#but more than that it's also eight's choice to put down the sword. to clean off the blood. to try again. this time next to people

[eorzeashan]

I find it incredibly hilarious that Eight not only was forcibly retired from being Outlander because he got too murder-y with it, but was relegated to trying out assistant work for Theron because everyone deemed him to have at least a moral backbone with which to allow Eight to get a second opinion off of (and hopefully grow his own). Which results in situations like either Theron getting in trouble and his ever-capable assistant whom was assumed to be a pencil pusher suddenly being revealed to be the former Outlander who disappeared from the role, or Eight himself being targeted as a liability to Theron and then said attackers finding out, unfortunately, that Theron's assistant is a much better fighter than him and why does the Alliance have someone like this doing secretary work.

Zakuul learns to be wary of anyone they assume to only be administrative personnel, lest they be secret assassins and former Ciphers, of all people.

[speechlessxx]

my house of stone, your ivy grows & now i’m covered in you.

{King!Steve Rogers x noblewoman!Reader}

with a side of Prince/King!Peter Parker x Reader

ROYALTY/MEDIEVAL AU

summary -> engaged to the Prince of Arachnia, the young maiden finds her heart calling out the name of another. 

warnings-> infidelity. age gap! (reader’s age isn’t explicitly said but she’s younger than Steve). poorly & awkwardly written SMUT.  (includes: unprotected sex, brief fingering, slight breeding kink). rambles. angst. fluff. lots of tension. bittersweet ending :)  

A/N -> for smut part, please scroll if you are not 18+. MINORS DNI

word count -> 12k+ !!! this one’s a lengthy one & i had no intentions of turning it into a series. it just got long. 

Buy Me A Kofi

At the ripe age of five-years-old, you were plucked from your childhood, abandoning all the childish whims and adventures to be groomed to be the perfect wife. No more rolling in the dirt with your older brothers or mucking about the stables with the horses or fencing with sticks that substituted the steel bladed swords.

It all quickly became sewing needles and recipes, cleaning and books balanced on your crown.

You were taught it all.

How to behave. How to stand or sit. How to greet and host. How to exist in silence because “a lady is to be seen and never heard,” as your teacher, Madam Morris, would say. The many lessons were engraved into your mind while the meaningless tasks and skills became muscle memory.

Be pious. Be kind. Smile. Be what your husband wants. Laugh. (no, not like that). Do as your husband says. Be interesting but not too much. Never overshadow your husband. Don’t disappoint or you will bring shame upon your family.

What a burden to place on the shoulders of a young teen though it was expected of you. Coming from an aristocratic family, it was all you ever knew: “get a husband and make us proud”.

As the years droned on and you approached adulthood, the pressure to marry became more and more prominent. And when you shed past your teen years as an unmarried young adult, the disappointment and shame began to show. Your family throwing distaste your way with snide remarks and mocking smirks.

The embarrassment felt as if it had been painted across your cheeks and you grew restless, convincing yourself to accept any opportunities of marriage just to be rid of their cruelty.

So, when the Prince of Arachnia arrived at your father’s estate and asked for permission to court you, you had no choice but to accept.

Prince Peter Benjamin Parker was nothing short of the perfect gentleman. As you walked, he’d ensure that you were safely tucked into his side opposite of the streets. He’d hold your hand steady as you exited carriages. He’d leave chaste kisses on your forehead or knuckles – almost always on your left ring finger – even though your chaperone would throw a disapproving glance his way.

You thought of him as charming with his tousled, dark brown curls with matching eyes that squinted as he smiled or laughed harder than he intended.

“He would make a great king someday,” your father would sing his praises. “And you, my dove, will be his fine queen.”

You were never fond of these comments, never finding any appreciation or gratitude when they were uttered to you. Though the thought of being queen would make any young girl giddy with excitement, you found an odd sensation of dread within you.

You weren’t sure where the feelings had originated from. Were you nervous about being a queen? About the responsibility of running not only an estate but an entire country as well? Or was it the fact you would forever be labeled as his queen rather than the queen? Did you detest the idea of belonging to another person for the rest of your life?

“Are you alright?” His voice brought you back into the present. You swallowed as you turned away from the window facing the garden of roses that your mother was so proud of to face the prince. You curtseyed although he’s told you many times it was unnecessary.

“I’m grand,” you lied with a weary smile though he bought it all the same.

Peter grinned a toothy smile as he took your hand in his. It was then you felt the weight of the engagement ring on your finger. The sapphire blue was an oval shape, large enough to cover the skin of your knuckle. The center jewel adorned a halo of smaller diamonds. All this sitting on the delicate white gold band that wrapped around your finger like a shackle.

He brought your hand to his lips, placing a kiss upon the sapphire. “I shall be counting down the days,” he whispered in the quiet room. You forced another smile and nodded.

“As will I.”

»————-　⚜　————-«

Arachnia wasn’t a large country nor was it tiny either. It had eight main roads that extended into the towns with the capital and its palace in the center. It had been said that the main roads were all equal in length so that everyone was at an equal distance from the palace though you weren’t so sure that there was truth to this. Your father’s estate sat near the south of Arachnia, in one of the nicer towns. The ride to Peter’s real home felt like an eternity.

It had been his idea, of course, that you be brought to the palace months ahead of the wedding. “Life in the castle is different to life in the towns,” he told you before, weeks into your courtship, “Everyone’s always watching.” He reasoned that the prying eyes needed to get used to the presence of his future queen, but you understood it all the same – that although it was crucial that you adjust to court, it was equally, if not more so, important that the court adjust to you.

“I will give you the grand tour,” he said as you put your head on his shoulder. The journey, although short, had picked at your energy. All you wanted was to close your eyes and sleep, but his excited chatter kept pulling you back into consciousness. As much as you wanted to tell him to pipe down, you knew you couldn’t. Not only was he your husband to be, but he was also your soon to be king. “There’s fountains and gardens – I had them plant roses like the ones in your mother’s – “

The words became muddled nonsense as you slowly dozed off. The journey and your sleepless night, picking at the skin on your fingers, had finally caught up to you, making your eyelids heavy with sleep.

You jolted awake as the carriage hit a bump. You and Peter’s head slammed into each other, waking you both. You groaned, rubbing the spot as he mirrored you.

“You alright?” Peter asked you. You nodded, still rubbing the spot. Peter leaned over and kissed it and you gave him a tight-lipped smile. “You’ve been rather quiet. Is there something on your mind?”

You shook your head. “No, your highness,” you said. “I am just a bit nervous, is all.”

“Don’t be.” Peter chuckled. “The kingdom will fall in love with you just as I have.”

“And if they do not? Shall you find another bride?”

Peter’s smile faltered before shaking his head. “Those who do not immediately fall for my queen are mad and I shall find them the greatest court physician to treat their delusions.” He wrapped his arm around your shoulder. You placed your head against his and took in a shaky breath.

There it was again. My queen. Another reminder that you no longer belonged to yourself. That as soon as vows are exchanged and he places another band on top of the enormous ring you already wore, you were completely his to own.

And suddenly that sweet moment, wrapped in your fiancé’s arms, was cut short as that familiar feeling of dread washed over you.

»————-　⚜　————-«

After weeks following your arrival in the center of Arachnia, it still didn’t feel like your home, rather it was Peter’s. The maids didn’t follow your orders nor did the kitchen staff. Heavens knows that the knights and the other noblemen wouldn’t acknowledge you. It felt as if no one knew your name, save for Prince Peter and his aunt, Lady May Parker.

You were merely a stranger in their court, the soon to be king’s guest.

Although the preparations for Peter’s coronation should’ve been your duty, Lady Parker seized the job, citing that you weren’t the queen just yet. “Let me alleviate you of this, Lady (Y/N).” She told you with a smile. “After your marriage, I shall step aside and allow you all the duties as the lady of the castle.” And in many ways, you were grateful that this was not your responsibility for the coronation of Prince Peter Parker had been long awaited for.

After Peter’s uncle, King Benjamin, passed and with Peter’s father long gone before then, the young prince was suddenly eyed to be the king. However, the councilmen thought that the boy was too young – too green to be king. They waited years until Peter came of age and once he finally did, they refused a peaceful transition of power. Instead, there were harsh rumors that the kingdom would be handed to Brooklyn’s King.

This debacle led to rumors of unrest and threats of civil war. It felt as if the entire continent held its breath as it stared at Arachnia, waiting for the violence to begin.

If King Anthony of Starken and Lady Parker did not intervene, then there would’ve been lives lost and a country torn. An agreement was made between House Parker and their council: that before Peter may take the throne, he must either be married or engaged, so that the line of succession may be secured.

And with your presence and Peter’s sapphire ring, the crown became his in an instant.

Nearly three weeks before his coronation, lords and ladies along with royals from other countries flocked to Arachnia to celebrate its king.

Lady Parker and Prince Peter introduced you to so many people in the coming days that none of their names truly stuck. All except one.

King Steven Rogers of Brooklyn.

The tall, broad man strode through the castle halls. His royal blue clothes made his eyes pop in the daylight. You thought he was beautiful. His presence demanded attention and he walked with a knowing smirk. Cocky. Arrogant. You profiled as he stood in front of Peter, towering over him.

Peter, still a prince, bowed to him as you did. “You’re younger than I expected.” The King’s voice was contradicting to his loud presence. His tone was even and steady like soft currents of a river or the expert strokes of a painter upon a canvas. You didn’t realize he was speaking to you until Peter called your name.

“King Steven, allow me to introduce my bride to be, Lady (Y/N).” Peter’s brow glistened with sweat though he stood tall. He was nervous. You could tell by the way his pitch was higher than it usually was. Under the king’s eye, he felt inferior. Insecure, even. Because although Peter was charming and slender, King Steven was intimidatingly handsome and built. Peter looked like a prince whereas Steven exuded the confidence of the king and looked like it, too.

You knew of the history between Brooklyn and Arachnia. There had been rumors that if Prince Peter could not get the crown, that the entire country would become part of Brooklyn’s, part of this other king’s domain.

“It’s a pleasure, my lady,” the king smiled at you and your eyes rounded as butterflies erupted from your stomach. He took your hand in his and you felt goosebumps rise all over your skin. A nervous, ragged breath escaped you as he brought your hand to his lips, pressing a kiss upon your knuckles like Peter’s done a million times.

But your reaction was different. Your face went hot, and you could hear your heartbeat in your ears. You could feel it between your legs, a feeling you had never felt before. Pulsing. Throbbing.

King Steven’s hand lingered over yours for a few seconds more, thumb grazing your skin and over the sapphire. You suddenly felt embarrassed – as beautiful as the ring was, it was so large that it looked odd on your dainty hand.

“Beautiful ring,” he complimented with a nod to Peter. “Excellent taste.” It wasn’t clear if the king was complimenting the ring or the young woman who wore it and no one dared question such a distinguished man.

You pulled your hand away from his with a bow of your head. You couldn’t look him in the eye for a second more. “Thank you for joining us, your majesty.”

The king smiled at your fiancé before nodding. “I look forward to your coronation, Peter. I’m sure it’ll be a pleasant event.”

You forced a smile as you and your fiancé greeted the next guest. The pleasantries and introductions fell upon deaf ears because as you looked up, searching through the crowd, your eyes immediately found his already staring back at you.

»————-　⚜　————-«

It felt as if there was a party every single day. A festival in the courtyard. A feast every night. You began to wonder where was all this money coming from – were the people being taxed heavily for the enjoyment of the upper class? Lady Parker assured you that Arachnia was well funded and that where the expenses exceeded their budget, they were handled by King Anthony, who considered it an early marriage present.

You sat like a decorated ornament next to Peter, surrounded by the other royals at a round table. You felt out of place in a gown made from your town’s finest tailor whereas the queens and princesses around you wore one-of-a-kind pieces. You were reminded, again, that you were just an aristocrat’s daughter, the fiancé of a king sitting among the men and women that bards wrote songs about.

You felt as if you were set to be the butt of the joke in another round of ridicule as King Anthony drew his attention from teasing Peter to you.

“You,” he began, words a bit slurred due to the ale in his overflowing cup, “are very gorgeous. My love,” he directed to his wife, Queen Virginia, “don’t you agree?”

“Yes, you are a delight, Lady (Y/N).” The strawberry blonde smiled at you. You returned the smile, timidly.

“Likewise, your majesty,” you returned before nodding your head to the rest of the table. “All of you are wonderful.” Truthfully, many of their names went over your head and to save yourself the embarrassment, you refrained from calling any of them by name, only saying simple titles like your majesty and my lord or lady.

“Lady (Y/N),” the princess from the foreign land, Sokovia you think, called your attention. You believe her name was Wanda, or at least that was what the King of Hawksview called her. “Are you excited for whatever adventures marriage will bring you?” Her tone was drunk and teasing. It was clear what she was alluding to though you weren’t quite sure if you caught on.

“Oh, dear,” Peter chuckled, awkwardly, obviously understanding. His face a beet red as he patted your hand that sat on your lap. “Dove, you do not need to answer.”

“Dove?” King Steven, the one man you knew by name, questioned from across the round table. He sat directly in front of you and you swore he sat there deliberately.

“It’s what my father calls me,” you explained though your voice was a bit scratchy, your throat dry. You coughed before taking a sip from your barely touched ale, finding the taste quite revolting. You shifted uncomfortably in the seat as you felt the prying eyes of the Brooklyn King stare through you as if you were glass.

“Dove.” He repeated, trying the petname out. “Sweet. Innocent.”

“Oh, you stop teasing, Steve,” the woman with dark red hair rolled her eyes. You remembered her being called Nat though you did remember her from your history lessons. Queen Natalia Romanova of Widow’s Peak, the queen who paved the way for women on the battlefield. She was revered and you were in awe when you met her.

“If we’re teasing, shall we jest about how Steven has yet to marry?” The prince from Asgard laughed. He pushed his long black hair over his shoulder as his older brother, the blonde – the King – swatted at his forearm with the back of his hand as if to say be quiet.

Steven smirked, eyes shifting to his lap, before chuckling. “Laugh and tease all you want,” he said, grabbing his cup and bringing it to his lips.

“Why is it you haven’t married?” Queen Natasha’s husband, Bruce – you think – asked.

Attention shifted back to Brooklyn’s king as he shrugged, taking another swig from his cup. His eyes darted around the table as if gaging – studying – the group.

You found it odd. Many of the royals around you considered the others their closest friends, yet here he was, a mystery to them still. It was as if he was content with going unseen and unheard. You could understand.

“C’mon, Stevie,” King Anthony taunted with a pet name. The blonde’s jaw tensed for a moment but quickly released. You frowned at that – was there tension between the two kings? “Handsome, wealthy king with vast holdings and a powerful kingdom, yet no marriage? It’s like you’re not trying, Steven.”

The Brooklyn king chuckled again, brows lifting with an amused look. His eyes met yours and you felt your face go hot again. Your gown shifted underneath the table as your knee bumped Peter’s when you crossed your legs. He looked away.

“I would not get married simply because I need a crown,” his eyes shifted to Peter before shifting back to his cup, “or I need an alliance, or my country requires finances or resources. Brooklyn’s striving under my rule.” He said it so calmly and smugly as if he weren’t throwing condescending comments about his friends’ marriages right in front of them.

“If I were to get married,” Steven’s ocean eyes met yours again like the waves crashing into a shore, “it would be because I’m in love.”

You shifted in your seat, that pulsing, throbbing ache returning as you held his stare. You bit your lip before nervously breaking the eye contact to pick at the bread roll on your plate.

You suddenly jumped when Peter draped his arm around your shoulder, completely unaware that he was about to do so, too preoccupied to appear occupied. He shot you a worried glance, but you gave him a tight smile and a nod.

“Well, I, for one,” he smiled, “am marrying for love.” Peter pressed a kiss to your temple, and you felt your smile drop for a second. Just a mere second – maybe even less.

No one noticed, you assured yourself with a relieved exhale. You scanned the round table to find that everyone smiled at you and your fiancé with dopey grins, staring at the two children in love. However, Steven’s was different.

No… The king had a knowing smirk on his face as if to say, I saw.

»————-　⚜　————-«

With the coronation in a fortnight, you and Peter found yourselves on edge. Your shoulders always felt tense which left an ache in your neck, leaving you to rub out the knots but to no avail.

Peter’s nerves made him jittery. During meals, his leg bounced up and down with nerves. The sudden movement often shaking the table, leaving you in an annoyed silence. To cope with his pending coronation nerves, the young prince whisked himself into meaningless tasks and hobbies in hopes to distract himself.

Unfortunately, this meant that he often left you to yourself, leaving you to dwell in your unease on your own.

You confided in Lady Parker about your nerves though she returned your concern with a small frown. “You aren’t getting coronated, why are you nervous?” She chuckled dismissively. You nearly snapped then but was able to stop yourself before saying anything offensive to Lady Parker.

Deciding that your thoughts were better left unsaid, you isolated yourself in the stairwell on the south wing of the castle. In your time here at Arachnia, this quickly became your favorite spot. The south wing was nowhere near the bustling crowds of guests and their parties, making it the quietest place in the castle at times. There was a wide window that stood above the stairs; it brought in gorgeous sunlight and you often found yourself basking in its warmth.

However, with your troubled thoughts, the south wing stairwell’s window brought you no comfort at all as you gnawed on the bump on the inside of your cheek. It was a habit you picked up when you were being taught to be a lady – a lady is to be seen and never heard – so you opted to biting back your opinions and retorts, whether it be physical or metaphorical.

Though Lady Parker was right, the coronation was Peter’s worry alone, it would not only be Peter that would be judged and watched by the entire continent the moment that crown is on his head. Even now as a mere lady, the fiancé of their soon to be king, you were burdened with such scrutiny and you were sure that this would only increase three-fold once Peter was crowned king.

The pressures would only worsen once you were dubbed Peter’s queen.

So, you sat pensively in your thoughts near the top of the stairs as you enjoyed the last few months of peace you had left.

“For an engaged woman, I do find you alone too many times,” a voice took you from your thoughts as it carried through the empty stairwell. You looked up and met the amused smirk of King Steven Rogers.

You stood up from your spot and found your footing at the top of the staircase before you curtseyed. “Your majesty,” you greeted.

“Most brides tend to cling to their fiancé, fighting to be by their side every waking moment,” the king mused, quirking an eyebrow up, “but not you.”

“I suppose.”

“May I?” He gestured to the unoccupied seat next to you. You bit your lip before nodding, sitting down again, but this time with the king’s warmth next to you. “Is something on your mind, Lady (Y/N)?”

“No, your majesty,” you said a bit too quickly and he saw through you.

He tutted, knowingly. “I know a troubled lady when I see one,” he pressed. “Please, my lady, speak freely as if I am just a friend.”

“I hadn’t realized I was friends with a king,” you muttered. You felt his eyes on you as you tucked a loose strand of hair behind your ear and stared at your lap.

The conversation stilled as the silence built, but you found comfort in the king’s presence. Although his eyes made you uneasy and nervous, he brought you a strange sense of peace.

His soft chuckle pulled you from your thoughts again. “Lady (Y/N).” He said your name and you glanced over at him with a brow cocked up. “I noticed that you don’t speak, not often, at least.”

“I was taught to never speak unless spoken to.”

He scoffed. “That’s a habit that you’ll grow out of.” He saw confusion flash through your expression and smiled, gently. “A strong, respected queen demands attention as she enters a room. Every step she takes must be a stride of confidence so that no one ever questions her status.”

“A status that my husband, the king, gives me. I cannot over-step. I would undermine him.”

“Peter’s a king,” Steven corrected. “I never said you would over-step, but a true king would ensure that he and his queen are in equal footing.” He cocked his head to the side as he noticed your grimace. “You don’t like that.”

“I beg your pardon?” You asked before quickly added, “your majesty.”

“Being called his queen,” he clarified with a smile.

Panicked, you began, “I am humbled to wear his ring on my finger – that he considered me for marriage and that – “

“You are not on trial,” he interrupted, quickly with a laugh. “It’s merely an observation.” You nodded, awkwardly. “In my opinion, I feel as if a marriage – any marriage, whether royal or otherwise – is a partnership, but unfortunately, many see it as an ownership.”

“That’s just not how our society sees it.” You muttered with a shake of your head.

“Where is your fiancé? It’s too often that I find you alone. I shall share a word with him about his manners.” He joked and you laughed lightly at his attempt to lighten the mood.

You sighed, fidgeting with the sapphire on your finger. “He’s … preoccupied.”

Steve frowned at that but abruptly stood, stretching his hand out to you. “Then, come, my lady, I shall escort you to the festival to enjoy this beautiful day.”

Your hands flew to your face as you shook your head, defiantly. “Oh, god no!” You groaned. He amusedly raised his eyebrows at you. “I hate leaving the castle to join the others… Everyone just stares at me. It’s unsettling!”

Steve laughed and leaned down to pull you to your feet. Although you stood at the top of the staircase and he a few steps beneath you, he was still taller than you.

“They’re admiring their future queen,” he tried. He took your hands in his and you felt a shiver run down your spine as the goosebumps rose. “And from where I stand, I must say, she is truly a vision… Even if she’s moping.”

The butterflies didn’t cease to exist as they fluttered excitedly under his stare. You bit your lip and avoided eye contact, staring at your hands clasped in his. His words lifted your confidence, but his presence made you nervous and you didn’t quite understand why.

He whispered your name; fingers reaching out beneath your chin and lifted your chin. Blue eyes staring deep into your wide ones and for a split second he glanced down at your lips.

“You can tell me to stop.”

He was so close to you. Your noses were nearly touching.

“What if I don’t want you to?” You whispered. You held your breath, but he gladly stole it as he pressed his soft, plump lips onto yours.

You swore it was almost instinct… It had to be. You moved in sync. With your lips pressed against his, you felt this feeling of belonging – something you hadn’t felt in all your time in the palace of Arachnia, in all your life. In all your time spent with Peter, it never felt like this.

Your hands fisted his dirty blonde hair as his hands cupped your face, holding you there… keeping you in the moment and you swore time stopped.

You were breathless when you finally pulled away. Eyes wide in realization.

You had just given your first kiss away to a man that wasn’t your fiancé and there was no ounce of regret in either of you.

»————-　⚜　————-«

Time passed so slowly when all you’d wish for was that it’d up – skipping to a time where you and Peter were already married and the royals have all vacated Arachnia and back to their own lands, where the king that occupied your mind was long gone.

In the days that followed, you avoided each like the plague. You’d turn the corner and see Peter then immediately turn the other way or you’d bow your head down so low so that you could avoid Steven’s fixated stare as you passed him in the corridors.

The only time you couldn’t escape the two was during meals. Although during breakfast and lunch you usually spent alone, it was during the feasts of dinner that you could not escape the lingering stare of King Steven nor the possessive arm of Prince Peter.

“You’re awfully quiet,” Peter whispered in your ear. You were guilt-ridden as you stared at the concern that filled his deep brown eyes. You muttered that you were alright just a bit tired although under the king’s eyes you have never felt more alive. But he accepted your answer nonetheless.

“Are we interrupting,” teased King Anthony with a playful grin. “Shall we order the absence of everyone in the room so that you two may have all the privacy in the world?” His wife slapped his shoulder with a chuckle as you and Peter bashfully apologized – Peter because he was truly embarrassed for being caught whispering in your ear and you because you felt Steven’s eyes staring through your soul. “Tell us, Lady (Y/N), how did such a lovely lady such as yourself end up with a brute of a prince like Peter?”

You swallowed as all their attention turned to you. You stared across the table at King Steven who eyed you with a smirk. His elbows rested on the table with his hands clasped together, head resting on top of his knuckles, as if taunting you, egging you on. You tore your eyes away as you focused on your lap.

“Well… uh – “

“We met at her brother’s party,” Peter announced, proudly. You took your cue and nodded with a small grin and kept silent. “My father and hers were friends before he passed, and so they invited my aunt and I. We had no choice but to accept, and thankfully, we did. She was truly a sight, this one.” You forced a laugh as the other chuckled. “I knew then she had to be mine, this little dove.”

You grimaced but quickly covered it up by grabbing your cup of untouched ale. Your eyes flicked over to Steven who was already staring at you. He cocked an eyebrow up at you as your eyes met. You brought the ale to your lips and he stared as your lips pressed against the rip of the chalice but never drank anything.

The conversation drifted to another topic, but you excused yourself, telling Peter you were exhausted. He nodded with a smile and leaned in to kiss you and your eyes widened, turning your head – had he wanted your first kiss to be in front of all these people? Marking you as his? His lips pressed against your cheek and you muttered goodbye to him and bid a goodnight to the others.

You wondered aimlessly throughout the corridors, lost in your thoughts. With everyone in the grand hall for dinner, the castle was felt empty, and your shoes clicked against the tiles and echoed through the halls. After minutes of silent walking, you felt the hairs at the back of your neck prick up and goosebumps run down your arms.

You turned to find the dark hallway staring back at you. You frowned before you turned and ran into a sturdy build of a man.

“I thought you retired for the night?” and you recognized the voice immediately.

“Your majesty,” you whispered, bowing awkwardly to King Steven.

He chuckled as you apologized frantically. He shushed you, seizing your hands but you snatched them away. Steven frowned. “You’re avoiding me.”

“What happened shouldn’t have happened,” you hissed.

A playful smirk replaced his scowl as he tilted his head, tauntingly. “But you could’ve stopped me. You could’ve said no.”

“Of course,” you chuckled dryly. “It’s always the woman’s fault. Men can never take responsibility for their misdoings and kings,” you spat out as if it were poison on your tongue. “are no better.”

“Was it your first kiss?”

Your tongue darted out and wet your bottom lip and you didn’t miss the way his eyes glanced down. Embarrassment washed over you like a wave as your shoulders slumped. Were you that bad?

“It was, wasn’t it?” He smiled. “I wouldn’t have known… but you were a natural – “

“Don’t flatter me.” You snapped and he laughed.

“So, I had the honor of being your first kiss…” He muttered. Steven’s hand grabbed your bicep, which was significantly smaller than his, and pulled you closer to him.

“Your majesty – “He shushed you as he kissed you again in that corridor, but you pulled away abruptly, not allowing yourself to melt into him. “We can’t. I am engaged to the prince.”

Steven rolled his eyes. “But you don’t want to be. Others may dismiss it as nerves, cold feet, even, but,” he tsked, “I know better.”

“You don’t know me. You know nothing about me.”

“I know enough.” He whispered. “Enough to know that I want you.”

“I have to be married to the prince. I wear his ring. I live in his castle.”

“And enjoy a loveless marriage? He can dote on you and you can learn to love him, yes… I’ve seen it in my parents’ union and in my friends’, but you’ll never truly be happy, no…” He told you, brows furrowed and shook his head.

“And I’d be happy as your mistress?” You scoffed, shaking your head, but you made no motions to step away. “A noblewoman reduced to nothing but a king’s play-thing? The dishonor, the shame – “

“I never said you’d be my mistress.” Steven shook his head as he cupped your jaw.

“And you intend to marry me?” You laughed as if he had said the funniest joke you’ve ever heard. And it was. It was hilarious to think that he was being anything but truthful. You were sure he was jesting with you. Empty words. Empty promises. But his stare was serious.

“I want you.”

“You want the idea of me,” you corrected. “The idea that you can take another king’s wife. Kings throughout history are all the same. Covet another man’s wife, his property, or his land. Just to prove you are better.” You shook your head. “It’s a pissing contest for you. It’s treason for me.”

“I am a king.” He told you and you rolled your eyes.

“Not mine.” You whispered. “Your teasing, your jokes. Your eyes… they linger in a way only Peter’s should, and it has to stop.”

“I want you.” He repeated. “And I know you want me, too.”

“I don’t – “

“Or else you would’ve walked away. You could’ve pulled your arm from me – I’m not holding onto you tightly. You could’ve run off to your little prince, but you’re avoiding him, too. Is it guilt, my lady?” He asked you, leaning down and whispering into your ear. Your breath hitched as his lips ghosted over the shell of your ear, kissing the skin beneath it. “Because you know you don’t want the boy… but you’re too kind to hurt him.”

“You’re trying to get me killed.” You stifled a moan as his lips left a trail of wet kisses down your neck. “Shunned and humiliated – “

“I want to be yours,” he confessed.

A sudden burst of laughter had you jump from each other. Your back pressed against the wall as he took a step back with a smirk. In the distance, you could hear drunken men and their courtesans stumble about the castle, doors slamming shut. The feast must’ve been over, and the halls were soon to be crowded again.

You two held each other’s stares as you exhaled a breath you didn’t know you were holding. The moonlight that slipped through the curtains of the windows had his deep blue eyes gleaming and he was marvelous view.

»————-　⚜　————-«

The room was stuffy and the jewelry that adorned your neck and wrists were heavy. They weighed you down as if to remind you of the pressures that your new life held – what lay ahead of you. The dress you wore was a combination of white and gold. You looked regal like the betrothed of a king should look like. You stood in the crowd next to King Anthony and his wife, behind you was King Steven and his piercing stare.

The feelings that you held for Steven were wrong and you knew that. You often wished that Peter had been flawed – an unfaithful man or a cruel one but he was the opposite. He was kind and gentle albeit a bit dismissive or not present at times. The guilt gnawed at you each time you and the Brooklyn king met behind closed doors, or in the secluded library, or in the depths of the rose garden, planted especially for you by Peter’s order, but you didn’t care.

It was innocent, really – at least that’s what you told yourself. The meetings always started the same. Bickering and joking. He had even taken an interest in tutoring you about chess – “a game for kings,” he would say. Although he had beat you every game, you never minded because all the meetings ended the same – with your lips pressed against his and you melting into his touch.

The crowds all stood as Peter entered the throne room. He was dressed as a king in his house colors – red, blue, gold. He was sweaty and his hands were clasped together nervously. He shot a glance your way as he walked by and you gave him a soft, encouraging nod. He returned it with a smile as he kneeled before the throne.

The priest slipped a ring on his finger and he was later handed the scepter and the orb. You caught the way the scepter slipped due to his clammy hands – not too much but just enough to have him fumble. Behind you, you heard Steven chuckle and you shot him a look as if to tell him to behave and he shook his head at you with a grin.

The crown was placed onto Peter’s head and he hesitantly stood. He was unbalanced, weighed down, but he took each step towards the throne with stride and a proud smile.

“Long live the king!” You and the entire crowd chanted in unison though you were almost certain that Steven didn’t say a word.

The party held afterwards was filled with dancing and music, but you were tied to Peter’s side the entire evening as he thanked his guests and accepted their congratulations, all eager to get in favor with their new king.

Instead of the usual round table, Peter and his family – Lady Parker and you – were seated in a long table at the front of the grand hall. The rest of the royals scattered in other tables near yours. You picked at your food, boredom sinking in as another nobleman approached.

You glanced up and met Steven’s eyes. He brought his chalice up as if to salute you and you softly laughed before turning your attention to the duke. The conversation was dull with fake pleasantries and complaints of lost land – Peter promised the duke that he would look into it. You remembered Steven tell you that kings should make no promises that he could not uphold. and you wondered if Peter had any intentions of honoring it.

“Do you want to dance?” Peter asked you after the man left, offering you his hand. You smiled and nodded, taking it.

He pulled you onto the dancefloor, joining the other couples. Peter’s hold on you was tight as if you would run away or disappear. The crown on his head was just a little big and would slip over his forehead. You’d giggle and push it back up.

He pulled you close to him and swayed to the music. “This is grand,” he told you. “The crown, a beautiful bride.” You hummed in agreement though you didn’t entirely adore the idea – not as much as you used to. You hated being compared to that awful crown as if you were just an accessory to him. “And … In a few days’ time, my dove, we are to be wed.”

“What?” You shook your head with a dry laugh, taking it as a joke. “Your high – majesty,” you corrected, and he beamed at the title, “we are set to be married in the late spring. Not in a few days.”

Peter frowned. “Had no told you?” You shook your head, no. He sighed. “I suppose I should’ve… The council believes that it’s best we get married immediately. Now, that I’ve got the crown, they say I need heirs,” you blanched at the idea, “and besides, the other royal families of Marvel are already here.” Your breath hitched as the realization set it. “Well, aside from King Steven, he’s one to never attend weddings.”

“Peter – “you shook your head. The panic beginning to rise. Despite being trained for this very day since you were young, you were convinced you weren’t ready. You told yourself the anxiety was from the idea of being queen, but the truth was – the anxiety was from the idea of being wed… to Peter.

“May I cut in?” You didn’t hear Peter’s response just that a pair of familiar hands seized yours and your waist, pulling you flush against his body. “Are you okay?”

You stared up at Steven’s worried eyes, brows lifted and lines of concern all over his forehead. You shook your head, tears brimming in your eyes. You hated the idea that you would be Peter’s completely, and that Steven would never be yours.

“Peter said we are to be wed in a few days,” you uttered. The words didn’t feel right. Your voice was shaking as you held back your tears. Steven’s jaw dropped before he nodded. “Steve,” his eyes stared into yours, “I don’t want this.”

“And what is it do you want?” Steven asked you. He was hopeful although naively so. And in many ways, you were as well to believe that your affections for Steven could extend to something more. But reality set in, you were engaged to a king – just not the king you wanted.

“I want to marry you,” you confessed though voice hushed, afraid that any ears would hear your treasonous words. You let out a shaky breath as you stared at him before shaking your head. The idea that you fell in love with a man after knowing him for only three weeks was preposterous. “Or at least… that I want to be with you.”

Steven smiled softly at your confession – words he had been hoping to hear ever since he cornered you in the empty hallway. He leaned in and your eyes widened, but he brought his lips to your ear and whispered, “keep your chamber doors unlocked tonight.”

»————-　⚜　————-«

One of the peculiar things about your move to Arachnia’s palace was your bedroom. It was rather enormous for the fiancé of the now king. When you first arrived, you expected a room modest in size though not as big as this – especially since you’d move into Peter’s chambers once you were married. The mattress was pressed against the back wall between two large windows that never opened. Bookshelves filled with novels though no work area – no desk or study. Instead, you were given a vanity. Besides those pieces, the room was pure empty space.

You used to joke to yourself that you were just a prisoner who adorned the prince’s, now king’s, jewels and a fine title.

You stood by the window, watching the fireworks that celebrated the coronation. You swore you could see the towns in the distance, all lit up with anticipation. Peter would soon be making his rounds throughout the country as its official king. Would it happen before you were married or after? Would you be asked to join him as his queen?

You stared down at your ring finger. The sapphire staring tauntingly back at you. It shackled you to a man you didn’t want. It reminded you of your family’s side eyes and low whispers when you didn’t immediately get married once you were of age, or the hushed voices and stares of the other nobles as they judged your every move calling you unworthy to marry a prince, let alone a king.

And all you could think was – to hell with it all.

A soft knock was heard from the wooden door of the chamber and you walked towards it. The stone tiles were cold against your bare feet and the doorknob even colder against your already freezing hand. With a twist of the doorknob, a smile formed on your lips as Steven came to view.

You hurriedly pulled him inside, eyes scanning the now empty hallway, before closing it.

He eyed you up and down and smiled, admiring you – hair undone and natural, face free of any makeup or colors staining your cheeks or lips, no gown with a corset that clung onto your body that left you with no room to breathe.

You were beautiful and oh, how he’d kill to see you like this every day.

“Did anyone see you?” You asked him, softly, though within the thick walls of the castles and in the privacy of your chambers no one would hear you.

Steven shook his head, one hand finding your waist and the other cupping the side of your face. “They never do, do they?” He whispered, leaning down to press a kiss to your lips.

You pulled away, leaning into his chest, settling into his warmth. You loved being in his embrace – it was safe and warm like a small cottage in the countryside with no judgmental stares or rumors whispered about.

You realize you could live like this until your last day – and with your intentions, that final day might be quickly approaching. “Why is it you asked to meet me here?”

Steven’s jaw ticked. Truthfully, he had no real answer. He could’ve asked to meet anywhere, and the risks were just the same. The mere act of meeting you in private was damning, no matter what he intended.

He thought that admiring you from across a crowded room, under the cover of hundreds all staring at you, too, would be enough. He thought his eyes would go unnoticed. He told himself that his attraction would be fleeting, but it wasn’t – and it became clear the moment he pressed his lips against yours at the top of the south stairwell.

“Steve?”

He sighed. “I… I’m not quite sure if I’m honest with you, Lady (Y/N).”

You smiled to yourself. In the time you’ve known King Steven, he had always been so smug, so confident. Every step had a direction and every word so sure, but you’ve reduced him to a man begging for the affection of a woman.

You pulled yourself from his chest and stared up at him before you stood on the tips of your toes to press a kiss onto his lips.

It was as if you two were molded together or made from the same cloth. Lips pressed together as if they had always belonged there.

His large hands found the backs of your thighs, hoisting you up, wrapping your legs around his tapered waist. You felt the heat rise to your face when that familiar throbbing feeling between your legs came back – and with your cunt pressed against the middle of his body, you were sure he could feel it, too.

Your back pressed against the soft, silk sheets of your bed. Steven draped over you like ivy covering the castle’s stone walls.

The framework creaked beneath your combined weight as he began to grind aimlessly against your center, eliciting a gasp from you as it helped the ache from deep within you.

He smirked into the kiss, but you caught him off guard yet again when you whispered, “I – I want you.” He pulled away, taken back. “I want all of you, Steve, please – “

“(Y/N) – “

He began to climb off you, but you sat up, hands cupping his face and staring deep into his eyes. You shook your head as you gave him a quick kiss.

Foreheads touching, you told him, “if I am to go marry and live in this hell, I might as well be granted a taste of heaven.”

“You will be ruined – “he whispered though the idea made his cock twitch in his trousers. You jumped as you felt it too.

You shook your head again, “how can you ruin anything, Steve?”

Steve licked his lips as he tried to fight off his morals. The devil and the angel on his shoulders disappeared and became one – the beautiful maiden beneath him, begging for him to take her.

“If we do this,” he whispered as he nudged your cheek, lips kissing your jaw, “there will be no going back, (Y/N).”

“I want to be yours, Steve,” you told him, honestly. “I – I love you.”

And that’s all it took to have his lips ravish yours, hands roaming, desperately grabbing on to what he could. He pulled away and grabbed your hand. He slid the ring off your finger, tossing it onto the table next to your bed before he pressed his lips to yours once again.

You heard a rip and you gasped as the cold air hit your bare skin. Steven’s hands pushed the torn fabric off away from your body, throwing the ruined white silk behind his shoulder.

He pulled away from you, admiring the view beneath him – the woman spread out before him like an offering, nipples perked in the cold winter air, mouth ajar as she panted, and the perfect, untouched pussy.

“I love you, too.”

He began to undress, and you couldn’t take your eyes off this Herculean being in front of you. He was thick and broad, the muscles that were arranged all over his body were hypnotizing as were the scars undoubtfully from all his training and his time spent in wars.

He was a god in the body of the king, and you wondered how you got so lucky.

Steven began to undo the strings that held his pants up and you watched with you lip between your teeth. The anticipation, alone, killed you. He pushed down his pants and your eyes widened at his massive cock – tanner than the rest of his skin, with a red angry tip, thick veins, and clear liquid coming from it.

He saw your uncertain expression and he raised his brows at you. “I – I –“you began to stammer.

“Don’t tell me you’re backing out now, little one,” Steven whispered. His hands reached out and cupped your cheek, hungry eyes scanned your body and your mouth went dry. The throbbing within you was relentless and made you clench your thighs together. “You’re beautiful.”

Your eyes looked away, bashfully, as his hands explored you – cupping your breasts and tracing the curves of your body. All Steven wanted was for all of you to be his.

“Look at me,” he whispered, and you hesitantly looked back at him. He had a soft smile and adoring eyes as his fingers slipped through your folds. You let out a soft gasp and your eyes fluttered closed as the ache was relieved by his touch. “Look at me,” Steven repeated, and you forced your eyes open to stare at him. Your lover smirked as he found your small bundle of nerves and rubbed tight circles around it.

It felt as if something within you had blossomed and you couldn’t help but grind into his touch, but he tutted at you, using his free hand to hold your hips down. “You’re soaked, my love,” Steven whispered, leaning down, and nipping at the base of your neck. Hard enough for you to gasp but not enough to leave marks. “Already so wet and I’ve yet to do anything.”

“It’s just my reaction to you,” you confessed, heat rising to your face.

You tried to avert your eyes away from his piercing stare, but he tsked and pinched your inner thigh. You hissed in return and brought your stare back to him. “Don’t make me tell you again, (Y/N),” Steven warned.

You nodded, speechless as his fingers wandered further down, ghosting over your untouched opening. You let out a shaky breath.

“Steven – “you moaned as he sunk one long, thick, skilled finger inside of you.

“You’re so tight,” the king noted with a smirk. He relished in the idea that he would be the first to have you and he wished that he’d be the only one to have you forever.

“Steven, I want you… Please – “

He tsked at you with a quick shake of his head. His lips pressed against yours again, silencing your soft whines and protests. “I need to open you up, my love,” he told you, lips still against yours, “or else you might get hurt.” He pressed another finger into you, and you pulled away from his lips.

The back of your head pressed against the mattress as another moan escaped you. The king began to scissor your opening. The stretch was tolerable though still uncomfortable and had your breath shuddering.

“You’re doing so well,” he praised you, nose tracing your jaw. His lips kissed the column of your throat.

You groaned when his fingers began to thrust, opening you up to him. You heard the faint sound of your arousal on his fingers, the wetness spilling onto your thighs, too. Your hands tangled up into the king’s long, dark blonde hair, pulling him into you as he added a third finger, effectively stretching you out.

“Are you alright?” He asked you, fingers thrusting into you in a rhythm of their own. You nodded, eyes staring at the top of the canopy over your bed and hands pushing the king flush against you’re the joint between your neck and shoulder. He kissed the skin there, trying not to suck on it to leave you with his marks – marks that young Peter would undoubtfully see on your wedding night.

You gasped as you felt this tightening knot in the depths of your stomach. “You almost there, my love?” Steven asked and you nodded though you weren’t sure where there was. Your thighs tightened around him. You whined when his fingers left your heated core right on the precipice of pleasure, leaving you with an emptiness. Steven chuckled.

“I was – “

“First time you get to cum will be around my cock,” he told you brazenly and it felt as if your entire body flushed at his words. He brought his fingers to his lips and your eyes widened when he began to suck on them, and he groaned. “You taste so sweet, my lady.” The king quirked up an eyebrow at your curious expression as he swiped his fingers against your lips. “Have a taste, my love.”

Your tongue reluctantly darted out over your lips, gathering the sweet yet musky taste of your essence. Your hand reached out, wrapping around his wrist and bringing his fingers to your mouth. Your lips wrapped around his index and middle finger and sucked carefully as he did, and you felt his cock twitch against your thigh at the sight.

He watched you intently as you cleaned off his fingers, his free hand stroking his throbbing dick. He swiped the tip against your slit, causing your body to shudder when he bumped your clit.

He took his fingers from your mouth and both hands held your waist. Instinctively, your pushed your knees further apart, opening up to him. Steven’s blue eyes flicked up to you as he pressed his tip against your heat.

“Are you sure?” He asked you.

You nodded. “I’ve never been more sure.”

You threw your head back as he began to press into you, the pressure unbearable and made your entire body tense. The king began to hush you, holding still. One of his hands caressed the side of your face, combing through your hair. “You need to relax, my love,” he cooed.

You muttered an incoherent agreement as you tried to will your muscles to loosen. You heard the squelching sound of your cunt engulfing the man, slowly. Your hand flew to his wrist and grabbed onto it, unsure of what to do.

He praised you as the tip slipped in along with an inch or two, but he was nowhere close to bottoming out. The king began to pull back, only leaving the tip in before pushing in more of him. You hissed again as he pressed past the thin veil of your innocence, being the first and only man to tear through it.

His cock was no match for his fingers, being much thicker and so much longer. You tried to even your breathing and he chuckled. “You’re doing so well, my love,” he whispered, leaning down to kiss your lips. “Taking me so well… Look…”

His nose nudged the side of your cheek and you slowly craned your neck to look down as he bottomed out completely – his public bone flush against your clit. Your mouth watered at the sight as he slowly pulled out an inch or two. You took a sharp breath when you saw the faint strips of red on his length.

The king began to rock into you slowly and you couldn’t take your eyes away from where you were connected. The pain, although still there from the burning stretch, was incomparable to the pleasure when his tip brushed against a certain part of your canal.

You moaned, loudly, head thrown back, exposing your throat to him. Steven kissed the hollowness before capturing your lips in his. “I love you,” he murmured into the kiss as his hips began to speed up. Your own matching his thrusts.

The sound of skin clapping against each other echoed throughout the enormous room and you felt yourself clench against him.

He groaned in return. In one quick motion, the king hoisted your knees over his shoulder, giving him a much deeper angle to take you from. He thrusted so hard and so deeply that you swore you felt him in your chest.

You moaned his name as your hands grabbed your breasts. He watched with a smirk as you fondled yourself and one of his hands began to rub tight circles around your swollen clit again. Your back arched at the sensation.

“I’m gonna fill you up, my love,” he told you. “Have you fall pregnant with my child. Watch you swell…” It was a fantasy, on Steven’s behalf. He’d always wanted a wife and children but never found the right partner until you. “Do you want that, little one? Do you want my children?”

“I want you, Steven,” you moaned. No coherent thoughts were forming as the familiar tight knot in your stomach suddenly snapped. Your hips ground up against his as your walls tightened around the king, milking him, and pushing him over the edge.

Steven thrusts faltered, leaving his rhythm, and pushed deeply into you one last time. You felt his cock twitch inside of you and you felt each spurt, covering your walls in his white.

You two laid on top each other, legs entangled, and bodies intertwined like lovers. He pressed a kiss to the top of your head, and you said, “I love you, Steven.”

And in that moment, all was right.

»————-　⚜　————-«

“What?”

The disbelief in each of their tones hung in the air. The councilmen shook their heads in shock as Peter stared at you from the throne with his brows furrowed, deep in thought.

“I beg your pardon, Lady (Y/N).” One of the men said.

“My lords, my king,” you addressed with a bow of your head. “I asked for this meeting to tell you that I am incredibly humbled to have been homed here in the palace of Arachnia and to be the betrothed of the prince – king – to have witnessed you be crowned, your majesty… But I,” you swallowed and took a deep breath. “I do not want to marry you.”

“What brought this on?” Peter asked you as he leaned into his throne. He eyed you, suspiciously, eyes glancing over your figure. Although the new king had been wrapped up in several meetings ever since his coronation, he noticed the change in you – the way your body filled out, hips wider and the glow in your complexion. You looked more radiant than you usually were and much happier. Though he wasn’t sure what was the cause, he was certain it had not been him but he refused to believe it was another.

“I cannot believe this!”

“We’ve wasted all this time preparing a marriage!”

“How dare she – “

“He needs a bride to keep his crown.”

“Silence,” Peter ordered the men and their murmurs quickly disappeared. Words and unfinished sentences hung in the air. “What brought this on, my lady?”

You cleared your throat as you took a step forward. “Your majesty, I … I am not meant to be your queen.”

Peter nodded in contemplation and you were hopeful. He had always been understanding. He would’ve surely granted you a swift exit from this engagement without another – “No.” And just like that your hopes were dashed. “You are to remain my betrothed as you have been for months.”

“But Pete – “

“Our wedding is in days!” Peter snapped and your eyes flicked to the floor. “And you want to end our engagement now? You had months to concede – “

“I was afraid!” You objected. The lords stared on as your voice rose higher than the king’s. The tone, the higher octave, may have been from a moment of frustration, but the men in the throne room saw it as one thing only: a lady undermining her king.  

“Afraid?” He scoffed. “Of what? Of me? My lady, I am not a cruel man – “

“Then grant me my wish. Release me from this engagement.” You begged.

“No.” Peter shook his head. “We are to be married in a few days’ time.” You saw how his kind eyes darkened as he frowned at you. “You do your best to rid of your cold feet now, my lady.”

Defeated, you rushed out of the throne room. Several servants and other nobles stared with confused expressions as you ran past with tears in your eyes – running to the only man that understood you, the only man that could help.

You banged against his chamber doors, desperate for him to whisk you away.

“Steven!” You called when the door suddenly opened to reveal a maid. Her arms were full of linens and you stared at her in confusion.

She quickly curtseyed to you and cocked her head to the side. “My lady, have you been crying?”

“No,” you shook your head, jaw clenched, though your sniffle gave you away. “Where’s King Steven?”

“He left this afternoon, my lady.” She told you.

“What?” You felt the color drain from your face. You shook your head at her as if she were wrong. He wouldn’t have left you – not like this. “No… There must be a mistake. Steven – King Steven – “

She frowned before shaking her head. “No, my lady… The Brooklyn King left hours ago. If you had wanted to know, I would’ve told you. I had no idea you two were so close.”

You bit your lip and closed your eyes. Though the maid had been kind in her intention, you heard the accusation loud and clear.

A shaky breath left you as you forced a smile. “No,” you said shaking your head again, “no… The king, our king, Peter and I were hoping he’d attend our… our marriage.” The word felt heavy on your tongue as the world around you began to crash down. “I suppose, we were too naïve to believe he’d stay.”

»————-　⚜　————-«

The barren winter trees passed by in blurs as Steven stared out the carriage window. The bickering of his two friends and advisors, Lord Samuel Wilson and James Barnes, became background noise to his pensive thoughts.

He wondered how you were – were you as devasted as he was? Would you understand if he told you the truth – that he, though desperately and completely in love with you, could not have you? That his overstep, his coveting of Peter Parker’s fiancé, may reignite a feud long buried between Arachnia and Brooklyn.

That as a king, it was his duty to put a stop to a potential war.

Though as a man, he knew his duty was to you and may always be.

“The girl,” Barnes’s mention of your name had him turning from the window and towards the two men, “she seems well. A great match for the young king.”

Steve scoffed. Although he knew his opinion was heavily biased, he knew that you were most certainly not a good match for the Parker boy. Peter would have you as a decorated figurehead – a pretty woman on his arm for the world to see – while Steven wanted so much more in your forbidden union.

“I see you disagree,” Samuel nodded to his king. Steven sat in silence and the two lords shot a knowing glance at the other. “They are to be wed in a few days.” Steven hummed though the two didn’t miss the way his hand formed a fist over his knee.

“The sooner the better, I suppose,” James nodded, eyeing Steven wearily. “Peter, being so young and the last of his line, he needs an heir quickly.” The king shifted in the carriage and they felt the entire cart jolt with his fury. “Steven, I address this as your friend, nothing more, but what is your issue?”

“Nothing.” Steven said quickly and he scolded himself. He felt like a young boy throwing a tantrum with his mother.

James raised an inquisitive eyebrow at his king and childhood friend. “The girl has piqued your interest, hasn’t she?” His friend’s silence was all the confirmation he needed. “Steve – “

“I know,” Steven snapped. “I know it is wrong to want another man – “he scoffed, “child’s bride…”

“And yet you still do?” Samuel asked. “Steve, the consequences of your feelings,” he shook his head, “it will incite an unnecessary war… and over what? A girl?”

“If she’s a war, then I will fight.”

“A love blind man’s word… Not a king’s.” Samuel rebutted.

“Why did you leave her, then? You could’ve stowed her away in this carriage with us. You could’ve stolen her from under Peter’s nose. Why didn’t you?” James quizzed.

With a defeated sigh, Steven said, “it’s for her own good. My affections for her, whatever my heart says or hers, it will get her killed. Arachnia will not take lightly to her betrayal of their king.”

James nodded in agreement. “You’re saving her. This is for the best, my friend. For if you listened to your heart instead of your head, she will be a casualty in a pointless war.”

“It’s difficult,” Steven confessed, “to have let her go. And it’s something I will regret for the rest of my life.”

»————-　⚜　————-«

ONE YEAR LATER…

Your entire family cooed at the fussing three-month-old in the king’s arms. The child continue to wail and thrash, finding discomfort in your husband. “Argh!” He glanced over to you as if asking for your help. You stifled a laugh as you walked over, seizing your baby from him. “She prefers her mother over me.” He joked as the babe almost instantly calmed in your arms.

“Have you chosen a godparent, yet, your majesty?” Your father asked you, subtly pushing your older brother forward as a silent suggestion. You rolled your eyes.

The king ran a hand over his brown curls and shook his head at your father. “No, my lord, we have yet to choose.” Peter nodded in your direction. “I thought since most of baby Fallon’s life will be decided by me, his mother should have a say in that.”

Your father chuckled with a shake of his head. He clasped a hand on your shoulder, and you fought the urge to shrug it off. “Indecisive, this one, isn’t she?”

Peter glanced your way, “you have no idea.” The two men laughed, and you gnawed at the knob in the inside of your cheek until you tasted blood. Fallon yawned and you gave Peter a look. “I suppose, we should all greet our guests.”

“Oh, yes,” you nodded, “the christening. You go ahead, Peter. Someone should stay with Fallon.”

“Oh, nonsense, girl,” your father told you. “The nanny will – “

“She is my child and I will care for her. I do not need a nanny.” You snapped, your bottled up frustrations slowly bursting.

Peter laughed awkwardly, hands finding your waist though you pulled away from him. He coughed. “It’s the separation anxiety,” he joked with your father.

“Well, I never had that,” your mother piped up.

Of course, you didn’t. You sent me away as soon as Peter asked. You bit back the response.

Your family began to vacate the nursery and you felt a bit of relief. You felt Peter’s hands on your hips. You tensed when you felt his lips ghost over your ear. “Why don’t you join me in greeting our guests?” He asked you.

You shrugged him off. “I want to be alone.”

The young king sighed before releasing his hold on you. With his hand on the doorknob, he turned to you again. “You do realize your duty is not only to Fallon? It is to me and my kingdom as well.”

“I understand that my duty was to give you an heir,” you deadpanned. “I have done just that.”

“You have given me a daughter. Not an heir.” You glared at him and he immediately silenced.

“A daughter is an heir. Do not dare discredit her birthright because of her sex!” The babe began to stir in your arms and let out a small cry. You immediately shushed her, coddling her in your arms and she began to quiet.

You heard him sigh, defeatedly, before the door slammed shut again.

You felt a wave of guilt wash over you as you stared at the child in your arms. Many times, you found peace in Fallon’s presence, but as time went on and as the child began to resemble her father, you began to worry. Though Fallon had adorable dark curls, she had striking blue eyes – ones that undoubtfully belonged to her father.

On the day you were to wed Peter, he had gotten caught up in the affairs of the state. The wedding was quickly rescheduled for two weeks after despite the protests of the nobles and royals who had all stayed extra days to witness your union. As you were doing the final adjustments to your gown, you realized you were due for a bleed that had yet to come and a sickening feeling of realization ran erupted through you. You did not consummate that night – your nerves and guilt making you sick to your stomach.

But you decided that you would survive – if not for yourself, then the life within you, the life in your arms now.

Moments later, the door creaked open and you let out a frustrated sigh. “Peter, I said I wanted to be alone – “in the silence, you felt the hairs on the back of your neck stand and a shiver run down your spine. A familiar feeling you wanted to forget. You turned around and your eyes widened. All the fury you felt, the regrets, the pain – all of it – melted in an instant.

“Steve.”

He stared at you with adoring eyes. You had grown more beautiful if that were even possible. Your glowed, motherhood becoming you. “(Y/N).”

“You shouldn’t be here.” You shook your head.

“You weren’t with Peter,” the Brooklyn king told you. “I thought you may have been with your child…” He chuckled. “Near the south wing, next to the staircase.”

“I love the sunlight it brings in.” You muttered. “Peter never lets Fallon out of the castle, so I suppose, it’s a substitute.” Steven nodded.

After beats of silence and longing stares, Steve finally said, “I’m sorry.”

“I understand.” You nodded. “At first I was angry. I cursed your name in the dead of night. I wished you were dead and I often pretended so.”

“I deserve worse.”

You laughed. “You do.”

“I did it because I was afraid if I took you from him, in a furious rage, he’d strike you down. You are not of Brooklyn. I could not protect you against your own king.” Steven explained.

You nodded. “I told you. I would marry into hell.”

“Has he been cruel?” Steven frowned, his fury slowly rising and hands forming fists.

You shook your head. “No, far from it, actually.” You chuckled humorlessly. “In fact, perhaps, I’ve been the cruel one. I push him away because I don’t want Falon to believe that he is her father – “

“What?”

You glanced down at the child in your arms and beckoned Steven with a cock of your head. The king slowly walked over to you and the babe. Steven’s eyes watered slightly as he stared at the small creation. “She’s … she’s mine?”

You nodded. “They pushed the wedding back two weeks and I didn’t… uh… I didn’t bleed… and I knew then. We didn’t consummate,” you saw how he frowned at that, “until a week or so after. I was with child not long after.”

“How do you know?” He asked you. “Not to be accusatory, but – “

“She has your eyes.” You smiled. “Every time she stares at me, it’s as if you are.”

“She looks like me,” Steven smiled, a gentle finger caressing the child’s plump cheeks. You nodded in agreement.

“Would you like to hold her?” You asked and he eagerly nodded. He took the child from you and you felt your heart swell when Fallon didn’t immediately begin to fuss like she would with Peter. “She likes you.”

“I hope so. I’m her father, after all.”

You laughed and rested your head on his shoulder, both admiring the life that you both created. You imagined that this was your life… just for a moment. That you weren’t in Arachnia but in Brooklyn, bearing Steven’s name rather than Peter’s… Married to the one who truly held your heart.

You sighed, finding the calm in your daughter and your lover.

And in that moment… all was right.

let me know what y’all think

[translations-by-aiimee]

Mistakenly Saving the Villain - Chapter 3

Original Title: 论救错反派的下场

Genres: Drama, Romance, Xianxia, Yaoi

TW for this chapter: Mentions of slave trafficking

This translation is based on multiple MTLs and my own limited knowledge of Chinese characters. If I have made any egregious mistakes, please let me know.

Chapter 3 - Born Without Tears

The red-dressed beauty lightly opened his vermilion lips and blew into the jade flute. The flute sound was full of lingering affection, softly touching his heart, as if he was inviting all listeners to join the red curtain and share the scenery together.

Song Qingshi's mother was an internationally renowned pianist. Because of her influence, music had become Song Qingshi's only hobby outside of school. In the last days of Song Qingshi's life, he had lost all body functions, but his consciousness was extremely clear.

His mother invested heavily in installing top-notch audio equipment in his room to play music everyday. She also asked top musicians in various fields to give him a small concert every day.

Music rescued him from the brink of despair and soothed his heart. During this special time, Song Qingshi was particularly sensitive to the emotions in music. He could hear the player's tenderness in the passionate piano music, and he could also find hidden encouragement in the sad and solemn guzheng music. . .

Now, he heard the familiar struggle and despair in the lingering and affectionate sound of the flute.

Song Qingshi finally raised his head, staring at the brilliant phoenix in a daze. He could no longer look away.

Jin FeiRen found out that Song Qing finally became interested in one of the beauties, and he was overjoyed: "Song Xianzun is interested in this slave? His name is Yue Wuhuan, naturally charming, a rare wood single-spirit root. That means he's much more resistant when tossing him around in bed. The more you rough him up, the more unhinged he comes. Those who have tried it have never failed to boast about it. Do you want to taste him first?"

Song Qingshi's ears were reddened by his explicit recommendation. He quickly turned his eyes away, and said dumbly: "No need."

"Medicine Master Xianzun is clean and does not engage in those activities. If you don't love these things, don't force him, friend." LingBao Xianzun came over, pointing to Yue Wuhuan and exclaimed, "If I remember, was this the best product sold by Xie Que? This immortal world is still the best place for him to raise beautiful people; one is more tasteful than the last. Alas, I have a friend who is his good friend, and all kinds of better goods will be sold to you first."

Jin FeiRen waved his hand and said, "You flatter me. What he really has a good relationship with are thirty hu of mermaid pearls."

LingBao Xianzun laughed: "If all friendships in the world could be created with money, my friend would be surrounded by the most affectionate people in the world. Come, come, let me have three cups with my friend and celebrate the wind and moon together.

Jin FeiRen also laughed, and ordered the young man in his arms to fill a glass of wine and drink with LingBao Xianzun.

LingBao Xianzun had already drunk a lot. He was slightly drunk. He leaned against the table and listened to the flute. He exclaimed: "I remember that when this beauty first entered this place, he was reluctant to accompany guests, even under the control of Acacia Seal. It was very interesting to see, but now he has become so promiscuous, and his flavour has changed. You have great methods, my friend."

Jin FeiRen shook his head: "It's a pity that this beauty doesn't cry no matter how rough you toss him around. He was born without tears, and because of that, some of his appeal has been lost."

Song Qingshi heard the professional question and couldn't help answering: "Being born without tears may be a problem with the lacrimal secretion system."

Jin Fei was dumbfounded for a moment. He appreciated his friendship with Song Qingshi, but he couldn't keep up with his medical obsession. He had to laugh awkwardly and switch off the topic: "Don't look at this beauty's promiscuity deceive you. In the mortal world, he was also a noble and respectable prince. When he was eight years old, Xie Que found that he had excellent aptitude when he was looking for beauties in the mortal world, so he showed his supernatural powers and presented the emperor with a pill for prolonging life. The old emperor was so happy that he happily gave his son to the immortal leader. Xie Que is also an ingenious person. He will seriously accept mortals with spiritual roots as disciples, and coax them to trust him. Then he uses that trust to trick them to sign the spiritual contract of voluntary slavery. He then teaches them superficial techniques, and, when they appear to be at their peak, brands them with the Acacia Seal. He always gets them when the colour is at the best time for picking, and then sells them to the brothels to serve in their rooms.

Although everyone knew he was taking advantage of those loopholes, they all turned a blind eye and eventually accepted this method of slave trafficking."

The Yanshou Pill can only be taken once to extend someone's life to reach 100 years old.

Cultivators can live at least three hundred years so long as they build a good foundation base. They don't need this tasteless kind of thing at all. Most of them are bought for their mortal servants. The price is very cheap, only worth two low-grade spirit stones. Such huge profits have continued to promote the slave trade.

There is an endless stream of cultivators in the trade, but none of them are well-versed as Xie Que.

Song Qingshi was surprised to find in his memory that the original body had seen Xie Que before.

That spring, the original body was studying a new way to create pills behind closed doors. Xie Que came to seek medical treatment with a comatose child. The child was a mortal, about eleven or twelve years old, with a rare pure yang physique and a wood spiritual root. Moreover, when he reached the third rank, his talents were different, and he was even better than some of the wasted descendants of various immortal families. Xie Que said that it was his new apprentice who had recruited more than three years ago. When he went to the mountains to practice, he was bitten by a Devil Mask Snake. Devil Mask Snakes are not extremely poisonous, but they will turn the faces of the poisoned person different colours, just like they were wearing a mask.

The original body typically didn't treat mortals, but Xie cried out in tears, saying that this was his most important apprentice, and he was willing to pay a high price to save him. The original body was in a good mood at the time, and was annoyed by his repeated crying. The Devil Mask Snake poison was also easy to detoxify. He finally relented and ordered a servant to give him two detoxification pills and ordered Xie Que not to cry again.

Xie Que stayed beside the apprentice’s bed and took care of him for three days. The apprentice woke up from a coma, his body no longer in a serious condition, but it took time for the ghost marks on his face to disappear. They stayed in the valley for half a month, and waited until his apprentice's face fully recovered.

During that time, the peach blossoms in the medicine garden bloomed just right, like red brocade all over the sky. When the original body encounters a problem with his alchemy, he often sits in a high place and looks at the peach blossoms and thinks. Every time, the original body would see a small figure under the peach blossom practicing swordsmanship. He practiced in the morning, at noon, and at night, as if it had become a landscape of symbiosis with the peach blossoms.

Mortals trying to cultivate immortality are like a fish leaping over a dragon's gate. The path comes with many difficulties and dangers, and there are few successful ones.

Xie Que was always by his side, with a worried expression on his face. He was either afraid that he would drop his sword or that he would become exhausted. The two quarreled several times. On a whim, the original's body and mind let out a spiritual thought to investigate. He heard the child say to Xie Que: "Master, although mortals are not as good as immortals, my father taught me to reward my diligence, and diligence can make up for my weaknesses. So I have to work harder and never waste time."

"What you said makes sense," Xie Que tried to persuade him with a bitter face. "Your injury has not healed. I'm afraid you might hurt your body. And. . . why do you have to practice sword? Entertaining cultivation, wouldn’t it be better for you to learn some flute, piano or something?"

"Master taught me to use music to cultivate Taoism is very good," the child scratched his head embarrassedly. "But I like swords, I want to be like Mo Yuan Jianzun. Master, rest assured, I know all the songs you taught me. I practiced better than my senior brothers and sisters, and I definitely don't put off practice."

Xie Que had no choice but to say: "I will find you the right ice silk gloves later. You must wear them when you practice swords. You must soak your hands with lotion at night to make your hands soft. This will prevent calluses, so you won't miss the subsequent practice."

The child cheered, excitedly: "Master, you are so kind."

"Don't get hurt," Xie Que lightly knocked on his forehead and complained. "You naughty devil. Your master is terrified. From now on, stay in the sects when you practice, and you are not allowed to go to the back mountains. Take breaks as well to avoid ruining your eyes."

The child accepted all these conditions.

Xie Que leaned over, rubbed his head gently, and sighed: "You don't know how much Master values you. . ."

"I know." The child raised his head and said in a serious voice: "I know that the immortal world looks down on mortals that cultivate immortality, and even looks down on the master who only accepts mortals as disciples. I don't want to shame my master, so I must cultivate a Golden Core to prove to everyone that Master’s vision is right!"

Xie Que looked at his face silently, his eyes distant and difficult to distinguish.

The child pulled Xie Que's sleeves, turned his eyes, and said embarrassedly: "Wuhuan likes Master the most!"

Xie Que stretched out his fingertips, stroked the child's colorful face, looked carefully, and finally stopped reluctantly on the small red mole under his left eye, which was dazzlingly beautiful. He was silent for a long time, showing a very kind smile: "Master also likes you the most."

. . .

[candyradium]

Finally got around to typing up my Technoblade D&D build!!! I’ve been working on making these for a lot of the Dream SMP characters, and I thought it would be fun to have him in stat block format, so you too can throw c!Technoblade at your players as a final boss! (Disclaimer: I don’t know how accurate the CR level is, I just set it to 8 since the build is a lv8 build PC build.)

Image description and explanation/rambling below the cut!

[Image ID: A D&D stat block for Technoblade. It reads:

Technoblade

Medium humanoid (firbolg), Lawful Neutral

Armor Class: 18 (Half plate, defense fighting style)

Hit Points: 72 (8d12+24)

Speed: 40 ft.

STR: 18 (+4)

DEX: 14 (+2)

CON: 16 (+3)

INT: 14 (+2)

WIS: 13 (+1)

CHA: 6 (-2)

Saving Throws: Str +7, Con +6

Skills: Athletics +7, Intimidation +1, Perception +4, Survival +4

Damage Resistances: bludgeoning, piercing, slashing

Senses: passive Perception 14

Languages: Common, Elvish, Giant, Goblin

Challenge: 8 (3,900 XP)

Innate spellcasting. Technoblade's innate spellcasting ability is Wisdom (spell save DC 12). He can innately cast the following spells, requiring no material components:

1/short rest each: detect magic, disguise self

Speech of beast and leaf. Technoblade has the ability to communicate in a limited manner with beasts and plants. They can understand the meaning of his words, though he has no special ability to understand them in return. He has advantage on all Charisma checks he makes to influence them.

Powerful build. Technoblade counts as one size larger when determining his carrying capacity and the weight he can push, drag, or lift.

Unarmoured defense. When not wearing any armour, Technoblade's defense equals 15. He can use a shield and still gain this benefit.

Reckless. At the start of his turn, Technoblade can gain advantage on all melee weapon attack rolls he makes during that turn, but attack rolls against him have advantage until the start of his next turn.

Great weapon master. When Technoblade scores a critical hit with a melee weapon or reduces a creature to 0 hit points with one, he can make one melee weapon attack as a bonus action. Additionally, before Technoblade makes a melee weapon attack with a heavy weapon that he is proficient with, he can choose to take a -5 penalty to the attack roll. If the attack hits, he adds +10 to the attack's damage.

Warrior of the Gods. If a spell, such as Raise Dead, has the sole effect of restoring Technoblade to life (but not undeath), the caster doesn't need material components to cast the spell on Technoblade.

Divine fury. While Technoblade is raging, the first creature he hits on each of his turns with a weapon attack takes extra necrotic damage equal to 1d6 + 3.

Action surge (1/rest). Technoblade takes one additional action on his turn.

Combat superiority (4/rest). Technoblade can apply the following maneuvers using his four superiority die (d8s):

Feinting attack: Technoblade expends one superiority die and uses a bonus action on his turn to feint, choosing one creature within 5 feet of his as his target. He has advantage on his next attack roll against that creature before the end of his turn. If that attack hits, add the superiority die to the attack's damage roll.

Menacing attack: When Technoblade hits a creature with a weapon attack, he can expend one superiority die to attempt to frighten the target. He adds the superiority die to the attack's damage roll, and the target must make a Wisdom saving throw. On a failed save, it is frightened of him until the end of his next turn.

Trip attack: When Technoblade hits a creature with a weapon attack, he can expend one superiority die to attempt to knock the target down. He adds the superiority die to the attack's damage roll, and if the target is Large or smaller, it must make a Strength saving throw (DC 15). On a failed save, he knocks the target prone.ActionsHidden step (1/rest).

As a bonus action, Technoblade can magically turn invisible until the start of his next turn or until he attacks, makes a damage roll, or forces someone to make a saving throw.

Greatsword. Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 11 (2d6 + 4) slashing damage.

Heavy Crossbow. Ranged Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, range 100/400 ft., one target. Hit: 7 (1d10 + 2) piercing damage.

Multiattack. Technoblade can make 2 weapon attacks.

Rage (4/day). As a bonus action, Technoblade enters a rage that lasts for 1 minute, ending early if knocked unconscious or if Technoblade's turn ends and he hasn't attacked a hostile creature since his last turn or taken damage since then. He can also end his rage on his turn as a bonus action. While raging, Technoblade deals +2 damage, has advantage on Strength checks and Strength saving throws, and has resistance to bludgeoning, piercing and slashing damage. Technoblade cannot cast spells during a rage.

End ID.]

Okay. Rambling time.

Holy SHIT I loved making this. I tend to play spellcasters or dex based characters, so it was a lot of fun to make a str character for once.

Stats first. As a barbarian/fighter and also as a force of nature, str is his highest stat. I could have made it 20, but I have a weird aversion to writing up characters with maxed out stats for some reason? Anyway, that’s what he has. He can always boost it if he takes another level in fighter. I also decided to give him pretty high intelligence and wisdom, which are rare in barbarian characters, since, y’know, their main point is to hit things very hard. But Techno is so, SO resourceful, and one of the main reasons that he’s so good at fighting is because he does his research and acquires the best items for it and puts himself in the right place at the right time. Hence the high-ish int. I feel a little bad making his charisma so low, but cha represents several things, most notably the ability to talk to people and force of personality. Also known as: how hard it is to be swayed or controlled, magically or otherwise. Remember what happened at the festival? That’s low charisma. Also I had to give him a low stat to balance the fact that he’s insanely good at so many fucking things. Why.

As a side note, when picking his proficiencies, I was using the homebrew rule that you can use your strength modifier when you roll for intimidation. So his Strength (Intimidation) check would actually have a +7, which is MUCH better than the Charisma (Intimidation) check of +1. Big strong characters are absolutely scary, damnit, and I will die on that hill.

Next up: race. I HAD to make him a firbolg. They’re connected with nature and are often portrayed with animalistic features (e.g. Caduceus Clay from Critical Role), and it means we can have both pig Techno and anime Techno, since firbolgs naturally have the disguise self spell. I just think that’s neat. They also get the ability to turn invisible! Which Techno has been doing a LOT recently! Sure, firbolgs can only do it for a turn, but it still fits.

Onto classes. Barbarian was a dead certain for Techno, honestly - his battle prowess, how he acts when he fights, it just fits so well. Even his use of potions - he gets a lot of buffs from them, increased damage and damage resistance being the two most notable and the two that best translate to D&D rage. Even speed potions - barbarians get +10ft movement speed at level 5. And barbarians are made for two-handed weapons, so obviously I HAD to give him a greatsword. The Orphan Obliterator is a deadly weapon. He also still favours swords even when axes are better in the newest version, so a greatsword was a must. Also I just really like greatswords.

I wavered a bit when picking a subclass, to be honest. I’m not really a big fan of any of the official subclasses (they don’t really fir my playstyle, which is why I homebrewed an entire new subclass for my barbarian character, but that’s a post for another day), but looking through, there were a few that could work. Originally, I picked Juggernaut - this was because of how he fought during the Dream battle, moving Dream around the arena into a more advantageous position for Techno, which is the Juggernaut’s 3rd level ability in a nutshell. They also can’t be knocked prone, and both of these things work INCREDIBLY well for skywars/bedwars style combat - staying put on this island and knocking off your opponents.

However, in the end, I decided to go with Zealot. It was inevitable after he REALLY started building his character on the Dream SMP, which is what this is mostly based on. Zealots have two main points: they follow a God, and it’s very, VERY hard to kill them.

Sound familiar?

Techno isn’t just a barbarian - he also has three levels of Battlemaster fighter. The barbarian/fighter combo is one of the best there is for sheer combat power (bested only, in my opinion, by barbarian/moon druid - those characters are actually unkillable) and the choice of Battlemaster specifically opened up so many options in combat. I had debated going with champion, just for the crit probability boost, but ultimately decided that Battlemaster was infinitely more fun. The three maneuvers were picked for a combination of reasons - they’re all incredibly useful in combat, but I also just thought they were thematically accurate and/or funny. I just had to give him Menacing Attack, because one of the few constants in Technoblade’s combat is people running the hell away from him during competitions. Feinting is for pure combat ability, and Trip is just. Really funny to me. It worked better when he was Juggernaut and literally couldn’t be knocked prone, but I just like the idea of someone using their full action to try and knock over this eight foot tall firbolg (they’re so fucking tall! This bitch is massive!) Technoblade just. Looking down at them before knocking them clean off of their feet with one swing of his Greatsword.

And finally, weapons and magical items. The magic ones didn’t actually make it onto the stat block, because I wanted it to be purely basic character building, but I absolutely had some ideas. Some of these were rolled on loot tables, some were completely homebrewed to fit Techno’s canon weapons. Guess which ones lmao.

magical heavy crossbow (use charge to fire 3 bolts simultaneously, using only one arrow, rolling an attack for each. Each target must be within 10ft of each other. 7 charges per day)

explosive bolts (10ft radius, double dice of the weapon it’s fired from, dex save)

mithral half-plate

ring of feather falling

trident of flight (attunement) (30ft swim and flight speed, 120ft flight speed when its raining)

upgraded cape of the mountebank (8 charges, 2 for misty step, 4 for dimension door) (yes it looks like his normal cape)

bag of holding

sword of life-stealing (attunement) (I don’t know why I added this except Techno’s canon sword would be VERY hard to homebrew and also he can do enough damage with a normal one so he could literally just have like a +2 or something. Do what you want)

[hasegawasosise]

In Numbers We Trust

Summary:

Prompt master: @outoftheframework

I like the concept of each of the kids having a number or having a thing where they count off. Not in a demeaning or dehumanizing way at all, just more so to use in dangerous situations. For example, a bomb goes off on patrol, and to quickly see if everyone is okay, the kids (including Steph and Babs) automatically start counting one at a time. Bruce can breathe again once the count reaches eight. This tradition begins to carry over to civilian life when the kids yell numbers across a crowded gala after the power goes out.

Beta Agenthandler

Bruce never planned on starting a family. He made a vow to live for justice. He would be the force Gotham needed. He would be the forever bachelor. Justice was his Lady Love.

But 90% of life’s plan was just that—a plan. Bruce would never have guessed he'd end up taking in a boy who called himself Dick Grayson. Technically his ward, but Bruce suffered a mid-life crisis every day from thereon, wondering whether it was the right choice for him to adopt a kid—or why anyone sane would let Bruce Wayne adopt any kid in the first place. It was a testament to Dick’s own awesomeness that he grew up to be a mostly functional adult—Bruce definitely wasn’t.

After Dick, he recruited an amazing girl named Barbara Gordon as another sidekick. She was not officially his adopted daughter, but by day two of working together Bruce registered her in his little hind brain as “my kid.”

Then another. Jason Todd not only stole the Batmobile’s tires but also Batman’s heart. The little boy taught Bruce more about street-smarts and how to be a better person right until his death. His realized depth of parental love made him wonder why he ever adopted anyone in the first place—and ended up losing them that way.

After what he thought was the last, another one came into his life without invitation. Timothy Drake was a genius detective. Out of his first four—yes, Bruce could still count—Tim was the most similar to Bruce. They had the same kind of upbringing amidst the Gotham Elite, they were both highly focused and detail oriented individuals. Tim was even smarter than Bruce, and he was the sole reason Bruce could continue functioning after Jason’s death. Tim was also the only one to believe he was still alive and brought Bruce back from when he was lost in time.

After Time was Stephanie Brown. A cheerful ray of sunshine that had her own worries, but could function the best out of all his children. She had the kind of light sarcastic humor to brighten up Bruce’s darker days. He gained a third daughter, Cassandra Cain, the most accomplished amongst his children in terms of stealth and combat, also his one darling princess.

Then Bruce was introduced to his—one and only—blood son, a little baby assassin who had the unfortunate tendency to stab first ask later. By this time, Bruce had a better handle on raising children highly susceptible to raising hell and violence (read: still an incompetent parent, but he knew how to tune out their nagging) and had no choice but to assign Dick  with Damian’s education on humanities and socialization.

He also had Helena, Terry, Matt, Duke, and Harper.

Bruce lost count.

It was the ultimate testament to Bruce’s parenting skill. He sometimes couldn’t remember how many kids he had. He could lose them in a Walmart and forget he was missing one. But thankfully, he had a secret weapon.

Since Jason, he assigned them all numbers. Dick was one, Barbara was two, Jason three, Timothy four, Stephanie five, Cass six,  Damian seven—although he always said he was the first—Duke was eight, Harper nine, Terry ten, Matt eleven, and little Helena was twelve.

Imagine that. Bruce had twelve kids. What was his vow again? Lady Love Justice? Don’t know her.

It became sort of a tradition. When the kids entered the Wayne manor, each of them wrote their number on the info board down in the changing room. They were also listed on a desktop note of the BatComputer. It became a ritual in which the last child would add their newest sibling into the list, so they knew who the next number was supposed to be, and that next child would be who they were responsible for. Well, except Dick who accepted all of them as his baby chicks. The number also became a little part of their identity—each of them would put their numbers on everything they owned from their doors to their batarangs to the containers in the fridge.

Bruce, most importantly, used the numbering system to check in on them. It started when Penguin detonated a bank and his robins were scattered fighting all the hundred thugs Penguin hired to keep Batman busy. The blast stopped the fight and Bruce’s heart dropped when he realized his coms were damaged and he immediately couldn’t keep sight of them. He immediately tried to think what he could do, and when he did,  he shouted at the top of his lungs.

“KID COUNT!”

“One!” Nightwing shouted from the top of the next building. Apparently he flew off the bank’s  roof when he realised it was going to burst.

Oracle was two but he knew she was safe in the clock tower.

“Three,” Red Hood drawled. Bruce wondered why he joined in, but was thankful nonetheless.

“Four,” Red Robin shouted from the opposite direction, because he was the sensible one who directed the civilians and police to safety.

“Five!” Spoiler laughed and flew to his side. “That was a doozy!”

“Six,” Black Bat said as she appeared beside Spoiler where they shared a hi-five.

“Seven,” Robin pulled out his swords from a thug’s leg. “Father, I need to clean my sword immediately.”

“No stabbing, please.” “Too late.” Bruce groaned.

“...Eight?” Signal. He was still new to the numbering system.

Batman let go a deep relieved sigh.

The police and civilians who were fortunate to witness the scene, collectively said ‘Oh’. It became a trending twitter before Tim deleted the topic as much as he could.

********

The counting continued though. Citizens who have lots of children (such as parents, teachers, sometimes even the Police teams), realised it was a quick method to ensure update of their progeny/students/teams condition. So they  The counting became sort of a Gotham Trend and eventually enlisted into Gotham’s Emergency SOP. Imagine that, having too many kids to count gave birth to a crucial disaster first-aid first responder procedure.

In all actually, maybe that was one of the top major contributions Batman has given to his city.

********

The kids themselves slowly embraced the importance and fun of the numbers. It created a sort of camaraderie-- even when the numbers didn’t correlate with their height. It used to be a nice isoquant curve when they stood side by side. But after Jason’s growth spurt and Tim naught growth spurt, Steph finding high heels and Cass love for Anti-flood Boots, the nice isoquant curve just became a jagged line not unlike a heartbeat rate.  

That aside, the numbering also slowly bled into their civilian lives:

1.

All of them counted before they entered the GothMart -- Alfred was there too, and suddenly Bruce became number 0. He was there to help Alfred because herding the kids was a massive job.

Dick was back for the weekend to spend time with his “babies” and refused to stay at home, because he wanted to sneak in his grocery list (gummy bears and cereals) into Bruce’s list so he could bring it back to Bludhaven and not spend a dime on it.  

Jason was there because Alfred asked him for help--he was the only one out of the brood with cooking talent and generally all responsible in the kitchen, i.e. Alfred could trust Jason to use his kitchen without blowing it up (shoutout to Tim and Duke who blew the kitchen for the fifth time this year).

Barbara stayed at home, watching over their base, but she was ready with her surveillance just in case they lost one of the broods.

Tim was half dragged, because he had spent the last 30 hours awake doing Bruce-knew-what, and only agreed to be dragged with the promise of sweet, abominable GothMart coffee with pink glitter (a cheap imitation of Starbucks, really) because Tim was fabulous especially after thirty hours of no sleep. And the surprisingly awesome coffee was a dollar--what kind of frugal millionaire didn’t appreciate a dollar of drinkable coffee?

Steph was the one who dragged Tim, with the help of Cass who just returned from Hong Kong for the weekend. Steph wanted to buy some new bras for Cass, something cool and sexy she could enjoy immensely. Bruce was not privy in this knowledge.

Damian was there to ensure his embarrassment of siblings didn’t kill themselves or humiliate the family. Wayne was his legacy afterall, and all of them reflected on his legacy, whether he liked it or not. Duke, the only one whom he could tolerate outside Cassandra (Grayson was mother) just poked his cheek and grinned. Duke might be tolerable, but it didn’t mean Damian didn’t want to stab him sometimes (Drake, on the other hand, looked like a nice pincushion to stab his sword into).

They counted 0 to 8 before they entered, orchestrated by Alfred.  

When they were ready for the checkout, 4, 5, and 6 were missing. Bruce finally found them at the children section, where Tim was busy defending his virginity from a Superboy Plushie, while Steph convulsed with laughter on the floor and Cass video-ed the entire thing.

Bruce refused to buy the cereals (Dick) / sexy lingerie (nope, nope, nope) / kitchen knife collection in black (Damian, as they didn’t need another stabby collection). But Bruce ended up buying the superboy plushie because it had been tainted (the store manager glared at him the whole check out time). At least Tim looked ashamed enough when he was handed the superboy plushie.

2.

The gala was in full swing, full of important people and not-so important moochies. Bruce was entertaining a group of usual donors (important and fun people!) while he saw Tim seriously discussing the stock exchange trends with several old, serious men. Dick was charming the usual group of ladies and young men, while Cass seemed to be hiding behind the potted plan.

Then, just like usual in Gotham, the lights went off. The room suddenly became dark and people started to scream.

“KID COUNT!” Bruce shouted. “Zero,” he added because of habit.

“One!” “Three!” “Four!” “Five and Six!” “Seven.” “Eight” “Nine.”

Wait, did he bring Harper with him? Harper was allergic to this kind of gala--and that was why he never fully adopted her into his Wayne name.

Oh well. The more number he got, the better.

Justice Lady love who?

[mousehole5000]

wow i made this draft on november 1st i really took a break from this huh anyway tgcf chapters 121 - 142

i realize now this coffin scene was inevitable. feel kinda weird about hua cheng  back and forth from Teen to Big Man but it is very funny that theyre having their “dude dont look at my boner” moment while in the jaws of a water dragon

pei ming: why didnt you guys make a bigger coffin so you didnt have to squish together like that? xie lian: haha yep!! anyways what brings you here?

“In the grand, spacious centre of the entrance hall sat a person. And this person, dressed in all black, its face snow-white—was a corpse! Instantly Xie Lian shut the doors soundly.” - king of minding his own business.

okay this is where i stopped putting notes here for a while but i did save some in my e-reader so here’s some of the highlights

“Guzi used to have a good sleeping form, but perhaps with his cheap dad’s bad influence, now he was also spread out on top of Qi Rong’s stomach like a dead fish. Lang Ying himself was curled neatly in the corner, and was covered by a few shirts. Xie Lian lifted the blanket covering Qi Rong, suppressed the urge to smother his face, and covered the two small children.” - xie lian funny moments. also it would be really funny if qi rong redeems himself by learning love through these misfit chiildren and it might actually endear me to him but i hope that doesnt happen

Every heavenly official was yelling, and even Ling Wen was throwing a fit. “DON’T THROW EVERY BIT OF USELESS INFORMATION MY WAY, HOW MUCH DO YOU THINK I HAVE TO GO THROUGH EVERY DAY? DON’T YOU ALL KNOW TO USE YOUR BRAINS A LITTLE BEFORE ASKING ME?!” - ling wen marry me right now

“An expression like “seen a ghost” that only mortals experienced was now showing on his face for the first time. Shi Wudu’s pupils shrank to the smallest they could, and he blurted, “You’re still alive?!” “I’m dead!” He Xuan said coldly.” - okay everythings going tits up rn but i did laugh

i did see spoilers re: ming yi/he xuan reveal + shi wudu’s fate beforehand so i dont have a genuine reaction other than oh shit

“He slowly enunciated each word. “I won’t touch your fate. But, here in this place, chop off your brother’s head for me.”  CLANG! He threw a rusty blade onto the ground. Shi Qingxuan stared at that blade, his eyes wide. He Xuan continued, “Then, never show yourself before me again, and I will pretend you’ve never existed in this world.” - okay idk what else is going to happen but rn im concerned that this is like the 2nd biggest ship. i guess we’ll see?? i mean i am really curious whats going to happen to them. shi qingxuan keeps calling he xuan “ming-xiong” and i... sad

shi wudu im not really invested in you as a character but these next two bits... interesting

“If I don’t die but have nothing, then that’s truly a fate worse than death. If I’m not the Water God, I can’t take care of you. I won’t even be able to protect myself. I’m scared that we won’t even last two days…TAKE IT!” - damn. something about the wealthy losing everything and not knowing how to live without it bc thats their entire life and identity

“EVERYTHING I HAVE TODAY, I FOUGHT FOR MYSELF. I WILL FIGHT FOR WHAT I DON’T HAVE. I WILL CHANGE FATE I DON’T POSSESS. MY FATE IS UP TO ME AND NOT THE HEAVENS!” - okay so the whole committing spiritual fraud by tormenting a man and his family to get your brother a cushy title thing aside this was kind of badass. heretical? possibly. but still. also is he intentionally riling up he xuan so sqx doesnt have to kill him? if so damn...

also okay as long as im here im just gonna say it. the choice that he xuan gives shi qingxuan is fucking brutal but i actually think its probably as fair as it could be. sqx didnt know about or participate in what happened to hx but they did benefit from it greatly while hx lost EVERYTHING and i can understand he xuan’s thinking of “if you really feel bad for what happened to me then you have to make a sacrifice and understand the suffering and this is as clean as its going to get” and theres a bit where sqx is trying to beg for mercy but cant get the words out which im guessing is bc theres no good argument!! what happened was fucked up!!

“When Pei Ming saw that reinforcements had arrived, he didn’t appear particularly delighted; instead he threw the sword into the ground, then rubbed his nose and said, sounding grim, “You all just had to come just as I finished making these, what the heck.” - pei ming making coffins chopping down trees with his sword i love it #wastehistime2k17

“Xie Lian brought that basket of eggs along, and gave them away as souvenirs from the mortal realm. Many who received the eggs were overjoyed; some deciding to eat it along with their own blood, and some proclaiming they would hatch an eight-foot monster.” - GHOST CITY GHOST CITY

“Placing the brush down, he blew lightly at the ink and smiled. “If I like something, then my heart will not have room for any other, and I’ll always treasure it. A thousand times, a million times, no matter how many years, this will not change. This poem is the same." - thats nice and all but king... get therapy. i actually have further thoughts but tbh i dont want to put them into words bc they are simply too personal! moving on

didnt take any notes but somewhere in here was the bit with mount tong’lu opening and hua cheng losing it and kind of um. hm. that scene. thats another trope i really hate tbh i dont care for it as a way of including physical intimacy between characters and idk if it really ever adds anything but whatever moving on

The Half-Maquillage Woman - kind of interesting monster idea bc women and aging…. yeah. however i think this would be a lot stronger if there were a) more girls and this was b) discussed or illustrated at all prior to this moment. still interesting that its included knowing the author is a woman tho and there’s been comments on how ling wen is perceived vs pei ming. this book does keep giving me hope for interesting female character arcs i really want it to deliver something

quan yizhen..... i get u

lmao i have a note on a bit with lang ying that says “please dont be hc in disguise” and..... my clown nose was on but at least i knew that. for real this is bothering me how much he’s just. always. there. i know he’s a lead but we didn’t really need him around for a lot of this. oh well.  okay now to my current notes

“Yet it was precisely because it wasn’t cooked that it had to be eaten quickly. Once Xie Lian cooked it, it wouldn’t be edible anymore” - fucking fantastic

“Xie Lian hugged his belly. “Of course! Only after having met you did I rediscover that it’s such a simple thing to be happy, hahaha…” Hearing this, Hua Cheng blinked. Xie Lian’s laughter quieted a bit, realizing what he just said was a little too revealing.” - okay i know i said what i said about being tired of hua cheng being everywhere but... the line…. the fact that theyre laughing together…. :pleading:

“It’s not,” Ling Wen said. “At least, I believe, there will definitely not be another in history who can create a dish called ‘Incorruptible Chastity Meatballs’” - and truer words were never spoken

“I, DO NOT WORSHIP GODS. “I, AM GOD!” - this was every bit as badass as i hoped but no one told me it was immediately followed up by a little bit of the ol dinner theater fjalkdsfjsd. also puqi shrine noooooooooo

“Xie Lian sighed as he thought, “Qi Rong has taken Guzi away, who knows if the poor child was eaten or abandoned. Wind Master...... ..... who knows if Black Water took him away. Pray they’re both safe.” yeah hey are we going to fucknig. find out what happened to the child???

and yeah i dooooont really care for the age regression? thing thats going on. i just dont like that trope tbh. but tiny hua cheng whipping out his fat ghost king wallet in the store was funny tho. it is really funny that hualian are just like wandering around some random towns while the heavens are in an uproar. i guess theres not much else to do but its funny

“Me too, me too. You all know of my shixiong, right? Talented, with an infinite future! He only had one small vice: he loved playing women. Decades ago, a little prostitute ghost seduced my shixiong and sucked him dry into human jerky, and that Hua, Hua, Hua, that ghost king dared shelter her.” - yes omg give me the forbidden hua cheng lore i love this for him for real it goes along nicely with xie lian’s principles about giving another cup. god i love shared values

“Hua Cheng poked again, and a small hole appeared on the wall, as if the wall was made of tofu.” - how’d he do that. why is this a ghost king power. its useful tho

*me shaking qi rong when he pops up* WHERE IS THE CHILD

mu qing fu yao is here okay im happy now. once again no one has a good grasp on their secret identity and i love that. this inn has descended into chaos and im delighted and im glad lan chang is back

“The good ol’ kitchen was suddenly squished and crowded, loud and noisy. Fu Yao was chasing that fetus spirit leaping up and down, Lan Chang was chasing after Fu Yao like she had gone mad. Half of Qi Rong’s face changed shape by the way Xie Lian was pressing him down on the chopping board, his back turning into a target for those yellow talismans Fu Yao hurled while being observed by a crowd, and Lan Chang would step on him from time to time.” - this is pure chaos. i love that mu qing was in that room when the mob checked and he didnt say a word didnt open the door just sent out a talisman as a warning. king your disguise is transparent

“Xie Lian remembered the way Feng Xin laughed until he was hoarse when he first heard that verbal password all those years back, and couldn’t help but feel nostalgic, even though it wasn’t the right time.” - awwwww omg im emotional about this... faithful friend feng xin laughing at xie lian’s stupid joke password and remembering it!!! ;_;

“They have, but they’re not effective,” Feng Xin said. “Usually they’re the most diligent in scorning the Palace of Ling Wen, like they could do the job way better if they had the position. Now that we need them to take up the task, not a single one can do even half of what she does.” - typical... typical typical typical

also emotional about the fact that feng xin contacted xie lian at all.....

also!! emotional about lan chang as a mom and wanting to help out sick lil guzi.....

xie lian forcing “fu yao” to let him help “his general” is making me.... what is friendship if not playing along with your buddies little shenanigans while also making them accept your help

“Someone like Mu Qing, even though he’s narrow-minded, petty, sensitive and skeptical, has a bad personality, constantly guessing, doesn’t say nice things, likes to nag, always offending people and has a lot of people who dislike him, has no friends, can remember small, unimportant details for a long period of time…” ”Xie Lian went on in one breath with a straight face, but in the end he concluded with, “...But I’ve known him since we were kids, after all, he’s still got principles.” - XIE LIAN PLEASE AFJDLKSFJDL omg ive seen this quote before but i figured he was talking to someone else not actually to mu qing himself fgjasdkfjsl. god thats amazing. hey im gonna help you out because i care but i will roast you first <3

waaaaaait so is lan chang aka jian lan that girl from book 2 we took a page to talk about and then disappeared? that has to be it why else would we have stopped to discuss her

“Jian Lan spat on his face, then choking his neck, she slapped him twice again. “WHAT SHITTY SUPREME! YOU SURE KNOW HOW TO BLOW YOURSELF UP! WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE, THINK YOU’RE EVEN WORTH TO BE THOUGHT OF AS EQUALS WITH THE OTHER THREE SUPREMES? WHAT ARE YOU EVEN GOOD AT? YOUR THICK SKIN? OF COURSE I DARE HIT YOU!” - oh this feels so good i cant lie. YES GET HIM!! CHOMPING AND VIOLENCE YES!!!!

okay this description of cuocuo.... im... that sure the hell is a creature

this book is so entertaining bc i already saw spoilers for the feng xin/jian lan/cuo cuo reveal and yet i could never have predicted the circumstances that brought it about. imagine being feng xin. the heavens are in an uproar and your only friend/enemy has been jailed for possible fetus spirit-related crimes but he escapes along with this female ghost who keeps causing problems. you figure “fuck it lets see if dianxia kept his old phone number” and he has but then he hangs up on you. you’ve got fuckall else to do so you go find him. mu qing is there but he’s in his disguise the two of you were using so you could watch over his highness while staying aloof. you think you see hua cheng only he’s a chiild for some goddamn reason but who knows at this point. the female ghost is also there and theres a fetus spirit climbing trees and biting your arrows in half. you realize the female ghost is your ex and the little demon is your son. it bites you. what do you do

amazing that despite everything going on everyone is still playing along with the “fu yao” persona when it would probably be easier to drop pretenses at this point. then again tbh if i could explain my actions to my friends while pretending to be a third party.... i probably would so.. carry on

“With all his devotees gone, only Feng Xin still treated him like the Flower-Crowned Martial God and His Highness the Crown Prince. ” “...his protection charms were all seen as trash. However, Feng Xin was still determined and tireless in handing them out; telling Xie Lian, look, you still have devotees.” “After all, he was the darling of the heavens since birth, high and mighty. Feng Xin so naturally spun around him like he was the world, so how could he possibly have his own life, his own heart” “Whether or not that fetus spirit was Feng Xin’s son, if it was that period of poverty that made Feng Xin lose the girl he loved, Xie Lian wouldn’t be able to forgive himself no matter what." ohhhh my god this relationship i. im...

oh my god i still have 30 more chapters until book 4............ its naptime now i think

[melancholicumsomnia]

The Redeemers (A Mandalorian Fanfic) Chapter 2

All warnings/pairings and other info to follow per chapter. For now, this is safe reading for everyone. Forgot to mention that this fic will most likely not follow established SW canon. I’m actually getting dizzy checking the timeline.

Tagging @pedrocentric. Hope you like this second chapter.

You can read Chapter One HERE.

                                                 * * * * * * * * * *

THE REDEEMERS

By

Rory

Chapter Two: The Broken

“Thank you for agreeing so quickly to meet with us, Dr. Pershing. I know the circumstances of our first meeting were quite…tense.”

“Well, I wouldn’t have agreed to meet with you again, no matter what the circumstances are. But since it’s about the Mandalorian here…”

Ahsoka – who stood quietly in a corner of the freighter’s med center – eyed the Imperial doctor whom Bo-Katan was addressing with suspicion. However, as Dr. Pershing hurried to take out an examination device from his bag, the Jedi saw how the doctor was very much at ease with his present company, belying his earlier statement. There were a couple of moments when he seemed to be on the verge of saying something to Bo, but then shook his head and decided that whatever concerns he had could come later.

When Bo-Katan told her that they would be calling Dr. Pershing to check on Din Djarin’s condition, Ahsoka was swift to offer her misgivings, being aware of the doctor’s reputation for cloning experimentation. But because of what they experienced on Mortis, the Jedi acquiesced on the condition that Din Djarin remain helmeted throughout Dr. Pershing’s examination.

Before the Imperial doctor arrived, they bathed the Mandalorian and trimmed his hair, mustache, and beard. They also dressed him in clean clothes, before laying him on the bed in the med center. Throughout this process, not once did the Mandalorian rouse from his insensate state. His right fist remained tightly clenched and they could not pry his fingers open.

True enough, Dr. Pershing’s eyebrows lifted at the sight of that helmet. To Ahsoka’s surprise though, the doctor just proceeded to perform a thorough examination of his patient.

After checking and crosschecking the findings on his device, Dr. Pershing asked, “May I take a blood sample? Don’t worry though. The results will be between just the three of us. I will delete whatever I find immediately afterwards.”

It was Ahsoka who gave her approval this time, causing Bo to give her a curious gaze. “Yes, you may. I’d like to see if your findings will confirm what I suspect.”

Dr. Pershing’s eyes grew wide at that remark, but opted not to say anything else. Bending down, he extracted the blood he needed from the Mandalorian’s bared arm and ran the diagnostics. As the data filled the small screen, the doctor could barely suppress his gasp. He looked at the two women, his mouth agape like a fish.

“His M-count…” Dr. Pershing blurted out, scratching his head. “How can this be? According to our records…my past encounters with him… He hasn’t demonstrated any Force powers at all!”

“What is his M-count, Doctor?” Ahsoka inquired.

“It’s in the same range as the Child’s. 20,000 plus. But, even if I hadn’t tested him before, I’m sure that he is not Force-sensitive.”

The Jedi let out a long, harsh exhalation. Seeing the questioning expression on Bo’s face, she told the doctor, “Dr. Pershing, if you’ll excuse us, I would like to speak with Bo-Katan in private.”

Hearing this, Dr. Pershing straightened up and stood firm. “If you please, I would like to join in your discussion.” To emphasize his position, he presented his device with the screen facing them. With a press on a button, the screen went black as all the data was erased. Seeing the wariness in their eyes, he reassured, “No, I haven’t transmitted any of the data to the Empire.” The doctor then quietly confessed, “The same way I deleted the facial scan records, the security feed, and blocked the transmission of the video that revealed the Mandalorian’s face from Morak.”  

“And you expect us to just take your word on that?” Bo said, incredulous.

“I don’t presume that you can trust me so readily. I know how much your people have suffered under the Empire.” Dr. Pershing looked at Ahsoka. “And also our constant battles with the Jedi. In my defense, I can only say that if you hadn’t trusted me, even just a little, after I helped you…willingly…in retrieving the Child from Moff Gideon, you wouldn’t have asked me to come here.”

The two women exchanged quick glances, with a small smile forming on Ahsoka’s lips. “Very well, Doctor. Besides, we may need your medical opinion on this matter.” Turning to Bo, she said, “Tell us what happened to the Mandalorian…from the beginning.”

Bo folded her arms over her chest. “Ten years ago, after we rescued the Child, I convinced Din Djarin to join the Nite Owls. In truth, he had no other choice. The Razor Crest was destroyed, so he couldn’t continue his life as a bounty hunter. Boba Fett and Fennec Shand had also wanted him to join them on Tatooine. In the end, Din chose to be with us. I suppose he wanted to learn more about the Mandalorians, having lived for most of his life with the Children of the Watch. I thought it best to give him further training in fight and battle techniques and teach him about the true history and culture of Mandalore.”

“And by ‘true’ Mandalorian culture, you mean the current pacifist views that were espoused by your sister, Satine,” Ahsoka noted. “You were once a member of Death Watch yourself. So you know that you cannot just rewrite the entire martial history of Mandalore.”

“No, just certain aspects of it.” One red eyebrow lifted as Bo glowered at the helmet that Din Djarin was wearing. “In particular, that little matter that he could not remove his helmet to show his face.”

“Why would you do this, Bo? Why would you go so far as to teach him all this?”

“Because this is knowledge that he needs to lead the Mandalorian people.” Bo heaved a heavy sigh. “Din Djarin is the current wielder of the Darksaber, which, as you know, makes him the rightful ruler of Mandalore.”

Seeing the surprised expression on the Jedi and doctor’s faces, Bo-Katan narrated the events that happened on Moff Gideon’s cruiser.

Continuing, Bo said, “In the two years that we were together, I had somehow cracked through some of those stubborn beliefs he held. I had…hoped…that I would bring him to Mandalore so that he could take the throne. Maybe reunite the clans and especially bring the Children of the Watch back into the fold.”

“But right from the start, he never wanted to be Mand’alor, did he? In the brief time that I’ve known him, I know that his sense of honor would not allow him to accept the Darksaber.”

Bo nodded. “True. He kept on insisting that the Darksaber belonged to me. He did not want to rule Mandalore. Unlike with Sabine, I cannot in due conscience accept it every time he offered it to me…not after the way I lost the Darksaber during the Great Purge. As per tradition, I would’ve had to fight him for the right to wield the sword, but it wouldn’t have been proper to do so back then. When he seemed so…lost…after he entrusted the Child to a Jedi.”

“Grogu found a Jedi?”

“Grogu… Is that the Child’s name?” Bo let out a wry laugh. “Yes, I guess that little kid had found a Jedi. It was the Jedi who saved us from the Darktroopers. We never learned his name though. I know Din missed the Child terribly and I told him that we could track that Jedi down, but he refused, always saying that Grogu was in safe hands and…”

“And…” Ahsoka gently prodded.

“He said that he could feel the Child, whatever that meant. That he was reassured that Grogu was alright. That he was safe at last.”

“It’s definitely because of the bond,” Dr. Pershing interjected. “When I first had the Child, I could already see that there was a strong attachment between them.”

“But after two years, something happened, am I right? Din Djarin told you that he wanted to leave, that he cannot be the king that you wanted him to be,” Ahsoka then put in. “He was so desperate to leave, but you refused every time. He still got away from you though. That was your Gauntlet I saw on Mortis. And when he was gone, he left behind the Darksaber.”

“I admit that I was happy at first that Din had forsaken the sword. At that time, the only people who knew that the Darksaber was back in our possession were Koska, Cara Dune, Fennec – who I am sure told Boba Fett about it, but the man could be trusted to keep a secret – and, of course, Moff Gideon. Axe would know about it later. For eight years, I bided my time, continued on our mission to gather weapons for our cause to reclaim Mandalore and…”

At that moment, Bo paused, realizing what she just said. “Eight years…”

It was Ahsoka’s turn to nod. “The way I see it, a very powerful Jedi Mind Trick had been placed on you. I’m pretty sure Din Djarin put it on you, although he was not consciously aware that he did so. The only reason why you started your search for him was because the Darksaber no longer allowed anyone to wield it, including you. The Darksaber brought you back to yourself because it wanted you to find its rightful wielder.”

“Yes. It’s weird. In all those eight years, I never saw the need to use it. I didn’t want it stolen again, so I kept it in deep storage. But then, rumors started to spread in Mandalore that the Darksaber had been found again. I don’t know where those rumors originated, but I suspected that the Empire was behind it. I was going to claim the sword as my own. After all, no one knew about Din Djarin. But…the Darksaber rejected me. I was with Axe at that time, so that’s how he knew. No one could pick it up without getting burned or hurt in the process.”

Dr. Pershing shook his head in confusion. “I don’t understand. I’ve seen Moff Gideon brandishing that sword about. I mean, it’s just a laser sword. How can it choose its wielder?”

“Lightsabers, the Darksaber included, are nothing more than weapons. Anyone can wield a Lightsaber, but it requires training and skill. I must admit that the Jedi’s expertise with the Lightsaber arises from the fact that we are able to complement its use with our Force powers,” Ahsoka explained. “But the way the Darksaber is behaving now, it’s clear to me that the Force is behind it. Unfortunately, the only way that I can see how the Darksaber works in relation to the Force is if and when Din Djarin awakens and chooses to use it.”

“I confess that there is very little that we Jedi know about the Force. I’m sure the same can be said for the Sith and the Empire,” the Jedi revealed ruefully. “That fact could not be more obvious than the situation we have here, right now.” She waved a hand to the Mandalorian lying on the bed. “I can say for certain though that the reason why Din Djarin left the Nite Owls and abandoned the Darksaber was because Grogu severed their bond.”

Bo and Dr. Pershing could not contain their horrified gasps.

Ignoring them, Ahsoka continued, “The severing overwhelmed Din Djarin. Even I felt just how raw the wounds in his mind and heart remained, even up to now. It made him distraught with worry and fear for Grogu, very powerful emotions that drew the Force to him. From this point on, this is all just pure conjecture on my part. I believe that the Force sensed these emotions, his intense need for Grogu that it summoned him to the one place where he could possibly find the Child – a place that is similar but more powerful than Tython, a place that could awaken the Force that lay dormant inside him.

“Mortis was the home of the Force-wielders. Obi-Wan Kenobi told me what the Force spirit of his former Master, Qui-Gon Jinn, revealed to him about Mortis – that it is a ‘conduit through which the entire Force of the universe flows’, that it is a ‘planet that is both an amplifier and a magnet.’ But Mortis is not just those two things.

“You may have heard rumors about the Sith Lord, Darth Vader, he who once was my Master Anakin Skywalker. It was said that Anakin did not have a father, that he was conceived through the Emperor’s manipulation of the midi-chlorians in his mother’s body. But I believe that Ani was created by the Force itself to restore balance in the galaxy. Seeing the…changes…in Din Djarin, I believe that he was…gestated…in the raw power of the Force on Mortis, transformed into a being with immense Force potential so that both the Light and the Dark Sides continue to battle for domination over him.”

Ahsoka could not contain her shudder. “I dread what would happen if the Dark Side wins.”

For a moment, a heavy, fearful silence fell among them, as they mulled over the Jedi’s troubling words. The quiet was shattered, however, by a soft, pained voice coming from the bed, uttering a single name, “Cara…”

Suddenly, the Mandalorian’s body jerked upward, forming a stiff arch. As he plopped back down on the bed, he started twisting and writhing, muffled screams coming from his helmet.

“HOLD HIM DOWN!” Dr. Pershing cried as he hurried to the bedside. Hearing the harsh, rasping breaths, he pulled off the helmet, revealing Din Djarin’s tear-filled, agonized face.

As the two women kept the Mandalorian from thrashing about, the doctor rummaged inside his bag for a syringe and immediately filled it up with fluid from a vial. Before he could plunge the needle into a swollen vein, Din Djarin’s body made one last upward surge and he fell back onto the mattress. His right hand dropped limp to the side, his fingers opening so that a gleaming silver ball fell and rolled on the floor.

Dr. Pershing quickly ran his examination device over the Mandalorian. “HE’S NOT BREATHING!” Without hesitation, he proceeded to apply chest compressions. Bo-Katan went to his aid, tilting Din Djarin’s head back and blowing precious air into his mouth. The passing seconds seemed like an eternity, and they feared that they wouldn’t be able to revive the Mandalorian.

Then, the door to the med center opened and Axe Woves entered, bearing the crystalline case containing the Darksaber. Opening it, he seized the pulsating sword inside. In an instant, a burning smell filled the room. But Woves didn’t let go. Instead, he laid the Darksaber over Din Djarin’s chest. As soon as contact was made, the crackling energy of the blade branched out, spreading all over the Mandalorian’s body so that he seemed to be enveloped in a bright, jagged net. The net pulsed and throbbed for a minute before dissipating. To their astonishment, they saw that Din Djarin was breathing again.

Seeing the questioning expression on Bo-Katan’s face, Woves explained his unexpected entrance, “The Darksaber started pulsing like crazy. I figured something might be wrong, so I decided to bring it along for you to see. I never thought it was reacting that way because of Din. Is he okay?”

Dr. Pershing again examined his patient. At the same time, Ahsoka went toward the still figure and laid her palm over his brow, a deep frown wrinkling her own forehead.

“Yes, he’s fine…for now,” Dr. Pershing confirmed. “But I…”

The doctor was interrupted by Koska, who barged breathless into the med center. “Something terrible’s happened! I intercepted a transmission from the prison ship that was supposed to transport Moff Gideon to Oovo IV. The ship was ambushed by an unknown spacecraft. Before the transmission died, the pilot said that Gideon and a Morgan Elsbeth were retrieved from the prison transport. He also said that…”

It was the Jedi who finished her sentence for her as she drew away from the Mandalorian with deep sorrow. “Marshal Cara Dune has died. The moment that Din Djarin went into seizures, he felt her die.”

Bo-Katan was stunned by this news. In the brief time that she knew Cara Dune, she had been impressed with the Marshal’s bravery and loyalty to Din Djarin.

Dr. Pershing gazed at the Mandalorian before him and made up his mind instantly. “That settles it. I would like to join you…if you’ll have me.”

Everyone in the room stared at him. But the doctor said, “I’ve long been thinking about leaving the Empire, especially after the things that they made me do to the Child and…and…” Dr. Pershing found that he could not continue. The thought of the experiments he had done filled him with shame. Instead, he said, “I always made the excuse that it was for science, but my conscience knew that what I was doing was wrong.” He turned earnest eyes to the people before him. “Please. Allow me to help the Child’s father. Din Djarin has spared my life on two occasions. I owe him and the Child this. Also…I’m afraid that he’s dying. If you know where…Grogu…is, I believe it is only he who can heal the Mandalorian.”

Bo thought for a long while. When she lifted her head, determination was set on her features. Turning her gaze to Ahsoka, she said, “I think we should pay a visit to our old friend on Endor. I’m sure she can help us locate that mysterious Jedi.”

Ahsoka smiled at the memory of the kind, valiant Twi’lek general who was both comrade and friend. “I agree. It’s been a long time since we last saw Hera. A reunion is definitely forthcoming.”

The Jedi bent down and picked up the silver ball which was once the Child’s favorite toy. “And as soon as we find Grogu, I’d like to hear his explanation on why he hurt his father this way.”

 TO BE CONTINUED

[alexhogh7137]

Rule The World with Me-

Ivar the Boneless × Reader

Chapter Twenty-Eight is here...

Chapter Twenty-Nine: Open Wounds

Word Count 1,580

Warnings: Angst, Mentions of blood, death

_____________________________________

Three days later…

Trovi and Ubbe have gone back home to Kattegat. It was a short visit but so needed! Ragnar got to spend time with his uncle's and you of course. Messiah was so good around him which made you feel so certain that he will love your child. You are in the woods with Messiah, just taking a stroll through the trees.

Enjoying the nice, warm day. Messiah stops when you stop, he sometimes even leads. When you get back, Ivar and Hvitserk are waiting for you like they always do.

Ivar "How was the walk, beautiful?" Messiah runs to him and Hvitserk.

"It was good, my feet hurt though."

Hvitserk "You were gone for a bit, why don't you go lay down."

"Okay, good idea. Come on boy!" You take Messiah with you to your chambers and undress to get into bed.

…

You wake up to your bathroom door shutting. You rolled over and Messiah wasn't in the room so you turned your body to see who shut the bathroom door. 

Thora "Hello princess." Your first instinct was to grab the dagger that you keep under your covers. "Looking for this?" She was holding your dagger in her hands. What were you going to do? If you scream, she'll slit your throat to keep you silent. 

"How did you get in here without my husband seeing you?"

Thora "Your guards are pathetic really, walked right past them! Snuck in through your window that you always keep open." You look at the window closest to your bed and low and behold, it was open. 

"What do you want from me, Thora? Why are you here?"

Thora "You took my man away from me-"

"NO I DIDN'T, HE'S-" 

Thora "BE QUIET!" She places the dagger to your throat. "GET….UP!" You get out of bed, you can hear Messiah in the bathroom trying to dig his way out. 

"Please...please don't hurt me."

Thora "Oh sweetheart, I'm not going to hurt you!" She puts the dagger to your very pregnant belly, "I'm gonna kill your miracle child...the one that Hvitserk is obsessed over. Once your child is gone, he will have every reason to come back to me." You try to pull the dagger away from your belly, only to get your hand cut. You wince out in pain fairly loudly. 

Hvitserk "Y/N?!" Thora pulls you so that she is behind you, holding the dagger to your throat. One wrong move, it'll be slit. Hvitserk opens the door.

Hvitserk screams and lunges at you and Thora, "GET OFF OF HER!" 

Thora dug the dagger deeper into your skin, drawing blood, "Uh uh uhh!! You come towards me and I'll kill her." Hvitserk is growling at this point, hand gripping his sword tighter and tighter. 

"Hvitserk, look at me." He looks down at you, "Tell Ivar I love him." Ivar comes into the room and immediately draws his ax.

Ivar "I should've burned you alive when I had the chance." 

Thora "Yeah...you probably should have!" 

Hvitserk "Thora...you don't have to do this!"

Thora "No!! You left me no other choice Hvitserk! You made it perfectly clear that you love this baby more than me!" You look at Ivar, wait for him to make eye contact with you. 

You whisper, "Do it..she's about to do it, do it.." He gripped his dagger tighter and tighter and started to aim.

Thora "She DESERVES THIS! SHE DOESN'T DESERVE TO HAVE YOU MORE THAN ME! THIS CHILD...DOESN'T DESERVE YOU MORE THAN ME, WE ARE SUPPOSED TO BE HUSBAND AND WIFE BY NOW! But you chose her and the child over me...and now she has to die." 

Hvitserk "NO!" he lunges towards you when Ivar throws his dagger into Thora's eye but she slits your throat before it pierced her. You fall to the floor, along with Thora. You grab your throat and Ivar runs to you as well as Hvitserk. 

Hvitserk "No no no no!" 

Ivar "Let go of your throat baby, let go let me see." You do as he said and he sees a clean cut across your throat. 

"MY QUEEN! What happened!?"

Ivar "That...BITCH slit her throat before I could throw-" 

Ivar "It's not deep, GO GET THE MEDICAL!" Ivar grabs your hand and sees that you have a deep cut from grabbing the dagger in defense, he places a kiss to it, then brings it to his chest.

Hvitserk runs out the door, almost tripping. "Hang in there, princess. Hold on, please..don't leave me." You slowly start to close your eyes,

"No..No keep your eyes open babe! Stay with me, HVITSERK!!!" He comes running in with the medics.

"Okay...Y/n...can you hear me?" You shake your head yes, "Okay...it's not deep, it didn't cut an artery. Y/n...can breathe? Can you get enough air?" You shake your head yes.

"It- hurts!" 

"Okay, Hvitserk and Ivar...you need to leave!"

Ivar "Are you crazy?! This is my wife!! I am not leaving her!"

Hvitserk "I..I'll get Messiah!" He grabbed Messiah from the bathroom. Messiah sees you on the floor and starts to whimper. Hvitserk has to pick him up because he was trying so hard to get to you. "Come on boy!" You see that Hvitserk is crying, trying so hard to be strong for you.

Ivar "Hang in there, baby. We're gonna get you fixed up."

_____________________________________

You are in bed now. Ivar's hands are covered in blood as are yours. He is holding your hand hard and rough. 

Ivar "I-I'm sorry I didn't throw it sooner I-"

"Don't do that to yourself."

Ivar "Y/n, if it was deeper, you'd be dead right now."

"I know this, my love but I'm not. I am right here. Our son is alive and so am I." Messiah has rejoined you and his head is now on your belly. You rub his head to make him feel better. 

Hvitserk walks into the room after a few minutes, "How is she?"

"I'm fine."

Hvitserk "I didn't know if you were awake…" While the medical maiden's cleaned your wound and bandaged it, you passed out from the pain.

"I'm still here."

Hvitserk "By the grace of the gods!"

Ivar "The gods were not ready for you in Valhalla."

"I'm not ready either. But that was very close.."

Hvitserk "I should've...I should've been there...been in here I mean."

"You couldn't have known."

Hvitserk "I heard Messiah…" Ivar looks away from you to look at Hvitserk.

Ivar "You...YOU WHAT!?" 

Hvitserk "I-I heard Messiah whimpering...I thought that he was just hungry."

Ivar "So you heard the signs and you decided to ignore it? Is that what you are telling me, brother...HUH?!"

Hvitserk "I didn't know...I swear."

"Well she's dead now. No more worrying. Ivar, don't be mad at him..this isn't his fault."

Ivar "fine...don't talk anymore angel. Get some rest, yes?"

"Yes. I am fine, I promise."

Ivar "I love you."

"I love you too Ivar." 

….

Once Ivar and Hvitserk left the room, Ivar threw Hvitserk up against the wall and held the collar of his shirt.

Ivar "You want to explain yourself? Hmm? Did you let her in? Huh?!"

Hvitserk "No! No of course not! I love Y/n! I would have never allowed this to happen!"

Ivar "How do I know that you aren't lying to me, hmm? She was your beloved wasn't she?"

Hvitserk "Yes but I hated that woman after she threatened her! I was never going to go back to her, Ivar!" Ivar let's go of his collar and walks away from his brother. He sits down at the dining area and starts to cry. He held his head in his hands and just let all of his emotions out.

Ivar "Do you even know how close that was Hvitserk?! They said not even an inch deeper and she would be dead. Not even an inch!"

Hvitserk "No...they didn't tell me."

Ivar "I almost lost everything that I had, Hvitserk. I almost lost my wife and child. Two blessings that I thought that I would never receive! That almost got stripped away from me in seconds!"

Hvitserk "It didn't brother. Don't think about the what-if's and focus on the positives. Y/n is fine, she will heal. Your child is perfectly fine and healthy." Ivar simply looks at him and then takes a deep breath. He can't kill Hvitserk, if he does then he will just lose another brother. Hvitserk didn't know Thora was here, he couldn't have known. He has been with Ivar all day, no way he could have let her in. 

…

You stand up for the first time in five hours. You walk over to the mirror to see the severity of your injury. The bandage was already filling up with blood. The sight of it made you woozy so you sat back down on your bed. You look down at your hand, that was also bandaged. Messiah looks up at you and licks your cheek.

"Good boy." You kiss his fur and then head for the door.

Ivar "Baby? What are you doing, you should be in bed?"

"I got bored." Hvitserk chuckled.

Hvitserk "That's Y/n alright!"

"Yeah, I'm good. Kiss?" 

Ivar walks up to you and places a kiss to your lips. 

Ivar "I love you, my little warrior."

_____________________________________

@hvitserkmarcosource @youbloodymadgenius @ivarthebloodyking @ivarthebonelessvk @ivar-andersen @ivarthebonelesspage

[onceabluemoonwrites]

Cursed Kiss - Chapter 2: The Cursed Tale of Princess Kuromu

Title: Cursed Kiss Chapter 2: The Cursed Tale of Princess Kuromu

Author: OnceABlueMoon

Rating: T

Pairing: Bianchi/Chrome Dokuro

Tags/Warnings: There is some violence

Prompt:  Rain day: Roleswap for @khrrarepairweek

Summary: The tale of Kuromu Dokuro is an old one, perhaps preceding even the existence of the monster hunters. To think the woman in the tale- the monster she became- is here, in front of her? Bianchi shudders to think of it.

Still, she has no choice. Her grip tightens on the knife in her hand, but before she can start to make her move, Kuromu- Chrome?- raises her hand, shaking her head. ‘’No need to fight your way out, darling, if you want to buy your brother’s freedom. All you need to do is take the geas on in his place.’’

~~

Monster hunter Bianchi bargains her freedom for her brother’s and has to stay in the vampire Chrome’s castle. But the horrors within are not the shadows that whisper and follow Bianchi wherever she goes- no, to the contrary, the horrors are inside the mind of her captor.

The roleswap pertaining Romeo was certainly interesting to do!

AO3 link

Chapter 2: The Cursed Tale of Princess Kuromu

When Hayato was little, Bianchi would tell him all sorts of tales. Romantic fairy tales, wise fables, cautionary tales. The likes, as all children get them if they have anyone to tell them any story at all. The one story she never told him, though, was the tale of Kuromu Dokuro. Mostly because she herself disliked the tale so much,  because it's themes were rather misogynistic, but also because it was steeped in the truth, and the very horror of it was too much for her herself to even think of giving her brother the nightmares about it.

If she would have told him, though, she knows how she would have. It would be cleaned up quite a bit, with far less severed heads than the original, like her own mother had told her, and it would go a little like this:

Once upon a time, in a land very far away from here, there was a princess so beautiful even the stars cried at the sight of her. Her name was Kuromu Dokuro and everybody loved her. The nobles came from near and far to see her, as did the common folk, and all, all who saw her adored her.

Soon came her twentieth birthday, and it was time for her to marry. Princes, kings and even emperors came to ask for her hand. But it was all in vain, because the princess Kuromu did not like even one of them.

Now, you must know, that beauty always has a price. So did the princess Kuromu’s. While she had been born with the utmost beauty, it went accompanied by the most malicious mind. Her beauty was so great it could only be in enhanced in one way: by bathing in the blood of young, virile men. She knew what she was to do.

She set three tasks for her suitors and if they could not fulfil them, they would be hanged at the city gate, before being milked of their blood for her bath. To this day, there was only one survivor of these tasks, and it is his tale that we tell, thus.

On the first day the suitor came before her, the princess said: ‘’Your first task will be a simple one: I ask of you to keep my shears. Give them back to me tomorrow at lunch, and I shall give you your second task.’’

The suitor nodded, took the shears with great reverence. He tucked them into his belt and drank wine with her. Now, you must know, this suitor was quite the jolly drunk. Thus he’d thought it the best that he not get drunk and simply pretended to drink the wine she offered him.

This was, in hindsight, what saved his life that night. The princess claimed to be tired somewhere around eight and send him to his bed. He had not even settled into bed for half an hour when she came in, assured that he was asleep from the wine, and took the shears from underneath his pillow.

Following her silently, he saw her slip out of the castle, and into the caverns below. Blinking, he hid behind a pillar as he heard voices.

‘’My sweet, I have come to tell you of my newest suitor! He is young and handsome, and he will fill my bath so nicely once he’s drained. Now I must ask of you, make sure he never gets the shears!’’

‘’Oh yes,’’ said the man beside her, ‘’I will, my darling, I will!’’

And when the suitor peered around the pillar quickly to see what the man was doing, he gasped at the sight that greeted him. It was the devil himself, who stood there, as Kuromu kissed him sweetly upon the lips before leaving.

The devil locked the scissors into a box and then left to prey upon some unfortunate soul. The suitor, a poor man, had been honourable for most of his life, but he did know how to pick a lock. Thus, he made off with the scissors before the dawn broke and he was expected to rise.

At noon, the princess called for him. ‘’Well, have you got my shears? I am thinking of embroidering after this meal, I’d like them back.’’

‘’Of course, princess,’’ said the suitor and got the shears out of his pocket.

Kuromu smiled at she took them, but her eyes had darkened to a wine colour. The suitor knew she wasn’t much pleased by his survival.

‘’Now,’’ she said, ‘’The second task is not too hard either. See my trident here, I’ll go to the highest tower and throw it from there. If you can retrieve it before tomorrow at noon, I will give you your third task, and mayhaps you will survive this ordeal.’’

Oh, how traitorous her lovely face!

For once again, when the clock struck eleven, the suitor followed her down into the caverns underneath the castle, and she met her lover again.

’My sweet,’’ Kuromu said unto the devil, ‘’You caught my trident, did you not? Last night you failed terribly, that common-born bastard somehow got the shears! This time, make sure he’ll never get it.’’

‘’Oh yes,’’ said the devil, ‘’I will, my darling, I will!’’

Kuromu kissed him sweetly upon the lips before leaving. The devil threw the trident in the fire, sure that it would be destroyed before three hours had passed and then left to prey upon some unfortunate soul.

The suitor hurried forward now both were gone and fished the trident out of the fire, burning his hands as he did so. Thus, he made off with the trident before the dawn broke and he was expected to rise.

At noon, the princess called for him, already yawning. ‘’Well, did you find my trident?’’

‘’Of course, princess,’’ the suitor said, and revealed the trident, his burned hands hidden underneath leather gloves.

Kuromu turned as pale as a corpse. ‘’Very well,’’ she said, a trembling smile on her face as she tried to keep her façade up, ‘’As this is the third task, it is by far the hardest. Bring me whatever I think of, right this moment. If you can’t do that, then obviously you don’t care enough for me.’’ she said.

Oh, what a traitorous woman, that she could play such games!

That evening, at eleven o’clock in the devil’s den, she spoke: ‘’But of course I thought of your head, my sweet, so he’ll never be able to give it to me! Tomorrow, I’ll bathe in blood again and become once more so beautiful that you won’t be able to take your eyes off me! This horrid pallor and those wine dark eyes will disappear soon enough, my sweet. Look forward to me tomorrow night, you hear me?’’

‘’Oh yes,’’ said the devil, ‘’I will, my darling, I will!’’

Kuromu kissed him sweetly upon the lips before leaving. The devil cackled, but before he could leave to prey upon some unfortunate soul, the suitor snuck up on him, took his sword from his side and struck the devil’s head off its body.

At noon the next day, the princess called for him, smiling lively at the meal. ‘’Well, have you got what I thought of? Don’t make me wait!’’  

‘’Of course, princess,’’ said the suitor and he threw a bloody lump on the table, covered in fabric. ‘’Why don’t you look at it, princess?’’

And when the princess Kuromu saw her lover’s head when she uncovered it, she began to stomp as she erupted in such rage that her teeth grew longer and sharper until they resembled fangs. ‘’Father!’’ she screamed at the king, ‘’I shan’t marry that awful, horrid beggar! Have him thrown out of the castle at once!’’

But her father, the king, an honourable man, shook his head and said unto her: ‘’Kuromu, my child, you must honour your promises. I have put up with your demands, now someone  fulfilled all your tasks, you must marry him.’’

And with great reluctance, the princess Kuromu married her suitor. With great dread, Kuromu approached the wedding bed, and this was how the suitor knew the devil still resided in her. Luckily, the suitor had spent some time in the presence of a good priest, so he knew how to drive the devil out of the poor sinner.

He asked the servants for a water basin, and went to do what any good man would have. He grabbed her by the hair, so the devil in her couldn’t struggle, and forced her underwater. Once, twice, thrice. But the suitor’s hands had been burned by hellfire while getting the trident out, so the cleansing of Kuromu’s soul didn’t catch.

When not even the rule of three freed her from hellish influence, the devil’s severed head surged from the cabinet on the wall and gave Kuromu the power to kill her suitor. The trident flew into her hands and she struggled her way free, spearing him onto the floor. That, though, was not his doom.

The monster known as princess Kuromu bowed over him, and used her hellish fangs as his doom, sucking his blood out of his very body.

Then, she went to castle’s gate and hung his body from it, like all her previous suitors had and went off to haunt the night forevermore, with the devil by her side.  

That’s how Bianchi would have told Hayato the cursed tale of princess Kuromu. But she’d never told him, because it was an awful story, and certainly not one she had wanted to tell to a child. Now he was an adult, perhaps, but no. Not even then. Because now she knew Chrome and that made the allusions in the story even more horrid, and Bianchi… Bianchi didn’t know what to do.

So she does what she always does when she’s unsure of herself: she goes to search either confirmation or confrontation, and this time, it’s a little bit of both.

~~

She goes, once more, towards the west wing. The shadows fight her more fiercely this time, determined to protect their mistress, until Bianchi snaps at them. ‘’Quit that! I’m just trying to make amends here, okay? Back off and let me do what I ought to!’’

After that, her journey towards Chrome’s chambers is met with a lot less resistance. She takes a moment to straighten out her clothes- or well, Chrome’s clothes, they’re made for a taller person but Bianchi hadn’t exactly had a change of clothes when she got here. The clothes are Chrome’s by the fact that they’re technically her property, whether she’d fit them or not.

Bianchi shakes her head. She’s going on a tangent to procrastinate. That doesn’t do. She needs to have this conversation and she needs to have it now. She takes a deep breath, and opens up the door. It creaks something awful, immediately alerting Chrome of her presence when she enters.

‘’I’m here for a story,’’ Bianchi says.

Chrome looks tired. Oh, so tired. Exhausted right down to her soul. She’s sitting by the hearth, which is burning this time, opposite that awful painting of what must be her parents and herself, as a little girl. Chrome keeps opening her mouth and then closing it, like she can’t bring herself to speak.

So Bianchi speaks up for her, reading all her doubts and worries in her wearied eyes. ‘’Not the princess Kuromu’s. I know that tale. I want to know yours, Chrome Dokuro, mistress of this castle.’’

Chrome looks at her, looks deep into her eyes, sees Bianchi’s determination and then sighs. ‘’Come sit down.’’

Bianchi does as is asked of her.

Chrome fiddles with the embroidery on her lap before looking up again. ‘’I was young and ready to marry if that was what my country required, though it was readily known that I did not want to. My father permitted me three tasks to give them. If my suitors could not give me all my heart desired, they did not deserve my hand, or so he said. Oh, if only he hadn’t!

Because then the monster came. Every suitor was turned away when they couldn’t fulfil my tasks, and I admit, my third task was a very hard one. But then, bit by bit, every suitor started to turn up dead after he failed to meet my demands. Their corpses, once found, were drained of blood, floating in the moat around the castle. Their bones, the people said, decorated our gate.

It was wretched. I stopped accepting suitors. That was when he started attacking our staff. I didn’t know what to do! Then- then he came. His name was Romeo, and he said he was a soldier looking for a way to climb the social ladder. I guess that’s what I was to him. He kept insisting he wanted to do the tasks. I guess… I guess he looked like an honest sort? Honestly, at this point it wasn’t really about him anymore, it was about my country and my people, and the fact that I wanted to stop the monster from murdering them.

I led him through my tasks. I let him succeed each and every one of them. And then, on our wedding night, I thought I’d succeeded. He was still alive and even if I’d rather not married, I knew I would have to one day. This- this is when my nightmare started.

Instead of laying his hands upon me amorously, as I had expected, he smiled, broad and wide, as he never had before. It was no good thing. It showed his teeth- his terrible, terrible fangs. ‘You,’ he told me, ‘have the most exquisite blood I have ever smelled, and I will have it, if it is the last thing I do.’ And then he took his teeth to my neck.

It hurt. It hurt so much, and if it had just been that, I could have accepted it, even if I would have hated him for being the monster who had killed my people my entire life long. But he didn’t keep it at just that.

Sometimes I asked him to stop. He didn’t drink too much from me, usually, wanted to keep me alive so I’d provide more of his precious blue blood, but some nights, he did. I got dizzy and weak and it got obvious, as my skin grew paler and my body frailer. I begged him, I begged him to stop until I could no more, and then I started to scream.

He didn’t like that.

He asked for a water basin, like he often did when he wanted a bath, but instead of washing himself, he grabbed me by the hair and pushed me under. Again and again and again. ‘That will get the devil out of you,’ he told me.

I despaired. It escalated. It escalated until I couldn’t take it anymore, until I took my trident to his throat and killed the monster that had terrorized us all for so long.

But here is the thing, Bianchi. Curses spoken upon one’s last breath are immensely powerful, and he cursed me with the curse he himself carried. I went mad with bloodlust as the light left his eyes, as I severed his head completely, and drained him of his blood at once. The servant who had brought the water basin, who peeked through the door as the whole thing happened, discovered the body and spread that wretched, wretched tale of the princess Kuromu Dokuro.

I am not Kuromu Dokuro, and neither am I a princess anymore. A princess needs a people, and a people must condone their ruler. They did not, after I murdered my husband. So I lost myself as they moved away from me, desperate to never see the monster I had become ever again. My name is Chrome, and all I am is perhaps the oldest person on this earth, hated for what I could not control.’’

Bianchi is reeling, but still she can’t help but reach out, her hand open towards Chrome. An invitation.

Chrome looks up, with gleaming eyes, ‘’Of course, all crimes I committed afterwards are my own doing, but then again, nobody called me a monster for those. By then they already considered it my nature to kill and slaughter.’’

Bianchi’s hand wavers, then falls. Chrome nods, succinctly. ‘’Ah, I thought that would be your reaction. Don’t worry about your place here, Bianchi. We’ll have dinner every night as the geas prescribes, but I won’t impose on you anymore than that. You don’t even have to speak to me if you don’t want to.’’ She looks down at her hands and shakes her head. ‘’No, never mind, I created that geas. I’ll break it.’’

A strange, sibilant sound leaves her mouth, and a light rises from Bianchi’s throat, forcing its way over her tongue, until it hovers in the air and melts in Chrome’s hand. ‘’You’re free to go.’’

And with that, for the second time, Chrome stands up and walks out of her own chambers, leaving Bianchi behind, lost and alone.

[homespork-review]

HOMESPORK ACT 5 ACT 1: Mobius Double Plusungood, Part 2

BRIGHT: Nepeta wants to know what’s going on. Aradia finally stops dodging the question and tells Nepeta she’s dead, but doesn’t elaborate on how it happened. She asks Nepeta to keep it a secret, which Nepeta agrees to. Aradia’s also picked up some froglike traits from being merged with the sprite -- namely a tendency to ribbit.

In retrospect, it’s kind of funny that an active player can merge with a sprite. The role of a sprite seems to involve having detailed knowledge of how the Game works and what the player should do next, but only dispensing vague advice to the player. Prototyping a player would give them full access to that knowledge with no sprite vagueness to get in the way. The Game doesn’t seem too concerned about that, though.

CHEL: Now it’s time to get to know AG better. A doodle of her declaring her to be a HUGE BITCH fades into her standing in her room. Rather gothic, and also filthy-looking; it’s dark, with a red sky outside, and cobwebs and broken Magic 8 Balls lie around everywhere. There’s a FLARP poster and numerous pages of notes on the wall.

Your name is VRISKA SERKET.

You are a master of EXTREME ROLE PLAYING. You can't get enough of it, or really any game of high stakes and chance. You have persisted with the habit even in spite of your ACCIDENT. But then again, you don't have much choice.

Your lusus is VERY HUNGRY, ALL THE TIME. She can only be appeased by the FLESH OF YOUNG TROLLS. You cloud campaigns for teams of Flarpers, utilizing your abilities for ORCHESTRATING THE DEMISE OF THE IMPRESSSSSSSSIONA8LE. Your victories supply you with treasure, experience points, and SPIDER FOOD.

You are something of an APOCALYPSE BUFF, which is something you can be on Alternia. You are fascinated by end of the world scenarios, and enjoy constructing DOOMSDAY DEVICES for the hell of it. You are drawn to means of DARK PROGNOSTICATION and the advantages they offer, particularly in gaming scenarios. Your abilities in this department were hobbled with the loss of your VISION EIGHTFOLD, and you have since sought alternatives through various BLACK ORACLES. You consult with these ominous globes, but routinely destroy them in frustration over the PUZZLING GUARANTEED INACCURACY of their predictions. Breaking them has developed into a habit BORDERING ON FETISHISTIC, and with each you destroy, you add to an insurmountable stockpile of TERRIBLE LUCK. You have to stop. But addiction is a powerful thing.

FAILURE ARTIST: FINALLY we get a name for her and we don’t have to keep saying AG. I imagine the non-Homestucks are feeling like I did when I played Danganronpa 2 finally and saw the “fingers-in-his-ass” guy.

CHEL: She examines a drawing on the wall, of her FLARP character MARQUISE SPINNERET MINDFANG, who is just Vriska in a different coat and seaboots, with a hook instead of her robot hand. She is the scourge of land dwellers and sea dwellers alike, and worst nightmare to silly BOY-SKYLARKS everywhere. She has accumulated more treasure and gained more levels than any member of the PETTICOAT SEAGRIFT class ever. She gained all the levels. All of them.

En route to her computer, Vriska steps on a D4, and complains about how she’s had terrible luck since her mysterious accident. I’d just like it noted that this is a small but noticeable occurrence of Vriska’s tendency to blame others for her problems; if she cleaned her room some time, that wouldn’t happen. Still, she doesn’t worry about it too long, as she’s busy.

So many irons in the fire. Such a tangled web. It is a web full of flaming irons and mixed metaphors.

BRIGHT: Vriska equips her weapon of choice, a set of enchanted D8 dice called the FLUORITE OCTET.

...okay, I’m getting used to characters having semi-absurd weapons, but seriously, what? Let’s review everyone else’s chosen weapons: Hammer, knitting needles, sword, gun, sickles, lance, clawed gloves, walking cane. Sollux had some throwing stars but didn’t assign them to his specibus owing to his telekinesis being enough; we haven’t seen Aradia’s strifekind yet, but she also has telekinetic abilities, and hers are apparently enhanced by her being dead. So that’s a lot of genuine weapons, and some things which aren’t weapons but can readily be used that way in a pinch...and then Vriska has a set of enchanted dice.

It’s a good fit both for Homestuck’s absurdity and for Vriska’s obsession with luck. But it does stand out rather.

Anyway, rolling the dice will execute a wide range of highly unpredictable attacks. Very high rolls can be devastating to even the most powerful opponents. Apparently these work everywhere, not just in FLARP games. Also, while we see ghosts, psychic powers, and superpowered coding, I think this is the only reference to plain magic we have on Alternia.

Vriska steps away from the computer to avoid talking to GA, who she refers to as an unwelcome solicitor, but returns to it when someone else starts messaging her. Vriska calls him this guy; he has no icon -- and, oddly, no username -- and types in white, which means the reader (and Vriska) ends up highlighting the conversation a lot. 

Hello.

AG: Oh my god, why are you talking to me????????

This is the last time we'll ever talk.

AG: Still sticking with the white text I see. So smooth and stylish!

AG: I forgot how much I loved highlighting it to read all the 8oring things you have to say.

AG: It's like a fun game for super extra handicapped retarded people. Like opening a present! Find out what o8noxious thing the mystery tool typed.

AG: What is it!

A parting courtesy, I suppose.

All the ways I've exploited you were meant to bring about the events that will take place this evening.

Knowing this will provide context for the events in your near future, and will affect how you behave in response.

These events will be just as important as those preceding it.

I've gone to great lengths, you see. 

Well, this guy sounds ominous.

Also, using ‘handicapped’ and ‘retarded’ as insults is entirely in character for Vriska, who has no time for people who can’t operate on her level. Currently Vriska’s also being shown as an unlikeable character. We’ll see how that develops.

CHEL: Still, a lot of people really don’t like those words being used casually, and the fact that we need to show you how things develop should imply that they won’t develop in a way you’ll like. So…

CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 39

White Text Guy, as the characters refer to him for a while to come yet, continues gloating about how successfully he’s exploited Vriska, who tells him she’ll log off and orders him not to use that nasty trick where you log me 8ack on out of petty douchey spite! WTG says he’ll be brief, though he’s not particularly brief in fact, tells her he no longer hold[s] her accountable for any wrongdoing, and says that if she accepts this, she may get her luck back. Vriska doesn’t believe him and continues to rant, and he points out that her unpleasant, simplistic temperament is what made her so easy to mess with.

If you turn a swarm of wasps on a crowd, the outcome is certain.

He leaves with these even more ominous words:

Though the magnitude of the ensuing destruction resulting directly from your actions will be neither possible or necessary for you to fathom, there nevertheless ought to be a silver lining.

The only question is whether you will live long enough to see it.

Vriska, enraged, lifts a Magic 8 Ball with the intention to smash it, but decides she can’t be bothered, and answers GA, hoping some camaraderie will cheer her up, even if it’s from a meddler. However, GA’s first question is “Is Your Lusus Dead Yet”. Not particularly cheering, is it?

Vriska, for the first time, expresses concern and sympathy for another person when GA says her own lusus is dead, though it may be undermined slightly by her own personal disappointment in never having got to meet said lusus. GA doesn’t seem very concerned, and says “Maybe You Still Can”. According to her, though, all their lusii are dying, as a “Preemptive Consequence” (if that’s a meaningful concept) of the upcoming Game. Karkat blames himself for activating the cursed code, but GA thinks it was inevitable. However, Karkat’s idea of a curse Is Inseparable From His Perception Of Events As Intrinsically Negative And As Tailored To His Personal Dissatisfaction, and so is Vriska’s poor luck. GA points out that if Vriska cleaned her floor she wouldn’t step on so many things. THANK YOU, GA, you made my point for me! Vriska is angry at GA “meddling” so, and demands to know why she does.

GA: Because Youre Dangerous

[...]

GA: Its Ok To Be Dangerous

GA: Lots Of People Are

GA: And Dangerous People Can Be Really Important

GA: Maybe Even The Most Important Sometimes

GA: But It Just Means Theres Got To Be Someone Around To Keep An Eye On Them

As Vriska gets angrier, it’s noted that she puts 8s in her typing in places where they don’t work as Bs or as “eight” sounds, and they become more numerous.

AG: Or you know, if you're so h8gh 8nd might8 an8 th8nk you're so gr8at, m8y88 you c8uld oh I d8n't kn8w........

AG: TRY AND ST8P ME FROM DO8NG B8D THINGS????????

GA: That Wouldnt Work

GA: If I Tried To Stop You You Would Regard Me As An Enemy

GA: Instead Of Merely As A Nuisance

BRIGHT: GA’s strategy appears to be trying to talk Vriska into being a better person, either by persuading her that it’s the right thing to do or by being so annoying that Vriska does the right thing to avoid being meddled with. She’s making an effort, I’ll give her that. And given that she doesn’t live anywhere near Vriska, there isn’t all that much she can do to rein her in.

CHEL: Vriska signs off, ranting about her “Lousy st8pid godd8mn supportive friend!” and heads down the enormous staircase to check on her lusus.

You wonder if any other kid on the planet has such a high maintenance lusus? You DOUBT it.

As a matter of fact, one does and Vriska knows that, but we’ll see them later. Not a continuity error, it’s just Vriska self-pitying.

From a window, we see a doomsday device hanging over a chasm by chains attached to the surrounding cliffs. Vriska built it for an especially powerful and influential member of the nautical aristocracy, with help from an as-yet-unnamed nearby friend. Vriska reaches the bottom of the stairwell, and we meet her lusus, which is…

… a spider about the size of a cathedral. For the sake of our arachnophobic readers, we’ll refrain from posting a picture. Suffice it to say she’s as terrifying as she sounds. Pan out to show the entire valley is filled with cobwebs, and Vriska’s hive is matched by a similar one on the other side of the valley.

Before we move on, I’d just like to chat a little about the astrological symbolisms used here. Vriska’s the Scorpio troll, and it puzzles a lot of people that she’s spider-themed instead of scorpion-themed. Both arachnids, but not the same thing. However, Scorpio does have multiple symbols, depending on the source of the interpretation of the constellation, including the spider and the phoenix. Observe! (I enjoy astrology. Sue me.) Also, a scorpion would be a lot harder to get the story symbolism out of; Vriska is at least attempting to be a master manipulator pulling on strings, i.e. webs. The astrological symbolism and alleged personality traits aren’t used for all of the trolls in general, either. The troll with the sign of Aquarius the Water-Bearer is seadwelling nobility and probably wouldn’t be happy to be represented astrologically by a servant, and Gamzee is basically the opposite of the ambitious and hardworking traits of the allegedly typical Capricorn. Basically the signs are mostly aesthetic and if Huss can work in some connected symbolism that’s a bonus. I don’t consider this a negative thing in particular, though it might annoy some astrology buffs.

Actually, I don’t know how intentional this was, but one fan actually analysed how the social expectations on Alternia are in fact the exact opposite of what would actually suit their astrological sign. It didn’t get finished but there’s some interesting information - read the posts in question here, beware spoilers!

BRIGHT: One amusing consequence of this can be turned into a game: Go to Tumblr, find an astrology post, and see how long it takes to figure out if it’s a Homestuck riff. Some of them even just say ‘Vriska’ for Scorpio.

It’s probably just because I mostly follow fandom-related blogs, but I’ve yet to see a Tumblr astrology post that wasn’t a more-or-less-subtle Homestuck joke.

CHEL: And the ones which aren’t make for great fanfic prompts!

BRIGHT: Vriska’s lusus is fine, as it happens. Vriska pretends to be happy about this, but she’s rather less convincing than Dave is about his own guardianship issues. 

FAILURE ARTIST: And we turn from Vriska to look in her neighbor and it’s….that creepy guy! Hurray!

Your name is EQUIUS ZAHHAK.

You love being STRONG.

You are so strong, you would surely be the class of the elite legion of RUFFIANNIHILATORS. And while such a calling would be quite honorable, you would prefer to join the ranks of the ARCHERADICATORS, perhaps the most noble echelon the imperial forces have to offer. Unfortunately, you SUCK AT ARCHERY. You have not successfully fired a SINGLE ARROW. Every time you try, you BREAK THE BOW. You are simply too strong. You have broken so many bows, it has developed into a habit BORDERING ON FETISHISTIC. You have to stop. But addiction is a powerful thing.

You have a great appreciation for THE FINE ARTS. You use your aristocratic connections to acquire PRICELESS MASTERPIECES, painted in the oldest and most respected Alternian tradition of NUDE MUSCLEBEAST PORTRAITS. These striking depictions of the EXQUISITE FAUNA native to Alternia remind you of the PUREST PHYSICAL IDEAL that must be sought by anyone who professes a LOVE OF STRENGTH. When those of lesser bloodlines turn up their uncultured noses at such stunning material, it MAKES YOU FURIOUS.

Practically everything MAKES YOU FURIOUS. You have so much rage, it can only be expressed through STAGGERING QUANTITIES OF PHYSICAL VIOLENCE. You build strong and sturdy robots, set them to kill mode, and BEAT THE SHIT OUT OF THEM in caged brawls. Sometimes you LOSE TEETH. But they usually grow back.

FAILURE ARTIST: Equius Zahhak’s first name is obviously a take on the Latin word for horses, but his last name is from a Persian demon who is also known as “he who has 10,000 horses”. 

So yes, that furry porn on his walls is high art to trolls. Though the prequel Hiveswap Friendsim, which has artist characters, doesn’t have MUSCLEBEAST PORTRAITS. Maybe Equius is actually weird.

CHEL: Actually, the Friendsim does have musclebeast art; if you squint at the beginning of Nikhee’s route, you can see depictions of white muscular chests flanking the arena, which don’t look like troll chests. Hiveswap proper is rated PG, so we’ll be spared it there, too.

FAILURE ARTIST: Equius is more even-tempered than his introduction suggests. He’s not completely violence-free (as we will see)  but he’s not in a constant ‘roid-rage. Heck, from what we’ve seen before of him he just gets peeved and snotty. 

Equius calls for his lusus Aurthour, who I guess could be called another self-insert. Aurthour is a centaur-type creature with cow udders and a mustache and looks like something out of Hussie’s early comics. Aurthour carries a glass of lusus milk on a platter, presumably from its own udders. Ummm. 

You cannot hope to beat Aurthour in a butler-off. He is simply the best there is.

Sweet, I guess.

CHEL: I wonder how Aurthour contorts around to reach his udder. Centaurs aren’t really known for flexibility.

FAILURE ARTIST: We find out why Aurthour has a shiner. It’s not because of domestic abuse but because when Equius “gently” pats Aurthour, Aurthour bruises. Yet this creature is the only lusus STRONG enough to raise Equius. 

Equius tries to drink the glass, but it shatters in his hand. Which begs the question of why Aurthour doesn’t use an alternative to glass. Well, I guess Equius going straight to the source would be too disturbing even for Hussie. A bigger problem is how Equius can do the fine detail work of building robots when he can’t hold a glass. 

Equius goes into a rage, which just means he stands around in Hero Mode while the lusus milk quickly evaporates. Wait, quickly evaporates? What is it made of?

CHEL: I assumed the heat of his rage boiled it.

FAILURE ARTIST: Equius tries to equiup equip a bow but fails due to his strength. Like the glass smashing, this is a normal occurrence. You’d think he’d give up but apparently breaking bows is like popping bubble wrap to him. Expensive bubble wrap. So he has the useless 1/2bowkind, a bowkind for when he’s ever that lucky, and the fistkind which he actually utilizes. Yes, in Homestuck, you can register your fists as lethal weapons. 

Equius talks with Nepeta and the narration summarizes like thus:

CT: D --> Yes AC: :33 < no CT: D --> Yes AC: :33 < no CT: D --> Yes AC: :33 < no CT: D --> Yes AC: :33 < no CT: D --> Yes AC: :33 < no CT: D --> Yes AC: :33 < no CT: D --> Yes AC: :33 < no

Equius is still worried about his good friend Nepeta, so he decides to relieve his stress by talking with another friend. And here comes a line fans take as meaning trolls don’t have friendship. 

It should be noted that in troll language, the word for friend is exactly the same as the word for enemy.

Though that line contradicts Equius considering Nepeta his friend only a few lines back. This worldbuilding sucks. 

CHEL: Well, he doesn’t treat her the way a human should treat a friend at this point.

FAILURE ARTIST: So Equius trolls this frienemy who turns out to be Gamzee.

centaursTesticle [CT] began trolling terminallyCapricious [TC]

CT: D --> Have I ever told you what a reprehensible disgrace you are

TC: hAhA, fUcK yEaH, oNlY eVeRy MoThErFuCkIn DaY bRo!  

Yeah, Equius, pretty much everyone tells Gamzee that every day. 

Equius says he wants get some things off his chest, which giving what we later learn about troll relationships might be adulterous. Gamzee tells him not to let his feelings be bottled up lIkE a FuCkIn AlL sHaKeD uP bOtTlE oF fAyGo and this metaphor makes Gamzee thristy. Equius berates Gamzee for drinking soda, which seems harsh but we later find out soda is booze for trolls. He’s also angry at Gamzee for doing sopor slime. Now, fans think Karkat didn’t like Gamzee doing sopor slime but we never actually see it. It’s just Equius who cares. This leads to an exchange I find interesting.

CT: D --> You will stop

TC: WhOaAaA, i WiLl?

TC: hOw Do YoU kNoW tHaT?

CT: D --> No, you don't understand

CT: D --> It's not a predi%ion, it's an order

CT: D --> I command you to stop

Gamzee is so passive he finds it hard to imagine making decisions that will change his future. Sad. And when Gamzee does get what Equius means:

TC: Oh, AlRiGhT bRoThEr.

TC: yOu MoThErFuCkIn GoT iT.

CT: D --> What

CT: D --> Are you serious

TC: yEaH.

TC: I mEaN, yOu GoT tO sHoW sOmE fAiTh In YoUr FrIeNdS, cAuSe ThEy'Re AlL tHe OnEs WhO'rE bEiNg To LoOk OuT fOr YoU.

TC: sO fUcK iF yOu SaY i'M nOt DoInG tHe ShIt RiGhT, tHeN wHaT tHe MoThErFuCk Do I kNoW!

CT: D --> No

CT: D --> This is una%eptable

CT: D --> Ok, let's start over

CT: D --> I apologize

CT: D --> I was completely out of of line, and I'm sorry

CT: D --> I have no right to talk to you like that, or tell you what you can't do

TC: aWw, No WoRrIeS!

Gamzee was ready to kick sopor slime except Equius backed down. Wondering about the timeline where Equius didn’t back down. 

Still, Equius begs Gamzee to behave like a superior. Gamzee asks what that means and Equius gives a very creepy answer.

CT: D --> 100k, it isn't that difficult

CT: D --> Try to be cognizant of your desires and needs

CT: D --> And attempt to regard those around you as simple vehicles meant to bring about your gratification

At least Equius is a hypocrite...most of the time.

Equius asks what Gamzee is doing and Gamzee relates his adventures in Sgrub. He bonked an imp on the head and scared another with a horn and eventually ended up sharing pie with them. Equius likes the tales of valor but is disappointed with the peaceful end. 

Equius asks Gamzee to roleplay and Gamzee says yes; there’s an uncomfortable sequence where Equius tries to get Gamzee to virtually dom him. Gamzee is terrible at being assertive, but Equius is still whipped into a state of contrition. Basically, Equius is getting off on this. 

CHEL: It should be noted that tricking a child into sexual behaviour is a form of abuse even when it’s done by a child of the same age. Not cool, Eq, and not funny, Hussie.

CALL CPA PLEASE: 11

CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 40

SEND THEM TO THE SLAMMER: 4

Though, while that is clearly the reading we’re meant to get from that, I have to say Equius never reads to me like he’s actually enjoying being ordered around. With Gamzee he’s just frustrated that he’s not behaving in a correct manner, and in later exchanges he seems knocked off-balance by the normal social order being upended. I know I’m just projecting, but it reads more like he has some issues with anxiety or OCD and is desperate for someone else to take control and tell him what they want him to do so he doesn’t have to worry. He sweats constantly during these exchanges, which is supposed to imply he’s aroused, but people sweat when they’re worried or afraid too.

FAILURE ARTIST: On a lighter front, Equius says he doesn’t live near the ocean, which considering his neighbor regularly goes on a pirate ship is an odd thing to say.

CHEL: How near is “near”? He might just mean not within walking distance so he can’t casually wander out to the sea like Gamzee does.

FAILURE ARTIST: Equius ends by wondering about the social order that puts someone like Gamzee above him but someone as graceful and poised as a certain mysterious she is of the lowest caste. Gamzee (and the readers) ask who she is and Equius brusquely says D -->I shouldn’t be talking about this D → You’re the enemy before signing off. 

CHEL: If one’s been paying attention, one can guess.

Next, Equius and Vriska are in cahoots. Cahoooooooots. Vriska declares her intention to meddle, and they have a brief exchange about sarcasm. It’s horribly inconsistent whether trolls have sarcasm or not, as I’ve pointed out before. Already gave a point for it, though.

Anyway, Vriska asks if Aradia’s present is finished. It is.

CT: D --> But I don't understand why you're intent on gratifying that worthless peasant

AG: 8ecause I promised I would and it's none of your damn 8usiness! Man.

Their plan is to let Aradia usurp Sollux as leader with her cute little ploy (recall her sending him to sleep and letting him swallow mind honey earlier), then both snatch power from her and become joint leaders. Each asks the other if they’re planning something sneaky and each insists they’re not. Equius can sense that Vriska is trying to read his mind, and when she won’t stop, he takes control of her cybernetic arm, which he built, and makes her slap herself in the face.

FAILURE ARTIST: So given that Vriska tried to read Equius’ mind, despite the dangers (both physically and mentally), it is unbelievable she refrained from reading Karkat’s due to delicacy. 

I think Hussie has said in his commentary that Vriska had a crush on Equius. The fandom prefers lesbian Vriska at this point and so has ignored that. YMMV on if there is evidence of a crush in the text but I find the idea amusing. 

CHEL: Equius goes to fetch the present for Aradia which he was supposed to give to Vriska.

You naturally will doublecross your accomplice, just as you assume she has plans to doublecross you. You assume she is assuming the same of you. Business as usual for blue bloods.

How the hell does this society get anything done?

You will deliver it to Aradia yourself to gain her favor, and then doublecross her and take your rightful position as team leader. How ironic that someone of your blood purity must work to win the favor of the lowest sort of peasant. Humiliating. Strangely titillating, even. But in the end, class order will be restored.

He takes the tarp off the present, and it is…

Why, Aradia. It appears the red glass of your eye has caught the pink and green glint of the moons in their perigees. The sweet poetry almost makes a man forget how the grime that once filled your veins made his stomach turn. It is a good omen for illicit lovers. Could you imagine the scandal if anyone found out?? No one must ever know.

But worry not. Your heart will pump no more of that despicable red sludge. You have been given a new heart. You can be taught the ways of the class you were always meant for. No one is beyond redemption.

Be grateful, dear Aradia. For the first time in your meaningless life you have met a man with true compassion.

Jesus fucking Christ. See what I meant when I said his interactions with girls were worse than his posters? No points because it’s supposed to be creepy, and with the teachings of his society it’s not entirely his fault, but wow.

FAILURE ARTIST: Well, his interaction with a girl is creepy. His relationship with Nepeta is more problematic than fans remember but that’s two-sided and not infatuation. As for Vriska, he’s cold and business-like with her. He collaborates with GA but that’s off-screen and was probably also business-like. Meanwhile, he has lustful interactions with most every male character. We’ve seen how he acts with Gamzee and we’ll see more later. Equius’ interactions with guys are another example of Hussie using male attraction to other males as a punchline.

CHEL: But yes, he’s built her a robot body. Unfortunately for everyone involved, while making out with it, he feels judged by one of his battlebots, gets angry, and punches it. It goes flying out the window and robosplodes above the valley, and its remains hit Vriska’s doomsday device, setting it off. It breaks before it can actually destroy the planet, but the chains holding it up snap, sending it swinging into the cliffside, causing another explosion. The cliff collapses, taking part of Equius’ hive with it, sending Aurthour plummeting into the chasm and crushing Vriska’s spider lusus under tons of rubble.

Cutting back to before that, we see Terezi battling imps on her treehouse’s rooftop, when Vriska messages her, declaring that playing the game together means breaking their truce. Terezi says that’s not what the truce was about; it was about STOPP1NG TH3 3NDL3SS CYCL3 OF R3V3NG3 and Vriska not using her powers maliciously anymore. Terezi’s next couple of comments are just calling Vriska a liar so I’ll just take Vriska’s, to further illustrate her behaviour.

AG: Man, you like to give me such a hard time a8out all that. I can't catch a 8reak! AG: Can't you see I'm trying to put all that 8ehind me and make amends with every8ody? AG: No, of course you can't see that. What am I saying! [...] AG: I'll prove it to you. I'm giving Aradia a present that will make her feel all 8etter finally. AG: Then I'll 8e in the clear. Phew! Totally redeemed. You'll see. I mean smell.

Vriska appears under the impression that large flashy gestures are the important part of an apology, not actual sincerity. Terezi points out Aradia doesn’t care about anything anymore and probably won’t care about this.

AG: Man, why can't you cut me some slack for once???????? AG: It's not like I even did anything that 8ad to you. AG: I lost seven eyes 8ut you only lost two! I would say you came out ahead in the 8argain. GC: 1 KNOW GC: 4ND 4CTU4LLY GC: 1 N3V3R R34LLY GOT TH3 CH4NC3 TO TH4NK YOU >:D

Vriska’s disbelief aside, Terezi really is serious here. Not surprising to the reader, her blindness is basically a superpower.

AG: Remem8er Team Scourge? How convenient all that must 8e to have forgotten! You were so nasty. AG: Oh man, if you crossed Terezi Pyrope you were fucked!!!!!!!! GC: Y34H 1F YOU W3R3 4 B4D GUY GC: W3 W3R3 SUPPOS3D TO B3 L1K3 4 V1G1L4NT3 DUO D1SP3NS1NG JUST1C3 GC: 4ND YOU COULD T4K3 TH3 B4D GUYS HOM3 4ND F33D TH3M TO YOUR STUP1D SP1D3R GC: BUT 1NST34D YOU JUST F3D H3R 3V3RYBODY! GC: 4ND L13D 4ND L13D 4ND L13D

Okay, this little exchange needs some more dissection. Terezi is supposed to be the “good cop” of Team Scourge, the by-the-book one on the side of the law. But we saw what Alternian law is like, and later on we’ll see demonstrations that things such as having a birth defect or, according to Hiveswap, owning fiction which so much as mentions the possibility of rebellion, are punishable by death. Not only is this not making Terezi look any better, if she’s as obsessed with the law as we saw, who would she deem not a “bad guy”, and why would Vriska have such a shortage of “bad guys” that she’d need to take anyone else? Hussie appears to have forgotten that the Alternian concept of justice is different from the Earth one.

FAILURE ARTIST: And what we would consider a “bad guy” wouldn’t be the same on Alternia. There’s tons of trolls murdering other trolls on Hiveswap Friendsim without any hint that’s illegal. It’s probably completely lawful for a highblood to kill a lowblood just because the lowblood annoyed them.

WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 29

BRIGHT: Maybe. I’d say what this shows us, and is intended to show us, is that Terezi’s sense of justice isn’t just based on Alternian law, but on her own moral code. The law made it perfectly acceptable for Vriska to feed lowbloods to her lusus regardless of whether they’d done anything, but Terezi didn’t think it was right, and for her that superseded the law. She’s the ‘good cop’ not because she always follows the book, but because she’s willing to ignore it.

We also know she thought Vriska was on the same page as her. Note that Terezi makes two accusations here — the first is that Vriska killed people who don’t deserve it, and the second is that Vriska lied to Terezi about doing so.

CHEL: That may be what it’s intended to show us, but what we’ve already seen is that she worships the law; she draws and gleefully licks pictures of the head of the troll court, His Honorable Tyranny, and she shows no concern in her roleplay with hypothetically executing people for relatively trivial crimes. That makes this a bit… shaky, IMO.

BRIGHT: True. Terezi may have stopped killing since her FLARP days (or, at least, we get no indication that she’s still doing so), but it doesn’t seem to have shaken her belief in the Alternian legal system. Just her belief in Vriska, who even brings up a similar point.

AG: Well if you want to know what I think, you should start changing your tune. AG: Cause even though you got all these highfalutin morals and fancy reserv8tions, you know as well as me that a killer is a killer is a killer! AG: There 8n't no ch8nging your ways for good, and one d8y you're going to flail that silly l8ttle cane of yours and not find n8thin to 8ump into, and fall f8ce first into the shit ag8in. AG: And you're going to do something t8rri8le to some8ody and wish you could t8ke it 8ack 8ut you c8n't!!!!!!!! AG: And then you'll work hard to win 8ack their trust, and you'll try and try and tr8, and you'll see how hard it is! AG: You'll seeeeeeee!

Vriska’s making this all about her own feelings about Terezi abandoning her, but she’s not wrong.

Vriska hears the doomsday device exploding and the subsequent rockslide, and goes to  find out what it is. Terezi tells her not to get crushed.

The next page jumps back in time again -- this time, quite far back. Terezi’s eyes are normal, and she’s talking to Aradia about Tavros’s recovery. Aradia says he’s probably paralysed for life. Terezi brings up the possibility of getting him robo-prosthetics, but after the Vriska debacle Aradia is firmly against having anything to do with bluebloods.

CHEL: Terezi warns Aradia that revenge attempts will end badly and she wants to handle it. Aradia says Vriska isn’t able to control her, but Terezi says Vriska will find a way to harm her anyway. They lament how they were both distracted by the same person.

AA: wh0 was he anyway GC: PR3TTY SUR3 1T WAS VR1SKAS FR13ND AA: what was he d0ing there AA: watching us GC: WHO KNOWS GC: H3S NOT R34LLY H3R FR13ND THOUGH GC: YOU SHOULD S33 HOW H3 T4LKS 4BOUT H3R B3H1ND H3R B4CK GC: SH3 H4S NO 1D34 HOW B4D H3S PL4Y1NG H3R GC: BUT TH3N 1 DONT TH1NK H3 KNOWS HOW B4D SH3S PL4Y1NG H1M 31TH3R

This sounds like they mean Equius, but we’ll see. Aradia feels she’s letting Vriska win by doing nothing, but Terezi has a plan. She confirms that her friendship with Vriska is over.

Cut to Aradia’s house, and here I need to go into a bit more detail. This is her house:

Aradia’s a maroonblood, the lowest of the low on the hemospectrum, peasantry and cannon fodder and supposedly extremely numerous. Yet her house looks to be about the size of the entire block of flats I live in, and she lives in it alone, with no other buildings at all in sight. In the next page, we see inside her house, which looks exactly the same as all the others; she has piles of roleplaying books and posters and a computer, and nothing looks to be in disrepair.

WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 30

BRIGHT: Her house also looks a lot like Tavros’s, what with the windmill feature on top and the brown hangings rather than maroon, which threw me off at first.

CHEL: We’ll talk about this more later. For now, let’s stick with the most noticeable thing; Aradia is alive! Her skirt is untattered and her eyes have colour and pupils. Her lusus is alive too, napping beside her. It’s not quite clear what it is exactly; it has a sheep-like head, but its body is long and slim with much bigger hind legs than forelegs. Could be supposed to be dragon-like? I’ve also seen it interpreted as kangaroo-like. I don’t think we ever get a better view of it.

Anyway, Aradia knows Terezi’s advice is sound, but she can’t bear not to do something to Make her pay. She puts her hands up to her temples, and the image fades back and forth with one of wrapped troll corpses in Spidermom’s web…

It's a shame it had to come to this. You don't like summoning the spirits of the dead to settle scores.

But if she had to face her victims again, maybe she'd finally learn to feel remorse.

OOOOOOOOOO

This begs the question, how the fuck can the highbloods oppress people who not only hugely outnumber them but can shoot lasers from their eyes, control animals, and summon the dead at will? Well, there’s actually some explanation for that. The player trolls all appear to have unusual levels of power, for whatever their given powers are; most maroonbloods can’t do this. In Hiveswap a main character is a more typical maroonblood, who can just about bend spoons with his telekinesis and not much else (though we haven’t seen him speak with dead yet, and it’s possible he’s better at that). Not all trolls even have their caste’s powers, as far as I can tell, as we do see a yellow in Hiveswap Friendsim who’s not a psionic and some ceruleans who don’t seem to have mind-control powers as well. Head or eye injuries, which aren’t exactly rare in Alternia, can cause the loss of said powers. Also, the highest blood castes have powers of their own and other things to hold over the lowbloods’ heads. It’ll be a while till we get to that, but I’ll say now it is convincing, we do not have an Oppressed Mages scenario.

Anyway, Aradia does her thing…

As Vriska cowers on her floor, White Text Guy messages her again. Vriska replies angrily, ghosts looming over her shoulders.

Aren't you going to kill her?

AG: Who????????

Your friend.

The one who summoned the spirits.

AG: Will that make them go away?

Does it matter?

She brought them here to torment you. This obviously warrants revenge.

Vriska asks why WTG doesn’t kill Aradia instead, since he helped kill Tavros; he replies “All I did was stand somewhere for a few minutes. I just gave you an opportunity to do something you wanted to do anyway.” So, seems it wasn’t Equius they meant earlier. Vriska protests she never intended to kill her gaming companions, and blames him.

Again, I didn't talk you into anything, nor am I doing so now.

You were, and are, going to do this regardless.

I only ever place myself into positions of tangential involvement with events that will bring about my employer's entry into this universe.

I oversee the events as they take place, and ever so slightly nudge them into motion when necessary.

BRIGHT: Looks like Aradia and Terezi haven’t told her Tavros survived, which is eminently sensible. This conversation also highlights another Vriska trait: That she’s a very active person, but will try to shift responsibility as soon as she doesn’t like the consequences. That could be a result of her upbringing -- Vriska had to actively go and kill people for Spidermom, but she wasn’t responsible for the overall situation. (Although -- how much did she do to ameliorate it? By the time SGRUB starts, Spidermom’s far too big to fit into Vriska’s home. Vriska might have been able to get away with not feeding her at that point; there’s not much Spidermom can do if she can’t get to her.)

CHEL: The later addition to the canon, Pesterquest, claims that the lusii can psychically nag their charges and she could bother Vriska that way, but that directly contradicts Act 5, in which the trolls want to prototype their lusii so that they’ll be able to communicate properly with them for the first time, and also couldn’t Vriska just move further away?

BRIGHT: Inertia is very much a thing, and people do often just settle into a rut of ‘this is the way things are’ even when something could be changed, so it’s not improbable that it wouldn’t occur to Vriska to move — come to that, I don’t believe it occurs to anyone else either — but the fact that it doesn’t occur to her does say something about her character. 

CHEL: Also, why didn’t Vriska feed the spider on animals? The possibility is never so much as considered by her or anyone else, though it seems the most obvious thing to do. Sure, the spider might be picky, but as we said, it can’t leave the valley due to its size, or it’d be hunting for itself. If it’s left with the choice to eat cows or die, it’d presumably pick the former, especially since the lusii aren’t supposed to be sapient and thus wouldn’t have the capacity for spite. For assuming that Vriska did what she had to when such a screamingly obvious better option is never addressed, here we go with a new count, which will rise whenever Vriska’s horrible actions are excused.

ALL THE LUCK: 1

 Back to the scene, Scratch claims omniscience, which Vriska mocks.

AG: Sure you know a lot, 8ut I know for a FACT there's stuff you don't know.

That's true.

But the gaps in my knowledge exist by design.

They are the pillars of shadow on which my comprehensive vision is built.

Necessary pockets of void meant to effectuate outcomes I've foreseen and which will require my influence.

Each dark pocket, in time, will be filled.

[...]

I don't lie.

Deception is only necessary for those like you to achieve their objectives.

I play with my cards face up.

Isn't it funny how during our various matches, I can tell you what my moves will be in advance, and still win?

Vriska, angered by this, does in fact plan to kill Aradia; Not much point in living with all these moaning spooks just to spite some guy you don't give a shit about. She can’t control Aradia because Aradia’s own powers get in the way, but there are other people she can use.

How about this guy? Unfortunately, you can only control him about half the time.

Then again, that should be all the time you need.

Cut back to Aradia’s place, and she receives a message from Vriska, telling her her boyfriend is outside. 

BRIGHT: Vriska also lightheartedly tells Aradia she’s sorry, and that she’ll make it up to ‘him’ someday. Presumably ‘he’ is meant to be Tavros, except that Vriska seemed to think Tavros was dead in literally the last conversation she had. This is probably just a slip-up on Hussie’s part, but it’s possible to read this as Vriska referring to a different ‘he’ entirely, considering what’s about to happen.

CHEL: Aradia looks, and sees a figure hovering telekinetically over the fields....

Note what’s in his hand. You do not under any circumstances eat the mind honey… His eyes start flashing and Aradia looks afraid, but we suddenly cut to a view of Alternia, and then to a closeup of its green moon. The prompt instructs us to Be the white text guy, and we meet him in a very familiar-looking green mansion.

You try to be the white text guy, but fail to be the white text guy. No one can be the white text guy except for the white text guy.

The white text guy is known as Doc Scratch.

He is an officer of an indestructible demon known as Lord English. His job is to pave the way for the arrival of his master, who will be summoned upon the termination of the universe. He has worked at this task for many centuries, and will continue to do so until THE GREAT UNDOING.

Scratch is Alternia's FIRST GUARDIAN. Every planet destined for intelligent life has such an entity meant to protect it, and facilitate the planet's ultimate purpose. A first guardian is typically almost as old as the planet itself, and each has a unique, circuitous origin through the knots of paradox space. They can be born into a great diversity of forms, though they all share a common, especially potent genetic sequence. 

Remember Rose’s MEOW book, and how DD used it to create Becquerel? Yep.

The code grants them near omnipotence, and when merged with a host of great intelligence, near omniscience as well.

BRIGHT: Only near-omniscence, however. Scratch is surprised to find Terezi contacting him, but he’s able to work out that she got Sollux to help pretty fast:

Occasionally I discover there are things I have not always known.

It gives me the opportunity to make deductions, which are practically always flawless.

It's gratifying.

He also suggests she call him ‘Mr. Vanilla Milkshake’, and then hints that Aradia might not be straightforwardly dead by stating that Sollux and Terezi believe she is dead, and will soon believe she is not, both of which are true statements about their beliefs rather than reality.

Props to Hussie on this: I’m pretty sure every Homestuck fan wants to punch Scratch in the face. He’s just so obnoxious. 

Terezi, however, refuses to let Scratch keep derailing her for long. She wants Scratch to get involved in their feud again, and she has a good reason for him: She knows how Vriska’s been able to come so close to beating Scratch in their games lately. Before she can tell him, though, she needs to talk to Vriska again.

She starts by asking how Vriska feels about killing Aradia, after she promised not to. Vriska responds with dramatic insincerity about how she feels awful, and then says Terezi should be happy that Team Charge is out of the picture. 

AG: Uuuuuuuugh, what do you want from me????????

GC: 1M NOT SUR3

GC: 1 GU3SS 1M LOOK1NG FOR SOM3 R34SON TO CH4NG3 MY M1ND

GC: 1 DONT KNOW WH4T YOU C4N S4Y TH4TLL DO 1T

GC: 1 SORT4 HOP3 TH3R3S SOM3TH1NG THOUGH

In the end, there isn’t. Terezi tells Vriska she’ll be dead in a couple of minutes, and to ‘CONSULT W1TH YOUR L1TTL3 4DV4NT4G3’ if she doesn’t believe it, then leaves the conversation.

Vriska’s little advantage turns out to be a MAGIC CUE BALL, which is similar to a magic 8 ball except that it’s predictions are specific and accurate, and it lacks a portal through which the user can read said predictions. Fortunately that’s not an obstacle for Vriska: Her VISION EIGHTFOLD allows her to see through the opaque casing.

CHEL: Vision Eightfold is the vision from the one of Vriska’s eyes which has seven pupils, which she covered with an eyepatch with seven rubies on it when she was FLARPing. Also remember that Jade had a Magic Cue Ball but couldn’t read it? Yeah, it’s another one.

BRIGHT: One other thing: According to rumour, it used to belong to the man on the moon.

As Vriska asks the cueball whether she should be worried about Terezi’s threat (answer: YES), Terezi lets Scratch know where his missing property has gone. Vriska asks the cueball how it’s going to happen…

I WILL EXPLODE IN YOUR FACE.

Boom.

This section is one of my favourite Terezi moments. It really shows off Terezi’s ability to outthink and manoeuvre people. She’s never spoken to Scratch before, but she still plays him against Vriska easily.

CHEL: This is why Vriska has a plain eyepatch and a robot arm in her future appearances, but she’s otherwise fine. Bluebloods are tough, apparently.

BRIGHT: Back in the future, Spidermom has survived the rubble falling on her, but just barely. Vriska puts her out of her misery with her magic dice, which summon up a massive guillotine and decapitate the lusus, drenching Vriska in spider blood.

GORE GALORE: 11

The decapitation sets off another landslide, sending Equius’s house straight down on Vriska’s head, but before it can land, a portal opens underneath it and transports it into the Medium.

Vriska promptly jumps on Trollian to freak out about this, because her plan depended on her getting Aradia’s surprise present from Equius to pass along and then Aradia and Vriska entering the Medium together, and never mind that a house was about to fall on her -- in fact, when Aradia points out that Vriska was about to die, Vriska accuses her of planning this. Aradia placidly agrees.

CHEL: This is part of my evidence for thinking Vriska might not be neurotypical. Not the priorities most people would have. Also, meanwhile, note that the lusii have the same blood colour as their charges, while the non-lusus animals Nepeta killed were black and had red blood. I’m not sure whether that’s a species trait, or a side effect of the weird bond between them (doesn’t make a lot of biological sense, but then this is basically fantasy with a sci-fi coat of paint).

Vriska is enraged by things not going the way she planned; her grand gesture of apology, the robot body, will now be handed over by Equius and not her, ruining her chance to be friends again with Aradia. Again, she doesn’t seem to understand how apologies work.

AA: were we ever really friends

AG: Yeah!!!!!!!!

AG: I don't know. I felt like we were even if you didn't think so.

AG: I guess I'm not very good at acting like a friend. Or saying stuff like, hey friend! You're my friend! It doesn't really occur to me.

For some strange reason related to her prototyping with the frog statue, Aradia types out “ribbit” into the chatbox, and informs Vriska she’s not on the Blue team as she expected, enraging Vriska further. Vriska accuses her of taking revenge, which Aradia denies, saying Vriska was always going to be on the Red team, and that she doesn’t care about her death.

AG: You're so infuri8ing! Why c8n't you just h8 me? It would 8e a lot easier th8t way.

AG: Or at least feel 8othered or annoyed or S8METHING! God!!!!!!!!

AG: May8e I sh8uld just rip my he8rt out of my chest and pound it to a 8loody pulp here on my desk with my sup8r strong ro8ot arm.

AG: Pound pound pound pound pound pound pound pound!

AG: Look at that, more nasty 8lue 8lood all over me. Why not! Might as well op8n the floodg8s and p8nt my whole hive with this oh so envia8le cerulean SWILL.

AG: 8ecause clearly it's up to me to feel em8tions for the 8oth of us, you misera8le soulless witch!

AA: 0_0

AG: I h88888888 you!

AG: H8 h8 h8 h8 h8 h8 h8 haaaaaaaate!

AG: I only regret killing you cause it m8de you so 8ORING!!!!!!!!

AA: s0rry

Aradia assures her that the teams are meaningless, but being on the Red team will put Vriska in the position they need her in. Vriska’s confused and angry, and leaves the chat.

In Equius’ LAND OF CAVES AND SILENCE, he trolls Aradia again, telling her he will be the sole leader, which she doesn’t care about. He’s surprised she isn’t objecting, and says he needs a towel.

CT: D --> Never mind

CT: D --> I'm trying to stay professional about this

AA: ab0ut what

AA: what are y0u talking ab0ut

CT: D --> Forget it

CT: D --> It's just pleasant to consort with one of lesser breeding who clearly understands her place

He’s been established to suffer from hyperhydrosis, but he’s clearly also supposed to be getting off on this, which, since he’s thirteen, is icky to read.

CALL CPA PLEASE: 12

It only gets worse.

CT: D --> I 100k forward to seeing how well you serve me, server player

AA: uh

AA: thats n0t quite the meaning 0f the w0rd server

CT: D --> What do you mean

AA: as y0ur server i manipulate y0ur envir0nment t0 help y0u advance

CT: D --> I don't understand

CT: D --> Are you

CT: D --> Are you saying

CT: D --> That

CT: D --> You are in a position of control over me

AA: i supp0se s0

CT: D --> Oh

AA: what

CT: D --> Oh my God

He babbles about how he needs fresh air or another towel, getting so agitated he actually drops an F-bomb, which he immediately covers up with “Fiddlesticks”. He says he wants to break something, and Aradia offers to break something for him, as she’s developed an interest in breaking things recently. Next page, she flings an “abluti0n trap” through his wall. 

FAILURE ARTIST: The running gag of girls fucking up boy’s homes with bathroom appliances continues!

CHEL: He’s very happy, except about her commoner slang.

CT: D --> In fact, this is an order from your leader

CT: D --> Call things by their proper names

AA: what

AA: y0u want me t0 call it a bath tub

AA: that s0unds ridicul0us

As FA noted, this bit of worldbuilding ends up retconned out with all trolls calling things by strange rewordings later on.

Whatever it’s called, Equius asks her to throw it through the wall again. She asks if that’s an order, and he can’t decide.

CT: D --> You could cause quite a bother for me, with the power you wield

CT: D --> I can do nothing to stop you, peasant girl

CT: D --> It's so magnificently depraved

CALL CPA PLEASE: 13

Aradia ribbits again and he takes it for roleplaying, but commands her to continue to do as she pleases. He tells her he’s bringing the robot body, and muses on whether she should actually be co-leader again; in fact, he decides, she should be the actual leader, in secret, through him. She points out that’s what they’re doing anyway.

CT: D --> You take to authority well for one of your b100d

AA: i d0nt have bl00d

CT: D --> Not yet

CT: D --> But soon your heart will beat anew, and through it, fresh b100d and fresh passion

AA: 0_0

CALL CPA PLEASE: 14

Equius proceeds to STRONGJUMP right up to his first Gate, punching off an ogre’s head as he goes, and to STRONGFALL out into LOQAM, where Aradia waits. Equius hands over the robot and Aradia enters it; she seems happy, but Equius cautiously asks if she feels anything else.

EQUIUS: D --> Can you detect anything within you might describe as

EQUIUS: D --> Smoldering passion

[...]

ARADIABOT: 0h g0d

ARADIABOT: 0H MY G0D WHAT DID Y0U D0!

ARADIABOT: did y0u pr0gram this r0b0t t0 have feelings f0r y0u?

ARADIABOT: R0MANTIC FEELINGS???

EQUIUS: D --> Hrrrk

ARADIABOT: ANSWER ME BLUE BL00D SCUM

EQUIUS: D --> I

EQUIUS: D --> Yes

EQUIUS: D --> Uh

EQUIUS: D --> It's a chip in your heart

EQUIUS: D --> Is that not ok

Understandably, it is emphatically not.

GORE GALORE: 12

Now, this is undeniably a really, really, really creepy thing to do. I’m not sure how much blame can be applied to Equius here, though; he’s been raised in a society which would presumably tell him she would have to accept his advances no matter what, considering their caste difference. In a horrifying way, the chip might have been, in his mind, the nicer option. Still, as I said, creepy.

CALL CPA PLEASE: 15

BRIGHT: I think it’s telling that he asks if it’s not okay after Aradia freaks out, as though he honestly hadn’t considered that Aradia might have a problem with it. Specifically, up until that point, Equius seems to be interacting with Aradia more like she’s a prop than a person — it doesn’t seem to occur to him that she might not want what he wants, unless their wants conflict in a way that he finds titillating. Then she freaks out and he’s surprised. And that in turn speaks volumes about how lowbloods are viewed by highbloods in wider society.

Contrast Vriska, who absolutely realises that people down spectrum can have their own agendas and emotional reactions; she just does her own thing anyway. Vriska is actively malicious; Equius is, at least in this case, accidentally malicious. Note that he doesn’t make any effort to prevent her from removing the chip once he realises she’s distressed. (Not that he really gets a chance.)

Equius in particular also seems to have a problem about slotting people into roles in general -- he does it with Gamzee, too, although since Gamzee is higher-blooded than him, he has to at least face the fact that Gamzee doesn’t fit into his role. He comes across as very sheltered.

FAILURE ARTIST: Equius considers it such a good thing to be a highblood that he thinks he’s doing her the greatest favor by turning her into one. 

CHEL: This also brings up the question of where he got all that blue blood. I hope it’s synthetic. If not, he’s already said he doesn’t kill animals, so I’m not sure whether it’s creepier if he killed another troll for it or if he slowly drained it off from his own.

Aradia’s not contemplating that, too busy crushing the artificial heart and slapping the shit out of Equius for multiple pages, before, er…

Yes, she’s apparently making out with him as a reward for violating her mind, even after the chip was removed. 

BRIGHT: The first time I read Homestuck, I thought that was meant to imply that not all of the programming was gone.

FAILURE ARTIST: Hussie did confirm the programming was gone. He compared it to a failed roofying.

CHEL: This is a bit of a shock, but it makes somewhat more sense when we see more of troll culture, not long in the future. Still, right now it’s probably upsetting for a number of readers because that part of troll culture hasn’t been established, so…

CALL CPA PLEASE: 16

CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 41

[dungeons-and-divination]

BARBARIAN Path of the BERSERKER - Mountain DWARF - Failed merchant

Some characters just have a lot to talk about, others a lot less. This is one of those with a very full life even before they start adventuring! I hope you enjoy his very long life story… 

Name: Melbek “Donnybrook” Lutgehr (56yo)

TAROTS

Mind: Nine of wands (upright) I love when the first card I draw is such a positive start. It might not look like it, cause the Nine of wands does give off this battle weary vibe. Yet, it’s also a big card of courage and persistence, of learning from past mistakes. And I feel like it's the perfect card for how I pictured good old Donny from the get go. He’s obviously very tired because of some failures he’d endured in the past, but he’s also up to the challenges the future has in store for him. He’s sure that he can still turn it all around and have something good to talk about at the end of it.

Body: Nine of cups (upright) Yet again, finding success, fulfilling a dream. It really made me wonder if maybe he failed as a merchant because his heart wasn’t into it, if he just put his energies in the wrong dream. A self-confidence card for “body” for a character that I already knew would be a barbarian… I mean, if very on the nose, but also so perfect! Donny knows what he’s good at, probably wanted to embrace it for a lot of time. But there was something that made him try to fing the success he craved for in something else.

Spirit: Seven of swords (reversed) Oh, how wonderful! Running away from consequences AND a need of coming clean! This is just the cherry on top. So, this poor lad repressed what he wanted, probably cause of some kind of duty towards something or someone, then finally he tried to reach for his dream, and that’s when the guilt trip started! He can’t seem to win, he’s always turn between his dream and that sense of duty towards something. I still can’t stop but coming back to that capacity to learn from his mistakes though. I know Donny can find a solution to his conundrum! 

Past: Wheel of fortune (reversed) And look at that, once again the tarots point out how Donny’s life was going perfectly well, then they crumbled in front of him. And that mess made him feel so powerless, despite knowing it was kind of his fault since he never was a very good businessman. Yet, Donny sees that mess as an opportunity, he can finally move on and what he does best. Which is get mad and kick people in the nads. He just has to bear the weight of the responsabilties he’s leaving behind to everyone elses he loves. 

Present: Eight of swords (upright) While this card can be related to actual imprisonment, I feel like considering everything I already got from Donny’s read, this is more of a psychological issue for him. A deep denial of how he truly feel probably. This very brave man, facing every enemy without a care in the world, yet, when it comes to coming true to his family, he shies away from the discussion. Literally paralyzed by the fear of coming back home and finding out that they’ll never forgive him. Yeah, more that kind of prison of the mind.

Future: Two of pentacles (upright) Aw, I’m moved. That Donny got this card just confirms how much of a family man he is deep down. He’ll struggle deeply to keep that balance between adventuring, and staying with the family he loves so much. Like always, the future card is a suggestion on a general direction for this character development. I do see Donny really trying to make a decision between the two things, especially if he finally decides to apologize in person to his family for leaving. I can see him torn between the party and his family, before either his family or the party helps him finally make a decision. Or they help him realize that he doesn’t necessarily have to choose at all, if the party becomes family too.

FULL BACKSTORY

Born in a brothel, Melbek is the son of Kettin, a sex worker. His father, unluckyly, was never in the picture, despite Kettin repeatedly telling him that he would have loved to be with them (apparently, Tordek, his father, had been captured by a bounty hunter just a couple of months before Melbek was born and Kettin, which at the time was planning on leaving her life as a sex worker with him, never saw or heard from him again). Melbek lived all of his childhood and teenage years with his mother and his two older half-sister, Gymres and Ingres, inside the rooming house where a lot of other sex workers lived with their own children. He considered all of them actual family, to the point that he called aunts and uncles the other sex workers and cousins their children. Some of those kids, he even considered brothers and sisters, mostly because in their early teens they got into trouble all together. His family still struggled a lot with money, so both his sisters and Melbek started to work as young as they could. The first job Melbek could find was as an errand boy for a brewery in town. He was known for getting into trouble, but also for not having an issue putting in his place people way bigger than he was with a well placed kick or punch. So, while he was allowed sometimes to help inside the brewery for the actual brewing (and he did develop a passion for the process), Melbek mostly delivered the product to the local seedy dive bars. It was during one of these deliveries to a bigger establishment that he stumbled in the middle of a brawl; nobody was actually trying to stop the fight, and the bartender, a very worried and way too young to be dealing with the situation girl, was about to have a mild panic attack because of it. Deciding he wanted to help, Melbek got into the fray and quickly stopped the fight, to the cheers of the other people and the gratitude of the poor girl. The following delivery to that establishment, came with a proposition from the owner itself, that was so impressed by the very glowing recommendation given by the bartender, that he wanted Melbek to be sort of a bouncer for him, since it wasn’t the first time that the place had been half-destroyed by things getting too heated up. In the following months, Melbek quickly gained himself a reputation and a nickname. Everyone started calling him either Donnybrook or Donny. Everyone but his family and the cute bartender, Maerma, which spent longer and longer talking to him, even when both of them were actually supposed to be working. Nobody was really surprised when they married just two years later. What came as a surprise was the inheritance from an old almost forgotten aunt of Maerna a couple of years after they married, when Maerna had just got pregnant with her first child. Apparently, Maerna was the only relative her aunt Gwenmyla had left, and while she used to visit her aunt a lot in her childhood, she hadn’t seen Gwenmyla since she was 7, when Maerna became an orphan and ended up in an orphanage. With the suddenly acquired money, the couple decided to buy a comfortable house for the family (which included not only the two of them and the baby that was about to be born, but, to Maerna’s insistence, even Kettin, Gymres and Ingres). The remaining money was put to a project that the couple had been talking about since the moment they met: opening their own bar, where they could have beer that they themselves brewed. So, they opened a new family business: the Brewer’s Den. For a long time their life seemed to be fantastic. Mearna and Donny became proud parents of two baby girls (Maeve and Marryn), Donny’s family was finally doing something that made them all happier… Yet, the bar never really seemed to completely succeed. They were always struggling, despite Donny’s efforts to brew fun and creative beers or liquors that could attract people to their establishment. After about twelve years from the opening, they were on the verge of bankruptcy. Well aware that he could do nothing for his business other than apparently make it go into even deeper debt, Donny tried to think of what else he could do to try and prevent his family from ending up on the streets. One night, while he was tending the bar on his own, a group of adventurers in very expensive looking garb, entered to find momentary shelter from a terrible rainstorm. Impressed by their wealth, he inquired about their way of life. And a forgotten dream, the dream of a child playing with his brothers and sisters in the seedy streets of the poorest neighborhood in town, quickly came once again to the forefront… Could he really gain so much wealth like them? Could he really make sure his family was happy once again? Before he knew it, he’d already decided… And left just a couple of days later, in the middle of the night, only a letter left behind, a heavy guilt inside his heart and a hope that he’d made the right choice this time.

SUGGESTION CORNER

Suggested features Ability scores: High Strength and Charisma, Low Intelligence Skill proficiencies: Nature, Intimidation Artisan’s tool proficiencies: cook’s utensils, brewer’s supplies Suggested Characteristics Trait: I love a good insult, even one directed at me. Ideal: Too many consider me a failure. I need to prove them wrong. Bond: My family means everything to me. I failed them before and I must not do so again. Flaw: I find that most people are trustworthy. Hey, where’s my belt pouch?

[professionalsuethor]

So, this is a really sensitive topic and if you're easily offended I ask that you scroll past this post. For those who wanna know what I read for? Hit the Read More tab and delve right on in with me. Okay, so, like, I asked Tarot: "What can we do to clean up the mess/shit hole we've made of America so far?" This question was inspired by a post my friend made a few days ago on Facebook. I used three different decks for this question: The Rider-Waite-Smith deck, The Hermetic Tarot deck, and the Queen of the Moon Oracle deck. These were used for specific energies of the answers I needed. The RWS deck(for the Celtic Cross spread) was used to glean typical information. The Hermetic Tarot was used for clear-cut, no bullshit, straight to the point without the frills, kind of answer. The Oracle deck was used just to glean/enhance the energy of the answer of the whole thing. So, here's the reading: First off, the topic of the reading is the X(Ten) of Swords(reversed). This is willful ignorance to the injury caused by what inspired the question. When will we get our heads out of our asses and see what the truth actually is? Instead of being separated by stupid shit like pro life vs. pro choice, gun ban vs. constitutional rights regarding guns, welcoming alien residents vs. keeping foreigners out, my religion is better vs. your religion, ect., we're taking on willful ignorance of what/who is really fucking us. Which, even without reading to the end, should be an obvious answer: those who lie to us about how we should be scared of each other instead of uniting for the common and highest good of all, regardless of differences. Because that's what it is to be an American. The card that crosses the topic and that is the main struggle of the reading, is XI Justice. Justice for these people are being blocked and the perpetrator(s) are getting off the hook because they can use the willful ignorance and emotions they struck up between these two groups(the different "parties" we have here in America which have the biggest influence over smaller parties trying to evoke change) to stay in power and to revoke responsibility for the illegal activities they're up to. The goal of the American people is II The High Priestess. We want to be unified once more. The need for the power to be returned to the people is strong because The Priestess teaches us that we don't need a head or authority to tell us what to think, what to do, and what to be, because the power was within us the entire time. We want to disagree but we want to do so lovingly as to not have it a blood bath as the X of Swords(R) implies. As for the deeper history of the Americas: Because of the perversion of II The High Priestess, the V of Cups tells us we put all our hope into individuals who are HUMAN and are as fallible as the rest of us, thus leading to great disappointment. And those who saw that pain wanted to manipulate it cause a divide and break us down, each minority, so they can gain complete control. As a result of this division we ended up with The King of Pentacles(Reversed), Donald Trump, who can easily forego all responsibility for anything he does or says and therefore has a free-for-all because of his money(but moreso because of the influence of monetary power). As far as the near future is concerned, we have the II of Swords, meaning that we're going to be forced to reunite together even though we won't fully know what the far future will bring, but we will be united in love. Because we value our friendships, our relationships, and to know what is more important than what a head-of-state, or mayors, or politicians, say is. This is because we looked inside of ourselves again, realizing that the heart of our goal is the same: To live together in love, even if we disagree, because that's how family works - and families fight a lot. It's a matter of our choices of how we treat each other through these disagreements. We realize that compassion, in the right situation, is more important than correctness. We learn to love again. In Perfect Love and Perfect Trust. What we don't know about this is that everyone has something to offer no matter how big or small on a scale. That we need to switch back to paper voting and humans counting votes so that we won't have an incident of outside governments influencing the vote by hacking our systems. That there should be a law, or amendment to the Constitution that should protect it. Our environment at the moment is XIV Temperance(reversed). Meaning, there is such a split that we're all "bleeding" from the injury and are unsure of who to trust. The fear and concern of the Nation is the Page of Cups(reversed). We're afraid of being lied to again. How do we know whether to believe in what a politician tells us to be afraid of, or of how to love better? You can answer that one. The likely End Result of all of this is VIII Strength(reversed). Just because it's upside down doesn't always mean that it's negative. What it *does* mean, though, is that in the end we're going to be careful of who we trust - and because we're still suffering from our past choices, or the hurt someone else has inflicted on us, we will be more careful. Grief takes time but it is not forever. We can heal and grow; the choice is yours: Will you heal in love or will you harden in fear? And now to the black and white cards: The Hermetic Tarot. "How can America kick themselves into gear and make positive shit happen??" Well, keep on reading, my hard, rockin' amigo! We have The Queen of Wands, The Six of Wands, and The Eight of Pentacles. Here it says that when we trust ourselves and gain confidence in our choices once again(rather than be run by doubt and fear injected to us by our political parties about the people in other parties), we will find good fruit and therefore be victorious. This isn't to say that evil isn't in the world. We should definitely fight evil and atrocities and all the other horrible things that plague humanity. What I'm trying to say is, we should fight the result of evil, not attack or believe another person's core is inherently evil because we prefer abortion or we prefer carrying babies full-term...(Just an example). People are fickle things. We all fuck up. It's just life. But are we going to identify as being fucked up? Are you going to point and blame everyone else for why things are fucked up? No. You accept that it's fucked up and choose to either be better and heal or bitter and hate. Those who teach you how to hate are not your allies. They want something out of you and you are definitely not going to benefit from their empty promises because you hate your black neighbor Fredrick or your immigrant neighbor Juan. Or your transgender neighbor Maxwell. I can go on and on with the examples... But it all boils down to the same thing. As far as the energy card of the reading from the colorful Queen of the Moon Oracle: We get Self-Reflection. This also ties into II The High Priestess. Are we going to be honest and clear about who we are and what we need/want - or are we going to blame others because that's what we're told to do? So yeah, there's my little speck of Tarot from across the internet. Love ya'll. ~Ashley A.

[translations-by-aiimee]

Mistakenly Saving the Villain - Chapter 4

Original Title: 论救错反派的下场

Genres: Drama, Romance, Xianxia, Yaoi

TW for this chapter: Sexual abuse (skip to the solo ". . ." to skip that part)

This translation is based on multiple MTLs and my own limited knowledge of Chinese characters. If I have made any egregious mistakes, please let me know.

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3

Chapter 4 - Breaking Out of Hell

Song Qingshi finally connected the child with the red tear mole in his memories and the peerless beauty on the golden bird frame.

Someone eavesdropping on their conversation clapped his hands and laughed: "Xie Que is really wicked. It must have been so amusing to see when the little apprentice discovered the truth."

Since Jin FeiRen had cultivated immortality, he had received countless beauties, but he was still excited about the moment that Yue Wuhuan entering the door: "That year, when I was eight hundred years old, I received countless congratulations, so I held a feast on this Langgan stage and invited all my friends to celebrate together. Xie Que also came with Wuhuan. He seemed to tell Wuhuan that he was going to send him to Golden Phoenix Manor to learn sword fighting. Wuhuan was overjoyed. When Xie was absent, he took out the spirit bead and asked me to inspect the slave. His incredulous expression was really cute. . ."

Jin FeiRen casually played with the long hair of the boy in white, forcing him to look at the beauty on the golden bird stand, and then told everyone about the past events:

At that time, Yue Wuhuan had just grown up, wearing the Yuelan clothes that all immortal disciples liked, with a sword on his waist, his hair tied with a simple white jade crown. His body had a clean smell, his facial features were exquisite, and his phoenix eyes were clear and innocent. He had dignified manners, unlike someone with a mortal origin, but like the young son of the immortal family.

He earnestly bowed to the immortals at the banquet and then told Jin FeiRen that he was already in the middle stage of foundation building and that he would work hard to master his sword at Golden Phoenix Manor in the future, and live up to Master's expectations and become like Mo Yuan. The powerful sword repair. At that time, everyone laughed, and there was an ambiguous atmosphere that was built from the laughter. Yue Wuhuan realized that there was something wrong with their laughter and wanted to retreat. Jin FeiRen had already walked down, lifted his hand, studied it carefully, and laughed: "Such a beautiful hand is not suitable for swordsmanship. It's more suitable for serving people."

Yue Wuhuan's face turned pale and he desperately retracted his hands.

Jin FeiRen let go and smiled: "Immortal Xie, since you have brought some excellent goods, you must let me inspect the goods."

The people in the room also clamoured and demanded to inspect the goods on the spot.

Yue Wuhuan watched as his master took out a red bead. He turned his mind, and lost control of his body. He desperately tried to prevent his trembling hands from reaching his waist and threw his most treasured sword away like trash. Long sword. Then, his belt fell, and the layers of Yuelan's clothes faded away. His self-esteem was destroyed in front of everyone, and his dream of cultivation was crushed to pieces.

All sounds of the dinner stopped, and all eyes were staring at the beautiful scenery.

Jin FeiRen couldn't help but straighten up.

Yue Wuhuan was struggling in this controlled state, wishing to die on the spot. He looked at his master in pain, his beautiful lips squirming, and begged silently. Xie Que finally walked towards him and gently stretched out his hand, just like when he touched his head every day to praise him.

Xie Que gently pulled off his white jade crown.

The white jade crown fell to the floor and smashed into pieces. The long, slightly curled hair dropped down to his waist like a waterfall, covering the enchanting Acacia Seal on his pale back. The despair and helplessness in the dark golden phoenix eyes were enough to arouse any raging thoughts. The red tear-shaped mole made people feel allured, and the originally beautiful boy was turned into a seductive collectable.

The more Wuhuan struggled, the more his head lowered to hide himself away in embarrassment.

Xie Que grabbed Yue Wuhuan's long hair and pulled it back fiercely, forcing the ashamed young man to raise his head so that everyone could see one of the best beauties of the country.

He smiled and said: "My vision is never wrong."

. . .

The sound of the flute resonated further, and the depth of the sadness in that lingering sound became more devastating.

Song Qingshi's throat stiffened from sadness, and he was left a little breathless. He gradually understood the meaning of the words Yue Wuhuan said by the river bank. He seemed to see himself locked in a physical prison from his past. He shouted every day, but no one could hear his cry for help.

He didn't want to think about it anymore. He already knew the answer.

He wanted to save was this bruised beautiful bird with his strings of scars.

Song Qingshi began to think wildly about how to naturally whisk this boy away.

The song ended, the flute stopped, and the remaining notes curled away into the wind.

The guests had already been enthusiastic from the song, and now some were even making fools of themselves.

Jin FeiRen got up and announced boldly: "This is the toy that Golden Phoenix Manor will give to you all immortal friends tonight. Please enjoy!."

Song Qingshi was startled and looked back worriedly. Yue Wuhuan only raised his eyebrows. It seemed that he was used to such a scene. He indifferently cast a wink at the immortal beside him, his beautiful calves stretched out under the feather skirt, shaking the bells on the golden shackles on his feet. He swayed them towards everyone as if inviting them to taste.

The Hidden Moon Sect's Young Master looked at him with desire. He raised his hand to grab his foot and wanted to tear off the feather skirt and drag him off to the side to play around with.

Suddenly, there was an exclamation from outside the hall, and the maids and servants fled one after another. A demon tiger rushed into the hall. Its eyes were red, staring at Yue Wuhuan, roaring in a low voice, as if it saw some delicious prey. Yue Wuhuan’s eyes began to glaze over as if he had been drugged. It was like he didn't know what fear was. He actually walked towards the demon tiger, closer and closer, seeming not to know what it was. . .

LingBao Xianzun said in surprise: "This is the show my friend arranged tonight? Such flair!"

The guests were full of drunken spirit. They were getting extremely exciting and started cheering.

The white-clothed boy finally couldn't help standing up. He pushed Jin FeiRen away, and shouted: "Stop! Don't do this! This sort of show. . . is too much!"

Jin FeiRen was a little puzzled. He had arranged a demon tiger hunting slave game tonight, but he was only going to use ordinary slaves. Why would he ever be willing to use such a stunning beauty as Yue Wuhuan? But now the atmosphere of the guests was too energetic. Yue Wuhuan knew how to ensure the guests would not be disappointed and keep the energy. The accusation of the youth beside him also made him feel like he lost face, so he sneered: "Why not? You just have to open your eyes and take a good look. If you dare to disobey me, I'll let you have a go against the beast."

The white-clothed boy's face turned pale. He opened his mouth, but he dared not make any more noises.

Seeing him approaching, the demon tiger became even more frantic and lost its wit. He grabbed Yue Wuhuan's shoulder and bit down. Yue Wuhuan’s shoulder was torn open with a big, bloody mouth. He finally woke up from his dazed state and drew back. The demon tiger still continued to grab and bite at him, trying to tear up what was trying to escape in front of him.

Song Qingshi racked the original body's memories until he found a suitable attack spell he could use. He turned the Underworld Ghost Fire into a needle as thin as cattle hair and shot it at the demon tiger's body. The demon tiger raised his head and roared, and the thin needle that should have been hit its neck hit its leg insted.

Fortunately, the poison of the Underworld Ghost Fire spread quickly in the demon tiger. The demon tiger instantly grew stiff and fell on its side After a while, it turned into a boiling corpse and evaporated.

Song Qingshi got up and walked towards Yue Wuhuan who was lying in a pool of blood. He quickly sealed the wound and pressed a few acupuncture points to stop the bleeding.

Yue Wuhuan was trembling in pain. He kept panting, his beautiful face was covered with blood, and he looked like a ghost. Looking at Song Qingshi, there was no joy of being rescued, only deep resentment and despair. Finally, before he passed out, he said in a soft voice that was almost inaudible: "I was so blind. . ."

Song Qingshi put a spirit pill in his mouth to keep his heart working.

Jin FeiRen came over and was very displeased: "Song Xianzun, why did you kill my demon tiger?"

This demon tiger was his most valuable treasure, capable of human intelligence, and able to protect his master. Much more valuable than a tired slave.

Song Qingshi put himself back into the character of the original body, and said coldly: "I want him."

Jin FeiRen smiled and said, "Was Xianxun actually moved by this display?"

Song Qingshi replied: "I will use him to test my medicine."

He wanted to use Yue Wuhuan to try various miraculous medicines to restore his body to what it used to be!

Under Song Qingshi’s deliberate misguidance, Jin FeiRen was completely fooled. The advantage of the wood spirit root system was that the natural body had a strong resilience and was a good choice for medicine refiners. Medicine Master Xianzun’s behaviour was like immortals that flew through the sky. It was hard to guess what he was thinking. Since the demon tiger was dead, there was no point in investigating it, so it's better to take this opportunity to have Song Qingshi owe him a favour.

Song Qingshi took out a bottle of his immortal pills from his mustard bag, and didn't really count out how much he took out. Instead, he directly handed them to Jin FeiRen as compensation. Refining pills were extremely beneficial to practicing cultivation. It’s just that the materials were extremely precious, and they were very hard to come by. Pills refined by the Medicine Master Xianxun himself were even more of a rarirty. Considering this was compensation for the demon tiger and a slave he was tired of playing with and might now even make it. . . this was a very sincere offer. . .

Song Qingshi was afraid that he would reject the offer, so he thought about it and then said: "This tiger has been drugged. He was overly vicious and had become deranged, so it couldn't be left as was."

Jin FeiRen hurried down the steps, erased his spiritual thoughts from Yue Wuhuan's bead and transferred them to Song Qingshi. He thanked him for discovering the tiger's madness and killing it without injuring the guests on the court and ordered someone to investigate the demon tiger being drugged.

Song Qingshi courteously paid his farewells to Manor Lord Jin and rejected his enthusiasm for sending him home with some beauties.

He picked up Yue Wuhuan, who was seriously injured and still unconscious and stepped out of this hell of jade carvings.

In hell, there were still many souls that still couldn't escape. . .

Behind him, the carefree laughter grew farther and farther away.

The blood on Yue Wuhuan's face has been wiped away, and the crow feather-like eyelashes are tightly closed, trembling slightly, fragile and beautiful.

When Song Qingshi looked at him, his heart gradually became firmer.

He suddenly remembered the story his mother told when he was a child:

There are thousands of fish from the tide pushing them into the shallow puddles on the beach.

He has no way of saving all the fish. He can only release the dying fish in his hand to the freedom of the sea.

"Because this fish cares."

[ladykf-writes]

Fanfic Writer Appreciation (and a little self love)

Sooooo, as talked about I wanted to do a little promo. I may not always be my favorite writer, but I try to be one of my cheerleaders. And well, if you’re here you obviously have some interest in what I’m up to.

SO! Here’s a list of my currently-published WIPs and some info about them, in the order that I’ve updated them, most recent to oldest. 

Feel free to ask questions about any of them!

Dog Whistle (Ao3 || FFN) - started off as a prompt from @snackarey​ when I reblogged some Soulmate AUs. This one was a prompt for soulmates (Zack/Kunsel) who felt what each other felt - like pain. Needless to say, this went into a canon divergent AU where Kunsel felt some of what Zack was going through when Hojo got a hold of him after Nibelheim. And saved him, setting off an ever-increasing list of revolutionary consequences. It’s nearly 58K, and though I’m a little stuck I’m looking forward to seeing where it goes.

Dewprism: Journey to the [Relic] (Ao3 || FFN) - this actually has a lot more written than I’ve posted, I just got a little frustrated because well... the fandom is teeny tiny and there’s no real feedback. But! It’s an interesting piece. It’s a semi-novelization where I’m taking the old PS1 Classic from Squaresoft, Threads of Fate/Dewprism and merging the two storylines. Basically... you can’t play the game anymore unless you got it from the PSN for your PSP or... PS2, I think? Or emulate it, of course, you can do that. And I wanted to bring the experience to more people, because it’s got such a great story.

It’s Not a Game (Ao3 || FFN) - this is my Avengers/FF7 crossover, and funny story, it was actually born out of a comment back on my old Genesis RP blog about how Genesis would totally be Tony Stark’s favorite character if he played Crisis Core. It’s turned into a full blown fixit I have a type and I actually have like, 90% of the next chapter done, it just doesn’t feel quite right so I haven’t posted it. And am, of course, stuck. There’s a case of choice paralysis here; the premise is that, in the MCU, FF7 is a series like it is in our world, and Tony is a fan. So he goes to make a simulation to do a self-insert... only he somehow transports himself (and Bruce) to a dimension where it’s real. A “Stark-insert” someone called it; and it does use a lot of “Self-Insert” tropes, actually. There’s just so many ways it could go that I’m stuck on choosing exactly how to progress here.

Party of Five (Ao3 || FFN) - the MMO AU! This was actually originally a prompt @up-sideand-down​ got, that I got permission to take off with. It’s a modern AU AGSZC where they meet online playing this MMO I made up that’s based off of FF7 and modeled after a mashup of like, me studying WoW and my experiences playing SWTOR. I’ve actually got some ideas of where it’s going, I just got too caught up in technicalities and need to reroute it back to the relationships going on.

Welcome to FF7 (series link, Ao3) - this is me hashing out basically what I think went down pre-games. Most of it is headcanon, I cannot stress that enough. It’s based off of the little we know, of course, but there’s just so much we don’t that it’s mostly headcanon. Tons of OCs. It’s a whole series, and they overlap - different sections that follow different departments, mostly. The base story is Welcome to ShinRa (Ao3 || FFN) and that follows the man who will become President Shinra from back when they first discover mako energy. I’ve also got Welcome to the Science Department (Ao3 || FFN) which starts off with college students Gast and Grimoire and how they get drawn into the beginnings of what becomes ShinRa Electric.

And last but not least, honorable mention to Times of Change (Ao3) - this was actually a piece inspired by @deadcatwithaflamethrower‘s Re-Entry series. I desperately need to reread that before I can hope to continue this, but... one day. One day.... I don’t suggest reading it right now, my headcanons have changed and it needs an overhaul. But you’ll see eventually.

And now... the WIPs you haven’t seen. (Under a cut)

By fandom, just to keep things straight, but in no particular order otherwise.

Compilation of FF7

The Snowball Effect (Ao3 || FFN) ... sequel? continuation? - as one of the gift exchange presents I’ve just done this past month, it is definitely standalone as is, but if I ever figure out where I want to take it, I’ll continue that one. It was just far too much fun.

The Price of Freedom - the sequel to To Be Human, which... I’m looking forward to, but I really burnt myself out on TBH so it’s going to be longer than anticipated before I approach this one. TBH definitely stands on its own, but there were some loose ends left to tie up, so we’ll see how that goes. And when it goes, when I’m ready to approach that again. TBH needs some editing, too... lots of work there.

The Unnamed Pokemon/FF7 crossover that I’ve talked about for... a couple years now (yikes) but now actually have a plot for. It’s very interesting to me, putting Pokemon on Gaia, and seeing how that changes everything. Because like, they’d have presumably used Mew’s DNA since there’s no Jenova (I can’t see them using Deoxys, which would be the closer parallel) and since there’s no Chaos, Grimoire is still alive. Which means no extra Drama between Lucrecia and Vincent - and really, there shouldn’t be the stress between Vincent and Hojo over her being sick because Mew would theoretically be much more compatible with humans than Jenova was.

What I’m saying is Seph has three parents and at least one set of grandparents and a much more stable Sephiroth (and Genesis and Angeal, thanks to Lucrecia teaming up with Gillian) leads to some very interesting changes. Like deciding they don’t want to fight the Wutai war anymore. >_>

Hold My Flower - a timetravel fic featuring our one and only flowergirl, who has had enough of people messing up her planet and refuses to just... let it die. She is, unquestionably, a force of nature. No fragile flower to be found here, this is the gal you see in the OG who threatened a mob boss and meant it. Heaven help anyone who gets in her way. She’s going to save the world. Possibly in a Turk Suit, don’t look at me.

The Long Game - Reeve goes back in time, and holy crap this one is a monster I am truly intimidated by so it’s gonna take a while for me to get going on that. XD But basically, similar premise to the above - the world isn’t healing and someone has to do something, so Reeve is nominated due to his position in ShinRa and potential to... he’d say “influence” but let’s call a spade a spade - manipulate people and events to a more favorable outcome.

A third BIT fic is one that I started writing with my friend @askshivanulegacy back in... damn, somewhere between 2011-2013, before we switched to writing SWTOR fic together. It’s one where Zack is sent back in time, and the differences in him post-Hojo change things even before he can start deliberately changing anything. But I got permission to take and remake that, so I intend to, one day. It was Good Stuff. And you can never have too much timetravel.

Dragon Ball Z

So, this is an oooooold fandom of mine - the first fanfics I ever wrote (under a different name, no I’m not telling XD it was ten years ago) were for DBZ, and definitely the first ones I ever read, back in the days of dial up. And I read a couple interesting takes on Chichi/Vegeta fic... and I was talking with @vorpalgirl about it and said I’d love to try my hand at something with that one day. I think they have the potential to be a really great pair (don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the canon pairings but those two have a lot of potential) so... yeah someday I might dip my toes back into Z. It’s on the wishlist, as well as reviving and cleaning up an old unfinished work of mine. Someday~

Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

Seven Years Lost - this one I’ve been debating a long time, and even did a little on! It’s basically how I rationalize what happens when Link pulls the Master Sword out and - well, spoilers but it’s a really old game so - when he comes out as a teenager and is immediately able to handle a nearly-adult body. It involves a dreamscape scenario where he communicates with his past incarnations and learns from them, and from sharing dreams with Zelda due to their bond.

Sailor Moon (manga/Crystal based)

Second Chances - I read a lot of SM fanfic back in the day, and my favorite ones were... more real? Like, there were more consequences to these 14 year old kids out there fighting for their lives and sometimes losing them. I’d like to tell a story through Minako/Venus’ eyes primarily, covering what that’s like, and then I also just really want a happy ending for the senshi/shittenou? So... yay canon divergence, lol. You guys know the deal by now. XD

Star Wars: Legends Era

United We Stand - SWTOR fanfic, baby! Basically, I’m just dying to see the eight classes cross over each other, and I will bend canon to do it. For anyone that’s played the original class story lines, there is some cross over but believe me when I say there were huge opportunities that were let drop by nature of the game. Just with the two Jedi stories alone... but that’s #spoilers for a not-as-old game so I’ll leave that be and only elaborate if asked.

(And do feel free to ask about any of these! I’d love to hash them out more.)

[amicuscordis]

At Least You Don’t Want To Kill Me

Read it on ao3!

Fighting the elusive Green is a pain in the ass, but at least Lance gets to crash with his awesome roommate Pidge afterwards. After a nasty battle with the Blue Paladin, Pidge faces the idea that maybe there is no one who cares if she makes it home at the end of the night.

Rated T for some violence and swearing

Tags: Alternate Universe, that one au where one's a hero and one's a 'villain' but as civilians they're oblivious roommates, Injury, Blood, but not much

Check out the amazing art for this fic by the talented Shii here!

Thanks to Oxto for betaing for me, and @planceminibang​ for letting me participate! This first part focuses on Lance’s side of the story. Pidge’s will be coming soon.

At Least You Don’t Want To Kill Me, Chapter 1

Before the car had completely stopped, Lance was stumbling out of it, teetering on cigarette butts and plastic bottles that lined the drains. Shiro reached from the backseat and out the passenger door, catching Lance’s arm before he could completely fall. “You good, Lance?”

Lance yanked his arm away from Shiro, nearly falling over again in the process, and slammed the door shut. Hunk, watching from behind the wheel, was already rolling down the window. “I’m offended, honestly,” Lance announced, gesticulating with his longs arms as he paced in a small circle. “He’s never tased me hard enough to knock me out before. Whatever happened to that good ol’ nemesis bond?”

“It means he felt threatened,” Shiro said, pulling his arm back into the car. He was not supposed to even be in the car, much less the city, but when Hunk had set out to take Lance home, Shiro had reasoned that in a vehicle in the dark, who could identify the missing Kerberos pilot? “You and Keith will get him next time.”

Or the kid would just find a new way to outthink them again. Lance shoved his hands into his pockets, shrugged. Shiro and Hunk shared a look. For a terrifying three seconds, Lance thought Hunk might be about to try to argue to come inside with him, as if Lance’s getting pissed off at an alien-aided villain was reason to mark him an invalid. That spoiled the spirit of hanging out, though, and made the usually social Lance just want to be alone.

Well, not entirely alone, but she was a special case.

Whatever concerns Hunk had, he decided to let it go. Stuck to the car, Shiro had no choice but to follow. Hunk hunched over so he could give Lance a solid look out the window. “Call me before executing any stupid ideas, okay?”

“Sure, whatever.”

Hunk kept his stare on Lance, as if to reaffirm that he meant it, then rolled up the window and pulled away from the curb. Lance waited until they turned out of the parking lot onto the main road, taking the time to kick one of the plastic bottles at his feet. It ricocheted off the curb into his shin. He flipped it off.

No lights came through the window of the second-floor apartment. He fumbled with the keys, brain not entirely computing which way to put it into the lock. Damn headache. He rubbed at his forehead as at last the lock turned, the door opened, and he could limp inside. “Pidge, I’m home!”

Not that he expected a response, considering the off lights, but it still squeezed at his chest. He had to come home licking his wounds and his roommate was not even there to make fun of him and then bandage him up.

He trudged into the bathroom, wincing at the fluorescent lights when he flipped the switch. “Stupid Green, stupid Keith. . .”

Keeping jacket and shirt intact, he shirked his shoes and jeans and beheld himself in the mirror. Right below his boxers was the bandage, a white square to cover the cut and surrounding burn left behind by Green. Shiro had not been wrong about Green feeling threatened. For weeks, Lance had been the only one sent to capture him, but with that obvious failure, and Green progressively gathering more and more information on the Kerberos mission and who knew what else with each venture into the Garrison, Allura had finally sent Keith to join him. The tag teaming had almost worked: Lance had got a nice shot in the shoulder of Green’s armor, and then Keith had got him with the hilt of his sword, right at the rib cage on his left side. So damn close, if Green hadn’t managed to tase Keith, and then tase Lance while he freaked out over Keith going down. “Stupid, stupid. . .”

He wanted to take the bandage off. Mostly to see the burn and shallow cut for himself, since Coran had patched him up still unconscious. There was also maybe a small part that wanted Pidge to help him bandage it up again when she got home. But who could guess when that would be? He was too tired to do it again himself. Tired and headachey and maybe a little sulky. He kicked his jeans into the corner of the bathroom, slapped the light switch down, and trudged out into the kitchen.

In the fridge, he dug around for some leftovers that were semi-edible. He couldn’t remember whose turn it was to buy groceries and whose it was to clean old food out of the fridge but they both had been slacking. Maybe he would ask Pidge if they should just do it all together tomorrow, because gods that sounded better than going back to the hidden Castle of Lions to hear Allura go on about how Green must be gathering intel for the Galra, because the technology Green used was far too advanced for Earth, what was the point of any of their defensive prep if the Galra already knew how to wipe out the Garrison when they would first invade, you must do better to stop him, Lance! At least now Keith would get to look as sour as Lance always felt.

Leftover alfredo it was. Except he was too damn tired to warm it—the microwave clock warned it was past two in the morning, and being knocked out didn’t count as sleep—so he took a fork and fell onto the couch to eat it cold.

“Oh, fuck, fuck, mistake—” Lance wiped his tongue on his sleeve as he tossed the alfredo onto the coffee table and took the remote instead. Who really needed food, anyway? When he turned on the TV, it was set for the next episode of Legendary Defender from where he and Pidge had left off the night before. He clicked around for something light—Garfle Warfle Snick, why not—and as it started to play, blindly reached around the couch until he found a throw blanket and pulled it up around his shoulders, the tip of it brushing his nose. It smelled just a little more like Pidge than the rest of the apartment did. He looked to the door.

By the end of the episode, she still had not come in. Another episode, still no Pidge. Which was fine. Her whereabouts at late hours were far from the only secret about her. He had quite a few questions—Where do you actually work? Who’s the Matt you looked startled you mentioned that one time? Do we have to go to our rooms tonight or can we camp on the couch together?—but they operated under a no questions policy. He didn’t ask about her private life, he didn’t have to tell about how he’s actually working with two aliens from some planet called Altea to prepare Earth’s defenses for an invasion that’s due in some eight months.

The blanket still around his shoulders, he stumbled to his room, patting at his pockets for his phone. It had been at twelve percent when he armored up to take on Green. He had not touched it once since then but he would not be surprised if it were already dead.

When he plugged it into the charger next to his bed, he found staring at him a clock reading 3:24—and several notifications from Pidge.

[1:36] Missed Call

[1:41] Can you come get me?

[1:53] Lance please respond

“Shit!” He pressed the call, set the phone to his ear, and pulled the charger’s cord to its limit as he stretched for pants and another pair of shoes. She answered on the third ring. “Shit, Pidge, are you injured?” She had always had her own scrapes when she came home at night, but again, don’t ask, don’t tell, don’t mention that you kind of adore getting to help her bandage up, but god if she was really hurt this time—

“I’m at the parking garage on Olkarion Avenue.”

Lance held the phone between his ear and shoulder to tie his sneakers. Two blocks from the apartment. She didn’t have a vehicle, always using public transportation, that Lance knew of. What the hell was she doing there? Was she mugged? Don’t ask, don’t tell. “I’m coming. My phone’s at—” He freed a hand to look at it. “—two percent. It died and I just got it to a charger, I’m so sorry. I have to leave it, be watching for me, okay?”

“Okay.”

He couldn’t hang up. Fortunately, she did, and then with only his keys he ran out the door and down the stairs. His thigh began to burn all over again, irritated at the movement, but still he sprinted all the way to Olkarion Avenue. When he slowed to look for her, the world was spinning, and he had to hold onto the ticket dispenser for the garage to keep from toppling. He would have missed her, tucked away in the shadows between the cement wall and a trashcan just beyond the exit, if she had not called his name.

When her hand dipped into the light to grab at the rim of the trashcan, he saw the muscles in her arm strain as she failed to pull herself up. In another moment, he was at her side, dipping his shoulder under hers to pull her up. But as their sides pressed into each other, she yelped and lurched away from him, slamming her right shoulder into the wall of the garage. Her shout echoed in the vast parking lot as she grabbed at the shoulder, curling back into herself on the ground.

Helpless, Lance spared a glance around the garage, to assure no one was around, then knelt in front of her. “How can I help? What’s wrong with your shoulder?”

She was back in the shadows, but he could still see, could still feel, her grimace. “I may have had to pop it back into place.”

“What—” Don’t ask, don’t tell. “—the hell. Do you need a doctor?”

“No,” she stated, too firmly. “Let’s just go home.”

Pidge still could not stand on her own, but holding her up without some pressure on one of the pained areas was near impossible. It was concentrated in two places: her right shoulder, and her left side around her ribcage. Her legs were sore but fine, so after he pulled her to her feet she could walk with just holding on to him for support, seething at any disturbance to the wounds. As they stepped into the light, Lance saw her green shirt sticking to the hurt on her side by spots of blood.

The stairs were the hardest; she was rasping curses by the time they made it to their door. Pidge was the one who shut and locked it behind them, an action Lance had forgotten in lieu of trying to get her to the bathroom. He felt his mouth going dry. Sure, it was only two blocks to walk, but she could have called an Uber or something, but she had stayed hidden from public transportation, and now she was locking the door, as if someone was following her, and—

With him spaced, she tried to walk to the bathroom alone, though winced and nearly fell. Lance caught her arm, let her hold onto him as they crossed the apartment. He seated her on the covered toilet, then pulled out the first-aid kit. His face burned as he remembered wanting her to come home and patch him up earlier, like blood and bandages were just a mode of his one-sided flirtation.

By the time he set the kit on the corner of the counter, she had pulled her shirt up to show the wound on her side. The bruise covered a large circle, from the bottom of her ribcage up to her sports bra. The cut itself was small, and not nearly so bad as the blood on her shirt had made it seem. Not deep, just a shallow scrape that ripped off some of the skin.

Lance was no expert in injuries. A few months ago, he had been even worse. But three months of being a paladin, he had learned what an impact against armor looked like. He swallowed thickly. “Okay. Okay. Does it hurt to breathe?”

“Kind of.”

Her shaky breaths that she did not let get too deep meant that it was probably more than kind of. She was gripping the toilet paper roll, distorting it in her hand like a stress ball.

Lance looked across her ribs, where he was becoming more and more confident something had smashed against a chest plate. And he hated that he might know what it was and loved that he was not allowed to ask. “Doesn’t look broken or warped. May I?”

When she nodded, he ghosted his fingers across ridged skin. She held her breath the entire time, grimacing only when his fingers trailed over the sticky cut. “Doesn’t feel broken either. Not that I’m an expert, it just, seems like a normal ribcage. Probably just bruised. I can’t wrap it, but we’ll get it cleaned up, okay?”

She squeezed the toilet paper tighter, but nodded. “Yeah, sure, fine.”

Though Pidge grimaced as the antiseptic dotted over the cut, she didn’t make a sound. Sure, she had much worse pains to focus on, but in her silent pain Lance only saw Green’s body stopped mid-motion by Lance’s shot, jerking and collapsing silently as if already blacked out from shock or pain, and Keith hadn’t even smashed their rib cage with his sword yet. As he pressed the bandage over the cut, lightly pressing the sticky part down on her bruises, his eyes went to her shoulder, to the edge of purple skin sticking out under her collar.

It wasn’t me. It wasn’t me.

Of course it wasn’t. The injury to her side could easily be explained by running into a lamppost or something, same with her shoulder. Pidge maybe had issues with authority, and dabbled in conspiracy theories, but same for everyone else their age. She was a genius, but he had absolutely no reason to believe she would want to work with the Galra or break into the Garrison.

He had no reason to believe she wouldn’t want to do those things either. It struck him with nausea that he didn’t really know his roommate at all.

He put the bandage and antiseptic back in the kit, put his hand on the top, about to close it, but waited. “O-Okay.” He winced at his own stutter. “Can I look at your shoulder too?”

She was already pulling her shirt back down. “Skin didn’t break.”

“You dislocated it, Pidge.”

“I didn’t do anything.” A near confirmation that she earned this in a fight. God he wished she hadn’t said that. “I’ll lift my arms, you pull it off.”

He said he wanted to see her shoulder, but he didn’t actually want to, and hesitated to grab the hem of the tee when she lifted her arms. Her right arm could not get as high as the left. In her pain, she gave him a tense look to hurry the fuck up. He did, taking the hem, lifting her shirt but hesitating when the first of the bruise came into sight on her collar. His stomach flipped. He pulled it the rest of the way before Pidge could complain.

No puncture, just a round splotch of purple and blue and yellow on her shoulder and collar, all emanating from the precise spot he had been aiming.

“Christ, Pidge,” he breathed. “I’ll... I’ll get you one, a shirt, get you a shirt, without blood on it.”

He had not even examined it, a fact that made Pidge squint at him. “Okay… Can you get one that buttons in the front? I don’t want to try lifting my arms again, that hurt like hell.”

“Sure.” His voice sounded distant even to him. He swallowed down bile as he drifted from the bathroom, across the hall into his own room. He dropped the shirt on the floor. Folded himself at the foot of his bed. The world was wrong, like reality had shifted over three feet and nothing he touched was right anymore and his roommate wasn’t his roommate.

Not an hour ago he had been on the verge of passing out from exhaustion, but now the adrenaline had him shaking in a nervous high that he wasn’t sure he could ever come down from. Still twisted on the floor, he stretched his gangly arm to the bedside table. He managed to curl one finger around the cord and pulled the charging phone into his hand. Open the contacts. Find Keith. His finger hovered above the symbol of the little green phone.

Time was as unreal as the apartment they shared. He could never tell how much had passed when he heard her voice. “Lance? You okay?”

He locked the phone on Keith’s contact, yanked it off the charger, and shoved it into his pocket as he stood. “Yeah, one sec.” He stopped in the door of his room, remembered his mission, and returned to his closet. He grabbed the first buttoned shirt he could find, a blue and black plaid thing that was pretending to be flannel. By the time he made it back to the bathroom, the world had stabilized, and yet all had an almost fuzzy, numb aspect to it, and Pidge seemed too far away for him to actually give her the shirt as he passed it into her hand.

Wary of her shoulder, she put her arms in the sleeve, and then with only one hand buttoned the shirt. The process would be slow just from buttons’ known stubbornness versus one unaccustomed human hand, but crawled as she kept looking up to where he occupied the doorway, her expression growing in suspicion with each glance. “You’re acting weird.”

“I’m no medic,” he said, the diversion smooth across unfeeling lips. “You’re probably going to lose an arm or something.”

“It hurt so bad at first I thought it got blown off.” She grinned, mischievous, as if her sincere statement were something hilarious. Lance didn’t laugh. “If it falls off, I can just make a prosthetic.” When even that failed to get a reaction, her lips twisted, sour at the defeat, and she kept her eyes down to finish buttoning the shirt. “Anyway, want to watch Legendary Defender?”

He offered her a hand and she took it. Once she was situated on the couch he fixed ice packs for her ribs and shoulders. Legendary Defender played. He missed all of it. Pidge took over an hour to nod off, kept awake by sharp pain whenever she began to breathe too deeply. The sky was already colored by the time he was sure she was asleep, her head tilted back into the couch cushions and mouth hung open. He whispered her name. With no response, he stood, walked into the kitchen, and propped himself on the counter. Keith’s contact was still up when he pulled out his phone.

“Hello?” The great Red Paladin’s voice was groggy and more than a little irritated. Normally, Lance expected, Keith would be up with the sun, but he was probably trying to sleep off the attack from the night before. Lance wasn’t sure if he should feel guilty or not about waking him.

“Hey, it’s… it’s about Green.”

Something crackled on the other side, sheets shifting as Keith sat up and the sleep left his voice. “You have a lead?”

“I just wanted to say… I’m sorry for letting them get away.”

A pause, then Keith sighed, dispelling any heightened emotion he had in that breath to address Lance with a still voice. “It’s not your fault. The guy’s good at what he does. I’m honestly impressed you’ve been able to face him alone this far. We’ll get him next time.”

“Yeah.”

Keith hung up. Lance set the phone on the counter and watched the felon on the couch breathe as the first blue light fell across her face.

[atlas-of-a-human-soul]

The King of Hearts (E.D. AU)

Summary: What happens when a future king falls for a commoner while he’s betrothed to another?

Warnings: mostly fluff, mentions of death and blood

Word count: 4000

Series MASTERLIST 

In a country now surrounded by ice, far away, stood an old, black castle, a stark contrast to its surroundings. Inside the castle, the royal family presides, waiting out the harsh winter and the cold it brought.

The Dolan family.

They ruled over their country with a firm, but fair hand, holding their position for centuries. A picture perfect family, no scandals recorded since the start of their reign.

Well, that was about to change.

Holding a feast to celebrate the arrival of their guests, King held a grand dinner in the castle, inviting everyone to attend, even his servants and commoners.

Princes sat around the table, joking around like they always do, bickering about who would win if they truly crossed their swords together, but hoping to never truly find out.

I stood in the shadows, holding on to my new, almost royal looking dress. Saving up for years to buy material for something proper in hopes of attending a ball and seeing the royals just once in my life. I've worked with my mother as a seamstress for years before she died, and the dress I wore was of my own making.

The color purple to signify my support of the royal house, but a waistline as white as snow that kept the winter present since as long as I can remember. The neckline was low, but not as low as many ladies wore...after all, I had my dignity in mind and virtue to keep. My hair let loose with curls cascading down my back, a single braid serving as a mock crown, beads and violets bred in the royal garden decorating it. Light make up to keep up the pretense, but an intense, burgundy red lipstick for effect. Feet in white flats, shimmering as my dress in the light, I looked almost like a highborn, worthy to be in their presence.

Gliding my gaze over the crowd of town folk, my eyes remained on the table before us, a little above the rest to show their stature. After all, they weren't commoners and should not sit among us. Most looked to the King and Queen, wanting to get in their favor. Young men looked at Cameron, all wishing to be her chosen one. However, she was to be married off to a wealthy Lord in Europe, a union good for the realm.

But every girl, young or old, had eyes only for the princes. Twins as luck would have it. Girls swooned over their good looks, fought to be in their line of sight, even went as far as pulling their dresses down so much that their breasts were almost visible. All that just for one look in their direction. They didn't care which one, as they'd say: „They're the same anyways. Just get me one.“

How foolish of them.

When I looked at the twins, I did not see just one person. Sitting on the left side, by their father, both brothers seemed to be far more interested in holding a conversation with one another than to look at desperate girls flinging themselves at their feet.

Prince Grayson held his head high as he was happily betrothed to a Princess of a country a little down south called England. After all, they sang songs of her beauty, but more importantly of the power and wealth her family held. He didn't spare the crowd a single glance, his dark brown eyes set either on the food or his family. His hair was longer, bangs styled backwards so they stood tall as he did. Sharp jaw, a couple of small scars graced his face, but he bore nothing that could disgrace his beauty. He truly was as handsome as I've heard in the tales.

Next to him was Prince Ethan; the next king of our realm, the heir to the throne. His eyes bore tension only a future king could bear, thousands worries etched in each line of his gorgeous face. His smile small, but always present, never quite reaching his eyes when he interacted with other noble men and women. It was a pleasantry, one he didn't care much for from what I could tell. His hair was neatly combed, differing from what I've been told by those who have seen him outside of official events for the kingdom. They said his hair is unruly and wild, just as his spirit. Perhaps that was true once, but the man sat at the table now felt weighed down by the future he was to have. That's enough to make anyone mature in a matter of moments.

Like his brother, Ethan was also to wed a Princess, the heir of the French throne. That meant either peace or war for the Dolan twins, regarding the wretched past between the two countries they were meant to inherit by marriage. It was hard to imagine the brothers ever doing harm to one another, but power is fickle and turns the best of men corrupt and wile.

Aware this night would be a bust as everyone danced and had fun, I couldn't keep my eyes from the heir. Not just because of his good looks, but because in a way, I felt sorry for him. He was forced to live a life he never wanted; they told him what to wear, what to eat, how to behave...who to love...He could never truly make a choice for himself, follow his heart. To live that sort of a life must have been torture...One he learned to accept and live with.

From the corner of my eye, I noticed a ruckus. Two armed guards unsheathing their swords as several men decided to play hero and assassinate the royal family. Some screamed, most ran, leaving the sight clear for all those who wondered what was happening.

I didn't move, even as the fight was brought to me. Men fighting, men dying before me, yet I dare not move. No, I was not afraid. I was furious. Once in every ten years, commoners were allowed at court, yet these imbeciles decided to ruin that and get us banned...and for what? A failed attempt to kill those who have ruled over us and brought prosperity even in the winter we were forced to live in. Better yet, I was ready to protect those people as well.

Reaching under my skirts, I grabbed a dagger from a belt suspender made out of purple lace. Shifting in my spot, I had seen a sword fall to the floor with a loud clank. Taking it, I ran it into one of the rebels stomach, blood spluttering from his lips onto my neck. But I didn't mind. Turning swiftly, I took care of yet one more who had planned on sneaking behind a guard and slitting his throat. Two men down, my hands dripping with blood, dress stained beyond help, I stood in the middle of the room, chest heaving as my heart beat to a rhythm I've long forgotten.

Adrenaline coursed through my veins, hands gripped on my choice weapons tightly. I didn't need to look up to see that every eye in the room was on me, watching intently what I'll do next. Some probably hoped I'd carry on the attack myself, others just wanted the whole thing to end.

Sucking in a deep breath, I slowly lift my eyes off the ground and dare to make eye contact with none other than Prince Ethan himself. The surprise mixed with utmost wonder in his eyes had taken the very breath from my lungs.

Tearing my eyes from his, I look to the King, hoping I'd be allowed to keep my head after the little stunt I pulled. But the rebels got too close and I was not one for waiting. It's not how my father taught me.

Holding my head high, I released the sword from my right hand, but the dagger remained in place. Taking a handful of the fabric my dress was comprised of, I wiped it clean. Slowly, moving the dress all the way up to my upper thigh, I sheathed the dagger in its place, letting the dress fall down to the stone floor.

Unexpectedly, the King brought his hands together, clapping loudly as he stood up with a large grin on his face. The entire room followed, but I only cared for what his son did. Shifting my gaze to Ethan once more, I saw his eyes didn't lose the impressed, almost admiring look he showed previously. I had his attention, that much was sure.

„On the behalf of the royal family, I'd like to express my gratitude.“ The King spoke, loud and clear for everyone to hear while I stayed put in my spot, feeling the blood on my neck and chest like drops of fire burning through my skin.

„I was just doing my duty, Your Grace.“ I spoke, my voice void of all emotion; cold and calm as I seemed on the outside.

„Oh, but you did so much more. Where did you learn to fight like that?“ The King asked, very much interested and entertained, like the entire thing was just a show in a theater.

„My father was a knight in your guard. He failed to see the difference between teaching his sons and teaching his daughters. After all, we were all his children.“ I respond, my heart breaking as I remember my father. He was brave and thoughtful, selfless and loyal. A man ahead of his time, that's for sure. Since the first day, he had treated me as an equal to my brothers, teaching me to write, read, fight. He wanted me to be able to protect myself, come what may.

„Oh, which one is that?“ The King furrowed his brows, wondering who I belonged to.

„Ser (Y/F/N) (Y/L/N). He died in the war fighting alongside you.“ I felt my cool dissolve, but refused to let it be seen by the gathered crowd. No one seemed to care that there were at least eight dead men bleeding on the stony ground they stood on.

„I remember him! He saved my life!“ The King exclaimed, recognition flashing in his eyes.

„Just as you did now!“ He adds, turning to his wife. Looking back at me, he propped his head up on his hand, head tilted slightly to the right.

„You may ask anything you wish of me. Anything...If it's within my power, I shall grant it.“

The offer certainly allured me, even brought upon me something I never thought I'd want. A wish for stature and a position of power.

„I wish to be a lady of the court. Your ward to be exact.“ A series of loud gasps filled the room as I kept a stoic facial expression, not breaking the eye contact with the king...no matter how much I wanted to look to Prince Ethan for his opinion.

The King didn't show any emotion at all, nor offer any insight in his mind through his facial expression upon hearing my words.

„Only that?“ He questioned, almost disappointed with my answer.

I chuckle dryly, averting my gaze to the right before focusing it on the King once more. Clasping my hands together, resting them on my stomach, I respond.

„What? You expected me to ask for your son's hand in marriage?“ The room was still with words I spoke, but I couldn't hold back a giggle. A giggle that echoed the room as no one dared to move.

„I may be a woman, but I'm not a silly girl with silly notions. You'd never grant something like that. I'd have asked to be a knight in the future king's guard, but even that is beyond what I'd be given. So, yes. I wish to be made a ward of the court, a noble lady.“ I finish, hardening my gaze as the King nodded with pursed lips.

I felt another pair of eyes burning into me as I stood before them all. The ferocity of just one look causing a flutter in my chest. There was no need to search for who the eyes belonged to as I could tell Ethan had kept his gaze strictly on me since the whole ordeal happened. And I liked it.

„Granted.“The King nodded in thought, perhaps debating my so called silly notions.

With those words, I was made a noble. One who would never be allowed to forget she's a commoner, but a noble nonetheless.

„May a servant clean you up...and this floor. You can borrow a dress from Cameron and return to the feast. A seat will be made for you.“ The King spoke, several servants running up to me, ushering me out of the room and to the west wing of the castle where the royal sleeping chambers were.

It took us a couple of minutes of almost running to get to a room lit by candles. It was huge...as big as the house I live in. But inside, everything was made out of wood...carved to perfection.

The girls started to undress me, startling me.

„Whoa, whoa. What are you doing?“ I asked, eyes wide and lips parted in shock.

„Cleaning you up as the King requested.“ One spoke up, not meeting my eyes.

I sighed, not wanting the girls to fear me. After all, I was one of them just moments ago.

„Can you get the blood out of my own dress?“ I turned so they'd have an easier access to the back of my dress, feeling their fingers already undoing the knot I tied to keep it from opening.

„I can certainly try, my lady.“ The same girl spoke, her voice quiet and words carefully chosen.

„You don't have to call me that. Not when we're alone.“ I smile as another one wipes the blood from my chest, the third one dealing with my hands. They were quick and efficient, already showing me dresses to pick from. I went with a red one this time around, not really caring how I look anymore.

They laced it up and stood around, staring in awe. I didn't have to look down to know my cleavage was exposed more than before, the light, cold breeze had told me that in an instant.

„You look stunning.“ They said in unison as I blushed with the compliment.

„But we must go.“ With that, I was rushed back to the crowd, earning yet another clap as I entered. I had hoped it would go unnoticed, but everyone seemed eager to welcome me. Smiling softly, I stood aside and waited for the crowd to disperse. I wasn't interested in taking the seat so kindly set between the Princes and the Princess just yet, wanting to experience tonight to the best of my ability.

The room was spotless, no blood in sight. Music played a happy tune many townies loved, but it suddenly shifted into one only royals could dance to. The King and Queen stood from their seat, taking the dance floor. Others joined them, but dancing was never my best suit. However, this was more about me not having someone to dance with.

„Would you care to dance?“ Someone spoke and I turned swiftly, frightened by the sudden presence. My mind stopped as I looked to the stranger, only to find it was actually a prince.

„Prince Ethan!“ I yelped, curtsying to the best of my ability. I didn't even finish my attempt before his hands held onto my elbows, pulling me up to face him.

„No need for that, Lady Y/N.“ His voice, deep and low, sent shivers down my spine like I have never felt before.

„You're a prince after all. It's common curtsy.“ I defended my actions, blushing furiously under his relentless gaze. There was kindness in his eyes, but the mischievous glint seemed to outshine everything else.

„And you're a lady now. You bow only to the king.“ Ethan reminded me, his hands still on my arms, slowly trailing down to my own hands. Gently taking them in his, he lifts my right one to his lips, pressing them into the skin on the back of it, never once breaking eye contact. I gulped nervously.

Why must he be so intense all the time?

„So, you never answered my previous question. Would you care to dance?“ He repeated, not letting go of either of my hands and I was grateful for not shaking like a leaf in the wind under his touch.

„I'm more of a fighter than a dancer, really.“ I mussed, shyly averting my gaze to the floor.

A touch of his index finger on my chin and the cold sensation in my hand as he released it brought my attention back to the handsome man before me.

„I'll lead.“ He guided me into the dancing crowd, his hand on the small of my back as my heart thumped so loudly I was certain everyone could hear. Once in the center of the room, his palm pressed against my waist, while the other held my hand in the air. He moved impossibly close, the wine on his breath easily felt from our proximity. With one hand, he lifts me up and rests my feet atop of his, a smirk on his lips as I look down with a thousand questions in my mind. Moving his feet and both of us in that moment, his grip on me tight, yet gentle, we danced like one. I'd never been a good dancer, but for the first time in my life I was doing just that...dancing.

One song after another, the Prince refused to let me go, dancing with no other and arousing suspicion in the court. He ensnared me with his gaze, whispered compliments in my ear and I had become sure this was nothing but a dream. How else could this be possible?

His words rang in my ears, each bringing a warmth to my heart and a smile to my face.

„You're one of a kind.“ He'd whisper, getting only a roll of my Y/E/C eyes in return.

„And you're just a charmer.“ I'd retort, raising an eyebrow to his fake shock.

„No, just an honest prince. After all, I'm not the one who lied about his dancing skills.“ He teased, arching an eyebrow as well. God, how sexy he looked when he did that!

„You're the one dancing! I'm just holding on for dear life.“ I chuckle, raking my nails over the exposed skin on the back of his neck to remind him of that.

He rolled his eyes, nodding lightly before letting me go. I had thought it was the end of it, but he captured my hand in his, pulling me out of the room as the King ended the dinner just as we walked out.

„What are you doing?“ I turned around, starting to worry of his rush and firm hold on my hand.

Just as I asked, Ethan pushed me against the wall, each of his hands resting by my head, his forehead leaned on mine as he breaths heavily. I was captured, unable to move.

„Prince?“ My voice was quiet, perhaps the fear inside ever tangible. I could not fend for myself and risk hurting the Crown Prince, but I wasn't about to let him defile me.

„I hate my life.“ He spoke, surprising me with this admission. I wanted to move, caress his face or run my fingers through his hair, but I couldn't. I was paralyzed.

„I must marry another, yet I had fallen for you.“ His voice trembled, no longer a picture of confidence he wore the entire night. I suppressed my need to speak as he was breaking before me.

„What have I done to be punished so?“ He kept talking and my resolution to remain quiet disappeared.

„You aren't in love with me. You barely know me.“ I spoke up, reminding him we had just met and only spoken once. I wasn't a firm believer in love at first sight, even if my own father claimed to have fallen for my mother in such a way.

„You are brave and feisty, capable of handling several weapons. You have a mind as sharp as a diamond, tongue as sharp as the blade you wield. The smile you flash is always sincere, your touch brings warmth to my cold heart. I do love you.“ Ethan moved his forehead, boring his eyes into mine. It was heartbreaking to see the defeat in his eyes, my own reflection clear within as the candle lit up his hazel hues.

Hm...I always thought his eyes were brown.

„You are betrothed to the next Queen of France. You are to marry a country, not a woman. Someone with power and wealth and armies.“ I spoke, sneaking my arms around his neck for a small embrace. I needed to console him in some way.

„I'm a no one. No family, no power, no armies or wealth. Just a commoner.“ I spoke sadly, feeling my own heart ache even if I wasn't in love with the Prince. I could see how easy that would be... to fall for a man such as him. But I knew better. That's how people died.

„You're not a no one to me. You're a Lady...the King's ward.“ He trailed off.

„Queen of my heart.“ His words had left me breathless, yet my heart was beating wildly, moving my chest with every beat.

„I must ask you to take that back.“ I whisper, looking into his eyes but getting no answer.

„A future king should never go back on his word.“ He spoke with a broken smile, his left hand moving down to my waist, his lips nearing mine.

„And a maiden should never sell her honor for a couple of moments of passion.“ I move, using the now empty space as leverage.

„I'd never do that to you.“ Ethan spoke as I turned my back on him, confused about this turn of event. Mere hours ago, I was just a faceless girl in the crowd and now I had a Prince chasing after me.

„Perhaps...but your words speak of a much worse desire...Love is not something I take lightly.“ I respond, turning slightly to see his candlelit face.

It was almost cruel how handsome he was...unnaturally handsome.

„Neither do I.“ He stepped closer and I feel my entire body tense up with this gesture.

„Yet you speak its name in vain in a badly lit hallway to a woman you met only hours ago...while you're set to marry another when the time is right.“ I cock my eyebrow, folding my arms across my chest and straighten my back.

„Betrothed to another....that is true...But those arrangement fall through all the time. For all I know I could be betrothed to someone entirely different by tomorrow.“ Ethan let out a mirthless laugh, taking one step closer to me.

„Your father would have my head.“ I press my lips together as he nods.

„My father won't always be the king. Once I'm on the throne, nothing stops me from marrying who I want.“ Ethan points out, closing the distance between us quickly.

„Nothing but your word...“ I look away, feeling a weight on my chest...one I could not explain.

„True.“ Ethan whispers, leaning close, his lips brushing against my ear.

„But it was the word of my father, not mine, that closed the deal.“ Ethan moved back, his nose touching mine as his breath mingled with mine.

Close enough to touch, but miles away. That's how I felt. My own beating heart breaking over a love I denied myself, but deny it I must.

Reluctantly, I step back and out of his reach. The disappointment evident on his face, but understanding in his eyes.

Flashing a smile my way, he motions for me to look behind and I do, seeing a large door.

„It was an honor to accompany you to your room, Lady Y/N. Goodnight.“ He turned on his heel, walking away, but not before throwing a glance over his shoulder my way.

„Goodnight, Prince Ethan.“ I whisper softly, watching his retreating figure disappear around the corner, his footsteps still audible in the distance.

Tags: @perry--aesthetic​ @heeydolan​ @accalialionheart​ @peacedolantwins

A/N: So, what do you think? Should I make a series? Let me know, you know I love feedback :)