#byakko4 asks

[secret-engima]

So, in the Raven-verse bits you’ve posted, Ravens frenemy-ship with Ironwood was mentioned, as was his subordinates reactions, with a line about them leaving before she decides to ‘play’ with them too. Which implies there is at least one poor traumatized underling who Raven hauled into shenanigans. Sooo.... what do typical Ironwood-Branwen shenanigans look like? (And do newbies get a special handbook for Raven-protocols? ...Are there Raven specific protocols, actually?)

*cackles*

-Yes, Raven has dragged more than one underling into the shenanigans, though she would argue that they volunteered by shooting at her. Ironwood always points out that they think she’s trying to kill him, to which she says if “that” was their rescue attempt than Atlas needs to step up their training because that was pathetic.

-The underling is usually too busy wheezing on the floor to protest.

-The first underlings she ever did this too was the Spec Ops, which is why they’ve learned their lesson. But there have been others, like Winter, who also got involved and run circles around.

-Typical Ironwood-Branwen shenanigans usually fall into one of a few different categories:

-Raven opens a portal to him with no warning and tackles him to the ground for a spar without caring what he’s doing, usually because he missed one too many of their *scheduled* spars

-Raven kicking open a portal and kidnapping him for a family dinner or some other event with her little chaos clan because he looked too stressed and sleep deprived over the last vid-call with Ozpin and clearly needs a break.

-Raven kicking open a portal and hauling Ironwood off for a face to face meeting with Oz for something, at which point the only way back to Atlas in any good speed is for her to kick open another portal to Clover afterward. Ironwood makes a point to text Clover when he gets kidnapped for these just so the poor man isn’t in the shower or something when Raven trundles in with his superior officer.

-Raven opens a portal, announces that everyone back home is *busy* and since Ironwood is capable, has minions for backup, and has a ton of paperwork to keep him off the field, he can look after these for a hours. *These*, of course, being hers and Summer’s kids. The first time she did this, Ruby was like- one or two and Yang was three or four. Ironwood *panicked* the entire time, but managed to keep everyone happy and untraumatized and not riding a sugar high. As her kids have increased in number and age, Ironwood has started to yeet them at his school for the day as Phys Ed TA’s because nothing motivates a bunch of teenagers like a pack of ten year olds casually running rings around them on the obstacle courses and in sparring. Tbh Raven’s (and Summer’s by extension) kids ADORE getting babysat by Uncle James because he always comes up with Cool Things for them to do in an effort to keep them from accidentally setting his paperwork on fire.

-Yes there is a handbook for How To Deal With Raven and the Branwen-Rose-Xiao-Long Clan. It was printed out mostly as a joke by Spec Ops at first, but now they give it to all the rookies most likely to encounter Raven’s Chaos as they climb the ranks. By this point there are also Raven protocols, but all of them are unofficial and mostly boil down to “don’t try to contain it, she’s going to do what she wants anyway, and don’t let the kids get lost”.

-There are also a ton of rumors about where all the kids come from among the lower ranks. The upper ranks know that Raven is an old work associate who has too much fun tormenting Ironwood now that he’s “big and important”, but more than a few rookies and civvies connected to the military think that Ironwood’s wife needs to stop bugging her husband during work hours. Ironwood just about died the first time he heard the rumor that Raven was his WIFE.

[charlottedabookworm]

FFXIV prompts - second chances don’t come cheap

Lightning streaks across the sky, illuminating the stone cast to G’raha’s face as he pushes himself to his feet.

Set rolls to his knees, easily meeting the miqo’tes eyes on the same level. The moment is come and he- he wants to ask.

The words well up in his throat and he desperately wants to ask him not to leave them; he wants G’raha to come with them. He does not know how they will do this without him but…

He smiles and reaches for his friend, drawing him in easily until their foreheads meet. His throat burns and he swallows back the words, forces back the tears. Closes his eyes and allows himself to bask in this moment. In his hand curling around the back of G’raha’s neck and the mingling of their breath and the wind of the storm that has cleared the air of ash.

“We’ll save you,” he whispers into the space between them. “I swear to you, Raha, you won’t be alone this time, I promise-”

A hand cups his cheek, biting warmth in the chill of the rain, and Set opens his eyes to meet fierce red. “Tefh’a,” G’raha says and he smiles with all the command of the Crystal Exarch. “No.”

His eyes burn. Set shakes his head against the miqo’te, pressing forward into the touch of their skin. “No, please- you cannot ask me to let it all happen again, not when we can change things, not when we can help you.” He can’t- he knows what those years had done to him, how could he expect them to just-

“But I am.” Raha’s fingers stroke across his cheek, catching raindrops like tears. “And you will.” He says it with certainty, with faith, and it almost breaks him. “My fate is necessary, you know this. Set, Tefh’a, you need to let it happen again.”

“Three centuries alone, Raha, please. You cannot expect us, expect me, to just…”

“For the lives of everyone in the Crystarium?” He cuts in, eyebrow raised. An ancient warrior, a protector, a leader to the end. “Of everyone in the First? You are a Scion of the Seventh Dawn, Tefh’a, a Warrior of Light and Darkness. My friend, swear to me that you will let events play out as they should.”

He bites his lip, trembling. “But… what if we change too much; what if the tower is never reopened, what if you never cast the spell and travel to the first? What if none of it happens and you are alone in the Tower forever?”

“Then,” G’raha Tia whispers, his widening smile hiding none of the ancient lines of grief upon his face or the tears that spill from the corners of his eyes. “You shall let it happen.”

Set swallows.

“Naught that you can do in the Source will affect the Eighth Umbral Calamity, Set. It is the destruction of the First that triggers that event and I have no doubt that the Tower will be summoned. I will travel to the First because I must, because I should, because I will, and it will always be you that I attempt to summon. We will be reunited, Set, this I swear to you, but if we are not then that is a price that I am willing to pay.” The words are order and plea all at once, a bid for trust and acceptance, and he bows to it.

He kneels in the dust and dirt of empty ruins and his eyes desperately trace the miqo’tes face and Set-

Hand on the back of his neck tightening, he pulls G’raha closer still and brushes their lips together for a single moment. “I love you, Raha,” he murmurs, a hairsbreadth away from those lips, tasting the name upon his tongue for the last time.

This time, G’raha’s nimble fingers swipe away tears. “And I love you, Tefh’a of the Lynx, Set Aneirin.”

And then, he steps away taking the warmth of the world with him. The crystalline stave, now in his hands, glows brightly in the gloom as he casts.

Two hands land on his shoulders and Set leans back into the twins without looking away from the miqo’te before them.

The world flares a sky-shattering white.

The last thing Set sees is G’raha Tia, Crystal Exarch, Scion of the Seventh Dawn. He’s smiling at them.

He’s crying.

(It hurts more than the spell, than the unwinding of their very souls and memories)

X’tefh’a Tia comes undone.

[captainkirkk]

North American here. I don’t get the fascination with eggnog either. I’ve tried it a few times over the years, and I just don’t like it. *shrugs* at least it’s only super prevalent in Nov/Dec. I don’t really see it the rest of the year.

This is the corndog thing all over again. Why am I bombarded with American foods I can’t have

[dragons-bones]

So uh, I was rereading Spalsh of Mischief, and Galette’s comment about Roksana and Amandina getting ego-programming at some point for me thinking. now Roksana is water-natured, and iirc, Amandina is Levin? Would I be right in guessing that they end up with Leviathan/Ramuh type egi-coding? (And that’s a very terrifying thought, btw)

That is correct, friend! Roksana is primarily water-aspected, and Amandina is primarily levin-aspected (their pearl foci had both, so Roksana has a tiny bit of levin and Amandina a tiny bit of water, too). They will, eventually, one day, end up with sub-egi programming like their siblings (Leviathan-egi for Roksana, Ramuh-egi for Amandina).

How will this work?

I have no fucking clue, I haven’t come up with the logic yet. XD There’s a reason I decided that the babies are babies. In-universe/Watsonian explanation: pearls aren’t as sturdy as emeralds and rubies and topazes, so require slow infusion, and finding crystals of the proper polarity is difficult. Out-of-universe/Doylist: the author is still solving the problem of the egi!

[blackestnight]

🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹, pretty please?

you mentioned you liked drk things, so have some tangential drk shenanigans! i’d let fray commentate my daily activities, tbh.

Hanami turned her gaze back to the judge—adjudicator, she thought, a correction in a voice just a shade darker than hers, and then: pompous bastard, which was just similar enough to her own line of thinking she almost mistook it for hers. Pale and dark-haired, skinny and dour in a way that made that other-voice whisper priest. Certainly not a knight himself. Probably fed good Halonic doctrine with the same silver spoon that had been shoved up his arse as an infant, judging by the jewels glittering at his ears and fingers. He didn’t bother to look at her either, instead giving solemn consideration to the room at large. Probably just the back wall, in truth. She’d seen it enough. Another dead heretic, another sack of coin, another quaint story for galas. Or maybe he was one of the over-pious types that thought looking upon a creature as ruinous as her might be unholy.

He has no idea, that second-voice whispered, and Hanami exhaled the abandoned ghost of a laugh.

She glanced further up at another clattering gate-noise: Lucia, this time at the level of the adjudicator and Handeloup, letting herself in and taking a seat to the adjudicator’s right, sitting straight-backed and calm. She folded her hands in her lap and looked down evenly. Met Hanami’s gaze. Not particularly remorseful, not that Hanami expected her to be. Good. She had no regrets either.

With Lucia seated, the adjudicator finally stood, raising a hand for silence; the knights’ whispers died out, rattling breaths skittering into the corners of the towering hall before falling into true quiet. Hanami ignored him while he went about gathering the silence like robes, instead glancing to the empty platform opposite her and making a game of digging through her memories for a script that the judge would follow. Petitioners, that was what they called the accusers here—and if Handeloup and Lucia were both presiding alongside the adjudicator, that left only one Temple Knight commander she knew of who could possibly accuse her. It was his investigation, after all, that had dug up the corpses moldering in her proverbial closet.

[starswornoaths]

🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹 please?

of course! <3

Random WIP sentence asks - Accepting!

It had been an easy thing to forget, the cool comfort of the night sky overhead. When she had been pulled through the void and into Norvrandt, Y’Shtola had, at first, lamented how readily she had taken for granted how calming the night sky was for her, how necessary it had been. In the years she spent beneath the ever burning sky, she had almost made it a point to forget what she had lost. It had been easier that way.

That time was behind them, and as Y’Shtola walked in the blessed night she sent a silent prayer of thanks to the Twelve. 

Still, she walked toward the light, toward the brilliant star that she had walked beside for years now. Blue glimmering brilliance veined with gold, her aether was unmistakable; Y’Shtola knew it as well as she did her own.

“Ah, there you are.” Serella’s low alto voice greeted her softly. “I’m glad you could make it.”

[ertrunkenerwassergeist]

A Smile Sharp as a Knife (is still able to kill you)

@byakko4 you’re a horrible enabler. Also tagging @starofthemourning because of murder!Aera. I hope you’ll enjoy this one. Be prepared, this got long.

- When Aera wakes up again after the last thing she saw was a desparate Ardyn screaming his pain-desperation-betrayal-pain at his once beloved brother, she believes she has died. Until she tries to move and nearly falls unconscious again because her back is one solid flash of hot burning pain. She screams until her voice is too weak to continue but no one comes.

- The only reason she doesn’t die during the long and painful healing process is her magic. Nearly all her energy goes into this endeavour and more than once she is closer to dying because of magical exhaustion than of her wounds.

- She is in an expansive underground prison that is more like a city, most of its involuntary tenants wandering free, but never able to see the sun for the rest of their lives. Aera spends months in isolation - only the guard that deliveres her food for company - until she’s well enough to stand (barely) on her own two feet. Then she gets to join the others.

- She’s not sure if she should be glad for the human contact or cower in the face of a possible fate worse than death.

- For nearly three years she is a member of the prison community, makes herself untouchable for the more unsavory sort down there by helping and healing her fellow tenants.

- Her first friend is an old thief. He knows who she is and starts to protect her by convincing the others to stay away in the beginning. Her second is a young boy whose only crime was asking about Ardyn in a very public place where Somnus had been able to hear him.

- They become a makeshift family. And all the while Aera makes her plans. Plans of revenge drenched in blood and death. The thief helps her once she confides in him and together they plan their escape.

- After nearly three years they are finally free. It involves old forgotten tunnels, fights against deamons deep in the dark and a prison revolt. The young boy dies in their escape. (Another victim to Somnus’ foolhardiness and megalomania, and she seethes.)

- Outside they cannot escape the city at once and a young woman that recognizes Aera - she had healed that woman many years ago and Aera cannot help but feel guilty because she had forgotten her - hides them in the brothel she workes at for a few days.

- There Aera allows herself to truly grieve for the first time in three years. Grieve for Ardyn, her own foolishness and blind trust in a higher power, Somnus’ treason, that boy’s unneeding death and so many others she had been unable to save.

- Out of the city - Somnis had renamed Insomnia of all things - they get waylaid by bandits and only survive because the leader as one of the few commanders in the army that followed Ardyn.

- Eventually things start to look up. They gather more people to their cause and make their headquarters in Tealpar Crag. And Aera is their leader, always looking for a way to get back at Somnus, looking for the truth for what truly happened that day in the throne room, seaching for Ardyn. (She refuses to believe he died. She refuses. She just needs to find him and all will be well.)

- The Gods are silent.

- And finally, when she has a lead towards Ardyn (whispers about screams being heard from the holy island and black waters surrounding it) Gilgamesh finds them.

- Many die. But so does Gilgamesh. And Aera curses him, binds the curse to her own blood and his oaths sworn towards the Lucis Caelum line. He may never rest for as long as that cursed prophecy exists, for as long as her own line exists. (And bound he is to the realm of the living. Not dead, but not truly alive either. Imprisoned within the Crag, cursed to stare at the reliefs depicting what had truly happened. They haunt him until they are worn away by time and afterwards he sees them still where they once had been.)

- The reduced group has to wander again and Aera is torn between her desire to find Ardyn and the possibility to finally kill Somnus. Because now he doesn’t have a Shield anymore.

- They free Ardyn. The state he is in makes Aera unbelievably furious yet again. She cannot wait to feel Somnus’ traitorious blood beneath her fingers.

- Ardyn’s healing process is slow. He cannot believe what happened and more than once he and Aera fight on what to do next. Ardyn doesn’t want to become a kinslayer, doesn’t want to mar himself further before the Gods.

- In the end they decide to consult the only Astral they know how to reach. Titan. The Moutainbuilder and Valleycarver tries to kill them at first because they’re not part of the Plan anymore. Until they both manage to make him submit and Ardyn by accident infects the Astral with the starscourge.

- That is when Ardyn truly believes Aera. About Bahmut and how he had broclaimed him to be the Chosen King.

- It takes years of hard work, blood and tears but they manage to kill Somnus. The problem of the starscourge however, still remains.

[secret-engima]

So, in Hundred ‘verse. Assuming Beacon Falls goes similar-ish, and Weiss ends up back in atlas/schnee manor; when she bails this time, would she take Whitley with her? I imagine he hasn’t been idle while she was away, and has probably been training himself. Would the two of them slip away to track down the rest of team rwby? ( and how would that reunion go down?)

Also, any ideas on what Noctsgar tearing Winter a new one over her treatment of Lunweiss and Whitley looks like? (And her reaction?)

Weiss does end up back in the Schnee manor! She tolerates it for however long it takes between v3 and the end of v4, during which she is checking up in secret with the Faunus community in Mantle, cuddling Whitley, subtly defying her father as much as possible, and also stockpiling as many resources as she thinks she and Whitley will be able to carry because she is absolutely planning to bolt out of here.

Whitley has been training, he managed to sweet-talk his father into letting him join a Combat School even though Jaques has lost both his daughters to it. Whitley knew how to make it sound like good PR for the Schnee company, so Whitley is tiny bby Huntsman in training and has a weapon of his own now, and is fully down to join Weiss in the “run away in the dead of night and never see this manor again until its time to show up for Jaques’ funeral” plan.

They both slip away, planning to hop to Mistal and then find their way to Patch from there, but of course Things happen and they end up reuniting with Team RWBY in Mistral. Not sure if they still get kidnapped by the Branwen tribe? I’m debating. It could be fun, especially since Lunweiss would be way better at bluffing and handling being a ransom hostage (not unlike living in Niflheim really, just with more actual cages).

But however they get to Haven, they get there eventually, and the Team RWBY reunion is a lot like canon at first, with crying and hugging of Team and introducing of Whitley, who is thrilled to meet the team in person for the first time.

And then at some point, likely later in the evening? Oscar trundles in from somewhere and he and Weiss lock gazes. Weiss stops speaking mid sentence, drops whatever she happens to be holding. Her hands are shaking. Oscar has dropped Long Memory to the floor.

The others are, of course, very confused.

Then one of them breaks the silence, I’m not sure which one yet. A word, or a question, or a breath of phrase in a language not of Remnant.

And the other knows.

They run to each other, clasping hands first, then hugging, then crumbling to the ground still clinging to each other and sobbing because it is Noctis-Luna-Noctis-Luna and for the first time in so long they are not the only one.

[secret-engima]

So for Raven verse? If it’s not locked under spoilers, how does the first Clovernapping go down? (What are the reactions/fallout on the atlas side of things?)

It’s not locked under spoilers, I just am not entirely sure about the details since it’s so far ahead. BUT. I’m pretty sure the first Clovernapping is going to happen during the Vytal Festival where they first meet. After Raven has chased Clover around the arena being a Glee because his luck Semblance means she doesn’t have to worry quite so much about killing him by accident (Raven is, by that point, generally over leveled compared to all the other students, especially a first year team like Clover and co), and both teams happen to wander down to the fairgrounds at separate times for food and stuff. Raven spots Clover and his team and just goes- “Ah yes. Potential friend for my brother.” Then sneaks over and kidnaps him from the back of his group. She drags him off to the stand where HER team are getting food and plops Clover down next to Qrow with a cheerful, “Found you a new friend!”

Qrow, sarcastically, “Joy.”

Summer, “Raven what have we said about kidnapping people.”

Raven, “Don’t get caught?”

Clover is an Alarm™.

Meanwhile his TEAM are absolutely freaking out when they turn around and find Clover MISSING. They are kind of protective of him because he’s the only boy on their team and already gets a lot of flak for being the one boy on an otherwise girl team and having a “Lucky Semblance”. So people pranking Clover or trying to make trouble for him is likely not an unusual thing? And it’s especially nerve-racking because they just got out of a fight with the famous Team STRQ, where Raven gleefully ran Clover into the ground, and there are a lot of strangers here and now he’s seemingly just VANISHED.

They all but turn the fairgrounds upside down looking for him before they eventually spot him chatting shyly with Team STRQ. His team are Not Best Pleased, but in the end they’re just students and Clover isn’t hurt, so it’s fine. It’s not like it will happen again, right?

Raven: :3

[secret-engima]

*Skids into your inbox* Mercury redemption?!?! *bounces* tell me more pls? Mercury and Emerald(and Roman and Neo) are very interesting to me, and I’ve long been of the opinion that their characters could be so much *more*. (Roman was not an idiot. He got in over his head yes, but he was not an idiot. He had clearly been part of the Beacon underworld for a while (that map?) and was a successful thief!)

*crashes happily into the ask* wasn’t gonna answer anymore today but HECK YES MERCURY REDEMPTION. It’s a Mercury redemption/Emerald redemption fic and it starts when I rescue Mercury from his dad’s clutches when he is tiny child.

By turning him into a wolf.

No I am not kidding. My brain is weird.

So so so so this whole thing was started with a discord ramble with @keeperofgems and somehow we’d just watched Wolfwalkers recently and I am ALWAYS DOWN for transformation stories. So gremlin brain went. HEY. HEY OZ CAN GIVE PEOPLE ABILITY TO TURN INTO THINGS RIGHT??? AND HE CAN MAKE MAGIC THAT JUMPS TO NEW HOSTS RIGHT?????

WHAT IF HE ONCE BLESSED GOOD FRIEND WITH WOLF POWERS AND THEN ACCIDENTALLY BLESSED HIS ENTIRE FAMILY LINE.

Which Mercury’s mom comes from. >:3

So here’s tiny Child Mercury, desperately trying to run away from his dad, and he stumbles and trips and keeps going and he’s so desperate, so scared and with no semblance to help him that he reaches deep. Past his aura, into something primal. Something lost. Something MAGIC.

And then he realizes later that he’s on all fours. That he’s a WOLF PUP.

And that he has no idea how to change back.

So he wanders around for a while and eventually saves Tiny Child Ruby from danger and that ends up getting him adopted into the Rose-Xiao Long household so I get to have my Big Brother Mercury shenanigans, Identity Shenanigans, and Shapeshifting shenanigans all in one fic. >:33333

And then later Emerald ends up defecting and joining the crew because in this AU Marcus Black (? is that his name I forget) is still alive and I HC that Emerald ran away to the streets to AVOID people like him.

And that’s a really ramble premise of my Wolfcury verse fic.

Because if Ruby is Red Riding Hood she deserves a Big Bad Wolf (brother) dang it.

Also also I agree with you on Roman. Man had potential and he WAS clearly intelligent and it’s a pity he got killed off and Cinder is still kicking.

*absently whacks fixit plunny where Roman, Neo, Mercury, and Emerald are all fixit redeemed by the power of adorable time traveler Oscar* Later. I have enough RWBY AUs for a hot minute. I’ll start you another day I promise.

[secret-engima]

*slams open door* wolfcury is awesome!!! I desperately wanna know how team cfcy finds out, if you wanna share (or is that locked under spoilers?) also, how would that initial fight with Roman go down with wolfcury around? (Does he have a diff name in wolf form or do they still call him Mercury?)

Yeeeee

Team CFVY finds out by comical happenstance. I’ve yet to nail down all the details but basically- Fox is blind yeah? And he sees by aura? Well despite his wolf shape, Mercury has a HUMAN AURA. Which confuses Fox to no end, but this is the biggest wolf he’s ever heard of so okay. Then one day he accidentally opens a telepathy channel with Wolf Mercury and ALL OF TEAM CFVY can hear his VERY HUMAN THOUGHTS.

Cue Mercury fleeing for Ruby and Yang with a curious team CFVY on his heels and Ruby and Yang explaining some of the Thing. Mostly just that yes Mercury can turn into a wolf but is really a person, yes it’s weird, please keep it a secret his bio dad is horribly abusive and might still be looking for him.

Team CFVY proceeds to adopt Mercury as their unofficial mascot member and he and Fox enjoy telepathically heckling society as Team No Thumbs and No Eyes.

The exact how's and when's of Fox finding out about Mercury is up for grabs? I’m thinking either it’s after they’ve met the Wolf Mercury and are used to him and Fox just slips up because Mercury’s aura is so weird OR, Fox spots a human aura sprawled out on the library floor while his team is studying and goes to investigate because are you okay? And Mercury doesn’t answer because he thinks Fox is calling for someone else, then Fox, who is worried about the lack of response, opens a telepathy channel. He and Mercury actually have a minor conversation before Coco comes around the corner and is like- Oh it’s Ruby’s giant dog.

Fox: wat.

Mercury: *frantic internally swearing that is now audible thanks to Semblance as he scrambles up and flees*

[secret-engima]

So I’ve seen the SAO kick you’re on, and have you heard of Divide Music? He does original songs that are based on various anime/characters, and he’s got a fantastic SAO one. https://youtu.be/ngZkeRd-Ako

I LOVE DIVIDE MUSIC AND I LOVE HIS SAO SONG YES. :DDD

His music is so good.

[secret-engima]

...only one more after this, promise! -Ice in my veins, never gonna run, venom on my fangs, fire on my tongue

...

........

DRAGON FFXV AU.

Specifically an AU where Prompto was, unbeknownst to Cor, part of a special science project to create the ultimate weapon.

A DRAGONSHIFTER.

Let’s assume shapeshifters used to be a thing, but died out or something so now there’s just legends. But Verstael “I Unearthed the Actual Adagium” Besithia is not going to let petty things like “extinction” and “possibly fictional” stop him from getting what he wants so he starts gene tampering. Most of the clones in the project die, but one Special Clone that he added special genes to survives, and he can’t WAIT to see if it will learn to shift when it grows old enough-

Except then some Lucian (a very righteously angry and oblivious Cor) STEALS IT.

Cue Prompto growing up in Insomnia, terrified of two things in his life. One is anyone finding the barcode on his wrist-

The other is anyone finding out he can turn into a monster.

A dragon, specifically, but Prompto doesn’t really CARE what kind of monster it is when he had to learn to handle suppressing the transformation during his puberty all by himself and HE’S never heard of the old shapeshifter legends so he has NO IDEA that he’s anything other than a freak. Let alone that, secret of secrets (something even Besithia doesn’t know and Ardyn never told) the lines blessed by Bahamut can shapeshift too, and are ALWAYS draconic. Of course, it’s been so LONG that even the LCs and Oracles don’t really remember how, and Luna and Noctis are the first in generations to shift instinctively (Regis ... did not take it too calmly when his son hit puberty and then accidentally transformed while having an argument with Gladio. Gladiolus also did not take it calmly, but that was because he went from arguing with a tiny ten year old to getting roared at by a six foot tall baby DRAGON. Everyone give thanks to the quick thinking Ignis and his hot chocolate or else something would have gotten set on fire that day)

(also coincidentally in this AU, Besithia stabilized his last prospective shifter clone with Ardyn’s DNA, thinking that since he was an ancient human he was closer to the time shifter’s died out, he genuinely has no clue that Ardyn IS a dragon shifter and that’s why his special project clone didn’t die instantly).

Anyway! Shenanigans happen and Prompto and Noct become friends ala canon and Prompto struggles with his raging dragon MINE instincts over his friends and Noctis struggles with his own MINE instincts over Prompto (do not glomp the civilian, Noctis tells himself, do not attempt to flop all over and cuddle the civilian, DO NOT grab a hairbrush and compulsively groom the civilian he won’t understand your following dragon instincts and not intentionally being a weird creep, Noctis tells himself sternly as his instincts screech).

And then like- SOMETHING happens and there’s DANGER, probably an assassination attempt or something while Prom and Noct are doing video games in Noct’s apartment and Noctis goes down before he can debate the risk of transforming in front of Prompto with a glancing blow to the head and Prompto sees his friend-packbrother-wingmate go down and sees BLOOD and-

He-

R a g e s

The Crownsguard and a few Glaives arrive at the apartment to find that the assassins are very, very dead and in multiple pieces, and the living room furniture has been smashed against the walls to make room for the Very Unhappy and Enraged golden dragon that JUST BARELY fits in the apartment living room, hunched protectively over the unconscious Noctis and hissing at the startled newcomers, with something dripping from his fangs that makes a very acidic hiss and pockmarks on the floor when it lands.

Cor, who KNOWS who Prompto really is and is there and can see the barcode peaking out on one scaly wrist is just- his brain is shorting. Cor.exe no working pls reboot.

Nyx, who has no idea what’s going on but as a Galahdian (and secret Coeurl-shifter) remembers enough stories to know this young dragon is maybe 5 seconds away from eating them, goes into damage control while internally screaming because MARSHAL STOP STARING. MARSHAL WHY IS NYX THE BRAINCELL RIGHT NOW HE DOESN’T LIKE IT.

So anyway yes I now have a new AU (oh no) and here are some thoughts:

Noctis is a fire-breathing/four legged dragon, Luna is an ice/eastern dragon, and Prompto is a GoT-Style dragon with venom he can spit rather than fire-breathing, that way all the stuff in the title is officially covered. >:D

Shifters still exist, but are mostly in hiding because Obviously and also are predominantly Galahdian, which means they can only take non-flying, natural animal shapes. They are also still rare. Ulrics are the only Coeurls left, but the Bellum have a Behemoth or three and the Arra have a handful of Wolves.

Ardyn has 0 clue that he technically has a SON running around playing best friends with his “hated enemy”

The day he finds out Besithia used his blood to make a child and didn’t tell him is also coincidentally the day Besithia and his lab go Fwoosh because Ardyn may be Scourge crazy and vengeful but he is still a dragon and YOU DO NOT take a dragon’s hatchling away from them. Ever. For any reason.

Also coincidentally Ardyn decides that he is going to have to rework some of his plans.

Also also Dragon shifters get BIG. Regular shifters are the size of their animal or smaller (Bellum Behemoths are smaller than regular Behemoths but far more Fightey), but because Magic™, dragon shifters when full grown/old get to be HUGE. Like- can knock over four story buildings huge. KAIJU HUGE. But that’s when they’re full grown. Noctis at twenty is only about 20-24 feet at the shoulder. Wait until he’s fifty+ years old and THEN we’ll hit Kaiju sizes.

[secret-engima]

*gloms* I’m sorry someone was an asshat. All your AU’s are amazing. Even the ones that aren’t my thing (not really a transformers fan, and I know you write/wrote for that one) or that I still haven’t sat down and actually read yet cause my life is crazy hectic(I’m slowly working my way through the fairy tail one, and I still haven’t gotten to the first deleantur fic yet, tbh). (Dropping this in your ask box as well as in a comment)

Thank you. :DD I know I should just move on, and my temper has settled now. But it’s just annoying you know? When you’re vibing and someone tries to throw a rock into it.

Oh? How are you liking the FT fic so far? :DDD

[secret-engima]

Fic title thing - heart held close to the moon and Neptune

...

...............

Neptune ... Neptune was the Roman god of the sea right? ... Just looked it up and yes he was so-

>:D

FF7

Mer

AU

But rather than EVERYONE being mer or whatever, it’s ONLY the three Soldier Firsts of canon. Sephiroth, Genesis, and Angeal who have never met any other mer, because Shinra are immoral and terrible and use propaganda to promote the idea that Mer aren’t REALLY just like humans in intelligence and emotional range and soul, they just happen to look human-ish on the top half. And because Mer are seemingly extinct (read: in hiding), they have nobly “Resurrected” the lost line of the “most exotic creatures of the sea” in Sephiroth, Genesis, and Angeal and claim to be in the process of cloning female Mers to “reintroduce the species”.

Except mer are NOT animals.

Mer are the children of Gaia’s oceans, the pulse of her waves and tides, touched by her moon on high. Mer are MAGIC and they will not be contained.

They escape, by the skin of their teeth and with many bloody scars, helped by the last of descendant of the True Mer (Aerith) who can walk on two legs for a time because of her half-human blood. They flee, out into the wild waters, just the three of them as a pod, rapidly protective of their little Pod Queen Aerith, their little sister in their eyes for all it would doom mer to extinction again. So they swim, up river and through lake and through the sea, and sometimes Aerith stops to visit the human woman who cared for her as a child and to tend the garden on two legs while the other three lounge in the little pond and sing softly together, and it’s ... nice.

Then Aerith meets Zack. Zack who is a cheerful sellsword rather than a Shinra plaything, who still respect the Old Ways as best as an ignorant human can, and Aerith adores him and so despite what they want, Sephiroth, Genesis, and Angeal refrain from dragging him below the waves and eating him for trying to court their sister. But Zack is genuine and not cruel like the other humans they’ve met, he gets along with Elmyra and dotes on Aerith and Angeal ends up taking him under his fin after Zack nearly falls in and downs in the pond because surprise this idiot CAN’T SWIM, and really that is that. They have another human in the pod.

Zack tells them all sorts of stories, of the lands they’ve never seen. Jungles and deserts and icy mountains, and in those stories one name and description comes up a lot, the other, younger sellsword Cloud Strife. A fierce little mountain girl who still swears to the Old Spirits and avoids Fairy Circles and will not set foot on a boat until she’s made a sacrifice to the lost Children of the Sea. He describes his “little buddy” so often during his tales that really, it’s no wonder Sephiroth RECOGNIZES the woman while on a solo hunt, struggling in the water, bubbles escaping her mouth and nose, arms and legs bound from where she’s been THROWN OVERBOARD by pirates stealing the ship she had booked passage on.

Sephiroth screams and the storm screams back. The pirates stand no chance and Sephiroth pays them no more mind as he dives down for Cloud, ripping the ropes apart with his claws, swims her up to the surface and realizes that the storm he just summoned is a PROBLEM. The waves are too high for him to keep the human’s head above the water and she’s already NOT BREATHING and Sephiroth can’t just- UNSUMMON a storm, but this girl is Zack’s friend and Zack is pod which makes THIS ONE pod and Sephiroth-can’t-let-her-die-.

Sephiroth holds her close and sings-sings-sings, struggling against death, screaming to the moon to spare this human, to make her SURVIVE somehow, because Sephiroth has too few people in his life and he cannot afford to lose any of them, even one he has never met before.

And Sephiroth-

Sephiroth was Hojo’s finest creation. He was grown from the blood of the most Ancient mer. The Wild Kin even Aerith’s race of mer feared for their power, their savagery, their ability to wrap up the world in their voice and SHAPE it the way they wanted. Jenova is not an alien virus in this au, oh no, Jenova was The Sea Witch. The most feared and powerful and deadly o the Wild Kin, the last to fall in their war against the much more numerous humans and Cetra mer that had banded together against the Wild Kin and their Sea Witches. Jenova was the one who cursed the Cetra and decimated their numbers, she was the one to freeze the great northern sea mid-motion like a glacier around a great crater.

Jenova is, in a morbid, cloned sense, his mother.

Sephiroth sings.

The world obeys.

The body in his arms changes.

Cloud breathes in water and does not drown.

When Cloud groggily wakes up three days later, it’s to one very frantic Zack hovering over her face, the sky above her head, and the weird sensation of being submerged from the waist down. She remembers being knocked off the ship and sits up in confusion-

Looks down and doesn’t see legs.

The glittering tail of ink black and spiraling ice blue twitches spasmodically under her stare, responding to her desperate attempts to move legs that AREN’T THERE ANYMORE.

Cloud starts screaming and all the glass and quite a bit of nearby stone shatters.

While Zack and Aerith help deal with ... THAT whole mess, Sephiroth lurks guiltily in the nearby river, not daring to enter the pond while Genesis whimsically notes that aside from the ice blue swirls, her tail exact same shade of black as his, so does that mean she’s a full blooded Wild Kin now? Genesis and Angeal aren’t, because they have bright red and bright blue scales with black highlights respectively, sign of Wild Kin blood but not nearly as pure as Sephiroth’s jet black and trademark silver hair and slitted eyes. Angeal slaps Genesis over the head and says there are bigger things to worry about, because SINCE WHEN was any kind of magic strong enough to transform a human into an ACTUAL MER and what do they do now? Sephiroth already tried turning her back, but it didn’t work, because that kind of Song that remakes the world itself can only be used on a person on that large a scale ONCE, so now they’re stuck and how will they explain any of that to Zack’s formerly-human friend.

Sephiroth continues to lurk at the bottom of the river, feeling very guilty. He didn’t mean to do that. He meant to save her, not transform her, and the entire thing tastes too much of Hojo’s lab and his unwanted experiments and talk of using Sephiroth’s blood to create clones or hybrids.

Maybe once Zack and Aerith calm her down she won’t entirely hate him?

Who is he kidding, she’ll probably try to gut him with her bare claws.

(Anyway a sort of Modern-Fantasy AU where Mako is a thing but the SOLDIER program isn’t, Mer are a thing, and Fem!Cloud and Sephiroth end up doing an enemies to lovers slowburn but more in a you-transformed-me-against-my-will-so-I-HATE-YOU to friends to lovers way.)

(Also Hojo tries to do more evil shenanigans and Shinra hopes to conquer the world, but that all gets shut down by the Pod because fun fact you can’t run a wold spanning empire if all your ships keep mysteriously getting sunk. It’s not like you can helicopter EVERYTHING over the water, especially since all air traffic gets rapidly shut down by the mysterious super storms that blow in when they try. Reeve eventually gets accidentally kidnapped by the Pod and converted to their side so he starts looking into non-Lifestream power alternatives and Rufus is on board because honestly there’s nothing like a couple of mer arguing, IN YOUR LANGUAGE on whether they should eat you for your sins to make you rethink your life choices and by extension all your evil father’s life choices.)

(Also also Vincent and Felicia are both experiments by Hojo to see if he could create human-mer hybrids. Felicia is a sea serpent and Vincent sometimes forgets that Legs Are A Thing and so just sighs tiredly on Elmyra’s floor in all his red and black octopi glory. Veld is pulled on board the “lets kill Hojo and reform Shinra” boat after he nearly gets his throat torn out by his long lost daughter only for his long lost Turk partner to tackle her and talk her down from accidental patricide.)

(For reference, Sephiroth is a black beta fish with some silver edging on his fins, Genesis is a red with black stripes lionfish, and Angeal is a long-suffering blue and black lions fish. Aerith turns into a long-finned koi, and discovers quite by accident that if you kiss your human boyfriend enough times he gains the ability to breathe underwater and transform into a mer for a few hours before changing back into a human again.)

(And because I’m on a roll, Nanaki is still a cat-lion-thing, Cait Sith has underwater capabilities, Jesse, Wedge, and Biggs are all incredibly baffled humans who aren’t sure how this is their life now, Tifa would like to know when and how her best friend became a Mer (Cloud: It’s all catfish’s fault. Sephiroth: hey.) Barret is a monstrously overprotective dad and Marlene is the world’s cutest baby mer and Sephiroth would literally destroy the world for her if she asked him too. Genesis would help him. Angeal would just sigh and hold Marlene out of the danger zone.)

[secret-engima]

Worlds unseen is absolutely beautiful and I tend to lurk, so I do not always give it the squeee-age it deserves. That said. What goes through Varls head when the idiots three first return to Nora lands? (Alternately, do they adopt Teb for being the sole logical one who accepts Aloy’s reaction to being called the Anointed One at face value and just rolling with it?)

gfhgfd thank you....

Hmmmm For Varl- a lot of shock? And- and he’s proud of his sister, he is, but she also unnerves him (the trio make a Very Grand Entrance to start with). She walks like a warrior, and she speaks the language of madness that Aloy and Bast do with ease and just- she’s different. They are all so different from the rest of the Tribe now and it’s saving all their lives but Varl still doesn’t know how he should feel about it.

Hmmmm while I’m not dragging Teb along for the main plot, I do feel like Teb will, post game, be kinda the Seeker Braincell and/or Seeker Translator. Just- Teb rolls with the crazy of these three and they attach to him for it and the rest of the Tribe are like: *explain the strangeness of the Anointed One and her Blessed Seekers please* and so that’s Teb’s job now apparently. XD