#every other skein tangles and it BITES

[gengarpng]

Started winding bobbins for my thread hoard and lord this shit sucks.

[asliceofzosan]

i'm thinking of sanji growing up with a pet cat at the baratie.

how sanji finds him hungry and cold and shivering on his doorstep. he's frighteningly thin, almost as if a single gust of wind could turn his bones to dust. a chill runs through sanji's spine as he picks up the little green and black kitten — something like a distant memory — of rationing out tiny portions and drying water skeins and the rumble rumble rumble of his stomach as it begs him for more food to eat. just one more crumb. maybe it would sate his hunger.

so he takes the little kitten in, nurses him back to health, and endures the scolding from zeff for bringing the little stray in. sanji gets his reparation by pretending not to see zeff bottle feed the kitten when he was too weak to stand. he doesn't try to hide his knowing smile when he and patty find zeff passed out in his office chair, the little kitten curled up on his lap as it took shallow breaths in his sleep.

sanji took to calling the kitten marimo. he never saw a green kitten before, and certainly one not as fluffy as him once he was regaining his strength. marimo was playful and mighty mischievous. just like every other cat, his life's mission was to rile sanji up with each vase knocked over and each cat tree he refuses to use in favor of the box it came in.

but sanji adored his little marimo.

he always made sure he was well fed and quenched. not a single day went by where marimo didn't have a bite to eat. it haunts his dreams still. when baby marimo was shaking so much in his hands, sanji was afraid he might break him if he moved too fast. now he was a fierce cat, always lazily wrapping himself around sanji's legs when he's waiting tables or doing prep work in the kitchen.

marimo pretends he's not protective. but he's bared his fangs at more people than sanji could count. carne's got the scars on his arms to prove it too. sometimes sanji would catch the little rascal with a small paring knife in his mouth to chase one of the poor line cooks with.

despite his chilly attitude towards him when others are around, at night marimo would already be curled up on sanji's pillow, purring and purring until his owner was sound asleep. sometimes sanji would pull marimo onto his lap and brush him while humming a sea shanty zeff taught him long ago. he cherishes these quiet moments with the once hungry little kitten.

he doesn't want to admit it out loud — and maybe he never will — but marimo gave him another reason for living everyday.

so when sanji found a naked green-haired man where marimo is supposed to be on his bed, it should be understandable that he kicked the guy straight into the wall, right?

"who?!?" sanji couldn't even finish his question, he was hysterical that a naked man was in his bedroom! he long dreamed for a beautiful woman on his bed ever since he hit puberty. this is not how he wanted this to go. not at all. the strange man thankfully got tangled in sanji's bedsheets (note to self: must wash and/or burn those sheets now) when sanji landed a mouton shot to his chest.

but most importantly...

where the fuck was his cat?!?

"i should have dressed first, huh?" the man says through a pained groan. sanji somehow found himself feeling sorry for him, but only for a split second, because he was back to glaring at the stranger as menacingly as he could. sanji watched him warily, trying his best not to stare at his bare chest.

"who are you and what have you done to my cat?"

the man decided then to open his eyes and sanji let out a small gasp.

gray eyes.

his marimo had gray eyes exactly that shade.

"you know, don't you?" the man says, not looking the least bit afraid even after sanji literally kicked him in the chest. sanji backed away when he stood up, the blanket still wrapped loosely around his frame. "you know who i am, cook."

"no i don't!" but even sanji could admit that his tone wavered with each step the man took towards him. "if this is some fucking prank, i'll kick your ass again!"

"careful, curly." the man smirks, baring razor sharp fangs. "cats like to scratch."

and within the blink of an eye, the man was gone. an indignant meow sounded from the pile of blankets at sanji's feet. without really thinking, sanji knelt down and lifted the blanket up. marimo laid there, limbs paws tucked up against his body, and licking one of his paws nonchalantly.

"please tell me i'm dreaming," sanji murmured, running a single hand through his hair. marimo just tilted his head at him, slinking out of the blanket fortress and onto sanji's lap. sanji looked down and saw marimo staring straight up at him, those same gray eyes he saw on the stranger boring holes into his soul. sanji couldn't bring himself to look away.

because something tells him that he might get a visit from the green haired man again very soon.

or maybe he never left.

[kettlequills]

prisoner of the skein

follow up to this, available on A03 here. cw: spiders, self-loathing, some violence, daedric pacts. FDB! Laataazin/LDB! Miraak.

He was so young, Laataaz thought as they saved the Last Dragonborn from yet another perilous death at the hands of the many-legged and rarely-kindly denizens of the Spiral Skein, though a wise man would have known to stop coming and not needed saving. And annoying, they added to themselves sourly, when he immediately took this as a sign that they were finally in the mood to be pestered.

The Last Dragonborn in question called himself Miraak – a curious name, Allegiance Guide, given to him by Paarthurnax at the Throat of the World (how Laat’s heart had ached to know their old friend was still alive, and fighting the good fight after all this time) – and had the look of the Falmeri in his sharp claws and luminous snowpale eyes, the Nordic in his towering height, firm jaw and proud nose, and the stupid fool in his determination, the radiance of his hope, the sure, steady way he carried himself, like that of the bold youth supple in his summer-strength, untested as yet by the bitter winter.

He was very beautiful, Laataaz admitted to themselves candidly, and his sharp eyes, his deep, sonorous voice, the breadth of his unbowed shoulders – did certain things to Laataaz that they had hoped were as dead and buried as the rest of their kin. He was so alive, beard not yet touched grey, so untainted by the daedric corruption that crawled like living creatures under Laataaz’s skin.

Laataaz wanted to wring his neck so badly that every second in his company felt like a test from Bormahu. After all this time, did the gods still crave Laat’s punishment?

Yes, they thought, as well they should.

After all this time, their hands still shook with the blood that stained them, dripped, now, with cobwebs and extra fingers they did not remember having before, the venomous bone-spurs that shredded through once-flesh. Laataaz was nothing so forgiveable as human, anymore. If they had ever been.

“Thank you,” said Miraak, blinking up at them from the ruins of an obliterated daedra that had been about to remove his heart from his chest. His shoulders were dusted with cobwebs and his robes were stained with spider ichor. Laataaz gave him a cursory glance, but they couldn’t see any bites on him – if he was poisoned, he could deal with it himself.

Laataaz swung their warhammer over their shoulder, ignoring the spiders that hurriedly skittered over their mask out of the way. Dusty filaments of web squirmed free of their ancient armour, caught the towering crown of Mephalan-horns. They squinted at him in a glare he couldn’t see behind their forbidding priest mask, then stomped away. Their footsteps echoed as always with the rustle and chitter of more legs than Miraak’s mortal eyes would be able to see.

He shouldn’t be here.

Miraak picked himself up and trailed after them, talking excitedly – and loudly, Laataaz’s thumping head added – about the progression of his research on Laataaz’s life, powers, and imprisonment, all vanished (they had hoped) to the murky mists of time and Mephala’s delicate hand. At least he did not expect them to reply, as Laataaz had been quite successfully pretending to not understand modern Cyrodillic, Dunmeris, Falmeris, and any of the other languages Miraak had tried, only growing, impossibly, more excited with each one that Laat remained indifferent to.

Dovahzul, however, they could not convince him of, and to Laat’s weary alarm, it seemed as if he had brought a dictionary.

He was trying to talk to them even now with dragon-words that caught at their attention like fishhooks, but Laataaz pretended to ignore him. He should not be here. He needed no encouragement to continue seeking them out.

Truthfully, Laataaz knew they really ought to just stop saving the bright-eyed, fresh-faced young mage from his own folly in repeatedly entering Mephala’s realm, seeking out a Dragonborn whose crimes and sentence were better left forgotten, kept safe away from the world. At least when Mephala brought Laataaz out to kill some other godling or beast that rose up to upset the Prince’s careful game, they could close their eyes to the task and simply add another sin to their sentence. But this – this, was temptation the likes of which Laataaz had not faced for centuries.

With his soul, they could be free of the Skein. It had been so long since they had eaten a dragon-soul, and every time he came near them they felt that emptiness within them howl its hunger. How sweet would his struggles be, if Laataaz wrapped him in their silken spider-threads? How lovely would his heaving chest be fighting for air, as they suffocated him in the thirsty darkness of their cocoon, sticky web anchoring each struggling limb? Would his blood taste of Nirn under Laat’s jaws?

Laataaz swallowed, feeling the acidic burn of venom pooling down their throat, their stomach. Would he shiver and sweat, if they gave him their poison? Was his mortal body strong enough to bear it, or would Laataaz only tear him apart?

Would he cry, if they hurt him, if they betrayed the foolish trust he should not have placed in them? Would the pleasure of his soul be worth the pain?

Not that Miraak seemed to care about the danger he put himself in with each trip. He thought that the greatest threats came from the daedra that lived in this infinite web, and pursued the true monster that haunted its shrouded depths guilelessly. Laataaz’s Prince had to be amused.

Laataaz ducked into the shadows of the leaning webs stringing the darkness between the spokes of Mephala’s Wheel, hoping to lose him, then plunged their hands into the stickiness of their home for the past few thousand years and skittered up, surely as any true child of the Webspinner. They hoped he would spot the unnatural movements of their body, the clicking of the ancient scales wrapping dully over their armour, the glitter of their eyelike scars, more, they thought, then they had once had, and fear the darkness they disappeared into.

Annoyingly, Miraak hesitated not at all before following them. He pushed his hood off shading his eyes and flipped up his snow-goggles, seeming, if anything, relieved. He stopped stumbling around so much, too, Laataaz could feel fewer spiders crushed under his heavy Nordic boots.

“This is better,” he called up in shaky Dovahzul, “It reminds me of home.”

The webs shook when he boldly forced footholds into them and climbed after them doggedly. Stubborn as a Dovah, Laataaz thought, and hissed. He was lucky that his gloves and boots had been made thickly and well, Laataaz could feel the black widow gnawing at the leather, trying to get into the unknowing blood beneath.

“Wherever you go,” he said, “I will follow you, I will learn your secrets, Dragonborn!”

“Leave him alone,” they ordered in sharp jerks of sign to the creatures of the web stirring in irritation as he shook and bothered their homes, their cocoons, “This is my prey.”

“Is that sign language? Who are you talking to?” Miraak asked, forgetting Dovahzul, then cursed as he manoeuvred around the slack face of a half-eaten daedra that had been too slow to avoid the plots of his fellows, and spun into the digestive darkness. The bones were always last to go – Laataaz heard the daedra’s teeth rattle free of the softened gums and clink on the distant floor.

His voice was closer, closer, but Laataaz faced away, clinging to the web and pressing their mask into its soft yield. Akatosh, would he forgive Laataaz for taking this prize who kept offering himself up, for stealing the last hope of Nirn to thwart Alduin’s destiny? Laataaz wanted to eat his soul so badly. This was why they deserved to stay in their prison! Did he not know of the blood that soaked Laataaz’s fate?

Miraak swore behind them, closer than they had expected him to be, and Laataaz’s eyes flew open as they felt the whole structure of the webs shake. Executioner they might be, but there were many other daedra in the webs, hiding from the light but observing the confrontation, and Laataaz would spare their lives, their brittle carapaces, if they could.

“It’s coming down!” he shouted, and Laataaz acted.

They swung down from their knees, letting the webs hold them, and spun spider-silk from the spurs of their robes. Sticky and pearly-white, it caught him, held him struggling like a butterfly against the roof of the web. A Word had the webs still, shivering at their power, and Miraak’s eyes were wide, his cheeks rosy as he swung upside down.

He would faint if they left him there, Laataaz knew, and felt the burn of venom as they swallowed. Already his face was filling with blood, an artificial blush that pinked his cheeks and the tips of his ears. The curls of his dark ringlets pulled long like a cloud, swung as he struggled once, twice, instinctively trying to move his trapped legs.

“You are strong,” he breathed in something that might have been a laugh, something that made Laataaz’s heart jerk and warmth pool in the base of their spine, “Stronger than I believed possible. The secrets you possess…” He trailed off, but the hunger was loud and unspoken.

How he wanted.

Laataaz touched him, spreading over his chest. Little spiders, jewel-eyed and curious, ventured from the folds of darkness under their clothing, under their bruised nails, the hollow of their palms, and scuttled free, exploring the shape of him, mapping the sturdiness of his neck, the exposed shell of his pointed ears, tangling into his long locks. They closed their eyes and sucked in a hollowing breath. How warm he felt to the rasping hooks of their small legs, their burrowing bodies, to Laataaz within them.

Miraak twisted and twitched uncomfortably when he felt their tickling legs on him, but he did not push them away. The shreds of their priest gauntlets – torn when Laataaz had grown more fingers than they had been made for – still gleamed with a faintness of the old enchantments, the only light between them. Venom dripped freely out of their mouth, ran stinging towards their eyes. No matter how much they swallowed, more welled up, bitter with desire to sink their teeth into him, paralyse him, set his blood alight with poison-fire.

They had never been strong where it counted.

“Pretend at aloofness all you like,” his voice rumbled and jarred the bones of their hand, shook Laataaz’s soul where it hungered, hungered. “I know you want this.”

He jerked awkwardly, trying to reach them – with a look, Laataaz wrapped the offending hand in spider-thread. No movement from him, nothing, they were busy marvelling over the rise and fall of his breathing where they pushed his chest. The Last Dragonborn was so greedy with his breath, so steady, so assured that there would always be more. Had he never been choked to the starving of it before?

“Your actions speak when you refuse to. You are curious, you must be.” He said it like a prayer, like they were a prayer. “Don’t you want to know? Have you met any other Dragonborn? There is so, so much more to be done, Alduin rises, think of all we could learn, the power we could wield!”

Laataaz said nothing.

“Are you not glad I am here at all?” Miraak said, and there was pain in him when he spoke those words with an uncharacteristic crack. They slanted their mask to look at him. Did he think himself lonely, this fool of the new age? Did he think he understood the meaning of solitude?

“Niid,” Laataaz ground out in Dovahzul archaic and stony. They had not spoken to a mortal for so long words crumbled like dust when they felt them with their tongue. But for him, this foolish young Dragonborn, the Last, they forced themselves to speak their first words in centuries. Would he appreciate this forked gift? They doubted it. “You are a foolish mortal, fumbling at powers he does not understand, nothing more. You are weak.”

Their lie struck his heart true, and he reeled. Laataaz had hurt him, they could see it in his eyes. Guilt was a familiar emptiness as Laataaz pulled away. They turned to go, turning their back on him, his hope, his persistence. Their webs were not indestructible, he would free himself before he passed out. Probably.

Better he learn this, if he wanted to so badly. Better he learn that Laataaz was good for only a few things, blood and death and pain. Better he get stung, and so learn his lesson to stop planting his hand in the viper’s nest and pushing self-control Laataaz had felt wither long ago. Back before they had understood this inherent truth about themselves – Laataaz was a monster, and no one around them survived for long.

Had not they started a war that had massacred hundreds, for the want of freedom that had been nothing more than a lie? Had they not listened to the whispers of a Prince and took the power that was offered, in their foolish naivete, believing they could help, believing they could save lives from dragon-fire and dragon-claw? Had they not made their monstrousness clear in their flesh?

There was no easy way out of destiny. There was no secrets Laataaz knew that had not been paid for with the blood and suffering of their people. The only thing Miraak could learn from them was how to be stronger and end it before it got that far with himself. Before he began to believe that his power was anything but a curse of pain and death.

Soul-eater. Executioner. Laataaz gulped down more venom. They were so hungry. It had been so long since Mephala had required them to kill any usurper to her plots.

“Then I don’t care,” Miraak snarled, “I must know!”

A flame cloak roared to life around him and Laataaz shrieked as they felt the spiders on him explode into popping sparks and snaps. He lurched forward and seized their ankle to anchor himself as he swung out unmoored over the empty abyss. Laataaz was too slow in their shock at his anger, at the pain – too slow, too slow to stop the pain, the death, the burning! They screamed, instead, their voice shattering the webs. They felt them die, they could feel them dying there were so many hiding in Laataaz’s armour, their webs, their home-!

“Prince of Knowledge, hear my cry!” Miraak’s intonation boomed around them, the flaming Last with his Voice of thunder, “Gardener of Man! Assist your servant in the pact that was promised!”

They were falling, the webs sticky ash in Laataaz’s clutching hands, the fire brilliant and snapping the dry kindling of their robes, their body, their foul burning flesh bubbling and spitting with poison. Laataaz screamed, and screamed, and screamed even when the oily tentacles burst out of the unholy rictus of green light spilling from Miraak’s hand and swarmed over them, their body, eyes, their mouth.

The oily coldness of the tentacles smothered the fire, choked out Mephala’s hissing, formed muscular coils thick as snakes and yanked. Down, down, down, through the portal that scratched and scraped thorny on ancient flesh, then out.

Nirn, unbearable and real, and through it all Miraak’s hand on their leg, firm as a shackle despite Laataaz’s thrashing. Earth sprayed and thundered – the green light died – they were a crumble of robes and armour, Laataaz snapping like a wildcat. But they knew, knew –

“Fucking Hermeaus Mora!?” Laataaz shouted, twisted round and punched Miraak so hard his teeth rattled in his jaw. “You bartered with Mora for this? To free me?”

“Yes!” Miraak yelled back, “Wait – you do understand Cyrodillic!”

“I will kill you! Are you such a fool that you learnt nothing from what happened to me?”

Laataaz shoved him until he stumbled and wrestled him to the ground, so angry they sprayed venom that spat hissing holes into the earth inches-deep. He had the height advantage but he was weaker than Laataaz, taken by surprise. Fuck Bormahu, fuck Fate, Laataaz was going to strangle him.

“I’m sorry,” Miraak flared, angry pride smarting even as he struggled, “Would you have preferred to languish in hell for centuries, no good to anyone at all?”

“Yes!” Laat threw up their hands, ignoring the spider gamely clinging to the back of their hand that went flying at the movement. “What did you promise that tree-snake Dovahkiin?!” They fisted their hands into his robes and slammed him into the ground.

He groaned at the impact, but the damnable fool was beginning to smile, eyes bright at finally, finally, doing something too stupid for Laataaz to ignore. “Calm down,” Miraak said, and he reached for them, ignoring how Laataaz flinched away. His hands cupped their shoulders then squeezed. Laataaz felt the pressure of his clawed fingertips under his gloves digging divots into their skin under the armour. With an unseen scowl, they shook him off with a twist of their torso. “It was a simple pact, already paid. And here you are.”

He frowned, and if his disappointment was not accompanied by a smile so insufferably proud of himself Laataaz might have believed it. “Are you not even excited to return to Nirn?”

Nirn. Laataaz’s eyes closed, their grip tightening on the front of his robes convulsively. Yes, Nirn.

It was – loud. They could hear a sweet song, fluttering and chirping – were those birds? Birds, among long grass that rasped and swayed, yes, Nirn had grass, it had birds and skies for them to fly in. It had wind, piercing and sure, that ruffled at the ties of Laataaz’s armour and the thick strings of web that hung from their arms, the wattle of their horns where they speared through the hood of their mask, and tugged the threads of the spiders that curled curious in the balding clumps of what remained of their hair until they moved, clung closer to Laataaz’s skin to seek safety there.

Laataaz tried to breathe in and coughed instead, years of web-dust and silk clogging their throat and nasal passages. The air was so cold it made their teeth hurt. It was intense. It was terrible. It was wonderful. It was to be the doom of the world.

Tentatively, as if they could not quite believe this was not some dream, some nightmare, they tilted their head towards the sky and opened their eyes, just a crack. Light so bright it was agony blazed, seared, struck into Laataaz’s weakened eyes. Laat cried out and clapped their hands over their eyes, fearful, suddenly, that they were burning.

Miraak acted immediately. He swept his cloak over their head, casting them into the darkness. The shadow comforted them, his head the only other, mounding the tent they made with the cloak and their bodies. Laataaz pressed their hands over the eyeholes of their mask until the grooves dug into their gauntlets and hunched from the pain. But they were not burning, no flame licked their cobwebs or dusty skin, no heat save the Last Dragonborn beneath them, the curl of his breath. It was Nirn. It was Nirn. He had freed Laataaz. He had freed the monster that was never supposed to be unchained again.

Miraak’s hands found their shoulders again, rubbing them through their robes. Laat thought it was supposed to be soothing. He came close again, undaunted, as before, by the thrust of daedric horns, the cling of cobwebs, the eyes that glittered like onyx-shards, watering with venom that scored the dirt like fingermarks when it dripped. Undaunted by Laataaz, First Dragonborn, executioner, soul-eater, prisoner-no-longer, his enemy by fate and perhaps one day necessity.

His touch was electric.

“I was raised in the sweet darkness below the earth to a mother betrayed by dead-elves long ago,” Miraak murmured, “I did not need eyes there. My ears and nose saw for me, my feet learnt the paths, and the chaurus I fed from suckling pupa guided me where there was uncertainty. I knew everything. I was not encouraged to come to the land of my father, though I wanted to learn its knowledge, because it is a place of pain and grief. I remember when I first came to walk in the sunlit lands, I was in constant agony. My skin burned. I grew sick with sun-fever, and I knew not where I walked. I thought – what kindness it would be, to have no eyes at all. But I bore this inheritance from my father, because they are useful in Shouting dragons from the sky. Useful, but unnecessary. Your eyes may adjust, but if they do not, I will help you.”

Laataaz groaned. His promise was earthen-solid. It sunk in their belly like a chain. The world was so much, and he was so rich, so incredible, so sincere, Laat wanted to bite into him and steal all that vibrancy and colour for their own. How strong his soul would be, under the thunder of his heart. How unguarded it would be, with this foolish trust he kept extending, like he didn’t know how badly Laataaz wanted to consume him. He had to know. He had to feel the same. Was he not a soul-eater, too?

“I have unlocked this sunlit land now,” Miraak whispered, low and intense, “I am learning of dragons, and soon I will have all the knowledge they possess. And I will know you. Laataaz. The final mercy of the dragons.”

His hands came up their shoulders, stroking over their epaulettes, thumbing the line of their neck, tender with wonder, and Laataaz repressed a shiver. He could feel it, no doubt, where his body was a warm, living thing between their legs, the places where their muscles met through skin and fabric and bone.

“I would know you,” Miraak repeated, and he pulled at the hood of Laataaz’s mask where it was tucked into their robes.

“Niid,” Laataaz breathed, but their shaking hands curled into the eyeholes of their mask did not stop him as he lifted the fabric, bearing Laataaz’s throat to the air for the first time in millennia. To his tentative caress, which pressed there in cartwheels of fire. His touch ran over their back in an indulgence of contact, heavy, drugging rubs over their tight muscles through the robes that made Laataaz’s stinging eyes squeeze shut and their head tip back with low gasps that were pulled from their sternum half-formed, foetal and broken.

“This hurts you,” Miraak observed, and his hands withdrew. “I don’t-“

Laat chased him when he made to pull away, slamming into his chest and pressing him back against the earth. The cloak folded around their heads in silken darkness and they gripped his wrists, trapping those clawed and clever hands between their bodies. They heard his shocked inhale, felt more than understood the heat that bloomed between them. They tightened their grip until they felt the bones bend under their hand and Miraak moaned.

“Ow,” he gasped, and Laataaz fought not to crush him harder.

The vibrations of his voice thrummed through his body, his stomach trembling with his breath, and Laataaz clumsily chased forwards until the metal of their mask bumped his forehead. Their tears dripped from the eyeholes to kiss his cheeks. The bared skin of their throat tingled and itched.

“I should kill you,” one of them whispered, and Laataaz’s dizzy mind was not entirely sure which. Maybe neither of them. Maybe it was just Laataaz’s hunger. “Fight me,” that was Miraak, earnest as snow-melt. “Train me – when you are healed, let me taste your full power-“

“There are better ways to learn the shape of a person,” Laataaz heard themselves say in a voice that shook the earth, that shook him. “If you are so set on this mistake you would trade your soul for it.”

“I don’t understand,” Miraak snapped. His wrists flexed helplessly against their grip. Laataaz squeezed him tighter, until his breathing paled with pain.

“You have won me from my Prince for now, but you will die to my poison before you triumph over me,” they promised him.

“I need to learn to defeat Alduin,” he said stubbornly. Laataaz growled.

“You don’t know what you need, foolish boy.” Laataaz’s hunger thrummed between them, and they felt him react to it, their words, both, with a moan that they fought to ignore. “That, I will teach you...”

They brushed their mask down lower and let their mouth stretch open, yearningly, venom pooling out their mouth and dripping over the lip. It burned him where it fell, marked his skin with its sting, and Miraak hissed.

“…even if it kills you.”

[keatsblue]

Snippet from Witching Hour, the first installment in my new series, Fantastic BNHA & Where To Find Them. Featuring Merman!Overhaul x Adult!Shinsou Hitoshi. 

***

There are plenty of reasons not to leave your homes after dark, old housewives whispered. Whether it be will o’ wisps beckoning you toward some unseen end or fair folk luring the foolhardy past the threshold of their magic rings, someone, somewhere is always out to get you. Look what happened to that poor little silver-haired child who wandered away. She’s nowhere to be found, isn’t she?

A logical ruse, his mentor would no doubt have said, in a tone that on a lesser man would seem derisive. Lies to keep the kiddies in bed at night. Nothing more.

Shinsou paid the whispers no mind. Half of them were related to him, anyway—the man with strange magicks, liable to trick you out of coin and bread with the mere lilt of his voice. Don’t talk to him, don’t talk to him. He would be unsurprised to be blamed for the untimely disappearance of the little girl, too.

The truth was, Shinsou possessed no such powers. He practiced science, not the occult—honed his techniques and applied the stringent methods Aizawa taught him before moving along. If his experiments seemed eccentric to the average bystander, he was labeled a witch in league with the devil. If he occasionally questioned the priests’ wisdom, a heretic.

He studied the psychology of suggestion, among other topics, though that was neither here nor there. And he didn’t give a shit if he should be staying in at night. He’d forgotten to refill his water skeins, had used the precious daylight meticulously filling his experimental logbook, and he’d become thirsty. He decided to make the trek to the river.

Though he very much doubted he’d be running into any spectres, he would need to be careful to keep an eye on his footing. A bite from a snake or spider could still kill. Shinsou threw on an old coat, skein in one hand and an old lantern hefted in the other. Thankfully, it would not be a far walk to the riverbank from his home on the village outskirts. He stepped out into the brisk wind and swampy undergrowth, sure-footed in his usual paths.

He’d always found solace in the night, when everyone retired to their beds and the voices in his head quieted. No one to avoid as he walked, no sharp gazes watching his every move. Waiting for him to slip, to show that he truly was the villain they’d suspected all along.

He just wanted to help.

As he neared the river, trees closing in on all sides, Shinsou found himself having to hold his light ever higher aloft in order to see the way before him. Spindly branches brushed his cheeks as he passed on his way, bringing his knees high to navigate the thorns underfoot. An evening breeze thrilled through the wooded bank, untamed, yet almost drowned out by the rushing of the river itself.

Frowning, he wrinkled his nose. For the past month or so, the river had been relatively low and calm—a side effect of the lack of rain recently. To hear it rushing now would be most unusual, except—ah, wait. Now that he was closer, Shinsou could hear more distinctly, and that was no roaring river. It was the sound of…splashing. Near constant, panicked splashing, from the frequency of it.

He rushed forward without thinking, almost putting his own lantern out for his trouble—what if someone had fallen in? He could’ve sworn he hadn’t seen any other lights in the trees, though they could have lost their own lamp if they fell in—

Panting, he reached the riverbank, trying to watch for signs of movement across the black silhouette of the water’s surface. He wasn’t disappointed.

Close to the embankment and shrouded in what appeared to be fisherman’s netting, a hulking shape thrashed. Whatever it was—be it human or creature, and Shinsou was beginning to suspect the latter—seemed to be struggling against the nets that entangled it, stuck halfway out of the water. There was little else Shinsou could make out from here. He would need to be closer.

With no small amount of hesitation, he crept closer to the source of the splashing. Though he saw no reason to disguise his approach (anyone would be able to see the only light shining through the darkness for miles in any direction), he went slowly. If this was a tangled animal, he didn’t want to startle it with his presence.

As he made his way down the bank, he found it curious that the ‘shape-thing’, as he had taken to calling it, soon ceased its struggling. Maybe not an animal, then? God, for a person to be strung up in nets and washed up from the river…

For all his acumen, Shinsou had thought he would be ready for anything. Nothing could have prepared him for what he did see.

The first thing he noticed when he hefted his lantern overhead were the eyes. Striking golden, slit pupils, intelligent. And full of fear. He could see the whites of those eyes, peering up at him from their owner’s position in the mud below.

Then he noticed everything else. Like the masculine-appearing torso, caked in grime and broken out into reddened welts from straining against the netting. Or the fish tail, scales a dull green and half-dried, likely from baking in the harsh afternoon sun.

He thinks he preferred ‘shape-thing.’

The man, or fish (manfish?), formerly known as ‘shape-thing’, continued to stare up at him. Shinsou stared back. A beat passed, then two. Then probably four or five, before Shinsou was able to wrangle his worldview back into place.

“Um,” he started, no doubt demonstrating his considerable interpersonal skills. “Hello.”

Read more here

[vide0-nasties]

hello you wonderful human being 👋 send you questions 9, 16, 24, 26. have a nice day~

hello to you, too, anon!! 👋👋👋 i had a pretty decent day, and i’ve got some asra-heavy answers for you bc i’m a SUCKER FOR ASRA.

9. Does your apprentice have any special abilities that youheadcanon and cannot accurately be expressed in the actual game? What are they?

How strange she felt explaining her ways to another. No onehad ever…remained interested long enough to investigate her workings. But hereis curious Asra, growing evermore ravenous with every answer she nervouslyfeeds him with her fingers.

What’s that face for?This place reeks of iron. Really? You cansmell it? I can always smell iron, and it stings from my nose to my gut. Why? My mother was a selkie, one of thegentle folk, and iron hurt her. Are you aselkie too? No, but I have her attributes. Large fingerwebs, dapples, enormousteeth. I nearly can’t drown, and I can outswim everyone I’ve ever met.

“What about the travelling witches? The Sisters?” he asks,half-sleeping with his head in her lap. The scar is still fresh to her, but hewouldn’t know.

“After my mother killed my father, I was adrift at sea ninegruesome days. A doctor helped me escape imprisonment, because I looked nearenough alike to her to be hanged. He sent me to the Sisters with his word, andthey began to train me,” she tells him, fingers in his hair, sweeping his temples.

“I thought,” Asra yawns, sinking into her touch, “I thoughtyou already knew magic.”

She shrugs. “Some. My mother refused to teach me, wanting meslavishly dependent, but I watched her and learned. When the Sisters took me,my skills were a danger, out of control. They gifted me reins. For that, I playedthe butcher and spilled blood on their behalf.”

Asra’s eyes fly open, mouth drawn into a hard frown, takingher wrist in his hand. “You’re not a tool, Eustacia. Don’t talk like that.”

“It’s all I’ve ever been, Asra.” She smiles and tucks a curlover his ear. “If it soothes you, technically I am a duchess. I inherited myfather’s duchy when he died.”

“You’re a what?!”

#’s 16, 24, and 26 under the cut!

16. Does your apprentice have any scars or tattoos? Whereare they? Describe them?

“You’re stunning,”Asra breathes, staring at her naked body for the hundredth time, “I have to look at you.”

Over the course of her life, she has turned her skin intoher very own holy text—green-black ink hammered and needled into the pallor ofher hide.

Eight-pointed stars representing the eight winds of chaosmagic sit on the backs of her hands. Patterns of sacred geometry wrap aroundand snake up her arms, her legs. Over her chest are potent sigils older thanher mother, runes more ancient than time. With these runes, and help from oneof the Sisters familiar with chaos magic, her back has made into a nearencyclopedia.

Little grotesques fight for space among the symbols:sharp-teethed bats, roaring lion’s heads, boars, roosters, snakes. One leopardseal, on the back of her calf. A feral looking pig on the top of her foot, alittle red hen on the other. “Sailor’s superstition. Pigs and chickens can’tswim. Sailor blown overboard? God will take mercy on the animals, take them toshore.”

Asra comes to a rooster hanging from the gallows on theinside of her calf. He smirks up at her through his lashes. “I know there’s astory behind this one. Tell me?” he purrs.

“My cock hangs below my knee. You wouldn’t believe how manybets I’ve won with him.”

The lines from her bottom lip to the dip of her throat—spiraling,intricate tangles. The phases of the moon, down the center of her forehead. “Haveyou ever been fourteen-years-old and wanting to piss off your mother?”

A bloated scar over her shoulder—a glance from a sword. Alumpy one around her knee—nearly lost her leg to a cannonball, and would haveif not for powerful healing magic. Cross-hatching over her palms—“Curse workand quick sigils, you know that, Asra.”

Vengeful gouges in her brow, an angry canyon pinching thefold of her nose and hugging the lean apple of her cheek. “You know I wasglassed,” she mutters, running her fingers down his thigh. “You were rightthere.”

“I know,” he tells her, taking her face in his hands andkissing the pallid markings. “I’ll never forget.”

They find each other’s hands and the scars they put there.Bite through your lover’s hand, unstopping until blood is drawn, and your loveis truly true. They had, filling their mouths with blood, and they wear theteeth marks like wedding rings.

24. Outside of magic-related workings, does your apprenticehave any hobbies? Do others know about this hobby or do they keep it a secret?

Eustacia has to keep herself entertained while alone at theshop, and that’s easier said than done for a person with the attention span ofa gnat or minnow. Always, she’s midway through a hundred projects andactivities.

Dozens of half-read books lie around her home, while thesame four get read and reread until the spines fall apart. Six crocheted blanketsin various stages of completion hide in a trunk under the bed, countless skeinsof yarn and spools of thread in a spectrum of colors dominate a wardrobe thatwas once meant only for clothes.

Handmade jewelry is forgotten unfinished among mountains ofhomebrewed and boutique makeup, only to be plucked to safety months later,finished, and forgotten in one of a half-dozen jewelry chests scattered onshelves.

The bathroom is a cacophony of homemade beauty spells andmundane cosmetics. Blessed lotions, charged bath salts, enchanted body scrubs,towels uncountable with runes stitched into the hems with black or red thread.Body butters, face masks, hand crèmes, lip balms, under-eye serums, hairtonics, pots of hair-stripping wax, what feels like thousands of oils, and a crateful of jars of hair wax and pomade.

It’s a miracle that it’s feasible to step foot insidewithout being killed by an avalanche of product.

Her many handmade nail lacquers sit in a chest next to amassively overstuffed, well-worn armchair, along with nail files, cuticlepushers, more oil and hand crème, andthe ingredients needed to curse and un-curse her nails to be unbreakable.

Sometimes, she wonders how Asra can manage to keep hissanity in the utter chaos and confusion, but when he returns from his travels,he’s so well-adjusted she’s left baffled. He’s also a terrible enabler. “Here,I saw this and thought you might like to give it a try,” he tells her,grinning.

26. How does your apprentice sleep? Do they sleep with a tonof pillows and blankets or none? Do they toss and turn? Weird things they do intheir sleep?

“Pick a hand,” Eustacia tells Asra, apropos of nothing, twofists held up.

He’s wary, and has every right to be. Usually, when shepulls this, bad things happen. That’s what happens when your first personalitytrait is usually given as ‘dangerouslyimpulsive.’ “…Left,” he says, pointing.

She groans and drops her hand. “Fucking hell—fuck me—god dammit. Get up. We’re making the bed before…ugh, we’re making the bed before bed tonight.”

Really, it’s not nearly as much of a chore as she makes itout to be in her head, despite the inexcusable amount of jewel-tone downpillows and blankets. Even the massive rabbit fur blanket on her side isn’t toounwieldy. Asra stands back and admires the freshly made bed, and looks to herwith a smile. “Now, if we take baths, we’ll sleep like the dead.”

“If I sewed you to the side of my head, I would never have abad idea again,” she tells him in agreement.

By nature, she’s nocturnal, and running the shop leaves herhateful and sleep deprived. Asra keeps strange hours himself, but she’s closedthe shop tomorrow in celebration of his return, and he has to push himself tostay awake with her. Freshly bathed, wearing clean clothes, they do make it tobed before the night has burned away.

At first, she faces away from him, battling her physicalnature and neediness, but she loses the fight. “Asra…?” she whispers into thedark, knowing he’s awake and thinking too hard.

He needs no further question, and they tangle together. Asrapresses close in her arms, head against her chest, and she curls around him,burying her face in his hair. “G’night, Eustacia,” he sighs, relaxing.

“Dream sweetly, master,” she bids him, holding the nape ofhis neck. He’s the only thing that’s ever felt like home, ever since she wokeup hearing his voice, feeling his hands, and smelling his scent.

Through the night, she shifts and turns about, but they’rehardly out of contact. He presses against her back, forehead against her neck.They sleep spine to spine. They wake only to grope for the other’s hand.

Asra manages to force his way half on top of her, and shedoesn’t even stir, letting him sleep against his shoulder. He doesn’t stir whenshe makes guttural, jerking noises deep in her throat, teeth snapping togetherwhen her jaw reacts. He calls it clonking and says it helps him to sleepbetter, because it lets him know she’s there.

In the morning, the bed is completely unmade, they smile ateach other under the blankets, and they won’t bother to make it again for twoweeks.

[twirlinginthefade]

Home Is Where the Heart is 11/?

In which: Hangovers, mediatation and Solas gets a heart-punch

Rowan groaned as she rolled over, her stomach surging with every movement. Feeling unstable, she hopped over to the window and lost the tea she had drunk before and the few bites of bread she had managed to get down.

“Ugh” She slid to the ground when she was done, holding her head. “What the fuck”

“Herald? Are you well?” Rowan looked up to see Athras, dressed in a loose tunic and breeches. The elf was plainly fresh out of bed, her hair a mussed golden cloud around her face.

“I'm fine Athras. I think I chugged when I was supposed to have sipped.” She gave Athras a half-smile and winced as her head pounded again. “I don't suppose you have anything for a headache?”

Athras sighed. “Come, let's get you to Adan” Athras helped her over to her bed and handed her the leg Harritt had made her. Rowan slid it on easily, remembering the way Harritt's hands fixed the little toggles and keys to fit it.

She slid a pair of boots and a jacket and then followed Athras out into the dim Haven morning. The sky was still slightly gray, the shadows still long against the ground. Only a few people milled around, the night watch going to bed as the morning watch went into position.

They arrived at Adan’s cabin without interruption, only to find that the apothecary was still asleep in his bed.

“Well, there goes that idea” Rowan quietly sighed, shifting the jacket on her shoulders.

“Perhaps there is something in the Chantry?” Athras suggested, frowning at the door. “They must have something for expecting mothers”

Rowan gave her a look. “I'm not pregnant Athras.” She rubbed her temples and turned. “Let's go anyway.”

“Wait” A voice came from her left and she looked over to see Solas in the doorway of his cabin. “Are you not feeling well?”

“She has nausea and a headache. But Adan is sleeping and we cannot get in” Athras answered.

Solas shook his head and gestured for them both to come in. “I have headaches occasionally. I think I will be able to help.” Both women followed him in, standing as he puttered around the cabin, grabbing herbs and such to mix together. “You may sit if you would like.” He motioned to a pair of chairs on the side of the room and they gladly sat down, Rowan again adjusting her jacket from the cold.

Athras noticed the ingredients and blinked. “Were you raised Dalish hahren?”

Solas looked up with a furrowed brow. “I was not. Why do you ask?”

“The herbs you are mixing together. My Keeper would mix the same thing together when the children would get sick” She stood and walked over, watching his hands mix and crush herbs together. “I never had the talent for poultices and potions. Too many things to go bad if mixed wrong”

The two elves talked while Rowan watched, seeing the smile on Solas’ face and the matching one on Athras’. Ignoring the part of her screaming and her headache, she slipped out of the cabin and began to walk. She went to her cabin and dressed, slipping on a breast band and thicker tunic to go with her breeches and jacket.

Ignoring the pounding behind her eyes, she slipped out the front doors, past the field and onto a snowy bluff overlooking the little village. Tiny figures milled about, more coming out of the cabins as time went by.

Closing her eyes, she sighed and focused.

It was harder to ground with a headache, but she was willing to try, even if only to get away from it for a while.

Her ‘core’ was a swirling mess, threads unwrapping from the skein and tangling with each other, making it harder to control, harder to spin. Quietly, slowly, she loosened the knots in her chest, letting the loose thread float before moving on. The loose thread was braided into flat plaits that followed the line of the rest, fortifying the outside. She clipped the remaining loose knots that were black or sickly green and let them dissolve.

Next, she spun the thread and braids into a cord, allowing it to coil like a snake around her ‘body’. The cord kept going, unceasing even as it spiraled down, below her. Layers of snow fell away, until she was in dirt and rock and below, where there was unceasing fire and the taste of blood on her tongue.

The blood spilled over her but sizzled on the sparkling indigo lightning of her cord. The fire and blood became slumbering beasts, one made from a summer night, warm and peaceful and joyous.

The other felt like cold, the feeling of cold iron and emptiness, but also of power and snowfall. She let her cord curl up between the beasts, letting their soft whuffs and snores ease her aching chest. She pulled back after what seemed to be an hour, pulling the cord up like an anchor.

Past each layer, she let a pulse go, the feelings of heartache and sorrow, of joy and love, rippling through each until she felt lighter. When she unspun the cord, it was lighter and thinner, the indigo more vibrant against her void.

Opening her eyes, she became aware again of her body. The ache in her head was lessened and her stomach was much happier. The sun was over the mountains now, casting Haven in a warm glow. The soldiers in the field were training and she could see Cullen’s coat fluttering in the wind as he instructed them.

She made to stand, only to find her legs staticy and asleep. Adjusting, she lay down, legs spread out until she was in a snow angel position.

She didn't know how long she lay there before she heard the soft crunch of snow, turning her head to see both Solas and Athras staring at her.

“Hello.” She said, feeling light and soft against the snow.

“What in the Creator’s name are you doing?” Athras walked over to her and looked her over as if looking for injuries.

“Grounding. You two looked like you wanted to be alone, so I left you alone” She caught the look in Athras’ eyes. “Should I not have?”

“I am your bodyguard, Herald. I am to stay with you to keep you safe.”

“And my inner circle is my soulmates. But I don't see them accepting me. I am a grown woman” Rowan stood, waving off the helping hands. “And I do not need a babysitter”

“What do you mean ‘not accepting’ you?” Solas cut in, brow furrowed.

“I mean exactly what I said. So far, I have met a total of six of my soulmates and only one of them has accepted the bond. The others treat me like a child or a holy figure, or” she looked in Solas’ eyes “they don't talk to me at all. Hard to build a bond on that, don't you think?” The older elf winced, knowing what he had done.

Rowan smiled at Athras. “I am going back to the cabin to study. Join me if you like, but I won't be leaving it anytime soon”

Neither elf followed her as she went down the snow bank, only pausing to skritch a stray nug behind its ears.

“She is your nas’falon?” Athras turned to Solas with a concerned look. “Why have you not bonded yet?”

Solas frowned back. “I am an apostate elf more than twenty years her senior. There is no reason she would want someone like me, nas’falon or not”

Athras shook her head as she went down the back intent on going to the tavern. “If I didn't know better, I would say she wants you a great deal”

She left Solas on the snowbank, alone and thinking about the way Rowan had looked in the snow, still and unblinking, and how his heart had seized when she had smiled at him.