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hysterialevi · 3 years

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Eitr | Chapter 3

Fanfic summary: In an alternate universe where the Raven Clan is wiped out, Sigurd ends up being rescued by the son of a Saxon ealdorman, and is tasked with being the boy’s new bodyguard. Upon meeting the boy’s father however, Sigurd soon realizes that the ealdorman is responsible for his clan’s destruction, and secretly plans for revenge while hiding behind the guise of a Norse pagan turned Christian.

Point of view: third-person

Pairing: Sigurd Styrbjornson x Male OC

This story is also on AO3 | Previous chapter | Next chapter

TWO DAYS LATER

FORANGAL CASTLE, THE CHAPEL

Placing his hands together, Ealdorman Aegenwulf bowed his head in respect and gently shut his eyes closed, whispering a brief prayer as he stood before the chapel’s great Crucifix.

At the moment, there was no one else in here with him. The chapel was dim and grey due to its enclosed nature, and the only light that managed to seep in was through the circular window that stood aloft the lonely altar.

Strangely enough though, Aegenwulf found a sense of peace in it. He had spent so much time warring with the Danes and battling against his own grief, that the overwhelming silence of the chapel actually provided him with some tranquility.

It was the only place where he could be alone with his thoughts nowadays. Outside of these stone cold walls, everyone always seemed to be watching him; studying him. Waiting to see his next move.

And on top of that, he still had three other children to protect, in spite of losing his eldest. They were young and inexperienced, and less aware of the war’s cruelties than Gareth had been.

It was a responsibility that Aegenwulf wished on no man. The weight of his burdens often felt impossible at times, and the more the tensions began to rise in Wedenscire, the more the ealdorman found himself wondering if any of this was even worth it.

“O, Father,” he said softly, his voice low and desolate, “thou who watches us from the heavens. Forgive me of my sins, and free me of the darkness that troubles my soul. I fear this war has led me astray from the path of righteousness, and I do not wish to deviate from Your grace. Please, deliver unto the dead the paradise they could not find in this world, and protect those who still stand from the evil that would sheathe them. ”

He paused for a moment, trying to keep his composure. “...Guide my son as he finds his way into your kingdom, and embrace him with the peace that was robbed of him in death. Allow him to rest at your side, and eradicate any shadows that should linger in his heart. Teach him not to fear, for I know he is in a far better place now.”

The ealdorman brought his hands closer to his face, muttering one last word. “Soþlice.”

Standing up from the floor, Aegenwulf fell into a profound silence as the lingering echoes of his prayer bounced off the chapel’s walls, filling the air with a solemn chime.

He knew not whether God could actually hear his cries, or if He had any intentions of answering them, but in a time when comfort was so rare to find, Aegenwulf frankly didn’t care.

All he needed was peace. The death of his son had torn him apart with a grief unlike any other he had ever experienced, and as the days rolled by -- minute by minute, hour by hour -- the ealdorman found himself being drained of the tenacity he once held.

It seemed pointless sometimes, to come to this chapel. Very often, Aegenwulf felt as if his prayers fell on deaf ears, and considering how the flames of the war were rising so rapidly, part of him began to wonder if this was all part of God’s plan somehow.

Was there a meaning behind all this? Some sort of higher purpose that was being written in the blood of their fallen soldiers? Did their suffering actually contribute to anything? Or was this all simply a result of man’s nature, and the chaos that humankind often sowed?

He didn’t even know if there was a Heaven at this point. The brutalities between the Saxons and the Danes had become so horrific in the recent years, that Aegenwulf found it more and more difficult to believe that anything pure awaited them beyond their realm.

How could it even be possible for something like that to exist? In a world where death, hatred, and pestilence were so prominent, how was it that something as perfect as Heaven -- or as God Himself -- could’ve been somewhere out there, watching over them?

Aegenwulf didn’t know the answers to these questions, nor where to find them, but for the sake of granting his son the afterlife he deserved, and for preserving his own sanity, the ealdorman decided to not second-guess it. It was the only hope he had anymore, after all. And he did not wish to snuff it out.

“Ealdorman?” Someone suddenly said, drawing the man’s attention away from the altar.

Aegenwulf glanced over his shoulder, not even bothering to turn the rest of his body.

“Hundwerth,” he greeted dourly, recognizing the man’s unscrupulous voice. “Solitude is a luxury in Forangal these days. I would not have it robbed of me.”

The bishop bowed his head apologetically, approaching the ealdorman. “Forgive me for the intrusion, my lord. I know you come here for solace. But I fear there is a much more urgent matter that requires your attention.”

Aegenwulf sighed, returning to his more dutiful temperament. “What is it? And speak plainly, bishop, for I have no desire to run around in semantic circles.”

Hundwerth came to a halt, standing directly in the sliver of light that poured in through the doorway. “Your housecarl, Algar, has returned from his travels. He brings news of the ambush in Ravensthorpe, and awaits you in the throne room.”

“He’s back already?”

“Indeed. He seemed rather confident when he arrived this morning. I assume things went well in Ravensthorpe.”

Aegenwulf stepped away from the altar, addressing the bishop more directly now.

“Assume nothing in war, Hundwerth. I will not rest easy until I know for a fact that those barbarians lie dead in the muck. Are my children aware of this attack?”

Hundwerth shook his head. “No, my lord. They asked a few questions in light of Algar’s absence, but overall, they still seem to be preoccupied with mourning their brother.”

The ealdorman was relieved at the news. “Good. They keep a strong face, but I can see that Gareth’s death has shaken them all. I would not have them burdened by the troubles of this war as well.”

The bishop changed the subject, eager to inform Aegenwulf of the second issue. “There is... one other matter, my lord. And I fear this one will require a much more delicate approach. That is, if you do not wish to alarm all of Forangal and Agenbury at once.”

Aegenwulf didn’t like where this was going. “Oh? And what would that be?”

Hundwerth began pacing around the chapel, lowering his voice as he spoke.

“Your healer, Linette. I noticed she’s been acting rather... odd, recently. Different. Granted, she’s never really been an ordinary woman, but her behavior has shifted over the past two days, and not in a manner that I would consider beneficial.”

“What type of behavior are we talking about, exactly?”

“She’s become distant. Secretive. Perhaps even a little paranoid. I’ve seen her pacing around the castle late at night, and making trips to the infirmary underneath the shadows. She speaks to no one during these mysterious endeavors, and often seems to actively avoid me. It’s almost as if... there’s something she would not have me know.”

The ealdorman shrugged. “So, you wish for me to investigate? Is that it?”

“No, my lord,” Hundwerth corrected. “For I have already taken the liberty of doing that myself. I entered the infirmary this morning whilst Linette was away, and found the most interesting patient lying in one of her beds.”

Aegenwulf grew tired of the bishop’s ramblings. “Get to the point, Hundwerth. What did you see?”

“A Dane, Aegenwulf. Your healer has a Dane in her infirmary, and is tending to his wounds as we speak.”

The ealdorman froze upon hearing that, not entirely sure if he understood Hundwerth correctly.

“A Dane,” he repeated sternly. “My healer is lending her aid to a Dane. Are you certain of this, bishop?”

The other man nodded assuredly. “As certain as I am that the moon will arise in the evening. Though, I should clarify, it was not Linette who brought this pagan into our midst. Based on the information I have gathered thus far, I believe she is helping this Dane at the behest of your daughter, Edlynne.”

Aegenwulf shook his head in frustration. “Oh, Edlynne... that naive girl. She carries the same compassion her mother once did, but I fear her rationality is often overshadowed by it in these situations.”

Hundwerth furrowed his brow in disapproval. “She has also been rather vocal about her interest in the Danes before, I’m afraid. It seems your daughter is drawn to them.”

“That’s because she has not witnessed the same horrors I have. She has not seen the way those savages sacrifice our people to their gods, nor what they do to our women. Edlynne believes the Danes to be misunderstood, and would have me welcome them with open arms. What she does not realize is that I am simply trying to protect her.”

“She is but a child, my lord. She will soon understand the necessity of your iron fist. Just give her time.”

Aegenwulf sighed, crossing his arms. “I suppose you’re right.”

“So, what do you intend to do about this issue concerning Linette? Shall I have the guards remove this pagan from our grounds?”

The ealdorman thought about it for a moment. “No. That won’t be enough. I know Danes. They never stop fighting until their last breath. If we wish to be rid of this man completely, we will need to kill him.”

Aegenwulf began making his way out of the chapel, swiftly heading to the throne room as his cape fluttered behind him.

“I shall speak with Algar and get his opinion on the matter. He has just returned from the very nest of these snakes, and I would like to hear what he has to say before taking any action.”

Hundwerth seemed content with the plan. “A wise approach, my lord. I shall be here in the chapel if you need my assistance. Stay safe in these trying times, for I worry things are only going to get worse.”

~~~~~~~~~~

A FEW MINUTES LATER

THE INFIRMARY

Pain. That was all he could feel.

In the midst of the cold and darkness that currently surrounded him, Sigurd found nothing but its familiar embrace to welcome him as he finally emerged from his slumber, bringing him into an environment he did not expect.

Instead of feeling the warmth of Fólkvangr’s sun-kissed fields, or the bone-biting winds of Helheim’s wintry snows, the only thing Sigurd could detect was the comfort of a soft bed lying beneath his fingertips.

...He wasn’t dead. Not yet, at least.

The gods had granted him a second chance.

He had been saved by that mysterious man on the shore, and given an opportunity to recover.

But... what about Eivor? Or Randvi? Or the rest of his clan? Were they still alive, and healing from their wounds just as he was? Or had the Valkyries already escorted them to Odin’s feast, and laid them to rest?

Part of him didn’t even want to think about it, given the circumstances. He had already struggled so much just to survive, that he did not wish to hear if his brother had become a corpse by now. He imagined he was already going to have a difficult enough time trying to regain his strength, but to be entirely alone in this ordeal... the very idea of it made his heart sink.

Forcing his eyes open to a slit, Sigurd squinted as a burst of sunlight flooded his vision, painting everything in the room around him with a disorienting haze.

The only things he could make out were the soft edges of a nearby window from which the light poured through, and the blurry silhouette of what appeared to be a girl accompanying him.

At the moment, she seemed to be unaware of his newly conscious state and simply tended to her own matters, humming quietly under her breath. Her voice sounded fairly younger than Sigurd would’ve expected, and the size of her shadow led him to assume she was no more than a child. Possibly the daughter of whomever rescued him.

Lifting a hand to block the sunlight, Sigurd suddenly felt a sharp sting gripping him in the chest as his wounds strained to keep up with his movement, causing him to let out a faint grunt.

The girl instantly glanced upwards upon hearing the abrupt noise and gasped in surprise, pleased to see that her friend had finally risen from his sleep.

“Oh my goodness...!” She said softly. “You’re actually awake! Can you... can you hear me?”

Sigurd remained silent in response, still trying to get his bearings.

This girl... she sounded like a Saxon. Though, she clearly wasn’t just any Saxon. Her appearance suggested she may have been some type of noblewoman -- or perhaps, in the service of one -- and the quality of her dress was obviously not something that a commoner would’ve been able to get their hands on.

Her hair was well-groomed and decorated with a few simple braids that stretched down to her back, and a beautiful necklace dangled from around her neck. An heirloom, perhaps?

She spoke with an unusual sense of kindness that Sigurd did not typically receive from her people, and the discretion in her voice only led him to believe that she was in the minority. Was he even welcome in this place?

“C-Can you understand me?” She asked, picking up on Sigurd’s confusion. “I know this must be... strange for you.”

The Norseman blinked a few times, finally able to make some sense of what was going on.

“What...? Where... where am I...? What’s going on?”

The girl’s expression lightened with relief. “So you do speak our tongue. That’s good. You’re in Wedenscire, friend. In the ealdorman’s castle. The infirmary, specifically.”

That took Sigurd by surprise. “...The ealdorman’s castle? Why would an ealdorman save a Norse?”

“Well, he didn’t,” she clarified. “His children did. Me and my brothers brought you back from the nearby town after a fisherman found you washed up on the shore. Normally, we would’ve left you alone, but you would’ve died without a proper healer’s treatment.”

Sigurd took on a more serious demeanor, suddenly growing wary of the girl’s intentions. “So... you are the ealdorman’s daughter, then. And why would you go out of your way to keep me alive? What is it you hope to gain? Information? Secrets?”

The girl shook her head, eager to deny his suspicions. “Oh, no! Nothing like that.”

“Well, you must want something. Or did you simply save me out of the kindness of your own heart?”

She glanced downwards, admittedly a tad embarrassed to confess her motivations.

“...Well, y-yes, actually. I know that may sound incredibly naive of me, but you were dying. And I didn’t have the heart to just... leave you behind. The fact that you’re a Dane--” she quickly corrected herself, “--or a Norse, doesn’t change that. The truth is, I don’t want anything from you. I only wish to see you recover.”

The girl sounded like she was being sincere, but even then, Sigurd’s instincts urged him to keep his guard up regardless.

“...If your words hold truth to them,” he said, “then you have my thanks. I do not remember much from that night, but I know for a fact I would not have survived without your people’s help. Or your own. I owe you.”

The girl relaxed a little bit, hoping to maintain the trust between them.

“Might I ask your name? I’m Edlynne.”

He sat up, his body aching with every movement. “Sigurd.”

“Sigurd...” Edlynne repeated with a smile. “Well, Sigurd, it’s a pleasure to finally meet you. You’ve been unconscious for two days. If I’m being honest, part of me never expected to see you wake up.”

Sigurd paused at that. “...I’ve been here for two days?”

“Indeed. You were on the brink of death when we found you. It’s a miracle you survived. How do you feel?”

The viking glanced down at his bloodstained bandages. “Better, considering how I was before.”

“That’s good. Do you think you can walk? You sustained quite a few injuries from that night.”

Sigurd shifted his body a bit, testing its limits. “I... believe so. Just give me a moment--”

Interrupting their conversation, a boy suddenly came barging into the infirmary with a panicked expression on his face as he brought his gaze to Edlynne, quickly shutting the door behind him.

He also carried the look of a nobleman and wore a simple yet sophisticated tunic, paired with a short cape wrapped around his shoulders. As for the boy himself, he appeared to be around Edlynne’s age and had hair of the same color -- only his was cut so short that the bottom of his head was nearly bare. A relative of hers, perhaps?

“Sister...!” He said urgently, keeping his voice down. “We--”

His eyes landed on Sigurd, causing him to fade into silence.

Edlynne glanced back and forth between the two of them, unsure of what was going on.

“...Joseph?” She asked, her tone quiet with anxiety. “Are you alright? You seem perturbed.”

Joseph gestured to the viking, his eyes wide with surprise. “He’s awake?”

“Yes. He woke up not too long ago, in fact. We’ve only been speaking for a few moments.” She held an introductory hand up to him. “This is Sigurd. Sigurd, this is my twin brother, Joseph.”

The boy strode further into the room, his actions swift with haste.

“You’ll forgive me if I’m not in the mood for pleasantries, but I’m afraid we have a much bigger issue to address at the moment.”

“What is it?”

“It’s father. I don’t know how, but he’s discovered that we have a Dane in the infirmary, and he is not happy.”

The girl quirked a brow. “What? How could he possibly know that? Did someone tell him?”

“I-I don’t know...! It wasn’t me or Edric, that I can assure you.” He froze. “...You don’t think it could’ve been Linette, do you?”

Edlynne rejected the idea. “What...? N-No, of course not! I know she was apprehensive about all this in the beginning, but she wouldn’t endanger the life of one of her patients, Dane or not.”

Joseph sighed in discontent. “I suppose it no longer matters. The main problem right now is that Algar has returned from his travels, and is on his way up here as we speak...!”

Sigurd joined in. “I assume this is bad news for me?”

The boy turned to him. “Considering our father hates your people and would see you all dead, yes, I would say so. There’s also the fact that Algar himself isn’t fond of vikings either.”

A thought crossed Edlynne’s mind. “Well, what about Edric? Do you think he could sway father’s mind?”

Joseph didn’t seem too confident. “Possibly. He’s speaking to father in the throne room at the moment, but you know how much he distrusts Danes. Even if he convinces father not to kill our new friend here, I doubt the outcome will be favorable anyway. If you truly want to help Sigurd, we’ll have to do something ourselves.”

The girl was at a loss. “Like what?”

“...We’ll have to get him out of Forangal.”

Edlynne gestured at the stone walls around them. “And how are we supposed to do that? We’re locked in a castle surrounded by guards. Not to mention that all the gates are shut. How do you expect us to leave with a viking in tow?”

Joseph paused for a moment, trying to devise a plan. There weren’t many escape routes they could access from the infirmary -- especially in broad daylight -- but every castle had its blind spots. There had to be something.

He perked his head up in realization, his expression lighting up with an idea.

“Wait, I might have a way out.”

“Well? What is it?”

The boy gave Sigurd an apologetic look, uncertain of how the man would react to his suggestion.

“The corpse carts.”

Edlynne blinked in confusion. “...You want to use the corpse carts?”

“Why not? They’re filled to the brim nowadays because of the war. I doubt anyone would notice if we snuck another body into the pile--”

“--Oh, for God’s sake, Joseph!” The girl exclaimed in disgust.

“Well, do you have any better ideas?”

Edlynne paced around the room, crossing her arms in thought. “I don’t know, but there must be a better way. One that isn’t so... morbid. Perhaps we could disguise Sigurd? Clothe him in Saxon attire?”

“Disguise him?” Joseph repeated, clearly not on board. “Look at him, Edlynne! Unless you can get him a full suit of armor with a helm and cloak, he’s not getting past anybody.”

The girl grew frustrated. “The same could be said about the corpse carts. Our guards might be lazy sometimes, but they’re not stupid. Those bodies have been in there for days now. Surely, they’ve already rotted and turned grey. You really think they wouldn’t notice a living person hiding amongst them?”

Joseph shrugged in defeat. “Well, Sigurd looked pretty dead when you first brought him here.”

“That isn’t--”

“--My, my.” A fourth voice said, causing the twins to fall completely silent. “Bickering already?”

They both turned towards the door, only to see Algar himself standing in the entryway.

“...Shit.” Joseph muttered, sticking close to his sister. “Hello, Algar.”

The housecarl leaned against the frame, greeting the siblings. “Lord Joseph. Lady Edlynne.”

Algar was a mountain of a man. Even without the thick layers of plated armor to bolden his towering physique, the man himself was intimidating enough.

His face was lined with deep creases around the eyes and nose, and the shape of his brow always seemed to be stuck in a permanent scowl. There were multiple scars littered across his skin -- the most prominent one being a gash that traveled from the top of his head all the way down to his cheekbone -- and one of his ears had been sliced clean off.

Despite his damaged exterior though, Algar still seemed to look after his appearance somewhat. His dark hair was short and parted -- save for the baldness that had been rendered by his scar -- and his beard had been neatly trimmed to fit his jaw.

He was certainly unlike any other Saxon Sigurd had ever seen, and the further he stepped into the room, prowling towards the viking like a lion, the more the Norse began to wonder if there was any hope of him surviving this day.

“My God,” Algar said with a chuckle as he gaze landed on Sigurd. “You really do have a Dane in here. I didn’t believe Hundwerth when he first told us about your new friend, but it seems that the bishop isn’t completely full of shit, after all.”

He glanced at the twins. “Where’d you find him?”

Edlynne knotted her hands together out of nervousness. “I-In Agenbury.”

“Agenbury?” He said, his voice quiet like the hiss of a snake. “Odd place for a viking.” He turned to Sigurd. “Care to explain what you were doing there, Dane?”

Sigurd scoffed. “You speak as if I was there voluntarily. The river carried me there when I was unconscious. I had no intentions of delivering myself into the hands of the enemy.”

Algar smirked. “No, but it seems that God did. For He knows of your crimes, and He knows you must face retribution.”

Joseph stepped in, admittedly uncomfortable about letting the housecarl too close to their new friend. “Why are you here, Algar? What does father want with Sigurd?”

“He wishes to meet the man. Face-to-face.”

Edlynne didn’t know whether to be relieved or worried. “That’s... it? He just wants to meet him?”

Algar nodded. “Indeed. Unlike some of the other ealdormen in England, Aegenwulf actually looks his enemies in the eye before executing them.”

“No!” Joseph protested. “You can’t kill him! He’s done nothing wrong!”

The housecarl gave him a cautionary glare. “Calm yourself, little lord. Whatever your father commands is what I will carry out. If you have your quarrels with him, I’d suggest taking them to the throne room. He’s rather eager to see this Dane removed from our midst... and so am I.”

Algar placed a hand on the hilt of his sword, urging Sigurd to follow him. “Well, come along then, Dane. Ealdorman Aegenwulf awaits.”

Edlynne timidly approached the man, hoping to dissuade him.

“Please, Algar. Leave him be. He’s still injured. Can’t you let him rest for a moment? W-We don’t even know if he can walk yet.”

“Then I’ll drag him by his bloody ankles.”

She glowered at him. “You can’t just--!”

“--It’s alright, Edlynne.” Sigurd reassured, holding a hand up. “I’ll follow him.”

“But...”

“It’s alright.” He reiterated. “It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve dealt with an ealdorman.”

Joseph placed a hand on Edlynne’s shoulder, attempting to calm her down. “Let it go, sister. There’s nothing we can do now.”

The girl let out an uneasy breath, but stood down nonetheless.

As for Sigurd, the man slowly threw his legs over the edge of the bed and braced himself for the upcoming trip, uncertain of how his body was going to handle his weight.

It had been days since he last stood on his own, and judging by how severely his wounds reacted to him simply lifting his arm earlier, he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to walk without leaning on something -- or someone.

Pressing his feet against the stone floor, Sigurd grunted in effort as he pushed himself up from the bed, trying to ignore the agony that was now piercing his flesh.

It was clear that he wasn’t quite ready to be roaming around just yet, but based on the urgency of the situation, he assumed he didn’t have much of a choice.

“Well, would you look at that...” Algar taunted with a grin. “The dog’s still got some bark left in him.”

Edlynne stared at Sigurd with a shocked expression, evidently taken aback by his surprising height. The viking wasn’t quite as tall as Algar, but he still towered over the twins like a walking Goliath.

“How do you feel...?” She asked.

Sigurd clutched his arrow wound, attempting to suppress the pain. “Far better than I look, I assure you.”

Algar beckoned the Norse. “Then you’ll be fit enough to see Aegenwulf.” He turned on his heel, taking his leave from the infirmary. “Follow me, Dane, and try not to fall over. We don’t want your blood staining our floors.”

Staying behind for a moment while the housecarl made his way out, Sigurd exchanged looks with the twins and fell into an agitated silence, unable to deny that he shared their fear.

He had no idea if he’d be leaving the throne room alive, or if he’d even get the chance to make it that far, but seeing as how Edlynne and Joseph were fond of him, he hoped they’d be able to convince the others to spare him.

He wasn’t normally in the habit of begging Saxons for his life, but with the state that his body was currently in, Sigurd had no intentions of provoking anyone just yet. He may have been a warrior, but he certainly wasn’t stupid.

“Be careful, Sigurd.” Edlynne warned. “Our father isn’t a bad man, but... he’s controlled by his grief these days.”

That piqued the man’s interest. “Grief? Did something happen?”

Her tone sank with heartache. “...Yes. Our eldest brother, Gareth, was killed about a month ago. By a clan of Danes.”

Joseph added onto her explanation. “The Raven Clan, specifically.”

Sigurd froze upon hearing that, paralyzed on the spot.

...Did he just say the Raven Clan? Surely, that couldn’t have been right. He was well aware that the vikings had a reputation for being cruel to Saxons -- not all of it without reason -- but their clan was different. Eivor was different. He would not have condoned the killing a man who did not deserve it.

Though, of course, that presupposed the notion that Gareth was innocent. If someone in the Raven Clan deemed their brother worthy of a kill, Sigurd was certain that it must have been for a good reason.

There was clearly more to this story, but for the moment, he restrained himself from prying.

“Ah...” Sigurd simply replied, trying to conceal his sudden dread, “I see. You have my condolences.”

Edlynne didn’t seem to notice the shift in his mood. “Thank you. We pray for him everyday, but... there’s no way of knowing if he’s truly at peace. We can only hope.”

Joseph changed the subject, not wishing to dwell in these thoughts. “But enough about that. You have an ealdorman to greet, and we have much to prepare for, in the event that you don’t return.”

Sigurd nodded, following Algar’s tracks into the corridor. “I understand. Thank you both for your help. Even if your efforts end up being in vain, you will still have my appreciation.”

“Good luck, Sigurd.” Edlynne said, bidding him farewell. “May God guide you in the storm ahead. I have a feeling these next few days are going to be difficult for all of us, and I would not wish for more struggles to be thrust upon you.”

#assassin's creed valhalla #ac valhalla #Sigurd Styrbjornson #male oc #female oc #sigurd x male oc #ac valhalla fanfic #eitr

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ravenwolfie97 · 3 years

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2020 Art Summary

Yep, it’s 2021 already. 2020 is finally over. It felt like it lasted forever, and it felt like the end would never come, but here we are. Crazy how the time flew by.

I felt like I didn’t get much art done this year because of Current World Event, but I made a lot more than I thought I did. Even some of my new favorite pieces came out of this year, so I think that’s worth celebrating and looking back upon!

I was insanely productive during the first month of 2020, and looking back I was surprised at all the stuff I did, but then I remembered that that winter season was actually one of the best times of my life! I started being more socially involved, and I think my newfound drive at the time translated into all the art I pumped out this month. This is just a small fraction of what I made in January, but I only have so much space. Quite a few complex pieces in both style exploration and polishing my own style.

Apparently February was a rather intimate month. Things began to slow down in terms of my own art here, with me spending more time in social settings and school work ramping up, I didn’t have as much time to coop up in my room to draw. I did wanna do something for a friend’s Valentine’s Day OC art challenge, so I drew my lovey-dovey couple from Dance of 1000 Words havin’ a dance. Nothing actually came of that challenge, but it was fun to do regardless.

One of the things I was most proud of in the winter season was making more friends, and one of the closest friends I made was completely coincidental. I met a person named Kiri on the bus one night I decided to volunteer somewhere by myself, and we ended up chatting and getting along. They quickly told me their tumblr username, and I shot them a message immediately after they left. A couple days later, we met up for brunch, and we started becoming really close friends and creative partners!

Not much else happened in March cuz that’s when Current World Event started becoming an issue, but Kiri and I still kept in close touch and we randomly started developing a concept for a Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Galar Edition. These are a handful of characters we thought up, with Skipper the Scorbunny and Dross the Dreepy as the main characters, Morgrem as the main antagonist, and some shopkeepers such as those of the Greedent Bank and the Indeedee General Store. This was also my first time drawing all of these Galar Pokemon (except Scorbunny, but I also made Skipper a bit more unique than a regular Scorbunny).

Lots of events happened this month. First of all, Steven Universe Future ended, one of my favorite and most influential shows was no longer continuing. I had to do something as tribute, both as a send-off to one of the greatest cartoons in the world and as a cathartic release for my feelings towards it.

A while later, I got the opportunity to start playing an MMO in beta called Fer.al, by the same people who made Animal Jam, which coincidentally I had also beta tested for back in the day. I ended up getting really attached to my first character, a Senri I named Sasha, and though I’ve made more characters than them since, they’re still my absolute favorite. Though I haven’t touched the game in a few months, I was really engrossed for a long time and enjoyed playing through the beta and early access phases.

At the end of the month, some friends of mine invited to a roleplay group with some mutuals, and we all played characters in a crime syndicate. Just a bunch of ragtag thieves and criminals who ended up together in order to protect an artifact called the Crown of Thieves, which was essentially a flag to be taken by other groups to prove that they are the best thieves in the land. My character was based heavily on my sona (if it wasn’t obvious) and was also influenced by Cloud Strife, since the FFVII Remake had just come out and I was super into watching the cutscenes at the time. My character’s (code)name is Valkyrie, and they are a mercenary, going between multiple different employers to carry out whatever duties they need to do. They have a more complicated backstory, but presently they were recently hired by recommendation of their friend Shark (played by @shmoots-universe who is also My friend now ily maya) who works with a group called the Court Cards who are currently in possession of the Crown of Thieves. Valk never really had a place to call home, but staying with this group of people had to be the closest they could get to that feeling. They still sleep with a knife under their pillow because of trust issue but that’s okay.

Okay, so technically these examples started in April, but I continued making content with them in May, and the month was just pretty void of art in general, so here I am addressing them.

There were two main things I worked on this month: a Steven Universe AU of my own and the whole #sixfanarts thing that kicked off around then. Let’s start with the fanart bits. I did two and a half of them (six in April and nine in May), and it was so much fun to be able to draw stuff I don’t normally do! My personal favorites are shown here: Blake Belladonna from RWBY, Roll from Megaman, Yuki Konno from Sword Art Online, and Link from The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. The other thing I’d been planning for a while was a Steven Universe AU, probably to cope with the show being over but also because I was inspired by a lot of those SU AU artists I started following at the time. I won’t share the details here because it’s gonna have its own blog at some point, but the example I’ve shown here is of a comic I made loosely in order to introduce a divergence in the plot of the story as well as introduce a character unique to my AU. It was a lot of fun figuring out how to draw the characters and get a feel for the style.

As the year progressed, my amount of art I made per month began to dwindle, this time mostly because school was kicking my ass especially hard with finals. However, I took what time I had to get some backburner pieces finished, like the Tigerlily picture which I sketched out a couple months back, and the Gunvolt picture which I started working on SIX YEARS AGO. I don’t quite know why I got the urge to work on it again after so long, but it was nice to finally realize. The other drawing for DOTS was done in the dead of night but I was really happy with how it came out.

Despite only having two summer classes left of school, this month was really rough because they demanded a lot of my time and attention. I did not have the gumption to do anything digital, so I stuck to my sketchbook to get out what I felt like getting out.

My friends and I did a stream of the game Helltaker, and I really enjoyed the concept, so in following my friends I made my own Helltaker demon OC named Raksha the Ravenous Demon (it’s a pun but also got mythical insp). I also got super into Hazbin Hotel at this point, mostly because the Addict music video dropped and I couldn’t get enough of it, so I doodled Angel Dust cuz I felt like it. The other drawing I did was actually a free commission I gave a friend of mine as a prize for a trivia game show I ran back in June. He along with a couple other friends got some free drawings from me for getting the top three scores, and this one in particular was fun because of how interesting it was. He wanted me to draw a video game reviewer called the Irate Gamer from a specific moment, and I decided to go ham and just make it as dramatic as possible.

University classes finally wrapped up and right after that I was in the process of moving out of my apartment and getting adjusted to living with my parents again. I did a couple of agg.io drawing sessions with my friends from the Court Cards group as well as a new Dungeons and Dragons homebrew group I had joined. I drew some more of Valkyrie and came up with a design for my DND character Qakuqtuq (or Kai for short). He is monkey grandpa and I love him.

My main focus was on finishing a polished piece for my friend Cake, whose birthday was in the upcoming month. I wanted it to be as amazing as possible, so I put a lot of time into getting more detailed and making them look good. In addition to that, I did a few TOME doodles just for fun. The creature on the bottom was for this month’s art challenge on my Discord server where we made original TOMERPG monsters, and I created Hundylow, a Crystal-element monster based on the Grindylow from English folklore.

This month was a lot more productive than the past few had been. I tried to do a 31-day art challenge called Creatober but failed to get past the third prompt because I was still swamped with other work. I’m still happy with what little I did, including the piece with my characters Kyle and Guarudan from DSWD.

I don’t remember how, but I also suddenly rediscovered an old Flipnote Hatena series called Tales of LostClan, a Warriors fan series that I would say was the most obscure thing I’ve ever been super invested in. It was what got me into the actual Warriors books, and I liked it so much I redrew the animations into a comic... twice. Didn’t get nearly as far the second time but clearly my love for this little fanfiction had not waned after nearly a decade. I felt like drawing a book cover/movie poster for the series, just to get it out there and see how much I’ve improved over all that time.

Also I felt like making a vampiresona just before Halloween because I never dress up for Halloween in art (or real life anymore, for that matter), and I wanted to do something like that for once. It was short-lived but I really liked the design!

The focus of this month was definitely on Pokemon stuff. As per usual I contributed to the current Gotta Draw ‘Em All collab, and I was tasked to draw Regieleki. It was really fun to figure out how to make it stand out and look like it was made of electricity.

I also committed a lot of my spare time to my Fakemon Gym Leaders, as I had been working on bringing them to life in the past year or so now. As of this post, I’ve finished rendering their full body poses and gym badges, but I’m still working on completing all eight VS portraits, the first half of which are shown here.

I... didn’t draw anything this month, actually. What I’m showing here was worked on in the last few days but has actually been in progress for a couple of months, and I just finished it earlier today, in 2021. But I needed to show something off, and it’s also about time I mentioned it.

Back in October, I kept seeing people rave about this game called Genshin Impact, and I was interested but not so much as to start playing it... until my friends started playing and I was like “fuck it, let’s download it”. Since that day, I have been super immersed and in love with this game, to the point I came up with my own canon based on my gameplay experiences. This also included the creation of an original player character: Astra, the non-binary Traveller. And now, I’ve finally drawn them and brought them to life.

It has been one hell of a year. I had some of the highest highs and lowest lows in 2020, lots of changes, and I have now officially moved onto the next chapter of my life now that my time at university is finally over. I’m very excited for what 2021 has to offer, and I’m going to go forward with great ambition.

#my art stuff #art summary #this is always a joy to do every year and i'm glad to keep up the tradition for the sixth year in a row #this year was super good for this as well just to look back on what i was actually able to accomplish #long post #tome #hazbin hotel

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abyssmail · 3 years

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Caerul Design Notes,

because I’ve actually put a lot of thought into creating Caerul’s aesthetic and I’m lowkey really proud of it. I won’t get into her actual character concept/personality/backstory/etc. since this got super long, but this is how/why I made the choices I did with regards to her name and visual design!

▶ Caerul’s color scheme started off way bluer (hence the name “Caerul,” from caeruleus/a/um - “blue”/“cerulean”/“azure”/“of the sky/sea” in Latin) and less saturated, but when I gave her a (dead) twin with a red theme, I wanted them to look more alike and made both of their hair purple (although I haven’t actually done more than sketch Roseus before... he’s got purple hair and red eyes). Purple’s my favorite color, and unnatural hair colors don’t seem to be uncommon in Orth, so why not, right? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ The red elements in Caerul’s design are meant to represent her honoring Roseus!

All of the base colors I use when drawing Caerul! They all end up looking a bit darker once they’re shaded though.

▶ As well as shamelessly using one of my favorite Latin words (I’m a Classics major, okay ;;>~>), I also tried to pick a name that sounded similar to the ones that already exist in-universe. This was actually fairly tricky, since as far as I can tell the names in Made in Abyss have a WIDE variety of influences. Some of them seem passably Japanese-sounding (Riko, Jiruo, Kiyui, Nanachi) disclaimer I bring dishonor to my ancestors and know 0 Japanese so this is just about vibez, others seem Western-ish (Reg, Nat, Lyza, Prushka). Some are fairly whimsical (Shiggy, Maruruk, Mitty) while others are more mysterious and fantastic (Any of the White Whistles besides maybe Lyza). The only common thread I could really settle on was a general fantasy feeling to all of the names. I tried to capture that nebulous vibe with Caerul’s name, although with something so vague and subjective it’s pretty much impossible to say if I was entirely successful. I named her siblings afterward with other Latin color words and ended up with a RGB theme lol.

▸ By the way, “Caerul” is pronounced “KAI-rool.” It rhymes with “Hyrule.” The ae diphthong makes an “eye” sound in Latin #TheMoreYouKnow

▸ “Caducalae” is a portmanteau of “caducae alae,” literally “falling/doomed/futile wings” in Latin (again), playing off how pointless it is to be able to fly when the Curse of the Abyss is a thing. Originally, they weren’t supposed to work at all outside of the Abyss, but I decided that was boring for crossovers/other verses so I scrapped it. I’m not too happy with the name since it doesn’t fit the naming scheme of the canon relics (there is no precedent at all for gratuitous Latin in Made in Abyss, which is a good thing because it’s overused in fantasy, but Latin was the only thing I was good at in high school sooooo... ^^;), but I didn’t like any of my other ideas that much, either. “Wings of Futility” feels more canon, but it’s also kinda depressing :/

▶ I’ve mentioned before that Caerul’s build is based off of mine for art reference purposes (it’s convenient to just look in the mirror while making the pose I want =w=)b), but another reason she’s so short is that I didn’t have to make the caducalae quite as big since she’s smaller, so she can actually go indoors if she’s careful.

▶ Long hair isn’t super practical with mechanical wings with lots of bits for it to get caught in, but Caerul idolizes Lyza, so I left her hair as long as I could reasonably get away with.

▶ I heavily referenced the canon Made in Abyss character designs for Caerul’s clothing so she would fit into the world, but made some alterations to make everything more personal to her and accommodate for her wings. In general, I lightened everything up, since she takes a bunch of short, quick trips rather than lengthy expeditions. Her gloves, for instance, are loosely inspired by the ones we see many delvers wearing in the manga/anime, but are less heavy-duty and are convertible mittens/fingerless gloves for better dexterity with handling letters and such.

The best close up of the gloves I could find was actually a screenshot of the aftermath Reg & Riko’s orb piercer encounter, but I didn’t want to have to tag this for gore, so you get Lyza ^^; There’s a filter over Caerul here so you can see the glove better which is why she looks kinda washed out :/

▶ Her coat is heavily influenced by Jiruo’s, since he’s the only Moon Whistle we’ve seen in canon.

yeah, uhhhh, sorry to yoink your style my dude ^^;

▸ Caerul’s has a different color palette, a simpler lapel border, an extra set of outer pockets, and three separate panels in the back that button around her wings so she can put it on! I haven’t drawn it, but her shirt works similarly.

This is my favorite detail about her design tbh... it’s just really satisfying what a logical solution it is for some reason??? the original doodle is off rotting somewhere in my Modern European History notes, but I tried to recreate it just as sloppily here =w=)b

▶ Caerul’s corset isn’t just a painful fashion choice - it’s actually meant to be a(n admittedly heavily stylized) brace for her back against the weight of her wings.

▶ Since Caerul can’t wear a backpack with the wings, I had to get creative with storage options for her. In addition to an undetermined number of pockets on the inside of her coat, I gave her these two pouches on her thighs to carry more stuff.

I wonder how buff your quads could get carrying a significant amount of weight there...

▸ Messenger bags don’t seem super practical for delving, so I didn’t design a specific one for her to carry all the time, but Caerul does use them on occasion. Even with that, though, she still has far less carrying capacity than the average delver, which is a problem she has to deal with when carrying out her duties!

▶ The wings/caducalae were by far the most difficult part of designing Caerul, and it took several redesigns over 2+ years before I was finally happy with them. Their first design was deliberately far simpler in the interest of having to draw them a zillion times, but they ended up clunky and unwieldy looking:

chonky o~O

▸ The final design is MUCH more of a pain to draw (in fact, a lot of the time I cheat and just copy and paste them from drawings I’ve already done), but I think it looks much sleeker and more “functional”.

I also got better at making my diagrams look slightly more authentic ;0

▸ I knew I wanted jetpack-style thrusters to be a component of the wings to somewhat justify the shit I wanted Caerul to be able to pull with them (especially to eliminate the need for accounting for the damage landing suddenly could do to her ankles), but incorporating them proved to be one of the biggest problems of the design. At one point, they were going to have a whole separate attachment point on her back, but I finally just made them an offshoot of the first “joint,” as you can see in the final design.

A really messy intermediate caducalae sketch. The weird double pentagon shape was meant to be the part of the relic actually fused to Caerul’s back, but I scrapped that too when I scrapped the separate limbs for the thrusters.

▸ Speaking of the joints, they’re all balls so they can rotate all over and I don’t have to fuss too much about how they move. Likewise, the frame is metal, but I treat it like it’s kind of flexible, so Caerul can “flex” the wings open and closed. These wings are hard enough to draw period okay I’m giving myself every excuse to be inconsistent af on purpose.

▸ The caducalae have some “bonus” features that I’ve sketched out, but that Caerul hasn’t unlocked yet, and won’t for a while.

owo what’s this?

▸ For the wings, I think my biggest inspirations were some of the mechier Cardfight!! Vanguard dragon units (although I don’t remember which cards specifically) and the energy wings on the ninth-generation knightmares in Code Geass R2.

I’ve made a lot of OCs, and since I don’t like to use faceclaims, I’ve done a fair amount of character designing. I don’t think I’ve ever spent as much time or had as much fun with any of them as I have with Caerul, though! OCs aren’t always super well accepted in fandom roleplay, but the Made in Abyss community has been super welcoming and I’ve had a blast. Thanks for listening to me gush about Caerul if you got this far, and thank you to everyone who’s interacted with her!

The original sketch of Caerul from back in 2017. How far we’ve come :’D

#miscellaneous info #mun art #appearance #ooc #((no one cares lol))#((but I had fun putting all my thoughts down in writing ^^;))#((also! the full version of the new caerul art from the promo!))

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annsparksthegmr · 3 years

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Pokemon Black Nuzlocke - Part 1

Hey! Wanted to try something different because quarantine is boring and since where I am, lock down is happening again, I thought about doing something I thought I’d never do: why not attempt a Nuzlocke of one of my favorite Pokemon games? Sounds crazy, I know. But I could at the very least put the game down in between sessions. And I thought by doing one, it would be interesting - and I kind of wanted to work on a Pokemon OC idea based on that run.

One I hope to get to drawing soon enough. But for right now, it is Nuzlocke time. (I should be finished Shield, but honestly I’ve gotten too bored and disappointed with that game to even finish the main story.)

So if you’re interested in reading the little notes I have regarding this Pokemon Black Nuzlocke, you can read more below. And if you don’t, that’s fine too!

So with all that being said, I'll try and keep things in bullet points since I’m not entirely sure how to format this. But I’m going with Nuzlocke Rules as follows:

I can only catch 1 Pokemon each route that is my first encounter. If it faints, I can’t have any other Pokemon from the route. (Gift Pokemon also do count as an encounter if given in a specific area. Such as the one before the first Gym counts as my Dream Yard encounter.)

However, I am involving a dupes clause in case I encounter the same Pokemon back to back on routes. So I can’t have two Lillipups but I will allow myself to capture a Purrloin and Liepard if they are on separate routes as encounters. But if the Purrloin has evolved to a Liepard by the time I encounter the wild Liepard, I can use Dupes clause to not capture it. (I hope to not have to use this rule. But I just don’t want a team full of the exact same Pokemon when I have to face the champion.)

If a Pokemon faints, I can not use them again since they are considered dead.

All Pokemon on my team must be nicknamed. No exception.

Shiny Clause is here in place by some random odds a Shiny Pokemon appears. I’ll catch it, but I won’t use it.

As challenging as it would be to play without items, I will only restrict myself from using the battle enhancing items such as X Speed.

Any additional ones shall be added if I feel like things are getting too easy.

Now to the actually notes regarding the beginning of this Nuzlocke.

Current name of my character is Avi. It is a placeholder name for the time being. But I like how it could be a nickname.

Starter Pokemon is Snivy. !!!Female!!! Nickname shall henceforth be Queen. (Could have probably gone Fire or Water Starter, but I am bias toward most Grass Starters.)

Route 1 encounter is a female Lillipup. Nicknamed Puppy.

Fought N and Queen was brought into yellow health. Switched out to Puppy for the easy victory. Kind of forgot N just decides to challenge you out of nowhere, but thankfully I was healed for the battle beforehand.

Route 2 encounter is a female Purrloin. Nicknamed Ghost Girl - Yugioh Vrains reference. Later, I came to regret the name choice.

Ghost Girl nearly died to a critic hit from a Level 4 Patrat. Survived on 1 hp.

In Striaton City fighting Cheren at the school. He manages to burn Ghost Girl and reduce her to 2 HP. Still alive as Puppy finished off the Tepig. Puppy also finished off Purrloin and defeated Cheren.

Dreamyard Patrat also brought Ghost Girl to red yet again. Purrloin seemed nice but appears to be a liability.

In the Dreamyard, I took the Panpour to help out against the upcoming first Gym battle. Despite the fact I doubted to use it in the long run, I decided to name him Fountain

Striaton Gym is primarily a Fountain and Puppy show in the battles. Got the first badge after beating Chili without any losses.

Fennel comes to bug me about Dream Mist and stuff while my Pokemon are still injured. So I healed everyone up before heading there. Bianca just watched as a Munna got hit by some Team Plasma members before one of them decided to come and hit me. Hit me as if battling me. Which i quickly defeated one no problem. Then the other met the same fate.

Thankfully a Musharna stepped in while Bianca was too scared to do anything. Fennel also got her Dream Mist which I will probably have no use of considering the fact everyone has moved onto the Pokemon Switch games and forgot Fennel even existed.

Also Fennel prevented me from leaving town so I got to hear about the useless feature I’ll never fully get to use. And I doubt to hear from her again.

I decided to visit the little daycare center instead of getting a new encounter right away. Just because I wanted to level up primarily Puppy and Queen. Because Ghost Girl and Fountain were not going to be big party members in the long run. At least I do not think so.

But on Route 3, Cheren challenged me after I beat up twin girls. And I wasn’t entirely confident about the fight. Though I did have Pokemon around the same level as Tepig, I was starting to realize how much I did not remember regarding levels of opponents of this game. And how I might need to prepare for upcoming Gyms and battles.

Though luckily, Fountain and Puppy managed to carry me to victory. Then Team Plasma decided to steal a young girl’s Pokemon and I have to go with Cheren to fix it while Bianca comforts the young girl. Which, both of us proceeded to wipe the floor with the Grunts no problem. Plus it did help in the double battle they decided to keep biting Tepig, leaving Queen to get off a Growth before using Vine Whip to knock them both out.

I did decide to get my encounter in the caves once Team Plasma left and found a Roggenrola. It was female - which usually it was hard for me to get female Pokemon whenever I played. So I tried catching it, since even though I could not fully evolve it to its final form, I didn’t think it was a truly bad Pokemon to pick up. So Pebbles joined the team! Never used a Roggenrola but I kind of hope if she survives it will make the fourth Gym battle easier.

Now before I went grinding up Pebbles to catch up and everyone to a similar level, I needed to get my Route 3 encounter. Though I had completely forgotten the Blitzle trainer existed, so when I switched in Pebbles she nearly died. I kind of forgot that right now, those defenses suck. And it might have also been a crit. That or Shockwave. And out of everything for my runs, I fear the random crits knocking out my Pokemon. Second is me suddenly being under leveled or not prepared for a battle.

So I wanted to try my luck in the dark grass for a double encounter to increase my odds of finding a more unique encounter. But I got a Blitz, who was a male and I caught him in a Heal Ball. His name is now Zigzagzop because funny reference. And he was holding a Cheri berry for some reason. Nice.

This route was also when I realized I could have gotten a Pidove, but at the very least using them to level up Zigzagzop would be nice.

And here is where I’m going to be ending any story progression and solely focus and trying to get everyone up to Level 15 who is on my primary team. Because I did look up there is a Trainer Battle with N where he’s around Level 13. Though me being dumb did not realize I had Queen attack a Patrat twice with Vine whip and it was about to unleash its powered up attack. Luckily I had Pebbles who had Sturdy tank the hit and then switch back to take it out.

But I am considering maybe leveling everyone up to around 18-19 to prepare for the Lenora battle. Mainly because I know she is going to be a challenge as none of my team knows any fighting type moves. That and I recall her Watchhog using Retaliate giving me lots of problems when I was younger.

I have no real plans besides trying to either tank out things with Pebbles or pray I can easily knock out Watchog. Not sure if there are any tips or tricks regarding how to beat that in terms of Nuzlockes. But next time I update everyone, I should have beaten Lenora with hopefully no deaths, but considering the situations… I got a feeling I’m going to mess up and get some deaths. And I got a strong feeling it may involve Ghost Girl considering the amount of times she has nearly died already. Or if I screw up Pebbbles’ Sturdy.

Team Recap:

Queen - Female Snivy (Lvl 14)

Puppy - Female Lillipup (Lvl 14)

Ghost Girl - Female Purrloin (Lvl 11)

Fountain - Male Sampour (Lvl 12)

Pebbles - Female Roggnerola (Lvl 11)

Zigzagzop - Male Blitzle (Lvl 12)

Deaths: 0

#pokemon #pokemon black #pokemon black nuzlocke #pokemon nuzloke #personal thoughts #trying something new #hopefully I can complete this #or actually draw stuff related to this

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patchwork-panda · 4 years

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If A Moment is All We Are (5.1/?)

This chapter is REALLY long so I split the text ver into 2 parts for Tumblr.

AO3 link: here

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Story type: Romance/Drama/comedy

Pairing: Dazai x OC/reader (Dazai is endgame, fic is long-running and will also feature Kunikida x OC)

OC (Kusunoki Kyou) and Ability are based off of "The Story of Your Life," written by Ted Chiang, aka the basis of the Amy Adams movie "Arrival."

Rating: M for Blood/violence/themes of depression, anxiety, suicide TW: The second half of this story will deal more heavily with themes of suicide, depression/anxiety. *No major character death will occur*

Story follows OC as she joins the ADA, partners up with the detectives to solve various cases around Yokohama and develops feelings for Kunikida and Dazai (Dazai endgame).

Written for those who want an immersive ADA experience :)

Updates every Sunday evening around 6pm PST

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It wasn’t always like this.

Okay, maybe it was.

For as far back as I could remember, the visions had always been random, random events I would see of the future. If I was in physical contact with someone, the visions would be from their future. If I wasn’t, then the visions would be from my own life. Sometimes when I was really stressed, the visions of my future would actually come in the form of a dream, like in manga or novels.

Perhaps that was the best way to explain how The Story of Your Life worked; it was like taking out a book, keeping a finger against the pages and flipping until that finger finally caught on a single page. Then, flip open that page and read the first paragraph that jumps out; the book was the person’s life and the paragraph was the event, a single scene from that person’s future that I bore witness to.

The visions didn’t always show me death, blood and despair.

In fact, the very first vision I had was that of a puppy—a cute little thing my friend Kiko gifted me at my fifth birthday party. I must’ve seemed shockingly unsurprised (and possibly rude) to Kiko and her parents, but I couldn’t bring myself to explain that I’d seen her giving me this puppy half a year ago.

In retrospect, the puppy vision had been great. Sure, it took some of the fun out of a surprise gift but it was still a vision about a puppy. Honestly, if my visions were nothing more than glorified versions of baby animal videos, I’d be perfectly fine with that.

Maybe then, I wouldn’t be left with this overwhelming fear of my own Ability.

I used to be able to touch people, shake their hands, and hold them. In the beginning, “The Story of Your Life” only activated with a prolonged touch...

At first, “prolonged” meant more than ten seconds. That meant getting to play tag in kindergarten, going over to friends’ houses and having sleepovers. Normal stuff. My life didn’t even change all that much when ten seconds shrank to seven some time around middle school; I was able to play contact sports and go out on shopping trips without incident. Seven seconds became five halfway through high school. Again, no need to make lifestyle changes. I could still hold hands with friends, so long as it didn’t go on for too long and I was still able to have my first kiss without seeing even a hint of my boyfriend’s future.

And then, college. Five seconds was no longer doable. It became three at best and just before I’d become a shut-in, even an instantaneous touch was enough to trigger my Ability. By then, however, I’d gotten pretty used to having the visions, so I remained relatively unbothered when I’d see a vision of the barista breaking up with his girlfriend when I got my morning coffee. In other words, managing my Ability was no big deal.

Or so I thought.

About six months ago, my visions went from being an occasional distraction to a panic-inducing nightmare. I still wasn’t sure why...

Maybe it was just luck of the draw. I’d only seen good things, mostly, for the first ten-plus years at least: faraway cities, weddings, and graduations. Every once in a while there would be a failed exam or a lost wallet but overall nothing too out of the ordinary for an otherwise regular teenager to see.

Maybe it was just a sign of the times. As I got older, so did the people around me, so the more likely it was that they were entering that phase of their lives where things could start to go south. Or perhaps their previous lives were just catching up to them.

Or maybe, it was karma finally catching up to me. I’d be lying if I said that I’d never used my Ability for personal gain before. There were a few exams I managed to ace with the help of a well-timed touch of the hand and a few pitfalls I’d managed to avoid through a combination of sheer luck and a decently fast reflex. Perhaps six months ago, whatever granted me this power finally decided that I had a good run and it needed to end in the worst way possible...

And it all happened so quickly.

I never had much control over my visions to begin with and they never really bothered me before but suddenly, they were invading every part of my life—and with each vision I saw, the accuracy increased. My dreams became more vivid than ever; I would see things that had yet to occur and before I moved out, my college roommate would wake up in the middle of the night to the sound of my screams. I started passing out in the middle of class if someone so much as tapped my bare shoulder and when I came to again, it would be a minute before I remembered where I was and what I was doing. I was starting to consider seeking some kind of help until one day, I finally saw my first death.

It was horrible. I was at dinner with friends on a group date and I hit it off with one of the guys. He wanted to take me to the movies that weekend, and being relatively new to college and Yokohama in general, I agreed. Then, smiling, he’d held my hand just a millisecond too long and I saw it: him getting hit by a car while crossing the street.

I tried not to think about it too hard. Sometimes the vision were wrong. There were times when they’d been off by just a fraction of a second and because of that, I still had hope. Maybe there was a chance that things could change last minute, either by a miracle or by someone’s sheer force of will. But as time passed, my anxiety grew. He was running late and I didn’t like it. Finally, I spotted him at the intersection and, frantic, I waved him down just as the “walk” sign lit up and he started crossing the street.

That’s when it happened.

A single black vehicle, no license plate, ran a red... and ran into him.

I would remember seeing his body flying into the air for the rest of the semester.

After that, I started taking an alternate route to class, just to avoid going anywhere near the part of campus where he’d died. It wasn’t that people were whispering behind my back or accusing me of having a part of it—I just couldn’t handle the memory.

That was the first death.

The first.

It was as if some kind of floodgate had been opened. I had never seen death before that day but after...? Death became all I saw. I briefly shook hands with a foreign exchange student and immediately saw an image of a middle-aged woman lying in a hospital wing. The woman had been the student’s mother and I heard she died a week later. I could not have been responsible for the cancer that claimed her life but I spent weeks feeling guilty about it anyway. There was another incident where I accidentally, and literally, bumped into my English teacher on the way to class. I saw his brother being hit by a bus downtown. His death was announced a month later, on the morning news. When I saw it, I broke down in the middle of the cafeteria and my friend Eri had to take me home.

And it just kept happening.

I became afraid to touch people. I began wearing longer layers during the summer months and started keeping to myself. When even a brush of the hand or bumping into people on public transit could trigger a vision, I started wearing gloves. I got a lot of stares on the subway for wearing itchy winter gloves in the subtropical heat and the knitted fabric made gripping the overhead handholds difficult so I ended up changing to disposable nitrile instead. I got less stares for that but unfortunately, I eventually had to give up public transit entirely when I got squished between two tourists and had a panic attack in the middle of the car.

But giving up public transportation put me in a tough spot. My dorm was pretty far from campus and I didn’t know how to drive. If I really wanted to, I could walk but that would take far too long and make for far too many chances to see another person’s death. And I really didn’t want to ask anyone for a ride because that would just mean more questions and more explanations I wasn’t willing to give.

And yet somehow, I managed to make it work for a time, waking up early to go to class, avoiding hangouts in-between classes and running back to my dorm as soon as I got a chance. But I was still attending classes with lots of people in a crowded lecture hall and living with roommates in a dormitory building. Ultimately, the stress of trying to avoid people while also trying to keep up with increasingly difficult classes caused me to start having nightmares. They were frequent and they were bad. And I knew that these were all things that would someday happen to me: me and a friend being held hostage in an abandoned apartment building, a woman in a suit and sunglasses pointing two machine guns directly at my face, a man didn’t recognize growing steadily colder in my arms as I screamed for him not to leave me...

That following morning, I woke up sobbing—crying as if I wished I was the one who had died instead. When my roommate tried to comfort me, I jerked away out of instinct and immediately realized I’d made a mistake.

And that was it.

I couldn’t it take any more.

About a week later, I left the dorm and found myself a tiny studio apartment, one that I could still afford on my shoestring budget and more importantly, one where I could live completely alone.

Soon after, I dropped out of college and became a shut-in. In true shut-in fashion, I shunned all contact from classmates and friends in case someone came to visit and decide they needed to barge in because they couldn’t—shouldn’t—do such a thing. My apartment had become both my sanctuary and my jail. So long as nothing changed around me, none of the horrible visions would come to pass.

Thankfully, a month into my new lifestyle, the nightmares stopped.

So long as nobody came near me, I wouldn’t have to witness another death with my waking eyes...

I still remembered the night I decided to stop going to class. It was the same night I looked out the windows and saw my own reflection, touched my fingers to my face and pulled them away, confirming that it was indeed blood and not salt tears that dripped down my cheeks. I started avoiding mirrors from that day on and threw myself fully into watching anime, joining fandoms and drawing commissions, anything to distract myself from the invasive, self-destructive thoughts that grew stronger whenever I looked into a reflection of my own eyes.

Yes... Staying was the only solution. If I never stepped out of the apartment again, the world would be spared the sight of my hollow eyes and bloody tears... And I—I would be spared the curse of witnessing things I should never have seen to begin with.

***

“So you’ve been holed up in your apartment for the last six months doing...”

Kunikida frowned, tapping his pen against his chin.

“What exactly? Rent in Yokohama isn’t cheap. How have you been supporting yourself?”

“Commissions,” I explained. “I started watching a lot of anime and playing video games and fans pay good money for drawings of their favorite characters, original characters or even pictures of themselves in a stylized form.”

Summing up my Ability meant practically telling these two my entire life story, not just recalling the events of this morning, and I had to commend the detectives’ patience for sitting through what I would’ve considered a pretty long-winded explanation. Now I was even telling them how I’d stretched my budget and supplemented my allowance.

I held out my hand.

“If I could have some paper and something to write with, I could show you, if you like...?”

Dazai immediately ripped Kunikida’s notebook and pen out of his hands. Ignoring his partner’s protests, he held them out to me and, throwing his arm out to keep Kunikida from taking back his own things, sat back to watch me draw. Within seconds, a coarse outline appeared on the pages, followed by facial features: eyes, nose, hair—a minute later, I handed back Kunikida’s notebook, a quick, rudimentary pen sketch of each detective on its two open pages.

As one, they leaned in to stare at it.

“This is pretty good,” Kunikida said, looking up at me. He squinted down at the page, tracing the lines with his fingers, mumbling, “Does my hair really look like that?”

“It is... isn’t it?” Dazai agreed, rubbing his chin.

As Kunikida puzzled over the drawing, a mischievous glint appeared in Dazai’s dark eyes.

“Kusunoki-san... Have you ever considered a career as a sketch artist?”

At once, Kunikida shot him a warning look.

“Don’t even think about it, Dazai,” he growled, “Making decisions without the President’s approval—”

“I’m not making a decision, only a suggestion,” Dazai declared. “And what’s wrong with a good suggestion?”

“Dazai...”

Ignoring Kunikida entirely, he turned to me.

“Really, I don’t know how we survived like this for so long. We’re a detective agency, one of the best in the city and yet, we don’t have a sketch artist... It’s a shame, don’t you agree, Kusunoki-san? What do you think? Interested in a change of career?”

“Wait... are you asking me to join you?” I asked warily, looking from one detective to the other. “Why would you want someone like me? I can’t fight. I don’t even know how to shoot a gun.”

“I’m asking you,” Dazai said pointedly, “if you would be interested in becoming a sketch artist. I mean, it just so happens that we are in dire need of one—(“No one said that!” Kunikida roared)—and you happen to have the exact skill set we are looking for! Not to mention you’re an Ability User... Just think of all the people you could help.”

“I don’t know,” I mumbled, looking away, “Wouldn’t someone like me be more of a burden than an asset? I can’t even control my Ability, much less use it to help people—”

“But what if you could control it?”

I froze. Having had no control of my Ability for my entire life, the possibility hadn’t even occurred to me...

“There’s a way?” I asked, looking back up just as Dazai’s grin turned into a triumphant smirk. “How?”

“I could tell you,” he drawled, his smirk growing even wider, “But it’s a closely guarded secret. You’d have to join us if you want to find out... Of course, I’d be more than happy to vouch for you if you’d like to apply—”

“Dazai—!! You—!”

Kunikida was on his feet.

“We can’t just offer a job to every stray Ability User we rescue from the Port Mafia! Atsushi was one thing but—”

“Oh my, so you’d be perfectly fine sending a nice girl like her back into the jaws of the Port Mafia? Really, I thought better of you, Kunikiiiiiida-kun—”

“That’s not what I said!”

“So you agree, we should take her in?”

Kunikida’s face was in his hands.

“Look, it’s not that I don’t want to help, but it’s not our decision to make! And besides, she’s clearly been through enough, what makes you think she would agree to—”

“I’ll do it.”

Kunikida’s mouth dropped open. He looked stunned.

“You will—? Wait, no, I never said I agreed—”

“Let me apply,” I said, looking him firmly in the eyes. “I want to help people. I’ve always wanted to. Isn’t that what you do here at the Agency? Use your special Abilities to make their lives better?”

“That’s true,” Kunikida admitted, folding his arms over his chest, “But this can be a dangerous job. Especially for a non-combatant. You almost died today! Why do you want to help people so bad? In fact, let me ask you...”

His eyes flashed from behind his glasses, his expression fierce.

“Why did you go so far for a neighbor with whom you weren’t particularly close?”

I glared right back.

“I had to save her.”

“But it sounds like you already did, when you pulled her off the sidewalk—”

“That’s not good enough!” I burst out, startling Kunikida. “How could I say I saved her, truly saved her, if I knew she was going to die in a week and I did nothing to stop it?”

My hands clenched into fists.

“That doesn’t count. Saving someone means seeing it through to the end, to fully committing yourself and doing what’s right! Isn’t that what you did for me? What both of you did to bring me here today?”

Kunikida was struck dumb. Stuffing his hands into his pockets, Dazai got to his feet.

“I think it’s about time I take Kusunoki-san back to her apartment,” he said, making his way to the door, his long tanned trench coat swishing elegantly as he moved.

He patted Kunikida on the shoulder.

“I’ll let you think about what we should tell the President later.”

Kunikida instantly flushed an angry, embarrassed pink.

“Dazai, you—”

Ignoring his partner, Dazai called out to me.

“Kusunoki-san? I won’t be taking you back to your original apartment tonight. We’ll be going to one of the Agency’s safe houses instead. After everything that’s happened, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Port Mafia had staked out your building and had someone ready and waiting for you at home. And if you’re wondering, Yamazaki-san is on her way to her nephew’s place in Nagano, so you won’t need to worry about her.”

“But what about my things?” I asked, “What am I gonna tell the landlord?”

“It’s already been taken care of,” Dazai replied, opening the door for me. “Shall we?”

#dazai x oc #dazai x reader #bungou stray dogs #osamu dazai #doppo kunikida #fanfiction

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callunavulgari · 4 years

Text

TOP 25 FICS OF 2019

1. these roads will take you into your own country by @notbecauseofvictories | American Gods | Laura Moon/Mad Sweeney | WIP | 33k

Here’s a joke for you: a Muslim, a zombie, and a leprechaun walk into a bar in Misery, Indiana. No one stares, because no one in the puckered, shitty asshole of Misery, Indiana gives a fuck. The Colts are playing.

Heather Says: So. It’s funny that another of @notbecauseofvictories‘s stories is at the top of my list again this year. Keep in mind this list is sorted by when the fic was read rather than favorites (because that would get real complicated real quick). Clearly there must be something about January. There’s just something about the writing that is easy to slip into, be it a Star Wars fic or a Labyrinth fic or even a fic about Johnny and the Devil. This was lovely and I can’t wait until it’s finished.

2. eighteen wheels on an uphill climb by @honkforhankcon | Detroit: Become Human | Hank/Connor | 91k

Hank is going to die. He’s going to die right here in Kentucky, 53 years old, halfway to broke, and tragically sober. Survived only by a nine-year-old St. Bernard and the 31-year-old twink who delivered the fatal blow.

Heather Says: I don’t think that this is the first DBH fic that I sought out after beating the game, but it is the first that I loved enough to make it to this list. I didn’t think that I would go for a modern au for this fandom, certainly not a modern au wihere Hank is a truck driver and Connor is a sex worker (albeit briefly?) but here I am.

3. Fuck pride (pride only hurts, it never helps) by ImogenGotDrunk | Detroit: Become Human | RK900/Gavin Reed | 41k

After the android uprising, Connor becomes a permanent fixture in the DPD. That’s fine. Gavin can accept that. The dipshit’s more human than he used to be, and a decent detective to boot. Gavin can deal with him being around. What Gavin cannot deal with is Connor’s replica; two inches taller, blue-eyed, and with a mouth that Gavin doesn’t know whether to punch or take between his teeth. The RK900 model has been assigned as his partner for the foreseeable future.

Heather Says: I also never thought that I’d like a fic with Gavin in it. But I got curious about all the Reed900, and well, this fic really won me over. The writing is fantastic, and it softens Gavin while still keeping him believable. Also, well, I like the enemies to lovers thing.

4. Almost Cool by @blacktofade | Buzzfeed Unsolved | Ryan/Shane | 30k

While filming the Yuma Territorial Prison episode, Shane gets bitten by what he thinks is a bat. Spoiler alert: it's not.

Heather Says: This is actually the first thing that I read for this fandom. In fact, this is the fic that got me into Buzzfeed Unsolved in the first place. I’d seen a lot of art and gifs and fics pass my way, but I was only ever slightly interested in what I saw until this fic came through my inbox and piqued my curiosity.

5. Pride by @astolat | Game of Thrones | Jaime/Brienne/Cersei | 22k

Jaime didn’t understand why Cersei suddenly insisted on trimming his hair and shaving his beard, but he also didn’t care to fight her on it, even though he’d just as soon have kept the beard: it was bitterly cold in the small tower room with its arrow-slits.

Heather Says: Wowza. This fic was intense. I’ve always loved Jaime and Brienne. I’ve loved them since the second book, which was read at least a few years before I started loving them in the show. Adding Cersei to their dynamic would have probably been almost impossible to pull off if it was anyone else, but @astolat lives to surpass my expectations.

6. Skin and Scales by Ernmark | The Penumbra Podcast | Lord Arum/Sir Damien/Rilla | 18k

The man glares, and this time, Damien is certain it isn’t a trick of the light: those eyes are violet as amethyst. He wears disdain like a second skin–- or, perhaps, like the scales that he is missing. “Lord Arum?”

Heather Says: I was one of those people who skipped through all of the Second Citadel episodes during my first listen through of Penumbra. The stories were good, but the pull of Juno was too great. A couple months after I finished, I went back and listened to everything I didn’t. And let me tell you. Lizard monster. Honorable knight. Bookish girlfriend. Poly. It hit every single button I had and then some. This fic really hit the spot when I ran out of story.

7. someone you like by caela | She-Ra | Adora/Catra | 5k

catwithabat u think ur so hipster but u just look like a lesbian 27m she_ra @catwithabat bc… i’m a lesbian. lmao 5m

Heather Says: Noooot usually a big fan of high school fics. Namely because I’m not in high school anymore and well, after you read so many in your teenage years they sort of lose their luster. This one was phenomenal enough to change my mind.

8. Sands of Time by @tirsynni | Legend of Zelda | Ganondorf/Link | WIP | 98k

Link awakens in the desert with no idea how he got there, to encounter his worst enemy...except it was the King of the Gerudo, not the King of Evil, he faced.

Heather Says: I have seen a lot of really good Link/Ganondorf art over the years, but never really stumbled across a fic that didn’t have judicious amount of non-con involved. But the Breath of the Wild 2 trailer happened, and everybody started drawing really pretty art, so I went looking. And lo and behold, @tirsynni saved the day with this gorgeous time travel/fix-it fic.

9. killed with kindness by veterization | Persona 5 | Akechi/Akira | 52k

Goro can't quite figure out why so many people keep acting like they're his friend. (Or: the one where the Phantom Thieves decide to know thy enemy, befriend thy enemy, love thy enemy, crush on thy enemy).

Heather Says: I’ve read a couple of veterization’s fics over the years, and to date they have never disappointed me. They published this in June, and I think I clicked on it mostly because I was bored and hadn’t read any good P5 fic yet. This was basically just what the doctor ordered, and I was really happy to find something where Akechi’s story went ever so slightly different.

10. paper thin by @ebonybow | Buzzfeed Unsolved | Ryan/Shane/Sara | 9k

Shane’s new neighbors are a morning-sex kind of couple.

Heather Says: So I went into this one knowing very little about how Sara fit into things. I didn’t know she was Shane’s girlfriend. I’d never even seen her, but I clicked because I like poly and I trust the author. I was 100% not disappointed. There’s also another fic with a very similar dynamic here, which is also aces.

11. damn.nation, now available on itunes by @kaikamahine | Good Omens | Aziraphale/Crowley | 11k

When lowly tempt-pusher Amphora (formerly of Stairwell 7B North, before she Fell,) gets the notice that end times are nigh, she gleefully quits her job and cancels her Netflix subscription and takes her place among the legions of hell. This, it turns out, was a bad plan.

Heather Says: Elizabeth may have only written one fic this year, but she made it a damn good one. I’ve always loved her OCs especially, so I was pretty tickled that this is 10k+ of outsider pov. Also, demons! Demons are great! This demon is great! I want like 9 seasons and a movie about Amphora, just saying.

12. The Dragon and Her Wolves by hapakitsune | Game of Thrones | Jon/Sansa/Daenarys | 60k

When the truth of Jon's birthright is revealed, control of the North and Daenerys's claim to the Iron Throne are both called into question. To preserve their tenuous alliance and secure her rule, Daenerys puts aside her personal feelings to arrange a marriage of political convenience between Jon and Sansa Stark.

Heather Says: What do you mean season 8 didn’t exist and the show totally ended with a three way relationship between the two most powerful women in Westeros and Jon Snow? Never been a big fan of Jon/Sansa before this, but this is another of those writers that I would literally trust if they wrote a fic about a fork and a spoon.

13. never tell me the odds by @wildehacked | Wolf 359 | Eiffel/Hera | 9k

“I tried Star Wars," he says, adjusting the phone under his neck, "and it was way underwhelming.”

A shaky breath from her end. “Well, where did you start?”

Heather Says: I don’t remember which of @wildehacked‘s fandoms I started reading first. Most recently it’s been The Magnus Archives (more on this later). The point is, they’d written Wolf 359 fic and it had Hera and Eiffel and it was literally everything that I’ve been looking for since the series ended.

14. Find Me Somebody by raiining | Good Omens | Warlock/Adam Young | 11k

“You left me,” he said. “You both left me, for him. And I can’t even blame you, because I’d have left me for him too.”

Heather Says: There was an Art. The art was lovely. So I went looking, because that’s what I do when faced with beautiful art depicting a rare pairing. And I found the holy grail. Like, possibly my favorite Good Omens fic? Ever?

15. flirting with fire by @brawlite | Stranger Things | Billy/Steve | WIP | 7k

Steve's a cop, Billy's a firefighter. It's not a grudge, it's just a regular old small town rivalry.

Heather Says: Okay so brawlite has written a lot of great stuff this year (more on that later), but I read this in bed at the beach house this August while I was reeling from both a horrible sunburn and like seven hours of mild to moderate day-drinking while everyone else was still throwing back shots right outside my bedroom door. Jaws was playing on the tv and I wasn’t even paying attention to it, because THIS. Long story short, I’ve been thirsty for more ever since.

16. gold, when you find me by mmtion | The Flash | Iris/Barry | 53k

It's not that Iris hates The Flash, per say - more that she hates writing about The Streak in a weekly, pun-heavy comic based on The Flash.

Heather Says: I never would have thought that a canon pairing would make it to my Top 25 list, but here we are. I like Iris/Barry a lot better when they don’t grow up together and spend a lot of time playing the Superman game, apparently. Also, this was really well-written, and sexual tension has never been something I’ve felt from Barry and Iris, but I felt it in this fic. Just. Damn.

17. never gets old by @brawlite & @toast-ranger-to-a-stranger| Stranger Things | Billy/Steve | 78k

Falling in love with a cam boy named KingSteve isn't the smartest thing Billy Hargrove has ever done, nor is it the most healthy -- but the good choice is rarely ever the fun choice, and Billy is all about living life fast and loose.

Heather Says: Told you I’d come back to it. brawlite and toastranger are a fantastic team. last year was cherry pie and under the covers, this year it’s camboys and cop/firefighter dynamics. Also, I have a really strange fascination with fics where a character has an instragram. It’s really, incredibly strange. Also also, every time I see this fic title I get that one Discovery Channel song stuck in my head. And no, it probably isn’t the one you’re thinking.

18. ways to save the world by @wildehacked | The Magnus Archives | Martin Blackwood/Jon Sims | 19k

“I left you,” Martin says softly.

Heather Says: And we’re back at wildehacked too! The Magnus Archives was a thing that happened to me. This is I think the first fic I read for it while listening, and it was so very close to what we got in canon. I think when it comes down to it though, I still prefer this fic, even if the ending of this season was pretty fantastic.

19. The Denial Twist by beethechange | Buzzfeed Unsolved | Ryan/Shane | 35k

“This is kind of surreal,” Shane says, taking a sip of his tea. It’s piping hot and delicious, except it tastes like hot chocolate and not like tea at all. “Sort of—Wonka-esque, right? Or Alice in Wonderland.”

Heather Says: While the vampire one is my favorite both because it is excellent and because it was my first, this one was bizarre and sexy and also I read it like only a month or so ago! The dancing was my favorite part, but having dreams to work with made this story fantastically interesting and I loved every second of it.

20. silver in our lungs by taywen | Spinning Silver | Miryem/The Staryk Lord | 4k

The marks had been with Miryem for as long as she could remember. There were a number of them, all the same shade, following one after the other around her left wrist. They were pale as old scars, though they felt no different from the rest of her skin, and her mother claimed that Miryem had been born with them.

Heather Says: I really like soulmate aus. There’s so many different ways to twist them and the way they can sometimes change the dynamic entirely and other times not change them at all is just fascinating. I’ve been hoping there would be more Spinning Silver content on ao3 and running into this while I was trying to decide what I wanted to do for yuletide was a real treat.

21. you got me begging, begging, i'm on my knees by plalligator | The Queen’s Thief | Attolia/Eugenides/Costis | 5k

Costis has a particularly enlightening evening. (or, that struggle when you're a guard who's in love with your rulers and it turns out you would kind of like it if they bossed you around a little)

Heather Says: I accidentally re-read the King of Attolia and it made me consider ships I had perhaps not previously considered. This was really lovely and just steamy enough.

22. something more alive than silence by pageleaf | The Queen’s Thief | Attolia/Eugenides/Costis | 21k

It was a good thing that six months after the king had promised to halve the guard, he still hadn’t done it, because since then, there had been two attempts on the king’s life.

Heather Says: I want to only type the words AGONIZED NOISES to describe this fic because that’s basically my headspace when I get 21k of a shiny new ot3, but I mean. Really. This is super good and maybe my favorite yet? Why didn’t I start reading this fandom when I first read the books?

23. Timing it Right by DragonBandit | The Bright Sessions | Mark/Damien | 14k

The dragon chooses, Mark knows that as well as any boy born in a weyr. He'd never considered what that would mean if the dragon picked someone you hated. He's starting to think that was a mistake.

Damien's gold rises at Whitney. Mark tries to make things right.

Heather Says: This should actually be somewhere back in March, but I apparently closed out of the tab at some point. I never really got into Pern much. I have the first three books, but got most of the way through the first one a long time ago and then never picked it back up. I didn’t think I would like this, mostly because of the fact that I hadn’t gotten into the books, but was surprised to find that I absolutely loved it.

24. Keep It In Your Sights Now by LuckyDiceKirby | Shades of Magic | Lila/Kell/Holland | 9k

Holland travels with Lila and Kell. Somewhere along the way, they reach an equilibrium.

Heather Says: I love the new things I’ve discovered during my yuletide trompings. I don’t think I ever actually considered this pairing when I first read the books, but I am just so enamored with the idea of the three of them together. Like, why did I not realize that potential back then? This was lovely, and I loved it, and I want so much more out of this pairing than what ao3 has to offer me.

25. Charioteer by petrichoral | The Queen’s Thief | Gen & Costis | 13k

Captured in battle and stuck in the Mede capital, Costis has given up all hope of seeing his country again. But Eugenides has a habit of turning up where he's least expected.

Heather Says: Technically this shouldn’t be on here because I only read it today, but it was really wonderful and so canon typical. Gen and Costis were perfect in it, Irene was perfect in it. Everyone was perfect and nothing hurts.

31 notes · View notes

gumceline · 4 years

Note

another massive bubbline shipper here too say i got mad respect for this blog. as much as i stand by my ship 1000%, i also stand by the fact its totally okay too ship them with other people. i admit the bubbline fandom can be pretty toxic, but alot of us will stand by you. not only are you being super respectful even when you get hate, but you arent straight washing. also the way you looked at the negative parts of our community with understanding in last post, that was real great

oh i appreciate it! I prefer never to judge an entire fanbase by one dude because EVERY fanbase has THOSE people, no fanbase is ever perfect.

I really wished my experience with bubbline shippers had been better, it really was unfortunate to have countless hate, to have people make posts mocking me, to be put on “Lists to block”, not to mention that i legit had supportive friends who were bubbline shippers, but they pretty much turned their back on me, abandoned me, and called me a “Homophobic uncaring asshole”.

It really broke my heart dealing with the stuff i did, and i wasn’t perfect either, but i still don’t think i deserved what that was. I was a kid at the time, and was still having fun and i REALLY wanted to be a part of the fanbase because i love the series and loved the characters, but the fandom just....hated me.

Because i was a multishipper and had different opinions on the characters.

It really didn’t matter to them that i also shipped the characters with other female characters, or i said myself i don’t consider them straight. Because the fandom didn’t really care, they took one look and decided nothing i said mattered.

Being in the star fandom is widely different because the biggest ship there is Starco, a MXF (Which i personally don’t really like but that’s just me), and my favorite ship was...and still is Tom and Marco, because i love their chemistry so much and i genuinely consider them to be a much more believable relationship then the romance they wrote for star and marco.

And trust me, it’s always annoying if you don’t ship the most popular ship and like another pairing more but are succumbed to it everywhere regardless of the characters themselves.

But me not shipping star and marco didn’t make me someone who hated straight people, so i don’t think it’s collectively fair to tell anyone who may of liked marcy or bonnie with finn or maybe they ship them with a male oc of theirs....hate lesbians or were just homophobic.

it’s Like if i took finn out of his (Maybe) relationship with huntress and shipped him with....Tiffany (Who is a male character)...that wouldn’t mean i suddenly hated all straight couples and think finntress should burn.

That’s still a huge leap to jump to and extremely dangerous because you’re collectively accusing someone of something serious without really knowing much more about them then “They like this ship”.

Without any knowledge of them outside of that.

You could effectively damage their rep and make their time in the fandom a living hell out of something minor or something you just assumed, i would know.

I welcome progress, i am quite happy for the bubbline shippers who got their ship, heck...i’m STILL mad that we didn’t get poly tom x marco x star on star vs and felt VERY baited by the crew on that.

but even though i am happy for those people, i don’t think it’s validation to beat up on other shippers either, it does nothing for anyone’s case to do that. If the people are actual bigots who are actively acting terrible and throwing around nasty words and doing terrible stuff, then by all means, call them out.

But people who are just causally shipping stuff for fun? In a way it just feels like using them being a gay ship as a weapon against everyone else, because if they disagree with you and have a different opinion you can effectively boil them down to a bigot and no one might question it...especially when it’s the vast majority.

And that should not be acceptable to do, i ended up hearing from a friend of mine that this fandom actively started purging out other creators for having opinions people didn’t like, and now people are starting to regret that they shunned out so many members of the fandom based on things that were probably incredibly trivial in the long run.

And i get it, it’s an important ship, but it’s important as a rep of that ship to be respectful to others, because if not what you’ll end up doing is turn people away. I would like to be more celebratory of your success in getting the ship canon, but it makes it harder if i’m getting several messages asking when i’m deleting my “Hateful” blog because bubbline was now canon.

I’d like to get along with and support these people, but they don’t want to try and support me and have almost just decided to hate me and it sucks, and there’s not much i can do. That’s why i am thankful for those who don’t just immediately decided to judge me and want to know more about my views on the characters.

This of course does not apply to the community as a whole, not everyone is acting like this, but it is a problem and it has consequences and i hope the fandom does work on it in the future. Please do better in the future.

Now when it comes to shipping, I have my limits personally, like if the characters have canon sexualities i tend to stick to those sexualities, i for one, have a oc that’s gay. I effectively tell others if they make fanart with him for fun that’s great and i love it, but i want his sexuality respected if ships are involved.

Since the AT ones are left in the air, it means i am left to come up with my own ideas, so that’s what i do. I think everyone should be allowed in that regard to have their own interpretations, marcy could be bi, lesbian, ace,pan, ect and all of those are perfectly acceptable headcanons.

i don’t think one should be held superior over another.

I’ve never looked at Marcy or PG and said “Oh yeah, these two are so obviously straight”, they’re about as straight as a bent nail. XD The people who say this stuff clearly don’t follow me to know that they’re not treated as straight here and i think that’s just frustrating because it’s attacking for completely incorrect information.

And the main problem i think i have, like the biggest issue, is i see the F&C characters differently.

Because i know where the fandom is getting this impression people who these other pairings are homophobic is coming from, it’s because most of the fandom doesn’t really see those characters as much more then well...GB characters.

If i saw tomco, and one was turned to a girl to avoid them both being boys, i would be annoyed, i would, i wouldn’t assume the person was homophobic without other evidence but i’d be annoyed. (I mean for all i know it could be an au and i could be mistaking the situation entirely)

What makes this different for me, is because for one, these aren’t fan-characters, the fans didn’t make a genderbent world and design these characters for fun or anything. These were show characters, that were in episodes and have their own comics and all that.

The way the show approached them for me, makes me feel like they’re kinda misjudged, and people don’t have to agree with me on that fact. But i just feel like between them being fanfiction characters ice king made up, the fact their canon is different, the fact the characters do things the F&J characters don’t do, i just can’t help but feel like treating them as if they were something fans did for fun and have no difference outside of their gender is not the right approach for them.

(I mean ice queen died in one comic and has her own unique origin story which is apparently tied to cake’s, flame prince apparently speaks cat and is the most nervous and awkward cutie I've ever seen, gumball is apparently a card wars superfan and legit takes it WAY too seriously, i just can’t really look at these characters and say “Oh, these are all just Ice King, Flame Princess, and Princess Bubblegum but the opposite gender”).

I feel like the show does enough with them,and had a unique enough approach, that i feel like they should be judged as different characters. Like the redraws of regular episodes with the F&C characters are cute but they’re for fun and probably not what ice king wrote for them in his weird stories.

Like i can’t imagine ice king knew PB so well he made sure gumball had her entire backstory and motivations.

And i feel like the people who do enjoy these ships, heck, ALL FOUR of these ships, feel the same way i do. I’m sure some could def be shipping them for the wrong reasons, but i can’t help but think it’s less about their gender and more that other people recognize they’re different and have considered the different dynamics...like they would if they were shipping any other pairing.

And people don’t have to agree with any of us on that, but i don’t think the alternative should be to accuse us of something so heavily either.

These days i have newer friends who like bubbline who are chill with me, and yeah that’s cool, and i personally don’t really draw the ship myself because i’m still not too comfortable in the AT fandom or with the community right now....the situation with it never leaves me feeling safe frankly.

But we get along, they’re lovely, and the shippers who like bubbline but support the blog are also lovely people and i adore them.

At the end of the day i just want to have fun, i’m fine being in a small subsection of the fanbase and who knows, maybe i have gotten people to think about the F&C characters in a new light, i’m not sure.

But i hope maybe at some point the fandom can chill down and we can support each other without turning it into...whatever that entire situation is. Because i don’t want to be fighting with that community and would prefer to get along with them, but only time will tell.

But thanks for the support! I wish you the best ! I sometimes still have a lot to learn but i hope throughout this whole thing I've gone about it as respectful as possible.

I love the show and all the characters and the fun ships and relationships, i hope someday in the future i can be comfortable enough to get back into the fandom as much as i used to be! ^-^

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mangagrl1991 · 4 years

Text

Wolf’s Rain: The Scent of Danger

Click here if you have questions about this story’s timeline: https://mangagrl1991.tumblr.com/post/190908905421/wolfs-rain-fanfic-headcanon-and-lifetimes

~~~~~~~~

Series: Wolf’s Rain

Lifetime: Anime timeline with OCS added in

Sora belongs to me.

~~~~~~~~

There were two things of which Sora was certain.

One, something nearby smelled really nice. It was faint, but she could just catch the scent on the breeze of the storm, which seemed to be pulling her ever closer toward the source.

Two, it was way too quiet out here, even in the midst of the snow storm, the surrounding area was way too serene.

Although the latter concerned her greatly, she continued on her trek, an invisible tether tugging her, never letting her stop or rest as she pursued the strange yet welcoming scent on the wind.

A few seconds later, she was able to make out a city in the nearby distance, and she hesitated, white paws coming to a stop, blending against the freezing snow below. Cities were nothing but trouble for her kind; although she had perfected her human facade moons ago, she still preferred to avoid actual people if she could.

As the grey and black wolf stood, debating her next actions, a new scent invaded her senses, and she turned around quickly: thick, black tipped fur standing up as she uttered a low growl, honey eyes narrowing as she checked her surroundings warily.

After several heart pounding moments, a dog covered in thick, blackish blue fur emerged from the flurry. Steely blue eyes narrowed as its muzzle pulled back to reveal fangs ground together into a vicious snarl.

Sora was bracing herself for a fight when a faint click sounded nearby, breaking her concentration. Ears stood erect as the wolf sniffed the air, now aware that this dog hadn’t come alone. With the added threat of a rifle nearby, Sora knew she’d have no chance if she stayed and fought. Her only hope would be to run, and hope she could find a way to lose both the dog and her companion.

It was then that she remembered the city below, and she suppressed a snort as she knew now she’d have no choice but to enter it. Disappearing into its busy streets would be her best chance to escape this new, unforeseen threat. ‘So much for avoiding the city.’

As she heard another growl, the grey wolf turned back to her ambusher. Her own muzzle pulled back into an equally dangerous snarl, lowering her head as her muscles tensed, preparing to run.

The crunch of snow close by snapped her out of the tense stare down, and with a huff, she turned and sped away. As she ran, careful not to slip on the snowy slope she heard the shocked shouts and angry barking and knew that she’d be in for quite a chase.

This was confirmed as her keen ears soon picked up the sound of heavy footfalls, each one sounding closer than the last, and she doubled her efforts, praying fervently for a miracle.

Her lungs burned, and the wind stung her eyes but she did not stop, nor slow down. The ragged pants of her canine pursuer were growing distant, and in turn the city was growing ever closer. Various scents began to hit her, and she wrinkled her nose.

‘I can already taste the bad human food-‘

Sora’s thoughts were interrupted by a deafening boom behind her, and she veered to the left, just avoiding a bullet, only to duck as another careened over her head. Just when it seemed the onslaught of bullets would never end, it stopped, and it didn’t take long for the wolf to figure out why: she was nearing the outskirts of the village. It must be too dangerous for the hunter to keep firing with her this close to civilization..

As she sprinted toward the city entrance, a heavy weight suddenly barreled into her flank, and she stumbled, struggling to stay on her paws as the impact sent her skidding to the side. Shaking her head vigorously, a curse left her muzzle as she found her path now blocked by the same dog she thought she’d ditched.

Sora lowered her head, panting heavily and flattening her ears as she eyed her foe.“I guess there’s no choice then.”

Without warning, she lunged forward and clamped her jaws around one of the dark furred dog’s forelegs. A pained cry left the animal as her fangs pierced flesh and muscle, but she held fast. The sensation of teeth in the back of her neck forced her to let go and she thrashed wildly, struggling out of the dog’s hold and retreating backward a few paces. Standing her ground, Sora maintained eye contact with the beast, growling deep in her throat to hide the growing panic she felt slowly building within.

This wasn’t how things were supposed to go. She was supposed to lose the dog and then go into the city! It would be one thing if she only needed to fight her assailant and run, but she also had that cursed hunter and his rifle to deal with, and- Honey orbs widened- The hunter!

The click of metal nearby alerted Sora to the man’s presence, but before she could turn to confront him, her opponent decided to act, lunging forward and sinking her teeth into the base of her left ear. The hold was tight enough to deter the wolf from any jerky movements, lest she risk ripping off her entire ear.

Forced into such an immobile state, it came as little surprise when the rifle sounded, and a crippling pain unlike any she’d ever felt surged through her right shoulder. Stunned, Sora barely registered her captor releasing her as she fell. Her eyes screwed shut in pain as she coughed and sputtered for air, the snow beneath her quickly stained a muddy red.

A menacing growl caused her eyes to crack open weakly, and she saw that despite the injury to her foreleg, the dog towered over her, looking very much capable of continuing their fight. Unlike Sora, who lay feebly on the ground, watching as her attacker’s head leaned in, fangs grazing her throat. Could this really be the end?

A shrill whistle brought the dog back to attention, and she reluctantly stepped back, though her posture remained tense, as if warning Sora not to bother trying anything unless she wanted another fight.

“Good work, Blue.” The gravelly voice and approaching footsteps reminded Sora that this dog was the least of her problems, and she groaned softly as she tried desperately to get back up, her paws slipping against the reddened slush.

“I’m not making the same mistake as before.” Glancing up, Sora watch as the old man petted the blackish blue dog affectionately before glowering at her, his stare as chilling as the storm’s icy tendrils. “There’s no way I’m letting this one escape.”

His fingers brushed the trigger of his rifle as he withdrew it from its hiding place beneath his coat; the resulting click somehow gave Sora the strength she needed to get up, and she ran, narrowly avoiding the bullet sent after her as she forced her burning muscles back into action.

Blue was quick to pursue her as she retreated into the city, a choked gasp escaping Sora as another bullet hit the corner of a building she’d just passed. ‘Unbelievable! He still fires that thing in the city?!’

A pained cry behind her caused the wolf to look back, and she saw that Blue had fallen. Perhaps her bite had hurt her more than she’d thought, if her leg had failed her mid sprint. Sora thanked the heavens as she realized that the man had also stopped, hurrying to aid his fallen pooch.

Not one to squander the extra time this bought her, the grey and black wolf dashed around a corner, where she’d be out of their sight and projected the human illusion she’d come up with to help her blend in. Unfortunately, her wound was still present in this form, and the blood would not only draw unwanted attention, it would also leave a trail for her pursuers to follow. With this thought spurring her onward, Sora’s thoughts shifted to her original purpose for approaching the city as she took an experimental sniff of the air. The sweet, flowery scent she’d caught had definitely been here, but it was weak; the source must have already moved on from this place.

Despite this, the feeling in her gut insisted she carry on searching, until she found which way the scent had gone. Resisting a strong urge to stop and rest, her grey haired illusion began to walk a little faster, ignoring the stares that she received from people on the street. A snarl and show of teeth kept the braver spectators at bay, but she knew that she wouldn’t be able to keep up the tough facade for much longer. The pain in her shoulder was intensifying more with every step she took, and it was taking every ounce of her control not to cry out in pain.

After a few minutes of walking, she caught a slightly fresher version of the scent she sought, and she submitted to the spiritual tether, letting it lead her on. She may not understand the intensity of this pull, and may have even found it slightly annoying at first, but now she was grateful to it. For this invisible tether was the only thing that kept her going. She would need to find a safe place to rest and tend to her wound, but that would have to wait. For now, her main focus was to get as far away from that man and his dog, and if tracking this intoxicating scent helped her do that then Sora would follow it to the ends of the earth.

Soon, white paws reached the end of the city, the beginnings of nature stretching ahead of her, and she sank to the ground, panting with a thirst whose burn was growing just as troublesome as her injury. When was the last time she had even had a drink? It had been a few days now. She’d need to find a source of water soon.

As it turned out, she was not meant to rest yet, as a familiar, unwelcome scent reached her nose all too soon, and she scrambled to her feet. “How can they possibly be back at it already?!” She sighed heavily, gritting her teeth together in annoyance as a curse slipped from her lips. “Doesn’t that old man ever take a break?!”

Her answer came in the form of a loud, drawn out howl and her eyes widened as the scent drew nearer. They were catching up to her already! Testing her right paw against the ground elicited a groan as pain shot up her arm, and she cursed at the realization that she wouldn’t be able to run on it for a while. The wound was still too fresh.

Exhaling softly, she took a step forward into the snow, carefully favoring her right paw. Her chances of surviving the journey were even worse now, but she wouldn’t give up. Taking a deep breath, she located the scent trail she’d been following again, reminded that even if she wanted to quit her body wouldn’t let her, moving as if controlled by something unseen to her. One step turned into another, and another, not once looking back at the city as she finally broke into a run, going as fast as her paws would take her.

#Wolf’s Rain fanfiction #Wolf’s Rain: Anime with OCs #Blue #Quent #Sora

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jamiebluewind · 5 years

Text

Misunderstandings

OC Perspective (Lyric)

Word Count: 1466

Notes: nonbinary character (Lyric), transmale character (Aultho), occasional use of fantasy language (elvish)

Characters: Lyric (original character), Aultho (original character), and Fabian (mentioned)

Warnings: bigotry, fantasy based racism, violence mention (please message me if I missed any)

Ships: None

Spoilers: Fantasy High Season 1 (minor)

Summary: Aultho had a bad day at work (due to a particular half-elf). His sibling Lyric tries to help.

Takes place after the bonus comic for Fabian's Gifts.

Requested by @rizbian

****

Lyric sat in their room tinkering with a new crystal array. Normally they would be in bed already, but their brother had messaged them from work saying that he would be home late. It meant one of two things; he either had a big last minute order or he had stuck his foot in his mouth again.

While soldering a few stray wires on their latest project, they heard their brother slam the door, followed by a loud "Vyshaana darrdartha biir!" Yeah. That was never a good sign. They put their tools away and headed towards the sounds of angry sun elf.

They leaned against the doorway to the kitchen, eyeing Aultho. He was facing away from them, searched for something in the upper cupboards. "I'm guessing your evening went well," they said with a smirk.

"Not now Lyric," he replied flatly without turning around. Uh-oh. This was bad.

Lyric reached out and placed a hand on their brother's shoulder. He was tense. The twins stood like this for a moment as Lyric's thumb made soft circles on the other's shoulder. Finally, Aultho's shoulders slumped with a sigh as he turned his head. A deep bruise blossomed across his jaw and he had the beginnings of a black eye. "Seldarine!" they exclaimed. "What... how... go sit. I'll bring some ice and healing aid."

A halfhearted smile appeared on Aultho's face as he shook his head. "Gys sa salen?" he said more like a question than a demand as he nodded towards the liquor.

"Sure," Lyric replied. "Elven wine or something harder?"

"Whichever you grab first," he answered as he walked towards the small livingroom.

Lyric poured up two drinks, sending a small machine to grab the healing aid while they got the rest. They pulled a coldpack out of storage and activated it with a tap before pressing it between their body and arm so they would have two free hands for the glasses. By the time they walk into the livingroom and sat the glasses down, the machine had returned, healing aid in hand.

Aultho glanced and the tin. "I only asked for a drink," he said. It was an absentminded observation, the kind he often made that got him in the most trouble.

"And I brought you something that will actually do some good," they replied. They dipped their fingers in the magic infused balm and applied a thin coat to his face. They made a mental note to make more for him to keep at work. Aultho would have never let them see him like this if he had any left.

Slowly, the balm did it's job as the scraps knitted themselves back together, the harsh bruise faded to a softer hue, and the swelling became less pronounced. "Thank you," Aultho said with a sigh. Lyric wordlessly ploped the coldpack in his hand before taking their seat. Aultho placed the pack on the sore area and sighed again before reaching over to grab his drink.

Lyric gave him a few rare moments of silence to collect his thoughts. They were going to find out what happened of course, but Aultho looked so drained that they decided he needed a little more time than normal. It wasn't the first time he had come home like this since they fled to Solace. In fact, when the twins first arrived it had been almost a daily occurrence! Lyric had gotten in their fair share of stupid fights too - especially those first couple months - but they had adapted and found friends that helped them understand. All Aultho had was Lyric, a prickly exterior, and a strong aversion to admitting when he needed help.

Lyric was about to start prodding when a heavy sigh came from Aultho. "I really have no idea how I pissed this one off," he said. His head was leaned back and his eyes were closed. "The gods damned biir."

"Did you call him a biir?" Lyric asked. Serious or no, they could never resist getting cheeky with their brother.

Aultho leaned up to roll his eyes at them, only to stop with a flinch and an "ow". He looked like he had a headache coming on. "I haven't been that stupid since the second month we arrived here," he replied.

"And yet-" they started

"I know," he said. "It still comes out sometimes when I'm mad. Apologies."

They reached out and patted his leg. At least he was trying.

"I was about to close shop when a customer came in," he said, looking at his sibling. "Tall. Loud. Probably half-elf or human. Wearing one of those stupid school sports coats..."

They furrowed their brow. "Letterman jacket?" they guessed.

"Yes!" he said. "That's it."

"So probably in high school or college?" they asked.

He nodded and then seemed to immediately regret it. "Yes," he answered. "That sounds about right. A real gabreth. He banged on the counter, demanding a small briefcase. I suggested he make it a briefcase of holding. Then he punched me, yanked me up by my collar, said he wanted the feature while threatening me, requested initials, and then said he would be back in two hours to pick it up!"

They stared. "That's... how could that even be done," they asked.

"Not easily," he answered. "I luckily had a small black briefcase already made plus several scrolls on hand to help with the magic and lettering, but it was close." He winced. "Too close. I half expected him to punch me again once I explained that the magic had to settle for a couple weeks before the holding feature he requested would work, but he seemed quite happy with it." A humorless laugh came out. "Even gave me a tip."

Lyric breathed out heavily and sunk into their seat. "Wow," they said. They blinked a few times, trying to figure out what to do next. "Okay. Lets go through EXACTLY what you said. Because this is either a learning moment for you or a perfect time for me to test out my battle tech."

This got a real laugh out of him. "Okay," he answered. "Let's see..." He scewed his face in thought. "I think he said 'I demand a goblin sized leather briefcase.' I told him it would be a tiny thing and turning it into a briefcase of holding would give the goblin a lot more space to store the shiny things they stole. Then he punched me and-"

"Wait," they said, holding up a hand. Lyric was pretty sure their brain quit working for a second there and was desperately trying to catch up. "Did you actually tell this person... that goblins are thieves who like shiny things?"

A pause. His eyes widened. "...yes?" he answered, drawing out the eh sound.

Oh dear gods their brother could be an idiot sometimes. "Al," they said. "You can't... that's month four stuff!"

"But just last week someone told me..." He stopped and closed his eyes as he breathed out, defeated. "Mhaor kiira," he whispered.

"Hey," they said, taking their brother's hand, "whoever told you that was the asshole here. It's not your fault. Not completely anyway." It was hard enough for Aultho to sort through the lies and truthes without some idiot making it harder on him. Unfortunately, their brother was an accidental bigot magnet.

"Maethe," he said solemnly, "but I am still the fool falling for their false truthes after nearly a year."

They glared at him. "I will fight you ya know?" they replied. "I have a pile of battle tech ready to unleash at a moment's notice."

He raised an eyebrow. "Is it beside the pile of gay stuff?" he asked.

"My dearest brother," they answered with a hand to their chest, "Everything I own is gay stuff. You have to be more specific." They punctuated it with a wink.

He chuckled softly. "I should have realized," he replied. He looked at them with a genuine smile now that reached his eyes. "We should probably prepare for bed," he said suddenly as he stood up and stretched. "Would you mind if I borrowed your mini crystal while I trance? I might need a refresher."

Lyric smiled brightly at him. It was the first time he had asked for the mini crystal instead of having it pushed on him. Progress. "Sure," they answered with a nod as they unclipped the purplish pink crystal and handed it to him. "No problem." They made a mental note to get him one of his own that they could update regularly.

He looked down at the crystal now cradled in his hands. "Thank you," he said with a soft smile before turning to walk away. "Goodnight, Syolkiir," he said over his shoulder as he went into his room.

"Goodnight, Quinpah," they answered. "Love you too."

~~~~~~

Elvish Words Used

Aul: in

Tho: truth

Vyshaana: vile curse or an insult (reference to the Vyshaan clan of sun elves).

Darrdartha: foamjaws, rabies

Biir: garbage, used as an insult against half-elves or those of human heritage

Seldarine!: Gods! (expression of exasperation)

Gys Sa Salen: Give Me a Drink/I Need A Drink

Gabreth: untrustworthy, likely to turn on you, cruel in battle (dangerous/vicious)

Mhaor: corrupt/corruption

Kiir: gem (plural is kiira)

Maethe: perhaps

Syolkiir: wild star/gem (meteor)

Quinpah: a type of elvish bread/pastry

#fantasy high #fantasy high oc #fabian seacaster #d20 fic #dimension 20 #d20 #nonbinary character #transmale character #bluewind writes #jamie bluewind fic #tw violence mention #tw bigotry #tw fantasy racism #original character

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duhragonball · 4 years

Text

[FIC] Green Christmas (Luffa Annual 1)

Normal Brain: Write a Coffee Shop AU

Big Brain: With my own OC’s

Galaxy Brain: Set it in Japan to make it harder.

Cosmic Brain: Also, it’s a Christmas story.

Disclaimer: This story features characters and concepts based on Dragon Ball, which is a trademark of Bird Studio/Shueisha and Toei Animation. This is an unauthorized work, and no profit is being made on this work by me. This story is copyright of me. Download if you like, but please don’t archive it without my permission. Don’t be shy.

Continuity Note: About 1000 years before the events of Dragon Ball Z. This story is set on a Monday.

[December 23, 2019. Kiyosu, Japan.]

There was a very light drizzle outside. It didn't snow often in Kiyosu, and when it did, it usually happened in February, not December.

"It's a shame, y'know? This is a romantic time of year. Just once, it'd be nice to have a White Christmas without having to head out to Shirakawago or someplace up north."

Yamcha was a regular at the Emerald Eye Cafe. He liked to chat while he paid for his order. Every year around Christmas, he would wax poetic about the lack of snowfall in the Aichi Prefecture, and speak idly about someday taking a trip to a ski resort in Hokkaido. Zatte didn't know if he would ever make the trip. She only knew that he visited her store nearly every day, and she suspected that he enjoyed talking about snow and travel than the actual experience. He had a large iced milk coffee and a potato salad sandwich, which came to 1260 yen.

Zatte never minded the lack of snow. It meant one less obstacle to the day-to-day routine. She didn't know how people got along in snowy parts of the world, and she wasn't terribly interested in finding out. Christmas was Christmas whether it snowed or not. The sound system in the cafe was playing Beethoven's Ninth Symphony for the fourth time that day, and she had been selling Christmas cakes for the better part of the month. Half of her customers spoke excitedly of their plans for the holiday, and the absence of snow didn't seem to discourage any of them. And then there was her "favorite" tradition of the season.

"... might call her up tonight and see if she wants to check out the lights downtown. You know, keep it casual. How about you? You got any big plans for Christmas?"

Zatte shook her head. "Maybe," she said. She had learned a long time ago that this was the best way to keep conversations short. Yamcha might have had unlimited time to talk, but she needed to head back to the kitchen at some point. Answering "no" only invited a polite argument. "Come on... I'm sure a young lady like yourself must have something to do on Christmas!" and so on. Answering "yes" was a lie, and it only invited the other person to press for details that didn't exist.

"Maybe, huh?" Yamcha replied. He finally fished the money out of his wallet and laid it on the counter. "Well, that's better than nothing, after all. Hang in there."

"Out of 1500 yen, 240 yen and your receipt," Zatte said, handing him a few coins and a slip of paper.

"Radical. Well, I'll get out of your hair," Yamcha said. "Thanks!"

She relaxed a bit when he left the store. Truthfully, he was one of the best customers--courteous, patient, and easy to please. Outside of work, he was probably an okay person to hang out with, if you liked hanging out with middle-aged civil servants. But in a customer service setting, life was all about getting the clients' orders filled and getting them on their way with as little fuss as possible. Zatte didn't think of herself as an introvert, but working retail seemed to have a funny way of making her feel like one for a few hours.

She supposed that it would be kind of fun to be chummy with the regulars, but the fact was that she had too many responsibilities behind the counter. She had to count the money later. The tables would need to be wiped down. Fresh muffins had to go on the display. The cook would probably need help, sooner or later. The customers saw this place as her home, and she was a hostess providing companionship in addition to food and a place to relax. That was the business model, of course, but it was still a business.

She chided herself for feeling grumpy, but decided that she had at least kept an even keel through the morning. The key was to accept the bad moods when they came, so long as she put on a pleasant face for the customers. They had their own lives and their own problems, after all. It wasn't fair to them--or profitable for her-- to burden them with her own troubles.

*******

Two hours later, she was reminded of one of those troubles.

"You haven't seen Roshi at all today, have you?"

A shiver ran down Zatte's spine at the name. "Not today, why?"

Krillin took his latte from her and shrugged slightly. "Well, let's just say I need to talk to him about something," he said evenly. Krillin was a police officer, which tended to inform statements like these, but he still felt a need to be as discreet as possible.

"Did something happen?" Zatte asked.

"Hey, you've gotten really good at making pictures with the foam," Krillin said. He pointed at the surface of his drink. "It looks just like that guy from One Piece."

"Thanks," Zatte said. "I'm still trying to get the hang of it, but luckily he's not too tough to draw. He's good practice."

"I oughta watch that show sometime," Krillin said. "Everyone at the station keeps saying I sound like the guy, but I don't even know anything about it. What's his name? 'Luffa' or something. No, hold on, that was the girl who used to be your cook, wasn't it?"

"Uh, yeah," Zatte said. She was sorely tempted to use "maybe", but that seemed kind of pointless here. Luffa was something of a legend at the Emerald Eye. Even if Krillin hadn't remembered her name, he would still know her reputation, so there was no point pretending she didn't exist.

"Whatever happened to her, anyway?" Krillin asked. He took a sip of his latte and added: "Nothing against the new guy, but she made the best danishes. And that egg salad! Boy, I could go for some of that right about now."

"Would you like me to get you--?" Zatte started to ask, but Krillin shook his head.

"Nah, it just wouldn't be the same," he said. "Something about the spices. Paprika, I think. Better to live with the memories."

"Understood," Zatte said, though she really didn't understand at all.

"Anyway, I'll be around for a little while, but if you see Roshi later, let me know, all right? And... don't tell him I said anything."

"Of course," Zatte said. As Krillin turned and went to his usual seat, Zatte wondered what sort of trouble that man had gotten into this time. It was always something with him. She wanted to believe that this time would be different, but somehow he always managed to get away with his bad behavior.

Later, as luck would have it, Roshi did stumble into the cafe. "Well hell-oooooooo, nurse!" he crooned as he staggered to the counter. The stench of alcohol on his breath was unmistakable. Public drinking was legal in Japan, though Roshi seemed to consider this license to make an ass of himself whenever he pleased.

"Can I help you?" Zatte said, struggling to maintain her composure.

"Well, you see," Roshi said with a mischievous grin, "It's my nose. It's awfully cold this time of year, and I was hoping I could... heh-heh-heh... warm it up."

Zatte looked toward Krillin's seat, ready and eager to call out to him. But it was empty. Had he already left?

"Now I know this is a coffee shop and all, but I don't think hot beverages will do the trick here. No, sir. I was thinking more along the lines of..." He held up his hands to pantomime the act of shoving his face into a pair of large breasts. Then he started smiling, like he had just suggested the most brilliant idea, ever.

Zatte wasn't sure that what she felt for this man qualified as hate, or pity, or revulsion. She only knew that he was a pathetic old man, who seemed to think his crudeness was quaint, or charming in some way. He was sorely mistaken, and she wanted him out of the store, permanently. Did that mean she wanted him dead? The thought of this worried Zatte, more for her own sake than for his.

"Sir, if you want something, you'll need to place an order," she said through clenched teeth. Below the countertop, her right hand clenched into a fist.

"Oh, well in that case," Roshi said, "I'd like to buy a pair of... heh-heh-heh... panties please! Used ones, of course!"

Zatte wanted him dead. If that reflected negatively on her character, then so be it. If Roshi had a heart attack and died right in front of her, she was sure she would feel relieved instead of sad. It wasn't even the harassment so much as the fact that he used the same five or six lines every time he came into the store. He wants to "puff-puff", he wants someone's panties, he wants to have coffee in the ladies' restroom, he wants to take showers with any woman in the store, and so on. Roshi embodied the absolute worst qualities of customers. He seemed to thrive on the power of going into shops and forcing cashiers and waitstaff to listen to his crude and pointless jabber, precisely because they had little choice but to put up with it.

And then, just as Roshi was telling the one about putting his grimy hands on someone's buttocks, Krillin stepped out of the men's room. "Oh, there you are," he said as he noticed Roshi at the counter.

"Eh? Krillin? What are you doing here?" Roshi asked. His jovial tone was suddenly gone. He almost sounded sober. Almost.

"We got another complaint about you," Krillin said with a sigh. "That maid cafe you keep messing around with."

"Th-that was just a joke!" Roshi protested. "Can't an old man have a bit of harmless fun anymore?"

"That girl you were picking on didn't think it was so harmless," Krillin grumbled. "Look, I have to take you down to the station."

"What? You can't do that!" He tried to run out the door, but Krillin caught up to him before he could get there.

"Just settle down," Krillin said. "Don't make this any more difficult than it already is."

This only made Roshi even more difficult than he already was. Eventually, Krillin managed to get the handcuffs on him, and he frog-marched Roshi out the door. By the time they left, everyone in the shop was staring. With Krillin and Roshi now gone, that left them no one to look at but Zatte.

"Uh, sorry for the disturbance," she said awkwardly. She wasn't sure how to feel about what had just happened, but she hoped that this meant Roshi wouldn't be back for a long time. That should have made her feel more at ease, but somehow she felt more tense than before.

*******

More than anything, Zatte just wanted some normal customers. She was starting to miss Yamcha, but then Tien entered the store, and she felt a sense of relief. Of all of her regulars, he was one of the easiest to deal with.

"Hello," he said evenly.

"How can I help you, sir?" she asked pleasantly.

He gestured to the smaller man who had followed him into the store. Zatte had never seen a little person before, but she was pretty sure this man was small enough to qualify as one.

"This is my brother, Chiaotzu," he explained. "I've been showing him around while he's in town."

"Pleased to make your acquaintance," she said with a slight bow.

Chiaotzu did not move.

"I get my coffee here after work," Tien said to him. "Black, please. No sugar."

"Of course," Zatte said. "And for your brother?"

"Ice cream cafe au lait," Chiaotzu said after a pregnant pause. He never blinked. He just stared at Zatte as though gazing into her soul.

"Certainly. Your total is 1140 yen."

They paid and she brought the drinks to their table a few minutes later. Zatte forgot about them after that, until she happened to look up while counting the money in the register. Chiaotzu was still staring at her. His expression was completely neutral.

What made it even stranger was how normally Tien behaved by contrast. He was facing away from Zatte, but he was moving his head and arms like anyone having a normal conversation. If he even noticed Chiaotzu staring past him, he didn't seem to care.

She tried to ignore him, but this proved more difficult than she imagined. Every time she happened to glance in his direction, there he was, still staring, never moving. The cup in front of him was already empty. At some point he must have drank his au lait, but Zatte had no idea when that could have happened.

What was it about his eyes? Those bottomless, pitiless eyes? Looking at them just made her realize how pale his complexion was, like one of those stories about a vampire secretly living among humans. She was grateful for the next few customers who came in, as they gave her something else to think about, if only for a few minutes at a time.

She turned away from the counter to tidy up her workspace, and when she looked around again, he was suddenly standing there, glaring at her through the display glass.

"Orange cranberry muffins," Chiaotzu said.

"Huh?" Zatte said, trying to hide how much he had startled her.

He pressed his face up to the glass. By this time of day, the display case was nearly empty, as the demand for baked goods was too low to justify making more. "Do you still sell them? Or did you just run out?" Chiaotzu asked.

"Um, we stopped selling them," Zatte said. "We, uh, changed cooks a while ago. So we changed the menu. I'm sorry."

Chiaotzu never took his eyes off her, and after a long pause, he finally uttered: "Oh. That's too bad."

"There you are," Tien said as he walked up to the counter. "Come on, Chiaotzu, we need to get going."

Chiaotzu turned and followed him out the door, and Zatte was never so grateful to see the back of someone's head. He was bald, so she half expected a second pair of eyes to be there waiting for her. Instead, he turned back toward her, just as he stepped through the door.

"Thanks for the coffee," he said, though his expression looked more like he should be accusing Zatte of desecrating his own empty grave.

When he was finally gone, she glanced down at the display case. Luffa used to restock it herself, multiple times a day. It was a welcome distraction from the rigors of the day, even though she only popped out of the kitchen for a minute or two. She would have whispered something like "Get a load of that guy," to her, and they would have shared a quiet chuckle over it.

But Luffa was gone, and the new cook was fine, even if he wasn't quite as good, or fast, or popular with the customers. It made the workday slower, but Zatte was determined not to let that get in her way. She considered herself a survivor, someone who could adapt and endure anything life threw at her. All that mattered was getting through the day and closing up the shop, and then getting through tomorrow, and the day after, and so on. She didn't need Luffa, or anyone else to do that.

At least, that was what she told herself.

*******

Keda usually got home from school by 3:45 P.M. Today, she returned an hour early. Zatte wanted to know why, but there were too many customers for her to ask, and Keda walked straight through the swinging gate at the counter, and into the door that led to the upstairs apartment where they lived.

Ten minutes later, she came back down, having swapped her school uniform for a blue "Emerald Eye" apron. Under that, she wore one of her collection of T-shirts commemorating various professional wrestlers. This one said "NIGHTMARE ANGELS" in English, with the words "KNEE THE ELITE" in smaller text. Zatte was grateful that the apron kept the customers from seeing the entire shirt, and she hoped most of them didn't know enough English to be able to read it and wonder what it meant. She was pretty sure Keda would try to explain it if someone asked, but no one did, and Zatte was grateful for this as well.

"Need some help?" Keda asked.

"Why are you out of school so early?" Zatte asked as she finished handing someone their change.

"They let us out early," Keda said. "It's the Emperor's Birthday."

"Not anymore," Zatte said. "The Emperor abdicated, remember? The new Emperor's birthday won't be until February."

"Well, we convinced the school that it wasn't fair," Keda said with a shrug. "I mean, December 23rd is a good place for a holiday, isn't it? Right before Christmas. The new Emperor can't help being born in February, but it's not right that we don't have an Emperor's Birthday holiday in 2019. It just seems disrespectful, doesn't it? So the student council talked it over with the faculty, and we agreed to let out two hours early as a compromise."

"Why can't you just say you cut classes like all the other kids?" Zatte grumbled.

"Because that's not what happened," Keda said. "Can I help it if the President of the Student Council likes my ideas? Can I help it if the faculty is really open to suggestions?"

She picked up a small cup and put less than fifty milliliters of hazelnut coffee in it from the dispenser behind the cash register. Keda smelled it, but decided it was too hot to drink. This was part of her after-school ritual.

"I wish you'd stop doing that," Zatte said.

"Everyone says it's an acquired taste," Keda said. "I'm almost twelve, Zatte. In a few years, boys are gonna want to take me to coffee shops. I mean, not this one, that'd be kind of awkward. Getting waited on by your own sister. But a coffee shop, and I need to be ready to drink coffee by then."

"Now if only I could get you to put that kind of dedication into your schoolwork," Zatte said.

"Oh, I've got that under control," Keda said. "You see my grades, right? I've got a high school picked out and everything. But none of that matters if a boy buys me a coffee and I start gagging at the first sip."

As she said this, Keda decided her drink was cool enough, and she carefully raised it to her lips. She winced, but managed to swallow it, though the face she made indicated that it was an unpleasant achievement. "Ugh. Okay... okay... I'm getting there."

"Why would you want to go on a coffee date anyway?" Zatte asked. "Just tell a boy that you work at a cafe and you'd rather see a movie instead."

"That's the beauty of it!" Keda explained. "If he takes me to a coffee shop, it's like I'm on my own turf. It gives me the advantage. I can say all sorts of things during the date, like how they get the caffeine out of decaf, or how the cappuccino machine works. They'll think I'm super-sophisticated that way. If I'm at a movie I'm totally out of my element. You really need to read more Sun Tzu, Zatte."

"Sun Tzu?" Zatte asked, bewildered. "Are you trying to date a boy or kill him?"

"Never mind me," Keda said. "I'll bet you're excited today."

"About what?" Zatte asked.

"About Luffa, dummy," Keda said.

"Luffa who?" Zatte grumbled. "You mean our ex-cook who walked out on us and barely ever stops by?"

"Oh, come on," Keda said. "You know how busy she is, and she's on the road constantly."

"And now that she just happens to be in the area, I'm supposed to be giddy about it?" Zatte asked. "It's not like she's coming to see me, Keda. You're her biggest fan."

"Come on, you miss her too," Keda said. "She's your best friend."

"No, she's not," Zatte said. "I mean, of course she's my friend, but not like... Don't you have homework to do?"

"Nope," Keda said.

"Then shouldn't you be watching your show?" Zatte asked.

"It doesn't start until five," Keda said.

"All right then, go bus some tables," Zatte said, and then tossed a washcloth at her. Keda nodded with a shrug and then headed off to begin her assignment.

*******

Exactly two hours and fifteen minutes later, Keda had vanished from the shop. Zatte was never sure if she was doing a good job raising her little sister. It often felt like Keda was raising herself, and acting out just enough to make Zatte feel like she was involved in the process. The girl was extremely smart for her age, and she helped out with the cafe, so it seemed unfair to criticize her for being nosy or presumptuous. It was hard to tell whether she was being too strict on Keda or not strict enough.

No, Keda wasn't what had her on edge. It was Luffa. Zatte did miss her, but not in a way she particularly cared to admit to anyone else. And with Luffa away from the cafe, essentially out of their lives, it seemed pointless to admit anything now. Better to go on like it hadn't mattered. Better to be strong and independent, and hope that everyone accepted the image of Zatte as an independent, responsible shopkeeper. It wasn't always a satisfying life, but at least it was her own, and it couldn't be taken away by someone when they moved on to other things.

As much as she appreciated the new cook, she had to suppress a certain resentment towards him. It wasn't his fault that he didn't have the same level of culinary talent. Or that he didn't have that same wild look in his eye. Or that the apron didn't frame the small of his back the right way. Or (let's face it) that he was a 'he.' So Zatte was never sure if she was too hard on the guy, or if she was too easy on him because she was trying not to be too hard on him. Now that she thought about it, she had the same trouble with Luffa back in the day, for completely opposite reasons.

It was distracting and depressing, and she wasn't sure how she would feel about it, and she just wanted some work to do so she could think about something else.

*******

Gradually, more customers came into the store as offices started to close for the evening. It always struck Zatte as odd that people would want coffee so late in the day, but she supposed that they were all trying to fight off the tiredness from the workday, even if it cost them a few hours of sleep later in the night.

By 8:00 P.M., Zatte had convinced herself that she had nearly forgotten about whats-her-name, and she had settled into a steady routine of taking orders, making change, and handing out drinks. Then a middle-aged couple threw off the entire rhythm. The wife had been very concise with her order, but her husband was holding up the line while he tried to decide what he wanted.

"Now, lemme see here," he said as he looked at the menu and thoughtfully rubbed his chin with his thumb. "Oh, you've got pork fillet cutlets? I'll take two of them, and.... the egg sandwich... and... hmmm. Wow, you've got chili dogs? That's awesome! Three chili dogs, please!"

"Um... will there be anything else?" Zatte asked, unsure if she really wanted to know. His wife seemed to feel the same way.

"Goku, you'll never be able to eat all of that," she groaned.

"Sure I will!" he insisted. "I had a light lunch today, so..."

The look on his wife's face suggested that this was not even remotely true. Zatte decided it was better to just ring them up and get their money before she could talk him out of it.

"It will take some time to prepare all of this, you understand," Zatte said to Goku.

"Aw, don't worry about that," Goku said. "Take as long as you need. Me 'n' Chi-Chi will be so busy playing with the rabbits that we probably won't even notice!"

"Rabbits?" Zatte asked.

"Where do ya keep those guys, anyway?" Goku asked. He began looking around in every direction, which made all of the cowlicks in his hair that much harder to ignore. "Oh, crap, we forgot to order lettuce so we'd have somethin' to feed 'em!"

Chi-Chi's face began to turn red, and Zatte finally began to understand what he was talking about.

"Sir," Zatte said, "This isn't a rabbit cafe."

"It's not?" Goku asked. "Well, you've at least got a cat or something, right?"

"No, we just serve coffee and food."

"Goku, we talked about this on the way here..." Chi-Chi grumbled.

Goku crossed his arms and lowered his head, and it was hard to tell if he was pouting or contemplating his predicament. "Darn. Well, you still got chili dogs. I guess that'll just have to do."

"I... apologize for the inconvenience," Zatte said. She had never meant that sentence less than she did in this moment.

*******

Ten minutes later, Keda was downstairs in the shop again, sitting at one of the booths and scribbling notes while she read from a textbook. When asked, she would insist that this wasn't homework that had been assigned, and she was simply working ahead in anticipation of future assignments. Zatte was too exasperated with this explanation to dispute it. By now, business had slowed down considerably, with only a few stragglers coming in for quick to-go orders. At one of the tables, Goku was still finishing the feast he had ordered while his wife played a game on her phone and tried not to look too embarrassed. Finally, the couple got up to leave, and as they did, the doors swung open, and someone else entered the shop.

"Luffa!" Keda shouted. She practically jumped out of the booth and ran up to meet her.

"Hey, kid!" Luffa replied. She had been holding a gym bag, but dropped it so she could return Keda's embrace.

Zatte had been unloading the dishwasher when Luffa entered, and she looked over to see her. Luffa was wearing a pair of zubaz--baggy gym pants with a zebra-striped pattern--and a satin jacket with a steakhouse logo printed on the front. There was a smear of green around her lips, and even her teeth had a green stain on them. Once, Luffa had worn her hair long, but now it was cut very short and seemed to stand on end. And she had colored it an unnatural shade of yellow, far more vivid than blonde.

"You beat Ribrianne!" Keda said excitedly. "That puts your score up to 10 points!"

"Hey, don't sound so surprised," Luffa said.

"I thought she had you near the end," Keda said. "You looked like you were nearly out of it, and then you reversed that suplex into a head-scissors... how did you do that?"

Luffa puffed out her chest and jabbed her sternum with her thumb. "What do you mean how? I'm the Golden Ace, aren't I?"

"Well yeah," Keda said, "but you lost to Hop last week."

Luffa grimaced like she had accidentally swallowed a bug. "She cheated. That doesn't count."

"Well, the tournament rules say it does count, but now that you've got ten points, you've got a strong chance of winning. There's still some tiebreaker scenarios to consider, but personally I like your chances."

"Ugh," Luffa said. "I'm glad you can make sense of the scores. You know, these round-robin tournaments are great, right until you have to figure out whether you're winning or losing. Is Kale still in the running, or did she get eliminated?"

Keda pointed to a group of armchairs at one corner of the cafe. "Come on," she said, "I'll walk you through the scenarios."

Luffa followed her, waving to Zatte as she passed by. As she did this, she nearly bumped into Goku as he and his wife were on their way to the door. They exchanged a look, and for a split second, Zatte was worried that it might become awkward. Luffa almost looked like she was sizing him up for a fight. She couldn't read Goku at all, but she assumed he was mostly intrigued by her loud costume.

For some reason, the sound system in the store was playing a metal cover of "Carol of the Bells". Zatte didn't know how that had gotten added to the holiday playlist.

"Cool hair!" Goku finally said.

"Hey, thanks," Luffa said.

And then they went their separate ways.

The music system abruptly switched to "Here Comes Santa Claus," perhaps the most tension-free Christmas song of all.

"Now then," Luffa said to Keda as she collapsed into one of the armchairs. "Let's get down to business."

Keda was tapping a notepad with a pen, looking more like Luffa's accountant than a young fan. "Right, well, obviously, if you can win all of your next matches, you'll be a shoo-in to win the tournament. But even if you lose two more, there's still a chance of squeaking by. The only thing I'm worried about is you tying with Hop."

"She cheated," Luffa grumbled.

"It doesn't matter," Keda said. "If you both tie on points, she wins the tiebreaker, since she has a win over you. But if Ribrianne beats her, that'll set up a possible four-way tie with Videl. Then you'd win, because you'd have the best record among the four of you."

"Sounds like I should just win the rest of my matches," Luffa said after digesting what Keda had said.

"Just promise me you'll stay in the ring when you face Sorrel," Keda pleaded. "She always tricks her opponents into getting counted out, and I know how much you like to fight in the crowd."

"What I like," Luffa said with a sadistic grin, "is having the referee out of my way. If Sorrel thinks a twenty-count will save her from me, then she's already lost."

"But if you get counted out, you could lose the tournament!" Keda protested. "Then you won't get a shot at the All-Pacific Championship!"

"Hah! If someone like Sorrel can beat me," Luffa said, "then I don't deserve the title. It's that simple. Besides, she's not the only one with a trick up her sleeve." She pointed at her mouth, which had smears of green dye around it.

"When are you gonna teach me how to do the poison mist?" Keda asked.

"I keep telling you, kid," Luffa said, "it's a sacred technique. I can't just teach it to anybody."

Zatte approached them and cleared her throat to get their attention. "Sorry to interrupt this strategy conference, but I thought the 'Golden Ace' might be hungry." She held up a chicken salad sandwich and a to-go cup of coffee, which Luffa accepted with relish.

"You're a lifesaver," Luffa said with a smile. "I haven't eaten since before the show started."

"You'd think SPARKING! could afford catering for their events," Zatte said.

"They do," Luffa said as she unwrapped the sandwich. "I just don't like to eat so close to bell time. Makes me nervous. Too many stories out there about guys pooping their pants during matches."

"Ewwww!" Keda said. "Really?"

"I've never run into it myself," Luffa said, "but you hear about it. I almost threw up during a match, so I believe it."

"Was it because you swallowed posion mist?" Keda asked.

"Huh? Oh, no way," Luffa said with her mouth full. "I... well, I built up an immunity to that a long time ago."

Keda began scratching her chin thoughtfully. "Immunity... so that's it."

"What do I owe you?" Luffa asked Zatte.

"It's on the house," Zatte replied.

"Oh, come on," Luffa said, "I'm making halfway decent money these days."

Zatte pointed at Luffa's yellow-and-black striped pants. "Then why are you dressed like you're doing your laundry?"

"Hey, these are high fashion in my line of work," Luffa said with a smile. She propped her black boots on the ottoman in front of the armchair. There was an image of a playing card printed on the sides of each boot. "Check it out," she said. "They liked my match in Osaka so much that they paid me a little extra, and I used it to get these babies. I can afford to live it up at the Emerald Eye Cafe."

"Don't worry about it. Half my regulars keep asking if you'll ever come back to the kitchen," Zatte said. "You did such a good job while you were here that I'm still making money off of it now."

"How's the new guy working out?" Luffa asked, glancing toward the general direction of the kitchen.

"He's fine," Zatte said. "He's not as good as you, but who could be?"

"You know, that's what I think about you," Luffa said as she took a swig of her coffee. "I mean, there's a cafe near the dojo. It's just not the same."

"Right."

"Yeah."

There was a long silence, and then Keda nudged Luffa in the arm. "Hey, do you really think you can beat Kale next Saturday?" she asked.

"Are you saying I can't?" Luffa asked in a haughty tone.

"I'm just saying you can't take her lightly," Keda said. "That running knee she does is nothing to sneeze at."

"Running knee," Luffa scoffed. "Let me tell you what I'll do about that running knee..."

"I need to get back to the register," Zatte said, though she doubted anyone was listening.

*******

Closing time at the Emerald Eye wasn't for another hour, but the kitchen shut down at nine. The cook was saying his goodbyes to Zatte before leaving, when he happened to notice Luffa and Keda chatting.

"Is she some kind of celebrity?" he asked.

"Huh? No, that's Luffa," Zatte said.

"Oh. What's with the hair?" he asked. "She looks like a pop idol."

"She's a professional wrestler," Zatte explained. "She quit working here to go work for the SPARKING! promotion. They did a show tonight in Okazaki, so she came by to visit."

"Huh. I thought she became a famous chef or something like that."

"No, as good a cook as she is, she only worked her to make ends meet until she could break into the business," Zatte said. "And she's done pretty well. I read on the internet that they're planning to make her the next All-Pacific Champion."

"I thought you have to win the championship in a match," he said.

Zatte turned and gave him a dirty look. "It's fake," she said. "They decide who wins and loses ahead of time."

"Oh! Right," he said. "I guess it's like getting a promotion at an office job, then. You must be happy for her."

"I don't know that it matters," Zatte said. "This is the first time she's come back since she left. If Keda wasn't such a big fan of this stuff, she probably wouldn't even bother. She's moved on. I heard she's dating some referee there. She's got a whole new life on the road now."

"Well, I'd go over and pay my respects, but my parents are pretty upset that I haven't called home in a while, so..."

Zatte nodded and waved. "Yeah, sure. See you tomorrow, Trunks."

Less than five seconds after he had walked out the door, a man walked in and asked for Christmas cake. Zatte stifled a groan and explained that the kitchen was closed for the night. This was spelled out on the cafe's front door, but no one ever really read that as they walked in.

*******

At 10 P.M. Zatte switched the sign in the window to "CLOSED", and began turning off several of the lights in the store, until only the section above the armchairs was illuminated. The Christmas lights on the trees outside were easier to see this way, and they lent a pinkish, purplish tint to the inside of the cafe. Finally, Zatte walked over to Luffa's chair and took a bottle of soda out of her apron. She slung the apron over the chair opposite Luffa's, then collapsed into it with a heavy sigh.

"Long day?" Luffa asked. It wasn't until she saw her up close that Zatte noticed how tired Luffa looked. Keda had gone to bed a half-hour earlier, leaving Luffa by herself. She looked like she wanted to fall asleep in the chair, but was too excited from the day's events.

"I've had worse," Zatte said, "but that was back when I had you on the staff."

"Well, I'm off for a few days," Luffa said. "I could give you guys a hand."

"Tempting," Zatte said. "Keda would be thrilled, but I couldn't impose on you like that. You've probably got plans for Christmas Eve."

"Not really," Luffa said. "That's why I came here. I've been touring for so long that I'm not really sure what to do with this much free time."

There was a hiss as Zatte opened the bottle on her soda, and she raised an eyebrow at Luffa's words. "I thought you and that referee..."

Luffa looked confused for a moment, then she threw back her head and laughed. "No, no, no," she finally said. "That was an angle. Part of a storyline to make people think I had an unfair advantage. It was kind of dumb, but sometimes you gotta do what the office wants to show 'em you're a team player."

"Oh," Zatte said, somewhat embarrassed. "Well, it looked so convincing..."

"Well that's the idea," Luffa said. "Wait, have you been watching my matches? I thought you didn't go for that stuff."

"Well, Keda watches them all the time anyway," Zatte explained. "And she's got that subscription to the on-demand service on the internet. It's about the only time we get to see you anymore, you know? Even if it's while you're spitting green stuff all over people."

"Keda asked me to teach her how to do the poison mist," Luffa said. "I told her I couldn't, because the recipe for the poison is too dangerous. Merry Christmas."

"Thanks," Zatte said. She glanced around at the walls, imagining what they would look like with green food coloring on every surface. "When are you gonna tell her the truth about all that stuff, anyway?"

"What, that it's fake?" Luffa asked with a smile. "I dunno, she's still pretty young. I'll tell her next year."

"That's what you said last year," Zatte said. "I'd do it myself, but she wouldn't believe me. She's a smart kid, you know. Sooner or later, she'll figure it out on her own, and that might be kind of awkward for you."

Luffa settled back in her chair and looked down at the empty cup in her hands. "I don't know, it's cool to have someone I know who believes it's all real," she said. "I'll have to give that up eventually, but it's tough to let go. You saw how excited she was when I came in."

"Yeah..." Zatte said. She took a swig from her soda and propped her feet up on the ottoman that lay between their chairs, so that their ankles alternated in an orderly row across the cushion.

"So are you really winning the title?" Zatte asked after a long pause. In spite of Luffa's exhaustion, her eyes lit up at the question.

"Keep it under your hat," Luffa said, lowering her voice as though worried someone might overhear, "but maybe. That show's six weeks out, and a lot could change before then. If someone gets injured or something, they might have to call an audible and change the card around. But they definitely want to put the title on me at some point." She held up both hands and crossed her fingers for emphasis.

"That's great," Zatte said. "I mean, it is, right? If the matches are predetermined, does the championship even matter?"

"Oh, it's a big honor," Luffa said, visibly excited at the chance to explain it. "I mean, it's a secondary belt, and SPARKING! isn't that big a promotion, but still. It's kind of like an actor winning an award. The people in charge are saying they think I'm good enough to deserve that spot on the show. I mean, two years ago I was still helping the crew put the ring together. I still can't believe it."

"I can," Zatte said. "You always put everything you have into whatever you do. I always saw it when you worked here, so it doesn't shock me that other people can see it in you now."

"I've missed this place," Luffa said wistfully. "That's the only trouble with being on tour so much. I don't get to cook as often. I saw a place selling Christmas cakes on the way here and you've probably been selling them all month without me..."

"Well, if you really want to," Zatte said, "you could give us a hand in the kitchen tomorrow. I mean, if you really didn't have any other plans for Christmas Eve..."

"Nope, I got nothing," Luffa said. "What about you? Keda and I could keep an eye on the place so you can leave early."

"We're closing early anyway," Zatte said. "Business usually drops off pretty sharply on Christmas Eve night, so we might as well. Besides, I can't have you waiting tables with that crazy hair. You'd scare the customers."

"Huh? Oh, right," Luffa said. "You know, I've been wearing it like this for so long I'd gotten used to it. You don't like my look?"

"It's just... very bright," Zatte said. "It's not so bad up close, when I can see your face better, but it almost doesn't look like real hair. It looks rough, like hay."

"It's really not," Luffa said. She tugged on some of it to demonstrate. "I don't even put much stuff in it to make it stick up like it does. Here, feel this."

Zatte shrugged and moved to the seat beside Luffa's, where she reached for the same part of her hair that Luffa was holding. Their fingers brushed against each other, and neither of them seemed entirely sure how to react to the sensation.

"Huh..." Zatte said as she gently touched Luffa's head. "That's not at all what I expected."

"Yeah," Luffa said, somewhat awkwardly. "It's not so different from that red streak you've got in your hair, I bet."

She reached out for the side of Zatte's bob, and rubbed a strand of it between her fingers. "Why are you blushing?" Luffa asked.

"Oh... uh, I probably stood up too quickly," Zatte said.

"Oh..."

They heard someone outside walking past the storefront, and suddenly became very self-conscious of holding onto each other's hair, so they quickly let go, and looked away from each other.

"So uh..." Luffa said. "If you're not doing anything tomorrow night..."

"I mean, I've got a reservation at Kentucky Fried Chicken, but that's it, really," Zatte said. "Keda talked me into it. Said I ought to do something, even if I was alone. But if you wanted to come along..."

"Sure," Luffa said. "I haven't had KFC in ages. And you know, it'd give me a chance to see the lights around town."

"They've got a new thing at the mall," Zatte said. "Well, not new new. It was there last year, but you wouldn't have seen it then."

"That sounds fine," Luffa said. "Yeah."

*******

Behind the front counter, Keda observed her sister and Luffa through the glass of the display case. It wasn't an ideal vantage, and she could barely hear what they were saying, but it was enough for her to get the gist of things, and so far things looked promising.

There were still a lot of things that could go wrong. Long distance relationships were always a challenge, and the professional wrestling business wasn't exactly known for fidelity, but these were factors Keda couldn't control, and at some point it would be up to the two of them to make things work as best they could. It was enough that Keda had gotten them to this point-- studying Luffa's tour schedule, playing the eager fan, and providing Luffa a useful excuse to visit right before a romantic holiday. Really, the only thing she had been worried about was that the two women would have seen through Keda's "wrestling-is-real" act, but they were grown-ups, and they didn't know an eleven-year-old from an seven-year-old, not when you really got down to it.

Keda noticed Zatte reaching for Luffa's hair a second time, and decided that was her cue to withdraw. She was playing matchmaker, not spying on them, after all. Besides, Keda would have to rest up for tomorrow so she could help out in the store tomorrow, in order to make sure neither of them were too tired for their date.

Quietly, Keda made her way back to the door that led to their second-story apartment. As she ascended the stair, she imagined how great things would be next Christmas, with a SPARKING! All-Pacific Champion in the family. Maybe then, finally, Luffa would teach her how to spit Poison Mist.

[THE END]

#dragon ball #fanfiction #luffa #zatte #keda #yamcha #krillin #master roshi #goku #chi chi #trunks #tien #chiaotzu #earth #i tried to do a coffe shop au and i made it about wrestling sorry

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thdorkmagnet · 4 years

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Light of the Sun and Stars Chapter 23: Big Brother Marco

Summary: His whole life Marco Diaz has been raised by monsters, living under the cruel rule of their leader, Toffee. But one day Marco escapes into Mewni where he meets a magical princess and Mewman like himself, who begins teaching him all about her world. Together they will learn about life, love, and the lights within each of them, as they change their world forever.

Chapter Synopsis: There are some visitors to the castle today and Star is excited to see her Aunt Lily and her two young nieces, Daisy and Violet. Marco especially finds some enjoyment spending time getting to know the two young Butterflies. But playtime gets a little bit out of hand.

A/N: For the record Daisy and Violet aren’t quite OCs they are actually based on this Disney XD bump made by Daron Nefcy herself. Their personalities and everything else about them was crafted by me. Lily however is my OC.

Check out my other stuff on Fanfiction!

Index

Disclaimer: Star vs and all its characters are owned by Daron Nefcy and Disney. All rights go to them.

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The next few days passed by quickly on Mewni as Star, Marco, and Jackie worked tirelessly to set up their peace commission, hoping and praying that it would be a success. The three debated and planned all they could for their new organization, creating a set of rules to be followed and what all their jobs would entail. Meanwhile, Moon spoke with the Magic High Commission and after a bit of convincing was able to talk them into agreeing to let Star follow through with her plan. As expected there was a condition, though one that no one could have predicted. They would allow Star to form her commission on the terms that one of their members join as well to make sure things “ran smoothly”. Which to Star meant that they would have one of their own spying on them and would report back in case they slipped up. This only added more pressure and worry onto Star, but she did her best to not let it get to her, reminding herself that all would work out so long as they stuck with her plan.

Besides, they still had a bit of a ways to go before everything was ready yet. They were still working on getting all the members together, Star quite adamant on neither Tom nor Pony Head being allowed to be representatives of their kingdoms. Jackie did her best to talk her into it, reminding her that they were the future rulers of their kingdom and she would have to face them eventually, to which Star merely sighed and said that she would think about it.

As for the other members, Star had already gotten into contact with them, and many seemed on board with joining, much to the three teens' delight and relief. And it was one of those future members that had Jackie, Star, and her mom standing outside the castle gates that bright afternoon as they waited for their inevitable arrival, though they had no idea when that would be. None of them said a word to one another, all lost in their own thoughts, as they just stood in silence, hoping that they would soon see a carriage approaching down the way.

Jak and Dex, as always, were guarding the gates and they seemed quite pleased that they were there to witness this crucial and important meeting, Star able to feel their inquisitive stares burning into her back. Star had officially announced her plans for the MMPC publicly just after she had been given the okay from the Magic High Commission and many seemed quite thrilled at the idea. It was a big change, but a good one, many already feeling much safer knowing that their future leader would be looking after them and actively working on protecting them.

As a result, Star's MMPC was a popular and trending subject on not just Mewni but also on Earth and several other neighboring dimensions as well. So the blond couldn't really blame the two guards for their curiosity, everyone seemed eager to learn more and the chance to gain any tidbit of knowledge on what her and her friends were up to would be a hard thing to pass up or ignore. And she had no doubt that Jak and Dex would be sharing whatever they saw to as many people as possible the second they could.

Finally, Jackie decided to interrupt the very, very important and incredibly boring task of watching the road ahead to ask, “Soo, any idea when they're gonna get here? It's already been over an hour and there's still no sign of them yet.”

“Well it is quite a long ways for them to travel, so we could be looking at several more hours before they arrive,” Moon replied, matter-of-factly.

Star and Jackie both released deep sighs at that, as they slouched slightly in boredom. “Why didn't they just use dimensional scissors then,” Star muttered under her breath, though her mother was able to hear every word but chose not to say anything.

After that, Star and Jackie chose to sit on the ground and rest as they continued the excruciatingly long wait, despite it not looking the least bit regal or commanding. But they had some time to kill before their guests arrived, might as well be comfortable while they waited. Moon, surprisingly didn't reprimand her daughter like Star expected her to, though she did remain standing herself, keeping a tall, dignified stance as the minutes dragged by.

Star knew her mother had to be uncomfortable (who wouldn't be having to stand straight and poised at all times) and so asked very lightly, “Mom, you maybe want to sit and rest a bit before they get here? You said yourself that it could be a while.”

Moon did really want to, but part of being a queen was looking the part at all times. Her daughter was just too young to get that yet. She opened her mouth to decline but was interrupted by one of the guards who, overhearing the conversation, were eager to please their ruler.

“Would you like a chair to sit in while you wait, Your Highness,” Jak quickly blurted out, his obvious need for attention shining in his eyes as he addressed his queen. “I would be happy to go fetch you one-”

“No, thank you,” Moon politely declined, smiling to the guard. “That's quite all right, umm...”

“Jak,” Star whispered up to her mom, seeing her freeze up.

“Yes, Jak, thank you, Star,” Moon quickly said, shooting her daughter a grateful look. “But that won't be necessary.”

“Well if there is anything we can do to make you more comfortable, just let us know, Queen Moon,” Dex now pitched in.

“I will, thank you,” Moon said, before looking to her daughter for help again. Star rolled her eyes, unable to believe that her mom had no clue what any of the guards names were, or most of the staff for that matter. She knew that her mom had been gone a while but, sheesh, seriously, how hard was it to remember a couple of names?

“Dex,” Star said and Moon quickly nodded, before repeating, “Dex. I quite appreciate the concern.”

“Of course, Your Majesty,” Dex said, neither looking even slightly bothered by their queen not knowing their names, as they bowed low to the ground.

“It's too bad Marco isn't here,” Star said suddenly. She froze up as she realized she had just voiced that thought out loud, out of completely nowhere. She blushed as four pairs of quizzical eyes landed on her and she quickly added, “Because, he'd somehow find a way to make all this entertaining.”

Star tried to ignore the knowing look from her mom as she towered over her or the short exchange between Jak and Dex behind her, who were undoubtedly cooing over the young couple, as she just focused on stopping anymore blood from rushing to her cheeks.

Thankfully, Jackie (her saving grace) merely nodded her head in agreement. “Yeah, it does seem to be a gift of his,” Jackie said, knowing exactly what Star was talking about. The two friends both found themselves missing the boy quite a bit right then and knew that he was probably pretty disappointed himself that he couldn't be there for this.

He had wanted to be but Higgs, her patience now stretched to its breaking point, had insisted that he stop putting off his self defense classes any longer and absolutely refused to take no for an answer. She had dragged the boy away, ignoring his protests, reminding him that if he didn't do this that she would go back to guarding him 24/7. This had instantly shut him up, though Star had shouted out to him in reassurance, “Don't worry about it, we'll make sure your there for the next one.”

Now it seemed like Marco had dodged a bullet, just sitting here, waiting for what felt like forever, watching the road so long your eyes started to go blurry, all in the hopes of spotting a...

Star felt her heart skip a beat, nearly rubbing her eyes to check and make sure she was seeing things right. Because, finally, there at the end of the road, a purple carriage was exiting out of town and heading their way. The blond royal jumped to her feet, shouting out, “They're here!”

Jackie jumped up as well, as the three women all looked at the welcoming sight with wide and warm smiles, all of them now standing as straight and tall as possible, hoping to make a good first impression with their guests.

...

The fancy carriage slowly made its way through the busy streets of town, accompanied by the sound of clopping hooves from the invisible goats that dragged it behind them. Civilians and passerby's all eyed the expensive looking vehicle with great interest. While inside the carriage, two of its residents looked out the windows at the Mewmans with equal amounts of intrigue as those outside. Two little girls, both at the age of eight, stood up in their seats, drawing back the curtains to gaze in wonder at the strange sights of their new destination.

“Are we here yet, did we make it? Is this where Butterfly Castle is?” one of them asked, practically bouncing in her seat, an excited and enthusiastic energy surrounding her. She had long peach colored hair, that hung down to her waist, with a small yellow flower poised delicately in it. She had tanned skin and bright blue eyes that shined with all the innocence in the world. She wore a modestly short, sleeveless purple dress, with small diamonds lining the bottom, peach colored legging that matched her hair and light blue socks with dark blue shoes. She had rosy cheeks that helped to accent her flower cheek marks which were peach colored just like her hair. She smiled brightly at the other occupants of the carriage, revealing the missing tooth she had.

“I wonder if we're gonna see any Monsters while we're here,” the other girl in the seat across from her said, looking equally excited at the idea, before she pressed her face against the window, trying to pick out any of the weird looking creatures from the crowd. This girl had short dark blue hair, combed back into a spiky style. She also had blue eyes, one of the only features she shared with her twin, though unlike her sister she wore red eyeshadow over it. She had black and white stripped t-shirt with a dark purple ruffled skirt. She also had on red stripped leggings and green boots with a small spike sticking up out of the top of it. Her cheek marks were small creepy-looking eyes, reminiscent to that of a monster, that glowed dark, nearly sinister purple. They each had a single blue bat wing attached to them.

“Or maybe we'll get to see a real unicorn!” the first added in an excited shout. She then squealed as she realized that they were in fact in the right place. “Wait, look I can see see it, Violet! There's Butterfly Castle!” She pressed her finger against the glass, pointing out the large structure to her twin.

Violet, as she was apparently called, followed the pointing finger, before openly scowling at the sight. “This place looks weird,” she remarked, as she eyed the castle wearily, her nose crinkling in dissatisfaction. “It's too bright and colorful. Why would anyone want to stay in a place like this?”

“Well I think it looks amazing!” the other girl shouted, her eyes shimmering in wonder. She turned to the third resident of the royal carriage, asking, “Are we really going to be staying here, mommy?”

Their mother closed the book she had been reading to pass the time, saying to the two with a bright smile, “Yes, we are. I'm going to be helping your cousin Star set up her peace commission.” Their mother had short peach-colored hair, that hung down to just below her ears, as well as blue eyes like her daughters. She had a single strand of hair that framed her face, braided with flowers of every color and variety. Her skin was pale, much like Violet's but her cheeks glowed rosy like her other daughters. She wore a long, light green dress, full of frills and layers, showing off her regalia and high position to any who looked her way, which was also accented with designs of flowers along the hem lines. She had on dark green boots with yellow legging. Her cheek marks were glowing lily flowers, which reflected either yellow or pink depending on the light that struck them.

“Yay, this is going to be so exciting, I can't wait!” the peach haired girl shouted.

“Yeah, of course you would think that, Daisy,” Violet scoffed, rolling her eyes.

“Hey, whats that supposed to mean?” Daisy asked defensively, putting her hands on her hips as she scowled at her twin, still standing up in her seat.

“Just that you're always into all that dumb frilly, girly junk,” Violet replied.

“Hey it's not dumb!” Daisy whined.

“Yes it is!”

“No it's not!”

“Yes it is!”

“No it's not!”

“Girls please,” their mother interrupted, sighing in exasperation. “No fighting.” She had been listening to the two of them arguing off and on the entire carriage ride there and her patience was growing thin. She was beginning to wish she had just used dimensional scissors to travel like she had been advised rather than trying to take her two daughters on an exciting adventure through Mewni as a means for some mother-daughters bonding time.

The girls did grow quiet after that, the only sound now heard in the carriage being the gentle clopping of the invisible goat's hooves as they pulled the carriage along. Daisy and Violet took their seats once more, going back to just curiously staring out the window, taking in the sights around them with silent awe. Their mother sighed gratefully and leaned her head back against her seat, enjoying the moment of silence, knowing it couldn't last long.

The buildings began to lessen more and more as they drew nearer to Butterfly Castle until the carriage pulled onto the paved path that lead right to the palace. And just a few moments later, the carriage came to a stop at the gates, the giant goats finally able to rest after the tiring journey. The large, colorful structure towered overhead, looking as majestic and magical as possible. Daisy was in awe at the sight, openly gawking and muttering “wows” under her breath, while Violet was doing her best to keep the frown on her face, not wanting to show her twin that she was just as captivated by the sight as she was.

The two were so in awe of the castle that neither of them noticed the group standing in front of the gates patiently or the two guards who were practically racing each other to be the first to open the door to the carriage. Jak got there first, opening the door wide and startling the two young girls inside, who jumped at the sudden movement. The guard smiled in at the three occupants, his eyes freezing on the oldest one there as he said in the most respectful tone he could, “Lady Lily it is a pleasure to meet you-”

Jak was practically shoved out of the way, as Dex said to the girl's mother, “Lady Lily Butterfly please allow me to personally offer my assistance to you.” He held out his hand to her, which she accepted, using his hand for balance as he helped her to climb down and out of the carriage.

“Thank you, sir knight,” Lily said to Dex with a bright grin, her cheeks marks glowing pink, causing her cheeks to do the same until practically all of her face was lit up by the warm glow of her own marks. The guard felt his knees go weak a little. After all, the woman in front of him was quite beautiful.

“U-Uh, well I'm not a knight, ma'am, just a common g-guard,” Dex gulped out, feeling quite flustered in the presence of such stunning loveliness.

“Well thank you regardless,” Lily said flirtingly, before giving the guard a kiss on the cheek, the man nearly passing out from the sudden action as he stumbled back and into the arms of his fellow guard, who looked quite unhappy at being left out.

“Well she certainly hasn't changed a bit,” Moon commented, soundly clearly annoyed, as her, Star and Jackie watched their guest ten seconds since arriving kiss a random man on the cheek.

Lily spotted the three just then and waved to them, a bright, cheerful smile on her face. “Come along, girls,” Lily yelled back to her daughters as she started toward the castle, ignoring the blushing, unconscious man she left in her wake. Daisy and Violet quickly jumped out of the carriage as well, moving around Dex and following after their mother, Daisy skipping with every other step.

“Moon, it's been too long!” Lily greeted, once she was close enough to the three. Daisy and Violet, however, instantly bypassed their mother and Moon, as they immediately ran to Star, shouting, “Star!” They quickly began bouncing and circling their cousin, talking a mile a minute, both nearly shouting so they could be heard over each other, but ultimately making it impossible to understand a word they were saying, but Star just smiled and laughed at the two.

“Yes, hello Lily, I trust your journey was pleasant,” Moon said in an almost emotionless tone.

Lily scoffed at that, before saying in near annoyance, “Now is that anyway to greet your cousin whom you haven't seen for so long.” She shook her head, tutting chidingly. “Same old Moon, I was hoping after marrying that Johanssan barbarian of yours, you would at least learn how to relax a little and not be so stiff like the rest of the family.”

Moon frowned at that, saying in a clearly irritated tone, “So good to have you here as always.”

Lily laughed, as she surprised her dear cousin with a hug. “Oh Moon, I'm just teasing. I just wish you wouldn't be so formal around me, we are family after all.”

Moon's body remained tense for a few seconds before she allowed herself to relax, patting her cousin's back as she returned the hug. “Yes well, you can't really blame me, considering you are here for diplomatic reasons.”

“Speaking of which,” Lily said, as she pulled out of the hug, turning to Jackie and Star who were still being bombarded by excited shouts from her daughters. “There's my favorite neice!” she cried, a bright smile lighting up her face.

“Aunt Lily!” Star squealed in delight, before rushing over and embracing her favorite aunt in a bone-crushing hug.

“Oof!” Lily gasped out in surprise not expecting the startling hug, nearly stumbling over the blond girl's almost tackle. But she quickly began laughing as she returned the embrace, commenting playfully, “My Star, look at how much you've grown! The last time I saw you you were just a tiny little thing and now look at you. You're practically an adult.”

Star giggled at that, though her cheeks did turn the slightest shade of pink, causing her hearts to glow more than usual. “It's so good to see you again, Aunt Lily! We have so much catching up to do!”

“Yes, we do, I've heard you've been quite the busy bee lately. Even getting yourself a cute, little boyfriend.” Star's blush worsened at that, her cheeks turning beet red and her hearts cheek marks thumping against her will at the mere mention of Marco, but Lily pretended not to notice. “You'll have to be sure and tell me everything later!”

“Absolutely, I will!” Star exclaimed, giving her another short hug. “I'm just so glad you came, Aunt Lily!”

“Well of course I came,” Lily said sweetly. “The minute I heard my favorite niece was in need of my help, I dropped everything and left the moment I could.”

Moon held back a scoff at that, considering how long they had had to wait for her to arrive. But none of them of course commented on this, Jackie instead choosing to speak up and address their royal guest for the first time, “Well we're really glad you did.”

Lily looked over to the young skater now, saying politely, “Ah Jackie good to see you are here as well. How is your skateboarding going? Have you learned any new tricks since the last time I saw you?”

Jackie shrugged, saying modestly, “A few.”

“Great! You'll have to show me them later,” Lily said with a warm smile, which caused Jackie to grin ear to ear and reply, “Sure thing.” She adored Star's favorite aunt almost as much as Star did, she was just so cool and always seemed to know just what to say.

“Well, let's get inside, no sense in standing out here all day, not when there is work to be done!” Lily cried, taking the initiative and already strolling toward the castle.

“Yay!” Daisy cheered, grabbing her sister's arm and dragging her behind her as she raced after their mother, excited to explore the inside of the fancy palace. Moon frowned, not enjoying her cousin's often bossy nature, but followed after, taking a deep breath as she tried to remind herself not to lose her calm, with Jackie following right after her.

Star turned back to the carraige her aunt and nieces had arrived on, calling out to the two guards polietly, “Jak, Dex, would you please make sure the carriage is put away and bring in Lady Lily's things for us?”

“Of course, Your Majesty, it would be our honor!” Jak happily complied, saluting the princess. Dex, on the other hand was still too disoriented, smiling goofily and looking completely smitten with the visiting royal as he rubbed absentmindedly at the cheek she had kissed, unaware of the world turning.

“Thank you,” Star said gratefully, before turning away from the two, trusting them to take care of it, while also trying to hide her smile over how ridiculous the guard currently looked.

…

“Woooowwww!” Daisy and Violet gasped out in awe the moment they entered the beautiful castle, even the latter unable to hide her wonderment over the palace that held the most powerful monarchs in the land. It certainty lived up to their fantasies, the interior exquisite and massive, signs of wealth, power, and bright beauty everywhere you looked. Star and Jackie smiled at the two's amazement.

“So welcome to Butterfly Castle,” Star said, wanting to stay at least semi-formal since they were visiting royalty. “Umm, so I'm sure you must be tired and hungry after the long trip so we'd be happy to show you all to your rooms and then we can-”

“Oh no that's quite all right,” Lily interrupted. “I'm more than ready to begin work on your peace commission if that's alright with you?”

Star looked slightly shocked at the statement, but quickly recovered saying, “O-Of course. That would be great! We still have a lot to get going before its ready and we would love some help on it!”

“Hey, what about us?” Violet whined, crossing her arms and frowning angrily.

“Yeah, we wanted to spend time with Star,” Daisy added, looking equally annoyed as she stamped her foot cutely on the ground.

“Not now, girls,” their mother said simply.

“That's not fair, why do you get to spend time with Star and not us?!” Violet argued, pouting.

Jackie quickly took charge of the situation, bending down so she was level with the two and putting a hand on their shoulders. She looked between the two, saying reasonably, “Star has work to do right now, but she will spend time with you later, okay?”

The two shared a quick look, before frowning stubbornly, still not giving in just yet. But Jackie didn't let this effect her, maintaining her cool radiance as she added, “And if you two mind your mom, I might even show you a few tricks on my skateboard.”

The twins instantly perked up at that, their eyes twinkling excitedly as they gasped, “Really?!”

“Yep,” Jackie nodded.

“Okay then!” Voilet cheered, all anger forgotten.

“Yeah, we'll behave!” Daisy added, equally cheerily.

“It's a deal then,” Jackie said, rising back up to her feet and smiling down at the two. “Now you two go and play in your room, okay?”

The two nodded vigorously before taking off down the hallway, already pretending to be on skateboards as they zipped down the brightly lit corridors.

“Have fun, girls!” their mother yelled after them, before turning to Jackie with a grateful smile. “Thank you for that, Jackie. I owe you one.”

“Not a problem,” Jackie replied.

Lily nodded, before clapping her hands together, saying enthusiastically, “Now then, since that's all settled, let's get started shall we? After all, the sooner we get your commission up and going the better.”

Star nodded, saying, “Right.”

“Well then I will leave you all to it,” Moon said, politely excusing herself. “I have work of my own to do.”

“Uh huh, I know how that goes,” Lily said in agreement. Moon started down the hallway but, Lily quickly called out to her teasingly, “Be sure to say hello to that husband of your, Moony.”

Moon whipped back around to glare at her and Lily put on an innocent smile. She knew how much her cousin despised the nickname. Moon looked like she was on the verge of saying something, but she seemed to get control of herself once more, continuing on down the hall without a word, but still looking quite agitated. Lily just laughed, saying proudly to herself, “Still too easy.”

“Soooo, um,” Star said, wanting to get the conversation away from messing with her mom and back on the important stuff.

“Oh right, of course,” Lily said, quickly remembering why she was there. “Lead the way.”

Star obeyed, guiding her aunt and friend to her room, which was their makeshift headquarters for now until they could get a proper room dedicated to it. Her mother's situation room was quite often in use right now, what with Rasticore still on the loose and the Butterfly's still desperately trying to plan a way to catch him and the only other room for the job was the tiny meeting room that Star shuddered at the mere thought of being trapped in again. So for now, her room would just have to do.

She turned over her shoulder slightly, telling her aunt, “Just warning you, we still have a lot of paperwork to sign before the MHC will let us become official.”

Lily scoffed, waving a hand at that, not looking the slightest bit concerned. “Oh trust me, I've had my fair share of paperwork in the past,” she said calmly. The three reached the room just then, Star opening the door to let Jackie and her aunt inside. “Besides, how bad can it be?” she stated, as she stepped inside.

Her smile instantly vanished, as she stared wide-eyed and mouth agape of the piles and piles of paperwork that now crowded the large room, every inch seemingly filled with the unfinished documents. Star just looked at her sheepishly, waiting for her to respond, feeling bad for getting her into this mess and knowing she had to be regretting her involvement as well. The Magic High Commission had just decided to drop all of this off on her the day before, without any warning or heads up whatsoever. No, they just spring all this extra work on her last minute, while also requiring she have one of their own members join her group as their own personal spy. Part of her wondered if they had done this to her on purpose, in hopes of discouraging her or making her quit... or at the very least slow her down as much as possible. Nope, scratch that, she knew they were doing this on purpose. After all one more Monster attack and they were all in control of Mewni.

Her Aunt Lily, though, to her credit didn't run away like she expected her to. Instead after several awkward seconds, she just said in a shocked, uneven tone, “Well this may take us a bit longer than expected.”

Understatement of the year.

…

Marco groaned in pain as he sluggishly trudged through the castle on his way to his room, after a long and bruising self-defense lesson with Higgs. He was feeling quite sore, possibly worse than the last time he had gone head to head with the redheaded knight, his body not used to that level of physical exercise, yet. That and the young knight seemed incapable of holding back that much, despite her promise to do so. How the heck was Marco supposed to learn self-defense if she just kept knocking him down over and over again? All she was going to end up doing was giving him brain damage. Maybe he should just wear a helmet next time?

Marco sighed, holding onto his aching right arm, the part of him that probably hurt the worst right now, having taken the brunt of most of the hits. As his dominant hand it was the one that had to do most of the punching and guarding during the session, which meant that it was the most overworked part of him right now.

And the worst part of it was, because of Higgs's lesson (which he was still glad to be getting, even if it was exhausting) that meant he had missed greeting the newest member of Star's commission, who was apparently Star's aunt or something. So not only had he missed a chance to finally begin acting as a member of the peace commission but he had missed an opportunity to meet another member of his girlfriend's family. And from the way Star had talked about her, she was quite fond of her too.

Maybe he could try and make a good first impression later, whenever that would be. He would have to be sure to have some sort of speech prepared or something, he didn't want to dare risk upsetting her as literally everything depended on their first meeting going well. Both because of his important duties as a representative for the Monsters and his future relationship with his amazing girlfriend.

“Hope everything went okay,” he mumbled worriedly to himself. But there was nothing really he could do about it right now. For now, all he wanted to do was get to his room and take a long nap, hoping he would feel better once he did. Maybe then he could go and help the others out, as well as meet their newest member. He just hoped they were doing well without him.

“Hey stop it, Daisy, that's mine!”

“No, it's not, it's mine! Mom gave it to me for my birthday!”

“Uhh, we both have the same birthday, dummy! And she gave it to me!”

“You're lying!”

“No you are!”

“Are not!

“Are too!”

Marco froze on the spot as he heard the loud argument of what sounded like a couple of kids coming from the guest bedroom. Young girls it sounded like. He didn't recognize their voices at all, which was quite strange. Sure he didn't know everyone in the castle but he was pretty sure if there were any children there, he would have noticed by now. He looked over at the door to the guest room and sure enough could see light clearly peeking out through the cracks. Huh, so there was someone staying in there, a couple of young and very noisy girls.

Marco crept slowly over, making sure not to make a sound, not that it was necessary considering the loud racket the two were still making within as they continued to fight over what seemed to be a pretty precious toy or something.

The hooded teen cracked open the door, so he could see inside, surveying the room closely. The once-empty room was now filled with toys and children's decorations everywhere, most of which were sprawled all over the floor. There was a bunk bed in the room, that Marco was sure hadn't been there before, the top with a cream-colored bedspread and pillow covered in flower print and the bottom a very, dark purple with creepy-looking eyeballs coating it, a small hand-made monster plush laying on it Marco noticed. He smiled, allowing his eyes to continue to roam, spotting a small table and chairs with a tea set lovingly and carefully set up on it before being pushed into the corner, while the other had jars full of some kind of dark blue goop inside (which Marco didn't even dare think of what the contents could be) in the other corner. The closest was opened and he could see two sets of clothing hung inside, one side full of bright, cheerful colored dresses, while the other end had the opposite: dark, dreary t-shirts and skirts. It seemed whoever was going to be staying in this room were about as opposite as night and day.

And once he saw the two girls, this confirmed this completely in his mind. They were standing in the middle of the room, large piles of toys stacked behind them, which Marco assumed was them trying to divide their things in half across the room. They were currently fighting over a fake wand, the hilt painted a dark green, but covered in bedazzled crystals, the top a rainbow with fake spiderwebs meticulously painted on it. The center was another of the creepy looking eyeballs which Marco noticed matched the dark haired girl's cheek marks. The tippy top of the wand had what looked like a unicorn horn poking out.

Just by looking at it Marco couldn't tell who the toy belonged to. By the looks of it, it seemed like the wand belonged to both of them. That thought brought Marco back to the question at hand, who were these two? He definitely hadn't seen them before, but it looked like they were moving in. Could they be fellow members Star hadn't told him about? Though the hooded boy would think they were too young for such an important and mature position and he didn't know if there was any sort of age rule against it or not.

But whoever they were, he felt like he should at least try and do something, unable to leave them arguing and fighting with each other like that. Marco opened the door wider and this instantly drew the attention of the two girls, who stopped their tug-of-war to stare shell-shocked at the stranger in their doorway. Marco could see their suspicious and apprehension toward him, as the peach haired girl even backed away a step, while the other glared at him wearily. “Um, hi there,” Marco said, trying to sound as non-threatening as possible, waving a hand slowly in the air and giving them a small smile, which he hoped came across as friendly and harmless and not at all creepy.

And though it didn't seem to thankfully frighten them anymore, they still never lost their looks of skepticism. “Who are you?” the dark-haired girl asked, narrowing her eyes at him.

“I'm Marco,” the hooded boy cheerfully introduced himself, momentarily forgetting their fear as he shot his hand toward them to shake, causing them both to jump and take another cautious step back, the light haired girl moving behind her sister for protection.

“Are you... one of the servants?” the cutesy twin tried, keeping a close eye on the red hooded boy's hand as if it might suddenly attack her.

“No, I'm Princess Star's boyfriend,” Marco said, his heart skipping beat as it always did whenever he mentioned this to anyone. It was still almost too good to be true.

The two girls shared a look with one another at that, before the dark one asked slowly, “Your our cousin's boyfriend?”

“Ohh,” Marco said smacking his head, ignoring the pain that resulted from it, too deep in his own realization to actually answer the girl, all the pieces finally sliding into place in his mind. So that was it. “Your Star's cousins.” Marco thought for a moment, before adding, “So then your mom must be our new member of the peace commission.”

The two girls nodded, muttering, “Mmm-hmm.” They now looked a lot more relaxed around the boy then before, the peach haired girl stepping out from behind her twin.

“Wow, so sorry, for just walking in on you like that,” Marco said, rubbing the back of his neck, sheepishly. “I just wasn't expecting anyone to be in here. Star didn't say anything about you two staying with us. So when I heard voices I decided to investigate.”

“That's okay!” the cutesy one said.

“So what are your names?” Marco asked.

“I'm Daisy!” the peach haired one announced loudly, pointing at herself and then at her sister. “And this is my little sister Violet.”

Violet glared at her sister for that, shouting angrily, “Only by three minutes!”

“Well it still counts,” Daisy said with a shrug.

“No it doesn't!”

“Yes it does!”

Marco looked uncomfortable as another fight began to break out, quickly saying, “Uh hey, do you two want to play a game?”

The two instantly ceased their bickering, whipping their heads around to the hooded boy, expectantly. “Like what?” Daisy asked curiously.

“Oh like, um...” Marco's eyes darted around the messy room, desperately searching for an idea to appease the girls. They stopped on the tea set and the boy blurted out, “A tea party!”

Daisy squealed and 'yay-ed' in joy, while Violet gagged at the suggestion, the mixed reaction troubling to Marco. “Lame!” Violet scoffed out. “And here I thought you might actually have something fun in mind.” Daisy turned to her sister with a look of anger and Marco knew he had to do something before another fight broke out.

“Well t-that's because I didn't tell you the catch,” he stuttered out quickly.

“Yeah and what's that?” Violet asked, raising a critical eyebrow at the boy, clearly calling his bluff.

Marco froze, sweat running down his face, as he tried to think of something that would please the gothic girl in front of him. Come on Marco, think, he urged himself. Okay, she's into all that weird, creepy stuff like Janna, so what would Janna do to make her happy?

“Weeee... were all just cursed by an evil witch!” Marco screamed out in fake panic. Violet and Daisy gave him confused looks and for a second Marco feared they wouldn't play along and just go back to fighting.

That was until Daisy gasped, looking horrified. “Oh no, really?”

“What do we do?” Violet asked, also looking aghast.

“The only way to undo it is with the cure that I have hidden inside this tea,” Marco said, dramatically pointing at the teapot.

“Then we better drink it quickly before the poison spreads to our nervous system and we become paralyzed,” the dark-haired girl said, joyfully. She really seemed like she was enjoying herself now and Marco smiled despite how strange it was that a young girl would be nonchalantly discussing the effectiveness of poisons. He was friends with Janna after all, this seemed almost normal in comparison to her.

“Oh no, I think it's already spreading to me!” Marco screamed, before falling over onto one of their beds, making fake dying sounds as he flailed around on the bed, causing both girls to laugh hysterically.

“Marco, you can't be moving if your paralyzed!” Daisy said, in between giggles.

“Oh right,” Marco said, before going still and stiff on the bed.

“Oh no he's dying!” Violet screamed. “Quickly Daisy, we need to give him the antidote!”

“I'm on it!” Daisy said, doing a salute as she raced over to the table, picking up her tea pot and a saucer and cup, before racing back over to where Violet, who was inspecting the immobile body of the hooded teen. “He only has seconds, hurry and give it to me!” Violet said, holding out her hand.

“No let me give it to him, I have more experience with tea,” Daisy argued, moving the teacup out of reach from her twin.

Violet huffed in frustration, but snapped out, “Fine, but do it fast!”

Daisy then preceded to pour an invisible cup of tea into the cup, before handing the empty pot to her sister, carefully crawling onto her bed, trying her very best not to spill, as if in fear of burning the boy with the hot, non-existent liquid. Once she was next to the boy, she held the cup out, saying, “Here you go.”

Marco sat up, taking the cup from her as he went to sip on it, but Daisy quickly stopped him. “Wait, you're doing it wrong.”

The hooded boy cocked his head to the side, as he asked the young girl, “Really how?

“Your supposed to hold your pinky out,” Daisy explained, holding out her pinky to demonstrate to Marco the correct way.

“Oh,” he said nodding, before obeying the girl, holding out his pinky before pretending to sip the 'antidote/tea'. He licked his lips and rubbed his tummy as he said satisfyingly, “Mmm, delicious.”

“Not really,” Violet spoke up, climbing up onto the bed, now sitting at Marco's other side. “Paralysis poison antidote is made out of the slime of the bitterbite frogs, which is one of the most disgusting creatures in the universe.” She paused for a second as the two just stared at her awkwardly. “Plus, tea is pretty gross anyways.”

“Well I like it,” Daisy huffed, her hands now on her hips. “Do you like tea, Marco?” she asked, the peach-haired girl looking up at him with cute, pleading eyes.

“Um, yeah I do,” Marco said. “Well I mean, I think I would, if I ever actually had any.”

Daisy gasped loudly. “You've never had tea before?” she exclaimed, looking like this was the most tragic, horrifying thing she'd ever heard.

Marco shook his head. “No, not that I can think of,” he said nonchalantly.

“Huh?” Violet commented, before quickly changing the subject to something else, “So now what are we gonna play?”

“How about dragon attack?” Daisy suggested, hopping up on her bed.

“Dragon attack?” Marco repeated in confusion. He'd never heard of the game before.

“Oh yeah, I love that game!” Violet agreed (for once), delightedly. “But I get to have the wand.”

“But you had the wand last time!” Daisy whined.

“Yeah, but I'm better at casting spells than you are. All your spells are just silly flowers and junk.”

“Marco who do you think should have the wand?” Daisy asked, looking up at the boy with pleading eyes and the boy froze, suddenly unsure of what to do.

“Umm, well to be honest I don't even know what dragon attack is,” Marco said, dodging the question for now.

The two looked at him in confusion. “How?” Daisy asked, looking dumbfounded that Marco didn't know what the very common game was.

Marco shook his head. “I just haven't,” he replied.

“But every kid I know has played that game!” Violet shouted in shock.

A sad look crossed Marco's face, as he softly replied, “Well, there were a lot of things I couldn't really do growing up. And I didn't really have other kids to play with to show me how to play these kinds of things.” And it was true, only Buff Frog or maybe one of the other Monsters would play with him. And even then it was pretty rare, most of the time Toffee wouldn't let them, having Marco had to stay in his room, alone, and not disturb the others.

The two girls shared a look across from each other, Daisy muttering sorrowfully, “That's so sad.” Marco noticed that the twins were on the verge of tears and quickly put a smile back on his face, saying in the most cheerful voice he could, “Hey it's not so bad. Now I get to try all kinds of new things. Like drinking tea...” Marco held up the tea cup, holding out his pinky and the two giggled. “Or playing with you two. Just tell me the rules and I'm sure I'll be fine.”

The two girls seemed to have perked up at this, the creepy twin quickly clearing her throat. “Well it goes like this,” she began. “You have a base, which is your castle.”

“ And then a dragon comes and attacks your castle,” Daisy quickly took over, jumping on the bed as she explained. “And then the princess, who has the wand, and her knights have to protect it from the dragon. If you beat the dragon you win, but if the dragon destroys your base then you lose.”

“And all your citizens get eaten,” Violet added dramatically.

Marco nodded thoughtfully. “Okay that sounds fun,” he agreed, smiling joyfully at the two.

The three quickly set up their game, making a make-shift castle out of building blocks and using pillows and stuffed animals as a defense system against the attacking dragon. Violet began taking down her jars of goop off of one of the shelves to use at their moat but was stopped by Marco, who told her that wasn't the best idea.

While the three were busy setting up, Daisy, out of nowhere, said, “Thanks for playing with us, Marco.”

Marco looked at the young girl in surprise.

“Yeah, none of the other adults ever play with us, they're always too busy.”

“And your way more fun than any of them!” Daisy added.

Marco blushed, looking bashfully between the two girls.“Aww, well thanks, I like playing with you two, too!” Marco said with a goofily wide smile, picking up the final remaining block and reaching up to set it in place. “After all, you are Star's family and anyone related to Star is alright in my book.”

“Do you love her?” Daisy asked and Marco, completely caught off guard by the sudden question, felt the blood rushing to his cheeks and released a surprised squeak, dropping the block he was holding, causing it to hit the unstable tower and bringing the whole thing crashing down to the floor, completely destroyed. Daisy and Violet covered their mouths in shock and Marco just looked down at the pile of unstacked blocks with a dazed look.

“Sorry,” Marco said, sheepishly.

“Guess we have to start over,” Violet sighed, bending down as she began re-stacking the blocks and the other two joined her. The three worked on the tower for a few moments in silence, until Marco suddenly spoke up, in a soft, embarrassed tone.

“She means a whole lot to me,” he admitted softly, his cheeks slightly tinged pink, keeping his eyes on the blocks as he began stacking. “She's my best friend. I don't know what I would do without her.”

Daisy and Violet both turned to the boy with wide smiles on their faces. “Are you two gonna get married?” Daisy asked, eagerly.

Marco thought that over. “I don't know, we haven't really talked about that yet. We've only been on one date so far,” Marco replied honestly.

“Well if you did get married, then we'd be related,” Violet pointed out, sounding quite pleased at the idea.

“Yeah, you'd be like our big brother!” Daisy exclaimed, clapping her hands in joy.

Marco smiled. “Huh, I've never had sisters before, that'd be pretty cool,” he said thoughtfully, imagining what it would be like to have siblings.

“Well we could be your little sisters now, if you wanted, even if we aren't related yet,” Violet offered.

Marco looked touched at that, giving her a wide, grateful smile saying in a chocked tone, “I'd like that.”

After that, the final block was set into place and the three stood back to admire their work, looking quite satisfied with their fake castle and defenses they had set up. “Okay, I think we're ready?!” Violet exclaimed, and Daisy cheered her agreement.

“Yeah, let's play!” the peach-haired girl yelled, pumping her fists into the air, before her and her sister ran over to their castle, crouching down behind the pile of pillow defenses, both of them now sharing hold on their toy wand.

But Marco couldn't help but notice something was missing. “Wait a minute, I just realized, who is gonna be the dragon?” he asked them and they looked at him like he was crazy.

“Silly, we're gonna make our own dragon,” Daisy said brightly as if the answer was obvious.

Marco frowned at the cryptic answer. “But how are we gonna-”

The hooded teen lost his voice though, as the twin's cheek marks began glowing bright white in sync and out of thin air, a large, dark blue dragon appeared out of thin air. It had at least twenty eyeballs on its face, all of them looking just like Violet's cheek marks. Its body was long and snake-like with small multicolored gems covering its scaled body, a small purple flower at the tip of its long black wings. It hovered in mid-air, flapping its bat-like wings with sharp, steady beats.

Marco stumbled back in fright of the creature, exclaiming fearfully, “Where the heck did that thing come from?!” the hooded boy asked, wanting to run out of the room, but afraid to leave the two little girls alone and without protection.

“We made it,” Daisy said simply, not looking the slightest bit fazed by the dangerous creature currently in their room.

“W-What? How?!” Marco asked loudly, in confusion.

“It's our Trait,” Violet explained. “We can make imaginary things, but only if we both are thinking about it at the same time.”

“Yeah if we don't agree, then it won't work,” Daisy added. “So a lot of times we can't because Violet decides to be a big, dummy head.”

“I do not!” Violet argued, fuming in anger.

“Well anyways,” Daisy continued, ignoring her twin's rage. “You should probably get down behind something, before it eats you, big brother.”

“Wait, what?!” Marco exclaimed in surprise, looking over to see the dragon spiraling toward him and he yelled, quickly running over to the pillow pile, where the two girls were. He leapt to safety behind the cushion-y wall, the dragon pulling up at the last second. Marco sat up, as he and the twins watched the dragon fly in circles around the ceiling, letting out a high-pitched roar. “So, what do we do, how do we beat it?” Marco asked panting, out of breath.

“We just have to destroy it by hitting it with stuff,” Violet explained.

Suddenly, above them, the dragon seemed to get tired from its endless circling, as it flew down, scraping across the floor, sending toys scattering across the room, sailing right toward the three and their block castle.

“Incoming!” Daisy yelled.

“Protect the castle!” Violet shouted, authoritatively. The three began throwing pillows and stuffed animals at the dragon, which growled in anger, trying to dodge the barrage of soft projectiles with no luck.

It huffed, before flying over the three's heads, who all ducked low to avoid getting hit, the dragon's swinging tail, nearly knocking over their block tower.

“Whoa, that was close,” Violet said breathlessly, as they all sat up.

“It's too strong we'll have to use magic to beat it!” Daisy suggested gravely.

“Yeah but someone will have to distract it while we get the spell ready,” Violet pointed out.

“Who's that gonna be?” Marco asked, simply. The two turned to him with knowing looks on their faces, which Marco didn't catch, staring blankly back at the girls. “What?”

The dragon did a loop through the air, planning its next attack, this one sure to take out the block castle. It bolted down toward the castle, nothing able to deter its path of destruction. That was until it was hit in the face with a pillow, causing it veer off course, flapping its wind awkwardly, as it dizzily shook its head clear of confusion. “Hey, over here!” called a nervous voice below. The mythical creature looked over at Marco, who had pillows strapped around his body as make-shift armor, another pillow being used as a shield. He looked at the dragon in fear, saying in what was supposed to be a fearless tone, but his squeaky, shaky voice shattered any hope of that, “Come and get me.”

The dragon, forgetting all about its main target, now flew toward the hooded teen, who stood in place for about two seconds before screaming at the top of lungs, running away from the beast and diving under the nearest bed, as the dragon sailed right over it. Marco put the pillow over his head as he waited for the dragon to leave or the twins to destroy it somehow, not sure how he had gotten himself into this mess.

What was this day, anyways? Having to go head to head with a terrifying, unrelenting beast... and now he was having to fight off a literal dragon. And right then, his old aches and pains stirred up again, reminded of the beating he had already taken that day with Higgs. But Marco knew he couldn't hide from the dragon forever, he would have to face it eventually and it wasn't real anyways, so it couldn't really hurt him... right?

Marco peaked out from under the bed, looking around for any signs of the creature, and saw it hovering just on the other side of the bed, a soft growl in its throat as it glared at him with its dozen creepy eyes. Marco chuckled sheepishly, whispering nervously, “Umm, any way of you not trying to eat me and maybe just surrender and let us win the game?”

The dragon only growled in response and Marco sighed loudly. “Yeah, thought so.”

Marco dodged out of the way as the creature snapped at him, using his pillow to block its biting jaw, which resulted in it snapping up his make-shift shield and sending it flying to the other side of the room and far out of his reach.

“Uh oh, that's not good,” Marco whispered in terror, before looking back up at the dragon, which now had steam coming out of its nostrils. “Oh that's even worse!” Marco yelled.

“Hang on, Marco we're coming!” Daisy yelled as her and Violet jumped across their beds. But they were too far away and the dragon was already ready to attack, taking a deep breath in. The hooded boy grabbed another pillow up from the floor and held it feebly in front of him, closing his eyes as he awaited himself to be burnt to a crisp.

But as it breathed out, instead of fire and flames shooting out its mouth, instead, small bubbles filled the air, drifting around the hooded teen and popping all around him. Marco opened his eyes and blinked once in confusion. “It breathes bubbles?” Marco muttered in disbelief.

“Well yeah, you didn't think we'd actually make it able to breath fire, did you?” Violet commented, putting her hands on her hips as she stood on her bed.

“Yeah that's way too dangerous,” Daisy added from next to her. “Then mom would never let us play this game.”

“So anyways,” Violet said, before yelling in a commanding tone, “Do not fear, knight! For we shall save you from this horrid beast!”

“Yeah, come and get us, ugly!” Daisy added, shouting up to the still hovering dragon.

The dragon obeyed the command, rushing toward the two, who both laughed as they jumped to the next bed, avoiding the creature. It shot more bubbles at them, which the two moved out of the way of, landing safely on the floor. The dragon did a needless spin in the air, before spiraling toward the two.

The two acted quickly as they both held up their toy wand together, shouting out their spells to end the dragon.

“Flower Heart Devastation!” Daisy yelled, as Violet at the same time shouted, “Evil Death Beam!”

The two shared a surprised look, before frowning at one another. “Violet, you were supposed to use Flower Heart Devastation, that's my most powerful spell!” Daisy whined.

“What, no way, Evil Death Beam is way more powerful than your dumb frilly flower spell,” Violet scoffed.

“It is not!”

“Is too!”

“Is Not!”

“Is too!”

Marco sighed, as the two ended up in the exact same place they had started from, arguing, all of his attempts in the end futile. He turned to stare at the dragon, as it suddenly faded from existence, the two no longer in agreement, meaning their power would no longer work. He walked over to the two, trying to think of something to say to get them to stop but nothing came to mind.

So instead he just said the only thing he could think of, which was, “Umm, girls, the dragon's gone.”

The two stopped their arguing as they turned to see that it was in fact gone, before frowning at each other again. “Great now you ruined our game with big brother,” Daisy huffed angrily.

“No you did!” Violet shouted.

“Come on, guys. Please don't fight,” Marco tried, his voice desperate. “You two are sisters, you shouldn't be fighting.”

Daisy and Violet turned to Marco in confusion, Daisy quickly exclaiming, “But Violet messed up our game.”

“She wasn't messing it up,” Marco spoke up. “She just had a different way of playing. That doesn't mean she ruined things.” The two went quiet at that and so Marco decided to try and take it a step further. “Now you two should apologized to each other for arguing,” Marco added, in the most authoritative tone he could.

The two hesitated doing so for a moment though, Daisy kicking her foot against the floor, while Violet just stared at the far wall with her arms crossed in front of her chest. “Umm, sorry for blaming you for stuff,” Daisy muttered sheepishly, rubbing at her arm, still not looking in her sister's direction.

“And I'm sorry for calling your spell dumb,” Violet added, even softer than her twin had, Marco barely able to pick up on the small voice.

The boy nodded happily, trying to replicate his voice to sound like Buff Frog as he said, “Now you two hug and make up.”

The twins obeyed, pulling each other into a very awkward sibling hug, but Marco was satisfied that the two had seemed to of made up. Or weren't fighting still, at least. “There, now that's much better,” he praised the two, as they pulled apart. But the two still looked upset, refusing to meet his eye and staring sulkingly at their feet.

“Hey, what's wrong?” Marco asked in concern.

“Sorry for ruining your first game of Dragon Attack, big brother,” Violet said woefully, looking near to the brink of tears.

“Yeah, we just wanted you to have fun, but we didn't even get to finish it,” Daisy said pitifully.

Marco gave them a sympathetic smile, before opening his arms wide to them. “Come here,” he said and the two rushed to give him a hug. He wrapped his arms around the two, holding them tightly. “It's okay, girls, I still had fun. Besides, I'm kinda not really a big fan of Dragon Attack, it's a bit more intense than I like.”

The two girls giggled, as Marco gently ruffled their hair, “Maybe next time we can play something a little less life-threatening.”

“Oooh, like a board game!” Daisy suggested cheerily. “We still have a copy of Magical Chutes and Ladders!”

“Or Castle Defenders!” Violet proposed.

“Sounds good,” Marco agreed.

Suddenly, there was a loud growl from the peach-haired girl's stomach, everyone turning to her in surprise. “Ugh, beating up dragons made me reeaaally hungry,” she groaned rubbing at her rumbling tummy.

Marco laughed, before saying cheerfully, “Well then let's go and get you two something to eat.”

The two cheered, each taking one of the boy's hands as he led them out of their room and into the hallway, the two practically skipping with every step.

“And then maybe we can get you some tea,” Daisy suggested and Marco shrugged.

“I don't know, we'll have to see,” the hooded teen said.

The two walked in silence for a moment, before Violet spoke up. “Um, big brother,” she said, hesitantly.

“Yeah,” Marco said.

“How come you never got to drink tea or play games with other kids before?” the dark-haired girl asked, looking up at him with curious eyes. Marco froze at the question, as a rush of memories flooded his system.

“Um, well..” he started, not sure what to say to the two. How much should he tell them? He didn't want to scare them with talk about Master Toffee, they were still a little young to hear about that?Plus, Marco wasn't too sure he was really ready to talk about that, anyways. It was still pretty painful.

“Were your parents really mean or something?” the peach-haired girl added.

“Well, no not really,” Marco said, trying to keep his voice calm and hide the aching he felt in every fiber of his being. “My real parents died when I was baby. I was actually raised by Monsters.”

Violet suddenly gasped, as she let go of his hand and instead grabbed onto the boy's arm, shaking him violently, causing poor Marco to cry out in pain, his body still sore from Higgs' training. “You were raised by Monsters!”

“Owwww!” Marco yelped, as he was helplessly flung back and forth. He was thankful when the young girl finally stopped her senseless shaking, though still clinging tightly onto his arm, now standing on her tiptoes as she just gave him an eager look, waiting for him to respond. “Uh yeah, Buff Frog and some other Monsters raised me after my parents died,” Marco explained, letting go of Daisy's hand so he could rub at his now aching neck, the hooded teen pretty sure the shaking had caused him to pull a muscle.

Violet screamed at the top of her lungs, unable to contain her excitement anymore and Marco quickly covered his now-ringing ears. “I can't believe it! You've met a real life Monster! That's been my dream! What do they look like?” Marco opened his mouth to answer, but the girl continued to throw out question after question with no sign of stopping. “Can they do dark magic? Cause see I heard one time that they could do dark magic even though it's forbidden. Did they ever try to use dark magic on you? Or maybe they tried to eat you? Do they eat Mewmans?!”

“What, no of course they don't!” Marco quickly exclaimed, horrified that the young girl could even suggest such a thing. “Monsters are actually really nice.” Marco paused for a second biting his lip, as a pair of sinister yellow eyes flashed into his mind and he nearly shuddered. “Well some of them may be bad,” he corrected himself. “But they definitely don't eat people. And as far as I know they can't do dark magic”

“Oh,” Violet said sadly, clearly disappointed. But her hopes rose once again as she asked, “Well, are there any Monsters in the castle that I could meet?”

“I hope not,” Daisy muttered, her eyes wide in fear. She was afraid of Monsters, all the stories about them eating children making her quite frightful. Violet often would tease her, telling her that if she wasn't careful the Monsters might gobble her up while she was sleeping.

“No, there aren't any Monsters here right now,” Marco said, shaking his head. Both Daisy and Violet sighed in unison, but the older twin was sighing in relief, while the younger was sighing in disappointment. “But maybe if your mom is okay with it, I can take you to meet my family the next time I go visit them.”

“Really?” Violet exclaimed, while Daisy looked terrified again. She quickly hide herself in Marco's side, the hooded teen looking down at her in surprise.

“No, I don't want to meet any Monsters,” she squeaked timidly, her small form shaking like a leaf and her tone muffled with her face buried in Marco's hood. “They're scary. They'll gobble me up and make me into a big Mewman stew!”

Marco looked down at her sadly. He couldn't believe such a young, innocent child could be so terror-stricken by the creatures that had raised him. What kind of messed up world did they live in if the children were instilled with so much fear at just the mere mention of the Monsters? There was still so much that needed to be undone before Mewni could be made right. “No Monster is going to eat you, I promise,” he said softly, wrapping a tender arm around the girl.

“Yeah, Daisy don't you remember what mom told us, the Monsters aren't bad anymore, we all made up,” Violet pitched in helpfully.

“In fact, right now Star, your mom and I are working on making a peace commission,” Marco added.

Daisy, finally lifted her head up, staring into Marco's brown eyes with shining pupils. “What's that?” the young girl asked, cocking her head cutely to the side.

“Duh, weren't you even listening before. It's something Star made up so that the Monsters and Mewmans won't fight anymore.”

“So the Monsters aren't bad now?” Daisy asked, nervously.

“No, most of them are really good,” Marco reassured the girl, patting her back softly. “And the ones that aren't, my dad, Buff Frog, is going to stop them from hurting anyone. He's the leader of the Monsters, y'know.”

“Is he gonna eat any of the bad Monsters?” Violet asked, innocently.

“No!” Marco quickly corrected her in a flash. “He's not gonna eat anyone.”

Daisy sniffed, wiping her eyes with her arm, looking less scared than she was before as she asked, “Your dad is the leader?”

Marco nodded. “That's right.”

“So are you like a prince?”

Marco's eyes widened. “Umm, I'm not really sure. I mean, Buff Frog isn't really a king or anything...” the hooded teens voice drifted off, as a million new questions swirled around his head. He made a mental note to call his dad later and ask.

“Well if you were a prince than that means you and Star could have an arranged marriage,” Violet said, as the two continued down the hallway. “That's what some royal couples do sometimes.”

“Maybe, we'll see,” Marco said casually. In reality, though, he had no idea what that meant, but didn't want to admit it to the two. He just made another mental note to ask Star about it later.

…

“Okay...” Star said tiredly. “I think that's a good stopping point for the day.”

She looked around her room with bleary eyes. They had made significant progress, so far, a large chunk of the paperwork finished. They had had to sort through it all, putting it into their proper stacks, before signing and filling out the most important one's first. Luckily, Aunt Lily had known which ones those were and that helped Star out a lot. With those done, they could at least get fully certified from the MHC, while they filled out the rest. So that was at least one problem down for the day.

The blond royal sighed, massaging her eyelids with her palms, thick bags now hanging under her normally bright blue irises. Jackie and Aunt Lily didn't look much better, the skater, leaning far back in the chair she was in, looking on the brink of falling asleep. Lily looked a bit more composed, sitting up straight on Star's couch, but her hair was frazzled in places and her eyes drooped with exhaustion. Suddenly, a voice out of nowhere spoke up, startling the group.

“Huh, it says here that if you cut off a mermaid's tail that you can never be queen, isn't that interesting?” Star and the others turned in shock to see Janna laying on Star's bed, examining one of the papers closely, looking comfortable and relaxed.

“Janna, how long have you been there?!” Star demanded angrily, putting her hands on her hips.

“Mmm, about two hours I'd say,” the creepy girl replied nonchalantly. “Man, there are some weird rules in here.”

“And you never thought about maybe helping us out,” Jackie questioned her roommate in obvious annoyance.

“Of course I did. I just didn't want to,” Janna replied calmly, not even looking away from the paper. “Did you know that if you refuse to eat corn offered to you by a member of the MHC that you can be sentenced to up to 2,000 years in crystal?”

Star let out a frustrated sigh, running a hand slowly down her face. “No, I didn't know that,” Star said in exasperation.

“I also wasn't aware of that,” Lily piped up, sounding quite cheerful.

“Well, now you do, your welcome,” Janna said, before throwing the paper away, letting it fall randomly to the floor, not even bothering with their carefully planned out filing system. Star's eye twitched, before she covered her head in her hands, letting out a frustrated groan. Normally Janna's behavior didn't bother her, but she was too tired and frustrated right now to simply shrug it off.

Jackie put a hand on the blond's shoulder, telling her, “You know how she is. It's best just to ignore her.”

Star let out a deep sigh, releasing all her stress and anger. “Let's just... go get something to eat,” the blond royal said, deciding to take Jackie's advice.

“Sounds great,” Janna said, rising from the bed and walking over to the door. She looked back at them with a smirking grin, saying, “Well, hurry up, slowpokes. Before it gets cold.”

Star growled in annoyance and both Jackie and Aunt Lily put a hand on either shoulder, giving her consoling looks. Jackie opened her mouth, but Star quickly said, “I know, I know. Just ignore her.”

…

The four were just passing by the kitchen on the way to the dining hall when Jackie heard giggles coming from inside the kitchen area. The skater stopped and said to the others, “Did you guys hear that?”

“Hear what?” Star questioned, giving her a confused look.

That's when they all heard the small and familiar giggles echoing around the room, along with a much older sounding one, that Star recognized in a second. “Marco?” she said.

This was confirmed a second later as they all heard the clear voice of none other than Marco Diaz. “Are you two sure your mom lets you eat this much chocolate?” his muted voice asked.

“Positive,” the voice of little Daisy replied.

“Yeah, don't worry so much, big brother,” Violet said a second later.

“Okay, if your sure,” Marco replied, though he himself sounded slightly unsure still.

“Did he say chocolate?” Lily asked in concern. She knew all too well what too much sugar could do to her daughters.

“Oh Marco,” Star sighed.

Lily quickly rushed over to the door, the three teens right behind her. She threw the door open to reveal Marco and the twins on the floor of the kitchen, a bowl of chocolate pudding between them, being shared by all of them. Everything around them was covered in the substance, including them, chocolate on their faces, clothes, and hair. They all froze when they saw the group enter, Marco in shock and Daisy and Violet in alarm. Their faces both switched to guilt and regret as they threw their spoons of pudding back in the bowl in Marco's lap and tried their best to hide behind the hooded teen.

“Um, hey guys,” Marco said in uncertainty seeing the looks on their faces. “What's up?”

“Oh Marco,” Star sighed again, her heart going out to him. Her sweet, naive gullible bestie. By the looks of it, it was obvious that her mischievous cousins had tricked her poor, innocent boyfriend into breaking the rules.

It seemed her aunt had realized the same as she asked in a scolding tone, “Daisy, Violet, did you trick this young boy into giving you chocolate?”

“Ummmm...” they both said, unsure how to answer.

“Nice,” Janna said in appreciation of the two's level of skill. Jackie shot her a glare to let her know to keep her mouth shut.

“You know your not supposed to have any sugar before dinner,” Lily continued.

Marco just watched the situation progressing in confusion, looking quite uncomfortable being caught in the middle of whatever this was and Star gave him a sympathetic look.

“Sorry mom,” the two muttered, lowering their head in shame.

Marco's eyes instantly widened in realization and he shot to his feet, causing the bowl of pudding to tumble over, landing face-down creating an even larger mess on the floor. “Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry, ma'am,” the hooded boy shouted, looking panicked. He shifted hesitantly for a moment, debating on if she offer his hand or bow, sweat beginning to surface on his face over the difficult decision. Finally, he dropped into a late bow, saying in the most remorseful tone he could, “I had no idea... I mean, if I had known I never would have...”

“That's quite all right, young man,” Lily interrupted, before the boy could continue stumbling out an apology. “This is on my daughters, not you.” She gave them a scolding glare and they both shifted nervously on their feet. She turned back to the boy, adding, “I'm sorry they roped you into their little scheme.”

“Oh no, they didn't have any rope,” Marco replied, innocently.

Star, Jackie and Janna all smiled at the boy, shaking their heads at his naivety. Lily raised an eyebrow for a second, before turning to Star. “So I'm assuming this is the boy you told me about?”

“Yep, that would be Marco,” the blond royal replied, glad she had told her aunt all about Marco's innocent and adorable tendencies while they were doing paperwork.

Lily stepped forward, before offering her hand to the still bowing Marco. “It's a pleasure to meet you, Marco. I'm Lily Butterfly, Star's aunt. Star's told me a lot about you,” she said pleasantly.

“Oh no the pleasure is all mine!” Marco replied, shaking her hand far too enthusiastically, but Lily didn't seem to mind, still just smiling warmly at the boy. “Star's told me a lot about you, too,” Marco continued, still not releasing her hand. “She said your really cool and fun to be around.”

“Well I try,” Lily said modestly, allowing the boy to vigorously shake her hand.

Meanwhile, the twins slowly tried to creep away, tip-toeing toward the exit. But Jackie blocked off their path, looking down at them with crossed arms. “Oh no you two don't.”

“Drat,” Violet sighed, Daisy adding in, “Busted.”

“Marco would you mind releasing my hand so that I can finish scolding my daughters,” Lady Lily asked politely.

Marco blushed and obeyed, muttering a quick apology. Lily went over to Daisy and Violet, the two looking up at her with nervous frowns. “Now then, you two know that you aren't allowed to eat chocolate without my permission, right?”

The two nodded silently.

“And you also know that lying to others is wrong, as well?”

Daisy and Violet just nodded again.

“So what do you two have to say for yourselves?”

“Sorry, mom,” Violet mumbled.

“Yeah, sorry,” Daisy sheepishly apologized, hanging her head.

Lily let out a breath, before saying, “Very well, if you are sorry, then I will let it go this time. But I expect you two to clean up your mess.”

“Yes mom,” the two said in unison, though they looked relieved that their punishishment was only minor.

“And I want you to apologize to Marco, as well.”

Daisy and Violet turned to Marco, saying, “Sorry, Marco.”

“Good,” Lily said, her tone light once again, giving the two a quick hug. She looked over to the hooded teen again, saying, “Thank you for looking after my daughters, Marco. I hope they weren't too much trouble.”

Marco shook his head. “No, not at all. I had fun playing with them,” he replied honestly.

“We had fun with you too, big brother,” Daisy said, with a grin.

Lily looked down at her daughter. “Big brother?” she asked in confusion.

“Yeah, that's what we're calling Marco,” Violet explained.

“Why?” their mother questioned.

“Cause he's like our big brother,” Daisy said, as if the answer should be obvious. “He plays with us and stuff, like a big brother is supposed to do.”

“Plus, he's Star's future husband,” Violet added, causing Star and Marco's cheeks to light up and Jackie and Janna's mouths to drop open.

“W-What?” Star stuttered, her mind going completely blank at the thought and her heart thumping away against her will.

Violet shrugged. “I'm just saying.”

“What have you three been talking about?” Jackie asked, looking over at Marco.

Marco looked around the room, flustered. “Well, I mean, um.... I didn't say we were going to get married. I just said, me and Star hadn't really... umm... I mean...” Marco's voice drifted off in embarrassment, not looking in Star's direction.

“I-It's fine, Marco,” Star said, her voice cracking against her will. “I know you know were too young for that still.”

“Right, of course,” he said, nodding, hoping they could please change the subject now.

Janna did just that, as she approached the two girls saying, “You two squirts really need to learn how to cover your tracks better.”

“Janna!” Violet exclaimed, wrapping her arms around her in a tight hug. “It's you! I missed you!”

“Missed you, too,” Janna said, patting her head softly. “So how's my young successor been doing?” She lowered her voice, whispering, “Found any new species of creepy crawlies while you were away?”

Violet tried to replicate Janna's signature smirk, coming remarkable close. “Yeah, I did. But mom took it away, after I hid it under Daisy pillow while she was sleeping.”

“That's my girl,” Janna said, ruffling the girl's hair.

“Great, now there's two of them,” Star muttered, watching the display in annoyance and exasperation.

“They're multiplying,” Jackie added in concern.

“Should we be worried?” Marco asked.

“Yes,” both girls deadpanned.

Star once again changed the subject, asking Marco, “So what were you two doing in here anyways?”

But it was Daisy who answered, shouting, “We were going to make some tea for big brother to try.”

Star looked at her boyfriend in confusion. “Tea?”

“Yeah, I've never had any before,” Marco said sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck. “But then we saw the chocolate pudding and well... y'know.”

Star laughed, leaning over and giving the boy a quick peck on the cheek. “Your adorable,” she sighed, lovingly.

Marco just blushed, his throat closing up and not allowing him to reply. He felt a small tug on his hoodie and looked down to see Daisy, who whispered none too quietly up to him, “Now you say she's adorable and kiss her back.”

Marco looked back at Star, nervously saying, “Um, she's adorable. I mean, your a-adorable too,” He leaned in and kissed her on the lips and Star closed her eyes as she allowed it to deepen.

“Nailed it,” Daisy said proudly to herself, doing a small, little fist pump in the air.

Once, the two pulled out of the breathless kiss, Star panted out, “So I guess there is only one thing left to do then.”

“What's that?” Marco asked, equally short on oxygen.

…

Marco, with the rest of the gang all gathered around him, looked down at the small cup of tea that sat waiting on the large dining table, steam steadily rising from the cup. “Will that be all, Your Majesty?” the servant who had prepared and brought them the drink asked.

“Yes, thank you,” Star replied kindly.

The servant bowed, before leaving the dining room, everyone's attention back on both Marco and the cup, which caused quiet a bit of embarrassment for the boy, as he stood unmoving, his face bright red. “Well go on, Marco, drink up,” the blond royal encouraged and the hooded teen nodded, gently grabbing the small handle on the teacup. He lifted it slowly, making sure not to spill and being sure that his pinky was sticking out like Daisy had shown him. He seemed mesmerized by the dish, as he just watched as the liquid within swirl around from his movements, gently blowing on the cup to try and cool it down enough to drink.

Finally, Violet grew too impatient to wait any longer, yelling, “Just hurry up and drink the stupid thing!”

Marco yelped at the sudden interruption, jumping a bit and nearly spilling the drink all over the floor and himself, stumbling as he tried to quickly right the cup. Lily shot her daughter a glare, which Daisy mimicked and Violet just looked begrudgingly back at them. “What? He was taking too long,” she grumbled defensively.

Once, Marco gained a steady hold on the cup, he let out a sigh, before a finger ran up his spine, causing him to scream again this time actually dropping the drink, which Star caught using her magic, lifting the wand up as she put the liquid back in the small teacup setting it back down on the table.

The hooded teen panted breathlessly from the scare, looking behind him with no surprise to see Janna smirking at him. “Janna, why did you do that?!” he asked via panicked shout.

But the creepy girl just shrugged, saying calmly, “Couldn't resist.” Violet and Daisy couldn't quite stifle their giggles, covering their mouths with their hands to try and silence themselves.

Marco just turned back to his drink and lifted it up once more, this time actually bringing it to his lips as he slowly sipped on it. Daisy and Violet leaned forward a bit, both highly anticipating his reaction to the drink.

Finally, Marco lowered the cup, licking his lips, a thoughtful expression on his face. “So Marco, what do you think?” Star asked.

“It's...” Marco looked down at the small cup, trying to find a way to put it into words. “It tastes kinda different than I expected,” he admitted.

“Good different,” Jackie pressed.

“Yeah, I like it, it's just y'know not that great,” Marco said with a shrug. “It's just sorta average I guess.”

Daisy and Violet both shared a look with each other, now at a complete loss. Who had won? After all that their big brother Marco just seemed kinda indifferent. The room was quite for a moment, before Lily spoke up saying, “Well that was a bit anti-climatic, wasn't it?”

“Soooo, who wants some popcorn?” Janna suggested and the twin's hands instantly shot up.

“I do! I do!” they shouted in sync.

“Movie night in our room?” Jackie suggested and the twins cheered as one.

Star nodded, “Yeah that sounds good, thanks Jacks,” After all the chaos that had been going on lately it would be good to just relax and have some down time.

“I'll go speak to the chef and have him bring it up to your room,” Lady Lily said, heading toward the kitchen.

“Wait,” Star said, grabbing her arm to stop her for a moment. “Aren't you going to watch it with us?”

“Of course, I will join you shortly,” Lily said, smiling at her favorite niece.

“Well then let's go and get things set up,” Jackie said, turning to her roommate and asking, “Do you still have that magic mirror hidden in your closet, Jan?”

Janna scoffed, before saying proudly, “Oh Jacks, I've got several.”

Jackie opened her mouth to reply, before she shook her head, saying, “Not even gonna ask.”

“That's probably wise.”

The two headed for the door and Marco turned to Star, the two locking gaze, their hands reaching out for each other. But just then two small hand gasped onto his own. He looked down to see Daisy and Violet, holding onto him eagerly, both bouncing on the balls of their feet. “Come on, big brother, let's go!” Violet shouted, before the two began practically dragging the boy across the room and Marco laughed, as he once again allowed himself to be led out, turning back to his girlfriend with an apologetic smile.

Star shot him a look to let him know it was okay, before following after, watching with a wide smile at the adorable display. Though she had wanted to be the one to walk with Marco and spend some time with him, she was also glad to see that her cousins had taken a liking to him.

…

Later that night, after the last movie was done, the group all just sat around Jackie's bed, Star, Jackie and Janna just chatting as the credits rolled on the magic mirror. Lily just sat listening to the three, a small smile on her face. But as the girls' voices unknowingly raised some, she quickly shushed them, drawing their attention to her. “Shh, you're going to wake them,” she whispered softly.

The 'them' she was talking about was none other than, Marco, Daisy and Violet, lay fast asleep, the two girls cuddling close to the hooded teen, a large blue blanket drapped over them. They all snored softly, looking both peaceful and far too cute for words as they just snoozed, unaware of the world turning, looking safe and content, cuddling close there together.

Star smiled at over at the three. It was so nice to see her youngest family members and her precious Marco getting along, the two easily accepting Marco into their lives, much like she had, and that thought sent her heart fluttering, barely able to contain how cute her boyfriend looked right now. It reminded her of why she had fallen for the boy in the first place.

She slowly leaned over to the boy, giving him a soft peck on the cheek,causing him to smile in his sleep, as she said quietly, “Good night, big brother, Marco. Sweet dreams.”

#Star vs #Star vs Au #My Writing #Light of the Sun and Stars #Starco #Big Brother Marco

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