#but no one really cares to look past their initial misgivings about the situation and just accept it

[pippuns]

the only thing that could have improved SVSSS is if shen jiu was in the background providing scathing hateful commentary the entire time. i want to see him and shen yuan eat each other alive <3

[drxwsyni]

Fault in Honesty︱Yandere Chisaki Kai/Overhaul x f!Reader

Anonymous asked: “Hi! I love your work! Do you think you could do a scenario with yandere overhaul and fem. Reader where she tells him she hates him?”

a/n: Ngl I’ve been having some writers block lately so doing a good ol’ sfw (or at least in yandere standards) oneshot was very refreshing. Also the section in italics represents a flashback! Thanks for the request babes <3

Warnings: implied stockholm, captivity

1.9k Words

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If you could hazard a guess as to where exactly you went wrong, it would be the day you let the comfort of his security first outshine the red flags. To an outsider, they’d be unavoidably obvious. But for you, someone experiencing a side of Chisaki reserved only to make appearances in your presence, they became muted. Vibrant and glaring warnings were but a momentary afterthought, given no more than a few seconds of contemplation before you returned to focusing on the ideal in front of you.

The ideal is still present now, only it’s being held together by the constricting realities that overlooking those red flags have brought about.

Walls seemingly inescapable, corridors twisting and unending. Perpetually trapping you underground, without an inkling of an idea as to which door would lead you to salvation. All coupled with the pain shooting up your legs with each time your bare feet collided with the tile, a dress airy and doing little to shield you from the deep set chill running past your exposed skin.

You shivered, both from the discomfort of the cold, and from the anxieties riddling your system.

By some form of chance luck, your frantic searching lead you to a stairwell, from one door to another, and into an all too familiar room.

The setting was by far more comforting than the bleak hallways below you. Once dull and sterile surroundings faded, your focus favouring the warmth. You spent many an hour in Chisaki’s study mere months ago, keeping the young boss company without question. Sometimes you’d simply exist alongside him, the copious amounts of work keeping Chisaki from indulging himself in conversation with you. Those moments were regrettable, as you could never stay with him all day. So you would leave him to his devices sooner or later, returning home while he continued to manage his ‘business.’

You suppose he detested the fact that you would inevitably take a leave of absence more than you originally perceived. And while his first move to initiate a more domestic closeness with you was endearing at the time, it only served to muddle your thoughts with regret now.

•  •  •

Your hand in his, seated close enough to him that your knees were touching. The leather couch situated in the study was always your go-to spot when waiting for your lover to fulfill his duties as a leader for the day. He managed to do so before you left this time, much to your appreciation.

“Anything you could possibly need is already in place, angel. With you living here we’d be able to spend more time together. And…” Pausing, as if to gather his thoughts while absentmindedly squeezing your hand gently in his, Chisaki soon continued. “...It would be beneficial if I were able to monitor your health more closely.”

You regarded the man with a warm and loving smile, finding slight humour in his predictable ways. For one, your wellbeing was always at the top of his concerns. It felt like such a passive occurrence at this point, Chisaki keeping those interests in mind like it was second nature. And you supposed, with how he so clearly treated you on another level of appreciation compared to everyone else in his life, that the quality would only be expected in a man who ensures such a high level of diligence in everything he does.

Chisaki also had a tendency to rush things with you. So naturally, his offer wasn’t something you were entirely surprised to hear. But unfortunately for him, there still resided some resistance in you.

“Don’t you think it’s a little too soon to be moving in together? Don’t get me wrong, Kai. I’d love to spend more time with you. It’s just―”

“This would be good for you. It’s dangerous for you to be living on your own, so you understand why I’m worried about you, right?”

Although he didn’t explicitly state it, you knew what Chisaki was referring to. The unavoidable fact of your quirklessness. He would never say that it made you weak, but you knew it was the root of his anxieties. You living alone was far more risky than he was willing to accept.

But you loved him. So, perhaps the change wasn’t something you should fear?

You let out a small sigh, still unsure, but resigning yourself for now. “...I suppose, if you think it would be best.”

In an act of tenderness, Chisaki took your hand that he was still holding, raising it to his lips. He planted a feathered kiss to the back of it, maintaining a gaze filled with adoration the whole time. Your heart fluttered at the gentle affection, feeling your face warm with a certain bashfulness.

He was pleased with your acceptance, albeit hesitant and largely unsure. “You’ll come around to the idea.”

And with the way Chisaki’s words and actions―not only now, but also in times before―left your better intuitions molding to match his, you thought you’d come around to it too.

•  •  •

The heavy wooden door behind you, a dark oak cut hand carved and lavish, opened in a swift motion. The abruptness of it earned a startled flinch from your body, you quickly turning around to view the culprit of the commotion in fear.

Like a deer in headlights, your whole being froze in place. Chisaki stood in the doorway, only he didn’t appear to be nearly as surprised as you.

If anything, he was calm.

His eyes trailed up and down your form, taking in your uneasy state. Slowly, he stepped into the room, shutting the door behind him. “It’s not good for your health for you to be up so late, my love.”

The dismissal of the situation sent a wave of frustration through you. Knowing he didn’t regret any of his actions, what he had put you through, and the reason why you were here―it was infuriating. The possessiveness, withholding your freedom like it wasn’t a necessity, because to him wasn’t. None of your misgivings resonated with him.

You regarded the composed leader, feeling your resistance begin to crumble from his mere presence. “Is this what you wanted?” Regrettably, your voice cracked midways through the question.

He almost looked disappointed, the fact of your apprehension being an unwanted outcome of the decisions he’d made for you. But he was nothing if not steadfast in his ways, a quality outshining the sorrow he felt for finding you so distressed. “All I’ve wanted is to ensure your health and safety. That’s what I’ve done, and I will not apologize for it.”

Another bit of your resolve faltered, your lower lip trembling as you fought to hold yourself together. “Even though I’m a prisoner?”

Chisaki let the words hang in the air for a moment, more so to let you process them instead, hoping you’d understand as much as he did that the statement couldn’t be farther from what you were to him. He moved across the room, taking his black dust mask off while he spoke, placing it on an end table. “I could hardly call you that. You live quite nicely―comfortable living quarters, balanced meals―everything you need and more to get by.”

“Everything except for my freedom, Kai. I mean...can’t you see how wrong this is?” In truth, you knew trying to reason with the man would get you nowhere. It wouldn’t change his mind, and it certainly wouldn’t help you in your now failed attempt to leave him. The thought of the uselessness of the whole thing wore you down, knowing putting up a fight would be for nothing in the end. You’d lost not from the moment he’d stepped into the room, but from the moment you agreed to be his all those months ago.

He faced you once again, mask and gloves removed, able to expose himself in such a way to you only. “It’s dangerous for someone with your connections to live outside of my compound―you know that. There are people who wouldn’t hesitate to use you as leverage against me.” He drew closer, an approach slow, as if trying to ease your nerves. “Tell me, have I ever hurt you?”

You inwardly cursed the man for knowing exactly what to say. His words were meditated, aiming only to lead you into compliance. The question was doing exactly that, because there was no other answer than the one he wanted to hear. The fact that no, he hadn’t. At least not physically. He truly did care for all of your needs. And even when it came to the mental anguish you went through, he always gave you space when you needed it. So really, you had no other choice but speaking that admittance.

Quietly, you did, “N-no, but―”

“So, you can’t deny that everything I do has your wellbeing in mind?”

As he took steps forward, you took some back. Soon enough you were hitting the front of his desk, unable to put any more distance between the two of you as he came closer.

“I can tell you understand that, angel. All I wish is for you to accept it.”

You shook your head, saltine tears falling down your cheeks. Confliction riddled your body and soul, part of you wanting to keep up those feeble forms of resistance, while the other part yearned to finally give in. It would be so much easier if you did, which was the worst part about it. Before you found yourself trapped by him, you truly did love Chisaki.

And somehow, even after all he’s done, those emotions never quite vanished.

“I don’t...I don’t want to be okay with this. Or be okay with you…” Your gaze fell, sniffling through your words. “I hate you―or at least, I’m supposed to hate you. But I fail at even doing that.”

You didn’t have to look up to know he was standing in front of you. Not when the uncharacteristic sound of a softness in his voice was in such a close proximity.

“That’s not a failure…”

Carefully, Chisaki cupped your face in his hands, prompting you to lift your head. Through a blurred vision you regarded his piercing amber eyes. Those set intently on yours, concerned but stern, matching his words to a T.

“You know this is what’s best for you. It’s just taking a while for that to sink in, but you’ll come around to it.” He delicately wiped away your tears as he spoke, the action soothing the torrent of discouragement inside of you. “Now, I’ll get you something to help you fall asleep, and we can forget this ever happened.”

Like always, nothing he did was a simple offer. His statements were final, and you were forced to comply whether you wished to do so or not. Only now, the notion of yearning for free will against his demands was unclear in your mind.

As it stood, and would continue to stand forever, agreeing with Chisaki was the option that had been growing on you as of late. Tonight’s events happened in a spur of the moment. In all honesty, you were unsure of yourself the moment you stepped foot outside your room. It always lingered in the back of your mind that your efforts wouldn’t get you anywhere. So, now that you were faced with that truth, resigning yourself to his whims wasn’t as hard as you thought it would be.

You let him guide you back to your room. You accepted the medication he gave without a second thought.

And soon you fell asleep, sorrows replaced with the calm and comfort Chisaki provided.

[inactiive-shit]

Burning

Fandom: Sanders Sides

Warnings: allusions to rough past

Pairing: platonic dukexiety

Words: 1,988

Summary: Virgil needs a goddamn hug.

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Virgil came from a rough and tumble kind of place. There wasn’t much physical contact with each other and what there was usually wasn’t affectionate. Virgil was used to not being touched or being hurt with almost no in-between. Hugs were rarer than a blue moon and cuddling? It’s safe to say that was an entirely alien concept.

But Virgil’s twenty-six now. He’s had plenty of time to outgrow his aversion to touch, plenty of time to get over it, plenty of time to make friends that wouldn’t punch him before they patted his shoulder. And, well, he had. Sort of.

Enter Patton and Roman, who were soft and kind and the touchiest of touchy-feely people that Virgil had ever met. They were always trying to dispense hugs and pleased smiles and pats and gifts and, if Virgil were being honest, he could not even imagine either of them throwing a punch. Then, enter Logan. He wasn’t the same kind of overbearingly physical person. He rarely initiated hugs, although he equally rarely turned them down when they were offered. He was much more reserved than Virgil’s other friends, much more like Virgil, and Virgil could imagine Logan getting into a scrape or two.

But nobody touched Virgil. That was by Virgil’s own design, had nothing to do with any particular feelings he held about his three friends. Hugs were just...a lot. And especially for someone with as little experience with them as Virgil had. He’d tried to explain it once, tried to put into words the expectations he had whenever someone moved toward him. He tried to make them understand that it wasn’t them, it was just that Virgil was used to a different kind of living where hugs had never been the norm. But Patton had looked ready to cry and Roman was affronted and even Logan, Logan who wanted almost just as much alone time as Virgil, had looked horrified. How was it possible, they wanted to know, that Virgil had gone so long without being treated with care?

He hated to see those looks on the others’ faces, hated a fraction more the looks they sent at him after that were barely to the left of pitying, so he took it back as best he could. It really hadn’t been that bad, don’t worry about it, all the usual phrases and eventually he persuaded them to drop it. So they stopped trying to touch Virgil all that much, and Virgil convinced himself that he wasn’t jealous of the casual affection they threw around like confetti. Virgil did his best to pretend his feigned indifference was real, and that he didn’t want touch just as much as he loathed the thought of it.

And then, one day, he met someone new. This person was a lot like him, rough around the edges like a ripped newspaper, but soft enough that he wouldn’t cut your fingers. He showed affection by punching others’ shoulders or throwing himself full-body on top of them. He wore the most ridiculous outfits that Virgil had ever seen, and he never seemed to care that he was the weirdest person in the room.

His name was Remus. He was Roman’s twin brother, although the similarities between them were almost impossible to find. He had a white streak in his hair that he denied ever putting there himself and, truthfully, nobody had ever seen it happen. He had no qualms about treating Virgil just the same as he treated every other person he came into contact with, and that’s about the time Virgil really started to realize he had a problem.

His skin burned whenever anyone touched it and he could feel an imprint of them on him long after they had left. There was an ache in his chest when he thought about getting a hug and despite having as many good, caring friends as he had now, Virgil felt more lonely than ever.

Remus, despite Roman’s misgivings about his brother, ended becoming an integral part of their group, and he continued to unknowingly supply Virgil with physical contact at their every interaction. It was equally wanted and unwanted, equally loved and hated, and Virgil kept coming back for more. And as much as the ache in Virgil’s chest intensified, as much as the burning on his skin kept him awake at night, Virgil never said a word about it to anyone.

Touch starved. It didn’t sound real, like something that could actually affect people. More than that, though, it was embarrassing. How could he even broach the subject? Hey, guys. So there’s this thing I found out about called touch starvation and it turns out I have it. And I could really use some pats on the back right about now, I swear I’m not making this up for attention. Yeah, that would go over great. Instead, Virgil took whatever he got when he bumped against a stranger on accident and mind his own business.

It was working out for him as well as you’d expect when something he had never planned on happened. He’d been having a panic attack, an occurrence that had been more common than Virgil liked, and he’d been entirely content to suffer through on his own and pretend everything was fine after, but then Remus walked into the room like a wrecking ball, all loud noises and erratic movement, and Virgil flinched. He flinched and tried not to cry because crying was the best way to make someone mad at you and also maybe the best way to expose yourself.

Remus, though? He stopped being loud and bouncing and sat down slowly in front of Virgil. Virgil couldn’t seem him too clearly through the tears in his eyes, but Remus might have been concerned. There was some movement, like he might have been talking, but Virgil could hear the static in his head and nothing else, could hear impending doom and forever alone like a war drum coming at him, could feel the vibrations running through his hands and shaking his very bones.

Suddenly, clear as day, he could hear Remus’s voice like a bell ringing, “Can I hug you?” Virgil gasped and hesitated. A hug? Would a hug just make things worse? It always seemed to but maybe not, can things even get worse from here? He nodded and Remus’s arms wrapped around him and held him so securely it almost felt like there were eight limbs keeping him safe.

The static changed frequency, changed color, changed channels and instead of the cold, impersonal, overwhelming static in his head like before it turned warm and encompassing but not altogether bad. Virgil choked on a sob and buried his face in Remus’s shoulder, shuddering, trying to figure out why he wanted to keep burning like this.

“Shh, shh, it’s okay,” Remus said. “I’ll skin whatever hurt you.” He kept a tight hold on Virgil, kept holding him until he stopped crying and pulled away. Virgil wiped his face off with a sleeve, thoroughly embarrassed. That was unnecessary and stupid and he really should be in better control of himself so that things like that didn’t happen.

“I’m sorry,” he said, sniffling.

“Nothing to be sorry for, Stormcloud. Are you hurt?” Virgil shook his head, unable to force himself to make eye contact with Remus after such an episode. Remus’s hand ghosted over Virgil’s cheek and he flinched away, feeling the streak of a burn where their skin had barely come into contact. Remus withdrew his hand quickly. Virgil was almost sad to see it go.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“I just have panic attacks sometimes,” Virgil said, and that was true enough. In fact, he couldn’t even remember what the catalyst for this attack had been or if there was something he needed to go do now that he was back to functional. Virgil was totally spent and more than ready for a nap.

“Yikes,” said Remus. There was a few minutes of silence while Virgil swiped the last of the tears from his face and destroyed his eyeliner and steadied his breathing so that he wouldn’t be a total mess when he finally left whatever room his panic had holed him up in. What he wanted to do more than anything right then was gather himself, make his excuses, and go back to his own room where he could hold onto his body pillow and bury himself in enough blankets that it felt like another person was laying on top of him.

“Are you touch starved?” Remus asked, voice sudden and surprising and observational skills much better than Virgil had anticipated they would be. He jolted, glancing quickly to Remus’s face before looking away and fighting the urge to cower behind his hands. “You flinch whenever anybody reaches toward you and I’ve never seen anyone touch you and you’re freezing. Do you need another hug?”

“No,” Virgil said, shrinking away from the prospect. He was still burning like a star ready to implode but more than that no one was supposed to know because it was Virgil’s problem to figure out, Virgil’s issue to work out without having to involve other people like this.

“No to which?” Remus asked, but then he gently laid his hand on the ground between them, palm up, and hummed. “We can just hold hands if you want.” Hesitantly, Virgil reached out and took Remus’s hand. It was rough and warm and alive and human. Virgil felt a shiver run through his body at the contact but he forced himself to keep it. If Remus was offering, if Remus understood the situation, then as awkward as Virgil felt, this was okay. There was nothing wrong with this and Virgil...Virgil really didn’t think Remus was going to hurt him.

“How did you know?” Virgil whispered, voice cracking over the syllables. He might cry again if they weren’t careful.

“Been there, done that,” Remus said, squeezing Virgil’s hand. “Everything kinda sucks though, so I made myself start touching other people and then they started touching me back. Not great at it all the time, but,” he shrugged, “I’m not so cold anymore.” Virgil couldn’t look at him, couldn’t face whatever was happening right now, so he sat quietly and did his best to take it in. God knew when the next time he’d get something like this would be.

“If you want,” Remus said slowly, “I could help you. We could hold hands and slowly work up to bigger things like hugs until you’re not so skin-hungry anymore.” Virgil internally winced at the term, but externally he was finally looking at Remus, staring in total shock that he would offer something like that.

“Why?” Virgil blurted, confusion swirling and making him feel almost nauseous.

“Because you’re my friend,” Remus said, and he sounded just as confused as Virgil felt. “And I love you. And I may or may not have developed a squish on you. I want to help because I care.” He smiled slightly, and to Virgil it looked kind of sad but not in a way that made him feel bad.

“I...I…” Virgil didn’t know what to say, how to say yes to what Remus was offering or how to make sense of it all in his head.

“It’s okay,” Remus said, running his thumb over the back of Virgil’s hand and causing an involuntary shiver. “We can talk about it later. For now let’s just hang out. Do you want me to talk?” Virgil nodded, figuring that at least with some kind of non-touch stimulation he might be able to refocus. Remus started talking about something, Virgil couldn’t recall what later, and Virgil realized that maybe tackling this with Remus wouldn’t be so bad after all. Maybe he didn’t have to suffer through on his own like he thought.

Maybe, just maybe, Virgil could finally stop burning.

[nitewrighter]

Hiya mun! Can you write like little character bio blurbs for your fankids? Im not sure if you've wrote some already before but if not could you please? :D

I’ve written a short masterpost of who’s who’s kid here but as far as like... bios go...

I’m limiting this to the main continuity because we are practicing Self Care.

Watchpoint Kids

Rei is Mercy and Genji’s daughter, and the first kid on the Watchpoint. Despite her parents’ desire to try and raise her as protected and peacefully as possible, Rei grasped from an early age how much Overwatch’s conflict was affecting her life. She idolized Hanzo from a young age and wanted very much to be a ninja like her father and uncle. Genji and Hanzo obviously had a lot of misgivings about continuing the Shimada skills and traditions, and with them their violence, but in the end they relented and started training Rei as a means to keep her occupied, teach her to defend herself, and to try and direct Shimada ninja arts into a force for good. Rei grew up on the watchpoint alongside Marti, Rajeev, and Samir. Under Genji and Hanzo’s tutelage, Rei became a very competent ninja, even incorporating her Mercy’s Valkyrie wings into her movement and combat. Eventually Rei became frustrated with how slow her training was going and broke into Shimada castle one night looking for answers, but Genji and Hanzo were able to intercept her and convince her to come home before the Shimada clan became really aware of her existence. Years passed and eventually Rei joined Marti’s strike team, going on several minor missions before, at age 18, she was kidnapped by Talon, an incident that ended up catalyzing Aedan’s defection from Talon, but Rei lost her dragon after being killed by Moira and subsequently revived by Aedan. Rei then spent two years away from the Watchpoint as a stuntwoman for the Sentai series “Midori Rider” in Hollywood, all the while struggling with the pain of losing her dragon, and trying to get it back. She eventually did get it back during a confrontation with the Reaper76 Clone Andrea in Shirakami-Sanchi.

Marti is Widow and Sombra’s kid--she actually refers to Widow and Sombra as her “aunties” rather than her parents because she still remembers her biological mother. Marti’s story actually begins well before she’s born, during Sombra’s days in Los Muertos. Sombra’s best friend in Los Muertos was a woman named Soledad, who was romantically involved with Jacinto, a ruthless enforcer for the gang. When Soledad found out she was pregnant, she became disillusioned with Los Muertos and enlisted Sombra’s help in disappearing from the gang to assure a safer life for her unborn child. Sombra was able to secure a new place to live and identity for her, and Soledad named Sombra as Martina’s godmother when she was born. Six years later, however, Talon began opening communications with Los Muertos, and Jacinto, now a leader within Los Muertos, was more than happy to hear them out. Talon was desperate to kill Sombra after her defection, and managed to track Soledad down and alert Jacinto and Los Muertos to her location. Talon initially planned to just use Soledad and Marti to draw Sombra out of hiding, but now that Sombra was involved with Overwatch, the situation rapidly escalated and ended with both Soledad and Jacinto dead. Sombra and Widow adopted Marti, and Marti came to live with them at the Watchpoint. The other kids instantly latched onto her, and while Marti was wary at first and a bit lonely being the oldest, warmed up to them... and got kind of good at bossing them around. Like Genji and Mercy, Sombra and Widow had no intention of letting Marti be affected by the fight between Talon and Overwatch ever again after her loss and traumatizing experience, but Marti’s grief fueled her desire to take Talon down. Always a tinkerer, Marti was playing around with various electrical gadgets from a young age, but eventually used what minor hacking skills she had picked up from Sombra to access Overwatch’s old records. She learned as much as she could about the old Overwatch, and even cribbed information from Sombra’s own work on her eye conspiracy to try and find out as much about the fight between the two organizations as possible. Not wanting Widow and Sombra to worry about her, she kept tinkering with robotics, but now she started bothering Jack Morrison to tell her about the old days. At first Jack was rightfully stubborn and insisting that “This wasn’t her fight” and “he didn’t have time for this” but through sheer force of Sombra-level persistence, Marti managed to cow him into taking her under his wing... and, okay, yeah, he was kind of fond of her at that point. She almost reminded him of Reyes, sometimes. Marti engineered her own full-body grappling harness system based on Widowmaker’s rappel hook, ended up picking up hand-to-hand combat skills from self defense lessons from Widowmaker and sparring with Rei, and all the while used Sombra’s intel and Jack’s experience to gain an uncanny perspective on the scale of the fight. Eventually she told Widowmaker and Sombra that she wanted to fight as well, and while they weren’t happy about it, they understood how invested Marti was in the fight (oh they chewed Jack the hell out for it, though). Marti went on collaborative missions with adults in mentor-like roles as well as a few solo missions before being selected as the leader of the “junior strike team.” The fight would be pretty simple and straightforward if she didn’t have a weird romantic rivalry with Seye Ogundimu.

Rajeev and Samir are twins born to Pharah and Symmetra via IVF. Pharah carried them, and their sperm donor is a Pakistani Olympic Rower, engineer, and philanthropist named Kader Hiraj (Sombra may have hacked the sperm bank to give Pharah and Symmetra an edge, haha). They were born in the orca at 45,000 feet. To their credit, Pharah and Symmetra were able to raise their twins to be a bit more ‘protected’ than Rei and Marti, however, Rajeev impressed on Grandpa Reinhardt and Auntie Brigitte from a young age and loved the idea of glorious battle. Samir, the more quiet of the two, took after Grandma Ana and also became very interested in the applications of Hard-light, which Symmetra was more than happy to share because she saw it as a chance for Hard-light to be about creation rather than control as it had been with Vishkar. Ana and Pharah had a lot of mixed feelings on teaching the boys combat--they made a point of teaching them self defense, and Ana even taught Samir marksmanship (More as a target practice hobby than a combat application). Still, as with the other kids, when you grow up on a Watchpoint, it’s hard not to see the fight affecting virtually every adult around you. Eventually, with help from Marti, they learned more about where Symmetra’s past with Vishkar, and, learned that a lot of Symmetra’s architectural work was actually still in Vishkar’s clutches. At age 16, largely on Samir’s goading, they broke in to a Vishkar office in Oasis to get their mother’s blueprints back, leading to a confrontation with Sanjay Korpal and a Vishkar agent named Akasha. They managed to escape with the blueprints, but Rajeev lost his eye in the fight. Samir blamed himself, and Marti ended up taking Samir under her wing. Marti soon found that Samir’s perspective was invaluable, and he ended up as her unofficial “Right hand Man.” Rajeev eventually got a cool gold-irised prosthetic eye, and both got Wadjet tattoos as a gesture of “Yeah. We’re in this fight, too.” 

Jaime was born to Turkish-Basque parents in Pamplona, but was orphaned in a Null Sector attack at the age of 7. With so many state resources going to trying to just remain stable in the face of Talon and Null Sector attacks, the Spanish government resorted depending on the private sector for many child welfare services and Jaime was given to the custody of a Vishkar Corporation-owned orphanage. Throughout his time in the orphanage, his Vishkar guardians criticized him as “Resourceful but resistant,” “Contrarian to the point of self-destructive,” and “A little shit who needs to learn his place.” Jaime actually had numerous escape attempts over the course of his 5 years in the orphanage. His first attempt he tried to bring five other kids with him, but one of them snitched. The second attempt he whittled down his fellow escapees to two others, except one of them twisted their ankle as they were running out, and the three of them got caught trying to carry him out with them (a part of Jaime still wonders if they would have made it out if they left him). Then there was just one other... but it turned out Vishkar had treated them with extensive conditioning with the express purpose of making them betray Jaime and teaching Jaime “You are completely alone” in the hopes that that would discourage further escape attempts and traumatize him into submission. It did not. It just pissed him off and isolated him. With all of his escape attempts, he was getting better at free-running, at climbing, at breaking in, at picking locks, at pickpocketing keycards, at disabling security cameras---every time Vishkar caught him he got a little better. Two years and 9 escape attempts later, Jaime finally made it out, homeless, angry, and alone, but free. He hopped several freighters, and used the agility and cunning he had learned in his escape attempts to scavenge, steal, and stow-away his way all over the Atlantic and the mediterranean for the next two years. He had only been in Gibraltar for about two weeks when he stole a schoolgirl’s backpack and she and her friend chased him down like a fucking madwoman. It had been the first time in 2 years someone had managed to keep up with him. McCree and Hanzo were able to intercept them, basically looked at him and were like “Oh shit, you’re 14 and starving.” It started out with the offer of food, a shower, and a place to sleep back at the watchpoint, and McCree’s word that Jaime could leave the second he wanted to...and it ended up with McCree and Hanzo pretty much adopting him. When Jaime found out that Overwatch was fighting Vishkar, he wanted to join the fight as well, but quickly ended up butting heads with McCree over the issue. McCree just didn’t want to end up as “someone else’s Reyes” and wanted Jaime to stay out of the fight. In the end, Jaime ended up spending 6 months in the southwest with McCree’s godmother Willow “Billie” Quintero. Incidentally during this time, Jaime met Ashe and ended up learning a lot from her, so basically McCree’s plan for Jaime to “not end up like me” kind of went out the window. But Jaime returned to the watchpoint, significantly cleaned up, now way more cowboy-ish, and still just as stubbornly willing to fight as ever. The other kids were happy to have him on the team.

Talon Kids

Seye Ogundimu was the product of an amicable but complicated marriage of Doomfist to successful Ogundimu Prosthetics shareholder Tujuka Tejuosho. Raised largely by his mother for the first few years of his life, he was only a few months old when Doomfist broke out of prison with Talon’s help. Seye himself grew up in luxury and privilege, attending the finest schools, proving himself both a brilliant student and incomparable athlete, and being groomed to take over Ogundimu Prosthetics once he came of age. Still at the back of his mind, the fear of irrelevance loomed. Every time he turned on the news, the name of his father was on everyone’s lips. To his credit, Doomfist did try to be a good father to him, and while he didn’t exactly pressure Seye to be like him, it was one of those situations where context was everything. Doomfist didn’t need to pressure Seye to be like him... the effect Doomfist had on people, the power he had, was something Seye wanted, too. The only other option, as the son of Doomfist, was humiliation and oblivion. But Seye knew he couldn’t just try to be a carbon copy of his father, and his father was also a product of their company’s own cybernetics. Seye thus decided to throw himself into engineering, and eventually developed his own pair of high-tech graviton gauntlets (nicknamed “The Twofists” by Aedan). Once he finished with his schooling, he kind of just... strolled into the main Talon board room like “Ready to take my seat at the table!” and Doomfist was just like “Oh, you think you have a seat at the table?” And Seye was just like “...uh...” and Doomfist basically made Seye start from Talon’s bottom ranks and pretty much claw his way up. It turned out for the best though, with his ambition, Seye gained the experience needed to lead strike teams, formed alliances and gained loyalty of grunts, enforcers, assassins, snipers, and heavies, and got plenty of combat experience. Still, doubt sometimes itches at the back of his mind.

Faustine was the daughter of two major money launderers for Talon, who died under suspicious circumstances. She was adopted by Maximilien. Afflicted by a rare bacterial infection at a young age, Faustine had nerve damage all over her body and was bound to a wheelchair for the first 13 years of her life. Still, her brain was unaffected, and she proved herself a mathematical, financial, and strategic prodigy. In Talon’s “Private” sector, she served first as an intern, then as a secretary to Maximilien, helping oversee much of Talon’s finances. Frustrated with the limits of her body, Faustine enlisted the help of Ogundimu prosthetics to undergo an experimental procedure outfitting her entire body with “neuroprosthetics.” Not only could she now walk, run, and, to a limited extent fight, but she could interface with virtually any technology. By her own ambition she soon proved herself an invaluable asset in the field of corporate espionage. Almost as if to make up for her previous lack of mobility, she also gained a passion for cars, and got into amateur, then professional racing. Both her neuroprosthetics and the logos slapped all over her racing suit are a veritable billboard for Talon’s many shell companies, and Faustine herself displays a particular ruthlessness both on the racetrack and in the boardroom that, despite her more diminutive phsyicality, makes her no less a threat than any other of her Talon compatriots.

Aedan was engineered by Moira in an amnio-tank. Part of his reason for existence was not only Moira securing her own genetic legacy in the world, but also proving that you could make a stable embryo with nanite-based biology. In essence, while Reaper was falling apart, Moira wanted to know if being nanite-based was actually biologically sustainable on a growing organism... if it could exist, in a sense, “naturally.” There were five attempts before him, and all self-destructed in their first few weeks of gestation, thus making him “Subject Six.” Artificially aged to 10 years old and flushed out of the amniotank, Aedan had been implanted with false memories and brainwashing tech giving him an entire childhood and a staggering intelligence. He and Moira actually had a wonderful rapport together, they were really on each others’ wavelength. He didn’t figure out he was a clone until 4 years in and it did severely affect his trust in her. He understood, to an extent, that Moira did it so she wouldn’t just drop him headlong into an existential crisis, and in its own way, the brainwashing did give him enough of a sense of self to really develop. Still, to cope, he threw himself more into science, interning at Oasis’s labs. At age 17 he met a girl named Rei, not even knowing at the time that she was the daughter of Angela Ziegler and a target of Talon. As soon as he realized who she was, she bolted. He wouldn’t see her again until Talon kidnapped her. Repulsed at the concept of Rei becoming either brainwashed or a constantly-dissected lab experiment, Aedan helped her escape, though in the process he was forced to defect from Talon. Both were harrowed by the experience, but eventually Aedan found his place on Overwatch’s team. 

Andrea, like Aedan, was made in an amnio-tank. She was not only meant to be a more ‘martial’ application of nanites, but Talon wanted to replicate the SEP serum as well, and the only still-living source for that was Jack Morrison. So, Andrea was formed from an X chromosome from Reyes and an X chromosome from Jack Morrison so that they could have a subject with both nanites and SEP serum... there were many failed attempts, and Andrea’s project was titled “Subject 19.” Andrea wasn’t given a childhood while she was being artificially aged, rather, they crammed as much martial knowledge into her as possible. As a result, her personality is very... uh, “Terminator.” While Reyes was warned that her ultimate loyalty was to Talon, and while he was furious that his and Jack’s DNA had been used to create an entire fucking person without either of their consent, he did feel a protectiveness towards her. One of Andrea’s first missions with Talon was assassinating Aedan after his defection, but the mission failed, and even worse, Rei somehow ended up getting her dragon back in the process. So now Andrea’s pissed, and she has no intention of failing again.

 Like Jaime, Akasha was one of thousands of orphans taken under Vishkar’s wing, but she took to Vishkar’s vision like a duck to water. While not able to make the massive constructs most hard-light architechs are known for, she demonstrated an uncanny ability to make smaller constructs really really fast. This paired with a high athletic potential from a young age, slotted her in an experimental program for more martial applications of hard-light. She was equipped with a ‘Projector sword’ capable of making a hard-light blade and functioning as a translocator, but she disappeared after a fight with the Amari twins went awry and her translocator sword was destroyed. It’s not sure if she’s alive or dead, (Schrodinger’s Akasha...) but last time someone got caught in a teleporter incident like this, it was Tracer in the Slipstream. So if she ever comes back, she’s going to need a chronal accelerator, and she is going to be pissed.

[salamanderskin]

Comfort

cr//it//ical r/o/l/e (m) sickfic. This is one of my more favourite fever scenarios I’ve written, I’m very happy with it though idk if the rest will make any sense if you don’t know the show. 

After a near drowning in episode 40, Nott has a panic attack, Caduceus has wet fur and the start of a cold. They bond over their shared misgivings about seafaring life and give each other some comfort. 

Or... Caduceus leverages Nott’s caring instincts to calm her down. Platonic intimacy ensues. 

It has been hours since they left the water. 

Whole hours, which means Nott is fine, she is safe, everything is fine and she did not drown and she can breathe just fine. So why then are her lungs still working like she'll never breathe again? 

She knows this feeling, knows it just her body telling her she's dying when she's quite safe here in hammock on the Squall Eater. She's felt it a thousand times, knows it always passes, but it's horrible horrible horrible.

Where's Caleb? Where's Frumpkin?

In their own hammock, with the cat curled tight on the wizard's own chest. He doesn't look exactly peaceful either, but they are asleep. If they were in an inn or camped outside she would take her own place on his chest, or at his feet, and let his steady breathing remind her own lungs how they are supposed to work. Perhaps she could climb up there with him? 

The motion of sitting up sets her hammock rocking in a way that reminds her immediately of the waves below. Nausea rises in her throat. 

She could certainly climb in and sleep with Caleb but that would rock the hammock even more, and between their two bodies the cloth would constrict her limbs and maybe she couldn't climb out of it easily and- no, not that then. That's not the answer.

Nott leaps from her own cocoon of blanket and paces the floor, hand on her chest to remind her to breathe. Breathe. Breathe.

She slips out of the door. Let Caleb rest. He needs it.

In the narrow, dark passages below the deck she takes stock.

Caleb? Asleep.

Jester? Most likely asleep but wouldn't mind being woken.

Beau and Yasha? Most likely asleep and would mind being woken.

Fjord? Would also mind being woken. Not asleep but with Avantika, getting his rocks off most likely. That leaves…

Caduceus? Most likely asleep?

As she paces past the cabin she knows the Firbolg shares with Fjord, Nott listens hard. She expects to hear slow even breaths, but instead she can hear the a tall body moving around and the rustle of fabric. A sniffle, a set of ticklish coughs and a muffled exhalation that might have been a sneeze.

Not asleep then.

She enters without knocking.

There is a hurricane lamp it and in it's flicker she can see the firbolg sitting on the floor on a pile of blankets. Of course he is far too tall to take a hammock. He is shirtless and the glow picks out pools of shadow beneath his collarbones, a smear of deeper grey between every rib in his thin chest.

 “Nott!” he looks up, surprised. “Is everything ok?”

“Yes, no, I'm-” her breathing hiccups and her vision gets spotty from lack of oxygen. Maybe she stumbles, because she is caught by strong hands and settled to sit beside him on the floor.

“Whoah. Hey there.” His deep voice is gentle but clear. “Why don't you take some deep breaths. Like this, with me.”

He takes her hand in his and presses it to the broad plain of his chest, so that she can feel the slow rise and fall in her own body.

“That's it. Nice and steady.”

It's hard. It's really, really hard when her body says can't you see you're dying. Mastering her breath is like reigning in a galloping horse. But it will work. She knows it will work if she can just get control of it. Ignore her heart, ignore the way her the room seems to tilt, ignore the nausea and the terrible skin- tightening panic.

Trouble is, there's a fine line between deepening her breathing and focusing on it too much. She wants to be aware of it, but if she gives all her attention to the sensations they will become too much to bear. In Nott's mind she grasps for ways to make the situation normal, to find something, anything to make small talk about.

Caduceus helpfully provides it by tucking his head away for a sudden sneeze.

“Gesundheit!” she offers. The routine response momentarily overrides her panic. It happens again and he offers a sheepish sniffle as he turns back to her.

“Pardon. Got a lot of water in my nose today.” He sniffles. “You want me to count your breaths for you? Some people find that helps.”

Nott considers and shakes her head. “Can we- talk to me- about something else? Anything?”

“Sure I can.” 

He agrees easily, without questioning her further. At that moment, she could kiss him. It must be working with so many people who are grieving- he is really, really good at this, and launches into easy, light conversation that doesn't require a meaningful response. He just chats away as he picks up the towel he was using to try and buff at his fur.

She can see how that the longer patches of are spiked, like a plush velvet cloak that should definitely not have been washed in salt water. The shortest parts around his face and arms are dry but the rest of his fur still holds the water.

“I know it's tropical out there but I can't get warm till it's dry.” He tells her, sniffling again.

 “You should definitely dry off or you'll get sick.” She comments absently.

“You don't get a cold from being wet and cold,” Caduceus tells Nott.

“Says you.” She fires back, desperately glad to put her attention on any subject other than her recent near drowning and the way still can't seem to get a proper breath. Her heart hammers uncomfortably in her throat but it seems further away when she has something to focus on.

“Yeah. says me. I'm the h- the heal-er-”

Nott hears his usually deep voice go all tickly and shuddery as he winds up for another sneeze. He looks so over it afterwards that it makes her heart flip but it's a soft caring flip not a drowning, panicking flip and it actually makes her chest feel warmer. She grabs the towel from beside him and stands, so that his pink hair is level with her chest.

“Come on, let me dry you off. Don't you know any spells for that?”

“I don't. And I don't fancy asking Caleb to try a fireball, so we'll have to do it the old fashioned way.” He shakes his head under the towel.

Nott can feel the firbolg shivering under her ministrations. In response she begins to buff the towel down his shoulders and upper arms, then follows by rubbing with the palms of her hands to try and get the circulation back. The sensation of silk-velvet fur beneath her palms is so delightful that she is no longer sure whether she is doing it for his comfort or hers.

“That's really nice.” He comments, closing his eyes and tipping his head forward with a huffing sigh.

“You're freezing. You should put a shirt on. And a sweater. And socks. Do you even own socks?” She fusses.

Caduceus laughs. “You'd make a good mom.”

 “I'm-”

He notices how her shoulders rise back up to her ears and diverts, “Okay, okay, clearly that's a conversation for another day!”

“Yeah. Thanks. Sorry.” Nott manages. 

She can deepen her breathing by herself now. After the initial gasp she gets when she thinks about her family, memories of caring for her son do actually make her calmer. There was that same coolness in a crisis that she is feeling now. Not that this is a crisis, but the vulnerability she feels in Caduceus is quieting her own worries to a dull roar and she likes it that way. At least the fur on his torso is mostly dry now. It is standing up fluffier than usual and he seems to be shivering less. She did that. That's something.

Caduceus runs his own hands over his arms, assessing, and clearly her efforts will suffice because he puts a dry shirt on leans back against the side of the ship. He isn't entirely relaxed however, Nott can see his nostrils twitching while a little furrow deepens between his brows.

“Caduceus?” She asks.

His answer is to double forwards with a wrenching sneeze and then another, barely smothered against the crook of his arm. Nott winces. That sounded... wet. She casts around the little room to find a handkerchief. It might technically be Fjord's but she doesn't suppose he'll mind, especially when the alternative is a very sniffly room-mate.

“Here.” She presses it into his hand. He casts her grateful look, sidelong over the press of his wrist to his nose.

Standing up and searching the room felt good. Doing things for someone else feels good. As Caduceus blows sheepishly, inspiration strikes.

“I'm going to make you some tea!” She declares.

Her companion frowns slightly. “I can make it-” he begins. Stops. Sees the slightly frantic good will in her eyes and just nods slowly. “Sure. That'd be nice. Thanks Nott.”

He still uses his magic to heat the kettle but he lets Nott set out his beloved cups, marvelling that they had not broken on the voyage. He shows her to some pre-made blends in pouches and lets her do the rest, leaning back against the wall and letting his heavy head droop.

  Nott is fastidiously careful as she handles Caduceus' most precious possessions. She can't quite believe he is actually letting her manage the process herself. It is kind of a gift, she realises.

She watches him critically as he takes the cup from here. Did his hands shake just a little? Her keen eyes spot a tiny wince with each swallow.

“Does your throat hurt?”

“Yeah, a little. The tea will help, I think.”

“Let me just-” Before he can protest, she reaches to feel his forehead for a fever.

Even with him sitting she has to stretch to reach. His brow is broader than the length of her hand. She thinks his dove-grey makes her green skin look more emerald than muddy, for once.

There's no heat there, that she can tell. She switches her palm for the back of her hand and then as an extra measure applies it to the side of his neck. Nothing to feel but soft, slightly damp firbolg. He looks at her curiously.

“No fever.” She tells him. “Yet. So I don't think you have what Beau had. But I'm keeping an eye on you.”

“I’ll bear that it mind.” He agrees mildly, and sips his tea. He knows full well he hasn't got whatever magical malaria had briefly sunk it's teeth into their human companion- he had a word with the biting insects and politely asked them to back off. 

Nott is satisfied with her work and comes to sit beside him with her own cup of tea, and she seems to finally have settled.

“Nott?” He asks. “Feeling calmer now?”

She draws a breath and makes a mental check of her heart, her lungs. “Yes. Yes, thank you. I’m fine now. I was just having… having a time.”

There is a long silence as they both sip. She nestles in closer beside him, filling the crook beneath his shoulder so that his arm is almost around her. He is so tall and soft that she feels particularly small and gnarly by comparison but it’s nice, too, being under the protection of someone so big. She wonders how it feels for him, being mothered by someone so small. Speaking of… 

“Caduceus?” She asks at last. “Were you maybe faking a little bit to get me to fuss over you? To calm me down, I mean?”

He laughs, then turns to look down at her with his lovely almond-shaped eyes and his brows in a solemn arch. 

“Well. Lots of people find helping someone else calms them down a lot, so there's that.” He pauses, scrubs at his face with the little sniff-swallow that is becoming more frequent. “I wish I was faking it for you. My nose feels really stuffed now.”

She makes a sympathetic face and is about to move beside him when there is a knock at the door.

It isn't loud, but the suddenness makes her jump as though she was slapped.

Nott feels ice cubes drop down into her gut, a sharp ache at the top of her chest and it's hard to get a good breath and it's starting again oh shit

She looks down, finds her claws pressing too hard into Caduceus' arms, sees his strong hands gently peeling them off. 

“It's okay. It's just Caleb, see? I think the noise made you jump.” He doesn't seem mad.

He's right, it is Caleb coming into the room with his cat in his arms, his ginger hair mussed and lank from the near-drowning, and a worried look that eases somewhat when he sees Nott.

“Ah, there you are.” He says. “Nott, are you okay?”

“She’ll be okay.” Caduceus tells him evenly. “That's good.” This last is directed to her with a warm hand rubbing her back.

Nott comes to herself enough to watch a couple of different expressions drift over her wizard's face. She wonders whether he might even be jealous that it is Caduceus easing her through this, the way she might be jealous if Caleb were to confide in someone else before herself. Talking her down from the panic is usually Caleb's job.

But Caleb doesn't seen to mind exactly.

“It seems I startled you.” Caleb says. “I am very sorry my friend.” 

“It's fine,” She reassures him. “I- it's nothing.”

What she loves about Caleb is that he doesn't force an explanation. He knows that sometimes people's minds don't work quite right and then their bodies follow. He just sinks down to sit beside them on Caduceus' makeshift bed and wraps his arms around Frumpkin, who is purring aggressively. Caleb doesn't look to be in good condition either. He moves as though his joints ache and his expression is deeply unsettled.

The firbolg between them is shivering again. Nott can feel his teeth chattering and apparently Caleb can too because he raises an eyebrow. Caduceus shrugs, pulls one of the blankets from the pile and adds his over his knees. He also sniffles audibly.

“He's getting sick.” Nott tells on him.

“There's no need to be concerned.” Caduceus begins.

“With respect,” Caleb tells him. “I agree with Nott. You don't look so good.”

“With respect,” Caduceus echoes, “neither do you.”

The wizard laughs. “Can we just agree that we all nearly drowned and we all look like shit and today was a really shitty day?”

“It was an incredibly shitty day.” Nott agrees.

She feels calmer now. It's nice, sandwiched into this tiny space with Caleb and Caduceus both together.

“It was a, uh, really quite a day.” Caduceus agrees. “But we all made it our alive and unharmed.”

It's a pity the firbolg has to sneeze immediately after that statement. Caleb doesn't seem to mind.

Nott winces at the sound. So does Caleb, and she notices him squeeze Caduceus' hand.

“Definitely coming down with something.” Caleb remarks. 

Nott tries to give him a told-you-so look but Caduceus looks so worn down that she can’t muster much fire in it. They sit together for a long time, just the three of them, collectively wincing when the ship crests a particularly huge wave. Eventually Caduceus sighs heavily and looks at them both. 

“If you don’t mind, I should probably try and get some sleep.” 

Caleb nods agreement and rises, reaching for Nott’s hand. “Do you think you could try to sleep, Nott? You can come in with me if you want?”

“Sure, I suppose so.” She agrees. She does feel better now but more importantly if she stays up, Caleb will stay up with her, and he needs his sleep or he’ll end up as sick as Caduceus. 

Before leaving she turns back to the firbolg and gives him a firm hug, trying to show her gratitude through the cling of her limbs. Caleb is less demonstrative but his voice is warm as he says, “Rest well.” 

So Caleb leads Nott back up to her cabin, her bony fingers nesting securely in his broader, bandaged-hands. She lets herself be taken. Let Caduceus sleep. 

………

Morning comes, bright and hot and wave-tossed. Nott wakes in Caleb’s hammock, curled over her boy’s legs like a stringy green cat. She takes a moment to assess the situation; they are out on the open sea in a ship filled with untrustworthy pirates, the opportunity to drown is still very present, but she feels a little better today. Her fear is back at it’s usual level;  lurking around the pit of her stomach rather than gripping her throat. Thank whatever gods are out here. 

Then she remembers. How is Caduceus?

He is usually an early riser. She’d expect to find him in the galley knocking up a meal or perhaps standing on the deck and looking out for land with a longing nearly as strong as her own. He must still be in bed. Nott seeks him out. 

Below decks the movement of the ship seems worse somehow. She stumbles whenever the floor pitches under her and makes a conscious effort not to think of fathoms of saltwater underneath her feet. 

Fjord has already vacated their shared quarters, if he even came back at all, and left a pile of blankets on the floor, rucked into a mountain range by the bony angles of a still sleeping Caduceus. Laying down, he is all limbs and knees and shoulder blades. For once she feels grateful for her goblin body, in that it curls in on itself easily. There is just too much firbolg and he is too skinny to make a ball for warmth. He looks like he would if he could. 

She shakes him gently, then harder. “‘Duceus? You in there?”

No answer, though his eyes open. Nott can see a bleary slither of pink which blinks out for an unsteady breath and a sneeze that just wrenches through him. Poor guy.

“I was going to ask how you’re feeling-?”

His answer is another sneeze, well-smothered into a handful of blankets, and a thick sniffle showing he can barely breathe through his nose. “I…” He tilts his head bashfully. “Yeah… that’s about the shape of it.” 

He raises up on one elbow and shakes his head as though testing his focus and finding it wanting. “Wow. Yeah. Not too good.”

“Oh no.” Nott comes to sit beside him and notes the flood of warmth released from under the bedclothes. She agrees. Not good at all. 

“Bit of a fever there, ‘Ducey,” she sighs.

He blinks at her muzzily. “Yeah. I guess so.”

“C’mere.” She crawls over and leans to lay her cheek against his forehead. There is a noticeable warmth, nothing alarming, just enough to make the big guy miserable for a day or two. 

“Mm, that’s nice.”

“Huh? Oh-” She adds her cold little hands to the sides of his face, first the backs and then the palms. “I can do that.”

When he leans in to the touch, she scoots close enough to give him a hug. She wishes her arms were a little longer but he seems to welcome it all the same. 

At that moment, the ship gives an especially noticeable roll. They shudder in unison and look queasily at each other. “I hate this. I can’t wait to be back on dry land.” Nott voices their shared thoughts.

“You and me both.” Caduceus nods. His eyes are weighing closed and he looks weak and shivery. He sniffles and it turns into a persistent, painful cough. 

“You should lie down. See if you can go back to sleep”

He lies down but keeps his eyes open, looking up at her. To Nott he suddenly looks really, tired and really, really sad. 

“Are you feeling worse? Should I get Jester?” 

He shakes his head, swallows hard. She can feel him shiver convulsively despite the warmth of the day. 

“No, no, it’s not that. Don’t tell Jester, she’ll worry and she’ll tell Fjord and he’ll worry. He needs to focus on the ship, he doesn’t have time for this-” a gesture to himself.

Caduceus continues in a husky whisper, “I don’t even mind getting sick, not really. Every creature has periods of weakness and then the Wildmother lifts them through it. But in the Grove, surrounded by my family, with evidence of her power everywhere, it wasn’t so bad. Out here it just…”

“Really sucks.” Nott finishes his thought.

“Yeah. Yeah. It really sucks.” He agrees 

His big eyes gleam with wetness at the corners and it hurts her heart. 

“Can I do anything for you?” Nott frets. “I could make some more tea?”

“Thanks.” He says through chattering teeth. “But I think I’ll just try and sleep it off.” 

 “Okay.” She twists her hands in the hem of her dress for want of something to help him. Maybe she should leave him to his misery. 

The ship is heaves from side to side again. They watch a loose copper coin slide across the floor when the angle changes. Nott grimaces. Her heart kicks in her chest as a unspoken voice says drowning, you’re drowning and you can’t breathe-

“Nott?” Caduceus’ deep voice cuts through the panic. “Would you… stay for a bit?” 

She must have given him some goblin-faced look because he retracts it immediately; “You don’t have to.”

“No, no. I’ll stay. I’d love to stay with you. I don’t want to go up there.” Her own voice is high and scratchy and fast and relieved. She returns to his bedside as though drawn by a magnet to his feverish form. 

Where he lies on his side there is a perfect, Nott-sized hollow made by his bent legs where she can lean her back against him and have a hand free to smooth along his flank. He reaches an arm over her lap to give her a squeeze  then tucks it back under his head, trying to find a way to rest his neck. The simmering, febrile heat of him is not unpleasant for her, though it makes him kick off his blankets. She can hear his breath getting shallower as his fever crests. 

She rises from the embrace only once, to dampen a rag with water from the canteen and lay it carefully on his brow. His eyes crack open and he manages a quiet, “thanks…” without truly surfacing from sleep. The soft, grateful tone nearly breaks her heart. 

Nott settles back at the head of his blanket nest, where she can reach to lift his sweaty hair from his neck. She sifts through it, allowing the breeze to reach his skin. His silken, goat-like ears are pressed back against his head and the effect is rather pitiful, even without the frown pulling down his mouth as he sleeps. 

“I hate seeing you like this.” She says to his drowsing form. “We need you better,’Duceus. Who's going to make us  tea and remind us to eat and be the butt of jokes they don’t really understand?”

Caduceus must be more awake than she realised, because he turns his head to her. His eyes have a glassy sheen that make them look more like costume jewellery than rare sapphires. It’s not right at all. But he does manage a smile. 

“S’alright.” He slurs sleepily. “We can’t stay on the sea forever. And I’ll be okay. I’ve got all of you. And you’ve got me…” 

He rolls over. Nott feels some tension she wasn’t aware of leaving her body. Maybe she could sleep too, just for a little.

At different times during the morning, both Caleb and Fjord crack open the door to the cabin. Greeted by the sight of two unlikely bedfellows, they carefully push it closed again and turn away. Lots of things are going wrong for the Mighty Nein, but they are doing right by each other. That’s a comfort. 

t has been hours since they left the water. 

Whole hours, which means Nott is fine, she is safe, everything is fine and she did not drown and she can breathe just fine. So why then are her lungs still working like she'll never breathe again? 

She knows this feeling, knows it just her body telling her she's dying when she's quite safe here in hammock on the Squall Eater. She's felt it a thousand times, knows it always passes, but it's horrible horrible horrible.

Where's Caleb? Where's Frumpkin?

In their own hammock, with the cat curled tight on the wizard's own chest. He doesn't look exactly peaceful either, but they are asleep. If they were in an inn or camped outside she would take her own place on his chest, or at his feet, and let his steady breathing remind her own lungs how they are supposed to work. Perhaps she could climb up there with him? 

The motion of sitting up sets her hammock rocking in a way that reminds her immediately of the waves below. Nausea rises in her throat. 

She could certainly climb in and sleep with Caleb but that would rock the hammock even more, and between their two bodies the cloth would constrict her limbs and maybe she couldn't climb out of it easily and- no, not that then. That's not the answer.

Nott leaps from her own cocoon of blanket and paces the floor, hand on her chest to remind her to breathe. Breathe. Breathe.

She slips out of the door. Let Caleb rest. He needs it.

In the narrow, dark passages below the deck she takes stock.

Caleb? Asleep.

Jester? Most likely asleep but wouldn't mind being woken.

Beau and Yasha? Most likely asleep and would mind being woken.

Fjord? Would also mind being woken. Not asleep but with Avantika, getting his rocks off most likely. That leaves…

Caduceus? Most likely asleep?

As she paces past the cabin she knows the Firbolg shares with Fjord, Nott listens hard. She expects to hear slow even breaths, but instead she can hear the a tall body moving around and the rustle of fabric. A sniffle, a set of ticklish coughs and a muffled exhalation that might have been a sneeze.

Not asleep then.

She enters without knocking.

There is a hurricane lamp it and in it's flicker she can see the firbolg sitting on the floor on a pile of blankets. Of course he is far too tall to take a hammock. He is shirtless and the glow picks out pools of shadow beneath his collarbones, a smear of deeper grey between every rib in his thin chest.

 “Nott!” he looks up, surprised. “Is everything ok?”

“Yes, no, I'm-” her breathing hiccups and her vision gets spotty from lack of oxygen. Maybe she stumbles, because she is caught by strong hands and settled to sit beside him on the floor.

“Whoah. Hey there.” His deep voice is gentle but clear. “Why don't you take some deep breaths. Like this, with me.”

He takes her hand in his and presses it to the broad plain of his chest, so that she can feel the slow rise and fall in her own body.

“That's it. Nice and steady.”

It's hard. It's really, really hard when her body says can't you see you're dying. Mastering her breath is like reigning in a galloping horse. But it will work. She knows it will work if she can just get control of it. Ignore her heart, ignore the way her the room seems to tilt, ignore the nausea and the terrible skin- tightening panic.

Trouble is, there's a fine line between deepening her breathing and focusing on it too much. She wants to be aware of it, but if she gives all her attention to the sensations they will become too much to bear. In Nott's mind she grasps for ways to make the situation normal, to find something, anything to make small talk about.

Caduceus helpfully provides it by tucking his head away for a sudden sneeze.

“Gesundheit!” she offers. The routine response momentarily overrides her panic. It happens again and he offers a sheepish sniffle as he turns back to her.

“Pardon. Got a lot of water in my nose today.” He sniffles. “You want me to count your breaths for you? Some people find that helps.”

Nott considers and shakes her head. “Can we- talk to me- about something else? Anything?”

“Sure I can.” 

He agrees easily, without questioning her further. At that moment, she could kiss him. It must be working with so many people who are grieving- he is really, really good at this, and launches into easy, light conversation that doesn't require a meaningful response. He just chats away as he picks up the towel he was using to try and buff at his fur.

She can see how that the longer patches of are spiked, like a plush velvet cloak that should definitely not have been washed in salt water. The shortest parts around his face and arms are dry but the rest of his fur still holds the water.

“I know it's tropical out there but I can't get warm till it's dry.” He tells her, sniffling again.

 “You should definitely dry off or you'll get sick.” She comments absently.

“You don't get a cold from being wet and cold,” Caduceus tells Nott.

“Says you.” She fires back, desperately glad to put her attention on any subject other than her recent near drowning and the way still can't seem to get a proper breath. Her heart hammers uncomfortably in her throat but it seems further away when she has something to focus on.

“Yeah. says me. I'm the h- the heal-er-”

Nott hears his usually deep voice go all tickly and shuddery as he winds up for another sneeze. He looks so over it afterwards that it makes her heart flip but it's a soft caring flip not a drowning, panicking flip and it actually makes her chest feel warmer. She grabs the towel from beside him and stands, so that his pink hair is level with her chest.

“Come on, let me dry you off. Don't you know any spells for that?”

“I don't. And I don't fancy asking Caleb to try a fireball, so we'll have to do it the old fashioned way.” He shakes his head under the towel.

Nott can feel the firbolg shivering under her ministrations. In response she begins to buff the towel down his shoulders and upper arms, then follows by rubbing with the palms of her hands to try and get the circulation back. The sensation of silk-velvet fur beneath her palms is so delightful that she is no longer sure whether she is doing it for his comfort or hers.

“That's really nice.” He comments, closing his eyes and tipping his head forward with a huffing sigh.

“You're freezing. You should put a shirt on. And a sweater. And socks. Do you even own socks?” She fusses.

Caduceus laughs. “You'd make a good mom.”

 “I'm-”

He notices how her shoulders rise back up to her ears and diverts, “Okay, okay, clearly that's a conversation for another day!”

“Yeah. Thanks. Sorry.” Nott manages. 

She can deepen her breathing by herself now. After the initial gasp she gets when she thinks about her family, memories of caring for her son do actually make her calmer. There was that same coolness in a crisis that she is feeling now. Not that this is a crisis, but the vulnerability she feels in Caduceus is quieting her own worries to a dull roar and she likes it that way. At least the fur on his torso is mostly dry now. It is standing up fluffier than usual and he seems to be shivering less. She did that. That's something.

Caduceus runs his own hands over his arms, assessing, and clearly her efforts will suffice because he puts a dry shirt on leans back against the side of the ship. He isn't entirely relaxed however, Nott can see his nostrils twitching while a little furrow deepens between his brows.

“Caduceus?” She asks.

His answer is to double forwards with a wrenching sneeze and then another, barely smothered against the crook of his arm. Nott winces. That sounded... wet. She casts around the little room to find a handkerchief. It might technically be Fjord's but she doesn't suppose he'll mind, especially when the alternative is a very sniffly room-mate.

“Here.” She presses it into his hand. He casts her grateful look, sidelong over the press of his wrist to his nose.

Standing up and searching the room felt good. Doing things for someone else feels good. As Caduceus blows sheepishly, inspiration strikes.

“I'm going to make you some tea!” She declares.

Her companion frowns slightly. “I can make it-” he begins. Stops. Sees the slightly frantic good will in her eyes and just nods slowly. “Sure. That'd be nice. Thanks Nott.”

He still uses his magic to heat the kettle but he lets Nott set out his beloved cups, marvelling that they had not broken on the voyage. He shows her to some pre-made blends in pouches and lets her do the rest, leaning back against the wall and letting his heavy head droop.

  Nott is fastidiously careful as she handles Caduceus' most precious possessions. She can't quite believe he is actually letting her manage the process herself. It is kind of a gift, she realises.

She watches him critically as he takes the cup from here. Did his hands shake just a little? Her keen eyes spot a tiny wince with each swallow.

“Does your throat hurt?”

“Yeah, a little. The tea will help, I think.”

“Let me just-” Before he can protest, she reaches to feel his forehead for a fever.

Even with him sitting she has to stretch to reach. His brow is broader than the length of her hand. She thinks his dove-grey makes her green skin look more emerald than muddy, for once.

There's no heat there, that she can tell. She switches her palm for the back of her hand and then as an extra measure applies it to the side of his neck. Nothing to feel but soft, slightly damp firbolg. He looks at her curiously.

“No fever.” She tells him. “Yet. So I don't think you have what Beau had. But I'm keeping an eye on you.”

“I’ll bear that it mind.” He agrees mildly, and sips his tea. He knows full well he hasn't got whatever magical malaria had briefly sunk it's teeth into their human companion- he had a word with the biting insects and politely asked them to back off. 

Nott is satisfied with her work and comes to sit beside him with her own cup of tea, and she seems to finally have settled.

“Nott?” He asks. “Feeling calmer now?”

She draws a breath and makes a mental check of her heart, her lungs. “Yes. Yes, thank you. I’m fine now. I was just having… having a time.”

There is a long silence as they both sip. She nestles in closer beside him, filling the crook beneath his shoulder so that his arm is almost around her. He is so tall and soft that she feels particularly small and gnarly by comparison but it’s nice, too, being under the protection of someone so big. She wonders how it feels for him, being mothered by someone so small. Speaking of… 

“Caduceus?” She asks at last. “Were you maybe faking a little bit to get me to fuss over you? To calm me down, I mean?”

He laughs, then turns to look down at her with his lovely almond-shaped eyes and his brows in a solemn arch. 

“Well. Lots of people find helping someone else calms them down a lot, so there's that.” He pauses, scrubs at his face with the little sniff-swallow that is becoming more frequent. “I wish I was faking it for you. My nose feels really stuffed now.”

She makes a sympathetic face and is about to move beside him when there is a knock at the door.

It isn't loud, but the suddenness makes her jump as though she was slapped.

Nott feels ice cubes drop down into her gut, a sharp ache at the top of her chest and it's hard to get a good breath and it's starting again oh shit

She looks down, finds her claws pressing too hard into Caduceus' arms, sees his strong hands gently peeling them off. 

“It's okay. It's just Caleb, see? I think the noise made you jump.” He doesn't seem mad.

He's right, it is Caleb coming into the room with his cat in his arms, his ginger hair mussed and lank from the near-drowning, and a worried look that eases somewhat when he sees Nott.

“Ah, there you are.” He says. “Nott, are you okay?”

“She’ll be okay.” Caduceus tells him evenly. “That's good.” This last is directed to her with a warm hand rubbing her back.

Nott comes to herself enough to watch a couple of different expressions drift over her wizard's face. She wonders whether he might even be jealous that it is Caduceus easing her through this, the way she might be jealous if Caleb were to confide in someone else before herself. Talking her down from the panic is usually Caleb's job.

But Caleb doesn't seen to mind exactly.

“It seems I startled you.” Caleb says. “I am very sorry my friend.” 

“It's fine,” She reassures him. “I- it's nothing.”

What she loves about Caleb is that he doesn't force an explanation. He knows that sometimes people's minds don't work quite right and then their bodies follow. He just sinks down to sit beside them on Caduceus' makeshift bed and wraps his arms around Frumpkin, who is purring aggressively. Caleb doesn't look to be in good condition either. He moves as though his joints ache and his expression is deeply unsettled.

The firbolg between them is shivering again. Nott can feel his teeth chattering and apparently Caleb can too because he raises an eyebrow. Caduceus shrugs, pulls one of the blankets from the pile and adds his over his knees. He also sniffles audibly.

“He's getting sick.” Nott tells on him.

“There's no need to be concerned.” Caduceus begins.

“With respect,” Caleb tells him. “I agree with Nott. You don't look so good.”

“With respect,” Caduceus echoes, “neither do you.”

The wizard laughs. “Can we just agree that we all nearly drowned and we all look like shit and today was a really shitty day?”

“It was an incredibly shitty day.” Nott agrees.

She feels calmer now. It's nice, sandwiched into this tiny space with Caleb and Caduceus both together.

“It was a, uh, really quite a day.” Caduceus agrees. “But we all made it our alive and unharmed.”

It's a pity the firbolg has to sneeze immediately after that statement. Caleb doesn't seem to mind.

Nott winces at the sound. So does Caleb, and she notices him squeeze Caduceus' hand.

“Definitely coming down with something.” Caleb remarks. 

Nott tries to give him a told-you-so look but Caduceus looks so worn down that she can’t muster much fire in it. They sit together for a long time, just the three of them, collectively wincing when the ship crests a particularly huge wave. Eventually Caduceus sighs heavily and looks at them both. 

“If you don’t mind, I should probably try and get some sleep.” 

Caleb nods agreement and rises, reaching for Nott’s hand. “Do you think you could try to sleep, Nott? You can come in with me if you want?”

“Sure, I suppose so.” She agrees. She does feel better now but more importantly if she stays up, Caleb will stay up with her, and he needs his sleep or he’ll end up as sick as Caduceus. 

Before leaving she turns back to the firbolg and gives him a firm hug, trying to show her gratitude through the cling of her limbs. Caleb is less demonstrative but his voice is warm as he says, “Rest well.” 

So Caleb leads Nott back up to her cabin, her bony fingers nesting securely in his broader, bandaged-hands. She lets herself be taken. Let Caduceus sleep. 

………

Morning comes, bright and hot and wave-tossed. Nott wakes in Caleb’s hammock, curled over her boy’s legs like a stringy green cat. She takes a moment to assess the situation; they are out on the open sea in a ship filled with untrustworthy pirates, the opportunity to drown is still very present, but she feels a little better today. Her fear is back at it’s usual level;  lurking around the pit of her stomach rather than gripping her throat. Thank whatever gods are out here. 

Then she remembers. How is Caduceus?

He is usually an early riser. She’d expect to find him in the galley knocking up a meal or perhaps standing on the deck and looking out for land with a longing nearly as strong as her own. He must still be in bed. Nott seeks him out. 

Below decks the movement of the ship seems worse somehow. She stumbles whenever the floor pitches under her and makes a conscious effort not to think of fathoms of saltwater underneath her feet. 

Fjord has already vacated their shared quarters, if he even came back at all, and left a pile of blankets on the floor, rucked into a mountain range by the bony angles of a still sleeping Caduceus. Laying down, he is all limbs and knees and shoulder blades. For once she feels grateful for her goblin body, in that it curls in on itself easily. There is just too much firbolg and he is too skinny to make a ball for warmth. He looks like he would if he could. 

She shakes him gently, then harder. “‘Duceus? You in there?”

No answer, though his eyes open. Nott can see a bleary slither of pink which blinks out for an unsteady breath and a sneeze that just wrenches through him. Poor guy.

“I was going to ask how you’re feeling-?”

His answer is another sneeze, well-smothered into a handful of blankets, and a thick sniffle showing he can barely breathe through his nose. “I…” He tilts his head bashfully. “Yeah… that’s about the shape of it.” 

He raises up on one elbow and shakes his head as though testing his focus and finding it wanting. “Wow. Yeah. Not too good.”

“Oh no.” Nott comes to sit beside him and notes the flood of warmth released from under the bedclothes. She agrees. Not good at all. 

“Bit of a fever there, ‘Ducey,” she sighs.

He blinks at her muzzily. “Yeah. I guess so.”

“C’mere.” She crawls over and leans to lay her cheek against his forehead. There is a noticeable warmth, nothing alarming, just enough to make the big guy miserable for a day or two. 

“Mm, that’s nice.”

“Huh? Oh-” She adds her cold little hands to the sides of his face, first the backs and then the palms. “I can do that.”

When he leans in to the touch, she scoots close enough to give him a hug. She wishes her arms were a little longer but he seems to welcome it all the same. 

At that moment, the ship gives an especially noticeable roll. They shudder in unison and look queasily at each other. “I hate this. I can’t wait to be back on dry land.” Nott voices their shared thoughts.

“You and me both.” Caduceus nods. His eyes are weighing closed and he looks weak and shivery. He sniffles and it turns into a persistent, painful cough. 

“You should lie down. See if you can go back to sleep”

He lies down but keeps his eyes open, looking up at her. To Nott he suddenly looks really, tired and really, really sad. 

“Are you feeling worse? Should I get Jester?” 

He shakes his head, swallows hard. She can feel him shiver convulsively despite the warmth of the day. 

“No, no, it’s not that. Don’t tell Jester, she’ll worry and she’ll tell Fjord and he’ll worry. He needs to focus on the ship, he doesn’t have time for this-” a gesture to himself.

Caduceus continues in a husky whisper, “I don’t even mind getting sick, not really. Every creature has periods of weakness and then the Wildmother lifts them through it. But in the Grove, surrounded by my family, with evidence of her power everywhere, it wasn’t so bad. Out here it just…”

“Really sucks.” Nott finishes his thought.

“Yeah. Yeah. It really sucks.” He agrees 

His big eyes gleam with wetness at the corners and it hurts her heart. 

“Can I do anything for you?” Nott frets. “I could make some more tea?”

“Thanks.” He says through chattering teeth. “But I think I’ll just try and sleep it off.” 

 “Okay.” She twists her hands in the hem of her dress for want of something to help him. Maybe she should leave him to his misery. 

The ship is heaves from side to side again. They watch a loose copper coin slide across the floor when the angle changes. Nott grimaces. Her heart kicks in her chest as a unspoken voice says drowning, you’re drowning and you can’t breathe-

“Nott?” Caduceus’ deep voice cuts through the panic. “Would you… stay for a bit?” 

She must have given him some goblin-faced look because he retracts it immediately; “You don’t have to.”

“No, no. I’ll stay. I’d love to stay with you. I don’t want to go up there.” Her own voice is high and scratchy and fast and relieved. She returns to his bedside as though drawn by a magnet to his feverish form. 

Where he lies on his side there is a perfect, Nott-sized hollow made by his bent legs where she can lean her back against him and have a hand free to smooth along his flank. He reaches an arm over her lap to give her a squeeze  then tucks it back under his head, trying to find a way to rest his neck. The simmering, febrile heat of him is not unpleasant for her, though it makes him kick off his blankets. She can hear his breath getting shallower as his fever crests. 

She rises from the embrace only once, to dampen a rag with water from the canteen and lay it carefully on his brow. His eyes crack open and he manages a quiet, “thanks…” without truly surfacing from sleep. The soft, grateful tone nearly breaks her heart. 

Nott settles back at the head of his blanket nest, where she can reach to lift his sweaty hair from his neck. She sifts through it, allowing the breeze to reach his skin. His silken, goat-like ears are pressed back against his head and the effect is rather pitiful, even without the frown pulling down his mouth as he sleeps. 

“I hate seeing you like this.” She says to his drowsing form. “We need you better, ’Duceus. Who's going to make us  tea and remind us to eat and be the butt of jokes they don’t really understand?”

Caduceus must be more awake than she realised, because he turns his head to her. His eyes have a glassy sheen that make them look more like costume jewellery than rare sapphires. It’s not right at all. But he does manage a smile. 

“S’alright.” He slurs sleepily. “We can’t stay on the sea forever. And I’ll be okay. I’ve got all of you. And you’ve got me…” 

He rolls over. Nott feels some tension she wasn’t aware of leaving her body. Maybe she could sleep too, just for a little.

At different times during the morning, both Caleb and Fjord crack open the door to the cabin. Greeted by the sight of two unlikely bedfellows, they carefully push it closed again and turn away. Lots of things are going wrong for the Mighty Nein, but they are doing right by each other. That’s a comfort. 

END.

Thanks for coming with me on this wild ride. I’m not spelling out sneezes these days, idk why.

[everlarkficexchange]

To be Her O.A.O. (one-and-only) - Chapter 2

written by: @noneyabidnes

Rating: Mature

Prompt 73: Katniss marries Gale before he’s sent to fight WWII. Gale sends home his buddy Peeta to break the news to his wife and family that he’s fallen in love with someone else in Europe and is staying there after the war… Peeta is under the impression Katniss is a cold woman that only married his friend out of obligation but finds out the other side of the story soon enough. [submitted by @alliswell21]

Tags: era-appropriate derogatory terms for Axis powers, angst

–//–//–//–//–//–//–//–

Chapter 2

The shadows are stretching long by the time we hear hooves coming up the road.  Prim jumps out of her seat saying she needs to check on the sheep as Katniss continues dinner preparations in the small kitchen.  I try to stand up to help just to have her shush me back down again.  I’ve offered more than once, but somewhere in the last couple hours, as we’ve talked about nothing in particular, she’s come to decide I’m an acceptable guest, and I’ve barely been able to take my eyes off her.  As she turns her back to me, I snag the rumpled photo back off the table and slip it in my pocket

It’s become my personal challenge to get her to smile as much as I can, telling stories about every Good-time Charley and cracked egg I met in the service.  I even managed a blush out of her, and Prim for that matter, delicately explaining why most guys referred to letters from their girls back home as sugar reports.  It prompted her to ask me about my own special someone, of which I had to admit I had none.  Delly Cartwright and I used to pal around a bit, but last I’d heard she’d gone and hitched up with Thom Quinn after he’d come back from France.  I wasn’t surprised to hear she’d fallen for the flyboy, nor was I hurt.  She and I weren’t cut out for one-and-only.

I’m still watching Katniss push onions around a pan when she starts to sing quietly to herself.  It’s a song from before the war, one I haven’t heard since before I shipped out to Parris Island, but what catches me isn’t sentimentality toward the song, but the rich tone of her voice.  Gale never mentioned she could sing.  He spoke endlessly about her hunting acumen, how sensible she was, if a bit distant and frigid in her demeanor.  He made it seem like getting any affection from her was hard-fought.  That even after they had married, he still didn’t think she really felt much love for him.  To hear the emotion in her voice as she sings, I know how wrong he was.  Not that she was in love—it does seem clear that wasn’t the case—but that she wears her heart where it can get trampled.  That this ‘cold woman with a hard stare’ as he often put it, is in fact a woman full of warmth.  Each smile I’ve earned from her has felt like a victory and now, to hear her singing as though she’s perfectly comfortable with me in her kitchen, I can’t imagine ever being able to tear myself away from this shack on this rock outcrop of a mountain.  From her.

And I immediately fill with shame for feeling it.  I shouldn’t be a goner for my best friend’s not-an-ex-wife.  We’ve only just met.  We know nothing about one another beyond the pleasantries we’ve exchanged these past couple hours.  There’s no way I could ever convince her that I’m an upstanding man if I were to tell her the thoughts running through my mind.  I’d only confirm her initial misgivings of having me here in the first place.

Prim stomps back through the door with a tall young man on her heels who is the spitting image of his older brother.  This must be Rory, the one Gale always speaks about with equal parts pride and frustration.  I carefully stand on one leg to shake his hand as he towers over me and Katniss gasps.

“We never went to your mother’s house! Oh no, we got so caught up talking about…what were we even talking about?”  She looks to me to fill in the gap and I return Rory’s solid handshake.

“Matters of deep importance, if I do recall.  Rory, I presume.  Your brother didn’t lie about how strong you are, but I doubt he realizes how tall you’ve gotten.  He was always proud of having a coupla inches on you.  I daresay you’re taller’an him now.  You must have been stealin’ rations.”

A grin breaks out on Rory’s face before he pulls me in for a quick, surprising hug, knocking me slightly off balance.  “It’s all the squirrel Katniss keeps feedin’ us.  Where is he?  Prim wouldn’t tell me anything.”  He hasn’t let go of my hand, but he’s looking around the shack, as though the Lance Corporal will appear any moment.

“We should go talk to you mother.” Katniss jumps in.  She turns back to the stove and shuffles pans away from the heat.  “Come on.  Let’s head over there.  Rory, can you help Peeta walk?”

“Peter?” He glances back at me and his eyes trail down to my prosthetic propped against the wall by my chair.

“Peeta,” she corrects before I can, and I have to fight the smile that threatens to take over my face at how natural my name sounds on her lips.  Lips I’m not supposed to be staring at.  The guilt flares again.  I have got to get a handle on myself.

“Peeta Mellark,” I fill in.  “Your brother and I served together for over two years.  Not many guys I can say that about, unfortunately.”

“But he’s okay, right?”

“Yes.  Likely already back in Japan with the occupying forces.  I would be there too, if it weren’t for my leg.”

His eyes widen, taking in the full extent of the situation.  Prim steps up.  “I told you, he walked all the way up here.  He can’t put weight on it for a coupla days.”

“Can you mount a horse?”

“Sorry, city boy here.  I’ve never been within twenty feet of a horse.”

“Huh.  Hard to imagine life without one ‘round here.  Okay, let’s see here.”

As Rory’s scratching his head, Katniss turns back to the stove and shuffles things around again.

“Rory, just go run and get your mother and bring the crew back here.  You can all eat here tonight.  I was just tossin’ together some stew anyway.” 

He nods at the order as though Katniss were his CO and Gale’s words about her strength pop back into my head.  He’s out the door before I can say anything else. 

“You run a tight ship ‘round here.”

“Hardly, but I’m his big sister, whether we share blood or not.  I carried that boy on my hip as much as any other woman on this mountain, and his little brother even more so.  They know better’an to give me lip.”

“Yes ma’am.” I salute her quickly before I return to my seat, surprised by how much standing for the short period on one leg has exhausted me.  I feel so far from the strong boot I was so few months ago.

She graces me with another small smile and I find myself berating Gale in my mind.  How dare you call this woman cold?  With the exception of her pointing an arrow at me when I first appeared on the mountain, she’s been nothing if not understanding and warm.  And she sings!  How could anyone walk away from her? Just as quickly the scolding turns back on myself.  She’s married, you cracked egg!  To your best friend!  Let it go!

In no time, Rory is back through the door with an even younger version of Gale in tow as well as a young girl who must be Posy.  I can see immediately why he is so protective of her.  Delicate features that are slightly gaunt, pointing to a rough life.  So beautiful and sweet in her countenance.  Her large grey eyes take me in and immediately turn back to her big brother. 

“He’s Gale’s friend?  Where’s Gale?”  Rory puts his index finger up to his lips and she falls silent.  I reach out a hand toward her.

“Hi Posy.  Yes, I’m Gale’s friend Peeta.  He sent me here to make sure you were all doin’ well.  He misses you so much, li’l sweetheart.  He told me lots about you, including how beautiful you are.  I’m sorry he’s not here himself.”

Katniss cuts in before I can say anything more. “Where’s your Ma?”

“She put herself to bed early and Vick couldn’t get her to crack an eye when he went in to wake her.”

Silence fills the small room.  What would they have done for dinner if Katniss hadn’t invited them over?  Looking at the boys, I’m sure they can fend for themselves, but it still reinforces the reason Gale wanted to marry Katniss before he left.  She’s the one who makes sure these kids are taken care of.

“Well, I guess there’s no reason to keep it hush-hush,” Katniss starts.  “Gale’s doing fine.  He got injured back on Okinawa, but he’s back with his battalion over in Japan now.  Thing is, he’s not gonna be comin’ home after he’s done over there.  He found a lady on an island that loves him and they’re havin’ a baby.  He’s gonna stay and live with her after he’s done his tour.”

Posy’s innocence cuts to the heart of it. “But I thought he was gonna have babies with you?”

Katniss shakes her head.  “No, Pose, me and Gale never was gonna have kids.  We’ve got you guys.  You’re all the family we ever wanted.  Don’t need no babies underfoot when I’m huntin’ or milkin’ the goats.”

“But you guys love each other.”

Katniss reaches out and pulls Posy into her lap like she’s done it a thousand times.  My heart breaks to see the comfort between them.  This is Gale’s family.  He should be here.  How did he walk away from this?

“Ya’ know Posy, you’re right.  Gale and I do love each other, but not the way your Ma and Pa loved each other.  Not the way Prim and Rory love each other.  Gale and I, we know, knew each other inside and out, but we were never big into kissing and hugging.  And this lady he met, he loves her much bigger than he loves me.  And that’s alright.  I’m happy for him Posy, ya’ hear?  Happy he gets to have someone who loves him like he’s the most important guy on this here Earth.  Someone who can give him babies and make him smile, because he deserves that, don’t he, Pose?”

The little one rests her head on Katniss’s shoulder and snuggles in tighter.  “Will you still give me hugs and kisses?”

“Oh, sugar, you and I? We’re together ‘til you can’t stand me, ya’ hear?  We’re family.  That had nothin’ to do with Gale and everythin’ to do with bein’ there for your first steps and first words, and holdin’ your hand on the way to school.  Gale can go have his big adventure.  We’ll keep being family here, no matter.”

“So he’s not takin’ you away?” The sweet girl points at me and Katniss’s eyes widen briefly before a soft smile graces her face.

“No, he’s not takin’ me anywhere.  Gale sent him here to make sure I was okay, to make sure we all are.  He doesn’t want us to be angry with him for stayin’ there.  And we’re not, are we?”

Posy shakes her head slowly against Katniss’s shoulder, her hand absently playing with the end of Katniss’s braid.

“Ma’s gonna be angry,” Vick speaks up and all eyes turn to him.

“Well, she’ll jus’ have to take that up with me,” Katniss states, leaving no room for argument.  “Now, if you wanna know how your brother’s doin’, this nice gentleman here, Mr. Peeta, can answer all your questions.  I recommend you ask ‘em one on top of ‘nother so that he can hardly keep up.”

She slides Posy off her lap and turns back toward the pots on the stove, but not before I catch the glint of mischief in her eyes.  Posy doesn’t disappoint, asking everything from what color Gale’s clothes are these days to what the baby’s name will be.  She keeps going all the way through dinner and up to the moment Rory picks her up to carry her tired frame back across the field to their home.

Prim follows them out the door, her hand resting on the small of Rory’s back.  I’ll have to write to Gale to let him know that Rory’s found his O.A.O., his one-and-only.  I wonder how he’ll react to it being Prim.  And I’ll have to fill him in on Posy’s interrogation. 

Behind me I can hear Katniss shuffling around by the small couch that Prim called her bed.  Just moments before Vick was sitting on it with Katniss and as I turn to watch I notice the threadbare sheets that are creating a home for me tonight.

“I know Prim didn’t really give you much choice, but if you’re more comfortable, I can sleep outside or in the barn.  I’m usta sleepin’ sittin’ up at this point.  I don’t need to be in your space.”

“Don’t you know better than to turn down mountain hospitality?  No, I don’t mind you being here.  It may not make much sense, but I kinda like havin’ you here.  The house feels a little safer, a little fuller.  I don’t know, maybe it’s just all those stories you told about Gale and the rest of the guys, but I feel like I already know you.  Like you’re just a long-lost friend that Gale managed to wrangle back to the mountain.”

She’ll never know how much those words mean to me, or how she’s brought hope to a man that has felt his worth in the world dwindling by the day, but I try to express at least a little of it.  “Thank you.  Gale told me you were fiercely protective of your brood up here.  I can see why, but yeah, from all his stories I kinda feel like I know all of you as well, although you’re a bit of a surprise.”

She turns to catch my eyes, a question on her lips so I plunge ahead. 

“I didn’t know how you would handle the news.  Most gals don’t take kindly to word their man’s shacked up with another girl.  Since I’ve told you, I’ve seen you smile and sing.  I dare say you’re genuinely happy for him.”

Bringing herself up straight and rigid, she rolls her shoulders back, incidentally drawing my attention to areas I’m better off not noticing.  “Ya’know Corporal, I am happy.  When we got married, I felt like I’d been trapped.  I knew it was the right thing to do.  I understood why he’d suggested it, but he, well, he had these feelings that I just didn’t have.  Only time we ever kissed was after the preacher finished our vows.  Shouldn’t a wife want to kiss her husband?  We didn’t even sleep in the same house that night!  He tried to…well, I shoun’t be tellin’ you all this.”

“You weren’t in love with him and he wanted you to be.”

She nods solemnly.  “We needed each other to survive for those many years after our Pa’s died, and he knew I’d take care o’ his family while he was gone.  I wasn’t lyin’ to Posy.  They’re my family, no matter what.  I didn’t need to marry him for that to be so.  But he wanted ta make sure his pay came here and that his mother didn’t drink it.”

“If you don’t mind my askin’, has there been a guy you did want?”

Her eyebrow raises, almost like a challenge.  “Wouldn’t you like to know.”

“Just wantin’ to make sure no one’s showing up with a shotgun while I’m sleepin’ in your house.  I’ve already been shot at enough in this life.”

She drops to the edge of the bed and levels me with her stare.  “You grew up in a city, so I’ll excuse you not knowin’ anything about small towns, but let me just tell ya, I’ve known ev’ry boy in this town since the days when they still ran around in nappies.  You’re the first new man I’ve met since before the war—ain’t no young fellas been around.  They all took off to fight the Jerries and the Japs, and those that stayed behind were chickens and ‘shiners.  No, Corporal Mellark, there’s no one poundin’ down our door in the middle of the night who’ll batt an eye at you on our cot, and if they did, I’d point my arrow right back at’em.”

“Hell, you’re like Artemis herself.  How could any man resist that?” I retort.

Happy with herself, the grin that splits her cheeks makes up for every bad thing I’ve seen in the last three years.  The heavy silence that sits between us stretches on until I wonder if I’m not the only one feeling awake and alive in a new way. 

When Prim pushes through the door several minutes later, she finds us still smiling silently at one another.  Shaking her head, she walks past us and into the back of the house to where I presume Katniss’s bedroom must be.  The spell is broken, but the smiles remain.

“I should be gettin’ to bed, Miss Everdeen.  My nurse says I have to rest up and I want to make sure I can help out while I’m here.  You got the fixin’s for pancakes in the morning?”  I don’t think my use of her maiden name goes unnoticed as she leans in so slightly toward me.

“You just have to sweet talk the chickens into givin’ you a coupla eggs, but I doubt that’ll be a problem for you, Corporal.”  Something about the way she says my rank sounds oh so good and my thoughts take a decidedly un-Christian turn, particularly with her sitting just across from me on what sure as hell looks like a bed.  Luckily, she takes that moment to stand. 

“Goodnight Corporal Peeta Mellark.” It rolls off her tongue, leaving me wondering if the innuendo is all in my head.  It has to be, right?  No way this beautiful woman could be flirting with someone as damaged as me.

My “Goodnight Katniss” as her skirt swishes past my knees comes out just shy of a whisper, but I swear she pauses to smile again. 

I’ve slept sitting up in the pouring rain as machine-gun fire bounced around me.  How in the world am I going to sleep tonight?

[bemused-writer]

Chapter 34.5 Thoughts

Ahh, such an intense chapter! We start off learning a bit about Jean-Jacques and the Beast. Spoilers under the cut.

To be honest, probably the saddest revelation in this chapter is that there never was a beast to begin with. The villagers were becoming more and more paranoid about Chloé and the only way Jean-Jacques could find to save her was to play the scapegoat. Probably the worst part about all of this is that the “killing blow” was performed by his own father.

We don’t see much more of Jean-Jacques’s memories after this. It’s almost as if part of him really did die that day. The devastation had to have been profound. I already talked about how Jean-Jacques’s attachment to Chloé and Noé stemmed from their kindness and this really gives a demonstration of why. We already knew Jean-Jacques’s parents weren’t amazing but now we know the full extent of it. He will do anything for Chloé and make any sacrifice including himself. He’s trying to do that once more with Jeanne.

We also see that Noé becomes utterly lost in these memories. The last time we saw Noé read anyone’s memories was with Amelia. Her memories were troubling and Noé became momentarily consumed by the emotions she felt in them:

It looks like this is a consistent problem for Noé‘s ability because the same thing happens in this chapter only he’s so consumed by Jean-Jacques’s memories he can’t tell the present from the past. He still thinks he’s Jean-Jacques:

Even worse, he can’t tell that those wolves are real. Even we, the readers, aren’t sure at first. Is this still part of Jean-Jacques’s memory or is Noé in legitimate danger?

Now, this isn’t directly stated, but I do have a hypothesis about this “light.” We know it turned out to be Vanitas but who would Jean-Jacques have associated with light?

Undoubtedly it would have been Chloé. I think this is supposed to draw a direct parallel between Jean-Jacques’s rescue by Chloé and Noé‘s rescue by Vanitas. They’re both the people who have (or will have) the most influence on them and who will change their lives the most.

Speaking of change, I just want to take a quick look at the cover art used for this chapter:

Butterflies in Japan generally represent transformation, which makes sense since caterpillars transform into butterflies. They also represent the spirits of the dead, which means this picture keeps up the vanitas theme more than it initially lets on.

With that in mind we see that Noé is surrounded by butterflies, most of them colored red. This color could represent “normality” since most vampires are born under a red moon. There are also a couple of black butterflies. Maybe they represent something unknown or simply the unknown itself? Unintended transformations?

But the butterfly we see closest to Noé, the only one he’s paying attention to, is the blue butterfly, which also happens to be brightly lit--a light.

To me this is saying that while there are many possible paths Noé could take, many changes he could undergo, the only one he’s interested in involves Vanitas. If we really want to jump ahead, maybe this means Vanitas will continue guiding him even beyond the grave? He’s writing Vanitas’s memoires, so that seems like a safe bet but maybe there’s more to it than that.

EDIT: It occurred to me the red butterflies could also represent the other people who die throughout the series. The black butterflies seem to form the void, which makes me think of Teacher. Maybe it’s showing Noé falling into his machinations even when he’s being led by someone else more directly. Alternatively, it could be the void between Altus and the human world. Maybe he finds a way there.

Anyway, getting back to the chapter itself, we see a very clear callback to the catacombs arc:

Vanitas doesn’t actually say “What kind of face is that?” but it’s kind of implied in his reaction: he slaps Noé and says “Did that hurt? So this is real then. Isn’t that great.”

To be honest, Noé is simply more emotionally mature than Vanitas, so it’s no surprise he takes a calmer approach to Vanitas’s predicament than Vanitas does to Noé‘s own. Vanitas can’t even admit to anyone he actually cares for Noé although he seems to have enough self-awareness to understand he does.

Between these two scenes we see that Vanitas is more restrained in allowing himself to express strong emotion both when he’s the one in pain and when he sees someone else suffering.

Also, in the backdrop of Vanitas’s panel you can see the beam of light indicating where Chloé is. They seem to be in a courtyard setup or something like that? Either way, he ignored that entirely to save Noé from some wolves.

Now to what I found to be the biggest surprise this chapter personally: Vanitas is willing to leave curse bearers alone if they chose to be a curse bearer themselves:

This goes radically against everything Vanitas has said up to now. He was supposed to cure vampires “no matter what they want” and yet suddenly what they want seems to matter!

We don’t really get an answer for why this is but I do have a guess: Vanitas sympathizes with Chloé‘s reasoning. What does Vanitas claim to want? Why is he curing vampires in the first place? Revenge. He wants to right a wrong that was done to him (we assume). He is projecting this onto Chloé, once again emphasizing some kind of similarity between the two.

Understandably, Noé is surprised by this as well but he starts to piece it together.

Noé: But... No... we can’t just leave them like this!

Vanitas: Why not? “Revenge is pointless, so why attempt it?” “It won’t make anyone happy?” Is that what you’re getting at?

Vanitas is in this for revenge. If Noé judged him for that he’d be judging Vanitas’s entire purpose in life, what he perceives as his entire being. It would be damning to say the least and by the sound of it Vanitas has heard it all before.

Noé seems to understand that and assures him otherwise. I find it interesting that this essentially means Noé doesn’t have an inherent problem with revenge whatsoever. He just wants to understand, which has been by far the most consistent trait of his we’ve seen throughout the series outside of him wanting to right what happened to Louis.

For Vanitas’s part, to me it looks like he’s keeping a carefully neutral expression, as if Noé‘s answer means more to him than he wants to let on.

When Noé emphasizes he want to understand their motives, essentially saying he’ll leave them alone too if it comes down to it, Vanitas looks frustrated, as if Noé made a good point and he can’t find a way to argue his way out of it. It could also be that at this point he knows there’s no stopping Noé‘s curiosity, so he may as well go along for the ride.

I think it’s interesting that this moment of tenderness only happens after Noé reiterates his support of Vanitas. In doing so, Vanitas allows Noé to take charge, saying he’s sure Noé will convince him somehow when the time comes like he has on so many other occasions (I’m thinking of the malnomen in the catacombs arc specifically). Basically, Noé has a tendency of getting his way with Vanitas and Vanitas has accepted that’s probably what’s going to happen here, too. Maybe that’s the real reason he looked so annoyed earlier.

Also, I’m not sure what Vanitas is doing in that second panel exactly. Tugging at Noé‘s scarf? Poking him? But the whole thing feels rather meaningful although I think it went over Noé‘s head....

It needs to be said that Vanitas letting anyone take charge seems strange and yet Noé has consistently been allowed this privilege. Compare the aftermath of when Jeanne takes charge of a situation to save Vanitas even when he protests compared to when Noé does:

With Jeanne he was uncomfortable throughout their entire bonding experience (alas) and afterwards he tried to create some distance between them by maintaining a physical distance and not engaging. She even comments that he seems colder. Eventually they return to some of their banter when they split up after she charges the beast but it took a little bit.

With Noé he allows himself to become closer to him both physically and emotionally. The situations were different--Jeanne was tending him while he was ill while Noé was saving him from past trauma and present danger--but he revealed a “softer” side to both of them and was only comfortable with one of them seeing it. This is all going off course of the chapter but I wouldn’t be surprised if later in the series Vanitas finds himself split between Noé and Jeanne because, whether he wants it or not, I suspect he will become closer to both of them.

At any rate, the chapter finishes off with them finding Astolfo only this time Noé is ready for a fight. Vanitas was obviously prepared to take care of him because he doesn’t want Noé dealing with something that’s difficult for him but it looks like Noé has sorted that out. Maybe it’s the influence of Jean-Jacques’s memories? Maybe he feels so strongly about saving/learning about Chloé and Jean-Jacques he’s willing to put his misgivings aside? Either way, I’m really looking forward to the next chapter. If Noé and Vanitas team up against Astolfo I really don’t think he stands a chance. XD But we also don’t know what Naenia is doing exactly, so things could still take an unexpected turn. Perhaps Roland will finally show up as well? So many possibilities! ^^

[elrondsscribe]

The Seventh Avenger: Chapter 2

All rights belong to Marvel Studios and the Tolkien Estate.

Unforgivably early morning, May 3, 2012

Glorfindel always enjoyed his first week back at work after a two month "break," but at the end of each night, he was glad for the day to be over.

It was the first week back in the routine - warming up, stretching, and exercising in the morning, making the long, hectic drive to the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, and spending the entire day training and rehearsing and dancing. And after the equally long drive back to his apartment, he was perfectly happy to fall into bed and sleep through the night (which he rarely bothered to do). He had not slept much last night, and had been a little sluggish the subsequent day.

Which was why the buzzing of his phone at about half past three in the morning was was an even more unwelcome sound than usual. "Thought I put you on silent," he grumbled, sitting up blearily and grabbing at the offending device to see what was up.

It was an incoming call. There was no number or name on the screen - "Blocked number" was all that was displayed.

He was suddenly wide awake. He didn't get many calls from blocked numbers, and considering he'd recently had a surprise visit from the director of a quasi-intelligence agency . . .

He swiped his thumb over the "Answer" icon and put the phone to his ear. "Who is this?" he asked, not caring how rude it was.

"I trust I don't have to re-introduce myself," came the inimitable voice of Nick Fury.

"Thought as much," said Glorfindel dryly. "I assume there's only one reason you're calling me in the middle of the night. You need me to come in, don't you?"

"I'll put it this way," rumbled Fury. "There's a car waiting for you outside your complex, with one of our best agents inside. He's going to bring you to a facility where I'll be waiting in a chopper, and you and I are gonna take a ride."

Glorfindel arched his eyebrows. "On the off-chance that you are not who I believe you are or you try to take me anywhere funny, understand that I will kill you and whoever's with you with my bare hands and leave the bodies where they won't be found for the next decade." He hung up with another swipe, and stared resentfully at his phone.

Then trudged into the bathroom where he splashed his face and head with water, pulled on a pair of jeans and a shirt, and wrestled his hair into two braids. He shoved his feet into his sneakers and pocketed his phone, wallet, and keys.

He slipped quietly out of his apartment, locked it behind him, and walked quietly down the hall, taking the stairs rather than the elevator. The security guards looked at him sideways when he checked himself out at the front desk, but let him out without too many questions.

He stepped outside and paused, looking up and down the curb for an unfamiliar car. Half a block away was a plain black sedan, with a man in a business suit leaning easily against it. As soon as he saw Glorfindel, he waved.

Glorfindel took a breath, quelled his misgivings, and walked up to the car. The man - presumably Fury's agent - was of average height with such a mild expression and unassuming manner that Glorfindel immediately felt uneasy.

"Please get in," said the agent, opening the passenger door of the sedan. Glorfindel swung himself inside, and was pleasantly surprised to find the seat situated well back from the dashboard to accommodate his longer legs.

The agent shut the door, passed around the front of the car, and climbed into the driver's seat. He smiled at Glorfindel and produced a laminated name tag from the inside pocket of his suit jacket. "Agent Coulson, Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division," he said.

Glorfindel dipped his head. "You must be Fury's agent," he said.

Agent Coulson's smile did not alter. "Buckle up," he said, and pushed a large button by the steering wheel. The engine turned over and all the car windows lit up with blue and white icons. A bright point of light shone briefly and rather painfully into Glorfindel's eyes, and a rather grating alarm began to blare. "Unidentified being present," said an automated voice.

"Add retinal scan under the name Glorfindel," said Agent Coulson, and to Glorfindel he added, "Sorry about that."

"Not a problem," Glorfindel lied, fastening his safety belt. Now any SHIELD fool can trace me anywhere, and I'm not that good at hacking. Damn you, Fury, this was not part of the deal. "Are you at liberty to tell me what's going on?"

Agent Coulson pointed at the glove compartment. "There's a folder in there with everything we have so far," he said, beginning to pull away from the curb. "Oh, there is one thing, though. Do you know anything about Norse mythology?"

Glorfindel, who was in the act of opening the glove compartment to retrieve the folder, looked around in some confusion. "Norse mythology? You mean the exaggerated stories the Scandinavians liked to tell about the strange race of warriors who fought off alien invaders about a thousand years ago?"

"You saying you were there?" asked Coulson with obvious interest.

"Well, not personally," said Glorfindel candidly. "I was in the Middle East at the time . . . but I did hear about it."

"Huh," said Coulson, seeming to store this little fact away for further inquiry later. "Well, is there anything you can tell us about a Loki?"

"Loki?" Glorfindel frowned. "I don't think I've heard the name from anybody I'd consider a credible source. The tales I've heard over the years say he's good at sorcery and rather mischievous, but fairly harmless as demigods go. Why?"

"He might have honored us with a visit last night," said Coulson placidly. It took a moment or two for the impact of his words to sink in.

"Loki is real?" he asked sharply.

"Real, and here," said Fury grimly. He was seated across from Glorfindel in a SHIELD helicopter, and together with Agent Coulson and an agent in the pilot's chair they were flying from a secured base just outside of New York City. Coulson had driven the sedan into a concealed garage and escorted Glorfindel into the base to meet Fury, who seemed distinctly ruffled and had refused to say anything about the situation until everybody was inside the chopper. "Introduced himself and everything; said he was 'burdened with glorious purpose' or some bullshit. Stole an important artifact and made off with it, in the process destroying one of our facilities, brainwashing a couple dozen of our best men, and killing a couple dozen others."

"Eru, it's too early for this," muttered Glorfindel, rubbing his forehead. But aloud he said, "What did Loki steal?"

"Can you tell me anything about the guy or not?" asked Fury rather irritably.

Glorfindel sighed. "No, I can't. Now you said we had about a ninety-minute ride - tell me more about what Loki stole from you. This," he lifted the folder. "doesn't mention anything about an artifact."

"That's classified," said Fury.

"Sure it is, which is why you're flying me who knows where in the wee hours of the morning instead of just arranging to meet me." The Elf leaned forward. "Do you understand that I just went back to work for the season?"

"Look, I'm sorry about the inconvenience," said Fury, sincerely enough that Glorfindel believed him. "But this is need-to-know for now, you got it?"

Glorfindel's jaw tightened. "Fury, there was a reason I left the intelligence field. I didn't join your precious Avengers Initiative to get back in the game."

"And I'm telling you now what I told you then," said Fury. "I'm not asking you to get back in the game. I'm asking if you're prepared to give us a hand while we track down Loki and the agents he swooped off with."

"Including the one who shoots a bow and arrow," Glorfindel couldn't help saying.

"His choice," said Fury with a shrug.

May 3, 2012

"You've been briefed on the situation already?" asked the redheaded, attractive, and smartly dressed Agent Romanoff as she began escorting Glorfindel across the deck. Director Fury had been whisked away on urgent matters at once, and she had taken the Elf in hand once they stepped off the helicopter onto the paved deck of some enormous vessel in the middle of the Atlantic. Glorfindel had dropped all pretenses and now walked fully clothed in his natural radiance.

He held up the folder Fury had given him on the helicopter. "I know what's in here and the little Fury would tell me," he said. "Is that Dr. Banner?" he pointed ahead.

A man with gently waving dark hair sprinkled with grey and a nervous manner seemed to be trying to stay out of everybody's way - actually to vanish into the air, in Glorfindel's opinion. He turned at the sound of his name, and caught sight of Romanoff and the tall Elf. His eyes behind the specs widened ever so slightly, and he came over to fall into step on Glorfindel's other side. "Mr., uh, Alexander?" he asked uncertainly.

"Glorfindel, please," said that individual with a smile. "My pleasure, Dr. Banner, and thanks for saving Harlem."

The Man blinked, obviously taken aback. "Uh, if that's what you wanna call it," he muttered uncomfortably, adjusting his glasses. "Natasha," he nodded at Romanoff.

"Doctor," Natasha Romanoff nodded back. "Just Glorfindel, or is there a title?"

"Oh, I haven't had a title for nearly five hundred years," said Glorfindel casually, relishing the way Banner seemed suddenly to pull up short as he realized the strangeness of having an immortal next to him.

But Romanoff was of course not so easily readable. "Course not, you've been in America, if I'm not mistaken," she said.

"You aren't," said Glorfindel. "Is this our base, by the way?"

"Until we can track down the Cube," said Romanoff. "You know, ever since Fury reported having found you and basically proved a bunch of really popular literature to be true, people have been geeking out like crazy. Be prepared for celebrity status and nerdgasms. There's our next candidate," she added, pointing.

Glorfindel stopped and took a second look at the tall broad-shouldered fair-haired man just stepping off the ramp of a small jet. "That's not who it looks like, is it?"

Agent Coulson, who seemed to be a person of some importance, was accompanying the fresh-faced celebrity from the past. "Agent Romanoff, Dr. Banner, Glorfindel," he introduced them proudly. "Captain Rogers."

(Glorfindel solidly resisted the urge to break out in song - Who's strong and brave, here to save the American way? - and from cracking age or ice-related jokes.)

"Ma'am," said the Captain politely, shaking hands with each of the three in turn. "Doctor, sir." His gaze lingered disapprovingly on the Elf's nearly waist-length hair.

"Captain," returned Glorfindel with a brilliant smile. "How nice to meet you again."

Captain Rogers blinked, obviously not remembering him and not wanting to say so.

"Good to see you again, Agent Coulson," said Glorfindel, smiling more normally as he shook the man's hand

Romanoff had shot Glorfindel a look that threatened amusement, but next moment was all business. "They need you on the bridge, they're starting the face trace," she told Coulson.

"See you there," said Rogers to Coulson, who promptly vanished.

"Quite the buzz around here, finding you in the ice," said Romanoff to Rogers as they drifted toward the deck railing. "I thought Coulson in particular was gonna swoon." She smirked. "Did he ask you to sign his Captain America trading cards yet?"

Glorfindel stifled a chuckle. Coulson had hidden it well, but there had been a slightly star-struck air about him while in the Captain's presence.

"Trading cards?" Rogers was smiling.

"They're vintage," said Romanoff helpfully. "He's very proud."

Rogers turned away from the subject, and his eye fell on Dr. Banner again, who was silently trailing Glorfindel like a nervous child trails his father.

"You know, I hear you can find the Cube, Dr. Banner," he said.

"That all you've heard about me?" asked Banner skeptically.

"All I've heard that matters," said Rogers firmly.

Banner nodded, seeming to appreciate this.

Glorfindel, looking at the two men, thought suddenly that in Steve Rogers Banner must be seeing the finished project, the result he had so catastrophically failed to duplicate (not that it was his own fault, as Glorfindel well knew from the stories leaked by an anonymous disgruntled underling of one General Thaddeus 'The Thunderbolt' Ross). He felt a pang of sympathy for the physicist.

"Vita rays," he heard himself say aloud.

"Scuse me?" Steve blinked up at him.

"Sorry, I was talking to myself," said Glorfindel.

But at that moment Agent Romanoff, who had just thrown a look over her shoulder, spoke again. "Gentlemen, you may want to step inside in a moment. It's going to get a little hard to breathe."

Almost as she said it, there came a series of clankings and whirrings as people around them began hurrying in various directions and barking orders.

"Oh, this is a submarine?" asked Glorfindel in surprise. The thing didn't seem the right shape and the deck was still littered with jets and copters. He went to the edge with Steve and Banner to look.

"Really?" said Banner wryly. "They want me in a submerged pressurized metal container?"

And then the water beyond the edges of the deck began frothing and foaming, and from beneath the surface rose two great fans with blades each the size of a small cottage. At the same time Glorfindel could feel the concrete quivering under his feet now begin, not to sink, but to ascend. Cataracts of water streamed from various openings as the vessel climbed into the air.

Steve's eyes widened. "An airship?!"

"A Helicarrier," corrected Agent Romanoff. "We'll be airborne for a while."

Banner smiled. "Well, this is much worse!"

[thesteadydietofeverything]

Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age is a welcome update to an overlooked series highlight

I played Final Fantasy XII, a bit, when it originally came out in 2006.  I wasn’t playing games much in general at the time - as a junior in high school, it was the start of several years that lasted probably up until I graduated college where my experiences playing video games were few and far between.  Still, the impact the Final Fantasy series had on me just a few years prior, when I put a thoroughly unhealthy amount of time into playing VII-X, roughly between the ages of 9 and 13, meant that I at least felt the need to check this new game out, as I have with every new single-player entry in the series.  At the time, my reaction to it was even less enthused than  my more recent reactions to XIII and XV, both of which I played for around 20 hours, essentially enjoying myself for that time, but being put off enough by their flaws to abandon them well before completion of a full playthrough.  I probably didn’t even get past the first five hours of this game before giving up on it to retire to my room and listen to Pavement records and read anarchist literature, or whatever it was I was doing at that age.

I don’t remember many specifics as to why I quit so early, but upon returning to it over ten years later with the newly released Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age for PS4, it’s not hard to imagine.  This game is a thorough departure from what the series had been so far - battle is no longer a random JRPG-style menu clicking affair, but a more streamlined approach not too unlike MMOs of the time.  Not only that, but the main way that battle is done is through the game’s innovative and weird Gambit system, which allows the player to essentially program characters to perform a number of actions in particular situations by assigning them simple if-then statements.  When your gambits are set up correctly, the game practically - as a number of critics at the time complained - “plays itself.”  Grinding through the overworld or a dungeon can sometimes literally be as simple as pointing your party leader in the right direction and letting your well-trained team take care of the rest.  At the time, such a system must have felt like a removal of many of the things that made Final Fantasy what it was to me; looking at it now, I can’t help but admire the daring deviation in a series that, for whatever flaws it undoubtedly has, has proven itself to be consistently unafraid of twisting its formula in unique and bizarre ways.

My newfound appreciation for this overlooked series entry, however, is not just a result of time and distance.  The Zodiac Age changes the way the game plays in a number of really quite significant ways.  One of these changes is with its License Boards - the means by which the player spends earned experience to learn new abilities, use new weapons and armor, gain significant amounts of HP and helpful skills buffs, etc.  Though I never played the original game enough to remember how these Boards originally looked, they’ve now been modified to lock each character into two “jobs” of the player’s choosing - one at the beginning of the game, and another a few hours into it.  Again, my lack of experience with the original prevents me from true comparison, but considering how open-ended and overwhelming these job-based Boards can be, I’m happy to not have to deal with the truly open approach of the original.

A much more clear and obvious difference in this new addition is the inclusion of a dedicated fast forward button.  Literally.  At any point while not engaged in dialogue or the menu, the player can simply tap R1 to make the game play either twice or four times as fast as its normal speed.  This seems like a bizarre option at first, one that I wasn’t particularly keen on utilizing in my first couple hours of gameplay: the characters move at a decidedly silly, Benny Hill-esque pace at these speeds, and when just getting acquainted with combat, actions happen at a rate too fast to properly comprehend.  But I soon came to realize that for large sections of the game, double time feels like a perfectly natural pace to move in, considering the size of some of the maps in the game and the rather laborious pace of the normal speed.  Some of the more labyrinthian sections of the game can take hours to fully explore - the final dungeon, for example, took me nearly five hours to get through at double speed, and while navigating my way through such a massive and rewarding space was possibly my favorite sequence of the game, I imagine that if it had taken me practically twice as long, it would have worn out its welcome long before I had finished it.

The Zodiac Age, of course, also sharpens and clarifies the graphics of the original in a pretty impressive way - it’s not that it doesn’t still essentially look like the PS2 game that it is so much that it accentuates the striking potential still being squeezed out of the aging console at the time of this game’s release, mere months before the launch of the PS3.  Additionally, the entire gorgeous score has been re-recorded.  Despite my initial misgivings about this game being the first FF I’m aware of to use a composer other than Nobuo Uematsu, Hitoshi Sakimoto wrote truly some of the most lovely and iconic video game music I’ve ever heard with this game, and to hear it expertly performed in high quality audio is something that never failed to propel me through the several dozen hours I spent with it.

Lastly, one of the more subtle, but very important additions of this new version is the inclusion of an autosave feature.  Again, sometimes I’d go an hour or two in double time between save crystals, and it wasn’t unusual to occasionally die in that time: the game contains these enemies called “Elementals,” eerie floating orbs that look not unlike something out of the new season of Twin Peaks and can utterly devastate your party in the early hours of the game.  With autosave, it was easy enough to simply start a couple minutes before I encountered said Elemental and do everything that I could to avoid it, but if I had been forced to go back an hour or more to the last save crystal, I likely would have set the controller down for good out of utter disgust for a game wasting my time like that in 2017.

All of this puts me in an interesting position, considering that the last review I wrote was for the Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy, in which I struggled to grasp the point of a remaster/remake deviating from its source in a way that fundamentally changes one’s experience of the game.  There are a few obvious differences here.  First of all, when it comes down to it, this is still technically the same game.  The N. Sane Trilogy was a bizarre exercise in attempting to completely remake a game from the ground up in a new engine, while attempting to give it as much fidelity to the original as possible.  In practice, though, lazy or insufficient design meant that the game just didn’t feel like the originals, despite its obvious visual similarities.  The Zodiac Age, on the other hand, is a more traditional remaster, but with a whole lot more: the additions and modifications may change the game in significant and meaningful ways, but the core game is exactly as it always has been.

Probably even more importantly, these changes actually improve the game.  Granted, my limited experience with the original means that any nostalgia or endearing feelings I have for it are mostly relegated to a general affinity for the series rather than specific memories of my first time playing it.  This is as opposed to, say, Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back, which I unequivocally played the shit out of as a kid.  Still, the changes seem to stick to objective improvements: the ability to control the speed of play and the autosave feature make this game immeasurably more accessible to modern players, including those who, like myself, don’t necessarily want to devote the 60-80 hours of gameplay the original demanded in order to experience what the game has to offer.  I imagine that even adventurous devotees of the original will be thrilled at an old favorite being given such a graphical and aural overhaul, not to mention the new play styles offered by the modified License Boards.

But all of these tweaks and improvements would mean little if, at the core, there weren’t already a great game worth revisiting here, and as a fan of this series, it’s a uniquely satisfying feeling to discover that this 11-year-old game is, indeed, great.  While not exactly exempt of typical JRPG bullshit, it’s the strange, fascinating, and (relatively) mature game one would want out of a collaboration between Hiroyuki Ito (director of my two other favorite games in the series, FFVI and FFIX) and Hiroshi Minagawa (director of two other classics of the genre whose complexity precluded my appreciation at the time they came out: Final Fantasy Tactics and Vagrant Story; maybe it’s about time I revisit those as well). 

It’s worth noting at the mention of Minagawa that this game’s setting of Ivalice puts it in the same world as his other games.  The story, for as indebted as it is to Star Wars (and, unless I’m projecting, Game of Thrones, which is at the least interesting to note, given the exceptional pop culture phenomena that series has become since the show debuted five years after the release of this game), is engaging in its political intrigue and subtle character dynamics, especially compared to the melodramatic bombast of most of its PS2 JRPG peers, including Final Fantasy X.  While all of these games, toward the end, are going to boil down to needing to save the world from some megalomaniacal evil and mystical jargon about crystals, and this game is no different, it at least boasts some of the best characters that have graced the series.  Of particular note is the relationship between Balthier - think a demonstrably more suave Han Solo - and his partner Fran, a Viera (yeah, the sexy rabbit ladies) who has a mysterious connection to the magical Mist of the world.  It’s hardly an original pairing - this game, as most games of its genre do, utilizes reductive archetypes - but through a combination of solid writing and particularly strong voice acting for the time, it just works.

What also works, and works shockingly well, is the aforementioned Gambit system.  Though conventional wisdom might suggest that reducing the actions needed to be taken by the player decreases the player’s engagement in the game, the opposite, as it turns out, seems to be be true in this case.  In other Final Fantasy games, typical combat transports you to a different game screen where the player, more often than not, continually taps the action button to attack until all enemies are dead, a marginally fun exercise that can become mind-numbingly tedious upon repetition - and if there’s one thing you can expect in a game like this, it’s repetition.  By keeping me on the map and allowing me to assign rote moves to characters to do themselves, the game actually kept me focus on the more fun aspects of these moments - the Diablo-esque satisfaction of filling out a map and collecting loot, the colorful character and enemy animations, and tweaking my Gambits to make sure that I really am doing all of this as efficiently as possible.  Very few games make grinding as gratifying of an experience as Final Fantasy XII.

Of course, as abnormally gratifying as that grinding is, there’s still a lot of it, and even with the fast-forward feature, the game still takes quite a while to get through - my final time was right around 45 hours.  This was with doing a good amount of the side content the game has to offer, including many of the optional monster hunts scattered throughout the world (while I declined to do several of the late-game hunts, I wholly admired this system, which drove me deeper into dungeons I had already explored, revealing whole levels that I never previously realized existed); still, I’d imagine a more straightforward playthrough would only shave that time off by a handful of hours.  

Even I, under different circumstances, would have likely gotten bored with this if I hadn’t played it at the time that I did.  This game happened to be released toward the beginning of the summer session at the school that I work at, where I’d typically work twelve-hour days throughout the week.  As it turned out, after coming home exhausted and yet oddly wired every night, putting a couple hours into running around this vast JRPG world was exactly the kind of meditative release I needed to relax me before going to bed and doing it all over again.  I can pretty definitively say this game helped me survive the most stressful time of my work year, and as a result, I’m all the more happy I never discovered this game’s idiosyncratic charms until now.  Now I do have a well of good memories associated with a particular time and place wrapped up in this game, and I have a new top-tier favorite in a series I will never be able to help but love.

8.5/10

[ibilenews]

In Denmark, the rarest of sights amid coronavirus outbreak: Classrooms full of students

LOGUMKLOSTER  - The cluster of red brick buildings in a remote part of southern Denmark looks unremarkable from the outside, but this week, its classrooms housed some of the rarest people during the pandemic in today's Europe: schoolchildren.

On Wednesday (April 15), 350 students returned to class at the Logumkloster District School for the first time in a month as Denmark became the first country in the Western world to reopen its elementary schools since the start of the coronavirus pandemic. It has turned the Danish education system into a laboratory for whether and how schools can function in an age of contagion.

"It is a new world," Ms Tanja Linnet, the school's head teacher, said as students arrived early on Thursday. "We used to make plans for if there was a terrorist attack here - but never this kind of attack."

Other European countries have also gently eased restrictions on certain businesses and sporting activities in recent days.

But by allowing hundreds of children to congregate once again at thousands of schools across Denmark, the government has taken the boldest step toward something resembling normal life, in a measure that will be watched carefully around the world.

"That's the dilemma of the whole world," said Mr Finn Christensen, the school's deputy head. "When to open up?"

Denmark's approach contrasts with that of Spain, where most children have not been outside in five weeks. With more coronavirus infections than any other country in Europe, Spain forbids children to even take a short walk on the street or exercise near their homes.

For children at the Logumkloster District School, their return was often simply an exciting experience after a month cooped up at home.

"It is so nice to see my best friend again!" said Maja Petersen, a seven-year-old first grader colouring the red bits of the Danish flag.

But things were also a bit bewildering.

To stop the spread of infection, parents weren't allowed inside. Teachers couldn't gather in the staff room. The children each now had their own desks, marooned nearly 2m away from their nearest neighbour. During recess, they could play only in small groups. And by the time the school shut again at 2pm, they had all washed their hands at least once an hour for the past six hours.

"We usually jump and hug and fight and give each other high-fives," said Zakarias Al-Tibi, 10, pointing dolefully at his best friend, Jannik. "But we can't do that anymore."

From an economic perspective, the argument for reopening schools is straightforward. It allows parents who are employed to focus more on their work, said Prof Carl-Johan Dalsgaard, a professor of economics who is one of the four leaders of an independent body that provides economic advice to Danish policymakers.

"You are dramatically less efficient when you have to home-school your children and take care of them every day," he said.

But the medical reasoning is more contested.

The World Health Organisation has cautioned countries like Denmark against reopening their societies too quickly for fear of reviving the pandemic before it is properly stamped out. The number of active cases in Denmark has dipped in recent days - it has recorded more than 6,870, with 321 deaths - and it has a far lower reported death rate than many countries in Europe. But death statistics can be incomplete during an outbreak, and disease experts warn the pace of new cases can easily pick up again.

Elsewhere in Denmark, these concerns led some parents to create Facebook groups protesting against the reopening of schools, fearing their children were being sacrificed to save the Danish economy.

In the village of Logumkloster, where there have been no known victims of the virus, only a few parents decided against sending their children back to school. But several were conflicted about it.

"Our first reaction was: Isn't it too early?" said Ms Cynthia Paulsen, a cleaner whose 14-year-old son, Arthur, was among those requested to return this week. "Is this the right thing?"

Mr Jesper Bendig initially opted against returning his seven-year-old, Noah. Mr Bendig had no work to return to, having lost his job as a recovery driver at the start of the crisis. What if Noah passed the virus to his younger brother, who has kidney problems?

But by and large, parents at Logumkloster have been won over by the careful way that Ms Linnet, the head teacher, and her staff have refitted the school at just a few frantic days' notice.

The school's floors have been covered with new markings, showing students how far apart they have to stand. Hand-washing has become a part of the school routine - the first stop for all students at the start of every day and then on the hour thereafter. Tea ladies have the new task of touring the school with disinfectant, cleaning each door handle at least twice during school hours.

These changes have been guided by the government, but the government's instructions have sometimes changed on an hourly basis.

"Sometimes, we get an order at 9, and then at 10 we get a new one," said Mr Christensen, the deputy head.

And it's unclear how long these emergency measures will last.

"Is it for a week or two or a month or two?" Ms Linnet asked. "We don't know."

For now, the library has been closed. Teachers aim to do as much teaching as possible outdoors. And instead of arriving through a single entrance, students must enter through several side doors, depending on the location of their classroom.

The only time on Thursday that the students gathered was to sing "Happy Birthday" to the Danish Queen, Margrethe II, who turned 80. But even then they were all outside, standing at 2m intervals on the grass.

One of them was Noah. After keeping him home on Wednesday, Mr Bendig decided to take his son to school on Thursday, reassured by how smoothly the opening day had gone.

"I think the school has control over everything," he said.

For some parents, the most comforting change has been the division of the school's population into small, independent silos. Classes have been divided into two or three subgroups, with each new grouping given its own room and designated teacher.

Those teachers now work with only one small group throughout the day, rather than several bigger ones, and their students play only with those from their own class.

For Maja, the first grader, that makes the return to school bittersweet. On the one hand, she can see her best friend, Melanie, again. But they can really only do just that - see each other. They've barely been able to chat, since they were divided into separate classes.

"It's a new situation in a known environment," said Maja's teacher, Ms Lene Thorup. "Comforting but also a challenge."

That applies as much to the teachers as it does the children.

The increase in the number of classes means teachers have more to do and with fewer assistants to help them do it. If they need a brief break, they can call on a three-person team to mind their classrooms for a few minutes. But they can no longer rely on a teaching assistant to shoulder their burden for longer periods, since the assistants are often now teaching their own classes.

"We've been told to have as few teachers per pupil as possible," Mr Christensen said.

Stressful though these measures are for teachers, they have won over wavering parents.

Despite her earlier misgivings, Ms Paulsen sent Arthur to school on Wednesday after being persuaded by a phone call from Arthur's teacher and a conversation with Arthur himself.

"He's happy to be back," she said. "We're happy he's back.

"Things have to start somewhere," she added. "And we have to trust in the government and the school."

[gotfredsenbowden74-blog]

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The major objective of a litigation approach is to arrive at a resolution, in a just fashion, ensureing none of the party has any gain over the other for the duration of demo, at minimum attainable cost. There are three actions in the litigation procedure, that can be explained as: Pre-Demo – The litigation procedure is instigated when a declare type, recognized as ‘the plaint’ is filed by the claimant. The declare sort includes all the information about the case and that of the parties involved. It also mentions that the court has the pecuniary and territorial jurisdiction for the trial. Yet another essential simple fact that should be clarified in the ‘plaint’ is of time limitation. It is obligatory that the scenario is filed within an authorized time time period for its acceptance in the court. NRI property litigation lawyer will aid you submit all the needed files and details to make sure that the circumstance is recognized by the court. When the scenario is approved by the court, the demo will consider spot. Demo – Trial is the most critical element of the litigation method, as it is in the course of trial that the NRI property litigation lawyer will existing his scenario in entrance of the judges/jury, keeping the specifics and figures, offering witnesses and evidences to again the assertions and statements produced. NRI property litigation legal professionals will also cross concern the witnesses or evidences supply by the opposite party, and guide the argument to the greatest of his talents. Litigation could previous for months or for years, in accordance to the character and complexity of the situation. As it will not constantly be achievable for NRI’s to be existing on the hearing day, they can appoint their NRI property litigation lawyer, as their attorney-in-law. This way, your NRI property litigation lawyer will have the proper to symbolize you in the court, even if you are not able to be existing. Put up-Trial – The conclude of trial implies we have a determination. It can either in favour or against us. If the decision is in favour, the following stage would be to find actions for getting the selection implemented, which will demand the knowledge of NRI property litigation lawyer. In situation the outcome is not in favour, there is a scope of re-attractive or to move to greater court. Your NRI property litigation lawyer will be best person to guide on the actions accessible and how to go about it. A lot of moments you will see problems about a distinct LexLords NRI Legal Services from preceding clients. Equally, you can maybe see other instances he's been associated in and the outcomes. Combine LexLords NRI Legal Services with the metropolis to minimize the chances of acquiring an unrelated result. Before partaking an legal professional, put in the time and energy needed to locate just the right a single. 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At LexLords Estate Management Services, our market lies in working with Non-Resident Indian, Individuals of Indian Origin and International Countrywide looking to make investments in property in India or seeking legal solutions. As a Consortium of foremost attorneys, prosperity planners, CA’s and administrative professionals, with an expertise and encounter in the area of Estate Management Services, we are dedicated to offer you not only the ideal answer but also the ideal possible experience. At LexLords Estate Management Services, we have productively served a various clientele, with diverse needs and backgrounds, and provide a comprehensive selection of Estate Management Services. Our NRI Estate Management Attorneys and the team, possessing catered to each element of estate management, be it getting the proper property or settling an old inheritance scenario, supply a tailor-made answer that matches your individual requirement. Our wide array of services contain: Asset Management - The most crucial component of the Estate Management Services is the proper Asset Management. Asset management signifies proper administration of household, industrial or commercial assets and generating positive that every single doc is in its place. It will permit the proprietor, in not only safeguarding the asset but will also help in its even more expansion. We make sure that each and every element is as for each the norms and restrictions to steer clear of any legal trouble. Our NRI Estate Management legal professionals will not only chart out the ideal method for your assets, but will also manual you on some essential matters like sale and acquire, lease management, etc. Aside from this, our NRI Estate Management Attorneys also have a extensive experience dealing with the litigation circumstances, in scenario want occurs. Succession Preparing - It is essential to have a proper succession plan in get to avoid any chaos and litigation procedure in the future. It is the work of an NRI Estate Management Lawyer to give the consumer with a solution that matches his unique need as no two consumers have the exact same company construction. We lay out a strategy keeping in head all the legal rules, tax implications, danger and opportunities connected with the organization or private property, that aids them comprehend and consider an knowledgeable decision. We make certain that we supply every achievable service to sleek out the very process for our esteemed clientele. Organizing Charitable Trusts - We offer you a comprehensive answer for all the legal and session needs of trusts, be it a charitable believe in or a personal have confidence in. We recognize the distinctive specifications of this kind of establishments and has a staff of NRI Estate Management lawyers with a experience in this specific domain. We also offer services to the other tax-exempted institutions, that incorporate consultancy, legal support and fiscal guidance. As LexLords NRI Legal Services with an knowledge in NRI Estate Management, our NRI Estate Management attorneys are properly-versed with not only the rules the land but also have considerable expertise of worldwide rules, creating it less difficult for our clients to offer with taxation rules. We support make your program reach its zenith effortless and smooth. Estate Organizing - Our NRI Estate Management Attorneys, getting large encounter in the estate management services, boasts of knowledge in taking care of a clientele with various backgrounds and wants effectively. At LexLords Estate Management Services, each and every client is provided a tax method keeping in look at their specific needs, and goals. Our NRI Estate Management Attorneys will chart out a plan that is concurrent with the latest tax regime, and other central and point out laws, and are flexible adequate to change in circumstance of potential modifications. Our NRI Estate Management Attorneys are dedicated to provide you with the greatest. We have, in the earlier, served our clientele in location up trusts for the philanthropic purposes, prepared wills to stay away from chaos in the succession process, managed estate transfers and much much more. We assure unmatched services with essential expertise and knowledge. Resolving Dispute & Litigation - We are a team of wealth planners and litigators that work jointly to offer our customers an successful solution to Disputes and Litigation processes. Our NRI Estate Management Attorneys are expert, with a distinguished track record in the business of resolving even the most challenging disputes by way of correct arranging and litigation method. At LexLords Estate Management Services, our very first instinct is always to solve an concern amicably by way of arbitration, mediation and such substitute mechanisms of dispute resolution, as we realize the sensitivity of the situations arising out of disputes in the family members and close friends. Our NRI Estate Management Lawyers leave no stone unturned in resolving the concern with as considerably less injury as attainable. Proper Tax Organizing - Efficient tax organizing is the base of an efficient Estate Management. At LexLords, our staff of CA’s and NRI Estate Management Legal professionals, function as a team to supply each and every clientele a tax program that is coherent with their business and individual targets. We provide customised solutions to trusts and estates, to avoid any future misgivings on part of the authorities. In circumstance of any tax dispute, our NRI Estate Management attorneys and CA’s signify the case in front of the proper authorities and consider to accomplish the greatest feasible resolution for the customers. We also supply other services these kinds of as tax auditing, appeals and these kinds of. Probate and Administrative Services - Our NRI Estate Management lawyers hold knowledge in probate, assisting the consumer at all phases from filing a petition or appointing an administrator in scenario there is no will to the litigation approach, in circumstance require occurs. Our groups of expert NRI Estate Management Attorneys, CA’s, wealth planners and administrative professionals also aid NRI customers in other processes, which includes but not constrained to asset analysis, documentation, tax-submitting and many others. to support them control their wealth and estate in a a lot more refined and strategised method, enabling them to grow their prosperity. Property has, given that time immemorial, been a explanation for dispute in culture and family members. In today’s world, these disputes have only multiplied, with reasons various from succession disputes, tenancy disputes, unlawful possessions, frauds by sellers and so forth. Though all the property disputes are usually nasty and tiresome, the difficulties only boost in situation of NRI’s. NRI’s are much more vulnerable to property disputes owing to the fact that they have only limited visits to India and are unaware of the existing property rules or the property market place of the land. They typically count on their family members, buddies or agents and brokers to deal with their property, which most of the occasions gets the major reason of the dispute. Property Disputes varieties a key part of NRI litigation in the nation, with a excellent number of circumstances of fraud by property dealers or brokers. The brokers and property sellers lure the NRI clientele with flashy advertisements and fake promises and in the end dupe them of their hard attained funds. In the recent a long time, the circumstances of succession disputes and illegal possession of the NRI property has also been on the rise. In this kind of situations, NRI’s are generally caught unaware and wrestle to discover the correct way to deal with the circumstance. Listed here will come the part of NRI property dispute lawyers. NRI property dispute legal professionals are the legal experts who have the skills in dealing with property connected situations of NRI. The litigation approach is a long and tiresome. And in scenario of tenancy and succession disputes, the law of India, might not assist the sufferer, as the civil law is based on ‘anything that plaintiff indicates, it need to prove’. So up till, LexLords NRI Legal Services Chandigarh , in this case NRI, proves his right, the possession continues to be with the other social gathering only. As the dispute can be in court for a long time, this only provides to the agony of the plaintiff or NRI. There are substitute steps present like arbitration, conciliation and so on, but in the high-benefit cases, these often fall short. All these legal processes are greatest managed by specialist NRI property dispute lawyers for they have the specialised knowledge of handling this sort of cases. NRI property dispute legal professionals cannot make the law any less difficult but they for confident do make the procedure considerably less cumbersome and tiresome. They will act like your knight in shining armour in protecting your property rights. At LexLords Management, we have a group of expert NRI property dispute legal professionals, who will guidebook you by way of the entire procedure. NRI property dispute lawyers will suggest you in accordance to the mother nature of your dispute, whether to go ahead with the litigation only or to try out and solve the circumstance outside the court. For this, our staff of NRI property dispute legal professionals consist of each litigation professionals and arbitration experts. Our NRI property dispute attorneys recognize that litigation is not only a tiresomely lengthy process but is also very costly. Our principal motive is usually to supply you the greatest answer, so our team of NRI property dispute lawyers consider nicely prepared and totally thought-through actions to be ready to solve the complete dispute in bare minimum attainable time and expenditure. Though it is unattainable to evade property dispute by 100%, we do suggest some precautionary measures to reduce the risk aspect. Title Research - Title search is an essential action, typically skipped out in India, that can support decrease the fraud circumstances by a considerable number. Title lookup essentially indicates to validate whether or not the vendor is the genuine operator or not and if he is, is he entitled to additional make the sale. It is conducted by a legal expert or an professional title researcher, who checks out the previous title rights, normally upto the final 33 years at the nearby registry workplace to make certain that the property is obvious for additional sale. Title look for is also conducted to search for any impending dispute or litigation of the property. As your legal team, we also confirm the exact property location, whether or not the development or any amendment created is lawfully suitable or on what conditions can the alterations be created to the property and these kinds of. We consider our best to stay away from dispute or litigation, but in scenario they do occur, our NRI property dispute legal professionals will help you sail by means of the difficulty. Cross-check your settlement with your lawyers - It is usually clever to have a lawyer onboard during the sale and acquire arrangement as they are the very best suited men and women to comprehend any legal term and its implication. It is usually seen that sellers and brokers usually indulge in malpractices, and promote non-current properties via phony documents and favourable clauses. After hired, we make positive to do all the investigation about the vendor as properly as broker and cross-examining of the agreement by experts to make sure a safe and easy transfer of property. But if by some means, discrepancies do happen and lead to the litigation, our NRI property dispute legal professionals, have it coated for you with their expertise and expertise. Succession disputes - It is often witnessed that succession disputes are the most difficult and messy to fix as it includes a family. In succession disputes, the most frequent scenario is of an NRI becoming divested of his share in the ancestral property by his kith and kin residing in India. In situation of will, it gets to be less complicated to demonstrate the appropriate although, wills can be compelled, forged or wrecked to stretch or dissolve the situation in the court of law. Our NRI property dispute legal professionals will try out their greatest to prove your proper to property as a justifiable assert. Our NRI property dispute attorneys will assist you get a assert your share of the ancestral property, even if the particular person dies intestate. Our NRI property dispute attorneys are the best in market, with litigation methods as their area of skills.

LexLords Legal Services: Law firm in Chandigarh, India Address: Contact NRI Lawyers by LexLords Legal Services 815, Sector 16, Chandigarh 160016