#even when he jumped into the grave to correct the coffin

[sunlaire]

I didn't understand how people could rewatch the Terror! because it was so so so unbearably sad at the end. and now here i am rewatching it and somehow enjoying it better than the first time

[draconic-ichor]

In the Steel Steeds Heart

Chapter 25: Odd Ailment

Warning: strong language, sexual themes, fingering, vaginal penetration, cream pie, mentions of death, grave robbing, mild explosions

Summary: Juniper’s sickness doesn’t go away…leaving her wracking her brain for answers.

Feedback appreciated. 18+

In the days following, Juniper’s nausea did not go away. It would lull at times, giving her the confidence to try to help out in the shop again. But, inevitably, when she caught the smell of the rotting blood and old organs, it would hit her like a heavy stone all over again.

She was still hungry and never developed a fever. Heisenberg insisted it was the cadou, that it could do damn near anything to her system, and at first she believed it to be true.

As the days dragged on, that belief waned more and more.

Heisenberg on the other hand was determined to just wait it out, giving her space and refraining from asking for help with Soldats. He was long used to working alone so fell back into the routine easily.

Being able to return to the apartment to see Juniper and sleep beside her at night was more than enough for him, for the time being at least.

He sat before the many monitor screens, waiting and watching. There were multiple cameras in the village itself, set up at key points of interest: the church, town center, the cemetery, the ceremony site, and every way in or out.

His pale eyes scanned over them all, silently hoping for someone, somewhere, to fuck up enough to put them in an early grave.

While he waited, he worked on other things. Today he worked on making improvements to his Panzer designs. Determination fluttered in the pit of his stomach, unwilling to let these new creations turn out like Sturm.

Eventually as the day ticked on there was a commotion in the town center. Heisenberg set his pencil down, glancing up. There was a crowd of people gathering around a cart, one villager trying to calm an obviously spooked horse.

Heisenberg turned a knob to zoom in and get a better look. There was a villager on the ground, unmoving and bleeding. It looked as if the cart or horse had run them over. Heisenberg smiled, a new body he could snap up.

He stood from the desk, gathering up papers and his stray hat as he headed back to the apartment.

“Honey I’m home!” He burst through the door, his voice mimicking an old family sitcom.

Juniper looked up from her reading, face brightening at his chipper tone.

“You seem awfully happy today.” She commented as he strode forward.

“It’s a fine day.” He smiled back, making a show of removing his hat and glasses, “Guess what just happened.”

Closing her book, she gave a guess, “New project idea?”

“No.”

“Soldat?”

“Nope.”

“Sturm finally started working properly?”

Heisenberg snorted, “As if. All wrong, buttercup.”

“Oh just tell me, you silly man.” She exclaimed with a smile.

He leaned on the table, placing his weight on his palms, “Now where’s the fun in that?”

She purses her lips in annoyance earning her a chuckle from him before he finally gave her the answer, “Alright, alright, I’ll go easy on you. Someone just died!”

“And that’s why you’re so happy?” She almost scoffed.

“Well yea.” He shrugged, “I finally caught a young one getting smoked on the cameras.”

“Young one?” Juniper’s eyes were full of concern.

“Not a kid!” Heisenberg corrected quickly, “I’m not that evil of a bastard.”

“I suppose not…” she murmured, her mind clouding with other thoughts.

Juniper went to the counter, leaning against it as she looked out the tiny window over the sink. She gave a heavy sigh, hearing Heisenberg come up behind her. Gloved hands wrapped around her middle, pulling her back against his broad chest.

“Such a big sigh for my little wife.” He murmured into her ear.

“Mmmm.” She hummed, placing her hands over his own.

He rocked her a bit, asking, “How are you feeling today?”

“Better.” She nodded then more quietly admitted, “But still not good. It comes and goes.”

“How are you right now?” He asked before he dipped his head in to give her a rough kiss on her neck. She keened softly when his teeth nipped the sensitive skin.

“It’s mostly gone now.” She spoke breathily as he moved to the crook of her neck.

“Then how about,” he trailed his lips back up until he whispered the question into her ear, “We waste some time before I have to go, hm? Right here in the kitchen, even.”

“You’re terrible.” She gave out a little giggle.

“Hm?”

“That’s why you are being so sweet?”

“Sweet?” He echoed, “Would you rather me be rough with you? One comes much easier, buttercup, so be careful.”

She pressed her ass into his groin, giving a cheeky reply, “I’ll take my chances.”

Heisenberg gave a growl, moving forward to trap her body between himself and the counter.

He ground his hips into her own, cursing the fabric between them. Usually he would give her a chance to remove her dresses, to avoid getting chastised, but today he gave her no such mercy. After her playful provocation he ripped through the material of her skirt. Before she could curse him he forced her face into the counter.

She mewled when he shoved two fingers into her already moistening hole.

“Look at you, already a mess.” He jeered, finger fucking her and making her thighs shiver. He did this for a short time until he was satisfied she was prepared enough. Heisenberg undid the zipper of his pants, pulling out his hard cock. He coated his member with her slick, lining himself up to her core.

Without warning he pushed forcefully into her. Juniper’s cry caught into her throat as she held onto the counter.

She heard him groan over her as he pulled back slightly just to rock forward again.

He set a brutal pace, leaving Juniper crying out in pleasure. He forced her head down, the counter cool against her burning cheek.

“Like being fucked rough do you?” Heisenberg bared his teeth, not letting up, “Tell me whore.”

Juniper made a warbling gurgle, earning her a quick smack to the ass with his free hand.

“Y-yes master!” She managed, cunt clenching his cock.

Heisenberg’s lips twitched into an ever bigger smirk, his hips fucking into her own hard enough to bruise. The sound of their skin accompanied by the clinking of his metal charms filled the kitchen.

His thighs shook as he emptied in her, nostrils flaring like an angry horse. He took a few more heavy, ragged breaths before he pulled free from her heat. He looked proudly down at the thick string of come that connected their sexes, straightening his hat.

“I have to head out, Buttercup.” He patted her sore ass.

She gave out a weak reply, still trying to recover.

~

The nights were much warmer, mud soaking into Heisenberg’s boots. It made the digging fly by. The glow of the cigar’s hot cherry illuminated his dark shades as he watched the haulers get closer and closer to breaking the bottom.

“Keep going you stupid bastards!” Heisenberg growled, walking in a circle around the grave. The sickening feeling of grave robbing someone’s loved ones long since jaded from his mind, replaced with excitement over the prospect of new materials.

‘Materials’…Fuck he really was a monster.

He thought darkly. It didn’t have long to ruminate in his mind, a hollow thud sounded. Heisenberg ordered the haulers to pause, they made little screeches as they backed away from the hole.

Heisenberg took a shovel from one of the closer ones, jumping down into the hole. His boots made an echoy thud, as he took the shovel and scraped away the last layer of sediment. Using the blade he jimmied the coffin open. The smell of dried flowers hit his nose when it opened. The body was already starting to bloat slightly, unprotected by winter’s grasp.

He brushed away the flowers and coins on the man’s eyes, turning the body’s face in his hands.

Not big enough for his Panzer design but he would definitely make a good Soldat.

His lips twitched into a smile as he straightened, gesturing with a finger for the haulers to start the retrieval.

As they neared the factory, passing the scrapyard, something caught Heisenberg’s pale eyes in the moonlight.

He paused, the haulers deftly pushing the cart past him. The shape of a jet stuck out of the nearest pile, rusted and bent.

“Hmm.” He pursed his lips, an idea flashing in his mind. A glorious idea, a flying soldat!

“Get him inside!” Heisenberg yelled, turning fully towards the old jet. He raised his muddy, gloved hands. The object of his desire began to rattle and rise free. His lips split with the exhilaration of the new prospect.

~

The pale dawn filtered through the small windows when a Juniper awoke, Heisenberg had long since returned and went again. She looked at the muddy boot prints tracked across the apartment with a grimace.

Juniper started to stretch, stopping short when a light stinging pain tugged at her chest.

She sucked in a breath, cupping her breasts. They felt swollen and tender, more so than she could remember.

Worry pooled in her gut as she kneaded the flesh. Everything was adding up in a way she didn’t like, but she couldn’t be certain….

She finally broke down and asked the Duke for a special item. She made sure no prying ears were close, and Heisenberg had indeed trusted her to pick up the current shipment. This request was for the Duke’s ears only, he had an air of trustworthiness about him that Juniper felt she could ask him anything without fear of judgement.

When she made her request the Duke simply nodded, warning her such an item would take time to acquire.

Juniper nodded, no other choice but to wait.

So she waited, as patiently as one could with so much worry in her guts.

The weeks while she waited Heisenberg had started a new project. He had the terrifyingly brilliant idea to make flying Soldats. It ate up most of his time, trying to formulate the right type of core to allow flight.

The morning of the next shipment Juniper headed down to the workshop. The heat still affected her but since he wasn’t currently working with bodies it made it more tolerable to her recent tender stomach.

But today the smell of smoke and sulfur came from the shop. Her footsteps quickened, bursting through the door to see Heisenberg cleaning up after another small explosion.

He looked up at her sourly as he swept.

“What happened?” Juniper bent to pick up the nearest chunk of charred core.

Heisenberg’s lips were tight, “It blew up in my fucking face.”

“Honey…” Juniper came closer.

“Don’t start.” He huffed, turning towards her. Now that she could fully see his face she made a little sound of surprise. He looked up curiously.

“Oh Heis…your eyebrows had just grown back.” Juniper frowned.

Heisenberg threw the broom down, “Well they’re fucking gone again!”

He was simmering and fuming as she tried to help him clean. He finally cooled a bit to speak to her more calmly, “It’s almost time for the Duke’s shipment. Let’s go meet him.”

A thin sliver of alarm shot through her as she quickly spoke, “You have a lot going on down here, let me go get the shipment.”

He gave her a long look, but the morning had dulled his desire to argue.

“Fine…fine.” He waved her off.

Relief washed over her as she ascended the stairs back towards the elevator.

~

Blinking into the spring sun, she was surprised to see the Duke’s cart already waiting in the factory yard.

She quickly made her way over to him, hopeful.

“Hello Duke.” Juniper looked at her boots, worry heavy in her green eyes.

“Good day my dear.” He spoke, “I have the Lord’s shipment all prepared.”

“And the-?” She began to ask but the Duke cut her off.

“Of course.” The man picked up a small package from beside him, placing it in her hands, “Not the easiest thing to find all the way out here, but I have my ways.”

Juniper nodded, shoving it into her pocket, “T-Thank you.”

“My pleasure.” He smiled, “And Lady Juniper?”

“Hm?”

“Good luck.” His voice was genuine.

They said their goodbyes. Juniper quickly brought in the delivery, not taking the time to go through it. She rushed onto the elevator, not wanting Heisenberg to question her absences.

~

She paced in the bathroom, anxiety eating up her core. She kept looking down at the small plastic stick on the sink. It felt like the longest two minutes of her life.

Her heart dropped, seeing a second little pink line staring back at her. She picked it up with a shaking hand, tears pricking her eyes.

Heisenberg said it wasn’t possible. She wasn’t human anymore, neither of them were.

The room span, she held her stomach.

She was a monster, full of infected parasites.

Juniper felt bile rise in her throat. Running from the bathroom onto the balcony.

Death was all around them. Mother Miranda twisting all those around her into nightmares.

She looked down at the stick one last time.

Maybe it was a mistake?

She knew it wasn’t.

Would Heisenberg tell her to leave? Would he hate her?

Tears ran down her cheeks as she threw the test off the balcony, it becoming lost in the piles of scrap far below.

Why them? Why were they so stupid? Why hadn’t they been so careful?

Questions thudded in her brain.

It wasn’t possible.

But it happened.

She was pregnant.

[notmrskennedy]

Whatever You Need

(Chip x Fem!Reader)

A/N - am I little in love with Chip? Yes, but who isn’t? So please enjoy my hot take on our lovely Mr. Chip Taylor

Summary - a university professor meets a very adorable maintenance guy ...

Warnings - a pinch of swearing and two teaspoons of mentioning gross things

Word Count - 3k 

-------

There’s a thin line, she realises as she rushes into the lecture hall, between anthropological research and grave robbing. When you’re on loan to the federal government and a water pipe bursts at a cemetery, there isn’t much to do other than say, ‘yes sir Mr. FBI agent, I will gladly slop through three feet of mud and water, digging through graves!’

She’s ten minutes late to her lecture. Ten minutes long enough that the TA’s are snickering. Ten minutes long enough that the entire class looks horrified that their Anthropology 101 professor is covered head to toe in dried mud, grass, and whatever else could be found in destroyed 19th century coffins.

She sets her bag down heavily on the desk and startles everyone in the room. Sans the maintenance guy. He’s tinkering with vent at the foot of door. He’s mostly a faded ball cap and a distressed jean jacket, one arm shoved up the vent. She can’t imagine why someone would have their arm up a vent, but god only knows why the university would ask someone to.

A moment passes where she unabashedly stares. How did she miss him? Was she in that much of a hurry that she nearly tripped on the guy and didn’t look back? And what the hell is in that vent?

The TA’s snicker behind her back, sobering up when she shoots them a half deadly look. She’s covered in mud, not lenience. She half hopes Maintenance Guy will turn around—she has a desperate, yet beguiling feeling he’s hot. But what she’s really curious for is what’s stuck up that vent.

And he doesn’t turn around—his complete disregard of her is a 180 from the rapt attention she’s receiving from her students—until she’s frustratedly brushing dirt off her face. Pulling grass from her hair.

“Let me just start with,” she begins, pulling an earth worm out of her sleeve, “if the federal government asks you to sort through bodies in a flooded cemetery, tell them no. And despite how much fun grave digging can be, there’s a thin line and that line is punctuated by whether they’re arresting me or not.”

Maintenance Guy snorts, head turned to beam up at her. She’s almost taken aback by how bright he seems. How his grin puts the sun in its place. He looks honest, grease stains and all.

There’s something to be said about the fact she’s studying his bone structure instead of his fleshy bits. She can’t tell you what colour his eyes are, but his zygomatic bones are killer.

“Professor?” a TA prompts, ineffectively holding back their own knowing smiles.

“Thanks for reminding me,” she replies, digging through her bag to hand out a stack of student essays. “Pass these back, please?”

Tick one for the professor.

“And as per usual,” she announces, leaning back against the white board, “let’s do our daily recap. And as you know, these questions can be used to aid in exams.”

She sneaks a glance at Maintenance Guy, pulling his arm out from the vent. He grumbles, digs through his toolbox, and grabs a screwdriver. Whatever is in that vent is stuck.

Once the rustling stops, she says, “Okay, question one: if your professor—that would be me for those of us who are new—were to be one of, say, five wives with one husband, it’s called—?”

“Polygamy!” a student shouts from the front row.

“You’re right, but you aren’t correct,” she says, standing up straight. “Polygamy is the practice of having more than one spouse. Polygyny—with an ’n’—is multiple wives to one husband. Examples of the culture are Kenya’s Logoli and other Abalulya sub ethnic groups.”

She writes it on the board for spelling, and glances over to see Maintenance Guy paused in his excavation of the vent. He’s paying better attention than her students. It’s sort of sweet and she stifles her soft giggle at the thought.

He’s ridiculously tall and she takes a moment to appreciate just how long his femurs have to be.

“Question two!” she announces and finds even the most hungover kids forcing their attention on her. “If your professor were to marry five men all at once, that’s called—?”

“Polyandry,” a student pipes up from the back. “A lot of times it’s fraternal marriage.”

“Examples of a culture that practices—”

Pop!

Maintenance Guy rolls back with the force. His knees are still bent from where they’d been used as leverage against the vent, a wall of debris bursting into his face. In one gloved hand was a dead raccoon, while the other desperately brushed bits of the vent’s clog—a raccoon’s nest—from his eyes.

“Oh Jesus,” she mutters, jumping into action. She picks up a garbage bag from his toolbox and nets the dead animal from his hand. It’s a pretty tame find, though she’s used to human remains which tended to be—gooier.

With the animal tucked up, she hauls Maintenance Guy to a sitting position, frantically cleaning the odds and ends of the nest out of his eyes. She steals his ball cap as she whispers kind words to him, further trying to shake the bits of insulation out of his shaggy hair.

The class is in a terrible chatter behind them. Not that it matters. Not with Maintenance Guy’s eyes opened and his hands gently clutching onto her wrists as she brushes the last bits of insulation off his cheeks. His eyes are definitely hazel up this close.

“Thanks,” he croaks, still gently latched onto her hands.

“It’s no problem,” she smiles back, absently studying the rest of his face. He’s got the kind of skull she’d love to see on her table—well, maybe once he’s died of his own accord because he seems rather sweet. Confused and concerned, but…sweet. “Don’t worry. I’ve had much worse flung all over me. You don’t much get used to it.”

He smiles, barely chuckling. Coughs up a bit of insulation.

“You might want to see a doctor. Insulation in the lungs is…what gets you a one way ticket to my lab.” She grins at her own terrible joke. His eyes are too close and she can’t help but wish for a skeleton to be looking back at her. She understands those. People are too…gooey.

“I’m Chip,” he offers, silently asking her for help to his feet. She does, offering her own name in return. He mulls over it, like it’s a fine wine sitting on his tongue. “Professor Y/N. Thanks again.”

She shrugs, mouth suddenly too dry. Heart beating too fast. Jesus, human interaction was going to kill her. There was no job to distract her from Chip’s strong hands. There were no bodies to keep Chip’s genuine gaze off of her. There wasn’t anything to distract from seeing Chip as so pleasantly human.

“Want the raccoon as a consolation prize?” he chuckles, rubbing the back of his neck with a newly de-gloved hand. There’s something satisfying about answering questions that aren’t meant as questions. Especially ones that showed just how weird she really was. The questions that were relationship testers—like can we be friends if I tell you that I keep carrion beetles as pets?

“Actually, sure.” Chip’s jaw drops just slightly open. He has cute teeth. “Dissection is a key part of the anthropological process, forensic or not. Let’s see just what this raccoon was up to. Eh, class?”

Every single one a deer in the headlights, the class goes eerily silent. She winks at Chip and announces again. “Don’t you guys want to see what I do for a living? I mean human remains are much cooler but I think we can settle for a mostly solid raccoon carcass.”

A TA clutches at her stomach. “Professor, never say that again.”

The professor just laughs, absentmindedly taking a soft grip on Chip’s shoulder. “Don’t worry everyone, Chip’s going to keep the raccoon. At least I’m not making the final a practical examination. I do have access to laboratory rats—“

The entire class clambered forward, hoping to dispel the idea and the evil smirk off their professor’s lips. She just beamed back at Chip, dropping her hand. She expected the same horrified expression of her students, but he seemed, dare she say, impressed.

That wide eyed shock creeps onto her face. Because who would risk being impressed by a professor covered in dirt from grave digging who offered to dissect a raccoon at 10 AM on a Tuesday?

Apparently, it’s this guy. Must have a thing for crazy women.

Chip shakes his head, bites his lip, and turns to stoop for his raccoon trophy. “I’ll, uh, have them send someone for the nest. I—I guess I have to do something with the raccoon, if you’re sure you don’t want it?”

She just shakes her head, failing miserably at keeping her cherry red tint to herself. “No, no. Maybe next time.”

“Next time,” he repeats, rather sadly, to himself. Though, as he turns to leave, it feels more like a promise.

#

The worst part about knowing Chip is that she seems to see him everywhere. Rushing between lecture halls? There he is, doing his best to fix a fountain. Getting escorted away by federal agents? There he is, sympathetically waving as he walks across the quad. Leading a group of students outside to lecture on the green? There’s Chip, fixing a sprinkler.

She’s had exactly three times in the last six months to talk to him. All under three minutes.

But today, today she’s running late from court. Grand jury testimony had gone fine, until Agent—God, she’ll never learn his name—WhatsHisFace tried to ask her out again. Because what a turn on talking about the mutilation of a hacked up college girl was.

It also didn’t help that, outside of the court room half an hour before, she was doodling what she thought Chip’s skull would look like.

So she can’t help but storm into her postage stamp of a classroom, dropping her package on the desk with a gentle, yet annoyed huff. Her 12 students, all seniors in the Anthropology department, raised their eyebrows at her. At her court getup.

She’d missed those formative lessons at 13 on how to be a proper lady. And even if she had had them, it probably wouldn’t have stuck. Besides, what she wore into the field had to be more than acceptable for the university’s standards. The heels and pink blouse of today were extremely rare and uncomfortable.

“Whoa, Professor Y/N!” Reese Rosebeck calls out, dramatically twitching in his chair, “Is that really you? You look hot!”

“Ha, ha. That’s a very coherent thought for the kid who wrote the worst paper I’ve ever read,” she deadpans. She relents when she sees his dramatic puppy dog pout. “Though, I do have to say I enjoyed you’re use of colloquial slang. Accentuated your point very cleverly.”

“As long as I impress the hottest professor on campus, I’m alright.”

There was a quiet laugh from the back of the room, and she found her eyes snapping to the hunched over back of none other than, Maintenance Guy Chip Taylor. He’s just quietly listening—as always—tinkering with the radiator pipes in the back of the room. She’s half thankful. It is starting to get cold.

“Hey, Chip!” she chirps and the poor thing bangs his head on the pipes. He waves her off in a flash, hand extended wildly above the other desks in the room. Reese chuckles to himself, dragging Lionel with him.

She kicks her heels off behind her desk, straightening herself once she’s back on stable ground. She’s about three apples short of a pie to wear heels for more than six consecutive minutes. The female students give her rather sympathetic looks as she begins to roll her feet and open her package.

She pauses halfway in. Jeez, she forgot about—“Hey, Chip?”

Like a meerkat, he pops up with a dazzling soft grin.

“Are you going to call the cops on me?”

“Excuse me?”

Her students’ eyes bounce back and forth between the pair, following the invisible tennis match. The professor settles on a rather tired, “Are you going to call the cops? The last person who attended lecture that didn’t know me, called the cops because of a demonstration. So, are you?”

“No.” He shakes his head and she wonders if he’s a little too trusting. He’s honest as he leans back down to continue futzing with the pipes. He’s genuine in every interaction they have. Does she really deserve the kind of trust he’s offering? To a crazy woman who’s asked if he’ll call the cops on her?

She shakes the thought away. These 12 students—tangible students—need her focus. At least for the next few minutes. She pulls six human skulls from her package, all neatly wrapped up in protective glass cases. She places those on the table along with a box of gloves.

“Two people to a skull,” she announces and runs through the rest of the directions. “Don’t forget your gloves. You too, Ms. Figg.”

Jamie Figg’s fierce blush is long forgotten once they are all set to work. Tactile learning is the best way to learn in her opinion, expressly in advanced classes like these. It also gives her a moment to rest her brain—even if it’s a few minutes before the onslaught of necessary questions.

She settles into an unused section of chairs and desks, smiling absently at the way all of the kids have squeezed themselves around the one table. She misses the days when she was young and new, ready to find her own legs to stand on.

Chip’s not quiet and she watches him with too much adoration as he sits down next to her. It’s not all too unexpected nor uninvited. He smells like grease and good cologne up close, mixed up with that dangerous combination of hazel eyes and delicious bone structure.

Chip smirks, drawing her out of her smidge of staring. “See anything good?”

“You have excellent bones,” she mutters, tracing a finger against her own cheek instead of his. “Prominent zygomatic bones and well balanced supraorbital margins. But the, um, the rest of you is—is nice too.”

Oh great one, Y/N. Perfect. You’re such a fucking creep.

Chip just smiles. The kind of soft upturn of the lips and dip of the head that means he took it like the compliment it was meant as. He runs a rather shakey hand through his hair, bringing his gaze back up to do his own staring. She wonders what he sees about her. She’s sure he doesn’t see bone structure like she does, but does her flesh give away something she doesn’t know about?

Chip wrings his hand down behind his neck and she sees it. That little bit of something that brews between his bones and his epidermis. The fuzzy sort of thing that sits behind his eyes. The one she’s seen in war veterans, cops, and now the university’s maintenance man.

And as if he’s just a skull on her table, she states ever so eloquently, “You look like the kind of guy who’s seen some shit, Chip.”

And as if she’s accepted his offer for the raccoon all over again, he beams. He further turns away from her, shaking his head, and she follows his eye line to the students not so subtly glancing over at the pair every three seconds. The dozen are still chattering on, examining the skulls in their hands with rapt fascination.

Chip, despite all the non-threatening, sensitive, idiot boy vibes, looks over the skulls with more recognition than she cares to admit she sees. Most people don’t look at skulls like they’re familiar. Like the idea of them being formerly attached to a living person doesn’t bother them.

Again, looks like he’s seen some shit.

“Are they real?”

She nods, taking a tiny chance and pressing their shoulders together. She’s not upset to say that Chip carries very warm skin on his lovely skeletal structure. She wipes the blush off her cheeks and answers, “From the university’s collection. I’ve done a lot of travelling, lots of excavations, lots of grave robbing—sometimes the university doesn’t miss the skulls of the not-so-recently deceased.”

“You’re very—“

“Creepy? Weird?”

She hopes that Chip is too stupid to hear the insecurity bleed through. That he’s too stupid to look at her the way he is. Instead, he squints as if he can’t risk choosing the wrong adjective, so the words inch through his brain. All carefully refined into his choice of, “…Intelligent.”

His takes her hand in his to accentuate his point. She nearly stops breathing.

“You’ve forgotten more this morning than I’ll ever know,” he whispers. She doesn’t know how to look at him without letting him see the hearts in her eyes. Her fingers tighten against his. “I’d never call you creepy.”

She swallows, fighting against the rock in her throat. It wasn’t often people paid her any compliments, especially after she’d let her mouth run for more than five minutes in a one-on-one conversation.

And as if she isn’t already trying to desperately clutch onto her frayed nerves, he confidently pulls a slightly creased business card from his shirt pocket. Offers it to her irritatedly hesitant fingers.

“I do home visits, you know,” he says, putting more weight into where their skin touches. “So, if you’re dishwasher breaks or something, give me—give me a call.”

Chip squeezes her fingers one more time, double checks she’s holding onto the business card, and walks back for his toolbox. Only when the classroom door is closing behind him does Reese shout out, “Oh-ho-ho! Professor’s getting some!”

“Get back to your skull before I use yours as a soup bowl,” she snaps, though she can’t hide the cherries in her cheeks as she thumbs over the business card. Chip Taylor. Whatever you need.

[doctors-star]

u want prompts? i am going to make shit up. how about trying to outrun a horse or piggy back rides for cowboys

“Well,” Finn says cheerfully, patting Johnny’s chest with the flat of his hand as though to reward him for good behaviour. “This may just be our dumbest idea yet.”

“Then we ain’t doin’ half bad,” Johnny objects, shifting Finn’s weight on his back as he carefully picks his way through the grasslands. In the half-dark of the moon and stars, the prairie is as a great aquamarine ocean of shifting blue-green grass that brushes against Finn’s dangling ankles as Johnny walks, and it has the curious edge of unfamiliarity and unreality in the night. Finn ain’t that heavy, and he knows the lands around Danser well enough not to be worried about getting lost, but it’s more than just the occasion that has him pressing hard for home - there’s a distinct undefined weird at play tonight, and he’s keen for familiar sights and sounds to ground him. Bitchin’ at Finn goes some way towards that. “If me carryin’ you through the night is our worst, we got a good ways to fall.”

“Oh, sure, and we’re gonna,” Finn says, still irrepressibly bright. “But we are tryin’ to outrun a horse, so. Although, I guess you’re outrunning the horse - I’m competing with the rider.”

Johnny considers, not for the first time, the merits of dropping Finn, and finds them barely insufficiently compelling. “You’re being the horse next time,” he grunts.

“Never fear,” Finn says smugly and ruffles Johnny’s hair now that he’s too pinned down to wriggle angrily away - Johnny does toss his head crossly, but this just makes him stumble. “Next time we have to run for it on foot in the night on account of how everything’s gone wildly tits up and Ainsel’s accidentally made off with our horses, you can stick your foot in a gopher hole and I’ll carry ya home.”

“Too kind,” Johnny grumbles absently, pausing to make use of a small rise and reacquaint himself with his surroundings. The desert falls off to the south, the trees forming a sharp dark line to the north and east, and somewhere between ‘em, Danser. And, god willing, Ainsel and Tommy with the horses, Will with his bag of bandages, and Noel with some helpful words of severe disapproval. No matter what Johnny had said about having yet further to fall - this displayed a level of ineptitude Noel was not, exactly, going to love.

“We’ll have more cover in the trees,” Finn points out rather more seriously.

Johnny makes a face. “Too dark - ain’t no sense in us both busting our ankles and falling in the creek in the dark.”

Finn pauses, like he’s weighing the truth of that against how funny he reckons it’d be, but concedes the point. “Desert’s a bit exposed, though,” he says, sounding resigned.

“Yeah,” Johnny says slowly, and not without confusion, as he continues down the rise and on through the grass. He shifts Finn on his back again - all right, maybe Finn is kinda heavy, or at least, his weight is wearing on Johnny - and there’s a rustle in the grass on the tree-side of them. Johnny doesn’t figure it’s much they gotta worry about: coney maybe, or gopher come out to ogle the humans outta their natural habitat - but Finn flinches away from it like he reckons the gophers have all gone rabid, or something. “I figured we’d keep going in the prairie grass ‘til we hit town.”

Finn fidgets awkwardly and nearly sends them both arse over elbow until Johnny works a hand free and smacks him quickly on the thigh. “I just-” he begins awkwardly, giving off the impression that it is only a great deal of effort that is keeping him from fidgeting. “I don’t much wanna be on prairie lands after dark, y’know.”

Johnny does not know. “I don’t wanna be out here either,” he says, bewildered. “That’s why we’re heading on home.”

“Oh, sure,” Finn says, like he’d kinda forgotten that they were desperadoes on the run, “but - I don’t wanna be here, specifically. Desert’d be fine.”

“‘Cept how we’d be shot for morons without any cover,” Johnny points out, not very gently. He twists his head awkwardly and manages a good squint at Finn’s cheekbone and a crick in his neck. “What’s eatin’ you, huh? You ain’t never gone off the prairie before.”

“Hayfever?” Finn tries.

“So help me God, Finn, I’ll drop you.”

Finn clings a little tighter, ankle flinching away from the floor. “Awright, jeez. It’s just-” he sighs massively, breath gusting down Johnny’s neck like the touch of a ghost and making him shiver. “I don’t wanna come across the Coyote.”

Johnny shifts Finn’s weight again and ignores the twinge in his back, pressing on along his straight line across the grasses to the faint lights of the town. “Coyotes aren’t that dangerous. Will says-”

“Not coyotes,” Finn corrects, “the Coyote. He, uh, might not want me hanging around long after dark. Not my patch,” he says, as if that’s cleared everything up.

Johnny raises an eyebrow. “You’ve got a feud with a coyote that’s landed you a curfew?”

“No-o,” Finn says carefully. “It’s not that bad. But. We might be better off in the desert.”

“Did you hear me about the gettin’ shot thing?” Johnny snaps, a bit louder than he had meant to. And then he stumbles forward a few more steps, emerging into a bizarre clearing of grass which he definitely had not seen from the little hill, or even one step before landing in it - this perfect circle of mown-short grass. Sitting in the middle of it is a coyote.

It tilts its head on one side.

Finn offers a sharp, nervous grin. “Technically,” he says to the coyote, “I am not on the prairie. So.”

The coyote does not so much as blink.

Johnny reckons he might be in over his head more than a little. “Desert, you said,” he declares firmly and begins trekking south.

Finn does not relax. There is a rustling noise behind them - quite a lot like the sound of a coyote following them through the grass. Johnny attempts to pick up the pace.

“I am sorry about this,” Finn says conversationally. “But can you go any faster.”

“Nope,” Johnny puffs. “You’re fuckin’ heavy.” He manages a slight increase in speed, which the coyote matches easily, and nearly trips over his own feet for it. This had not been so difficult when they’d started out - Finn seems to be getting heavier by the second, like every inch of him is slowly turning to lead.

It reminds him of a warm day when he wasn’t quite grown, but wasn’t a boy either - there had been an accident, and his Uncle Jack had died, and he was tall enough to be one of the men carrying the coffin. If, and only if, he could contain his excitement at being considered one of the men, said his mother, for long enough to behave decently, jeez. So he’d wrangled himself into solemn calm and taken up his place behind his father, and lifted when told to - and he remembers thinking, dang, why’d we need six men? Uncle Jack isn’t heavy at all. Until they’d started walking, and then Johnny had been glad of the others - but still, not too bad. But they’d kept walking. And kept walking. And by the time they’d reached the church his arms were shaking and his breath came fast and he couldn’t put Uncle Jack down fast enough, the corpse’s limbs all slowly petrifying and dragging them all down, inexorably, inevitably, into the dust.

Finn is heavy as a dead body on his back.

It is suddenly less difficult to push those last yards and hurl them both over the boundary, into the dirt. Finn is thrown from his back and rolls neatly; instinctively he tries to stand, and crumples into a small ball of hissed curses as his ankle makes itself known. Johnny himself manages to control his stumble to his knees and scramble backwards away from the grassland. He watches a black nose press through the leaves, white-glowing eyes the only thing visible in the shadows; after a considering sniff, all melt away. There is no sound, but he no longer feels eyes on him - and then there is a barking call far to the north, and the pound of hoofbeats drumming through the earth under his palms heading for the disruption, and then nothing.

He turns, very politely and calmly, to Finn. “What the fuck was that?”

Finn waves a hand dismissively. “You don’t want to know. But he’ll probably hold ‘em off for a while, as long as it’s fun to do it - we should keep goin’, though.”

“No no no-” Johnny says firmly, holding up one hand. “This - weird shit has gone on long enough. What in the god damn hell just happened to us?”

Finn narrows his eyes and tilts his head to squint thoughtfully at Johnny. In the darkness, sprawled out at the foot of the desert with limbs in every direction and propped up on his elbows, he nonetheless looks strangely alert - as though he might at any moment leap onto his twisted ankle and outdance the devil to keep them both safe. For all that the desert leaves them exposed, Johnny feels safer here than he did in amongst the prairie grasses, the same way a man feels safe from wolves behind a stock fence, for all that wolves can jump. This space has been demarcated, somehow, and called Finn’s, and Johnny don’t reckon anything else is going to come in and mess with that.

“Alright,” Finn says eventually, still with that considering tilt. “This town ain’t what you think it is. There are more things in heaven and earth, Johnny McPherson, than you ever dreamed of. There’s magic in these hills, in them stars above, in you - like as not - and definitely in me. Ainsel pretty much isn’t anything else. Sold his soul to them devilish fae.” Finn spreads his palms to the night and Johnny feels it pressing close like a crowd of people, wrapping him in the tangible darkness of a shroud, the cloying earth of the grave. “But this night - in this place - is mine. And nothing out here can hold me,” he says, eyes fixed on Johnny and black-dark in the moonlight, “not on my lands. No-one can touch me; nothing can stop me in any way that matters. Why should I fear the grave, Jonathan Elmer McPherson, when I’ve known it already? I felt its touch and it could not keep me. I am master of Danser Town, and I am chained to it like a dog. A dead-and-alive dog, black as shadow an’ the world beyond the end, and there ain’t none as can move you on without my say so. You, Jonathan Elmer McPherson,” Finn says, with a grin as cold as hard iron and as pointedly canine as a wolf - it sets Johnny’s teeth on edge, makes him shiver under his skin, makes the soles of his feet tingle with the urge to run like he’s being stabbed by a hundred tiny needles but he can’t move can’t run can’t look away from Finn’s terrible black eyes and shining silvered teeth - “you are my little lamb.” Finn raises an eyebrow in amusement. “And I will look after you.”

The desert is horribly silent for a moment. Johnny’s toes dig into the dirt. A breeze strokes through the hair at the back of his neck, and he shivers

“Well, you ain’t gotta pull my leg,” Johnny grouses, indignant more than cross. “I was only askin’.”

Finn snorts inelegantly and throws his head back to howl with laughter at the moon. Johnny feels around for a pebble and bounces it neatly off Finn’s drawn-up knee.

“An’ how come you know my middle name, anyhow?” he says, pushing up onto his feet to glower down at Finn as he snorts and tries to get his breath back under his control. “You been writin’ to my momma, or what?”

Finn unfurls, still wheezing slightly, and Johnny hauls him up onto his good foot. “Aw, never you change,” he tells Johnny fondly. “Anyhow, someone’s gotta know what gets written on your headstone. Gee up.”

“Oughtta leave you here,” Johnny grumbles, bracing for Finn’s weight. The man ain’t quite so heavy now - or not yet - Johnny reckons maybe he’d just needed a rest. They ought to make Danser, no trouble. “I thought I was a lamb, not a horse.”

“Nah,” Finn says with confidence. “I’m the lamb. You can be Saint John the Baptist.”

“I ain’t got the patience.”

“You out-walked a horse with marvellous patience,” Finn points out cheerfully. “And, as Saint John, you get to dunk me in a river and claim it was for the good of my soul.”

“Oh.” Johnny tilts his head and shift’s Finn’s weight on his back as they set out once more for home. “Well, when you put it like that.”

[megan-is-mia]

Hiya! may I please ask for 16 in manipulative for Yandere Cater please he's underrated

(I know this was requested before the Halloween outfits came out and I had this filled with a short drabble but I got bit by a plot bunny about Halloween Cater not respecting boundaries and it turned into something four times the length of the original fill. Please forgive me!) 16. “If you’re not going to talk, I’ll make it so that you can’t.” (Yandere! Cater Diamond x Fem! S/o)

As a young girl (Y/n) had heard the stories about the ghoulish gravewalker who roamed the church graveyard on stormy nights. How he was supposedly not entirely human, able to create duplicates of himself as easily as one might snap their fingers. The stories said that if you saw him that you better run and pray he didn't catch you else he bury you alive and screaming for mercy in his unholy domain. (Y/n) knew this yet she still ventured out to pay her respects to her dearly departed husband. They’d been childhood sweethearts, married for less than two years before a tragic accident stole her love from this world. Like clock-work, (Y/n) would visit his grave each week with a bouquet of flowers and tell him of her life without him. This visit would mark the one year anniversary of his passing and the stormy weather fit her mood perfectly. “Oh, Matthew the pain of losing you still plagues me every night. Some of your friends have offered to wed me so I will not live in disgrace as a young widow anymore but I cannot yet bear to become a happy bride again. Not when I still weep at the sight of the ring you gave me for our engagement after you finished your apprenticeship” (Y/n) spoke sadly as she set the lilies on her beloved tombstone and knelt to sit before the grave. “A beauty such as you should not be left to mourn so” A voice said from behind (Y/n), her head whipped around as she tried to blink away the raindrops that were blurring her vision. The speaker was obviously male by his voice but she couldn't make out any detail on his attire other than it being black as the night sky above them. “Pardon my interruption Ms (L/n) but I couldn't help but notice how down you looked. Even more so than usual” the man added. “Who are you sir? How do you know my last name?” (Y/n) said in a puzzled tone as she held a hand over her eyes to block some of the rain so she could see the man better and perhaps identify him. She was better able to see him without all the rain in her eyes but she could still not put a finger on who he was. He was wearing a hat with a veil attached to it making it difficult to see his face but a pair of green eyes stared down at her through the fabric. “My name is Cater Diamonds, my fair lady, I’m the gravekeeper of this cemetery among other things. And I assumed that (L/n) was your last name because it is Matthew (L/n)’s grave I see you visiting each week. You look too young to be his mother and you do not resemble the man enough to be his sister. So I must assume you are his late wife, correct?” Cater said with a wide grin that was visible through his veil. “Yes you would be correct in that assumption, I am his wife. And Matthew was the love of my life- is the love of my life even though he has passed. I know I must accept that he is gone forever and find myself a new husband but I cannot bear to do it. He is the only man I have ever loved, how can any new relationship compare to the bond we formed since childhood?” (Y/n) wasn't sure why she was rambling to Cater but it made her feel better. “Then I suppose the only thing you can do is find a husband who is more than a simple man. And in that pursuit I can assist you Ms (L/n)” Cater said, bending down and then sitting on the ground beside (Y/n). He stared at the young woman who only stared back at him with an owlish look and an agape mouth. “Forgive my forwardness but I have fallen madly in love with you over these past twelve months since your husband’s funeral” Cater added with a soft sigh. “But, we have only just met, I do not know you well enough for that” (Y/n) protested her face turning red with embarrassment at how abrupt this strange man’s declaration of love was especially when he’d also admitted to essentially stalking her when she was in her most vulnerable state of grief. She shivered at the thought that he might have heard her ramblings about how much she missed her husband and her desire to be reunited with him in death.

“Ah, but I know you (Y/n) I know you better than anyone else in this little town does” Cater said, leaning in close to the young woman’s face, making it easy for her to see the glow in his eye and the almost unnatural angle of his smile. “I know you even better than that foolish husband of yours. He did not deserve such a treasure as you, I will not be as foolhardy as him” he added grabbing (y/n)’s hand and holding it gently. “You go too far sir, I do not wish to speak to you any longer” (Y/n) said angrily, her face turning even redder now from fury as she yanked her hand away from the man and got to her feet with a huff. She would just have to come back to the graveyard another night when this rude man was not present and she could speak to her deceased love in peace. She began to walk towards the cemetery exit when she heard Cater let out a chuckle. “I wouldn't be so hasty (Y/n)” Cater said, making the young woman stop dead in her tracks before she forced herself back into motion to leave the graveyard with her dignity intact. “Don't ignore me, sweetheart. If you’re not going to talk, I’ll make it so that you can’t” this threat made (Y/n)’s stomach churl and she began walking a bit faster until eventually, she had broken into a sprint towards the cemetery gates. 

Cater was right on her heels, easily keeping up with her as she tried to flee from him. She was so focused on keeping distance from him that she didn't see an obstacle suddenly pop up in the archway of the gate and she crashed into it with a painful thud. Whatever the thing was it was grappy and she was held in place by… Cater? When she looked back she could see him walking up behind her, but when she looked down there he was with his arms around her.

“Nobody can escape the grim reaper you know, and no one can escape my shovel once I’ve seen them transpassing in this graveyard” both Caters said in unison. “I cannot let anyone escape, not even a pretty soul like you (Y/n) it is my duty to collect the souls of those who break the rules” he added the sound jumping between the two versions of him and terrifying (Y/n) to such a degree she couldn't do anything but quiver. “Don't be so frightened love, every rule has a loophole after all” the Cater who’d been chasing her said as he reached his clone and (Y/n). “If I make you my wife, then you’ll be under the same obligations as I but also be granted the same protections from the grim reaper” the Cater who was holding her continued for his copy. “All the dead below are ready to witness our union and make it legally binding” the original Cater finished as he grabbed (Y/n) from himself. “All you got to do is say ‘I do’ and give me a kiss. But I warn you if you turn down this offer, I swear that I will spend the rest of eternity keeping that pathetic human whelp of a husband you had away from you in the underworld. So think carefully about what you want to have happen love” Cater said, hugging (Y/n) close as his duplicate faded into the ground below them as if he'd never existed at all. “I…” (Y/n) trailed off, did she really want to go through with this? Agreeing to be wed to a madman who wasn't even human? Was it better to deny him in this moment and try to escape his clutches again? No, deep down she knew the answer was no. She was outmatched and all she could do is try and accept that. “...I do” she finally said, feeling her insides clench as she did so. “Wonderful, now for a kiss to seal the deal~”  Cater said gleefully moving one hand to his head to remove his hat and veil, giving (Y/n) her first real view of his ghostly white complexion and his heavily ringed eyes before he closed the distance between them by pressing his lips against hers. His kiss, was truly the kiss of death. (Y/n) could feel him draining the life from her and her eyes fell shut. She’d awake soon after deep in a coffin under the earth with Cater smiling down at her as he welcomed her to her new reality as an gravewalker's wife… THE END

[chiseler]

Great Zilches of History

Film is light. There are times, though, when that light may take on a Stygian cast, burning with a flamme noire severity, a weird and otherworldly keenness. Or it may burn lurid and loud — especially if it’s a very old film, acting like a séance that summons the unruly dead. The darkness in cinema best typified by that form we call film noir is in its essence an extension of the peculiarly American darkness of Edgar Allan Poe.

Early, nitrate-based film stock, with its twinkling mineral core, gives Poe's crepuscular light its time to shine and thereby illuminate the world. No longer held in the solitary confinement of a page of reproduced text or an image, frozen, rendered in paint or ink. Poe's singularly tormented vision is finally written alchemically, in cinematographic rays beamed through silver salts; into moving images of such aggressive vitality as to blast every rational thing from one's mind. A Black & White image flipped into negative makes black fire, or black sunlight such as illumines Nosferatu’s Transylvanian forests, through which a box-like carriage rattles at Mack Sennett speed. But with the slightest underexposure, a little dupey degradation of the print, or even a little imagination (such collaboration is not discouraged), this liquid blackness will spread everywhere and anywhere, the most luminous pestilence known to creation.  Be it in the laughing nightmare of Fleischer cartoons of old (Out of the Inkwell, indeed) or John Alton’s vision of the night, we are left to wonder: is daylight burning out the corner of a building, or is it the blackness of the building which is eating into the sky? 

As with many such questions, film permits us no easy answer. We are simply to watch as the characters smudge. As their shadows pulsate and flicker, emanate out beyond themselves. But if Poe represents the loss of control over one’s existence and the ensuing panic, then cinema, consciously or not, takes existential dread as a given.

God, a vague and unseen deity, died at the moment cinema was born, replaced by a new celestial order. Saints and prophets made poor film characters, giving off the feeling of having stepped out of a stained glass window, flat, Day-Glo icons moving uncomfortably through three-dimensional space. Movies rather rejoiced in dirt and rags, texture and imperfection, so that the most lacklustre clown easily outperformed all the icon messiahs. At 45 minutes, Fernand Zecca’s The Life and Passion of Christ (1903) is one of the earliest feature films, but compared to the same filmmaker’s less ambitious, more playful shorts, it’s a beautiful snooze. A different execution climaxes his Story of a Crime (1901), in which we get to see, by brutal jump cut, a guillotine decapitation before our very eyes. This, as Maxim Gorky prophesied, is what the public wants. Or maybe the events of 1901, cinematic and otherwise, allow “the public” to define itself in ways heretofore unthinkable. The year brings Victoria Regina’s propitious death. And with her passing, Edgar Allan Poe’s pronunciamento on celebrity, “the ludicrous heightened into the grotesque," comes to new and anarchic fruition as an incendiary schnook, one of history’s finest.

When he shot President William McKinley at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo on September 6th, 1901, the currents of fear and vengeance unleashed by Leon Czolgosz would carry him on a journey from reflexive beatings at the hands of police and a post-Victorian mob – ladies in bustles shedding all restraint, transformed from well-honed symbols of middle-class decorum into yowling banshees, screaming “GIVE HIM TO US!” – straight to the electric chair, from whence his corpse would be taken for additional punishment, a process where ghoulish prison authorities at Auburn separated the head from the body, and then poured sulfuric acid on what remained, before secreting the sorry residue of America’s anarchist son into an unmarked grave.

Despite attempts to erase Czoglosz from history, a visual document survives, oozing with pathos and bitter recrimination. It is impossible, looking into those eyes, not to feel unnerved and, yes, sympathetic with him – his desperate act, after all, was as critical a part of America’s greed-engorged industrial fantasia as the near daily spectacle of peaceful strikers, his friends among them, being slaughtered in the name of profit. 

Cinema’s misspent childhood years in late-Victorian fairgrounds are followed by a grimy adolescence in Edwardian nickelodeon parlours. The medium, which finally comes of age amid gaudy palaces built in its honor, morphs many times. However, All Talking Pictures are the final death knell for the Victorian standard, belching from the screen a thousand inbred tongues that invade the ear willy-nilly. They remind us that when Queen Victoria breaths her last Naturalism sheds decorum, taste, breeding, good table manners.

Edgar Allan Poe essentially owns motion pictures via ongoing necrophilic obsession, since celluloid preserves the dead better than any embalming fluid. Like amber preserved holograms, they flit in and out of its parameters, reciting their own epitaphs in pantomime; revenant moths trapped in perpetual motion. Film is bona fide illumination — as opposed to religion’s metaphorical kind – representing the supremacy of alchemy and necromancy over sackcloth and ashes. The inmates, emboldened under the spell of Klieg lights, were not only running the asylum, but re-shaping the world in their own image.  Both Church and State with their blunt instruments of repression proved impotent against the anarchy of this freshly liberated ghetto.

Holy men were unceremoniously defrocked, their doctrine of abject compliance to class-based norms re-written into storylines enriched by grease-painted floozies, costumed villains, and snooty dowagers brought down a notch by the drunk hobo in her drawing room. Amidst widespread labour unrest and mass poverty, followed soon by the Great Depression, filmgoers of the silent era had a front row view of the plutocracy’s helplessness against a swelling tide of restless humanity. Charlie Chaplin’s itinerant laborer may have accidentally thwarted a plutocrat’s plan for world domination and/or a house renovation, just as Groucho Marx seemed to have spontaneously derailed a social climbing matron’s equally fierce ambitions.

All hail the magic mirrors! Celestial mandalas! Giant eggs and butterfly women! Segundo de Chomón’s The Red Spectre (1907) ruthlessly assaults our eyes with a wraith-magician dissolving through his coffin lid in a red, hand-tinted, flame-flickering hell. His presence, caped, skull-masked, was to herald a new thespic truth, that from this moment forward the art of acting would be reduced to how you respond to light, and how light responds to you. The Specter of Chomon’s dark bauble is in every element Poe’s Red Death — japing and performing tricks for us, his adoring fans and welcome guests, before announcing our doom — literary metaphor slammed against a literal backdrop of amber stalactites, pellucid as an ossuary.

That was a long time ago, in the first decades of the 20th century, before artifice and studios and the commercial paradigm of stardom finally swallowed cinema in one ravenous bite. It was a period when one could see, if one paid close attention, the dreariness of ordinary life at the centre and around the edges of every motion picture brought forth. It lived onscreen in film’s early days, exposing the pretense, however fitful, of opulence or period as simply that: pretense, a fundamental desire to escape reality. But this “escapism” had always been erroneously attributed to the audience’s needs, when in fact it was rather those bankrolling the nascent medium not yet sufficiently in control of itself to impose any order.

The censors were on to something, even if they could never fully articulate what precise blasphemies were being committed. 

Take Hitchcock’s Vertigo, for instance, which isn’t pure noir but is pure Poe: what would the surgical excision of an influence look like? Granted, the noir genre seems an unlikely Poe derivative, but what of Laura — fatalism, romance and necro-fantasy (with Lydecker as Usher)? DOA is the kind of concept Poe might have dreamed up; one of the great noir scribes, Cornell Woolrich is channeling Poe through an all-thumbs pulp sensibility. And how hard would it be to cast Val Lewton as the horror noir hybrid, with premature burials, ancestral disease, lunatics taking over bedlam? Jean Epstein, who adapted The Fall of the House of Usher in 1928, complained that Baudelaire’s translations fundamentally mistook Poe’s innocence for ghastliness. 

The dead in Poe, writes Epstein, are “only slightly dead.”  

To the extent that Epstein was correct, the whimsy that Poe bequeaths to cinema finds itself absorbed in almost material terms — not as sensibility but as a texture whose particular nap or weave is never granted names. In Mesmeric Revelations a voluntary subject is quite near physical death and under the ministrations of his mesmerist, answering precise questions about the nature of God. Before dying, he says God is “ultimate or unparticled” matter: “What men attempt to embody in the word ‘thought,’ is this matter in motion”. The same unnamable textures apparently survive on television, a case of Poe resonating inside our minds, a collective consciousness replaced by cathode rays. 

Deep within the 18 hours of David Lynch’s Twin Peaks: The Return, there is a moment that, on its incandescent surface, could have been lifted weightless from the great post-war dream of material deliverance; as if the zeitgeist of the mid 20th century had somehow got lost and ended up in this one: Daytime, the top on the convertible is down, the radio tuned, The Paris Sisters singing I Love How You Love Me as a reincarnated Laura Palmer lifts her face to a cloudless sky.  Within this tapestry of an early Phil Spector production — his trademark reverb eternally evocative of Romance and Death (two conditions Spector knows well) — the voice of Priscilla Paris could be a siren sound from the American Beyond, or a dream goddess lullaby from the whispering gallery, or sweet nothings from the crypt.  We don’t know.  We’ll never know.

In this oneiric echo chamber, Poe smiles down upon American blondness, muscle cars soaked in sunlight, candy for eye and ear; the terrible ecstasy of unending motion and immortality.

If Lynch’s Return means going back home, then home is that Lemon Popsicle/Strawberry Milkshake species of innocence proffered by America's music industry between 1957 and 1964. The horror genre always has to have some component of innocence to devastate, be it the existential kind which inspires the malevolence everyone paid the price of a ticket to have vicarious transit with; or the mere victimisation of the unsuspecting. Either way, there was no other period in American popular culture when innocence, of any variety, was so lavishly examined, toyed with, killed.  The free floating chord that opens The Everly Brothers song, All I Have To Do is Dream, remains a lamentation in sound: the sudden recrudescence of Poe’s beating, tell-tale heart.  Adoring such guilt-free teenage odes to sleep, death and sexual desire, David Lynch finds a muse in Amanda Seyfried. Specifically her visionary eyes melting Phil Spector’s dark edifice of sugar in a deathless, Sternbergian close-up — iridescent search lights, ever more urgently scanning the sky above, waiting for the sun to swallow her whole. We can only bear witness, and internalize this shimmering ingenue, this angel in a red convertible, trading places with Old Sol; as if whatever she just snorted has entered our system through hers.  But in that ephemeral instant she achieves oneness with all things; the transcendence of stardom — true, temporal stardom  — shorn of fame and the imperatives of show-business.

To this day David Lynch’s favorite film remains Otto e Mezzo, directed by Federico Fellini: Western Europe’s sorcerer of confectionary delights and unending motion; the man who put the “dolce” in La Dolce Vita. Fellini, he states, "manages to accomplish with film what mostly abstract painters do; namely, to communicate an emotion without ever saying or showing anything in a direct manner." Even if one were to take him at his word — and we must, of course, for no filmmaker has ever been known to misrepresent themselves to us — this seems a strange instance of gravitational pull, particularly in the light of the formal strategies of both men as they developed through time. Lynch has always favored a blunt pictorialism that, in its bluntness, borders on the language of Imagism: the studied simplicity of the language used to complex, powerful effect. Fellini, in 8 1/2 and throughout much of his career, by contrast, unleashes upon the viewer an insanely fluid, brutally precise camera ballet. Any good cinephile might be tempted to resolve the disparities and move toward a brighter, less subterranean comprehension. But, ultimately, such understanding would be a didactic burden no moviegoer needs. For here, in these conflicting dialects, you have a fleeting taste of ideologies swirled together like ribbon candy: a blur of four-wheeled luxury from the New World zooming past regional splendor into that fraternity of man: the socio-economic nirvana imagined by Karl Marx in the Old.

Careening from one via to another at harrowing, white-knuckle speed, Fellini was once heard to lament that “Some of the neo-realists seem to think that they cannot make a film unless they have a man in old clothes in front of the camera.” George Bluestone, recording these words for the pages of Film Culture in 1957, was sitting in the literal passenger seat of that ideal metaphor for post-war ebullience in action: expert, 20th century precision hurtling them through Roman streets with graffiti-scrawled churches proudly bearing the hammer and sickle; that famous Black Chevy skirting the Italian Scylla (the Vatican) and its equally dogmatic Charybdis (the Party). At that velocity, anything could make sense.

“Appearances aside" Bluestone wrote, "the Chevrolet is at every moment under Fellini’s control. He weaves in and out of traffic, misses pedestrians by inches, swerves away from Nomentana’s interminable monuments, dodging yellow traffic blinkers as if he were trying out a darkened slalom.” It is every bit a performance. Rome, after all, is the land of Bernini’s The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa, Apollo and Daphne — marble-cum-flesh, even as flesh itself gives way to forms that leave the viewer in terrified awe. While reliving his own mythic, carbureted experience, Bluestone does some weaving of his own, quoting Genevieve Agel’s one-line pronunciamento (and, in the process, defining what would soon be labelled 'Felliniesque'), “Fellini is a visionary of the real”, as the passenger positions his driver somewhere between corporeal reality and ecstatic truth while the big man (no old clothes for this maestro) drives and drives. “As one hand lightly guides the wheel, the other gestures — it acts.”

Spirits of the Dead is one of those compendium films, with voguish directors (Malle, Vadim, Fellini) entrusted with bringing to the screen a Poe story each. Only the Fellini episode, Toby Dammit, is notable, but it's very notable, a hallucinatory yarn owing as much to Mario Bava's Kill, Baby, Kill! as to Poe's Never Bet the Devil Your Head, its ostensible source. The title character, played by Terence Stamp with white-blond hair and dark roots and constant beads of witch hazel perspiration, is in Rome to attend an awards ceremony and to play Christ in a western, but he's fatally distracted by his new sports car and a vision of the devil in the form of a little girl. Toby's ride through a hellscape of nocturnal Rome seems lifted from Jules Dassin’s 10.30 p.m. Summer (1966), but works even better for Fellini than it did in the Duras adaptation. An oppressively subjective film, Toby Dammit narrows down to the view in the Ferrari's headlights, a ghastly floodlit interzone where human forms are gradually replaced with mannequins and cut-outs, as the city becomes unreal, an elaborate movie set, an uncanny valley laid out for the staging of an epic stunt/snuff film.

Fellini and Lynch celebrate bodily extremes in intriguing if differing ways, which should, in our time, naturally gallop beyond the pale, but nevertheless become wholly, weirdly digestible. It is perhaps the innocent glee of these artists, their wonderment at the vast variety of shapes the human body can assume; an innocence which suspends toward erasure our awareness the way physical representation functions in the 21st century. Lynch presents the disabled as childlike, mysterious, magical beings without ever worrying about lending them agency (The Elephant Man’s John Merrick functions both as passive whipping boy and chic spectacle for the whole of Victorian London), or the mendacity of adult sophistication (the latest Twin Peaks iteration includes a pint-sized hitman who whines like a puppy when his icepick is broken). Is it any wonder Lynch evolved a style which placed them front and center in unmoving shots, without irony or pity? 

Poe, while certainly a pioneer of fake news, also had a way of vindicating the lumpen masses of humanity (to the middle-brow’s abiding chagrin).  

The Mystery of Marie Roget, a Parisian murder mystery, presented as a fictional sequel to The Murders in the Rue Morgue, was simultaneously trumpeted as a correct solution to the real-life murder of Mary Cecilia Rogers in New York. When a news article presented fresh evidence while the story was still being serialised, Poe made minor changes to the final instalment to keep his fiction in line with the facts.

He later published a story about an Atlantic crossing by balloon, accomplished in three days, in The New York Sun in 1844. "Signal Triumph of Mr. Monck Mason's Flying Machine!!!"  The piece was presented as truth, and only revealed as "The Great Balloon Hoax" a couple of days later. “The more intelligent believed," wrote Poe, "while the rabble, for the most part, rejected the whole with disdain.” He saw this as a new development: “20 years ago credulity was the characteristic trait of the mob, incredulity the distinctive feature of the philosophic.” 

What had changed? Perhaps the acceleration of scientific and social progress meant that the more literate and scientifically-minded had become inured to startling new developments, so the most surprising events now seemed credible. And since these same technological leaps were always presented as social benefits, the working class was growing skeptical, since they rarely saw any improvement in their condition.

by Daniel Riccuito, R.J. Lambert and David Cairns

Special thanks to Richard Chetwynd

[shirtlesssammy]

8x12: As Time Goes By

Then:

A family with a lifetime of happiness ahead of them!

Now:

1958:

In Normal, Illinois, a young boy is woken by his father wishing him sweet dreams and that he’ll see him in the morning. The father then heads off to work to a Men of Letters secret hideout. (Erm, I just looked at the episode order, we don’t know about the Men of Letter yet. Spoiler!) Anyway, the man enters and finds his colleague, Josie, waiting for him. It seems they’re getting initiated into some kind of secret society. 

A hooded man beckons Josie inside first. As the man waits, he hears screams. He dashes inside to find pure chaos. A robed man with bleeding eyes gives him something, pleading, “Henry, do not let Abaddon get it.”

Josie is really Abaddon! She sees Henry and he takes off running, with Abaddon in close pursuit. He locks himself in a room and starts making a potion for a spell. He makes a sigil on a door, chants his spell, and jumps right into Sam and Dean’s motel room. “Which of you is John Winchester?”

They demand to know who he is. When he doesn’t answer, Dean body slams him against the wall. Still, he insists that one of them must know John Winchester. They want answers from him --but he merely tells them there’s been a mistake and tries leaving. Unfortunately, at the mention of John, Sam and Dean are on high alert, so they handcuff the guy, which he breaks from instantly and escapes. (Sam and Dean are now handcuffed to the chair.)

A man out of time, Henry gloms onto the one thing that looks even remotely like home --the Impala. He checks the date on the license plate and then breaks the window (!) to break into the car.

(Man, I think Dean gets his flair for dramatics from his grandfather because Sam just walked up and opened the passenger side door --doofus just had to open that door and slide over to steal the car.) 

Back at the motel, the brothers test him for everything, but holy water doesn’t take out arrogance. John won’t talk to alpha-male monkey men. Dean lets it slip that John Winchester is his father. Before Henry can parse that fact, Abaddon busts through the door. She wants what he has. 

Henry pleads with Josie, the woman Abaddon possessed, but gets nowhere. That’s okay, because Dean’s got his demon knife, and stabs her in the back!

But, uh, it was more like stepping on a lego than death for her, so the boys and Henry run. 

The three of them pull over when they reach safety and Henry explains that Abaddon is a demon from Hell, and he is from 1958. 

He needs to see John Winchester. Dean breaks the news that John Winchester is dead. Henry breaks the news that he’s John’s father. 

Sam believes him. Dean is #TeamJohn (ofc) and says that Henry left when John was just a kid. Sam wonders if this was the reason --he traveled to another time and couldn’t make it home. 

(Sidenote: I love that Sam’s willing to give his time traveling deadbeat grandfather more of a chance than the vampire that SAVED his brother’s life...hrmf. But it does play nicely with both brothers --Henry has to earn Dean’s loyalty, family or not.) 

The family bonding includes discussing why Abaddon didn’t die from Ruby’s knife, shoving Abaddon back where she came, and learning about blood spells that require the use of the human soul. Henry is confused why the brothers don’t know about the last bit. “You’re Men of Letters, correct?”

Sam breaks the sad news that they’re hunters. Henry keeps winning Dean over by calling hunters “apes.” He then calls them legacies. “Legacies of what?”

Henry takes them to the Men of Letters secret hideout. It’s currently a comic shop. 

Henry explains what Men of Letters are and why it’s important that the brothers carry on the family legacy. “So you’re like Yodas to our Jedis?” Yes DEAN yes. 

Sam wonders why they’ve never heard of the Men of Letters. “Abaddon,” Henry concludes, and heads inside. He has the mysterious box still and wants to find another Men of Letters to help them stop Abaddon. 

(Funny time travel generational jokes ensue.)

Sam borrows a laptop and finds the article detailing the night of Abaddon’s attack. Henry hears the name Albert Magnus, and boom, they’re walking around a dark cemetery. Magnus was a code word for other Men of Letters-- to alert them that something was amiss. He sees another grave marker and realizes that the message is here, and asks his grandsons, “You boys ever exhume a body?”

At the comic shop, Abaddon strolls in like she invented dark ennui. She reels the young clerk towards her, steals her memories, covets her shirt, and...sends the clerk off on a wonderful, all-expense paid vacation to San Diego Comic Con! That’s...definitely what happened.

In the cemetery, Dean and Sam dig out the body because they are SUCKERS while their grandpa sits his aging bones cleanly on the edge of the grave and oversees their work. Henry doesn’t know the body buried  in the coffin, but he’s ready to investigate! He thinks a survivor may have stolen the identity of the buried body and may be still alive somewhere. Time to get moving! As soon as the Winchester boys rebury the body!

Back in the motel, I have to interrupt the recap for Motel Room Decoration Porn.

Henry whistles “As time goes by” like it’s a super normal thing to lounge around whistling songs while your future grandchildren research demons. They reminisce about the song. Henry bought a music box that played that song for John when he was a boy, to comfort him when he was scared. This tale brings GREAT comfort and not an OUNCE of jealousy to Dean, who changes the subject. The identity of the body belongs to someone who actually still lives in Lebanon, Kansas, and is terrifically old by now. Sam’s also uncovered a tidbit: according to their dad’s journal, Abaddon is a Knight of Hell. They’re the first-born and purest demons. 

Henry muses over John’s journal, and flips the pages to reveal initials engraved in the cover: HW. John was using his father’s journal - the one Henry had purchased to chronicle his own Men of Letters studies after his initiation. 

Henry realizes that he’s not heading back home after this mission. And although Henry is appalled that his son became a hunter instead of an esteemed Men (Man?) of Letters, he runs up against Dean’s defense of John enduring against hardship to become a hunter. While we often grit our teeth when we think of John and parenting in the same breath, I do get the sense that Dean’s defending his own life and choices here too. Dean’s emotions continue to radiate out of every pore like the sun on a cloudless day, because he lashes out at Henry for accepting his fate of never seeing his son again and being more loyal to the Men of Letters than his own family. Dean Bean!

Henry reads through John’s journal. SPOILERS! In the morning, Dean “I’ll never sleep under covers again” Winchester and Sam “How is my hair this perfect” Winchester wake up to discover Henry missing. Henry has left so he can fix everything! GREAT! Happy ending, episode done. 

At a small new age shop, Henry demands spell ingredients. He knows they’re there because of the hunter’s signs in the window. The shopkeeper aims a shotgun at his gut.

Henry offers to buy some wholesome chamomile, and then blows powder at her face while saying a quick incantation. She passes out immediately. f r o w n y f a c e

At the motel, Dean and Sam realize that some spell ingredients, like an angel feather from their trunk, are missing. Henry is trying to cook up another time travel spell! More important than this fact, though, is that Dean and Sam keep angel feathers in the trunk of the Impala! Sometimes I think LOL okay angel wings are ethereal and quasi-metaphorical on this show and sometimes I think THEY HAVE FEATHERS that you CAN TOUCH and my mind slips down soft, feathery wing-kink adjacent side tunnels…...

Ahem.

I’m fine.

News crops up. There’s one dead at Astro Comics.

Sam interrogates the last-remaining Men of Letters. He tells Sam that Abaddon was a “hired gun” who destroyed everyone. In the box Henry took is the key to every spell, every bit of Men of Letters knowledge. 

At the shop, Henry chants his time travel spell. When Dean tries to stop him, Henry tells him that reading John’s journal hurt. Dean reveals that reading his dad’s journal hurts “every damn time.” DAMN YOU DEAN WINCHESTER AND YOUR SOFT NOUGATY HEART!

Henry reveals his plan: he’ll travel back in time to an hour before Abaddon attacks and then THEY’LL have the upper hand. Dean’s concerned: he might not exist if Henry fiddles with the past. 

Sam asks the last surviving Men of Letters how to stop Abaddon, but the old man has no useful advice. Instead, he counsels Sam to chuck the key into the secret lair and scram to keep the secrets safe from Abaddon. Then Sam reveals that Dean has the key and Larry’s wife stands up, her eyes flicking to black. It’s Abaddon! She slices up her old foe while Sam tries to scram. 

Abaddon calls Dean and taunts him gleefully. She offers up a deal: Henry and the key in exchange for Sam. Henry’s still resolute about going back in time but Dean won’t risk him failing - not with “Sammy on the hook now.” Dean sleeper holds his grandpa. 

At the meeting spot, Dean offers over a grim Henry in exchange for Sam. Yay! Family reunion again!

Henry circles Abaddon while Sam and Dean try to scamper away. Abaddon traps them though and then stabs Henry through the gut with her BARE HAND. YIKES. Henry shakes it off, though and shoots her through the chin. Oh, he also doesn’t have the box anymore! It’s just a pack of playing cards. “I’ve been played!” Abaddon should have said.

Instead, Abaddon shrieks in rage and then discovers that she’s trapped in place. Abaddon ate a devil’s trap bullet, so her powers are nullified. Dean slices her head off and tells her he’ll carefully dismember her and bury her under cement which is some REAL DARK SHIT MY FRIENDS. It’s actually a comfort to know that he couldn’t follow through on the whole piece-by-piece dismembering!

Dean congratulates Henry on his win, while Henry slowly dies in Sam’s arms. “We’re Winchesters,” Henry tells them. “As long as we’re alive, there’s always hope.” With his dying breath, Henry tells them he’s proud of John because of Sam and Dean and...you know what? It’s a sideways compliment, but I’ll take it.

Sam and Dean bury Henry in the old Men of Letters graveyard. “The Winchester and the Campbells,” Sam reflects on their legacy. “The brains and the brawn.” Dean doesn’t appreciate the poetry of it. He only sees the pain. He also thinks about John’s pain, thinking that Henry abandoned him so many years ago when he died for his grandsons instead. “Freaking time travel, man.”

Sam pulls out Henry’s mysterious box. Time to open it up and see what’s inside! “We are legacies, right?”

What, the Quote-ans?

Is it absolutely essential, sir, that you keep your hands on me?

That’s no way to treat a lady

Seriously? Dudes time-travelling through motel-room closets? That's what we've come to?

Let me get this straight. You traveled through time to protect something that does you-don't-know-what from a demon that you know nothing about?

We had a deal!

Want to read more? Check out our Recap Archive! 

[sassycassie-s-writing]

I Keep Seeing Your Ghost

By: SassyShoulderAngel319

Fandom/Character(s): DC, BatFam - Jason Todd/Red Hood

Rating: PG-11/T-

Original Idea: Uh... the aesthetics of Taylor Swift’s Style music video because why not?

Notes: (Masterlist)(By Character)(About Me) I swear I didn’t mean for this to be 2,368 words... it just really ran away from me. And it took me all freaking day to write this because I kept getting interrupted. Anyway! Enjoy! @welovegroot @jason-todd-squad @bat-shots @jason-redhood

^^^^^

Gotham’s usual fog was mostly burned off in the early-autumn heat. Except in the cemetery. For some reason the cemetery always had fog. Probably because the number one law of Gotham was to keep the gloomy aesthetic at all costs.

I sat down on damp grass in front of a headstone. The once-torn apart earth had been smoothed over and grass replanted, covering up the fact that the grave had been dug up and a coffin lowered in.

That someone being the name carved into the marble of the marker: Jason Peter Todd.

I sighed. “Hi Jason,” I said, setting the two plastic wine glasses on the ground. I poured part of a can of root beer into the one closest to the gravestone and a lemonade in the one closest to me. “Don’t suppose now’s a good time to apologize for… everything. I know I told you to choose between me or whatever your problem was that you had to go off and take care of. But I really didn’t think it was going to get you killed. It was wrong of me to say that to you. I was just hurt that you kept blowing me off for… whatever it was you were doing. Now that you’re gone all I can do is fear the worst. Were you involved in illegal substances and never told me? I don’t know what I could or would have done but… I would have tried to help you. With whatever. You just needed to tell me,” I said to the headstone.

The headstone, thankfully, didn’t respond.

I picked at my nails. “Jay… truth is… you’ve been gone for six months, and I… I keep seeing your ghost. Everywhere. I see you in the gaps between my curtains when they get caught in the breeze. I see you in my rearview mirror when I drive alone at night out in the Palisades. I see you out of the corner of my eye on the street.

“Jay, when will I be free of you?” I pleaded, tears welling up in my eyes and spilling over. “I miss you like crazy but I can’t keep holding on to this anger and guilt I feel. Why won’t you let me go?”

I wiped my eyes and sniffed, trying to pull myself together. I downed my plastic wine glass of lemonade and hiccuped.

“Hey!” The voice came from behind me, making me jump. I whirled. A man in some sort of security uniform came striding over the cemetery’s grass, carefully picking his way around headstones. “What are you doing here, miss?”

“Just uh… coming to talk with…” I glanced at Jason’s headstone, realizing it might look ridiculous, but knowing I wasn’t the only one who talked to the grave marker of a loved one as though it was that person. “Just here to talk with someone I loved.” I bent down and picked up the root beer. “Would you like some root beer?”

The man accepted the drink automatically. He had some sort of mask on over his face. Like a surgical mask but with little vents on either side, like a gas mask. This close to me I could see a ring of green in his blue eyes around his pupils. In the twilit cemetery, the green almost glowed.

“Miss, you have to leave. This isn’t fog. This is leftover fear toxin slowly dispersing. It’s not safe for you to be out here,” the security man said. “Let me escort you to your car.”

Without waiting for me to respond, he started pushing me away from Jason’s headstone. Still holding the drink. I stumbled over the uneven grassy earth and corrected the security man’s direction so I was actually heading toward my car.

I unlocked my driver’s side door, ducked in, and locked it again as soon as we reached my car. The security man stopped touching me when I pulled out my keys to unlock the door. “You take care now,” he’d said.

“Bye,” I’d replied.

I pulled off from the curb in the cemetery and started to drive away. I glanced in my rearview mirror.

The security man had lowered his face mask to take a sip of the root beer.

But all I saw was Jason, wrapped in Gotham’s fog like a wispy cape, swirling in a breeze.

I shook my head to clear it and kept driving.

^^^^^

Jason watched her go as he took a sip of the drink she’d offered. He smiled. “She remembered my favorite brand,” he said quietly.

He felt bad about lying to her about the fog. It was, in fact, just Gotham’s usual mist shroud.

But he really couldn’t stand listening to her cry over his grave anymore.

It hurt too much.

“It’s not your fault,” he whispered as her taillights disappeared into the mist.

He drank the rest of the root beer with a wistful look on his face before placing the wine glass on his headstone. She hadn’t even noticed how recently the earth had been churned up and placed back down again after he’d dug himself out of his own grave.

He sighed. “I’m just trying to keep you safe. I don’t mean to torment you. I didn’t realize you even saw me,” he muttered. “I’m sorry. I miss you.”

Jason stared at the spot where her car disappeared for a long time.

Finally he pulled out his phone. “Yeah, hey, Bruce? I need some advice.”

^^^^^

I flopped onto my bed and stared at the ceiling. My roommate in the dorms wasn’t back from her studying yet so I had some time to just decompress.

Which I did by grabbing my pillow and screaming into it. I wasn’t angry. There was just a lot of deep-seated emotions constantly simmering on the back burner that I needed to release. Let off some steam.

Once I felt a little better, I just laid there on my bed and started mentally rearranging the stars tacked to Daniella’s side of the ceiling into proper constellations.

The dorm room door burst open. “Wakey-wakey! Rise and shine sucker! I need your help!” Daniella exclaimed.

I winced at the loud noise. “What?” I muttered.

“Well, okay. I need your car and your stupidly photogenic face,” my roommate amended.

“What fooor?” I complained.

Daniella stared at me for a second. “Photography club, genius,” she said. “We’re meeting in the woods outside the Palisades to take ghostly pictures in the fog! And you’re stupidly photogenic so I want you to put on that white dress you have and be my ghost!”

“The fog is fear toxin dispersing, isn’t it?” I asked.

“What? No! Scarecrow’s hasn’t broken out of Arkham in, like, four months!”

“Then what…?” I whispered. What had that security man been thinking, then? That didn’t make any sense.

“So? Will you?” Daniella pressed.

I sighed and sat up. “Sure. Pass me my hairbrush.”

^^^^^

“Okay, now turn your back on the camera and your head so we can see your profile and stare longingly into the woods,” Daniella instructed. I followed her directions. Several camera shutters went off in quick succession.

I zoned out as Daniella came forward and started fixing up my dress to drape more aesthetically over the forest floor. My eyes scanned the trees, looking at the mist dancing around.

It curled around a silhouette. Black hair, with a single streak of white near the center of the hairline. Tall muscular.

It wasn’t Jason’s skinny, malnourished body—

But it was his face.

My throat closed up and my heart slammed itself against my ribs. “Jason?” I asked. “Jason?”

Not even hearing Daniella yelling after me, I took off running over the forest floor, ignoring the pain of being barefoot. Jason disappeared in the fog, but I saw him up ahead, off to the left.

“Jason!” I shouted, running after him.

I took several twists and turns before truly losing him in the mist.

Looking around, I realized I had no idea where I was. And that the light was fading. Gotham forest was always dark anyway but as the sun went down and the autumn chill started to set in, there was truly almost no light left. I fell onto my knees and looked behind me. My dress was stained with dirt and mud at the hem but had managed to avoid tearing.

When I took stock of myself, I saw that my feet were bleeding.

“Oh crap,” I muttered.

Pain flooded my feet full-force and tears pricked my eyes. I let them fall freely, cursing my stupidity. It wasn’t him. I’d been seeing his ghost for months. Why did I choose the time when I was already lost out in the forest to go running after a specter that wasn’t there?

Angry at myself, I shoved myself to my feet and started trudging through the woods, trying to find my way in the darkness back the way I came. There was no path, no tracks I’d left—not that I’d know how to read them anyway—and no way to see. My phone was in the glove compartment of my car…

“Great,” I muttered. “I’m gonna end up on Buzzfeed Unsolved for randomly running off into the forest and disappearing under mysterious circumstances while a whole club of photography nerds watched and no one is ever going to find my body.”

That was immensely frustrating.

I thought about tearing the hem off my dress to wrap my feet in an effort to stop the bleeding, but I wasn’t sure I was even strong enough. They weren’t bleeding that bad either way. And I didn’t think there were many predators in the woods this close to the city. None that could smell blood anyway… but I wasn’t entirely sure. There could be wolves behind every tree and I’d have no idea.

I found a clearing big enough for me to see the sky. Betelgeuse was just edging past a tree. Orion was an October-to-April constellation that had just barely risen for the winter. But even seeing it meant I knew which direction I was going. I couldn’t get a glimpse of the north star or even Ursa Major from here but I knew I was going east and if I turned right I’d be heading south—toward the city. Or at least the road. Where hopefully I could find my friends or someone willing to drive me back to my parents’ house so I could go to the hospital to check my feet—and call Daniella and let her know I was alive.

“Okay. Best to keep going,” I muttered, starting to trudge through the woods, going south.

The light was completely gone and it felt like I was walking for hours before I finally found a road.

When the asphalt—stranger to touch but just as sharp on my feet—was under me, I let myself cry again. I found the road. The connection to Gotham I needed to at least try to find my way back to the place where I’d parked my car. Daniella and the photography club had probably left. Maybe they’d gone to the cops. Maybe there was Search & Rescue scouring the woods for me already.

Looking up, I found Betelgeuse again to orient myself and started running—that was really more of a stagger—down the road toward Gotham. I was probably leaving a small trail of blood but most of my injuries had scabbed.

I was exhausted and desperate—and wearing a white dress. Any late-night travelers would be insane to pick up a hitchhiking, exhausted, barefoot girl in a white dress. Any sane Gothamite would think I was an actual ghost. And in Gotham that wouldn’t even be a stretch to have an actual hitchhiking ghost.

My run slowed down as my fatigue really set in. My eyelids were heavy.

As I reached the one strip of road that wasn’t twisting-and-turning, I tripped on a rock I couldn’t see in the darkness, falling to my hands and knees and scraping my palms on the ground.

I didn’t get back up. I just sat down and cried. My dress was ruined from the forest and the trip on the road and my blood as I held myself in a hug with bleeding hands.

The distant rumble of a car’s engine registered in my ears. I lifted my head and wiped my eyes.

The car that swung around the corner was old. Probably from the sixties. It looked like an old gray Chevy.

The headlights stopped about ten feet from me. A door creaked open.

Someone called my name, sounding comforting and yet confused.

The headlights filled my vision so I couldn’t see who it was. I blocked the brightness with one arm.

That same voice swore. “You’re bleeding!”

Joining me on the asphalt, bathed in light, was—

“J… Jason?” I asked, confused and tired. “H… how…?”

He carefully examined my hands, swearing again. “These look rough. C’mon. Lemme take you home. I’ll explain everything on the way, I promise,” he said.

Before I could respond, he’d scooped me up and set me gently in the passenger seat. He caressed my face before shutting the door, circling the car, and ducking into the driver’s seat.

“You’re… you’re alive,” I breathed.

“Yup. And you’re bleeding. From both hands and feet. So just relax. I’m gonna get you home. Or to a hospital. And while we drive, let me explain what happened.”

I sighed in relief at being off my feet—and at knowing that I wasn’t going crazy. Jason was alive! I was actually seeing him when I thought I just kept seeing his ghost in my guilt.

Before he could even start explaining how on earth he was still alive, I passed out.

^^^^^

Jason looked over at her as her head lolled down. She was asleep.

“I’m not leaving you again. I’m sorry,” he said quietly. He reached across the front bench to run the backs of his fingers down her face. “I promise… I promise that I’ll tell you everything. Just as soon as you wake up and feel better.”

[morning-thunderstorm]

A butterfly dive.

Hello, @pondlilies00. I was your Natsume yuujinchou Secret Santa gifter. @natsume-ss

Here's the first of the Natsume turned god series. I'll do my best to post other parts before the deadline, too. If you prefer AO3, here's the link - https://archiveofourown.org/works/21959386

Name: A butterfly dive.

Word count: 6856 words.

It happens one day, in late spring, when green colors slopes of mountains and flowers cover roadside in all colors of rainbow.

Natsume smiles, listening to Kitamoto and Nishimura’s bickering and jokes, occasionally joining, but mostly keeping to himself. Kappa told him about a small river up the mountain where there is very good fish, and now they are heading there, though Tanuma was busy helping his dad with something the shrine.

“Oh, how’s your cousin?” Nishimura bites his lip, “He’s better, I hope?”

The sudden change in mood attracts Natsume’s attention. Kitamoto's cousin? Is he ill? But his somber face didn’t tell good news. Natsume scowled, but remained silent.

“No. Doctors don’t even know what’s the problem with his legs. All is good”, Atsushi exhales sharply, “Nerves, bones, muscles, it’s almost like that old telltale auntie told us when we were small”, he tangled his hair,” You know that one, about a Mononoke in the left shrine on the north slope of the mountain”.

Natsume perked up at these words. Mononoke?

“Yeah”, Nishimura sighed, “Oh, Natsume, you don’t know Koonaku!” he turned to Takashi, selfconscious. Natsume only shook his head.

'Kitamoto’s cousin could be a victim of an angry yokai', he thought, 'better check, Kitamoto likes him a lot, it seems'.

“His name’s Koonaku Ryuuzan, my maternal cousin, two years older than me”, Atsushi smiled, “He’s like a brother to me, we’re very close”.

“What’s happened?” Natsume asked, tentatively observing his friend, ready to back down any moment. After all, he had the Dog’s Circle, who could find it out for him, if the need arose.

“He walked in the forest with friends after school, to find some sort of flowers for their biology project, his teacher told them where to find them, and they came to that left shrine. He said he would go inside and look for them in the yard, but didn’t come out for about ten minutes”, Kitamoto fell silent for a moment, nervously pursing lips. His fists clenched, knuckles whitening, “The shrine is small, so it couldn’t take him so long, and his friends worried. They found him in the main building, he lay on the floor. There were two small cuts on his hips, but nothing more. They weren’t even poisoned!” he swung hands in frustration and anxiety.

Natsume glanced down on Nyanko-sensei. The cat’s eyes glistened in the sun, serious expression — almost scowl on his face. So, it was a yokai. Natsume frowned. He heard about this left shrine from the Dog’s Circle. They said there was some spirit, but they were more or less peaceful, not vengeful to humans, just closed off.

“My best wishes to him”, Takashi nodded, “I’m sure he’ll be alright soon”.

“Thanks”, Kitamoto smiled wearily.

They went, more quiet now, with Nishimura talking about a new game he wanted till reaching the river. While his friends put out their fishing rods, Natsume busied himself with laying out snacks and drinks. They planned on being here for all noon, so Touko-san packed them both bento and candy bars.

"Sensei, ask Hinoe to come home, please, I want to ask her something".

The cat purred, tickled under his chin, and stood up.

"Save me those shrimps, then", he grumbled, "And don't get in trouble until I come back".

"Will do", Natsume petted him once more and Nyanko-sensei sprinted, disappearing in bushes without a sound.

He exhaled and put several shrimps away from other meals. He promised, after all.

They spent all day fishing and playing and having fun, and when they were coming back, Kitamoto was smiling, happy and wide, and it was worth all his weariness and subtle ache in limbs from running and jumping.

"Bye, Natsume!", they parted ways on the crossroad, and Takashi sped up. 'Hinoe must already be at home', he thought, pacing through streets.

"I'm home!", he spoke, taking off shoes.

"Welcome home, Takashi-kun, how was fishing?" Touko-san came out of the kitchen, greeting him with warm smile and soft homey smell.

"It was good, Touko-san, here's what I caught", he didn't keep his own smile down and stretched out a bag with several fish.

Surprise colored her face, but changed into a twinkle of a delight.

"You sure are good with it, Takashi-kun", she took the bag, "All of them big and so many, as if kappa was helping you!" Natsume laughed, not answering. It was the kappa indeed, "I'll cook something out of it for dinner. Oh, are you tired?" Touko-san tilted her head and cupped his cheek, motherly love and care in every gesture and touch, "You've been out so long, rest a bit, will you?"

"Ok, Touko-san", he nodded, "I'll be upstairs".

"Good, I'll start with dinner then", she went back to the kitchen.

Natsume went up in his room. Hinoe was already there indeed, filling the room with pale purple smoke from her pipe.

"Natsume!" a broad smile morphed her face from mildly concerned to openly glad, "You finally came!" but not a second later a pout "This guardian of yours has no manners, he didn't even offer sake or tea, despite all my long wait!" playful pout and eyes shining with well-meaning mischief from under long eyelashes.

Takashi shook head, sitting down across her: yokai and their games are so… yokai sometimes.

"Sensei, I'm sure you can share some of your sake with Hinoe, you always do", he berated gently. He was almost convinced that the cat hid some bottles somewhere in the house, with how he sometimes got drunk without even leaving it.

"What?! No way! That's feasts, this is my own sake!" righteous indignant shriek was only muffled by Takashi's hand.

"Pfft", Hinoe scoffed, exhaling a big cloud of smoke, "Anyway, Natsume, you wanted to see me. What's it?"

"Oh, sorry", he fidgeted, "Do you know anything about the spirit living in the left shrine on the north slope of the mountain?"

Hinoe hummed, inhaled and then exhaled, letting out a snake-shaped cloud. The snake turned, curling in circles and turning its head, and then slowly shifted into a more human-like form.

Natsume looked at this, not turning away for a moment. 'So this is the spirit appearance', he thrummed on tatami, 'A snake…'

"This is Mekoguro", she said, "The goddess of the shrine left it, not so long ago, couple centuries at most. He was her servant and stayed behind to look after it in case she deigns to come back, which I doubt very much. She left for another world". One more smoke-filled exhale and another figure rose near to the serpent-like yokai. Female figure in colorful heian clothes with snake pattern on long sleeves and lower hem, long black hair with a braid in the middle. Her face had fair features, just like beauties of ancient times. A small beauty mark under her right eye caught Takashi's attention. He saw someone who looked exactly like that not long ago. 'Not now', he passed this thought.

"You once said he's not antagonizing humans", he said.

"Mostly", Hinoe nodded, "If they don't disrespect rules of the shrine or trespass where they can't go. The usual of his kind", she flailed her pipe, turning her illusion null.

Natsume scowled. The usual…

"And the rules are?" he asked. Better safe than sorry, with yokai especially.

"Also the usual. Don't step on the goddess' road, cleanse before entering, and the like", she shrugged.

"You said 'mostly'", remembered Takashi, "What do you mean?"

"Some foolish humans thought it was a good idea to break those rules", Hinoe exhaled another smoke cloud, "Mekoguro punished them accordingly".

Natsume tensed. 'Accordingly' could mean a lot, particularly if it was a servant protecting a god or a god's honor.

"Was among them anyone who lost their legs?" he clenched fists.

Hinoe nodded, somber all of the sudden.

"Yes. These are the ones, who stepped on the goddess' path. It is a grave insult, you see, and I heard that Mekoguro only left those fools alive because of the goddess's order. She's forbidden him from killing humans".

"Step on the god's path…" Takashi grit his teeth. This was more than just a mean spirit.

"Do you know if they had cuts on legs and then lost their legs?" it was his last attempt at hoping for the better.

"Two small cuts, one on each leg", Hinoe's words were the final nail in the coffin.

Takashi heaved a heavy sigh and lumped, crouching. This was going to be a mess, he could say.

"You need any more, Natsume?" Hinoe smiled reassuringly, concern clear in her red eyes.

"If you could, ask around, please. This Mekoguro recently punished a human, what did that human do?" the boy massaged his temples, feeling impending doom of headache coming.

"This I can answer right away", Hinoe shook her head, "He trespassed the goddess' path and didn't even acknowledge it".

"Idiot", Nyanko-sensei huffed, "Now that you know, what will you do, Natsume?"

"So it was your human", hummed Hinoe, "I thought they know better".

"I don't have humans", Takashi snapped, "And it was my friend's cousin, I don't know him personally".

"The kin of the one under your wing, then", corrected herself Hinoe, "Still your charge, I say. Blood of your retinue is under your protection, it is a basic rule", she said, "You can use it".

"What do you mean, Hinoe?" Natsume perked up.

"I mean that this foolish human is your charge. You repay his debt and you're good", she flicked her pipe, "Though price will be high, this I can promise".

Natsume rolled his aching shoulders. Tomorrow is going a busy day, it seemed.

"Do you know what would suffice as the peace offering?" he had no idea, so any advice would be highly appreciated. Nyanko-sensei still kept silent, so he assumed the cat didn't know, too.

"Something pricy. It may be anything, I really don't know, Mekoguro is too closed off", she shrugged, with guilt clear on her face and hunched pose.

"Still, thank you, you helped me very much", his gratitude was sincere, she told a lot.

"Of course, it's you, so no problem!", cheerfulness came back to her in an instance, "Call me whenever you need me", she smiled, playful and mischievous as always.

"Will do", he didn't hold back his own smile. She meant well and helped so much, he was thankful.

——————

The next day he warned Touko-san that he may be late for lunch at breakfast.

"Oh, that's not good. Are you planning to go see friends?"

"Something like that", he nodded, uncomfortable with almost lie.

"Then wait a bit, I'll pack you something", she fussed over the kitchen after a loving kiss on the top of his head, and he couldn't find it in himself to refuse her care.

"I put a bit more, so share with your friends, okay? That's a new recipe and I wanted to test it". The woman wrapped his bento in blue fabric and gave it to him.

"Will do, Touko-san", he felt something warm clutch his heart. He didn't know what he did to deserve such good people as her and Shigeru-san. He waved her goodbye and hastened his bike.

Nyanko-sensei jumped in the bascet on the front, grumbling.

"You always meddle in other people's problems, brat, one day it will bite you back", Takashi waited till the cat made himself comfortable and then began to ride.

"I know, Sensei", his answer was quiet, "But I can't leave it just like that. I want to help, and I need to know what's happened".

The cat huffed, but didn't say anything else.

The ride till a shop and then the hospital took him less than half an hour. Even easier was to get access to Ryuuzan, when he said he was visiting a friend.

"Ward B, Room 326, third floor", the nurse at the reception waved him to the stairs, "The room's to the left".

"Thank you", he nodded and took the stairs

"Sensei, behave", he scolded the cat, who obviously didn't like the hospital smell. The cat tsk-ed, but didn't make any other move.

Takashi looked up the names, searching the one they needed. The fourth room was it.

"I'm sorry, is this Koonaku Ryuuzan's room?" he knocked and asked behind the door.

"Yes, come in", the male voice answered.

Takashi let Nyanko-sensei on the floor and pushed the door.

It was a usual hospital room, full of artificial lights and sterile white, though more habited than he expected. A teen older than him by a year or two sat on the bed, with a folded book on his lap.

"I'm Natsume Takashi, your cousin Kitamoto Atsushi's friend", under a measuring and curious look he decided that it is better to introduce himself first.

"Ah, that Natsume!", Ryuuzan exclaimed, and it took all Takashi's willpower to not flinch away, "Atsu talks a lot about you", a smile graced his face.

"Yeah", Takashi took a shuddered breath. This choice of words… "It's me".

"Why did you come?"

Now that Ryuuzan knew his name, he seemed to warm up a bit.

"I heard you got a trauma. Kitamoto worries and I worry about him", he answered honestly, it seemed like the best way to get to good graces of this upperclassman, "I brought you fruits and bento", he held out the bag in his hands.

"It's nice of you", Ryuuzan nodded, taking them, "Though I really don't understand why come here".

Something bitter leaked in his voice and Natsume's heart clenched. That… was too similar to the old him for his liking.

He took a deep breath.

"I wanted to say that believe in you", Takashi said, firm and almost strict, "Kitamoto is strong and tough, and he said he got it from you. I know him, and I believe that someone like him won't break. I'm sure you will heal and come back to family, friends, and school, and I wanted to say this", his knuckles were white from the grip force, and face flushed with awkwardness, but a startled chuckle from Ryuuzan drew his attention.

"So my cousin was right about you being a softie", Ryuuzan outright laughed at Takashi's dumbfounded face, "He often said you're kind to a fault, now I am sure it's true", Ryuuzan's smile was warm and sincere, "Thank you. Really. My family is too scared, my friends guilt themselves, and it gets… You know, heavy", he waved his hand with a grimace, "You are the first to say that and really mean it. So, thank you", Ryuuzan bowed his head.

Natsume bit his lip. This was a lot harder than he anticipated.

"I… don't know what to say", he admitted.

Ryuuzan huffed and gave a small smile.

"Do you want to hear what happened? I promise to be absolutely honest", he quirked lips and put the book on the bedtable, eyes sad but clear.

"If you are comfortable with it", Natsume nodded.

Ryuuzan took a second to sigh deeply.

"I and my friends were walking down the forest. Our biology teacher gave us a project, so we needed to find one certain type of flowers and bring them to the school for the research. We were looking for them on the mountain where she said they would probably be, but found little to none, so we decided to search on another slope, too. We found that clearing where the left shrine is, and looked around. There were a lot, but still not enough. I suggested we look in the shrine's yard too, there must have been a lot, since it's not tended. No one wanted to come in, and I decided to do it myself. I thought it wouldn't be difficult, so went through the gates and in the yard. I must say, it looked strange, like it was actually tended, but flowers were still there. I kneeled to dig them up, heard a snake hissing, and then nothing".

Natsume kept himself from scowling, but didn't manage to keep away the gentle scolding tone of voice usually reserved for the Little Fox.

"Did you step on the god's path?"

Ryuuzan looke up, perplexed, but under Natsume's serious gaze he scowled trying to remember.

"I don't know", he answered hesitantly, "I mean, I know not to stop there, but I was tired and a bit angry back then from all the walking and digging", he scowled deeper, "Yeah, I did step", he nodded, "It was unintentional, and I didn't think much of it".

Natsume heaved a sigh, shaking his head. Oh, at least he wasn't doing it on purpose.

"You really shouldn't have", Takashi said, "Even if a god forgives you, it's a tradition, and they have a reason for existence".

"I know", Ryuuzan nodded, too serious and understanding for a usual human, even a superstitious one, "I know it may look strange what I say, but I think it's a yokai's doing", he motioned to his legs, "You know, even if the shrine was left by people, no one said the gods left it".

Natsume looked at Ryuuzan and suddenly smiled. This may become easier.

"I think you're right", he said, "You should say you're sorry, just do it so you are heard".

Ryuuzan huffed, but didn't take eyes off Natsume. For a minute they just looked each other dead in the eye.

"You are right", Ryuuzan said, loud and decisive, "I will!"

"Ok", Takashi nodded, "You didn't mean any harm, so I don't think it will be hard to get your forgiveness".

Ryuuzan nodded yet again and fell silent, looking out in the window.

"You know, I once saw a yokai, I think", he says, low and unsure, "It was a frog, a really big one, its leg was broken and the poor thing was freezing in the night. I took the frog in, fed it and tied a lace around the broken leg. The next morning it wasn't there, instead was a small grey stone", Ryuuzan reached to his neck and showed him a twined with black leather cord stone, "It seems to bring luck. Nothing big, a question I know on the test or a lucky roll in a game, but..." he shrugged, "You know, it doesn't look like something normal".

Natsume tilted his head to the side. It must have been Misuzu, and the frog was his head servant. No wonder the yokai was generous with Ryuuzan, he took care of his underlings.

"I think I understand", he said.

——————

Later, after bidding farewell to Ryuuzan, Takashi headed for the shrine. There was a little money left in his wallet, so he bought two onigiri in a shop on the way to the mountain. Nyanko-sensei could be insufferable when cranky.

"Eat, sensei, I'm sure it will make you feel better", he pushed one of the onigiris to the cat.

"You better havve bought a good one, or else", mumbled his bodyguard, taking the first bite, "Not the best, but bearable", he huffed and proceeded to chew down the whole thing in less than two minutes.

Takashi shook head, smile exasperated, but fond nonetheless.

"Let's hurry, I don't want to be late for lunch", he said, feeding the last bits to his cat.

"Yeah, Touko-san promised to cook stew, so hurry up, slow Natsume!" Nyanko-sensei grumbled, jumping on the bike.

"Then don't distract me", Takashi sprinted down the road.

An hour and a half later he stood on the clearing, cradling Nyanko-sensei to his chest, the shrine walls high and intimidating, covered in vines, and gates open. The road inside, covered in stone flags, swept clean of leaves and twigs.

"Mekoguro is really a loyal servant", Takashi said stepping forward and letting go of the cat, "Sensei, don't intervene, unless I call you, ok?"

"What are you thinking of, Natsume?" his bodyguard narrowed his yellow eyes.

"I want to talk to Mekoguro and try to convince him to take his charms off Ryuuzan", explained Takashi, "And I need peaceful atmosphere for that", his soft chiding tone made the cat huff in annoyance, but nothing else.

"Ok, deal", Nyanko-sensei agreed with a sigh, and jumped upwards, turning into his true form with a big cloud of smoke. Natsume can't help his smile: Sensei really can't just say he cares, can he?

He stepped in the yard, through the gates to the left. There was the washing stand, and he was going through the usual routine, when he heard a male voice calling him.

"Who are you? What are you doing here?" displeasure and hostility in lilt.

Takashi turned and saw Mekoguro, same to the illusion Hinoe had shown him. Dark blue kimono with black snakes on the sleeves and a bright yellow obi, same color as his hair, tied in a high ponytail, a sword on his back and long green-grey snake tail instead of legs. His eyes, that shade of dull yellow-green you would usually see on snakes only, were sharp and bore a threat.

"My name is Natsume Takashi and I came to talk to you", he bowed his head in greeting.

"Natsume?" Mekoguro scowled, "Are you that obnoxious girl, loitering around to bind yokai?" he gripped the hem of his sword.

"No, that was my grandmother, she is already dead", Takashi shook head, raising hands in a placating gesture, long ago resigned to being mistaken for his grandmother.

Mekoguro scowled, but his face cleared a second later.

"You are that brat giving names back", he hummed under his breath and let his hand slide back down.

Takashi resisted the urge to roll his eyes. He will be a brat for the spirits even on his grave bed, they are just too much older.

"That would be me", he nodded.

"Why did you come here?" Mekoguro repeated his question, "Your kin didn't take neither mine nor my mistress' name".

"I wanted to ask you to take your punishment off from the last human you did it to", told Takashi, mentally preparing for a long bargain.

"No", was the short, aggressive and decisive answer he got. He sighed. Yes, it was going to be difficult, "He insulted my mistress. He will know better".

"He didn't do it intentionally", Takashi tried to reason, "He regrets his actions".

"As he should", stone-cold voice, "Humans still teach their young basics. It is the easiest rule. To comply to it one does not need to be clever, just walk one's road".

Takashi heaved another sigh. 'Let's try Hinoe's advice', he thought tiredly.

"I understand and I will punish him for such behavior, but he will not be able to serve his punishment without legs", he said in one breath.

Mekoguro inclined his head, looking him in the eye with contemplation.

"Is he yours?" he asked after a minute of silence, nervous to no end on Natsume's side.

"He is the kin of one of mine, he is my charge", explained Takashi.

"Then why did you not teach them better?" the spirit was angered, it showed in his pursed lips and whitening skin, "The yokai of Yatsuhara sing praises to you and your knowledge and you can't do this?"

"I didn't know about his existence till yesterday", Takashi answered, keeping himself calm and collected.

"You should take care of your human part of retinue better", Mekoguro parried, "Most of them are ignorant at best".

"I will", Natsume nodded. 'Good, seems like he's ready to bargain'.

"Then…" Mekoguro suddenly froxe, tense like tight strings, "Orokimaru-sama?.." his eyes widened with disbelief as he looked behind Takashi.

Natsume turned in a moment and saw a woman standing in gates. Her hair was swept back, but as she stepped in, Natsume was sure in his recognition. This was the goddess of the shrine, the woman he saw two days ago by the river.

Her blouse and long skirt turned to colorful heian clothes, long black hair freely falling on her back as walked in the middle of the road.

"Mekoguro", she greeted her servant, eyeing him with care and love, "You kept your promise".

"Orokimaru-sama", the yokai stepped forward and knelt before her, bowing his head, "You came back. Will you stay in this humble shrine? ".

The goddess smiled, sad and rueful, and gestured him to stand up, but the yokai didn't obey. Takashi bit his lip; he had a bad premonition about her visit.

"No, my little snake", Mekoguro jerked upright, shocked, "I came to say farewell".

Silence reigned in the shrine. Takashi turned towards the forest and took three steps back. This was a private moment, and he didn't want to intrude.

"My time has come to the end, Mekoguro. Humans forgot about me fully and even the sacred village can't protect me. Without their belief I'm fading". The goddess waved her fan and closed her face with it.

Mekoguro gripped his kimono, hunching lower.

"No one?" he whispered, "Not a single one? They all forgot your grace and all your good deeds for them?" his weak voice filled venom, fury, and desperation.

Takashi sighed. He needed to ask for the goddess' help, she could talk her servant out of punishing Ryuuzan. But right now, with how angry the yokai was at humans…

"They do not believe in gods and yokai now", her voice was soothing, pacifying, "I an no major god, just a guardian goddess of Yatsuhara".

Mekoguro gritted his teeth, "But Orokimaru-sama!.."

"Hush, my little snake", she kneeled before him and enclosed in a hug, shielding him with long sleeves of her robe, "Everything will turn out fine".

Quiet sobs and soothing murmuring could be heard, if you strained your ears, but Takashi turned on his heels, back to the entangled couple. He had basic decency, after all.

Takashi waited in silence until he was called.

"Natsume Takashi" the goddess addressed him with a nod, "Why did you come to my shrine? I believe you were notified that your kin did not bind any of us".

"Orokimaru-sama", Takashi politely bowed, "I came to ask for mercy on one of the humans in my charge", he chose words to be absolutely polite. The goddess did not look aggressive, even forbade to kill humans, but still better safe than sorry.

"What did your human do, Natsume Takashi?" the goddess waved them to a small pond, "I believe it must be serious for you to intervene".

"What do you mean?" Takashi couldn't help but tense at her choice of words: if it was small, he would not intervene? Or that he would intervene only if it turned dangerous?

"Spirit world is small, tales of your deeds reach the sacred village rather often", the goddess gave a quiet chuckle, seeing him flush, "They say you protect yokai from humans, from exorcists, you help them, and they love and follow you in turn", her smile was serene and sincere, "You help yokai reach for the humans they got affectionate to, you protect Yatsuhara, both its humans and yokai", she sat on a small bench by the pond and gestured on the same one beside, while Mekoguro took place to her right. Takashi took his seat, "So I believe it must be a serious issue to lead you here".

Takashi fell silent, not knowing what to say. She held him in high regard, it was crystal clear, and his usual actions would fall in the pattern she described, but this request he bore… Was egotistical in comparison to the others. Would it be for worse?

"The human in my charge unintentionally insulted you by the action of stepping on the god's path”, the goddess stilled, “He did not bear any ill will and regrets his actions," he added hastily, "At this time he is serving punishment of your servant Mekoguro's choice. He cannot walk despite having two good legs. I came to make amends in his stead".

The goddess scowled and didn't answer, slowly fanning herself all the while. At last, several minutes of tense silence later, she sighed and shook her head.

"I am ready to forgive this foolish human of yours, but you must promise to teach them better. Not every spirit will forgive them, be it intentional or not", she said slowly, "And I have a question for you, Natsume Takashi", she told seriously, looking in his eyes, "What is Yatsuhara for you?"

Takashi blinked, surprised by her sudden change in the topic of talk. But her gaze alone told him he must think his answer through.

But… The answer was not far away. Yatsuhara was the place he found the peace of heart in, where he bonded with many people and spirits, where the cold of inside changed into the warm embrace of family and friends.

His answer was simple.

"Yatsuhara is my home", he said, pulling his heart into his words, "The place I feel peace and safe in. I want it to remain so".

The goddess smiled at him and nodded.

"Then I know your price I will take the punishment away for", she said, prim and regal all of the sudden, "You will take over my duty of the guardian god of Yatsuhara, become thou yourself, and for this I will forgive your human".

Takashi froze. Become the guardian god of Yatsuhara? What?

"I beg your pardon", his voice rose from sheer bewilderment, "What?"

"Become the guardian God of Yatsuhara", the goddess repeated, "And I will forgive your human".

"But… That is impossible", he shook his head, "A human cannot be turned into a god".

"Who said so?", Orokimaru-sama inclined her head, "This knowledge is forbidden for most, but there is a way".

"But why me?" he pointed at himself, "I honestly doubt I am fit for this position".

To turn into god? That was the last thing he would expect from coming here. Maybe owe a favor, some object, but this never even came into his mind. This was really really not the best idea in his life.

And seething Mekoguro behind his goddess was clearly of the same mind, taking in account his pinched face.

"But why think so?" she gave a sad laugh, startling both males, "You have already been performing the duties without realizing", she said, rueful lilt to her voice, that made his heart squeeze, "You keep Yatsuhara safe and in peace, help and get respect from spirits. All you lack for the title of the guardian god is power and your human shackle not being the body of a god", she motioned her fan towards him, "And this I can change at your agreement".

Natsume kept silent, too shell-shocked by the offer.

The goddess snapped her fingers, catching his attention.

“I understand that this is a sudden proposition, and you have all the rights to doubt its usefulness, but let me clear some of your concerns”, she fanned herself, looking at Takashi sharply, “You will be able to age together with your human lot of retinue. Maybe slower, but nonetheless, you will be able to keep your human life. You won't need to eat and sleep, but can if you so desire. Your appearance will change a bit, more refined and fair. It is probable that you will be able to communicate with snakes and command them, that's my ability I intend to pass to you. You will be able to have children. Otherwise, your life won't change all that much, and yokai will be much more respectful. Your family treasure will be in more safety then because you will have all Yatsuhara to back you up against aggressors", the goddess takes Takeshi's hand in his, and now that her face is close, he sees it.

The jawline. The face's oval. The shape of her eyes. It's not much, and if he didn't look for it, he would've never noticed.

It's almost identical to his grandmother's features.

"You..." he doesn't have words. It can't be...

"I was your ancestor, your grandmother's great-great-great-grandmother, to be precise. Soon after I took up the mantle of the guardian goddess, there was a big conflict", the goddess — his ancestor, he can't believe his ears, "And my family was erased", the bitterness and echo of grief in her voice make his heart clench.

"But not all of them?" he asked. If there was him and his grandmother, then someone lived through.

"Yes. My youngest sister, the baby of age four. She hid under the ruins of our home for three days and then run as far as she could. She ended up living in Hokkaido", the goddess took a sharp breath, "I didn't know of it, I thought all my family had died, until Reiko came here", the goddess fell silent for a few moments.

"But she was gone too quickly. When I came looking for her, she already disappeared, and no one knew where to find her. There were many who remembered her, but no one close".

"Yeah", Natsume couldn't help a weak smile, "I was told she had a habit of doing it".

"I tried to find her, but to no avail. My powers were seeping rapidly, and I had to come back to the sacred village. I tried sending my snakes to look for her, but they are no yokai, they couldn't find her", the goddess gripped his hand stronger, "I lost my claim as the guardian goddess of Yatsuhara when I entered the sacred village and now can only pass it to the next holder. So please, accept this offer of mine", she pleaded, earnestly and so sincere, "I looked for you here, when I understood who you are, and yesterday I found you. I was never so happy, when I knew — my family is alive. You are alive", she exhales, trying to reign in her emotions, before speaking again, more firmly now, "I know I didn't make it in time to save you from so many hurts, but in this last moments I want to do my best to make sure that you live your life fully. I want to you to be happy, safe and live a long life that will be filled with your laughter. You are a child of my family, mine in all aspects that matter".

Natsume can't help it. Tears slide down his face, he can't stop them, and he's not sure he wants to.

This goddess is his family, family who wants him happy and healthy just because he is it — family. She could go away freely; bide goodbye only to her servant, and fade from this world. She didn't have to, and yet she did, because she cared for her family — for what left of it. And she would go away, just as she came because it her time. He thought absentmindedly that he understood the yokai who knew Reiko better.

"Hush, dear, it will turn out good", she wiped his tears and smiled, "Remember, I love you. No matter your choice, I love you, child mine, and nothing in this world will change it. I'm so proud of you, words can't describe it. You turned out so beautiful, kind and bright, oh how much I want to tell my father about you, we would all be so happy", Orokimaru cupped his face, "Never forget this words, child mine".

Natsume nods and swallows the lump in his throat.

"I won't. And I accept your offer", he squeezes her hand and smiles, "Let's do it".

Orokimaru nods in turn and takes his another hand in hers.

"It can hurt a bit, like needles in your fingertips", she warned him and began.

The wind swirled around them, and Natsume felt the itch in his hands, but held on.

She opened her mouth and breathed out. A small yellowy-grey cloud came out.

"Breath it in through mouth", he was commanded, and complied.

It felt strange on his tongue — like cotton candy Nishimura bought for all of them on the last festival, just salty and mild.

"Breath out and kneel with me", Orokimaru turned his hands so that his back of hands was turned up and hers down.

It felt strange, as if a small warm ball formed between their hands. It wasn't unpleasant, more like a small bird in hands, just not fluffy. The feeling changed as the ball cooled to cold.

"Put your hands together and concentrate. When you feel it's time, breath out into them and push towards sky", Orokimaru let his hands go and smiled reassuringly. Her hair slid down shoulder when she siddenly teetered to left, pale and gasping for air.

"Orokimaru-sama!" Mekoguro gripped her shoulders, steading her, with panick on his face. Natsume tried to reach out for her, but she cut both of them out.

"Do not worry", she clasped Mekoguro's hand, and nodded curtly to Natsume, "Continue".

He pursed his lips, holding her gaze until she sighed and relaxed into her servant's hold. Only then did he revert his attention back to the ethereal ball in his hands.

It is still cold, not quite pleasant against his skin. He brings it closer to his mouth and exhales into his palms. Suddenly the warm air is swirling in circles inside, coating the ball, and the next thing he knows is that the yellowy-gray ball changes its color to pale green with darker specs. He feels the pull to let it go, to fly high and reach all land, and raises his hands, letting go of the ball.

It flies off his hands and rises above trees. Soft dull glow grows brighter and soon it looks like there're two suns. And then it explodes, showering them with tiny green sparkles. Winds are curling around Takashi, flapping his shirt's tails, like playful kittens, when Nyanko-sensei roars, entering the shine grounds with loud swish and lands beside him. His fangs bared, crouched pose, ready to fight any moment, the inugami was quite a fear-inducing sight.

"Nyanko-sensei!" Natsume exclaimed, stunned to his very core, when his guardian snarled at Mekoguro, who tried to unsheathe his sword. This was a goddess before them! There's no way he didn't scoop this before coming here! He was confronting a goddess, albeit well-meaning and not prone to antagonizing them, but Nyanko-sensei didn't know it, and yet put himself between the threat and him. Natsume doesn't even try to contain his gratitude and happiness, hugging his guardian and nuzzling into soft white fur.

"Don't worry, sensei", murmurs he, "They don't mean harm".

"As if you would know, brat", huffs the inugami, but still relaxes a bit, coiling his long tail around his charge.

"Your guard is admittedly loyal, I see", Orokimaru chuсkles, "Good. Now I can go, that you're in good hands", she holds out her hand, and Natsume kneels to take it and stand eye to eye with her. Her figure bleaks with every moment — it's time for her to go, "You are a good boy, my child, with tender heart and pure soul. You will do just fine. Don't forget my words. I will always love you, Natsume Takashi, child of my family", her smile is quiet, all motherly love and care, and sad, "Forgive me for not finding you earlier and leaving so soon. If I had a say, I wouldn't leave your side", she squeezes his hand stronger.

"You came to find me", he can't say it doesn't matter; these years when he suffered thrown from one family relative to another as if some sort of stinky ball did hurt him. But she searched for him, cared and loved just because he was her family, she did her best to protect him, and he will never forget it, "I forgive you".

"Thank you", with smile on her lips, she closes her eyes, dispersing into nothing but flare of dim sparkles that disappear high in the sky.

Natsume brings his hand in closer — it holds a simple white jade ring, that was on Orokimaru's left hand. He smiles — he is glad to have at least this much of her left for memories.

Takashi sighs out. He is tired. With all this running and worrying and rituals he didn't notice, but a good part of his energy's gone now.

"I'm tired. Let's go home, sensei", Natsume climbs on a silently offered back of the inugami, "I'll come here tomorrow, Mekoguro. Could you please prepare everything necessary for the commemoration? And, about your curse on my charge… " he asks the yokai. He doesn’t know if it is a usable practice for spirits, but he wants to say farewell to her as is just, and commemoration is a good choice for it, in his opinion.

"I will immediately take it away, my lord, and begin the preparations", Mekoguro bows.

Natsume sighs again. And this.

"We will talk about everything else later. For now, let's go".

Nyanko-sensei leaps towards the sky, and winds billow in his hair.

[nephelite]

Thoughts on 2x16 of Station 19

What a big fucking disappointment and letdown of an episode that was with so much screen time wasted on things that shouldn’t have been in the episode and they didn’t bother to add scenes that I think were essential to the episode esp right after Ripley’s death. Considering that next episode will be all action and probably even more Andy/Sullivan, 216 was the perfect opporturnity.

Ripley’s funeral and Vic’s grief felt more like an afterthought than anything in this episode.

1. Vic felt so irrelevant, unimportant and secondary in this episode. Her relationship with Lucas felt just as unimportant as the writers decided to build up Andy/Sullivan and Jack/Maya instead while not bothering at all to for one final time show us how important Vic and Lucas were to each other. I know last episode was all Vicley and Vic but this was the goodbye episode to both Ripley and Vicley and the writers totally fucked it up. It should have been used to give Ripley and Vicley fans closure. I didn’t feel closure. I felt disappointment and rage tbh.

2. They used this episode to fix and further Andy’s storyline when she didn’t care one bit about Ripley and his death should not have been used for her storyline. And no I’m not an Andy hater. She is actually one of my favorites but I’m beyond pissed that Ripley’s death was used for her. They should have killed Pruitt (who offers NOTHING to the show anymore beside the occasional comic relief and bossing people around) to make all those things happen for Andy. Not someone she couldn’t care less about.

3. Essential scenes missing in this episode that could and should have been included instead of almost 10 minutes of a fucking dude impaled by a chandelier were:

Vic and Jennifer having a real moment where they talk. Jennifer lost the last piece of family she had. Jennifer was also the one that knew what Vic meant to Lucas esp since Vic felt like she had no place and right to be at his funeral. A scene between them where they make a pact to stay in each others life where Jennifer tells Vic just how much she meant to Lucas (where she could have handed Vic an engagement ring that belonged to their mother and Luke wanted her to have) to make her understand would have been everything. Also for Jennifer to know that she is not alone. We will probably never hear of or see Jennifer again.

A scene between Vic and Sullivan should have been included. He understands what it’s like to lose love and Lucas which means him talking to her would have been more effective than Travis. He said he would protect her which I took as him being there for her. The writers failed here.

Instead of getting those scenes we got a half-assed scene with both Jennifer and Sullivan talking to Vic and it just could have been a better dialog really.

4. Sullivan says that he wanted to write a eulogy that esp meant something to Vic yet the writers chose to make that scene about everyone else and to shove Andy/Sullivan down my throat some more. How they build these two in this episode on someone else’s grave basically, left such a bad taste in my mouth. Half of the Andy/Sullivan stuff should not have been in this episode and should have been kept for next week. The part where Sullivan talks about finding that person you connect with should have shown Vic looking at Lucas’ picture and then they should have included little flashbacks between Vicley to show us that their connection was exactly what Sullivan was talking about. That scene would have such an impact and would have really just killed people and broken our hearts some more and I would have been okay with it because I would have felt like the writers actually cared about Vicley. Like they actually thought of them as that kinda couple but they obviously didn’t.

5. Maya crying like that felt so comical. I couldn’t take it or her seriously. A friend suggested that Maya will turn out to be pregnant and that is why she acted that way and I feel like throwing things because that is a storyline I would have loved for Vic. Having that one thing left of Lucas for the rest of her life but doubtful that they are going there.

6. Man did I hate that the writers chose the words: “He could have been the love of my life” instead of her actually saying that he was/is. That felt like a grenade to my heart. Makes it easier for them to have her move on after a few episodes in S3 because he wasn’t the love of her life after all.

7. They celebrated his life with one half-assed story by Pruitt and then everyone was back to normal. It showed me that Ripley wasn’t important to them at all. He was their boss at the end of the day and nothing more. He was most important to Vic and to some extant to Sullivan but that was it. No one even wondered about Vic except the girls but then it was right back to Andy/Sullivan and once again that just left such a bad taste in my mouth.

8. There was no Vic saying goodbye to him (like to his coffin or something). No actual breakdown from her. She has a shirt of his and voicemails and I wonder if that will come up ever (probably not). They will probably try to move on from Ripley and Vicley as fast as possible to not remind people of it because they fucked up. They made Vicley so irrelevant like it really was only some secret affair and not two people that actually loved each other and wanted to be together forever.

9. What were those words at the end though. “It sucks.“ “Yeah it super does.“ Like who talks like that when someone dies?

Now to the few good things:

1. Vic yelling at Travis. I needed that because Travis even though I know he just wanted to be a friend he didn’t get it and I’m glad that Vic got to tell him that. She didn’t get to celebrate her love with Lucas. No one would be calling Travis or Michael each others sidepiece or something. No one but Jen and Cam really knew how much these two loved each other. I’m glad that she got to tell him off because he needed to back off. I also hate that she is right. On paper she is nobody. He accepted her proposal but that was right before he died. Do people even count that? Does Vic even count that?

2. I don’t really care much for Levi but what he did was really sweet. Telling her that Lucas wanted to get flowers that meant he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. It made her realize that she was important to him and I hope that it also made her think of him as the love of her life and not someone who may have been that.

3. I love that she got to sit with Jennifer as his family where usually a wife would sit. Vic earned that spot. She belonged there. She may not have been legally married to him but in their hearts they were. They never corrected Cam until the very end of this episode. I just wish Jennifer would have said: “Stay please. This is were you belong.” Would have been more powerful.

4. The girls helping Vic get dressed was a nice scene.

5. Vic at the diner in the end talking to Cam who was one of the very few people that actually knew what these two meant to each other. Her saying it out loud that he is dead really broke my heart for Vic.

So yeah this episode was a major letdown because it didn’t deal with what I felt was important to move on and get closure. They are not doing it in next episode and then we are starting S3 with probably a time jump and we will be lucky if Ripley and Vicley will ever be mentioned again. We will be lucky if we get Vic grieving for even a minute and not just jump back into work and have a new LI before the winter hiatus.

I don’t even know if I wanna watch S3. I love Barrett and Vic and I do love the cast but this episode just made me so bitter about all the storylines of all the characters that I just can’t bring myself to enjoy any of them anymore.

EDITED TO ADD: They knew about this arc since the beginning of the season and this is how they concluded it?

[rebonkas]

twilight secret gift exchange ( @twilight-secret-gift-exchange )

happy holidays to @exceptionally-unobservant ! here is your gift & i hope you enjoy!

Warning: blood mention

When Esme woke up, the first thing she saw was a blinding light. This is it, she thought. I’ve made it. After all the pain she went through in her short life, she was finished.

Then she cracked open her eyes further, and felt the thirst.

It was like nothing she had ever felt in her life- burning, aching, pulsing pain. It lived alive and well in her throat. It threatened to swallow her whole.

“Hello,” a gentle voice murmured. The doctor, Dr. Cullen, he was here. Esme vaguely remembered his voice through the fog of misery, before she woke up here, wherever here was, and felt fine. Better than fine, actually. Besides the thirst, Esme felt stronger and healthier than ever before.

“How are you feeling?” Dr. Cullen asked kindly. He moved to kneel beside her. She was sitting upright now on a bed- his bed? Esme wondered idly- and was not wearing what she remembered wearing when she jumped.

“I feel… thirsty,” Esme replied. Dr. Cullen nodded. His expression was grave.

“I know.”

“It hurts,” she added. He nodded again.

“I know.”

“What’s happening?”

“I changed you. You were close to dying before,” Dr. Cullen said. “There isn’t really an easy way to say this. After you fell-”

“Jumped,” Esme said without thinking. She bowed her head. She shouldn’t have said that. He would think she was a coward, or pathetic, or worse. Esme lifted her head tentatively to meet his eyes. For the first time, she noticed the odd gold shade of his irises.

“Jumped,” he corrected himself soberly. There was no disgust written in his porcelain features, only pity. “After that, you were brought into the hospital. You were so far gone, they didn’t try to revive you. But I- I remembered you from when you fell out of that tree. And I just couldn’t leave you there. So I turned you into a vampire, like me.”

“A vampire,” Esme said numbly. She tried to recall what she knew from reading Dracula when she was younger. Bloodsucking creature of the night? Coffins, capes, fangs? That did not describe the man in front of her. Esme couldn’t quite imagine that it described her either. But then the thirst flared up again, and Esme’s hand flew to her throat, and she understood with perfect clarity what she had become. A vampire.

When she again met Dr. Cullen’s eyes, she was surprised to find a sort of fear there. He seemed afraid of her reaction to the news about her new identity.

“I’m sorry you had to find out this way. I’m sure that this can’t be a happy surprise, and for that I apologize.”

“Apologize?” Esme almost choked on her laugh. Why would he apologize? He had gifted her with a new life, far away from Charles and the pain of losing her son. Dr. Cullen gave her renewed hope in her existence. And he was apologizing!

His perfect brow furrowed in confusion.

“I know you didn’t know what you were signing up for when you saw me,” he explained. “I just hope that you could learn to find happiness in this life.”

Without thinking, Esme leapt off the bed and launched herself at him in a hug. She buried her face in his neck, breathing in his scent deeply even though she didn’t need to breathe. Esme only let go when she heard a strangled noise come from Dr. Cullen’s throat.

“Sorry,” she breathed. Dr. Cullen looked rumpled and disoriented.

“It’s alright,” he replied. “You’re just getting used to your strength, is all.”

Her strength. Esme had that now. Had it in spades, as noted by the pained look on his face.

Esme’s brain suddenly went blank, with no other thought but feed. Dr. Cullen rose from his place on the ground, and it was then that Esme faintly realized that she had shot up from her crouch. Right now, though, that mattered little. All that was important was the impossibly alluring scent that wafted through the house. Something spicy and fresh and warm.

Dr. Cullen put his hands on her shoulders.

“You can resist it. I know it’s hard, but you can do it.” Esme looked him in the eye and broke free of his embrace, dashing in the direction of that smell.

Her instincts led her to the front door. She ripped it open to reveal a young boy, maybe in his early teens. It didn’t matter. She pounced on him and sank her teeth into his neck. The blood coursed into her body. It was delicious.

Esme sucked on the bite mark she’d left long after she had drained the boy of blood. Slowly she came back to herself- at least, what seemed to be herself. Esme wasn’t sure who that was anymore. The boy dropped at her feet, limp and gone. She looked at her hands.

Stained with crimson.

Now that the thirst had abated, Esme could think clearly. What had she done? She looked up to meet the concerned and disappointed eyes of Dr. Cullen. He wasn’t surprised, which hurt more than she would have expected.

“Oh my,” she whispered, mostly to herself. She had killed a human being. A child, no less, who had a long life ahead of him, and she just took it away. Esme couldn’t move.

Dr. Cullen knelt beside her once more.

“I know this is difficult for you, but you’ll get through it,” he assured her. Without looking twice at the remnants of the boy’s body, Dr. Cullen easily lifted her into his arms and brought her back indoors.

He was gone for a while. Probably cleaning up the body, some colder part of her thought. Esme was still finding it difficult to process what she had done. It was gruesome, yes, necessary, possibly, but still. How could she live with herself? Or, more accurately, unlive with herself?

Robotically she stood and wandered until she found the bathroom in the house. Looking around, Esme could finally take in the details of Dr. Cullen’s home. It was surprisingly luxurious, considering the fact that the doctor was working in a small Southern town. Esme reached out to touch the intricate crown molding on the wall but stopped herself from being distracted. Washing her hands was the priority.

After she scrubbed her hands in the water basin, Esme couldn’t help but glance up into the mirror. She half expected to not be able to see her own reflection. Yet there she was- pale, like Dr. Cullen, and beautiful in the same way that the a marble statue is beautiful. Esme looked cold. Worst of all was the bright red of her eyes- a stark difference from her regular shade of brown, or even Dr. Cullen’s gold. This was a gory reminder of what Esme had just committed.

“How are you feeling?” Dr. Cullen asked.

“Better,” Esme replied. How could she know what to say? She had just killed a human being for her meal. “Why are your eyes like that?”

“I don’t feed from humans. I feed from animals instead.”

“How?” She couldn’t help herself from asking. He chuckled.

“A lot of practice,” Dr. Cullen said. “If you want to stay with me, and my… adoptive son, Edward, I could help you try. If you’d like.” A son! Surprising, but not unwelcome, Esme supposed.

He glanced down, almost as if he was shy. Esme could hardly imagine the shining golden doctor she’d remembered from all those years ago being shy about anything.

“I would love to stay with you, Dr. Cullen,” she said.

He looked up, pleased.

“Call me Carlisle.”

[unabashedlytenacioustyrant]

Work Yourself to the Bone, Chapter 1

Just a little fic of mine I decided to post on here about the Undertaker becoming a necromancer. Just letting you know, this shit is turning out to be quite a slow burn, we got quite a lot of ground to cover.

The idea initially came from this lovely tumblr user, although I can’t find the original post that says it

AO3 Link

Next Chapter

Morris had been only ten when he’d gained a true fascination for the dead, and had met his first best friend. His father was working with his latest client--a woman and child that had died during the latter’s birth--and as such had no time to play with young Morris. He leaned on the edge of the windowsill, staring at the graves covering what he supposed was their front yard, giving a large and over exaggerated sigh in the hopes that it’d make him feel a little less bored; it didn’t.

Hopping off the table he’d been sitting on, Morris made his way to the front door; maybe some time out of this stuffy house would improve things, or at least a slight change of scenery. He squinted at the slight breeze pushing some dust and strands of hair into his face as he began walking towards the collection of graves. He was familiar with the slabs of stone, had already memorized all the names on them, although he could never manage to remember each of the dates assigned to them, if there even were dates. Morris leaned against a simple, slightly round gravestone labeled “Parker;” After many bored visits to the resident graveyard, he’d had the time to test which was the most comfortable. Parker certainly wasn’t it, but it was the best in terms of the ones that also gave a nice view of the sunset as it slowly began to sink into the earth.

Morris stared at the barren and dead landscape before him lit up with golden and orange light, his eyes half-lidded, before they caught onto a brief flash of movement at the edge of his sight. He jerked up in surprise, looking up at the dead tree on the hill to his left; he occasionally visited it, but his father had always recommended against it since he was worried of the dead branches falling and hurting Morris. He didn’t mind the orders, there wasn’t anything interesting with the tree anyways.

However, that day things were different. He stared at the dark silhouette of the dead plant, and he saw the flash of movement again.

It was the flapping of a piece of fabric, at the base of the tree.

Morris quickly stood up, and began sprinting towards it.

A year of carrying wood for his father’s coffin had strengthened the young boy’s body, and he was only a little winded by the time he’d made it to the tree to see what it was. However, he felt the breath leave his lungs when he realized what he was looking at.

It was a body, leaned up against the side of the tree facing away from him. It seemed to be wearing a worn dress shirt and pants, parts of aforementioned shirt flapping in the wind. A hand was splayed out from inside one of the sleeves and Morris could see that it was nothing but bones. Taking a few more cautious steps, he moved around the tree to get a closer look at the corpse.

It wasn’t anything he wasn’t already expecting, but the sight of the full skeleton sent a shiver of shock through Morris; his father had never let him see any of the bodies he worked on if he could help it, so now seeing this corpse before him without his father’s supervision or even knowledge sent both a chill and a thrill through him.

The wind blew a little, and the skull tilted under the pressure, before finally falling off. The movement was sudden, and Morris hadn’t even realized how tense he’d felt, so seeing the skeleton move made him jump, much to his surprise. He stared at the skull on the ground in fascination, how the jaw had come off of it, and at that moment he noticed something...off, about the bone. Taking slow steps towards it, Morris carefully lifted the skull off of the ground and turned it in his hands.

And that was when he found it; a strange symbol carved into the bottom of the skull, right behind the jaw. It appeared to be an oval with a line through it and dots surrounding it, and wasn’t a symbol that he could recognize; he’d never seen something like it in any of his books his father brought him, and a part of him screamed with a desire to understand what it was. Hesitantly but with curiosity, he lightly brushed his thumb across the symbol, and if he focused enough he swore he felt some sort of electricity run through his fingers.

“Why, hello there!”

The voice ringing through Morris’ ears startled him, and he dropped the skull back onto the ground. Surprisingly, the decayed skull didn’t even get damaged from the impact.

“Woah! Please, don’t be startled!”

Morris opened up his mouth, ready to shriek at hearing the voice again.

“Don’t scream!”

The voice was so commanding that Morris couldn’t help but comply, slamming his hands over his mouth to physically stop himself. He took deep, careful breaths, trying to calm himself, his eyes focused on the skull.

After a few beats of silence, the voice in his mind spoke up again.

“Are you...are you going to scream, young man?”

Morris thought for a moment, before taking a deep breath and frantically shaking his head. He swore he heard a sigh ring out through his mind.

“That’s a relief. Now, what’s your name?”

Morris swallowed, his mouth suddenly feeling dry. “M-Morris, but father calls me Mori.”

He heard a chuckle. “Fun name. Mine’s Clarence. Now tell me, how did you find my body?”

“You’re...you’re the dead man?”

“No one else around to speak, is there?” The voice laughed a little again. “The name’s Clarence.”

“What...what are you doing here?”

“Oh, nothing much, I suppose I was a bit bone tired and decided to rest here.”

Morris giggled, despite himself. His father had never tried humor like that! “How do you talk, though?”

“‘Talk’ would be misleading,” Clarence corrected. “I guess you I just made some post-mortem preparations besides a funeral.”

Morris laughed a little again, his fear almost completely dissipated, and picked up the skull again, along with the disconnected jaw. He frowned a little though, as he thought about Clarence’s offhand comment. “Um, do you...want a funeral? Or at least, a burial?”

Clarence was silent for a moment. “Well, I suppose it wouldn’t hurt. But, I’d like to stay with you, young Mori. You’re fun to talk to.”

Morris smiled a little. “I’d say the same,” he commented, beginning to walk back to his home. “I’ll see if I can ask father to help you.”

Morris didn’t hear Clarence explicitly give thanks, but he was able to feel a warm sense of gratitude flow through his chest that he knew wasn’t his own.

“Act-actually, there’s something else I want.”

Morris stopped moving to look down at the skull in his arms.

“I...don’t want your father to know about me, Mori.”

Morris furrowed his eyebrows in confusion. “Why not? Father would be amazed to see a talking skull!”

“That’s the thing, Mori; I don’t think anyone but you can actually hear me.”

“Why would you say that?” Morris frowned.

“Mori...I’ve been dead up on this tree for a couple weeks now, and I’ve been yelling the whole time. Neither of you noticed.”

Morris’ eyes widened. “How could that have happened? And...and how come I can understand what you’re saying now?”

“I don’t know Mori, I was thinking that the tree is too far away from your house to hear me, but now I’m not so sure.”

Morris hummed, pursing his lips before turning Clarence over. “Do you think it’s this symbol on your skull, Clarence? I couldn’t hear you until I’d touched it.”

“Symbol?” Clarence sounded confused. “...Maybe, but even if that’s the case, and we can get your father to hear me, I’d really prefer not to.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know him Mori, and I’m worried at how he’d react. Remember how you almost screamed just a few minutes earlier?”

Morris hummed, thinking on it. “I...I suppose you have a point there. How about this: I’ll keep you a secret from father for now, but once you’re comfortable to let him get to know you, I’ll introduce you two, okay?”

“That...that sounds like a good plan, okay.”

~~~

It was later that night, during dinner, and Morris knew that his father had noticed something off about his behavior. Morris didn’t particularly care about him noticing as he picked at his barely-eaten food; he’d been a bit tense ever since he’d found Clarence and hidden the skull in his room. He’d been thinking how to explain finding the corpse, since he assumed his father would be upset about it.

He couldn’t just sit there imagining the possibilities, though. He needed to act. Morris sighed to himself. He had to do this; for Clarence. He cleared his throat, catching his father’s attention.

“Um, father…” Morris began slowly, and his father’s eyebrows raised. “I found a body, on the outskirts of the graveyard, on the dead tree.”

His father’s eyes widened. “Did you touch it?”

Morris shook his head frantically. “No, no, um, it’s just that,” Dang it, what should I say? “I’d taken a look at it; it’s, it’s pretty decayed, the head was even missing. I was just thinking…”

His father’s eyebrows furrowed, and Morris took a moment to take a deep breath and calm himself. “I just felt...sad. The body, it was all alone, left to rot in the desert. Could you...could we give it a proper burial?”

His father’s rounded in shock for a moment, before a pleasant smile overtook his features. “Do you really want to?”

Morris nodded, wringing his hands together. His father stood up and walked to his son’s side, crouching down and placing a hand on his back.

“Mori...did I ever tell you why I became an undertaker?”

Morris chewed on the inside of his cheek, and shook his head.

His father tilted his head. “Well, it was for this reason. The dead deserve respect, and I’d always wanted to make sure they received it, no matter who. Who wants to be a nameless corpse in the middle of Nowhere, after all?”

Morris’ eyes widened, and his father continued. “I’m...glad, that you feel the same. Do you want me to start teach you, how to become an undertaker? We can start with the one you found.”

Morris smiled with disbelieving happiness, before nodding frantically. “I’d, I’d love to learn, father!”

His father laughed a little, before standing up. “You said the body was at the tree, you said? How about this: I’ll take it to the workshop while you finish dinner, and once you’re done I’ll show you the basic steps of measuring and building.”

Morris grinned, turning back to his plate as his father made his way to the door. “Alright, father!” He called after him just before the door closed.

As soon as he could, Morris grabbed his plate of food, hopped out of his seat and ran to his room to pull out the skull underneath his bed. “Clarence!” He whispered excitedly. “I did it! Father’s going to make a coffin for you, and I get to help!”

He lifted up the plate of vegetables. “I also brought some food up, since I don’t know if you eat.”

“That’s great, Mori!” Morris could almost hear the smile in his voice. “And I can’t eat, unfortunately. I doubt it would have made me any less thin, though.”

Morris giggled. “Alright, I’ll be heading back out to finish eating and then work with father, okay?”

“Of course, you go have fun.”

Morris paused, smiling for a moment, before pulling the skull in close and giving it a tight hug. He briefly heard a noise of surprise from Clarence.

“Father’s been so busy recently, I haven’t been able to be with him at all ‘cuz of his work,” he mumbled, unfurling from his hug and holding Clarence in front of him. “But now, thanks to you, I can be there while he works! I suppose you’re good luck, huh?”

“I suppose I am,” Clarence mused. “But remember, don’t tell your father about me, okay?”

Morris smiled, pressing a finger to his lips. “Don’t worry, I won’t!”

“I’m sure you won’t. After all, you know what they say, two can keep a secret if one of them is dead.”

Morris barked out a laugh, standing up. “Good one,” he grinned before closing the door and running back to the dining room.

[queen-scribbles]

Time Well Spent

For @pillarspromptsweekly: Afterword. I kinda stretched it a little, since most of my Watchers got endings to everything I’m pretty happy to leave alone. (There’s always Derrin, but I’ve written that fix-it fic before) So this is me “fixing” the fact that the Watcher always stays in Caed Nua at the end. (Really I just wanted an excuse to write Adi and Kana buddyfic /cough)

Ah-CHOO! It was a big sneeze for a tiny person, and the acoustics of the stone chamber made it echo even louder. Adela sniffled and wiped her nose on her sleeve.

“Sorry,” she said sheepishly, picking up the lantern she’d dropped.��“Gods, it’s dusty in here.”

Kana’s chuckle echoed much lower than her sneeze had. “Adi, it’s a crypt. No one’s been down here for six or seven hundred years at least. I’d be more surprised if it wasn’t dusty.”

“That would portend some advancement in burial procedures we’ve not yet encountered,” she agreed with a laugh. “I’ve never met a culture that knew how to completely seal a crypt. Coffins and caskets, yes; crypts, no.” She ran her finger through the dust on the wall, revealing a thin line of the colors painted underneath. “Most kith are more worried about grave robbers than a little dust...”

“Which accounts for all the traps,” he muttered, absently rubbing one shoulder.

“I told you to wait,” Adela said fondly. “You’re lucky your reflexes have gotten better and I can yell louder than one would think.”

Kana nodded acknowledgement. “That I am. I’ll be more careful in the future.”

“No, you, won’t,” she laughed. “I’ve heard that promise three times in the span of six months. You forget about it every time you get excited about something.”

He wiped the dust off a larger section of the wall. “I do try. But some of the things we’ve found since you joined me... They’re so fantastic I can’t help but get excited.”

“I know. And I’d never ask you to change. I will, however, tease occasionally.” Adela winked at him before studying the door they needed to get through. “And this is heaps more fun than being Roadwarden. I just don’t wanna watch my best friend die or get hurt ‘cause he was too caught up to properly check for traps.”

She squinted at the characters carved into the door frame. They looked almost familiar, as if from something studied long ago and half forgotten. With a little more concentration, she realized that was exactly what they were. But that only brought more questions. Chiefly, why the blazes there was a dead Ixamitl dialect in a crypt on an island so small it wasn’t even on the map.

But mysteries like this was exactly why Adela had jumped to accept when Kana invited her along on his explorations once he’d made his report to the lore college. She didn’t have anything against being Lady of Caed Nua, but this was type of puzzle she liked to solve. Not how to fund restorations without raising taxes, or work out trade disputes between two groups with equally low opinions of orlans, and thus her.

“Adi?” Kana prompted, dragging her from her reverie.

“Sorry. This is Katl, a dead language, and one I’m rusty on, so it’s taking longer to translate.” She brushed her fingers over the stone, nails catching briefly on the carven words. “This is the way we want, but it has the typical ‘only the worthy’ rhetoric, so...”

“Take it slow?” he finished with a meaningful look. “Look out for traps?”

“Exactly.” Adela grabbed the pulley chain next to the door and hauled on it. Even digging in her heels, it barely moved.

Kana chuckled and reached one big hand over her shoulder to wrap around the handle. It opened easily for him, with the rough grinding of ancient stone they’d become all too accustomed to over the past several months. “There we go.”

“Thanks.” Shaking out stiff fingers, she peered suspiciously down the hall they’d revealed. “Y’know, for a crypt built in an overwhelmingly aumaua region, that looks awfully small.” She looked up at Kana. “Are you gonna fit?”

He took a moment to examine the passage. “I may have to duck in a couple spots, but I believe so.”

“I’m more worried about traps,” Adela said pointedly. “If you don’t have much--if any--extra room, Wael forbid we set anything off. You wouldn’t be able to dodge.”

“Well, then I’ll just have to keep a sharp eye out, won’t I?” Kana said with a reassuring smile. “I’m as curious about this place as you are, Adi. I’ll not be turned back by close quarters.”

Part of her wanted to protest further, but Adela bit her tongue. Risky as it might have been in the close confines of the crypt, it made sense for Kana to go first. He’d always had a better eyes for picking out traps than she did. (Didn’t stop him from triggering them if he was sufficiently distracted by some tantalizing discovery)

So she fell in step behind him and drank in the beautiful--if faded--frescoes that decorated the walls. She was so lost in that she almost missed the faint shink as Kana’s shoulder grazed the wall despite his best efforts. At first, nothing seemed to have happened. Then she noticed some of the floor tiles, scattered in a seemingly-random order, had sunk fractionally further in their settings. Including the one she was standing on.

Oh, no. Adela tensed. Something clicked in the wall and she flung herself forward, rolling past Kana as the tile dropped away completely. “Wael’s eyes, whoever built this crypt really didn’t want aumaua getting in.”

“They picked a bad location for a grave they didn’t want my people visiting,” Kana said with a wry chuckle. “Are you alright?”

She nodded and twirled the end of her braid. “Is this worth it, Kana? I’m just worried you’re going to wind up with more than a bruised shoulder if we keep going...”

“I appreciate your concern, Adi, but we’re almost there.” He gestured at the doorway ahead, flanked by statues indicative of the crypt’s central chamber. “We came looking for something, I’d much rather find it. And we have some questions that need answers, do we not?”

She was rather desperately curious why there was a crypt with Katl inscriptions two days’ sail from Rauatai. “Alright, you have a point. Just be careful, yeah? This hallway turned into a minefield of trigger tiles when you bumped the wall just now.”

Kana glanced at the remaining distance and frowned. “It looks the same to me...”

“Must be ‘cause you’re so tall,” Adela teased. “You can’t see the difference from up there. I’ll have to tell you which ones are safe to step on, then. Follow me.”

Now she took the position of guide, stepping--and occasionally hopping--from one safe tile to the next. Kana followed behind her, laughing that this reminded him of some of the Engwithan ruins they’d explored more than any other culture.

“One more thing to add to the mystery of this place,” Adela rejoined with a chuckle. “Dead Ixamitl language, built near Rauatai but practically designed to keep aumaua out... let’s toss elements of Engwithan design into the pot as well. Why not? It makes as much sense as everything else here.” She paused by the dark doorway, chewing her lip in thought. “Unless... what if our contradictory dead friend was Leaden Key?” Adela curled the tail of her braid around her thumb as she tested the theory. “We know they were... widespread, to vastly understate things, which explains the Katl. That they were missionary, which explains why this kith is here. They were Engwithan, giving the mixed design styles. And they’re blazing secretive, which explains why this place is not designed to accommodate the locals. But they clearly wanted access to what’s in here--hopefully the writings we’re after--hence there being a way around all the traps for kith who know what to do.” She snapped her fingers. “Those who are worthy to find it, as in, other Leaden Key members.”

Kana looked thoughtful, trying to peer through the darkness of the room ahead. “A sound theory, my friend. But if it was of such import, why does this place look to have been abandoned for several hundred years?”

Adela shrugged. “Whoever was responsible for passing down the location died unexpectedly. Or they decided the writings or whatever’s here were no longer important, so they just sealed it up. But with the number of traps in this place, it must’ve been really important.” She glanced at him slyly. “Perhaps the sort of knowledge someone dogged enough to hunt down the Tanvii ora Toa would look for?”

Kana laughed and shook his head. “Dogged is a kind way to put it, Adi. It’s a sound theory, though, far as I can tell. I suppose you appreciate the irony of being unable to avoid the Leaden Key if you’re correct?”

Adela nodded. “That and us finding something that might be ancient Key activity when Aloth’s busy hunting down the more modern branches.” She sighed. “I wish the records pointing this way had been just a little more clear. Knowing what we’re walking into would be nice.”

“It would, but we can manage,” Kana said encouragingly. He gestured toward the doorway. “Shall we?”

Adela gave her braid one last tug and scanned the doorway for any sign of traps. She didn’t see anything. “Might as well.”

The two entered the central chamber cautiously, lanterns held high. Even with the illumination, they couldn’t see more than a fraction of the huge room. Unlike the hallways and entry chamber, the walls here were plain. Not a fresco or inscription in sight.

“Huh.” Adela chewed her lower lip in thought as she examined what she could see. Kana followed as she walked closer to the sealed sarcophagus on the far side of the room, both keeping an eye out for things that might set off traps. 

When they reached the sarcophagus, it was plain save a short inscription in Katl along the rim facing the door: Given to the gods and their service.

Adela ran her fingers over the words as she murmured the translation for Kana. He pursed his lips in thought and surveyed the room thoughtfully once more.

“Sadly lacking in iconography if this is truly the final resting place for one of their own,” he commented.

She shrugged. “They are all about secrecy. And maybe they figure everything out there”--a gesture back the way they’d come--”was sufficient.”

Kana chuckled. “Perhaps. What next?”

“Since there’s no writing or decoration on the walls, I’m pretty sure there aren’t any secret compartments...” Adela said under her breath, more thinking out loud then talking to him. She looked at the sarcophagus, eyes narrowing. “Which means the writing we’re after, if it’s here, is probably in with our nameless dead friend.” She tentatively rested one hand against the stone. No enchantments or traps that she could sense. “Help me open it.”

Kana shot her a skeptical look. “Are you sure that’s wise?”

“C’mon, Kana,” she wheedled, flashing him a wide smile. “It’s just a box. No harm ever ever came from opening a box.”

He made a noise of not-quite-disagreement and raised an eyebrow. “I seem to recall hearing that one before, shortly preceding a battle with several walking skeletons.”

“That only happened once,” Adela protested, rolling her eyes. “And I hadn’t checked that tomb for enchantments. This one I did.” She pushed against the stone lid, but her slight frame wasn’t even enough to make it rattle. “Come on, we’ve made it this for and we’re so close.”

“If you’re right,” Kana pointed out, then shook his head. “Ondra’s teeth, you know how to use a man’s curiosity against him...” He smiled fondly. “Though I suppose I did know what I was getting myself into when I invited you to join me. Very well, then.”

He swung his pack down from his shoulder to the floor, produced a prybar, and in short order had created enough of a gap they could slide aside the sarcophagus lid. Adela barely had time to register the partitioned inside--one compartment holding the occupants’ bones, the other a set of beautifully preserved scrolls--before a shimmering bluish-white spirit rose between her and Kana and their prize. It paused a moment, as if to get its bearings, before deigning to notice its company.

When it did, Adela felt an icy wave of suspicion radiate out from the spectral form as it spoke imperiously. “You stand before the Keeper of the Book. State your name and purpose.”

Caught off-guard by its presence and manner both, all she managed was a confused, “Huh?”

It was clearly not the answer the spirit had sought. It let out an angry screech and dove toward her. Adela yelped and batted it away with her grimoire.

Knew there was a reason I brought that, she thought with a grim smile as she dropped her lantern to pull out her sceptre.

It was, unsurprisingly, not much of a fight. There were two of them to the one spirit, and they’d been fighting together long enough to make quite a deadly pair when they needed to. Sure, by the end of their scrap Adela’s hair was singed and Kana had a lightning burn along his forearm from the one nasty spell it managed to cast, but they’d beaten the spirit back to a more... charitable disposition.

It still bore an air of supremely ruffled feathers as it resumed its position between them and the sarcophagus, but there was trace more respect in its voice. “Tell me of your labors.”

That’s when it clicked--even though it skipped a question--and Adela couldn’t stop herself from slapping one hand to her face and letting out a heavy sigh. I’m. An. Idiot. It had been her damned theory and she hadn’t connected those dots.  “To see that the craft of kith and wilder does not disturb what bones the gods have buried,” she replied.

The spirit flickered approvingly. “And how is your oath guarded?”

“It is sealed by the Leaden Key.” So she’d been right. Galawain’s beard, why couldn’t she get away from these people?

Another approving flicker as the spirit swayed to the side. “And why have you come here, young acolyte?”

“I seek the centuries-guarded knowledge,” Adela said, reaching back to grab the side of Kana’s hand and squeeze as he started to interject. Shhh. “I wish to share in the knowledge and protect it.” By taking it away from here.

The spirit flickered a few more times as it deliberated, then bobbed in assent.  “Very well, child. You are worthy to share my knowledge. Treat it with the respect it deserves.”

“I will,” she promised. She waited for the spirit to dissipate before approaching the sarcophagus. Now with time to look, she could see the skeleton that occupied most of the space. It looked to be either a tall elf or short folk from the stature. Any clothing they’d been wearing had long since turned to dust, leaving only the jewelry at hands and neck to show their importance.

Satisfied on that score, Adela turned to the scrolls. Dark green seals on all of them gave off a faint aura of magic, explaining how they were still in such good condition after centuries. She ran a finger along the one on top and felt the preservation spell shiver at her touch. Such a shame most enchantment methods like this have been lost...

“Adi.” Kana nudged her shoulder. When she glanced over, he was holding out one of the extra shoulder bags they brought on expeditions for exactly this purpose. 

“Oh, thank you.” She eyed the number of scrolls. “If I hold the bag, can you put them in? I don’t wanna drop any.”

He chuckled and handed it over. “Of course.”

In short order, the two of them had all the scrolls--fourteen, total--in the bag, which Adela shouldered. (It was only fair; Kana was carrying everything else, plus he’d gotten the worst of the fight.)

“Ready to be on our way?” Kana asked, already turning toward the exit. His arm probably hurt like the blazes, Adela mused. She couldn’t blame him for being in a hurry. But just as she was about to agree and lead the way back up that infernal hallway, a flash of pink caught her eye inside the sarcophagus.

“One second,” she said instead. Upon closer inspection, it was a ring on the skeleton’s little finger; silver band with a round, inset pink gem. She briefly battled the little voice screaming grave robber! before giving in to temptation and scooping up the ring.

The crypt didn’t collapse on their heads, and no angry spirits rose to call her a thief, so she took that as a sign she was safe. It’s my favorite color, I’ll appreciate it more than a skeleton can, it’s not like I’m planning to sell it....

Rolling her eyes at the rambling justifications, Adela turned back to Kana and smiled brightly as she slipped the ring on her thumb. “Now I’m ready.” She nodded toward his arm. “Let’s get back to the ship so you can get patched up.”

“I would appreciate that, yes,” Kana said with a sheepish smile. “Hopefully the way out will go more smoothly than the way in, since we know where all the dangers lie.” 

“Hopefully,” Adela agreed with a laugh.

It did. The trapped hallway was still tricky to navigate, but she had a good memory and they made it out without triggering anything. After that, it was a short walk back to the beach and an uneventful ride out to the Seeker with a waiting crewman.

“Don’t start without me,” Kana said, tone teasing but eyes serious as he nodded toward the scrolls before heading down to see the ship’s doctor.

“Cross my heart,” Adela promised and headed to his cabin to wait. It was hard--she was so very curious--but Kana had put just as much time and effort into finding the scrolls. It was only fair they read them together. So she waited, all but vibrating with excitement as she perched on the edge of Kana’s bunk, until he showed up. “All taken care of?”

Kana nodded. “It wasn’t as bad as it looked.” He ran his fingers over the bandages. “Carinna said it should be fine, so long as I don’t try to do too much the next few days.”

“I don’t think she has anything to worry about.” Adela grinned and handed him a scroll. “We have a lot of reading to do.”

He laughed and carefully broke the seal. “Indeed we do. Let’s get started on that, shall we?”

So they did. And both considered the next several days time well spent.

[stories-and-other-fun-things]

Hunters Story 2: Dragons

Part one

 It had been a year since Wolfe left to find answers and then track down Azazel. He had the answers, but Azazel was out witting him. Wolfe's leads led him to Morocco, Cairo, Dubai, Czech-Slovakia, Norway, Paris and Istanbul. And now he was headed back home. For he had decided that Azazel would always be one step ahead of him somehow. So he decided to return home after so long and deal with the consequences of leaving the way he had and for being away for so long.

 Emilia was in her room at Morbius' house looking over case files. She had music playing with earphones in. She felt a hand on her shoulder and she shoved the owner of the hand against the wall and held her arm their throat.

"Woah, easy there tiger." Wolfe said to her with a smile on his face. Emilia let go of him, took out the earphones and gave him a hug.

"You're back!" She exclaimed to him as she hugged him.

"That I am. Azazel was always a step ahead of me, so I decided to come back after being away for a year."

"It's good to have you back!"

"It's good to be back, and it's good to be hugged. I have to go to the Haven and tell Grey, Morbius, Reverend and Rose that I'm back and what I've learnt." 

"Alrighty, I'll go with you."

"Cool, could you drive me there?"

"You can teleport, and you have a car."

"It got destroyed whilst I was searching for Azazel. And I prefer the sensation of being in a car."

"Fair enough." Emilia gathered up her files and they walked out to her Dodge.

"Nice car."

"Thanks."

"I think I'll get another Ferrari, anywho lets go." They got in the Dodge and drove off to the Haven.

 They walked into the Haven and people began to stare at Emilia. They walked to the Council Room.

"They should all be here, hopefully Alexander isn't in there..." She muttered. They walked through the double doors and up to the Council seats. Morbius, Reverend, Rose and Grey were all talking to each other. Alexander was not present.

"Well look what we have here." Grey jokingly said with a smile. Wolfe did his single finger salute and the other three noticed he had arrived. Rose ran down and gave him a hug. She let go and reassumed her position like nothing had occurred.

"Welcome back Wolfe." Morbius said with a nod.

"Thanks. Reverend." Wolfe shook Revered's hand.

"Welcome back." Reverend said to him.

"Alright, business. Azazel managed to stay one step ahead of me throughout the time I was tracking him. I don't know how it happened but it did."

"So we don't know where he is?" Grey asked.

"He's somewhere in Iraq, but I was too tired to follow him."

"Fair enough."

"As for the other thing, did you get it sorted."

"It took some time but we managed to find a fall guy."

"Good. While I'm on that topic... As you know I dug up Alexia's grave and found that her skeleton was still inside her coffin. It means she isn't coming back or someone created an exact replica of what her skeleton would look like. It even had a hairline fracture on her left forearm which I gave her by accident."

"Very well. There is something you must know as well. The visions stopped three days after Alexia's parents came in demanding answers."

"They stopped?!"

"Correct."

"They might continue for all we know. It's happened before... Anyway, what's been going on here since I left?"

"Not much. There's been more Strength Tests than usual thanks to Alexander."

"My training has continued. Mainly in hand-to-hand, but I got some training with weapons in. I am confident with hand-to-hand and semi confident with weapons." Emilia told Wolfe.

"What about your Hunter powers?"

"I was planning on waiting until you got back. Morbius trained me with the speed and strength though."

"Fair enough."

"Wolfe and Miss Emilia. Reverend also, there is currently a Strength Test being held. Our Agents are requesting the three of you be there." Grey said.

"Fair enough." Reverend said. "When he says our Agents Wolfe, he means the ones that aren't Alexander's groupies."

"Very well. Let us go." The three of them walked out. "What do we know about Alexander?" 

"He's American, possibly a spy." Reverend said.

"And a big douche bag." Emilia added.

"Hmph. By the way Emilia, why is everyone staring at you with hatred?"

"Oh, that. I broke Alexander's nose not that long ago."

"Nice."

"It was a good punch that." Reverend added. They arrived at the room the Strength Test was bent held in. Cheering was happening as two Agents fought each other. Alexander was on the other side of the room and watched them enter. The fight on the mat ended with the smaller Agent being the winner. Cheers went up. Reverend, Wolfe and Emilia took an empty spot towards the left hand side of the room. Alexander walked onto the mat.

"Twas a good fight that. Congratulations to the winner." Everything Alexander said was dry and almost sarcastic. "Now, it is time for my fight. And for my opponent I choose Emilia." Everyone turned to look at her. "Actually I change my mind. I do not choose to fight her." Emilia felt a wave a relief. "I demand to fight her!" Wolfe and Reverend looked grim.

"What's, what's wrong?" She asked them.

"If someone says that they demand to fight you then you cannot back down. It's the rules." Reverend said.

"I'm going to pay you back for breaking my nose!" Alexander said and cracked his fists. Wolfe turned and looked at him. 

"There is a way around the demand rule." He muttered to Emilia. "You must say that you choose me to fight in your place then if I lose you just fight him."

"Wolfe, you don't need to get involved."

"Too late. I will fight for Emilia! If I lose then you can fight her!" Wolfe shouted to Alexander.

"So be it. I could defeat you easily." Alexander said with a laugh. Agents started patting Wolfe on the back as he walked towards the mat. He got on the mat and beckoned at Alexander. He laughed then lunged at Wolfe. Wolfe spun, did a high kick and brought Alexander down on to the ground. Alexander struggled to get back up. His groupies rushed and helped him up. Agents started cheering.

"Wolfe's the strongest! He's still got it!" They cheered.

"I'm not done yet." Alexander grunted.

"Yes you are. Rules state that if someone not in the fight helps you up then you are disqualified and your opponent wins. And I had already won." Wolfe stated. Alexander bared his teeth at Wolfe then ten groupies surrounded him. Wolfe laughed. He kicked two to the ground. He grabbed another and threw him into two more. He punched one down with a single punch. He jump kicked two more. He teleported behind the last two and knocked their heads together which made them drop. "Know this you imbecile, do not anger me. Stay away from Emilia or I won't go easy on you next time." Wolfe said. The Agents that were supporting Wolfe laughed, cheered and clapped. Wolfe, Emilia and Reverend left.

"I understand what you mean Emilia, that guy's a dick." Wolfe muttered. Emilia nodded. Reverend walked off to the Medical Wing and the other two found Morbius in his office.

"How was the Strength Test?" He asked.

"Too easy. I need to fight Reverend in one..." Wolfe said.

"Fair enough."

"Got any new cases recently?"

"Not any that are that recent. Last one was two months ago. A demon had done a string of killings."

"Was it one that burns people to death?"

"Yeah."

"Right. I heard about that somewhere. Anyway, I'm going to duck out for a bit and buy myself a new Ferrari."

"What happened to the other one?"

"It got destroyed."

"Fair enough, later."

"Later. Bye Emilia."

"See ya." Wolfe left the office.

"I take it you didn't ask him?" Morbius asked. Emilia sighed.

"Not yet, I'll do it soon though. He threatened Alexander to stay away from me though." She responded.

"Good, maybe that'll stop him. Did you see one of Wolfe's legendary high kicks?"

"Yes. Are they legendary?"

"Nah, not really. Everyone here who has had one connect with their head has regretted it for quite a while afterwards."

"Damn."

"Damn indeed, those things fucking hurt from him..." Morbius rubbed a spot on the back of his head. She laughed. "Yeah, laugh it off. Luckily for you, you won't get one from him."

"Sounds good."

"Yeah. He once took the head off a zombie with a high kick."

"What? Zombies exist?" 

"Didn't we tell you that?"

"No..."

"Oh, well they do. I should also say that we have various symbols that we use and those symbols can do various things. Some dampen powers, some reinforce things, stuff like that."

"Fair enough. Do you reckon Wolfe's strength and powers have increased since he was gone?"

"If it was possible for them to improve any further then yes, they would have."

"Are you going to ask him about the other thing?"

"I shall. Invite him over for dinner tonight please sweetie." She nodded and sent a text to Wolfe asking about dinner. He responded with "Sounds good." She showed Morbius and he nodded.

***

This is the second Hunters Story, it follows on from “A Time For A Feast” and funnily enough it’s the shortest one so far. Enjoy

[brooklynislandgirl]

Fictober/Day 1 Prompt: “Can you feel this?”

Sunrise By Turtle

Riggs didn’t do funerals.

There was a difference between visiting her grave and telling her about the things that came and went like they had done before, and everything else. He especially hated the fake sympathy afterwards when it was all supportive pats to the shoulders and the same enchiladas that they made for everything, and people you didn’t even know telling you it would be okay. It never would be; when the thing that gave your life meaning was gone and there was nothing you could do to get it back and all it did was leave a gaping hole in your chest begging you to fill it.

He hadn’t gone. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t recognise the aftermath. Three months. No face. No calls. No texts. As if she’d been shut up inside the same coffin and they’d been buried the same way they’d lived their lives. Together. Eventually, he’d broken down and asked Gamble. Ducked the swing that almost connected with his jaw and knew that maybe now wasn’t a good time. The man had lost his partner and presumably she wasn’t talking to him either.

So what does he do? The only honest and reasonable thing he can.

~*~

When she wakes up, there’s stiffness in her bones and a sense that the world isn’t right. A hand is shoved through her hair and when she lifts her head her neck protests the angle it’s held for...she didn’t know how long. She also noticed that she was covered in an orange, brown and yellow knitted blanket that she’s never seen before and the first thing out of her mouth is something incredibly vulgar, even for her. Fortunately, none else spoke Hawai’ian and therefore the blasphemy went unnoticed. The startled flail of limbs that accompanied her words however did not. “Mornin’ Beth,” he said and his tone was so chipper, she wanted to punch him in the mouth.

“Uh...I’m gonna geev ya mebbe two seconds t’ explain dis.”

More than she’s said in months, and her throat’s dry, her voice brittle autumn leaves. As if by magic, he hands over a thermos full of coffee. For which she was grateful. His old truck wasn’t exactly the most pristine thing in the world and there were drafts shivering their way up her legs, her arms, down the back of her neck. She was still in what passed for pyjamas; cotton shorts and a tank top.

“Well, it’s like this. You’re in my truck, and we’re driving to Mexico. What really needs explaining?”

….

….

“And?” “And what?”

“Martin.” It was maybe the first time she’d said his name fully.

“No idea what you’re talking about. And look at you, you’ve finally discovered the letter T.” She lets that last snarky little comment go by. “I mean...How did I get here?” “When a mommy and a daddy-”

She reaches out, tags him in the arm with a balled up fist, knuckles out. He doesn’t even flinch. “You broke into my apartment and grabbed me out of bed, that’s called kidnapping.”

“Technically, I didn’t break in. Technically, I used the spare key you gave me. Technically I asked you and you said ‘yeah, Mar’in, please?’ all breathy like you do when you’re half awake. How could I resist, especially when you were drooling?” “Gross.”

“A little but I’ll forgive you. This time.”

She takes a swig from the thermos. It’s not coffee.

The tequila burns down her throat until she’s coughing and spluttering, high octane breath pushing out through her mouth and her nose, right before her belly goes shrieking for the hills, leaving her queasy.

It’s the first time she’s felt anything since the funeral and she isn’t sure exactly what it is.

“Whoops, wrong one. That one’s mine.” He hands her a different thermos without ever taking his eyes off the road. It’s hard to read his expression through the wetness on her lashes, the mirrored Aviators perched on his nose. Even the deep timbre of his voice leaves interpretation open.

“Oh, don’t with the face. It’s not like I’m drinking and driving. I’m going to be drinking and parking.”

“Uh-huh.”

It’s the last thing she says for the next three rest stops and two hundred and forty miles.

He manages to get coffee in her, two bites of a microwave burrito that somehow tastes like ash and dust. She’s still not sure how, and isn’t convinced that they sit well in her stomach. A feeling she holds onto when they get to where they’re going and he throws the truck into park in a lot. He loads himself for bear, with a backpack on his shoulders and coming around to her side. She lets him wrap the blanket around her, putting one arm around her knees, the other up higher around her back. She makes a noise when he scoops her up and shuts the truck door with one of his boots. Martin carries her over a little stone plinth and the gravel eventually gives way to a sandy cliff, dotted here and there with scrub pine and sea grasses. She can hear the ocean before she sees it, especially considering her arms are tight around his neck. It isn’t terribly hard for him to pry her off, for all that she’s good at holding on. Mostly because he does it like those shows that deal with troubled animals. He talks her down softly, little more than a raspy rumble in the back of his throat, more thought than word and by the time her toes stretch down, he’s got a hand just below her chest, just above the small of her back. Over the side of the cliff is ocean. Forever down and so deep blue she thinks she can see the sky, the space above sky, and all the stars faded into the foam crests. It’s beautiful really. And it reminds her of what’s lost, a home and her soul and other things that don’t make sense any more. She draws a shuddering breath and claws for his arm because it hurts to look.

“Way I see it...you’ve got two choices, Bee. Sink...or swim.” One hand falls away, the other pushes. Grabs the blanket away from her as he does.

She plummets. Heavy like a stone. Wind hurtling a thousand miles an hour around her and her lungs ache, her heart threatens to burst. It’s fractions of seconds before she stops flailing, corrects herself. Straightens her spine, arches it just so. Something-dynamic, a word she’s always had trouble saying. And there’s just so much animosity there because he knows she used to cliff-dive back in Oahu. That as a free diver she can hold her breath for a long time.

And then she sees….

He’s jumped too. ~*~

Martin Riggs doesn’t do funerals. But he knows a lot about drowning.

He knows sometimes it’s better to let go. To sink.

Either they will break the surface or get pulled deeper under.

Just not alone.

[sweetpea-cc]

Who Are You? Part V

Pairing: Reader x the Mikaelson clan

Warnings: None really

Word Count: 4,621

If there is anything that people should know about the supernatural world, it's that nothing stays dead. At least, not permanently because we always find a way to come back.

Of course, something you never knew was that Circe, many years before her ultimate death, decided to enchant her blood, it was still your weakness, and it would still kill you but once you were dead, your blood would regenerate and hers would dominate yours until not a single drop existed. However, there is always downside and unfortunately for you, it would take months or years for your body to completely 'regenerate'.

Of course, something you never knew was that Circe, many years before her ultimate death, decided to enchant her blood, it was still your weakness, and it would still kill you but once you were dead, your blood would regenerate and dominate hers until not a single drop existed. However, there is always downside and unfortunately for you, it would take months or years for your body to completely 'regenerate'.

When you finally woke up, the world was dark and you were confused, gasping for breath. Slowly, you start to come to and realize where you are you, or rather, what you're in. "Comfy coffin." you thought to yourself as you feel for the opening side of the casket. Using your strength, you pushed the lid open and sat up. You could tell that you were in a tomb of some sort, due to the dusty scent in the air. Swinging your legs to the right, you jump out of the casket, loosing your balance momentarily but quickly corrected yourself. Guess not using your legs after a while makes them nearly useless, you laugh to yourself.

Looking around, you find the exist, your heart beating with excitement. Upon exiting, you hiss at the blinding sun sinking down, but you cherished it, cherished the warming feeling and breathed in deeply. It didn't take long for the sky to turn dark, bringing in a chilly feeling. You'd forgotten how much you took being alive for granted. This time around, things would be different, and this you knew to the very core of your being. You felt lighter, stronger, faster, and more dangerous than ever. Sure, your original purpose was to be a peace maker between the species. Perhaps that could still happen, but until then, you were going to just embrace the fact that you were breathing again.

You stepped out of tomb, and immediately knew where you were- The Lafayette Cemetery No.1. How cute, Klaus kept you nearby but that thought didn't prevent you from scowling at the fact that you met your previous demise in the same place.

To your right, you saw a cluster of flowers, all in different stages of dying. It was nice to know that someone still visited your grave. Among that, you noticed the poor disarrayed cemetery. Crypts were destroyed and plants growing through the cracks. The moon was shining strong and brightly and there was gentle chill in the air, cold weather was your favorite but right now, you were craving warmth and sunlight.

Your stomach growls as you lick your lips, the hunger you felt was stronger than ever, which told you either you'd been dead for a long time, or something was going to go terrible wrong. You were hoping for the latter.

From a far distance, you can hear to boisterous and lively chatter and beautiful music of New Orleans. You decided to follow the sounds, feeling light on your feet, also like you could fly. A bright smile formed upon your face as you thought about seeing Klaus again, seeing Hope and Freya, Elijah and Rebekah. Of course, that didn't fool you into think Klaus would rush into your arms as if the two of you were long lost lovers. As far as you knew, he would still be angry with you.

One moment you were walking and then the next, you were pulled into an alley, a hand plunged into your chest. You gasp sharply, so that's how it felt. Your grimace, struggling against your assailant, "When are you witches going to stop wearing her damn face. It's gotten rather old by now, darling." You recognized that voice, low and full of secrets. You force yourself to stop struggling and focus on the face in front of you.

"Kol- Kol, it's me, it's Y/N!" You gasp, struggling for air. By the terrifying grin and dangerous look on him face, you knew he didn't believe a damn word coming out of your mouth. Frantically you search your mind for something about him that only the two of you knew, and you had to be quick because Kol looked more than ready to rip your throat out.

"Don't you remember? When Klaus daggered you and Davina couldn't get near you, so I did it for her and when you woke up, you had to feed a-and you immediately grabbed my wrist? And then I got a cold shoulder from Klaus for like two weeks." You were rambling on, hoping he would believe what you were saying. Slowly, you see his eyes soften as he releases his hold on you. Letting out a small cry of relief, you sink to the ground and Kol follows suit.

"How?" Was all he asked, and you just shrug "Honestly, I don't know but I'm guessing it has something to do with Circe. She was a sly devil, you know?" Your head leans against the brick wall as you let the feeling of sadness wash over you and disappear just as quick. "Ahh, who the hell is Circe?"

"Oh- right, right. Umm, she's the one who created me." You offer him a small smile, which he kindly returns. Kol and you are silent for a few moments and then you stand up, dusting yourself off and holding out your hand for Kol to take, which he gladly accepts.

He stares at you for a little bit, as if he's trying to see if you're real or not. Which reminded you of something he'd said earlier.

"What did you mean when you said you were 'tired of witches wearing my face'?" You ask, using air quotes around the last part.

"It's ridiculous really, but after you died, a bunch of witches were feeling brave, I guess and decided to taunt Klaus for gods know what reason. Safe to say, none of them are alive anymore, and Elijah and I decided that if we saw anyone else doing so, we'd take care of it. He really was a mess after your death, you know. Extremely angry, at everything... especially you." Your heart hurts upon hearing this and you feel an annoying urge to cry. Rather, you clear your throat and continue listening to Kol.

"You've missed a lot. Marcel drank whatever crap Lucien did and bit Finn, who we undaggered by the way, Finn started dying and Klaus tried to help him and it seemed to work for a little bit but then he started convulsing and that was it. Then he bit Elijah, and then we let Rebekah out who had been hexed to go mad and kill everyone around her. Klaus was 'brought to justice' but his sires and stabbed with the Tunde blade and then Freya locked all of us in some deep sleep inside her head while Klaus remained captive by Marcel." You couldn't believe what you were hearing, what the hell was going on, how long were gone?

"Umm, right, Davina died, got her soul shredded by the Ancestors. And then there was Hayley who went and saved all of us, but that took time and when she did, everything was great but of course there was a new threat but this time is was some prissy 1,500 year old one called the Hollow who then brought Davina back from the dead and then decided to take over Hope's body and she wrecked havoc but then that one witch... uh, Vincent came up with an idea to split the spirit or whatever of the said witch and put a quarter of it in each of us. Sadly, after that we were forced to go our separate ways permanently so prevent it from becoming whole again and hurting Hope. And we couldn't stay in New Orleans because 'home ground' or whatever for the evil witch. So Davina and I went to San Francisco, Rebekah went off to New York with Marcel, Elijah somewhere in France, don't know exactly where Klaus went and Freya stayed in New Orleans with her girlfriend and Hayley took Hope to Virginia so she could attend some fancy boarding school for the gifted."

Your breathing was short and quick by now, your mind rushing fast than the speed of light. You put your hand on both sides of Kol's shoulders "Kol.. how long have I been dead?" You ask, nearly on the brink of tears.

"11 years." And you feel your body fall and Kol catches you. Eleven years, eleven fucking years. Sure that didn't seem like much, but still it hurt that you had missed out on so much. Your eyebrows furrow in confusion, "Why are you here? I mean, from what you just told me, that's too dangerous."

"Right, Freya called all of us home, except for Hope of course. She thinks that she found a way to contain the spirit but she needs a very strong source of power, like ancestor-strong but stronger. She sent me to the cemetery to... retrieve your body."

"She was going to channel me? How would that even work? You know, because I was dead." That word tasted sour in your mouth, you certainly did not fancy being so.

"Don't know, she said something about you being more powerful than you thought you were considering who made you. And then she started talking and talking and would shut up which brings us to now." He throws his hands up, as if a he had just finished a grand play.

Suddenly, you feel funny, lightheaded and vision around you goes white. Frantic, you look around, wanting scream. What if this was just some kind of hell, some type of torture?

"It's not. Torture, I mean." A soft voice sounds from behind you, slowly you turn around and there she is. Choked sobs form as you look at her. "Circe." Shaking your head wildly, this wasn't possible.

"I assure you it is, and yes I can read your mind because technically I'm in your mind." She smiles gently and your heart warms, you'd missed her so much.

"You know, your friend is right. You're so much more powerful than you think. Even more powerful than the original family combined. Doesn't sound real, does it? You know, when I created you, I had this vision of something, someone making waves of peace between every species, to ensure the survival of them. Sadly, witches hate vampires and vampires hate werewolves. At least, most of them" a mirthful laugh comes from her.

"I am proud of you, I hope you that. As you grew up, I started to look at you like a child I never had and in a way, I suppose you are my child."

"How are you here? Even if it's in my head. Constance told me that the Ancestors shredded your souls after they brought you back which they were able to because I failed to burn your body like I knew you wanted me too." You hang your head down, ashamed but Circe places a hand under your chin and lifts it up and your eyes starting hard into her cold ones.

"I am with you, always. Quite literally I might add, when Constance injected you with my blood, it did kill you, but over the years that you were gone, my blood worked it's way throughout your entire body, replacing your own. It cannot harm you anymore, and will never be used as a weapon. I ensured this several years ago because I could no bear the thought of someone taking your away from me. Because I knew without a doubt, that if you were to die, I'd never see you again." She places a sweet, loving kiss upon your forehead and you feel tears beginning to fall.

"You can take the spirit of this witch, my dear Y/N. In a way, you're far older and more powerful than she. You can destroy her soul, which is the only thing she has." You furrow your eyebrows in confusion. "You can siphon magic, Y/N. That's all she is." Your eyes go wide as the white background begins to fade and you can hear Kol yelling your name.

"Y/N! What's wrong?" He questioned, seeming terrified. How funny.

You look at him curiously, not saying anything, it was as if you'd been possessed because the next thing you knew, your hand was inside of Kol's chest, but not physically. Your hand searched for that powerful piece of the Hollow and when you locate it, deep inside of him, you pull it out. It was beautiful to you, deep and glowing and you can see the look of panic on Kol's face.

Breathing in deeply and closing your eyes, you holding the glowing orb between your hands, slowly, you feel the power flow from the orb to you and it begins to flicker like a dying light. Perhaps in a way, that's exactly what it was.

When the last ounce of the light diminishes, the orb crumbles in your hand into nothing but ash. Some part of you decided to take a more drastic measure because better safe than sorry, right? Collecting the ash in your other hand, you conjure a flame in your hand, destroying every single particle of what was once a quarter of the Hollow.

When you look up, Kol is standing there completely flabbergasted. "What did you do?!" He shouts, making you flinch involuntarily. "I destroyed part of her, and she'll never be able to put herself back together. Ever." Your eyes glaze over, you needed to do something with the power you had just siphoned, release it in some kind of way. You thought of the Harvest and how the Ancestors would let strong amounts of power flow into the earth. But you remembered Circe's words "you can take the spirit of the witch.." What did she mean by that? Could you hold every part of her and be fine? Would the spirit become too strong inside you and take over as it did to himawan your time I dont is that I wanna read othe many questions and weren't sure if anyone had the answers.

"Look, everyone is at the compound. Freya put up some 2,000 year old boundary spell to contain each of us, and I think it's preventing the rest of the Hollow from becoming whole again. But you know, she still needs you." Kol holds out his hand so he can lead you away, surprisingly, you're very hesitant.  In a way, this was your chance to start over, begin a brand new life far away from death, pain, and the horror that the Miakelson's faced on a daily basis. Reluctantly, you grab him hand and before you can blink, the two of your are standing outside of the compound. Kol turns to face you, his expression grim, "Before I forget, Caroline is here."

"Caroline...?" Klaus told you about a lot of things but whoever Caroline was definitely didn't hit the Top Ten or One Hundred. Kol kind of whines, rocking his body back and forth in a nonchalantly way. "Ehh, some girl Nik's been pinning over for nearly two decades now." you feel a lump in your throat but force it down.

You let go of Kol's hand as he strides forward but you stay behind, it would seem you weren't quite ready to see all them again, Klaus especially.

"Kol! Where have you been? You were supposed to bring Y/N! I need to use her magic, I told you this a hundred times before you left." You hear Freya's voice shout, echoing off the walls of the compound. You could practically see Kol rolling his eyes at Freya's dramatics, "Technically, I did bring her..." Kol sheepishly responds, earning him beyond confused looks not only from Freya, but Klaus, Rebekah, and Elijah too.

"And you can use it." Your voice was small but steady as your walked through the dark entrance to the center of the compound. You stand silently as four of the Mikaelson's stare at you in disbelief, there was no way you were here right now. You noticed Freya staring at the big rip in the center of your dress and you guessed Kol did too, "I tried to ripped her heart out. So in case you guys don't think Y/N is herself, I can confirm."

Everyone was quiet, it was like time was standing still, frozen in place. "It's good to see you again, Y/N. You look well" Elijah speaks up, bring a smile to your face  "I could say the same for you, considering from what I heard, you were dead." Elijah laughs, shaking his head in amusement. You cast your eyes downward, you were afraid to face him, afraid to look him in the eye.

When you finally did look up, Klaus' eyes bore deeply into your own. You could see anger, hurt, and betrayal shining in them, but yet, still there was that flicker of gentleness, kindness that you loved. His eyes were glossy but the more you stared the more you swore anger and resentment was building. Quickly you look away and advert your attention towards Rebekah. In a way, she always was your favorite, perhaps because she was a wild mixture of all of her brothers- temperamental, loyal, and sarcastic. You offer her a small smile, which she graciously returns.

"Okay, look I'm sorry to cut the niceties short, but Y/N, I really need to do this now, they've already been near each other long enough. Kol get back in your spot." Freya points to an empty square between Rebekah and Elijah and links your hand with hers. "Nah, I'm good. Y/N took whatever part of the Hollow I had in me. Crushed it into nothing."

"What?!" Freya drops your hand sharply, putting some kind of strain on your arm. She turns to look at Kol, eyeing him down, wondering if this was some kind of joke. Holding her hand just a few inches from Kol's chest, she closes her eyes and whispers a few incantations. Her eyes shoot open and jumps back ever so slightly. "How is that possible? There's not a single shred of the Hollow in you." Kol gives Freya his award-winning 'I-just-said-that' face and Freya spins around, her face in front your own. "How did you do that?" her tone was serious and emergent.

"The Hollow is nothing more than this ball of energy, of magic. Strong, yes, but a simple form a magic nonetheless. I siphoned that magic until there was nothing left." You were struggling to find your voice for some reason, it was strange being back in the place that brought your pain and happiness, and it was even more strange seeing a man that you'd grown to love furiously, even if he was now in love with someone else.

"So you currently have the Hollow's powers or something?" Freya asks, taking a small step back from you, as if she was now scared to even breathe near you.

"I don't know, honestly I didn't even know what I doing the first time I did it. I was in some kind of trance or something." you could feel yourself nearly tripping over your own words, how was this supposed to go? And more importantly, how would it end?

Suddenly you start feeling lightheaded again, but this time you know it's because you're starving. Your body sways and you struggle to find your balance, you feel your eyes turning a bloodshot red and spider-like veins creeping through. Out of the corner of your eye, you swear you see Klaus start to run towards you, only to be stopped by the barrier spell. "Y/N, what's wrong?!" all five of the Mikaelson's ask, worry laced with concern. You clear your throat, shaking your head, "I'm fine, just-I'm just really hungry." In this very moment, you realized that in all of the years they'd known you, they had never seen you feed, they knew nothing about your habits. They simply figured that you lived all blood bags and normal human food, which you did, except blood bags were a person, and that person was you.

One of the downfalls of being who you were, was that you would be hit with incredibly strong feelings of hunger, you tend to be a little rash, like Klaus-Mikaelson-out-for-revenge-rash. The upside to that, however, was that your thirst for blood could be easily suppressed because your source of blood was you. This was something that you kept to yourself because truth be told, it seemed abnormal. Your hand slams down on Freya's shoulder, using her for support, and your head turns towards Kol, "Kol, could you be a darling and get me a glass?" you were trying hard not to let your hunger control you.

Unlike vampires, you didn't need blood from other sources because due to your human and witch side, you body functioned the way one normally would- blood constantly renewing and replenishing itself. In a way, your blood was completely pure.

Kol returns quickly with a glass, dubiety written across his face. You let go of Freya, trying to block out the fact that you had five people who you were close to, staring so intently at you as you were about to expose your secret to them. You bring your wrist to your mouth, and bite hard, breaking the skin and rest your wrist over the glass, a generous amount of blood spilling in. You were definitely going to need more, but for now, what you had would have to do. Slowly, you bring the glass to your lips and down it in seconds, feeling immediately better.

"Did you just.. feed from yourself?" Kol demands, he mouth hanging open slightly. You could feel him judging you, the disgust, which was completely fine, you didn't care but his tone aggravated you. Stalking over to him now eye to eye, you growl "I do not care for you tone Kol Mikaelson. I may have been dead for 11 years but do not think my patience has grown." your voice was low and dangerous, and for a few milliseconds, fear flashed in his non caring eyes.

Spinning around to face Freya, you ignore the looks on their faces. "Let's get this over with shall we?" You hold out your hand for her to take but she refuses, pulling an astonish look from you.

"Do you think you could do what you did to Kol again? Because if I'm being honest, I don't even know if this spell is going to work." Freya confesses and you can see the looks of worry and annoyance plastered on everyone's faces. You were just about to say no when a ghost like figure of Circe appeared standing in the corner of the compound. She didn't say anything, just simply nodded her head and gave you a smile that was sweet and loving yet stern at the same time. Just as quickly as she appeared, Circe was gone.

Taking in a shaky breath, you focus your attention of Freya, nodding your rapidly. "Okay, is there anything you need up to do?" Freya asked, you could nearly see the concern flowing out. Hmm, perhaps she'd changed a little bit in the past eleven years that you were dead.

"I just need everyone to shut up, not make a single sound." as you say this, you eye Kol, Klaus, and Rebekah knowingly, who all throw their hands up in surrender. Slowly you walk forward until you're standing in front of Elijah. "Just don't move okay? It's not going to hurt, I don't think.." you voice was laced with uncertainty as you look to Kol for confirmation and he merely shrugs, "Didn't feel a thing." he replies, making you laugh, albeit the moment was inappropriate but honestly, it was nice to have a genuine laugh. "Do you ever feel anything?" you inquire making Kol give off her award-winning smirk.

Focusing on your breathing, you feel your eyes glaze over once again despite trying to prevent them from doing so. Slowly, you reach your phantom like hand into Elijah's chest, pulling out the other half of the Hollow. Again, the glowing blue orb nearly mesmerizes you, drawing you in, although from what you heard, that was exactly what it did. Quickly you look away, following the exact same steps that you did with Kol. This time, you felt even stronger while siphoning the magic from it, and that almost worried you. Circe said you could do this and you prayed that if there even was a God, that Circe was not trying to destroy you for her own personal gain.

The orb dismantles into absolute nothingness as you burn every last part of the remains. You turn to Freya, signaling her to check Elijah just to be safe, to be sure that there was not an ounce of the Hollow left in him. Freya takes down his boundary spell and does so and nods to you, as to say that you could continue. Like you needed her permission. The next person is Rebekah, you notice that she's as gorgeous as ever, perks of being immortal you guessed. Yet there was this.. sadness in her eyes, you wondered what was causing it.  With ease, you pull the Hollow from Rebekah's chest and destroy it, then send her off to Freya for checking.

Your breathing hitched as you walked towards Klaus, he was still as beautiful in your eyes as he'd always been. You avoid his eyes as you begin your work, which again, you do with ease, finally freeing each of the Mikaelson's from the Hollow, allowing them to become a family. After Freya takes down the final boundary spell, the siblings all gather around each other, hugs and handshakes and glad smiles. The whole time you were in the compound, you never did notice Caroline standing in the corner, waiting patiently. However, you did notice that once Freya released Klaus, Caroline ran over to him and jump in his arms, seemingly squealing with delight.

Your heart cracked, but what else did you expect? For him to remain stuck on you for eternity? That would be rather cruel. In the mist of all of them being so happy to each other, to be able to talk and stand in the same room without 2,000 year old protection spell, you began to fade away, though your weren't surprised. Quietly, you stand there, taking in their expressions of true satisfaction and then, reluctantly, you walk away leaving them behind to continue their lives, this time together once again. Perhaps this was your chance to make peace, be who you were originally meant to be, or you thought to yourself, you find a small, quaint town in the middle of nowhere, where no one knew you and live your life the best way you could think of.

---

Tag List: @poemfreak306 @zaghawia @cococola-cocaine @lilulo-12 @jaiboomer11 @fafulous @valeria-winchester

A/N so like i really hope you guys like this one! shoot me a message or something if y’all are interested in another part :) Until then! Also, sorry for the lack of gifs! :/