#doing his goddamn BEST

[choctalksalot]

frustration

[nobodieshero-main]

Atlas x Taylor Swift, courtesy of @tbos-main

dont be mad but.... i was listening to 'you're on your own kid' by taylor swift and it made me think of atlas DONT BE MAD. like the bridge bit specifically 'from sprinkler splashes to fireplace ashes i gave my blood, sweat and tears for this i hosted parties and starved my body like id be saved by a perfect kiss' as him before the quest when he's this nobleborn guy who's under so much pressure from his parents but he knows the flashy preppy lifestyle isnt at all for him and he wants to LEARN and have ADVENTURES not live a life that's been planned for him and then 'the jokes weren't funny i took the money my friends from home dont know what to say' for him when he comes BACK after the quest is done and keika is 'dead' and he's there with his reward and he's home but it's just not at all right and in his attempt to escape a life that was planned for him he inadvertently walked right into the preordained destiny that was written and thrust upon him centuries ago BUT THEN 'i looked around in a blood-soaked gown and i saw something they cant take away cause there were pages turned with the bridges burned everything you lose is a step you take so make the friendship bracelets take a moment and taste it you've got no reason to be afraid' MAYBE THE REAL HIGH-STAKES FANTASY QUEST WAS THE FOUND FAMILY WE MADE ALONG THE WAY MAYBE HE'S GONNA SPIT IN DESTINY AND HIS PARENT'S FACE DESPITE IT ALL 'you're on your own kid yeah you can face this you're on your own kid you always have been'

[luck-of-the-drawings]

so REVENGE, HUH? or justice, if that makes you feel better. it tastes the same when cooked just right. 'I REALLY WANTED A BROTHER.' such a shame to burn a bridge you so desperately wanted to keep, especially when it wasnt even you who started the fire. especially when you hope that not a single fragment of that bridge ever washes ashore.[MAY IT ROT FAR FROM MY SIGHTS] an unfortunate loss! atleast he has his friends.

[shannonsketches]

thinking about gohan and vegeta and how their bond is underrated

the difference in their reactions to each other 😭

Gohan being the first one to step between Vegeta and Certain Death, twice, without an ounce of hesitation, and Vegeta saving him back despite his feelings about battle intervention.

Vegeta knowing Gohan's the best of all of them

Vegeta and Gohan both born prodigies assigned an unfair amount of responsibility to be Great and be a Saiyan Messiah(tm) way too young by a stubborn and proud if not (relatively) well-meaning father who didn't see any other option and I just think Gohan doesn't get enough credit as like. The first serious muscle behind Geets' personal growth.

[winterinvelaris]

i need elucien and gwynriel for several reasons but one of them is that im sick of us pretending that rhysand was wrong in the bonus chapter lol like yes he wasn't the nicest about it but he knows his brother and he knows what it looks like when az is (and is not) in love and as the high lord he doesnt want to risk the delicate situation with tamlin and lucien getting worse over azriel's lust for elain. the next book will be such a struggle to read if the conflict continues to be "fuck you rhysand how dare you do your job"

[starcurtain]

Given that we know Ratio's home world takes inspiration from ancient Rome and ancient Greece, including their clothing...

What if we are all over here calling Ratio slutty for his waist cut-outs, only to get to his home planet and find out he's more covered than 99% of the population and they all think he's a prude for not having at least one (1) whole tit out?

Like, what are we going to do if Ratio's chest cut-out turns out to be the Veritas Prime equivalent of a Victorian girl showing only one ankle??

[spicyvampire]

SHADOWHUNTERS 1.06 “Of Men and Angels”

[kavehater]

I support girls but NAH THIS IS REACHING “if you look carefully LIKE REALLY CAREFULLY 🤓☝️”

[fear-no-mort]

thinkign about how alone and unloved morty was for all his life and rick was the first time anyobdy ever put such an amount of intense attention and dependency onto him . and rick had a whole new family and losing them made him stop seeing the value in other people as a whole and morty was the one and first thing that woke him up

[forgetful-nerd]

Ok. After reading several 2012! TMNT fanfictions, I just have to comment on this one thing that's driving me up the wall.

Raphael is almost never written correctly. Like I'm not just talking about the constant bashing he gets. I'm talking about how he insults/teases his brothers is portrayed completely wrong like 90% of the time.

Rapheal does not just wake up in the morning and decides to go belittle his brothers with basic, unimaginative insults. No no no. Name calling is to plain for Raph. Instead, Raphael bides his time and waits for the perfect moment to do so.

The boys are on a mission and they find themselves in the middle of an abandoned warehouse? Raphael would say something like “this place is emptier than Mikey’s head.”

Donnie’s explaining how Microscopes help people examine things to small to see with the naked eye? Raph would interject like “wow! Maybe then we can finally see Mikey’s brain with this thing!”

The team is trapped in a particularly disgusting sewer? Raph would be saying “this place smells worse than Leo’s cooking” then a pile of sludge would drop directly on his face and after wiping it off he’d go “but it definitely tastes better.”

Raph is stuck in the villians’ grasp as Leo starts a huge dorky hero speech? He would dead ass turn to villain and just say “can you do me a favor and just kill me now before he rambles on for the next hour?”

The boys are fighting giant bird mutant that has a piercing super sonic screech? Raph would be like “goddamn this thing shrieks almost as loud as Donnie!”

Donnie pointing out something really obvious during one of their missions? Raph would sarcastically quip something like “Truly your insight is really invaluable to this team Donatello.”

And y’all crossover fanfiction writters are absolutely kidding yourselves if you think Rise! Donnie wouldn’t adore taunting people with 2012! Raph. Hell they'd probably go off and brainstorm some new ones for each of their brothers and counterparts. Poor Rise! Leo would definitely be taking brunt of their insults.

Just let him be the teasing terror of a brother that he is.

[mewtwo24]

Something about Hua Cheng's expression here is killing me--I know this is supposed to be a delicate moment of reassurance but the pure hater energy radiating off of him is just immaculate

[thevioletcaptain]

[mavspeed]

something that really pisses me off is this headcanon that ice would have been or was against mav pulling bradley’s papers for the academy.

like i’m sorry but I need some of you to think for a second. this is a man whose jet wash indirectly also led to the accident that resulted in goose’s death and probably carried that guilt for half his life too. this is also the man who was there to watch mav and carole grieve for the brother/husband they lost for YEARS. not to mention he was close to goose as well since they were both at the academy. like he would have wanted to protect bradley just as much as mav did when he made the decision to pull the papers. it’s a dumb moment for both of them but again. 100% they would have both thought they were doing the right thing for bradley.

[polysyndetonaddictsupportgroup]

what would megumi’s life have been if he was actually raised by the zenin from day one? like either gojo lost the custody battle or they were able to scoop him up before gojo ever reached them. i doubt they would want to keep tsumiki with them so she’s not there for little baby megs.

i think it would be really cool to see a zenin raised megumi interacting with his fellow classmates when he attends the school, not to mention the contrast between him and gojo. like on paper they both should have gotten the same treatment-being pampered and spoiled rotten but we also know that the zenin think that hurting little kids makes them stronger so it would be super interesting to see megumi realise that the stuff that happened to him wasn’t normal and for gojo to have a guilt trip bc he wasn’t able to help megumi when he needed someone to help him the most.

So I have a fanfic that I’ve half written (no idea if I’ll ever finish it—I’d love to, it’s just hard to find the time) about EXACTLY THAT that I talked about in this post for an ask game.

That being said, that entire thing happens from Tsumiki’s perspective, and I agree with you—I don’t think the Zenin would have ever actually taken her too. They don’t want her. She’s not Zenin. She’s not a sorcerer. They only bought Megumi. For the most part, Megumi is absent from that post, and you asked about Megumi. So this is what I think would happen on Megumi's side of that post I linked.

It comes down to two things:

1. He is never, ever happy with the Zenin.

2. He never lets go of his sister.

Megumi’s old enough to remember Tsumiki when the Zenin take him away. He's old enough to love her. And I think that Megumi loves very quietly, but he also loves very violently. He wouldn't let his sister hold his hand on the walk to school, but he would sacrifice himself for her future.

I think the Zenin took him from his sister, and I think he kicked and screamed and wasn't strong enough. I think they thought he would forget her eventually.

And then I think he bit most of the Zenin Clan.

At the end of the day, what Megumi wanted was the one thing the Zenin were not willing to give him. They were never like the Gojo clan, they were never going to pamper him, but there are a great many things in this world that they would give the Ten Shadows finally returned to them. But they would not give him a non-sorcerer, non-Zenin sister who would only be a weakness to him. They refused to let him have any contact with his sister, and that was the source of a lot of what soured.

Any Megumi that was taken in by the Zenin would have been taken in to Naobito's household directly. He would be announced as the one who finally inherited their most cherished technique, and he would be declared heir, and the Zenin would call him beloved for it.

They would keep him in a room that was large and empty and almost always dark, and he wouldn't be allowed to decide when he slept or woke, and the door would always be locked from the outside. They would give him a wardrobe of expensive clothes that he hated, and he would never get to pick which of them he wore.

Megumi would hate them. He would hate all of them.

He's just not the type to be comfortable with or enjoy the adoration of others--especially when it's not backed up by genuine love. Megumi is someone who very much values sincerity and depth to emotion--it's one of the reasons why he seems to respect Yuuji so much. Yuuji is a good person who follows through with what he says. He's not just going to talk about wanting to save people--he's there making the sacrifices as he does it.

The Zenin do not actually love him. And he knows it. He's experienced love before, and this isn't it.

They love the idea of him. The fantasy of him that lives in their heads. He has no interest in being their little god prince to contend with the Gojo's own. He knows who he is, and it's not this. He wants to go home. He wants to find his sister again. He doesn't want to do this anymore.

And I think that's a feeling Megumi never escape: he just didn't want to do this anymore.

Megumi would feel like a bug pinned beneath glass in the Zenin compound. He would constantly have people managing him--when he ate, what he ate, what he wore, when he slept, when he woke, when he trained, what he did. Having to become a jujutsu sorcerer signified an inherent loss of control, but it's nothing compared to the sheer objectification that he goes through when the Zenin have exclusive control over him.

He has no power of what clothes he wears. How his hair is styled. His schedule, his diet, the people he speaks too--he's suffocating and the Zenin are just increasing pressure on him.

I don't think Gojo ever thought that would be Megumi's life.

We’re gonna just have this imagining exist in the same world as the Tsumiki centric fic described in the linked post, and in that, the reason why Gojo never took him in was because he didn’t know Megumi had a sister. He showed up, saw the divine dogs, realized Megumi had the Ten Shadows, and decided he couldn’t do this. He was a mess. He was grieving Suguru and Haibara. Megumi looked just like the man who killed Riko, and apparently inherited the fucking Ten Shadows of all the goddamn things. The Zenin would lose their shit, and Gojo didn’t have the energy to fight and told himself he didn’t need to, because if Megumi was the Ten Shadows he’d be cared for like a prince with the Zenin. He turned around and left and spent the rest of his life with Megumi in the back of his mind, always nagging him with whether he made the right decision. It wasn’t until Maki got there and made a few worrisome references to Megumi's standard of living that he started to really worry that he had made the wrong one, and it wasn't until he found out about Tsumiki that he knew it was the wrong decision.

It's like this: The Zenin hurt Megumi in every world.

It would be bad no matter what, but it really gets bad because Megumi refuses to stop trying to get back to Tsumiki. She's his sister. They didn't have anyone or anything in this world, but they had each other, and he couldn't let these people just take her away. He’s feral about it. He refuses to fit the mold they keep trying to cram him in. He’s trying to scale the walls to escape. He’s increasingly desperate and angry and the Zenin are getting more and more frustrated the longer he fights them. He’s the heir to the clan, and he can’t stop trying to leave it to get back to some random girl who isn’t his real sister and isn’t someone they’ll ever allow him to have.

It gets bad.

They put him under increasingly strict levels of control. He’s constantly being trained, which means he's constantly being hurt. He’s not allowed to speak to anyone without the clan head’s approval. He is under absolutely constant guard after he manages to get over the wall and halfway to his old neighborhood before they catch him again. Tsumiki’s name is not allowed to be said aloud, or his old name. He forgets his name used to be Fushiguro, but he doesn’t forget Tsumiki. He doesn’t let himself.

I think it escalates until it hits a breaking point. Megumi becomes increasingly self-destructive and non-responsive to everything they try. They push him to extremes that start risking permanent damage.

I think Megumi would try to hurt himself, eventually.

He wouldn't be in his right mind. He's in the most shit situation possible. He's undergoing pretty severe abuse. He'd be at the end of his rope from the lack of control over his own life, and he'd be spiteful as hell towards the Zenin. And the only thing he has to hurt them with is himself.

As a character, Megumi has always considered his own sacrifice as an acceptable means to the end of getting back at someone. Mahoraga, intrinsically, requires him killing himself as a way of killing someone else. He'd hurt himself if it was the only way he had of hurting them.

Naobito would cover it up. He'd never, ever want the rest of the clan to find out that it happened. It was already bad enough that Megumi openly hated them--he couldn't have the Zenin seeing any vulnerability in what was meant to be their most powerful member. He'd put Megumi in total lockdown until he could make it all go away.

Then they'd make a deal.

A binding vow. Megumi could never purposefully hurt himself again. He could never again try to leverage his own safety against the clan.

And in exchange, Tsumiki would be taken care of.

The last time Megumi saw his sister, she was on a sinking ship. They were running out of food, money, options--he doesn't know if she even has food anymore. He doesn't know if she lost the apartment or if there's still running water.

They're not letting him see her. But they are letting him take care of her. He can sacrifice another piece of control over himself, and she'll never have to worry about money again. They'll pay for her housing, her food, her education, for her every desire for as long as she lives. The trust the Zenin set up for her will be a generous one, and it will be managed meticulously by a trustee who can make sure she'll be provided for until she's old and grey. And Naobito will vow to never hurt her or send someone else to hurt her. She'll be safe. She'll be taken care of.

Megumi makes the deal.

In the end, the deal's what sort of breaks him.

Because he doesn't promise to stop looking for her, but the Zenin manage to make it a part of the terms anyway. When they approach Tsumiki's mother with the offer to be her family's beneficiary, they include a requirement that Tsumiki be moved to another city entirely with no forwarding address given. She needs to be somewhere that Megumi can never find her again.

The Zenin keep the old apartment. They pay the rent every month. And the next time Megumi manages to make it off compound, they let him make it all the way there before dragging him home. They let him see the empty apartment with all its empty rooms.

Naobito wants him to know that Tsumiki's gone. He wants him to know that he'll never find her again.

He tries to run a few more times after that, but he never makes it very far. He doesn't have anywhere to go.

In the linked post, Megumi finds Tsumiki, just once. She's on a class trip. He's on one of his very few and far between allowed excursions off the compound grounds, and he sees her in the crowd and recognizes her, and he ducks away from his escort before anyone can stop him.

She remembers him. He didn't think she would do that.

She tries to save him. He didn't think she would do that either.

She still loves him. And he was always too afraid to hope she would do that.

It goes the same way it did the first time. There's a car, and the Zenin shove him in it. She's on the outside, and he's trapped within, and he wishes she didn't scream so loudly when it happens. The sound never seems to leave his dreams.

His sister still loves him. Naoya hits him in the back of the head. He wakes up, and it was like she was never there at all.

But they hit him harder, after. Like they're trying to beat the memory of her out of him. He has even less freedom, when he already had next to none at all.

But he still has a sister. He has a place to go that isn't here. He just has to figure out where that is.

He wouldn't really have anyone in the Zenin clan. Most people are just... weird about him. Naoya's violently abusive. Naobito's weird and violently abusive. Everyone wants him to be someone he's not.

Maki would be his favorite.

He doesn't care about whether she's got cursed energy--his sister didn't have any. And she's obviously strong. She doesn't treat him like a divine blessing or try to force him to act a certain way. I think they would have genuinely liked each other, but kept each other at a distance. They're both trapped in an abusive situation and keep themselves safe by keeping everyone else at arm's length.

He would have been happy to see her get out, though. He would have told her that she could have his spot as heir or head or whatever when she came back if she wanted it. She would have told him that if he ever got out... well, fuck it. They could be something then. Family. Whatever the fuck they weren't allowed to be here.

She would have told him she's sorry, and she would have meant it. The only one she she regretted more than Megumi was Maki. He would have told her not to be, that if she dared to be sorry for getting out that he would never forgive her, and he would have meant that too.

I think his relationship with his own techinque would be very different in a world where the Zenin raised him. In canon, his issue is that he doesn't view himself as someone who could be powerful or win in the long run, but in this world, all he ever hears is how powerful he is. Pride of the fucking Zenin. The most powerful of them in centuries. Meant to rival Gojo fucking Satoru himself.

I think his real issue would be controlling it.

His technique would be a source of negative associations for him. It's the reason why the Zenin took him away. Most of his interactions with it have involved getting beaten and hurt by either his family or a high-level curse they shoved him in front of. I think he'd have a lot more firepower under his belt than at the start of canon, but he'd have less of a fine tuned control over it.

He lost control over his own life because of his shadows. It think that would manifest in struggling to control his own shikigami at times. he's not as in-sync with them as he is in canon.

Eventually, he'd go to Jujutsu High. He would be the only one in the first year class at the beginning, just like in canon. And he'd finally meet Gojo Satoru, the man he's supposed to topple.

He looks at Megumi really goddamn weird.

He's... enthusiastic. About. Teaching. He guesses. And constantly asking prying questions about the Zenin, but not in the sort of way he'd expect from a rival. In the sort of way he'd expect from someone concerned about him. Which is stupid. And annoying. And weird. He keeps a distance from everyone. They've all heard about the Zenin clan heir, and he has no interest in having to fit or break whatever mold they've already cast him in. He's better off on his own.

Maki's there. She's cordial where other people can see it, and in private, she takes care of him in a way that's terrifyingly close to familial. He's not sure if he likes it. He's not Mai, and she's not Tsumiki, and they both want someone they can't have.

She isn't sorry she left. She is sorry she left him. He can hate her for it all he goddamn pleases.

Of course, if this is in the same world as the linked post, Megumi finds Tsumiki again. He finds her in Sendai.

He gets to keep her, this time.

Gojo Satoru, of all the goddamn people, intervenes and becomes his sister's benefactor. It's super fucking weird. He won't stop looking at Megumi strangely. He won't stop insisting that he didn't know he had a sister, like that matters.

That would sort of be the first time in a long time that life actually gets better for Megumi.

I think he would ask to go by Fushiguro again, once he asks Tsumiki what his name used to be. He'd ask her if she minded it, him taking the name again, and he'd ask the rest of the school to call him Fushiguro instead of Zenin.

Predictably enough, Naobito loses his shit when he finds out, but it's not nearly as big of a pain in the ass as he thinks it is? Because Gojo intervenes.

Gojo keeps intervening.

It drives Megumi nuts, because if anyone was supposed to hate him, it was this guy. If anyone was supposed to be against him, it was this guy. This is the guy he was supposed to rival. This is the guy who killed his shitheel bio dad.

Gojo's just... good to him. He keeps him safe. He keeps him safe from his own goddamn family, and that's--no one's ever done that. No one's ever protected him from the Zenin.

The Zenin try to remove him from the Tokyo campus and move him to Kyoto the second they find out Tsumiki's there, and Gojo just... says no. It causes an uproar, and he doesn't fucking budge. It's treading dangerously close to him kidnapping the Zenin clan heir, his refusal to let them remove him from the Tokyo campus, and he doesn't care about whatever problems it causes him.

Megumi's his student. He doesn't want to leave. So Gojo won't let them take him.

He personally goes to Kyoto and collects him, the one time the Zenin force him into a car and move him when Gojo's off on a mission. He tells the higher ups to get fucked. He changes Megumi's student I.D. to read Fushiguro, and he causes problems for Yaga and the assistants until they start calling him Fushiguro as well.

Megumi's different with the other students once his sister is there.

He's more connected with them. He becomes best friends with Kugisaki and Itadori. He gets closer with the second years. He's visibly happier, and it sort of casts in sharp contrast how unhappy he was before this.

And Gojo? Gojo's so goddamn sorry. He didn't know megumi had a sister.

The thing is that now that both Tsumiki and Megumi are on campus, it sort of haunts Gojo with what could have been. They're both fantastic kids--funny, smart, resourceful. And it's painful watching them try to rebuild what was taken from them. And it could have just. never happened. Because he could have saved them both. He could have been their family.

It's sort of painfully obvious the Zenin abused Megumi, and it fucking haunts him. He doesn't even have to read into Megumi's behavior--he sees it happen, right in front of him, with how they try to control him and push him around. He wants to kill them for it. He wants to hate himself for it. He could have saved Megumi and he just. He didn't.

He wishes he did.

[balladofthe101st]

i know joe went up to the bar just to flirt with george with the classic, "you come here often?" but george, seeing joe walk towards him, looking so handsome and lean in his class a's, panicked, and before joe could use his line, george blurts out, "corporal toye, there will be no leaning in my company. are those dusty jump wings? how do you expect to slay the huns with dust on your jump wings?" joe, bewildered and flustered, plays along, straightening up and dusting off his jump wings, just to see that sweet smile on george's face. that night didn't go as joe planned but between a couple glass of beers, sharing a smoke, and spending the rest of the evening until the next early morning with george and that goddamn sweet smile of his, joe wouldn't have spent the night any different. next time, he thinks wistfully, next time maybe he'll get a kiss

[wormedeye]

day 4: romance @eonweweek

🕊️Characters: Eönwë x male elf OC (whose lore i will probably drop in the tags)

🕊️Synopsis: Eönwë’s young apprentice wants to heal him after the sword training

🕊️Warnings: implied self-harm, bc eönwë’s a lil depressed, english is not my first language, 700+ drabble that turned out to be 1k+ drabble.

🕊️someday it will be on ao3

His sleeves were rolled up slightly above the elbow. The tunic was loose enough, though when Eönwë raised his sword to strike his muscles still strained the linen cloth. Dear Eru.

“Look, how I’m holding it.” Eönwë repeated the move once again,more slowly. “You don’t cut straight, tilt it slightly.”

Laireno nodded, trying to memorise everything from how his arms move to the expression on his face. Eönwë stopped and stuck the blade in the ground and folded his hands on the pommel.

“Now you.”

Laireno breathed out, took his sword and tried to repeat everything his mentor was doing. Eönwë watched silently, until he suddenly interrupted the elda in the middle of a move. Laireno froze obediently, frowning slightly from strain.

Eönwë walked behind the elf’s back and placed his hand on the elf’s forearm, just short of the elbow. Laireno understood the unspoken order and unbent his arm until Eönwë stopped him. And something was still bothering him, so he also corrected the direction of the sword, bending the elf’s hand. The linen sleeve crept up Eönwë‘s arm, following the movement, revealing a bandage hidden beneath.

“Your hands are shaking.” The Maia noticed. “Are you tired?”

Laireno shook his head desperately.

“No, Sir, just trying not to move.”

“Do tell me, if you are, and we will take a break or finish for today, alright? I don’t want you to overtire yourself.”

“Okay.”

Eönwë returned to where he was standing and told him to repeat the whole thing from the beginning. Laireno did. He tried really hard, wanting to impress his mentor. He had listened closely, he had watched carefully, he could repeat this movement that Eönwë was coprrectingfor the second time already.

“That’s it.” Eönwë finally commanded. “You need to rest.”

Laireno lowered his sword and looked at the Maia with hope in his eyes.

“Did I do it? Was it good?”

Eönwë almost smiled.

“Yes. You did very well.”

Laireno beamed, and then Eönwë couldn’t hold back a small smile. A strange, incorrect smile, but still a smile. It was never right on Eönwë‘s face. He always frowned for some reason, sometimes even lowering the corners of his lips instead of raising them like everyone. Like he wasn’t truly happy. But Laireno was, every time he saw his mentor smile.

Eönwë leaned on his sword stuck in the ground, staring off into the distance. Silent and pensive. Laireno couldn’t take his eyes off him, a small, but a very strong intrusive thought not leaving his head, a question he was dying to ask. He paced back and forth, tugging at the hem of his clothes, gathering his courage. Finally, he couldn’t hold it any longer and strode determinedly over to his mentor. Eönwë immediately turned his head to the elf, shifting all his attention from his thoughts to his young apprentice. Laireno lost a half of his former confidence, but didn’t give up.

“Sir Eönwë, do you-” He lowered his gaze, unable to hold eye contact with the Maia. “Are you-”

“Don’t be afraid, I don’t peck, I don’t bite.” The herald said softly, encouraging the elf to continue.

Laireno took a deep breath.

“Are you injured?” He blurted out, his eyes still locked on the grass. “I saw a bandage on your arm, and I thought- I was worried-”

His fuse faded and he fell silent, waiting for an answer. Eönwë did not speak a word as well. Laireno raised his head and met his mentor’s detached, almost defensive gaze. He hadn’t expected such a question. Maybe didn’t even want it. Laireno regretted asking it.

“I- Yes.” Eönwë said slowly. “Yes, you could say that.”

He straightened, and Laireno had to raise his head higher.

“You don’t have to worry about me.” Eönwë said a little softer.

He jerked his sword out of the ground, stepped aside and leaned his back on a tree, wincing a little as the bark scratched the tender skin between his wings. That don’t make Laireno stop worrying, not even a little, the exact opposite had happened.

He ran up to his mentor with an almost teary look.

“I’m sorry, please, I didn’t want to disturb you, I didn’t mean- I just- Y-you might be in pain, and i’m stressing you with this training, I don’t want you to feel bad-“ Laireno stuttered. “I just- I wanted to help, but you probably don’t need help, you’re a Maia, you can heal yourself, and-“

“Hush, owlet.” Laireno stopped talking and stared up at Eönwë with his big star-like eyes. “It’s alright. You haven’t hurt me nor stressed me out in any way. On the contrary, I appreciate you care so much.”

Laireno sighed.

“But… You can cure it, right?” He asked hopefully.

“It’s-“ Eönwë turned away. “It’s not a wound I can heal.”

Realising he had said more than he should, he added immediately.

“Though it will heal soon, don’t worry.”

“Please,” Laireno pleaded and got down on one knee, taking Eönwë‘s hand in his. “Please, let me help you.”

“Laireno, I beg you, get up.” the herald whispered in a faltering voice, looking a little shocked.

The elf shook his head desperately. Unfortnately for his mentor, he was stubborn and determined.

“I know how to do it, I learnt so I could do it at war…” Laireno stopped and squeezes Eönwë‘s hand. “I want to heal you.”

The Maia knelt with a heavy sigh, to look his apprentice in the eyes.

“Laireno, sweet Laireno” Eönwë‘s voice was gentle and sad. “You really don’t have to do this.”

“But I want to.”

Eönwë sighed and relented. He was unable to refuse, unable to look in those shining eyes he couldn’t bear to see unhappy.

“Fine.”

He released his hand from the grip of Laireno’s warm palms carefully and rolled his sleeve up reluctantly. The elda sat at his mentor’s side immediately and touched the bandage with trembling fingers. He was visibly nervous.

Eönwë was sitting with his head lowered as the young elf untied his bandage. Layer by layer, there were not many. Noe Laireno could see four red stripes, very contrasting on the Maria’s unearthly pale skin. Today’s sword practise had disturbed the scratches that had barely closed up.

Laireno’s gaze shifted involuntarily to his mentor’s hands. His nails were cut unusually short. Laireno didn’t ask anything, aware of Eönwë‘s unwillingness to talk, but he couldn’t keep himself from stroking the skin an inch above the top cut. Eönwë frowned, his head hanging even lower.

The elda cupped the herald’s arm with his palms, feeling how tense the muscles under his hands are.

“Relax, please.” Laireno said with a look of a serious healer.

Eönwë took a glance at his apprentice. It was very obvious the elf was taking this extremely seriously. His lips were pressed in a thin line, his blond eyebrows drawn together, his eyes focused on the wound in front of him. It was…endearing.

Eönwë turned away again, relaxing as much as he could.

Laireno took a deep breath, closed his eyes and started humming something slow. The scratches began to heal. Eönwë felt a slight tingle in his skin, but didn’t move and even held his breath.

Soon the humming stopped, and the warmth of Laireno’s hands left Eönwë‘s shoulder. There were just thin whitish lines where the cuts had been.

“That’s it.” Laireno said quietly, folding his hands on his laps like a good student.

“Who taught you that?”

“Estë’s Maia, Sir. She said that if i want to be a knight, I should be able to heal as good as I fight, because…” he begun to tug on his shirt again. “Because, a knight must help those he care about, know how to save the, and-“

The elf fell silent again, unable to fight his embarrassment. hen he looked at Eönwë pleadingly and whispered “Please, don’t do it again.”

Eönwë smiled his wrong smile again.

“I won’t.”

He took Laireno’s hands in his.

“Thank you, owlet.”