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icarusignite · 10 months

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These Violent Delights (1)

Chapter 1: Marigolds and Mayhem

Pairing: Coriolanus Snow x OC

Word Count: 4k

Summary: Academic rivals, Coriolanus Snow and Artemis Highbottom must compete for the Plinth prize. Shenanigans ensue.

A/N: Check out the masterlist for a better synopsis lol. As usual, don't be a ghost reader. I live for yalls comments/questions/concerns/reactions, even a keyboard smash is highly appreciated and encouraged ⸜(｡˃ ᵕ ˂ )⸝♡

Masterlist

Drip.

It was the third nosebleed of the night and Artemis was just about tired of it. She didn't even bother stemming the flow, allowing the carmine rivulets to trace an unhurried path from her nostrils to the marble below.

The hush of running water met the heavy rhythm of a beating heart, and there she stood—a lone figure, framed by the harsh edges of the sink, her grip upon it almost desperate. She could feel the sharpness imprinting into her skin, and yet still she clung, her skin stretched across her knuckles almost comically grotesque.

She watched the blood, in an almost detached sort of way. It could be art, she mused, the juxtaposition of sanguine against sterile white. A whispered revelation danced at the edge of her consciousness—anything could be art if you framed it the right way. Even the bloodiest of carnages. A spectacle, a thing to be enjoyed.

Artemis looked up, and her reflection stared back, menacingly. The mirror, an unforgiving oracle, revealed a distorted visage, one she both did and did not recognize. Her dark hair, cascaded in disarray, entangled in the aftermath of sleep's elusivity and her eyes harbored shadows akin to a painter's bruised palette. The reflection mocked, a cruel mimicry of the composed persona she so ardently sought to maintain.

Out of control.

Unbidden judgment pierced through her thoughts, a verdict she loathed to acknowledge.

No that could not be right.

Artemis Highbottom was always in control.

She despised this discordance, this disruption to her meticulously curated world. To her, it was anathema, but nature could not be controlled, and what was more natural than blood? Perhaps it was fitting, that this fundamental of humanity could not be dominated.

Blood could never be dishonest, and it had the power to reveal one's innermost truths.

With unyielding determination, Artemis scrubbed at the remnants of the crimson tide that painted her face, an act of restitution against the chaos that dared to invade her pristine sanctuary. Each abrasive stroke was an attempt to erase not just the physical residue but a deeper discord. She worked quietly, although there was no one else to hear. There was never anyone to hear her, her gilded halls always vacant, but Artemis spoke silence like a second language and old habits die hard. She spared her father a brief thought, wondering where he could possibly be at such a late hour but it didn't really matter. He just wasn't here. He never was.

Raw skin met her touch, and the blood, now vanquished, left in its wake a battlefield—a canvas of sacrifice for the sake of semblance.

The mess was an unwelcome intrusion there were far worse ways to be awoken. If she was busy cleaning up after her nosebleeds, then she wasn't sleeping, and if she wasn't sleeping, then she wasn't dreaming.

The walk to the Academy's Heavensbee Hall was a brisk one, although, in the sweltering heat, Artemis found herself increasingly short-tempered. She was going to be late, but she kept her pace measured. She would not arrive a panting sweaty mess like some savage. It had been a foolish idea, she knew that, but she had given her own driver the day off anyway, waiting instead for her father. His presence was expected, and she imagined it would have been a pleasant change of routine to accompany him. He was probably running late, she told herself. After all, she hadn't seen him return, and she would know, she was awake half the night.

The grand staircase up to the Academy could hold the entire student body, so it easily accommodated the stream of officials, professors, and students headed for the reaping day festivities. Artemis sped up, taking three steps at a time, while still attempting a casual dignity. Every other person she passed stopped to wave her down and exchange pleasantries, and although her impatience was rising, she kept a placid smile stretched across her lips as she greeted them all in turn. She nodded when they asked after her, and then nodded some more, albeit less enthusiastically when they asked about her father.

She made her way through an entry draped in black banners, then sprinted down a vaulted passage, and into cavernous Heavensbee Hall, where they would watch the broadcast of the reaping ceremony. She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw that she wasn't quite as late as she believed, and the official ceremony hadn't yet started. The hall was humming with faculty and students and a number of Games officials.

Avoxes wove through the crowd with trays of posca, a concoction of watery wine laced with honey and herbs. One passed by Artemis, and despite her parched throat, she waved him away. On principle, she avoided any and all intoxicants. It was stronger than most people thought, and in previous years she had seen many make complete fools of themselves by imbibing too deeply. Artemis would be damned if she allowed herself to lose control like that. That and given her father's dependence on morphling, she imagined she must be genetically predisposed to addiction.

In the great hall, she was once again forced to make her rounds, as faculty and students alike beckoned to introduce her to their circles. She eventually travelled past the hundreds of cushioned chairs set up for the occasion and onto the dais, where the communications professor, Satyria Click was regaling a mix of Academy professors and Games officials with some wild story. Amongst the gathered crowd was the biology instructor, Alfred Stanton, who stood off to the side, eyes deliberately wandering the area as if to make a show of his boredom. When his eyes caught sight of Artemis, he brightened, his face lifting in a smile as he waved her over.

Oh great, more greetings. If Artemis had to utter another false pleasantry, she'd lose her breakfast.

No, she wouldn't. She knew better than that. Besides, she was Professor Stanton's teaching aide, and it was quite literally in her job description to be at his beck and call.

When she arrived, she scowled internally. It was inevitable, she knew that, but she was hoping that at least today of all days, she'd be delayed in setting eyes upon the one person who held the power of ruining her mornings.

"Oh, Coriolanus!" Satyria drawled, as the blonde boy gave her the customary kiss on the cheek. "Here’s my star pupil.”

Artemis held no qualms against Satyria, not really. She was amusing and not overly uptight, one of the few professors who allowed students to call them by their first names. It was her teaching aide against whom she held a grudge.

Professor Stanton, not to be outdone, clapped his meaty hand on Artemis's shoulder, making her stagger. Maybe the man needed to lay off the weightlifting for a bit. He announced her presence to the circle enthusiastically, earning a scowl from Satyria.

"And Artemis, my star pupil. We were afraid we'd miss you this morning."

Artemis ducked her head bashfully, mumbling something about running late, but Professor Stanton only laughed boisterously, as he continued to speak.

Coriolanus Snow was seething. Well, no that was perhaps a little extreme. Artemis Highbottom did not deserve such a reaction from him. She didn't deserve the energy. When he hadn't seen her earlier today, he had deluded himself into thinking that she simply wouldn't come. She was never late after all, so the fact of the matter must be that she simply wasn't coming. With her gone, he could be the sole beneficiary of the crowd's attention, networking his way into their hearts.

Then he had seen her arrive, panting and slightly out of breath and he had to admit he marveled at the sight. Her coffee skin flushed and her hair thrown over her shoulder haphazardly as if she'd been running. Coriolanus had been amused, to say the least. He had hoped that she wouldn't wander over to his little corner, that he would be able to have Satyria's circle all to himself, but it was wishful thinking. People knew of him of course, being the son of Crassus Snow and all, but he realized that they tended to forget about him in her presence. After all, it was far easier to garner the good graces of one's father if he was still alive. Even if said father was Casca High-as-a-Kite-Bottom. Snow sniggered at the nickname, a creation of his own genius.

Almost as if she could read his mind, Artemis shot him a withering glare, and Coriolanus stiffened, standing straighter to shoot her one back. The circle had shifted, placing him right next to her and if he stretched his fingers, they'd brush against hers. Not that he'd want to of course. How utterly repulsive.

“Beautiful shirt. Where did you get such a thing?” Satyria was addressing Snow now, surveying him carefully.

He looked at the shirt as if surprised by its existence and gave the shrug of a young man of limitless options. They didn't have to know that all that was left to him was his name. The world still needed to think of Coriolanus as rich.

“The Snows have deep closets,” he said airily. “I was trying for respectful yet celebratory.”

Artemis held back a snort.

Celebratory, my ass.

The Snows' closets were as deep as their pockets, which was to say, containing all the depth of a bottlecap. Standing this close to him, she could almost smell the faint scent of dead marigolds and potato starch his shirt was emitting.

"Is something funny, Miss Highbottom?" Coriolanus turned to him with a raised eyebrow.

Just your pathetic fibbing skills, she wanted to say. Perhaps she had not been as discreet with her expressions as she thought she'd been because he was still waiting for an answer.

"Not at all, Mr. Snow," Artemis gave him one of her very best saccharine smiles. "I just agree with Satyria. That is indeed a lovely shirt."

Their professor beamed, happy to be validated.

“And so it is. What are these cunning buttons?” Satyria asked, fingering one of the cubes on his cuff. “Tesserae?”

“Are they? Well, that explains why they remind me of the maid’s bathroom,” Coriolanus responded, drawing a chuckle from her friends.

This was the impression he fought to sustain. A reminder that he was the rare person who had a maid’s bathroom — let alone one tiled with tesserae — tempered with a self-deprecating joke about his shirt.

He nodded at Satyria. “Lovely gown. It’s new, isn’t it?” He could tell at a glance that it was the same dress she always wore to the reaping ceremony, refurbished with tufts of black feathers. But she had validated his shirt, and he needed to return the favour.

As he did so, his eyes couldn't help but return to the figure at his side. While Satyria's renovated dress made him feel better about his own attire, brought to life only through his cousin Tigris's efforts, Artemis's had the exact opposite effect. It was new, almost obscenely so. Wasteful extravagance, he thought to himself bitterly. What a vain and shallow creature, but such was the case with all the Capitol women he supposed.

"What a wonderful ensemble, Artemis!" Satyria crowed once again. "You absolutely must give me the details of your dressmaker. Doesn't she look lovely, Coriolanus?"

Snow blinked. The question was directed at him, clearly, but he couldn't force the words out, even as his professor looked at him expectantly.

“Elegant,” he finally stated blandly.

Liar.

Artemis's eyes flashed at him triumphantly, almost as if calling him out.

The adults wandered off, and their company was replaced by that of their classmates. Arachne Crane slipped her arm into Artemis's as soon she was within range, and Artemis sent her a smile that was only slightly less false than the one she had been wearing all morning.

"Finally, and here I thought our star pupils would be too busy to give us humble folk time of day," she complained.

"Don't ever use the word humble, Arachne," the boy to her right, Festus Creed, scoffed. "It does not suit you."

Arachne rolled her eyes and sipped her drink petulantly.

"Have you tried this lamb, it's scandalous!"

The only thing scandalous is the president's son eating with his hands, Artemis thought to herself, but she knew better than to say it out loud.

Lucky for her, Festus didn't.

"Only the vulgar eat with their fingers, Felix," he chastised. "What, daddy not teach you table manners?"

"Maybe he would have if he wasn't so busy running the country!" Felix retorted.

The conversation veered off in the direction of the Plinth Prize, and their eyes were drawn to the family standing off to a corner, speaking amongst themselves.

"Who would have thought that you could buy yourself into the capitol?" Felix muttered derisively.

"You can buy god himself, provided you have the resources," Artemis finally commented.

"You can't buy class though. Did you see Sejanus's mother's outfit," Festus paused for dramatic effect before sniggering. "Sorry, his ma's."

At least he had a mother who cared for him, which is more than Artemis could say for the imbeciles around her exhibiting motherless behaviour.

"Dress a turnip in a ballgown and it'll still beg to be mashed," Snow jeered.

Artemis scoffed. And here was the biggest motherless moron of them all.

"Interesting that you of all people should say that, Coriolanus," she eyed him carefully. Gone were the honorifics she had addressed him by earlier in front of the professors. This was a battlefield and there were no pleasantries in war.

"And what's that supposed to mean?"

The two stared at each other, neither wanting to be the one to look away first and their classmates glanced between them uneasily.

Eventually, Coriolanus blinked, his ears burning, and Artemis flashed him a grin. If he wasn't thinking about carving the smile from her face, he might have thought it suited her.

If it was a battle of wills, Artemis was a born victor.

Their conversation about Sejanus came to a halt when he approached them. He didn't bother greeting any of them but he smiled at Artemis, which she heartily returned. Arachne shot her a questioning glance, but if the Capitol was a hierarchy, Artemis outranked her, and therefore did not have to answer to her.

Coriolanus eyed their interaction sullenly. He was a charmer, it was the only currency he had access to after all, and over the years he had made his best efforts to charm the Dean's enigmatic daughter. Perhaps he thought it'd make Dean Highbottom detest him a little less, if he had Artemis's favour, but although it appeared that she shared nothing else with her father, she shared in his disdain for Coriolanus. There was nothing he could do to endear himself to her, and he had long since stopped trying.

It especially irritated him, that it was Sejanus of all people who had managed to make friends with her. He did not even need the networking opportunity it provided. Snow observed the brunette boy now, his soft charcoal gray suit that reeked of money.

Sejanus’s father was a District 2 manufacturer who had sided with the president. He had made such a fortune off munitions that he’d been able to buy his family’s way into a life in the Capitol. The Plinths now enjoyed privileges that the oldest, most powerful families had earned over generations. It was unprecedented that Sejanus, a district-born boy, was a student at the Academy, but his father’s lavish donation had allowed for much of the school’s postwar reconstruction. A Capitol-born citizen would have expected a building to be renamed for them. Sejanus’s father had only requested an education for his son.

For Coriolanus, the Plinths and their kind were a threat to all he held dear. The newly rich climbers in the Capitol were chipping away at the old order simply by virtue of their presence. It was particularly vexing because the bulk of the Snow family fortune had also been invested in munitions — but in District 13. Their sprawling complex, blocks and blocks of factories and research facilities, had been bombed to dust. District 13 had been nuked, and the entire area still emitted unlivable levels of radiation. The center of the Capitol’s military manufacturing had shifted to District 2 and fallen right into the Plinths’ laps. When news of District 13’s demise had reached the Capitol, Coriolanus’s grandmother had publicly brushed it off, saying it was fortunate that they had plenty of other assets. But they didn’t.

Sejanus had arrived on the school playground ten years ago, a shy, sensitive boy cautiously surveying the other children with a pair of soulful brown eyes much too large for his strained face. When word had gotten out that he’d come from the districts, Coriolanus’s first impulse had been to join his classmates’ campaign to make the new kid’s life a living hell. He was glad he didn't because when Casca Highbottom's daughter befriended him, it put an end to all public acts of cruelty. They still mocked him in private, but that couldn't be helped. His district blood simply invited the scorn. Coriolanus's decision to simply ignore the boy had only reinforced his image. The other Capitol children took it to mean that baiting the district brat was beneath him, and Sejanus took it as decency. Neither take was quite accurate, but both worked in his favour.

"Sejanus," Festus grimaced. "You made it to the reaping for once."

"And you made it to graduation Festus, we're both shocked," the brunette boy responded.

"Spill it, who won the prize?" Arachne inquired.

Sejanus scoffed. Like any of these rich Capitol children even needed it.

"Oh no, I'm not going to ruin my father's big day. No one here actually likes him, but they all love his money. You know what that's like, don't you Arachne?"

Arachne scowled, leaning up to whisper in Artemis's ear about what a stuck-up thing he was. Artemis did not grace her with a response, but when the bell rang, and the students began to assemble in front of the dais, she took the opportunity to slip her arm out of Arachne's. Sejanus fell into step beside her then, taking the opportunity to slip a bottle of water into her hands.

"And this is for?" she raised an eyebrow.

"I know you can't stand the posca. Thought you might need something to drink, given all the talking they have you doing around here."

"And you thought I couldn't get myself some water?"

"I thought you shouldn't have to," he rubbed his neck ruefully. "Although I realize I might be a little late."

"I appreciate the gesture anyway. Thank you, Sejanus."

Artemis granted him her only real smile of the day. His sheepish smile reminded her of the day they first met, when this district boy with the cloddish accent first wandered up to her, offering her his bag of gumdrops.

She followed him to where a special section of chairs, six rows by four, had been set up for the mentors. To her chagrin, he took a seat to the right, leaving the only vacant seat next to one Coriolanus Snow. She felt the childish desire to kick his chair out from under him as he went to sit down, but shook away the traitorous thought. It was beneath her.

When her father began to speak, Artemis suppressed a sigh of exasperation. Dean Casca Highbottom, the man credited with the creation of the Hunger Games, presented himself to the students with all the verve of a sleepwalker, dreamy-eyed and, as usual, doped up on morphling. Artemis zoned out as he went on his usual spiel of how the Hunger Games, his displeasure at the whole event evident in his tone, although perhaps that was just the drugs talking.

"There has been a change this year. One final assignment to prove your worth, because the esteemed citizens of the Capitol have grown bored of the Games and simply aren't watching anymore. And if the Games are to continue at all, there must be an audience," he continued rambling. "Head Gamemaker Dr. Gaul has stepped in to incentivize patriotic values with her own unique flair. Starting with you. The Plinth Prize will no longer be determined by who has the best grades...but by who is the best mentor in the Hunger Games."

Nervous whispers fluttered among the students, as they exchanged uneasy glances. A subtle unease threaded its way through the crowd as they leaned in, both captivated and unsettled by the Dean's cryptic words.

Artemis had been aware of this turn of events, and so did Sejanus, as it was his family's money involved, but she took great satisfaction at the dumbfounded expression on Coriolanus's face when he heard the news. It made the dourness of the entire situation as a whole much more bearable.

"Your goal is to turn these children into spectacles, not survivors," Dean Highbottom announced.

Artemis was right. Anything could be art. Anything could be turned into a spectacle, even the most depraved of carnages, and what greater carnage was there than the Hunger Games?

Artemis did not need the Plinth Prize. She imagined her father would finance her higher education as he did all her other luxuries, but perhaps he might look at her differently if she won it. Perhaps it might gain his admiration. Perhaps he might respect her if she earned something of her own for once. Perhaps he might finally return home sometimes.

She did not care much for the Games, in the sense that they held no significance for her, so far removed were they from her daily life. Her classmates were a varied spectrum on where they stood, ones like Sejanus speaking out firmly against the ritual, and others enjoyed the butchery, the slaughtering of district lives. Artemis simply did not care. They were irrelevant, but if it meant gaining her father's approval, Artemis would make herself care.

As the large screens in front of them came to life with life footage from the reapings, Dean Highbottom began to recite the mentor assignments.

"District One, boy, goes to . . .” he squinted at the paper, trying hard to focus. “Glasses,” he mumbled. “Forgot them.” Everyone stared at his glasses, already perched on his nose, and waited while his fingers found them. “Ah, here we go. Livia Cardew.”

Livia’s pointed little face broke into a grin and she punched the air in victory, shouting “Yes!” in her shrill voice. She had always been prone to gloating. As if the plum assignment was solely a reflection on her, and not on her mother running the largest bank in the Capitol. Purely by chance, Artemis exchanged a cursory glance with Coriolanus just then, secretive like a private joke, which left her feeling quite unsettled.

Coriolanus felt increasing desperation as Dean Highbottom stumbled through the list, assigning each district’s boy and girl a mentor. After ten years, a pattern had emerged. The better-fed, more Capitol-friendly districts of 1 and 2 produced more victors, with the fishing and farming tributes from 4 and 11 also being contenders. Coriolanus had hoped for either a 1 or a 2, but neither was assigned to him, which was made more insulting when Sejanus scored the District 2 boy, and Artemis the girl.

Unlike Livia, Artemis received news of her good fortune with tact, pushing her sheet of raven hair over her shoulder as she studiously made note of her tribute in her binder. Their brief moment of camaraderie during Livia's outburst was forgotten as she shot him a smug smirk and he seethed.

District 4 passed without mention of his name, and his last real chance for a victor — the District 11 boy — was assigned to Clemensia Dovecote, daughter of the energies secretary. Something was amiss when a Snow, who also happened to be one of the Academy’s high-honour students, had gone unrecognized. Coriolanus was beginning to think they had forgotten him — perhaps they were giving him some special position? — when, to his horror, he heard Dean Highbottom mumble, “And last but not least, District Twelve girl . . . she belongs to Coriolanus Snow.”

#coriolanus x oc #coriolanus x reader #coriolanus snow x reader #the ballad of songbirds and snakes #the hunger games #sejanus plinth #sejanus x oc #sejanus x reader #katniss everdeen #academic rivals

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uzumaki-rebellion · 3 months

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"King Killmonger: The Golden Jaguar" Chapter 11

Need to catch up? Masterlist HERE.

"They're calling me, back to the stars

Deep out of space, they're calling me

Back to the stars

They found peace in the ocean (peace with the pain)

Now they guide my way, guide my way…"

Meshell N'Degeocello—"Virgo"

The Royal Talon Fighter approached the opening of Warrior Falls.

Okoye and Ayo scanned a twenty mile radius before flying over the valley of gushing water walls to the other side.

"Kumkani, I've found the hover bike…"

Ayo glanced over at the king who sat in a pensive position behind her. Okoye flew the aircraft lower to the base of the Falls as N'Jadka stood next to Ayo and looked at the viewscreen that projected the image of a broken hover bike floating in an undertow where it was caught between two boulders.

"No signs of Queen Yani," Ayo said with a soft tone.

N'Jadaka's jaguar suit swarmed around him and he tapped the opening of the circular floor exit. He dropped eighty feet and splashed into a deep plunge pool of cold black water. Below the surface he scanned for signs of life around the bike before dragging it onto land. A flash of pink caught his eye and he lunged for it in the water.

Yani's walking shoe. It was drenched and unmarked, unlike the damaged hover bike. She had to have fallen trying to fly over the giant falls. He quelled the rise in panic in his demeanor. She was alive somewhere. He willed it.

Okoye's voice broke through his reverie, loud and clear inside his face mask.

"There are no other traces of anything. That is a good sign," Okoye said.

N'Jadaka dove below and searched underwater. Yani had a strong body. If she were injured somewhere he would find her. He scanned for her kimoyo beads thinking they may have been snapped away from her wrist, but there was nothing.

Breeching the surface he leaped onto the land and surveyed the surroundings. Okoye and Ayo dropped down from the gravity tracking beam. Aneka stood watch over the Talon Fighter. High above, stinger aircrafts circled the sky.

"Kumkani…here…" Ayo said.

Footprints in the moist earth. He recognized the pattern of her sandals. The king gave a grateful sigh of relief. His wife was alive and somewhere out there searching for God knew what. It wasn't like her to disappear like that without telling him where she was. He stared at the height from which she fell and all the dangers that could've swallowed her up. Was she under the influence of something? Did someone…or something lure her away? He remembered the panther cubs he couldn't see back in Ekuqaleni. Did they trick her into coming here?

Worry knotted his brow.

Wakanda was still a wondrous and mysterious place to them both. Anything could've happened to her.

"Come on," he said.

They followed Yani's tracks until they came upon two more that were bigger compared to hers. They made deeper impressions in the mud and directly faced Yani's footprints. Men. She followed them willingly because there was no sign of struggle in the area.

They scanned and tracked until the ground changed into grasslands and decomposing leaves. The grass was so thick like shag carpet that it didn't even bend to give an indication of what direction they went.

"They're gone…can't find anymore markings," Ayo said, crestfallen.

"She's gotta be around here somewhere. Let's spread out for a mile and check in," He tapped his kimoyo bead, "Aneka, contact Dr. Chidubem discreetly and have him flown here in case the Queen has major injuries."

"Yes kumkani, right away," Aneka said in his earbuds.

N'Jadaka shook out his arms and charged into the mountain forest on high alert.

He had to find his wife and return her to his side.

Warm balmy water cascaded all over Yani's body as she stepped through the birth waters. The entrance of the oracle's cave hummed and vibrated and the sounds made her jumpy. Passing through to the other side led her to the tranquil natural pool of glowing turquoise waters with steam rising from it.

"You made it Queen Yani."

Yani recognized the voice of Jabulile.

The woman was dressed in a long green robe like the men that brought Yani there. She was alone and holding a folded royal blue robe.

"Please bathe in these waters, from head to toe. I will help you put on this robe when you are finished," Jabulile said.

"Where are the other two women that were with you?" Yani asked.

"With Nolwandle…the oracle. They are waiting for you in the interior of the womb. Please kumkanikazi…bathe."

Jabulile turned her back to give Yani privacy as she willingly stripped down. She dipped a toe in the water first, and it wasn't too hot. Submerging herself, she gave into the heat and liquid comfort. The water smelled like sweet perfumes and tingled all over her skin. Dunking her head below, she quickly rubbed herself down. The water reflected against the ceiling and walls of the cave. She noticed inscriptions written in a language other than Wakandan, with pictographs depicting waves and sea creatures painted with neon blue paint. Some images were carved into the walls and looked older and eroded in some places. The bandage on her wrist fell away, and so did the dull ache of pain she carried since the Falls.

Stepping out of the pool, Yani looked for a towel.

Jabulile turned around and unfurled the robe she carried.

"No need to dry yourself, put this on quickly…here, I'll take those bandages for you. Follow me this way please…"

Yani trailed behind Jabulile. The light source used to illuminate their way couldn't be pinpointed by Yani. The cave floor was soft black sand that didn't seem to belong to that particular ecosystem. Her robe swished at her feet and stuck to the wet parts of her body, contouring itself like a designer dress. They walked through a purple mist that swiped across her skin like spiderwebs breaking across her face and body. She waved her hands around only to find that it was a sensation only…nothing was on her skin.

Her eardrums throbbed with the pounding of the drums…no…they couldn't be drums. The two young women who had drums were too far away to emit the sound she heard right then. Yani tuned in closer and realized the sound was a heartbeat, as if the cave was a living thing pumping its heart in a soothing rhythm.

Strange.

Yani walked a normal rate of speed, but her body felt like it was slowing down.

"We are almost there Queen Yani," Jabulile said.

Jabulile's voice sounded far away, the way it would if Yani were deep underwater listening to speech high above her head. Her heart thumped faster and she inhaled air through her mouth to calm down her fear.

They reached a narrow opening where the two women Yani asked about, Khanyisile and Nolwazi, stood watch holding torches. Both women smiled, relief evident on their faces.

"Go through there and you will find her," Jabulile said.

The passageway was dark and had only enough room for one person to pass through at a time.

"By myself?" Yani asked.

All three women nodded.

"Do not be afraid Queen Yani. Mama Wati protects you," Nolwazi said.

Yani shook her fingers and stepped past the women into the foreboding passage. Darkness swallowed her and she heard her own breathing speed up. Claustrophobia threatened to paralyze her from moving on, but she swallowed thickly and mustered the courage to keep walking, even as her shoulders hit the sides of the unseen walls. Step by step. Inch by inch. Yani staggered through thirty yards of pitch black until her cone and rod cells worked again to detect light and movement ahead.

Her eyes adjusted.

A woman with skin the color of freshly made Jamaican black castor oil sat crosscrossed on a bright green rug with painted sea turtles and stingrays. Her hair was wrapped in a large seagreen headwrap and her neck was heavy with seashell necklaces and sun-yellow glass beads. She could've been thirty, or she could've been seventy, it was anyone's guess with Wakandan people. They aged gracefully and seemingly slow. Bright eyes the color of glowing jade in the center and dark amber at the edges peered at her with a welcome kindness.

"Queen Yani Udaku of the Black Panther Tribe…and the unofficial adopted daughter of the River Tribe…I welcome you home. Sit…right there…in front of me," the Oracle Nolwandle said.

Yani crossed her legs on the long green rug facing the oracle. Nolwandle sat and stared at Yani's face until the young queen squirmed her hips.

"You look the way my emissaries said you did…youthful and full of energy. Very beautiful. The king loves beauty I hear," Nolwandle said.

The oracle's unnatural jade-powered gaze pierced through Yani's defenses of trying to appear stoic and queenly. Sitting in front of her made Yani feel like a young child chatting with her grandmother.

"King N'Jadaka's energy can be felt all throughout the kingdom. He carries his ancestors well. They are strong on the other side. The king is on his way now to retrieve you. I can feel his worry over you."

"I don't want him to worry," Yani said.

"There is apprehension in your voice my queen. Mama Wati wants you to be at ease here."

"It's hard…I don't know what to expect…I don't know what to do…"

"Ease…my queen…breathe in deep…"

Yani inhaled and Nolwandle urged her to do more. Behind the oracle, a small fire burned inside a stone fireplace. To the oracle's left side was a wide opening in the cave that led to a river of water not found on any Wakandan map. A pile of stones held another fire that lit up the roof of the cave leading out into the open water where other large mountains touched one another leaving gaps for water to flow past. Part of the walls shined like the sparkling emerald water reflecting shimmery images dancing on the walls. The interior felt dark, warm and mysterious and the waterway hinted at sunshine and an upperworld.

"Breathe…yes…deeply…slowly…"

Nolwandle reached behind her and lifted a bundle of herbs tied with bright white string. She tossed them into the fire and it sparkled and puffed out dark blue smoke.

"Breathe daughter…yes…deeper still…allow the smoke to enter your lungs."

"Are you drugging me…it feels thick in my chest…" Yani gasped, clutching her throat.

"I am opening the path for us to travel. Mama Wati will partially lift the veil for you to receive the message meant for you…"

"I can't breathe…I'm having a hard time…oracle! Help me…I can't!" Yani choked out.

"The message is coming, daughter. Mama Wati has opened the veil…"

The unseen presence of an entity larger than the cave itself came first.

It its wake was a pressure, like an ocean's weight of water pressing down on Yani's body, threatening to flatten her. The pressure in her ears changed too. She clutched at her throat and yet Nolwandle remained calm, her lips moving but no sound coming out.

The presence wrapped itself all over the cave and a roar thundered in Yani's ears. She looked toward the placid water outside and a mammoth ocean wave rolled toward her in slow motion. Yani couldn't move, her lower body locked to the ground helpless and unprotected. She could still mover her head though.

"Nolwandle!" Yani shouted.

Yani glanced at the oracle again and the woman's head fell back. Her eyes were squeezed shut and her mouth stayed wide open. Yani whipped her head to brace herself for when the wave would hit them, but it was gone. The opening was covered in a tranquil water barrier that made the outside scenery look blurry, fluid, and dreamy.

"Yani…"

A voice behind the water barrier came out of the oracle's mouth. Confused, Yani looked at Nolwandle again. Her mouth stayed agape and frozen in that position.

"Yani…JaJa's wife…"

Yani heard the voice come from the oracle, but it sounded like it was behind the water barrier too, as if it bounced out to use the oracle as its frequency to the human world. The queen rose from her seated position and walked toward the barrier. The shadowy outside world was there, rippling behind the veil.

Two figures walked forward.

Yani held her breath and waited until they stood before her. One was older and the other younger. Her breath hitched in her chest and she stumbled back, unable to believe her eyes.

The younger woman had fiery brown eyes and big ginger hair that crowned her head like a giant sunburst. Yani recognized the same freckles her son had. The older woman was shorter with an exquisite face etched with wisdom that matched the younger woman. Her hair was looser in texture and had faded streaks of light brown mixed in with white that was cornrowed in four thick braids going straight back. Yani knew right away the two women were related. Long pearl-white tunics shrouded their bodies.

"You know who I am. Don't you?" the younger woman said.

Yani nodded.

"Califia Stevens Udaku…N'Jadaka's mother."

"Yes…this is JaJa's great-grandmother, Nana Jean."

"Hello, ma'am," Yani said, instantly genuflecting to them both.

Nana Jean laughed and Califia joined her. The older woman held up a hand.

"We are family baby, you don't bow to us," Nana Jean said.

The presence pushed down on the cave and the water barrier vibrated, blurring the women from Yani's view.

"Califia!" Yani shouted.

Their images shimmered back into view seconds later. Yani wiped frantic tears away from her eyes, so terrified her mother-in-law and great-grandmother-in-law had vanished. Califia held her hand against the barrier. Yani raised hers to try and touch it. The cool blue kinetic liquid would not allow them to connect.

"I wish I could comfort you, Yani. Mama Wati has warned us. Bast is awake inside of my son. I'll have to speak quickly before we lose contact," Califia said.

Yani was spellbound by Califia, the woman's beauty staggered the imagination. She carried a vibrant charisma that was like N'Jadaka's times ten. No wonder Prince N'Jobu stayed away from his home and defied a nation. Califia was priceless.

"You're going to conceive a baby who is so important that they'll have the power to split the world into pieces in the future. I apologize having to sound so cryptic but I'm breaking so many rules to be here with you. I took what I could decipher from the realm of time in the spirit world with my limited understanding. Although I'm an ancestor now, Bast still shrouds us from telling humans too much."

"When?" Yani asked.

"Soon...two or three years at most from what little I could decipher from the time threads. A man is also coming there who will challenge my son for the world. I need for you to survive the war they may wage—"

"More war? In Wakanda?"

"War all over the world. You're the key to preventing their battle from consuming JaJa. If anything happens to that baby or you…my son will burn the world down and the future will become bleak for everyone on the planet even more than it is. Your baby must survive at all costs in order to claim their birthright and keep Wakanda secure years from now. That child will turn the nation into an empire. No matter the cost, it must happen!"

Califia stepped closer to the veil, unable to penetrate it. Her voice came from behind Yani through the oracle's mouth, but Yani focused on Califia's face.

"My son has lost too much in this world. I don't want him suffering again if I can warn you. I couldn't come to him because Bast would block me directly, so I had to come for you through Mama Wati," Califia said.

"I understand. I'll do all I can to protect our baby."

"Not just the one to come, but Riki and Joba too."

"Riki and Joba? What's going to happen to them?" Yani yelped.

The cave vibrated with the force of an earthquake. Califia and Nana Jean glanced behind them. Worry clouded their faces.

"Nothing will happen if you can prevent it," Califia said.

Nana Jean became agitated and looked over her shoulder again.

"We should leave now, Cali…Dayclean is coming," Nana Jean said, grabbing Califia's arm, pulling her back from the veil.

Califia gently patted her grandmother's hand, stood her ground, and locked eyes with Yani.

"Joba and Riki will be the ones to help the baby become what she needs to be in order to rule the future. But that future will face turmoil if none of them live once a foretold prophecy begins at your pregnancy. When Namor returns, be ready Yani. This is all I have to give you," Califia said.

"Namor," Yani repeated, searing the name into her mind.

"You must stay away from him…you and the children—"

"Califia!"

The booming voice of a distraught man flew out of the oracle's mouth making Yani jump. He appeared next to them in a long white tunic.

N'Jobu.

N'Jadaka's father.

Seeing N'Jadaka's parents together knocked Yani's knees. Never would she have dreamed of seeing them alive and looking so well from the other side. N'Jobu turned his kind eyes toward Yani.

"My daughter…Yani…you shouldn't be here with my wife or Nana Jean. Certain knowings belong to Bast, and only her. What you have heard is forbidden knowledge to that existence there. Your life must be lived with my son and grandchildren in ignorance," N'Jobu gently urged.

Califia shook her head and challenged her husband.

"No! I won't let that happen this time. Our son deserves happiness. Too much was stolen from him and I refuse to let anything be taken from him again. I don't care if I have to go against Bast or any other god to protect them."

N'Jobu put his arms around Califia. Her voiced raged from the oracle's open throat. N'Jobu's somber tone brought levity to Yani's predicament. Califia had gone above and beyond from the ancestral plane to reach her family. Her love bled through the water barrier and cloaked Yani with its comfort and legendary warrior spirit. Her willingness to defy gods was a trait Yani hoped she could live up to for her own babies.

N'Jobu gently scolded his wife.

"You have stolen free-will and burdened our daughter with fear and more confusion. That isn't fair to Yani. Now she will worry about our family needlessly," N'Jobu said.

The cave vibrated with the presence yet again. Mama Wati's collusion was weakening. N'Jobu held his wife lovingly as Nana Jean watched over them both.

"We must go back my love…please. JaJa will live a glorious life…"

"His children—"

"—will live out their destinies, whatever they will be, without interference from now on. Let them be…let them have their own lives. We are always here for them as a comfort and a reminder that life doesn't end at death."

"Yani," Califia said, still reaching for her daughter-in-law.

"You see death for us? Me and the children?" Yani asked.

Califia clutched at her temples and her mouth twisted into a horrid grimace. She appeared to be full of pain.

"Bast is jumbling up my mind…she's stealing the future threads from me…" Califia wailed.

"Califia!" N'Jobu cried out, grabbing her by the waist to keep her from falling.

A dark foreboding shadow loomed over them behind the veil in the shape of an enormous panther stalking tiny prey.

Bast.

"Forgive her Bast! Please!" N'Jobu shouted.

Bast's dark shadow scattered and floated away. Califia closed her eyes. Yani did the same as something slithery, warm, and invasive cleaved to her temporal lobe. The words of warning Califia gave her were plucked from her gray matter one by one until nothing was left. Yani struggled to grab onto anything, her brain synapses crackling with electrical impulses to store and hide any morsel. She was able to hold onto two words, and only because she sensed a benevolent shield from Mama Wati to allow her to grasp onto anything her mother Bast had culled from her mortal skull.

"It's gone, all of it. I can no longer see it," Califia said in a defeated tone.

Yani blanked out mentally as Bast swiped her mind clean too.

Nana Jean cradled Califia's face and N'Jobu nuzzled his nose against her cheek, comforting her. Soft footfalls from behind Yani captured her attention.

"Mom, Baba…"

N'Jadaka strode into the cavern with a shocked expression. Califia perked up and clung to N'Jobu's arm as she gazed at her beloved son.

"JaJa…your wife is fine. I needed to see her to tell her…." Califia glanced around trying to remember her thoughts.

N'Jadaka reached for Yani and pulled her into his chest.

"Thank the gods you're safe," he huffed into her hair. He kissed the top of her head and rocked her in his arms.

"I'm sorry I tricked you…I had to come. Your mother needed me."

N'Jadaka faced his parents. Their eyes shined bright with love for their only child. N'Jobu held Califia's hand.

"Nana?" N'Jadaka said, stepping closer to the water barrier to see his great-grandmother.

Nana Jean grinned. She swelled with pride at seeing her great-grandson as a grown man.

"Look at you… so big and handsome like your father. You did everything to hold onto our bond…my sweet great-grandson," Nana Jean said.

Pressure popped in Yani's ear. N'Jadaka experienced it too and winced like her.

"Leave here quickly son. You two aren't meant to be here like this. Your mother has been forceful as usual," N'Jobu said.

The water barrier rippled and the images behind the veil began to cloud and fade.

"Watch over each other, JaJa…love one another at all times," N'Jobu said.

N'Jadaka rushed the barrier and called to his mother. Califia gazed at him with a mixture of adoration and longing.

"Mom, why did you come to Yani?"

Califia's gaze fell upon Yani. The presence in the cave began to lift. N'Jobu tugged on Califia and Nana Jean to follow him back from where they came.

"Bast stole the memory from me, JaJa. I had it and she took it away. Yani, whatever I told you, hold onto it. I may never get to reach out like this again, but I want you both to know I tried my best to make life there good for you," Califia said. She gave N'Jadaka a winsome smile. "Take care of each other JaJa. We love you," Califia said.

Her voice sounded weary.

"Mom…Baba…wait…"

"We must go back, son. Feel us in your heart as always," N'Jobu said.

Nana Jean pressed her forehead against the barrier. N'Jadaka lined his forehead with hers and pressed against it.

"You have done well, JaJa. We are here with you at all times," Nana Jean said.

Califia blew Yani and N'Jadaka kisses and the water barrier snapped into a blurry whirlpool of foamy water. Yani turned to look at the oracle. The woman stayed in the same odd position with her eyes closed and mouth open.

"I soon come, Mama…Baba…"

A soft childlike voice came out of the oracle's mouth. It sounded like a toddler just learning to speak. It gave Yani chills, but not as much as seeing her body still sitting crossed legged in front of Nolwandle…with N'Jadaka sitting right next to her in the same position. Yani glanced back as a loud rumbling whooshing sound reverberated around them. The water barrier transformed itself into another mighty wave. It moved backward in slow motion beyond the mountain barrier. A strong force knocked Yani in her solar plexus and she gasped, finding herself punched back into her corporeal body still sitting cross-legged and staring at Nolwandle. The oracle's head fell forward and she closed her mouth, exhausted from the ordeal. Perspiration dotted her forehead and soaked her clothes. Her once glowing jade eyes had become a delicate dark brown since Mama Wati released her as a vessel.

N'Jadaka shook himself back into their side of the veil. Tears rested on his lids and Yani moved onto her knees and hugged him.

"I'm sorry…I'm sorry…" Yani said repeatedly.

"It's okay. I found you and you're safe. You left for a good reason if my parents and great-grandmother sent for you."

Nolwandle shifted to her knees and bowed her head low to the ground, holding her folded hands toward N'Jadaka.

"I beg your forgiveness, kumkani. I was directed by Mama Wati that your mother and great-grandmother wished to see the queen. I am a mere servant of the divine. My intention was not to maliciously trick you or your wife but to service the needs of your ancestors," Nolwandle said with fear laced in her tone.

N'Jadaka looked Yani over.

"Did you hurt yourself? You fell didn't you?"

"Yes," Yani said. "I may have fractured my wrist, but it feels better."

"I sent for Dr. Chidubem. He's on his way here to look you over."

Yani turned to the oracle.

"Thank you, Nolwandle. I appreciate everything you had to go through to help me."

"Blessings to you, Queen Yani. I pray that the message you received is one that will please you and prepare you for what is to come."

Yani shook her head in disappointment.

"I'm afraid I made this journey for nothing and your body suffered needlessly. Bast took away my memory of the message. Mortals can't know the future."

"Baby, it's okay," N'Jadaka said trying to soothe her depressed mood.

"I have been instructed to prepare the queen's body by Mama Wati."

"What are you going to do?" N'Jadaka asked.

Nolwandle stood and shuffled over to the fire where she lifted two wooden bowls. She brought them to Yani and placed them on the rug. She pulled a small stool out and planted herself in front of the queen.

"May I?" Nolwandle asked, pointing to Yani's damp robe.

Yani nodded and Nolwandle opened it wide revealing the queen's nakedness. Lifting a brush from the first bowl, the oracle painted a ring of blue waves around Yani's belly button that soaked into her skin like a tattoo marking. She then switched bowls and painted a different ring of twisty swirls in light green around the first ring.

"There. When you return to your honeymoon time, rub oil over them every night. The color will soak into the pigment of your skin deeper. This is your talisman, Queen Yani. Mama Wati has marked you as one of her own. When the time comes these markings will reveal their true intent. Walk out of this womb of the world with your purpose intact."

Yani clutched the oracle's hands.

"I heard a voice come out of you…a young voice…a child."

"I can only transmit, not translate what is for your ears only, kumkanikazi," Nolwandle said.

Yani's lips turned down in disappointment.

"It was our baby," N'Jadaka said.

He stroked Yani's hand. She stared at him.

"My parents came to me after their funeral ceremony…that time I was late coming to the repast at your lake front home…when we were apart. My mom said I had a child coming that I had to show a lot of grace to because she would need it. I felt the energy in that voice when I heard it, Yani. That was our child…speaking to us."

Yani trembled and lowered her head, the knowledge unnerving her. To hear her baby's voice before she was even planted in her womb or even born yet astounded her. The child called to her.

I soon come.

Yani slumped into N'Jadaka's arms and cried. All her fear and worry about the journey to Warrior Falls jolted her emotions. His parents loved her. Watched over her and their grandbabies. His great-grandmother knew who she was and came to bear witness in defiance of a deity. She wept and her husband held her in his warmth and understanding.

N'Jadaka tied the robe back around her and guided Yani away from the oracle. Her wrist felt a little tender, but the pool water helped her endure the slight discomfort longer.

"You go through first," N'Jadaka said when they reached the dark passageway again.

Yani walked through with assured steps. She was proud that she completed her task. Even prouder that N'Jadaka's amazing mother reached out for her, trusting that Yani would heed her words one hundred per cent without hesitation. She waited for the king to join her out of the passageway and they met Okoye and Ayo waiting for them with the three women emissaries.

"Thank you, Jabulile, Khanyisile and Nolwazi," Yani said.

The three woman bowed low to her and N'Jadaka. They passed through to the outside and the two Uyakhusela's greeted them.

"Peaceful journeys to you both," the men said in unison.

The Doras walked ahead of them and N'Jadaka clasped Yani's hand tight and kept them in one spot out of earshot of their security. He exhales softly.

"I'm blessed and happy you got to see them…speak to them."

"Is Bast furious?" Yani said, ready to shrink back into the forest if the goddess set a bush on fire or struck her down with a plague.

N'Jadaka touched his chest and closed his eyes.

"Displeased. But not with you. Mama Wati is her daughter and they have to deal with their family squabbles on that side of the spiritual plane," he joked.

He touched her wrist and looked it over.

"Does it hurt when I touch it?"

"Not as much as before."

"Crazy girl," he teased

He tapped his kimoyo beads.

"Aneka, come get us. You have my coordinates," he said.

"Dr. Chidubem will be arriving soon," Aneka said.

"We'll meet him halfway," he said.

N'Jadaka brought Yani to an open clearing and the Royal Talon Fighter lifted them up high into air. They flew for an hour and stopped halfway to their destination when a quad stinger arrived ferrying Dr. Chidubem to them. He took Yani to the back of the Talon Fighter and injected her wrist with nano bots that stitched her fractured wrist back together. She swallowed painkillers to dull down a fading ache. Dr. Chidubem's short graying locs reminded Yani of Baba Z.

"You'll be good as new in no time Queen Yani."

"It wasn't as bad as I thought," she said.

"Hairline fracture."

They thanked the doctor and bid him farewell after he pumped Yani full of vitamins and electrolytes for good measure. It didn't take long to get back to Umbono Lake and their peaceful houseboat.

Alone once more, N'Jadaka pampered Yani, feeding her a hearty lunch and insisting that she rest after a long warm shower. He rubbed almond oil on her scalp and slathered fresh cocoa and coffee butter all over her naked form, paying special attention to the new markings on her belly. She slipped on a bikini afterward.

"That paint is like ink," Yani said, rubbing her shiny belly.

N'Jadaka made them tea and snuggled with her in their loft bed. The boat gently rocked with the small wind currents. Intense relief rested her husband's body as he held her against him tight. He had been frightened without her being with him. That man could face any evil killer or terrorist without blinking an eye, but not having her near was his only true weakness.

She caressed his face.

"We heard our baby," she said.

His eyes glinted with unshed tears.

"We did," he said.

"We'll have to prepare—"

N'Jadaka took his index finger and held it over Yani's lips.

"I don't want you thinking about anything but getting well and resting. We have a honeymoon to enjoy and I want to live it up without prepping for another baby."

"What? This coming from the man who gets aroused simply thinking about putting a baby in me every time we make love?"

N'Jadaka gave a sly cheesy grin.

"Yeah…I want to make another baby…but…actually hearing the voice of my future daughter reminds me that we'll have four kids to raise. Thinking of it as a hypothetical was cool, but shit switches up when you hear your child's voice. Damn…like my daughter spoke to me. Half of her is still in my nutsack and the other half is still in your ovary…that shit is crazy. Yo, Ma…the fuck? We livin' in wild times girl."

N'Jadaka laughed and his eyes became shiny with the wonderment of it all.

Yani's gaze darted away from N'Jadaka's well-meaning focus. She saw things through the oracle that regular people would never experience. Gods, ancestors, and spiritual realms could come and go in her new world. She heard the voice of her baby, and the unborn child sounded confident and sure. A little girl, too. A girl who would grow up loved beyond measure by her parents and siblings. Something had to be very special about her if Mama Wati permitted her to speak to them from the other side. And just maybe, it was the reason Califia felt it so urgent to seek out Yani without Bast's permission.

Was this how Mary felt when the archangel came to her and said she would birth Jesus?

Yani shook her head at the sacrilege she skirted with her heavy Christian upbringing. Who was she to compare her unborn baby to Jesus. Thee Jesus from the bible.

And yet…

A goddess came for her and opened up a holy realm for Yani to speak to the dead and to also hear an unborn baby. This was the stuff that prophets wrote in holy scripture. Was she not a child of Mama Wati? Wasn't that what the oracle said?

God put her on the path to have that baby with N'Jadaka.

Yani stared out of the window at the water. A slight pressure on the back of her head toggled something loose in the deepest recesses of her mind.

She remembered two things from Califia. Two things Mama Wati hid from Bast in Yani's mind to keep it from totally slipping away.

Prophecy.

And a name.

Namor.

Yani put everything together quickly. Their unborn daughter had to be fulfilling a prophecy Califia had come to tell her about. But the name? Namor. It felt familiar in Yani's gut, and it most definitely gave her a shudder throughout her body thinking about it. A residual reminder of its importance maybe…or a warning. Something hidden and sticky in her mind would not let her forget that name. It sat on her tongue inside a tightly closed mouth. If she just mentioned the name to N'Jadaka, maybe he could help her figure out the meaning of it. N'Jadaka stroked her cheek.

"I can see you fretting about something from the cave," he said.

She nodded, knowing she could never hide anything from him. Not even her private thoughts. Her emotions welled up deep inside. She witnessed a profound gift and it still lingered over her.

"Baby…don't cry. That shit messes me up when you do."

Her lips trembled and she shut her eyes tight.

"Your mother was so beautiful. And your Dad…he was so sweet and kind, so royal…and your Nana…she loves you all over," Yani said.

N'Jadaka broke out into a delighted smile, even as happy tears leaked from his eyes.

"I'm happy for you, Yani. I wished they could be here to meet you, and Mama Wati made it happen. A part of me even thinks Bast let it happen because, trust me baby, Bast does not play."

"She seemed so angry to me."

"Or maybe she needed you to feel that anger out of love to leave well enough alone. This world we live in now, nothing is ever what it seems on first glance. All of this was your journey Yani. Do with it what you want."

"I remember only two things your mother told me. I want to say them to you. If you don't want to hear them because Bast may act out, I'll respect your choice."

N'Jadaka gathered his own thoughts by gazing out at the water.

"My mother told me I was going to live a long and glorious life. That means that you and our children are with me because that is my blessing. Nothing can change that if she said it," he said.

Yani rose from lying on his chest and held his hands in hers.

"Do you want to know the words and what I think they mean?" she asked.

"Tell me."

"Prophecy. I think our daughter is going to fulfill the prophecy of the River Tribe. It only makes sense as to why Califia would do what she did to speak to me. She wanted us to get ready for her. That baby has to be special, destined for some greater purpose in the future."

"I'm down with that. Mom did ask me to be ready for her before."

"Okay…the next thing. Namor."

Yani studied her husband's face carefully. His eyes seemed to bulge in their sockets when she said it, and his entire frame went rigid.

"You know that name," Yani said.

"My mother said, Namor?"

"Yes."

N'Jadaka stared through Yani as if he was watching something of great importance play out.

"Who is that person?"

"A mutant I met some time ago. A dangerous person who rules an empire under the sea," he said.

The word "empire" tipped something in Yani's mind, but it shambled away before she could hold it for closer introspection.

"I think those two things are connected somehow. I wish Bast hadn't wiped everything away in my head."

N'Jadaka stood and cracked his knuckles. His concentration lingered outside. The sky was a beautiful azure with not a cloud in sight. He glanced back at Yani.

"Namor's name can't be spoken outside of us, Yani. I'm upholding an agreement that King T'Chaka made with him thirty years ago."

"You've met him?"

"I have. He looks human, but he has wings on his feet and flies. His strength is ten times of any human and he can breathe underwater and on land. He and his people have killed thousands to keep their existence hidden. They also have vibranium."

Yani jumped off the bed.

"How?" Yani asked.

N'Jadaka sat back down on the bed and Yani planted herself next to him.

"Well, it fell from the sky. Apparently a chunk of it broke off hitting our atmosphere and some of it landed in the ocean near where he is from. They call themselves the Talokanil. Namor's true name is K'uk'ulkan. It means Feather Serpent God in their language. He and his people have powers that…well, just imagine every person in Wakanda having the powers of the Black Panther. That's how powerful they are. We don't even know how many of his people live down there. I've got enough problems dealing with motherfuckers on land, I don't need no shit starting with an unknown entity like that. Hell, there might be more mutants down there with him."

"That's it then. That's what your mother wanted me to know. Namor and our baby are tied together somehow."

"I hope to Bast they aren't. We don't need that smoke coming our way. Humans I can deal with. I've whooped alien ass and plenty of warlords…but Namor. I will continue to act like he doesn't exist."

He wiped the creases in her forehead away.

"Don't worry your pretty head about nothing Yani. We make the future we want, especially with that new little one waiting on us," he said.

He sounded confident. Yani believed him. He rested the side of his face against hers.

"If my mom is aware of Namor then I will be vigilant in keeping him far from Wakanda. Nothing can harm us if my mother and great-grandmother are looking out for us."

Yani touched her stomach. She and N'Jadaka traced their fingers on the colorful blue and green designs.

"How about we call the three munchkins we already have?" he suggested.

Yani tapped her beads quickly, yearning to see her royal brood. She leaned into her husband before the children's images popped above her wrist.

"I'm truly so sorry I scared you," she said.

"It's over and done with. I have you back. We're good, Yani."

"Hi Mama! Hi Baba! Look how Auntie Twyla did my hair today," Sydette said, twirling around showing off her artfully braided hair.

"She did mine too!" Joba chimed in, touching the braided tips of her long tresses.

"Looks nice, girls," N'Jadaka said.

Riki stared at them with a grumpy look on his face. His hair was braided in the same style as Joba's and Sydette's.

"You don't like your cornrows, Dumpling?" Yani asked.

"Auntie always does our hair all the same. A prince should have a different style," Riki grumbled.

Sydette ran her fingers over his hair that touched down to his shoulder blades.

"It's getting so long and he's mad because his friends said he looks like a princess," Sydette teased.

Riki rolled his eyes.

"I like your hair long, Dumpling," Yani insisted.

"Baba's hair is long too," Joba said, trying to encourage her brother to like his braids.

"Mama, what's that on your stomach?" Sydette asked.

Yani looked past her bikini top, forgetting she was resting in a swimsuit.

"I'm trying out some body art," Yani said.

Sydette looked at Yani's stomach and then waved her hand at Joba and Riki.

"Go get your sketch pads…you both left them on the desk," Sydette said.

Joba and Riki scampered off and returned holding up their separate sketch pads.

"Mama, look," Joba said, "your body art looks like this," Joba said.

"And this," Riki said with surprise in his voice.

Yani and N'Jadaka looked at the pictures closely, then stared at one another.

"When did you make those?" N'Jadaka asked.

"Yesterday," Joba said.

"Before we went to Umama's suite," Riki added.

Joba's picture, drawn with the careful flourishes she was known for doodling when designing her fairy garden looks, was an exact match of Yani's blue body waves. Riki's drawing was close to a perfect match of the green swirls of the outer ring.

"Have you drawn anything like that before?" N'Jadaka asked them.

"Is something wrong?" Joba asked, sensing the odd tone of her father's voice.

"No, I'm just amazed that you both created something like this so similar to Mama's marking."

"The green lady showed us how to do it," Riki said, looking over his own design on his mother's belly.

"The green lady?" Yani asked.

"Yes, Umama took us to the museum yesterday," Joba said, "We had our sketch books with us. Riki and I saw her sitting on the floor in front of a painting we were trying to copy with our new art pens, and she showed us how to make this instead," Joba said.

"Why do you call her the green lady?" N'Jadaka asked.

Joba shrugged. "She had on all green…and her eyes were kinda green too. She said that the waves and swirls are symbols used to represent the ocean in Birnin S'Yan…that was the painting we were trying to copy. It had a big ocean wave. Umama wanted us to see it since it's a very famous painting in Birnin Zana. It's called "The Mother of Waters" and was made in 1546. See?"

Joba swiped the image of the oil painting for her parents to see.

"Holy Bast," N'Jadaka said.

Yani covered her mouth. She recognized the wave. It looked exactly like the one that rolled into Warrior Falls. The one that brought the water barrier and allowed Califia to see them.

"Well, that is some amazing work you two. Sydette did you sketch anything?" Yani said, trying to move the conversation elsewhere. Riki and Joba began to look concerned about their sketches and the way their parents looked at them.

"No, I was trying my hand at photography. Umama let me wander and practice lighting and shadow techniques. She was my subject for most of my pictures. I have some very nice ones she wants to frame."

"That's super cool, Sweet Pea," N'Jadaka said.

"Can't wait to see you all," Yani said.

"Will we get to wear body art too?" Sydette asked.

"Maybe," Yani said.

"We'll call you guys back in a couple of days, okay?" N'Jadaka said.

All three children nodded and blew their parents kisses before winking out. Yani stood in front of N'Jadaka.

"It had to be an avatar. There's no way the oracle could've been in Birnin Zana yesterday. Sydette didn't say that she saw anyone and no Dora would let a stranger approach our children like that," Yani said.

"I wouldn't put it past my mother to try and reach our children. They were meant to know these symbols too."

"They didn't seem scared at all."

"Not until they read our body language and the tone of our voices," he said.

N'Jadaka pulled back the covers and helped her get into bed once more.

"More rest for you," he said.

"Everything will be okay, won't it?"

"It will, baby...it will. No god would bring us this far and let us lose what we have now."

Yani accepted his doting on her for the rest of the night. She closed her eyes and knew she could face anything with Califia Stevens Udaku in their corner from the ancestral plane. Tucking Namor into a faraway nook in her memory bank, the Queen of Wakanda slumbered well.

And so did her husband.

Chapter 12 HERE.

Taglist:

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#King Killmonger #King Killmonger The Golden Jaguar #Black Panther Fanfiction #Wakanda Forever Fanfiction #Killmonger Fanfiction #Uzumaki Rebellion #Uzumaki Rebellion Writes #Pantherverse

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apocalypse-shuffle · 2 years

Text

BATMAN | BAT FAMILY (assorted canon)

────────────────────

“Long Overdue” (Bruce Wayne x Batmom!Reader)

| Reader was with Bruce in the past but grew distant after Jason’s death. No one tells her when he comes back from the dead until Bruce is forced to bring her in on an ambush when they’re overwhelmed. -Jason and Batmom!Reader reunion.

| SFW, canon typical action, Reader & Bruce are divorced, -angry!reader & Caribbean-American!Reader (kinda)

| This is like half fanon half UTRH/Batman:Hush. I’m really just fucking around with canon rn. Also the pictures used are just for aesthetics and have no contextual meaning to the story. (pic source: Gotham Knights video game)

| 1k+ words

| parts: one, spurt, two, three, four, five, six/six point five, seven. (series masterlist)

“Baaats!”

At Dick’s pointed tone, thrown across the battlefield as he’s cornered by six of Black Mask’s and Penguin’s combined men, Bruce clenches his teeth harder.

“Ah shit.” Jason throws one goon into two more with a grunt. “If golden boy’s getting panicky, what’s that mean for the rest of us?”

Dick takes two guys out with an escrima stick.

“Har har, Hood.”

Jason shrugs from the other side of the factory floor, looking increasingly more frustrated and likely to abandon Bruce’s ‘no gun’ stipulation for their shared mission as he’s ganged up on.

“This really isn’t looking good, Bats.”

Barbra’s voice coming into his earpiece just adds to the steady growth of gray hairs on his head. Bruce brings his hands up to block the swing of a crowbar from a man wearing a crude approximation of Black Mask’s face.

“Give me a status update, Oracle.”

“To put it eloquently? You’re fucked.”

Her forced glibness makes Dick throw out another pointed call of his name and Jason cackle. Bruce just sighs.

“What are you suggesting?”

He regrets asking immediately after he does at Barbara's next words.

“Well, with Batgirl away, Robin out, and Gordon and the rest of the GCPD running interference to keep the victims away from Mask’s remaining men I’m saying you hit the emergency backup button.”

Bruce grunts as he goes down to swipe two mens’ feet from under them, cape swishing in a low arc behind him and then catching the air as he pushes himself up and punches another out.

“No.”

There’s a groan in his earpiece.

“I really think now’s the time to practice the humility we’ve been working on, B!”

“I wish you luck with that,” Jason grunts before a quiet: “Fuck it.”

Bruce braces himself for the onslaught of bullets from his second son when the sound of the large skyline window shattering echoes around the spacious room. A figure drops in following the cascade of glass.

The whole room seems to pause, then, during which the figure rises out of their crouch.

“Oh holy shit,” falls past Jason's mouth before they start moving.

In the rush of the night and with the distance between the last time he saw you, Jason might not recognize your voice, but Bruce does immediately.

“Oracle! Explain, now.”

Barbara’s voice is unbothered as she speaks.

“First, the next time you demand an answer from me you can do your own recon, and Second, you need the help so I don’t want to hear it.”

“Yeah Bruce,” your voice in his ear causes him to take an unceremonious hit to the abdomen. “Respect the woman. She’s the reason I’m over here saving your pompous ass.”

As Bruce backtracks from the man and catches the guy's leg when he goes to kick him, you’re already moving. You dodge in and out of groups of men, using your momentum to get them on the ground and not letting them get back up.

He throws his assailant to the floor.

“I thought you said you didn’t want anything to do with Gotham?”

You kick a woman into him and he catches and electrocutes her before dropping her to the ground.

“I said that about you not Gotham, and Nightwing’s here so I had to come,” you counter.

Bruce grunts as you get low to strike a man in the knee caps with your baton and then bowl him over.

Nightwing and you end up back to back between one blink and the next and Bruce can already feel a headache coming on as he takes out four more goons.

“I for one am very happy you're here, Nightfall.”

Jason snorts from off to the side, already spurred back into action, but blessedly with his guns holstered, and punches a person's nose in.

The crunch reverberates over the coms.

“Of course your name’s Nightfall. You fit right goddamn in.”

You laugh, it makes his heart clench. It’s been almost a year since the last time he saw you well (he’d seen you at Stephanie’s funeral but you’d fervently ignored him), and the last full conversation you’d had hadn’t exactly ended amicably between the two of you.

It’s like it’s five years ago - back when you still worked together - as the fight begins to rapidly turn in their favor. Where the droves of goons had seemed endless minutes ago they were now getting smaller and sloppier.

You were an unexpected obstacle and Bruce’s sure whatever sorry canon fodder Mask and Pinguine had scrounged up weren’t old enough to know who you were, let alone how to anticipate how you fought.

Hell, Bruce had grown familiar with you over the course of several years and the night you left your hit had still managed to catch him off guard.

It’s as things are slowing down that the other side throws their own curveball. A shot rings out, it’s not Jason’s, and then all of a sudden you’re a blur in front of him as you shove Hood out of the way.

Bruce’s breath catches in his throat when a pained whimper comes from one of you and he’s running before he’s fully realized it, Dick at his side.

He stops and kneels next to the two of you, quickly assessing that the bullet meant for Jason is now embedded in your arm. The compromise in your suit should make seeing the skin underneath easy but the bullet wound gushes crimson over whatever brown that could’ve been showing. The only good part was that Bruce could also see an exit wound. He doesn’t think as he reaches out.

You knock his hands away, “I’m fine, Bats.”

“You’re bleeding,” he forces out.

Even behind the mask the look you shoot him is nasty.

“I’m fully well aware,” you stretch out your shoulder and wince before forcing yourself to your feet. “I’m competent enough to tell that much.”

“I never said you weren’t.”

He watches you split your attention between him and a now getting up Hood.

“Oh, but aren’t you always on some holier than thou bullshit?”

Your voice turns sickly sweet and Bruce sighs.

“Now’s not the time for your petulance, you need to get that checked.”

Holding your arm you slowly turn fully to him with a tilt of your head.

“Excuse me?”

Bruce clenches his eyes shut and forces himself to stop reacting and to start thinking. He’s not going to get you anywhere if he makes you feel stupid. Talking to you like he does the kids has never once worked (and if he was being honest with himself it didn’t work on them either), he’s just operating on emotion.

When he opens his eyes again you're still staring at him, hip cocked and the weight of your glare firmly in place. No distance, it seemed, was going to stop him from being able to read you.

He doesn’t get a chance to speak before snickering distracts everyone though.

As a collective you, him, and Dick turn towards where Jason is struggling to contain himself. He waves you all off.

“No no, don’t mind me. I’m just enjoying someone not treating B like he’s God for once.”

Off to the side Dick starts to grumble before you move to watch Jason. Your point is almost accusatory as you indicate the gun clad man with no affiliate insignia on his chest.

“Who are you again?”

It’s mean, your tone icy as you look him up and down.

Jason stops laughing.

“The fuck is that supposed to mean, lady?”

You and the 19 year old go rigid as you stare one another down. Jason looks like he’s about to get vindictive any second and you look seconds away from tearing him and Bruce a new asshole, never mind that you just took a bullet for him.

It’s Dick, as per usual, who saves them all.

“Alright, how about we all just take a breath. Batman needs to go deal with the cops, who according to Oracle have finally gotten here. Nightfall it was nice to have you back, however briefly. And Hood, chill.” From where he’s planted himself between you and Jason he mimics taking a deep breath. “Everybody just chill.”

As the both of you start gearing up to go Bruce finds his voice.

“You should all come down to the cave to get checked up,” his jaw clenches. “Please.”

“Mm,” you purse your lips, arms shaking as you scoff but otherwise (thank god) nod your head. “Fine. I could stand seeing Agent A and Robin again.”

You stare at him hard afterwards and Bruce wants to say something but the words lodge at the base of his throat again and even clearing it doesn’t help. Eventually you clap Nightwing on the back before sighing and sliding close to him to press the call button for the Batmobile that’s on his belt yourself.

The indicator sounds and the easy peel of the tires moving around a corner follows your departure as you walk out the exit not swarming with police and hop into the vehicle.

He wasn’t able to say what he wanted but the thought of you in the Batmobile makes him feel warm enough. Now if only-

“Hood?”

Jason only stares at him and Bruce finds himself at a loss, a feeling that’s becoming familiar when around his son. He wants to get that limp checked out like it’ll personally improve his own health, along with whatever other ailments Jason’s managed to acquire running around on his own.

‘Like he would’ve been today if he hadn’t been desperate enough to cave and call,’ something whispers in his head.

Jason had the situation handled initially, and so close to the outskirts of the city Bruce hadn’t even known this transaction was happening at all, he didn’t have to bring them in on it and Bruce is certain he wouldn’t have if getting the kids to safety hadn’t been Jason’s top priority.

Dick waves his grappling gun, “I’ll race you there.”

Jason scoffs, only a domino masking his identity because he’d been forced to blow his helmet up in a last ditch effort to get Bruce’s attention.

”I’m not a child,” but then he looks at the Batmobile and his stance becomes just that much more open. He points a challenging finger at Dick. “But I definitely don’t want to be stuck in a closed space with Nightfall either, so you’re on, Goldy.”

The two of them swing off together making all sorts of noise and the vice around Bruce’s heart loosens a little. Everyone was secured.

“You didn’t tell her, did you?”

Bruce grunts as he advances towards Gordon.

“I was busy.”

Barbara scoffs, “Even my professors don’t take excuses like that B, don’t give me that. She deserves to know.”

“She’s here now. I’ll tell her eventually.”

“Mhm, sure,” she intones. “You have until you get back.”

Bruce doesn’t get to argue with her before the woman logs off.

…TBC

NOTES: Hope you enjoyed! This is part one of a series. Mind any typos I’ll get to them eventually.

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vaultureculture · 1 year

Text

Elvia sits in the middle of their bed, covered only by a sheer chiffon shawl. The elegance in their posture, hands neatly resting on his lap, is undoubtedly a remnant of their days as a sacred oracle. They rise from among pillows and wrinkled sheets like a pillar of light, white hair cascading behind their back.

"Phlomis believes I am vapid for refusing to live a life of grief." They say, softly lowering their head with the grace characteristic of those accustomed to praise. "To her, something is always wrong with the world. But I don't want that."

They reach for Leander's hand. The warmth of Elvia's fingers running along his wrist, up his scar, startles his soul. It's like touching the sun. His own nakedness feels offensive and ridiculous in Elvia's luminous presence. They continue, unaware of the anxious shiver that rattles their partner's body.

"I think you can understand me, Leander. Am I not deserving of peace? Should I sacrifice my joy in hopes of appearing more clever?" Their golden eyes pierce right through Leander's, their gazes meeting for the first time in the night.

He lets out a shaky breath as Elvia's hand grasps the side of his jaw, thumb smoothing over the scar on his cheek. "I could be mistrustful of you. But truly- should I not allow myself to have you now that I can?"

Elvia shifts to rest on top of his chest. Their white eyelashes flutter as they close their eyes, pensive. "I think", they say, "I'd rather be selfish."

Some writing for my MC Elvia and Leander. Elvia is often seen as too naive for their own good, but are they really naive, or do they simply want to do whatever they want, without the constraints being too aware of their situation may bring?

#touchstarved mc #touchstarved game #touchstarved fanart #touchstarved leander #leander touchstarved #touchstarved demo #writing #my oc art #my art #oc #touchstarved oc #digital art #otome game

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theresattrpgforthat · 10 months

Note

hi!!!! do you know of any poetry based/centric ttrpgs? solo or for more players!

THEME: Poetry Games

Hello friend, so I’m going to drop a few games that help you write poetry or use poetry creation tools, but I also recommend checking out lyric games! Lyric games are written such that reading them alone is a form of play. This means that reading these games is often an experience in itself, meant to evoke emotion in a similar way to the experience of reading poetry. It’s a movement within the ttrpg sphere that I’ve only heard of, but the conversations I’ve been witness to concerning lyric games is very intriguing.

Now, on to the recommendations.

No One Dies Alone in Revolution, by Robin Rudd.

No One Dies Alone In Revolution is a single-player poetry-writing ttrpg in which you play as an empyromancer, interpreting flame and smoke to identify each new revolutionary soldier's patron saint, all past martyrs of the cause, and composing the prayers they will call out in battle.

This game uses a deck of cards, a dice, and an associated oracle to tell the story of the saints who died, and the prayers you will write in their honour. This is a creative game deeply steeped in ritual, and I think it makes the poetry-creation process feel quite natural. The lines of the prayers have rules depending on the cards you draw and the dice you roll, determining metrical feet, details that must be included, and the emotions the prayer is meant to evoke. If you want a game whose emotions bleed out onto the page, you want to try this game.

Gentleman Bandit, by allison arth.

They call you the Gentleman Bandit, because no one knows your name. They call you a monster, a villain, a dealer of death. But they don’t know you.

Not your Heart, your Poet’s Heart filled with rage or filth or the expansiveness of True Love; not your Grieving Heart loosed over a chasm, making a sound like the sorrow of wolves as it plummets toward wet river stones, cracked bones left to bleach.

In this writing-focused RPG, you personify the eponymous Gentleman Bandit to write a 13-line poem you'll leave for the dead — and the ones who discover them. Card draws guide the content of each line; optional dice rolls add poetic devices to further shape the experience and ratchet the difficulty. Using a deck of cards, you consult an oracle to determine the theme and topic of each line of your poem. There are optional requirements you can include in your poetry creation, such as writing in meter, applying a rhyme scheme, using double meanings, or using words from a diction list. Your final poem will also help you determine your next poem, as you can compare your hand to different poker hands.

This game also has a multiplayer option, if you are playing with multiple people, and two successors: Moonblind and The Swallowtail. There's also the Gentleman Pirate supplement, for fans of Our Flag Means Death.

Reverie Cycle, by Caro Acersion.

Reverie Cycle is about a group of isolated individuals, each shunning their own troubles and trials. They record their waking thoughts in their journals, reflecting on the world around them. But at night, their dreams — poetic, sensory, abstract — blur and blend with each other, creating a shifting, liminal state of overlapping worlds. The poetry of these dreams cascades and reappears, and eventually tumbles into their waking world as well…

Reverie Cycle is a play-by-poem roleplaying game — it uses poetry as a form of play, and play as a form of poetry. You don't need to consider yourself a poet to play, but by the end of the game, you will be.

This is a game about dreamers, asking for help in overcoming obstacles they are afraid to acknowledge when they are awake. It’s also an online game, with instructions for setting up the game over a private chatroom, such as Discord. The game also comes with safety emojis that you can use as you play, allowing you to react using a shorthand that signals to the players that something about the current play needs to be changed without breaking the through line of messages. Character creation involves answering a number of playbooks for your character, and assigning their unique touchstones that show up in their dreams. If you want a collaborative poetry experience, I recommend Reverie Cycle.

Care for Hecuba, by Hy Libre!

These games are born from caring about helpless tragic characters. Hecuba, Medea, Semele, Medusa-- these are monstrous, vulnerable women whose function in the story is to gravitate toward an inevitable death. By playing these games you are caring for them, because Euripides and his contemporaries are dead and somebody needs to.

These games borrow tools and expectations from poetry, but they're all "playable". You might interact with them by just reading, or by asking a friend to play them with you, or changing them to be "playable" in a way you like, or by saying "Hmm!" and moving on.

These games have the rules written as poetry, and their modes of play may occasionally also bleed into your daily life - eripedes’ favourite game tells you to ‘clean your fucking room’, for example. This is possibly also an example of a lyric game, because it feels like you are playing it as you read it. The games feel very intimate, so if you want an intensely personal experience, consider Care for Hecuba.

#tabletop games #indie ttrpgs #dnd #game recommendations #asks #poetry

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kindlingkeen · 5 months

Note

🍬 + 🔪 + the beetle one for the 50 words for your WIP *wink*

For this ask game

🍬 ⇢ post an unpopular opinion about a popular fandom character

Jason doesn’t have autopsy scars. There was no autopsy.

🔪 ⇢ what's the weirdest topic you researched for a writing project?

Class action lawsuits.

🪲 ⇢ add 50 words to your current wip and share the paragraph here

LOL, I laughed so hard at this. Touché. Alright, friend, here you go. This is super rough mind you.

~~~

Dick shifts irritably in his chair, steeling himself to make another go at circumventing the hospital’s firewall. If he could just see the survivor’s full medical record, maybe he can understand—

The monitor he’s working on flickers and then a command window pops up in the foreground.

O: It’s past your bedtime boy wonder.

Dick grins, the knots in his shoulder easing slightly.

N: Like a gift from on high, she appears. Just the demi-goddess I’m in need of a blessing from. O: That’s a lot of flattery, even for you wing N: But it’s working right? O: Chow mein from the Garden and you’ve got yourself a deal N: Saturday night, it’s a date O: So, Mercy’s firewall giving you problems? N: Yeah, trying to get into the records for a Brian Hess from 5 months ago

The screen flickers again, a cascade of windows opening. Lines of code rapidly fill the terminal. Dick relaxes back in his chair, content to watch Oracle work.

~~~

Thanks for the ask, anon, and the kick in the butt! Back to writing! 💙

#keen converses #truth or dare ask game #my ask box is always open #my fics #asymmetrical warfare lore #asymmetrical warfare #the calm inside the storm #tumblr drabbles #dick grayson #barbara gordon #under the red hood au

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arctrooper69 · 1 year

Text

If It's Cracked.... Don't Fix It

A crack fic because I tried to write an angst but I got too sad.... The pain will come later. I promise

Hello! My name is Ivory Lily White Rose Flower Princess and I'm a Jedi with my clone boyfriend Hunter. Well, actually they're all kind of my boyfriends and we all love each other equally. My parents named me Ivory because their favorite name Ebony was already taken by some other weirdo. My middle name is Lily White because of the beautiful long flowing white hair cascading down my back that is as white as a snowy white loth wolf. My parents gave me away to the Jedi. My parents are also dead.

One day, me and the bad batch (who were all my boyfriends) were planning the most daring rescue EVER. Hunter of course kissed me before we left the Marauder. And then Wrecker did too and so djd Tcich and Echo! Their lips were so warm and soft. Except for Echo on account if him being mostly made of droid. But I was still in love with him even though sometimes his metal dongle made it really hard to have the sex (which I had with all of them daily).

But anyway, out spirits were low. Crosshair was still missing. I was partly sad about him because he was my boyfriend once but then he betrayed me like he betrayed the Jedi who were my family (but not my real family because they were dead). We were finally going to rescue Crosshair from the Empire!

We had to be very quiet as we snuck into the large black building that housed most of the Empire's important people but then suddenly the train we were on collapsed and I screamed in agony as my lover Tech fell out of the train. He wasn't dead! Nope. He wasn't dead at all because I could feel it in my heart and the Force told me that he was still alive. I could feel him being alive still. I told this to Hunter but he would not believe me! He told me to stop feeling in the force because it was not real! That made me angry. I did not kiss Hunter that day.

Then finally we were inside the prison where the Empire kept it's secret silence expiraments! Horror filled my souls when I realized that that evil Dr was using the clones for his own evil science pants!

I grabbed Omega by using the Force and Hunter (who was now not angry at me anymore) got Crosshair out of his chains.

Tech ran up to us because he was not dead. The Force had heald his injuries from falling. (And it turned out that he fell directly into a bacta tank that I had somehow brought to him by using the Force. I really don't know how I did that because I had never really been a Jedi that could use the Force very well. I always seemed to get into trouble with Yoda for being defective and the younglings used to laugh at me and call me names. That is why I so quickly became part of the bad batch because they too knew how it felt.

So Hunter and Tech helped out Crosshair while I held Omega in my arms. She was crying.

"Hey!" I yelled loudly at Dr Hemlock.

"WHAT!?" he shouted in confusing as he turned around in anger.

Then I looked him in the eyes and shot him in the face with my lightsaber gun that Tech made me. I was very glad that he was not dead and that I had saved him. His soft lips and ample bottom did not deserve such a death.

Everyone then smiled and clapped because me and the bad batch had once again saved the day and Crosshair was ok and Omega was okay. And Tech was not dead.

THE END

a/n: I'm not ok, please help 😂😅🫤🥹😭😭😭

a/n: also I've never written crack before so don't get mad at me pls 😂 I swear this isn't normally how I write 😂😂

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

@zoeykallus @ttzamara @nahoney22 @merkitty49 @viva-la-whump @agenteliix @dumpsters-little-matchbook @nekotaetae @ladykatakuri @loverofclones @heyitsaloy @padawancat97 @jambolska-grozdova @flyingkangaroo @melymigo @rain-on-kamino @jiabeewrites @my-own-oracle @dragonrider9905 @queenofspades6 @ordinarylokix @jupitersaturnapollo @queencousland101 @vampirerouge @southernbaguette @staycalmandhugaclone @dalu-grantkylo @dangraccoon @aconstructofamind

If you want to be on my taglist, feel free to send me a message! Also, asks are open! Reblogging is very much encouraged and it makes me do a happy dance every time any of my writing gets reblogged 😂❤️

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blackvahana · 13 days

Text

Oracles bent over altars, no smoke, no cracks in the Earth, just the slithering of semen through Void-black channels. Hands kissed by the god, reverence spilled down longing tight skin and pause given for the speaking.

It's strange forming organs, I can feel my own insides moving. I feel I'm filled with large soft-shelled millipedes, some kind of thousand-legged constructs that writhe and clamber at any sense of upright and gravity.

Oh, the images of horses in the background as I pause, a wild storm of them black and frenzied, rabid eyes and open mouths.

Communion with Black, descending into each other. Everything I do to him he does to me, because I am his mirror. His agitation feeds mine, my sorrow bleeds from his eyes. I picked up his body, danced with it, reconnected his threads in his flesh from self-expression to reality, and now my own body is writhing, writhing, creating new pathways outside of my control. I am him. I hear my own call, the mirror outside the Sun's cave gleams.

The genitalia set-up I have at the moment is something... I didn't realise how relevant it was to earlier posting, but it's flower-like if anything, tendril protrusions like petals and stamen-esque - well, there's no point describing it given how utterly alien it is. But my entire stomach begins to shift and continue the splitting set of tendrils-among-rifts...

None of this matters. Pale red lips over enticing black pools, the Abstract One answers the call of his reflection and climbs through, rough, age-worn hands around younger neck and inside, skin pushed aside as if it were silk sheets cascading from beds. Destruction, destruction, O Destruction, said in thick red blood of distilled flower ink and heavy implications in a text language older than mankind.

#Nsft #Heavily.#S: black //#Astral diary //#Astral body //

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keldabekush · 5 months

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I’m too tired to finish her here’s Mij for casual cowboy Friday

#kushdraws #Oc mij #cascade: the oracle #casual cowboy friday

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inseasofgreen · 1 month

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Writeblr Interview

Thank you both to @leahnardo-da-veggie and @drchenquill for the tag!

Short stories, novels or poems?

Novels! all the way

What genre do you prefer reading?

Fantasy, both dark and romantasy. even better if they're combined

What genre do you prefer writing?

Fantasy! I tend to struggle writing anything but fantasy.

Are you a planner or a write-as-i-go kind of person?

I like to start with a plan and some ideas, then let the characters take the reins and throw it all out the door

What music do you listen to while writing the story?

I have a playlist with cinematic soundtracks that I tend to listen too. Though I do often listen to the GOT and HOTD soundtracks. Daenerys' aaaHHHH AHHHH's actually are the source of a lot of Zemorri's most badass scenes.

Fav books/movies

I've been trying to get more into reading so lately it's been ASOIAF and the Witcher - two of which inspired the creation of Nyrus and POTO. I have a long TBR but I like to buy books before I read them, which is hard right now with money being a bit tight the next month or so.

Any Current WIPs?

2! Well, more like 3 if you include the second Plight of the Dragon, the sequel to POTO. We have Plight of the Oracle, which I pretty much have dedicated my blog too. Plight of the Dragon, which is more like one shots and random braindumps of what happens after the first book. Then Familia Ante Omnia, trilogy set in modern day NYC and is about the downfall of the crime ring from inside. Which I actually see a lot of it's themes in POTO. But that's on a hiatus for the foreseeable future.

If someone were to make a cartoon out of you, what would your standard outfit be?

An oversized orangey flannel, black crop top, and either leggings or shorts depending on the weather. Throw in a black beanie for good measure too

Create a character description of yourself

oof okay here we go

She was a short, adorable little thing. She sat fidgeting with a ring on her left ring finger, too timid to make her presence known. Her dark brown hair, cropped at her shoulders was tucked behind her ears. A few strands that had once been a fringe fell, cascading over her grey eyes. The roseness of her cheeks a striking contrast to the porcelain like skin. She looks up at someone giving a slightly crooked smile before getting up from her seat.

was literally me a few minutes ago rereading was I wrote when my fiance came up and wanted to go up to bed lmao

Do you like incorporating people you actually know into your writing?

oof no, hard pass. fictional people tend to be more interesting anyway

Are you kill-happy with the characters?

I tend to be? I have a rule with killing off characters, a few actually. It ends their arc nicely, it serves an actual purpose and isn't for shock value, and they under no circumstance can come back alive. I absolutely h a t e when death is cheapened. Don't introduce stakes that high only to make them pointless.

Coffee or Tea while writing?

diet coke or water!

Slow or Fast writer?

both? I don't know what is considered fast I guess. If i'm really feeling it and don't have distractions I can get about 1k an hour and keep that up for a few hours. Then there's days like today I'm surrounded by distractions and not feeling it too much, right now I'm at 1,500 for the 4 hours i've written

Where/who/what do you find inspiration from?

Shows and books! Also games. Funny enough Zemorri came from a skyrim oc and Sciosa came from DnD campaign that never happened. They've both undergone a lot of changes since then though.

If you were put into a fantasy world, what would you be?

I answered a similar question a few times and I think I'd really be a dragon. I'm a hoarder of my little trinkets and love to stir the pot a bit.

Most fave book cliche?

Chosen one and mentor. WIth a spin. Do not give me another old ratty wizard and some a elijah wood/daniel radcliff look alike. PLEASE. Using this to promo POTO which has chosen one and mentor- mentor: hot scary milf chosen one: anger riddled brat who really isn't keen on playing by the book. boom there. not that hard.

got kinda heated there. apologies

Least fave book cliche?

"Only one bed" I'm sorry!! It's just over done at this point

Fave scenes to write?

Any scene with dragons. They're the most fun to write honestly.

Most productive time of day for writing?

Night! I literally typed that as nite send help I've always been a night owl haha. It's actually almost 4 am as I type this

Reason for writing?

Writing has always been an interest of mine. I would love one day to be able to support my family with it! Whether that's as an indie author or traditional author. Also I fear I would go crazy with how many stories and plot lines I got up in my head. That or my oc's would manifest irl and nuke me right there with their dragons.

Leaving this an open tag!

My brain is clocking out and I can't even think of who to tag at this point. So if you're reading this and want to be tagged congrats!! Consider yourself tagged

#tag game #writing tag game #time to konk out #i'm too tired #I feel the longer this went on the more obvious that became #side note #i've never watched/read hairy putter #I've seen lord of the rings once and fell asleep multiple times #so umm #don't throw hands at me

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headlessmage · 4 months

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oh Oracle deck breaking in? if it's okay, I'm absolutely game. - Soto 🧡🧡

Rutherfordium comes forward for you, a shiny creature of mankind's own creation. She radiates now with a silver glow reflecting off iridescent wings, cascading radioactivity and rainbows throughout the open room.

It seems she is sort of a liminal presence, not quite tied to our world and yet brought forth by our own hands and quest for more. Our desires are of no interest to her; indeed, it seems like we are simply on the periphery of her vision. Perhaps we will be able to change her focus in the future, but for now she remains aloof and distant.

With this attitude, she doesn't seem to have a direct message. Instead, I am simply left with the thought of, "what drives you to seek out the unknown in the known? Do you know what drives your forward?"

#coyote readings

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dragonsgirl572 · 1 year

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I feel like spilling some beans, so for the people reading my New Generation stories, this is for you.

The order for which bots have their kids, and the names of said kids.

Also, shoutout to @weonbullshit for the little conversation we had on AO3!

If you prefer to keep it a surprise, then don't click "Keep Reading"

Smokescreen, who has Jeopardy

Optimus, who has Ricochet and Oracle

Megatron, who has Vortex

Ultra Magnus and Predaking, who has Slipclaw

Ratchet, who has Phoenix

Bumblebee, who has Siren

Then, there will be a story where the Rescue Bots scan new forms, and I did a little research about the animals they scanned.

Boulder, who is a Rhino, has Cascade

Heatwave, who is an alligator, has Wildfire (Gators are supposed to have 20-50 eggs but I knew Heatwave couldn't handle that much.)

Chase, who is a gecko, has Thunderbolt

Blades, who is a peregrine falcon, has Paradox, Remix, and Twinkle

Blurr, who is a cheetah, has Miracle, Sky-High, Speedway, Lightwire, and Starbolt (Primus help him)

Boulder has his second kid, her name is Aurora

Salvage, who is an elephant, has Makeshift (I don't care that it's a name of a former Decepticon, it's one that fits Salvage well)

Quickshadow, who is a screech owl, has Eclipse and Aura

Salvage has his second son, his name is Rocket

Finally High Tide, who is a whale shark, finds and adopts Azure and Adularescence.

Then Sideswipe and Thunderhoof have a daughter named Odyssey, I'll further explain when the book comes out.

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apocalypse-shuffle · 1 year

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JASON TODD | RED HOOD (batman:under the red hood 2010 | canon divergence?)

────────────────────

“In Your Eyes” (Jason Todd x Gn!Reader)

| Jason Todd is gone, has been for years, but his ghost still haunts you.

| SFW, angst, reader was in a relationship w/Jay (TW: suicide, passively suicidal reader-insert, hallucinations, blood, personal neglect, mature language) - could be platonic or romantic honestly

| Just go with the timeline weirdness. (pics via: Batman: Under The Red Hood 2010 movie)

| 1k+ words

b.NOTES: Yes, I decided to post this for Jason’s birthday, and yes, it is a downer. 🥳🎉

This was going badly, even you could admit that. Every possible thing that could’ve gone wrong was going wrong. You were out of batarangs because Bruce had threatened to bench you for failing to follow orders so you’ve been avoiding him; subsequently missing your last supply check.

You’d been in a nasty fight coordinated by Oracle with Nightwing last week and your suit too had gotten fucked to hell but your backup was, once again, at the manor. Then what was supposed to be a by the numbers recon mission was now a shoot out because you haven’t slept for more than three hours in days and you slipped up.

Bruce’s disappointed scowl flashes across your mind as you slam into an abandoned office, a hail of bullets cascading after you.

Icing on the fucking cake was that you couldn’t even call him for help if you wanted to. You had abandoned your com two days ago when the announcement that Tim was joining the Titans had gone live. It was irrational, you had known he was joining. Hell, you’ve even met the kid, but something about the news had just jarred you more than even fighting alongside the new Robin had. Now everyone had concrete confirmation (if they paid attention at least) that Jay was gone and it hurt.

When the last barrage has calmed down - and you can just barely make out the sounds of people converging on your cover - you move with a wild burst of energy, crashing yourself through the office window. The second story drop out of the foreclosed building should’ve been easy, the shouts being left behind you and wind nicking at your face should’ve been the end of this nightmare mission.

Instead there’s the zip of something harshly breaking through the air followed by searing heat as you’re hit mid fall.

“Fuck!”

The second you land you crumble to the ground, slapping your hand over the furiously bleeding wound.

The back of the knee.

Fucker managed to get you right where it’d hurt and the projectile broke right through your armor like it was nothing.

Blood trickles down your leg, quickly saturating the absorbable pieces of your costume.

Yeah, you’ve officially gotta get outta dodge.

A very real problem arises though when you limp forward and not only does your knee buckle dangerously but there’s a man blocking your easiest exit out the alleyway you landed in.

“You lost, little bat?”

“Nng,” is all you can grunt out. You fling your last batarang, absently clocking as it knocks the gun from the man’s hands and the goon yelps in surprise. Your leg feels completely drenched, and you should feel more pressed about that than you do.

Just then is when your knee decides to give out and you drop to the ground hard with a thin scream. There’s spots dancing in your vision and the guy’s talking but you can’t hear a word.

You rush in a stuttering breath, fighting against the pull of your eye lids. Maybe… maybe you could just finally go to sleep - you can’t remember the last time you hit REM without immediately being jolted awake by your dreams anyway - why not camp out here until one of the bats found you or…or you died of hypothermia. Who knew concrete could feel as good as memory foam.

The pounding of feet grabs your attention next - each foot fall vibrating your skull - and you blink back to yourself however many seconds later. Head lifting what catches your eye makes your body still.

No, goddamnit. Not now. You shake your head but the resolve catches in your throat anyway.

"I thought you were dead." You feel out of breath with relief now, examining his domino-less face. Drinking up the mere sight of him.

"I know." He whispers; soft but not quite apologetic.

He steps closer and you shudder, have to force yourself not to take a corresponding shuffle back. This couldn't be.

He was still in the vibrant reds, greens, and yellows of his Robin uniform. He always was whenever you dreamed even though the last time you’d seen him was at a book reading where he was in regular clothing. In that damn red hoodie.

Even though you know the costume he died in was in tatheres, caked in his eviscerated flesh and burnt-in blood, the suit you see now is impossibly pristine.

"No,” you mutter weakly. Jason moves closer and goes to put his light hand to your dark cheek. You grab and throw it down, pushing yourself up and back, heartbeat clammering up your throat as your wounded leg drags after you.

"No! No! I won't-" your back hits the brick wall behind you and you collapse. Bruce had been chewing you out about getting help for the insomnia and to get therapy to move past Jason's death but you’d ignored him, ignored everyone, even your parents. Now it was too late.

On the cold wet floor you shrink into yourself, crying.

"Jason Todd is dead!" You yell, looking at the image in front of you. You swear you can feel the rush of air from him crouching down.

Jason frowns at you and there are tears building up in his eyes. You gag. You were so tired of your mind throwing shit like this at you. You couldn't do it anymore.

It’s when you’re screaming at nothing that the goon takes advantage of your distraction and lunges forward towards the gun that he’d lost at your intervention. He cocks it at the mouth of the alleyway. You sit down at the other end, only briefly looking at the man aiming at you before shifting your blurry gaze back to Jason.

His eyes get cloudy and distraught, but you just keep babbling nonsense at him, tears streaming down your skin in ravines. Jason opens his mouth and stands but doesn't come any closer.

"Y/N please don't do this, I'm here. I'm with you, I swear, just please make him put the gun down. Throw a smoke bomb, run away, something,” he begs, tears of his own now cascading down his face.

“Not this time,” you whisper. You weren’t letting another sleep addled hallucination keep you alive, the pain that came with that burden was too much. Death was so much better. You just wanted it to end. "I'm sorry, Jay, but I can't."

Jason hiccups, shakes his head rapidly.

"Yes you can, just leave." He takes a step forward. The man’s finger begins pressing down on the trigger. "Just run away, please!" He screams out a plea you’ve heard more than once, a plea you can no longer heed to.

The gunshot goes off and you don’t dodge, you don’t try to lessen the blow, or make sure it hits somewhere non lethal. You just close your eyes and let the bullet break through already compromised armor.

"Y/N!"

- - -

The gun clatters to the ground as the gunman watches the hero slump.

“Shit.” He runs. That wasn’t supposed to happen. Vigilantes weren’t supposed to stay down in Gotham.

Your hand slides to your side; body limp and leant crookedly against the wall, black skin under you mask too washed out - to grey - to come back from.

There were no traces of any former Robins having been in the alleyway when the Batman found you. Just of one ordinary goon in a sea of many who you should’ve been able to fend off.

- - -

When Jason had gotten his mind back he'd been dead set on Gotham; on Bruce and finding his old best friend. So a few hours after he'd been back in his hometown he mustered up enough courage to go to your house.

Except it was different.

Where shelves were once overflowing with books and collectibles in your room they were now bare and dust riddled. Where a bed used to lay was just barren ground, and where it once felt like home it now felt more like rapid cruelty and crushing emptiness.

That night Jason had snuck back out of your old house with cold eyes and a churning stomach, he'd never admit to himself that he felt this much dread at missing out on so many years of life that you'd already moved out, moved on. Hell, your parents weren’t even there anymore.

That night he tries to blow up the Batmobile, Batman and the pretender in his place with it. That night he decides he can do much worse than some bomb.

- - -

It'd been a whirlwind trying to find you but eventually Jason did, just not the way he'd expected.

He had been looking for a couple of deserters and was ganged up on by a group of Mask’s thugs who had been working for him - guess he’d found those deserters - and were looking to get back in Mask’s good graces by taking down the Big Bad Hood and overthrowing his newly minted empire.

Jason had been chased over the rooftops of Gotham - picking off who he could as he went - till he could lose the group in the minefield that was the largest graveyard on the outskirts of the city.

He had been deftly making his way through the resting place when a bouquet of flowers caught his attention. Your favorite.

A small smile stretched across Jason's face as he sidled up to the tombstone. He initially meant to look at the flowers for a second before continuing on his way, but the beginnings of your name on the shiny stone caught him up.

Jason furrowed his eyebrows before sucking in a sharp breath after he let his thumb ghost over the engraved name to uncover what the dirt was hiding.

He took a step back in shock as he read your full name, clear as day, in the granite. Tears welled in his eyes and he ripped his helmet and domino mask from his face, dropping to the ground. His hands shook as they slid over the wet dirt that covered your casketed body.

“No. Fuck, not like this. I wasn’t supposed to find you like this.”

He was supposed to come back and make everything better. Bruce was supposed to finally avenge him, and you were supposed to reunite, not trade places.

e.NOTES: Hope you enjoyed!!

This is an edited/updated version of one of the first Jason Todd fics I’d ever written. I did keep some of its logistic oddness for preservation purposes though.

To my surprise also I didn’t have to edit as much of this as I thought, so props to twelve year old me fr😉. (Also I wrote this when I was actually suicidal so please be respectful, it is a tad bit mean-spirited - Maybe? I feel like it could come off that way to other people, idk?)

btw: if you’d like to leave a comment I’d very much appreciate it. I just won’t respond cause this is a sideblog.

#⚠️ TW: Suicide ⚠️#jason todd #red hood #black!reader #black y/n #jason todd x black!reader #jason todd & black!reader #happy birthday jason #gn!reader #black gn reader #red hood x black!reader #jason todd angst #jason todd imagine #red hood imagine #jason todd x reader #red hood x reader

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