#can you tell i just gave up on the leftmost big one

[untimelybones]

have some more (ft. 2 homeless (rich) men)

every morning i wake up and refresh toshiro's tag in hopes of new (lai)shuro content

[h0bg0blin-meat]

If you get this ask, tell us a story from the folklore or mythology of YOUR COUNTRY (e.g. if you are German, tell us a German myth). Then send this ask to ten people! Just want to see more people talking about lesser known myths ;)

Eeeee okay. So lemme tell you about the myth of Tejimola from my state (Assam).

Tejimola was a girl whose dad was a businessman, and her biological mom died when she was young, so her dad remarried, and hence, we now enter the 'horrible stepmom' trope.

So once her dad left for another business trip and her stepmom was basically making her work like a slave. But she didn't mind. Things however changed when she got invited to her friend's wedding, and begged her stepmom to let her go.

The stepmom finally gave in BUT... obviously with a hidden motive. See she handed her brand new clothes to wear at the wedding, and asked her to carry it very carefully as it was "preciously made for her" or something along those lines, I think, but placed a mouse inside them.

By the time she was ready to wear the dress she found that it had big ass holes in it and a mouse hopped off from it and ran away. She was terrified, and recalled her mom's words. Her friend(s) tried to console her saying that her mom would understand, but she knew there was a very little chance.

Still she went back home with the now-chewed down clothes and lo and behold, as planned, her mom SNAPPED. She was so mad she punished her in ways unimaginable.

So there's this threshing tool called dheki, that's used to separate rice grains from their outer husks, while leaving the bran layer.

You place your feet to the leftmost side and it raises the right side, and the pounding stand on the hole (very key part of the tool for the story) does the threshing work.

I'll give a trigger warning here, because this is about to get dark.

So as a punishment the stepmom asked Tejimola to help her thresh the rice grains. Okay, not bad, you think?

Well while she was in the right sitting with her hand below the stand to deal with the unfiltered rice grains, her stepmom pounds her hand hard, to the point that it bleeds and actually gets fractured. Tejimola shrieks, but her stepmom is like "KEEP WORKING. Use your other hand!" But does the same with the other hand. Now she don't have any functional hands.

"Don't worry. Use your feet!" But does the same to her feet, one after the other.

"Use your head!" And does the same to her head. Atp Tejimola is practically dead, but her stepmom wasn't expecting this. She calls her out but doesn't get an answer. She's terrified, and prepares for her burial. After she's buried, she cleans off any possible evidence that could give away about the murder.

Now this is where Tejimola takes various forms to haunt her stepmom. First she becomes a bottle-gourd plant. One day a beggar asks her stepmom if they can have a bottle-gourd from her tree, to which she gets a little stunned cuz she wasn't aware she had such a tree, but permits the beggar, who, when reaches out to pluck a gourd, Tejimola asks them not to in a musical manner, saying her name and that she was killed by her stepmom. The beggar gets horrified and informs the owner aka our villain immediately. She destroyes it in a heartbeat. But in that same place a citrus tree grows and she takes its form. She does the same to people who try to pluck a fruit from the tree. This is how her stepmom comes to know about the tree and uproots it and throws it into a river.

In the river now, she takes the form of a beautiful lotus. Now this gets interesting, because her dad's returning from his trip and spots the lotus, and hears it achingly sing to him claiming it's Tejimola, his daughter. Her dad gets startled and asks her to prove she really is his daughter by transforming into a mynah/sparrow.

She does so and her dad's heart wrenches. He reaches home and immediately confronts his wife. Then he asks the bird to show up as Tejimola if that's truly her, and she transforms back into her human form, while her stepmom gets kicked out :3

The end

Imma just tag some ppl here:

@dootznbootz @gotstabbedbyapen @0lympian-c0uncil @bloody-arty-myths @natures-marvel @inc0rrectmyths @chimera-tail @sleepdeprivationbutitsvaruna @olympushit @15pantheons @kulfi-waala and anyone who wants to join!

[miedei]

AYUMIE PLS FIND YOU IN OUR DREAMS IS SUCH A MASTERPIECE OMG 🥺 YOUR TALENT IS OVERFLOWING 😩‼️ also can i request h from soulmate alphabet + jake from enha? i think it'd be such a concept + with your top-tier writing... I AM CRAVING SIM JAEYUN CUDDLES AND YOUR TALENTED WRITING, I WILL DO ANYTHING 💳💥

hearts beating together.

gn!reader × jake soulmate!au, fluff, friends to lovers, mentions of itzy's ryujin, itzy’s yuna, stray kid's jeongin, nct’s chenle

word count: 1.7k

aaaah thanks so much for liking it you flatter me too much oml <33 this was such a fun request i hope you like it!!!

send in a letter + an idol/character and i'll write a little about it! my request guidelines are on the link in my bio

warning(s): swearing, mentions of food, petnames used platonically(?)

h...eartbeats (the soulmates share the same heartbeat—when one feels panicked, shocked, tired, etc, the other can feel it too).

your heart confuses you. it races when you relax, slows in the worst of times. a heartbeat bond is strange and uncomfortable at times, but the rush of excitement you feel when your heartbeat changes is incomparable to any other feeling. but of course, it has its downsides.

"...left leg on the ground, right leg bent, stretch out those muscles," of course your soulmate is getting into a stressful situation just as you're trying to relax. you press pause on the yoga video and flop onto your bed. you’re so excited to meet your soulmate, but the way they’ve messed your plans up so many times, you’re looking forward to giving them a good punch too. you focus on the ba-dump, ba-dump of your heart, like it could somehow lead you to the person behind it. huffing out a sigh, you pull out your phone, shooting off a text to your groupchat with your friends

RYUJIN’S HOES

sent: are any of you free? my heart person’s being an asshole so i may as well go out

delivered, jeongin: well shit sucks to be you i’m at work with my SOULMATE

sent: fuck right off

sent: ryujin jake chenle please

delivered, ryujin: i’m omw to practice but you can come?

delivered, ryujin: i know you have swim after just hang out till then

sent: YES THANK YOU BABE this is why i’m only ryujins hoe smh

“get in loser!” ryujin is pulled up in front of your door, watching you scramble to not drop your bags. you run down the driveway, waving goodbye to your parents as you slide into the passenger seat.

“god you’re such a lifesaver, whoever’s attached to my heart has it out for me” she chuckles, completely used to your rants about your soulmate. she hasn’t found hers either, but her soulmate has a much less intensive schedule, so she’s not very bothered by her bond, although, the pink-haired girl next to you is an athlete, so her soulmate is probably just as aggravated as you.

the ride to the school is short, and you find a parking spot quickly, so you’re out on the football field in no time. ryujin’s teammates are already on the grass, adjusting uniforms and stretching. she joins them quickly, changing inside and running out. you take a seat on the benches lining the field, settling in to watch them play. your heart is still pounding, but watching the others play, you don’t notice it as much.

the boy’s team is playing one field over, so you can watch them as well. familiar faces dot that field too, and because they let out before the girls, you get to talk to them while waiting. chenle and jake plop down next to you, teasing you about your obviously heaving chest.

“you all worked up watching the games?” chenle nudges you from his side, the feeling of his sweaty shoulder making you shudder. “as if. my soulmates running a marathon or something, like they like to do every day,” jake twists his face in sympathy, "well you've got practice in a bit right? give them a taste of their own medicine!"

"yeah, you know what? i will! thank you jake, for being a good friend," you speak pointedly, gesturing towards chenle. pushing yourself up off the bench, you walk towards the changing rooms near the pool, yelling out a goodbye to your friends.

changing quickly, your walked out to the pool, greeting your teammates with a smile. time for some payback. tugging on your fins, you dove into the water, relishing the instant comfort it gave. following your coach’s orders, you, along with the rest of the swim team, start swimming laps around the pool. half an hour in, your heart is pumping, and the fact that you were the cause for it makes it so much more sweet. friends have begun to line the sides of the pool, yelling out encouragements and teases. you can easily spot the soulmates of the people swimming with you, their chests heaving, but big smiles on their faces. ryujin, chenle and jake are sat near your lane at the leftmost side of the pool. the three of them, still sweaty and tired from their practice, watch you swim, happy grins on their faces. an hour or so later, you are doing a few mock races, and jeongin has joined them too, his usually teasing visage now smiling with pride. you streak through the water, enjoying the burn in your arms, feeling the exhaustion through your bones in a way that swimming only gives you. you reach for the edge of the pool, and it’s coming closer, closer, until you feel it, slippery on your soaked skin. your friends jump up, yelling out in excitement, filling your heart to the absolute brim.

“alright y/n, good job! you can go change, see you next time,” your coach calls out to you, signalling for you to climb out of the water. your friends swarm you, words of happiness and congratulations surrounding you.

“you did good, fucker,” ryujin ruffles your hair. “now go shower and cool down so you can do that in the actual races,” chest heaving, you flash a huge grin at them, “be right back! i’ll meet you in the parking lot!” they nod their assent, and you begin to walk to the showers, barely catching chenle say something.

“jake, are you really still tired from football? you’ve been panting for ages.”

hours later, you find yourselves in your usual post-practice spot, the local diner near the school. chatting and laughing, you lose track of time around the point when your fries arrive. jeongin regales you all with stories of the crazy customers he dealt with at work, and ryujin gives you the rundown of all the drama that happened in her football practice(seriously, how do they even have time to kick the ball around when so much is going on??). you get that heady feeling of pure happiness, when you’re not thinking or worrying about anything, just paying attention to the amazing people you get to surround yourself with.

you only snap out of that headspace when chenle looks down at his smartwatch(rich boy) and lets out a noise of surprise.

“it’s 19:42! i need to go, fuck,” he begins to clean up his stuff and lays down money for his meal. the rest of you follow suit, appalled at how long you’ve been sitting in this booth. all the money is on the table, and you rise from your seat, ready to go home.

“ryujin, can you drive me home?” you hold the girl's arm, pleading with her so that you won’t have to walk. she opens her mouth, ready to speak, but then she hesitates, a look of mischief crossing her features.

“okay-” you rejoice, pumping a fist in the air, until she goes on: “only if you can beat me to the car. okay 3,2,1 GO!” she starts sprinting, long legs bringing her halfway across the parking lot in no time. you let out a groan of exhaustion, and start pumping your legs to follow her.

by some miracle, you reach the car at virtually the same time, doubling over to hold your knees in your worn-out state. ryujin, in between her attempts at gulping down air, tells you she’ll take you, and you wait for the rest to reach you.

jeongin, chenle and jake walk leisurely up to you, starting to say their farewells. you straighten up, grabbing first chenle, then jeongin into a hug. they yell out some more goodbyes as they walk off to their cars, when you hug jake.

for having just walked here, his heart is racing. why? you focus your hearing on his heartbeat. it’s almost as if he sprinted here. pulling your head away from him, you look up at him, voicing your concerns.

“are you okay? your heart’s beating really fast.” he frowns at you, and presses a hand to his heart. you follow suit, feeling the thump, thump, thump of his chest. it feels familiar. why do you feel so used to this heartbeat? confusion ripples through your mind, until it clears, with a feeling of shock. you know this heartbeat. you know it because it’s your own.

grabbing his other hand, you place it over your heart. his face twists with surprise, and then an emotion you’re not familiar with crosses his features. he pulls you back into a hug, excitement so evident that it’s crossing over to you. jake is your soulmate! which a choked laugh, you pull him impossibly closer to you. he tucks his head next to yours and whispers in your ear.

“it was always you, wasn’t it?”

bonus:

you pull back from the hug, your smile dropping into a serious face. he looks in confusion, as you rear your arm backwards. you push forward, landing a punch in his gut, and he stumbles backward with an ‘oof’

“that was for never letting me rest!”

“YEAH GET HIM!” ryujin yells from her seat in the car. the only thing she’s missing is popcorn, a whole-ass soap opera just happened in front of her.

[bookwyrminspiration]

this is for @i-love-all-books and anyone who is going to/is learning how to drive! The classes will give you a lot of the big tips, but there are some of the little things they gloss over that can still give you anxiety, so I'll share a few of the things I've learned from experience driving in a city with a reputation for bad drivers, so I've seen some shit /srs.

if there's anything I don't cover that you want to know about you're more than welcome to send me an ask or a message about it /g

note: i am not a driving instructor, nor do I claim to be. I have a provisional license and can legally drive without an adult present, something I do on a daily basis. I've been driving consistently for over a year. Those are my qualifications so you can decide whether or not to trust what i say. I can still remember a lot of the things that made me anxious when i first started, so if this helps anyone at all i consider it a success

start driving in an empty parking lot if you can. lots of open space and no cars to hit. you can go as slow as you need to, and don't be embarrassed about going slow. use the space to figure out how to move the car and how it turns, to look in the mirrors and starts leaning how to understand what you see

speaking of mirrors: adjust them a little farther out than you think you need to. you don't need to see the side of your own car in the reflection, you already know where your car is. This helps make your blind spot smaller too, but fiddle around with it (over several drives) until you find a position that you're most comfortable with

always signal when you're going to turn, even if it seems silly. it's better to give those around you more information than they need than not enough. Signal in parking lots, signal when there's no one around, signal even if you're in a turn-only lane.

break sooner and harder than you think you need to. I know i personally was very gentle on the breaks at first, which would lead to a last minute sudden slamming when I would realize i was going a lot faster and a lot closer than i should've been. It's also more comfortable to have gradual stops

you may feel pressured by other people close behind you to go faster. You don't need to speed for anyone else. If they're so impatient they can pass you. Only speed up if you legitimately think they're way too close to be safe.

speaking of space: i like to leave space between me and everyone else on road. I give extra space between me and the person in front of me, about four seconds worth of space (measure this by picking a landmark, start counting when the car in front of you passes it, stop when you pass it. use one-mississippi two-mississippi style or something similar).

more space: you don't need as much space as you think you do when changing lanes. signal before you want to merge over. you should be good without about a car or two's worth of space between you and the cars in the lanes beside you. Also, if you signal before you want to move, they may slow down or speed up to give you space to do so.

it's better to stay in your lane and just keep going than trying to pass others for speed. it just makes it more stressful, especially when you're new to the road.

the single thing that gave me the most control over the vehicle was driving down really long slightly winding roads, the ones usually on the outskirts of a city or in the mountains if you happen to live in the foothills like I do. this teaches you how to make really small adjustments to make the car turn--you won't need to turn the wheel as much as you'd expect.

how do you decide whether to go through the light if it turns yellow while you're approaching? it's less about what you decide and more that you stick to whatever impulse decision you make. if you decide to go through, go through. Don't change your mind, even if you think you should've stopped. if you decide to stop, hit the breaks, don't wait. (also, if i'm nervous the light in front of me will turn yellow, i keep track mentally what decision I would make where i am. For example, as I'm approaching i'll tell myself, "i'd stop here, I'd stop here," until i got close enough to say "if it changes I'd go through." That way, the decision is already made for me and i just have to follow through.)

figure out what makes you comfortable. i personally only like to turn on the turn lane closest to the curbs. For example, if there are two left turn lanes, i like to take the leftmost which is next to the median. this way, i can see where i'm heading on the other side of the intersection: the lane next to that median.

if you're at the front of the intersection, wait 2 seconds after a light turns green before you go. use this time to look to either side and make sure it's really safe for you to move forward. it's during those few seconds that someone would run a red light if they were going to

assume no one else on the road can see you and that no one is going to signal anything they're going to do. i don't drive with any part of my car beside any part of a car next to me if I can help it. I don't assume they're going to check their blind spots and see me, so i like to leave space for people to just move around me. be prepared for anyone to move anywhere and do anything. Watch the cars themselves, not just the blinkers. At least where I live, people will cross three lanes of traffick at once without signalling, so stay aware.

in regards to four way intersections, I don't think anyone knows who has the legal right of way. look at people's faces in the cars, they'll usually wave you forward if they're waiting for you to go, or you can wave others forward. Everyone just wants to get through there.

if you're going to be taking a specific route frequently, say driving yourself to school like I do, look for landmarks around when you need to make changes. for example, i have to take the interstate to get to school, and I need to merge two lanes over when i take my exit, and there are two bridges before that. so when i see a bridge, I merge. you can use this for turns, lane changes, whatever you need. just something to remind yourself what to do.

this one's not exactly a tip, but if you do more extreme driving more frequently, the simple things will become easier. Driving on the freeway consistently makes city driving seem tame and easier for me, so instead of being daunting its now a relief because it's not as intense

this has been most important for my anxiety: people assume everyone on the road is an experienced driver. It takes five years to be considered experienced. if you get honked at, if you make a mistake and are worried people are judging you, they're honking with the assumption that you have years of experience that you don't. it helps me to know they don't have all the information about me, so while I may have fucked up, their anger or annoyance is misplaced because they think i have experience I dont

fucking up is inevitable. you're going to make a mistake, and the best thing you can do is figure out what you did wrong and how to fix it so it doesn't happen again. driving is a learned skill, it's impossible to never mess it up and to always know what to do. i had to take a new route just last week and nearly missed my exit on the freeway, which made me panic and merge lanes when I didn't have enough space to really do it safely, so the person I merged in front of honked at me. they were completely justified. everything turned out fine, but there were things I could've done to prevent that that I remembered going forward. they're not going to remember it. you were just a brief inconvenience during their drive. they'll forget about you and go on with their lives.

these are some of the main things that help me with those little anxieties, but if there's something you're specifically nervous about that I didn't mention, you are entirely welcome to ask me about it and I'll do my best to answer you!!. I know driving instructors can seem intimidating and that they mostly cover the big things, so if I seem more approachable, i do have some experience driving and would love to answer the questions you're nervous to ask or that you think are stupid /g

[slightlyrebelliouswriter23]

To Dance With Danger | Jurdan Whump Fic

Anon asked: “Can you write something about how Jude gets hurt somewhere and the Court of Shadows and Cardan go looking for her”

Summary: “The only thing he knew was the weight on his chest, two boulders sinking into the concavity of his lungs. How furious he was with Jude, and how much that didn’t matter. That her favourite flower was the blue bellflower, and its petals were falling from the throne.” Please forgive me.

Rating: T

CW: Mild cursing. Minor mentions of abuse (~) and vomit (*); Paragraphs containing these sensitivities have been marked with the allocated warnings. Major descriptions of pain and delusions.

Part I    |    Part III    |    AO3    |    Masterlist

Part II- Follow You Down To the Red Oak Tree

She’d never considered herself stupid. 

Foolish, maybe once or twice. But Jude Duarte-Greenbriar was never an idiot outright. So it came as a great shock to her when she found herself bleeding out in a cave in the middle of the Milkwood.

Wouldn’t this be a hilarious way to go? All her life, Jude had been worried about time peeling her right out of her own mortal skin. Yet here she was, dying from a paltry cut.

That last thought, she knew was stupid. This was more than a paltry cut. It throbbed like a second heartbeat and burned like her knee was a plate of scrambled eggs someone was pushing around with a fork.

A small pool of spilled blood darkened the ground near her ankles. Sometimes, her vision narrowed, blurred.

Perhaps this was one last way for the stars to taunt her. Give her everything she ever wanted and more than she could possibly hope for; a grand feast befitting of a Queen, spread out just for her; then rip her away from herself like the tablecloth in one of those mortal magic tricks.

Jude was not afraid. 

When you’d lived your whole life knowing the promise of death was the single certainty of your existence, you tended to come to terms with it. So Jude did not fear dying. Only the horrible, yawning oblivion that came after.

☽☽☽☽☽

It was a quarter past one, and Cardan’s feet were flying. Out his chamber doors, down the spiral stairs, right to the little wooden door opposite the library, which he promptly began pounding on.

There was a groan within, some shuffling. Then, “It’s the middle of the day, for Mab’s sake,” a groggy voice came muffled from behind the door. “What could possibly be so—oh.”

The Bomb, all messy-haired, eyes squinting at the brightness of the hall, let the door creak open a fraction before realising who exactly had summoned her from sleep. She opened the door in full.

“Cardan—erm, I mean… Your Majesty,” she said, brows furrowing. “To what do we owe the pleasure?”

“Pleasure?” Another even-more-groggy voice came from inside the room. “I’ve got a mallet hammering at my brain thanks to him. Bloody pusher. You can tell His Majesty to kindly sod off.” The Roach held a pillow over his gnarled green head and a rude finger up in the direction of the door.

“Van,” the Bomb tutted over her shoulder. She pulled her dressing gown tight around her and faced the High King again. Only then did she seem to register the look on his face.

“Liliver,” Cardan said, frantic. His mind was all static, hollow—so very full of nothing. Words felt like they came through a tangle of tree sap and brambles in his throat. “It’s Jude.”

That’s all it took. 

The Court of Shadows was moving, the guard summoned. Even the Roach managed to scrape himself together. The Ghost slipped into their ranks just as they were passing through the throne room, and informed the High King he’d done a sweep of the palace, just to be sure.

“And?” Cardan demanded, pivoting on his heel to face the sharpshooter.

“She’s not here,” the Ghost said.

Cardan’s mouth set into a grim line. He gave a curt nod, but his stare lingered on the dais. Where the pair of thrones sat, a latticework of woven roots and blossoms. They seemed to be holding their breath, too.

From the back of the leftmost royal seat, a deep blue flower petal shivered. Then it was falling in listless swoops and dives, whispering across the seat of the chair.

Hurry.

“Get a carriage,” Cardan said, just loud enough to be heard. The room was silent as a snowbank. “Go.”

There was a beat. Then, the din of metal and rushing of boots and they were all moving again.

The High King and his men took to the forests, guarded with crossbows and swords that might as well be spoons for how much they would protect against the glimpses.

Cardan didn’t know why his wife had decided to catch a glimpse. He had even less of a clue as to why she thought she had to do it alone.

The only thing he knew was the weight on his chest, two boulders sinking into the concavity of his lungs. How furious he was with Jude, and how much that didn’t matter. That her favourite flower was the blue bellflower, and its petals were falling from the throne.

☽☽☽☽☽

Night was encroaching. This, Jude only knew because the game she’d invented—finding pictures in the cracks and shadows of the cave wall to beat back the tide of sleep—was becoming more and more difficult.

She shivered. She wasn’t sure how long she’d been lying there, but the fever had set in.

Jude couldn’t even remember the last time she’d had a fever. It must’ve been when she was six or seven. When she was still living in the mortal world, and her mother was still alive to take care of her and getting fevers was the most of her worries.

Eva had climbed into her bed with two washcloths and snuggled up real close. 

She’d sat there for hours, pressing the warm compress to Jude’s forehead when she was too cold and the cold compress to her forehead when she was too warm. Telling her stories of magical places. Feeding her saltines and seltzer.

Jude had wholly forgotten how it felt to have a fever. It was as if she was being filled to the brim with hot wax and dunked in a bucket of ice water at the same time.

She’d only recently rediscovered how it felt to be comforted. She wondered if she’d ever feel that again.

Maybe, Jude thought, she could imagine herself some comfort. She was so very good at lying, after all. Maybe she could lie to herself. Just for a little while. 

She stared up at the ceiling, listening to the woeful sighs of the glimpses ebb and flow from outside the cave.

She imagined lying next to Cardan in their bed in the Royal Chambers. With nowhere to be and nothing to do, Cardan would cocoon them both in satin sheets, trace lazy shapes around her bare shoulders with the tips of his fingers. Pepper her back with nips and kisses. 

He would agree to be the big spoon for once since she was the one in need of comforting.

“Jude,” he would say softly, caressing her cheek, brushing the hair away from her eyes, “You are perhaps the single most important thing in my life.”

She’d turn her head to nuzzle the crook of his neck. “And you, mine, my love,” she’d say. He smelled like fallen leaves. And burnt toast.

Jude crinkled her nose. Odd. He didn’t usually smell like burnt toast. Had they just had breakfast? She couldn’t remember….

“I don’t understand.” Cardan’s voice was dipped in worry, and he paused the soothing circles of his fingers.

“Cardan,” Jude said, rolling her eyes, “We’ve been over this. I want to be here. I want to be with you. I love you.” 

Sometimes her husband just needed a little reminding. Sometimes she preferred to give him that reminder in other, much more wicked ways. Perhaps today she would give him both.

A sinful smile curled the corners of Jude’s lips. She turned around in Cardan’s arms to face him fully and was about to seal the morning off with a kiss, followed by further disreputable behaviour, when she noticed the look on his face.

It was the same one he wore when he’d looked at her from the riverbank after pushing her in a lifetime ago. The same one that had graced his face when she’d first placed that crown atop his head.

Now, in the bed they shared, Cardan looked at her with nothing but cold ire. “How could you do it?” he whispered, and Jude’s brow furrowed.

“What do you mean?” She didn’t know why, but something slick like tar settled in the pit of her stomach. She wanted him to smooth the crease between her brows. To kiss her forehead and call her his darling god.

But Cardan’s face remained a glacial effigy of the man she’d come to love. With nothing but disdain, he looked down his nose at her and asked, “How could you kill him? How could you murder my brother?”

*Jude sat up straight and vomited all over the cave floor. Then, she was pulled out to sea by a riptide of sleep.

☽☽☽☽☽

The High Queen of Elfhame was spinning. Round and round, a circle of fever dreams.

It was like sitting on a merry-go-round and looking in towards the centre where all those mirrors usually hang. Watching whirling versions of things and lights and yourself pass you by in the reflective panels moving in the opposite direction. 

One terrible vision after the next.

Locke’s water-logged body, blue-green and covered in seaweed, standing at the mouth of the cave. Valerian, dirt pouring from between his teeth as he smiled, walling up the entrance with stones, then filling the cave with blood. Balekin ensorceling her to kiss him, then turning into a giant moth right as her lips touched his. Cardan’s head on a pike with upturned eyes, jaw dropped as if mid-warning. A voice in her head.

Heeding requests, even my own, is the singular skill which evades her grand arsenal.

No key fits every lock.

I do not want Balekin dead.

How could you do it? How could you murder my brother?

Perhaps this is what she deserved. Perhaps she was a monster who couldn’t control herself long enough to keep from hurting those she loved, no better than Madoc. Perhaps Valerian’s curse was coming to fruition, after all.

If Jude could have laughed, she would have. But she could not. Dark waves lapped at the shores of her consciousness; and who was she to ignore the sea?

☽☽☽☽☽

Eventually, there was another voice in her head.

Shit, it said. Yes, she really was in very deep shit.

I FOUND HER, it bellowed, splintering her thoughts. She wondered if she should tell the voice to shut up. Though, it probably already knew that’s what she wanted, since it was in her head, and had probably heard her think it.

It was getting crowded in here. Her head was a swollen, throbbing balloon.

Fucking shit, the voice repeated.

Well, she thought, that was quite rude. No way to address a lady, such as herself. Whoever she was.

Something prodded her leg. 

A sudden, violent wave of pain swept over her.  It rose and rose and rose, but never fell. Darkness pulled her to its depths again.

☽☽☽☽☽

Can you hear me?

Stay awake. Stay. Awake.

*The voice was urgent. And constant. And very annoying. It felt like a cheese grater running down her mind. Her throat burned. Maybe the voice had run a cheese grater over that, too. Her hand slid into something wet. It smelled like sick.

Then, there was a cold compress on her forehead.

“Mom?” she croaked, her voice like cracked plaster. She lifted the heavy weight of her eyelids.

A figure was looming over her. It was too dark to see who, but her heart thrashed against her chest, all the same. This was another terrible dream. She was not sure she could take another one of those. Then again, she was in no position to fend it off if it decided to come. She was in no position to do anything, really.

“Not mom, Your Majesty,” the figure sighed, removing the compress. “You’re burning up.” 

Not a compress. Hands.

“Whose Majesty?” she asked through the haze in her mind. Everything was so confusing. Everything was also spinning.

She heard rummaging. Next thing she knew, a match had been struck, and the room filled with warm light. The figure looking down at her was indeed a woman, though it was indeed not her mother.

She had familiar plumes of white hair circling her head like smoke. Full, wine-red lips pressed into a weak smile. “Hello, Jude,” the woman said.

Yes, that must be who she was. She opened her mouth to thank the beautiful woman for the reminder, but all Jude could seem to do was squint. She knew this woman from somewhere.

“I’m going to pick you up now, okay?”

Jude could not muster the wherewithal to reply. Strong hands gripped her shoulders, slid gingerly under her knees. Then, the world tilted, shifted, until she was right up against something warm and solid.

Jude looked up at the woman. “You’re ethereal,” she murmured, staring up at the soft planes of her face. Blush blossomed a stain of pink across the woman’s cheeks. “Are you god?”

The woman snorted, then. Jude didn’t understand what was so funny. It seemed a perfectly reasonable question to ask. Since she was dying, and all.

“That’s quite enough of that, Your Majesty,” the woman said. “Let’s get you home.”

Home, Jude mused. She’d thought she was home, but maybe… she was wrong? Wherever home was, it sounded nice. She should like to go there someday.

☽☽☽☽☽

She was deep inside a cave. She could see nothing, but echoes of conversation pinged off the walls.

Delirious. Didn’t know who I was.

Reckon it’s the fever?

The infection perhaps?

Could be, but you need to keep her awake.

Can I hold her? Please?

The moon was a Cheshire cat smile above her. It grinned, then shattered into one hundred panes of opaline glass—a dragonfly’s wing, splitting her knee wide open.

☽☽☽☽☽

When Jude woke again, she knew she was home. 

She was being jostled around a bit, and her leg felt like someone had set it on fire, but she didn’t mind. She was wrapped in something soft. The sound of hooves on packed earth thundered in her ears.

Her name was being called.

“Jude,” someone said, over and over, a litany. A curse. “Jude, my love, you mustn’t fall asleep. You must stay awake. Can you do that for me, Jude? Please, stay with me.”

She opened her eyes. Blinked slow. The disembodied voice belonged to someone. That someone cradled her in his lap, holding her face between his hands. Everything was blurry, but she’d know those hands anywhere.

“Jude?” he whispered.

She summoned the tattered bits of her strength, lifting her hand to cover one of his. It was shaking.

“I know you,” Jude said, willing her eyes to focus. A keening sound tore from him.

Him. She knew his name. What was it? Her mind was so muddled by exhaustion and the riot of pain in her left leg, she could not remember. She was so angry at herself for not remembering.

Jude frowned. Huffed. Tried to refocus her eyes. It was the most important name, more important even than her own. She was a terrible person for forgetting it. She was pretty sure she was a terrible person anyway, but forgetting his name made her even worse.

She lifted a hand to his cheek. Her frown deepened. “Why is your face wet?”

“Because I’m very worried for my wife,” he said, in a strained sort of voice.

“You have a wife?” Envy billowed, a parachute in her chest. Which was ridiculous. She couldn’t even see this man. How could she possibly know if she was jealous?

He breathed a laugh. “Yes,” he told her, stroking her hair gently. “She is a headstrong, ornery fool who holds a vendetta against my poor nerves.”

Everything was quite difficult at the moment. All Jude could think was how beautiful this man’s voice sounded and how very badly she wanted to go back to sleep.

“Hmm.” She closed her eyes again. “She sounds awful.”

“No,” he said. “She is not.”

☽☽☽☽☽

*Watching his wife being carried off like a rag doll into the Royal Chambers, blood-spattered and covered in her own sick, Cardan Greenbriar had never felt so small.

~He felt smaller now than when Dain had tricked him, and he’d been kicked out of the palace for a murder he did not commit. Smaller now than all the times Balekin had removed his belt. Smaller now than when he was a kid crawling beneath the dining table, scrounging for scraps of food and attention.

The Bomb had explicitly forbidden Cardan from accompanying them further than the ante-chamber.

“If I’m going to heal her,” she’d said to him firmly, pausing outside the bedroom doors, “I’m going to need the utmost focus. Which will certainly not be achieved by you being in there, all blubbering and sentimental. So unless you know anything about mortal biology…”

Cardan had never in his life wished to be mortal; but suddenly, the desire to be one was visceral. He’d never wanted to lie more than he did in that moment. He tried to will the words past his lips, but they snagged in his throat. 

He was unable as ever.

So he’d been kicked out of his own bedroom. Away from his own wife. Who may or may not be dying.

The matter was still inconclusive. Cardan read it on the faces of the cycle of people poking their heads out in intervals to check on him or bring him tea. Sometimes, it was the Roach. Sometimes, the Ghost. Only once was it the Bomb, who had been hard at work for endless hours, and needed a break. 

Her face was just as dour as the rest.

“I know how you’re feeling,” she muttered, sliding down the wall to sit next to him on the floor just outside the bedroom doors. “If you need to talk—”

“What I need, Liliver, is for you to heal her,” Cardan snapped. 

He regretted the words as soon as he’d said them. She was only trying to comfort him. She, too, had once been forced to watch as her beloved toed the line between life and death. Right now, though, the High King did not have the strength to feel sorry for anyone but himself.

The Bomb only nodded. Once, short and curt. She left him to his misery after that. Cardan supposed he’d probably have a lot of apologising to do to a lot of people by the end of this.

A while later, and rather belatedly, he realised he could very well just barge in there and demand to stay. Magical oath or not, he was still High King. They would still listen to him. 

But maybe the Bomb had a point. Maybe it would only make him more anxious, to be in there; he did not want to impede on Jude’s progress. Maybe nothing was the most he could do.

All his life, he’d spent doing most every childish thing. He’d tugged on the tails of cats, threw tantrums when he didn’t get his way, threatened people when they offended him. 

Now, Cardan sat there on the floor with his head in his hands, doing absolutely nothing, and felt more like a child than ever.

☽☽☽☽☽

Jude was a dragonfly hovering over water, dipping in and out of sleep. She was flying and then sinking and then flying again.

It went like this for a while. 

She’d fall asleep in one place and drift to the surface of consciousness in another. Sometimes she felt no pain. Sometimes she felt a great deal of pain all at once. The latter would usually send her careening back into nothingness.

On occasion, she’d awaken just long enough to recognise the faces floating in and out of her vision. The Roach, with his scythe of a nose. The Ghost, with his sandy hair and silent demeanour. The Bomb, who Jude had a strange, vague feeling was blushing every time she looked at her. She even recognised a nurse or two.

Always, there were people. There was one face, however, that she did not see.

“Bomb,” Jude rasped, and the faerie’s eyes met hers. “If I die, would you tell him I hated him? Tell him, that’s why I did it.”

“What do you mean?” The Bomb asked. But Jude was already drifting again.

☽☽☽☽☽

Next Part

Last Part

Masterlist

AN: I am…so sorry. I’ll be the first to say, I am the absolute worst for telling you guys this was going to be a two-shot and then leaving this on such a cliffhanger and making you wait for a third part. Don’t hate me? The good news is, I have a lot of the last part written. The bad news is, the last part is what has been keeping me from updating-- writing it feels more and more like giving birth with each passing day.

So if you enjoyed this part, and would like to give me some writerly encouragement in the form of a comment/reblog/keyboard smash/message/ask, any and all of the above would basically be like giving me a dose of that sweet, sweet epidural and I would be forever grateful :’)

If you’d like to be updated on the next part of this Three-Shot (to come very soon), let me know and I’ll add you to the tag list! Back to the woods now. -em 🖤💫

Title Inspo: Follow You Down to the Red Oak Tree by James Vincent McMorrow

Tag List: @velarhysismine​ @the-mithridatism-of-jude-duarte​ @knifewifejude​ @clockworkgraystairs​ @jurdanhell​ @judexcardanxgreenbriar​ @hizqueen4life​ @nite0wl29​ @mysweetvilllain​ @thesirenwashere​

[violet975]

Random thoughts.

So i replayed BOTW a while ago for the first time and decided to write down some of the random thoughts that i get while exploring Hyrule, here they are.

… A lot of these things gave me some fanfic ideas and I hope that they will do the same for someone more competent.

It's realty in character that the response to being asked why you took the man's torch is either to bludgeon things to death with it or to be a pyromaniac.

When the tower pedestal shines, Link instinctively leans back for a second before diving right back in because curiosity kills the cat.

The message from the slate/tower is to watch out for falling rocks which either means that 

1: zelda is writing them (and has a fair bit of free reign still).

2: the ancient Sheikah could see the future.

3: Ai to the likes of Fi.

Ganon kinda reawakens when the towers are up so maybe he was resting and building a body until he was interrupted here, which could be why his form later is such a hodgepodge of the Blights?.

Link is not too naive since he kinda clamps up in his answers to the totally unimportant old man.

Did Link briefly make eye-contact with the camera when he got the spirit orb!?

Link is a bit freaked out in his "How did you know!?" Response cas now he knows something major is up when the old man directly mentions the spirit orb.

Again, in character that you can choose to be an impatient brat with the "paraglider please?" Or inquisitive when Roam points out the slate.

Either run out of temper with the "that wasn't the deal!" Or be resigned with "so I need more now?" When the old fart sends you off to the other three shrines.

Ohh, another adrenaline junkie option with the "got it!" Over climbing the tower for a good view or a Deadpan "are you joking?".

"Or so i heard quite some time ago.. I do not know if it actually works as such" so they did not get teleporting to work before? or he just didn't learn how it was done.

So the monks, according to how the Triforce signs they held, apparently associate Power with Magnesis, Wisdom with bombs, Stability with stasis and Courage with cryonis?

The monks dissipate into green specks like Ganon’s soul does under the castle!

I'm not into men but damn if Link doesn't look good in the Warm Doublet.

Oh. My. God, he was King Rhoam Bosphoramus Hyrule!!!!!

Link is such a dumbass, you get to ask Kass "are you a ...bird?" As if the man isn't standing right in front of you. No shit Sherlock! What next, is that a recorder?.

OhhohoHO! You either say "no(, i have not heard of them)" or "Ancient songs?" As if you do not initially realize why they are thought to be ancient which either is old memories warring with the now world or Link not realizing what impact The Calamity had on culture.

Another flat-faced sarcastic remark everyone!

When Manny mentions that his job is checking for beauties/sus people you can either be a dumb dunce and ask about the said beauties or a little menace with "sounds though".

Manny is an Incel, talks a big game and puts himself on top of a pedestal alongside being demanding and a creep.

Does Hateno not have a goddess shrine? Just the ~Evil~ one?

There is a pair of rusty knights sword and shield by the leftmost part of the walkway of Fort Hateno. Some knight probably died laying there, watching out over the field of guardians having been/being purged by Zelda.

A traveler (Chelessa) is interested in history and wants to question Impa about it, and is on her way to do so in fact. . Describes her personality as very pleasant, that must be wrong.

The Yiga know exactly how Links first waking moments played out so either they have extensive knowledge about his character and the setup of the Shrine Of Resurrection or Ganon was watching in on Zelda's call and relayed it to a minion in the clan.

"Hero boy" - derogatory.

Arrow in the eye of the bridge at the entrance of Kakariko, the Yiga are petty and I love it.

Piano's (the painter) hair bun thing that is styled like a pencil has paint on the tip... this man painted with his hair.

So the great fairy Cotera makes it sound like she will enchant your gear because you rejuvenated her, not because you bring the materials to do the enchanting.

The levels of enchantment seemingly depends on physical closeness to the Fairy (blow< indirect kiss< kiss < sex)

She can not enchant beyond Lv 1 without her sister's help, so they share power?

Paya specifies that they have watched over the Orb since the grandmother of the grandmother of Impa, that's 9 whole generations of long lived Sheikah! roughly 1000 years of recorded history!

Again with Link being a dense Shonen protagonist with "where is it?" Or a sly bastard with "really, though?"... maybe so that she would want to prove it ;) 

…”I'll answer you some day, just not today!”

Either Paya is just not ready for that or she is so nervous that she did not think about the fact that her own grandmother was in the room when she said it!

“Served the royal family in secret” so it's not common knowledge that the royals have a village of Magic ninjas!? No wonder it took a damn demon to topple it instead of rebellion or infighting... probably has been like this since the old old king banished 'em.

"The royal family was destroyed, and the members of our tribe scattered."- okay so it was probably some Sheikah that either thought the royal family was completely extinct and either fled or, according to this next bit- "Sadly, there were some who swore allegiance to Ganon at that time. They joined together as the Yiga Clan, seeking out all who opposed Ganon... cutting them down, one after another." 

So from that we get to know that not all Sheikah deserters became enemies (unless the Sheikah dislike defectors enough to hunt them down) and others who either joined an existing opposing group or simply up and created the Yiga clan that then aligned itself with Ganon... probably under either the belief that Hylia's line was extinct and that it was join or die or because they wished to spite the goddess and her followers.

I actually like this way more because it makes no sense that the Yiga could survive before the Calamity when the Royals would have an entire damn country and anbu black-ops to hunt them down with.

"Master link, now that you are awake, you are surely the most formidable opponent standing against them!" Either hero worship or the Sheikah are freshly out on capable warriors with Ninja magic tricks, probably the latter which would explain why the world isn't infested with Lynels or why hynoxes haven't just trampled every settlement.

"No doubt they will come for you, employing whatever underhanded methods they can device" 

oh come on! Do not tell me that i'm stuck with the goodie two shoe ninja clan!? Underhandedness is your bread and butter! No wonder you served the royals in secret because you and them by proxy would have been a laughingstock otherwise!!!

"The great fairy Cotera... few remain who know that this village was built under her watchful eye." So the village is fairy new and the Yiga came about before Kakariko or it is old and so well protected that they can't get in... at least not easily.

"The mysterious power of Cotera is that of sacred protection..." so the Great fairies are linked to either Hylia or the gods, good to know.

So it’s not that Cotera “-would be happy to help” but, instead “i can't think of any reason why she wouldn't be happy to help you”. so either she only directly helps men or the earlier "you can put your trust in the great fairy" means that she judges more favorably for the chosen hero.

"I heard that the weather is going to be beautifully tomorrow... to bad you won't be alive to enjoy it"

So they have weather accurate~ich prediction? through magic or old time methods?

Again: Hero boy - derogatory... It's a common nickname for Link within the Yiga.

The lush green shrine could tell that a buck was on it, so the platforms are most definitely scanners.

A travelers sword by a campfire at the foot of mount Lanayru, so someone either took a swim and died to the Lizardfo, dramatically quit or got killed in their sleep.

Love the effect when you have metal weapons on the ground and swing a ThunderBlade!

You automatically reflect the Octorock's rocks, goes faster if you do it manually.

There is a hollowed out part of a hill/mountain with a lot of fic potential to the North-West of the Sword by the campfire.

Located where the lines meet if you draw a line to the right from Rabia plain and up from Trotter's Downfall.

Koko of Kakariko has been deceived by my cunning and slight-of-hand. 

Yes, Sagessa (woman by the lake of the Dueling peaks stable), there is, in fact, something "quite romantic" in Link's "endeavor" to save Zelda, thank you for noticing!

The chests inside the shrines can only (non-violently) be opened by use of the Sheikah slate so why not steal a few? prefect safe-keeping for more stuff to keep in Links house.

Dunce moment everyone! 

The Yiga traveler tries to seduce Link and you either go with "OK..." so he either has no damn idea about what is going on or is just not good with women? 

Orrrrr you go with a straight "I refuse!" cas you see through their ruse and want to rub their face in the dirt!

According to Mina the Hylian, taking out two Bokoblins is considered as great martial caliber which both she and her traveling companion could not do while decently armed.

Best way to deal with a guardian scout when you have weak weapons: hit with electricity, switch weapon, hit 2-5 times, switch to electric, repeat.

When you first enter the area around Hyrule Castle, smoke Ganon throws a fit until Zelda slaps him away. 

This either means that Zelda canonically gets a larger workload from there on and out or that the both of them push harder against each other every time you get close.

According to Zelda's diary, Link was assigned as her guard after the champions had been appointed.

How Link was focused on her yet did not voice his thoughts apparently "makes my imagination run wild!". Either romantic or dense.

Link admits to staying quiet because of the pressure of being the boy chosen by the sword. 

King Rhoam mentions that he decided to honor THE royal family's traditions by naming his daughter Zelda, and that he is "not a man accustomed to frivolous musings". 

Basically confirming that he is not the parent of royal blood.

They probably knew about The Calamity for a good while cas the page after zelda's naming speaks of the fortune teller, probs 3-8 years since Zelda was described to already have vast interest in the relics.

Pikango gets up at 10 past 5, I spent the night watching him and Beetle sleep.

According to all known laws of aerodynamics, Rito should not be able to fly, is Revali's gale then just an absurdly strong variation of some kind of sky Arcanum that all Rito possess? Do all the races possess one as Well?

Slimes ate the Bokoblins in the tree base at the center of the west Hyrule fields.

Savelle is a helpful guy without a pension for violence.

Munk Shae Loya is just flexing on all the other Munks, those old farts need to sit down while he's been squatting on one leg the last 10'000 years.

Chork of the Tabantha Bridge Stable is drunk.

Toren is either naive or a simp for the Faireys.

If you have the Hylian hood equipped with no weapon while riding at max speed then your cape will flap.

"Sweet boy..." "...I see now that my first impression of you was correct. You most definitely are pleasant to look at." 

So link has some kind of presence/soul-thingy that appears pleasant to mystical creatures? Might be the spirit of the hero or this link in particular.

The Fairy Kaysar makes Link blush! No player input needed! We’ve found one of his types!... either that or he's just shy.

The fairies almost never use normal materials to enchant, it's always either monster parts that don't dissipate or things that grow in magical arias.

The Sheikah towers are sturdy as all hell, the Tabantha tower did not even get a scratch from a giant fucking pillar falling on it.

Okay, am I just crazy or is a Lizardfo and a Moblin holding a class for 5 bokoblins just to the left of the Tabanta fairy fountain!?

Lester, the wise curry rice guy at Rito Stable, describes Link as sunny boy, another point to the soul/aura theory thingy.

Phontos laughs to hide the pain.

According to the story that Kass sings. 

Calamity Ganon was the result of sealing the enemy at its source.

It fought not only the spawn of the Goddess and the bearer of the Spirit Of The Hero but also the army of Guardians and the Champions that piloted the Divine Beasts for quite some time, as implied in the "and the guardians protected them throughout every hour".

So what i get from this is that the attack 10 000 years ago was the first sighting of what we know as calamity Ganon. 

It was also far stronger than the one that attacked 100 years ago which implies that that one was either a rush job or that Ganon bounds had been tightened, both of which would drive him to seek out other methods like corrupting the Guardians.

...And the Guardians are apparently powered by the ancient blue energy which was, time-line wise, first shown when the Golden Goddesses created the world.

No wonder that Ganon was capable of doing this since he most likely is running on fumes, spite and the power of the Triforce which likely is made of/channels said energy.

According to the rumor mill, you need the blood of the Hero in your veins to wield the Master Sword, if this is accurate then that means that Fi is sentimental or that Link has magic blood.

Wildberrys are fucking massive.

Genli (the salmon child) is a cunt, one kid was crying about someone Vah Medoh killed and then Genli is all like "no don't stop it, if you do then i have to go to class again!", She would fit right in with today's youth.

Monk Akh Va'quot has the best position so far, he is just done with your shit.

"You adventurers are Crazy" -> "you're right"

You get nothing if you melt all the ice by the Tabantha tower! You lose! Good day sir!

Monk Daka Tuss got bored during his self-inflicted quarantine and started stacking his arm bands.

Tula (the bathing Zora) said "wow either you are a Hylian or hideously deformed"

Phura has vandalized and mounted one of the spirit frog statues above her door.

Okay but the fucking noice that comes out of Bolson when you buy everything!! It's as if you just walked up and twisted his nuts with the power fit to shield block a Lynel’s charge.

Is the flower by Link's bed a Korok version of a Silent Princess?

The monsters of Hyrule are show to have interest in consumption based on three accounts. 

1: the Bocoblins and the Moblins by Hateno bay steal cattle. 

2: Hynoxes carry around warriors foodstuffs. 

3: Moblins (or at least the ones by the camp near the Serenne stable/forgotten temple) have a resting animation where they dig through the dirt and stuff something down their goblet.

...not to mention that nearly every camp has a bit of meat roasting by the fire.

Koyin has joined the fan-club!

God, the Naydra snowfield is fucking loaded in chill-shromes!

Stasis is perfect for looking for ingredients in forests, just open it, look around and bam! No more hidey hoe.

Why no shiny text for hylia's statue!?

I really do not like that they changed Naydra's colors when the malice was removed, they were so cool and then bam! White! White is not the color for ice and cold!

When praying by the spring of wisdom you are facing Hyrule castle, the same with courage and power if my memory serves me right.

...The master Torch

The Katona Aug shrine is just fucking mini-golf, how is that meant to prepare the hero?! Imagine how that Monk goes to the afterlife and has to look his fellows straight in the eye and admit that he was so lazy that not only did he make the hero play golf, not only was he so lazy that he made the Hero play mini-golf, but that he was so lazy that he did not even make a course! It is literally just a straight line!

Robie wants to see Links scars to verify that he is who he says that he is, Robie was likely one of the ninja that took Link to the shrine of resurrection.

Oh and Robin has two interesting sketches in his lab, the first is a detailed graph of a Sheikah tower so those were likely known about long before Link activated one (the one closest to Robin would be the one covered in malice and guardians so he could not have gotten enough detail from that one).

And the other is a sketch of what I believe is either a tier 2 or tier 3 guardian scout. Now, how can Robin know how that looks if only Link can/could enter shrines?

The Sheikah shrine that has the Barbarian helm is located at the end of the Sinai maze, did they just plop the shrine down there and steal the treasure of the ruin to later present to the hero?

There is one usable room in the citadel.

There is no compendium slot for the malice eyes that litter Naydra, Hyrule Castle and the Divine Beasts.

You can change the element of already elemental slime, not just the neutral kind.

Those head-spitting fuckers inside the divine beasts! They are partially reanimating mobs! So it's not that the Blood Moon is the time where Ganon is at his strongest, it's just where he chooses to revive everything.

The edge of duality can also be found in the shrine at the top of the dueling peaks.

[beetlebrownleaf]

#FFxivWrite - Prompt #24 - Beam

[Entry Masterpost]

A small adventure with Am’ii and Farleau, ~1280 words. I kind of ran away with this one, oddly enough.

Farleau and Am’ii, still being adventurers and retainers as much as they were servants, were on a long excursion. Beetle had decided as of late to send them off together, if they so chose, so as to combine their efforts, and to allow them each better protection from danger. Today their journey took them to the Yafaem saltmoors to investigate an sighted increase of unknown activity - something only mildly hazardous, and therefore Beetle saw fit to send them in her stead.

“To think, the mistress slayed voidsent here,” Am’ii commented, stepping carefully through the jungle leading to the moor.

“Big, giant, terrifying voidsent,” Farleau replied, “The kinds the Mhachi used to guard their treasures. Tch. The sheer insanity of powering a city with living things - with demons, no less.”

“Well, one must remember,” Am’ii said, hopping over a rotted tree, “The voidsent used to be people. Remember what the mistress said?”

Farleau narrowly avoided a tree branch, catching up to her.

“Still,” he said, “Demons.”

Am’ii shook her head, giving a small laugh.

[-]

The city was impressive, even crumbling - the duo could not help but take it all in.

“…To think… this was once a thriving cvilization,” Am’ii said, looking around as they continued.

“Powered by demons,” Farleau muttered again. Am’ii shot him a look, rolling her eyes.

“Wait,” she suddenly said, pulling out her spyglass.

She hunkered down, and he joined her, staying quiet.

“Ah - I think I found our ‘unknown activity’,” Am’ii said, handing him the spyglass, “Down there, right ahead.”

He looked through, and, sure enough - three figures down in the plaza, headed towards the pyramid. 

“Bah, they look to be treasure hunters,” he said, “Perhaps we should just leave them be– oh no, wait…”

He looked to another in the middle - a Lalafellin woman?

“My gods, did you see the Lalafell lass?” he said. 

“Mm? No, she must have been covered by the other three,” she replied, “Why, what is it?”

“She’s got her hands tied behind her back!”

Am’ii unsheathed her staff, rising.

“Ah, then there’s something else about here,” she said, “We’d better do something.”

[-]

They came in behind them quietly, hoping to catch them before they could reach the pyramid.

Unfortunately, Am’ii stumbled, her ankle failing her over the crumbling steps, and she could not help but cry out.

The trio suddenly turned to her.

“Oi!” a rough-looking Roegadyn shouted, “Who goes there?”

She quickly composed herself, giving a nonchalant head tilt.

“Oh, well, you know,” she said, dusting herself off, “Old cities are just so romantic, don’t you think? I thought I’d take a little stroll with my darling here.”

The brigands drew their weapons, prompting Farleau to step forward.

“Now now,” he said, in a calm, but authoritative voice, “How about we avoid the violence and you just let the little lass go?”

“Never!” said the very well-dressed Hyuran mage of the trio, “Do you know how this woman is? She is the descendant of the 2nd cousin of Shatotto! She is the closest living thing we have of the blood of the great black mage!”

“…And perhaps you would be willing to tell me what that means?” Farleau said, his tone growing rather sarcastic.

The mage gave an impatient stomp.

“Fool! It means she is the perfect subject through which we may resurrect Shatotto! As my thrall, of course. Through her I shall be master of all man and beast kind - the very thing she could have been, had she not possessed a pesky sense of ‘morality’.”

Am’ii and Farleau shared an incredulous glance.

“I am afraid we cannot allow you to do that,” Am’ii said, “Now, we can do this the easy way, where you come with us to the authorities, or, we can do this the hard way.”

The other Roegadyn to the leftmost smirked.

“Oh? And what’s the hard way, sweetheart?”

Am’ii gave a wide grin.

“The way that ends with the three of you reduced to naught but ash,” she said, sweetly, “By all means, we can go the hard way. I haven’t had a good workout in a while.”

Farleau interjected.

“Give us the lady,” he said, “Now.”

The mage laughed.

“Not on your life! Boys, take out this rubbish,” he said, grabbing the young woman and dragging her away. She squirmed in her restraints, her protests muffled beneath her gag. 

“Silence!” the mage said, kicking her in the side, causing her to double over onto the ground in pain.

Farleau’s face twisted with anger.

“Ohh just for that - I’m gonna kill you just for that!” Farleau growled, brandishing his staff, “Taste my levin, you piece of shite!”

He cast a debilitating thunder spell, which manifested as a beam of jagged light, seemingly from the heavens. The man screamed in pain, slumping over dead instantly.

Everyone froze, and even Farleau surprised himself with the power of his spell. His staff fizzled with smoke at the top. The other brigands brandished their guns, and Am’ii quickly raised a shield up before them. They fired their weapons, but thankfully only one bullet penetrated the shield, and missed, at that.

The fight was over very quickly, Am’ii and Farleau dispatching the brigands with ease. Farleau ran to the Lalafellin woman’s side.

“My lady,” he spoke, softly, “Are you alright?”

She moaned, and he went to work on her gag - carefully, of course - and used his pocket knife to cut her wrists free.

“Oh,” the lady breathed, “Thank you. Yes, I’m alright. Or I will be.”

He smiled warmly.

“Do you think you can walk on your own?”

She rose carefully, wincing, but standing just fine.

“Yes, I think so,” she said, “My ribs are probably bruised, but I think I’ll be alright.”

“Where does it hurt?” Am’ii asked, her voice her usual gentle, maternal tone, “If you don’t mind, I can help with the pain. Until you get someone to look at you, of course.”

“Oh, umm,” she said, glancing at Farleau. He politely turned away as to avert his gaze.

“Here,” he heard her say.

“That doesn’t look too bad. I might be able to heal it completely. You should still go see a chirurgeon after this, of course, but, let us see what we can do.”

He could see from his periphery the healing light of Am’ii’s conjury, and heard the lady sigh.

“Oh, thank you, that’s much better,” she said.

“Good,” Am’ii replied, “Let us be off, then.”

[-]

“Well, that was quite enough adventure for one day, mm?” Am’ii said, stretching as she undressed, “Ugh. My clothes smell like salt and fire.”

She gave a small laugh, stepping into the tub with Farleau.

“The lady seemed rather disappointed to find you taken,” she said, “You were her knight in shining armor, after all.”

“Oh, nonsense, it was both of us,” he said, arranging himself to give her more room.

“Ah, yes, but I’m not the one who completely annihilated her captor in one single spell,” she said, “My goodness. I’ve never seen you cast that powerfully. You must have been quite angry.”

Farleau grew rather somber and quiet, and Am’ii allowed him the space to think. 

He thought of his mother, being interrogated by Garlean soldiers. He thought of how he had stood up to them at the tender age of ten, only to be met with a slap across the face, and a sound kick in the ribs.

Silence, savage. 

“I simply will not tolerate such indignity,” he said.

[mikauzoran]

Lukadrien Drabbles: Nachtmusik Chapter Four

A Little Night Music (Eine Kleine Nachtmusik) Chapter Four: The more things stay the same...

“My father would kill me if I got a tattoo,” Adrien sighed, twirling a pen between his fingers as he leaned in to get a better look at the simple reference doodles Luka had drawn.

“You’d have to get it somewhere no one would see,” Luka hummed, going over the runes beneath the leftmost raven to thicken the lines.

Adrien scoffed. “Luka, I’m a model. My body is public property. There is no ‘somewhere no one would see’.”

Luka looked up and frowned. “Your body is yours…and whoever you decide to share it with’s…not public property.”

Adrien set the pen down on the counter and put his hands up in surrender. “Aren’t you getting discouraged yet?” he wondered.

“How so?” Luka went back to the doodle of the ravens.

“Trying to teach me self-worth,” Adrien explained. “Isn’t it frustrating having to repeat the same things over and over?”

“Not particularly.” Luka shrugged. “I mean, you’re only the way you are now because some people—who shall remain unnamed yet obvious—have been telling you you’re worthless and undesirable for years. Realistically, I figure it’s going to take me a solid two or three years of constant fussing and lavishing of praise and affection to get you back up somewhere close to normal. Why would I be frustrated after only four months?”

Adrien didn’t reply.

Luka looked up, an eyebrow quirking.

Adrien stared. “Are you serious?”

Luka’s brow pulled together into a frown. “It…probably is going to take longer than two or three years, honestly…but I’ve got time.” Luka’s eyes flicked back down to the doodles on the back of the flyer announcing a Greek music festival that weekend.

Adrien continued to stare, wondering what he had done in a former life to deserve this man’s friendship and devotion.

“…You could get a tattoo on your stomach,” Luka broke the silence after a minute or two had passed without words.

Adrien rubbed his stomach just above his bellybutton. “I pose shirtless or with my shirt unbuttoned sometimes. I think they’d see it.”

Luka snickered, looking up to surreptitiously wink. “I was thinking…lower, Angel.”

Adrien frowned, looked down, and then burst into laughter. “Geez. What kind of tattoo would I get on my pelvis?”

Luka shrugged, self-satisfaction still clinging to his lips. “What kind of tattoo would you get anywhere else?”

Adrien bit his lip. “Haven’t really thought about it.”

“How about a snake?” Luka offered.

Adrien smiled incredulously. “On my lower abdomen? Isn’t that kind of…I don’t know…suggestive?”

“I think the only people who would see it would be in a suggestive mood anyway,” Luka reasoned.

Adrien covered his face with his hands, shoulders trembling with laughter as he shook his head. “I think I’m too pure to be having this conversation.”

Luka rolled his eyes. “Please. Says the guy who has made suggestive jokes at my expense on numerous occasions.”

Adrien removed his hands from his eyes to playfully slap at Luka’s arm. He glanced furtively towards the stairwell to the upper deck. “What if your mom or sisters walk in?”

Luka snorted unconcernedly. “Juleka would gang up on whomever she most felt like seeing blush at that moment, Rose would go into hysterics over how we’re supposedly a couple now, and Maman would tell me to make sure my box of condoms isn’t expired and remind me how long it’s been since I last had need of them.”

“My father would…I don’t even know,” Adrien sighed. “Have a heart attack? He wouldn’t be supportive of me having a physical relationship with anyone like your mom is.”

“I kind of wish she was less supportive,” Luka grumbled. “She thinks it’s strange that I don’t have any interest in sleeping with people until I feel a really strong connection with them. She thinks I should experiment more.”

“I wonder why, if you’re happy the way you are,” Adrien hummed.

Luka shook his head, going back to tracing the runes on the doodle. “She comes from an era of free love, so it’s weird for her that I would only want one partner in a long-term, committed relationship…. Like…even though she was with our father for a long time, I’m not actually certain that Juleka and I have the same biological father. We look pretty different, and…Maman and my father’s eyes are both blue…but Juleka’s are brown. Genetically, that’s…”

Adrien drew in a slow, deep breath.

“…Part of me feels like they shouldn’t teach kids about genetics and Punnett squares until they’re old enough to deal with the reality that they’re adopted or their siblings aren’t full-blooded siblings,” Luka snorted. “…But we were talking about tattoos.”

Adrien nodded. “You should get the snake tattoo on your pelvis. You could pull it off.”

Luka grinned at the flattery. “You think?”

“It fits your image.”

“Because I was seriously considering it,” Luka informed.

“Were you really?” Adrien leaned in closer, picking up his pen once more and twirling it between his fingers. “What kind of snake? A cobra like Sass?”

Luka shook his head. “Something more stylized, more Zen, less threatening. Maybe a sleeping snake coiled up. Maybe a Chinese calligraphy-style snake.”

Adrien nodded in encouragement. “That would be kind of cool. I’d like to see that!”

Luka blushed. “I’m giving you the opportunity to remember the placement of the tattoo and adjust your enthusiasm.”

Adrien grimaced. “Pretend I made some kind of flirty, teasing comment to save face that made you feel slightly flattered but also a little uncomfortable.”

Luka gave him a thumbs up. “I actually think it would be cool to get an entire Chinese zodiac…plus a cat.”

Adrien’s face lit up. “Like Fruits Basket!”

Luka’s eye twitched as Adrien completely missed the implication. “Uh…what’s that?”

Adrien’s brow scrunched into an unimpressed frown. “You’ve never heard of Fruits Basket? It’s an anime…and a manga, but you have to see it. It’s one of the classics!” Adrien insisted adamantly. “I’ll have to show you. Marinette and I have been getting together for take away Chinese food and anime on Saturdays the past few months. We’re almost done with the anime we’re watching now, and, after that, we’re going to have to have you over to show you Furuba.”

Luka tried not to let the conflicting emotions show on his face. “That sounds like a lot of fun, but I don’t think Marinette would appreciate me intruding.”

Adrien rolled his eyes. “Marinette wouldn’t mind. She loves having you around. It would be fun, all three of us together.”

“Yeah,” Luka sighed, imagining an alternate reality where both Marinette and Adrien were ecstatic to have him around for all of the reasons he wanted them to be. “But it sounds like anime and Chinese is your thing—just the two of you. You would feel kind of off if Marinette started coming to our jam sessions or family meals, wouldn’t you?”

Adrien shifted awkwardly on the kitchen stool, his nose crinkling. “…That’s different.”

“Maybe it’s not to her,” Luka suggested kindly. “I’ll tell you what, you and I can watch that anime together, just the two of us. How does that sound?”

Adrien’s smile came back, and he nodded. “Deal…. So…tattoos?”

Luka grinned, motioning down at the doodles. “I don’t want a sleeve or anything too big or noticeable. Just some little decorative tattoos here and there that can be hidden easily.”

Adrien switched hands so that he was twirling the pen in his right, freeing up his left hand to point. “I love the concept of Odin’s ravens on your shoulder blades…and a snake around your wrist under your usual bracelet is too funny.”

“I’m also thinking about getting a little pawprint on my finger where I usually wear my ring,” Luka announced tentatively, awaiting Adrien’s reaction.

“A pawprint?” Adrien’s head slowly tipped to the side. “Why a pawprint?”

Luka fought not to show his chagrin. “You know,” he replied conversationally. “like Chat Noir.”

Adrien’s eyes widened, and his face took on an amazed gleam. “Really?”

“Of course,” Luka replied smoothly, inwardly steeling himself. “I am his biggest fan after all…both in and out of the mask.”

Adrien let out one of those dazzling, marble machine laughs, hitting a jerky collection of pitches that somehow managed to sound just perfect to Luka.

“You’d have to fight off hordes of fangirls for that title,” Adrien cautioned.

Luka shrugged. “I’d take them…and I would win.”

“You’re wasted on Chat Noir and whoever he is behind that mask,” Adrien replied in awe, a wide grin spreading from one corner of his mouth to the other. “He could never appreciate you the way you deserve. He’s too full of himself.”

Luka shook his head. “I’ve met Chat Noir. He may come off as a flirty goofball in public, but in private he’s sweet and considerate.”

“Wow,” Adrien chuckled. “If you like him so much, you should marry him. I’m sure you two would make adorable kittens together.”

Luka’s entire face went burgundy as he burst out laughing. “Oh my God,” he gasped, burying his face in his hands.

“As for me, Viperion is much better,” Adrien continued, smirking in triumph as Luka continued to laugh convulsively in a mix of misery, disbelief, and genuine amusement.

“Seriously,” Adrien pretended to pout. “He’s all mysterious and suave and sexy. I’d like to see him in a suit…. Though…Chat Noir is pretty hot. I mean, his butt…”

“Perfection,” Luka snickered.

“Exactly,” Adrien emphatically agreed. “…Do you think Viperion would think I was a slut if I wanted to have occasional threesomes with you and Chat Noir?”

Luka looked up from where his head rested on the countertop. He wiped a tear from his eye and wondered, “How did this become a thing?”

“What?” Adrien hummed, satisfied with his work. “The whole pretending to be gay for Chat Noir and Viperion thing? Remember when Rose got us to play Kill, Screw, Marry last month, and I said I would kill Chat Noir, screw Ladybug, and marry Viperion? And then you said you would kill Ladybug, screw Chat Noir, and marry me? And then Juleka made a joke about foursomes. And then I observed that it seemed like the best of friends always made jokes about sleeping with one another? Like Marinette and Alya and Nino and me, so…it seemed like a logical leap to start doing that with you?” Adrien frowned as a thought occurred to him. “…But is it weird because you’re bi? I know a lot of friends joke about being gay for one another, but…is this insulting? If so, I’m really sorry,” he backpedaled hard. “I’m still kind of new to this whole ‘acceptable casual social etiquette’ thing. Tell me if I cross a line. Please. I don’t want to screw this up.”

Luka straightened and shook his head. “You’re okay. I don’t mind your flirting and teasing. I know you’re a flirty person to start with and that it’s not just me. I don’t have any delusions about that. I mean, I’ve seen you and Nino. You and Nino need to get a room and work out some of the sexual tension between you two sometime. Put the poor man out of his misery, Angel.”

Adrien rolled his eyes. “I think Alya is doing a fine job. She doesn’t need my help…but we’re okay?” He eyed Luka anxiously.

Luka nodded. “I know you’re just joking. No offence taken.”

“Good,” Adrien sighed in relief. “…So…tattoos?”

The side of Luka’s mouth rose in a fond smile. “I think I’m going to get the pawprint tattoo on my finger. Do you think this looks accurate?” He indicated the doodle below Munin the raven.

Adrien frowned, pulling the paper in closer.

“I mean, I’m always distracted when I’m around Chat Noir, so I haven’t paid very close attention to what the pawprint on the ring looks like,” Luka explained.

“Distracted?” Adrien hummed, peeking up mischievously. “By his butt?”

Luka had mostly meant the akuma, but…

Luka bumped Adrien’s shoulder and replied a little too genuinely, too tenderly, “By his eyes. I’m a sucker for his eyes.”

Adrien’s heart jumped. “…Mine are prettier.”

“Jealous, Angel?” Luka snickered.

“Confused,” Adrien thought.

Confused because he kind of wanted Luka to be serious. Sometimes, Luka would say something painfully sweet, and Adrien’s heart would ache for Luka’s words to be true. And that was extremely confusing because Adrien wasn’t interested in guys. At least…he had never been interested in guys before. It had only ever been Ladybug, but…sometimes Luka confused him.

“Super jealous,” Adrien snorted.

“Don’t be. He’s not interested in me, so I’m all yours, Angel,” Luka chuckled at his own expense.

“Don’t you forget it,” Adrien clicked his tongue, switching the ink pen to his left hand to draw. “The pawprint is more like this.”

Luka nodded, impressed by the likeness. “…How is it that you have such an intimate knowledge of Chat Noir’s ring?”

Adrien looked up and answered with a straight face, “Oh? Didn’t I tell you? I’m sleeping with him.”

“Oh?” Luka snickered. “Be a friend and get me his number, would you?”

“I don’t think I want to share,” Adrien pouted.

“Share which one of us?” Luka arched an eyebrow.

Adrien smirked, twirling the ink pen playfully. “Either.”

Luka rolled his eyes. “In all seriousness—”

The pen went flying from Adrien’s hand, landing over by the wraparound couch.

“Oops.” Adrien smiled sheepishly. He hopped down from the stool into a feline crouch, scooped up the pen, and slowly rolled up, his posterior leading.

Luka’s brain blew a fuse. He knew he shouldn’t, but he couldn’t help watching. It had happened so fast, and now he couldn’t keep from staring. He was already a little riled up from all the suggestive flirting, and now…ngeh. His mind was in the gutter.

Did Adrien know what he was doing? He couldn’t. He couldn’t have any idea. Even if he did, he wouldn’t. Adrien may have been a flirt, but he wasn’t a tease. He would never.

Adrien turned back around, and Luka scrambled to put a lid on all thoughts of Adrien’s butt and Adrien naked and sinking his teeth into the flesh of Adrien’s hip until he left a mark and Adrien’s laugh and Adrien’s eyes and how bad he wanted this guy. Because Adrien had no idea, and it was an abuse of Adrien’s trust to be sitting there staring and having those kinds of thoughts when Adrien was under the belief that their flirting was only all in good fun.

“Sorry. What were you saying?” Adrien smiled innocently as he sat back down on the stool next to Luka.

Luka shifted uncomfortably, mentally cursing his preference for wearing skinny jeans that were too tight to begin with.

Belatedly, he realized that Adrien had asked him a question. “Um… Was I talking?”

Adrien nodded, waiting expectantly.

Luka gulped, trying to discretely regulate his breathing. “Uh…I forget.”

Adrien shrugged, not suspecting. “Well, just let me know if you remember.”

“S-Sure,” Luka replied thickly, shrugging off his overshirt because suddenly the main cabin was sweltering.

And then Adrien took hold of his hand.

The touch felt like a hot iron on Luka’s unexpectedly hypersensitive skin.

“May I?” Adrien inquired, motioning to take Luka’s ring off.

Luka nodded, not trusting his voice.

With the retrieved ink pen, Adrien carefully traced the pawprint onto Luka’s flesh, blowing on it to help it dry before slipping the ring back over it.

Internally, Luka was panting. The contact, the way Adrien bit his bottom lip in concentration, the way he puckered his lips to blow the ink dry…simultaneously too much and yet not enough. He almost whimpered when Adrien withdrew his hands.

“Done,” Adrien announced proudly.

Luka pulled the ring back off carefully to inspect Adrien’s work and immediately came to a decision: he was going that very evening to get that pawprint permanently tattooed onto his skin before the ink had a chance to smudge or wash off.

“I love it,” Luka breathed. “It’s perfect.”

“Glad to hear it,” Adrien chuckled, obviously pleased with himself.

Luka caught Adrien’s right hand. “Would you be comfortable with moving your ring to a different finger for a second?”

Adrien nodded, slipping his ring off and sliding it onto the ring finger of his left hand.

Luka picked up his own pen and made two little dots on the finger, reminiscent of puncture wounds. “Done,” he announced.

Adrien frowned, inspecting his “tattoo”. “Bite mark?” he questioned.

“Snake bite.” Luka winked.

Adrien tittered in amusement. “Oh no! Aren’t viper bites lethal? You’d better suck the venom out before I die!”

“Drama queen,” Luka snorted even as he grinned.

“Seriously!” Adrien insisted, hamming it up as he held out his hand. “Quick! I’m already feeling woozy!”

Luka took Adrien’s hand and delicately brought it to his lips for a feather-light kiss.

Adrien’s heartbeat tripped. His stomach fluttered. His breath caught.

Luka looked up, his eyes meeting Adrien’s as the most perfect blush skated over Adrien’s cheeks, highlighting the dazed look in Adrien’s eyes as his pupils widened.

Luka’s breath hitched.

At the same moment, a thought occurred to both boys:

“Shoot. I’m in serious trouble.”

[projectomerta]

Kindred Souls - Chapter 13: Closure

Next week’s chapter will be the last one.

Fandom: Assassin’s Creed

Words: 1953

Wá:ri was walking to Rhodes' manor with a hand on her belly and the other one around Shay’s shoulder. 

They could both see the house at the end of the road. While it meant nothing to Shay, that house flooded Wá:ri’s head with memories from her childhood. The first day she arrived, the day she was told about the Assassin Brotherhood the Rhodes were supposed to carry on with, all of the training and playing she did with her siblings… Everything was just numbing her more and more. 

What Shay was looking at was different however. 

“Has the bleeding stopped, lass?” 

Wá:ri didn’t look at him nor did she check her hand for blood. “No, it’s still going.” 

“We should stop and-”

“Don’t you dare stop me here!” 

Shay knew she was going to be against it, but he had to try. They continued to walk forward, to the final destination of their little adventure. Now that he thought about it, Shay realized that him and Wá:ri hadn’t known each other for a full week. He felt like he had known her for a lifetime and despite everything, he was glad to have met her. 

The manor loomed over them as they approached the front door. It had always been big but it seemed twice as big that night. 

“Shay, let go,” Wá:ri asked.

Shay slowly let go of Wá:ri and she knocked on the front door. The door was already open. Shay immediately pulled out his cutlass and one of his flintlocks, but Wá:ri walked in first, with no weapons in hand.

There wasn’t a single light in the house, apart from the moon’s. It felt eerie and sinister, and the air felt heavy. It was silent, but there was one door open. In front of them, in the leftmost part of the entrance room, there was an area where they could freely go in, as it had no door - the living room. 

It looked like an invitation, like a trap, even. But Wá:ri took her first step towards the living room, but she was stopped by Shay. When she looked back, Shay was trying to give her his flintlock. Wá:ri looked him in the eyes. Shay pursed his lips and nodded, and she took the weapon for herself, since he had another one. 

Wá:ri and Shay approached the moonlit living room, with each step weighing more than the first. Wá:ri was struggling with her wound and Shay was struggling with himself. He wanted nothing more than to grab Wá:ri and take her out of there, but he couldn’t. She had gone too far now, and he knew far too well what that felt like. 

Shay walked ahead of Wá:ri, as they entered the living room, pointing his flintlock forward, straight at the end of the table.

“It is quite rude of you to point a gun at your host’s head, Templar.” 

Wá:ri hadn’t even had time to see who or what was in the room when she heard her father speak. He was sitting down, with his usual confidence. His hair was styled backwards and had retained most of its color even in his old age. Addams Rhodes was just as imposing as always and the moonlight only enhanced that trait of his. 

Wá:ri couldn’t control herself the moment she saw Addams - the confusion, the betrayal, the pain, the despair - everything she had hated for those last few days had been because of that man - her father. 

“Why?!” She yelled, “Why did you try to kill me?!” 

Addams eyed his daughter for a brief moment, before speaking. “You would have never understood me, Miriam. Your mother raised you to be a ‘good person’ , and she succeeded.” 

“What kind of complaint is that,” Shay interjected.

Addams ignored the Templar like he wasn’t even there. Like he wasn’t holding a gun to his head and that bothered Shay, something was off, but he let Addams continue with his spiel.

“I did love you at first, Miriam… But as you got older I saw you grow more and more different from the rest of us,” Addams paused, “You had no interest in money - in the family business!” He got suddenly more aggressive, “You had no ambition! That’s why I could never bring myself to love you anymore…” 

The silence filled the room as Wá:ri's chin started dwindling until it eventually just fell, leaving the woman with her mouth wide open in surprise. In front of her, the man who raised her for almost two decades, the only man she had ever called "father" in her life,  had just admitted that he couldn’t love her. However, the biggest shock of all weren’t his words, but his eyes. Those dark round beads, shared by all of the Rhodes, were shedding tears like Wá:ri had never seen before. 

“Father, I-” 

Wá:ri stopped speaking as she felt something. 

“Shay, Robbie is pointing a gun at me,” Wá:ri said with a high pitched voice.

Shay clicked his tongue and dropped his weapons without looking back. 

Addams wiped his tears with his sleeve. “Kick your weapons away,” he ordered Shay, “Miriam, drop your flintlock as well.” 

With another click of his tongue, the Templar obeyed, fearing for Wá:ri’s life. I knew something was off... 

“You’ll pay if you hurt her, Assassin!” 

As Shay threatened Addams, Robbie made his sister walk to the other side of the room, next to their father. 

“She has a stab wound in her gut, be careful!” 

“Shut up, Templar!” Addams yelled.

“Oh, so you know I’m here,” joked Shay, “I’m glad you’ve noticed my presence. Now, don’t you dare hurt her!” 

Wá:ri had never seen Shay that angry. She could tell he really was worried about her, not only from his words, but also his tone, and his body language - he hadn’t moved a single centimeter ever since she had been threatened. Though he was angry, he also knew better than to scare her brother into shooting her. 

Addams stood up and forcefully grabbed Wá:ri by the chin, making her face him. 

“You were meant for so much more…” He whispered, “Would it have been so hard to just dedicate yourself to our cause? To give me what I need?” 

Wá:ri looked at her father, heartbroken, but with a newfound determination. 

“Is the value of your children based on what they give you?” She asked.

Addams looked at Wá:ri like she was mentally ill. Like she had a problem and was saying something completely out of line, or at least that’s what it felt like. 

Meanwhile Shay was trying to approach, but Robbie was keeping an eye on him the whole time, while he held his pistol to his sister’s head. He looked serious and wore a focused expression. Shay was somewhat impressed - is this really the kid I fought earlier? 

Wá:ri contorced her face in disgust, “You’re sick, Addams…” She spit right on his face, “You never deserved to have any of us. And because of you… They’re all dead.” 

“LIES!” Addams yelled at the top of his lungs, “It is all YOUR fault, Miriam! You could have just let yourself be a normal person and do everything for the sake of the family! You could have lived a happy life like your siblings did before you killed them, you murderer!"

Wá:ri snapped, “Yes, I’m a murderer! But who the fuck do you think made me into one?!” She paused, waiting for a reaction, “Huh?! Who do you think pushed me to kill my FUCKING SIBLINGS?!” 

Addams let his left hand fall from his daughter’s face and slapped her with his right hand, making her fall to the floor.

It was then that Shay first saw an opportunity to act and he did so, instantly. With a swift movement, the Templar reached for the flintlock Wá:ri had dropped, got up and aimed it right at Robbie, cocking the gun and firing it as soon as he could. 

The bullet hit the boy’s neck, making him let go of his own gun and falling to the floor in screeches of pain.

Wá:ri got up as soon as she heard the gunshot and, with no hesitation whatsoever, tried stabbing father in the heart, but the pain from her wound slowed her down. Addams saw what his daughter was about to do and he grabbed her before she could do anything, pointing a hidden blade at her throat. 

Wá:ri groaned in pain.

“Well, well. Let us not be hasty, now…” Addams smiled at Shay.

“You sick bastard!” Shay yelled.

Addams laughed at Shay, “You helped a girl kill her siblings! How am I the sick one?!” 

Shay was beyond himself with anger. He couldn’t believe that man solemnly believed that what he was saying was correct. He was looking right at Addams’ forehead, trying to find a target, when something called for his attention - Wá:ri’s eyes. Her eyes were calling to him, it felt like. Those dark eyes had entranced him the moment he first saw them, but what he saw in them now was nothing short of confidence. Shay could tell Wá:ri was about to do something and he was weary. He didn’t know what she was going to do or if it was a good idea but he had no choice but to trust her.

Wá:ri’s chest raised significantly as she took a deep breath, and she tried to ignore the pain in her gut as she did so. She was looking Shay in the eyes… He gave her courage, inspired, she even felt love for the first time, so it was especially hard looking at him then… Goodbye Shay. With that final morbid thought, she closed her eyes in order to focus. 

Robbie’s screeches were gone from her head. So were Shay’s eyes and her father’s blade at her neck. Finally she let go of the pain in her gut, and took another breath.

“Come on, try your luck, Tem-”

Addams’ petty insult was interrupted by a powerful elbow to the stomach, which made him gasp for air. With that, Wá:ri quickly grabbed her father’s hand with all of her strength. The man tried slashing her throat, but it was to no avail. Before he could stab her with his other blade, Wá:ri quickly spun around the man, placing his right arm in a lock and grabbing his left one with an equally strong grip.

Shay pointed his flintlock at Addams. “As you can see, I don’t need to try anything. The lass can make her own luck...”  

Addams tried to click his tongue, but he couldn’t as he was gritting his teeth too hard from the pain. 

Wá:ri took a fleeting second to remember everything that man had put her through, good and bad.  A few days ago she had struggled to decide what she was even feeling about that man, but now not only did she know what to feel about him, but also what to do with those feelings - she felt disgust and anger, but also sorrow that a man that gave her such a good life was such scum… What she needed to do, well… She needed to kill him, and so… She took her hand off of his, and with a swift movement she slashed his throat, letting him groan and screech to death. 

As soon as she killed her father, everything felt cold. She felt weak and the last thing she heard before falling to the ground was Shay calling for her. 

“Lass!”

[aswithasunbeam]

October 1809

“Morning Geli!” James called, mounting the steps of the Grange. His sister was sitting on the front porch in the autumn sunshine with an easel set before her. “Have you missed me?”

She gave him a distant look as he leaned in to give her a kiss on the cheek.

“What are you painting?”

Her gaze fell back on the easel. He glanced at it, too, taking in the blurry shapes that didn’t seem to form any understandable image. She didn’t offer any explanation, not that he’d expected her to when she was so clearly in the grips of one of her distant, closed off moods.

“Love you,” he said, patting her arm affectionately before letting himself into the house.

His father’s bust stared back at him from across the foyer. He hung his hat on the stand and looked to his left to find the door to his father’s study partly ajar. Phil was in there with him, babbling on about something from the sound of it.

“And then Mr. Harris told me to add them together, but I told him no, because you showed me how to do it already, and you’re the best at math in the whole country,” Phil said from his seat on Papa’s lap.

Papa laughed. “Well, flattering as that may be, Son, I think you ought to hear your tutor out. It’s possible he was teaching you a different way to come to the same answer.”

“I don’t want to do it a different way. I want to do it the right way.”

“And my way is the right way?”

“Yes,” Phil said earnestly.

Papa laughed again and kissed Phil’s forehead. “And don’t you forget it.”

James knocked on the door and poked his head inside. “Hi Papa.”

Papa’s expression turned grave the moment he saw him. “Phil, why don’t you go find Billy? Tell him I said it was all right to go down to the river. You can take your new fishing pole along.”

“All right, Papa,” Phil agreed, sliding off his lap. As he moved towards James, he whispered, “You’re in big trouble.”

“Phil,” Papa said, voice holding a warning.

The boy scurried out of the room.

“Close the door, James,” Papa directed.

A sense of foreboding swept over him as he shut himself into his father’s office. He’d been away in Waterford for the past several months, tending to the property his mother had finally been awarded from Grandpa Schuyler’s estate and setting up his first legal practice. He was at a loss as to what had happened in his absence to cause his father’s apparent displeasure.

Papa was looking at him over the top of his spectacles, as though taking measure of him. When Papa finally spoke, it was with an air of forced casualness. “Did you have a safe ride down?”

“Yes,” he answered. He fought not to fidget as he stood straight, pinned by his father’s gaze.

“Any news you’d like to share with me?”

His mind went utterly blank. On the way home, he’d been bursting with subjects to discuss with his father: politics, legal issues, needed business advice. They all evaporated at the expression of grave disappointment on his father’s face. “No?”

“Nothing at all?”

He shook his head and shifted his weight to his other foot.

“Hm.” Papa reached down into his desk and pulled out a broadsheet. “That’s odd, because I read the most curious thing in the newspaper from Saratoga county recently.”

“You read the newspaper from Saratoga county?”

“Not usually. Mr. Ten Broeck sent it to me for my attention to this particular item.” He tapped his finger over the leftmost column.

James approached slowly, squinting down at the small print where his father had gestured. John Cramer’s name stood out in the blur of words, and his stomach dropped down into his shoes. “Oh.”

“Oh, indeed,” Papa said. “What on earth were you thinking?”

“I….” He hesitated. “It wasn’t…I didn’t mean to… I wasn’t even there when it started.” He could see Papa’s jaw tensing as he stumbled through his explanation.

The thing was, he hadn’t even wanted to make the stupid speech in the first place. When the Federalist’s had invited him to speak, he’d known immediately it wasn’t him they wanted to hear from, but his father. The older he grew, and the more of politics he’d come to understand, the more he could feel his views departing from his father’s, but he could hardly speak his mind in front of a room of his father’s loyal supporters. And so, he hadn’t. The result had been an admittedly rather bland speech, toeing the party line and praising his father in as many ways as he could think of.

The trouble had started after he’d left. A meeting of Democrats had followed the Federal gathering, and a man by the name of John Cramer had immediately jumped up to report everything James had said. His commentary hadn’t exactly been flattering. A good deal of insult had been leveled against his father, adding to the insult.

Captain Ten Broeck had stood after Cramer was done and challenged him to a duel in James’s name. The good Captain had insisted that if James refused to hold the man accountable for his words, he would fight Cramer himself. “He won’t do it,” Cramer had sneered in reply.1

“Captain Ten Broeck was the one who challenged him in my name, but I felt duty bound to send a written challenge after he reported what happened. Cramer insulted me, and you. What was I supposed to do?”

Papa’s face paled as James explained. “Not that. Not a duel.”

“He refused anyway. That newspaper report is regarding his cowardly refusal to face me. We never came close to actually fighting.”

“Have you learned nothing from the heartache of the past years?” Papa’s voice rose uncharacteristically, his nostrils flaring in anger.

James shifted back a step, startled. “I’m sorry.”

“I can’t go through that again, Jamie. I can’t. If I lost you, like that, in such a foolhardy, pointless exercise….” Papa’s hands slipped under his glasses, his fingers pressing at his eyes. “It would kill me, Jamie.”

In retrospect, he had seen that his behavior had followed the same course as Pip’s and Papa’s. Only dumb luck had prevented his meeting the same fate. Indignation had burned through him at Cramer’s insult, but the exchange had certainly not been worth his life. Pip and Papa’s sacrifices ought to have served as better examples to him.

“I’m sorry,” he repeated, more softly. “It was foolish. I know that.”

“I can’t understand why you were there in the first place. You should be focused on establishing your practice, not making politic speeches. Keep yourself out of politics altogether, at least until your settled.”

“It’s not that simple,” James argued. “Even going to court nowadays feels like a political exercise. Do you know, when Martin Van Buren won in Judge Van Ness’s court, the Judge asked Williams how he could have let that ‘little Democrat’ beat him? And Williams replied, ‘Oh, Judge, I relied upon you to supply my deficiencies.’ Making the right political connections feels like the only way I’m ever going to win a case in court.”2

“These are particularly divisive times, but the way to combat such corruption in our judicial system is surely not to engage in it. And spilling each other’s blood is hardly going to help either.”

“Easy for you to say. You have clients lining up down the street for your legal services. When you lose to Democratic judges, no one doubts your skill as an attorney. I’m only just starting. I need to prove myself.”

“You need to stay alive,” Papa snapped. “There are other careers you can undertake. You only get one life.”

James swallowed.

Papa’s voice turned pleading as he said, “Promise me you won’t ever do that again.”

“I promise,” he vowed.

As he considered what else to say, a knock came on the office door. Little Eliza’s face peeped in through the crack she’d opened. “Papa? People are here.”

“Is it Mama?” Papa asked, frowning lightly.

“No.” She leaned back out and squinted at the glass panes beside the front door. “I think’s Mr. Morris and some other people.”

“Oh,” Papa said, seizing the wheels of his chair and maneuvering out from behind the desk. “Thank you, sweetheart. I’ll let them in.”

He stopped in front of James before he passed and gestured for him to lean down. “Come here.”

James obeyed, letting his father wrap him in a loose hug.

“I love you,” Papa said.

“I love you, too,” James replied.

With that, Papa rolled out to answer the door.

“Big news, Ham, big news,” Gouverneur Morris announced, almost before the front door was even open.

James looked down the stairs as his father’s friend barreled through the foyer towards the parlor. An elderly gentleman was slowly making his way up towards the house as well, leaning heavily on a cane and the young lady accompanying him.

“Richard Morris,” his father supplied for him before heading towards the parlor. James felt his eyes widen at the name – Richard Morris had been the Chief Justice of the New York Supreme Court for over a decade before his retirement. “He’s visiting Morrisania. Show him into the parlor when he makes it in, will you?”

“Yes, Papa,” he agreed.

Geli apparently had gone inside while he’d been in Papa’s office, he noted absently, her easel and paints abandoned in place.

As he watched their company’s progress from the top of the steps, he found his eyes resting far more on the young lady than on the venerated old Judge. She wore a power blue dress cut in the new style popularized by Mrs. Madison, with ivory lace detailing at the bodice, and a blue satin sash decorating the high waistline. Her hair was dark and curled into delicate little ringlets that framed her face.

She was beautiful.

“James Hamilton,” he introduced himself when they’d made it up the stairs. “A pleasure to meet you, Judge Morris.”

“Yes, yes, hello,” the Judge replied breathlessly. He coughed weakly, then seemed to notice James’ attention had fixed on the young woman at his side. “My granddaughter, Mary.”

She stretched her free hand out for him to kiss. “How do you do, Mr. Hamilton?”

He took her hand and bowed. “Very well, Miss Morris. And yourself?”

“Enjoying this lovely autumn day. Isn’t the weather beautiful, grandfather?”

“Yes, yes,” he repeated, still catching his breath.

Mary looked at James expectantly. For the second time that day, his mind felt utterly blank. He could feel the skin of his cheeks stretching as he grinned at her like an idiot.

“Is there somewhere I could sit down, young man?” Judge Morris injected into the slightly awkward silence.

“Oh, yes. Papa’s gone into the parlor with Mr. Morris. Right through here.” He showed them into the room.

“Please have a seat, Judge,” Papa invited.

“Let me get you a chair, Miss Morris,” James said, scrambling to move one of the seats from the table in the center of the room.

“I can move it,” Mary said.

“No, no, allow me,” he insisted.

In his haste to move the chair, he slammed the solid wooden leg into his shin, and had to bite back the swear that fought to escape with the sudden flash of pain.

“Are you all right?” Mary asked.

“Fine,” he said, voice tight. “Just fine. Here you are Miss.”

“Thank you?” She said it as question, as though she wasn’t quite sure what to make of his slightly desperate attempt at chivalry.

He nodded, grinning like an idiot again. What was the matter with him?

“James?” Papa asked, staring at him with a curiously fond expression.

“Yes?”

“Would you like to sit down and join us?” Papa nodded to the three other free chairs around the table.

Yes, sitting down would be far less awkward than standing at Mary’s side, grinning down at her. “Yes. Thank you.”

He placed his chair beside his father and sat down as Mr. Morris began speaking again. Papa patted at his arm and leaned over towards him while Mr. Morris addressed the Judge. “Relax,” Papa advised, sotto voce. “You’re doing fine.”

He raised his eyebrows encouragingly before turning his attention back to Mr. Morris.

James snuck a glance across the room at Mary, who he found was watching him in turn, with her head tilted slightly to the side and a subtle quirk to her lips.

Beautiful, he decided again. Simply beautiful.

[olicitysecretsanta]

Love Knows No Season, Love Knows No Clime (The Christmas Ornament)

For @foreverfelicityqueen from @allimariexf

Happy holidays to you, Kayla @foreverfelicityqueen!! I wanted to try to incorporate your wishes into this story, which meant going out of my comfort zone! I don’t know if this will be what you imagined, but I had such a fun time writing Tommy and doing the “soulmates” theme - both things I’ve never tried before! Thank you for that! I hope you like the result, which is a little fluffy, a little angsty, a little smutty and a little Hallmark magicky! :D 

Tags: Oliver Queen/Felicity Smoak, Tommy Merlyn/Laurel Lance (implied), Oliver Queen, Felicity Smoak, Tommy Merlyn, Laurel Lance (mentioned), William Clayton (mentioned), canon compliant, soul mates, christmas! fic, pre-Island, season 2, post-7x09, fluff and smut and light angst, mildly Hallmark-Christmasy, but darker because Arrow

Rating: M

Summary: Christmas magic

_________________________________ December 24, 1996

Oliver found Tommy sitting in the darkened hallway, lit only by the festive lights of the party below.

“Hey.”

Tommy looked up, not bothering to smile. “Hey.”

“Was wondering where you went. Laurel was asking about you.”

Tommy made a face.

Oliver grinned. “What? I think she likes you. What’s so bad about that?” He took a seat on the floor next to his friend.

Tommy lifted an eloquent eyebrow. “She likes you. She only asked about me so she’d have an excuse to talk to you, you know.”

Oliver stared back at his friend for a long moment before looking down with a knowing smile. “Okay, maybe.” He paused and listened to the sounds of music and voices drifting up from below that seemed to belong to another world. “What are you doing up here?”

When Tommy didn’t answer, Oliver gave his shoulder a shove. “Come on, there are a lot of girls down there! And no chaperones. And you were the one who stole the liquor out of your dad’s cabinet to spike the punch, dude!” He raised his eyebrows significantly. “Good job, by the way. But it makes me wonder why you aren’t down there enjoying it.”

Tommy shook his head, clearly in one of his moods. Oliver was used to it. Ever since his mom died and his dad left three years ago, Tommy had become a fixture at the Queen home, and he was more like a brother than a friend to Oliver. Most of the time he was the same old Tommy, fluent in sarcasm, never one to turn down a dare, who didn’t understand the concept of taking things too far. But every once in a while he would go silent and unreachable, and Oliver knew this was one of those times.

“You thinking about your dad? Or your mom?”

“Actually, I was thinking about girls, and then -”

Oliver swung his head around to give Tommy an incredulous look. “You’re up here brooding about girls?”

“Ha! No, not exactly.” The brief smile slid off his face. “I was thinking about girls, and that reminded me.” He drew a pair of objects from where they had been stashed behind him, and Oliver squinted into the darkness to make them out. “My mom gave these to me.”

Oliver looked at his friend, all jokes about sappy heart-shaped Christmas ornaments falling away from his lips.

“Well actually, I found them. The Christmas before she died.” He smiled softly. “I was looking through her closet to see if I could find out which Super Nintendo games she got me -” he met Oliver’s eyes with a grin, “Battletoads and Double Dragon!”

Oliver laughed with Tommy at the memory of the hours they’d spent playing the game, but he knew his friend had more to say, so he stayed silent. The sound of girls shrieking pierced the silence, and Oliver felt a strong sense of missing out on his own party, but he shoved the feeling down and waited for Tommy to continue.

“Instead, I found these ornaments.” He held them up into the dim light so Oliver could inspect them better. There were two of them, identical, each one made of wood and delicately carved into a pair of hearts. The words “My True Love” were painted in the center, with obvious space for two names below it. “She told me one of her patients gave them to her at the clinic. She said he was an artist and that he couldn’t afford to pay her, but he made her these ornaments, and told her….” He frowned slightly, as if he wasn’t sure whether he should continue.

Oliver was intrigued. “He told her what?”

“He told her they were magic.” He rolled his eyes and then looked at Oliver, waiting for judgment.

Oliver suppressed the sarcastic comment he normally would have made, because he could see that the ornaments, the story, the memory meant something to Tommy. Still, he was skeptical. “Magic?” A slightly indulgent smiled played over his lips.

Tommy shook his head, smiling. “I know, I know. It’s dumb.”

“Hey. It’s not dumb. It’s just…magic? What’s so magical about an ornament?”

“Well, according to my mom, you write your name here,” he pointed to the leftmost blank spot on one of the ornaments, “and then on Christmas eve you wish upon a Christmas star -”

“What’s a Christmas star?”

Tommy laughed. “I dunno. A star you see on Christmas? That’s what my mom called it, okay? I mean I know it’s all BS anyway….”

“Hey.” Oliver punched him lightly. “I didn’t say it was BS. What happens next? What are you supposed to wish for?”

Tommy rolled his eyes. “It is BS. Sappy love stuff. Okay? You write your name here, and you wish on a star for your one true love to find you. Your soulmate, or some crap like that.” He set the ornaments down and turned to face Oliver. “I thought of them because I was just down there, looking at you. Wondering how you get girls to like you.”

Oliver opened his mouth in surprise, but he felt himself flush with the still-new knowledge that it was true. Girls did like him. Until recently, it had been more of an inconvenience than anything, but more and more lately he found that he didn’t mind, that he liked the attention. “Tommy, you know I -”

“Ollie, it’s fine! It’s not a big deal. I was just thinking about it, and I remembered these ornaments, and it got me thinking about my mom.”

“You know you’re my best friend, right? Girls are just…girls.”

A slow smile spread over Tommy’s face. “Yeah. I know.”

Oliver matched his small smile and picked up one of the ornaments from the floor. “She was a good mom.”

“Thanks. She thought of you like a son too, you know. In fact, she told me this other ornament was for you.”

Oliver ran his thumb over the blank space on the right side of the ornament. “So what’s supposed to happen?”

Tommy spoke carefully, but Oliver heard the note of hope he was clearly trying to hide. “We write our names here. We wish on a star on Christmas eve. We put the ornament away. Then our true love will bring it to us one day, and her name will be written next to ours.”

“Okay. Let’s do it.”

“Ollie -”

“Come on, let’s do it! It’s Christmas eve. There’s a bunch of girls down there. Who knows what will happen?”

Tommy grinned at him, not saying thanks for humoring him and not teasing him, but Oliver understood anyway.

They opened the doors of the second floor balcony at the end of the hallway, meeting the freezing, crystal clear night. Situated over six miles from any other civilization, the Queen mansion always had excellent stargazing visibility, and tonight was no exception.

“Oh, crap, we forgot to write our names.”

“Umm. Here, I still have this from when I was writing names on the take-home bags.” He pulled a pen out of his pocket.

“It’s green.”

Oliver shrugged. “It’s festive.”

Tommy took the pen and wrote his name before passing it back to Oliver. “Now we wish.”

Oliver looked at Tommy, trying to match his solemn mood. “Okay. I wish that my one true love will come find me.”

“Yes. And I also wish that my one true love will come find me.”

“And they’ll bring us these ornaments.”

“Yeah.”

Oliver waited a moment, to give the wish time to take effect. “Now what?”

Tommy grinned. “Now we go back to the party and let the girls come to us!”

December 24, 2005

The door to the pool house opened again, the very loud sounds of the party spilling out into the cold night air, but people had been coming and going from the large inground hot tub all night, so Oliver didn’t think anything of it until Tommy rounded the corner and spotted him.

“Hey!”

“Hey.”

“I was looking for you. Kinda surprised to find you alone, though.” He settled into the lounge chair next to Oliver’s. “Laurel asked me to find you. I was prepared to tell her I found you throwing up in the bushes.”

Oliver let his gaze drift over to meet Tommy’s, but he didn’t match his friend’s knowing smile.

Still, Tommy pressed on. “I saw you talking to Rachel Atwell.”

“Who?”

“That redhead, Tanya Ferris’s cousin here on break from Vassar. You know, the one who had her hands up your shirt and her tongue in your mouth?”

“Oh. Her.”

“Yeah, Ollie. Her.”

Oliver felt Tommy waiting for an explanation, but he stayed silent.

“What’s going on, buddy?”

“Do you remember when you found those Christmas ornaments from your mom, the night of my first co-ed Christmas party, when we wished on a star for our true loves?” He had been staring off into the darkness, but after Tommy didn’t say anything for a minute, he looked over to find his friend giving him a strange look.

“Ollie, are you okay?”

“Do you remember?”

“Yeah, I remember. It was a silly thing we did, you were being nice to me about missing my mom and my awkward stage with girls. Thank goodness that’s over, right?”

A smiled flashed over Oliver’s face, but it didn’t reach his eyes.

“Seriously, buddy, what’s going on?”

“I got kicked out of Princeton.”

Tommy frowned. “That’s what’s bothering you? I mean, not to be insensitive, but you didn’t seem that bothered when you got kicked out of Harvard.”

Oliver shrugged.

“What did Laurel say?”

“She doesn’t know.”

“Oh. But -”

Oliver met his friend’s questioning gaze without emotion.

“But wasn’t she transferring to Princeton to be with you?”

Oliver nodded once. “Yep.”

“Okay, okay. No big deal. I’m sure your parents can work something out, get you a second chance or something.”

Oliver’s gaze slid away to focus off into the distance again.  “Did your one true love ever come find you?”

“Ollie. Oliver. Come on, man. That wasn’t real. There’s no such thing as magic.”

“But is there such a thing as true love?”

It was Tommy’s turn to be silent.

“What is love, anyway? Is it like my parents?”

“Man, I don’t know.” For once, there was a note of impatience in his voice. “You tell me. You’re the one of us who’s in a serious, long-term relationship.”

Oliver shook his head, sighing. “I know she makes me feel good about myself, like I’m special. Is that true love? I know that it doesn’t matter how much of a screw-up I am, she always tells me I’m a good person.”

“Yeah, she definitely loves you, Ollie.”

“She caught me cheating on her last month. She walked in on me in my dorm room when she was visiting me on campus.”

“Wait, wait. Let me get this straight: she was staying with you on campus, and you brought someone else to your dorm room?”

Oliver nodded.

“Dude, you have serious balls! Almost like you wanted to get caught!”

Oliver nodded absently. “She was really upset. She screamed at me, stormed off. I found her crying an hour later. But she forgave me, and then we had really great make-up sex.”

Tommy grinned. “Like I said, she really loves you. Nothing you could do would make her leave you.”

Oliver was silent for a long moment. “She’s too good for me.”

Tommy shrugged. “Someday you’ll be good enough for her.” He smiled mischievously. “But maybe not today? You’re still young, dude. Way too young to be worried about settling down just yet, in my opinion. Not when Rachel Atwell is just one hot girl among many, my friend, and you have a 6-years-running Christmas eve streak to maintain. Come on. We’ll go reassure Laurel and make your excuses.”

A slow smile was spreading over his face at the idea. Tommy was right. And besides, how was he ever supposed to know if what he had with Laurel was true love if he didn’t compare her to other girls? “She’s probably going to see through any excuses you come up with.”

“Well thank god she’s forgiving, then.”

December 24, 2013

The sound of the foundry’s door unlocking jolted Oliver out of his thoughts, and he swiveled toward the CC feed to see who was coming to the lair this late on Christmas eve. He felt an involuntary surge of pleasure in his chest as he watched Felicity descend the stairs, but he was used to that. After all, she was his friend.

She stopped short on the last step as she saw him sitting in her chair. “Oh. Hi!”

Oliver smiled and stood up, moving toward her. “Hi.”

They spoke at the same time. “What are you doing here?”

Felicity laughed and looked down.

“I thought you were in Central City.”

“Yeah, well.” She shrugged. “I was.” She stepped off the last stair and would have slipped past him, but Oliver reached out and laid his hand on her arm, sensing something was bothering her.

She shook her head, but she didn’t move away. “It’s nothing.”

“Felicity.” He slid his arm up to her shoulder and waited.

She looked up at him with an expression that he couldn’t quite identify. Self deprecation, maybe. “I was at the hospital, with Barry’s foster father and some of his friends, and it was really nice.” She looked down, nodding to herself. “They were all really nice, welcoming. Really awesome people. I was having a good time, but then it occurred to me, these people have a history, they’re a family, you know? And here I am, taking up their time and attention, and they don’t even know me. Don’t really have a reason to. Like, who am I? What am I even doing here?”

“Felicity, you -”

“When Joe West invited me to spend Christmas eve with them, I was really excited.”

“I remember.” He remembered the strange feeling in his chest when she told him about it, too. Remembered how he’d clamped down on that feeling, knowing he had no right to begrudge her a chance to be happy.

“I mean, regardless of the fact that I don’t celebrate Christmas myself, it’s a day when everyone goes off and spends time with their close friends and family, and, I dunno. I thought it would be nice to be a part of that for once.” She looked up at Oliver with sad eyes. “But rather than feeling like I was a part of something, I was reminded how much I don’t belong.”

“Hey.” Oliver squeezed her shoulder with the hand that was still resting there.

“I mean, who am I to Barry, anyway? We only just met when it happened. I’m not really a part of his life at all, definitely not part of his family. I’m not really a part of anyone’s family.”

“Felicity.” He shook her a little, to pull her out of her spiral, and placed his other hand on her shoulder, leaning down so she would focus on him. She met his eyes with a look that made him bite back unbidden words that suddenly threatened to spill out. You’re part of my life. You’re my family. When did that become true? Because he knew instantly and with bone-deep certainty that it was the truth.

She looked back at him for a long moment, and he suspected she could read some of what he didn’t say in his eyes. Eventually she blinked and spoke in a brighter tone, obviously attempting to change the subject. “What about you? I thought you were going to spend Christmas eve with your family?”

Oliver let his hands slide from her shoulders and looked away, vaguely aware that there might be other unexpected truths lurking in his eyes. “I did. I mean, mom and Thea and I had dinner and exchanged gifts, and then Thea went over to Roy’s and my mom went off to do whatever she does, and I came here.”

Felicity stared for a long moment at her chair, where he’d been sitting when she’d entered. “Why here?” She looked up at him suddenly. “You weren’t thinking of going out there, were you? We agreed we’d take tonight off.”

Oliver gave a short laugh. “No, I just….” His eyes also drifted over to her chair. “I guess I just felt more at home here.” And it was true. As much has he had insisted he spend the night with his mom and his sister, the uncomfortable truth was that the people he was closest to, the people who knew him best, were not the ones he’d come home from the island to save, but the ones who had joined him in his crusade.

He felt Felicity move toward him, close enough that her shoulder brushed against his as she came to stand beside him. “Yeah.”

Because of the life that I lead…. His words to Felicity had crystallized what he had realized months ago, that his dangerous life, the risks he took, meant that didn’t have space in his life for a relationship. But what exactly counted as a relationship? Where was the line? He was still allowed to have friends, right?

He was struck with a sudden idea. “Hey. We should get out of here. This is no place to spend Christmas eve.” He looked down to find her staring at him with one eyebrow raised, just as he expected.

“What?”

A tiny smile crept over his face. He would never admit out loud how much he enjoyed surprising her. “Come on. Let’s go see the tree at Nelson Plaza. I haven’t really gotten to see it yet this year.”

“Oliver -”

He heard the protest in her tone, but the more he thought about it, the more he liked the idea. So what that he had decided he couldn’t have a life outside of being the Arrow - that he couldn’t risk getting in a romantic relationship. That didn’t mean he couldn’t still be there for his friends, did it? Because Felicity, his team - they were more than friends; they were his family. Wanting Felicity to feel cared for? That was allowed. That was what friends - family - did for one another. It didn’t have to mean anything more than that.

* * * * * * * * * * *

They took his Ducati, and when she wrapped her arms around his waist, he realized they’d never done this before. Never ridden together on his bike. Never gone anywhere socially, just the two of them. That realization, or maybe the feeling of her chest pressed against his back, made his stomach flip with sudden misgivings, but he shoved the feeling down. He wasn’t at risk of going against his vow; he simply cared about her, and that wasn’t the same thing.

She was shivering when she climbed off the bike. “Wow, I really should have brought my heavier coat!”

Oliver began to peel his leather jacket off. “Here -”

“Hey, no! You need that! I’ll be fine.”

On an impulse, he wrapped his arm around her instead, and it wasn’t until he felt her body stiffen for a brief second before relaxing under his touch that he realized that they didn’t do things like that, either. But why shouldn’t they? Wanting someone to be safe and comfortable, that was what friends did, right?

“At least it’s not raining for once. The sky’s so clear I can see the stars.”

Oliver looked up, realizing she was right. He was struck suddenly with the memory of Tommy, of wishing on a Christmas star. Of staring up at the stars on Christmases since then, never quite forgetting the childish wish he had made. He felt a sudden rush of sorrow as he realized that, with his new realization that his life as a vigilante required him to be alone, the part of him that had never given up on the idea of one day finding true love might never get to experience it.

He was lost in his thoughts as they approached Nelson Plaza, until Felicity’s voice broke him out of his memories.

“It’s beautiful. So many thousands of lights.”

It was true. The Nelson Plaza tree gave Rockefeller Center a run for its money, and it was one of the few things of magic and beauty that Oliver remembered from his childhood that still remained. “Have you ever been to the tree-lighting?”

Felicity shook her head, her eyes never leaving the spectacle in front of them.

“We used to come every year when I was a kid. Queen Consolidated is a major sponsor, so my dad and mom would come and be part of the ceremony.” A small sigh escaped him at the memory of simpler times. “I used to feel so proud to be a part of it.”

He felt Felicity’s arm wrap around his back, but she didn’t look away from the tree, giving him the space to speak or remain silent as he chose.

Oliver laughed bitterly. “To think I prided myself on being a Queen. To think I thought that made me better. I had no idea what my family’s true legacy was built on, what it would become.”

Felicity ran her hand soothingly up and down his back, and he closed his eyes, unable to resist taking comfort and pleasure from the touch.

“Your family’s legacy is in your hands now, Oliver. You can make it something to be proud of. You are not your father. Or your mother. You’re better than that.”

He looked down at her, blonde hair glowing in the yellow light, until she returned his gaze. “You really believe that.”

“Of course I do, Oliver. I know you.”

He shook his head. “You don’t know everything.”

“I know you’re not perfect.” She lifted the corner of her mouth in a small smile. “I still haven’t forgiven you for making me your Executive Assistant without asking me.” But her tone suggested she had forgiven him enough to joke about it.

“Felicity, you don’t know the things I -”

“I know enough. You’re not your father, Oliver. You fight for the people in this city.”

Still, he couldn’t let it go. It was true that even though he hadn’t told her much about the five years he was gone, she’d seen enough over the past year to know him at his worst. But something else was still bothering him, a guilt that had been riding him for over a month, that he suddenly needed to expose under the harsh light of truth. “I’m not as unlike my father as you might think.” He held her eyes, making sure she understood he was serious. “He slept with his secretaries, his interns, his…business partners.”

He watched the reference land on her face, watched the veil of disappointment descend. She seemed at a loss for words.

What was he doing? Was he trying to hurt her? Hurt himself? Trying remind her how misplaced her belief in him was? But he knew that most of all, he needed her to have no illusions. For some reason, it was important that he was always, always honest with her. “And I’m sorry. I never meant to be like him, not like that.”

“Oliver, I….” She turned back toward the tree so he couldn’t see her face as she spoke. “You don’t need to apologize to me. You don’t owe me anything. I meant what I said. If anything, you need to apologize to yourself, because you deserve better than her.”  She turned under his arm, and her eyes met his with that earnest look that always convinced him that she saw past all his masks.

He nodded, speaking lowly and held transfixed by her steady gaze. “I know. And that’s why I wanted to apologize to you. Because I know I let you down.”

A slow smile was spreading over her face, and Oliver found himself leaning down, drawing her body closer to his, eyes moving between her eyes and her mouth. Compelled toward her, heart beating in his throat, breath coming faster, not thinking, only feeling, only wanting, in a way he had never let himself want her before.

It was only for a second that seemed to stretch on forever, but then he remembered himself, remembered his promise to himself and to her, and he stopped. He gave her a small smile and a gentle squeeze before leaning away and gazing back at the tree. Because trusting someone, caring for them, needing them to be safe, knowing that they care for you, knowing that they see the real you - separately, those were all acceptable elements of friendship. But all of them together, combined with kissing? It was more than anything he’d ever felt before, for anyone. It was overwhelming, dangerous, and absolutely not something he was allowed to have. Because it was undeniably, dangerously close to love.

He knew she had recognized his intention in his eyes, and he saw something like surprise and then disappointment flit across her face before she, too, masked her emotions, but it didn’t have to mean anything if they didn’t let it, so they both remained quiet for almost a minute, letting the moment slip away.

Still, Oliver was surprised when it was Felicity who broke the silence first.

“Thanks for this. Tonight, I mean. Thanks for bringing me here.”

He turned toward her, and she tilted to meet his eyes with minimal awkwardness.

“I just mean, this is a place you associate with your family, so thanks for sharing it with me.”

“Felicity.” He paused to let the moment gain significance. “You are my family.”

Her eyes widened momentarily, and then she smiled, because they both knew it was true.

“And don’t give up on Barry.” Her smile froze a little, but he carried on. “I know you only just met him, but I can’t imagine a world where his life doesn’t get better for having you in it.”

She huffed out a surprised laugh, then nodded. “Thanks.”

He stepped back, pulling on her arm as he turned back toward the street. “You’re welcome, Felicity.”

December 24, 2018 (morning)

So much had changed in a year, and as much as Oliver tried to be stable, a rock for Felicity and William to lean on, there were times when he was completely caught off guard by how different everything seemed.

The new apartment. Working with the police. Living among the public unmasked as the Green Arrow.

William, older and more mature and with a new layer of wariness in his eyes that wounded Oliver to the core.

Felicity, with new armor and barbs covering bruises that might never completely heal. Bruises that he’d inflicted.

And the world around him on this side of prison, brighter than he remembered, but forever changed, too.

But when he thought of last Christmas, crouched under the threat of the FBI investigation and tainted by the sting of betrayal, he renewed his determination to make this year the best Christmas any of them had ever had. His family deserved it.

He rolled over onto his back, still unused to sleeping on the left side of the bed. It was one of the many small adjustments he’d had to make since being back. Apparently Felicity had slept on his side of the bed the entire time he’d been in Slabside so that by the time he came back, his side had become her side.

“Hey.”

She was also usually awake before him, which was definitely not something he was used to. “Hey.” But at least she was still in bed this morning. Some days he woke to nothing but a cold emptiness next to him, the sheets and blankets barely betraying that a person had been there at all, and those mornings were usually the start of the worst days. Thankfully, that had been happening less and less in the two-ish weeks since reality had been restored. Since he had reassured her that any version of him would love any version of her in any reality, always. He rolled on his side to face her, and his heart sped up at the sight of her.

She smiled at him and lifted her palm to his cheek. “You have that look on your face again.”

Oliver smiled. “Which look?” But he knew which look she meant. It was the look he got every time he wanted to see her and all he had to do was open his eyes to get his wish. It was the look he got when he realized he’d gotten out of the habit of taking her presence for granted.

Instead of answering, she stretched toward him, capturing his lips in a series of soft, open-mouthed kisses, grabbing his chin with one hand and running the other down his chest.

Oliver groaned and ran his hands into her hair, enjoying the sensations sparking as she raked her fingernails along sensitive areas on his body. “God, Felicity.” He leaned slightly back, momentarily breaking away from her kisses so he could see her. Somehow, despite all she had been through, she was more beautiful than he remembered. “How can I love you this much?”

Felicity’s eyes widened in surprise, but before she could say anything, he leaned forward and claimed her mouth in a demanding kiss. She responded instantly, parting her lips and wrapping her arms around him, letting him lower her down on her back.

This was also new. They had always needed each other, loved each other passionately and almost insatiably, or so he had thought. But ever since he’d gotten out of Slabside, it was if they needed physical intimacy more than they needed air. At first he thought it was only because they were substituting sex for difficult conversations, and then he thought it was a way for them to reassure themselves that they loved each other even when all their conversations inevitably led to arguments, but slowly, slowly they were working through their issues, and using words to express not just hurt but love, yet the unrelenting physical need for each other remained.

He met her eyes and she nodded, and it was all the encouragement he needed before he slid inside her. He paused a moment to let her adjust, and to just enjoy the feeling of being this close, his forearms on either side of her head, letting just a little of his weight press her into the mattress the way she liked. He took the opportunity to kiss along her neck and the underside of her jaw.

“Mmm, Oliver.” He felt the vibration of her words under his lips.

“Hmm?”

She ran her hands down his sides and over his ass, accentuating her words with a squeeze that pulled him into her more deeply, “Move.”

He didn’t need to be told twice. He began to rock into her, responding to the cues of her hips. Her fingers played over his body, accentuating his pleasure, and she met him kiss for kiss. Lips, tongue, and teeth nipping, exploring, feeling, fast and slow, following and prompting the pace of their bodies.

And this, too, had taken some getting used to. As naturally as sex had always come to them, when they fell into bed again after a prison sentence apart,  Oliver found that it was different, more difficult, than it had been the first time, or than it had been when they’d come together after being broken up for a year and a half. It wasn’t that it wasn’t the best sex they’d ever had, because somehow it was; it was just that their established practices and expectations were different. She was still just as sensitive to his touch as ever, she just wanted him to touch her differently. And he’d found the same went for him. They’d had to relearn each other, and the process had been bittersweet as they discovered new things about each other and realized just how much they had changed. But on the whole, Oliver couldn’t be bothered to dwell on the past. As he had told her at ARGUS, and as he rediscovered in a different way every day, their love could weather any change; the only thing that mattered was that they were together.

He felt his orgasm impending, but he knew Felicity wasn’t quite as close so he pulled away, causing her to whine a little as she chased his mouth as far as she could reach. He looked down at her with a small smile, and eventually she dragged her gaze from his lips to his eyes. “Hey. You wanna get on top?”

She read the meaning behind his words and nodded, a small smile playing over her lips. “Yeah. Normally I’d say what’s the rush, but yeah. Christmas eve and William and everything.”

Oliver’s smile deepened at the thought of all the domestic bliss that awaited them. He pulled out of her, to the accompaniment of groans on both their parts at the loss of contact, and then she was pushing him up and over onto his back with a familiar bossiness that he had missed.

She fit herself over him and sank down with a low moan, letting her breasts brush over his chest as she began to kiss him again, and this time he let his hands explore her body, over her shoulders and down her sides, grasping her hips, over her amazing ass as she rode him, and long before he’d had nearly enough time to enjoy the lines and curves of her body, she was gasping into his mouth, grinding against him and hands cupping the sides of his head as she came, and after that there was no more holding back. He thrust up into her once, twice, before coming into her with his arms wrapped around her entire body, skin against skin, heartbeat against heartbeat, holding her as close as possible, but never close enough.

She was breathing hard, and he kissed the top of her head, over and over, his mind spinning with an emotion that no words could ever contain. Love really was too small a word. “Felicity.” He whispered it into her hair. “Felicity.”

She was boneless against him, but he felt her lips against his neck, brushing against the skin and pressing occasional kisses. “Oliver.”

“I’m sorry.” He sighed, only a little surprised at the words that had slipped from his lips while he was trying to figure out how best to express the overwhelming amount of love he was feeling.

But Felicity didn’t seem surprised at all, and she paused her kisses only long enough to reply. “I know.”

And for just a little longer before they had to get up, he held her tightly, enjoying the warmth and weight of her body over his, and he found himself once again contemplating the nature of love. He thought he’d figured it out long ago, when he first came to terms with his feelings for Felicity. It wasn’t just about feeling pleasure, or about being adored, or about responsibility. It wasn’t only about trusting and being trusted, about seeing behind masks and being your best self, or about being willing to do anything to protect each other. It was stronger than habit. It was remembering the past but living in the present. And most difficult of all to accept, but also the most powerful, was the realization that it wasn’t conditioned upon peace or comfort. He knew that he and Felicity still had far to go to settle their issues, and they might spend their whole lives untangling this mess and getting into new ones, but that meant that he’d get to spend his whole life untangling messes with Felicity, and that above all was the happiest of ever afters he could imagine.

* * * * * * * * * * * * December 24, 2018 (evening)

“Hey, Oliver?”

There was an odd note in Felicity’s voice, which might have worried him except he could see her by the Christmas tree from his place in the kitchen. He was cooking dinner and she was placing the last of the wrapped presents under the tree. “Yeah?”

“What’s this?”

Oliver glanced at William, who was helping him in the kitchen, but his son just shrugged, so he gave his hands a quick wash and wandered over to Felicity. She was sitting on the floor holding something cupped in her palms. “What’s what?” He crouched down next to her, taking the opportunity to run his fingers through her loose hair.

She looked at him, and her eyes were filled with a strange emotion: a mix of confusion, awe, love, and little bit of apprehension.

“Hey.” His hand instantly moved to cup her face, but she lifted the object and his eyes shifted to see what she was holding. And what he saw made his heart stop.

He hadn’t seen it in over 20 years, but he recognized it instantly. A carved wooden ornament, in the shape of two hearts, with the words “My True Love” painted on it. Below and on the left, written in a childish hand in green pen, “Oliver.” And to the right, in red pen, “Felicity.”

He dragged his eyes away from the ornament to meet her wide eyes. “Where did you get this?”

“It was on the tree. Oliver, this is my handwriting, but I - I didn’t write this. I would have remembered. I’ve never seen this before in my life. Did you put it here?”

Oliver shook his head, and he watched fear become more prominent in her eyes.

“Do you think…?”

“Felicity, no. No. Baby.” He covered the hand that was holding the ornament and wrapped his other arm around her, pulling her into him. “It’s okay.”

She relaxed a little in his arms, trusting him. “You know what this is? What is it?”

Oliver grasped for an easy explanation, then laughed lightly when he realized there wasn’t one. He leaned back and looked her in the eyes. “Magic.”

“Magic?” Her tone was mildly exasperated. “Oliver, what does that mean?”

He took the ornament from her, holding it up so they could both examine it. “It’s a long story, one I’ll be happy to tell you.” He laid the ornament carefully on the ground and then took her head in his hands, gently pulling him toward her. “But the moral of the story is that I love you.” His eyes drifted to her lips and he couldn’t resist leaning down to give her one, two soft kisses.

When he leaned back and looked at her again, she was smiling at him indulgently. “Oliver Queen. You are the biggest sap. Sometimes I wonder how you ever had a reputation as a bad boy.”

He smiled into her eyes, both of them knowing that she had made all the difference. “People change, Felicity.”

He watched the reference slide home in her face, but this time she smiled more deeply without a trace of bitterness. Change had always been a part of who they were.

“I love you, Oliver Queen. Love is too small a a word.” She leaned in to kiss him, and he met her halfway.

[fantroll-purgatory]

@chrisjoshington​

Okay before we start: CD I first saw this submission through my mobile browser and therefore had no idea that you sent it and was gonna message you to BEG you to hold it for me. I love them so much holy shit. And I have some ideas.

Alternia, Beforus, or AU: Alternia

Themes/Story: Corday is nb and uses he/they/she interchangeably. He’s basically Theater Kid taken to its logical extreme. They’re a master of the art of disguise and utilize this skill to aid the rebellion. And also do some assassinations. So there’s her themes; theater, disguise, assassination. 

Thank you for giving this offering to me, an Adjacent to Theater Kid. I am planning a murder mystery party for my birthday. My birthday was three months ago. Corday is invited.

Name: Corday Nopper

Corday is a reference to Charlotte Corday, Marat’s assassin. Nopper references Noppera-bō, a mythical creature that disguises itself as human and can wipe off its face like a chalkboard. 

I…I never knew about Charlotte Corady before I read this holy shit.

Age: 9 sweeps,19.5 human years

Strife Specibus: Knifekind

I wanted to keep it simple and discrete for him. It’s also just subtly, just a little bit a reference to the assassination of Julius Caesar.  

I think you could also maybe get away with Staffkind if he’s into musical theater because of the pun.

Fetch Modus: Monologue Modus. They have to monologue for a minute about an object without saying the name of the object and their modus has to guess which item he’s talking about.

My main concern with this modus is that it doesn’t seem like Corday would use this one because it would require too much noise if they were sneaking around. Maybe a CHARADES MODUS? It plays into the acting without them needing to speak, and it lends itself to comedy when they need to retrieve, for example, a Perfectly Generic Object.

Blood Color: Indigo

They’re described as the enthusiasts of the spectrum and I thought that fit well for the level of Passion she brings to her job. 

Special Abilities: Nothing aside from the usual blueblood strength. 

Symbol and Meaning: I’ve been split between Sagio and Sagirius. I’m leaning Sagirius though since it’s called “the Bardic.” 

I can see either one working for her tbh, but I LOVE Hope players so I side very strongly with Sagirius.

Trolltag: zealousDeathspian. Zealous references their enthusiasm, Deathspian is a portmanteau of Death and Thespian. 

DEATHSPIAN IS SO GOOD. What about dramaticMurd–I’m kidding I’m kidding. If you wanna go even harder on the theme maybe Deathspion to include “espion” in the title?

Quirk: As neutral as they can possibly make it. Outside of their acts, they like to project a relatively neutral image to make them harder to pin down. They are partial to (~: emojis, though. Their one identifying marker. 

Ex: Just as normal as can be. Definitely not a fun assassin or anything. (~: 

They change the quirk up between disguises, though! 

Lusus: Probably a big raccoon with many faces. As a reference to shapeshifting racoons in Japanese mythology.

Personality: Have you ever met a method actor? He buys into roles with all the enthusiasm possible. If you have any question about her disguises’ lives or personalities or likes or dislikes, she has a thorough answer. If she has a long mission playing a character with a broken arm, she will Break Her Arm. 

They’re committed to this because they thoroughly believe in the good of the cause and that if everyone just works hard enough, they’ll succeed, and succeed Soon. They’re definitely an optimist to a somewhat critical degree. They expect most things to go right simply because they believe in it. 

He also has a tendency towards the ruthless. When he’s got a mark, the mark will die. He’ll do anything to accomplish his goal. He has a strict moral sense, but that moral sense includes Never Fail To Follow Through On A Promise. 

She’s predisposed to drama and acting over the top when hanging out with friends, but can actually be a very serious and competent person when she needs to be. Dedicated and focused and responsive and passionate. 

Interests: Theater, Musicals, Costumes, Makeup, Sculpting, Glassblowing, Jewelry Making- Basically anything to do with costume making. Soap Operas, Trashy Dramatic Tabloid Magazines, A Good Knife. 

Title: Witch of Hope

Hope seems to fit her because of her strong convictions and optimism as well as her willingness to do anything to reach her goal. He has a strong personality, so an active class makes sense. But the Witch comes in in the active change, the need to shape and mold the nature of all that potential and optimism that he holds into a usable form. 

Land: Land of Drapes and Pinion 

Dream Planet: Derse

Design party…: 

Leftmost: Their True Appearance/how they dress in front of friends. They hacked off their horns so they could put fakes in their place because they’re just that hardcore. And he also designed a new symbol to do a little more anonymity preservation. The shoes are from fan-troll. 

Blue: This is what she wears if she wants to walk around discretely. The goal is to be as generic as possible. The shoes are John’s! 

Purple: He disguises himself as a Bartender/Candy Vendor and runs in highblood circles to get Intel. The symbol is meant to look a bit like a lollipop. There’s sopor candies stuck in his hair. And I couldn’t decide on a good makeup so I did like… paint that looks like drool and a black eye. The suit and pants are both from fan-troll. 

Violet: Her most recent disguise, she assassinated a violet Career Adviser and took on her role. And uses this as a way to meet people she can convince to join the rebellion.  

Listen…I love him so so much my redesign is the MOST minimal thank you for this joy. I especially love that you kept visual continuity with the eyes without compromising your vision for him as a master of disguise.

Okay SO. Minimal minimal changes idk if I’d even go top to bottom. Let’s go left to right?

True Self

I liked how you gave Corday’s casual duds this very “hanging out backstage before curtain call” vibe so I pinned their hair back the way one might if they were gonna wear a wig over it.

I also figured like. Breaking her horns its badass and all but it may be difficult to fit a prosthetic horn over that? So I gave her slightly shaved down horns (she could even do this with her knife!) that could potentially fit a prosthetic over them.

For his mouth I really liked the look of his teeth but I figured if they stuck out too much then they would difficult to conceal when he was undercover so I colored their outline in grey to keep the definition while visually implying that they’re set further back from his gums.

For their shirt, I gave them their real symbol. If we’re gonna push that this is how they are with their friends then that’s them at their messiest and most relaxed, which would include aspects of their True Self.

Other than that just a few outline changed but all in all it’s a real good look.

Generic

So I edited the symbol you originally gave to her true self and shifted it over, mostly so it could feasibly comply with multiple sign languages? I also edited the horns so they’re just pointy and not so arrowlike.

For their disguise, I wanna explain my reasoning. So we know that hemoanonymity is effective in that people genuinely can’t tell what your blood color is, but that it’s also see as childish and immaturely rebellious, so doing so may bring you attention in a way that simply wearing a shirt with a blood colored symbol may not.

BUT

A really, really effective disguise makes the onlooker draw their own conclusions and feel much smarter than you are. So, fine! Let his symbol be hemonanon! Deck him out in grey-colored clothing that’s indistinguishable from others’ fashion choices.

but

If you look closely you’ll see that they’re wearing bronze ankle socks. They’re very small! Barely noticeable! Almost like something they’d worn them by mistake.

Someone speaking to her would obviously roll their eyes at her greyed-out sign and cast about for hints of her “real” blood color and see the socks. Aha, they’d think, she’s slipped up. Forgot to leave those at home, huh? And now that they think of it, it’s obvious she’s a bronzeblood. It’s not just the circle in her sign either; she may not be dressed to the nines, but look at the touch of mascara around her lower lashes! The slight gleam of her lip gloss. Typical bronzebloods. They can try to hide their blood color all they want, but their desire for creature comforts will always give them away.

Barvendor/Candytender

Once again, not much to change here. Made the white threads in their suit yellow for that little pop, and swapped out the tie for a loud bow tie for the whimsy. I also adjusted a few stands of hair that felt like they were laying oddly.

For the face paint, between the candy association and the single sharp snaggletooth, he’s already halfway to being a jack-o-lantern, so that’s what I used for his makeup! Other than that he was perfect.

Career Advisor

I lengthened her jacket collar and her sideburns to more deliberately cover up the space where there would be a line between her face and her fin; we don’t really know how far practical makeup can take us in this instance. Aside from that though I really didn’t have any fixes and tbh that was more because I felt like I had to futz with the sprite a little bit.

I LOVE THIS TROLL SO MUCH LONG LIVE CORDAY.

-TR

[mitthroughmylens]

Celebrating a God-sent friend, Marwa Abdulhai

#YouCanDoItOnlyYouCanDoItYouCantDoItAlone

Summary: There are some people sent in your life to be destiny helpers. People who believe in your vision. People who are slow to speak and quick to listen. People who will cheer you on relentlessly. People who will believe in you when you no longer believe in yourself. Hold them close. Appreciate them. Pray for them. And give gratitude to God for the privilege of their presence in your life.

———————————————

Marwa Abdulhai. A destiny helper. An unwithering burst of energy. A Godsend. (Wow, there is something really special about the name Marwa).

You know that feeling after talking to someone who always feels like a breath of fresh air? The one that leaves you looking forward to your next conversation? That’s how I feel about Marwa.

I started thinking about GTL Ghana about 2.5 years ago. I was thinking about ways to increase opportunity visibility to Ghanaian high schoolers and GTL seemed like a great way to kickstart. I remember sitting at the 3rd table on the leftmost row in McC dining (right next to the window overlooking Memorial Drive) in my Junior Fall. Marwa and I were grabbing dinner and we were catching up on life and discussing our IAP plans. We spoke about my ideas and vision for GTL. And let me just say this: if you ever need someone to pressure test an idea, Marwa is the person to go to. What! She turned my ideas upside down and around and around to ensure that I had all my bases covered.

When I was preparing for my Schwarzman interview, Marwa NEVER stopped rooting for me. I still remember our mock interview in Date Room A with her difficult questions. After each response, she would give me an encouraging comment, type away her feedback and then move on to the next. The 1-hour mock interview turned into a 2-hour session but Marwa didn’t say a thing. I knew that Senior Fall was tight and that she had her own things to work through so I was trying to be respectful of her time. But she said to me : “No, Jessica. Don’t worry about this at all. I believe in you and I know that inshAllah you will make it! Let’s just continue since your interview is so soon.” She looked at me with eyes filled with hope. And when we finished the mock interview, she gave me extensive feedback - “You had an excellent response but you didn’t acknowledge this risk. You made a good point here and I love the story that came with it. Hmmm for this one I wasn’t sure what you meant…” Afterwards, she cheered me on. I still remember the exact words she spoke to me that day: “Jessica, you did an incredible job! [even when I didn’t feel like it] I can tell that you have been thinking about these issues and I know that you will do well. I have resource X, Y, Z that may be useful so I will send them over...”

You know that feeling after a mock interview when you feel inadequate because you weren’t able to nail everything? Marwa CRUSHED that feeling to death. She left me feeling like I would excel. That even if I didn’t get this fellowship, I was still destined to do great things. I sat in Date Room A crying after Marwa left. I could not believe that she had this much faith in me and was willing to invest her time even when I didn’t think I was good enough.

When we started research, we were both excited about the journey ahead. But halfway through, I was ready to give up. I was convinced that I wasn’t cut out for research. That maybe I should just stick to industry. That not everything worked out for everyone and that was okay. What I didn’t realize was that I was in a toxic environment that wasn’t providing me with the necessary mentorship. That night, I messaged Marwa to inform her that although it had been a great learning experience, I was jumping off the research bandwagon. Marwa came to my room that night. She had moved out of McCormick but found her way to my room. I remember Marwa sitting in the center of my room saying to me : “No, Jessica. You cannot give up. I know it may seem really bad right now but trust me, I have seen you work all these years. I know the kinds of questions you ask in class. I know how hard you work. These are traits of an excellent researcher. I think your case is one of a bad mentor and a series of unfortunate events. Research is a fulfilling experience and with the right mentor you will grow immensely. You seem very excited about your classes this semester. How about you try changing labs to join one of your professors whose research seems interesting?” When you have someone with THAT much positive energy around you, it makes a difference.

During IAP, Marwa got in touch. She wanted to know how GTL planning was panning out and if I had gotten in touch with other professors for my research.

Marwa, on Tuesday when I submitted my thesis, I broke down crying. OH MY GOD. MARWA I *ACTUALLY* MADE IT. The amount of progress I made with my research. The amount of work I accomplished with my new team. The way I looked forward to our team meetings and sometimes spent my free time working on my project. I really cannot help but marvel. God used you to teach me that perseverance pays the most when it is the hardest thing to do. God used you to remind me that He can take you from grass to grace in ANY situation.

Marwa showed up at almost every ASA event that she could. She was genuinely curious about the continent and she believed that meeting people was the best way to learn about their countries. She came to the BoY BBQ, to ALC, to Cultural Night, to Senior Night.

It was unsurprising that we always needed HUGE spaces like the BLR or MCC Game Room to celebrate Marwa’s birthday. She had a big heart and had impacted so many lives and we all wanted to celebrate her.

I can go on and on. Marwa is an epitome of genuine generosity; the one that does not keep a record or act with a reward in mind. She is generous with her time, with her love and with her energy. Every single one of my friends who has met Marwa (whether or not they know her personally) say “she is the most positive person I have met”. She is, indeed, and I am blessed to call her my friend.

Marwa, Alhamdulillah WE MADE ITTTTTTT. God handpicked you as my friend and I am so grateful for all the good times we have shared whether it was a random catch-up or an ideation session. Your faith in Allah and your commitment to growing your relationship with Him and the Muslim community on campus really inspired me to take my walk with God seriously. You have taught me to see the world differently and your unrelenting faith has reinforced the hustler in me. I know that Allah has only started with you and I am so excited to see your research blossom and grow. You are destined to change the world and I pray that Allah will equip you with supernatural strength during this time of Ramadan.

[pflibteens]

The Cloudman

Thank you to all of the teens that submitted entries into our Teen Short Story Contest. Congratulations to our 1st place winner, Jihan Reyes.

THE CLOUDMAN by Jihan Reyes

The Cloudman did not start out as the Cloudman. He was originally called “the blobfish”, because that’s what he looked like. A big, puffy, pale creature of great disproportion with fins that could sail through the air. His job had been to scare children when he worked for the Man Under The Bed, but he had long since quit, and was now resigned to floating through the vastness of The Subconscious, bedroom to bedroom, child to child. He seldom  made himself seen, for his appearance was (as he had painfully learned), oh, how do I put this? Hideous - - is a fairly accurate word to describe The Cloudman. But I am not here to mock a hero. I am here to tell his tale. The tale began after the Blobfish was kicked out of the room of one Maven Herring by her imaginary friend, Teedums. He decided to go to the house of one of his only friends, Marty the Martian, imaginary friend of Tom Erickson, a young child who was strangely genius, but often failed in social interactions. When the Blobfish arrived in Tom’s room, he noticed that it was oddly quiet. He could usually hear Marty making long strings of alliteration to entertain Tom in his dreams. The Blobfish was grateful for the silence, some time to rest. He sat on the floor and closed his tiny eyes, well squinted was all he could really manage. That was when he noticed the sobbing. He looked to see a lump on the bed, which turned out to be Tom huddled on his pillows, his hands over his ears. The Blobfish looked around expectantly for Marty to arrive, like he always did to soothe Tom. He approached Tom, and asked in a grotesque gurgle, “What's wrong?”. Tom turned to him and the Blobfish remembered too late that unlike Marty, his own appearance would likely scare Tom. But Tom didn’t even flinch when he saw Blobfish. Tom burst out, “He t-took him! He took him! WHY?!” Something was very wrong. “You look like you’re made of clouds. Can you float? Can you float after my friend?” Blobfish was so stunned by this pleasant comparison that he didn’t even answer. Tom continued,“You’re Marty’s friend right? You have to help him! A monster took him! Please Cloudman, save him!”

Cloudman said “How do you see me when I’m here, whether mortals see me is usually my decision.” The boy said “I can see everything, like that ghost floating in the bathroom.”  Cloudman turned to the bathroom, but saw nothing. “You have wings! Fly!”, Tom said pointing to Cloudman’s fins.

“Why should I help you?” Cloudman asked?  Tom stopped crying, wiped his nose, and considered. He said “I’ll be your friend.”, Tom said, “you could use a friend, right? You’re always alone”.

“Really?” Tom nodded and smiled. “Where’d the monster take him?” Cloudman asked.

“In the closet.”

“Why aren’t you afraid of me?”  Tom replied, “Why would I be scared of you, Cloudman? You’re going to save my friend.” At that The Cloudman smiled (or did the closest thing that his malformed mouth could manage), and leaped into closet’s darkness.

As Cloudman soared through the blackness of the closet Subconscious he asked himself  who would kidnap an imaginary friend?  And what monster could have possibly taken down Marty the Martian?  He’d seen Marty slay armies of  dragons to protect his designated child. How could HE, the lowly Blobfish, take down such a beast?  He considered turning back, but . . . a friend!  His very own human friend!  The idea was almost beyond belief.  He caught sight of  the Fortress, and sailed down towards the pitch black castle in the midst of  The Subconscious.

The Cloudman landed at the head of the brimstone Fortress.  A towering splintered door stood in his way. He merely slid his boneless body underneath. There, he was met by Monti the Manticore and Cilos the Cerbereus. Monti’s massive leonine torso was twice the height of the Cloudman. His human face split into a repulsive grin revealing his six rows of  ravenous razor-sharp teeth. He said in a surprisingly friendly voice: “Hey Blobby, how is you?  Been awhile since we seen ya”. Then Cilos chimed in: “I thought youse quit”.  

Cloudman replied evenly “ I did . . .until someone kidnapped my friend”. Cilos growled in a low voice that barely concealed his thuggish diction

“Don’t get involved. It ain’t healthy.”

“Better you should scram” added Monty, spitting out his toothpick.

“Yeah! Swim away, little Blobfish, before youse getcha-self hoit”, chimed in Cilos.

This lit a spark in our hero that could not be put out. “You’ve already hurt me once, but not again. And my name is Cloudman.” he said, propping himself tall on his undermost layer of blob.  “Where’s the martian?” At this, Monty broke out laughing. He tried to speak, and barely managed to choke out: “HA HA HA, you- ha ha- think that youse some kinda HERO?! Haaaaa!” With this he coughed up blood, along with one of his jagged incisors. “Oh, heh heh” he muttered to himself.

This gave Cloudman an idea. He said “That’s right! Answer me now! You know how powerful I am.” He gyrated his giant gelatinous midsection. “Behold my might!” he said.  Now Cilos started laughing - -all but the leftmost pug head of the beast, who merely shook his head, grinning. Monti was on his knees laughing and pounding his paw on the ground. He tried to speak more, but only uttered, “Oh. I’m s-so scared, what’s he gonna do? Eat me? Why he--” Monti never finished his sentence, because right then he flew into a fit of coughing on the floor upon which he knelt . He fell face first, rear in the air,  into a small pool of his own blood and ejected teeth. The manticore was dead; he had choked on his own teeth. That left the cerberus, Cilos, whose faces were blank and stunned. The Cloudman taunted, “Told you I was mighty.”. Cilos leaped forward, digging his jaws into Cloudman's stomach, biting, tearing, and gnawing. He stopped and closed his eyes, expecting a fresh gush of blood on his face, but none came. He looked down to see the Cloudman's stomach completely torn out.  There were no innards.  No organs. The Cloudman was pure goo. It was like biting a tower of glue, slime, and jello. Then the Cloudman said, “You were the one that gave me that cruel nickname. It’s very fitting. Don’t you know? Blobfish aren’t edible, we’re . . . poisonous”. All six of Cilos’ eyes widened as he collapsed, his left head choking out “You c-can’t save the boy! Let alone his friend.” The Cloudman’s bulging eyes bulged even more as he raced out of the fortress and flew through the Dark.

With a now-lighter body he tore through the air towards Tom’s closet. He arrived and slithered across the floor. There he saw Marty cradling Tom’s sleeping form. Then, Marty turned to The Cloudman, “I love Martian bodies, they’re so easy to live in”. His loving smile mutated into a malicious grin. This wasn’t Marty, but The Man Under The Bed! The Man said “I needed a body that I could use to get close to him with, so that I could cut out his lovely little eyes”. The Cloudman discreetly picked up the closest weapon he could find, a Rubix Cube. If I could just get him into the subconscious, I could imagine it into something.

“And then,” The Man continued, “ his lovely young mind shall be mine!”

The Cloudman said “Why him? What did he do to you?”.

“It’s not what he did, it’s what he could do, he’s very special. Surely you’ve noticed? He can see things that no other can. He could see me and my armies. He could warn the world of my plans. At first I decided to kill him, then I changed my mind. Just imagine what I could do with such power!” Tom woke up. He looked at Marty, unfooled. The Man, enraged with his failure, began to take a swipe at Tom.

“Not this time” The Cloudman said. Then several tragic and heroic things happened: Cloudman jammed the Rubix Cube in his own stomach, then hurled himself at The Man. He wrapped his sticky tendrils around The Man pulling him through the closet door, and they both fell into darkness. Cloudman enveloped The Man in his gel-like body. There would be no escape. Ever.  Clutching the cube, Cloudman imagined a similar sized weapon. He shouted “Grenade!!”, and the Rubix Cube morphed into exactly that. He thought of Tom, his friend, and how and scared he must be. He wished to comfort him.

And then the grenade went off....

The next day Tom’s new imaginary friend arrived. I told him the tale of Cloudman, the monster slayer, the savior of children, the hero.

FIN

[lindawood]

What We’re Looking Forward To From CES 2019

Like its host city, the CES trade show largely deals in illusion. Most of the flashy stuff being shown in Las Vegas this week is months or years away from making your life better—if it comes out at all. Here at Wirecutter, we know there’s no way we can walk off the convention-center floor ready to make a new pick (we’ve got to get stuff home to test, of course), but the things we see and learn at the show can help us make picks in the year to come.

For us, CES is a time to talk to engineers and manufacturers about the new technologies they’re excited about for 2019, and to ask them the right questions so that we can pass their expertise on to you.

We’ve always tried to take a realist’s approach to CES. Once our team is back home, we’ll fully consider everything we’ve seen, and we’ll test what we can—and hopefully we’ll have some new picks to tell you about in our guides. But for now, here are the things we’re most looking forward to.

—Michael J Kennelly, updates editor

Nostril-free video calls

Dell New XPS 13, available now, $1,190

Photo: Dell

Since June 2015, in our reviews, the Dell XPS 13 has beaten out competing Windows ultrabooks thanks to its size, battery life, and powerful performance. Its nearly four-year-old design has remained our favorite even as other ultrabooks have finally begun to catch up. At this year’s CES, Dell revealed that it has finally corrected the XPS 13’s greatest flaw: its awkwardly placed webcam, which sat on the leftmost edge of the bottom bezel and gave a great view into your nostrils. On the Dell New XPS 13, available now, Dell has shrunk the webcam and pushed it to the center of the laptop’s top bezel. (Tossing that crappy camera should spark joy, as Marie Kondo might say.)

The New XPS 13 comes with two Thunderbolt 3 ports, one USB-C 3.1 port, a microSD card reader, and a headphone jack. For the past two years, we’ve continued to prefer the XPS 13 model with legacy ports, but this looks like the year we might recommend the USB-C model to most people. The new camera does mean you’ll no longer be able to log in using just your face, but we think this new design is worth the trade-off, and you’ll still have the optional fingerprint reader for easy logins. The laptop felt comfortable to type on in our brief demo, but we’ll reserve judgment on the New XPS 13’s keyboard, trackpad, and battery life until we get it in for testing.

—Justin Krajeski, staff writer (laptops/accessories)

A kitchen-friendly smart display

KitchenAid Smart Display, spring or summer 2019, $200 to $300

Photo: Grant Clauser

The Google Home Hub is easily my favorite Google Assistant device, especially for use in the kitchen, but if you squirt it with the sink hose or spill your soup-in-progress on it, you’ll probably kill it. KitchenAid is claiming to fix that problem with its version, the KitchenAid Smart Display. The Smart Display is IPX5 rated, so you don’t need to worry about getting messy around it, which is great because smart displays are perfect cooking helpers. As with all Google Assistant displays, including the Lenovo and JBL models, you can ask this one for recipes and let its videos and instructions walk you through preparing your food—as well as play music while you’re making a mess, and control your connected smart-home devices—all with your voice, without having to wash your hands. This model adds support for Yummly, KitchenAid’s own database of recipes, but you can also select meals from other sites. The display is 10 inches, so it’s 3 inches bigger than that of the Home Hub but the same as the larger Lenovo display. It also includes a built-in camera for video calls (and a lens off-switch), which the Google version lacks. The extra size matters when you’re watching cooking videos or reading recipe ingredients. The price hasn’t been finalized, but KitchenAid told us that the Smart Display would be between $200 and $300 at release later this year.

—Grant Clauser, senior editor (smart home)

Two 2019 trends for headphones

Jabra Elite 85h, April 2019, $300 Cleer Ally Plus, June 2019, $200

Photo: Jabra

Based on the conversations I’ve had at CES this year, I’m expecting two big improvements for headphones in 2019. Active noise-cancelling headphones will get cheaper overall, and we’ll see a vast improvement in battery life. I’ve been told that new chips are able to conserve energy better, so headphones can either work longer or do more with the same-size batteries.

One example I saw already utilizing this new tech was the Jabra Elite 85h, which has active noise cancelling and claims a 32-hour battery life but also features the same “always listening” wake-word-based tech as an Amazon Echo speaker, a Google Home Hub, or an iPhone, so you don’t need to push a button to pull up your digital assistant. Instead, you can just say “Alexa” or “Assistant.” The noise cancelling was pretty impressive when I tried the pair at CES, but we’ll need to test the headphones more before making a verdict. The Jabra Elite 85h is due in April and will cost $300.

Photo: Lauren Dragan

Another company taking advantage of the chip tech was Cleer, which will have true wireless earbuds with active noise cancellation and a whopping 10-hour battery life between charges plus 20 more hours in the charge case. And no, the earbuds aren’t massive, either. (Of course, we’ll have to test those battery-life claims ourselves.) Cleer’s Ally Plus headphones will be IPX5 rated and will cost $200 when they become available in June.

Additionally, one of the chip manufacturers, Qualcomm, is supplying a chipset to headphone makers with active noise cancelling ready to go, making it easier and less expensive than ever for these companies to add ANC to their gear. This new tech will likely cause an overall drop in prices as other headphone companies try to compete. But just because the new Qualcomm chip makes ANC easy to install doesn’t mean these inexpensive ANC earbuds will be optimized or tuned. So in addition to seeing some great pairs of headphones, I fear we’re also in for a ton of crappy new stuff too. Good or bad, we’ll give them a listen, and we’ll keep you posted on what’s worth your time.

—Lauren Dragan, senior staff writer (headphones)

One gaming monitor for all

G-Sync on FreeSync monitors, January 2019

Photo: Asus

When we published our first gaming-monitor guide last spring, we chose to offer two top picks: a G-Sync monitor for those using an Nvidia graphics card and a FreeSync monitor for those using an AMD graphics card. G-Sync costs more, while FreeSync often gets tossed in as a free feature even on non-gaming monitors. For the past several years, shopping for a gaming monitor has come with the annoying choice between these two competing adaptive-sync technologies—a feature that helps make games look smoother. Because of these proprietary technologies, it’s hard to recommend spending the large amount of cash on a gaming monitor unless you know you’ll be using the same GPU for a long time.

But later this month, Nvidia will release a driver update that adds G-Sync to 12 FreeSync gaming monitors, making modern Nvidia graphics cards compatible with both technologies. Even if a monitor isn’t yet certified with G-Sync (such as our current FreeSync pick, the Asus MG279Q), you will be able to try the G-Sync support yourself on any FreeSync monitor by enabling the adaptive sync manually. Hopefully, this move on Nvidia’s part will lead to more monitors that support both sync technologies for a lower price, and will make it easier for us to name a single FreeSync monitor recommendation for most gamers.

—Thorin Klosowski, staff writer (gaming/PCs)

Mesh network gets a sequel for Wi-Fi 6

Netgear Orbi RBK 152, second half of 2019, price TBD

Photo: Netgear

We’ve been recommending a mesh Wi-Fi network for the past few years, but at CES 2019 we saw a new wrinkle in the networking fabric: Wi-Fi 6. The Netgear Orbi RBK 152 adds Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) to the company’s multi-node mesh-networking kit.

Similar to the Netgear Orbi RBK50 kit we currently recommend, the Orbi kit with a Wi-Fi 6 router and satellite has a new look: vertically oriented white oval cylinders with tuxedo-style black and blue stripes around their perimeters.

Netgear brought only inactive mockups to show at CES, but in the second half of this year the Orbi kit with Wi-Fi 6 will feature a dedicated 802.11ax backchannel between the router and any satellites, as well as full 2.4 GHz/5 GHz Wi-Fi compatibility (802.11a/b/g/n/ac/ax) to clients. This compatibility is important because you’ll still need to keep your Wi-Fi water monitor online while streaming video to your 4K TV and 2019-model 802.11ax laptop. Enhancements such as 1024 QAM with a 4×4 Wi-Fi backhaul mean that you should be able to get most, if not all, the Gigabit Internet throughput you’re paying for, not just at the router.

Mesh helps with Wi-Fi problem spots such as that comfy seat in the den where you have trouble staying connected to the router installed on the other side of the house. Interfering Wi-Fi signals from your neighbors compound the problem. Replacing an existing standalone router with a mesh-networking kit makes sense for someone in this situation.

If I were planning to replace a standalone router with a mesh network, I’d seriously consider waiting for the Netgear Orbi with Wi-Fi 6—it’ll work great now, and you’ll be ready for 802.11ax laptops, phones, and other devices in the future.

—Joel Santo Domingo, senior staff writer (networking)

A beefier standalone VR headset

Oculus Quest, spring 2019, $400

Photo: Signe Brewster

Facebook has hybridized its high-end Oculus Rift headset and entry-level Go headset to create the Quest: a cordless VR headset that doesn’t require a PC or external sensors but can track you and your hands as you move around a room. We’ve been looking forward to this from DDigits WP Feed 2 https://wrctr.co/2D15hlu via IFTTT