#damn this is longer than i expected

[ruumirmir]

Reprise of a rolling mist

Part 1 Part 2 (soon)

☽◯☾ Summary - You, the revered God of Healing and Mist, one of the oldest friends of Zhongli, are not one to be easily taken down, but alas, in the Archon war of brutal massacres, you can’t escape death for long.  ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ☽◯☾ Characters - Zhongli, (minor) Cloud Retainer, (minor) Madame Ping ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ☽◯☾ Tags - Zhongli x Reader || Gender Neutral || Angst || Eventual happy ending || Description of blood, violence, and fatal injuries || Mention of death   ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ☽◯☾ Word count - 1.2k ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ☽◯☾ Rumour◇ says - my first ever fanfic to be published on tumblr. In case you haven’t seen my previous post, please do! It has some context in it. I hope i did peepaw some justice,, as much as I love him, it was slightly hard to pin his personality down especially in this wild scenario. I’ll probably belt out the part 2 really soon cause I’m done with it, just gotta decorate the post lmao.

‎• ——————————————————————— The nearby corpse of a beast twitches once before falling still. The loud ringing in your head gets louder by the passing minute. Mouth set into a grimace, you roll onto your back and hack out a wet cough.

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ It's hard to breathe with a gaping hole in your torso, still fresh and bloody. Your half-lidded eyes focus onto a speck of ash, floating up to melt into the night air. ‎  ‎

‎ ‎ ‎

The God of War doesn’t fear. No. He is the one who’s feared. And yet...

“No...”, Morax kneels there, watching his old friend, laid upon the charred grass.‎ ‎ ‎ ‎

Your once lustrous hair, now melds into the soot-stained ground, tainted by blood and grime. Your breaths come shallow and short. For all the dust and debris left in the battle's wake, Mt. Tianheng had a pleasant breeze to offer.

His palm find its way to yours; cold to the touch. Fingers tighten around you, and the clarity slowly returns to your hazy eyes.

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎

The stench of burnt flesh permeates the air. His gaze lingers over the yawning cavity in your body; charred at the edges. From such a pair of gods, its not Morax who wields the power to heal and mend. It’s not you who possesses the energy to do so.

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ And so. his hands tremble uselessly over your gut, or the lack thereof.

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎

His most trusted. His closest companion. His oldest friend... The one who shares countless memories with him. The one who had promised to do so for many more years to come.

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎

"M-morax," his name spoken like a sigh. The corners of his mouth twitch into a small smile. Your stomach flares in pain when you fight back a strangled whine. "I am... not your burden to bear amidst a battle."

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎

He sits by you, pained. “Hush... do not strain yourself by talking.” You lie before him, bleeding.

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎

“O great Rex Lapis, won't you be kind? Won't you be wise? Renounce your lands and people? Spare us all a calamity from befalling those subjects of yours? It’s the least of your payment... for eons of slaughter caused by your hands”

A great many creatures had cackled, with many more swarming in. The seething mass of... beastly wasps, misshapen and overgrown, were all too eager for a massacre. A hivemind; disgustingly coordinated in brains and brawn. ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎

By the first rumbling of his meteorite that bombed over Mt. Tianheng, a familiar billowing mist had rolled forward to assist. Whether in your solid body, or a lashing mist, it was hard to quell the pyro gnats. ‎ ‎ ‎‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎

The grass is stained red by now.  He takes your hand and grips it tight, to his chest. You brush your fingers over his bruised knuckles.

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ By the second rumbling of raining spears, Morax’s harsh orders had sent the adepti and yakshas scrambling towards the unprotected city of Liyue. . . . By the third rumbling of his shield molding around you... a flaming projectile had already shot clean through your torso.

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎

You need to fight to keep your eyes open.  From a simple flesh wound... what a joke. Your not the admired deity of recovery, just in name, are you?

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ Your fingers twitch, tightening around his robes. "Help me sit upright..."

His sharp exhale falls upon your brows, and with the utmost softest touch, You’re pulled up against his torso. Your head sags against his shoulder, where you can feel the thick pool of sorrow under his skin.

"Please... I do not want to cause you more hurt," The words fall hollow from his lips. He holds you up gently, and you can finally focus on his face.  … where you’re met with a wet shine to his eyes.

"What... are you trying to do?" His mouth trembles downwards ever so slightly.

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎

But you... you break out in a rebellious smile, don’t you?

The pain is unbearable. And you laugh all the harder for it. Sweat beads your forehead, and your fingers dig into his arm when he presses into your stomach to slow the bleeding. You bite out a groan. It burns.

"Don't look at me like that Morax", you pant. "This... this is but child’s play for a healer of my caliber...."

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎

Yet, your life trickles out like the grains of sand in an hourglass, and your vision flickers. 

He wipes the blood off your lip, clearly vexed, "You are still yourself, I see. Even as you lay here, near death, you are still joking."

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎

"Just... won’t you humor me one last time?" You rasp out, feeling faint. All sensations except the gritting pain have left already. "Lend me some energy- so my body can return to what it once was..."

"Because... I, the Healer God of Mist, am alone the revered one... who holds mortality at my fingertips..." your voice breaks towards the end, but you still flash a smile of dogged arrogance, don’t you? (There is nothing but a theory borne from your feverish thoughts.)

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎

He gazes at you; minutes away from the end. The god who holds no regrets, who has not one ounce of fear in their voice. (You have never been more terrified of death, for you only know how to run from it.) With a melancholy rustle of feathers, comes another soft voice, "Ever so conceited, until the very end...”, Cloud retainer murmurs into the night.

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎

His skin glows alight, veins illuminated on his chest and arms. His gnosis ignites for your fanatical whims. It always did.  "How could I ever refuse you...?", his trembling voice, so quiet. You’re met with a familiar embrace.

‎ … ‎ ‎ ‎ “If mortals pray to gods in their time of need, who does a god pray to?”

Two drops fall to your neck, rolling away until they wet your clothes.

“No one.” His smile is soft, and voice raspy. “A god can only pray to himself... but, he may have hope in others.” ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎

Your body slowly starts to dissipate into millions of droplets of condensation that scatter into the air, where the wind blows parts of you away, and away. ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ The soft tunes of a zither ring out into the air, permeating the atmosphere with a slow melody. An adeptus sits atop a nearby rock, her eyes downcast.

ah. ‘Ping's zither’, you sigh. ‘How kind of her.’

And he smiles through his tears.

Isn't it beautiful?

A great rolling mist dissolves into the air. With dust and ash in the air, it swirls and rises up and above. The wasted grassland is littered with thousands of droplets that shimmer like stars as the moonlight reflects off them. It is as beautiful. as it is empty.

On a night like this, Streetward rambler’s tune graces the wind, until her fingers bleed. Cloud Retainer sheds no tears, but know that she holds your memory well.

And you, Rex Lapis,

Morax,

you weep for me.

Taglist - @ainescribe ||  @theorchardcollective  || @flos-historia​ || @nightrayseishina ||  @thesparklingwriter

[xcryinginguccix]

Buckle up nerds, today were doing something fun.

Do y'all remember that very tiny game from Bethesda, the one that came out in 2011 called Skyrim?

Well on tonight's episode I'm ranking quests. Not all of them, just the big faction quests. I'm not that insane (yet, it will come eventually).

I can't believe I'm making a Skyrim post in 2024.

Anyways, let's dive in (spoilers ahead)

Number 5: Collage of Winterhold

Well... I have some opinions. It's underwhelming to say the least. I expected to learn some extremely fun spells, schemes, mystery and general feelings of walking into the coolest campus you have ever seen. What we got was... meh.

You could breathe towards Tolfdir and he would still call you the greatest mage in the history of mages. You can find more magic going into a random cave somewhere near Riverwood than you will find AT THE MAGIC SCHOOL. You also, don't learn anything... Or at least anything of value, and then the principal dies and you take his job. You can literally complete this quest with no more than 3 basic spells in your arsenal. Bethesda should fix this quest line instead of re-releasing this game every 6 months to upgrade the visuals of a single tree. Anyways let's go to the next one, this one is just getting me angry.

Number 4: Civil war shenanigans

Stormcloaks

Ahhh civil war. Viva la Revolution... Expect from no.

If 10 year old me was ranking it, it would be much higher (let's just say my tiny brain didn't understand what "Skyrim belongs to the nords" implied). Generally said it's a pretty solid quest. Ulfic sends you to kill some ghost in order to prove yourself, the Whiterun attack is fun, genuinely pushing against Imperial legion by doing some smaller scale attacks is fun, concerning Solitude was great... And you get a pretty funky bear armor. I like funky drip.

Pretty solid but I don't like nationalism sorry. So on the other hand we have...

Imperial legion

... I think this is one of the few games where I agree on pushing against the revolution. Too bad those guys also suck ass... It's like European politics, I'm choosing the lesser evil.

Generally this questline is pretty similar to the previous one, with the exception that you're fighting in some other areas. Defending Whiterun is extremely fun, I love this city so much. All my points from the last one stand, except this quest has worse drip but more enjoyable npcs.

Also lmao Ulfric fucking dies x D

That alone makes it a better branch.

Number 3: Jorrvarskr questlines

Oh yeah, it's lycanthropy time baby.

This questline is fun, so much fun. You get introduced to the gang right outside of Whiterun while they are trying to fight off a giant.

Fun dungeons, fun story, extremely enjoyable npcs. Progressing the companion quests enough will allow you to turn yourself into a werewolf, which is an automatic bonus for me. Going nuts on a random dragon in werewolf form will never stop being funny.

Also you can marry Aela and for that I would french kiss Todd Howard on his corrupt mouth. Live laugh love Jorrvarskr. Solid stuff.

Also if you suddenly decided that you "no no wanna :(" be a werewolf anymore you can heal yourself by... Cutting off a hags head and preforming a cleansing ritual with it.

Yeah no I have no idea how that would work but sure.

Number 2: The dark brotherhood

Words cannot describe how much this questline had me in a chokehold at the ripe age of 10.

This is so so so good. I love egdy shit. This questline starts as a banger from the introduction. I will never forget the feeling of walking into this creepy ass house in Windhelm, and seeing a child doing a ritual.

So much fun stuff right off the gate. I could write an essay about his whole questline. Fun missions, plotting and scheming, funky assassinations that get progressively harder with each contract and the plot twist and the end... Just the right kind of edge I always need. I love it so much.

Each of the members of the dark brotherhood have so much charisma. You get an emo horse, and a wonderful looking armor. Evil twink Cicero forever in my heart.

And finally, creme de la creme... Number 1: Thieves guild

My. Fucking. God.

There is a reason why I choose any type of rogue class anytime I play anything. This whole quest is living rent free in my head.

The introduction, the location, the npcs... The collage of Winterhold WISHES it had an atom of greatness this quest has.

I love everything about this questline, from start to finish. Every time I see Brynjolf in the market of Riften my heart gets filled with genuine happiness. The whole thing with the Nightingales and Mercer and KarIiah. I love how you can bring back the thieves guild to its former glory once again.

Every single npc is fun to talk to. When I say that I remember almost no one from the shitty wizard academy quest, I meant it. This tho, all of them are engraved in my mind.

Also, you can get ultimate drip, which is the Nightingale armor.

Best armor in the game, argue with the wall you cannot change my mind.

God I love thieves. God I love the guild.

Anyways that's all. Someday I will rank all the daedric quests once I'm bored at 4am again (spoiler alert: The mind of madness is in first place). If you want to change my mind... Well you won't bc I played this game since I was a child.

Special thanks to Todd Howard for my gay awakenings: Aela and KarIiah.

[damianito]

I have like 80 wishes for you

[whereismyhat5678]

I DID IT I DID THE ONE TWITTER THING-

Granted I did some tweaking, like adding Brick in the back with Gus cuz I thought it’d be cute 😅 and having a hard time choosing a third character but I chose Pizza Head! ✨💕

Original photo underneath:

[nina-ya]

hi there! regarding your thing you wrote about law with nightmares, do you think he would confide in his s/o about them?

If Law trusts you enough to date you, he would trust you enough to confide in you about his nightmares. Even before you started dating, you'd often hear the faint sounds of his distress through the steel doors of the Polar Tang. All the gasping breaths, the silent sobs, the rustling of the sheets as he tossed in turns- you knew he was struggling.

Once you became a couple, though they weren't the most frequent, you were able to see the raw reality of his sleepless nights up close. The shaking, the beads of sweat forming on his forehead, the way his breath came in shallow, ragged busts- it's painful to watch. You wished that you could take away those images that plagued him, erase all the memories that cause him distress, but all you could do was be there for him in whatever way he needed.

Holding him tightly and whispering soothing words to him was your first instinct, and you would be grateful as you felt the tension in his body ease. He didn't open up about the nightmares at first, but once he did, you would sit with him in the dark, letting him talk through the fears and the anxiety that these images have brought upon him. You would listen to him as he brought up the past, and understanding that each word he spoke to you was just one step towards his healing.

It means everything in the world that he is able to be vulnerable to you like this. You will always be there for him, and he is eternally grateful for that. Cherish him and love him. He deserves it.

[omaano]

MMA Fighter AU for @bobadinweek's bingo - with which I have a bingo! (I'll post my card under the read more cut for proof) I treated it more as a pose drawing exercise, but in the process I grew very fascinated with the idea of Boba having some biomech tattoos (as opposed to the geometrical armor based design I default to for Din) especially on the leg he is often headcanoned to lose to the sarlacc - and if you can make out anything of that on Boba it was inspired by Arno B Ink's work

Whoop whoop! I've never achieved a bingo before!! I did a bit of colour coding, because that's how I work, and the blue ones needed to be switched up (the orange ones are the prompts I REALLY want to complete, and the yellow circles are the ones with the possibility of an idea.... So I'll want to go off these prompts outside of the deadline as well, I suppose. It'd be a shame to waste all those reference images I took for the Razor Crest Lives prompt XD). I've been aiming for the T-shaped bingo, but I don't have very high hopes with finishing anything for the FREE and Assassins & Spys prompts in the remaining time - gotta get back to work and all that....

I will make a round up post in two weeks with all my finished prompts all the same however many that will be - we shall see! :)

[petite-phthora]

This yours?

[DP x DC fic]

[Love at first... murder? - part 12]

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Part 1

Ao3

---

Somewhere else, in a seemingly abandoned building on the outskirts of the city, a figure shrouded in darkness and wearing a dark cloak plots.

In front of them is a whiteboard. It’s covered in pictures, sticky notes, and illegible texts. Some of the notes thrown about that are legible are ‘fight…’, ‘draw blood.’, and ‘DEATH!!!’.

There’s a crude stick figure drawn in the corner of the board, it’s impaled. Other small doodles can also be found all around the board.

Most of the information and pictures are connected by red strings, like you see in movies.

In the middle is a picture of 2 people sitting on a motorcycle, the arms of the person sitting in the back are around the waist of the person sitting in the front. The picture has some arrows pointing towards it and the people in the picture are very obviously circled.

Though the face of the person driving the motorcycle is obscured by their helmet, the other person seems to be heavily blushing and grinning broadly.

“Yes… yes! That’s it! I know what to do…” They seem to be speaking to themselves.

Quickly, the person scribbles down a barely legible ‘sacrifice!!‘.

They start cackling.

“Mwuahaha!”

It’s an evil laugh they’ve been working on for quite a while now, and they’re pretty proud of it.

However, the effect is slightly ruined when a fly enters their mouth, cutting off their cackling with choking as they gasp for air, grasping at their throat.

A few good thumps against their chest, with some coughing out their lungs, helps them dislodge the fly from their throat and they spit it out on the ground. They take a few deep breaths before straightening up again.

“Curse you” the person exclaims, angrily waving their fist at the fly as it flies away.

---

Bruce’s face gives off nothing as he stares at the streets down below. He’s dressed as Batman, crouched at the edge of a building with Damian by his side as Robin. Spoiler, Black Bat, Nightwing, and Red Robin are further back on the rooftop.

They watch in silence as another group of the Joker’s goons passes by. They’ve been all over the city, wandering around, not doing anything obviously illegal.

They don’t stay in one place and they don’t seem to have much of a purpose. No attacks… No stealing… No smuggling or transport of goods… No, instead they’re inspecting every single inch of the city.

They don’t seem to have any weapons on them. All they’re carrying on them are some flashlights. While most don’t give anything away with their body language or expressions, some seem to give off a bit of anxious energy.

Spoiler claimed she even saw some of them climb down into the sewers earlier and then climbing out again sometime later somewhere else, but this time ‘dejected and stinky’.

One thing seems clear to the Bats.

They’re searching for something… or someone.

“This basically confirms that not even the Joker’s henchmen know where he is. He’s missing.”

“I’m not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing”

“Good… thing?”

“It’s… something. That’s for sure.”

“We don’t know if he’s really missing. For all we know it could be a trap. What if the Joker is hiding, pretending to be missing to have us bring our guard down? Besides, how could he be missing? He’s the Joker. No one’s just gonna kidnap him”

“For all we know he could be lying dead in a ditch somewhere”

“I highly doubt that”

“Everyone, focus” Bruce speaks up, having them draw their attention to him.

“It’s unclear whether the Joker is simply hiding away or missing. Instead of focusing on the why, we need to focus on the where. Missing or not, we need to find him and get him back to Arkham. Oracle, have you managed to find out anything from the footage yet?”

“Nope, still nothing. All the files from the moment he enters Crime Alley are wiped and any attempt at recovering them only brings back corrupted files.”

 “We need Red Hood. Where is he?” Bruce asks.

“He still has his phone on silent and he has removed the trackers and cams. We haven’t placed any new ones on him yet”

“Let’s visit him on his turf then. And keep an eye out for anything suspicious in the meantime. Oracle, try recovering the missing files. If that doesn’t work, go back to the breakout footage. Perhaps he left some kind of clues about his plans or whereabouts behind there.” Bruce states.

“Roger that.”

---

Red Hood has his arms by his sides as he gazes down upon the street below from the rooftop of a random apartment building in Crime Alley.

He’s lucky to have avoided the Bats so far. But he doubts his luck will last for long.

Red Hood stiffens as he suddenly feels something clamp down on his arm. As a reflex, his other hand has already drawn his gun.

He slowly raises the arm he felt something clamp down on and looks at it, only to make eye contact with a girl with black hair and blue eyes who has sunk her teeth into his arm and is now hanging off of it.

The teeth are sharp, as the girl seems to have some small fangs. They’ve gone through his jacket and sunken into his skin.

It doesn’t really hurt all that badly though, probably hasn’t even drawn much blood, and that’s one of the only reasons Jason hasn’t flung the kid off of him yet. Another reason is the fact that it’s a kid.

They both stare at each other for several seconds.

As Jason takes her appearance in, he notices that she seems rather familiar. In fact, she looks like a more feminine version of Danny, or if Danny had a twin.

The person hanging off of his arm looks younger than Danny though, probably a teenager around 13 or 14, if he had to make a guess.

Slowly, he puts his gun away and takes out his phone with his other hand, watching the random girl’s eyes follow his movements. He raises it level with her face and snaps a picture, quickly sending it to Danny and ignoring the girl’s curious gaze while she’s still hanging onto his arm by her fucking teeth.

---

Meanwhile, Danny checks his phone to see Red Hood sent him a message. He opens it and is greeted by a picture of Ellie in human form biting down on Red Hood’s arm with the caption ‘this yours???’

---

Taglist:

@i-always-say-yea   @uraniumwizard    @why-must-i-be-like-this   @griffinthing

[aaronwarner]

The truth is, there are monsters everywhere, and sometimes, the monsters we least expect are the most dangerous.

[survivalove]

one example of atla fans’ media illiteracy is that they don’t understand the past avatars’ advice was written in a way that’s so vague that aang literally does everything they told him to do.

i see so many takes being like aang just ignored his past lives or even yangchen would’ve blah blah and i’m like. how did you miss the point that badly???

so i’m gonna point out all the ways the writers wrote around what the previous avatars said so that aang actually does what they all advised:

starting with the most obvious point: none of them actually tell him to end ozai.

kyoshi: “only justice will bring peace.”

aang? takes away ozai’s bending so the fool rots in a prison cell for the rest of his life.

the world? at peace.

kuruk: “aang, you must actively shape your own destiny and the destiny of the world.”

aang? makes his own choice against what everyone tells him to do and literally ends a war that was going on for centuries.

the world? destiny changed!

yangchen (because for some reason you all don’t get this one and it’s just never been clearer to me lmao): “selfless duty calls you to sacrifice your own spiritual needs, and do whatever it takes to protect the world.”

so let’s point out some key words:

selfless duty calls you to sacrifice your own spiritual needs, and do whatever it takes to protect the world.

and let’s go back to aang taking ozai’s bending away, but before that, when he says this right before even meeting the lion turtle.

aang: “I guess I don't have a choice, Momo. I have to kill the Fire Lord.” - Selfless duty

see even just like you guys, aang didn’t catch the signs, but that’s okay! cuz shortly after this the lion turtle starts to move and makes itself known to aang, and reward him for sticking to his faith.

now, let’s look at what the lion turtle was actually saying and how this aligns with yangchen’s advice:

lion turtle: “To bend another's energy, your own spirit must be unbendable or you will be corrupted and destroyed.” - is the willingness to Sacrifice his literal Spirit sinking in yet??

if not, here’s what was actually happening while he said that:

[As he speaks, Ozai's energy begins to make its way to Aang's body, consuming the blue and replacing it with red energy. Cut to a view above Aang looking down at his face as the energy reaches his face and continues to cover the beams shining out his mouth and eyes. Cut to a side-view as the red light begins to take control and the blue light diminishes. Cut to close-up of Aang as the red energy has taken over almost completely with just one eye left...]

WHATEVER IT TAKES?? literally? like hello

i feel like because this is a kid’s show and that it was obviously gonna have a happy ending, that people take for granted what aang did and what he was willing to do.

he put his literal spirit on the line to end the war, and this was after he was running trying to spare ozai for an hour.

and then you say you wanted him to end him. and sure yeah, let’s pretend that doesn’t go against the whole show and would’ve ruined his entire arc for a seeeecond, how exactly is that supposed to be more satisfying or end any differently to what we got? aang would’ve still been hit with the rock ex machina. ozai would be dead sure but the climax would be a lot less visually appealing, and everyone in the world would STILL be at peace except for…. oh right. AANG.

[average-transdalorian]

Y’know I think all of Char’s divorces could be explained by him being aroallo and trying his best to be alloallo because he doesn’t realize he’s aroallo. But also I’m not sure the world is ready for rep like that

[pyr0peyt]

Winter be damned my girl can SLAY

[letthestorieslive]

Scott + traits for @scottappreciation week

[mrajanux]

YIPPE IM OFF ART BLOCK AND BACK WITH MORE AU STUFF >:))) (It's been like a month on art block and it was torture...)

Anyways, I decided that I would completely lie from my last post and not do Frank and Eddie since I'm currently struggling with their dragons, and I'm still tweaking their designs. Instead I decided I would do Howdy and show a bit of what it's like with his dragons and his shop in a mini comic strip(?).

I actually struggled with Howdy a bit more than the other characters, I pretty much kept the concept design I gave him and I made him a travel merchant (but his home is in the neighborhood duh).

My friend and I kept brainstorming on what dragon or dragons we should have given him and we did make fun of each other a bit for our choice in the process. we ultimately decided on him having a larger dragon and many smaller dragons, much like poppy from my previous post. We gave him Fireworms (the tiny ones not the queen) and a Stormcutter that we have yet to name. I might go into more detail later when I figure out more but I'll get there when I get there.

[therentyoupay]

#24 JUST SAY IT JELLSAAAAAA ARTGHHHAHAHNSNNEMWMEMWJAJHAJAHAHHAHA

On July 1st, the lonely house at the top of the mountain was finally sold.

— In which Jack(son) Overland tries his best to befriend his neighbor, one woodworking project at a time. { neighbors-to-lovers!fic, modern-mountain-living!au }

Prompt from @aicosu: Three-word sentences: "Just say it."

ao3 ❆

[kame-artist]

Upcoming scene from my fic Double Damned

[coffee-scrub]

CHAPTER 5 WOOOO

The long-awaited piece, the point where everything changes, all at a low price of 9k words and all of my sanity.