouth, but your legs wouldn’t move.

“Listen well, human, if you dare say you won’t make a pact with me again, you’ll pay for it with your…”

His heart beat out of your chest, his breathing sped up, and Satan couldn’t find where his fears began and yours ended.

Satan understood now. All this time, he’d been competing for your affection.

But he’d destroyed any chance he had before he’d even gotten off the starting block, hadn’t he?

How could you ever forget this? This desire to run, to get away - his whole being thrummed with it.

His more demonic instincts insisted he deal with the threat before him. The blond, green eyed demon that threatened you, the monster out of your nightmares.

The sheer relief upon Lucifer’s arrival made Satan unsteady. In trying to hurt Lucifer, Satan had set him up to play the hero for you.

At least you were out of danger. The Satan from the past backed away with a huff and a sneer.

Satan knew what came next - the book, the body swap, your quiet understanding and encouragement.

How much of that affection was real? How much was masking your fear?

When Satan came back to himself, to the present, to his brothers, some recovering, some still caught in the spell-

Satan met your eyes and he tried to back away, but his legs still trembled from fear and he stumbled, inelegantly falling back and landing hard against a table.

Apology after apology spilled from his lips, Mammon and Asmo both looking at Satan with understanding but what did they know? They’d never almost killed you.

Satan squeezed his eyes shut when you reach out, not sure what he expected. His heartbeat still pounding in his ear screamed a hit, a hit, but Satan knew you wouldn’t.

He breathed out when you caressed his cheek, the other hand drawing him closer to you.

Satan trembled in your grip, but held you tight. He would do anything to make sure you never felt that fear again, from him or from anyone else.

Lucifer

Lucifer was quick to understand the situation - and quick to swear revenge on Solomon.

Lucifer wondered what memory it would be, though.

Almost certainly his confrontation with you, Beel, and Luke, a source of shame he’d rather not return to.

However, Lucifer could manage that. Diavolo had intervened before anyone had been harmed.

If not that, then surely the dance? He’d actually hurt you in that instance - though you were certainly intelligent enough to know he wouldn’t try anything serious so publicly.

Lucifer wasn’t expecting to be in the library.

Lucifer couldn't follow along with the conversation.

Lucifer tried to remember anything like this happening.

“You went up those stairs, didn’t you? You knew you weren’t allowed to, but you did it anyway? You went up there and… and you met Belphegor?”

This hadn’t happened. Was this a nightmare of yours? Lucifer discovering you had met with Belphie before… before that time?

“Do you really find it so amusing to poke your nose into our business at every opportunity? Do you enjoy stirring up trouble that much?”

His demon form spread its wings.

Lucifer had experienced every imaginable emotion in his long life.

From a human, though, those feelings were intensified.

You were truly helpless against him without the pact - and your racing heart, your quick breathing, the lump blocking his throat were all foreign to him.

This felt real, but how? How could this have happened?

“You, a mere human? YOU DON'T HAVE THE RIGHT!”

Power pulsed from this nightmarish version of himself, pain lighting up your nerves just from your proximity.

Lucifer grit his teeth - or you grit yours - and tried to back away, muscles locking and working against you.

A cold feeling spread across your body. You truly believed you would die here.

Damn it, this wasn’t a dream.

But it wasn’t him.

The other timeline.

Lucifer shared your feeling of relief when his brothers intervened, Mammon putting himself between you and Avatar of Pride.

Lucifer had hoped this would calm the other him down but it didn't, your relief giving way when you see that Lucifer seemed to barely acknowledge Mammon or Asmo.

And then Beel, Beel who’d overheard the conversation, Beel furious at what Lucifer had done, Beel who got between you and Lucifer and demanded answers that Lucifer would never have been willing to give.

Your heart dropped as Beel was sent across the library, crashing into bookshelves and splintering wood.

Lucifer heard his brothers cry out. Beel’s groan of pain, Levi’s concern, Asmo’s protest.

It was you who checked on Beel, knelt beside him and turned his head towards you and wiped splinters from his face.

This, at least, was unfortunately familiar to Lucifer.

Why did you have to defend his family from him?

“QUIET!”

Your gaze once more fell on Lucifer. Fear and determination ran through you in equal measure. Was this what you felt in Lilith’s tomb? Was this what you felt when you went up to the attic despite his threats? When he crushed your hand in that dance?

Mammon, Asmo, and Levi stood between that Lucifer and the two of you. Satan moved to flank.

Even through his fear and yours, Lucifer could feel proud of his brothers, of you. Looking out for each other, protecting each other, even if it had to be from him.

“All of you get out of here right this-”

Lucifer woke as the library door opened.

Despite no longer being in your body, Lucifer’s breathing was still too fast - he forced himself to calm down, only taking in his surroundings when he was certain he was back in control.

His brothers were mostly conscious, but exhausted. You tended to Satan. Solomon was bothering Mammon.

You called out to him when you noticed he was awake, and Lucifer opened his mouth but found himself unsure what to say.

You only gave a soft smile of understanding.

Lucifer winced - you must be well aware of what he’d just seen and almost certainly didn’t want to discuss it.

Lucifer had hoped you could feel safe with him, safe in his home and confident that he would protect you.

There were so many possible options for your worst memories of him. So many times he’d threatened to kill you and almost seriously injured you and he had truly hoped you could feel safe with him.

Lucifer ran a hand through his hair, resigned. At least you could rely on his brothers.

A pressure on his shoulder had him focused on you again, his hand rising to meet yours on instinct.

There were no words, only your soft smile. Reassuring him that you saw past the monster he was.

Belphie

No.

No.

No no no no no no no no

Belphie knew what was coming.

As soon as he realised where he was - in your body, opening the attic door for the first time - he knew what was going to happen.

This didn’t make sense. You shouldn’t remember this. This happened to the other you, the one that disappeared in Mammon’s arms.

Please, please tell me this is a dream.

Belphie could feel your adrenaline, your confusion, but also your hope. He couldn’t read your thoughts right now, but he could feel the way your heart leapt as the door opened easily in your grasp. Could feel your lips open in a smile as you approached him.

Just run. Just leave me there and run. Lock the door behind you. Get Lucifer. Anything. Anything but this please.

Belphie watched as his own eyes fluttered open and met yours, drowsiness fading to confusion moving to alertness as his past self took in the sight of you.

Please no. This wasn’t right. You shouldn’t even remember this, wasn’t it the other MC? No, no please don’t remember this.

Belphie watched himself smile and laugh as he realised he’d been freed. You smiled too, but Belphie could feel the seed of doubt in the pit of your stomach. It was the only thing that matched what Belphie was feeling now - sick.

“Now I can finally achieve what I set out to do.”

Belphie tried everything he could. Every trick he’d learned to change a bad dream, every way he could think of to get himself to wake up. He tried focusing on the feeling of your body and taking control, tried to make you run away.

Instead, you opened your arms to the wretched demon in front of you.

For a moment, Belphie hoped. Hoped that despite all the similarities this was just a bad dream of yours, that you didn’t really remember experiencing his greatest sin.

But the pain quickly dashed any hope of this being a human’s nightmare.

“You’re so stupid that I can’t help but laugh. Don’t blame me for tricking you, blame yourself for falling for it.”

Don’t talk to MC like that, you bastard. You… how could I…

Belphie couldn’t breathe. You couldn’t breathe. Belphie felt your lungs burn, your breaths choked away, your heart desperately trying to pump oxygen through your body.

“If you die, the exchange program will be ruined, and Diavolo’s reputation will be in tatters.”

Who cares! You were more important than some stupid grudge!

Belphie could feel, along with your physical pain, the betrayal that brought tears to your eyes - or was that the lack of oxygen?

Under the betrayal though, was disappointment.

Belphie had pieced together parts of the story before now, but disappointment meant-

They knew I hated humans. They knew I might lash out. Maybe they didn’t know I would do this, but they still knew I was dangerous.

Belphie wasn’t sure if the pain he was feeling in his heart was yours or his.

They helped me even though they knew I couldn’t be trusted.

“I have to say, seeing a human face twisted in pain like this… why, it’s so much fun that I can barely stand it! I… I can’t contain my laughter!”

Your vision was getting fuzzy, but Belphie could see what you saw. A monster. A cruel, hateful demon. Your murderer, in all his disgusting detail.

Your body shook with Belphie’s laughter, sending jolts of pain everywhere. Your bruised ribs, your crushed throat, your head that felt like it might burst.

Belphie felt the tug of sleep, but it wasn’t like he was used to.

There wasn’t any peace. Just a pain in your head, a fuzziness over everything.

The other Belphie’s laughter faded. Your body started going numb.

Please, please no, don’t die, please no no no, he didn’t want to feel you die, you deserved better than this.

Belphie felt your senses fade one by one. He felt your heart stutter, stutter, stop. Your lungs finally gave up on the breaths that weren’t getting through.

Please please please he’s sorry, he was so so stupid, he knew better, please, please don’t leave him-

A voice called out - barely heard, achingly familiar, a glimpse of a figure surrounded by light-

Belphie woke up to a familiar pillow - your lap.

Belphie scrambled back, head smacking against a table leg - you reached out but all Belphie could see was hands reaching for his neck and he whined, phantom pain lancing through his throat.

From around the room, his brothers looked on. Belphie couldn’t bear to meet their eyes. His bond with Beel spoke of empathy. Belphie didn’t think the rest of his brothers would be so generous.

Instead of reaching for him again, you rested a hand on his calf, gently rubbing circles with your thumb. You spoke to him slowly, soothingly, like he was a scared child and not your murderer.

Belphie wanted to hug you, but… but no, no he couldn’t.

So instead he reached back and gripped onto your sleeve, sobbing, apologies barely intelligible, not caring how pathetic he looked.

Belphie sobbed until you directed Beel to pick him up.

It wasn’t right. How could you try to take care of him? He should be kept as far away from you as possible. How can you look at him? Did you somehow forget?

Did you really forgive him?

From Beel’s arms, he can hear you tearing one into Solomon.

Belphie doesn’t understand you at all.

[xcreepypastaheadcannonsx]

🔪Jeff The Killer & Homicidal Liu Headcanons🔪

~~~~~~

-Okay so Jeff, contrary to popular belief, is really short lol

-And I mean like 5’3 short, he was always super small compared to Liu - and was picked on a lot in school because of it

-But in school he wouldn’t let people pick on him for very long, he was most definitely the type of kid to needlessly fight in order to assert dominance and not look like a punk

-But he also just liked to do it!

-Jeff grew up an extremely angry kid, he’d fight, verbally attack people, throw things, threaten

-While Liu on the other hand was a tall quiet kid. He was the oldest, he read books, played video games and chess - and just wanted to be left alone.

-Oh yeah Liu was like 16, while Jeff was like 14 or 15

-In my headcanoned version they’re presently 27 (Liu), and 25 (Jeff)

-And while Liu was quiet, he understood humans and how to manipulate them amazingly

-He understood what to say, how to act, how to feel and how to cater to people in order to earn their trust

-So he could, of course, get stuff out of them lol

-He’d tell Jeff “look man, you don’t gotta beat the shit out of the teacher because he gave you a bad grade - just suck up to him and manipulate him, it’s much easier” and Jeff of course was like “Nah I ain’t doing that! Didn’t know I had a pussy for a brother”

-Jeff had an extreme distaste for his brother, he never liked him lol

-He thought of him as a weak, snobby goody-goody who never could have any fun

-(“fun” meaning illegal shit obviously)

-And while he was most of those things he definitely was not weak lol - they both were extremely strong, just in different ways

-And Jeff was too stupid to see it

-In Jeff’s mind - Liu’s sucking up = big gigantic pussy syndrome

-And god forbid Jeff take a blow to his own ego by acting like a “pussy bitch”, even if it’s a smart move to make

-All and all Jeff was, and still is a stubborn idiot

-When it came to Jeff and Liu’s parents - Liu was the favorite

-While Jeff was getting in trouble on the daily, fighting and being ignored and looked down upon by his own parents - Liu was getting all the attention and praise, continuously spoiled and shown off

-If any child could fly over the roof and shit gold eggs in their parent’s eyes, it would be Liu

-Jeff sucked at math and English, he hated reading

-Whenever he had to read out loud he acted like a little pisser for a bit, and then would try - failing miserably in the process

-after being corrected a few times by his teacher and other classmates he’d become enraged, throw his chair and desk and leave in a huff

-after awhile the teacher wouldn’t even ask him anymore

-it’s a win I guess?

-And of course Liu had no trouble with both, imagine Jeff coming home:

-“Fucker, help me with English.”

-And of course Liu is like “fine”

-Even though he found it annoying to have to help his brother who struggles so much with reading, he also found it to be comedy gold when he couldn’t even pronounce “Europe” correctly

-And the feeling it gave Liu to correct him was just amazing, anything that made Liu feel smart just filled him with such smug pride

-These tutoring sessions always seemed to turn into a physical fight between the two brothers, Jeff always starting it of course

-Liu usually winning

-Presently Jeff is a wide dude, built like a brick shit house

-Specifically wide with muscles, he has the physique of a body builder, very puffy cartoonish muscles - not extremely pretty looking

-He still suffers from small man syndrome, still extremely angry, still compensating for many things

-He hasn’t become anymore intelligent lol, he’s just become older

-He’s still impulsive, violent, crass, impolite

-But the only respectable thing about him is that he’s honest about who he is. He knows he isn’t the smartest, he knows he definitely isn’t a saint, he hides in dank abandoned houses - drinks like a fish and does hard drugs for the thrill of it. He murders and terrorizes, he tortures, he destroys.

-but he just can not muster a single fuck

-Liu is the complete opposite

-It’s funny, Liu and Jeff could not be anymore similar. They are two sides of a coin, they are both homicidal maniacs who want to fulfill their selfish needs. They don’t feel a single thing except the animalistic impulse to destroy, feed, and procreate. The only difference is one’s a liar, and the other is honest.

-Liu is so scared he’s going to taint his seemingly perfect appearance

-He kills and tortures as well - just behind closed doors.

-The amount of skeletons in his closet could fill 12 cemeteries, the things he’s done would make his parents role in their grave

-Yet he lies and puts on a persona of a smart, soft spoken man who cares for the people around him. A man who says he despises murderous lunatics, when he’s one himself - and usually worse than the other ones he condemns!

-That’s why they’ll never get along, they have no respect for each other

-Liu will always look at Jeff as a dirty, feral dimwit and Jeff will always see Liu as a cowardly liar.

-Anyways, Liu’s full first name is Luis

-Jeff is the type to visit Liu while he’s drunk just to fuck with him

-Liu is a spitting image of his father, both him and his father have very soft, kind features.

-While Jeff looks very much like his mom - either he has a constant scowl on his face or has the most evil smile imaginable

-Jeff just looks like he burns down buildings

-Jeff has crooked ass teeth

-When you think of Liu - think of Patrick Bateman. “I want to fit in.”

-God Liu is so boring he prolly listens to smooth elevator Jazz

-Jeff would listen to the noisiest shit

-like, if this guy had access to the internet and understood it he’d prolly listen to anime speedcore/soundcore

-Like he would listen to this^^^

-And he would fucking love it

-Also Jeff would be so, so problematic

-He’d prolly say the most offensive, ignorant shit just to get a rise out of people

-Anything to start a fight, anything to give him a reason to hurt people

-But I feel as if he’d be extremely misogynistic, like actually

-Would not at all be surprised if he genuinely hated women

-He’s on par with a rabid animal

-And even now at 25 years old, NOBODY LIKES HIM! Even the creepypastas that know of him are so fucking annoyed and/or completely put off by him

-They can’t even really use him for anything, and even if they could, would it be worth it to listen to him?

-He’s also that kid in middle school that’d show people cartel videos

-and Liu HATED it, totally despised it

-He’d be like “what the fuck man?! Cut it out”

-God forbid his reputation be tarnished by his brother

-Legit Liu would not give two shits if he wasn’t his brother, maybe he’d condemn it if people around him were doing the same

-But he personally does not care about social justice or people in general

-He’s just too self absorbed to

-Legit Jeff would be /pol/ on 4chan

-He probably frequented 4chan

-Oh Liu is so fucking big into Facebook

-He’d probably repost some of those stupid inspirational minion memes up on his page as if he was a middle aged mother

-This man is a “live laugh love” type

-If only people knew

~Olive🐰

[phoenixyfriend]

Auntie ‘Soka and Little Leia (and Rex)

The counterpart to Uncle Ben and Little Luke (Original Post, Chrono)

Listen. You all knew this was coming.

This got... very long and detailed and I’m going to have to clean it up and post to AO3. As in, this was supposed to be 2-3k and is literally ten times that long. It crossed 25k. And the initial section actually glosses over a bunch, actual fic-style writing starts at “That, of course, is when things get interesting.”

Warnings: discussion of various canon traumas (most relating to being child soldiers), general PTSD, several scenes featuring dissociation or panic attacks upon being triggered, and canon-typical violence.

Rated T, gen.

I still want there to be de-aging nonsense involved so Ahsoka is physically a late teenager despite having a solid two decades of field experience behind her (we’re pulling her from Malachor).

Leia, much like Luke, is now six. She just came from being a rebellion general. She is not happy about being a child. She was already short, this is just mean.  She’s a human espresso.

UNLIKE BEN, Ahsoka is not happy about this turn of events. Being seventeen-ish is not helpful in the outer rim. She’s a female togruta, young and healthy, and in the Outer Rim, caring for a small human child. Sure, she has her lightsabers and plenty of combat experience, and she can keep them safe, but she’s just one person, and a major target for those looking to make some quick cash. It doesn’t matter how good she is; she needs sleep at some point.

It makes my heart happy to treat Ahsoka and Rex as two halves of the same black ops specialist so you know what, he’s there too! He’s physically like... 10-12 in natborn, maybe. They’re not sure, because clones age weird. He’s moderately more useful than Leia (who is very competent but also physically six, and short for that age), but he’s still... very small.

Reminder that none of them have been born yet.

Ahsoka has a harder time explaining WHY she has children with her, since she's barely more than a kid herself, and clearly unrelated by species. She sometimes just says “Oh, my adoptive brother’s kids” since it’s kind of the truth for Leia and she’s not touching the actual truth about Rex with a ten foot pole.

Ahsoka definitely knows about Leia being a Skywalker, or at least has suspicions that Bail never outright confirmed but was conspicuously quiet about. She does tell Leia about it, but it’s not like that means anything, right? Just, you know, your dad was my teacher! I don’t have to tell you he became Va--oh shit, you already knew that part. Well, fuck. What do you mean he had a son? OH SHIT, PADME HAD TWINS.

Alt take for explaining why she’s got kids: She’s my foundling, I know her name as my child (Leia shut up!!!)

(Ahsoka can fake Mandalore. Sometimes.)

That said, there is... significantly less gambling and significantly more theft to get to Coruscant.

As previously stated, Ahsoka is a black ops kinda gal, and more importantly, she looks like a fairly attractive young woman in the Outer Rim, with two children in good health. She’s a target, and also not the kind of person one generally gambles with. If she does gamble, people get upset when she doesn’t lose, in ways they don’t get upset about Ben doing the same, because she’s, again, a cute teenage girl. It’s exhausting.

As things go, she largely ends up stealing from people who deserve it and/or smuggling herself and her charges into someone else’s ship. They’re small, they can hide. Sometimes she can get them all passage by working as a mechanic, she’s good at that.

Once they’ve got a handle on when they are, they have to decide on Names. None of them have been born yet, so technically they could use their own names without anyone Knowing. Rex and Leia might not even be born, depending on how successful they are at, you know, stopping the war and everything. Ahsoka, though, she’s going be born in two years, and there’s no reason to prevent it, so... she doesn’t want to steal baby-her’s name. That would be mean.

Leia is already calling her “Auntie ‘Soka” when she can for reasons like “selling the bit” and “manipulating adults” and “making us both feel better after we had a mutual breakdown about Anakin being Vader.” Ergo, she decides that whatever new name she picks better include that in some way, and decides on “Sokari” because it sounds pretty.

Overall, they don’t... they don’t actually make it very far before there’s an Incident. Again, teenager with small children. They spend a lot of time hiding out in space ports looking for an opportunity.

That, of course, is when things get interesting.

Specifically, Ahsoka spots a Mandalorian.

She doesn’t recognize the armor. She does recognize the sigil, and thinks ‘well, they’re more likely to help than some,’ because from what she’s heard, the Haat Mando’ade are Decent People Overall. Her view is a little biased, mostly on account of the sheer level of grudge she has against Kyr’tsad. It’s fine! The True Mandalorians have the same grudge, right? And Mandalorians like kids and Ahsoka hasn’t slept in five days and it’s fine. It’s fine! IT’S FINE.

“Oh shit,” Rex whispers, before she can suggest anything. “Oh fuck.”

“Stop cursing,” Leia hisses, elbowing him. “People are going to notice.”

“That’s the Prime,” Rex panics, mostly quiet. Ahsoka’s heart drops, because fuck is right. “That’s Fett.”

Leia isn’t impressed. Ahsoka just angles herself between Fett and Rex and hopes that he doesn’t see them. That’s just asking for trouble.

Unfortunately, Ahsoka is in fact running on none sleep with left trauma, and doesn’t notice Fett walking up and dropping into a seat across from them until he’s actually done so, removing his helmet to glare a little more efficiently.

“Wanna explain why your kid has my face?”

Ahsoka later tells herself that he’s killed Jedi and that’s why he can sneak up on her, and that she can be forgiven some slip-ups with the exhaustion being what it is, and that she’s obviously going to be dealing with some emotional instability in light of the sudden return of teenage hormones and new forms of anxiety that are markedly different from those she was dealing with a few weeks ago.

What Ahsoka wants to say is “that’s kind of a long story,” or “maybe he’s a cousin,” or “kriff off, I don’t know you,” or maybe even “he’s a clone.”

What Ahsoka actually does is burst into tears, which is embarrassing for her, for Fett, for the kids, and for the entire rest of the bar.

It really is the straw that broke the eopie’s back. Even when she was actually this age, she didn’t exactly cry much. Objectively, Fett quasi-aggressively asking a valid question shouldn’t send her into a panic. She’s been through torture and worse. She shouldn’t be crying.

But she is, sobbing her eyes out with no control, and he’s just sitting across from her and looking uncomfortable while Rex wraps his little arms--oh Force he’s so small--around her, and both ‘children’ glare at Fett.

“So, I’m going to take it she didn’t kidnap you from a loving family or do something illicit with a blood sample,” Fett says, after it becomes obvious that Ahsoka’s not going to be ready to talk any time soon.

“She didn’t,” Rex says stiffly, with just the right emphasis for Fett to catch what’s implied. Ahsoka just keeps her head down, eyes pressed against the heels of her palms, trying to get her body to stop rebelling against her.

Fett’s eyes dart to Leia, who folds her arms and draws herself up, every bit the unimpressed princess. “My father claimed her as a sister, so she’s my Auntie ‘Soka.”

The man dithers a bit, the conversation clearly not going where he’d expected. “Right,” he says. “You--you’re all kids. I thought she was a little older, at least, but I didn’t have a good look at her face before.”

She is older, but actually admitting that is only going to make this worse, both for her pride and for her chances of making it out alive.

“Where are you staying?”

“What?” Leia bites out.

“You’re kids, you’re alone, and you’re clearly not okay if you were trying to hide the one with my face as blatantly as you did, and then... whatever this is, when I confronted you,” Fett explains. Ahsoka lifts her head to glare at him, but it’s probably not doing much with the way her eyes are rimmed with red and still wet. “Don’t give me that look, ad’ika, your kids looked as confused and horrified by that as the bartender did. They obviously didn’t think it was normal either.”

Well, kriff you too, Ahsoka thinks.

“And what do you mean by ‘blatantly,’ here?” Leia challenges. It’s adorable, but Ahsoka watched this tiny girl shoot a man last week, and wonders when people are going to start taking that seriously.

“There’s a lot of people in this galaxy, and I don’t exactly have the clearest memory of what I looked like at that age,” Fett says, slow and careful like he thinks they’re dumb. Ahsoka decides to chalk it up as being because Leia’s visibly six. “I would have thought it was just a coincidence if you hadn’t put in effort to hide him.”

Leia huffs, and Rex glares harder. Fett just sighs, like they’re all going to give him grey hairs.

“You can explain whatever the hell’s going on,” Fett says. “I’ll let you stay on my ship, there’s a spare bunk and you’re small.”

“For free?” Rex demands.

“A night on a bunk in exchange for information,” Fett clarifies. “We can negotiate from there.”

Ahsoka takes a few moments, notes that both of the others are waiting on her for the decision, and cringes. She doesn’t feel steady enough to carry that. She has to anyway.

“Rex?” she asks, voice rasping after the breakdown of the past few minutes.

“Yeah?”

“How much?”

He looks up at her, eyes calculating, and grimaces. “We don’t want Order 66. A warning is better, even if we... share information.”

She nods, and turns to Leia. “Any premonitions, princess?”

Leia glowers, cute and furious. “No.”

“No, don’t tell, or no, you aren’t getting any vibes about sharing info one way or the other?”

“The latter,” Leia clarifies, huffy to the last.

“Right,” Ahsoka says, and then just... hesitates. “Fett...”

“You’ve got conditions,” he guesses.

She bares her teeth in what could have, through a squint and perhaps a few drinks, been called an apologetic smile. “Just one, really.”

“Yeah?”

“No hurting, killing, or turning us in for bounties,” she says. “Any of us.”

“You’re children, I wouldn’t.”

She blinks at him, slow and careful. She hesitates. She reaches down, out of sight, sees him stiffen.

She unclips her sabers from her belt and puts them on the table.

His eyes are fixed on the weapons the second they enter his line of sight, and don’t move as he clearly realizes why she made the condition she did.

“I left years ago, because I couldn’t stay without it ruining me,” she says. Still slow. Still careful. She’s so tired. “But if I want to keep Leia safe, I have to get back to Coruscant.”

His eyes finally lift from the sabers, expression blank. “Just her?”

“Rex doesn’t have the same monsters coming after him,” she says. “If it were just me and him, I’d worry less. Leia’s a different kind of target.”

“You’re putting a lot of faith on the table by telling me that,” Fett says, voice flat and toneless. “Considering my occupation.”

“She’s a child,” Ahsoka says, feeling heavy and boneless. “Even with what I was and will be, even with what money you would get from the right buyer, you wouldn’t.”

“There are other risks.”

“There are.”

They stare at each other for too long, probably, and then Fett jerks as Rex kicks him under the table. The boys glare for a moment, and then Rex says, “If she weren’t good, I’d still be a slave to those who grew me.”

Fett blinks, and then nearly growls the word, “What?”

“She freed me,” Rex reiterates. “While I was trying to shoot her.”

Ahsoka lifts a hand and puts it on his far shoulder, pulling him into her side. She doesn’t meet Fett’s eyes again, because part of her is back on Mandalore, dodging her own soldiers and crying out as her family dies across the galaxy.

Fett breathes in. Breathes out. He puts a hand to his head, visibly frustrated. “Fine. A good Jedi kid, and two smaller kids, one of which is apparently in some way mine.”

Rex makes a face, which is fair, but also not helping.

“To the ship,” Ahsoka says, putting her sabers back on her belt and sliding out of the seat. “I’m... I’m Sokari.”

“You already know my name.”

“I do.”

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

Fett watches her like she’s a predator, which has the benefit of being accurate and slightly flattering. She lets other two take care of most of talking, and then Fett tells her to sleep first, and talk in the morning.

“You’re dead on your feet, jetii,” he snorts. “And that crying jag didn’t do you any favors. Sleep.”

So she does, and Fett doesn’t even wake her. He just lets her sleep. He watches her in the way of a guard. She sees him when she gets up to use the ‘fresher in the middle of the night, but he doesn’t even comment when she collapses right back into the mediocre cot she’s borrowed for the cycle.

Rex and Leia are safe, her hindbrain tells her, even in the depths of sleep. Her mind curls around theirs in the Force, and she trusts that they are here. They are not happy, but they are alive and unharmed, and that has to be enough.

When she stumbles her way to true wakefulness, groggy and loose-limbed, Fett greets her with caf.

“The kids wouldn’t let me near you,” he tells her.

“They’re good,” she says, cupping her hands around the mug. She feels wobbly, in every sense. Her body, her mind, her emotions, her connection to the Force. Nothing is on-kilter right now. “Did they tell you anything?”

“They waited for you,” he says. “But the little miss needed a nap of her own. They’re down in the other bunk.”

“I didn’t notice,” she admits. She should have. She’s Fulcrum. She’s a veteran of the Clone Wars. She’s... she’s supposed to be better than this.

“How long?” he asks, and then when she squints up at him, he clarifies. “How long did you fight?”

“My last fight--”

“No, whatever war you came out of,” he says. Her chest twists cold. “I don’t know if the Jedi sent you into it or if you waded in yourself once you left, but you move like a soldier.”

“I was,” she confirms. “But... but I don’t want to talk about the details. Not until the other two are here.”

He frowns at her. “Is there anything you can talk about?”

She shrugs and looks away, trying to take solace in the warmth of the caff she holds above the table, as if it can hide her, guard her, from the disgraced Mand’alor across the table.

“Jedi?”

“I’m not officially a Jedi,” she says, voice quiet. “Not anymore.”

“Then what do I call you?” he asks. “We’re not exactly close enough for names.”

“Torrent,” she says. “It’s not--I can’t claim my family name anymore. But I can claim Torrent, so I will. And if you want a title, I was a commander.”

“Bit young for that.”

“I got the rank when I was fourteen,” she says, and watches his face do something complicated and unpleasant. “Don’t. I know your own culture puts children on the field that young.”

“Not in command.”

She shrugs. “Yeah, well... the soldiers were technically younger. Adults, but...”

Ahsoka can see the way he casts about to figure out what species grows at that rate. He guesses a few, and she shoots all of it down.

She won’t tell him. Not until Rex is awake.

This part of the story is his.

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

When Leia tries to sit alone, a foot away on the bench like a proper adult, Ahsoka refuses to let it happen. She pulls the younger girl to her side and quells protests with a glance. It’s a decent skill, but she’s not sure how long it’s going to work on her niece-in-spirit.

“Your body needs the chemical release of skinship,” she says, and Leia glares at her. “I spent way too much time with the boys to not know about this. Deal.”

Rex sits close enough to knock their knees together under the table, and his warmth is the old comfort she needs.

“Do you want the story you’ll believe, or the truth?” Ahsoka asks.

“What’s the difference?”

“One of them involves something so impossible that even most Jedi wouldn’t believe it,” she tells him.

Fett folds his arms and leans forward to rest them on the table, challenging but oddly open. “Try me.”

“Time travel.”

He blinks, just once, fully controlled. “That’s a tough one.”

“There were only three Jedi left alive when I died,” she says. “Or... whatever it is that happened to me. I think I died. All I know is that one moment, I was thirty-two and dying, and the next, I was... seventeen again, and had these two with me. All of us younger than we were. None of us have even been born yet.”

She refuses to look him in the eye. “They both outlived me by... six years, maybe. Got caught up while traveling instead of dying. Leia was twenty-two. Rex was thirty-five. I’m not technically the oldest anymore. I mean, physically I am, but that doesn’t mean anything, and it’s not exactly doing us any good, and--”

Rex bumps his shoulder to her arm. “I dunno, Commander. I’ve spent a long time looking older than I should. Nice to look younger for once.”

She shoots him a small, pained grin. “Could be worse, yeah.”

“Let’s say I believe you.”

Her attention snaps back to Fett, who’s looking damnably blank, and is showing even less in the Force.

He waits a second for her to relax back into her seat.

“Let’s say I believe you,” he repeats. “How’s ‘Rex’ connected to me? What’s so special about Leia there? And what war did you fight in that has you acting like a veteran?”

“Three years in the clone wars,” she whispers, glancing to Rex and forcing herself to not go for her sabers to defend against an attack that her paranoia says is coming and the Force says is not. “Then almost all the Jedi were wiped out at once, and I spent a year... drifting. Then black ops for the next fifteen.”

“Black ops,” he repeats, still damnably flat.

“There was a Sith Empire,” she says, and she can hear her own tone growing somehow emptier. “Glassing planets. Enslaving entire species. Committing genocides all over. Of course, there was a rebellion, and of course I joined it. I was one of the only people left with Jedi training. For all that I’d left the Order, I still had a duty to the universe.”

His eyes flit to Leia, who shrugs and tries to look prim. “I was adopted and raised by one of the founders of the rebellion, a movement built on the desire to instate freedom and democracy in a galaxy that had lost even the pretense.”

“That why you’re special?”

Leia smiles, thin and patronizing. It doesn’t fit on her little face. “I’m special because my biological father was one of the most powerful Force users in history, and his Fall to the dark side and choice to become a Sith is why the Emperor’s rise was nearly uncontested. I do not like power, but it’s in my veins and I can’t change that. Force users are... a lucrative trade, and I’m still the size of a child, so I can’t fight back. I’ll be safer in the Jedi Temple, even if I don’t want to be a Jedi.”

Fett looks to Ahsoka, makes to ask a question, and then shakes his head. Not the time, maybe.

“So, that’s all... very complicated and I don’t know how much of it I believe, but it doesn’t explain...” he trails off, and sighs. “My kid, or whatever you are. I heard you mention clones.”

Rex grins. It is not a kind expression.

“Let me tell you about Kamino.”

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

Ahsoka has no idea if Fett believes them. Either he thinks they’re telling the truth, or he thinks their delusional kids. Whatever the case, he offers to take them closer to the Core. Ahsoka quietly offers to take a look at his engine in return, and then pretends not to notice when Fett awkwardly drifts to and away from Rex.

“They put chips in our brains to make us kill the Jedi we respected, cared for, even loved. I tried to shoot ‘Soka, Fett. She was seventeen and risked her life to get that chip out of my head while I was trying to kill her. I have never hated myself more than when I woke up and realized what I’d almost done, and I was one of the few that were able to fight it. I heard the stories of dozens of brothers who woke with their chips having degraded and chose to eat their blaster rather than live with the guilt of the orders they’d followed without question because of a thrice-damned Sith slave chip in their head.”

“So no, I won’t call you father or acknowledge you as clan until you do something to prove you’re worth it, shared blood or not.”

What Ahsoka does get out of the arrangement, for all that Fett’s route mostly takes them on a meandering path that isn’t faster than their previous system, is sleep. She gets to rest. She gets to trust that Fett won’t kill Rex, out of guilt for something he hasn’t done, that he won’t kill Leia out of a worry that she’s just a delusional child, a real child, that he won’t kill ‘Sokari’ because it would ruin any chance of gaining Rex’s favor, ever.

She’s not safe, won’t believe she can be until she’s in the Temple and Sidious is dead dead dead, but she’s safer than she’s been in a long time.

Every night, Ahsoka wakes up and stumbles to the little galley, deaths and torture sparkling behind her eyes with the energy of a thousand lost Jedi, ten thousand mourned brothers and sisters.

She is not the only one of their little group to be a survivor of a near-total genocide, but Rex could not feel his brothers die in the Force, even if his nightmares featured what they heard of suicide missions by the emperor’s favored shock troopers, and Leia had... Alderaan had more off-world survivors than there had been Jedi at all.

It’s not worth comparing their pain. It’s stupid to even think it. Part of her can’t help but do it anyway.

“Caf?”

She feels a lek twitch in response to the voice of the only other person on board who can reach the top shelf. “I probably shouldn’t.”

“Whiskey?”

“That’s a definitely shouldn’t.”

“Hoth chocolate?”

“...please.”

She doesn’t lift her head from her arms until the mug clicks down in front of her, ceramic on plastisteel.

“Do I ask what it was this time?”

She shrugs. “It’s hard to explain to non-sensitives.”

“Try me anyway.”

Ahsoka twists the Hoth chocolate in her hands, takes a sip as she thinks. “The Force isn’t just one thing. It’s... energy and philosophy and spirit, a sense of being that ties the entire universe together. Sentient and inanimate and living and dead, empty space and lush forests and stifled cities. For those of us who are sensitive to it, it’s possible to feel the life of everyone around you, theoretically possible to feel entire systems. If you have a Force bond, like a master and padawan, that can stretch across planets, even systems if one or both are particularly powerful.

“So just... just imagine, for a moment, what it’s like to feel the screaming of all those Jedi in the Force as their trusted men shot them down.

“Some of them were close enough that I could feel them die,” she manages. “I... it’s horrible. It’s horrific. It’s not something I can ever forget, and I want to. I want to forget what that moment was like. Not that it happened, but...”

She can feel the tears. Fuck..

“You want to dull the edges.”

“Don’t we all?” she asks, scrubbing the back of her hand across her eyes. “Leia lost her entire planet, billions of people, and she was forced to watch. Rex... Force, I can barely imagine, and I was there for most of it.”

Fett watches her, measuring. “From what he said, they were as much your brothers as his, by the end.”

“No,” she immediately denies. “They could have been, maybe, but the ones I was closest to died earlier, and then I left, and by the time the Empire rose, all but a handful were... no. Rex, I will claim as a brother in all the ways that matter, but I don’t get to do that with the rest. I don’t have the right.”

“You’re hard on yourself.”

“Fate of the galaxy, my good bitch. Guess who’s got it on her shoulders.”

He snorts at her, and nods at the mug. “Drink your Hoth chocolate. We’re landing in eight hours, and you’ve got kids to look out for.”

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

There’s a twitch in the Force when they land, something pulling at her in a way she barely feels. She’s had her shields up so fully for so long that it’s natural to hide away what she is to the point where she can hardly tell what anyone else is, either. It takes more than a moment to remember how to let herself spread out across the world.

“Auntie ‘Soka? Why’d you stop?”

She doesn’t have an answer to Leia’s prodding question. “I don’t know.”

It’s almost familiar. Old and half-forgotten, not the same as what she remembers, but--

“This way,” she says, and wanders off into the crowd. Leia and Rex follow without question. Fett curses and rushes through the rest of his transaction with the docking attendant. The sound of him jogging after them is almost funny, with the armor, but she can’t focus on that.

Ahsoka slips between people with the ease of a career built on such a habit, children trailing like ducklings. She knows this feeling, she knows this person, what is she missi--

“Oh,” she breathes, going stock still. She knows that face. She knows those braids. She even knows the presence.

Younger than Ahsoka had ever seen her, but unmistakably Master Billaba.

“Torrent, what the hell?” Fett demands, finally catching up. “You can’t just run off like that!”

“It’s Depa,” she says, eyes still fixed on the woman parsing through a datapad with an irritated vendor. She has a padawan braid. It doesn’t feel like Master Windu is on-planet, so this might be a solo mission, a... oh. Senior Padawan, Knight Elect. This is the kind of mission taken to test if she’s ready to be promoted.

Ahsoka feels light-headed.

Fett waits for her to elaborate, but she can’t. This was Kanan’s master. This was a member of the High Council. This was a woman who died and--

“You need to sit down,” Fett says, not a touch gruff. He puts a hand on her shoulder and guides her off the main walkway. “I’m... going to talk to the woman in the Jedi robes. You three just stay there and don’t get kidnapped.”

Ahsoka nods, feeling like she’s not quite inhabiting her own body.

It’s Depa.

Her eyes track Fett without conscious control, and her montrals pick up the sound.

Depa looks up when the armor comes close enough, free hand tensed in a way that says she’s preventing herself from reaching for a saber in reaction to the heavily-armored individual standing several feet away.

“Mando,” the woman says. “May I help you?”

“Are you Depa?”

Depa doesn’t do anything so dramatic as gape or step back, but she does blink rapidly for a moment. She then folds her hands down in front of her, drawing her spine up ramrod straight. “I am Jedi Padawan Depa Billaba, yes. May I ask why it is that you need to know?”

Ahsoka imagines Fett grimacing, or rolling his eyes, or maybe dithering. She can’t tell from this angle, and he has a helmet on besides. It turns his awkward silences into judgmental ones.

“I’ve had some Jedi kids on my ship, hitching a ride,” he says at length. “One of them recognized you and then just... froze.”

“You have our younglings in your care,” Depa says, carefully not accusatory, but close enough to be a warning.

“Not quite,” he says. “The one that actually came from the temple is seventeen. One of ‘em isn’t Force Sensitive, and the last one is but hasn’t been to Coruscant before. They’re trying to get the little one to the Temple for her own safety.”

Depa considers that, and then passes the datapad to the vendor. “Lead on.”

It’s surprisingly simple, really. Fett did all the talking.

And then Depa is standing right in front of her.

“Like I said,” Fett sighs. “She froze up.”

“Hello,” Depa says, hands laced together inside her sleeves. “I don’t believe we’ve met.”

Ahsoka shakes her head. “I know of you. I’ve seen you spar. You’ve never spoken to me.”

All true. A little misleading, but it’s fine, it’s all fine.

Depa waits a moment, and then says, “You seem to have me at a disadvantage. You know my name, but I don’t know yours.”

“Sokari T-Torrent,” she manages. The words feel clunky in her mouth, the sound abrasive for all that it’s just her own voice, no different from usual. A little shaky, maybe. She can feel a cool breeze on her upper arms. Shouldn’t she have armor? She should have armor. “It... it’s been a long time since I’ve seen another Jedi. I’m having a hard time believing you’re real.”

“I see,” Depa says. “Perhaps we should take this somewhere more private? You seem a little unsteady.”

Ahsoka lets herself be led back to the ship, in the company of Mand’alor Jango Fett, Jedi Padawan Depa Billaba, Princess-General Leia Organa, and good old Captain Rex.

It’s like the start of a sick joke.

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

Fett and Depa talk where she can hear, but they rarely address her directly. Both seem to realize that she’s not particularly useful right now. Leia and Rex are pressing up against her at the little table in the galley, and Ahsoka lets them.

This is real. She can feel Depa in the Force, recognizes her energy even if it’s not quite what it will-was-could-have-been. This is happening.

It’s a textbook Traumatic Stress Response case, one of them says.

Fett has his helmet off. Ahsoka’s sure that’s wrong for some reason. She thinks he might already be on wanted lists. Should she worry about Depa trying to arrest him?

Depa asks about Rex at one point. Fett tells her that someone cloned him without his knowing, but the kid is more comfortable with Ahsoka so they’re still working on what that means for him.

It’s more or less true. Rex squeezes her hand the one time someone suggests separating them. She’s not letting that happen unless Rex wants to leave for whatever reason. They’ve worked apart before. They can do it again.

“Auntie Soka? You’re shivering.”

Is she?

Leia cuddles in closer, and Ahsoka runs a hand over her hair. It’s an absentminded motion, and for all that she knows Leia’s hair is fine as silk, it feels like plastic in the moment.

“I don’t think I’m okay,” Ahsoka announces. The words hang in the air like lead balloons, and she can feel Depa staring at her. “I haven’t been for a very long time.”

“Yeah, we noticed,” Fett says. “Do you need to lay down, Torrent?”

Does she?

“No,” she says. “I... I don’t know what I need.”

“The spicy drink,” Rex tells them. “It’s grounding.”

Right. That.

Fett goes to grab it, and Depa continues to watch.

“How long ago did you leave your master?” Depa asks. “Or... did he die?”

Ahsoka closes her eyes and shakes her head. She can feel the shivers now, tremors in her biceps and a shudder she can’t control in the height of her ribcage. Her teeth grind together, jaw like stone.

“You don’t have to answer that,” Depa assures her. “I’m... going to recommend you see a mind healer on Coruscant.”

That was a forgone conclusion.

A cup clinks onto the table. Fett’s back. “Drink.”

She does.

Depa and Fett continue discussing it as “the adults” at the table. She’s older than both of them. Rex is older than all of them. Ahsoka follows about half of what they say. She agrees with most of it. Rex bullies his way into speaking when she doesn’t, without her even asking, because he knows her mind as well as she does. Fett rolls with it. Depa lets him.

She’s going to reach out to the Temple and see about getting them a ride back to Imperial Center Coruscant.

Fett makes Soka go to bed, taking Leia with her.

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

She feels more like a person come morning.

Depa’s sitting at the table, datapad in her hands and caff on the table in front of her.

“Good morning,” Ahsoka says, rough and croaking, and Depa’s eyes flick up to meet hers. She nods a shallow hello.

“Feeling better?”

“Much,” Ahsoka says, and goes about gathering a breakfast. There’s definitely some dried meat in here. She can get something fresh when they stop by the market later.

“I was hoping to speak with you about your options,” Depa tells her, once she’s sat at the table. “Fett and your friend Rex took care of most of the negotiation, and I feel like I have an idea of what would work best for you.”

Ahsoka nods slowly. “Okay.”

“There is a Master-Padawan pair a few planets away,” Depa says. “The Council informed me when I spoke with them about you and your wards. They’d be headed back to the Temple in a few days anyway, and the Council has agreed to extend an offer to Fett to handle the transportation. The presence of a Jedi Master on board will allow for him to get in and out of the Core unmolested, and we’d like for you and yours to have a Jedi escort, given what happened yesterday afternoon.”

Her complete spiral into nonbeing?

“I understand,” she says instead. “I suppose Fett agreed because he’s still trying to get Rex to like him?”

Depa shrugs. “That part isn’t my business.”

Of course it isn’t.

“Rex can stay with me for a while, right?” Ahsoka finally asks. “I know it’s not exactly protocol, but I’m...”

“In need of a support system until you’ve seen a mind healer, and against all odds, the child is part of it,” Depa summarizes. “Yes, I recognized as much. I think the Council will be able to allow some leeway there. I don’t know if he’ll enjoy it, given that all the others his age are Initiates, but we can adjust as necessary. On that note... Do you know Leia’s midichlorian count?”

“No,” Ahsoka says, and hesitantly adds, “But her biological father was my Jedi Master, and I’m told his count broke records even as a child. Given what Leia’s shown so far... it’s why I’ve been in a hurry to get her to the Temple.”

Depa frowns at her, clearly working through the implications of a Jedi having a daughter and still teaching... and then visibly dismisses the situation, eyes closing to breathe in the steam of her caff.

Biological father certainly implies a child that was raised by her mother or adopted out so the Jedi father could remain in their chosen career without a conflict of interest or duty.

She’ll tell the council the truth, or... at least Master Koon. Master Kenobi is still a padawan, but she can tell Master Koon.

She already told Jango Fett, of all people.

“Padawan Torrent?”

Her head snaps up. She hasn’t been a padawan in over fifteen years. It’s weird to hear. “I’m sorry, what?”

“I asked if you wanted some time to think it over before I presented the offer to Fett,” Depa says.

Ahsoka gets the distinct feeling that Depa is planning a report to the Council that has ‘needs a mind healer’ underlined at least three times.

“No, I’m--I’m fine. That sounds like a good plan.”

“I’ll speak with him, then. Would you like to come with?”

"No, thank you.”

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

Fett agrees. Ahsoka’s pretty sure it’s all to do with Rex and maybe Leia. It’s probably nothing to do with ‘Sokari.’ She’s a Jedi, an adult in mind and in body, or at least close enough to count. She’s a damn sight more ‘enemy’ to Fett than the other two are. Not as much as Depa, maybe, but Fett’s been playing nice with her for Leia’s sake.

He plays nice with Ahsoka for Rex’s. That’s all.

They’re only a few planets over from the meeting point, and they have a few days to hang around before the escort meets them. Depa hadn’t given them a name--apparently it could have compromised the opsec for the Jedi team--but Ahsoka’s pretty sure she’ll be able to identify almost anyone. She gets the feeling that the Force is going to send her a familiar face, just as it did Master Padawan Billaba.

Ahsoka lets herself feel the world around her. It’s dark and dreary, in the sense that the beaten-down port is full of petty crimes and less petty horrors, but it’s still lighter than most of the Empire had been. She sneaks away from the ship at night, ignoring Fett at her back, and performs a bit of vigilante justice while she can. She’ll be banned from doing so as soon as she’s reinstated as a Jedi, probably, but for now... for now, she can look at the drug cartels and ‘they’re not slaves, really’ workers and do something to help.

She doesn’t use her sabers. She doesn’t need to. It’s been a long time since she has, for small fry like these.

“What are you doing?” Fett asks her, landing heavily behind her back.

“Chip removal,” she says, hand pressed to the slave’s leg. Her eyes are closed, but she can hear him shifting. “Let me concentrate, I don’t have a meddroid for this.”

He’s silent until she finishes, and waits until the people she’s helped are on their way to the planet’s freedom routes. He doesn’t ask what she did with the owners.

“You’ve done this before.”

“Regularly,” she confirms. “You?”

He doesn’t answer that, just ambles over to the the chains and stares down at them.

“Fett?”

“You go through this like it’s as easy as breathing,” he says. “It’s... impressive.”

“I guess?” she hesitates to continue. “I’m... I don’t think of it that way. This is the easy stuff. A time-waster that helps people. If I wanted to help for real, I’d been going after Jabba or Sidious or--”

“How old were you?” he asks, turning on his heel to face her dead-on. The vocoder of his helmet pulls the emotion from his voice. “When did this... these missions, the slavery battles, when did that start for you?”

“Fourteen,” she says. She’s not entirely sure, really, what counted as a mission for ending slavery and what counted as just a part of war, but she can round down. “Maybe fifteen. It’s a bit of a blur.”

“And you just kept doing it.”

“Of course,” she says. “If I have the time and the energy, if I need to do something and there’s nothing official on my hands, why not?”

He doesn’t answer her.

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

Rex greets them before she does.

Ahsoka, in her defense, is asleep at the time. It’s a restless sleep, but it’s enough that she doesn’t sense the nearing Force signatures until they’re almost at the ship.

She recognizes one of them.

“Auntie ‘Soka?” Leia questions, when she lurches to her feet and starts pulling on her boots with all the energy of a zombie. “Where are you going?”

“Jedi,” Ahsoka grunts. “Here.”

“I see.”

Leia dresses to follow her, in a little coat that’ll withstand the chill of the outside air, and Ahsoka makes it to the cargo hold just in time to hear Rex saying, “I’m not shaking your hand until you put your gloves on, Vos.”

She laughs to herself, breathless with the knowledge of what she’s about to find. She jumps the railing of the upper walkway, drops down just in front of the Master-Padawan team, and keeps her back to Fett and Rex. “Hello, there.”

One human, one Kiffar. She knows the latter.

“Would you be Sokari Torrent?” the Master asks.

“I am,” she says, with a slight bow. She can tell there’s a bit of judgement for how she’s dressed, but they’re covering it well. A Shadow and his trainee know the value of armor better than most Jedi bother with. “I’m afraid Padawan Billaba didn’t inform me of your names before we met.”

“And yet your friend knew my padawan,” the Master says.

“By reputation,” she says, as smoothly as she can. “I’ve encountered Quinlan Vos before, though I doubt he remembers--”

“I’d remember someone like you,” Quinlan interrupts, with a grin she’s sure is meant to be charming and rogueish.

He’s... very young for her, and not her type. Mostly, she wants to pat him on the head, but that probably wouldn’t go over very well. She still looks like she’s younger than him.

“Anyway,” she says, turning back to the master, “I’m afraid I still don’t know who you are, Master.”

“I am Tholme,” he says, with the bow that a Master gives a Padawan. She feels a little slighted, but it’s fine. She looks the right age, it’s fine.

It’s not like they know.

“It’s nice to meet you, Master Tholme,” she says. “My charges are Rex Torrent, the young man behind me, and currently coming down the ladder is Leia Antilles. I’m sure you’re aware of Jango Fett.”

“The Mand’alor,” Quinlan volunteers, and Ahsoka can almost hear Fett’s teeth grinding.

“Don’t call me that,” he says. She’s sure he’s got a hand drifting for his blaster.

“There isn’t a whole lot of room on the ship,” she says before the men can get into whatever weird contest she’s sure someone might start. Her bet’s on Fett. “But Leia and Rex are small enough to share with me, so I’m sure we can make it work.”

“There’s spare rolls for anyone comfortable with sleeping in the hold,” Fett grunts. “Or on the floor in the passenger room.”

“Well, I guess I could ask for a little help fi--”

“Vos,” Ahsoka snaps, letting her voice take on the kind of ‘obey me or get fresher duty’ irritation that she’d perfected back when the rebellion still had her managing people, before they’d realized she was more use in the field. “Do not.”

There’s a moment’s pause, and Tholme looks unimpressed with that raised eyebrow, but the kind of unimpressed that’s split between his own padawan and the stranger before him.

“Um,” Quinlan says. “I just--”

“No,” she cuts him off. “No flirting.”

It’s weird and uncomfortable and she’d have maybe been okay with it if she was actually the seventeen-or-eighteen-ish(?) that she looked, but she’s not. She’s in her thirties and Vos is... what, twenty? Twenty-one? No.

He stares at her, and she wonders momentarily if she’d gone too far in the direction of judging his intentions in the Force and preempted actual flirtations.

“I’m sorry?” He offers, looking confused, but ashamed. “I, uh, I’ll keep that in mind.”

She definitely preempted the actual flirtation.

Fuck.

Ahsoka closes her eyes and breathes in. Breathes out. Opens her eyes. “Right. That was... I’m not sure how much Padawan Billaba told you about me.”

“Enough,” Tholme says. He moves forward and puts a hand on Quinlan’s shoulder. Ahsoka has no idea if it’s to comfort him or hold him back. “I didn’t share most of it with my padawan, but I have a general understanding of what’s going on.”

Quinlan darts a look at his teacher, but Ahsoka doesn’t acknowledge it. It’s fine. Everything is fine.

“Thank you for your understanding,” she says, and bows, and stiffly turns away to walk to the galley.

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

Leia squirms into the bench seat, shoving her way under Ahsoka’s arm like a particularly wriggly tooka.

“What was that?” Leia demands, the authority of a rebellion general rather useless in the squeaky voice of a child.

“What was what?”

“The whole thing with Padawan Vos,” Leia says. “You blew up at him before he even did anything.”

That’s pretty true.

“I felt the flirtation coming before it happened and reacted inappropriately because I panicked. I’m significantly older than him, but I can’t tell him that, so it’s just awkward and uncomfortable and... I’m not okay, Princess. I haven’t been for a long time.”

“Yeah, we can tell.”

“Leia.”

“What? I need therapy too! Captain Rex needs therapy! I’m pretty sure Fett needs therapy! You, Fulcrum, you really need therapy. None of us are okay.” She huffs, wiggling impossibly closer. “I don’t like it, but it’s true.”

“I know,” Ahsoka groans. “I just... I just need to hold out until the Temple.”

“Will you be able to hold it together if you see someone you actually care about?” Leia demands. “What are you going to do when you see Kenobi?”

“Stop.”

“I’m serious, you--”

“Leia, that’s enough,” she snaps. “I was fighting that war before you were even born, and I’ve dealt with the consequences since. I know the risks and I’ll thank you to remember who taught you to control your own mind.”

Leia stiffens, sucking in a sharp breath. “That was uncalled for.”

“You’re not the child you appear to be,” Ahsoka reminds her, not a little sharply. “You want to dish it out, be ready to take it. What will you do when we see Bail Organa? When we see the toddler that is Anakin Skywalker?”

“I get it.”

“I’m not sure you do,” Ahsoka mutters. She isn’t surprised when Leia ducks out of the embrace and leaves the galley. She lets the girl go, guilt warring with the memory of how Master Kenobi had more than once spoken that way to Anakin at the height of the war. The fact that she’s an adult in the body of a child isn’t an excuse for poking at Ahsoka’s open wounds. It was cruel and unnecessary, and unbecoming of a... not a Jedi. A princess. A politician.

She rests her head on her arms and zones out. She should meditate, but that seems like... too much effort.

She can feel Vos and Tholme setting up in the room they’ve been assigned. Neither seems particularly angry. Most likely, Tholme’s given the absolute shortest explanation of ‘child soldier, dead master, highly traumatized and emotionally unstable’ to Vos to smooth over the incident in the cargo hold. Rex is with Leia; he’s agitated, but less so than Leia herself. Fett’s annoyed, in the cockpit, but he seems annoyed as often as not. There’s a shudder at lift-off, and a few minutes later, they’re in hyperspace, headed for the Core.

Fett finds her, falls into the other bench in full armor, and drops his elbows onto the table. The helmet clunks down a moment later.

She doesn’t lift her head. “What do you want?”

“Do I need to keep Vos away from you?”

“What?”

“Vos. He made you uncomfortable. Was that him being someone that hurt you in the future, or just the interaction being awkward?”

She lifts her head. She stares at him. “What?”

He leans back and crosses his arms. “Do you need me to tell Vos to stay the hell away from you?”

She’s gaping. “You realize I’m thirty-two, right? I can handle my own battles.”

“You’re also traumatized as hell and everyone can see it,” Fett argues back. “If Vos himself is a trigger, I can handle it.”

“He’s not,” she tells him. This is strange. Fett’s being strange. “He was actually a friend of my grandmaster’s. I’m just uncomfortable with the flirting because I’m a lot older than he realizes, and I can’t tell him that.”

He nods sharply, and then looks away. The silence sits.

“Thanks for asking?” Ahsoka says, well aware of how her confusion over the offer turns it into a question. “I mean, thank you for... caring.”

I guess, she finishes in the privacy of her own head. Or at least pretending to.

Fett makes a face, still not facing her. He eyes the galley instead. She can guess where his thoughts are going. The galley is... not very big, especially with six people on board instead of one, but she’s sure they’ve stocked up enough. On the off chance they do go through more than expected, because of how many growing bodies are in residence, they can stop off and buy more. They have those resources now.

Jango never does ask what she did with the slavers.

“Who’s going to cry if I spice things properly?” he asks.

“Probably Leia,” she says immediately. “Vos will try to power through it even though he’s going to be overwhelmed. No idea about Tholme, but I think he’ll keep a straight face whether he likes it or not. Rex and I are fine, ‘hot’ was pretty much the only flavor of seasoning the GAR had.”

“GAR?”

“Grand Army of the Republic.”

He finally looks at her.

“You already knew I was a child soldier, Fett; don’t act surprised.”

“That doesn’t mean I like hearing about it.”

“I was fourteen. That’s old enough by Mando standards, Fett. Just think back, when did you get on the battlefield?”

“I take your point,” he says, lip curling unpleasantly. “It just hits different now that I’m old enough to look back and think of how damned young fourteen really is.”

Ahsoka shrugs. “Yeah, well--”

“You said the clones were ten.”

There’s the rub, isn’t it?

Of course it was about the clones.

“...closer to seven, by the end. Kamino was just making speedies at that point. Triple growth on the average instead of double, but averages in that case meant they’d been growing at double rates for six years and then got forced through four growth cycles in a single year to beef up the army when we kept losing men.” She looks down at the table, picking at a scratch in the plastipaint with her nail. “Rex and the rest of the ones from the beginning were basically twenty in mind and body, even if they’d only been decanted ten years earlier. The speedies... I always wondered. They’d gone from functionally twelve to functionally twenty in a year. That’s not... even in Kamino, that can’t have been normal. They didn’t act like adults, not the way the originals did.”

Fett rubs at his face, groaning. He swears under his breath in three different languages.

She pities him, if only because he hasn’t actually done any of this yet. He’s paying for the crimes of a man he likely won’t ever become.

She kicks him under the table. “Wanna make tiingilar and see how long it takes Vos to start crying while he insists it’s fine?”

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

Dinner is when the questions start. Some are relatively easy. Others, not so much.

“My Master was Leia’s biological father,” is an easy truth to share. “She inherited his power, so I need to get her to the temple for her own safety, because home no longer is.”

“Yes, her adoptive parents were unfortunately killed rather recently. We’d prefer not to talk about it.”

“Rex is with me. Where he goes, I go, and vice versa.”

That one gets her an odd look.

“I thought...” Quinlan trails off, gesturing between Rex and Fett.

Fett keeps his face impassive, but his discomfort and guilt leak into the Force. “I didn’t know Rex existed until I ran into these three in a spaceport cantina a few weeks ago.”

Quinlan blinks at him, looks at Rex again, and then turns back to Fett with a grin that might have been described as ‘saucy’ if he were less smug about it. “Wild oats, huh?”

“Are you shitting me right now,” Leia whispers, and Ahsoka elbows her.

“That was inappropriate, padawan.”

Quinlan’s grin fades as Fett just continues to eye him.

“Um, so--”

“How old is the kid?” Fett interrupts.

Darting eyes answer him, as Quinlan tries to gauge Rex. “Ten? Maybe twelve?”

“And how old am I?”

“...early thirties?”

“I’m twenty-seven.”

Quinlan’s grin fades further as he does the math.

“I’d have been between fifteen and seventeen when he was born,” Fett says, tone flat. “Between fourteen and sixteen at conception. I know damn well I wasn’t doing anything that could have resulted in a kid at that age.”

Quinlan rallies. “So, brothers?”

Tholme sighs loudly, hand over his eyes.

“I’m a clone,” Rex says, and Ahsoka can feel the amusement he gets out of Quinlan’s confused shock. They’d both had plenty of respect for Master Vos, but Padawan Vos was nothing but trouble. “Harvested genetic material, grown in a tube, inconsistent aging meaning I don’t even know how old I am for sure.”

“I broke him out,” Ahsoka adds, which is half true.

“There was a chip in my head,” Rex adds, with a bright smile. Quinlan’s discomfort grows. “She got it out. Also, lots of brothers. None of them are... around anymore. The creators were trying to make an army.”

Vos and Tholme have no response. Fett looks like he’s been carved out of stone. Leia’s just ignoring them and picking at her food.

Ahsoka lifts a hand and, without looking, Rex high-fives her.

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

“Drop your elbow.”

Ahsoka tries to cover her smile at the dirty look that Leia shoots Fett. Fett remains unimpressed by the glare of royalty, just gestures for the girl to do as he said.

“I know how to fight,” Leia grumbles. “I took lessons. I was good at them.”

“And I’m better,” Fett says, leaving no room for argument. “You want the Torrents to take over?”

The Torrents. Rex and Soka. She likes being referred to that way. Like they’re a team that never got split up.

Force, she wished they’d never gotten split up.

“Again,” Fett orders, and Leia moves through the Mandalorian kata with ill grace in her emotions and all grace in her sweeping limbs.

Well, as much grace as an undersized six-year-old can, at any rate.

“Think he’ll ask me to spar her again?” Rex asks, dropping down into the seat next to Ahsoka and passing her a drink.

“Maybe,” she acknowledges. “I think he’s wondering if it’s worth asking Vos to spar with her, so she gets more experience with size differences.”

“Hm?”

“She flinched at his face again,” she tells him. “The whole... thing with Boba, I guess. She still won’t tell me why Fett triggers her sometimes, but he’s not pressing her to spar with him, and there’s only so much she can get out of fighting me. Asking Tholme would be presumptuous, but Vos is just a padawan. I think it’d work out.”

“And you?”

She looks at him, already feeling a cresting wave of bullshit she doesn’t want to deal with. “What about me?”

“Are you going to spar with the Jedi?”

She should. She hasn’t sparred with a saber since she got tossed back into a body only half-familiar to her. She’s let Leia borrow the shorter one to learn some basic blocking moves, Shii-Cho and then, with hesitance, the first Soresu form. Another time, she loaned it to Rex to practice some attacks; they both know that the next time he picks up her saber in battle, having lost his weapons or she her grip, it will be neither the first or last time he wields a sword of light. None of that, however, is... sparring.

None of that is against someone who knows what they’re doing.

How long has it been since she sparred with anyone other than Kanan and Ezra?

How long has it been since she sparred without the looming specter of Darth Vader in the back of her mind, without fear of the Inquisitors, without the knowledge that any saber held by someone other than her two friends would be red as blood and twice as drenched.

Would she be able to hold back as she fought?

“I should,” she acknowledges, eyes on where Fett is nudging Leia’s feet into position for some kind of leveraging flip. She’s so small. “It would probably be a good idea to spar against a master at some point.”

“Do you think you can?” Rex asks.

“I never knew him,” she says. “And he isn’t Dark. It should be fine.”

Rex nods, taking her word for it. They watch as Leia stumbles on a final move, and Fett gestures for her to sit down and get a drink.

“That man is a terror,” she informs them.

(She’d once described him as a slave-driver. She had not made that mistake twice.)

“Least it’s not Kamino!” Rex tells her cheerfully. When Leia refuses to look impressed, he laughs at her.

Ahsoka has a half-second’s warning before heavy boots thud to the ground next to her. “What’s Kamino?”

“Hello, Vos, it’s nice to see you too,” she drawls. “I’m good, thanks for asking, and yourself?”

The boy-not-quite-man rolls his eyes. “Hi, Torrents; hi, tiny one.”

Leia glares at him next.

“So, Kamino?”

“Planet by Rishi,” Rex says.

“Why were you there?”

“They specialize in cloning.”

Ahsoka covers her mouth as the conversation drops into the same awkward gap that always happens when Quinlan stumbles into a subject he didn’t know to avoid.

“Like... you were made there, or you were researching how it works for your own--”

Ahsoka slaps a hand over his mouth. “Now’s a great time to stop talking.”

He licks her palm.

She bares her teeth and arches her fingers just enough to press nails into his cheek.

He bites at her palm, and she yanks her hand away.

“You’re all children,” Leia accuses, conveniently forgetting that Ahsoka and Rex are both over a decade older than her.

“I can throw you the length of a swimming pool,” Ahsoka tells her. “One of the fancy competition-ready ones that would make a Tatooinian cry. You are absolutely the child here.”

“Using the Force is cheating, sir,” Rex informs her.

“Only if there’s a competition,” Ahsoka shoots back. “And proving that a certain princess is a small child is not a competition. It’s a declarative fact.”

“I’m going to rip open the seams on all your tops except the ugliest one,” Leia decides.

“Try me,” Ahsoka challenges. “Adi’ka.”

A low, rough cough interrupts them. “Are you done?”

Fett has his arms crossed, and an eyebrow raised. He knows they’re all adults here, and is entirely unamused. As the silence drags, the eyebrow climbs a little higher.

“Done with what?” Quinlan finally asks, thereby volunteering himself to spar in hand-to-hand with Jango Fett, as one does.

“Poor, poor Vos,” Rex laughs, watching as Fett barks out orders at Quinlan every five seconds to fix his footwork, to stop dropping his guard, to stop wasting energy on flips instead of just dodging the easy way.

“Throw him!” Ahsoka calls. To her delight, Fett obliges.

The thing is, Quinlan isn’t bad at brawling. He’s got training, endurance, skill. The man knows what he’s doing, objectively. He’s just not a match for Fett, and is used enough to relying on his saber that his hand-to-hand skills are rusty. They are perhaps less rusty than those Jedi who don’t take questionable jobs in the Mid-Outer Rim, and Ahsoka’s got a suspicion that Vos regularly gets into bar fights in his downtime, but none of that is enough for him to actually do more than survive against Fett without his saber.

Even the saber wouldn’t help, if Fett had his armor.

“Whose idea was this?”

Ahsoka cranes her head back and smiles. “Hello, Master Tholme. Vos... volunteered.”

“Did he know he was volunteering?”

“No comment.”

Tholme snorts, crossing his arms and eyeing the spar in front of him. “I thought Fett hated Jedi. Giving us a ride for the sake of you three is one thing, but why is he teaching my padawan?”

Ahsoka shrugs. “Constructive bullying?”

There’s a small twitch of a smile, quickly gone. “He said something wrong, I’m guessing?”

“There was no way he could have known,” she dismisses. “We’re just, like, ninety-percent tragic backstories.”

“You’d think the Force would warn him,” Rex notes.

“That’s not how the Force works,” Leia chides.

“No, no, he’s right,” Ahsoka corrects. “The Force does sometimes step in to stop a person from saying something stupid. However, Padawan Vos is at an age where people think they are very rational while being more irrational than they likely ever will be again.”

“Do I want to ask what you were doing at that age?” Tholme asks.

“Running bla...” she trails off, then whips around to gape at him.

He smiles, bland and unassuming. “Does Fett know?”

“Know... what?” Ahsoka asks.

“That you’re significantly older than you look,” he says, voice just low enough that the sparring duo can’t hear him. “All three of you.”

Ahsoka turns back to the spar, only catching Tholme out of the corner of her eye. “He knows.”

“Mm. Were you planning on telling the Council?”

“Yes.” That part was never in question. “How did you figure it out?”

“I am a good investigator,” he says. “And you rely a little too heavily on your physical forms to obfuscate. Were it just one of you, that wouldn’t be a problem, but the pattern repeated across three is a little easier to discern.”

“I hoped the whole ‘child soldiers’ thing would be a bigger distraction,” Ahsoka mutters. She glances at Leia and Rex. Both of them are used to being in charge to some degree, giving orders and making contingency plans, but in this... in this, Ahsoka is in charge. They’d decided that at the very start. It didn’t matter that Rex had lived longer and had more experience, or that Leia had held the highest Rebellion rank of the three of them. Ahsoka had been agreed as leader, and they were relying on her.

They’re waiting on her orders. Stiff and unhappy, in Leia’s case, but they trust her.

“Will you be telling Vos?” She asks.

“No,” Tholme says. “Your secrets remain your own unless they endanger us, and I’ve a feeling they won’t be.”

“Don’t be so sure,” Rex jokes, smile not reaching his eyes. “I’ve been working with this family for too long to trust that trouble won’t find them around the next corner.”

“This family?” Tholme repeats.

“Sokari was telling the truth about her master being Leia’s biological father,” Rex says. He shrugs. “I worked with him, with his wife, with both of his kids, with his master and his padawan. All of them, to a one, are trouble magnets.”

“Ah, but that’s not the secret that’s putting us in danger,” Tholme points out. “Simply existence as a Jedi.”

Rex shrugs. “Fair enough. Don’t say I didn’t warn you, though.”

Ahsoka lurches to her feet, turning with a smile and dancing backward into the the stretch of empty cargo hold they used for such things. “A spar, Master Tholme?”

He looks past her, to Quinlan, and raises a brow. “Would you not prefer to spar with someone a little closer to your level first?”

She barks out a laugh. “Master Tholme, I’m afraid I’ve spent more of my life fighting to survive than having normal friendly spars. My style is more lethal than the average, and you’ve already seen what war’s done to my mind. I ask to spar with you because, if I lose control, if I slip in time or react on an instinct that isn’t appropriate, I trust that you’ll be more able to stop me than a senior padawan.”

He smiles. “Yes, I gathered as much. Still, better to ask. Shall we wait for them to finish up?”

Ahsoka shrugs, turns, and yells. “Clear the deck!”

Rex snorts behind her, and lowly mutters, “Sir, yes, sir.”

She smirks at him over her shoulder. “At ease, Captain.”

“That’s ‘Commander’ to you, I got promoted,” he sniffs, chin held high.

Heavy steps herald Fett’s arrival at their little group. “The hells are you doing?”

“I’m going to have a spar with a Jedi Master, and I want you and Vos to not get stabbed.”

“I’m not that easy to injure in an actual fight, let alone by accident,” Fett grouses. He looks up and over at Vos, who is already significantly taller, if a fair shot less built. “This one, on the other hand...”

“Hey!”

Ahsoka laughs and backs into the center of the cargo hold, drawing her sabers. “Don’t worry, Vos, I won’t play dirty. You’ll probably get your master back in one piece.”

He wrinkles his nose at her. “Getting a bit ahead of yourself there, aren’t you? He’s a Jedi Master and former Watchman. You’re... what, eighteen?”

Ahsoka raises a brow and activates her sabers, tapping the blades together and watching as more than one person winces. “Wanna bet on how long I last?”

“No,” he says immediately, stepping back to join Rex on the bench. “You’ve already blindsided me enough. I’m not dumb enough to fall for whatever you’ve got up your sleeve.”

“I don’t have sleeves.”

“Armwarmers-slash-greaves, then.”

“Greaves go on the legs, these are vambraces.”

He throws his hands up in the air. “I’m just going to stop talking now!”

“Good plan,” Leia snarks, and then literally hisses when Rex ruffles her hair.

Tholme lights his saber and sinks into an opening stance.

Ahsoka mirrors him.

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

She wins, but barely. She's had a few weeks to practice her forms, has sparred hands-only with Rex and Fett, but this is her first real try at using her sabers against a person, instead of a blaster or thin air, since she arrived in the past. She’s only mostly adjusted to her body.

But Tholme is a healer and a watchman, not a duelist. Ahsoka held her own against Ventress, against Grievous, against Maul when she was this age. Still adjusting to her body or not, her lineage is one of battle, and it bled true.

“You’re terrifying,” Quinlan tells her after they’re done, smiling like the sun as he hands her a towel. “Please never turn that on me.”

She laughs at him. “Would you believe that I’m out of practice?”

“Out of practice with what?” he asks, horrified and fascinated. “Fighting Sith Lords?”

“Among other things,” she says, and smirks when he chokes on his drink. “Multiple darkside users who claimed to be Sith, at least. One being a full Lord, one that was disowned by his master, and one that was apprenticed to a Banite apprentice, so she wasn’t technically allowed to be a Darth because of the rule of two.”

Tholme meets her eyes past Quinlan’s shoulder, head tilted and eyes half-shut in consideration. He’s taking her seriously. He knows what she’s not saying.

“How...” Quinlan trails off and shakes his head. “You know what, no. Asking you people questions never ends well.”

“Good plan,” Ahsoka says, clapping a hand down on his shoulder. “Also, you need to spar with Fett more. Your footwork is shit.”

“It is not,” Quinlan gripes. “You’re all just scary good at this stuff.”

“You mean surviving?” Leia pipes up, and smiles innocently when Quinlan turns to pout at her.

“You’re getting bullied by a six-year-old,” Rex informs him.

“Yeah,” Quinlan sighs. “I know.”

Ahsoka laughs, and it’s fine. It’s all fine. For a week, everything is honestly great. She trains, she laughs, she works through the nightmares.

Then fucking Denon happens.

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

Denon is a city-planet on the intersection of two major hyperlanes. It’s the kind of place where they stop for two things:

Fuel.

Paperwork.

Technically, there’s a whole mess of paperwork they have to fill out to continue along this specific hyperlane, since they aren’t official Republic ships, and don’t have the licenses to just pass along like ships that are pre-registered to the Trade Federation or the like. They could sneak past--literally all of them know smuggler’s routes--but it’s honestly less of a pain to do things legally. They have a Jedi Master. They have cash. Some of that cash wasn’t quite legally acquired, but nobody needs to know that.

It’s supposed to be a pit stop. That’s all.

It’s just a pit stop.

But no, the galaxy isn’t that kind and Ahsoka’s luck is currently being compounded with a Skywalker, two Fetts, and Vos, which means that of course they run into trouble. Of course they do. There was never any other option, was there?

“Motherfucker,” Ahsoka snaps, lifting her head up and slamming her drink on the table.

The glass is empty. That’s good. They’re in a restaurant right now, a little splurging after weeks with only each others’ company, and spilling the sugary child-friendly juice with that move would have drawn way too much attention from the servers.

“Language,” Tholme says, voice idly unconcerned.

“Sir?” Rex asks, kicking Ahsoka under the table. “What’s wrong?”

“What’s wr--that jackass,” she hisses, getting to her feet. “Rex, grab a blaster, I’ve got shebs to kick.”

“Okay,” Rex says, grabbing one out of Fett’s holster and scooting out of the booth before anyone can tell him not to. “Whose?”

“I didn’t even know that he was... osik, I don’t have jurisdiction,” she realizes. “I don’t have any record of wrongdoing. I can’t arrest him since we don’t have evidence of criminal wrongdoing...”

“Are you two going to explain what’s going on?” Vos asks. “Or sit down, maybe?”

Ahsoka makes her decision. She eyes the window--the restaurant in question is a little dingy, but it’s also several dozen stories in the air. “Rex, remember the thing we did on Geonosis that you hated?”

He pauses, and then sighs heavily. “Yes, sir. I remember the... yeeting.”

Hah. That slang doesn’t even exist yet.

“Great. With me!”

It’s a good thing the windows are forcefields instead of transparisteel. A bit of a twist to the energy and they’re gone.

She only hears a little screaming before the wind tears all noises away while they plummet.

They land lightly--of course--and Ahsoka wraps them both in a don’t notice me aura. Nobody even notices that they’ve just come from above. It’s great that she can just Do These Things again, and get brushed off as Weird Jedi Shit, instead of worrying about the Empire. She’s missed being able to jump out of windows without fear.

Rex follows her as she starts running through the city. They don’t have comms, and he’s still so small, which means he can’t keep up with her even if she runs at normal speeds without Force enhancement.

“Should you carry me?” he asks, before she can figure out if it’s worth suggesting. She did it a few times before they joined up with Jango.

“It’s not... urgent, I think,” she says. She hesitates to speak, even as she keeps jogging with Rex at her heels. “Honestly, I’m trying to figure out if there’s anything I can ding him for so we can attack him. It’s all well and good that I can beat him right now, but all the crimes I know about haven’t happened yet, so it wouldn’t be legal...”

“Commander?”

“Hm?”

“I have no idea who you’re talking about.”

She scrolls the conversation back mentally, considers, and says, “Oh.”

“Who’s getting steamrolled?”

“Uh, Maul’s here,” Ahsoka admits.

“Ah,” Rex says. He makes a face. “I understand the desire to jump out a window, now. I don’t agree with it, but I understand.”

Ahsoka laughs. “I mean, I just... every time I’ve seen him for almost twenty years, it’s been like... on sight, you know? We’ve never not attacked each other, except when I needed him to cause problems on Mandalore. But I always knew I was in the right, then.”

“So... what do we arrest him for?” Rex prompts.

“Um... carrying a lightsaber without a license?” she hazards. “We’ll need Tholme there. Hopefully I can just shout at him and he’ll attack me, but I think he only went full nutjob after Master Kenobi cut his legs off. He might be too controlled to try to kill me just for yelling at him.”

“...do we have to stalk him?” Rex asks, sounding like he’d most likely sigh if he weren’t mid-run.

She scoops him up and swings him around onto her back before she answers. “I think we have to stalk him, Rex’ika.”

“Don’t call me that.”

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

Maul is... exceptionally sneaky, actually. Either that, or he hasn’t done anything wrong yet. Ahsoka’s betting on the former, because she’s seen this particular skocha kung take over a planet before anyone realized he was the most dangerous person around.

Or maybe he’s just not committing crimes, and is in fact just here to buy groceries.

He’s examining a papaya.

She fantasizes about jumping across the market and greeting him with a heel to the cheekbone.

“Are you imagining a flying kick, Sir?”

“Yeah...”

“He’s examining a papaya, Sir.”

“I know...”

“Does he know we’re here?”

“I don’t know. Maybe? Do you think I should go hit him?”

“No.”

“Should I hit on him?”

“No, Sir. I would not advise that.”

“He’s looking at the neloms.”

“I can see that.”

“Why does he have to be so bo--did he just fucking bite a nelom?”

“It appears so, Sir.”

“Like... like rind and all. Just bit the little fucker.”

“Seems it.”

A scuff of metal. “What the fuck are you two doing?”

Ahsoka tips her head around to peer through the grate. “We’re spying, Fett, what does it look like we’re doing?”

Rex cranes his head. “We’re hanging upside-down from a fire escape to get a look at a suspected Sith Apprentice that is currently shopping for various fruits, Mand’alor.”

Ahsoka waves. “Hi, Master Tholme.”

“Sokari,” the master greets. “This seems a very conspicuous way to spy.”

She shrugs as well as she can from this angle. “Yes, but you see, this way’s more fun.”

“Is it now.”

Rex shifted. “He’s on the move!”

“To kill someone?!”

“No, to the deli meats.”

“Kriff.”

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

Apparently, Tholme and Fett had told Quinlan to take care of Leia, as Leia had wanted to finish her juice and refused to get involved in the Torrents’ nonsense. According to her, if they couldn’t be bothered to explain the nonsense, they didn’t need her.

This was true and accurate.

Quinlan shows up while they’re still stalking Maul, having moved to a low rooftop for a decent vantage point with less likelihood of being spotted. He’s giving Leia an eopie-back ride, and the pout on her face at needing it is adorable. She pouts harder when she sees them.

“Are you even trying to hide?” Leia scoffs.

“Not really,” Ahsoka admits. She’s got Fett’s binoculars out. “I’m not sure he’s caught wind of the fact that we’re here yet.”

“Or he has and he’s just biding his time to escape while we’re distracted,” Tholme points out.

“Meh,” Ahsoka says, avidly devouring the visual that is a teenage Maul glaring at leafy vegetables. “I just want him to do something so I have an excuse to beat his ass.”

“Do I get to know who?” Quinlan asks, setting Leia down on the roof. “Or are we going to keep being completely unwilling to share information?”

“Baby Sith Lord,” Ahsoka says. “He’s fifteen. A child.”

“A baby,” Rex agrees.

“You’re... that’s... ugh,” Quinlan groans as loudly and as dramatically as he dares, flopping down to the rooftop. “Master Tholme, please tell me this isn’t a real Sith.”

“He’s Dark,” Tholme confirms. “Sith is... up for debate until we have evidence.”

“He’s a bitch is what he is,” Ahsoka mutters. She observes the teenager in question stop to poke at some pink tomatoes. “E chu ta, break the law, already!”

“Does he have a lightsaber?” Quinlan asks. “If he has a lightsaber and no Jedi ID or specialty license, we can probably arrest him.”

“Auntie Soka doesn’t have a license or ID,” Leia points out.

“She’s got a Jedi escort,” Tholme says. “And if our supposed Sith is polite and plays nice, we can probably escort him to the Temple as well.”

Rex snorts derisively.

“Do you know why he’s on Denon?” Fett asks.

“No clue,” Ahsoka admits. “Evil reasons, probably.”

“You’re useless,” Leia tells her.

“Thanks, princess, how’s that attempt to open the jam jar by yourself coming?”

Leia says something very inappropriate for a princess, for a child, and for a lady. It’s fairly appropriate for a soldier, which is admittedly what she’s been for a few years now. Ahsoka sticks her tongue out at the girl like the mature operative she is.

“I wish we could still get him to lose his osik by just showing up and insulting him,” Rex mutters, low enough that Quinlan probably can’t hear.

“I wanna punch him in the face,” Ahsoka confesses. “I want him to try to punch me in the face, and fail.”

“Don’t bully the baby Sith,” Rex admonishes.

“He’s a Sith.”

“He’s fifteen, it’s tacky.”

“But it’s Maul.”

“I know, but you’re tw--significantly older than him.”

“But... but it’s the motherfucker himself.”

“...you can bully him a little, but only because he’s a Sith.”

Fett steals the binoculars. “You can borrow them again when you stop acting like children.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Rex says, dry as Ryloth. “I’m ten.”

“Pretty tall for your age,” Ahsoka mutters, and then giggles.

“Don’t steal my jokes,” Rex says. He elbows her, hard.

“You know,” Quinlan says, slow and tired. “Master Tholme and I are trained investigators.”

Ahsoka and Rex look at each other, and then up at him.

“Okay?”

“...do you want me to find actual evidence of this guy doing something criminal?”

“Oh, yes please.”

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

Quinlan, as it turns out, is not overselling his skills. He does catch Maul doing something illegal later that day. It’s a little more ‘stealing corporate secrets in the dead of night’ and less ‘torturing people for kicks,’ but it’s still enough to legally arrest him. Quinlan attempts to do so.

Quinlan does not succeed, and is forced to jump out a window to avoid getting cut in half. Maul follows, steals a passing speeder by throwing out the driver, and takes off. Someone--looks like Tholme--drops back to save the driver, but the rest of them give chase. Ahsoka gleefully takes point on that, of course. She’s the best pilot.

(Rex looks bored, but someone is likely to puke by the end of the night. She hopes it’s not Leia, who insisted on coming for some fucking reason.)

“How the kriff is a teenager that good?!” Quinlan yells, clinging to the edge of the speeder to avoid getting tipped out as Ahsoka swerves around a corner with a wild laugh.

“He’s a Sith!” Leia shouts over the wind. “What do you think?”

Quinlan is not impressed by the claim of Sith.

Ahsoka screeches as she drifts across four lanes of traffic and into an alleyway to pursue Maul. He’s pretty good at dodging cross-building walkways, but she’s better. She bares her teeth, hissing, and tries to pick a plan.

“Vos, how’s your aim with Force throws?” She calls to the backseat.

“Uh, decent?”

“Great! Fett’s the projectile!”

Vos takes a second longer to process that than Jango does.

“I’m wh--”

He cuts off, screaming, and is flung forward by Quinlan to crash headfirst into a teenage Sith.

“Take the wheel!” Ahsoka commands, not waiting to see who follows the order, because Fett and Maul are both getting to their feet, the other speeder is about to crash, and she’s not sure who’s going to win that fight.

She jumps from the speeder they’ve been violently dragging around Denon, and lands feet-first on Maul’s... shoulder.

Hm.

That definitely dislocated something.

“You should wear armor!” she chirps at him, drawing both sabers and grinning as he whirls to face her, eyes wide with hate.

He’s utterly silent.

That’s disturbing. Expected, but disturbing.

“Did you just throw me?” Fett demands, higher pitched than she’d normally expect.

“No, Vos threw you.”

“Because you told him to!”

“Yeah, it’s a good strategy!”

“It is not!”

“Why not? Throwing people was standard practice in the GAR.”

She can’t see his face, but she’s pretty sure he’s about ready to strangle her.

Ahsoka cannot, at that point, continue snarking with the father of her best friend, because there’s a red lightsaber coming for her throat, and she should probably worry about that. Maul’s very good at killing people and she’d like to avoid becoming part of that statistic.

As she is quickly reminded, he is... fifteen. And shorter than she’s used to. And already injured.

It’s really, really easy to take him out, actually.

At some point, the other speeder was safely recovered before it caused property damage, and their own is landing a few meters away with Vos and the kids.

“You have Force-negating cuffs, right?” Ahsoka asks.

“No, Master Tholme has them.”

“Oh,” she says, and grimaces. “I guess I’ll just... keep sitting on him then.”

Maul snarls, and she raps him on the skull. “Stop that, it’s uncivilized.”

Rex snorts.

Jango makes a noise that is incredibly frustrated with the lot of them, and turns on Rex. “Was she telling the truth?”

“About?”

“Throwing people being standard practice for the GAR.”

Rex’s face goes pained. “It was in the five-oh-first. And a few others.”

“What’s the GAR?” Quinlan asks.

“None of your damn business,” Fett snaps.

Quinlan throws his hands up in the air again. “Come on! I just proved I know what I’m doing!”

“And their tragic backstory is none of your business, prudii!”

Quinlan blinks at him, and then glances at Ahsoka. “Um.”

“He called you a shadow since your training, um, seems to be pointing in that direction,” she says as carefully as she can. “We were theorizing.”

“Wh... you actually paid attention?” Quinlan asks, looking horribly confused. “I thought I was just annoying you.”

Ahsoka laughs at him. “Oh, Vos... I’ve been running black ops for... much longer than most would guess. Trust me, I know another spy when I see them.”

She smiles as kindly as she can, because she hadn’t actually meant to make him feel left out or unwanted or... well, she’d been pretty patronizing, especially for someone seemingly younger than him. The smile does not work. Quinlan just looks kind of horrified about how young she just implied she started spy work.

Granted, she’d been sixteen for Zygerria...

Deciding to ignore him for a bit, she shifts on Maul’s back and pats him on the cheek. “Don’t worry, Baby Sith. We’re going to get you lots of nice therapy. Mind healers, no Sith tortures, all that fun stuff. Maybe some plushies.”

“You’re also getting therapy, right?” Quinlan asks. “Please say you are. I’m required for the specifics of my training and if anything you’ve said is true, I feel like you really need it and I’m scared of what’ll happen if you don’t.”

Ahsoka laughs, knowing exactly how empty it sounds. “Oh hell, if I didn’t get therapy, I imagine Kix would rise from the grave to force me into it.”

The name means nothing to anyone except Rex, and... ah, yeah, she told Fett about Kix a few weeks ago.

“No more throwing me without warning,” Fett grumbles, dropping to sit on the ground next to her. “Especially not at baby Sith Lords.”

“I am not a child!” Maul spits.

“He speaks!” Ahsoka cheers. “Aw, I knew you could do it.”

“’Soka, I told you not to bully him,” Rex complains. “It’s tacky. You’re being tacky.”

“I’m allowed to be tacky,” Ahsoka declares. “I’ve died twice, that’s, like, permission from the universe.”

“You’ve died twice?” Quinlan asks, back in ‘fascinated horror’ territory. “Wait, no, I shouldn’t ask--”

“Too late! The first time was on a planet that doesn’t exist and my Master lost his mind, killed a god, and used the good favor of another god to have me brought back to life at her expense. Not in that order.”

“I--what? No, that’s--what?”

Ahsoka smiles brightly. “You asked.”

Tholme finally shows up with the cuffs.

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

“You should eat something.”

He glares at her.

“Baby Sith Lords need to eat.”

He keeps glaring at her.

“Maul, you’ll never get big and strong and ready to kill if you don’t eat your vegetables.”

He bares his teeth.

“No, I don’t eat my veggies, but I’m a Togruta, so if I eat too many vegetables I throw up.”

Rex kicks her thigh, right on the faulds. “What did I say about bullying the Sith Lord?”

“Not to.”

“And what are you doing?”

“Making him eat his vegetables.”

“Soka.”

“Rex’ika.”

He kicks at her again. “Get up, we’re swapping out the watch.”

“But I wanted to hang out with my favorite little criminal mastermind.”

Rex drops to the floor and presses his forehead to her shoulder. “How the hell is being around this guy the first thing to make you cheer up in weeks?”

“I’m allowed to be mean to him.”

“He’s going to bite you.”

“I’ll bite back.”

Rex jabs a finger into her ribs, and she squeaks. “Go get something to eat, Commander.”

“Fine,” she huffs, rolling to her feet and moseying along to the galley. She walks in on Tholme and Fett having an argument about the ways in which Jedi and Mandalorians differ. Quinlan’s on the side, watching with wide eyes, and little Leia’s drinking a juice box at his side, tucked up under his arm and occasionally saying things to fan the flames. Ahsoka assumes she’s enjoying herself.

She opens the cooling unit, looks over the contents, and pulls out a raw leg of eopie mutton. She leans against the counter, bites into the chilled-but-not-frozen meat, and uses the back of one hand to wipe the blood off her chin. The ‘real adults’ don’t notice.

“I’m like ninety percent sure you’re doing this to mess with me but also...” Quinlan trails off, staring at her with horror. “Why?”

“A girl’s gotta eat.”

“Yeah, but all the obligate carnivores I know are like... generally holding to basic rules of courtesy when it comes to not grossing people out,” Quinlan says. “Like, I don’t chew with my mouth open. You don’t... eat in the most intimidating--did you just crack the bone with your teeth?!”

Ahsoka smirks at him, using her free hand to take away the shard of bone so she can suck out the marrow without eating the bones themselves. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but this isn’t polite society. We’re in a galley on a bounty hunter’s ship, and I’ve been living on the run or in an army for most of my life. Table manners are optional.”

“No, they’re not,” Leia orders. “Fett, it’s your ship, tell her to--”

“--and another thing!” Fett snaps at Tholme, clearly paying less than no attention to the food argument.

Ahsoka keeps on eating, trying to catch wind of where the discussion’s at. Mostly, it seems to be at ‘talking past each other.’ Neither of them seems to have fully grasped more than the absolute most basic parts of the other culture, and that’s only enough to insult each other, not actually have a constructive conversation. She’d have expected more out of Tholme, at least. He’s not exactly young.

“Hey, quick question,” she says, in a moment where both of them have paused for breath and the opportunity to seethe. “Fett, when’s the last time you worked with a Jedi, or any member of a Force-based religion, before I popped into your life?”

His nose scrunches up as he makes a face.

“And Tholme, when’s the last time you worked with anyone from the Mandalorian system?”

Tholme’s reaction isn’t any more gracious than Fett’s.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” she says. “Vos, were either of them actually interested in that conversation, or just looking for an excuse to yell?”

“Now listen here, jetiika--”

“Fett,” she snaps. “I am not a child.”

“And neither am I,” he growls right back. “This is my ship, and I damn well don’t need you treating me like a misbehaving youngling. You’ve got a problem, you bring it to my face, not get all smug about people’s tempers blowing over.”

Well, then.

She smiles thinly. “Of course.”

He stands with his arms crossed, in full armor save for the helmet. She puts aside the eopie meat and wipes her hands, smiling until she can put her hands on her hips and let it drop to a challenge.

“You know, I’m just--I’m just gonna go,” Quinlan mutters, pulling Leia out with him, the girl hanging from under one of his arms. “This, uh, this looks like a problem for... you folks. Um. Yeah.”

He sidles out.

Tholme doesn’t.

Fett rubs at the bridge of his nose, and then gestures at the table. “Sit.”

“I’d prefer not to.”

He drops his hand and glares at her. “We have another week on this ship together. We are going to have this conversation. Sit.”

She sits, right on the warm spot left behind by Quinlan and Leia. She crosses her arms, lifts a brow, and waits.

Fett takes the seat across from her. Tholme leans against the counter.

“We all know you’re older than you look,” Fett says. “I heard Tholme mention it, I know that much has been shared. You’re acting like an actual teenager, and I’ve... I’ve put up with a lot. I am trying to keep things civil, particularly with you. I’ve tried to be friendly. You’ve been fucked up since we met, fine, everyone’s got trauma. The thing where you’ve started talking shit to our faces for what seems like your own amusement? That has to stop. You’re older than me, Torrent. Fucking act like it.”

She blinks at him, slow and not exactly happy, and turns to Tholme.

The man shrugs. “I was planning to put up with it until we arrived to the temple and handed you over to some mind healers. Fett doesn’t have that kind of time.”

There’s a curdle in her stomach, defensive and angry and guilty.

“You’ve been... a bitch,” Fett finally says. “You know that. I’m not going to mince words. You’ve been holier-than-thou and rude and condescending, and aiming that at Antilles is one thing, when you’ve apparently known her since she was a toddler and taught her things. Aiming at the rest of us isn’t going to fly. We’re all adults trying to share a space. Stop acting like... just like you have been.”

There is no defense to be made that they aren’t both already aware of.

She closes her eyes and tries to strangle the burst of irrational rage.

Their accusations aren’t unfounded.

They deserve an apology.

She is in the wrong.

She’s felt freer than she had in years, and in that freedom allowed herself too much rein, let herself lace her words with barbed wires and poison instead of sparks and spices, comments that were cruel instead of just joking. Too familiar. Too comfortable.

“My behavior’s been inappropriate,” she finally says, the words clumsy and too big in her mouth. “You’re right about that. I’m sorry, and I’ll endeavor to keep a tighter rein on my less pleasant behaviors in the future.”

At least she only lashes out with words. It could be worse.

She opens her eyes, fixes her gaze on the wall behind Fett, wrestles her expression into stiff neutrality. “Am I dismissed?”

“...uh, no, not after that,” Fett says, sounding just a little horrified. “What the hell was that?”

Tholme hisses out a breath. “Let her go.”

“No, this needs to be discussed, that’s not a healthy rea--”

“Fett, let her go,” Tholme insists, low and heavy.

Fett looks between the two for a moment, seems to come to a realization he doesn’t like, and then gestures almost violently towards the door. “Fine. Go.”

She walks out, doesn’t sprint. She’s stiff. She’s controlled. She’s the one that fucked up, so it’s fine if she doesn’t feel great right now. Getting called out on one’s own failings as a person isn’t something to get upset about if the failings are real. The feelings are real and normal, but this was her fault, and so it’s up to her to fix it, and she can’t let them know it hurt her, because this was her mistake.

She goes to the cargo hold.

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

Ahsoka works out her frustrations on Fett’s punching bag. She does not augment herself with the Force, just uses raw strength and technique, ignoring the tears that press at her eyes.

She’s fine.

It’s not weird. It’s not odd. It’s not strange to not notice she’s been kind of a bitch since her mood came up with the whole Depa thing, and then Maul. She’s been mean, mostly to Vos and Fett, and nobody’s confronted her about it until now. They let her have room for her trauma, and she hadn’t reined it in. She’s just gotten worse.

‘Snippy’ she’d always been, but age apparently hadn’t fucking tempered it.

“Um.”

She catches the punching bag, breathing heavily and covered in sweat. She hasn’t worked out all the twitchy, nervous energy yet.

“Vos,” she greets, once she’s caught herself enough that her voice won’t waver. He’s on the other side of the bag, but she knows his voice. “Do you need something?”

“You’re kind of... projecting,” he tells her, drifting to where she can actually see him. “Not self-loathing, but, um, recrimination? You just don’t feel very good and I was hoping to help”

Why in all the Sith hells does he have to be nice.

“I got called out on my behavior and wasn’t ready to face the fact that I’d kriffed up,” she tells him. “I’ll be fine. And I’m... sorry. I haven’t been fair to you and was using you as an easy target for some of my ruder comments.”

“I mean, I kind of figured,” he admits, coming closer. “I’ve been tutored by Shadows before, and a lot of them act like you. I just assumed it was more of that.”

“I still shouldn’t have let myself run loose like that,” she says. “I’m... it wasn’t appropriate. I shouldn’t have let it happen.”

He shrugs, not meeting her eyes. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“No,” she says. “Not with... not with you. Or anyone other than Rex and a mind healer, really. Most of it is...”

She trails off, distantly noticing that her eyes are tearing up enough to blur her vision, and her nails are digging into the bag in a way Fett won’t appreciate.

There’s so much that beat her down, never quite breaking her, that she doesn’t even know what made her act the way she does.

“Want to spar?”

She looks over at him, wonders what he sees that makes him want to fight her when she’s visibly unstable.

He smiles, kind and easy, and it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. It’s genuine in intent, if not in energy. He wants to help. “You all keep saying I could work on my hand-to-hand. Just take off the armor so I don’t break a finger, maybe.”

“You’re serious.”

“No, I’m Quinlan.”

She’s going to wipe the floor with this boy. “You sure you wanna fight me?”

“You won’t be able to meditate until you do,” he says. He’s right, damn him. “The other option is that I go get your... vod, I think? I go get Rex and you two can talk it out since you trust him with more. I don’t want to do that, though, he’s still a kid.”

She eyes him, lips pressed together and mind awhirl with emotions and thoughts she’d tried to beat out of her head and into the bag. “Ever fought someone without the Force?”

“...yes?”

“Was it cuffs?”

“Oh, you meant me not having the Force,” he realizes. “Er, no. Is... is that something you’ve done a lot?”

She smiles at him. “You’re planning on Shadow work. That means getting captured and stripped of everything you are at some point, Force included. Unfortunately, the cuffs are in use on a very annoying Dathomirian right now, so we’ll have to make do with you shielding like your mind’s a Kessel Spice Mine.”

“...do I want to know how often you’ve been captured?”

“No, you don’t.”

When he comes at her, it’s easy to dodge. It’s easy to tap him on target points, little pokes that show she could take him out, but isn’t going to until he’s learned something. He stays grinning throughout, letting her take the lead, and he treats her like... like a knight. Like a teacher. He’s stepped back and gone from trying to impress her as a fellow padawan, to proving himself to a full knight.

She’s not sure when that change happened, or why or how, but it makes things much smoother. She wants to think that it would have even if she hadn’t gotten a wakeup call from Fett.

So she treats him the way she treated Ezra, for the year she’d spent traveling with Kanan. She treats him as a student that’s willing to learn, good but not yet great, competent but not yet ready to survive. She draws him into the kind of chest-heaving exhaustion that tells a fighter just how much energy they waste.

(Ahsoka may have had her own style, but her grandmaster had been the pinnacle of a Soresu user. She’d spent years on the frontlines of a war. She knew the worth of conserving energy, and she’d teach it to any who stepped in to challenge her.)

“Who taught you to fight like this?” He asks, when they’ve taken a handful of moments to circle each other. His steps are heavy, sure, planted. Her own are light and ready.

“Soldiers,” she says. It’s true enough.

“Not your Master?” he asks, just as he tries to kick for her upper arm. It’s a safe question. For anyone else, it would be a safe question.

But for Ahsoka, it’s another chink in the armor, after a maelstrom of emotion, a storm of self-loathing, a dervish of instability.

She doesn’t break right away.

She spirals. She fights Quinlan, but doesn’t quite see him. Her strikes get sloppy, her feet stumble. She can’t make herself meet Quinlan’s eyes, not when the scrape of his heel against the metal sounds like the rasp of a breathing machine. Her shields get fuzzy, she knows, and she leaks what she feels into the air, making it sour and thick. She doesn’t notice, because all she can see, all she can--all she can hear and feel and--

She drops to her knees and grabs at her head, trying to stop it.

“Sokari?”

She breathes. In and out, harsh and jagged but natural in a way that the damned respirator wasn’t.

Her master her teacher her brother the traitor the hound the executioner

Her face is hot. Something prickles. It might be tears.

She tries to say something, tries to say a name or a request, tries to make anything come out of her mouth that isn’t the broken wail of a woman who hasn’t let herself think about how she died.

She feels herself pulled into someone’s arms, and she can’t quite tell who, but they’re bigger than she is, and feel warm and worried. They care. They don’t understand, they’re scared, but they care.

Her hands shake, clutched to her chest and she can’t breathe she can’t make herself take in enough air to do a Force-damned thing the empire is going to feel her her shields are down and broken and her emotions are spilling and the empire is going to find HER ANAKIN IS GOING TO FIND HER AND--

“COMMANDER!”

Rex.

Rex is here.

Her breath is coming so fast that she’s hiccupping more than she’s actually inhaling. She feels small hands in gloves on either side of her face, and then her forehead presses to something warm.

Rex. A Keldabe kiss. Her brother, her partner, her other half. He’s here. He’s calm. If he’s calm, then things are fine.

“What happened?” Light voice, high voice, small and distant. Leia. Little Leia little princess Leia she’s in danger she’s in trouble Anakin will--

“Commander.”

No. Here and now. She needs to focus on here and now. Her throat feels cold. She breathes too fast, still. She can’t stop it.

“I don’t know.” That’s Vos. He was... they were doing something. He was here. Talking to her. “We were sparring, and she just--”

Right, sparring.

“I don’t know if I said something?” He offers, voice pitching up, unsure and worried. Is he the one holding her? He’s the one holding her. That’s embarrassing.

“Commander?” Rex prompts. “Commander, can you open your eyes?”

She tries. She can’t. She shakes her head.

“Soka?” he asks, voice quiet. “Where are you?”

“F-F-Fett,” she manages. It’s enough.

“And where were you?”

His voice is so soft. So worried. She held him the same way after Mandalore, after Order 66, after all his brothers, all her friends...

“Soka.”

Her mind is spinning, and suddenly all she can hear is Anakin Skywalker is dead. I destroyed him.

Her breath hitches, and she wails.

“Commander,” Rex tries again, but her head is a vortex of Then you will die and Perhaps this child and not the Jedi way.

Our long awaited meeting.

I destroyed him.

Then you will die.

She can’t breathe she can’t breathe she can only see that yellow eye that’s too familiar but belongs to a stranger can only hear a voice that shouldn’t exist can only mourn and break and--

“Soka?”

“Malachor,” she manages. “I--h-he--I died.”

“What did you say?” someone asks. A vod. It’s the right voice, almost, rough and business-like, not accusing anyone yet, and... and... no. No. Not one of her boys. It’s Fett.

“Um, right at the end? I asked her who taught her to fight like this,” Quinlan says, nervous. “And she said it was soldiers. And I joked, I asked that it wasn’t her Master, and she didn’t answer that. A couple minutes later, she just started...”

“Oh, Soka,” Rex whispers, pulling her closer. “Commander, just breathe with me.”

“H-h-he, he just--R-Rex, he j-just--and I c-c-couldn’t--”

“I know,” her captain whispers. “I know, just breathe with me.”

“He k-k-k-killed me,” she sobs, falling out of the Keldabe and into too-small arms. “I l-loved--he was my broth-ther and--and he just--he killed me, he didn’t even stop.”

“I know,” Rex whispers. “Soka, I know.”

Of course he does.

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

“It was just bad timing,” Rex says, once they’re in the room she’s been sharing with her little family, curled up under a blanket and watching the floor like it has all the secrets to how she lost her world three times over.

“Is there anything we need to keep in mind?” Fett asks, gruff and uncomfortable. She wonders if he’s angry that she took his necessary confrontation and turned it into this mess.

“Don’t bring up her Jedi Master,” Rex says, and pulls her in when she shivers. Her eyes squeeze shut before she can stop them, tears beading up again. “Just... don’t. It’s too soon.”

“He’s--”

“He Fell,” Ahsoka interrupts. “I thought he died, but he became a Sith. And fifteen years later, we ran into each other, and I refused to join him in the Dark, so he tried to kill me.”

Fett swears, low and muffled. She thinks he has a hand over his mouth.

Quin and Leia aren’t there. She thinks they’re keeping an eye on their Baby Sith prisoner. That’s good.

“Soka,” Rex whispers, and she buries her face in his shoulder. She’s too old to be this kind of mess. She’s thirty-two. She’s Fulcrum. She’s...

She’s in need of a lot of therapy.

“We can avoid the subject unless you bring it up,” Tholme promises. “Definitely until the Temple. Is there anything else we shouldn’t talk about?”

Ahsoka can practically feel Rex’s deadpan look. “Sir, we’re a trio of child soldiers ripped from everything we know. Every other sentence is a risk. We’re just... working our way through.”

There’s a knock at the door. Oh. Quin and Leia.

“Just figured we’d drop this off before we went down to visit Mr. Grumpy-Face,” Quinlan whispers. He still thinks Leia’s a child. He’s trying to make things less terrible for her. That’s nice. “We decided he’ll be less angry if he tries Hoth chocolate, and made some for everyone.”

They definitely made it for Ahsoka herself, and Maul was an afterthought. Still. It’s sweet.

“Commander?” Rex prompts, jostling her a little to try and get her to sit up.

“Gimme a sec,” she manages. It takes longer than it should to push herself away from him, to accept the mug that Leia gives her, too-serious worry in the furrow of her brow and the twist of her soul.

She doesn’t look six. She doesn’t even look twenty-two. This girl was always too old for her skin, forced to grow up in the hostile fear of the Empire.

“Thank you, Princess.”

She sips.

She can barely taste it beyond the ashes she imagines coating her tongue.

I destroyed him, her memory echoes. His slightest hesitation before he made the final move, it haunts her. She almost reached him. If only she’d tried harder, yelled louder, been better...

She shivers.

“Do you need help falling asleep?” Tholme asks. “I’m a regular healer, not a mind healer, but...”

She probably should.

She takes another sip of her drink, willing herself to taste it. It’s good. She likes it. She knows she does.

“Can you make it dreamless?” she whispers.

“It doesn’t always work, but I can try,” he tells her.

She nods. “When I finish the chocolate.”

“Of course.”

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

Everyone’s careful around her for days. The whole decision to be nicer doesn’t mean anything when she’s walking about in a daze of too few emotions, drained of everything she could feel in favor of a grey cloud of fluff in everything she does.

She does forms. Single saber and Jar’kai. Ataru and Djem so and Soresu. Reverse grip, regular grip, partial reverse on either side.

Again. Again. Again.

She loses herself in the motions, not meditating so much as just empty.

Rex worries. Fett worries. Vos worries.

Leia and Tholme keep their shields locked up tight, and she doesn’t know how they feel. She thinks Leia might be judging her. She think Tholme might be pitying.

Maul simply hates. It’s an old and familiar sensation to walk into, and she takes unthinking comfort in his rage. She’s silent instead of snippy, when she plays the role of guard, and they stare at each other in silence. His eyes burn, and she wonders how much he’s heard of her nightmares.

“You need to talk,” Rex tells her, when he finds her with a cold cup of caff, eyes fixed somewhere beyond it all. She lifts her head. “Soka.”

She just stares at him.

He sighs and pulls her into a hug. “Commander, please.”

She can’t.

Ahsoka stares at the wall behind him, resting her chin on his head. Her neck itches under the lek at the back of her head, a little tingle of a feeling that she can’t bring herself to do anything about. The pale light of the galley is sharp against the chipped paint of the metal that surrounds them. It hurts her eyes to look, but it’s not the deep and dark lit only by red--

Then you will die, her memory growls.

She flinches.

“Breathe,” Rex tells her, too-small hands clinging at her back. “Just breathe, ‘Soka.”

She curls in tighter and tries to just breathe.

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

“Tell me something good.”

Ahsoka blinks. She looks at Leia. She doesn’t have the energy to parse that.

Leia chances a look at Rex, who isn’t leaving Ahsoka’s side any more than he has to, and Fett on the other side. Tholme’s asleep and Quin’s on Baby Sith duty. It’s just people who know, right now.

The little girl across the table, the child senator, the spy, purses her lips and huffs in irritation. “You knew my biological father before he became one of the worst people in the galaxy. Both of you did. Tell me something good about him.”

Good things.

About Anakin.

“You fought a war as a Jedi,” Leia prompts. “Surely you must have done some good things with him, or at least thought you were.”

Did they?

Every mission ended in tragedy or was just a ploy of Palpatine’s. Every saved life was just...

Wait.

“He built Threepio,” she finally says. “Your father wi--I mean, Bail wiped Threepio’s memory after the Empire rose, for your safety, but Anakin was the one who built him.”

Leia sits up, eyes brighter. “I didn’t know that. I... was Artoo involved? Did he build R2D2, or...”

“No,” Rex says, “But Artoo was his favorite astromech, and they always pushed each other into stupid stunts. We risked a hell of a lot to save that droid, more than once, and I didn’t find out until you started working with the Rebellion full-time, but Artoo and Threepio were the witnesses for your bio-parents’ wedding.”

Leia gapes at him. So does Ahsoka. (Fett doesn’t know enough to care.)

Rex grins, and if it looks a little forced, that’s fine. “He had a holo recording. I was one of the few people left that knew about the marriage that might have wanted to see, so Artoo offered. It was... sweet.”

He waits, probably for Ahsoka to add something herself, but she has nothing.

“I think that’s when they swapped droids, since Threepio was more useful to a politician and Artoo did his best work when we set him loose on the enemy.”

“He never changed,” Leia muses. “Did he always swear that much?”

“Yes,” Ahsoka answers, as Rex laughs. “Always. All the binary I learned started with the best swears.”

She tries to think of another good memory, something else that Leia might appreciate. Her mind ticks back to saving Stinky, which is just a terrible option, because that mission started with Hutts and ended with the Battle of Teth. That massive loss of life, all for the son of the creature that had put Leia in chains.

She wonders if she has anything in her memory that doesn’t end in blood and graves.

“Soka.” Rex.

“Hm?”

“Remember that time Fives and Echo got lost in the undercity their first time on leave, and we had to get the General to help us find them?”

She does.

He’s right, that’s a good story.

“Okay, so what you have to understand,” Ahsoka says, already digging the faint details out and dusting them off, “is that these boys were ARC troopers, top-notch, terrifyingly competent once they got through specialty training, and loyal as hell. Echo had memorized the reg manuals front to back, and Fives was... well, Fives ended up being the only person to figure out the chips before they went into action. Point is, the Domino twins were good... eventually. Just like everyone else, though, they started out shiny.”

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

“Tholme’s hiding something.”

Ahsoka wonders if Leia will just leave if she ignores her enough. Probably not. This was the girl that got kicked out of boarding school for leading a sit-in at age seven. She’s got patience.

“His job requires him to hide a lot of things,” Ahsoka says instead. “Not as many as Vos will have to, eventually, but a lot.”

“He’s hiding something from us,” Leia insists, visibly frustrated that Ahsoka isn’t as upset about this as she is. “Something important.”

The way she says ‘important’ is clumsy and impacted by the missing baby tooth. She can’t say the r. It comes out as ‘im-poh-ten,’ which is adorable, and if Ahsoka comments on it, she’s probably going to get punched by a six-year-old.

“The Force doesn’t care,” Ahsoka says. “I trust his intentions, if not him as a person.”

“If you don’t trust him, then why trust his intentions?”

“Leia, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I trust one and a half people in the galaxy,” Ahsoka points out. “Me not trusting a person isn’t a sign of anything except my paranoia. The only person I trust fully and without reservation is Rex. Even you, I only mostly trust, because my brain starts screaming if I think too hard. That’s why you’re the half.”

“Okay, whatever, paranoia aside,” Leia barrels on, “He should tell us. Whatever it is that he’s hiding, we deserve to know. We’re not children that he can just hide things from for our own good.”

Ahsoka presses her lips together. “Leia. Princess. I know you’re used to holding all the cards--”

“This isn’t about me being a control freak!”

“It is, though,” Ahsoka soothes, and smiles. “Your mother--the bio one--was the same way. You spent years as one of the leaders of the Rebellion, so obviously you’re used to having all the information, and people reporting to you... but Tholme is a Jedi Master. He reports to the Council and the Republic. Do you know how many people I kept secrets from while I was a padawan? We’re an unknown, Leia. They have no proof that we’re on their side, especially since we’re traveling with Fett.”

Leia crosses her arms and glares as hard as she can.

“I’m not going to bother him,” Ahsoka says. “I’ve already had, like, five unrelated mental breakdowns. I’m putting this on hold until we get to the Temple and I can trust that there’s a healer on hand to sedate me or something.”

“You... want to be sedated?”

“Leia, this... really should be obvious, but a Force-Sensitive losing their osik the way I have been isn’t actually safe. I know I broke a weapons rack last week.” Ahsoka gestures vaguely. “If the Jedi Master isn’t telling me something for reasons that might relate to my clear and obvious mental instability, I’m going to assume he’s got a point.”

“So he should tell me or Rex.”

“We’ll be on Coruscant in four days,” Ahsoka soothes. “Just... let it be. They won’t hurt us.”

“You don’t know that.”

Ahsoka shrugs. “I don’t have to. The Force leads me in all things, including this.”

Leia isn’t impressed by that, but Leia isn’t impressed by much in the first place.

She strides off in a fit that is, perhaps, more influenced by her six-year-old emotional control than she’d like to admit. Ahsoka lets her. It’s not worth the argument.

It’s only a few minutes later that Fett strides in, takes the seat Leia was just in, and asks, “What would it take for you to teach me how to use a jetii’kad?”

She blinks at him. “You want to learn how to use a lightsaber?”

“Yes.”

“...why?”

“Viszla.”

“I see.”

She does.

Ahsoka taps her fingers against the table, eyeing him with the kind of interest she copied from Master Kenobi, years ago. Fett doesn’t fidget, but she thinks he might want to. He just looks back, waiting for her judgement.

“You’ll need to justify it,” she finally says. “It’s a significant difference from what you actually did, so I need to know your reasoning for doing it, and your plans for once it’s done.”

“That’s all?”

“That’s step one,” she corrects. She tilts her head, considering. “My standards for you aren’t built in a vacuum, and you know that. Explain to me what you plan to do and how you plan to do it, and if I approve...”

“You’ll help me achieve it.”

“Maybe,” she allows. “A lot of that depends on Rex.”

“I expected as much,” Fett says. “He is... an admittedly large part of the reason.”

“He would be,” she says. She gives the silence a few more seconds to sit awkwardly between them, and then stands up. “I’d guess you’ve been brainstorming already. Do you have it written down or is it mostly just in your head so far?”

“I’m still... debating options, so to speak.”

She grins, and the shape of the predator’s smile, the baring of teeth... that almost makes him step back. She can see it in the twitch of his muscles. Smart man.

“Follow me,” she says, and doesn’t wait for him to stand. She strides out with tooka-light steps, hears the heavy beskar tread behind her, and goes to the cargo hold. Fett’s confusion grows tangibly behind her, especially when she tosses him a wooden quarterstaff. She picks up the other and spins it in one hand.

“You’re going to fight me,” she tells him, stretching and letting the staff help with the process. “And while we fight, you’re going to tell me what your plans for Mandalore are.”

He mimics her, but there’s a frown on his face. “And why staffs?”

“You and I, we’ve only sparred bare-handed,” she says. “I need a feel for how you fight with a weapon anyway. These are a good start.”

“Not the beskad?”

She grins, and the twitch is back. “No. That can wait. We start with the staffs.”

He takes a stance, and she mirrors him. She lets him strike first with a weapon, but she’s the one that asks all the questions.

(He is the only one on the ship that can fight her one-on-one right now, and he can win. Still, she makes him work for every inch, and what she doesn’t win in bruises, she wins in words.)

(Fett might yet be a proper Mand’alor, but Ahsoka learned war from her brothers, negotiation at the knee of a general and in the shadow of a prince, and government at the side of duchesses and queens.)

(If he wants her help uniting his people, he needs to prove that he can hold them together once she’s gone.)

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

Ahsoka’s interrogation of Jango’s plans is thorough, and she’s not the only one involved. She brings Leia in, and has her join in on the grilling. She maybe laughs as the twenty-seven-year-old survivor of Galidraan, the Mand’alor, a man who has killed Master Jedi with his bare hands, gets lectured on various government structures by a tiny girl that's missing several teeth and needs to sit on books to see the table properly.

Still, Leia knows this better than any of the rest of them do. The girl might have grown up heir to a monarchy, but she got a classical education and was drilled on democracy and all associated forms of government. Where Ahsoka knows military protocol and law enforcement, intersystem relations and defensive measures, Leia knows agricultural subsidies and welfare programs, infrastructure and education.

Ahsoka may know how to find out if someone’s breaking a zoning law, but Leia knows why it exists in the first place.

“And I grew up in a cult,” Rex says, when an argument on that topic breaks out. Everyone that hasn’t heard the joke-that-isn’t-a-joke stares at him. “The Jedi grew up in a religious meritocracy; Leia grew up in a monarchy; and I grew up in a cult.”

Ahsoka elbows him. He’s not wrong, but still.

Unfortunately, Ahsoka is about forty-seven percent sure that Leia will put her foot in her mouth when it comes to Mandalorian culture, blunt as the girl is. That prefrontal cortex isn’t anywhere near as developed as it should be, either, so impulse control for the princess isn’t great. Ahsoka refuses to let Leia and Fett talk about ways to mend the breaks between tradition and the pacifism of the New Mandalorians without either Rex or Ahsoka herself as a mediating presence. Tholme sits in a few times, but while he knows that Leia isn’t really six--though not about the time-travel, yet--Quinlan doesn’t.

They admittedly end up doing this while he’s on Maul-sitting duty.

“It’s like he doesn’t even care about making nice with the people that, at this point, make up the majority of his people!” Leia grumbles one night, as Ahsoka kicks over a step stool so the girl can brush her teeth. “He may not like the New Mandalorians, but from what I understand, it’s still early enough to prevent the majority of the cultural bleaching you brought up. If he stays this stubborn--”

“Leia,” Ahsoka says, and the girl’s mouth snaps shut. “I’m aware of your reasons for not trusting his intentions. But if I may say? Chill.”

“He’s not even trying!”

“He’s trying a hell of a lot harder than he did in the original timeline,” Ahsoka reminds her. “Brush your teeth.”

“I’m not a--”

“Teeth.”

It’s a little worrying, how the child’s brain affects Leia, but... well. That’ll pass in time, hopefully. Until then, Ahsoka gets to be the aunt she should have been. This includes tucking Leia in, which the girl grumbles about despite the fond waves of comfort that enter the Force around her. Ahsoka doesn’t call her out on it, just brushes back wisps of hair to plant a kiss on Leia’s forehead, and then does the same once Rex stumbles in, grumbling about the limitations of a cadet’s body, but far more ready to follow the protocol that is bedtime.

Rex doesn’t pretend to not like getting tucked in, for all that he’s sharing with a grumbly, already-asleep princess. He smiles up at Ahsoka, lets her hug him, and pretends they can be a normal family for five seconds.

Quinlan’s making a late night snack for himself in the galley. Tholme is guarding the Baby Sith. Fett...

Ahsoka goes to the cockpit, takes the copilot’s seat, and watches hyperspace pass them by.

It takes long minutes before either of them say anything.

“Do Jedi believe in souls?”

His shields are up, locked up tighter than the innermost chambers of the Imperial Palace. She has no idea where he’s taking this question. She has to cast about for an answer.

“That depends on how you define a soul,” she finally says. “Leia told me about Force Ghosts. A Jedi Master who underwent the right meditations and training could pass into the Force upon their death without losing their sense of self. They could remain themselves, to an extent, and interact with force-sensitive individuals. I don’t know if they could last that way indefinitely, but depending on your definition, I could argue those ghosts were evidence of a form of soul.”

“So you believe that the dead pass into the Force, but that what passes could be a soul. Something must exist for a sense of self to disappear at death in a way that impacts the Force as you understand it, and many would use the word ‘soul’ for that something.”

“Mm,” Ahsoka considers it. “I’d say that’s pretty accurate. You’ve put a lot of thought into this.”

“What about those not yet born?”

Her fingers feel cold, and she finds herself no longer able to watch the passage of hyperspace as passively as she had, and her eyes catch on streaks and motes of what is not dust, her vision unable to keep any more still than her heart.

“Oh,” she hears herself say. “The clones.”

It’s a long time before he answers, but the walls come down. He carries a confused sort of grief with him, guilty and a mite resentful. His questions have been building for longer than she’d thought. His voice is rough. “I’ve taken plenty of lives, but I’ve never known the name of someone I erased from existence before they were even born.”

“The stories we told Leia about the brothers.”

There’s a grunt of agreement from Fett, so those dots at least connect.

“I take it my answer wasn’t helpful,” she manages to say.

“Will they still exist?” Fett asks. “Will they be born elsewhere? Or is... is a soul something that only comes into existence after the body does?”

“I have no idea,” Ahsoka admits. “I want... I want to think that I’d be able to find them eventually, to recognize them, if their souls are still born into this world elsewhere.”

“And if your Sith finds someone else to build his army out of?”

Ahsoka looks at him, sharp and pointed. “You wouldn’t.”

“They’ll be doing it anyway, if their plans are as ironclad as you say.”

“You’re already associating with Jedi,” Ahsoka says, fighting the urge to break his nose. “They wouldn’t approach you, not now. They can’t leverage your anger against you. They won’t know everything, but they’ll know that you have friends among the Jedi.”

“You think they can’t come up with better lies?”

He has a point. He has more than one point and she hate hate hates it.

A Jedi does not hate.

I am no Jedi.

“You’re going to have to convince me,” she says. “Especially if you want to somehow balance this with the darksaber thing. I won’t teach you how to fight with it if you’re not planning to retake Mandalore.”

“That’s how they’d sell it,” he says. “Retaking Mandalore. An army ostensibly for the Jedi, and ultimately...”

“You’d build an army of slaves.”

“No, I’d be the inside man for when they build that army anyway.”

She holds his gaze. She looks away first.

“Torrent?”

“I’m thinking.”

He lets her.

“I’ll need to talk to Rex. Probably Leia.”

“Understandable.”

“I don’t like this.”

“I’m only just considering it. It’s an idea, not a plan.”

“That’s the only reason I haven’t ripped your throat out with my teeth.”

“Hyperbole doesn’t suit you.”

She glares at him, and leaves, her mind chopping up and laying out every possible angle on Fett volunteering to do the exact same thing as last time, but somehow worse.

Great. Just what she needed.

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

Ahsoka isn’t there for the shouting match between Rex and Fett, but she doesn’t have to be. She can hear it form clear across the ship, and Rex comes to her afterwars. He’s been crying, which isn’t as surprising as it could be. These bodies are still prone to such things, and will be for years. She doesn’t comment.

“Do you want to talk about it?” she asks.

“We need to take out Sidious before he starts anything on Kamino.”

“Agreed,” she says. “It’ll be hard, though.”

“I don’t care.”

“What did Fett say?”

“That if it wasn’t going to be my brothers, it would be someone else’s. Either we stopped the cloning from happening at all, or we mitigated damage by being there.”

“I don’t think Sidious is going to tap him for it,” Ahsoka admits. “Not unless you’re willing to stage that kind of fight publicly enough for Fett to claim the Jedi poisoned you, family, against him. It could work, but it’s a gamble.”

He knows all of this.

“I miss them,” he says, and she cards her fingers though the curls he’s managed to grow in the past weeks. “I just... even at the end, I had Wolffe. I knew Boba was out there; I wouldn’t be surprised if the beskar let him survive a Sarlacc. I had brothers. Not as many as I used to, but there was always someone. I miss them all, so much it hurts.”

“It wouldn’t be them,” she reminds him. She pulls him closer, puts her cheek to his head. “It would be the same process, the same faces, the same training, even, but the boys themselves...”

He clings to her and shudders.

“Rex?”

“I can’t force them to grow up the way I did. I want them back. Sidious is going to make the army no matter what. Someone’s going to suffer, and I don’t want it to be my brothers, but they won’t exist otherwise, and...”

“And it’s an impossible choice,” she summarizes. “And it sucks.”

“It’s sucks Gungan balls, ‘Soka.”

She laughs, and feels him smile against her shoulder. Good. He needs to smile more.

“He’s still trying to get me to like him,” Rex says. "He’s still making an effort, and he never did that for anyone except Boba, and it’s weird. I don’t know what to do with any of that.”

“Gain a brother,” Ahsoka whispers, and she feels him jerk against her. “If that’s what you want.”

“He’s not vod.”

“Same blood as all the rest, and you’re older than him, so he’s not really in a position to be a parent to you like he was to Boba,” she says carefully. “You don’t have to do anything, if you don’t want to, but... I think he’s trying. I think this means a lot to him, and that he isn’t any more sure of what to do than you are. You don’t have to forgive him for what he did in the future, you don’t have to accept when he reaches out, you don’t have to ever talk to him again after we reach Coruscant if you don’t want, but I think... I think it’s worth at least considering what you have to gain. I think it’s worth looking at what he’s trying to give you.”

Rex huffs. “Why couldn’t he just be the shabuir I knew in training?”

“Something happened between now and then?” she offers. “I don’t know. I never met him in the original timeline. I just know the guy that keeps trying to get on my good side so you’ll like him.”

He outright scoffs. “Soka, that’s not the only reason he’s trying to get on your good side.”

“...I’m a former Jedi who talks trash to his face,” she says slowly. “And I cried on him. There is no reason for him to be nice to me, other than you.”

“He thinks you’re cool and a good person and wants you to be his friend.”

“Bantha poodoo.”

Rex grins in a way that goes straight to smirking. “Soka, I’m not joking. Jango Fett wants you to be his friend.”

“Kriffing why?” she asks, more than a little horrified. “I’m a mess, look like I’m ten years younger than him, have gleefully kicked his ass in front of an audience; I even told Vos to throw him at a baby Sith Lord. Putting up with me is one thing, but I’m... I’m only barely not a Jedi. I’m a historical enemy of Mandalore, and part of the community he hates more than anything, and--”

“And his reaction to you kicking his ass was pure Mando,” Rex says. “In that he now thinks you’re a badass, and thus worth being friends with.”

“I can’t believe that. I physically cannot.”

“Soka, just accept it. The Mand’alor wants to be friends with you.” He scratches at his scalp. “I mean, he met you while you were protecting what appeared to be children, and it’s apparently still early enough for him to care about that.”

She leans back in her seat, eyes on the wall ahead of her and back against the cool metal of the other side. Rex falls back with her. She wonders if Rex changed the subject so they didn’t have to talk about deciding how many of his brothers get to exist, and whether or not he can swallow the bitterness of his history to have a connection with at least one member of his blood. She doesn’t ask. If he wants to change the subject, that’s his right.

“I don’t... no.” She denies it as well as she can, and then the implications dig a little deeper. “Is this me accidentally signing up to be the Jedi Order’s official liaison to the Mand’alor?”

“I mean, this point in time... they’ve got Kenobi for the Duchess, yeah?” Rex shrugs. “Good relations with the system are probably a good thing, and you’ve got a stronger connection than Tholme and Vos.”

“Ugh,” she says. She rubs a hand against her head, and then lurches to her feet. “Fine! Fine. If it’ll get him to retake Mandalore before the Sith decide to bribe him with an army he doesn’t get to keep, I’ll teach him how to fight for the kriffin’ Darksaber.”

“That’s what makes the decision for you?”

“Well something had to!”

They only get one lesson in before Coruscant, but the lesson lasts a full day, and Ahsoka’s got his comm number. Fett’s a quick learner anyway, and Tholme was there to give pointers where Ahsoka couldn’t.

He won’t measure up to a Jedi in saber-to-saber combat, but he doesn’t need to. He just needs to learn enough to turn all those skills with a beskad to something that works with a jetii’kad.

(The balance of a saber is wrong to those used to a physical weapon. The inertia doesn’t work the way anyone expects. There’s no need to worry about damaging the blade.)

(Fett is good. Ahsoka is better. And, bless his heart, he knows it.)

(She will mold him into the shape of someone who not only can, but should rule a system with a history like that, and he damn well knows that too.)

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

“Dropping out of hyperspace in T-minus twenty seconds.”

The Slave I is not, in fact, a Venator-class starship, or anything else near the size and smoothness of the ships that Ahsoka grew up on. This is a bounty hunter’s vessel, and the drop to real space jolts like nothing else. Ahsoka’s in the copilot seat for the return, but Tholme’s going to swap with her as soon as they’ve got confirmation that there were no problems with exiting hyperspace, and nobody’s shooting at them.

“We’re not going to get shot at,” Tholme had assured her.

“I always get shot at,” she’d told him.

“I have our clearance,” he reminded her, seeming more amused than frustrated. “There’s no need to worry about getting shot at.”

“I also always get shot at,” Jango had thrown in.

“Okay,” Tholme had allowed, after several minutes of his trust in the Temple warring against Ahsoka and Jango’s learned paranoia. The looks Quinlan had darted around the room when Leia and Rex also claimed ‘chronic getting-shot-at disease’ had been a treat. The paranoia of a Watchman and a future Shadow was great, but the paranoia of three revolutionaries and a galaxy-wide criminal was greater. “You can take us in close enough to get in radio contact, but the second we have to ask for clearance and a vector, I’m in the seat.”

She’d agreed, of course. She was paranoid, not inexperienced.

“We’re much less likely to get shot down by ground control if you tell them we’re with you,” she’d said, to his hilariously apparent metaphysical exhaustion. “Obviously.”

“Good enough,” he’d sighed.

What that means is mostly just that Ahsoka gets to watch the distant star at the center of Coruscant’s system grow rapidly brighter. She can pick out the constellations she’d grown up with, the stars the creche had projected on the ceiling every night, the ones that she may not have seen from the surface, but had greeted her and then sent her on her way every time she left on yet another campaign that lost her men their lives for a Sith Lord's wretched plans. These were the shapes and stories she’d never seen again as Fulcrum, a woman so hunted that to come within a dozen subsectors of the planet was to court her death.

For sixteen years, she hadn’t ventured closer than Alderaan, save for a single trip to Chandrila.

And now, maybe twenty minutes away at this speed, was the Temple. It was home.

A home that didn’t know her, that had sentenced her to death, that had hosted the rampage of her former master... but home nonetheless.

“Stable?” Fett grunts.

“Thrusters are good,” she confirms.

“I meant you.”

Ah. “I’m... fine. As good as I could be, anyway.”

She hesitates, but manages to speak before he does. “You?”

“I’m not the one walking into an entire building of triggers.”

“Only because you’re not entering it,” she says. “It’s the home of your ancestral enemies who, bad info or no, killed off a whole lot of your friends.”

“I get to leave,” he says. “You don’t.”

She plans to needle him a bit more, maybe on something a little less based in both their traumas. She needs to talk, if only to fill up the silence and keep herself from reaching out to all the lights in the Force. It’ll be too much, she knows.

Tholme enters the cockpit. “Change of plans.”

“Better be a good reason,” Jango says, voice flat.

“Leia’s crying.”

Ahsoka’s unbuckling herself before she can process the words fully. “What?”

Leia doesn’t cry for no reason. Her emotional control is as difficult as the body makes it, but she doesn’t just cry. There’s always a cause.

“I don’t know. Rex said to get you,” Tholme explains. “She was saying a name. He seemed to recognize it.”

Not good not good not good. If Leia was feeling the Emper--No. She cuts the thought off there. No catastrophizing. Information first.

“What name.”

“Luke. Mean anything to--and she’s gone.”

Ahsoka ignores him, just sprints to where she knows the ‘young ones’ are. They’re all in Maul’s room, because nobody wants to be alone with him now, but it’s the worst time to leave him without supervision. It’s not the worst option; he mostly refuses to talk, still.

This holds true, because he definitely isn’t talking when she bursts in. He’s sitting on the bench, in a corner, hugging his knees and watching Quinlan try to calm Leia down.

“Captain, sitrep.”

“Vos and Tholme attempted to show Leia how to reach out to feel the Temple from a distance. They felt that it would be a good use of the time, and an interesting exercise at this distance. She attempted to do so, struggled for several minutes, and then reacted with shock. She has repeated the name ‘Luke’ several times since then, and we’ve been unable to fully calm her down. I asked Tholme to get you, as you are the only Force-Sensitive on board that understands the situation in full.”

“Understood.” She nods to him, and then goes to nudge at Quinlan. “Vos, move.”

“Torre--”

“You can sit behind her, hold her in your lap like you did when we had lunch the other day, but I need to get in her face.” She waits for him to comply, and then drops to her knees and takes Leia’s hands in her own. She radiates calm and assurance, even though she knows Quinlan’s probably been doing the same since this started. She dips her head enough to get in the girl’s line of sight, waits for her to meet eyes.

“Princess,” she says, and meets Leia’s eyes. “What did you feel?”

“Luke.”

From this distance... they’ve got half the system to go, at least, and Leia’s training shouldn’t reach that far for anything more than the fact that the Temple is there. Ahsoka could feel unshielded individuals from here, if she focused, but she’s also been doing this much, much longer. The twins theory holds more water than ever.

“Can you show me?” Ahsoka asks, instead of asking for more clarification. She squeezes Leia’s hands and smiles. “In the Force?”

Leia nods, and closes her eyes. It’s not the first time they’ve done this, but it’s the first time in a while that Leia’s needed Ahsoka to guide her through.

Luke’s light, for all that it’s unfamiliar to Ahsoka, is brilliant among the rest of the signatures in Coruscant. Like Anakin and Leia, he’s a star in his own right, but he’s brighter. He doesn’t have Anakin’s bitterness or Leia’s righteous anger, just... light. Ahsoka had asked Leia to show her instead of looking for herself because she’d expected to not recognize the boy, but she needn’t have. He’s unmistakable.

He’s so bright that she almost misses the other signature that she does recognize. She shies away, knowing that it would be there, but... but it’s almost twinned with another nearby. Not identical, but different in a way that comes with age, with trauma, with... death.

Leia hadn’t arrived alone, after all.

Why would Luke?

Her eyes snap open, her hand coming up not-quite-fast enough to clap over her mouth as she gasps. She feels a shudder, one that starts in her shoulders and reaches deep into her ribcage, finds a home in her chest and doesn’t stop.

“Oh fuck,” Quinlan whispers. “Torrent? Um, Sokari?”

Rex steps closer. “Commander?”

“That shabuir faked his death again,” she manages. “Three times, Rex!”

He blinks at her. “...I know way too many people who fit that description, Soka.”

“Master Ke--” she cuts herself off. He might have changed his name, just like she had. There’s already an Obi-Wan here. Rex seems to be figuring it out, but she needs to give him another hint.

“He pulled a Hardeen,” she stresses, and Rex’s eyes snap shut with a tired groan.

“Who?” Leia asks, her own tumult of emotion paused in the wake of Ahsoka’s shock. There’s a hope and relief to her, and Ahsoka belatedly realizes that her main worry had been that she’d misidentified what was going on, that she’d given herself a false hope. Ahsoka’s internal reaction, her approval and awe at Luke’s presence, had trickled over enough to give Leia the reassurance she’d needed.

Unintentional as it was, Ahsoka was glad that she’d succeeded in helping her charge.

“Er...” she trails off. “I don’t know what name he’s going by, right now. We’ve spent so long in hiding...”

“The man Luke knew as Crazy Old Ben,” Rex says, and Leia’s eyes light up.

“Oh,” she breathes. “General O--no, names. The High General, then.”

“Yeah,” Ahsoka says, not a little soft. “Yeah, I guess death didn’t stop him any more than it stopped me.”

“I could have told you that,” Leia says, smiling far too widely. She squirms where she still sits on Quinlan’s lap. “He was... he taught you, right?”

“As much my master as the official one,” Ahsoka says. She glances as Quinlan, feels Maul’s gaze on the back of her head. “Your f... my official master was very young when I was assigned to him. He wasn’t ready to teach, wasn’t even ready to be a knight, entirely, so my training was split between him and his master.”

Quinlan pops in at that moment, “Your grandmaster was military, too?”

We all were, she thinks. Even you, in your own way.

“I landed in their care mid-battle,” she says carefully. “It was a complicated situation.”

He nods, and she vaguely notes that he’s got his arms wrapped around Leia, and his chin tucked on top of her head. She isn’t sure if Leia’s noticed, but Quinlan’s picked up ‘baby’-sitting duty so often recently that she’s fairly certain he’s all but declared her ‘little-sister shaped.’ It doesn’t matter that Leia’s older--she’s still taking the juice boxes and gummy snacks that Quinlan shoves at her every single snacktime.

“Do you think...” Rex trails off, something uncomfortable twisting in the Force, even though his face keeps it mostly hidden. “My brothers. If the General survived and... and made it back...”

“I didn’t feel any,” Ahsoka says, because she knows she’d have noticed if it was anyone she’d met, and likely any clone at all. They all felt different in the Force, but they all held a spark that made her know it was one of them. “I’m sorry, Rex’ika.”

“A long shot,” he says, that dash of hope shriveling up. He must see something in her face, because there’s a curl of warmth in him, even if his smile is brittle. “It’s fine, really. I have you, ‘Soka.”

Rex and Ahsoka. Two halves of one whole.

She can’t wait to hear the lectures on attachment, the way people who haven’t seen her wars try to criticize her for clinging to any chance at still having a will to live. She can’t wait to see them justify telling her that it’s selfish to hold her sanity in her hands and refuse to let the grief take it away. She can’t wait to stare someone down for asking her to ‘learn to let go’ after she’s lost her family, her life, her universe three times over.

Most of the Jedi are more sensible than that, are reasonable enough to see those shades of grey and how to approach rules in the spirit they are meant instead of the rigid letter, but there will be some.

There will be more than enough telling her she is wrong to hold her oldest, closest, best friend as dear as she can.

Attachment, they’ll say.

What they’ll mean is ‘codepedence.’

They won’t be entirely wrong.

She reaches out for him, lets him fall into her side and stay there, closes her eyes and reaches out for the man she’d long called father, when they’d still been in each other’s lives.

This time, past the deafening flare of surprise-love-hope of the little star next to him, she can feel him reach back.

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

The second the ship has landed, even before Tholme and Fett are done with the checks, Ahsoka’s waiting at the exit. She strains her hearing so she’ll know the second the system will let her open the massive door of the cargo hold.

Leia clings to her side, and the boys stand to her back.

Quinlan’s stressed enough that she can feel it like a cloud. She is very much not trying to feel that stress. Quinlan’s stress levels, back where he’s got Maul so he can keep an eye on Ahsoka and the Baby Sith at the same time, are so low on her priorities list that it’s a a little sad.

It doesn’t take long for her to be able to punch the button and open the damn door.

It opens slowly. She bounces on her toes, because there’s a beacon of light and a steady, familiar glow on the other side, and she’s so, so close. She can’t see through the crack yet, because it’s day in this part of Coruscant, and the sunlight is blinding against the dark of the hold. So close. She’s so close.

“The hell’s wrong with you?”

Fett? Fett. He’s already here to get off? This door’s slow.

She doesn’t answer him, because the door is finally open enough to let her out, and she leaps through the gap.

She lands on a pourstone floor, feels pebbles and grit compress under her boots, frantically looks around as her eyes adjust to light and--

The High General, the Negotiator, Master Obi-Wan Kenobi, looking just as he did when she first met him, if a little less armored and a little more fed. The hair, the beard, the crinkle in the corner of his eyes. His spirit is a little older, his smile a little more strained, his posture a little more tired, but it’s him.

He spreads his arms, low enough that she could have dismissed it if she’d cared less for hugs, except she’s almost as small as she was when they met.

And every other hug she’d given back then had been, functionally, her being a living missile aiming her montrals for someone’s organs.

She’s a little more aware of how to avoid stabbing her friends in the intestine now.

“Master!”

She sprints for him, collides and sobs, feels him stumble back and then sink to his knees on the too-hard floor, and can feel the tears pouring out of her already. Her breath hitches, and she wails like a child, and that last part of her that couldn’t even grasp at safety shreds itself. His arms are tight around her, warm and strong and Master Kenobi don’t you dare leave again.

It doesn’t matter that Sidious is out there, that the Republic’s been building towards war for a century, that even now someone’s kicking up the Trade Federation. Her dad is here.

“I’ve missed you too, my dear,” he says, pressing a kiss to the side of her head, the bristles of his beard scratching along the skin of her forehead. Off to the side, the binary suns that are Luke and Leia grow brighter in proximity, so bright she can barely bear it.

(“Fett, why the kriff are you reaching for your blaster?!”)

(“Torrent said her master tried to kill her.”)

(“Different guy, that was a different guy, put the blaster away.”)

(“You could have just warned me.”)

(“I didn’t expect you to go for a shot on sight!”)

(”Calm down, Jetiika, if I was going to shoot on sight, we’d already be in a firefight.”)

She ignores everything.

“If you fake your death one more time, I swear I’m going to kill you myself.”

He tries to pull away to talk to her more directly. She does not let him. He apparently resigns himself to this, because he just adjusts how he’s sitting and pulls her in closer.

“In my defense, I was far from the only one presumed dead that took advantage of that status, by the end,” he says, letting her slump into his lap and cry herself dry. “I’m proud of you. You know that, I hope.”

She nods against his chest, smearing tears and snot across the linen and wool. She doesn’t care that they’ll need a thorough washing. She can have her public breakdown and it’s fine because Master Kenobi is here.

He doesn’t even know what she’s spent the past fifteen years doing. Luke wouldn’t have known. He doesn’t know she’s thirty-two and broken, beyond a shadow and cut down by her own master. There’s so much he doesn’t know but the Force rings with the truth of it: he’s proud of her anyway.

“I’m going by Ben, now,” he mutters against her montral. “There’s already an Obi-Wan here, after all. Still, I remain a Kenobi.”

She can’t make the words come out of her mouth. She’s overwhelmed, so much so that speech is a mite bit beyond her.

Sokari Torrent, she presses along the frayed bond that’s knitting itself back to life with every breath they take. Leia was already calling me Auntie Soka, and Rex and I both took Torrent, for...

“For the men you lost,” he mutters. “Yes, that’s fitting.”

He smells like sapir tea and a spiced beard oil.

There’s a whirl of activity about her, greetings and ‘a Sith apprentice?’ and introductions. She distantly notes when Fett almost shoots Dooku before Rex shuts that down and advises the Master to leave the area before things spiral out of control. She feels Ben stand, and she stands with him, clings to his side like a child and trusts that whatever happens, whatever needs to happen, he’ll take care of it until she can stand on her own two feet without swaying.

Rex grabs her free hand, and she feels herself settle back into her skin, bit by bit.

She’s back at the Temple. The twins are safe. Her grandmaster is here. She has her other half.

They can save the galaxy this time.

She’s alive she’s home she’s okay.

She’s okay.

Everything’s going to be okay.

[dannyphantom-justiceleauge]

This may be a minor gripe but something that has kind of bothered me about discussions and depictions of Dan is how often people seem to forget that Dan isn't just an older evil Danny, he's a combination of Danny and Vlad's ghost sides. Like people always talk about him like Danny threw away his humanity and turned evil but that's not even true. Sure, we can say that Dan is the result of Danny's action but that's a little unfair. (1/2)

(2/2) Him cheating on a test, coincidentally putting his loved one's in a position where they could be killed, is absolutely not his fault. Letting Vlad take away his ghost powers with a strange contraption might not have been the smartest move, but we are talking about a grieving CHILD here, of course he isn't going to make the best decisions. If anything Vlad's the one to blame here, and even then, it's not like he could predict what happened

---

you aren't wrong, my friend. it really isn't entirely danny's fault and the whole 'if you cheat on a test, you'll loose everything you love' moral is confused at best. i think as fandom we find it more interesting to look at danny's potential evil and moral struggle with himself. so simplifying it to be dan is a worse case scenario of danny makes the conflict less abstract.

particularly because when it comes to self blame danny isn't going to go easy on himself just because it was excusable mistakes.

i think another talking point should be how danny is the target of the time assassination more than vlad is, even though vlad is part of the evil whole. you could argue that danny is the catalyst of his friends death and vlad inventing the claw things. but vlad invented the claw things. maybe because his human side survived and acted relatively harmless from then on? or maybe it's because the observants based on the available evidence recognized danny as more of a threat. i think that fits actually, for all vlad tried to be an evil mastermind, his achievements outside of terrorizing a teenager and theft isn't particularly impressive. danny was the one who got shit done. all his fights he finished one way or another and i could see how that would bleed into dan defeating everyone.

the real question is how to we fix this. ideally we could shape this idea so it's less confused, though i do honestly find the dynamic of half danny, half vlad interesting. if for not other reason. than two half ghosts make a whole. actually that's something else to be said about dan. his self-loathing is what led him to killing his human half, another negative aspect coming from danny.

i wonder if we could frame it like fusion, from su. obviously dan isn't stable or healthy, or based on love. he's most comparable to malichite. but with less internal debate. dan took the best and worst of both of them. danny's determination, danny's fighting ability, danny's anger, danny's sarcasm, vlad's anger, vlads lack of morals, vlads schemes, vlad's control. heck, vlads desire to rule the world. i don't think we ever got that from danny.

maybe if vlad was more involved in the fight with dan it could have been used as an opportunity to compare and contrast their characters. to go we're not so different you and i. danny gets to recognize that he has that dark potential. vlad gets to be humbled by the fact that what he wants isn't good for anyone, especially himself. and to be fair, we do see some of that humbling with future vlad, but none of that character growth is given to present vlad, so, really it's just another vehicle for danny angst. it also depends on what you want to do with vlad though. he's a fascinating character and could be given redemption under the right circumstances or be a character who has the opportunity for redemption but chooses not to be redeemed every time.

that fits him and makes him both a more pathetic and despicable villain. it's hard to pity someone who ignores the opportunities to heal and grow.

as for danny, he becomes far more aware of the consequences his actions, especially his selfish and cruel ones can have. because that potential was always there. he has a history of abusing his powers. perhaps for this specific incident him abusing his powers can be something less understandable than almost cheating on a test that he couldn't study for through no fault of his own. (maybe i just have flexible morals?). maybe it could be something more character relevant, like he did something particularly vlad like, maybe he set up a prank at the nasty burger to get dash but it set off the explosion that killed his family. or maybe he did something particularly cruel and manipulative. there are better catalysts than a test. either way he recognized that he should never go that far again and strive to avoid being actively cruel.

he also has the opportunity to recognize that vlad does have a human half, even the one he's fighting everyday. he can face some conflict in it's not entirely clear what trait belongs to vlad and what trait belongs to him. he can empathize with vlad and he can recognize that situations aren't always in black in white. those who fly the highest, fall the hardest, after all.

it can be a growing experience. and while making it solely a danny goes bad and learns not to do evil kind of story. maybe we could cut vlad from the equation and just have danny face himself, full evil refection. i think exploring both vlad and danny through this fusion is far more interesting. especially because we can build on what's revealed about vlad in these episodes, in later ones. danny sees a future where vlad chills and that maybe his vlad could get their. later he see vlads past and what he lost to become who he is.

and then there's vlads turning point episodes. i don't know when motherly instinct took place but maddie fully recognizing he's a bastard and rejection him, was a turning point for his sanity, and danny helped it along. then we have danny rejecting him repeatedly, then we the clone episode, which we can all agree was a desperate move on his part, that danny once again thwarted. and we can all agree that this was the cannon turning point for his character where he stopped fighting for a family and started trying to be danny's villain. in that episode, i think danny could potentially pity vlad enough to try and reach out. he's not going to justify what vlad did and he's not going to apologize for stopping him. he went too far. he hurt danny and dani, he crossed a moral line that can't be justified even with his desperation. but if he changes...

he lost this time but if he changes, maybe they'll reach the point where they're ready to accept him.

i think the same thing could be said about his relationship with jack and maddie. if he changes, if he reaches out. if acts like less of a crazy fruitloop, his friends would be there for him. jack is still trying to be there for him, even if he's being oblivious about vlad's faults. vlads the one driving wedges into his relationships and pushing everyone away.

and that's so freaking human and understandable.it would be such a cool thing to explore with his character.

i could also see a potential arc where after valerie finds out vlad and masters are the same person she tries to get close to him, both to sus out how evil he is and to understand him as a halfa. afterall danny got her to acknowledge dani as human enough, the same would apply to vlad/plasmius, right? only he's a bad person and the more she uncovers about vlad masters the man, the more she realizes it's not the ghost half that's evil. but this is a double edged sword because, vlad is getting attached to her and encouraging her to be more evil. he's encouraging her to go darker and darker in her fight against ghosts and her fight specifically against phantom. to the point where she finally draws the line and says, i'm not doing that! boom exploring the moral ambiguity of her character and getting her to take a hard stance on her morals, because there's a line too far for her.

and boom a further breakdown of vlads character because he finally had someone outside the fentons to redeem him. she could have helped pull him out of the hole he'd been digging himself into. she wanted to help him. he got attached to her, but he and his bad decisions decided to dig himself deeper instead. so once again he's 'abandoned and betrayed'.

from that point, i think it'd be time for him to finally face jack head on. not through manipulative schemes. not through veiled threats and insults. but the full confrontation of 'i always hated you. you ruined my life. you're the reason i lost everything'. which is really just his own self loathing speaking. and jack... empathetic jack can see that vlad desperately wants help. and jack would offer it to him. jack would try to hug it out and apologize and give vlad the love and friendship vlad's been fighting to steal this whole time.

and vlad would reject it.

he'd probably lash out a jack and go into a full breakdown/world destroying attack. could finally put the stolen crown to use and try declaring himself king and embracing his megalomaniac thing and actually be a threat this time. and THAT would be our series finally. everyone teaming up to fight 'king vlad'. danny probably finding out that he's technically king because he beat pariah dark but the matter being a bit confused because he had help. val and danny trying to find the ring of rage or at least find someone who can make one. secrets are out. i imagine vlad, upon revealing himself to jack would out danny to make danny as sad and alone as him. except nope, his family still loves him and val has had the character development to come around to him. (she's still gonna punch danny for lying for so long.) the ghosts will come and help because no one wants another tyrannical kind and vlads obviously off his rocker.

ah, the could have beens

anyway, i didn't mean for this to become a full vlad character analysis and rewrite when we were supposed to be talking about dan, but hey, i'm a simple creature. i like good writing, and i have to rewrite things myself, so be it. - Hestia

[helion-ism]

on manorian

as some of you might know, I’m a sucker for the mate trope and throne of glass is a little more subtle here than acotar. we got rowaelin, obviously carrying that trope on their back. and then there’s lorcan in that illusion telling fake-elide he thinks she might be his mate. this proves to me, like in acotar, mates are not just a fae-thing, but that while lorcan is demi-fae and elide is human, they still have this pull between them that proves they’re more than “just” lovers. now, let me show you why in my little head, manon and dorian are mates as well. not sure if this has ever been confirmed by anyone, but it is real in my head, so here we go

mates are a thing for the witches, too

“The Crochans [...] had adopted the Fae habit of selecting mates — if not a true mating bond, then in spirit.”

manon’s parents were mates and her father refused an arranged marriage to be with his true mate; and I think it‘s really interesting how the mating bond is literally defined by musical terms in the sjm universe, as has been pointed out several times by awesome people in the fandom already, and this is just another example

“A young witch was chosen for him specifically. But he did not love her — not with your mother as his true mate, the song of his soul.”

queen of shadows

while dorian was wearing the collar, manon was the first one to manage to get him out and fight the valg prince inside of him — which is interesting because they had absolutely no emotional connection whatsoever, and so it makes you think, why her?

Every step closer made her unbound hair shimmer like moonlight on water. But the demon began scrambling away as the sun lit up her eyes. Not too close, it said. Do not let the witchling too close. The eyes of the Valg kings —

“Hello, princeling,” she said, her voice bedroom-soft and full of glorious death. “Hello, witchling,” he said. And the words were his own. For a moment he was so stunned that he blinked. He blinked. The demon inside of him recoiled, clawing at the walls of his mind.

manon is so intrigued by dorian that she visits him in the end to check on him — something is pulling her to him and she feels already like something has changed; and he remembers her name — he can‘t remember anything from that time, but she sticks out

He could barely remember what had happened while he’d worn that collar. He’d turned twenty — and had no recollection of it. [...] There was a massive shadow perched atop it. Dorian froze. Not a shadow, but a giant beast, its claws gripping the wall, its wings tucked into its body, shimmering faintly in the glow of the full moon. Shimmering like the white hair of the rider atop it. Even from the distance, he knew she was staring right at him [...]. And through the darkness of his memories, through the pain and despair and terror he’d tried to forget, a name echoed in his head.

She didn’t know why she’d bothered to go; why she’d been curious. But there had been the prince, no collar to be seen around his neck. [...] Changing winds — a changing world. Perhaps a changing Thirteen, too. And herself.

empire of storms

when manon and dorian meet again, instead of killing him, she tells him to flee and something ancient inside of her awakes

Face-to-face, Dorian panted as he stared down at her and breathed, “Hello, witchling.” Some ancient, predatory part of her awoke at the half smile. It sat up, cocking its ears toward him. Not a whiff of fear. Interesting. Manon purred back, “Hello, princeling.”

dorian returns the favor later, saving her impulsively + instinctively and without giving it a special thought

Dorian didn’t feel like mentioning he’d been the one who’d jumped into the water. He’d just ... acted, as Manon had acted when she’d saved him in his tower.

manon tells abraxos to find somewhere safe, and so the wyvern does

His magic felt it before he did. A sense of awareness, of warning and awakening. [...] The wyvern completed its circle, sweeping lower this time, readying to land as near the boat as possible. Not to attack ... but for help.

kingdom of ash

manon and dorian have a deep understanding for each other and can see the other like nobody else can or dares to

“If you find so little value in your existence that it compels you to trust this thing, then by all means, bring her along.” A challenge to look not toward Morath or the spider, but inward. She saw exactly what gnawed on his empty chest, if only because a similar beast gnawed on her own.

He wondered if the Thirteen could ever see it — that hint of self-loathing that sometimes flickered across her face.

Only with her did he not need to explain. Only with her did he not need to be a king, or anything but what he was. Only with her would there be no judgment for what he’d done, who he’d failed, what he might still have to do.

hear me out: as we saw in empire of storms, abraxos has a sense of awareness that tells him what is right and what isn’t when it’s about manon, he brought her to dorian because he knew she’d be safe there. so when he returns from his little mission into the northern fang, and manon is restless, this happens:

It didn’t stop her breath from escaping when Abraxos stiffened, scanning the sky. As if he heard something they couldn’t. And it was the joy that sparked in her mount’s eyes that told her.

mates are equals and dorian hints at wanting to shout it out into the world, to let everybody know they belong together 🥺🥺🥺

She would be his wife, his queen. She was already his equal, his match, his mirror in so many ways. And with their union, the world would know.

in conclusion: manon and dorian are mates and are destined to be together. now, where is the novella?

[cosmicjoke]

One of the things I’ve noticed about Levi, and I’m sure plenty of others have as well, is that, even at his most violent, or angry, there’s always just cause for it, or completely understandable reasoning behind it.  For example, when he threatens Annie as the Female Titan, asking her if her limbs will grow back if they’re cut off, Levi’s menacing words here are so obviously driven by the experience he’s just had of having to stand by and watch as so many of his comrades were killed by her.  That’s evident too in how Levi presses the issue of who deserves the credit for capturing the Female Titan with Erwin, refusing to take it himself, and insisting to Erwin that it’s the soldiers who bought them time by sacrificing their lives who deserve it.  Levi’s riled up and clearly, deeply upset by that sacrifice, and his threats towards Annie are a result of that.

The same can be said of why it is Levi is so brutal in hacking Zeke’s limbs off after the incident in the forest.  When you actually stop and think about what it is that Zeke’s done to Levi here, how he turned all of his friends and comrades into Titans, forcing Levi to kill them, Levi’s rage is entirely justified.  Not only did Zeke sacrifice the lives of 30 people so he could escape and meet up with Eren, but he also endangered Levi’s own life, because any normal soldier would have died, if they had to face 30 titans.  So Levi is coming off of having been forced by Zeke’s self-serving actions to end the lives of 30 people under his command.  Making it all the worse is how long Zeke’s deception had gone on for, how he’d planned it months in advance, by having his people spike the wine, knowing the soldiers assigned to guard him would drink it.  He probably thought Levi would drink it too, not knowing Levi only drinks tea.  So, again, Levi’s violent reaction and anger is totally understandable.

There’s other examples too, like Levi beating Eren up, and that being, counter-intuitive as it seems, for Eren’s sake, to keep him out of the hands of the MP’s, who wanted him dead.  Or when he got violent with Historia.  Levi got angry because he knew her self-pitying was going to end up leading to even more bloodshed and violence, if she refused to take up her position as Queen, and he wanted to avoid that at all costs.  Because he’s always fighting and working for the betterment of the many, the betterment and salvation of humanity in general.

I guess what I’m trying to get at here is that Levi is never needlessly violent, or violent without just or understandable cause.  For as hard as his life has been, for as brutal, deprived and violent as his life was growing up, he’s incredibly well-adjusted and normal, without natural inclination towards violence, without a desire for it.  Given the kind of life he’s had, that’s remarkable.  Just how NOT dark, or twisted, or sadistic Levi is.  In fact he’s the opposite, immensely compassionate and empathetic and kind.  He knows that sometimes violence is the only solution to certain problems, and he’s able and willing to resort to it, if it helps better the situation, or saves lives, but he never seeks to hurt anyone for self-satisfaction.  He never hurts anyone because it makes him feel good, or for any kind of self-serving goal.  Totally the opposite, in fact, you can see an awful burden on guilt weighing him down every time he does.  He doesn’t enjoy it at all.  He finds no pleasure in it, but only guilt and remorse, even as he understands its necessity.  

It’s a sad kind of irony, in a way, that Levi is gifted with such an immense physical prowess for battle and fighting, because I think who Levi really is, is a gentle and caring soul.  In his heart of hearts, a pacifist.  The toll of violence weighs heavy on him throughout the series, both that which is inflicted on him and his friends, and that which he must inflict on others.  It’s important to note that Levi never acts violently towards, or hurts anyone who hasn’t, in some way, earned it from him.  Many characters, like Zeke and Eren, for example, do in fact end up hurting people who have never done anything to them personally, or who have never hurt anyone they care about.  But Levi never does that.  He never attacks anyone who hasn’t first attacked either him or those he cares about.  That’s an important distinction, I think.

Well anyway, I’ll be delving more into all these specific instances as I continue my read through of the manga!  I’m just kind of throwing my thoughts out there for now.

[rawbins-undertale-blog]

This is a slight TW question, so feel no obligation to answer:

How would horrortale Sans react to an S/O with an eating disorder?

TW for eating disorder(s) (nearly only ARFID is spoken about, anorexia is mentioned)

If I missed any tags you think I should've included, please tell me.

This may sound a bit strange, but I’ve actually been wanting to write something for this, specifically because I suffer from an eating disorder. I’m not comfortable writing anything with an eating disorder (or any disorder in general) I personally don’t have, mostly because I don’t have the time to give it the proper research it deserves, so I’ll be writing about a lesser known eating disorder, that being ARFID. Let me explain it so people who don’t know what it is will, uh, know what it is lol

ARFID - also commonly called “Selective Eating Disorder” - stands for Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder. A lot of people with it are characterised as being “picky eaters”, but it goes to a point where it’s seriously unhealthy and crosses a line that makes it into something more serious. It has to do with sensory processing issues, rather than self-image issues (though self-image issues could also play a part in it I'm pretty sure, but it’s not the main “motivation”). Most people with ARFID actually wish they could go up in weight, but can’t because they can’t make themselves eat. I, for one, desperately wish I could just eat like a normal person, both because it’s very… not convenient to only have around 20 or less meals I can eat (and that list is slimming down as I grow tired of my safe foods*) and also I’m skinny enough to match Papyrus in looks, which isn’t very confidence-inspiring when you’re supposed to be a human and not a sentient magical skeleton, believe it or not. Whereas a person without ARFID could eat most things, including things they don’t really enjoy eating, somebody with ARFID might not be physically able to. For example, I literally throw up food that I don’t like (and I’ve gagged while eating food I do like due to seeing somebody eat something I don’t like and/or just smelling other food nearby). When I'm to try a new food, I have on more than one occasion gotten anxiety attacks. That’s how bad it can be.

*a "safe food" is food you know you can eat without panicking/throwing up/getting triggered in one way or another

I’ll be basing these HCs off of myself, so keep that in mind. You’re free to point out misinformation (and I, in fact, encourage you to point it out if I somehow got something wrong) but I ask that you stay respectful and don’t make fun of this. I doubt it would happen, but this topic means a lot to me and is really serious. So yeah please don’t be rude or invalidate people. Anyways onto the headcanons (which aren’t in the usual format, sorry if that bothers you)

Dusk (HT Sans) wouldn’t really understand. He’s able to eat pretty much anything (not like he had much of a choice for a while) and food is important… But he’ll try to understand. Especially because he can accommodate you. He’ll be fine eating the same meals, however “boring” they are, over and over because like I said: not a picky eater. Any food is good in his book. So long as you’re not restricting him and his food intake and so long as you aren’t dying from starvation and/or malnutrition, you’re free to do whatever.

It does annoy him when you go to social gatherings and you can’t eat the food because it’s not one of your safe foods. He’s not going to let you just starve yourself when there’s perfectly fine food just waiting for you. Not gonna lie, he’s pretty insensitive the first time this happens. Basically, he’ll pull you over when he notices you’re not eating anything and try to convince you to eat. Starts out really gentle and encouraging, but when you don’t budge he becomes increasingly agitated and insistent until he hisses that you’re making a fuss over nothing. Needless to say, you aren’t thrilled and it starts a pretty serious argument that probably ends with you either leaving, starting to cry or blowing up at him. He feels bad when it’s all said and done and apologises, because he realises after some thought that he wasn’t being helpful and he decided to do more research again. Even if he forgot it all like he did the first time he tried researching ARFID, it would have been worth a shot. After that, he’ll instead pack food with him for you whenever you go somewhere. It doesn’t matter if it’s “socially acceptable”, because like I said, you’re not starving if he’s got something to do with it.

He’ll also, after coming around to realise the best he can do to help you isn’t trying to push you out of your comfort zone forcefully, try to make sure there’s always at least one of your safe foods available. Don’t get me wrong though, he’ll still encourage you to expand on your list of safe foods. He’s got memory issues so he sometimes forgets, which he feels really bad about, but he has multiple alarms set to make sure you eat properly for the most part. (He’s got an alarm for nearly every minute of the day and he has his calendar full of things as mundane as “make sure s/o eats” and “do laundry”, by the way.) I have a tendency to skip lunch because I simply don’t like food, but he’d put a stop to that lol

To summarize, the whole thing with you having an ED starts off with the two of you having a rocky start before Dusk comes around to be really good at handling it.

Anyways sorry if you meant an ED like anorexia. I know most people write about things like that, but like I said: I’m not really up for writing things that I have to pour hours of research into to make sure I portray it respectfully and accurately because I don’t have that time or patience. (Or attention span, tbh.) Also, I literally hadn’t heard of ARFID for like… the majority of my life, I’ve only known it’s a “thing” for like. A few months. I really thought I was the only one who was so picky with my food and it made me feel alone and isolated (ESPECIALLY after I went to a "specialist" (not sure if she was actually a specialist anymore because her technique to get me to eat was to give my a small glass that I'd pour sauce into to try it every time it was served which obviously didn't work lmao) to help me when I was like six and she said she’d “never seen somebody this bad” before not giving me a diagnosis (as far as I know)), so if anybody with undiagnosed ARFID is reading this:

you're not alone. I know it’s difficult to deal with this - it can be humiliating and embarrassing and horrible and terrible in so many ways - but you can do it. It’s so hard, so fucking hard to step out of your comfort zone and try to expand on your list of safe foods, but you can do it. I believe in you. You aren’t alone and you can learn to have a healthier diet, please just try. I’ll be honest in that you’re probably never going to completely overcome this, ARFID is something that likely stays with you forever, but you can make it into a smaller problem. You can turn it into something so much smaller and inconsequential that you won't encounter any more embarrassing situations where you can't eat what you're given. To a point where you won't have to use the excuses "I already ate", "I'm not hungry", etc anymore. It’ll take time and patience, but you can do it. Don’t give up, okay? <3

[journalxxx]

By Hook or by Crook (4)

Oh God, there’s another one.

The thought came unbidden to Toshinori’s mind, and it engulfed him in the closest thing to pure dread he had felt in years. It had taken two centuries, the sacrifice of seven One For All users, and two of his own major organs to take down a single All For One wielder, and now a brand new one had somehow sprouted right in front of him.

Now. Now that he had finally decided to tackle the hurdle of entrusting a relatively stable Japan to a successor, now that he was weaker and less capable than ever of defending it from a new threat. Now that the deadline of Nighteye’s prophecy was drawing closer and closer. His own gruesome death on the battlefield, and the sudden reappearance of All For One’s quirk. The unavoidable connection between the two facts almost robbed him of his breath.

Toshinori couldn’t tear his eyes away from the boy’s hand. It looked diminutive in comparison to his own, and completely inoffensive. It had the soft, unblemished appearance that suited someone who had never hit anything bigger than a fly, whereas the hero’s skin had long since been roughened by calluses, and his joints slightly thwarted by the occasional fracture. Yet, that single, unassuming dimple in the middle of its palm made it more potentially destructive than a hundred of Smashes combined.

A sort of choked whimper made Toshinori finally raise his gaze. He realized he had stopped trying to school his expression only when he saw his own strung-out stupor mirrored in Midoriya’s features. 

“I-I… Sorry, I r-really have t-to…” The boy took a step back, his hand slipping from the man’s grasp, then he suddenly turned on his heels and motioned to sprint away.

“Hey, hey!” Toshinori reached forward, grabbing Midoriya’s wrist by sheer reflex. He had already wasted enough time and energy chasing slimy villains and rash teenagers all over the town that day, thank you very much. “Where are you going?”

Midoriya froze on the spot, as if shocked by an electric current. His arm was rigid in Toshinori’s grasp, pulling away from it but without any real conviction. His head turned slowly towards the hero but not fully, letting him see only half of the boy’s face. The unmistakable terror etched in those wide eyes made something constrict in Toshinori’s chest.

“I-I’m… I’m so sorry…” The boy’s voice was down a trembling, barely audible whisper.“I didn’t mean to d-do that… I’ve never… I won’t do it again, I swear, j-just…” 

Midoriya’s free hand hovered over the hero’s, maybe having half a mind of prying it open, but he didn’t even dare to touch it. Toshinori let go of him immediately. The kid wasn’t expecting it, judging by his flabbergasted expression, and all he did with his regained freedom was backing away from him with a couple of uncertain steps, bumping into a nearby electric pole with his backpack and just standing there, pretty much like a cornered mouse cowering before a lion.

The sight jolted Toshinori back to reality with brutal efficiency. God, what was wrong with him today? He was handling this abysmally. That was no two-hundred-year-old manipulative slaughterer, that was a child. A child rapidly working himself into a panic, if his onsetting tremors were of any indication. Ironically, the realization grounded Toshinori even more. Frightened victims and distraught relatives were a daily occurrence in his line of work, and his professional composure slipped back in place almost subconsciously.

“You don’t need to apologize. Quite the opposite. You saved everyone. The hostage, the bystanders… even me. I’m not sure I’d have had the energy to keep up appearances after another smash.” He put up his hands and showed his palms with slow movements, keeping his voice low and level. “You did nothing wrong back there.”

Midoriya slowly slumped down the pole, his limbs huddled in a distressed heap. He blinked quickly as his eyes shied away from Toshinori’s, hands bunching up the fabric of his trousers nervously. “...I-I can give it back. The quirk. I want to give it back to its owner.”

“That can be easily arranged.” Something about the whole situation was nagging at Toshinori, but he pushed that feeling aside for the moment. The boy wasn’t holding himself in any way that hinted at specific injuries, but fear could be one hell of an anesthetic. He gazed up and down the road, finding it completely deserted. He still felt slightly abuzz with the adrenaline rush caused by his second encounter with the sludge villain and the recent revelation of Midoriya’s quirk. He gauged that he could probably (possibly, maybe, hopefully) abuse One For All for another twenty seconds or so if need be, just the time to scoop up the boy in his arms and power run back to the ambulances at the site of the accident. That was likely to cause even more distress to the poor kid though, so he’d rather hold off on it unless clearly necessary. “Are you sure you aren’t in any pain?”

“I-I’m f-fine.” The boy wiggled the backpack off his shoulders and rummaged through it shakily, a few tears rolling down his cheeks and his hiccups becoming harder to contain. “I’m fine…”

“Hey, kid. Look at me. Deep breaths.” Toshinori finally ventured a step and a half towards Midoriya, squatting at a reasonable distance to his side instead of right in front of him, to make sure he wouldn’t feel too crowded. Toshinori offered him a couple of tissues (always plentiful in his pockets) while the boy tried to regain a semblance of calm. “It’s all right. I am here.”

That got the boy’s attention. The catchphrase had slipped out of him automatically, without his trademark panache or blinding smile or overflowing optimism, but Midoriya looked at him like he’d been thrown a lifeline nonetheless. The dam broke and big, shiny tears erupted from his eyes as he accepted the tissues and buried his sobs in them. They remained like that for a while, the kid quietly working through his sniffles while Toshinori sat cross-legged on the dusty asphalt, reminding him to take his time whenever he got a little fidgety.

“Sorry if I spooked you.“ Toshinori eventually offered with a small smile, after Midoriya had finally settled down. “I’m a little out of it myself, today. Not the most auspicious first day in my new neighborhood, but what can you do?”

“Uh? Do you mean you’re moving here?” Midoriya asked while he accepted the fourth tissue and wiped away the remaining dampness from his face.

“Mh-hm.” After the debacle on the rooftop, this didn’t feel like too much of a sensitive bit of information to share. Besides, the kid was a fan, so maybe throwing him a bone would help him relax a little more.

“Why? Isn’t it inconvenient for you? I thought you lived in a penthouse above Might Tower, in Tokyo’s Minato Ward, Roppongi 6-12-”

...Ah, he was that kind of fan. Obviously. “Indeed, but I’ve decided to move to… broaden my professional horizons, so to speak.”

“Oh! Are you planning to open a branch of your agency here? Or are you joining some local long-term operation?“ That spark of morbid curiosity in the boy’s eyes made Toshinori regret bringing up the topic in two seconds flat.

“I’m afraid that’s all I can say on the matter, everything’s still under tight wraps. You’ll hear all about it from the news, eventually.” He stood up and patted some dirt off his hands and pants. “Do you live far from here? I’ll walk you home if you’re feeling better.”

“Oh, uh…” The boy gaped at him in surprise. “Thank you, but there’s no need for you to go out of your way! I’m fine, really!”

“Think nothing of it.” Toshinori hooked three fingers under the strap of the boy’s backpack and hauled it over his own shoulder. It hit his back with unexpected oomph. What did kids even put in those things, weren’t textbooks all digital these days? “Clearly this isn’t your lucky day either. I’ll sleep better tonight knowing that you reached your house safely without being run over by a truck or abducted by aliens.”

The joke got a half-smile out of Midoriya, at long last. He held out his hand to the boy to help him back on his feet. The obvious hesitation and near disbelief he couldn’t hide before gingerly accepting the proffered hand gave Toshinori another small wave of unease. There was definitely something strange about all this, aside from the obvious. He gestured for the kid to lead the way, and they set off towards their new destination.

Toshinori granted him a few minutes of silence before breaching the pivotal subject. “So… you have quite the interesting quirk.”

“...Mh.” Midoriya visibly stiffened. So it had been the quirk talk to give him cold feet, rather than a generic reaction to the day’s stress...

“Why didn’t you use it against the villain the first time he attacked you?” Toshinori asked, opting for a more roundabout approach.

“Ah… I’m sorry. I really should have. You wouldn’t have had to waste your power if I’d-”

“Forget about me! Why didn’t you use it to defend yourself? Did you panic?”

“Uh, well, not too much.” The kid shoved his hands in his pockets and dropped his gaze to the ground, his voice lowering to a droning mutter. “I can take quirks, but I don’t automatically learn how to use them. The villain’s quirk looked like it may be difficult to handle. What if I couldn’t maintain a solid form and just turned myself into a puddle of goo? What if some parts of my slime got detached from the main body during the scuffle, and I found myself missing chunks of flesh upon turning back human? What if the sludge was only an outer layer over my body, and without fine control I ended up drowning in it? Stuff like that… I should have just taken the villain’s quirk without activating it, but I was afraid that he’d get even angrier and he’d just beat me up anyway. I’m not, uh, strong. Or fast. At all. I didn’t consider that he might freak out long enough for me to run away…”

Toshinori blinked. “...Sorry, how long had that guy been harassing you before I showed up?”

“Oh, not long at all. Twenty or thirty seconds, I think.”

“And you went through all of that in twenty seconds. While being ambushed and choked.”

Midoriya just shrugged.

“That is… some quick thinking, all right.” Toshinori commented. He omitted the fact that it was a brand of quick thinking that was more likely to get you killed rather than saving your skin during an emergency. Apparently Midoriya would hesitate to protect himself from a violent attacker, but he’d run for the hills the moment the Symbol of Peace gave him a bit of an odd look. The kid’s fight-or-flight response was all over the place.

“I would have used my quirk to fight back eventually, if you hadn’t arrived so soon… probably…”

“...But?” Toshinori encouraged, sensing the unspoken addition.

“But… not many people know about my quirk. Very few, actually. And I’d like to keep it that way. If it’s possible.”

“Why?”

“...It’s not a good quirk.” Midoriya frowned, hunching his shoulders a bit. “One could do really bad things with it.”

“I could squash a man’s skull with my thumb and level a city block with a punch.” Toshinori countered plainly. “It doesn’t mean I’m going to.”

“It’s… it’s different. You can choose to use your quirk only for good, but mine requires…” The boy trailed off, then hazarded a glance at the hero. “You know what I mean. You understood as soon as I told you, I saw it.”

Toshinori couldn’t argue on that point, unfortunately. Still… 

There could be a perfectly innocent explanation for Midoriya to wield All For One. For one, it could be a different quirk altogether, one that simply mimicked Toshinori’s nemesis’, but that wasn’t quite the same, maybe with some unmentioned limitations (although the palm marks made for quite the uncanny similarity). Moreover, much like look-alikes, duplicate quirks between unrelated people weren’t unheard of, although said quirks were usually quite simple ones, like basic physical enhancers or elemental emitters.

What really bothered Toshinori were the boy’s evident sense of guilt and fear of exposure. Virtually any moderately powerful quirk could be employed to ‘do really bad things’, but hardly any children grew up to be so blatantly scared and ashamed of their own abilities. Family and school usually nurtured a degree of confidence and trust in their own capabilities. Toshinori’s knee-jerk reaction was a byproduct of specific knowledge and experience, but Midoriya’s? If only few people knew about his quirk, it must mean he hadn’t used it much, if at all, in the past, ruling out peer pressure as well. What explanation, what innocent explanation could there be for such a strong negative bias, aside from knowledge and experience he wasn’t supposed to have?

“At least your parents know about your quirk, I hope?”

“My mother doesn’t. My father… isn’t really around.” Toshinori couldn’t decide if that last bit of information was a good or a bad sign.

“So… who did you tell?”

“Just one friend and my father.” Ah, we had one likely culprit then. A father that was around but not really. Suspicious. “And now you, I guess. And… everyone who saw what I did to that villain… including the police…” Midoriya looked just about ready to dig a ditch and roll in it. 

“Well, as I said, everyone seemed to think I took care of the matter, so-”

Midoriya shook his head, utterly demoralized. “Kacchan will tell them.”

“Kacchan?”

“Ah, the hostage. He’s my friend, the one who knows about my quirk. I don’t think he’ll lie to the police for my sake.”

“Ah, I see. I hadn’t realized you two were acquainted.” Toshinori offered him a supportive smile. “I guess that explains your burst of heroism.”

“...No one else was doing anything. I saw you among the crowd, but… I thought you couldn’t help.”

The boy had an almost tortured expression, which reignited the deep-seated guilt that had plagued Toshinori in those harrowing minutes. “...I thought I couldn’t help either.” 

“But you did jump in though. Even though… it hurts you?” Midoriya scanned him from head to toe in concern, as if looking for unnoticed signs of damage. “Why?”

“Why did you decide to intervene, despite your fear?”

“I… I just couldn’t let my friend suffer because I messed up.”

“Well, there you have it.” Toshinori simply said. The boy stared at him thoughtfully, apparently weighing his words carefully, before nodding slowly and resuming his perusal of the ground. Toshinori let the silence stretch for a minute. There was still plenty he wanted to ask, especially regarding Midoriya’s father, but-

“I really do want to give the quirk back.” The kid mumbled. “Should I just… go to the police and ask them? They’ll come looking for me anyway, I guess, but…”

Toshinori pondered the issue for a moment, then he pulled his phone out of his pocket. The least he could do was make this whole ordeal as smooth as possible for the kid. “I think I can help with that. Give me your number. I’ll text you to let you know when we can visit the villain. If we’re lucky, it may be as early as tomorrow.” 

Toshinori registered the boy’s contact information as they entered a quaint residential area with neat little rows of numbered buildings, pleasantly tinged with the warm hues of the sunset.

“Ah, that’s where I live.” Midoriya said afterwards, pointing at a nearby apartment complex. “Thank you for everything, All-”

Toshinori shushed him with a sharp gesture as he gazed around the street nervously. “Please, don’t call me that when I’m in this form.”

Midoriya froze, then bowed respectfully. “R-Right! Thank you, sir! I’m sorry for causing you so much trouble, and taking so much of your time, and-”

Toshinori waved the upcoming barrage of apologies off and bid him a good evening, waiting for the boy to leave. Which he didn’t do.

“Uhm.” Midoriya pointed at Toshinori’s shoulder with an awkward smile. “I need that…”

Oh, right, backpack. “Whoops, there you go.” He tossed Midoriya’s belongings to their owner and watched the kid bustle up the stairs of the building and into one of the apartments. Then he fetched his phone and picked the third number on speed-dial.

“Tsukauchi? Do you have a moment? ….Ah, fine, thank you. Listen, can I drop by your place this evening? Something’s come up and I’d rather not discuss it on the phone… No, but definitely worth looking into sooner rather than later…”

He hung up a couple of exchanges later, after agreeing on the time for the meeting. Toshinori decided he had enough time to make his way back home, shower and have some sort of passable dinner before ruining his friend’s evening. And then he would head back home and he would sleep, even if he had to repeatedly bash his head against a wall to achieve that. He inhaled deeply and let out a long-overdue, exhausted sigh. 

What a day. 

Hopefully tomorrow wouldn’t be quite as taxing.

“THIEF”

Izuku was stuck on the spot, his feet and ankles wrapped in a thick layer of sludge that stretched on the ground as far as the eye could see. The faint light filtering from both ends of the underpass gave it flickering, changing hues, now green like bile, now brown like vomit, now black like tar. It smelled like sewer and dirty toilets. 

“BASTARD”

The slime clung to the walls of the underpass, climbing on them as if endowed with its own will. It crawled up higher and higher, and then went on to expand onto the ceiling. Its surface boiled and squirmed producing disgusting squelching sounds. Izuku looked away from the revolting goo-coated structure he was boxed in, he looked towards the exit, hoping that something, someone would show up to drag him out of that hell.

“GIVE IT BACK”

Someone emerged from the sludge, a few meters ahead of him. A man. A flabby, hairless, mucky man, with haunted eyes and a mouth open in a silent scream. He sweated slime, cried slime, drooled slime, from every orifice and every pore of his body. He waded towards Izuku slowly, an arm extended before him as if to grab him. Izuku couldn’t stand that sight either. He aimed his gaze at the ceiling, right when a huge bubble of gunk popped right above him, and chunky dollops of filth splashed on his face, into his nose and mouth.

“OR I’LL RIP IT OUT OF YOU”

Izuku coughed and heaved, trying to expel the repulsive substance from his pipes, but two cold, slick hands clamped around his throat, trapping it in his body. He could feel the ooze drip down into his lungs, his stomach- he could feel it wiggle and push, like a living parasite trying to break free from the flesh constraining it. Izuku scrambled to tear the man’s hands off him, but those too melted under his fingers like the same fluid that was everywhere, closing down on him, choking him, pulling him apart from the inside-

 Izuku woke up with a whole-body lurch that nearly sent him rolling off the bed, sweaty and breathless. He took in the familiar shadows of his room, and the red numbers of his alarm clock floating in the darkness at his eye level. 

6:20 AM.

Izuku turned on his belly with a frustrated groan, sinking his face into the pillow. Sure, he’d had a pretty harrowing day yesterday. It was bound to leave him a little shaken and maybe disturb his sleep for a while. But seven nightmares in the span of as many hours seemed slightly excessive. Especially seven instances of the exact same nightmare, sentient goo and Munch-like villain and all. The boy fumbled blindly for his phone to check if he’d received any new messages in the last fifty-five minutes. He hadn’t, of course. He prayed that All Might would contact him soon, it didn’t take a degree in psychology to guess the nature of the ‘unfinished business’ his subconscious was so keen on grilling him about.

He stared at the screen blankly, wondering, for roughly the hundredth time, if he should call his father. On one hand, he very probably should. If the man had deemed that little scuffle with Kacchan emergency-worthy, surely a mess this humongous in size warranted a call as well. On the other hand… Izuku didn’t really want to. 

The previous night’s news broadcast had covered the sludge villain incident rather haphazardly, it being a relatively contained accident with no serious consequences or injuries. Izuku was sure they had bothered to touch on the fact in the first place just because All Might had been involved, and the number one hero would receive prime time coverage even for something as trivial as being spotted buying soda at a convenience store. Curiously, Izuku hadn’t been mentioned at all, not even indirectly. Kacchan had been named and shown as the victim, the other heroes had been acknowledged, but All Might had been appointed as the sole person responsible for the resolution of the mishap. Not a word about any irresponsible middle schoolers joining the fray.

Izuku had taken it as a promising sign. All Might had likely interceded for him with the police and obtained a modicum of discretion about his involvement, at least in regards to the media. The hero had been so very understanding the previous day - just thinking about it made the boy almost tear up anew. He had barely reacted to the shocking revelation of his quirk, he had tolerated his unseemly outburst, he had spoken to him as if… as if Izuku was just another innocent victim caught up in a bad situation, rather than a potential menace. He hadn’t hesitated even for a second to offer him his hand, despite knowing the threat that Izuku’s own hands posed. He had… he had made him feel safe, and trusted. He had allowed Izuku to hope that maybe, just maybe, this whole thing could be fixed, that Izuku could handle it with his help, even without subjecting his father to undue sniveling.

And, objectively speaking, what could Izuku’s father do at this point? Izuku doubted that, regardless of his governmental position, the man could prevent the truth from spreading once it had reached both the police and the number one hero. Izuku could make an educated guess about his reaction too, and it wasn’t all that encouraging. It was too late for stern recommendations about secrecy, or for disappointed sighs and gratuitous snark about Izuku’s blind faith in All Might’s mediation skills. And, to be perfectly honest, Izuku dreaded the possibility of finally and completely alienating the sympathy of the one person that had supported and advised him for his whole life, in his own peculiar way. Yes, it was childish of him. Yes, he would have to tell his father anyway, eventually. But he’d rather do it after the matter had been settled, hopefully for the best, and after he’d had a little more time to gather his thoughts and figure out how to word it a little less unfavorably for himself. So, there. It was the 28th of April too, he could wait another day or two, at least. No biggie.

By breakfast time, Izuku had reviewed the issue three more times, had another nightmare, and accepted the fact that this was going to be a long day. 

School went by in that typical hazy fashion that was the result of intellectual activities synergizing poorly with a sleep-deprived brain. Izuku kept eyeing Kacchan warily throughout the first three classes, harboring the half-baked notion of addressing yesterday’s events. He regretted doing it the very moment he opened his mouth to greet him during recess.

“What?” Kacchan growled without sparing him a single glance.

“Uh, ah, I…” How are you was one possible conversation starter. A bad one, for sure. Worrying about Kacchan’s well-being implied that he may not be okay, which implied weakness, which invited aggression as a counter-argument. Did you tell anyone else about what I did yesterday was downright rude, as if Izuku’s quirk was more important than his friend being almost murdered. In fact, any reference to the villain incident was a minefield. Braver classmates than Izuku had already made their inquiries during homeroom, and Kacchan hadn’t taken kindly to their snooping. This really was a bad-

“WHAT?” Kacchan barked, turning sharply towards Izuku and banging his fist on his desk for emphasis.

“Uh, nothing! Just saying hello! Hi! Bye!” Izuku fled the classroom without looking back before Kacchan decided to force-feed him his own shoes.

The first bit of good news of the day reached him during lunch, under the guise of a text.

Hey kid! We can drop by the police station this afternoon at 5 if you’re free

Izuku brought up the virtual keyboard to reply, but he stopped with his finger poised over the screen. He blinked at the unlabeled string of digits identifying the sender.

He had All Might’s phone number. One of many, probably. Definitely one of the lowest priority lines. Or maybe just some sort of burner phone for communications with civilians only. Still. He had All Might’s phone number. All Might was texting him. The realization made him half-choke on his rice.

Should he save it? Would that be a breach of confidentiality? Even if he used a not-too-obvious handle? N1? SP? AM? Ante Meridiem? ...That would just make it more suspicious, wouldn’t it? He’d just… commit it to memory for now. In case he ever needed it again. For purely altruistic reasons.

Sure, I’m free! Thank you very much for the help!

Izuku’s phone chimed again a couple of minutes later.

We’ll come pick you up at your place

That ‘we’ raised a small wave of anxiety in Izuku, but he willed himself to suppress it. He couldn’t expect All Might to shield him from any and all interactions with the force. It’d be fine. He could handle this.

The perspective of visiting the villain revived Izuku’s attention for the remaining lessons, only for him to crash back into fidgety inactivity as soon as he got home and found himself without anything to do for almost two hours before the agreed time. Homework was out of the question, he was too distracted. He figured a nap would be the most inoffensive way to while away the time while also recovering some higher brain functions. And so it was only with a mild heart attack that Izuku was roused by the ringing of the doorbell at 4.50 PM.

“Young Midoriya! Good afternoon!” Even at a glance, Izuku could tell that All Might was in better shape than the previous day. He stood a bit straighter, his smile was a bit wider, his hair was slightly less chaotic. He was also wearing slacks and a button up shirt that, while still dramatically oversized, made him look a bit less like a phthisic hospital runaway. “Are you ready to go?”

“Yes! Thank you so much for going out of your way to take care of me!” Izuku declared with a rigid bow to All Might and to the other man standing by his side - definitely a detective, judging by his stereotypical trench coat.

All Might patted the man on the back with an even bigger grin. “This is Naomasa Tsukauchi, my favorite detective on the force! You may speak freely before him, you won’t find anyone more trustworthy in the whole of Japan!”

“A pleasure to meet you, Midoriya.” Tsukauchi politely removed his hat and shook the boy’s hand with an amused smirk, a sign that he was probably familiar with the hero’s odd choice of an introduction. He then peeked behind Izuku’s shoulders towards the inside of the house. “Isn’t your mother going to join us?”

“Ah no, she had a doctor’s appointment booked for today. It’s fine though, I’ll just send her a text to let her know where I’m going.” Izuku had warned his mother that he may have to visit the precinct soon. He had had to justify his singed and grimy school uniform the day before, so he had told her that he’d been marginally involved in the sludge villain incident, and the police was likely to want to collect his statement on the matter. It was only by pure chance that the news broadcast hadn’t outed his abridgment of the facts.

“Ah… We were hoping to have a few words with her too, actually.” Tsukauchi glanced at All Might, whose eyes darted briefly between the detective and the boy.

“I… may have forgotten to mention that.” All Might scratched the back of his neck with an apologetic grimace. “Well, I guess it can’t be helped. We’ll catch up with her another time, if necessary.”

Izuku had the sneaking suspicion that being All Might’s favorite detective came at a price. Tsukauchi just sighed, before regarding him with a gentle smile. “Well, if you are sure you don’t mind coming with us all by yourself…”

“I don’t mind at all!” Izuku hurried to reassure them. 

A minute later he was in the backseat of Tsukauchi’s speeding car, typing a message to his mother and struggling to suppress a monstrous yawn, courtesy of his interrupted nap.

“Tired?” All Might asked, intercepting his gaze in the rearview mirror.

“A bit. I didn't sleep well last night.”

“Ah, I know that feeling.” The hero’s expression mellowed in sympathy. “I’m sure you’ll rest more easily once this is over and done with.”

“I hope so.” Izuku pocketed his phone and gazed at the moving buildings out of the car window, mostly just to break eye contact. Somehow All Might’s open kindness felt undeserved, especially for something as trivial as a bunch of spooky dreams. He focused on more urgent matters. “So, uh… how are we going to do this? Does the villain know I’m coming, will I explain things to him? Will you, uh, keep an eye on things from outside or accompany me...?”

“Well, we were thinking of throwing you into his cell, locking the door and letting the two of you fight for dominance and ownership over the quirk- “ All Might grinned widely in response to Izuku’s exasperated gape.

“Yagi!” The detective reprimanded him, only mildly scandalized. The name bounced a few times around Izuku’s brain, plain and mystifying at the same time.

“Sorry, just trying to lift his spirits.” 

“You have nothing to worry about, it’ll be perfectly safe.” Tsukauchi provided, clearly having a much better understanding of the state of Izuku’s spirits despite knowing him for a scant ten minutes. “The villain will be in his cell and we will escort you inside, of course. You won’t really interact with each other, as he’ll likely be deeply asleep.”

“Asleep?”

“Yes. The apparent loss of his quirk has upset him greatly. He’s barely spoken since we took him into custody, and he’s spent the whole night in severe emotional distress. We would have transferred him to a hospital this morning if you hadn’t agreed to help so promptly. As things stood, we simply had a doctor prescribe him a strong sedative. Hopefully he’ll settle down spontaneously after you return his quirk.”

The man’s words weighed on Izuku’s heart like a ton of bricks. Damn, that was… horrible. He’d been holding onto someone else’s quirk for barely a day, and it had already caused that much sorrow. That wasn’t how Izuku’s power was supposed to be used. It would never be, as far as he was concerned.

“I’m sure he will.” All Might commented, all traces of humour vanished from his demeanor. “Don’t worry, kid. It’ll be a matter of a minute.”

Izuku nodded, and didn’t speak again for the rest of the trip. When they reached their destination, he let All Might guide him towards the detention area of the complex while Tsukauchi wandered off somewhere else, probably taking care of the bureaucratic side of things. He reappeared relatively soon, and they entered one of the cells all together.

The cell was small and mostly barren, furnished with only the most essential goods and surfaces for a relatively short stay. Idly, Izuku wondered what systems they had in place to prevent a… slippery criminal such as the current occupant from escaping from toilets or sinks. Surely they were prepared to- he realized he was spacing out. He should just get on with it.

The villain was indeed sleeping, huddled in a small foldable bedding on the floor. Izuku had barely caught a glimpse of the man’s human form the previous day, yet he was identical to how he’d envisioned him in his dreams. His subconscious was just that observant, apparently. It suddenly occurred to Izuku that he hadn’t even asked for the man’s name yet. The news broadcast hadn’t reported- he was procrastinating again. Just do it, Izuku.

The boy glanced questioningly at the detective, who made a small gesture to indicate that he was free to proceed. He approached his assailant and crouched beside him. The villain’s hand was sticking out from under the blanket, next to his head. Izuku rested his palm against the back of it, and simply willed the quirk out. 

Just like that, it was done. Izuku stood up and stepped back as the man’s body swiftly changed its texture and color, morphing and rearranging itself until a vaguely man-shaped, green heap of goo had replaced the slumbering human. The villain remained dead to the world throughout the entire process.

“...I’m done.” Izuku whispered, quite redundantly. He peered back at the two men at the opposite side of the room, and he didn’t miss the quick, sharp side-glance they’d just quietly exchanged.

“Thank you very much for your cooperation.” Tsukauchi said with the utmost honesty once they were again in the hallway. “While you’re here, would you mind if I collected your statement about the incident? It won’t take long, we already have a clear picture of the situation thanks to All Might.”

“Uh… Okay.” Izuku had hoped, rather optimistically, to skip that part, but he had no reasonable excuse to refuse. Tsukauchi led them to an empty room a couple of corridors further ahead, and held the door open for them. All Might lingered on the threshold.

“May I sit in?” His question was aimed at Izuku for some reason, rather than at his friend. 

“Of course!” Izuku confirmed, when both adults just stared at him in silence, clearly waiting for his permission. The hero thanked him with a small nod and an equally small smile.

They all sat around the desk in the middle of the room, Tsukauchi on one side, and Izuku and All Might on the other. It struck Izuku as a little strange, automatically expecting the two upholders of the law to face him side by side. He wondered if it may be a setup for some sort of good-cop-bad-cop routine. Not that either of them seemed especially suited to the latter role. Tsukauchi was very much the embodiment of professionalism, and All Might… All Might looked especially non-threatening in that moment, almost meek. He was sitting very tidily, big hands folded in his lap and long legs pressed against each other, occupying a remarkably small space considering the size of his frame. It made Izuku straighten his back and sit more neatly by reflex.

The questioning did proceed very smoothly at first. Tsukauchi let Izuku narrate his version of the events without interrupting at all, just humming and jotting down a few lines in his notepad now and then. All Might was just as unobtrusive, volunteering a sentence or two when Izuku happened to stumble on his words, or when he openly allowed him to recount the little scene on the rooftop, since the detective was already in on the big secret. Smooth sailing all round, until the point when Izuku had to bring up his quirk.

“On the subject of your quirk… when did it first manifest, exactly?” Tsukauchi asked.

“A little less than two years ago.”

“Ah, you’re quite the late bloomer! And you’ve only shared that fact with your friend Bakugo and your father, is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“And your father is one... Hisashi Midoriya, right?” Tsukauchi fished out a sheet of paper from the folder he’d retrieved before beginning the interrogation. He slid it across the table so that the boy could read it.

“Yes.” Izuku blinked, an undefined sense of unease gripping him all of a sudden. “...Why did you bother printing his personal details?”

“You’ve been filed as quirkless in the national registry after a routine medical examination when you were four years old. Your registration hasn’t been updated since then, as far as I could ascertain.” Tsukauchi explained calmly.

“Y-Yeah. I know.”

“...That is a punishable offense, I’m afraid. An accurate quirk registration is mandatory for all citizens.” Tsukauchi’s expression softened when Izuku utterly failed to hide his dismay. “This has no consequence on you, as minors aren’t expected to take care of these things by themselves, especially since quirk recording is often carried out when they’re extremely young. Your mother bears no blame either if, as you say, she’s as clueless about it as the rest of the world. But if your father knew and neglected to sort out the necessary paperwork for so long-”

“Oh.” Oh. Oh crap. Izuku had never thought of that. Why on earth had he never thought of that? Why, in almost two years, had he never considered the legal implications of all that secrecy? Why hadn’t his father? “Are you going to press charges against him?”

“Not yet. We’re at least going to get in touch with him and hear him out before taking any further steps.” The detective gave him a genuinely reassuring smile. “But even if we did, there is no cause for concern. These bureaucratic hitches are usually settled with a small fine.”

“I-I see.” Izuku gulped. He wasn’t going to wait until May. He was going to call his father as soon as he was alone. This probably wasn’t going to snowball into a lengthy legal conundrum, but still…

“What’s his occupation? I’m reading ‘administrative assistant’ here, which is a bit generic…”

“I don’t know much about that. He works for the government, I think, and he always says that all his activities are classified, so I try not to pry... Too much…”

“That is very judicious of you. I wish you could teach some of that tact to my sister…” Tsukauchi sighed, only half-jokingly. All Might let out a low chuckle at that. “Does your father know that you’ve been so reserved about your quirk so far?”

“Yes.”

“And he didn’t find it odd in the slightest?”

“...No.” 

“Why do you think that is?” Izuku was suddenly very aware of both adults observing him quite intently. He really didn’t want to make things look any worse for his father. He could… slightly reframe the truth, maybe.

“I, uhm… Mine is a bit of a unique quirk. Difficult to use without, uh, stepping on other people’s toes. And I’ve been quirkless for most of my life, and… it’s no mystery that I envied other kids a lot because of that. I was worried that my schoolmates could be wary of me if they knew that I could… act on that envy now.”

Tsukauchi hummed, twirling his pen slowly between his fingers. “I can understand your concern. But quirk counselling is specifically designed to help children cope with such issues, and you’ve been missing out on it because of this extreme discretion. Your father should have realized he was doing you more harm than good by letting these fears fester in your mind.”

Izuku dropped his gaze on his father’s profile sheet. Detective Tsukauchi had a point, but… the matter was more complicated than that, as well as intricately intertwined with his father’s job and the troubled history of their quirk, and… Izuku didn’t want to delve into any of that at the moment. 

“We’ll definitely schedule some counselling sessions for you in the future, I’m sure you’ll find them beneficial.” Tsukauchi hesitated. “...Did something catch your attention?”

Something did, in fact. Izuku was idly skimming through the content of his father’s profile, and a couple of details were giving him pause. The first was, unsurprisingly, his father’s listed quirk. Fire Breathing.

...nor do I have it printed in bold letters in my personal documents…

Yeah, Izuku wasn’t going to bring that up. The other thing, a little more surprisingly, was his photo.

“Oh, it’s nothing, just… I haven’t seen any photos of my father in a long time.”

“You haven’t seen ‘any photos’ of him?” Tsukauchi cocked his head curiously.

“Yeah… I’ve never met him in person, he travels a lot because of his job and he never has enough time to stop by. I only know what he looks like because of an old photo my mother showed me. I haven’t seen it in years too, so…”

“Only a single photo, uh? And this picture here doesn’t strike you as familiar?”

Izuku observed it more closely... No, he was surely mistaken. “No no, there’s… there’s definitely a resemblance. Mine was a very old photo, taken before I was born. And it wasn’t even a photo of him specifically, he just happened to be in it, at an odd angle and in the middle of a crowd… I’m sure this one is more accurate.”

“Are you still in possession of that photo, by any chance?” All Might chimed in unexpectedly, his bright eyes narrowing slightly.

“Yes, I think so… Hang on, let me check.” Izuku fetched his phone, opened the internet browser… Crap, it really had been a long time since he’d looked at the thing. Back then, he’d saved the file his mother had passed him on a free online storage site that… hopefully still existed? He hadn’t used it in at least four years. Was his account still active? Could he even retrieve the credentials with his current email address? “Uh… Actually, I don’t think I can get it right away. But I printed a copy of it once, it should be at home… somewhere…” Stashed in one of those boxes of old notebooks and magazines on top of his wardrobe, right? Or had it been thrown away when they had moved to their current apartment…? He fiddled with his phone with growing discomfort, acutely aware of the utter unhelpfulness of his babbling.

“We’d certainly be grateful if you could retrieve that photo for us, when you have a minute.” All Might finally conceded, taking pity on Izuku's floundering.

“Sure! I’ll try to find it as soon as I get home.”

“Much obliged.” Tsukauchi flipped quickly through his folder. Izuku was about to ask why the mention of that photo had sparked their interest so much, when Tsukauchi put Hisashi's file back into the folder and closed it with a snap. “Well, I think we’ve covered everything. Again, you’ve been immensely valuable to us, Midoriya.”

Izuku let out a breath he hadn’t noticed he was holding. All Might positively beamed at him and flashed him a thumbs up, which was its own, heart-warming reward. They all stood up and made to leave, when Izuku remembered he owed the two men a proper thanks.

“Ah, I really appreciate that you used your influence to… to get the papers off my back. It was… unreasonable of me to ask, but I  really  appreciate you humoring my hope for discretion anyway. I hope that it wasn’t too much of an inconvenience.”

Tsukauchi and All Might traded a puzzled glance. 

“We did nothing of the sort, kid. What makes you-” All Might stopped, as if struck by a sudden thought. “Ah! You did mention it yesterday, didn’t you? That you were expecting your friend to expose your quirk…”

“Yes. I… I imagine Kacchan told the journalists, and you took care of, uh, correcting his version?”

“No, no, there was no need to.” All Might waved his hand dismissively. “Your friend didn’t mention you at all. He was on the verge of fainting when you rushed in, he’d been strenuously fighting back against the villain for a while by that time. He was too exhausted to notice your intervention, and you bolted immediately afterwards. He never realized you were there.”

Izuku’s jaw dropped half-way open, but he shut it immediately with an audible click. 

“...Ah.” Kacchan hadn’t realized. The bystanders hadn’t realized. The police hadn’t realized. All Might hadn’t really realized. That meant that no one, no one, would know about his quirk right now… if he hadn’t gone and spilled the beans about it himself. If he hadn’t dumped an unnecessary confession to the number one hero out of sheer, emotional anxiety.

...Boy, that next phone call was going to be one for the ages.

[littleoddwriter]

Slashers x GN!Reader with BPD | Headcanons

This is purely for my own comfort, so, yeah - that obviously means that I have BPD (Borderline Personality Disorder). This only focuses on a few specific symptoms I struggle with, since I needed comfort for those in particular, at the moment.

notes; GenderNeutral!Reader; Intense Fear of Abandonment/Abandonment Issues; Splitting; Favourite Person (FP); Trauma; Self-Harm; Intense Mood Swings; Routines; Hurt/Comfort; Unintentionally Lashing Out on Others; Unstable Relationships (at times, but only on the Reader’s end); Impulsive and Self-Destructive Behaviour.

Characters: Asa Emory/The Collector; Charles Lee Ray/Chucky (Human); Chop Top Sawyer; Jesse Cromeans/Chromsekull; Lester Sinclair; William Easton (not a Slasher, but part of the SAW Franchise, so-).

Asa Emory/The Collector

He became your Favourite Person all too quickly – you couldn’t bear it when he wasn’t with you, when he wouldn’t reply to your texts, or return your calls, and when you didn’t know what he was up to

You split on him a lot in the beginning, and eventually you had reached your breaking point and told him how you felt and how scared you were and if he didn’t actually want you, he should just say so

Surprisingly, Asa ended up reaching a compromise with you, so that he would always text you once an hour, no matter what, to tell you that he was alright and what he was doing – He didn’t mind and was in fact the one to offer this strategy after you weren’t sure what to suggest, as you didn’t want to corner him

It works out well for you two, unless something comes up and he can’t text you – and as the hours stretch, you start spiralling again, having panic attacks, splitting on him, and/or harming yourself

When he comes home on such nights, he takes care of you, comforts you to the best of his abilities and apologises for not letting you know that something had happened earlier

At times that you already wake up in a mood, he would just take you with him to work, or his ‘hobby’ to keep an eye on you and assure you that he doesn’t mind, and that he’s here for you

He never judges you for hurting yourself either – he’ll just nurse your wounds and kiss them better

Charles Lee Ray/Chucky

At first he doesn’t take it all too seriously, although he does educate himself and lets you elaborate on your individual symptoms and struggles – he just has trouble being empathic and sympathetic about it

Still, whenever necessary, he’s here for you and he’ll hold you close as you cry, scream or go on about whatever set you off (he might even avenge you if someone was an asshole to you/triggered you/etc.)

He doesn’t mind your self-destructive and/or impulsive behaviours – he knows it’s not on purpose and he really isn’t one to talk after all in terms of impulsiveness at least

Being your FP might have caused some problems at first, since he doesn’t understand why you can’t just trust his word that he isn’t going to drop you one second to the other; but he eventually comes around and you two work on strategies to prevent you from spiralling too much when he’s not in reach

After a while, he starts being possessive of you anyway, and that’s when it really stops being a problem – he makes sure you know that he loves you and that you’re his

Chop Top Sawyer

No thanks to having been involved in Vietnam, he has his fair share of traumas and flashbacks as well, so that’s something he is better at comforting and helping you out with than anyone else – you both do

Since he doesn’t actually work anymore, he’s always at home with you when you’re there – he’s happy to not leave your side for long at times, and he’s even happier to have lengthy phone calls with you when you are apart

He may not be the best with words and displays of affection, but he does his best to assure you anyway, especially when you desperately need it

Self-harm is nothing shameful to him at all; and just like the others, he’ll only make sure you’re okay and your wounds will heal the way they’re supposed to

In a strange way, he actually enjoys being your FP – probably because he’s not used to this kind of attention and actually being needed by another person (apart from Nubbins, back when they were kids)

He even takes your intense mood swings in stride – mostly because he is sometimes a little oblivious to it anyway, but also because he knows you never mean it when you’re being distant or snippy

If you ever have an episode in his presence, he’ll comfort you as best as he can, if you let him close, and reassures you that it’s okay and that you’re safe with him (you’re special after all) – it usually works surprisingly well and it’s nice to be able to ride out your emotions and not be completely on your own in the process

Jesse Cromeans/Chromeskull

If you didn’t already have a therapist, he��d make sure you have one by the end of the week, after you’ve told him about your diagnosis and constant struggles because of it

Puts in a lot of effort into researching it in addition to what you’ve told him about your individual problems

When you tell him that he’s your FP, he takes it well enough – it doesn’t make him feel pressured, since he only sees it as a benefit to know it, because he can actively help to make it easier on you

So when he is out to work, he’ll text you regularly, send you photos, tells you what he’s doing, that he misses you, that he loves you, that he can’t wait to come back home to you, etc. and it soothes you a lot

He comforts you whenever needed and just showers you in kisses while you lie on top of him as he holds you close

If you hurt yourself and let him know, or he sees it, he never holds it against you and instead makes sure your wounds heal properly and that you know he is here for you if the urge comes back to help you resist it – he will also take good care of injuries that are worse

Whenever you are triggered by anything or suddenly started to feel bad or are having flashbacks, he is here for you – be that physically or not, depending on it, he’ll gladly puts everything on the back-burner to help you out, text back and forth with you until it’s passed/you feel a little better/more stable

Essentially you’re never alone with your struggles again; he takes such great care of you and accommodates you as well as he can to make life easier for you, and you couldn’t be more grateful

Lester Sinclair

When you tell him what’s going on with you, after he’s asked you about the very sudden mood swings you’ve displayed and he wanted to make sure you’re okay – he was confused and admittedly very uneducated on all the possible mental disorders that exist (you can’t blame him, though)

So you spend quite some time on telling him how BPD affects you personally and what he could do to help make it easier on you, especially since relationships are such a difficult thing for you

He grasps the basics very quickly and he rarely leaves you alone, unless you want to be by yourself or he can’t take you with him on some drives

Of course he’s concerned when you harm yourself, but he doesn’t make you feel bad about it – he understands that you can’t just turn it off and not do it – and he usually gets Vincent to take care of your wounds if they need better medical attention than your own, since he’s good and practised at it

Sometimes you might lash out at him – especially when you split on him, or you’re already irritated in general – and while he never blames you for it or holds it against you, it takes him aback a little every time (being used to such things from Bo helps him handle it better, though)

But it’s easy for you two to reassure each other of your love and make sure nobody’s feelings are ever seriously hurt – so despite all that, you share a good, fulfilling and healthy relationship

William Easton

Due to working with health insurances, he knows a lot about every possible illness – not just physical ones, so he was already familiar with the concept of BPD, which came as a relief when you told him

He takes it in stride every day – your mood swings are exhausting to yourself and while they can be tiring for him as well, he never lets on, since he is more determined to be here for you and help you through the worse ones

Since he’ll often stay in the office after hours to work some more, you two phone a lot whenever possible, or he sends you little texts to assure you of his presence and the fact that he is not going to suddenly bail on you

Still, no thanks to the stress his work puts on him, he unintentionally has an exasperated tone with you every now and again, which may cause you to spiral and split on him, but it usually turns out to be alright later – it’s just exhausting for you both

Whenever you engage in self harming behaviours, he comforts you and helps you out – he supports you throughout and keeps encouraging you; he can only guess how hard it must be to resist all these urges and try to ignore your intrusive thoughts

Whenever possible, he’ll buy you gifts to remind you of his love and presence – it’s always unexpected, which is the whole point, since he’s learned that those kinds of presents work far better to reassure you

[amitlee]

Not a softie (2)

Summary- ohh wow a part 2!

Part 1 —

Switch!Techno Switch!Phil

Warnings: This is a tickle fic! The tickles in this are more intense than the ones last time but there is still fluff <3

Please don’t tag as a ship post!

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—“Come to my room?” Phil softly asked Techno, who nodded and sleepily walked after Phil.

—————————————————

“Soooo” Technoblade said awkwardly, he hadn’t been alone with Philza like this in a while and it certainly hadn’t been under these circumstances. His social awkwardness had started to kick in.

“Soooo what?” Phil replied with a mocking edge. “Ya know, I’ve been thinking in the time we walked together, and I realized that you seem very tense. I don’t know what kind of friend I would be to keep one of my dearest pals in such an uncomfortable state. Please, take a seat.” He patted the spot nearest to him on the bed and glanced over to Technoblade.

Phil had planned to take it easy, start slow end slow, you know? But there was a problem. The man was known for his infamous ler moods, in fact, he could be seen as one of the token lers of their large friend group. Said ler moods came in many forms, the most common being quick and ruthless, and if you were to ask Phil how he was feeling, he’d say common.

“Alright mate. I want to just get into it, so what are you feeling? Do you want me to be gentle or can I go all out? Restraints or no restraints?” Despite feeling ‘quick and ruthless’, the comfort and happiness of his friends was always the number 1 priority.

He watched as Techno stuttered, looking into his eyes once before he had completely turned his head to hide his flushed face. Techno spoke, “Y-Yeah. You can do what you want but I don’t really want restraints, pinning is fine though.”

That was all Philza needed to hear, he sprung into action with a smile on his face. He ended up on top of Techno and holding one hand in his own, leaving the other to be free for the time being. He made a show of looking for a place to start by moving his free hand to different spots, sometimes pausing and acting like he was going to start. Eventually, he settled to rest the tips of his fingers all on a different rib, some in between the spaces. He hesitated, “You remember the safe word, right?”

Techno knew Phil wouldn’t take it too far, but they both liked having a safe word just incase. “Yep. Amber, right?” Sure it was unoriginal, but it was easy to remember and used across many people.

Phil gave a gentle smile, his facade wavering a bit before he remembered what he was doing. “Mhm. Just making sure. Now if you’ll excuse me...” He vibrated his fingers where they were on the exposed ribs and was pleased to hear a gasp before Techno had gentle laughs pouring out of him.

“Oh, breaking so soon~” The eldest teased, he was hoping that Techno wouldn’t hold back, and after the gentleness in the living room, it seems he didn’t have the will to. He looked down at the man below him and took in his cheeks that were lightly dusted with a pink blush.

“Ohohoh, we bohohoth know ihihi’m far frohohom brokehen.” The younger man shot back without much thought, Philza lifted an eyebrow.

“You trying to test me?” Phil teased and moved to the upper ribs. “You? Trynna? Test? Me?” He repeated, poking at random places in between each word.

“Tehest? N-NohOHOHO-“

He dug his fingers into the man’s armpit, effectively cutting him off mid-sentence. “What? Sorry couldn’t quite hear you.”

Techno was caught off guard at his underarms being so sensitive, he genuinely didn’t remember them being very ticklish. Phil wasn’t disappointed in the reaction in the slightest and kept up the firm touches.

When he got bored of that spot, he moved to one that he know was just slightly more ticklish, his hips. Now, with Techno’s hips, there is a very specific way you have to tickle them in order to get any kind of reaction. First, get your balance and make sure nothing is in danger of being hit or knocked over, because this spot always makes Techno kick and wiggle. Next you place your hand so your thumb is settled in the dip of the bone. You must act fast once you have your hand in position because he doesn’t wait until you start tickling to start writhing around like a mad man. Firmly rub in circular motions or drill into the cluster of nerves in this spot and there you have it, a hysterical warrior.

“PHIHIL- PLEHEHEASE FUHUHUCK ITS SOHOHO BAHAHAHAD!” Techno let his mirth take control, dissolving into laughter and losing some of his coherence.

Phil followed the process perfectly, as always, since he was the one who made it up. He was jolted around as he continued to tickle his friend silly, listening to the melodious laughter falling out of Technoblade’s mouth without restraint.

A few moments later he moved his hand to trace around his friend’s ears.

His reward was the rare giggles that only came out in that particular spot. He’d found it rather early on and to this day, was the only person able to get away with abusing this information. His ears were essentially the only ticklish melt spot Techno had, it was perfect for gentle tickling and relaxing him.

Once Phil believed he was sufficiently relaxed and too sleepy to fight back, he released the hand that he had been holding hostage since the beginning and lay down beside his tired friend. They were cuddled up together as Techno regained his breath and Phil asked, “Feeling better?”

Techno pulled Phil closer until he was basically on holding him on his chest, both of them still laying down. “I felt fine before, but yes.”

Phil didn’t abject to being pulled closer but he was suspicious as to why he was being cuddled to Techno’s chest.

Techno didn’t give him time to question his position. “You on the other hand, how are you? You seem just so unfathomably upset.” You can’t expect to mess with Technoblade and get off Scott free, though he admired Phil for trying.

Oh, so that’s what he was doing. Phil had the realization. “I’m very much content thahank you.” He felt Techno slip his hand under his shirt and scratch his blunt nails on his lower back at an excruciatingly slow and steady pace. He arched his back and pressed his head into Techno’s shoulder in attempt to hide the squeaks he produced while holding back giggles.

“Aww, breaking so soon?” Techno mocked the earlier version of Phil.

“Noho! I’m still holding on unlike someone, chuckles.” Phil couldn’t help but continue to tease, he didn’t expect to be on the receiving end so soon.

After hearing the comment, Techno immediately started squeezing Philza’s sides. He knew it wasn’t a bad spot but would definitely get him squirming.

And squirm he did. Phil broke out into chuckles at the unexpected touch. “OHOhohok! Ok! Point tahahaken!” He sighed when the hands returned to skittering around his back, this time not holding back any reactions. He soon tensed as he realized that Techno was moving further and further up. He had always considered his upper back as one of his worst spots, which was especially unconventional since he couldn’t even protect it.

He felt Techno lean his head down to be able to whisper into his ear and scrunched up his shoulders before he could even get close, causing Techno to chuckle.

“Oh, stubborn aren’t we?” He paused “Or should I say, aren’t lee~” With that, Techno dug his fingers around the upper parts of Phil’s back, being sure not to cause pain. He occasionally fluttered his hands up to the man’s neck, making him further scrunch his shoulders every time.

Phil felt everything. The way Techno would dig into the backs of his ribs, massaging them with ticklish precision. The way he would randomly launch attacks of swift pokes to the same area for a few seconds to get him to squirm away only to be met by the other hand. How Techno would brush his nails over his shoulder blades and make him squeal. When he would travel up to his neck and collarbones like a true monster. He felt it all, and he loved every bit of it.

Despite his enjoyment, Phil was still a human and had to breathe at some point. “TEHEHECH, IHI’M OHOHOLD! MY LUHUHUNGS COULD COLLAHAPSE ANY SEHEHECOND!” He preferred to keep the mood light, not wanting Techno to think he’d been overwhelmed. Phil hadn’t quite reached his limit yet, but was satisfied with the wrecking bestowed upon him.

He felt Techno slow his fingers until he was simply dragging his nails in patterns. This kept Phil in light giggles and produced yelps when he found a particularly good spot. Techno had never been the type to stop tickling someone all at once, unless a safe word was called, he liked to fluster his lees a little more before truly letting them off the hook.

“Fehehe- Feeling behetter?” Phil asked again.

Techno smiled down at him, he would never admit it, but moments like these were very important to him. He adored the closeness and light hearted atmosphere, it also allowed for him to happily let off steam and build strong bonds. “Well, I can’t say I’m feeling bad. So yes, I feel better. Thank you, Phil.” Techno switched from the light tickles to now rubbing the breathless man’s back with his palm to help him calm down some more.

Phil felt his heart swell from the words and attention he was getting, his face heated back up and he buried it into the younger’s shoulder again. “Good.” He decided not to leave Techno talking into silence. “Me too.”

After a moment of sitting in the comfortable silence, Phil realized he was cold. He rolled out of the prolonged hug to grab a blanket. He got the blanket and wrapped it around himself, getting as comfortable as he could. He soon turned around to face Technoblade, putting on a fake pout. “C’mere” He whined at him.

His obviously fake pout turned back into a smile when he was joined by his friend at his side. He lifted the blanket up so the other could slide under it and also be warm.

“Did I ever tell you about the time I build a secret treehouse when I was 7?” Techno asked, planning to tell his friend stories until they both fell asleep.

Phil looked at him with a surprised look, he’d never even heard about this story before. “No, I haven’t. Tell me about it?” He requested.

Techno went on to tell him the story and more for the next 45 minutes before Phil fell into a light sleep.

They both woke up hours later, refreshed and ready to go about their day before looking out and noticing the absence of the sun.

“Sleepover!” Phil playfully cheered. They got changed into their pajamas and turned on Lilo and Stich before, once again, falling asleep.

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Yup, only about, mmmm let’s see, a month late...oops.

But I had the idea to put this as my, drumroll please, 100 FOLLOWER CELEBRATIONNNN!!!🎉🎉 HOLY SHIIITTT

That is huge for me and I really appreciate the way you guys let me grow and give so much support. Thank you so so much💕

As always, have a great night and I love y’all💞💞

[silkling]

Could you do a fic where High tide finds out how bad M.E.C.H is after Optimus shows up on the deck of his ship because the ground bridge is down and High tide is the closest, I don't see much of him so I wanted to ask

I’d love to! High Tide is a fun character, first impressions aside, and I always wished the show gave a little more on his relationship with Optimus. I understand why they didn’t, but hey, I can dream!

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When Optimus Prime sent High Tide a comm. message asking him to dock his boat at a specific set of coordinates so he could board, and to be prepared to make a very quick getaway, High Tide’s battle protocols flared to life. They hadn’t activated since coming to Earth, since he didn’t need them when it came to working with that team of bitty younglings, and he certainly didn’t need them for his secondary mission given to him by the Prime, which was to scout Earth’s oceans for energon and mine and gather as much as he could. So when the familiar protocols roared to the forefront of his processor, it was easy to have his ship shift into its battle form, which involved the side narrowing a slight bit and a very large amount of weaponry unfolding from various parts of the boat or humming to life in hidden turrets. He easily did as his old friend asked, expecting that the Prime was facing Deceptions and possibly injured, and that’s why he needed a rescue and an escape route and not a battle assist.

Optimus Prime was indeed injured as he ran onto the ship, limping heavily, but High Tide caught no Decepticon signals on his sensors. His battle protocols whirled, trying to calculate what was going on and attempting to lock onto a target for High Tide fo fight. Still, he did as he had originally been asked and as soon as Optimus was on board he had the ship leaving and heading towards open waters. His processor still whirling with the urge to fight, the soldier grabbed his field first aid kit and went to help his commander patch himself up. He crouched next to the large mech, who was seated on the deck of the ship, and got to work.

“So Optimus, mind tellin’ me what you were runnin’ from?” he asked, his engine rumbling with battle-lust in tandem with the rasp of his voice.

The Prime only shot him a look, easily reading his posture and understanding what was going on in his processor. “Stand down, High Tide. There will be no fight today.”

“No fight!” he growled. “I think not! What ‘Con did this to you and where are they now?” he demanded, welding shut a leaking gash in the red armor.

“It was no Deception, old friend.”

High Tide froze, his optics narrowing. “No ‘Con? Then who? Humans?”

And that’s when his long distance sensors picked up the energy signatures of approaching vehicles. Approaching earth vehicles, coming from the air. High Tide’s engine snarled in displeasure, and he shot the Prime a dark look.

“This happened cause of your insistence on not harming humans, didn’t it?” he demanded. “Optimus, your dedication to being just and sowin’ as little violence as possible is one of the reasons I follow you. It means you care about life first and foremost and that makes you a very good commander. But sometimes, you take it too far!”

He sent the command to his ship to activate long-range weapons. He’d shoot the little insects out of the sky. Optimus obviously that saw the weapons on deck engaging and locking onto currently unseen targets, because he locked a hand around High Tide’s wrist.

“High Tide, do not!” he ordered.

The submarine glared at the Prime. “Tell me who they are, Optimus. I need an explanation.”

Optimus sighed. “They call themselves M.E.C.H. They are a human terrorist organization whose goal is to possess and control the most powerful and advanced technologies on the planet.”

High Tide narrowed his optics. “And right now, that’s us.”

A nod was his only reply.

“So they’re hunting Cybertronians, then? Why?”

Optimus hesitated before he answered, before he decided it might be best if his friend knew the whole story so he could understand the dangers. “They wish to cut one of us open and take them apart in order to figure out how we work. They want to create one of us themselves, on that is sparkless and mindless and follows only their commands.”

High Tide went rigid, and that was when the helicopters broke cloud cover and started barking down on the ship. He snarled, and his ship’s weapons began powering up.

“High Tide!” Optimus protested. “I said-!”

“I heard you the first time, Optimus.” High Tide said coldly. “And normally, I’d follow your orders. But you forget one thing: my primary duty as your soldier is to ensure you survive. So if I have to disobey your order to ensure you do, so be it.” He strode to the edge of the deck, gaze locking on the helicopters.

One of them stopped to hover closer to the water, and High Tide turned a cold glare onto it. “I suggest you and yours leave, little human.” he rumbled. “My ship has the firepower to take down a Decepticon war vessel.”

The apparent leader, a human with silver hair and a facial scar, only chuckled. “I think not. You robots are so squeamish about taking human lives. And besides, you’ll find that we are more than capable of handing a little heavy weaponry. We’ll come away from this endeavor with two prizes and a warship, it seems. How lovely.”

High Tide only bared his teeth in a savage grin. “I think you’ll find I have far fewer reservations about killin’ you little bugs than my commander.” he said coldly, and his ship fired. A high powered blaster bolt hit one of the other copters, blowing it to pieces and sending the wreckage falling into the sea below.

The human was obviously startled by the show, and he narrowed his eyes at the large blue Autobot. “So I see.” he said darkly.

High Tide could almost see him getting ready to give an order to attack, so he sent the ship another command. There was more fire, and then all the helicopter’s except the one in charge were nothing but flaming wreckage falling from the sky.

“Leave.” he snarled. “Last chance.”

The human narrowed his eyes, glaring, before nodding at the pilot next to him and then the helicopter was leaving, flying away and into the clouds. High Tide only relaxed when his long range sensors pinged back telling him they had left, and then he returned to his friend. His battle protocols started to cycle down, and the harsh glow of his optics lessened.

“High Tide…” Optimus sounded pained.

“I’m not going to apologize, Prime.” he said stiffly, returning to fixing up his commander. “I admire your desire for peace, I really do. But sometimes, the peaceful solution won’t work. You can’t just let them hunt you down like that. What if your refusal to fight back or let your team fight back means you lose another bot? What happens if those slag-heaps find the Rescue Bots?” he demanded.

Optimus winced, looking away. “It is wrong to use our might to kill so easily.”

“It is.” High Tide agreed. “But they weren’t non-threats, Optimus. If you keep letting them hunt you down without fightin’ back, then one of these days someone is going to suffer grievously at their hands, and with how determined all your team is to protect you…it won’t be you.” he said seriously.

Optimus was silent as High Tide finished, only looking up when the submarine stood and put the kit away. “You are right, of course.” he sounded exhausted. “But…”

“You don’t want to compromise another piece of your spark.” High Tide heaved a sigh. “I get it, Optimus. I really do. So I won’t say anythin’ about your decisions when it comes to you alone fightin’ them. But know this: I refuse to bow down and run from those humans. If they come after me, I will fight back and take out as many as I must. What happens if Blurr or Salvage are with me when they attack, Prime? Am I supposed to run and let those monsters have a chance at hurtin’ young bots who haven’t ever fought in the War?”

“…no. No, you are right, High Tide.” he heaved a sigh. “I will not protest your choices, and I thank you for your aid and for protecting me.”

High Tide relaxed, and finally let his ship return to its normal form. “I understand you, Optimus. We might disagree sometimes, but at the end of the day you’re still my friend and I will follow you, wherever this War takes us.”

Optimus shot him a tired, warm smile. “Thank you, old friend. I do not deserve such devoted loyalty from you, but I’m glad to have it nonetheless.”

High Tide grinned, clapping him on the shoulder. “Of course, Prime. I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

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Here we are! Shorter than my usual fics, but I hope you like it nonetheless!

Silas just got a very harsh lesson that not all the ‘bots will be hesitant about using lethal force. He’ll be more wary around them from here on out! And Optimus is just tired of the War and violence and death. He doesn’t want more violence, but sometimes it’s the only way to stay alive. Poor guy.

Until next time, folks!

[crownshattered-moved]

DAKI/GYUTARO REVERSE (HASHIRA) VERSE INFO:

The siblings grew up in that same redlight district but in the current (of the timeline of the show) era. Ume angered the samurai as usual, stabbing him in the eye with the hairpin, and was thus burned as a result. However, Gyutaro found her much faster; while she was still burned, she definitely would survive but just with burn scars on her arms and torso. Gyutaro killed the two adults before they seriously harm him, and then he took his sister and ran as fast as he could. Ume obviously needed medical attention and so did Gyutaro to an extent, but there wasn’t anywhere for them to go. The boy was afraid that they would meet their end when they were attacked by a demon in the forest, Ume getting even more injured from the attack, until they were saved by a demon slayer. Once the demon was killed, the slayer smiled at them and helped treat their wounds. The first act of kindness the siblings had ever received… And when the man left, the two decided to become demon slayers, just like him.

Soooo obviously the demon slayer man that saved them was Douma, so this verse will USUALLY occur in an au where he’s a pillar as well (was he a pillar at the time? Idk, it just depends on who I interact with XDD) If a Douma wants to interact with the kids, we can plot whether or not they stayed with him or if they just go about their merry way. Otherwise, I’ll say that they stayed with him and trained under him.

Daki goes by Ume but Gyutaro still goes by his name, since he went by that name as a human (Ume will call him Taro~). They rose in rank and soon became the Nature Hashira.

They hold the same Hashira position since, together, they are EXCEPTIONALLY strong, even in Hashira terms, but they aren’t as strong while apart. Plus, their breathing style is meant for partners, so they’re pretty much ALWAYS together.

The first five forms of Breath of Nature are based on life and growth; Ume uses these. The next five are based on death and decay; Gyutaro uses these. Life and death are two sides of the same coin, since nature encompasses both. This is why it’s supposed to be used with partners. They created the style and based it off of water breathing (this depends on what breathing style Douma would have, and if he took them in after saving them. I bet the siblings’ breathing styles would be based off of his, since he probably taught them, if he took them in.)

Ume fights with a sword similar to Mitsuri’s, while Gyutaro fights with nichirin sickles. Just like with their differing forms, the two fight very differently as well–Ume is far more elegant and agile in her attacks while Gyutaro is stronger and a bit more unhinged, with a hint of messy.

They also carry wisteria poison-laced knives (very similar to what Tengen uses in the entertainment district arc, mainly bc Daki and Gyutaro would be the Hashira of that arc in a complete reverse au). Gyutaro enjoys using the poison to weaken the demons, but he isn’t in any way a toxicologist. But he’d like to learn.

This verse can occur in a world similar to the canon (so like the canon Hashira can still interact with them) but this verse was made specifically for a reverse au where all the moons are pillars and the pillars are moons~

Ume is 19, Gyutaro is 22

Ume wears a sleeveless uniform (buttoned up all the way, she’d probably kill someone if they gave her the unbuttoned female uniform XDD) and the female demon slayer skirt. Around her waist is her usual pink obi, and she wears a haori that’s the same pattern as the fabric wrapped around Gyutaro’s arms. She wears thigh-high stockings of black and red floral pattern (like canon) and wears those kind of wooden high heels that she wears in canon. Her white hair is dyed green at the tips and she keeps it up in a high ponytail. Her arms and shoulders (hidden by her haori) are covered in burn scars, and on her chin are three claw mark scars from the demon attack. 

Gyutaro also has a sleeveless uniform, and it’s also buttoned up (no fanservice you weirdos (/lh) KJSDHJSDHDSKJ). His belt is wrapped tightly around his small waist, but he’s more muscular and less malnourished in this verse (still very skinny, but more healthy). His red cloth is still wrapped around his arms and is connected to his uniform and to the cuffs of fabric around his wrists to keep the red “ribbon” of sorts from flying away while he’s in battle. The cuffs around his wrists are the same design as Ume’s obi. His black hair is dyed with green tips to match his sister.

More TBA??

[little-mad]

A Seat at the Table Pt. 2 (Final)

~ Part 1 ~

After Gavin’s initial outburst had passed, breakfast went on smoothly and uneventfully, much to Rael’s relief. He was unprepared to address Gavin’s inquiries about why they couldn’t eat in the dining hall, because to be frank, Rael didn’t really have an answer.

Logically, Rael knew none of the soldiers would dare make a move against someone explicitly under the Emperor’s protection--and yet he couldn’t shake the feeling of paranoia that clouded his mind every time he pictured other alteons around the human. Maybe they wouldn’t attack Gavin, but what if they said something cruel? Something even Gavin wouldn’t be able to shake?

Simply being in this realm was dangerous for Gavin, therefore Rael needed to take as many steps as possible to minimize the risk. Honestly, he didn’t understand why the human had any desire to dine among the alteon soldiers; it wasn’t as though his previous experience with one had left a particularly great impression. Of course, Gavin did have a knack of surprising Rael. There was much more to the tiny man than he’d initially expected.

“Patrols are much more interesting than boring guard duty,” Gavin remarked from where he sat on Rael’s shoulder.

Seeing as constantly having his hands occupied with carrying a human was more than a little impractical, the two of them had needed to determine an alternative. Rael’s first idea of using a belt pouch hadn’t gone over very well with Gavin, and so they had ended up settling on the shoulder.

At first, Rael had been tentative about placing the human so high up. A fall from such a height would no doubt be deadly for someone of Gavin’s size. Gavin had come up with the solution of tucking himself under one of the leather straps of Rael’s armor, that way he had something holding him down as well as something to grip onto.

While Rael had agreed to the set-up, he still couldn’t help but send frequent uneasy glances at the human. It was difficult not to feel the need to be constantly vigilant when he was with Gavin. The little guy was just so fragile. The slightest misstep or wrong move could prove disastrous to him.

“Are you taking the same route as the last time?” Gavin inquired, his voice so near to Rael’s ear that he didn’t even need to raise it at all.

Rael shook his head, careful not to disturb Gavin’s position. “No, this time we’re patrolling the grounds,” he explained. As beautiful as the palace interior was, it could feel a bit stuffy after a while, especially with so many nobles and other important figures milling about and scrutinizing everyone around them. Since he had Gavin now, that particular aspect of the indoors was even less appealing.

“Great, I could use the fresh air,” Gavin commented just as Rael stepped out into the early morning sunlight.

-

Same as it had been the past couple days, Rael’s job proved fairly uneventful. A dull occupation was not something Gavin was used to. It was hard to get bored when you were a thief. Even intel gathering stakeouts often came with a healthy dose of intrigue. However, he had to be grateful for the mundane nature of Rael’s patrol, because things getting exciting also meant things getting dangerous.

A couple hours into the patrol and Gavin was convinced this one would be as uneventful as the rest. He had taken to resting his tired eyes, without Rael’s knowledge of course, when suddenly he felt his trusty giant steed’s walking come to an abrupt stop.

“Hey, what the--” No sooner had Gavin’s eyes opened that his vision was filled with a pair of giant hands reaching towards him. He instantly recoiled, though sitting on a shoulder, he had nowhere to retreat to.

Long fingers wrapped themselves around Gavin’s body, and with seemingly no effort whatsoever, they broke his iron-like grip on the leather strap and lifted him free.

Immediately, Gavin’s mind went to Kaydin, the thug who had tried to abduct him in the woods. However, there was something familiar about the hands surrounding his body; their grasp was firm but gentle, as though they intended to protect rather than harm.

When everything came to a halt and the hands were no longer in motion, Gavin was finally able to make some sense of the situation. He was being held in the relaxed fist of one hand, while the other one was cupped under the bottom so that his feet touched the palm. This left only the upper half of Gavin’s chest and above sticking out the top.

Gavin’s first move was to glance behind himself to find out just who had so abruptly snagged him from his perch. A wave of relief washed over him as he realized the perpetrator was none other than Rael...shortly followed by a wave of irritation at the sudden relocation.

“Woah, you seem a little defensive, Rael.” An instant feeling of dread began to steal over Gavin. He knew that voice, he’d had nightmares about that voice.

Slowly he turned back around. As expected, there stood Ashryn: Gavin’s least favorite alteon--which was impressive considering there existed an alteon who’d tried to kidnap and sell him on the blackmarket.

“I have been tasked with protecting our human guest, so it is my job to be defensive,” Gavin heard Rael state icily. There was no hint of the polite courtesy that had been present during he and Ashryn’s last interaction--something that Gavin was definitely pleased about.

“Ah, that’s right,” Ashryn remarked, seemingly unfazed by Rael’s less than friendly disposition. “A shame you got saddled with such an unfavorable task.”

If blood physically had the ability to boil, Gavin was sure his would be bubbling like crazy at this point. He had to literally bite down on his own tongue to prevent a vulgar string of insults from flying out of his mouth. Ashryn clearly had a unique knack for triggering the latent rage that lay within Gavin, but he wouldn’t let himself fall for the same trap twice. Getting angry was exactly the kind of reaction Ashryn was looking for.

“I’m honored to have been granted this assignment actually.” Gavin’s fury was temporarily forgotten at Rael’s unexpected words. “The Emperor specifically entrusted it to me after all.”

Glancing over his shoulder, Gavin caught sight of Rael’s hardened expression as he unwaveringly met Ashryn’s gaze. The guy was notoriously difficult for Gavin to get a read on, but he could swear he saw not even a shred of fear or uncertainty in those striking teal eyes of his.

Turning back forward, Gavin could tell the smug smile on Ashryn’s face had taken on a tight quality. He had a feeling the asshole wasn’t particularly used to being stood up to.

“Oh, well I was concerned it may have been more of a punishment than anything,” Ashryn stated. The naive innocence in his tone was nauseatingly artificial.

“I’m not sure you understand just how important it is to the Emperor that our relationship with humans remain positive,” Rael countered smoothly, as though he’d practiced this very conversation in his head countless times.

Ashryn’s smile began to falter, distinct irritation now flashing in his eyes. “You seem quite sure you know the Emperor’s intentions,” he commented coldly.

“Evidently better than you do,” came Rael’s quick reply, and Gavin nearly let slip a bark of laughter. He’d proven it before, but this was just further proof that Rael was clearly quite skilled with his words. If he’d grown up on earth, Gavin had no doubt the guy would’ve been one of those insufferable smart-asses on the debate team in high school.

The smile had completely gone from Ashryn’s face now and had been replaced with a dark scowl. The sight was so satisfying to Gavin that he couldn’t help a smile of his own from tugging at his lips. However, the joy was quickly shot through with a bolt of fear as the green-eyed giant’s gaze suddenly landed on him.

Gavin was quickly reminded of his situation. Ashryn was more than just some jerk, he was a giant jerk, and that giant jerk was currently giving Gavin the absolute dirtiest look of all time.

As though he had taken notice of the hateful glare too, at that moment Rael ever-so-slightly tightened his hold on Gavin’s body. There also came a bout of steady movement as Rael brought his hands closer to his body and farther away from Ashryn.

“I’m afraid I have no more time to waste on you and your pet,” the brown-haired giant spat, finally lifting his gaze from Gavin. “Enjoy your babysitting.” With that, Ashryn turned sharply on his heel and strode off down the cobble path that led back towards the palace.

“Stupid, pointy-eared, pretensious, oversized--” Gavin nearly drew blood with how hard he was biting on his tongue to prevent his thoughts from becoming verbal. Sure it would be satisfying in the moment, but it was obvious that Rael’s well crafted rebuttals were far more effective against Ashryn than Gavin’s disorganized assortment of crude insults.

Gavin was drawn out of his mental fuming when the hands holding him lurched into motion once again. Long fingers shifted around him until Rael’s thumb was pressed gently against his chest while the index finger did the same to his back. With an easy, fluid movement, Rael managed to twist Gavin’s body around so that he was now facing towards the giant rather than away.

Maybe if the circumstances were different Gavin would be irked by the gentle manhandling, but there was no way he could be annoyed with Rael after the way he’d just handled Ashryn.

“I’m sorry you had to see him again,” Rael said as he gazed down at the human in his hands. There was nothing but sincerity in his voice, and Gavin didn’t doubt for a second that the guy meant what he said.

“Don’t sweat it,” Gavin replied with a wave of his hand. “There was obviously nothing to worry about since I’ve got my knight in shining armor and all,” he added with a smirk.

Rael’s dark eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “My armor doesn’t shine,” he stated. “And I’d certainly not call myself a knight.”

Gavin gave a snort. The cultural divide between humans and alteons had once again made itself known. “It’s a figure of speech, dummy,” he told Rael as he flicked the giant’s hand.

“I don’t know how I’m meant to keep up with all your bizarre human sayings,” Rael grumbled as he moved Gavin back into position on his shoulder.

Gavin chuckled, and then there was a moment of silence as Rael set back off on his patrol. The quiet was comfortable. There was no air of awkwardness or a sense that one of them should be saying something. But then, after a few more moments, Rael suddenly broke the silence. “If you want to eat in the dining hall, we can,” he said simply.

Completely caught off guard, Gavin froze. He stared at the side of Rael’s face with wide eyes, but the alteon remained looking forward. “A-are you sure?” Gavin found himself stammering. He had no idea where Rael’s sudden change of heart had come from, and while Gavin was glad for it, he didn’t want to have guilted the man into the decision.

Smiling softly, Rael nodded. “Of course. I can handle any idiot foolish enough to think they can mess with you,” he responded smoothly.

Gavin broke into a grin. It seemed he would get his seat at the big kid table after all. All thanks to his trusty not-knight in not-shining armor.

[regina-del-cielo]

Immortal Siblings AU | Four, then three, then four again

I mentioned that the bulletpoint post describing how the Guard from the Immortal Siblings AU found Joe had totally run away from me. It has, in fact, become a study on them grieving over Lykon and then finding Yusuf. 

I have, somehow, reached a sort of natural end to the amount of bullshit my mind can add to this list/fic draft. So, if you want to give it a read... grab a snack. It’s long. I’m sorry.

Warnings for Wikipedia levels of historical accuracy - I added links to the relevant pages when quoting historical events, but since I was just trying to work out a timeline (famous last words), the research wasn’t extensive. There’s a lot of hand-waving.

By the end of the 11th Century, I think Andy, Quynh and Nico haven’t been in Europe for a while, not really. They moved south, and then east, after the sack of Rome of 410 CE. Seeing the great cities fall has become hard for them, especially for Nico, who is a nomad at heart but has a soft spot for cities, together with Lykon, the true city boy in the group. He’d seen it happen to Athens, he wasn’t sure he could deal with seeing Rome wilt.

For reasons I cannot fathom, my mind is settled on them having been in India when Lykon dies (possibly sometime around the middle of the 6th century, in the mess that was the crumbling of the Gupta Empire???)

Seeing him die destroys them, and they take a break from any battlefield to grieve their friend and brother. They wander, occasionally helping but almost never raising their weapons, too leery of injuries and of losing each other.

(Quynh, who was the first to notice Lykon’s wounds, has nightmares that make her cry in her sleep. Andromache holds her so tight Nico can feel the tension on her muscles against his back. He and his sister barely sleep, scared of the open spaces of Asia as they’d never been before. Lykon was the youngest of them and he died, what if they stop healing too?)

(If Nico stands guard over his sisters and feels an ache in his chest seeing how they hold onto each other, he’s never going to say it out loud. His Mache deserves the love she shares with Quynh. But sometimes he wishes he had someone to hold him like that, one he can call his heart.)

The first time they go to battle again like in the old days it’s almost the end of the 10th century, and they’re helping Quynh’s lands gain independence from China. They have a reason and a specific side to root for, and it’s the kind of cause Lykon would have approved of. They find purpose again.

They are distantly aware of how things are holding up in the west – they know Constantinople has crowned itself capital of the Roman Empire (what is left of it anyway); they know of the new religion, Islam, and how it was brought further east with the armies conquering Persia. They met the Varangians on the Northern Plains of the Rus’, when Andy insisted on going back to their steppes for a while.

They acquire new swords, repair the old weapons, make improvements on their bows. They travel, and help, and listen. They learn new languages. They heal.

They’ve just spent the winter in Samarkand when they hear merchants newly come from Constantinople talk about the Frankish armies that took Antioch and making their way further into Palestine. 

The words ‘freeing Jerusalem from the infidels’ make Andy sigh in exasperation and twist Nico’s guts. The three of them don’t really understand the point of going to war for a god, but Jerusalem is old, and she’s been coveted by many throughout their long lives. Things like this never end well, they know it intimately.

But they’ve been away for a long time, centuries at this point. Things are very different from when the Romans had the power. They are less eager to throw themselves into the battlefield now, and there’s much they don’t know about the dynamics of Europe and the Levant. Still they’re worried, and decide that they’ll move west to see if something can be done, for the civilians at least.

At first they travel slowly, keeping an ear out for gossip spoken by the caravans coming from the west. Things radically change, however, when they dream of a new immortal (a man, with a curly black beard and shining dark eyes) dying on the walls of Jerusalem and reviving to an unprecedented slaughter – said man is, obviously, absolutely terrified and they feel it.

He’s also woken up surrounded by living enemies, with high risk of being killed or injured multiple times, and of being seen.

They are still too far away to do anything more than hope that the new guy is clever enough to keep himself alive until they can reach him, but now Nico is all for moving west at full speed to get him out.

“What the everloving FUCK is happening over there?!” is the common theme in their thoughts; nothing about this war they’re walking towards is making any sense.

Yusuf al-Kaysani is, in fact, clever enough to keep himself (and a few other civilians to boot) alive and get out of Jerusalem when it becomes clear than no matter how many Franks he kills he can do nothing to stop them alone. (It’s a fucking carnage, and he’s so tired). He walks away from the battle and tries to reach some sort of safety in the desert.

When he’d decided to stay in Jerusalem and fight instead of escaping the siege, Yusuf had considered the possibility of dying. He had not accounted for waking up from a fatal wound with no sign of having been hit in the first place.

And then there are the visions. Or dreams, he’s not sure. They don’t seem to make any sense? Who are those people?! Is his mind so addled by the war that he’s conjuring scary warrior women and a stupidly handsome man, armed to the teeth and camping in the desert?

(fantasizing about handsome men in his sleep isn’t exactly news for him, but there were never women in those. And none of his usual dreams involved weapons. Something is definitely off)

For the following days, Yusuf makes sure to stay away from human settlements while putting as much space as possible between Jerusalem and himself – the last thing he needs is to become a potential target for any invader that may cross his path.

But he’s alone, having nightmares, constantly on edge, and in a body that suddenly doesn’t feel like his own anymore, since he doesn’t even have the scars to prove that the injuries he sustained were real to begin with.

After a couple of weeks, the appearance of the strangers in his dreams starts feeling safe and comforting; they seem to operate like a little family, and God knows how much he misses his own.

(should he try to go back home? Would news of the siege reach his family before he does? Would he be able to go back to his previous life in the state he’s in? Could he keep this secret from them? Would they still love him or think him a monster?)

Despite their impressive warrior appearance, they feel... kind. And gentle. Sometimes, it feels like they’re trying to reassure him, even. Especially when he dreams from the perspective of the man.

The sensation those dreams leave on his skin is like a cape. You’re not alone, it whispers. Wait for us.

Andy, Quynh and Nico have just left Baghdad when the dreams change, and not for the better - Yusuf was passing through a village when a band of marauding Franks started harassing the locals. He moved to defend the villagers, but was overwhelmed and what’s worse, the Franks saw his wounds close too fast. Their reaction was vehement: they called him a demon, incapacitated him and then brought him back to their garrison, with every intention of ‘properly getting rid of him’.

Nico wakes up screaming and Andy has to sit on him so he doesn’t just sprint ahead without actually knowing where the fuck he’s going.

“We can’t just raid every single Frankish encampment in a twenty mile radius around Jerusalem, Nico!” “TRY ME” *Aggressive Sibling Bickering follows* *Quynh doesn’t bat an eye and just rolls out a map of the area she purchased and starts mapping out the fastest routes*

Yusuf is having a Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Week at the hands of his captors, who are getting disturbingly creative in their tortures, but whenever they let him fall unconscious he sees the people of his dreams travelling much faster than before, looking Royally Pissed Off, and the surroundings are... starting to look familiar too? 

If he tries to pay more attention to the conversations his torturers are having with each other outside of the tent he’s in and hoping the dreams go both ways, so the maybe-real trio can find him easier, now that’s nobody’s business but his own.

(spoiler: it works)

When they are in sight of Jerusalem, the immortals find a drunk “pilgrim” boasting about his band capturing a ‘pagan demon’ while coming back from their victory at Ascalon, follow him back to his camp, and as soon as it’s feasible they attack.

(Andy will later gripe that Nico didn’t leave her anything to do because he just paved his way through the Franks like he was harvesting wheat.)

seeing the Stupidly Handsome Man of his dreams standing in front of him covered head to toe in blood, with a double-bladed axe in one hand and a sword in the other, staring intensely at him as if to peer directly into his soul is... an experience for Yusuf.

(he may have composed a lot of poems about that first vision of Nico through the centuries. The words ‘avenging angel’ have been used quite profusely, too)

The protective instinct that Nico has felt for the newest immortal since the first dream clutches at his throat when he finally sees him, chained to a pole and so thin his clothes barely cling to his body, but with the softest dark eyes staring back with a glint of recognition when he comes closer.

(he could cry with relief at the knowledge that he’s not scared of him. Nico has seen the faces of the men that were keeping him captive, he knows he looks a lot like they did, and that he paints a gruesome picture.)

“Are you alright?” Nico asks first, in Greek. (He knows, from the dreams, that his captors prayed in Latin. He wants to make sure that the other knows that he’s not like them.)

“You were in my dreams. You came.” Yusuf answers back in the same language, although his sounds much newer than Nico’s.

“Of course. We’re not meant to be alone… and no one deserves to be in a cage”.

Nico uses the axe to break the chains, and by the time he’s done Andy and Quynh have reached them and his sister throws the keys at him to open the shackles.

“Couldn’t take a moment to get them yourself, little eagle? You wanted to show off your skills to the new one?” Quynh teases, just to see Nico blush. Andy stares at her brother and their new companion for a few beats, before finally asking his name.

“Yusuf ibn Ibrahim ibn Muhammad Al-Kaysani, known as al-Tayyib” he answers, letting out the first smile in weeks at the raising eyebrows of his saviours. “Just Yusuf is fine.”

“You have a sense of humour, brother. I like you!” Andy snorts, before cutting her palm with the edge of her axe, and showing him her fast healing.

“We are like you, Yusuf. That’s why you dreamt of us, and we of you” Nico adds gently, while Quynh offers her waterskin to Yusuf. They also offer their own names.

“We need to clean up this mess and move away from here” Andy says, while Nico helps Yusuf up. “One of those fuckers was boasting about an undying demon with others in a tavern, the last thing we need is to fight our way out against their whole army because someone else decided to come check if he was saying the truth.”

“It’s been a long time since we were in Kush” Quynh whispers, and Yusuf sees their faces open in a look of affectionate grief he remembers seeing on his Baba’s eyes when he talked about his own mother.

“We can talk about it more when we’re somewhere safer” Andromache suggests, before moving to set up the stage of an ‘accidental’ fire.

As they’re riding away, Yusuf turns slightly to watch the camp burn, leaving no trace of the invaders that hurt him. Jerusalem looms in the distance - lost, and wounded. If he were a little less exhausted, he could  easily work out a metaphor about his own situation.

But then he looks at the three people of his dreams – Quynh, Andromache, Nikolaos – that came for him. Who are the same as him, immortal.

His world has turned upside down, and there are so many questions to ask, and he could sleep for a month straight – but one thing is certain. 

He’s not alone anymore.