#everything was great when it was just snowy. now it's pure ice and when it's not pure ice it's just ridiculously Wet

[echthr0s]

me for the past week and counting: "man I could really use a good stroll rn. some fresh air. some casual bird watching"

Mother Nature for the past week and counting:

[hockeyboysiguess]

two turtle doves -> two hockey skates | t. seguin

a/n: thank you for all your sweet comments on the first fic of this little holiday series :) here’s fic number two in my 12 days of christmas series! full list linked here.

word count: 3,643

warnings: alcohol, terrible skating, some questionable choices, cheesiness. 

Christmas in Toronto, well outside of Toronto, with the Seguin family was going better than you had let yourself hope it would. Meeting Tyler’s family happened ages ago, but the decision to split holidays, Thanksgiving with yours and Christmas his, was a much bigger one that had brought nerves in never ending supply. Spending Christmas away from your own family, where you had always spent it, also had you worrying, on top of endless time with your boyfriend’s family where you felt like you always had to be on, you worried it wouldn’t feel like Christmas. But now, with the gifts opened and cherished, the fire roaring, dinner served and enjoyed, and with everyone drinking Tyler’s mom’s incredible spiked hot chocolate, your nerves had given way to warmth and love, and as cliché as it was, the Christmas spirit. 

“How you doing, Ty?” 

You smiled as you wrapped an arm around his waist from the side. His arm extended out, giving you space to tuck under it and into his side. He pulled you in tighter for a moment and dropped a kiss to your temple, other hand setting his fourth, possibly fifth, mug of spiked hot chocolate on the counter. The marshmallows in his mug floating on the surface were dissolving into the cocoa, a situation you knew Tyler was hoping to create, the candy cane used to stir discarded on the counter. It was the little things that made the holidays, not the big ones, like disintegrating marshmallows and his younger sister’s obsession with your family gingerbread recipe she swore was the best she ever had and the noise of the fire crackling in the background on top of a rare snowy Christmas in Tyler’s hometown. 

“When are we going to get you to use your Christmas present?” Tyler asked you, words slurring a little together from a combination of alcohol, exhaustion, and the holidays. 

“Oh, at some point, I guess,” you shrugged, then realized that might sound like you didn’t appreciate them before quickly adding,  “I really appreciate them, Ty. Thank you.” 

Tyler shook his head softly, “No, no, we need a plan to get you on the ice finally. None of this ‘at some point’ or ‘later, Ty’ bull. You’ve told me later for two years now and you know what? Now is later. Come on, get your coat.”

“Wait, you wanna go skating right now?” you squeaked out. 

“You mean,” he snagged a Stars beanie off the counter and tugged it down over your head quickly, pulling it back by the pom pom to adjust it, “we’re going now. Full stop.”

You were sputtering out words as Tyler headed for the front coat rack. Your inability to skate, and your even stronger will not to learn at this point in your life, were a regular sticking point with Tyler, a person whose job required him to skate well. He offered to teach you way back on your second date, and back when you’d been trying your hardest to impress him, you’d agreed to take lessons from him but only because the teacher was cute. Tyler hadn’t actually scheduled any lessons back then, when he was trying even harder to impress you, so you quietly let the offer fade to black, hopefully never to be resurrected. But here Tyler was, bringing it back from the dead, when you least expected it, on Christmas Day, a day you never expected to spend with him, but now we’re pretty sure you never wanted to spend the day without him. However, you didn’t want to spend part of it falling flat on your face attempting to do the thing your boyfriend did for a living. 

“Come on,” Tyler encouraged, as he laced his boots up tighter. “Get your coat. I’ll grab the skates.”

“Tyler, it’s after nine-”

“Stop giving me crap,” he teased you. “Coat, gloves, come on.”

You sighed and wanted to push back. It was dark. It was cold. It was snowy. It was Christmas, and yet, Tyler wanted to cash in on a promise from your second date. You pulled your coat on and wrapped a green scarf around your neck, Dallas Stars green, a reminder of just how much Tyler had permuted every aspect of your life, how important you made him, how central you made him. You never would be spending Christmas outside of Toronto, holding a brand new pair of ice hockey skates in one hand, walking down the Seguin’s neighborhood street, if you hadn’t made Tyler completely central to your future. Sometimes the thought of that, changing as much as you had for him, was terrifying, the kind of terrifying that made your hands shake and your chest tighten and your mind race down paths you barely knew excited because they were so rarely tracked. But then, like he did in that moment, Tyler turned to you and gave you his widest smile, smiling so hard to do it that his nose scrunched up and his eyes squeezed shut, and you remembered exactly why it wasn’t terrifying at all. He loved you with a pureness that reminded you of a child’s love of Christmas morning, but with the depth to grow and change with you the other three hundred and sixty-four days of the year. 

Maybe for him, you would try to learn to skate afterall. 

Tyler turned at the house at the end of the block, heading straight to the side gate. He noticed your puzzled expression and offered an explanation, “Neighbors built a little ODR they didn’t mind sharing when I asked.” 

“Tyler Seguin, how long have you been planning this?” you huffed, pausing in the open gate to give him a look that signalled you knew Tyler needed to come clean. 

He gave you a sheepish smile before saying, “Since you said you would come for Christmas?” 

“Tyler, that was in October!” you cried out, a laugh edging at your voice. 

“The lessons are part of your Christmas present,” he replied, pushing aside your whining tone. “Can’t give you a gift you can’t use and not teach you how to use it, right?” 

You sighed as you rounded the corner of the yard to reveal a small, but serviceable outdoor rink his neighbors created on a pond in their back garden. Tyler ushered you out with a wave towards the pond and your brows furrowed, but he just waved his hands to usher you along. It was dark, far too dark for you to possibly learn to skate in this, with just the faint lighting from his neighbor’s back patio showing the outline of the pond and a small bench beside it. You dropped down onto the bench and began to unlace your boots. 

Just as you pulled the second boot off, suddenly, the pond was flooded with light, making you jump a little in surprise. There were lights all around, spotlights, string lights, lanterns, everything it seemed the family could find to make the backyard as bright as possible. You shook your head softly as a smile came over your face. Of course. 

“Tada!” he shouted as he trudged through the snow to cross the yard to you. “The family that lives here is out of town for the holidays, but they were super nice and told me how to set it all up so I could teach you. Do you like it?” 

The skates in your lap and the ice in front of you that would soon be combined in a way sure to cause you physical pain made you want to say you didn’t love it, but the look on Tyler’s face, the obvious meticulous planning, and the thoughtfulness of the gesture made you feel otherwise. Plus, it was a Christmas gift and you couldn’t tell Tyler you didn’t like his Christmas gift because you were embarrassed you got this far into life, this far into a relationship with a professional hockey player, never learning how to skate. 

“It’s great,” you smiled at him as he plopped down onto the bench next to you. “Thank you, Ty.” 

“Merry Christmas, baby,” he told you before dropping a kiss to your temple in reply. 

You slid your skates on at the same time Tyler did, and you did your best to copy his motions, looping the laces on your skates to pull them tight. Tyler tried not to laugh, but you definitely weren’t pulling hard enough or loosening them at the right points or something else wrong because Tyler was done and laced up before you’d even gotten part of the way through one of your two hockey skates. Tyler laughed, more at your struggle compared to his practiced ease than actually at you, before sliding onto the ground in front of you, one knee dropping into the snow. 

“Let me do it,” he said as he pushed your hands away softly. 

He looked up at you with curious eyes for a moment. There was that familiar glint of a patented Tyler Seguin idea in them, which made you cock your head and furrow your brows at him. He just smiled wide, shook his head softly, and turned his attention back to your skates. 

“What?” you pressed him softly. “What did you just think of, Ty?”

He pulled the top of your laces on one boot tight to finish tying them as he spoke to you, “Just thinking about kneeling in front of you is all. Feels like it’s good practice, eh?” 

You sighed, “Ty, you can’t make jokes like that.” 

He barked out a laugh as he tightened the laces on your other skate, “Who said I was joking?” 

Before you could form a response, Tyler was up on his skates and pulling you up too. He led you to the edge of the pond, then took a confident step onto the ice when he reached in. Effortlessly, he spun on his skates to face you, reaching two hands out, ready to take yours and help you take your first steps onto the ice.  He made it look so easy, as easy as walking, but you knew if you tried to do what he just did without you, you were going to look like a very short baby giraffe, legs splayed out, flat on the ice. You huffed and Tyler gave you an encouraging smile as you gave the ice a disapproving look. 

“I’m not going to let you fall, baby,” Tyler said lazily. He outstretched hands opened and closed in front of you to encourage you to grab onto them. “Come on, it’s just skating.” 

“You’re tipsy and a professional,” you pointed out. “I’m tipsy and a complete novice.”

“I’ll have you know I’m one of the best in my field,” and the cheeky smile to accompany his words drew an eye roll from you. “Tipsy or not, I can still make sure you don’t fall.” 

“Pretty sure I’m going to make you eat your words, Seguin.” 

Without a second thought, another second to rethink the moment, you slapped your gloved hands into Tyler’s and put one foot on the ice. Your foot immediately started to slide forward, toward Tyler, and you panicked. Tyler was ready for your panic and pulled your hands, forcing you to put your other foot on the ice. You let out a small scream and Tyler laughed. 

“Baby, you’re so stinking cute,” he whined as you managed to, with as much force as you could muster using his hands as an anchor, stand up mostly straight in front of him. 

“I hate you, Tyler Seguin,” was all you could come up with in response. 

Your response made Tyler tip his head back and let out a long, full bellied laugh, bending his back into it as he laughed. Tyler seemed to forget your balance was incredibly precarious and entirely dependent on him. The three inches he shifted back on the ice as he laughed completely unbalanced you, sending your feet sliding forward too quickly and making you release his hands in favor of his forearms in a desperate grab for balance. 

“Whoa, whoa!” Tyler was still laughing as he spoke. “Easy there. I’ve got you.” 

“Does not feel like you do,” you grumbled, trying to focus on your feet in order to keep them steady now. 

“Okay, okay,” Tyler sighed. “First, don’t look at your feet. Look where you trying to go.” 

“What direction is home?” you quipped back without missing a beat. 

“Ha, ha,” Tyler replied dryly. “Look at me. You want to go toward me.” 

You let out a quick, irritated breath. You knew a large part of the reason you were irritated is because you were being asked to do something you were terrible at, in front of someone who was amazing at it, who just so also happened to be your boyfriend. No one liked to do things they knew they would be terrible at, let alone in front of someone who was so practiced in it that they probably couldn’t explain it well. In fact, that was your problem that developed after about two minutes with Tyler trying to teach you how to skate. Tyler couldn’t explain how to skate in the slightest. 

“Just push off on one foot, let your other one slide. Put the foot you just pushed off with on the ice again, and push with the one that was sliding. Go back and forth and then tada, you’re skating.” 

That was his best explanation of the lesson and you could confidently surmise that Tyler Seguin was an absolutely horrendous skating coach. And he was a drunk skating coach. Maybe, if you were throwing your boyfriend a bone he didn’t deserve, you could say if he was sober, he might be doing better, but deep in your heart you knew that wasn’t true. Tyler Seguin was definitely a terrible teacher, trying to teach something he could do forwards, backwards, diagonally, with his eyes closed, and made millions of dollars doing, while drunk. You were the one suffering. Tyler was having incredible time watching you flail and grip onto his arms to avoid falling flat on your face. 

“Tyler, help me!” you pressed. 

“It’s so funny. You’re like a baby penguin,” he managed to get out through his laughter. “So cute. So clumsy.” 

“Tyler!”

He cleared his throat and sucked in a deep, centering breath before saying, “I think part of your problem is that you’re afraid to fall. If you aren’t afraid to fall, you’re going to be too focused on doing exactly what’s keeping you from falling and not actually skating.” 

“Well, I don’t exactly want to fall, Ty. That’s not really the goal,” you said pointedly, your hands digging into his forearms when he shifted suddenly. 

“Falling is part of skating,” he told you. “I fall all the time. Get too on an edge or try to turn too tight or get rammed into by some wrecking ball on skates. But I just hop right back up and go again. You have got to get over this fear of falling and learn how to fall and get back up. Otherwise, you’re not going to learn.” 

Whether or not tipsy Tyler meant that statement to have merit and weight outside of the context of skating, you doubted, but it did. That’s the attitude you carried with you when you were at school, at work, everywhere. “It’s better to have tried and failed than to live life wondering what would've happened if I had tried,” by Alred Lord Tennyson popped into your head. Just maybe Tyler was right about something. Maybe your biggest hurdle was just the one in your head and you needed to, on the most magical of all holidays where miracles came true and the world was a little brighter, take a deep breath and fail spectacularly under the hazy eyes of the boy you loved. 

It didn’t even cross your mind that you were definitely still feeling the affects of that infamous spiked hot chocolate, not even for a second. 

You nodded and took in a deep breath as you did. Tyler raised his eyebrow to check in with you and you nodded again. You released your choking grip on his forearms and Tyler slowly backed up, giving you space to try on your own for a moment. You took a second to pause, your feet shuffling a little out of the natural movement of your body, making your arms flail to steady yourself. It wasn’t pretty, but you managed to stay upright after moving an accidental inch unassisted and for you, that was progress.

“Okay, okay,” you mumbled to yourself. 

You mentalled tossed out every single lesson Tyler had tried to impart on you on the ice that evening, knowing all of it was absolute drunken nonsense and wasn’t going to help you skate. You were better off going with your nonexistent skating instincts, which were just a series of mental clips from probably inaccurate ice skating scenes from terrible Hallmark and Netflix Christmas movies. The actors were never the ones skating, but someone had to for the shot, so you figured it had to be at least partially accurate. You knew if you looked down, you would definitely topple over, you looked out onto the snow covered lawn ahead and hesitantly pushed forward with one foot. Before you started to lose your balance, you took a chance and pushed off on your other foot, letting yourself glide just a little in between. 

“Your first successful skate!” Tyler gasped from somewhere beside you. “I feel like a proud mom at the preschool Christmas pageant.” 

Normally, you would’ve told him exactly where he could stick that comment, but you were focused on trying to make it as far as you could before the precarious house of cards that was you on your skates fell. You had a messy, incredibly atrocious rhythm going now. You knew you had to look ridiculous, partially bent over, arms out wide, tongue stuck out between your teeth in concentration, but you were skating and no one said it had to be pretty to count. You realized one thing too late though, far too late to even begin to do anything about it. Tyler was too far behind you, filming your first skate like the proud soccer mom he was, and far too tipsy to clue into what was about to happen. There was nothing you could do. You just had to accept that this was how your journey would end. 

You hit the edge of the pond roughly, the front half of your skate blades hitting the snow and you unceremoniously face planted into the snow surrounding the edge of the pond. You tried to twist as you fell to make it anything other than a complete face plant, but much like the end result of your first solo skating attempt, you failed spectacularly. Tyler was behind you in a second, dropping down onto his knees in the snow next to you and brushing your hair back to try and get a view of your face. 

“Baby, are you hurt? Oh my god,” Tyler started rambling. “I’m so sorry. This is all my fault. I should’ve kept closer to you so I could’ve done something. I should’ve-”

“Maybe you should’ve taught me how to stop, you idiot,” you grumbled out after lifting your face from the snow. “Stopping might have been a good first lesson, you know, like how dads teach you to drive. They make sure you know where the brake is first.” 

“You know,” Tyler mused as you pushed yourself up onto your knees, “that probably would’ve been a good idea.” 

“Oh, ya think?” You glared at him before beginning to brush off snow from your body.

“So next lesson-”

“No way,” you cut him off. “I’m asking Jamie to teach me. You’re fired, coach.” 

Tyler gave a whine that could only be described as like a petulant child who was just told they couldn’t open their Christmas presents two weeks early. He pouted at you, Dallas Stars pom pom beanie on his head flopping forward as he tilted his head to go with his jutted out lower lip. 

“Come on,” he begged softly. “Let me try again. Give me one more shot as your teacher. I’ll even be sober for the next lesson. I promise.” 

“If you aren’t, I’m suing you for damages,” you teased him, a smile coming across your face slowly. 

While you hadn’t succeeded, in fact your fall had been far worse than anything you had pictured it would be, you couldn’t deny you had a good time and it was really only because of the boy whose pout was slowly changing to a smile because of your own. You still couldn’t skate. In fact, you thought you might be a worse skater now than your previous baseline of zero. Tyler hadn’t taught you a single thing this Christmas about skating, but Tyler taught you a lot about Tyler. He liked way too many marshmallows in his spiked hot chocolate, he ripped wrapping paper to absolute shreds, and he relished in matching Christmas sweaters even though he pretended to hate them. You also learned that Tyler Seguin, who sometimes acted before he spoke, and was just a little too over eager for you occasionally, cared more deeply about you than you could possibly understand. Being loved like he loved you was rarer than the perfect Christmas day, which today had been, faceplant included. 

Most of all, you learned Tyler wanted to spend every Christmas for the rest of his life with you too, and that was the best gift you’d ever received on Christmas, the knowledge that he too wanted to spend the rest of his life sharing Christmases with you.

[cal-kestis]

You Mean More | Din Djarin x Fem!Reader

(Part III of The Aftermath of Losing Everything)

moodboard/sketch/gifs made by me, please don’t repost :)

Summary: The plan goes as follows: Send the Mandalorian to the Imperial base under the guise of full cooperation and stall the holoprojector Imp for as long as possible. This will give you enough time to sneak in through an air vent, find a terminal, and hack the system, wiping every Imperial archive of Din Djarin's face. It should work, right? As long as no one gets hurt. (Set after S2) Rating: M    Word Count: 8023 Warnings/Tags: Soft!Din, Fluff, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Slow Burn, no use of ‘Y/N’, non-explicit smut, canon-typical violence, blood A/N: This is what they call: the climax.

[PART I] // [PART II] // [Read on AO3] // [Series Masterlist]

xi.

As Din flies to the Imperial base, the only sounds filling the cockpit are the low beeps of the control board and the tense quiet of your voice repeating the plan for the twenty-third time. When you finally land on an icy planet, you see the base outside the viewport blending in with its snowy surroundings — white, cold, frozen in time — and two stormtroopers flanking either side of the sealed entrance.

“Check your comlink,” Din says, voice gentle and authoritative. 

“Testing, testing. Cuyan to Shiny Head, do you copy?” You whisper-shout into the device, watching as his gloved hand reaches for the side of his helmet, listening to your words spoken directly into his ear. He nods.

“You’re not calling me ‘Shiny Head’ by the way.”

You want to laugh. Normally, you would. But anxiety drops low in your stomach again as you peer out to the base. 

“This is going to work,” you whisper and he wonders whether you’re saying that for his sake or to convince yourself.

“Don’t leave the ship until I give you the signal,” he says, his hands grasping both of your shoulders, thumbs brushing your upper arms in gentle circles. You only nod in response, your eyes boring into the visor of his helmet, biting your lip hard enough to draw blood. When he pulls you against his chest and tightens his grip, your body sinks into his, trying to memorize how you fit together in case it’s all you have left. Too soon, he’s letting go, leaving only the crown of his helmet connected to your forehead when he echoes your words, “This is going to work.”

The moment he exits the ship, you sprint to the engine bay and pull the ship’s electro-periscope from the ceiling. Through the red-tinted binoc lens, you have a magnified view of the Mandalorian as he saunters up to the base’s entrance, not even flinching as the stormtroopers draw their blasters.

You watch his helmet turn wide to the left and swing slowly to the right, scanning the base as the troopers check his person and confiscate his blaster. The stormtroopers step back to their posts, leaving Din standing in the middle of the snow outside of a round, closed door. Waiting.

“Cuyan Two to Cuyan One,” you mutter into the comlink. “What are you seeing?”

You’re met with a long gap of static and you panic, thinking the coms are jammed, before he finally answers.

“You were right, Cuyan One,” he whispers, the hint of a smile in his voice despite the circumstances. “There’s a small duct to the left of the entrance. You’ll have to distract the guard troopers.”

“I can manage.”

“I know you can,” he says, steadfast as ever. Din believes in you without an ounce of hesitation and it makes you feel like you could command stars into existence and the galaxy would obey. “After I give the signal, go to my weapons locker. There’s a locked box at the bottom. Punch in my code and take the bag inside it with you."

“What’s in it?” You ask, watching as the doors to the base finally open, revealing another pair of stormtroopers, one with red markings on their armor. A Burner, more infamously known as an Incinerator Trooper.

“Things to keep you safe,” he answers quickly.

One of the guards gives Din’s blaster to the troopers now leading him into the base. And before the doors close, you see Din’s fingers interlock behind his back: the signal.

Focusing the periscope on the two guard troopers, you scan the area again, looking for a way to distract them without causing a scene. Aside from a patch of bushes to the right of the base, the area is blanketed in pure white snow with nothing to give you cover. Great.

As you think over your next move, you run to Din’s weapons cabinet and rummage through his arsenal, finding the locked box under an old cloak. You punch his code into the number pad — 47648, ‘GROGU’ on a 10-key pad you remember with a bittersweet smile — and the box opens with a quiet click. As promised, there’s a small tan-colored pouch with a shoulder strap and, inside it, you find a blaster that fits perfectly in your hand and what looks like a silver sword hilt, its blade completely missing. You run your fingers across the angular handle, confused as to how a bladeless weapon could “keep you safe.” But when your finger presses over a smooth panel on the hilt, a high-pitched sound emits from its chamber and a black blade glows in front of your face. 

A lightsaber, you think, like the ones Din had told you about what feels like a lifetime ago. But this one isn’t green like the one he’d described Grogu’s master used or white like Ahsoka Tano’s twin sabers. It's dark and blinding, laced with an energy you’re far too frightened to wield. You retract the blade almost immediately, heart racing as you stuff both weapons into the worn bag and sling it over your shoulder.

Taking a long, steadying breath, you slowly step onto the boarding ramp — thanking the Maker Din had the sense to leave it down so it wouldn’t make a noise and blow your cover. He hadn’t parked the ship too far from the entrance and you can clearly see the duct he’d mentioned a few yards away. If you can just get the stormtroopers to turn in the other direction, you could sprint and be in the clear.

The plan is dumb, you know it. But it’s already the day of dumb plans and it’s all you have. Kneeling, you gather a mass of powdery snow in your gloved hands and press it together until it clumps into a dense ball. With your arms outstretched in front of you, you close your eyes and reach out with your mind, focusing your thoughts on the ball of snow in your palms.

The snow levitates high above you, high above even the Imperial base, and toward the trooper standing on the right side of the entry. You lower the ball just to his head-level and out of his eyesight, flick your wrist slowly to the right to gain some momentum, then snap it quickly to the left, smacking the stormtrooper hard against his helmet.

“What the hell?” You hear the stormtrooper shout, shuffling back on his feet.

“What happened?” The other asks.

“I just got hit with a snowball?” He answers with his own question, rubbing the side of his helmet.

You focus your thoughts again, this time, reaching out toward the bushes to the right of the base, causing the branches to wiggle and rustle. 

The two troopers snap their heads in the direction of the mysterious sound, walking slowly with their blasters aimed and ready. And when they reach the bushes, aimlessly kicking at the shrubs with their boots, you run for it.

Your lungs are on fire when you reach the duct, fingers trembling as you quietly jiggle off the vent’s cover to give yourself an opening. You crawl in the chamber and quickly replace the cover before the stormtroopers return to their posts.

Once you’re safe inside the duct, you turn Din’s line back on so you can hear his side of the mission.

“I’m in,” you whisper.

On his end, you hear him grunt quietly in acknowledgment before the line is filled with only the faint sound of marching boots. 

You have no idea where you’re going — probably the dumbest part of your entire plan — but you hope to stumble upon a terminal or control room sooner rather than later so you and Din can leave this nightmare in the past.

The base’s air vent system proves to be an endless maze, however, with forks and crossroads at every turn. Your knees start to ache as they press and slide across the metal ducting, your hands leaving trails of water as the thin layer of ice on your gloves melts away. You freeze when you hear footsteps below the air duct, holding your breath as you peer through the slits of a vent to see a platoon of stormtroopers marching through the corridor.

After what feels like hours, you finally find a small, surprisingly empty room filled with computer terminals and open a vent panel before quietly dropping down from the ceiling.

By no means would you call yourself a hacking wizard, but you had some tricks up your sleeve. Years of scraping by on your own will teach you a host of odd skills. Within seconds, you bypass the facial scanners and begin combing through the archives before you hear some static crackle in your earpiece once again.

“Please, no need for formalities," you hear a faint voice taunt through Din’s com. “We already know what you look like.”

It’s the holoprojector Imp, the familiar sound of her throaty voice floods your ears. Din doesn’t respond, and you imagine him standing like a statue, calculating the odds and armed with nothing but beskar and silence.

“Very well,” the Imp says. “Leave the helmet on. We have more important matters to discuss.”

“I almost have it,” you whisper to Din, hoping your encouraging progress can serve as another weapon.

“Now, Din Djarin,” the Imp calls, his name dripping out of her mouth like venom. “Don’t think we’d be so foolish to believe you’d assist us willingly. Assume that we know everything.”

A shiver runs down your spine from the thinly concealed threat, and your fingers fly faster over the controls as time slips through the cracks. 

Finally, you find it, a record labeled: ‘Din Djarin.’ And you erase every trace of him.

“Got it, Cuyan One,” you sigh a breath of relief into the comlink.

“For example,” the Imp is still talking, and you roll your eyes knowing you’ve already won. “We know you did not come here alone.”

Suddenly, the blast doors of the terminal room open with a whoosh, and you back up against the machines as two stormtroopers corner you in. With a blessed shred of forethought, you blindly pull one of the weapons out of Din’s bag behind your back and sneak it into the back waistband of your pants, covered by your thick cloak. Just as you thought, one stormtrooper tears the bag from your shoulder, looking inside to find the other weapon without searching you further.

They push you down the corridor, jabbing you in the middle of your back with the barrel of their blasters, and you count each step before stopping in front of a heavy-looking door on the shadowy end of the hall.

Din’s voice enters your ears at the same moment. 

“If you even think about hurting her, you’re already dead.”

The door opens, revealing a dark room bathed in ominous red light. In the middle, the holoprojector Imp stands with her legs spread and her hands behind her back, flanked by two stormtroopers. Somehow, the Imp looks even paler without the blue tint of holo coloring her skin. It makes her eyes appear pitch black in comparison, piercing as they slant at you in unmasked scrutiny. She wears the same darkness in her hair which is cut blunt and short, severe against her skeletal pallor. In front of her, Din kneels on the ground, the Burner standing only a few steps behind him, flamethrower at the ready.

With your two captors holding you by the arms in a room filled with enemies, the odds feel slim to none. Din’s helmet turns to you, his beskar shrouded in red, and you do your best to send him a reassuring smile.

The Imp suddenly says your full name, a grin splitting her face in half when you turn to her in shock. “So nice of you to join us.”

“You already lost,” you spit at the Imp, grinning wider than her. “I erased the archives. You have nothing.”

“Oh, such a pretty, foolish girl,” the Imp sings and you hear the teasing, grating noise from both her true voice and its distortion through your comlink. With your arms trapped, you can’t even turn off the device, and you cringe each time the dissonance scratches its way into your ears. “You may have wiped the systems but I have a backup drive,” she smirks, patting the badge-decorated pocket on her uniform. “In fact, I’ve also collected some interesting records on you, my dear. About your family, your… history.”

She’s bluffing, she has to be.

“Assume that we know everything,” the Imp repeats. 

“Who are you?” You grit through bared teeth.

She laughs and you wipe your ear on your shoulder in disgust.

“Surely you both understand if I choose to withhold certain information. One's identity can be so very…” the Imp pretends to consider her words, glancing at Din and then sneering back at you as she taps a gloved finger against her pale, pointed chin. “Valuable.”

You lunge at her, a snarl ripping from your throat, but a trooper holds you back with a painful grip, his blaster digging into your side.

“Now, Din Djarin,” the Imp says, turning her attention back to the kneeling warrior. “If you don’t want to watch me kill your partner, you’ll do as I wish. Help me retrieve Gideon. Otherwise, you both shall die here.” Her blaster clicks as she points the barrel between his eyes with horrifying gracefulness. 

“No!” You scream, turning every weapon in the room on you.

“Let her go,” Din practically growls.

“Ah,” the Imp says, walking to where you stand on the other side of the room, her weapon dangling like a child's toy from her fingers. “Or perhaps the girl can be of better help? With the proper motivation, of course. Tell me, where are they keeping the Moff? I wouldn’t want to be forced to make a roast out of your Mandalorian.”

With a snap of the Imp’s fingers, the Burner points his flamethrower at Din’s head. But somehow, in that same instant, you manage to rip yourself out of the troopers’ holds, making them stumble backward. And your hand flies forward, lifting the Imperial officer from the ground.

The troopers seem dumbfounded by the magic they’re witnessing, blasters pointed at the ground in their stupor. You can almost see their slack-jawed expressions through their helmets as the Imp clutches her hands around her throat, gasping for air and hovering a foot above the floor.

“A Jedi?” She croaks.

Assume that we know everything. You knew it. A bluff.

“Wrong again,” you grin, pushing your hand forward and sending the Imp soaring across the room. Her head hits metal with a heavy crash, falling unconscious, and at the same time, a loud alarm sounds throughout the base. Somehow, the red of the room grows darker and more saturated as lights flash on the ceiling.

Blaster fire ricochets off the red-tinted walls when the troopers come back to reality, the blasts deafening as you dodge them, thankful it’s just a group of bad-shot stormtroopers and not an elite unit.

One stormtrooper charges toward you, raising the butt of his blaster to strike, but you kick him hard in the stomach, plowing him into the floor. In the corner of your eye, you see Din twist in a circle, his wrists still bound behind him as he sweeps his leg under the Burner, making the trooper fall backward with a thud.

You rush over to Din, pulling the saber from your waistband and igniting the blade to cut his binders off. You wordlessly hand him the sword but he pushes it back toward you.

“Use it,” he says, squeezing your wrist before turning back to knock the flamethrower out of the Burner’s grasp.

You’ve been in your fair share of scuffles back on Tatooine, even some while working with the Mandalorian — but you’ve never fought with a sword before. Clumsily, you swing the blade in front of you, brandishing it toward the troopers without skill.

“How do I use this thing?” You shout at Din who is busy punching a stormtrooper and taking back his blaster.

“It’s a sword,” he yells over the alarm, shooting a third clueless trooper. “Stab something!”

With both hands gripping the hilt, you send the blade slicing through the air, a loud humming sound echoing in your ears with each swing. And when you hit the side of one final stormtrooper, the strike punctuated by a roaring crackle, he’s on the ground, his white armor sizzling as it melts.

But while the chaos in the red room settles, a larger battle brews outside its doors.

“I erased it, they have nothing,” you explain breathlessly, retracting the saber as Din surveys your body for injuries. You pull Din’s bag off the fallen trooper and replace the sword inside. “The Imp was bluffing.”

You run over to the unconscious woman regardless, checking her pockets. Empty.

“Are you sure?” He asks when you return to him, holding your trembling shoulders.

“Positive. It’s like I could sense it.”

A loud crash echoes in the corridors, making you jump away from him.

“Let’s get out of here,” Din says, at the same moment you scream, “Watch out!”

It happens in slow motion. The Incinerator Trooper pushes himself on his feet and reaches for his flamethrower. Din’s gaze is focused on you when you see the trooper take aim, a small fire beginning to bloom from the barrel.

Your arms wrap around Din instinctively, attempting to shield his body with your own. You wait for the burning heat, for the scorch of flames to lick at your skin. You wait to hear both your agonizing screams before you and Din leave the universe together. But as bright orange and red tendrils flash behind your closed eyelids, you only feel cool beskar.

Opening your eyes, you see a dome of fire just inches away from your bodies. Din pulls away slowly, taking in the sight of the inferno around him, dancing flames reflecting off his armor.

“Are you doing this?” He asks, a hazy memory creeping into his mind of the stand-off on Nevarro.

You squint through the fire, only finding the Burner with his thrower still aimed forward. You are doing this. Closing your eyes again, you reach out and focus your thoughts harder on the protective shield blocking the flames. Your mind pushes forward and deflects the fire backward, hurling the blaze and embers into the trooper. When the flames dissipate, the Burner collapses to the ground, his suit scorched and blackened.

Standing in the middle of the destruction, you stare at your hands in shock before yellow-tipped gloves grab them and pull you out of the room. 

“We have to go,” Din says.

The halls flash with red lights, sirens soaring through the narrow corridors as trooper footsteps drum closer and closer.

Din leads you quickly through the base and out where he first entered. But you’re met by a rain of blaster fire as you both attempt to sprint back to the ship in one piece. Din pushes you in front of him, running backward as he shoots and blocks the blasters with the armor on his chest.

“Hang on,” he shouts, and before you can question it, he’s scooping you into his arms and launching off the ground.

He flies to the parked ship in record timing. But before he can make his landing, a blast hits his jetpack. It combusts with a deafening boom, right next to your ear, and it sends both of you hurdling into the ice. For a moment, you can’t hear a thing except for the echo of the explosion as you fall to the pillowy snow. Then, beside you, you hear a dull crack of beskar on thick, hardened ice and Din groaning aloud in agony.

“No!” You shout, coming to your senses when you see his leg bent at a strange angle, blood seeping onto the ice from his helmet.

“Get us out of here,” he grits out.

It feels frighteningly familiar pulling his body into the ship, danger looming from all sides as blasts continue to ding off the freighter or melt into the snow. You close the ramp, leave Din in the hold, and get the ship high above the ground.

But you hesitate, hovering in the air for a long moment, before making a choice.

Charging the gunners, you aim at the Imperial base and release a shockwave of vengeful blasts. And as the facility and everything inside and around it disintegrates into ash and rubble, you launch into hyperspace, leaving nothing behind.

The next moments pass by in a blur, Din’s cries ringing loudly in your ears as you try to figure out what to do. He gives you strained instructions but you can barely understand him.

“Reset the bone,” he grunts with just enough clarity, all while writhing in pain.

“Reset the bone,” you echo. “Right. I can do this. I’ll need to cut your pants.”

You find a small blade, remove his boot and armor, and slice a line from the bottom of his pant leg to just above his knee. With one hand gripping below his knee and the other pressing down on his thigh, you pull and hear the bone snap back into place as Din screams. You run to the storage closet for the medpac and return with bacta gel in hand, smoothing it over the purple, splotchy skin around Din’s leg before delicately wrapping it with the cut fabric of his pants and a makeshift splint.

“Your head,” you remember, searching for the wound under his cowl, and he wheezes as if to confirm. “No. No, no, no, no, no. Oh, stars, Din. This is bad,” you sputter, your palm painted in his blood.

“It’s okay,” he whispers, breath slowing as he brushes his fingers through your hair. “You did so good back there, cuyan. My survivor.”

“Hey, don’t talk like that,” you cry, tears rolling in waves down your cheeks. “You’re Cuyan One, remember? You’re going to be alright. I’m gonna fix this.”

“You’re so brave, so clever, so strong,” he continues, coughing between words. “Kotep, mirdala, kotyc. Ner kar’ta,” he croaks, voice fading out.

“Stay with me, Din!” You shout.

“I want to see your face,” he mumbles as if in a trance.

“I’m here, Din,” you tell him, taking his hand and placing it on your cheek. “I’m here.”

“No,” he coughs. “I want to see your face with my own eyes.”

You stare at him, waiting for him to retract his words. When he doesn’t, he pulls your joined hands to his helmet. You’re shaking when your other hand finds the opposite side of the beskar, releasing the lock and lifting it from his head.

His face is covered in blood and cuts, his brown eyes drooping with fatigue, dark hair plastered to his forehead. 

“Oh, Din,” you cry, unable to even process him without a helmet for the first time as you take in the damage. You can’t even see him behind the wounds that mar his features. But he sees you. His hand comes back to your cheek, thumb sliding back and forth in a half-moon shape.

“Mesh’la,” he whispers. “Means beautiful. You are so beautiful, ner kar’ta.”

You blink hard, heavy tears landing on his armor drop after drop even as he tries to brush them away. Your hand covers his own on your cheek, fiercely pressing his palm into your skin like you’re afraid he’ll let go. Kissing the exposed skin of his wrist, you taste a tragic mixture of blaster residue and wet salt on your lips.

“I can’t remember what ner kar’ta means,” you sob. “Please tell me.”

One corner of his lips twitches upward, a strained, painful effort to smile, but he does everything in his power to let you see it.

“It means,” he gasps. “My heart.”

His hand falls from your cheek, limp in your lap and your body shakes at the loss of his touch. You can still hear his shallow breaths but you’re not sure how much longer he can go in this state. You close your eyes, holding his hand as your fingers brush over his glove. The inside of the ship is silent — peaceful and still as if unaware that your entire universe is crumbling in front of you. There’s not enough bacta in the galaxy to treat the trauma he’s sustaining in his head. You can hardly see his skin under the layers of blood and scrapes.

His warm, honeyed voice echoes in your mind, stories he’s told you over and over when you’d make any excuse to hear his voice, stories about him and Grogu. You think of his little green son, how you’re failing him right now. Please take care of my father.

Din always sounded so wistful when he talked about Grogu, so in awe of his power.

He could do things I couldn’t even imagine… 

He saved me, in more ways than one… 

Grogu is a special kid… 

He could heal people.

“He could heal people!” You shout out loud, eyes bulging from their sockets.

In all your years of walking a tightrope when it came to your strange wizard-like powers, you’d never imagined you could heal. All those times you’d tried to fall asleep covered in bruises or cuts, you could have prevented so many nights of excruciating physical pain. But now is not the time to dwell on the past when your future is slipping through your fingers.

You close your eyes again — slowly resting one hand on Din’s cheek, the other still clutching his limp hand — and try to relax, reach out with your mind, reach inside, and focus your thoughts, emotions, energy, everything you have on the man in front of you.

It flows out of you in waves, sinking into him, and you feel it: your body growing more tired each second, only hoping your vitality is transferring into him. Just when you’re about to pass out, you hear him gasp for air, his body shooting up like a fish out of water.

“Din?” You blearily wonder. But his face blurs out of focus before you fall to the floor.

 —

x.

In the face of pain, the body has natural defenses to harden itself, like the calluses that develop on your fingertips and heels for armor. You can build a tolerance, a certain degree of numbness until pain regresses to a dull ache at the back of your mind. And sometimes, the skin gets so thick, the body so paralyzed, that you start to believe nothing could ever hurt you. Not coarse sand crystals or alleyway scum or sharp-clawed rancors or stormtrooper blasts.

But it’s funny how protection covering the outside does nothing to shield what lies underneath — merely a shattered fortress with cracks that let pain seep into the bloodstream and petrify the heart.

When Din’s hand had dropped limp in yours, you hadn’t felt the pain of his wounds or scars shrouding your body. Instead, you’d felt a unique kind of suffering, torture that hadn’t left your skin bruised but had rather sunken into your pores and gnawed at your insides: fear, loss, mourning.

The agonizing ache lingers in your muscles when you finally awaken.

The mattress beneath you envelopes your senses in a familiar fragrance of warmth and safety. Brightness filters in through the open door across the room and a sliver of light glares in one of your eyes, making you rub your fist against your eyelids to regain focus.

As your vision sharpens, you quickly realize you’re not in your own sleeping quarters.

These sheets are dark, the opposite of the crisp white color you’ve been used to for nearly a year. Knickknacks don’t litter the metal floors and socks aren’t piled up in the corner as you remember. The room is mostly bare, stripped down to the necessities, organized and empty to an almost alarming degree.

Then, a splash of color catches your eye on the durasteel wall near the door. It’s difficult to see with the glare spotlighting your face, leaving your surroundings in the shadows. Deciding to investigate, you wrap Din’s blanket tight around your shoulders, keeping his comforting scent around you like a cocoon. When your sock-covered feet finally carry you across his room to the wall in question, you gasp.

Tacked onto Din’s wall are at least a dozen small pages of parchment depicting lively landscapes of planets you’ve visited and picturesque portraits of creatures you’ve encountered together. Your drawings. You remember the times he’d come back from an easy mission, a charming swagger in his gait, and had asked to see what you’d drawn. He’d always held your booklet in his hands so delicately, taking the time he didn’t have to study and praise your work. When he’d hand it back, you’d tear the page from its binding and whisper, “You can keep it.” You’d never thought much of it, except that you’d wanted to share the beauty you’d captured with him. After all, he’d given you all these beautiful colors to do so. But more than that, you’d wanted to let him see the galaxy through your eyes since his own stayed shadowed by his visor. Whenever he’d allowed himself to indulge in removing his helmet in private, you’d hoped he could see what you saw through the pages. You’d never once thought he’d keep your drawings so sacredly displayed in his quarters, assuming the doodles would eventually pile up in some forgotten corner on the ship. But he’d kept each one.

And right in the center, you see the first picture you’d ever drawn for him: a portrait of Grogu sketched according to Din’s affectionate descriptions. It’s slightly folded in on itself from the way he’d tucked it neatly into his shoulder pouch for safekeeping. When you’d drawn it for him, you’d just wanted to do him a simple kindness, the same way he’d been so kind to help you leave Tatooine behind and travel the galaxies with him. You’d only had your pencil at the time, none of Din’s thoughtfully gifted pigments at your disposal, leaving the portrait of the child monochromatic. But now, vibrant color adorns the sketch, bringing Grogu to life in beautiful tones of green, pink, and brown.

Din had borrowed your chalk pigments and colored it in himself. You imagine him with vivid hues dusting his fingertips and green smudges on his beskar, and you smile.

But when you pull back the folded edge of the paper, you’re surprised to see another figure has been drawn next to Grogu, an image you don’t recognize as work of your own. 

It’s… you.

Water blurs your vision but you quickly wipe the tears away so they don’t somehow fly onto the pages and ruin his picture. He’d colored you in your favorite garments, a familiar pink flower tucked behind your ear along with your pencil. Careful, reverent strokes define each of your features. You can’t help but think it looks like you and a stranger at the same time, and you wonder if this radiant image he’s drawn is truly who you are or just how he sees you. And what if those two ideas are one and the same?

You don’t notice Din leaning against the doorframe until you hear your name in a deep, dulcet tone. He whispers it, uninhibited by his helmet, and suddenly your name has a thousand more meanings than just some arbitrary label for the girl who used to be alone. When he says it, your name means survivor, brave, clever, strong, beautiful, his entire heart — and all you want is to dive headfirst into the sweet nectar of his voice.

But then you remember what happened, how you let him get hurt, how you failed to take care of him as Grogu had asked. You don't realize you’re crying until his bare finger swipes away a single tear.

And even though you technically already saw his face — albeit bloodied and distorted — you dare not look at him. You keep your eyes trained low, noticing his unbandaged leg, as his hands caress your skin.

“Are you feeling better?” He asks, voice so heavy with concern it weighs down against your heart.

You nod. “How long was I out?”

“About 16 hours,” he answers, crooking his finger below your chin to pull your eyes to his.

“What about your Creed?” You ask, closing your eyes tight. 

“You mean more.” 

You expected to hear something more along the lines of ‘you already saw my face’ or ‘I’ve broken it before.’ But no, he says, ‘You. Mean. More.’ They’re three simple words that carry mountains of blissful promises, an echo of a sentiment you’d heard him say about his child, a different time that feels so far away now.

So, you open your eyes, look up, and one of your hands cradles the side of his face. He’s fully healed and the blood from the nightmare before is washed away, the red stain only living in your mind, allowing you to finally see him clearly.

You’ve always had some sense of his face. He’d given you so many pieces, letting your fingers map out his features and answering your questions so you could sketch them onto paper. Some things you can know without seeing. But having him in front of you — stripped of his armor and helmet, a soft errant curl brushing over his forehead, warm tan skin on display just aching for your fingers to explore them the way they did before you’d ever seen him — it feels like setting down the last piece of a puzzle. 

He’s beautiful in the way that broken stones and crystal fragments are when they form a mosaic, each piece jagged yet fitting together into a purposeful masterpiece.

And the way he looks at you, like you’re home when all he’s ever known is running… you’ll do anything to keep him looking at you like this.

He enters his quarters fully, extending his arms to hold you closer. When he leans his forehead against your own, you close your eyes. His warm breath tickles your skin, the slope of his nose slowly nuzzling against yours, and when you let yourself peek at him again from under your lashes, you see his eyes are softly shut, the smallest of smiles on his lips.

“When did you draw this one?” You ask, voice but a whisper, nodding at the papers on his wall.

“While you were resting... I’m not much of an artist,” he says sheepishly, watching your fingers delicately trace the lines of his drawing. “But I wanted to keep a piece of you with me too.”

You merely exhale, mind reeling. Any word you think of seems to evaporate each time you open your mouth.

“Maybe, when you finish it, we can hang the portrait you drew of me next to this one,” he muses. “So, at least on paper, we can be a clan of three.”

You nod fervently, your foreheads rubbing together from the rapid motion as you stroke the soft peaks of his cheekbones.

“I can’t believe you kept all of these,” you chuckle, gesturing to his wall of art. 

“Of course I did,” he says, fully grinning now, his nose playfully bumping against yours. “They’re beautiful and… they’re from you.”

A sweet sigh escapes your lips, your breath hovering in the small space between your bodies, and you see a flash of pink when his tongue pokes out to swipe a quick line between his mouth. You bite your lip, trying to force your mind to stay silent and not ruin this moment, but knowing you need to address the guilt in your heart.

“You almost died,” you say quietly, the words falling from your lips in broken pieces and shattering on the floor.

“But I didn’t,” he responds, his brown eyes staring directly into yours. “You healed me.”

“I should have...” you start, not knowing how to finish the statement because, even now, you’re clueless as to what you could have done differently. “I should have been more careful. Maybe if I hadn’t gotten caught, you wouldn’t have been hurt.”

“I’m used to it,” he sighs.

“Well, you shouldn’t be,” you whisper. “Neither should you.”

It stuns you, causing you to pull your face away just slightly, ignoring the way your skin screams to touch his again.

Pain is universal except to those who harden themselves to it and let calluses develop. This is a natural defense. You know this. But the thing is, pain is protection too, another security the body uses to protect itself. From harm. It’s ironic how the ones who feel the least amount of pain carry the largest amount of suffering.

“You shouldn’t have gotten hurt,” you continue, walking over to his bed to sit on the edge. “I promised I’d take care of you.”

This time, he’s stunned. Take care of him?  

“You almost died, Din. You shouldn’t have even gotten hurt. I don’t know what I would do…”

“I’m right here, ner kar’ta,” he whispers, moving towards the bed and kneeling between your legs. He cradles your jaw, lifting your gaze to meet his eyes. “I’m right here.”

“You almost weren’t,” you say, your lip trembling below his thumb.

“I’m here. With you,” he says, confident. “I always will be, I promise.”

“Din, you can’t promise—”

“I just did.”

As you look into his eyes, you see a fire that tells you this is more than a promise. It’s more than a tenet of the Mandalorians’ honor and you feel it in your bones. He would traverse every system, tear apart the galaxy, fall to his knees to keep it. This is more than a promise. It’s a vow.

It feels like entering a new atmosphere, gravity pulling you into his orbit until your lips meet his, the same way the horizon of Tatooine meets twin suns each evening. He’s soft — so soft — and solid and still, allowing you to release the worry and trauma you’ve been shouldering on your own against his eager lips. You capture his upper lip, press a chaste peck there, exhale, kiss his lower lip, then breathe him in.

When you pull back by an inch, his body sways toward yours like a pendulum, his eyes closed dreamily as he waits for your lips to return to his.

“Din,” you whisper, a single tear rolling down your cheek as you cup his face between your hands like he’s delicate and holy. “Ner kar’ta,” you call him.

He opens his eyes, finding yours glazed with something he’s never seen before but knows is mirrored in his own irises.

“How do you say ‘I love you’ in Mando’a?” 

This time, it’s his lips crashing into yours first, capturing your gasp on his tongue. His fingers card through your hair and find a resting place at the base of your head, nails scratching lightly and pulling sweet songs from your mouth. His other hand settles on the crook of your neck, his thumb drawing circles over your clavicle before gliding over your shoulder, then along the side of your waist, finally falling to the small of your back. A gentle pressure pulls you closer to the edge of the mattress where Din still kneels between your thighs, making you gasp again. But he swallows the sound with his mouth, his tongue eagerly licking past your lips. You dig your fingers into his hair and wrap your legs around his torso to stay balanced, though your mind is drunk on his taste and dizzy on his scent filling your lungs. 

All you know is him. 

The hand on your back grazes across your hip, drags a slow line over the top of your thigh, and squeezes once. Then, you feel fingers tickle behind your knee. In one swift motion, Din pulls your leg higher around him and gently pushes you backward, the hand on your head guiding you as you fall onto the pillow.

He pulls away panting, letting you catch your breath as he takes the opportunity to rake his eyes over your body spread out beneath him. 

You do the same, letting your fingers follow the same path as your eyes. He looks positively wrecked, hair sticking up from where you’d pulled it, pupils dilated, his lips pink and perfectly swollen. His breaths seem to come out more labored — but whether from your touch or the shameless way your eyes drink him in, you don’t know. All you know is the flushed skin below his jaw, how it draws your attention to the strong cords of muscle that run up the length of his neck, how his Adam’s apple bobs slowly below your featherlight finger when he swallows.

As your hands continue their exploration, Din’s thumb tickles your cheek with a tenderness that matches the look in his eyes. The shimmering dust of stars glistens in his irises as he gazes upon you like you’re… 

“Mesh’la,” he whispers, brushing a strand of hair behind your ear.

“I could say the same about you,” you grin, drawing him back toward you and feeling his smile against your lips.

He settles his weight between your legs, moaning into your mouth when you raise your hips to grind against him. He gives you beautiful, desperate noises and you greedily capture each one with your lips. As he kisses you, your nails scrape down his back, his muscles tensing and rippling under your touch until you find the hem of his shirt. You tug on it once, twice, before he’s finally sitting back and pulling it over his head. Not wanting to have to separate yourself from him again, you remove your top at the same time, leaving you both exposed from the waist up. When his face emerges from the neck of his shirt, he looks down and stills, and somehow, you feel infinitely more beautiful under his lustful gaze.

He attaches your lips again, craving your taste like a famine-starved man, ravenous hands exploring new skin as yours leave crescent moons across his back. He kisses your lips, your cheeks, licks below your ear, sucks under your jaw, down your neck, above your breasts — tasting every soft plane with a hunter’s diligence until you’re soft and pliant below him, bending while he bows.

He rocks into you, eliciting gasps from both your lips. Desperately, you scratch impatiently at the skin above his waistband, your hands attempting to push the material down to no avail. 

“What do you want?” He asks, pleads against your mouth, moaning when you hold his lower lip between your teeth and release it with a slow scrape.

“Want these off,” you mutter against his cheek, his scruff scratching over your lips deliciously. “Want you.”

That’s all he needs before he unbuttons his trousers, kissing you deeper as he bares himself completely to you. 

“Now you,” he whispers, his lips dragging down your body and hovering over your belly, pressing languid kisses to each hip, and biting the skin lower down as he removes your clothes. His breath ghosts over your heat and sends a shudder up your spine, making you arch toward him. His lips roam the soft skin of your thigh, tantalizingly tracing his tongue up toward where you throb for him, and then moving back down leaving you writhing with desire. He gives the same treatment to the other thigh, teasing you with his soft lips until you’re groaning and desperate beneath him.

A surprisingly deft finger opens you to him and your mouth drops agape without a word, pleasure lodged in your throat until he curls his finger just so, pulling the wanton sounds from your lips. As you become more vocal, he strokes you more eagerly, his other hand massaging the plush skin of your body wherever he can reach, watching your face with fascination as he stokes a fire in your belly.

Just as he’s about to put his mouth on you, he feels your fingers tugging his hair, pulling him upward until your lips meld together once more.

“Need you.” The words come out as a growl into his mouth and you lift your hips pointedly to meet his. He hisses at the friction, nodding in understanding when you say, “Now.”

He enters slowly, feeling you stretch around him and engulf him in a heat he never wants to escape. It feels like a release of pressure even as pressure begins to build between your legs. It’s pain and pleasure and perfection all at once. He fills you so completely and he can’t help but think:

“Meant for me.” 

He breathes the words out loud into your skin, lips trailing a burning path down your throat as he moves inside you, wicked sounds falling from your tongue when he hits a spot that has you seeing stars.

“What?” You gasp, but he doesn’t seem to hear.

Din kisses you everywhere he can reach, one hand interlocked with yours next to your head while the other pulls your leg higher and tighter around his back, giving him access to parts of you he gets to explore for the first time. It makes him think about the galaxies that always reflect in your eyes and how he’s getting to discover each one of them with you now. 

“Or maybe,” he continues his previous thought, a sweet, gentle kiss placed over your heart. “Meant for you.”

His pace quickens and you dig your nails into his shoulders as an invisible coil tightens in your belly. He continues speaking low in your ear, some of the words foreign and others in Basic, though you still can’t understand for the life of you when he’s right there. As his thrusts become more erratic, your core ignites, and intense heat blossoms over your entire body like a flower. And it’s Din plucking each petal until all that’s left in your mind is one singular truth: he loves me. Your eyes screw shut and your toes curl and you’re out of breath and you feel heavy and light at the same time. He moans a ragged sound when he feels you reach your peak, squeezing him until he’s falling over the precipice right after you.

The room is awash in heavy breathing, a fiery warmth scorching every inch of your naked skin as you both pant to catch your breath. You’d like to stay like this forever, you think. No clothes, simply covered in Din. But eventually, he slowly pulls himself out of you and an aching, empty feeling settles in your stomach that screams for him to come back. 

He hovers above you, not wanting to crush you with the immense weight he feels. But he can’t fight you when your hands wrap around his neck and mold his smile against yours, lips moving together like you can’t get enough.

You hold each other in silence, heated kisses cooling off into chaste pecks only when it feels too long since the last. Your breaths slow to a peaceful rhythm, hearts beating in time with each other to a secret song only you two know.

“Ni kar'tayli gar darasuum,” he breathes, the flight of his words spinning around the shell of your ear raises goosebumps on your skin. 

“What does that mean?” You ask, your hand cupping his warm cheek.

When he looks at you, he sees ferocity, forgiveness, a future, a family. For so long, he never thought he could feel anything close to this. Then, he met Grogu and, just as quickly, had to say goodbye. But when you look at him with such goodness and grace — all he can think of is how he hopes you’ll stay looking at him like this until he dies.

“‘I love you,’” he answers. "Forever."

[READ EPILOGUE HERE]

End Note: We're almost at the end! I just have an epilogue planned. But hey, if you have any headcanons you'd like to see happen in this series, please send them my way! Maybe some blurbs could be arranged :) Mando’a Glossary: Cuyan = survivor [koo-YAHN] Kotep = brave [KOH-tehp] Mirdala = clever [MEER-dah-lah] Kotyc = strong [koh-TEESH] Ner kar’ta = My heart (kar’ta = heart [kah-ROH-ta]; ner = my [nair]) Mesh'la = beautiful [MAYSH`lah] Ni kar'tayli gar darasuum. = I know you forever [nee kar-TILE garh dah-RAH-soom] ⎿ “It's the same word as 'to know,' 'to hold in the heart,' kar'taylir. But you add darasuum, ‘forever,’ and it becomes something rather different.” — Republic Commando: Triple Zero

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[awritingtree]

Never Enough (2/7)

Sirius Black x daughter!reader

Summary: Y/N Black is back at Hogwarts after running away from her father’s, Sirius Black’s, house during the summer. The year passes by and soon it’s the end of the year, with the OWLS finished. What happens when she finds out that her father was captured by Voldemort?

Words: ~2.5k

Warnings: angst, shitty father-daughter relationship, self-deprecating thoughts.

A/N: I KNOW! I KNOW! I KNOW! I know there isn’t a lot of Sirius x reader interactions in this chapter. There are some indirect interactions - or lack of. But I felt it was important to have this chapter and not skip a whole year from the summer to the end of 5th year. It also allowed to me to give more insight into the reader’s feelings. And I realize some parts seem rushed but like they aren’t really that important so... This chapter was important for the entire plot I have planned because we all know what’s coming in the next chapter :) Anyways I hope you enjoy this filler chapter in the mean time xx

Series Masterlist

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The rest of your enjoyable summer back home with the Tonks flashed by and the next thing you knew, you were boarding the Hogwarts Express on September 1st. The return to Hogwarts was accompanied by a change in season, the green leaves changing colours ranging from red to orange to yellow; falling, leaving the trees bare. Following autumn came winter, which passed by just as fast. The grounds covered in soft snow, crunching beneath the feet of the various students making their way in and out of the castle.

Christmas arrived sooner than you’d thought. The white layer made the world look so pure, so peaceful. You had opted out of going home for Christmas. Any chance of actually staying home would be impossible with the Order of the Phoenix still in place at 12 Grimmauld Place. Since you hadn’t returned, you had sent Mr. Weasley a get-well-soon present on top of his Christmas gift.

So instead you had spent the holidays at Hogwarts in the company of your Slytherin friends, spending your days reading, enjoying the grand feasts in the Great Hall and catching up on some much-needed sleep. You had expected a gift, but you were left disappointed as you saw the only presents lying at the foot of your bed were from the Tonks, Ginny, Hermione, Mrs. Weasley and your Slytherin friends. Lying in bed that night, your memories took you to a time somewhere around the beginning of November.

“Ew! Could you maybe consider showering before deciding to show up in public?” Parkinson’s whiny voice entered your ears as you ventured into the Great Hall on a Saturday morning.

Your broomstick was tucked in your underarm as you tied off one end of your French-braided hair. You wore your green and silver quidditch uniform messily, having rushed out of bed from waking up late. You had decided not to take a shower beforehand, knowing you’d get filthy all over again in a matter of a few hours. The sleepiness was still visible on your face, eyes drooping with weariness.

“Piss off Parkinson. Go drool over Draco elsewhere if my appearance is bothering you so much,” you sneered, plopping down on the bench, pouring yourself some pumpkin juice.

The arrival of owls stopped Parkinson from cursing you out. You looked up to see a snowy owl make its way towards the Gryffindor table, dropping a letter into the hands of Harry Potter. Upon reading who had sent him a letter, Harry, Ron and Hermione quickly glanced your way before quickly looking away, huddling together to prevent anyone from reading whatever the letter entailed. You sighed looking down solemnly, knowing whose letter would elicit such a reaction from the trio. In this moment you had never hated the snake emblem across the area over your heart more.

You’d cried yourself to sleep that night. Not even the fact that Slytherin would finally have a chance to win the Quidditch House Cup, due to the banning of Gryffindor’s seeker and beaters, had cheered you up. 

Both of those nights you had cried yourself to sleep, beating yourself up for ever expecting, for hoping, that this time away from your father had him changing his opinion on you. You didn’t know why you still cared. You didn’t understand why you craved his love, why you hadn’t given up on having any kind of relationship with him. You didn’t know why you still cared - you shouldn’t. You hated yourself for caring; but a small part of you, the five-year old girl that cried, begging for a chance to go visit her father for a year, still existed. No matter how many times you repeatedly denied it to yourself, you seeked his approval, his love.

You had fallen asleep on both of those nights wondering what you could possibly do to be worthy of his love, wondering why you were never enough.

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Winter had come and gone in a jiffy. May brought sunshine, warmth and the blossoming of new life along with it. By now, the D.A. had been found and disbanded, the Inquisitorial squad was thriving off making every non-Slytherin’s life miserable - all because you, now, had a toad for a headmaster.

Your OWLs were coming up soon, pushing you to study more than you had ever before, distracting you from thinking about anything else.

“I don't understand why you talk to that blood traitor and mudblood.”

“Because they’re my friends, Draco,” you sighed, for what seemed like the millionth time, “And stop calling them that. It’s despicable.”

“You don’t need such friends. You have us,” he said, rolling his eyes.

“Oh, friends such as Parkinson, Crabbe, Goyle, and Zabini? I think I’m good,” you replied, scoffing.

Draco pulled you around to face him by your upper arm.

“I’m just trying to look out for you. These times, they aren’t the best. You don’t need to risk putting yourself in danger by associating with such...” he trailed off.

“Such what?” you prompted him, encouraging him to say something he’d regret. He stayed silent, staring at you, trying to say what he couldn’t out loud through his eyes, but your irritation didn’t allow you to see past his words.

“And I don’t need you to look out for me. I don’t need anyone to look for me! I can do that very well on my own, thank you. You’re not my brother,” you exclaimed, wrenching your hand out of his grip.

A series of emotions; hurt, anger, sadness; flashed across his face - gone before you could make anything of it. Your face softened as you realized what you’d said.

“Draco, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that,” you apologized immediately.

Draco moved out of the way just as you were about to lay our hand on his shoulder.

“No you’re right. I’m not your brother, Y/N,” spat Draco before softening his tone, “but I see you as my sister so I will continue to look out for you, no matter how you feel about it.”

He stormed away before you could get a second to respond, leaving you staring at the spot he’d previously occupied with a mixture of feelings.

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OWLs were finished. You couldn’t believe that you were finally done. Your plan was to set off towards the Black Lake right after your last exam, lie back in the grass with your eyes closed to soak up the warmth shining down on your face. You longed to hear the sound of overlapping water from the cool breeze lulling you into a state where for the first time since last year, you’d feel a sense of peace and quiet.

But it seemed the universe hated the idea of you relaxing, which is why you were currently in Umbridge’s - Umbitch as you liked to call her - with the rest of the Inquisitorial squad along with a few former D.A. members. You were all waiting on Professor Snape to make his way to office, upon Umbridge’s order request. In addition to the purrs of the many cat pictures hanging on the horrid pink walls, the office was filled with the sounds of D.A. members trying to pull away from the Inquisitorial Squad’s grips.

“You wanted to see me, Headmistress?” asked Professor Snape entering the room as he eyed the struggling students, unconcerned.

Umbridge stood up smiling widely, almost cynically, “Yes. I would like a bottle of Veritaserum. I wish to interrogate Mr. Potter here.”

“You used up the last of the Veritaserum I had on your previous interrogation with Potter. Surely you didn’t use it all?”

“I’m sure you can make some more,” Umbridge replied with an overly sweet smile that made you want to vomit from the sight of it.

“Unless you wish to poison him - I have the greatest sympathy if you do - I can’t help you, not until it’s ready after a month,” Professor Snape said as he looked towards Harry.

Harry’s face scrunched up, seeming to concentrate on communicating something to Snape but his attempt was futile.

“You’re on probation! You’re deliberately being unhelpful. Now get out of my office!” shrieked Umbridge.

Snape blankly looked at her unbothered before turning to head out of the door.

“He’s got Padfoot! He’s got Padfoot at the place where it’s hidden!”

You felt like you had just been drenched in ice cold water at Harry’s shouts.

‘He? Who is he? It had to be Voldemort. Who else could have Harry in such a terrified state? But no, it couldn’t be possible,’ you thought. 

Ginny’s wince brought you out of your spiralizing thoughts. You loosened your tightening grip on her hand, too panic-stricken to mutter an apology. Your wide eyes drifted from Harry to Professor Snape.

“Padfoot?” exclaimed Umbridge, “What is Padfoot? Where what is hidden? Snape, what do you know about this?”

Snape turned back around to face Harry. His face was unreadable. You just hoped he would get some help, that he understood what Harry was shouting about.

“I have no idea,” he drawled, “Potter is speaking nonsense.”

You watched him walk out the door. Your palms had started to shake and sweat, everything drowned out. The only thing you could concentrate on was Snape, hoping he would give away any sign that he understood, he was going to do something. For once it seemed the universe had your back because just before he shut the door, his eyes made contact with yours as he moved his head, his nod bare visible. Relief flowed through your nerves; help was on the way.

You tuned into the conversation when you heard Hermione’s shrieks, “No! Professor- that’s illegal.”

Umbridge paid no mind to Hermione, raising her wand at Harry. Your hands clenched around your wand, preparing to take any action if needed as Hermione tried to convince Umbridge to stop.

“What Cornelius doesn’t know won’t hurt him,” Umbridge said, “Cruc-”

“NO!” your shout was drowned out by Hermione’s.

“Harry, we- we have to tell her,” she cried.

“It seems little Miss Question-all is going to give us some answers! Go on, then,” said Umbridge, triumphantly.

You stared at Hermione questionably. What was she doing? She couldn’t tell that toad anything. The Ministry would surely get your father and then- you didn’t want to think what would happen if they got their hands on him.

“He was trying to speak to Professor Dumbledore,” Hermione said in between her cries.

You felt Ginny tense in your grip in surprise as you suppressed the urge to sigh out loud in relief. Your eyes drifted around the room trying to think of a way to get yourself out of this situation and to Professor Snape. You needed to find a way to leave and help. You think you heard Hermione tell Umbridge about some weapon Dumbledore left in the forbidden forest in between your racing thoughts. You found the perfect opportunity as Umbridge headed out the door with Hermione and Harry. As soon as their footsteps could no longer be heard, all hell broke loose.

Ron slammed his head back into Warrington’s nose. You let go of Ginny, moving to get Crabbe off of Neville Longbottom, as she moved to go help Luna.

“Stupefy!” you yelled, pointing your wand towards Crabbe. You rushed to Neville, crouching down next to him as he caught his breath, “You okay?”

Neville weakly nodded. Satisfied with his nod, you got up to go help the rest. You felt Draco look at you, betrayed that you were helping the others, right before Ginny got him with the Bat-Bogey Hex. You felt a curse fly by you, grazing your cheek as someone pushed you to the side. Blood trickled down your cheek, dripping down staining your robes.

“What in the bloody hell are you doing, Ginny!? She’s one of them!” yelled Ron.

“No she’s not. She-”

“What do you mean? You see that badge, right? You do remember when she was holding you hostage right now? How about all the time she spent trying to catch the D.A.?” he rambled.

Ginny rolled her eyes exasperated, “Oh stop being so dramatic and listen. She’s not one of them. She’s been helping us all along. Why do you think no one patrolled near the seventh-floor corridor on the days we had a D.A. meeting?”

Ron shifted his eyes from Ginny, whose cheek had long scratches much like yours, to you before returning back to his sister, “That’s a load of codswallop.”

“We don’t have the time for this; We need to get going,” you said, impatiently. You did not have the time to convince anyone on whose side you were on. Your father could be dead by now for all you knew, and you had no clue how quick the Order would be informed to make their way towards wherever he was captured.

Ron opened his mouth, preparing to spew out an argument, “I’m sorry. We-”

“Look. Voldemort has my father right now and Salazar knows what he’s doing to him. No matter what has happened, he is my father. And you are not as smart as I give you credit for if you for a second think, I am not coming with you lot.”

“She’s right. We should get going. We’re wasting time,” Neville spoke up.

Ron looked between Ginny, Neville and you before begrudgingly agreeing.

You all quickly made your way out of the castle and towards the Forbidden Forest. You bumped into Harry and Hermione on your way there.

“How’d you get away?” asked Harry, surprised.

“Couple of hexes. Neville threw a good Impediment Jinx. Though, Ginny was the best, she got Malfoy good with a Bat-Bogey Hex. Anyway, what’ve you done with Umbridge?” replied Ron.

“Carried away by a herd of centaurs.”

“They left you behind?” asked a shocked Ginny.

“No, they got chased off by Grawp.”

“Whose Grawp?” questioned Luna, intrigued.

“Hagrid’s little brother,” explained Hermione.

“Never mind that!” interrupted Ron, “What did you find out in the fire? Does You-Know-Who have Sirius or-?”

“Yes” said Harry, “I’m sure Sirius is still alive but I’m not sure how to get there to help him.”

Everyone fell silent, the situation looking hopeless.

“What’s she doing here?” Harry asked, his eyes finally landing on you.

“He’s my father, Harry. Did you really think I was going to let you go alone?” you said, raising an eyebrow in question.

“Why? It’s not like you’ve cared before,” he retaliated causing rage to consume you at his unfiltered and forward words.

‘How dare he say that? I haven’t cared!?’

You opened your mouth to rebuttal, ready to release your wrath on the boy looking at you accusingly before Luna chimed in, paying no attention to the tension in the air.

“Well, we’ll have to fly, won’t we?”

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[sayonarasanity]

Reverberation 

Chapter II

link to first chapter

link to AO3

“It’s dead.”

Levi’s unimpressed, vacant gaze observed the lifeless body of the bird lying in her palms. He held the door to their house with one hand and wore a sweatshirt over a pair of plain sweatpants. His straight, black hair was combed.

“Seems like it,” he confirmed, voice flat. Then looked at her eyebrows rising, but he didn’t seem quite curious. “What do you want to do with it?”

“Bury it, obviously,” Hanji replied. “I found it on my way here. I thought it was just wounded at first, but its heart isn’t beating.” She lifted the little body to her ears one more time, lips curled downwards, waiting to hear the sound of a silent heartbeat. She wore gloves so she didn’t feel its body temperature, but no doubt, there was not even a flutter of a beat coming from the body, it was dead.

“The snow is too thick,” Levi spoke as Hanji lowered her hands down with the bird. “You can’t reach the earth. Even if you do, you can’t make it halfway without having your hands get frozen.”

“But I can’t possibly leave it out in the snow like this, Levi!” Hanji objected, overcoming the urge to tap her foot furiously on the ground. She didn’t want to be seen as a grouchy child.

“Hanji, you’re supposed to be smart.” He folded his arms, locking his eyes with her. “Do you really want to take this risk?”

“You’re exaggerating,” Hanji frowned, responding to his gaze. “I won’t lose my hands. I am wearing gloves.”

“What a great protection,” Levi murmured sarcastically, then turned his head over his shoulder and shouted, “Mom!”

“Coming!” Levi’s mother responded from somewhere inside the house. Hanji supposed it was the kitchen. Delicious smells were coming to her nose. As Hanji had learnt from her earlier visits here, Kuchel was a great cook and a beautiful, kind woman. Much like her son’s opposite.

“Hanji!” She smiled at her widely when she came in a hurry, drying her hands in her apron. Her long, black hair was tied as a ponytail, and her blue eyes were shining warmly. “How are you darling? Oh, why are you standing there? Levi, why didn’t you invite her inside? Come on in, honey.” Before Hanji could say anything to reject her, she caught her arm and drew her inside, closing the door behind them. The house was warm, and she immediately felt her cold face lulling with it. “I’ve just made an apple tart. Take off your coat and come to the kitchen with Levi.”

Hanji was dizzy, listening to her rapidly putting one sentence behind the other. Kuchel didn’t notice the dead bird which was still lying in her palms and it was Levi who in the end stopped Kuchel just as she turned her back to get back to the kitchen.

“Mom,” Levi called. “Hanji wants to bury a dead bird.”

Kuchel looked at Hanji, with a somewhat surprised expression plastered on her face. She blinked her eyes a few times, “Oh,” she said as if she was trying to digest what Levi had just said. And when Hanji pulled her hands upwards, she finally saw the bird. “Oh!” she said again, as realization sunk in. “A bird!”

“A dead bird,” Levi deadpanned.

“I want to bury it,” Hanji said, after glaring at Levi for a few, intense seconds for good measure. “I can do it on my own though. I wouldn’t want to be a bother.”

“Ah, but Hanji, darling,” Kuchel sighed, she seemed like she was trying to find out ways to reject her without breaking her heart. “The snow—”

“I know,” Hanji interrupted. “But I don’t care. I can’t leave it on the cold like this.”

Kuchel’s eyes were soft as the summer clouds while they were looking at her, and there was a little smile on her lips. “You’re such a sweet, sweet child.”

“No, mom she’s such a weirdo,” Levi presented his own idea, his arms were still folded, and he looked bored out of his wits.

“Levi!” Kuchel chided him, her soft look was replaced with a frown. “That’s a very rude thing to say to your friend.”

“I didn’t mean it as an insult,” he defended himself.

“Yeah, it’s okay Mrs Ackerman,” Hanji nodded. “He knows he is as much of a weirdo himself too. So, I don’t really get offended when he says that.”

Kuchel was apparently confused, but she was most probably convinced about the fact that her son and his possibly the best and only friend were a pair of odd, little human beings. “You can just call me Kuchel, sweetheart,” she said, at last, smiling again.

Hanji spared a moment to think, swirling the name inside of her head until she was satisfied with how it sounded. Then nodded, beaming at her. “Okay.”

“Good,” Kuchel reached with her hand and patted her hair which was covered with a green knitted hat.

“What are we going to do about the bird?” Levi asked, emphasizing each word. They both turned their gazes on him to see him impatiently tapping his foot on the floor, one eyebrow high above the other.

“We’re going to bury it, of course,” Kuchel said before Hanji even opened her mouth to give a response.

“Haa?” Levi was shocked, eyes widening and his foot stilling its motion. “Mom! I called you here so that you could talk some sense into her!”

“What’s so senseless about burying a poor, dead bird?” Kuchel asked innocently and Hanji smirked, barely stopping herself from bouncing but she did throw Levi a triumphant look, making him even more irritated.

Levi was still more or less astonished, so he just stared at his mom as she removed her apron and folded it neatly. “Come on, little grump, go change your clothes. Put on something thick and warm. Wear gloves and a scarf.” Then she turned back to Hanji and winked. “You wait here, honey. We’ll be back in ten minutes.”

She walked away to climb the stairs and Levi finally moved, murmuring “Women,” under his breath as he followed his mother upstairs. Hanji just grinned, then leaning her back to the wall she knelt to a sitting position. “You’re going to have a funeral little bird,” she whispered and smiled woefully at the inanimate, still body of the dead animal inside of her palms.  

-

The three of them walked or rather struggled to walk on the thick, soft snow. Some parts were frozen which made the whole journey even more tough and risky. Hanji tried her best not to fall face down, which would also result in her crashing the innocent bird. But she put far too much focus on not dropping the bird rather than not crashing it so when she absentmindedly stepped on an iced part of the pavement, her supposedly sturdy boat slipped, and she lost her balance.

A panicked yelp escaped her mouth just as the world moved around her, she saw the blue, wide sky rather than the white, snowy road and readied herself for a harsh landing as her body locked itself and did nothing to save her from her situation.

A gloved hand caught her collar. “Watch out, idiot,” Levi hissed, drawing her close to him. She stared at him, blinking her eyes in shock as she was trying to decipher the events of the last few seconds.

“You saved me!” She exclaimed, eventually, looking at Levi as if he was the embodiment of a Marvel hero.

“Yeah, thank fuck for that,” he winced visibly as he checked his back to glance at his mother, face painted with pure fear but much to his relief Kuchel was way too occupied by trying to just walk so she didn’t seem like she had noticed anything. Also, she was far behind them, so she hadn’t possibly heard her son swearing. Levi sighed, relieved then glared at her. “Give me that damn bird.”

“Language,” she whispered harshly under her breath. Levi swore a lot for a boy in his age. Hanji thought it was most probably his uncle’s fault who lived with him and Kuchel. Levi didn’t accept it though.

“Give it to me,” he repeated. “Before you break your ass.”

Hanji scowled and almost pouted in annoyance but put the bird in Levi’s open palms. Her arms had been hurting as a result of carrying the bird in the same position for too long anyway. She shook them on her sides, wrinkling her face as she felt the pain spreading from her joints and shoulders to the rest of her arms. Then her hazel brown eyes turned to the bird again, lying motionless in Levi’s palms this time.

“Poor thing,” she sighed.

Levi observed it for several seconds, his sharp blue-grey eyes distant and thoughtful. Hanji wanted so bad to know what was going on inside of that raven-haired head. “We all have limited time,” he said at last.

Hanji hadn’t been expecting to hear that, so it caught her off-guard. It sounded way too gloomy coming from an eleven-year-old boy. And Hanji wondered if there was any specific story or event to push him to utter these words now. She wanted to ask but didn’t think he would answer. Talking to him sometimes made her feel like she was preying on a gazelle, trying to be as cautious as possible with her steps as to not scare and made it run away.

“Yeah,” she agreed for now, as another bird flew past above their heads, fluttering its wings and twittering as if it was lamenting for the dead.

-

They buried the bird under a big, old—ancient in fact—tree which was located in a park near Levi’s house. It was indeed hard to dig up the snow first and earth later. They had to take turns and rest every now and then for some blood to reach their fingertips. Hanji had taken her hat off and lied the bird on it, ignoring the fact that they were going to put it under the cold earth anyway. And everything was okay until they covered it with brown soil and then white snow.

After that something started to tickle her nose like she was going to sneeze. Then her eyes followed, they were also burning, and her lips curled downwards again, and she pressed them together as a gulp shaped in her throat and then pat—

Her vision was blurry but not because of the tears, but because there was snow on her glasses and her face was icy wet.

“Don’t start weeping like a baby.”

She heard Kuchel gasping in shock but couldn’t look at her for her eyes were tightly shut. Slowly, she took her glasses off then wiped her face in a deadly calm. Then used the tissue in her pocket to clean her glasses, she had taken it with her before she left home for she knew her glasses were going to get foggy one way or the other.

And then she put the glasses back on, in slow motion, cautiously.

Now that the world around her became full HD again, she could clearly see Levi’s sly smirk as well as Kuchel’s wide, bewildered eyes. “So, you wanna play it dirt, Ackerman?” she asked as she gathered snow in her hands and formed them as a big, fat ball.

“Afraid, Zoe?” Levi asked back as he copied her, making a snowball in a respective size.

“You wish.”

They threw the balls at the same time but both of them dodged the attack. Hanji immediately got up, already forming another ball in her hands. She took quick steps away from him and just as Levi stood up from where he was sitting, she pulled her arm back and threw the ball. And it hit him right on the head. His shoulders rose to his ears as he tilted his to the side. She was laughing victoriously when suddenly she tasted snow in her mouth. She spitted aggressively and had to swallow some of it, frankly, it didn’t taste that bad. Then she wiped her mouth with her sleeve, “Ugh, you little—” she grunted and crouched down again.

After that, it just became a vicious and bloody snowball fight. Neither of them was backing down, despite Kuchel’s warnings like, “Levi don't throw it to her face, you’ll break her glasses,” or like, “Slow down you two. You will get sick.” They didn’t listen to her though. Hanji was having so much fun, even though Levi was not holding himself back in any way. She had a ball to her face her head and chest countless times and they were very harsh ones at that. Yet she had also managed to hit Levi from the same places just as harshly. Her face was hurting from smiling and from the cold, but she was hot inside the coat and her sweater underneath.

“Okay, that’s enough,” Kuchel said, with a stricter tone this time. “Levi—”

A snowball to her face cut her sentence in half. It was her son who had thrown it, and she was solid as a rock for a second. Then she wiped her face and smiled viciously just like Levi did at the time. And Hanji thought the mother and the son had never looked this much alike.

“Oh, you’re so on, my boy,” Kuchel said and kneeled.

The three of them played snowball for the rest of the afternoon. Their laughter, screams and sometimes painful groans filling the air until they were exhausted to death. But as she laid down on the snow breathless, with a grin attached to her face as if it had no intention of leaving and watching the quiet movements of the clouds, she thought with all sincerity that it was worth every damn second of it.

-

Kuchel invited Hanji to their house after their intense snowball fight. Hanji accepted because she was too tired to walk back home and too hungry to gather enough strength in a short time. They took off their coats and wet socks. Kuchel helped them hanging the clothes on top of the heater. Hanji had to borrow a pair of socks from Levi and was very amused to see they were Sponge Bob themed.

“Don’t say a word,” Levi had stopped her coldly when he saw how her face had brightened up.

Currently, Hanji was sitting in their kitchen, as Kuchel was preparing hot chocolate for her from her own special recipe and Levi was making tea for himself. Hanji found it weird for an eleven-year-old boy to be so fond of tea but then again everything about Levi was kind of weird. She was getting used to it slowly.

“Good evening my dear family.” A man around his thirties stepped inside the kitchen, removing a black, bowler hat from his head. He was a tall and slim man, wearing a simple white shirt and black trousers. His eyes were a dark blue, and his hair was long, combed back.

“Welcome,” Kuchel greeted him shortly with a smile on her face before going back to her work. Levi merely tched quietly upon his uncle’s appearance then went on preparing his dear tea. “You left work early?”

“Yeah, left it to Traute to close for today,” he said as he left his hat on the kitchen table and then he noticed her. “Hello, little one.”

She beamed at him. “Hello, Kenny!”

Kenny took the seat across from her and reached the inside of his shirt pocket. “How’s your father?” he asked as he took out a packet of cigarettes.

Her father was a doctor working in the town’s hospital and Kenny had a little market at the centre of the town, so they more or less knew each other. “He is fine,” she replied, putting her elbows on top of the table. “Trying to get on well with furious patients.”

Kenny laughed, “Everyone is sick for no reason nowadays,” he said placing a cigar in between his lips.

As if she had sensed it, Kuchel turned to Kenny and slapped his hand, causing the tobacco to fall from his mouth. “Don’t smoke in front of the children.”

“Alright, alright,” Kenny grunted. “Geez.”

A great opportunity to fill them in, Hanji thought. “Did you know that smoking causes %90 of all lungs cancer deaths and %80 from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease?”  

“What language are you speaking, kid?” Kenny snorted as he put the cigarette back in its packet.

“She is warning you, scientifically,” Levi placed a tray next to Hanji’s elbows then put two plates of apple tart on top of it. “Not that you would understand. Also, you have no will power to quit it anyway.”

“Hanji, don’t you have anything to say to that brat?” Kenny asked, waving his hat in Levi’s direction lazily. “He is drinking tea like he is sucking his mother’s milk. Don’t you think he is too… small for that?” He travelled his gaze around Levi as if trying to emphasize his point.

Hanji opened her mouth to respond just as Levi said, “At least I am not going to die pathetically from a lung disease because I inhale poisonous smoke.”

“You little scumbag,” Kenny scoffed, and his face crumpled in discontent as he looked at his niece.

It caused a slap from Kuchel to his shoulder this time. “Talk properly to my boy. He is just a kid.”

“A kid! Hah!” He exclaimed then put his hat back on his head. “Right. I don’t like kids anyway.” Then he looked at her. “You are an exception though little Einstein.”

“I’m surprised you know about Einstein,” Levi murmured, and it made Hanji laugh drastically, but she put a hand to her mouth right after. Afraid that she would offend Kenny. Yet he didn’t even spare a glance at her.  

A muscle moved on his jaw. “I am sparing you for the sake of my sister, brat. Don’t push your luck.”

“I am not afraid of you.”

“Oh, you should be—”

“Enough!” Kuchel interrupted, putting two cups one of which contained hot chocolate and the other black tea on the tray. “Leave the kids alone, Kenny,” she warned and looked at them. “You can go to your room, love. Call me if you need anything.”

Hanji nodded and slipped from her seat as Levi took the tray in his hands. They were about to leave the kitchen when they heard Kenny saying, “Leave the door open.”

“Kenny!” Kuchel yelled, while Levi simply rolled his eyes and Hanji merely blinked at him. “They are just children!”

“For fuck’s sake,” he whispered under his breath as they left the kitchen and started climbing the stairs.

“I don’t understand,” Hanji said, confused.

“Never mind,” he sighed.

They sat on the floor, leaning their backs to Levi’s bed and ate their tarts which were as delicious as they smelled. Hanji swayed left and right unconsciously, savouring the taste on her tongue and hummed happily. “Did your mother learn to cook like this in Heaven?”

“No,” Levi replied shortly.

Hanji rolled her eyes sipping her hot chocolate.

It had been almost five or six months since they have met. Ever since that night on the roof of a half-constructed building their friendship started to build up. Throughout the days they met in the same place, Hanji had told Levi about everything she knew about the sky and space. The names of the constellations and stars, the planets and black holes. Levi listened quietly, so quiet that it nearly made Hanji suspicious that he wasn’t interested in or didn’t care about anything she had told him. But then he had started asking questions and even saying the names of the stars and the facts about the planets with her. Talking with him eased her mind and also thrilled her in a way that only her books managed to do. Unfortunately, they didn’t go to the same school, but the nights spent on that roof and days on his or her home had been an almost miracle like an escape for her.

“Your uncle is nice,” Hanji blurted suddenly when the silence stretched far too long for her liking.

“He wasn’t,” Levi replied, unexpectedly, taking a long sip from his tea.

Hanji stared at her, curiosity climbing up to her eyes. “What do you mean?”

He looked beyond his window, watching the pink sunset and its reflection on the cream, tulle curtains. “He used to have a gang.”

“Oh?” She sounded way too excited without even meaning to. “Do you mean… like… an illegal gang?”

“Are there even legal gangs?”

Hanji shrugged. No idea.

“Whatever,” Levi put the teacup back on the tray. “He was actually the leader of the gang and, I heard that he had done some very… dirty things.” He clicked his tongue. “Useless man.”

It was quite rare to see Levi willingly talking about his life, so Hanji held her breath to not make a sound so that he wouldn’t get distracted and stop.

“He had been to jail before I was born. During the same time my dad passed away, I guess. Mom said she had to take him out of jail with the money she had put aside and with some money left from my grandpa.” He played with a stray string poking out of his t-shirt absently. “She said, he had deserved a second chance.” He shrugged. “I don’t know. I am kind of angry at him for being a pain in the ass for my mom but also, you know—I am glad that she wasn’t alone when I was born. And he is not that bad anymore, though still an asshole. But that’s a given. He was born like this; he cannot help it.”

Although his words carried an air of heaviness and severity, Hanji couldn’t help but laugh at his last sentence, the cheerful sound dispersed the gloomy atmosphere. And she was glad that afterwards, his features had relaxed and soften albeit barely, it was there still.

“I like spending time with you,” she said, suddenly.

He was taken aback, eyes widening slightly. “You do?”

“I thought it was obvious,” Hanji replied. “You are my only friend.”

He snorted, amused. “Same.”

She smiled and drank from her hot chocolate which was losing that specific quality gradually.

“I like spending time with you too,” Levi said after a while. It was so quiet and tender that Hanji thought she was daydreaming. Then, when she looked at him surprised, she had seen the slight pinkness on the tips of his ears.

Her smile turned into a toothy grin. “I know,” she said. “It’s very obvious.”

He smirked in return.

-

Levi insisted on walking her home because he didn’t trust her in walking properly in the limited light now that the sky was somehow dark, and the stars started winking and blazing from their respective places above.

“Say hi to your mom for me,” Kuchel said as she was seeing them off.

“Sure,” Hanji waved at her. “Thank you for today, Kuchel!”

“Anytime, darling.”

Walking at night was slightly harder because the area of the town Levi’s house was located didn’t have great lighting. They opted to walk on the side of the road rather than the frozen pavement. Cars were sweeping past them, and it had started to snow again. The wet asphalt reflected the yellow streetlamps lined side by side, and little snowflakes melted the second they met the ground.

The boy walking in front of her reached behind with his hand as they were about to cross the road. And he didn’t say a word. He didn’t need to. Hanji took her glove off from one hand and reached forward, grabbing the steady and warm hand stretched out for her and her mouth curled upwards. And the wet road reflected the blurry image of a raven-haired boy and a green hatted girl, holding hands on a cold, frosty winter night.

---

Hanji’s father was a tall man with a bearded, straight face and brown, slightly balding hair. He wore thick-framed, rectangle glasses. Behind them were a pair of soft-looking, hazel eyes and above them were dark, bushy eyebrows. They were raised, creating wrinkles on his forehead as he looked up from his book when the two of them entered the room.

“Dad,” Hanji gestured to Levi with her hand. “This is Levi.”

Her father looked over the boy, glasses slipping down his nose. It was the first time Levi meeting him, despite the times he had been here within almost a year they had known each other, Levi had never come across with her father.

“Nice to meet you, Mr Zoe,” Levi, the ever-respectful boy that he was, greeted her father in such a nice manner that Hanji was shocked. So, he did manage to be decent at times, ha! One of the things that she most liked about Levi was that there was no end to getting to know him. And just like it was impossible to count the drops on a river, she thought a day couldn't come in which she didn’t learn a new thing about him.

“Levi, huh?” Her father closed the book that he was reading and adjusted his glasses. “The infamous Levi that my daughter keeps nagging about?”

“I don’t nag about him,” Hanji objected, feeling her cheeks getting hotter. She knew introducing Levi to her father was a huge risk.

“That’s me,” Levi confirmed. And Hanji nearly pinched his side.

To both of their surprise, Mr Zoe let out a loud, uproarious laugh. “So, you are not imaginary after all, ha kid!” The man went on laughing, leaving Hanji stunned and annoyed and very much embarrassed.

“Dad!”

Worse thing than her father laughing like he had been watching videos of people tripping down, was that Levi snorting right beside her as if he had no shame.

“I am sure she has imaginary friends as well,” Levi pointed out, his face giving nothing away, except for a vague tremble on his lips.

It made Mr Zoe laugh even harder. He was beating his knee basically at this point.

Hanji glared at his head. You are so going to pay for this.

He responded to her stare from the corner of his eyes. Challenging. Bring it on.

“We’ll be at the attic,” she informed her still laughing father while feeling quite betrayed by her own biological parent. His father was a more  obnoxious  version of her so to say. He had this habit of laughing at things that were not relatively funny to others.

“Sure, sure,” the man replied, wiping the tears from his eyes with his index fingers. “Nice to meet you, Levi.”

Hanji dragged Levi out of the room before he could answer. Then pushed him towards the stairs while also putting her hands on her shoulders. Then positioned herself securely, a mischievous smile placed on her lips and she jumped on his back.

“What the hell, Hanji?” Levi snarled, sounding both astonished and frustrated. They stumbled left and right dangerously at first until he grabbed her legs on instinct to find his balance. Hanji grinned.

“Revenge.”

“Are you fuc—” He gritted his teeth, his hands gripping her legs painfully. “You can’t be serious.”

“Of course I am.” She patted his shoulder and then wrapped her arms around his neck. “Come on, Captain Levi! Carry me up!”

“God-fucking-dammit.” The swear left his mouth in a sharp, but a quiet whisper. Hanji laughed. Levi grunted, scoffed and swore under his breath as he began to climb up the stairs one by one, cautiously and slowly. They were almost half-way done when Hanji remembered something very important.

“Wait!” she exclaimed. “Wait! No-no-no-no-no! Stop, Levi! Stop! Stop!!!”

“What!” he snarled.

“Get back down,” she urged his shoulder. “I need to take something from the kitchen.”

He inhaled heavily like he had swollen a curse so big it would probably ruin her life lets it come out. Then, without uttering a word, he turned around and started to walk down, quietly. Hanji could feel the angry tension radiating from his body as if he were an atom bomb ready to destroy everything at any second. For that, she kept quiet as well. There was no need to provoke him even more. Just until they entered the kitchen. It was a success for her standards anyway.

“To the fridge,” she ordered, and Levi obeyed, still silent. Hanji opened the door of the fridge and searched the shelves knitting her eyebrows in concentration while doing so yet, couldn’t find what she was looking for.

“It’s not here,” she pouted. “Come on. Over there.”

Levi inhaled again through his nose, possibly absorbing yet another curse. Hanji pointed to the kitchen cabinets and Levi walked closer to the counter. She searched the cabinets until she found what she was looking for inside one of them and at the top of the shelves.

“Hold still,” she warned before putting one hand on Levi’s shoulder to lift herself up a little bit. However, she must have put so much pressure that Levi hissed between his teeth. “Almost there,” she informed, as her fingers touched the items at least and she pushed them closer with her fingertips. She bit her lip, and wrinkled her face, a sweat drop slipped down her temple, and just as she pressed a little more on his shoulder and Levi let out a whopping, “Fuck,” she grabbed two packets of chocolate milk, holding them tightly between her fingers and let out a loud, huge sigh of relief.

“Mission completed,” she said, as she wiped the sweat away from her forehead with her sleeve, and her body relaxed. “We may return to the head-quarters.”

“I am going to kill you,” he said, darkly, but carried her out of the kitchen, nonetheless.

“Maybe I’ll let you,” she laughed, boisterously. “Come on now! Up, up, up to the attic!”

It took a little too much effort on Levi’s side and a little too much fun on Hanji’s until they made it safely to the attic. She turned the light on after they climbed inside one by one and gestured the room with her hand.

“Ta-da!”

Levi observed his surroundings, trying to seem like he wasn’t interested but Hanji noticed the sparkle in his eyes when he took everything in. “You have a tent here.”

“Yes!” She jumped a little on her feet. “A book tent!”

It was indeed a book tent. She had piled the old books on top of each other, creating a short wall of two sides. Another line of books was behind them to support, and to avoid an avalanche. A wide and thin, navy sheet was spread from one end to the other. It was also a cave of sorts. Somewhat small, and just a little bit vulnerable. Yet, it had walls made of books and a floor made of a star-map.

Oh, right.

“Let’s get in,” Hanji grabbed his arm and pulled him forwards. “You’ll love it.”

They crawled inside under the sheet. The atmosphere here was dim and darker because the sheet was filtering the light, but it only increased the mystery and made it even more dreamy and so very exciting.

“Is that a star-map?” Levi asked, looking at the dark blue blanket they were sitting on.

“Yep,” she approved, nodding. “My father bought it for me as a birthday present. And I thought it would be cool to use it like this. It feels like I am sitting on top of the stars.”

Levi snorted. “Four-eyes, that’s kind of creepy.” He shook his head, and a ghost of a smile flew above his lips. “You’re a goddamn genius.”

She beamed at him, and her cheeks almost hurt from smiling so wide. She felt like there were fireworks in her eyes, and while she didn’t think it took that much of a brain to spread a blanket on the floor the fact that Levi complimented her caused the fireworks to explode in her stomach and their lustre reached up to her eyes.

“Orion,” he pointed with his finger and traced the lines all the while saying the names of the constellations he knew. “Taurus, Hyades, Auriga, and… what was that Pse- Pso- Poseidon?”

“No,” Hanji giggled. “Pleiades.”

“Right,” he chuckled.

Hanji opened one of the chocolate milk and gave the other to Levi. “Sorry, I forgot to prepare tea for you.”

Levi eyed the milk, sized it up for good before taking it from her hand. “Whatever.”

His grumpy face was hilarious as he put the straw in between his lips and drank the milk almost pouting. He didn’t have much tolerance for sweet things, unlike Hanji. Chocolate milk especially was her religion.

After they finished their chocolate milk Levi played with the straw absent-mindedly until he said, “Hanji?”

“Hmm?”

“Why did your father say that?”

“Say what?”

“That I wasn’t imaginary after all?”

“Oh,” she laughed, nervously. “It’s because I don’t really have any friends. I wasn’t joking when I told you you were my only friend.”

“But we are in middle school now,” he raised a brow. “Even I made some friends in class.”

“That’s great!” she said, but she would be lying if she said she didn’t envy him just a little bit.

“You’re actually outgoing,” he went on. “Why?”

She sighed. They were going to have that conversation then. Levi’s grey eyes watched her seriously, and with caution. He was giving her all his attention, focused on the words that were about to leave her mouth. Hanji thought that was the actual reason why they were so close. Because when no one cared to hear a word from her Levi listened to her telling stories of gods and goddesses, heroes and villains, ancient people and ancient folks, tales of love and tales of hatred. When no one bothered seeing her colours, Levi sat down in front of her and let her paint everything she ever wanted.

“They think I’m a weirdo,” she confessed. It wasn’t that hard though. She wasn’t even getting that offended anymore.

“I think you’re a weirdo too.”

“But you mean it in a good way,” Hanji pointed out. “They don’t.”

At that, his eyes turned as cold as an iceberg. Hanji swirled her index finger right next to her head. “Like I have a screw loose here,” then she tapped her temple. “I too thought that it would change in middle school, but it didn’t. Kids are cruel wherever you go.”

“Assholes,” Levi grunted. “Fuck it, Hanji. You’re obviously too smart for them.”

She laughed. “Yeah, I don’t care. I have you,” she shrugged and ignored the disturbing thought that Levi had other friends now and it was just a matter of time for him to get bored of her and then she would be alone yet again—

“Don’t worry about it,” he told her, and she twirled her head in shock. Had he just read her mind? “I won’t leave you alone.”

Oh, God, oh, no. She was about to tear up. Her nose started to itch again as if she was about to sneeze, and she did sneeze too or pretended to so that she could send the tears back to their places.

“Gross,” Levi said in disgust.

After that, they laid down and Hanji talked and talked. Telling him about pheromones and how some animals used them to trick their preys and a neurological condition called synaesthesia which was basically seeing colours on intangible things. Levi asked some questions and hummed every now and then to indicate that he was listening. Sometimes he made sarcastic comments like, maybe you’re unintentionally releasing trick pheromones, four-eyes, or comments like I think you are a rainbow basically when he couldn’t think of only one colour he thought he would see on her. Hanji told him he was black and blue. And he said how smart of you, I didn’t know the colour of my eyes and hair.

If I am a rainbow then that would make you the sky, genius. She told him and he didn’t say anything back.

She put her head on his stomach and he placed his arms under his head. “Hanji,” he said.

“Yes?” She asked feeling curious about what he had to say.

“You’re a cool weirdo.”

She laughed and smirked up to the navy sheet. The light flowing through the little holes on it made her feel like she was watching a starry night. “You’re not so bad yourself, clean-freak.”

now

She is dead.

Dead. How simple it is for one’s tongue. How easy to say, to summarize and fit a whole life in only one syllable, in mere four letters. Years are hidden within that single word, memories lost behind its dark shadow, loved ones buried under its cold weight.

Kuchel is dead. The woman who is always so full of life, so beautiful to exist in such a cruel world, so good to face its dreary winters and so gentle to deserve the hard slap of fate is gone now. No longer breathing. Just like that. But no scratch that. Not just like that , death never is. The living will never know, and the dead will never be there to tell.

Hanji holds her head with her hands, elbows resting on her knees, she leans forward. What now?

“How is he?” she asks, her heart already aching for she knew the answer beforehand.

“That’s… actually the reason why I called you, kid,” Kenny says. “I can’t reach him. I haven’t seen him since the funeral and couldn’t find him anywhere.”

Panic is quick to boil her blood. “Where might he be? Maybe he left the city?”

“He wouldn’t. Not yet,” he sounds thoughtful. “But I don’t think I can find him. To be honest, I am afraid I would make things even worse.”

“Why?”

“He needs someone who knows him,” he replies. “And there is no one left who knows him better than you. Kid, I know it’s too much to ask, but that brat is the only family I have left. I don’t want to fucking lose him too.”

“But how…”

“Just think about it,” Kenny cuts in, he sounds tired Hanji realizes and she feels her sorrow doubling itself just by hearing his voice. “I’ll understand if you don’t want to come, but just think about it at first. Then let me know your answer.”

Levi. Hanji cannot even imagine the pain he is going through on his own. He had always been so fond of his mother, always so protective and caring even though he was trying to be subtle about it, it was never hard to tell. He must be devastated.

“What am I going to do?” she groans.

“What you need to.”

Hanji shrieks and jumps in her place as she looks at the person who has just talked with wide eyes. “Mr Jeager!”

Zeke adjusts his glasses and throws a leg over the other. Then inhales through his nose. “Such a lovely night, isn’t it?”

“What are you doing here?”

“Waiting for the bus,” he replies simply.

“No, I mean—” she sighs, obviously she had been so preoccupied with her thoughts that she hadn’t noticed him sitting next to her. “Whatever.”

“So,” he continues. “How many days do you want off?”

“Huh?” She blinks her eyes at him. She didn’t remember mentioning him about asking for a day off.

But Zeke doesn’t look at her, instead, he searches the road to see if there are any busses on the way. It spares her a moment to consider his offer and she realizes that once Kenny asked her the question, she had already made her mind.

“About a week please,” she says, without hesitation. “I need to help an old friend.”

[lucy-sky]

Thin Ice (The Mandalorian x Reader)

Oops, my hand slipped and I wrote The Mandalorian fic :’D

Summary: you accidentally fall through the ice on a lake and oh no, there was only one bed Mando has to warm you up.

Warnings: yes, it sounds weird, but NO WARNINGS, all is super innocent, it’s just pure self indulgent fluff and the only reason I wrote it is that I want cuddles, please don’t judge me :’D I mean... every strong independent woman deserves to lie in Din’s arms with her eyes closed and feel his breath on the back of her neck (it’s important!), right?..

Words: 2613; gif by me

Special thanks to @hdlynn​ for the encouragement :**

“Hey, wait! Can you like… Slow down a little?” 

You were always impressed at how The Child managed to move so fast with his tiny legs - apparently all children’s superpower. The little one fell down into a huge pile of snow, but it didn’t upset him, only made him coo with excitement as he continued exploring this new and interesting place.

You didn’t quite share his excitement. It was cold, and as much as you found the snow really beautiful, you didn’t feel comfortable about it. It seemed like your lungs weren’t even used to this chilly, frosty air, so different from the warmth of your home planet.

“Well, y/n… you wanted to see the world, didn’t you?..”

You sighed and kept walking. You were responsible for the kid after all. Although you had to admit - you grew really fond of this little green bean, and you’d care for him even if you weren’t paid for that. You knew on the one hand it was mostly just an excuse - The Mandalorian would probably have managed to take care of The Child without your help, but… You needed a job, and he had a kind heart, that was it.

For ages you’ve been working in a cantina on a distant planet. You’ve never left this place before, but you didn’t complain. What you earned was enough to survive and take care of your old parents. It wasn’t always easy to work in a place full of drunken smugglers but you learnt to protect yourself. Steady customers knew and respected you. Mando was among them. He wasn’t one of the drunken smugglers, but he used to drop into the cantina from time to time. He was one of your favorite customers ever, always nice and respectful, you didn’t know his real name and haven’t seen his face but somehow you just knew you could trust him. You had really good conversations. Unlike most of the people you had to deal with every day, when he asked how the things were going, it felt like he really cared, not just said it for the sake of polite small talk. You knew he would help if you needed it… And one day you really needed his help.

You didn’t work on that night and didn’t know exactly what happened, only the stories from your colleagues… Ex-colleagues now… There was a huge drunken fight that led to a fire accident and an explosion. The cantina was destroyed and for now there was no money to fix it. You needed a new job, but couldn’t find it in a small place you lived. When Mando arrived on your planet again, he only found the ruins on the place of the cantina. But thanks to the stars you managed to meet him. You didn’t know who else to ask, and you didn’t even know what exactly to ask for… Maybe he could take you somewhere… anywhere… To some place where finding the job wouldn’t be that hard. You were smart and handy, could cook and clean, you were a fast learner… Mando had to take a moment to think it all over. He couldn’t just simply live you in such a desperate situation. From all he knew, you weren’t a kind of person who often asks for favors. He suggested sharing his bounty with you, but you didn’t agree to that.

“It’s a generous offer, Mando, but I can’t take it just like that. I’m not used to such gifts. I only get paid for the work I do.”

Mando was silent for a while. As you couldn’t see his face, you could only guess what he was thinking about.

“How about working for me than?” He finally said.

And this is how you got here, on this cold snowy planet, looking for the little green kid.

You agreed it was just a temporary job. You’d send a part of your salary to your parents and save the rest; once you collect enough money to start something on your own - you’d go back to your place. Not that Mando had something against you, absolutely not. He just didn’t want you to risk your life travelling with him.

“A bounty hunter’s job isn’t really the best one for a young woman like you,” he told you. “I know you’re brave, smart and can stand up for yourself, but… It’s not always enough.” You weren’t offended by these words as you knew exactly what he meant by them. You’ve never been helpless or timid, but still you used to lead a quiet and peaceful life that was far from a bounty hunters’ lifestyle. So you promised him not to take risks on purpose and just be his helper.

Your main responsibility was, of course, The Child. One of the reasons Mando decided on giving you this job was that you immediately liked each other. The Child was often suspicious of the people he didn’t know, but not with you - you gained his trust with surprising ease.

So far, you actually really enjoyed what you were doing and your new company. For sure you were curious about what Mando was up to when he was away. Maybe you were missing some great adventures? But you kept reminding yourself you weren’t here for this. You were here to help him out, not to be a burden or someone he had to worry about. You already owed him big time. 

Yes, so far everything was fine...

...Sometimes though, you felt some strange vibes between you and him. Sometimes the silence between the two of you was becoming awkward. Sometimes you felt the urge to touch him, maybe like… Lay your head on his shoulder as you were sitting beside him… Show your affection somehow. Sometimes you thought this desire was mutual. As the days passed, you inevitably were becoming closer, and you wished you could just see his eyes, his expression when he spoke to you. You tried to chase away these thoughts because Mando clearly wasn’t looking for romance. Neither did you, initially… But sometimes you just couldn’t help it. 

Anyway, right now Mando was away, and the kid for some reason was desperate to go for an evening walk, so you followed him wrapping yourself up in a parka. The cold wind and frosty air didn’t bring you much joy at all. The Child didn’t seem to care, all he wanted to do was exploring.

“Hey, kiddo! I said wait for me!”

Suddenly you felt something cracking underneath your foot. A gasp escaped your lips as you realized you were standing on ice that covered a surface of some lake or pond. And the ice didn’t seem thick enough to actually walk on it…

“Sweetheart…” you breathed out. The Child sensed the anxious notes in your voice and turned to you, tilting his head in confusion.

“Okay… now come here… carefully…” The kid obeyed and you felt relieved as you extended your hands to grab him. When you shifted a little, moving towards him, the thin ice cracked again, and…

Everything happened way too fast: you grabbed the little one and made a step back, when the icy surface broke underneath you. Instinctively, you pushed The Child away and he fell in a snow pile on the lake shore. You tried to grip onto something, but there was nothing except the cracking ice, and the lake was suddenly deep. One second and you got under water almost completely, you came to the surface flouncing and gasping for air, trying hard to get out, but the ice just kept breaking under your hands.

The Child looked scared, he was about to rush to you, but you stopped him.

“NO! STAY AWAY FROM THE ICE!!!”

The last thing you needed right now was the kid getting into the water with you. You needed to hold onto something, but you couldn’t find a thing. Panic started to overwhelm you. Suddenly The Child stretched his little hand out in your direction. For a second nothing happened, and then you felt like something was holding you, tugging you out of the water. Apparently the little one possessed some kind of a superpower… Maybe it was The Force, which you heard about from some visitors of your cantina?.. You weren’t sure he’d manage to lift you up from the water completely but he definitely was helping.

“Y/n!”

That’s when you heard the sound of a familiar voice.

“Mando! Careful!”

For a moment you got scared he might step on the ice as well, but he stopped right at the brim. 

“Y/n, give me your hand! Come on!”

Clenching your teeth with a desperate grunt you jerked up from the water and managed to grab his hand. His grip was firm and tight as he pulled you out of the water into his arms.

“M-mando, I… Th-thank you…” you practically sobbed into his chest, your body trembling violently as he held you.

“I’m here, y/n, I’m here. All is fine now,” his voice sounded so soothing through the modulator, but as the adrenaline rush was fading, you realized how cold you were. Freezing, terribly cold. You’ve never been that cold in your entire life.

“Come on, let’s get you inside.”

──────── • ✤ • ────────

Thankfully, you hadn’t gone too far from the ship. The Child passed out in Mando’s arms on the way, and he had to put the little one in his crib before getting back to you.

“You need to take this off.”

Chattering your teeth with cold you fumbled with the zipper with no success - you could hardly feel your fingers, and you were still shaking. But The Mandalorian was here for you. He quickly unzipped and tugged off your wet and heavy parka; your sweater, undershirt, pants and boots followed.

“There you go,” he murmured, undressing you. It felt weird being around him exposed like that only wearing your damp underwear, but it certainly wasn’t the time to get shy. Your nakedness soon was covered with a warm blanket, as he wrapped it around your frame, rubbing your shoulders to warm you up. He took off his gloves and grabbed your hands in his, gently chafing your skin until you finally managed to move your fingers.

The realization hit you all of a sudden - it was the first time ever you touched Mando’s bare skin. You’ve been travelling with him for a while already, so you happened to see him without armor. The only thing he was always wearing in your presence was the helmet; other parts of the armor weren’t that important, as far as you knew. But you’ve never had a skin to skin contact of any kind… Until now. And that’s why this simple, innocent gesture felt suddenly intimate. Mando probably realized that too as he slightly drew away from you.

“I’ll… Get you something warm to drink.” 

──────── • ✤ • ────────

Still wrapped in the blanket you curled up on your cot. It was slowly getting better. When Mando came back in a couple of minutes with some herbal tea from your thermos, you even managed to get into a sitting position. Your hands were still shaky though, so he had to bring the drink to your lips.

“Better?” he asked as you made a couple of sips.

“Yeah,” you nodded, curling underneath the blanket again. “I-I’ll be fine, really. There’s no need to worry.”

He tilted his head to the side, observing you. Somehow you could feel concern even without seeing his expression.

“You’re still trembling,” he stated, before stepping out of your sight. He didn’t leave the room though. You heard the metal clatter of beskar - he was taking the armor off, you guessed, and the memory of his big hand on yours flashed in your brain.

"M-Mando, you don't have to..."

"It's okay," The Mandalorian said quietly, as he reached the blanket. You shifted a little, allowing him to lie beside you, spooning you from behind. Wrapping his arms around you carefully, he pulled you a bit closer against his chest, and you flinched, wincing as you felt the cold steel of his helmet against the back of your neck. It seemed like the beskar has taken in the frost from outside - it was almost as cold as ice. Mando realized that too. You could hear him sighing through the modulator.

"Y/n..."

"Yes?.."

"I'm gonna take it off, but you must promise me not to open your eyes and not to turn your head in my direction. Will you do that?"

"I will," you breathed out. "I… know how it's important for you. You know you can trust me, Mando."

"I do.”

You wanted to tell him how grateful you were and how you actually cherished his trust and your… Friendship? Relationship? Whatever kind of bond you shared, but you couldn’t even put it into words. His closeness made you suddenly emotional, especially when you felt warm breath instead of cold metal against your skin. Your eyes were shut tightly and at that moment you were afraid not only to move but to breathe. Somehow you were scared to ruin the fragile intimacy of this moment as Mando enclosed you in his arms again.

“Try to relax, okay?”

His voice sounded foreign without the modulator; familiar, but still different, bare and exposed. You weren’t sure if it’s possible to use such words to describe a voice, but that’s how you felt. You loved the sound of it. Letting out a deep trembling sigh, you relaxed against his frame, finally feeling the warmth of his body through the fabric of his undershirt. All stress caused by the lake accident was slowly ebbing away in the comfort of his embrace, but there was something else that kept bothering you.

“Mando…” you whispered quietly, “I’m sorry…”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“I failed you. My job is to look after The Child, and I failed and got in trouble. I… should’ve been more careful, I know…”

“Hey,” he cut you off, “Things like that happen sometimes, y/n. No one can be perfect. Even if you try hard, sometimes… Sometimes you just lose your footing on the thin ice.”

You heard him chuckling softly at his own metaphor; warm breath tickled the back of your neck.

“I was supposed to help, but only caused more problems instead,” you murmured bitterly.

“Y/n, stop that. You’re helping. A lot. And I…” he paused for a second as if pondering the words, “I’m really glad to have you around.”

This simple confession made your heart skip a beat. There still was a lot you wanted to tell him, to let him know, but you were lost for words. Although... maybe you didn’t have to say it, because he already knew.

“Thank you,” you just mumbled, “For everything, really.”

He didn’t answer, probably being lost for words as well. But you felt him nuzzling into your hair for a moment, a soft gesture full of unspoken tenderness, and it was enough.

“Sleep now,” he hushed, shifting behind you to find more comfortable position. You hummed in reply, already feeling drowsy as the warmth spread over you, calm and safe, cradled against The Mandalorian’s firm chest.

You wished this night to last longer, because you knew you wouldn’t find him beside you as you wake up. You’d find him already wide awake and fully dressed, with the helmet back on, ready for another adventure. But for now he was right here, closer than ever. Real, warm, human. And maybe it meant nothing at all. But it might as well be the beginning of something.

──────── • ✤ • ──────── 

Thanks for reading!

Hugs, Lucy

[tagsecretsanta]

From @willow-salix

to @fallenfurther

Secret Santa does not own this work, full credit to the author above!

Grandma Tracy might portray herself as a hip, cool, down with the kids granny to anyone that would listen but even she had to admit that she was a traditionalist at heart. Not in the way that many might expect, not in the boring way of not moving with the times when needed, she could work the holoprojector almost as well as John when it came to coordinating a rescue, she just subscribed to the ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ school of thought.

She knew that old fashioned things still had a place in the world, they still had a use, even when people thought they were antiquated and fit for nothing but a museum or a rubbish pile. She’d proven that to Virgil when they had been stuck in London with no technology whatsoever and since then Virgil had had more of an appreciation for the older things in life.

Traditions were important in her eyes, although rarely were they the common ones that everyone in the world did. Mostly because Sally Tracy did not follow the pack, she never had. She refused to do what everyone else did, to her traditions began at home. They should invoke memories of a time long ago and remind you of the things that were important. Family traditions, now they were the way to go.

She could vividly remember her mother singing along to the radio as they decorated the Christmas tree. They would drink hot chocolate and have a lovely time as they decorated, dressing up in the tinsel and talking, catching up on the things they might not have had time to talk about before. Always on the 1st of December, always with Christmas songs playing and always as a family. And Sally had made sure that she'd done exactly the same with her boys.

Now it was Christmas Eve, the gifts had been purchased and wrapped, the tree had been decorated and the family had just about escaped with their sanity after a month of non stop christmas songs on the stereo courtesy of Grandma. Jeff had been the only one brave enough to suggest that maybe they listen to something else but he had quickly backed down when she had speared him with a glare that could have stripped the paint off Thunderbird Two’s hull if she had been close enough to it.

It’s tradition, she said, one of the only ones she could count on since moving to Tracy Island. Beautiful as the island was, it was far too tropical to feel in any way christmassy and the only way she could get in the mood (or so she claimed) was by listening to festive music.

She missed feeling the days grow colder as summer lost its grip on the world and the crisp, chilly days of fall took over. Once fall was firmly there and you couldn’t leave the house without a sweater it was only a matter of time before the smell of burning leaves and woodsmoke filled the air and winter came nipping at its heels. The cold of winter, the first flurries of snow, brought with it the sound of carols, bells and the smell of baking gingerbread. She loved being wrapped up in warm clothes and feeling the icy blast of wind that stole her breath and she missed it when temperatures on the island rarely changed at all.

Rescues often made regular meals and time off difficult, they often interrupted family time and special occasions. The Tracys were used to it, but it did make getting into any kind of routine difficult and often meant that such things as birthdays and christmas felt unimportant. But not to Grandma, to her it was of vital importance and no one had better argue with her. Jeff, wise man that he was, had given up and retreated to his office, his almost soundproof door and peace.

Gordon was in London spending the day with Penelope for her birthday before they returned to the island that evening for Christmas. John was in Five as usual, finishing up preparations for a few well deserved days off (although he would probably be regretting his decision by dinner time Christmas Day), Kayo was visiting Kyrano for Christmas Eve and would return in the morning and Brains was wishing he had never walked into the lounge.

“Snow is falling, all around me, children playing, having fun,” Grandma sang, joining in with the video playing out on the holoprojector as she attempted to crochet a scarf figuring it was as traditional a pass time as any to indulge in, maybe it would be ready by next Christmas if she was lucky. “Come on, Brains, you know the words, join in.”

“B-but it’s not accurate for our climate,” he argued, never having been one to enjoy a sing-along like some members of the family. “There is never snow on T-T-Tracy Island.”

“That’s not the point, Brains,” she sighed, trying to untangle the yarn that insisted on knotting on her lap rather than in the carefully ordered way it should.

“It’s not?”

“No!” She tossed the scarf, all four wonky rows of it, onto the table, giving up for now before she was tempted to lob it up Thunderbird Two's tail pipe.

“I d-don’t understand,” Brains admitted, something that was very hard for him to do. He was used to being one of the smartest people in the room, if not the smartest, and now, here he was, not understanding a simple thing like this. Maybe he’d been working too hard?

“It’s not about the song, it’s about the meaning behind it,” Grandma explained patiently for what felt like the millionth time that December. “It’s traditional.”

“A song is traditional?”

“Well, yes, but not just the song, it’s the image it portrays. Christmas in my day meant snow, cold weather clothes, wrapping up warm, skating on a frozen lake, then coming inside to drink hot chocolate around a crackling fire and listening to carols on the radio with my mother as we waited for my father to get home. We knew that once he was home the holidays could really start. He worked hard and had very little time off in a year, only every other sunday, two days for Easter and Christmas Day.”

“Kinda like us then,” Alan muttered from his spot on the couch where he had been relaxing before breakfast, playing a handheld game.

“Yes, and because we have none of the weather here or the time off, not that I would want to be anywhere else, but the only thing that really makes it feel like Christmas is the songs. So we’re going to keep the music and you’re all going to like it.”

A new song came on and Grandma sighed happily as Alan groaned as if in pain.

“I love this song, it was one of my favourites,” she stared dreamily at the screen. “Oh, it’s Christmas time, mistletoe and wine. Children singing Christian rhyme. Isn’t he handsome? I wouldn’t kick him out for eating cookies.”

“Grandma!” Alan gasped, shocked to the core, his tone showing his disgust.

“What? Just because I’m old doesn’t mean I can’t look and do a little window shopping. I’ve got all his albums, including his live concerts, it’s just not Christmas without seeing him on the TV. Here, I’ll show you. Just listen to him some more and I’m sure you’ll learn to love him.”

“Do I have to?”

“Yes, it’s Christmas.”

“That’s your answer to everything,” Alan grumbled but he put down his game and prepared to do his duty as a grandson.

“I’ll start you off easy with Little Town,” Grandma told him, pressing play.

                                                              ***

“This comes to pass, when a child is born. When a child is born… oh, oh, o-” Grandma sang along to the fifth song of her playlist when, to Alan’s intense relief, John’s hologram popped up, replacing the music video that had been playing.

“International Rescue, we have a situation,” he started, then paused looking around the room, frowning when he saw only Grandma, Brains and Alan in attendance.

“A situation? Yes! I’ll get Scott and Virg,” Alan cheered, jumping up.

"That's not the reaction I usually get," John observed, wondering what could have brought about that sort of excitement so early in the morning from the brother who liked his sleep the most.

“Never mind that. What have you got?” Grandma asked, all business now, her Christmas spirit in song form now forgotten.

“Guests trapped in an ice hotel in Sweden.”

“Scott! Virgil! It’s safe to come up, the music’s off and John needs us to go to Sweden,” Alan yelled as he clattered down the stairs to the kitchen where the older two were no doubt hiding.

“A what now?” Grandma asked, ignoring Alan.

“An ice hotel,” John repeated. “The hotel was first built in 1990 in the small village of Jukkasjarvi, Sweden, now they rebuild it every year and add to it with a different architect for each room. I’m sure it looks very beautiful when you can actually see it and a freak snow storm hasn't covered the entrance then frozen.”  He pulled up a feed to show what must have been the hotel but all that was visible was two large piles of snow.

“What are we looking at, John?” Scott demanded to know, jogging up the stairs with Virgil hot on his heels, Alan bringing up the rear.

John brought up a picture of the ice hotel in its normal glory.

“This is the Winter Heart Hotel in Sweden,” he began. The picture showed a beautiful backdrop of a frosty night with the northern lights visible dancing in the sky behind two pure white domes of snow which were obviously the hotel. They looked like elaborate igloos, connected by covered tunnels and slopes that had formed on the sides with big, wooden looking doors on the front of the domes. The snow sparkled in the moonlight and even though it was clearly freezing cold the whole place looked very welcoming. Little cabins were scattered here and there around the hotel itself, giving the whole scene a picture postcard feel.

“Looks great,” Virgil commented.

“That was it three months ago,” John answered before flicking aside the picture to replace it with the previous image. “This is it as of four hours ago.”

“Woah,” Scott breathed, his eyes tracking over the large mounds of snow that covered the domes so effectively they looked to be nothing but snowy hills. “What happened?”

“Freak snow storm blew in from the arctic circle and dumped around seven feet of snow on the hotel overnight. By the time morning came the fresh snow had frozen solid, trapping a number of high profile guests inside.”

“High profile?”

“The Winter Wonder charity concert happens there every year, people from all over the world pay big money to stay there and not just for the music,” John answered. "It's reported to be an amazing experience but not for the faint hearted. They keep the inside at a constant -5 degrees centigrade, although they do have warm rooms of the hotel such as bathrooms and some bedrooms. They should be fine in there for now, but we obviously need to get them out. The hotel itself has been trying to dig their way through for the past hour. They had a snow plow of their own but it broke a week or so ago and as no snow was forecast they hadn't rushed to replace it.”

“Any casualties?” Virgil asked, already walking across the lounge to his launch chute.

“None reported, apparently they have placated the guests with numerous free drinks and dinner, but unfortunately they are now reported to be getting a little rowdy.”

“Rowdy? Well it won’t do to keep them waiting much longer, will it?  I guess we had better hit the skies,” Scott grinned, crossing over to stand in front of the wall where his launch chute was hidden, reaching up to grasp the light fittings that triggered the revolving door. “See you out there!”

“Alan, you're with me,” Virgil called, much to Alan’s delight. He dropped down in one of the bucket seats that would take him or a passenger to Thunderbird Three so he could suit up, grinning like a mad man, happy to be off the island for a few hours.

“I’ll send the coordinates and brief you when you’re airborne,” John told them as they all vanished, his hologram blinking out a moment later.

“Well,” Grandma sighed, turning back to the holoprojector. “Now that they have gone I guess it’s just you and me, Brains.” With a quick flick of her wrist she had turned the music video on, the sound drowning out Brains’ pitiful groan.

                                                    ***

“Bulldozer Pod is go!”

“Alan, be careful with it!” John warned, his voice echoing around the pod cabin, as the bulldozer shot forward at a much faster speed than was sensible. His hologram popped back into existence to give their littlest brother one of his patented death stares when Alan dared to roll his eyes at him.

“I think I know what I’m doing, it’s just a little snow.”

“No, it’s not just a little snow, if you go too deep or too far you’ll risk taking out one of the walls of the hotel itself. It’ll register as snow, exactly as the rest of it does. Here,” John paused to send through the holographic map overlay he had just finished creating. The overlay settled on top of the map already in front of Alan from the pods scans, then sank down over the snowy mounds, now showing the outline of the buildings.

“Avoid the ice walls, I got it,” Alan assured him.

“Just make sure you pay full attention,” John ordered.

“I’ll be fine, go bug Scott, he’s the one you can’t trust.”

“Unfortunately there isn't just one, I can’t trust any of you,” John sighed and, against his better judgement, left Alan to his own devices.

Alan trundled forward a little slower than before, heeding the warning. He might be excitable but he wasn’t stupid and now that he had a better idea of what he was looking at and supposed to do he could see that he would have to be a little more careful.

As John had said, scans from their equipment were registering nothing but ice and snow, there was no clear definition between what was fresh snow and what had been there before and was part of the building. He could detect life signs deep inside the snow piles, as expected, but they seemed calm enough, their heart rates slow and easy, showing them to be totally relaxed.

He moved the pod closer to the huge wall of snow and maneuvered it into place, his plan being to work in a square, side to side, front to back, moving in closer and closer until the majority of the snow had been removed, allowing Virgil and Scott access to come in with a modified Sherpa Pod. The idea being to use the heat bank element to create what amounted to a high powered hair dryer to defrost the ice that had the guests trapped.

With his first run he plowed a wide path in front of the hotel a good twelve meters away. He checked the map overlay, calculating that he could manage two more full sweeps, working back and forth before he’d be risking getting too close and would have to hand over to his brothers.

Scott and Virgil were configuring the modifications to the Sherpa Pod when John called in to give them an update.

“Alan has removed the snow down to quarter of a meter from the doors, now it’s down to you guys.”

“FAB Thunderbird Five,” Scott answered, swinging up into the passenger seat of the pod. He’d finally grown out of his desire to drive every single vehicle he got into and had learnt that Virgil was, in general, a much more capable pod pilot than he was, although he’d never admit that out loud.

Virgil gave him that look that said he knew exactly what he was doing but, being the more peace loving Tracy, he declined to comment. Instead he climbed effortlessly into the driver's seat and settled in. He carefully guided the vehicle down the module ramp and out onto the snow, ignoring Scott’s impatient huff in response to his sedate pace.

“Slow and steady,” he quoted, knowing that snow was tricky terrain to navigate at the best of times and this wasn’t the time or the place in which to push their luck.

“The danger here is with the hotel itself,” John told them as Virgil made his way across the snow.

“How so?” Scott asked. “I thought the reports said that the hotel was stable.”

“It’s made of the very thing we’re going to be melting,” Virgil answered, checking his instrument readouts as he navigated up and over the snow into the ditch that Alan had excavated.

“Oh, yeah, good point,” Scott conceded. “So what’s the plan?”

“The snow fall isn’t the real problem here, the hotel can take the weight of it easily having been subjected to weight tests to ensure it could retain its structural integrity for these exact reasons,"John answered. "In this case all we need to do is concentrate on freeing the doors, the rest, as long as they take precautions, should be fine to leave in situ.”

“Got it, just the doors,” Scott confirmed.

“You’re going to have to go steady,” John warned. “There’s not a lot of clearance there, Alan has done his best but it’s going to be a delicate operation.”

“Steady is my middle name,” Virgil assured him. “I’ve got it under control. You just concentrate on keeping the hotel employees in the loop.”

“FAB,” John answered, blinking out as quickly as he had come.

Heat bank raised, Virgil worked the controls expertly, taking his time to melt away the snow that was left, being careful to keep it moving and only work on the front of the hotel where the doors should be, following the same map overlay that John had provided for Alan.

Alan, they saw, had done a thorough job, moving the snow far out of the way and was now using the loader and the pod’s caterpillar tracks to tramp down and spread out the snow he’d plowed, eliminating the possibility of the new snow piles posing a danger to anyone.

After only a few minutes of careful work the doors to the main entrance of the hotel began to appear through the snow as it melted away, sliding down the wood. Virgil checked the map one more time, realising that there was little more he could do without risking the ice of the hotel itself.

“I’m gonna have to get my exo-suit and do the rest by hand,” he decided, sounding like he was talking to himself, almost like he had forgotten that Scott was even there. Scott declined to comment, busy watching Alan work, pleased to see that, although the youngest Tracy sometimes had the same kind of offbeat humour as Gordon, he was as competent and sure as ever in his work.

Virgil turned the pod back to the module, not wanting to walk the entire way and, leaving Scott to reconfigure the pod to something a little more manageable for travelling across snow, he got himself into the mechanical suit.

Twenty minutes later a stream of grateful employees and guests came pouring out of the freed doors, all talking at once, jabbering away in excitement at seeing the mighty Thunderbird vehicles up close.

“Please, please come inside,” one waiter gushed, grabbing Scott by the arm and hauling him into the hotel. Virgil glanced at Alan who shrugged, it wasn’t like they couldn't be spared for a little longer. "My name is Felix, please, anything I can do, just tell me."

"It's OK, Felix," Scott started. "We don't need you to do anything…" he trailed off as they stepped inside, their attention instantly taken by their first look at the hotel.

“Woah,” they all breathed in unison, their eyes feasting on the beauty in front of them. They were surrounded on all sides by sparkling, crystal like slabs of ice that formed a lobby area that immediately opened up into an ice bar, a warmly wrapped up waiter behind the bar ready to take their orders. Several guests sat on fur covered ice chairs, sipping from thick glasses that looked to be crystal but were obviously made of ice too.

“This is just...wow,” Virgil’s eyes darted here and there, trying to take in everything at once. He slipped his arms out of the exo-suit and allowed the mechanical limbs to fold down alongside the suit against his back. Reaching out a hand he stroked the delicately carved face of an ice maiden, one of the many sculptures that were dotted here and there. “Can I have a look around?”

“Of course,” the waiter, Felix, who had invited them in nodded eagerly, clearly happy to be of service. “Come, I give you a tour.”

Virgil knew that he must have looked a sight, stomping down the icy walkway with his suit on so, with Scott’s help, he shed it and left his brothers to guard it while he followed the man who had already darted ahead.

Now that he was free of the cumbersome machinery he was able to navigate the icy corridors and smaller walkways with ease. He descended a staircase, again completely made of ice, something he found hard to get his head around as it all looked like crystal, and stepped into a high ceilinged room that sported the most magnificent chandelier he had ever seen.

The ice shards hung down in elegant lines that culminated in three perfectly formed circles. The artist in him was in awe of the work that had gone into creating something that was not only visually stunning but practical at the same time.

Walking through the rooms he saw more exquisite sculptures, fur draped beds in bedrooms that each had a different theme such as under the sea with giant ice jellyfish hanging from the ceiling, clowns, dancers, and solar systems. On the way to the beautiful chapel with its ice shard altar and fur covered pews, he saw a magnificent unicorn that dominated a large part of a hallway. Here and there he saw leaves, animals, birds, faces and flowers, all carved from the ice and snow that made up the hotel. It was, simply put, stunning.

He returned to find Scott and Alan, who had taken up residence in one of the warm rooms with cups of hot chocolate, surrounded by guests. Many of them seemed a little worse for wear after their extended stays in the bar areas where the drinks had been flowing freely in an effort to keep them unaware as to the predicament they had been in.

It seemed that the guests were also fans, their voices carrying that slightly raised, mildly slurred tone that drunk people got, as they peppered the boys with questions.

“We really can’t reveal any of our secrets,” Scott told them, sounding as if he were repeating himself for maybe the twentieth time.

“You eat?” someone popped up behind them and offered a delicious looking burger on a plate.

“Oh, don’t mind if I do,” Scott grinned, reaching to take it. “Thank you.”

Alan and Virgil happily accepted their own plates, diving in to take large bites, eager for some food that hadn’t been cremated by Grandma. Decent food was hit or miss on the island, but everything dished up was met with a general sense of trepidation until the first bite determined its edibility.

“Damn, this is good,” Alan mumbled, his mouth full.

“I’ll say it is,” Virgil agreed, his cheeks resembling hamster pouches as he answered with his mouth full.

"I am glad you like,” Felix smiled, looking rather proud of himself. “They are our speciality, made from our own reindeer.”

Alan choked, his eyes growing wide as he stopped chewing and stared at the burger. Reaching for a napkin he, as politely as possible, spat out the food in his mouth.

Virgil looked a little horrified while Scott just shrugged and kept right on eating. Scott counted himself as a foodie, he would try anything once, or even twice if he was undecided the first time. He had eaten in top restaurants around the world, in little cafes, from carts on the side of the road, anywhere and everywhere that there was food, there was Scott, willing and ready to try it.

“What?” he asked when Alan stared at him in disgust. “It’s a burger, plus it’s good.”

Virgil was obviously fighting some internal war between his stomach and his brain. On the one hand he was hungry and Scott was right, the burger was damn good, but on the other his brain was insisting on conjuring up visions of Santa and his sleigh. In the end his stomach won and he took another bite.

“Virgil!” Alan gasped, making Virgil wince guiltily.

“There’s nothing wrong with the burger, Al. They were good enough to feed us, it would be rude not to.”

Alan, clearly torn between his desire to not be seen as impolite and his desire to not eat Rudolph, was spared from making a decision by a sudden burst of music coming from deeper in the hotel. All three Tracy brothers groaned in unison.

“Is there a problem?” Felix asked, concern etched on his face. Had he given them a bad burger? Food poisoning? Insulted their ancestors? “Anything I can do to thank you, please do say.”

“No,” Virgil assured him. “We just recognised the music, that’s all.”

“Ah,” Felix smiled, clearly relieved. “That is the band beginning a last minute rehearsal and sound check before the concert.”

“Concert?”

Felix pointed to a holographic poster on the wall.

Alan’s eyes widened in recognition and he leant over to whisper to Scott. Scott listened, his eyes widening too as he realised what his little brother meant.

Clearing his throat he made his request. “Maybe there is something you can do for us, if you wouldn’t mind.”

“Of course! Anything!” Felix gushed, pleased that the high profile Tracy brothers weren’t mad at him.

“Can you get us their autographs?”

Felix grinned, looking even more proud of himself than he had before.

“I can do better than that.”

                                 ***

Grandma hadn’t known what to think when Virgil had called home and told her that Scott was on his way back to collect her, telling her only to wear as many warm clothes as she could, but she had done as she was told.

Digging deep into the back of her wardrobe where she kept the clothes that had languished there for more years than she cared to remember, she had dragged out a thick winter coat and a warm top to wear under her customary onesie, along with wooly socks, gloves, scarf and hat.

She was waiting impatiently in the launch bay before Scott had even made it home and was soon comfortably installed in a passenger seat as her eldest grandson whisked her away into the unknown.

Virgil and Alan were there to greet them as they landed, a pair of ice skates in hand and identically proud grins on their faces.

They had spent a pleasant hour or so sliding around on the custom built ice rink. The ice, as with the hotel, had been imported from the nearby Torne River. Grandma was pleased to find that, although slightly rusty at first, she was able to take to the ice with a reasonable degree of competency, much better than that of her grandsons.

Scott was all long limbs and over enthusiasm, trying to go fast straight off the bat and failing spectacularly until he slowed down and figured out how to walk before he ran. Virgil was a little better, adopting the tactic of trying to place his feet carefully, as he would while walking, getting his footing before doing a slow first lap around the outer edge of the rink, gaining confidence the longer he was on there.

Alan it seemed, much to their surprise, had inherited her grace on the ice and took to it easily, executing an almost perfect first lap before streaking off across the ice like a bullet.

Skating gave way to an impromptu snowball fight started by Scott aiming at Alan and finished by Grandma who pelted the troublemakers with snow while Virgil held them in place.

“How about we head inside and grab a warm drink before heading home?” Virgil suggested, shaking the snow off his shoulders, thankful that their uniforms protected them from such a wide range of weather conditions.

“That would be wonderful,” Grandma sighed happily as they walked towards the hotel.

“I want to thank you boys for such a lovely surprise. Much as I love our home it’s been nice to feel snow again and experience an old fashioned Christmas eve again after so long of endless summer.”

“You deserve it,” Scott assured her, draping an arm around her shoulders.

“Yeah, it was our pleasure,” Alan agreed, holding the still freely swinging door open for her.

Grandma experienced much the same wonder as they had as she enjoyed a tour of the hotel at the hands of the ever accommodating Felix, who had been more than happy to be her guide, showing her all the hotel had to offer.

It was beautiful, a true once in a lifetime winter wonderland of crystalline ice and exquisite sculpture that reminded her of the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, her favourite book as a child, when the White Witch had frozen all of Narnia in an endless winter.

Felix was happy to let her wander at her own pace, never trying to hurry her as she explored, her eyes taking in all there was to see. But, eventually, she grew tired and needed to rest, not being as young as her mind would have her believe. She was more than happy to be delivered back to her waiting grandsons with the promise of a hot chocolate in one of the warm rooms.

The function room was beautiful in its simplicity, decorated in a cozy cabin style with insulated fireplaces here and there which gave off no heat but looked perfect in the wood panelled room. There were comfy couches and wooden tables with rings of chairs dotted here and there, all arranged in a semi circle that faced towards the raised platform that was acting as a stage if the instruments there were any indication.

The room was still empty apart from five men sitting around a table, enjoying a quiet drink before the show started. They looked up expectantly when the door opened and the three Tracy boys led their special guest into the room.

Grandma had never been one to be lost for words before but there was a first time for everything and this appeared to be that time. She froze in the doorway, requiring a gentle nudge from Virgil to get her moving again. Her eyes were firmly fixed on one man as he put down his drink and moved towards them, a bright smile of welcome on his face.

“Hi there,” he started, holding out his hand, “I’m Cli-”

“Cliff Richard Jr!” Grandma shrieked, coming out of her starstruck daze to grab his hand between both of hers, yanking it closer, reeling him in for a smothering hug.

“Woah, easy there, Grandma!” Scott laughed as the singer’s arms flailed in shock. “Let the man breathe.”

Alan gently untangled Grandma’s arms from around Cliff, allowing him to back up and regain his freedom.

“So,” Cliff wheezed, straightening his tie and clearing his throat, regaining his composure before he bestowed upon her another dazzling smile. “Am I right in assuming you’ll be staying for the show?”

“You bet your ass I am.”

“Grandma!” all three boys yelped in shock but, thankfully, Cliff just laughed.

The music might not be to their tastes, in fact for Alan it was akin to torture, but seeing the look of joy on their Grandmother's face made it all worth it.

And wasn't that the true spirit of the season? Taking the time to think about others before you thought of yourself, spreading joy and happiness whenever you could.

Grandma was the heart of International Rescue, the heart of the house and the loving center of their family. She had always gone out of her way to look after them, now it was their turn to give something back to her. Something that she would never, ever forget.

[punkandsnacks]

Between Wolves & Doves, Chapter One; Lifeblood.

Author: @punk-in-docs​ and @adamsnackdriver​

Also on AO3

Trigger warnings; This is a slow burn story. NSFW comes later, but there is gory descriptive violence in this later on- I’ll tag the chapters with warnings-

Synopsis: Vampire!Kylo x OC love story. Inspired by BBC’s Dracula. Also inspired by Austen’s Pride & Prejudice.

He’s been stalking this earth long since civilisations can possibly fathom. Before records even began. He sneers at the fact that this pitiful young world has only just begun to see his reign of it. 

He’s dined with moguls, emperors, princes. He’s consorted with bloodthirsty ruthless Queens in their courts, and whispered into the ears of powerful King’s, whose names still echo through millennia. 

In his myriad of centuries gifted to his immortal self he’s been many many things. He’s been a lowly pauper. A crusading knight. An assassin. A sell sword. A soldier. A wanderer. A simpering suitor and a voracious unyielding lover. Aimlessly lost in time- besieging this earth. Ripping it apart and drinking what’s left.

He was made in the hinterland between snow and dirt and pine trees. Crusted with ash and blood and gouged from battle. Born anew. Sired from the hell-mouth of war. He was made in 789 AD.He’ll come undone, one bitter winter night, in England, in 1816.

   ~  ~  🥀 ~  ~  

 Hampshire, England. 1816.

Winters here were always of the bitterest kind.

Everything hardened by frost. All of nature slaughtered and gnarled and made ugly by it. Everything deadened and driven away until yellow spring sunshine butters it all up. The ground wintry solid and as unyielding as the bite of stinging chill in the air.

Every loud footstep from under her cracked boots crackled and crushed with ice-crusted mud. Her treads echo off about her in the oppressive silence of the air.

Iris Ashton walked along the lonely pale road. The path ahead scattered with linen-white snow, thick like cloth, settling down in ghostly sprinkles - like fluttering ash.

Snow comes from a sky as thick and as soft as a eiderdown. Graphite grey smeared all over the horizon signaling the worst yet to come. Sky is heavy and blotted with it. Flecks already kiss and cling at her hair and her blue wool coat collar.

She can feel them land and melt on her cold numbed lips. Feels her raspy silver breath run them away.

The trees in the dark wood surrounding her on either side of the ribboning track and the pallid ground; stand majestic and strong. Like a darkly Prussian-blue swathed army standing silent attention. Frost crawls determined up their sturdy trunks. The horizon peeping through the trees is white, like a puff of spilt flour. The craggy black tips of the regimented trees scrape at the thick churning sky.

One hand laden with her heavy wicker basket. Hanging solidly down by her thigh. Handle creaking so under her glove from it’s heavy contents. Her elbow is locked straight and aching fully from the strain of it.

Mother had sent her off on one of her errands; paying calls to give some wrapped linen food parcels to the church. Cold meats and half-loaves of day old bread to give to the poor and needy. And on the way back she’d stopped and called for tea with her doddery great Aunt Lavinia. A more belligerent old dragon never drew breath.

Iris was her favourite of all the Ashton girls. All three of them. Unfortunately the lot of being the eldest and families general paragon of hope, fell onto Iris. Next was her sister Flora who is fifteen, and then there was Posy, at sixteen.

A whole compliment - a bouquet - of Ashton ladies. As the gossip columns always so proudly and wittily declared.

Iris was the level-headed, sensible elder sister at three and twenty. The one who was seen and never heard. The one with unremarkable grey eyes and fair skin. Her teeth were supportable, and her conversation was, well, fine, really.

She didn’t have dazzling honey blonde hair or a sultry head of brunette curls. Her hair was brown. Not chestnut. Not sizzling auburn blaze. Just. Brown. Like mud. Like bark. Like flat Turkish coffee.

The sensible Ashton girl, with eyes as dull as dust, and hair the colour of twigs.

She was pale, with a oval face and a stout figure that was passably pleasing. She had a fine bosom that some men liked to gawp at, and mother insisted she had a touch of child bearing hips. Which would strongly come into her favour when she’s married. As she had once said;

“Your future husband will be much delighted with such a valuable commodity, Iris.” Her Mother remarked once when she was a young girl and she was tugging and yanking her long hair into a plait ready for bed.

Iris can remember how badly she wanted to do something out of spite purely to ruin that chance. But really she couldn’t alter the shape of her skeleton with much ease.

Maybe she wasn’t a diamond of the first water. She’ll never be one of those girls who glide elegantly through a ballroom like a bevy of silk swathed swans. Preening, poised and primly perfect.

To her own mind and credit she was just - plain. Tolerable.

Adequate.

She is sometimes remarked to be too acerbic with her tongue, or her remarks. She’s certainly got a backbone and another quality that stumped men of the ton - a mind of her own making. She doesn’t suffer fools and she likes to venture that she is a blue stocking with a decent and level understanding of this world.

She’s sufficient- she supposed. Simply that and nothing more. She’ll never have poems written about her, or have a man declare he fell wildly in passionate love with her with one glance.

It suits her well enough. The fact that she looked like a dusty dull unrefined ornament next to her polished preening sisters. She’d rather fade into the wallpaper than be a dazzling spectacle of ridiculousness, like that of her two siblings.

Her simpering, inane sisters. Who flirt with any man donning a scarlet coat in the Militia. Flora and Posy, who worry obsessively about ribbons, and seek to pay no mind to anything, of any real consequence.

Iris is never one for fits of jealousy, but she is sometimes envious of their light-hearted puerile, worries. About making up their bonnets or, the next ball, or the most unbecoming stain on their new pelisse.

Aunt Lavinia greatly despised the merest sight and intimation of the younger Ashton ladies too. Iris is usually requested to go to tea with her Great Aunt, alone.

“Silly chit of a girl. The pair of them.” Was her relative’s most favoured and overused phrase.

She’d cackle it as one of her clawed elderly hands - talons - gripped her teacup. And she wouldn’t be happy until she’d griped and moaned and complained about every beast and man put on this earth. For they’ve all been put there with the sole purpose of vexing her greatly -Naturally.

Tea today was no different to any other occasion she pays a visit.

Iris sits with the sniping old matron in her freezing-cold front parlour with a piffling fire barely going. Her Aunt is always bedecked in enough black muslin to cover all of Hampshire.

A black lace matron cap staunchly on her head. Black fichu covering at her shoulders. An inky shawl on her arms and on each of her skeletal fingers sit glimmering gleaming rings which clackclackclack and scrape when she moves and points that every disapproving finger. Big fat stones of amber and ruby and topaz weighting down her frail claws.

Iris always teeters politely on the most uncomfortably hard settee opposite her. Cradling the hot spode bone-china cup of tea that her Aunt shoves in her hands. Sugar staining sickly saccharine on her lips - she never let her guests have unsugared tea.

Quite why she is the favourite Ashton, Iris has no clue. She is always interrogated by the woman as she barks nosy question after nosy question at her.

“Yes, Aunt. No, Aunt. I don’t believe so, Aunt.” As the harridan gripes about beef or sugar or candle taxes, or the local Reverend, or the gaudy new fabric on display in dressmakers window.

A whole ream of grudges being spewed out that wrinkled puckered mouth. Face pale, craggy and screwed up with lines like a sheet of crumpled parchment paper.

Her dark eyes shine forth like raisins sunk deep into scones. Glittering black and always always always dissatisfied with the whole world, and determined to find fault with everyone in it.

Iris brings her the ointment her Aunt asked for. She was suffering a hacking cough that worsened in the winter. Lavinia insists its a damp affliction brought on by unclean air.

Iris bought the woman a bottle of liniment rub, spiced with rosemary oil, camphor and spirit of wine. Her Aunt harrumphed at her offering. Stabs her walking cane into carpet in disfavour. Shoves the bottle away and insists Willow bark tea is what will cure her ailment.

Next she’ll be insisting on leeches and blood letting to balance out the humours-

Iris doesn’t fight her stubbornness - it’s a battlefield over which she will never win or hoist a flag of victory.

She drinks down three more cups of the cloying tea, interrupts the interrogation and insists rather bravely that she must be on her way - for Lord and Lady Hearst are throwing a ball this evening. On their vast estate. And she needs to scurry home to ready for it. That earns her another harrumph in response. Lavinia detested balls.

“Breeding ground for senile men and stupid women. And all that inane leaping about they now call dancing...” She grimaces.

The whole county is in uproar for this ball - little else to recommend or appreciate in this bleak dull midwinter. Whispers flourishing around town seemed inclined to favour that a mysterious Lord from the continent is in attendance tonight...

A Lord. From Bavaria no less. Apparently he owned a vast castle high up in the snowy forest smothered mountains.

Quite why he’s bothered to travel the length of Europe to this savage spit of society in the Hampshire countryside, she cannot fathom. If she was lucky enough to live in a castle, she’d never be seen again.

She recounts that scrap of gossip about the prospective Lord to her Aunt. Who thunks her cane loudly on the floor and scoffs in derision;

“Foreigners are always a grave source of disappointment - and they are so riddled with lice and ill bred manners.” So wisely declares Aunt Lavinia.

She says that about anything to do with anything and anyone not born or formed on good british soil.

She had said the very same thing last week about the pews at Church-

She leaves the little bustling hamlet. Shuts her Great Aunt’s warped cottage door. The wood shuddered, catching on the doorstep. Her arm shot through with needles of pain. Aches slipping up her back, her neck and sparking her shoulders. She hooks the heavy basket onto the crook of her elbow and sighs as she plods homeward.

Away from the small tudor, mouldy mustard walls of Lavinia’s cottage. A pretty little house. Always cold. Formed of thick stone walls and mahogany creaking stairs. Austere bare furniture sparsely filled every room. Wedged into a street with crossed glass windows and a petticoat brown tiled roof.

It was a meagre six miles from here to home. And she appreciates the walk. Or atleast she might be more inclined to favour it, were her coat more substantial.

As it is the blue wool thing is possibly a might too small for her now. It tugs and pinches so across the shoulders. And the hem ends right up her calves. Pebble-grey Kidskin gloves on her fingers, knuckles knotted stiff and her fingertips are tingling with cold.

The hem of her plain cotton voile dress, is dark with damp from the snow. The bluebell cobalt of it leeched darker at her hem. She’s shivering because her stockings aren’t the warmest wool. Her legs are trembling cold and she only wore her lightest chemise. However she is glad she bothered with the scarf.

She hadn’t put on a bonnet today. She can’t stand the fuss of one. Ribbons flapping at her ears. It was uncommon - but she went without.

Simply tied her hair back into a low coiffured bun secured with a snip of wheaten muslin. By now and with lugging this basket across all of the Hampshire countryside, some straggles of hair have come loose. Flopping uselessly to her shoulders.

She ducks her chin into her scarf to escape the exposure of a battering bitter gale, and continues trudging on with wearied, aching determination. She always trudges on. She has too. Is always the one who must endeavour to continue, no matter how bleak she feels.

It gets tiring, carrying great tonne boulders of expectations on her shoulders. She likes to think she bears the task nobly.

As her Mother takes great pains and lengths to always endlessly remind her; she is the vessel in which all hopes for the survival of the Ashton family, are stored.

She will make a good marriage match; to a gentleman of high rank or fortune - preferably both. She will save the estate from destitution. Her sisters from ruin. And her father from debtors prison. She will be the one to keep her family in the moneyed style to which they are accustomed. They will not lose Westwell to the bailiffs.

They have risen far within the ranks of society. And they will not lose their clutch or their pride. Or their respected place among it. Her fathers estate is not a vast one; but it is more than his father before him had. A meagre merchant selling spices and furs out of Putney during the Restoration.

Now the Ashtons are country gentry. With a modest dwelling of an estate, abutting a working farm. Westwell. A manor house of not much splendour and merely thirteen rooms.

Built of gold cotswold stone with huge white windows looking out onto a self-effacing garden of some prettiness. There was a pond where swans flocked in summer. Enclosed wilderness all around. A plank of wood swing hanging off one big oak chestnut that stooped over the front of the house. To the back the garden is walled, full of sculpted beds and privets and the wide green lawn is rather uninspiring in this decimating winter

They had one gardener. Two maids. A cook and a Housekeeper. They live comfortably and hardly ever exceed their income.

Her mother hopes to change that this calendar year. She wants her eldest daughter promised to someone upstanding and rich.

Iris thinks her shrew of a mother would settle with wedding her to any man . So long as he looks pleasing in a cravat, and still has all his own teeth.

She treks on through the snow. Hoping. Dreaming. Dreaming for so many unattainable things.

Wishing her basket was lighter. Wishing her parents had sired a son. So that this evening she wouldn’t have to be bound into a pinching dress, and paraded around the Hearst’s ballroom as if she’s some prized slaughter pig at a county fair.

Wishing that she could instead stay home in her untrimmed, plain nightgown. No laced stays crushing her ribs. With a hot brick at her feet. A dog-eared Swift novel in her hands. Cracked open to the good passages. She’d read by tapered candlelight and be perfectly contented, poised to encounter spinsterhood.

Instead, a painful evening of savage society awaited her.

Poison filled smiles from nasty debutantes or their matronly mama’s. Sniping at her dress or her hair or her pale skin, or her lack of fortune. Crushed mangled toes from dancing with some portly red-faced Lord-whoever-from-wherever. One who stank of port, had bad breath, and tried to pinch her bottom with fat lecherous sausage fingers, when he thought no one was looking their way.

She has no aspirations for marriage or love. She’s not a fool. She doesn’t have her head swimming with fancies from novels. No rapturous desires of tall, sable-haired men, with chiseled marble bodies seducing her astray. No cloaked villain sweeping her away in the dead of night to send her to ruin, to then have her dashing savior ride in on horseback to rescue her.

If she’s one thing at all - it is sensible. She doesn’t like to reflect on the proposition of marrying some stranger simply to arrange the business of money and bearing him heirs. She’s not a broodmare-

She’s a woman. She has a thumping proud heart and a strong-working brain and she hopes there’s more measure to her life, than submitting her body and weak will over to be governed and quieted by a future, faceless husband.

She’s sure many girls of three and twenty have felt this way. She’s sure many generations upon generations of them will continue to do so, until women cease to be sold like chattel - or like cattle at market.

Sold solely to men for the priceless untarnished commodity that lay between their thighs. And based and viewed purely on that frail scrap of fleshed dignity, alone.

She wraps her coat tighter around herself. Distinctly feeling a sense of dread starting to slither sickly cool up her spine from the prospect of the evening ahead.

Mother will wrangle her into her finest restrictively crushing silk gown. Have the maid tug and pull her hair and wrench it into a pleasing style. Jabbing hair pins in her head. Mother will see to it that she splash plenty of Yardley’s water of jasmine blossom, orange and lavender on the pulses at her wrists, and at her neck.

Then, she’ll be practically shoved into the chest of every single eligible gentleman in the room tonight in the hope they deign her to be pleasing. She’ll be pushed and prodded and maneuvered and pummeled-

And she’s exhausted. She only hopes she finds the strength to endure such torture-

She kicks through the frosted ground. Pebbles scatter and skit in her wake. She nudges the sparkling white stones with the toe of her cracked brown boots. Her feet were slowly growing numb. Toes stinging with cold. She should have worn some thicker stockings. Then again, money was not exactly a moderate opulence at home. They had to husband their resources as a family very carefully- which meant Iris couldn’t have some new leather half-boots for romping about the wilds of the countryside.

But she could have as many new hair combs, fans, or gloves and embellished stockings as she wanted. Anything that might help snare a man into visions of matrimony. Not wasted on such a thing as a new wool coat to help keep her warm in winter; or boots that didn’t let the muddy puddles seep in.

For appearances sake, the Ashton’s wealth went solely into ballgowns, perfume and finery for their girls. Some household money of course went into sensibilities like candles, meat, flour and soap. Iris was taught that she should be hugely grateful for everything that was lavished upon her.

Flora so often griped at her that she was so lucky to have such amounts spent on her. She got new gowns of printed cottons and muslin and silks and whatever she wanted. Where her and Posy had to make do with alterations and hand-me-downs to their dresses and bonnets.

Flora was so blinded by jealousy and immaturity that she didn’t quite look - really look at her sister - and realize that Iris didn’t really want any of those things-

She ruminated on all tonight might bring her. She wondered what kind of state her silly sisters would both be in when she gets home. Already donning their paper curls, lacing each other into their stays and chemises already. Arguing over who wore the best pair of silk slippers they had between them.

Mother will be in one of her bitter moods. Trying to determinedly order all her girls ready for tonight.

Moods sour with each other already and they’d be seething and spitting nasty fury at Iris. She had new things especially for this ball tonight. New pair of satin gloves and a printed silk dress. They did not. They never did.

Iris would lend Flora her old reticule - the one Mother had bought for her from Bond street. And she’d give Posy her pearl hair comb to slide into her auburn coiffure. A little balm to both of them to gently encourage some sisterly affection. She didn’t want to be at war with them all night.

She’s halfway down the narrow pale road, kicking snowy stones, when an almighty sound kicks up over the horizon, barreling in her direction. She turns her head back and hears the distant rhythmic rumbling of hooves hitting track and the clack and creak of enormous coach wheels.

Hardly surprising when this is the biggest road leading back to Pembleton, her little village.

She sees through the fog of snow, a huge black shape dominates the road. Moving fast. She lifts her skirts and steps onto the crunching grass so that the raring coach might pass her safely by. At the tremendous speed it’s going she reckons she didn’t have long before it caught up to where she’s walking.

She hears it gaining, closer and closer. Wood and hooves and snorting horses eating up the distance of the road. She dares a glance at the impossibly loud and fast carriage.

It’s a beastly thing. All looming black wood. A black liveried driver in grey wool coat. Two footmen clad the same, on the back stand. Black sturdy luggage safely stowed on the roof. Two hulking beasts of shimmering onyx shire horses are stamping and galloping and heaving the great thing along with no difficulty. Silvery wisps of air pour from their nostrils and the dripping whites of their eyes look nearly devilish past their full cupped blinders. The tack of black leather lost on their gleaming coal coats.

The noise is deafening now. It’s almost passing her. Kicking snow and frosty gritted mud out from under the churn of the hungry wheels.

She’s curious as to who could possibly be residing in such an opulent coach. No one from these parts, she’s certain of it. The richest Lord from here was two villages over on a vast estate. Lord Hexham. Who was one and eighty and had a hunched back. And he was a doddery old recluse. He hardly went raring around town in such an imposing manner.

When it draws level with her she dares a vertiginous glance up at the small arch of the door. A crest is splashed there in gold and scarlet. Like a splash of blood on a gold sword scabbard. Or a healing wound.

It’s no shock that the crest there is unfamiliar to her. It’s entwined with wolves and scarlet banners, and a shield crossed with swords. Some monstrous carnivorous coat of arms perhaps? Maybe this person’s ancestor’s had won victory in some ancient bloody battle dating back to the Normandy landings.

She looks up from the door and to her very great shock, she glimpses a man’s face.

It was a dark carriage, drawn to privacy with scarlet velvet curtains covering at the windows. But the one this side closest to her is peeled back.

Her heart thumps loud in her neck and her chest claws with slight panic and embarrassment having caught this gentleman’s eyes.

Such savage, unyielding eyes.

Bitterly black. Slicing outwards from an alabaster pale face. She barely made out features of a full proud face. A blunt roman nose, full pouting lips, and raven sable hair. Length; rakish.

It makes her inhale a sharp breath. Quickly averting her gaze. Embarrassed. Lowering her eyes.

Gawping openly at the upper echelons was never a good idea. They probably held her in the same standing as that of the mud on the bottom of their very polished boots.

He was probably some uppity Duke or Earl who didn’t wish to be gazing at the common stock. She looks to her feet. Feels the wind whip at the tendrils of her hair. Unfolds them from her scarf and whips them back over her face. Baring her neck. Snow lands on her skin. Flecks of it melt ripping like bee stings onto her hot throat.

Pale, corded, thrumming throat. Bared to the wind and the snow and the cold-

He can hear her pulse and it’s like a sweet sirens call.

She feels the strangest sensation then; no one was looking at her. But it feels like they did. It feels as if eyes are pinning her down. Raking over her skin and assessing her.

When she looks back up, dazed, the rattling loud coach is past her now. Off into the distance, into the snow.

Foggy white and smeared and blurring into the horizon. Roaring away up the track road. Away from her sight. She blinks after it’s wake. Snow tangling into her lashes. She’s shivering now if she wasn’t before, and she can’t fathom why.

She switches the basket into her other arm. Let’s it take the painful strain of the still heavy thing. Items within clunk and thump around. She steps off the crusted grass and back onto the stony pave of the hard road.

She continues on; winding homeward. She thinks about her silk gown, and new pearl earrings. And then of darker things; like devilish horses, and eyes. Eyes darker than inky shadows and deeper rich, like charcoal.

As the coach thunders off into the snow. Rutting and cracking over every bump on the road, Kylo shifted back on the scarlet bench seat. He lifts the curtain on the back window with a suave flick of his fingers, and set his black gaze once more back down the track road.

Looks back upon the lone girl in the blue coat who was walking there.

The scent of her still cloyed up in his throat - Oh, and in all the best ways.

He scented her from a mile down the road. Lavender, clary sage and sharp heat of bursting peppermint on salty skin.

The musk of her made him pant and his chest ragged. His arousal and bloodlust stirred in his chest. The drooling gnashing hell hounds of his appetite waking up and baying to be fed.

He watches her hair sway over her neck. A big gust of frosty wind blew her flavour right into his path.

His eyes rolled back in his head as he savoured her.

It made his mouth water. He’d all but outright moaned. It’s been a few moons since he last fed. His nails dig into the upholstered scarlet bench. Muscles strained. Veins corded tight in his body. Pulled taut.

His butler, Jomar. Speaks up from where he is sat opposite.

Blue silk Dastar covering his silver hair. His goatee beard was arrowhead shaped and always neatly trimmed. It stood out all the more from his bronze skin. His Punjabi cadence Kylo always thought was like cinnamon dashed in milk. He had a comforting warm voice.

“I wonder, shall you like the society hereabouts, your lordship?” He seeks curiously. Melting walnut eyes finding Kylos over his gold half moon spectacles, and looking past the small red leather backed Voltaire, open in his hands.

Lord Ren smirks. His eyes glimmer. Cool and hungry. Silver black like daggers.

“Absolutely.” He wets his lips. “The local cuisine looks delicious.”

     ~  ~  🥀 ~  ~  

[gloves94]

Sunburn [Prince Zuko] 9

Warnings: None   Rating: PG-13   Pairings: Zuko/OC   Summary:  “You have everything you’ve ever wanted.” “No.” He said softly. “Not everything…”  His golden eyes looked at her with a melting intensity she had never witnessed before. “I guess not.” She responded with glassy eyes as tears welled up threatening to break the dam of her eyes.

My fanfiction: M A S T E R L I S T

Later that evening Tsai had returned to where the Avatar gang were spending their nights in. Katara had been tossing around in her sleeping bag complaining about not wanting to be in the healing class because she would've gathered be learning how to fight instead.

"All knowledge is power Katara,"Tsai uttered wisely as her grandfather would've said. She lightly played with her choker necklace at the memory of the man. "You never know, the healing techniques that you learn might actually come in handy in the future." She nodded.

"A difference?" Katara questioned popping her head on her palm with curiosity. "What do you mean?"

"Yeah," Aang suddenly commented. "I'm also very curious- how was it that you managed to get past all of those Fire Nation guards at the Pohuai stronghold? He asked.

Tsai lowered her head in an attempt to hide the smirk that slowly inched across her face. She tugged in her arms deeper into her sleeves mischievously.

"I'll keep my secrets," she said with a ghostly smile before turning away from them preparing to sleep. "I'll tell," she said. "But first I have a question," she turned to look at both Aang and Katara once again.

"Why does everybody here hate me?" She asked bluntly.

Aang and Katara exchanged a look of pure confusion.

"In the Water Tribe, I mean." She clarified.

"Tsai," Katara began to explain. "You're Fire Nation. You're their enemy. You're our enemy."

"But why?" She retorted leaning forward as she sat with her legs crossed. "The Fire Nation is and has always been the greatest nation!" She spoke with a sudden bold sense of nationalism. "We bringing our culture and goods to new lands because we want to share our greatness with the world. It would be selfish not to."

"WHAT?" Katara roared furious. Tsai flinched slightly at her explosive reaction. She was not expecting her to react in this way.

"That's what you think the Fire Nation is doing?" She snapped. "I knew we shouldn't have trusted you!" She exited her sleeping back and rose to her feet aggravated. Tsai did the same.

"The Fire Nation took everything away from me! My family, my mother!" She roared. Aang held her back. "Starting this war is just as great of a sacrifice for my nation! It's for the greater good."

"You killed my mother!" She screeched heaving.

Tsai dropped the argument at the accusation. Katara's eyes were wide. Her nostrils were swollen with hatred as her eyes zeroed on the aghast teen before her.

"Can't you see? The Fire Nation has done nothing for the world! Everywhere you go you spread war, hatred, fear, famine, death and pain! You tear families apart. Leave orphan children, widowed wives, wounded soldiers and for what? For greatness?" She spat.

"Katara!" Aang pleaded.

Tsai wasn't going to sit here and take this. She turned away with her jaw clenched and stormed out of the room.

"Tsai! Wait!" Aang called after her. "Where are you going?"

Katara huffed and exhaled a sharp breath before snuggling inside of her sleeping back once again. She punched her pillow angrily a handful of times.

"Tsai means well Katara," Aang said after a moment. "I know it. She's just-" He paused for a moment trying to find the proper words. "The daughter of a Fire Nation governor?"

Aang was quiet at Katara's silent response.

"She's Fire Nation Aang. She's evil. They are all the same. Don't forget."

Xxx

"Is your friend toying with me?" Sokka snapped as he walked back to where they were staying.

"What are you talking about?" Tsai asked confused not in the mood to be dealing with these types of situations.

"I don't understand her. I thought she liked me and now she's telling me to get lost. I don't get it!" He threw his hands up in the air confused. "That's odd," Tsai said. "She told me she really liked you earlier today."

"Is she playing games with me or something like that?"

Yue didn't seem like the type to play these games. And from what she had told Tsai earlier she seemed to genuinely like the Southern Water Tribe boy. She thought for a moment scratching her chin.

"I don't think so," She said not really wanting to engage in conversation in her foul mood after her fight with Katara.

"So what should I do?" He deadpanned.

Was he really asking her for advice?

"I don't know," she shrugged. "Just talk to her. Ask her how she really feels about you."

"Why do I have the feeling you think talking is the solution to everything," he sighed in defeat. "It's probably what my grandpa would've said," she smiled fondly at the memory of the man.

"That is- completely unhelpful," he grumbled and hid his face in his arm.

"Sometimes some things are lost in translation." She says wisely. He looked at her oddly, she suddenly get a sad look on her face. She looked at Sokka one last time before continuing on her trek to nowhere in particular.

Katara was wrong.

The Fire Nation was the greatest nation. The war was well intended. Together all united under one nation the world would thrive. All under the rule of fire.

She thought about her home, Yu Dao. It's history serving as testament of the Fire Nation's greatness. Under Fire Lord Azulon the Fire Nation had made a mecca of industry and commerce out of a nowhere town in the edges of the Earth Kingdom. The city had drowned and blossomed to be one of the most important in the world. That would've never happened without them. So if they were so great...

She looked at a couple who whispered and shied away from her scarring away.

A man walking spit at her feet.

Arnook did not welcome her like a hero would've been welcomed.

If they were so great- why were they so hated?

xxx

"Yue, I need to ask for a favor." Tsai asked the following morning. She hadn't slept in the same room as the Avatar and his friends. Instead she had found comfort outside the doors of the palace simply leaning against the snowy wall and barely sleeping through the cold night. She really hated the weather here.

"Anything," Yue smiled taking her hands in hers. Tsai didn't have time to ask about what had happened with Sokka. It's not like she cared either. She wasn't the nosy type. "I need you to get me an audience with your father."

Moments later Tsai had her audience.

She walked into the meeting room. One which like the entire tribe was made of snow falls which reached the skies. The ceiling was gone allowing for the clear weather and shinning sun to witness their meeting.

"Arnook," she bowed before him in respectful Fire Nation fashion which irked the leader to no end. "You're persistent," he barked.

"What do you want?" He asked impatiently.

"Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Tsai of Yu Dao. Yu Dao is-" he interrupted her. "I know what Yu Dao is!"

She paused for a moment. Knowing he would be difficult.

"I've come to you with a challenging question." She scrapped everything she had reserved. "Do you think.." She says slowly. "Do you think the Fire Nation and the Water Tribes will ever be able to work together as one?" She pondered.

"If you have come here to sheathe blood and bring darkness and war to my land I'm afraid that you've come to the wrong place," he threatened approaching her. The soldiers and other officials surrounding him raised their hands and weapons menacingly. A bead of sweat formed in her temple as she look at them. They were at least a dozen of them.

"Listen!" She snapped frustrated. "I did not choose where I was born. My mother is of Earth Kingdom descent, my father Fire Nation. Which makes me half of both. I cannot bend fire or earth-" once again he interrupted her.

"That only makes you a mutt." He said bitterly.

It was then that his eyes darted up in the sky. All of them did. She turned after a moment only to see what looked like black snow snowing above them. The girl had never seen snow before, let alone black one. It took her a moment to realize that it was ash raining above them. Which could only mean one thing.

"You have lead them to us!" Arnook pointed accusingly. "Arrest her!"

"No. I have no idea how they found us!" She denied the dangerous accusation.

Tsai tried running. She tried fighting but before she could move an inch was frozen still to the ground in ice.

xxx

The girl was thrown into jail. She didn't know how long she had been in there. It must've been more than a day. Unbeknown to her Yue pleaded with her father. Pleaded with all of her wish and power to let her out. She tried explaining it was a coincidence and that she believed in the Fire Nation girl's honesty, but Arnook would not see to it.

The cell was cold as ice which had her shivering in the corner alone hugging herself in an attempt to retain some of her body's warmth. In her time in jail she felt a terrible headache. One which she felt could've split her forehead in half. Looking out the window she noted that an ominous light as red as her hair crept in. Holding on to her temples in pain she looked out and saw that the full moon had been tinted a color of crimson red blood. She starred eyes wide when she suddenly heard a sudden crash nearby.

Shocked she took cover before a market stall was thrown at the wall making it collapse. Setting her free.

"Well.. That was lucky," she mused as she carefully snuck out of the gaping hole that had been made by the crash. Creeping on her toes she slid down a hill of snow to the streets of the Northern Water tribe with only one objective in her mind. Escaping. She didn't realize where she was falling to and fell into a freezing stream of water. The icy North Pole water felt like a thousand knives nipping at her body from all over.

She had to get out of here fast. As she ran the moon shifted color as the air became colder, the air darker as all color seemed to be drained from the world. She hadn't stopped to wonder just what thing could've thrown such a heavy cart at such a distance when a monstrous creature in the figure of a glowing fish rose from the depth of the waters. It attacked all Fire Nation as it stormed through the village.

She cursed as she avoided it. Noting it was mainly attacking the invading Fire Nation troops that had descended on the Water Tribe's village. If she got near it, it would probably lead to her demise.

Whatever that thing was- She saw fire balls being aimed and fired at the creature which advanced unaffected - whatever was going on - it was not good. There was no time to say goodbye to her friend Yue. To converse with the Avatar. She had to get out.

Tsai continued on her dash towards the docks when she slid around a corner and looking over her shoulder teeth chattering she turned and crashed into something hard. She reached for her head as she tripped over her feet and fell to the ground on her bottom. She looked up and saw a pair of angry eyes glaring daggers at her. Oh, she had crashed into somebody.

"You," the man growled dangerously.

It was that son of a bitch Zhao.

She staggered to her feet but wasn't fast enough. Zhao was fast and his meaty hand claws around her neck with a deathly grip. He had obviously taken the night of the Blue Spirit at the Pohuai Fortress a little too personally.

She coughed struggling to gasp for breath when a third party stumbled upon the scene. Zuko walked into what seemed like the worst surprise of his life. Zhao turned to look at him maliciously.

"One step and I'll make sure your pretty girlfriend has a scar to match yours." He threatened.

Zuko's jaw clenched, he gritted his back molars in anger and frustration. He saw Tsai struggling to breath coughing for breath as her face slowly turned blue. He had to do something. Anything.

"So- tell me, what was your plan? You went in and distracted me and the Blue Spirit did all the dirty work?" He chuckled as he squeezed his grip on the girl's neck. He was holding her up above her feet so that they saw eye to eye. He suddenly dropped her and she gasped and coughed for air the color returning to her face. He turned her and kept a firm grip around her as he slowly retreated out of the scene.

His terrible breath pricked at her skin as he kept his arm wrapped around her body holding her in place.

"It's going to be interesting to find out what could've happened between us that night-" He whispered that and other filth into her ear.

"You're sick!" She growled out at the older man as she struggled against his deathly grip still shivering as she was soaked to the bone.

Zuko was ready to fire. He aimed his hand twitching slightly. His heart was pounding in his rib cage. One wrong move and it was over. He only had one shot before things went South. Zhao continued advancing over a snow bridge. He was going to get away! The girl struggled, her breathing loud as it became harder and harder to breath with every step the admiral gave. It was then that her eyes met his and he saw something familiar in them.

He understood and lowered his hand. Her body was trembling from the cold. Zuko lowered his guard and it was then that he saw offensive. Two silver blades crept our from her long sleeves and in one swift fluid motion she punctured Zhao's arm and Zuko swore he saw the blade go through his hand. The man screamed in pain. She twisted her torso and managed to guide the burning flame in his other arm to the sky missing her by mere inches. She took a sharp breath and ducked with skilled training. She used all the strength in her legs to push away from him. Her body collapsing to the snowy ground. Zhao held his arm put again ready to attack. However lost his footing when she twisted kicking him off his feet smoothly. Without hesitation Zuko stepped in and blasted Zhao away in a fiery dance.

Wounded and miserable the man collapsed to the ground in the middle of the snow bridge.

Massively monstrous blue hands suddenly struck out from the water and clawed at the top surrounding the admiral in a deathly capture. Zuko and Tsai managed to roll away from the monster claws as to their horror witnessed the admiral being dragged away to a watery grave. Tsai glared with eyes narrowed. Zuko was the better person and stretched out his hand in aid. For a second it looked like Zhao was going to take it but the prideful man turned away.

And just like that he was gone. Color returned to the world and it seemed like a glance had returned to the world. Zuko stepped back and saw the red-head shivering a couple of feet away from him. Her teeth chattering. He looked at her and her at him and she couldn't believe how happy she was to see him. To see somebody from home, someone familiar.

"Zuko!" She spoke in a low voice through violent shakes. Now having her she got a good look at his face and noticed the many new scars and wounds that decorated his face. She was about to ask what had happened during her short absence.

"What-" She was left with the words in her mouth when he wrapped his arms around her hugging her in a tight embrace. He almost sighed. Relieved that she was okay. That they had found each other again.

She stood before him sharp hidden blades unsheathed, shocked, shivering, soaked to the coldest bone. It took her a moment of hesitation before hugging him back just as tightly.

"I'm so happy to see you," the words left her mouth before she could process them. She hadn't even realized that she had started to cry. She buried her face on his shoulder. He was warm. He was the piece of home she had been missing. Right now, he was comfort.

"You're freezing," he said taking her hands in his as she retracted her hidden blades. He said nothing. Simply held her icy hands in his and brought them close to his lips breathing a hot air into them slowly warming her back.

She didn't even know why she was crying at this point. She smiled at him endearingly and wiped a stray tear from her. Everything was just too much to handle right now. Way too overwhelming.

"Let's get out of here." He said to her.

She wiped her tears as they escaped the icy tundra.

xxx

They met up with Iroh and Tsai sprinted hard running into his arms hugging him tightly. He hugged her back almost like a missing child and she repeatedly apologized for leaving without saying goodbye. He simply cupped her face with a hand and told her she did the right thing.

"I feel like you're at the crossroads once again Tsai, " Iroh said wisely tucking in both of his hands inside of his sleeves. "I wonder what road you'll take." He said ominously.

She raised an eyebrow confused at his riddle and shook his head.

"Let's just go home," she sighed. "I want to go back to Yu Dao. I think I'm going to be sick." She shivered not wanting to linger in this icy Neverland for another minute.

"Very well." Iroh said understandably. The man insisted on leaving on a makeshift raft boar which the girl refused to get on endlessly. Having been lost at sea for so many dies and almost dying from starvation she refused to put herself through the whole thing again. So instead they stole a slightly larger boat. One from a Water Tribe fisherman.

"They owe me," she grumbled. "That's for throwing me in that cold pit." She said bitterly as she remembered her brief stay in the icy prison cell. She hadn't even done anything!

And so they sailed away. Iroh explained to Tsai everything that had happened. Zhao killing the moon spirit. Yue becoming the moon spirit. The attack. The Avatar becoming one with the same spirit and taking down the fire nation. It had been a loaded day. He reasoned that it was probably the best that she had spent the day in jail for her own safety.

"You're really sure about returning back home?" Iroh asked.

Tsai snapped back into the conversation feeling distraught by her friend Yue's demise into the spirit world. "Sure," She mumbled. "Why not? I don't want to keep on 'getting in the way.'" She glared at a certain scarred prince who looked like he had the worst headache of his life.

"I'm concerned as your status as a traitor to the Fire Nation," Iroh stroked his beard wisely. "But that's a problem for when we arrive back to the mainland," he smiled at her warmly.

"You shouldn't have done that!" Zuko suddenly snapped in a scolding tone. "That stunt at the Pohuai Fortress? What were you thinking!" He sounded almost worried. Tsai misses the slight smirk that is growing on Iroh's face as he looks at them from the side.

"Hey! I freed the Avatar for you! Do you should be thanking me!" She shot back. "If I hadn't done that you'd be sitting in your room right now sulking with your arms crossed over your chest angrily meditating like an idiot."

"I don't sulk!" The other shot back slightly embarrassed and reached for her arm

"Also- may I remind you that Admiral Zhao is disgusting company. Interacting with him was definitely not pleasant," she raised both of her eyebrows eyes holding a little horror in them at the awful memory. It was then that he realized that he was holding on to her lower arm. He raised it up and her sleeves rolled back which exposed her secret weapon. He scrutinized over it looking at the arm braces she wore with the hidden blade mechanism.

Zuko would've never admit it outlaid but this was way more simple than what he had expected. Mind reading, secret bending, being a blood thirsty vampire demon, and super natural powers all came to him in his theories of how Tsai had gotten in an out of the stronghold with such ease.

"I'm glad to see your grandfather's hidden blades are in good hands," Iroh commented with a knowing smile.

"You knew about this Uncle?"

Iroh simply smiled a mischievous glint on his amber eyes.

"My grandfather taught me how to fight," she admitted reaching to touch the sunstone necklace she wore. "But I refuse to unless it's necessary. You see it can be quite deadly."

"Why didn't you say anything?" Zuko asked.

"I guess I didn't want you to think I was... weird." She said looking away slightly embarrassed.

"I....think it's cool," he said sharing the same tone after a moment. "Really?" She turned to look at him beaming. This only caused his cheeks to redden even more.

Iroh chuckled.

Zuko sighed and threw his hands up in the air not wanting to further have this conversation. "I'm tired." He declared.

"Youre not going to chase the Avatar?" Iroh asked.

"No- I'm tired." he repeated as he collapsed on the ship.

"A man needs his rest. Besides, Tsai and I have some much needed catching up to do." Iroh winked in her direction and she winked back.

They certainly did.

xxxx

AN: Your lovely thoughts? Phew and that's the end of Book 1, now onto what's next. Chapter 8 and Chapter 9 were originally one really long chapter so I decided to split them into 2. Also I have the story written until chapter 26 but as I keep editing and rewriting for posting I have made so many changes and I am loving how the story is unfolding.

Much love - G

xxx

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CHAPTER MASTERLIST

[botwstoriesandsuch]

Hi! I don't know if you ship it (if not, feel free to ignore), but could you do something with Link x Mipha? Thanks!!

Ok so, I was going to write a nice fluffy confession scene with Link and Mipha, but that just got my wheels turning about how Mipha crafted the armour. And that turned into how I thought she got the materials she need to make it. And that turned into a cool flashback scene, and that turned into me wanting to make Mipha bad ass... and that turned into me wanting to give her compelling character growth. Ok I’m basically saying that this whole oneshot is about Mipha. It’s still based on the Mipha/Link ship, buuuut this is just a long winded way of me saying Link isn’t really in this one. So...sorry? Maybe in the future I’ll finish the fluffy confession scene, but for now, enjoy this! (Cause I really love how it turned out)

At Bay

Miphlink  5459 words

Just as the sun was swallowed by the sea, she rose to watch the horizon. The last few rays of light shimmered like amber on the cool waters of Lanayru Bay. In a few moments, the whole ocean would be washed by the cold of night. Waves crashed against the ragged rocks, the white foam pooling near her ankles. The princess’ eyes were fixed on the sky, the sea breeze nipped at her face, causing her fins and jewelry to sway. It was a cloudless night, the stars seemed to twinkle restlessly in the air. The moon was nowhere to be seen, the bay only reflected the silent stars, and the flickering orange light from behind her. The sergeant probed the campfire with a stick, fiddling with the charred wood. Kneeling by its warmth, he looked up at her. “Your Highness, you need not sit so close to the shore. We don’t know what kind of monsters lurk in the sea at this hour.” Mipha turned her head back at him, a wry smile on her lips. “Don’t worry yourself, Seggin. I am quite skilled with my trident thanks to your teachings.” She patted her weapon that lay beside her, its metal clinked against the rocks at her touch. “Besides,” she returned her gaze to the sky. The summit of the snowy mountain divided the eventide with its presence. It seemed to rise beyond the heavens. “We should hope that one particular beast appears tonight.” 

Rising himself from the campfire, Sergeant Seggin walked and stood beside Mipha, who was crouched on the damp rocks. The towering figure of Mount Lanayru cloaked the bay, along with the surrounding trees, in a soft shadow. The evergreens rustled, and the familiar smell of the sea was carried through the air. A collection of loose pebbles crawled across the shore from the forces of water and wind. Shifting her bare feet, she could feel the smooth and rounded stones under her. 

It was not four hours ago, when Mipha and Seggin had swam through the Rutala River, and hiked across the Brynna Plains to get to their current point. While her father had known the true purpose of her trip, she had only told the Sergeant only the bare details necessary in order to get him to come. Afterall, a princess would never be allowed to do this all alone. Seggin set the hilt of his own spear against the ground, leaning his weight against it. He gazed at the sky along with her, although he was unsure of exactly what he should be looking for. “So this beast...er...spirit? Whatever you called it? You say you are not certain it will appear? How long should we expect to stay until we can reach a conclusive answer?”

Mipha’s eyes stayed fixed on the sky, searching for something that would complete the serene picture. “It is the spiritual form of a great goddess. If she should appear at all, it would help give confirmation...or more like a blessing, to a certain decision I must make.” The beauty of the night was laid out before them, but still, something was missing. After a beat she continued, “I should hope she should appear sometime tonight. They say she only rises just as the sun sets. However, if nothing changes by sunrise, we can return to the Domain immediately. I know you are always anxious about my wellbeing.” Mipha cast him another smile. That much was true, despite teaching her combat, the Sergeant, along with most of the royal staff, was always eager to have the princess safe in their company. Nonetheless, Seggin cocked a curious eyebrow. “Forgive me if it is not my place to pry, but the decision you speak of, what might it be?”

A silence fell once again. Telling him the full story would bring about a conversation she was not yet ready to have. She sighed. “I must...I wish to craft something.”

“Oh?”

“Yes...something very important to me.” Mipha looked at the ground, watching the foaming waves encircle her feet. “So, I must get a certain material from this spirit. Although, should she not appear, I shall take it as a sign that I must not pull through this...certain decision.”

Seggin narrowed his eyes. Though their dark complexion had often reflected the blur of war, he was still able to give a soft and kind gaze towards her. “For the sake of this decision, do you wish for this beast to appear?”

In the waters, Mipha watched her reflection. Her topaz eyes stared back at her, before being taken away by the tide.

“Yes.”

A silence returned once more between them. The crashing waves and whistling wind decorated the hours, with Seggin occasionally going back to feed the fire. The night continued to the point where both of the Zoras had leaned their tired weight against the large grey boulders across the rocky beach. The looming figure of Mount Lanayru continued, its shadow stretched across the bay. Mipha let out a sigh. One way or another, this night would decide her fate. And through the dark, she would see what the goddesses and spirits had planned for her future.

. . . . . 

The hours merged, and the stars drifted across the skies. Seggin had offered to stay up and keep watch, but after about three hours, he too let his heavy eyelids droop. Mipha continued to stare at the sky, leaning her head against the large boulder.

Thoughts swirled around in her head. Perhaps she would not show up at all, it’s said that only those of pure intention and honest hearts would ever be graced with the presence of such a spirit. Mipha fiddled with her bracelet, trying to keep herself awake. Maybe this was selfish of her, forgoing the Zora monarchy for the sake of love. Sure, her father had told her to follow her heart, but what about everyone else? Even if they were to be together, there would always be a stigma, for an interspecies couple. Would the other Zora hate her? For choosing a Hylian over her own people? What kind of queen could lead a people that despised her.

Mipha sighed.

If the goddesses decide that we are not meant to be, then I guess I’ll just have to accept that I was not the one meant to bring him happiness...

She closed her eyes, escaping to happier memories, trying to keep the anxieties at bay. Everything may be stacked against her, but she was going to try anyway, for the sake of the warm feeling in her stomach. For the chance to look at his kind blue eyes for the rest of her life. For her restless soul that longed to hold him through every tender and terrible moment.

Mipha could already picture him, wearing the armour along with a rare and fantastic smile. Link’s sky blue eyes would sparkle along with the silver scale that Mipha herself would place. He’d be adorned with the helm and greaves, that would allow him to be by her side through the calmest and roughest of oceans and waterfalls. And the chest piece, the true symbol of a Zora princess’ love, would fit him perfectly. Yes, a perfect embrace that would protect him wherever their travels may take them. A soft smile crept onto Mipha’s face.

She sighed again. The prickling of heartache seemed to run all throughout her body, from her feet to her fins. All of the sudden, the smile slipped off of her face. Mipha held up her arm, examining her fin. It had glossy sheen, melding from a warm, honey color to a more striking lapis accent. It was thin, as all fins were, for the sake of cutting swiftly and speedily through the waters. Despite this, it dangled motionless, even her jewelry hung still, barely swaying from the movement of her arm.

Wasn’t the wind so much stronger a minute ago?

Indeed, the breeze abruptly had calmed, and her fin no longer flapped in the wind. Something was off, a cold charge seemed to ripple in the air. A new energy coarsed through Mipha’s body as she once again looked out towards the waters. At the end of the Lanayru Bay, closer to the rocky mainland, the waves had started to recede. Their once strong and lively motions now summoned towards something at the innermost part of the bay. 

Mipha lifted her back off of the boulder, sitting up straight and observing the scene. And as if reacting to her movements, a sudden silence drowned the shore.

The winds stopped.

Then shifted.

Then rose.

A freezing air was washed over her, a strange hum filled bay. Getting on her feet, Mipha took up her trident cautiously. She searched the waters for whatever had moved the wind so suddenly. Perhaps a large octorok? A stray ice lizalfo cooling the breeze? She moved Seggin’s leg with the end of her trident. “Seggin, wake up. Something’s happening.” He let out a groan, mumbling something about never sleeping on duty. The princess turned towards the forest, scanning the trees for the snoring hinox that had made the evergreens shiver in the new wind. Or the frost talus that had made the temperature drop so quickly, she could start to see the breath in front of her face. But, there was nothing, and she turned back towards the sea, where the waves had started to move with new life. Mipha looked up. 

Suddenly, she gasped. The sound was as swift as a common breeze, but with the sentiment of a last breath. All words escaped her, as it pierced the heavens. It seemed to wear a crown of frost and ice, but its brilliant size and majesty alone would command the attention of any army. The waves reflected its silver and arctic glow. The winds rose, the waves began to roar, the stars settled, and the sky was complete.

“She’s here.”

Naydra, the spirit of ice, the being of wisdom, the sacred servant of the goddesses, moved through the air, lowering itself from the glittering skies and moving towards the waters below. Even in the distance, the dragon’s golden eyes seemed to stare into her soul. 

Mipha started to run towards the sea.

Seggin, who was jolted fully awake by her sudden movement, got onto his feet. “P-princess!?” Then, upon seeing the icy glow of a dragon in the distance, he stopped. A fear and silence gripped his throat, halting any attempts he made to move or speak. Still running towards the waters, Mipha turned back and shouted, “Just follow me! There’s no time to waste!” 

Racing on top of a large rock, she crouched, then launched her weight and momentum towards the sky. Performing a graceful flip, she dove headfirst into the waters. The ocean enveloped her in a familiar cool embrace. Then, Mipha broke her head above the surface and started to make her way towards the dragon, kicking and swimming with all her might. 

Naydra was closing in, drifting closer to Mipha with every passing moment. The way her long body steadily arched and curved, you would think they were going through nothing more than a leisurely stroll. Yet in reality, the dragon had traveled the length of one fourth of the bay in only a few minutes.  

Rapidly approaching her, Mipha could start to see the dragon’s reflection upon the water. It’s scales glowed like moonlight, emitting luminous blues and turquoise. The path of its flight was directly above the length of the bay, making its way towards the princess.

Mipha faced the spirit head on, checking the trident to make sure it was secure on her back. Then, she dove with incredible speed, letting the waters consume her. 

The porgys hurried away, finding refuge in the nooks and crannies of the reef. The small, red, bioluminescent scales on her head glowed as she neared the dark depths of the sea. Then, Mipha channeled her built up momentum and forced herself back towards the surface, rising like a bird. 

The water and droplets sprayed as she leaped, the freezing water dripping away as she was greeted by the cold air once more. At the arc of her breach, she quickly turned and faced upward. Mipha unhooked the Lightscale Trident. Aiming at the white scales that lined Naydra’s neck, she steadied her grip.

Naydra is here, which means there is still hope. Please, grant me your blessing.  

She thrust with all her might. The trident soared across the sky, twirling and shining like a star. The dragon drifted slowly, its eyes seemed to wander towards the flash of movement, observing the streak of white.

Crashing back into the bay with a splash, Mipha quickly blinked away the water and watched the trident's arc. It had reached the apex of its flight, nearly parallel with the dragon’s body. 

At any moment it would make contact, it would pry a scale off, she just knew it...

...but then, its speed faltered, its momentum weakened, and slowly, the trident arched back down towards the sea, having struck nothing. 

NO!

Naydra continued on her path, and the Lightscale Trident crashed into the open waters without a sound. The dragon was simply too high up, no spectacular dive, leap, or throw from these waters could get her where she needed to be.

Suddenly, Seggin breached the surface beside her. A swirl of worry and determination filled his eyes. “What are you doing?! Surely you don’t mean to kill it in order to get the material you need?”

“I-I need her scales, but she’s too high up! And my trident, it-it’s…” Mipha looked behind her, across the width of the bay to where it had sunk. That far out… the seafloor was probably much deeper over there. No, there was no time. She turned back towards him, almost frantic. “Seggin, you're a great swimmer, and you’ve taught me all I know, surely if you try you can strike the spirit, yes?”

Looking up at the beast, the Sergeant simply shook his head. “I’m sorry, your highness, but from these open waters, and at that angle? I’m afraid the Zora are not gifted with flight.”

Naydra’s presence drifted above them, the brilliant gleam of her scales now shone with a silent mocking. Was this really it? The spirits had decided to come, just to ridicule her desires? Just to tell her that it wasn’t meant to be?

Mipha let out a shaky breath. Watching the length of the dragon move across the night, she observed its path of flight once more. She let out another breath, more controlled this time. Naydra’s blue glow reminded Mipha of his eyes, and she found her resolve once more. Seggin watched her in silence for a moment. Then, he attempted to speak.

“Princess, if this is for—”

“Give me your spear.”

“P-pardon?”

“We can get my trident later, give me the spear.”

The Sergeant complied, removing his silver spear and handing it to her, but he shook his head.

“Mipha, you need to stop and focus. Neither of us have the strength to throw it that far up—”

“Talk and swim, Sergeant! Follow closely, we have to catch up.”

With that, Mipha began her journey down the course of the bay, following under the dragon’s shadow. Seggin followed on her left, but his face was still filled with worry and confusion. He attempted to open his mouth again, before Mipha held up a hand to shush him.

She spoke bluntly. “You have a strong grip, right Sergeant? You are capable of throwing many times your own weight, correct?”

The Sergeant frowned. Of course he could, he had handled great swords and claymores through the tides of several battles. When sparring with others, he could shove them aside easily. He wasn’t given the nickname “The Demon” for nothing. Mipha, whom he had personally trained with the trident, should know this most of all. Unless, she specifically wanted him to... 

“Are you saying I should—”

“Yes. So can you do it?”

He hardened his gaze. “Even if I did get you to a proper height, your own aim must be more than perfect, and the aerodynamics of my spear are different. I’m sorry to be harsh, but I don’t think you can make such a precise shot on your first try.”

“That’s why I’m not going to throw it this time,” Mipha replied, her eyes still fixed on the dragon in front of them. “You told me to focus, right? Well focus on her,” she nodded towards Naydra, “The path of her flight is nearing the base of Mount Lanayru. No doubt, she will eventually make her way up towards its peak, as the keeper of the Spring of Wisdom. However, she has slowly been angling herself closer to the waters ever since she first arrived. While I’m not entirely knowledgeable on how dragons fly, I can only assume that before they can rise to such a height, they must lower and dive themselves to build up energy, similar to how we dive and leap out of the sea. I can only hope she will be low enough for my plan.” The princess turned her gaze to him directly.

“You will launch me in mid-air where the bay meets the ocean, just near the base of Mount Lanayru. There, with that added height, Naydra should be close enough to meet head on, and I shall loosen her scales myself with a direct strike from this spear”

Seggin could only gawk at her, staring in a shocked silence. His dark scales blended with the night. Then, after he seemed to process the full extent of her words in his head, his eyes lit up curiously like stars. “You truly believe this shall work?”

Mipha turned her gaze back towards the bay, her topaz eyes brimmed with new fire and life. “We won’t know until we try.” 

The two of them focused their attention towards the ocean, now putting all their energy into getting to the end of the bay as fast as possible. Mipha snuck a glance up at the dragon, they were catching up. They were now below her front talons, the ice emitting from their scales started to cool on the edges of her jewelry. The princess smiled.

I’m not giving up on Link just yet. 

Finally, they approached the mouth of the bay. The shadow of Naydra’s crown spilled over their tiny figures. Seggin turned towards the princess. “This is it, are you ready?” Mipha looked up at the sky. The dragon’s snout was pointed towards the sea. She had thought correctly, it was much lower than before. However, they were barely ahead of the dragon, for no Zora could keep up with its legendary speed forever. It was now or never. 

She checked the spear on her back, making sure the clasp was secure. Mipha gave a nod towards Seggin, and they both plunged into the sea.

They dove in perfect unison. Colorful arrays of fish hurried away at their presence. The glow of Naydra seeped through the waters, a murky light that cut through the inky darkness. Seggin allowed himself to move in front of Mipha. They continued their dive through the waters, their bioluminescent scales leaving a blur of soft reds and turquoise. Suddenly, Seggin shot up, shifting his momentum towards the surface. Mipha followed suit behind him. Her heart was pounding in her chest, ready to burst at any moment. Trailing his stream of bubbles, Mipha watched as the Sergeant breached the surface above her. Just a few more seconds, and he would be at the apex of his arc, and then—

Mipha shot up like a cannon, spraying water through the air. She didn’t have time to enjoy the sensation, as she reached out instinctively. Her arm and hand extended, grabbing at something unseen. Water was still in her eyes, but the cold force of air pushed them away. Then, she felt it, the slight warmth of another Zora, and latched on. With an iron grip, she closed her hand around the blur of black scales. The two of them locked forearms, and in midair, Seggin flung her momentum further into the sky.

The frost was now biting, it formed distinctive lines that danced and crept the length of her jewelry. Taking the spear from her back, Mipha looked up, still soaring through the air. She was met with a golden gaze.

Naydra had started to crane its neck skyward, its crown reflecting the winking stars. The ice spirit seemed to sigh, and another breath of cold air escaped her. The creature’s eyes were as large as the sun, specks of amethyst and pearl decorated the beast’s face. Mipha didn’t dare to breathe.

The spiritual form of the goddess shifted its golden eyes, and smiled upon her.

Reaching the peak of her arc, Mipha turned her attention back to the spirit’s scales. They gleamed white, and sparkled like stars. They were so close, just a few more moments, just another instant, and she could reach out and touch them. Readying her spear, she started to turn her body, spinning through the air. She laughed to herself, about the unimaginable situation she was in. 

With a practiced and graceful spin, Mipha let out the last of her momentum in a swift slice of her spear.

At first, it seemed she had cut at nothing air…

Then, she felt it make contact. 

The scales were as tough as metal, but smooth like a polished stone. The spin of her attack has struck perfectly on the underside, and pried a large scale from the dragon. This time, her laugh fully escaped her, echoing in the air. The scale plummeted through the night sky, leaving a glimmering trail like a shooting star. It crashed into the sea, but floated in the water, which perfectly reflected the dragon's glow. Seeing Seggin start to make his way towards the scale, Mipha turned back towards the dragon, still falling through the air. Naydra was now ascending at a steep incline, all of its body seemed to glow with a new aura, as if sensing the loss of one of its sacred scales. Mipha smiled at the spirit.

Thank you…

Then, she turned back, and prepared to dive safely into the water

A large splash, and the princess returned to the bay once more. Breaching the surface, she let out large breaths, and rubbed at the cold biting on her wrist. 

Seggin made his way towards her, the large scale cradled in his arms. His mouth hung agape, he was at a loss for words. Mipha took the initiative to break the silence. “Here, your spear.”

Holding it out, Seggin took it with one of his arms, still careful to keep the scale from drifting away. The Sergeant let out a short laugh. “Your highness, that incredible move you performed, that spin attack? Wherever did you learn such a thing? It certainly wasn’t from me.”

A sudden blush formed on her face. Sinking into the water to hide it, she let out a little whisper. “Well, uh, just from a friend.” 

He nodded, “Well, it certainly got the job done.”

Quickly changing the conversation, Mipha asked, “May I hold it?” Seggin gave another nod, and pushed the scale across the water, making its way into Mipha’s grasp. The scale was cool to the touch. Running her hand down it, it was slick in one direction, but brushing it the opposite way revealed tinier bumps in the scale. They glowed white, but reflected a large assortment of bright colors at certain angles. Mipha smiled, it was perfect.

Seggin let out a forced cough, breaking through Mipha’s thoughts. She smiled. “Right, come now. Let us return to the shore”

. . . . . 

“So...you did it.”

Back at the shore, the sun had begun to rise, barely peeking above the ocean in the east. Seggin cast Mipha a warm smile. “I’m quite proud of what you’ve done today.” She returned his expression with a kind smile of her own. “I couldn’t have done this without you Seggin.”

She then went back to cleaning her Lightscale Trident. A few bits of seaweed were still tangled in its prongs, and wrapped around the hilt. Otherwise, it was mostly intact. The Sergeant gathered the last of the food and supplies littered about their campsite, before looking back at Mipha. He watched her tend to her weapon, sitting comfortably on the ground, with a small pile of seaweed at her side.

Finally, he decided this was as good a moment as any. Seggin sat in the grass with her. “So, who is the lucky guy?”

A sudden rush of red appeared on Mipha’s cheeks. “I, uh, I’m not sure I understa—”

He let out a scoff. “I suppose you picked me to accompany you since I didn’t pay the most attention to spiritual and ceremonial studies.” He shrugged his shoulder, “Which is entirely fair. A sergeant doesn’t improve his skills by listening to hour long sermons about the goddess all day.” 

Seeing Mipha’s confused face, he let out a huff and continued. “Although, even I know about the tradition of the white scale. You said you wished to craft something...when the dragon showed up... well, I’m no fool.”

He looked at her, Mipha’s shoulder’s loosened in realization that he knew. “You’re crafting the sacred ceremonial armour for a royal husband, requiring a silver scale that only females posses, and the scales of a dragon, for both bless the wearer with the safety of both a Zora’s affection and the protection from the goddesses.”

Mipha sighed, before letting herself look at him. “Please know I didn’t mean any harm keeping this from you! I never thought you were a fool, I simply… well I respect you as my teacher and such… so I thought…um… it would be better I didn’t say anything...cause it would be better if…”

“If I stayed silent and didn’t ask questions about why we were battling a giant ice spirit?”

Mipha let out a sheepish laugh. “I suppose…”

He scrunched his brows. “Although, I am still confused as to why you were so wary about telling me, princess. Are you embarrassed by him? Is he a noble? A servant?” Seggin scratched his chin.

“..hmm, or perhaps this Zora isn’t a him at all. Unconventional, sure, but having two queens wouldn’t be a real issue, at least for me. If that was your concern, please know—”

“No, no! I mean, thank you, but it’s not that… it’s…” Mipha let out a shaky breath, “I wish to give the armour to that knight, Link”

His expression seemed to instantly harden at his name

“That...Hylian? The one set to become a Champion simply because of that sword on his back?”

“Yes, I mean, I’ve known him since childhood and—”

“The one who put you in harm's way when you both fought the Ploymus Mountain Lynel alone?”

“He slayed the beast and helped people! And I was there of my own volition.”

“The one who refuses to talk? Choosing to speak with his hands? Has the blank stare and shows no emotion or respect?”

“Well, he’s not—”

“The one who is supposedly going to spend his company with Princess Zelda everyday after the official Champion ceremony in a few weeks? That’s the boy you wish to be committed to?”

Mipha didn’t bother to answer. She turned her head away, not looking at him. This is exactly what she was afraid would happen. She clenched her fist, nails digging into her palm.

A silence sat between them. Seggin just stared at the bay.

Then, Mipha took a deep breath, before standing up. Taking her trident, she slammed the hilt down with a force that demanded Seggin’s attention.

“Alright, yes! Link might be some of the things you say he is, but he is so much more. So, so, so much more. You may look at him and just see another Hylian, but I have watched Link all of my life. I’ve seen the strength and will that rests behind his blade when he protects the innocent. I’ve witnessed the tenderness of his touch when he comforts those around him in his embrace. Oh Hylia, I’ve watched his recklessness as he explores the world and the Domain with not a care in the world, other than satisfying a curiosity. I’ve seen every scratch and bruises he’s taken from his childhood, and healed every scar and burn from his youth. But I have loved him all the same, because even after all these years, in his eyes is the same love and adoration that he saved for me and me alone. He holds a blank gaze for the sake of keeping up a careful confidence, but every time I see him he graces me with a fantastic smile. I’ve fallen in love, Seggin, alright? And despite my endless respect for you and everyone else, I do not care anymore. I’ve fallen in love with a reckless Hylian, despite the world around me. Despite my every duty as the heir to the throne, despite Link’s every fault, despite it all I’m going to choose to give in to my heart’s desires. I have healed his every wound, and taken his every flaw, because he is who I fell in love with, and my heart belongs to him.”

Mipha stared into Seggin’s eyes, her topaz eyes were filled with the same fire and life as she had back under Naydra’s shadow. The Sergeant’s dark eyes looked back at her. He got onto his feet, a hard expression on his face. Yet, his eyes twinkled with a new warmth.

“Then we best get a move on, and hurry back so you may give him your important gift.” 

Turning back towards the campfire, Seggin went to fetch his spear, and started to snuff out the campfire. Mipha just stood there, bewildered. She watched as he continued about his routine, gathering his satchel and gear without another word. The princess strode towards him, confused. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand. Are you still against my feelings for Link? Aren’t you still mad that I’ve chosen him?” The Sergeant stopped, and turned back to face her.

“In truth, Princess Mipha, I will never understand the true extent of how you have fallen in love with that Hylian. However, what I know for certain is that that boy is a strong and accomplished knight. My son, Bazz, used to spar with him when he was little. He’s become exceptionally stronger, and just studying his movements with the blade, well… Link has a strength not just in his sword, but in his compassion, with the way he taught my son and others as well. In his younger day I could see the kindness in his eyes as he ran around, protecting his other friends in their little sparring games.

“Although he has changed much in recent years, in my opinion not for the better, hearing your words sways me to the fact that perhaps that same young Hylian still lives when around you. So I trust your judgement, Mipha.” He tilted his head to the side.

“This night has brought the best out of you, it’s brought out a level of skill, precision, and talent that I have not seen throughout all my life. I can only conclude that this is the result of your compassion and determination to be with this Hylian. So I do not think anything I could say will sway such a strong heart. 

“You obviously already have your father’s blessing, and not that you need mine, but I think that so long as Link gives you the same level of protection and love that you have displayed, then you have my support on the matter.”

Now, it was Mipha’s turn to stand in a shocked silence. Although, the quiet did not last long as she pulled him into a tight embrace. Unsure of what to do with his arms, Seggin patted her on the back, his more grumpy and serious demeanor returning. 

“But, you should probably still not tell the others immediately. I can’t imagine people like Muzu will have the exact same view as I do.”

She chuckled, “That’s the plan.”

Letting him go, she turned back towards the bay. Picking up her trident, she started to make her way to the waters, ready to head back to the Domain, and complete a certain task. Craning her head back towards the Sergeant, she added, “and...thank you, Seggin. Truly, for everything tonight.”

He shrugged his shoulders.

“It was my pleasure.”

[aimee-maroux]

Flash Fic: Freyja and Sif

When I did a Poll back in November, Norse mythology and Egyptian mythology shared second place. So I thought winter time was perfect to write some cosy Norse mythology erotica. The majority wanted to read Freya and Sif, so here you go :-D Enjoy!  

Freyja and Sif

Sif was surprised when her servant told her there was someone at the door. The snow came down in gales and even the gods of Asgard, used to ice and freezing weather, preferred to stay at home on a night like this.

She got up from her loom and made her way to the door of her and Thor's palace, that was just as enormous as he was. Alas, he had gone away to Jötunheimr, like he so often did. Her bed was cold and on a night like this it seemed particularly frigid and lonely. Sif pulled her cloak tighter around her until she approached her visitor.

It would be hard to recognise anyone in their thick winter clothes, man or woman merely suggested by the height of the heavily cloaked figures. But Sif knew instantly who her visitor was. The falcon feathers on her cloak unambiguously revealed her as Freyja, goddess of love and war.

"Freyja! What lucky gale blew you to my door?"

She greeted her friend and kissed her welcome.

"I've been looking for my husband."

Freyja's face was hardly visible underneath her woolen hat, thick feather cloak and fur-lined mittens.

"In this ghastly weather?!" Sif shook her head. Freyja was wet to the bone. Óðr, her husband, often went away travelling, leaving Freyja crying golden tears all alone. Thor went away too, bringing thunder and fighting jotuns. But he was never away for long. "Come, dear friend, let's get you out of these wet clothes and warm you up by the fire!"

Sif ordered her servants to take off Freyja's snowy falcon cloak and boots and led her to the great hall where a warm fire was burning. Sif pulled the mittens from Freyja's clammy hands and the woolen cap from her thick, wet hair.

"Thank you for welcoming me, Sif." the love goddess said. "I just... I just can't stand being alone right now. You are a true friend."

"You are always welcome in my home!" Sif kissed her cold skin. Snowflakes slowly began melting in her friend's long red hair. "You need to warm up, Freyja! Inge, bring us some warm mead and blankets."

Sif's servant nodded and scurried away.

"We need to get you out of these clothes."

"You seem quite determined."

Freyja's eyes gleamed. The goddess of the harvest opened the golden oval brooches that held up her friend's beautiful dark green overdress. She put them away and got rid of the soaked garment. The second layer was a fiery red dress, equally soggy. Sif pulled the heavy fabric over Freyja's head, tossing it away. Now the only piece of clothing left was the linen undergarment. Even this one was wet and it clung to the goddess' body. Sif could even see her nipples poking against the cloth, stiff from the cold. She opened the fibula that held the dress together at the neck and removed the drenched, cream-coloured linen. Freyja now stood before her in nothing but her woolen stockings.

Sif's cheeks blushed slightly as she took in Freyja's beautiful feminine shape. Her firm breasts were neither small nor particularily big. They looked just right on her hardened body, fit for a warrior. Freyja combined the fierceness of battle with the softness of first love. Sif was completely in awe. She had never looked at another woman this way. Freyja's beauty stirred something in her, especially the sensual movement with which the goddess took off her wet stockings.

They hung them by the fire and sat down on the warm bearskin rug in front of it. Inge brought the warm mead Sif had ordered and the blankets. Sif wrapped her friend tenderly in the cosy cloth, feeling every little rise and fall of her body even through the fabric. She kept her arms slung about the goddess of love, rubbing gently to warm her up. At least that's what Sif kept telling herself.

"Why don't you come join me underneath the blanket? Warm me with your body heat..."

Freyja's voice was low, with a seductive edge to it.

"I wouldn't have you freeze and shiver."

Sif crawled to Freyja's side and the love goddess slung one edge of the woolen blanket around her shoulders. Her body felt cold as a block of ice. How long had she been searching, soaked to the bone and freezing? Were she a mortal woman, no doubt she would find herself at Helheimr's gate soon enough!

Sif embraced her fiercely, pressing her warm body against her friend, trying to touch as much of her as she could. She felt her muscular thighs, the firmness of her breasts, the strength of her arms. The heartbeat of a woman determined to travel to the ends of the world. She admired her greatly.

"You are amazing." she whispered against Freyja's thick red hair.

"You don't realise how amazing you are." Freyja's grey eyes were soft as she pressed a tender kiss on Sif's lips. The golden-haired goddess felt her stomach flutter. This was different from any other kiss they had shared in the past. It was full of longing and desire. She responded in kind, kissing back wildly. Her arms pulled the other woman into a tight embrace. Freyja's chilly hands ran over Sif's white shoulders, grazing the soft skin on her back and turning her skin into gooseflesh. The love goddess probed her friend's lips with soft flicks of her tongue and Sif opened her mouth, inviting her in. Freyja was a force of nature, like the snow storm outside. Sif felt utterly defenseless against her - she would surrender happily. Her cunt was getting slippery from Freyja's touch, her scent and the aggressive licks of her tongue. Freyja smelled of Spring, of the wild, untamed outdoors and the meadows where young couples made love. Sif would love nothing more than rolling around the green grass with Freyja herself. Her desire felt close to overpowering her. The love goddess caressed her arse cheeks, close, too close to her opening.

"May I touch the treasure you hold between your thighs?"

"Please!"

Sif surprised herself with the loud moan from her own throat when Freyja entered her wet, warm womanhood. Her fingers teased and rubbed at her walls before she turned towards the pearl atop her opened conch.

"Oh Freyja!" she cried when the other goddess tugged at its little hood.

"Neither of our beds will be cold tonight!" Freyja looked at her with a sudden fire in her eyes. Desire gleamed there, defiance and determination. She intensified her caress and Sif couldn't help but moan and squirm at her touch. Longing, to give something back, she closed both hands around the breasts of her unexpected lover and massaged them gently. Freyja pushed heavily against her, sweeping her up in another hungry kiss. Sif forgot everything around her, the tender caress of her friend filling her whole world at this point. Her dripping cunt clenched around Freyja's fingers and she shuddered at the soft stimulation of her pearl. She cried out loudly as the love goddess gave her a climax so powerful, she felt as if the storm had blown away the house over their heads!

She panted heavily, but Freyja wasn't done. She gently pushed her onto the soft bearskin and ran her hand along her friend's white thighs. Then Freyja's face disappeared between her legs and Sif made a sound of surprise when she felt the woman's tongue against her thick, swollen lips.

"Oh Freyja!" she cried again.

The soft licks gave her pure bliss and she shook with another climax after only few short moments. Freyja worked her relentlessly and Sif was pushed from one orgasmic high into the next, until her body was too overwhelmed with pleasure and she pleaded for the love goddess to stop.

As she sat up, she saw the red on Freyja's cheeks, the warm, flushed skin and lively colour returned to her friend's body. It radiated heat, the only traces of her former frozen state the wet hair where the snowflakes had melted.

Sif herself was feeling hot and sweaty and the freezing world outside seemed nothing more than a myth at this moment.

"Come on, sweet friend," she said, "Let's go to bed, shall we? I promise you I shall return the favour."

Freyja gave her a look that would have drenched her cunt, were she not soaking wet already.

"What are we waiting for, then?"

THE END

If you enjoyed this story, check out my Greek mythology series 'Taken by the Greek Gods'. Or find more free shorts here.

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[fourletterworld]

Letting Go - Was a Big Brother

He didn't know how to stop, but we had a plan. I held onto the handlebars alongside him and guided him before letting go. He went forward, steering on his own, pedaling and balancing. He'd taken flight, and I was watching something I'd affected. He was laughing. He wanted to look at me but he couldn't take his eyes away.

"Dust! Look!" he called out. I laughed and clapped at him.

I watched as he ran his bike into a large pile of soft dirt. His wheel sunk in and the bike gently tilted on its side. He stood away from his bike and looked directly at me. His smile was as unwilfully brilliant as the sun and my heart bloomed. I didn't know it at the time but the brightness pierced a hole in my young consciousness and grafted onto my memory like silver nitrate. Feeling it now, as a man, I sense the texture of it all the same beneath my fingers. I was a growing boy raising a growing boy. Responsibility and joy had never known each other so well: the way a sober man falls asleep with a pure heart.

And man, sometimes I think, if only I could do it over and have my little baby brother back. If only I could have had some time to become a man so I could have truly guided him. I could have focused if I didn’t have the obstacles of my own adolescent mind hedonistically drawing the curtains over what was happening to that little kid.  

I think if I had a little boy now, that I was to take care of, a powerful resoluteness would overwhelmingly usurp any other color in my life. My son would think I was a warm heart born from stone. I would be the definition of dedication and love. He'd never know a single wild story of my life, and my circular conflict would straighten itself in opposition to my son's unbeaten path. I'd show him how to tackle his obstacles head on, with honesty and thought. I'd teach him how intellect isn't soft, and that it can challenge you toward self-destruction. I would teach him, that the depression he inevitably inherits from me, isn't a black hole to get lost in but a darkness in which to contrast the worlds vast beauty.  I would demonstrate what it is to be a gentleman so that the world won't misguide him, and I would hug him after I lecture him on a hard truth. I would teach him how to throw a punch, and elaborate on the ugliness of hatred. I would show, by example, tolerance. To live within one's own principals, and to illuminate in his mind the intuitive fine lines that sanctions them. I'd teach him that others may cross these boundaries with steam in their eyes, and to always guide them away with equal force. I'd also teach him that some may walk through his borders innocently, and others with intentional love, and that being disarmed by a woman is the most beautiful thing in the world. That her placing her hand on your most painful burn might not hurt, and that in time her touch might cool it into the past. Though if it doesn’t, the touch can make you forget for a moment, and that something new can grow in that tranquil silence.  And I'll also temper myself, and my fearful control, and trust in that organic thing we call unconditional love to unfold and open the rest of his soul toward the sun. I wouldn't be his friend, but his protector, mentor, model, and still, as I was with Cody, an endless summer of love. A pair of strong arms to lift him from the ground or to hold him until I've drawn as much of his hurt into my astonishingly endless threshold, as long as I can, until he will not let me anymore because he has become his own man.

but I think about Cody, and how I don't want to have a little boy in his honor. What a disgrace that could be, like attributing the old name to the new family pet.

No, his story is over, and I still have this muscle memory that springs alive at night to catch him.

Maybe that's all it is. I just have potholes throughout this road that has ran through my whole life, and I'm looking to fill them. I'm holding onto the handlebars and steering him away from falling in even though the little boy is no longer on the seat.

I'd walked into that same paternal quicksand again, but suddenly amidst this dream I see red brake lights in the snowy night.

"Jesus Christ" the electric jolt in my chest screams. I'm suddenly driving a car.

I jerk into the reality of it like I'm falling out of bed. I hold the wheel and cut someone off to avoid a collision and I'm thankful for not slipping on the ice. The windshield is filled with blinding snow, and the falling sheets pass by like light years of stars. It must have lulled me into this daydream. Everything around me is beautiful, but I feel so ugly inside I might as well be taking the scenery in through a motel television.

My adrenaline is going and I use it as an excuse to pull over, but really, I just want to do something unordinary. Chaos seems to work like that. You want to surround yourself with the unusual so you don't feel so strange. It's like giving your weirdness company.

There was a long period of time during the last year I had kept myself company with alcohol in my studio/shed after Bridgette went to sleep. I'd hold my guitar in between long pauses of not playing a single chord with my eyes open and my head full. I hadn't even cared about the gentle ride into drunkenness that beer provides, so I'd started pouring myself whiskey into Tupperware filled with ice so that I could quickly evaporate into some synthetic cloud of euphoria. I grew accustomed to the taste of straight whiskey, but who the fuck would drink it if it had no alcohol? People do it, I guess.

Through my cynical lens I find it depressing thinking about the shells of sobriety trying to salvage their spirit with non-alcoholic drinks. The desire never leaves you, does it? It's always there touching you in that empty space. God, will that be me someday? Always bored, living in forced contentment toward a lower threshold of fun? What about escaping into mental wilderness? What about living through great stories? I worry without the escape I'd turn into something like the Tin Man rusted shut from sadness, having watched my personality fallen asleep from the numbing perfume of adulthood.

Anyhow, these escapes of mine keep me lucid enough to keep doing this thing we all do.

So maybe I should understand Cody’s choices better. I’d sincerely asked him one day to never go down any road that I can’t follow him on, but what example was I setting? I drew a line but I'm no better. I steer toward the same cardinal point but to a lesser degree.

I often go through good days, riding creative highs and getting into the snap of productivity and exercise, but I always have it in the back of my head that there is that escape somewhere whenever I say I need it. Actually, I think part of what I enjoy is the rise and fall. I enjoy the facade of the healthy days. I brag about them like I mean it.

"I feel great, I haven't chewed on my stitches in days!" and I still buy it when I hear it come out of my mouth. I mean, I think I do believe it when I'm in the throes of a really healthy lifestyle, and I even start to think I'm normal, but even then, that's not entirely true.

Normal people don't exist while being overly conscious of not hitting their head on the ceiling. Sometimes I wonder if I'm more normal when I'm drinking because I can be so present, but even that doesn't sound right because normal people rarely look like they're having fun.

Christ, the things people will laugh at. It’s like we all come equipped with canned laughter to put adult tension at ease.  I know because I do it too. It just comes out of me to smooth over oddity.

Then there’s the other kind of eager laughter that wants out so bad we’ll convince ourselves that something amusing is actually funny. I’m guilty of this one too. I just want out so bad that I constantly look for those pockets to howl into, but it never leaves me satisfied.

What I really want is to feel out of control. I want my feelings to have nonsensical company. I want to let go of the handlebars of mind, spirit, and body, and for something overwhelming to take me over completely.

But, is it normal to want every laugh to be the kind that makes you momentarily crazy? Because that is how I want each laugh to be.

I want each laugh to make me lose my fucking mind.

[iheardarumorxxx]

Midnight Sun, Chapter 2 - Open Book

Not even a full paragraph in and I have to call Weirdo on something. In the Twilight canon, it is often mentioned that vampires are always always always cold. Like, big old blocks of perfectly sculpted ice. But here, Eddie boy says that his skin had cooled to match the air around him. Can’t work that way. Either Pires are heat sinks that are always freezing, or their temperature can change based on the temperature around them. Can’t be both.

Also gonna bring up the chapter titles real quick. Maybe SM will try to hamfist it, but in Twilight the chapter titles were (supposedly) related to the chapter. First Sight was Bella (supposedly) falling in love at first sight w Edward, and Open Book was Bella going on about how she was an open book and couldn’t hide anything and wore her emotions on her face etc etc. It doesn’t make sense to me to keep the same chapter titles when we’re obstensively living in the head of a different character.

Would have been, if I'd been able to really see it.

What SM was going for here was ‘Edward was so lost in his own head that he couldn’t even see the sky above him even though it was beautiful’ but this doesn’t work. Wanna know why? It’s because of this:  The sky above me was clear, brilliant with stars, glowing blue in some places, yellow in others. The stars created majestic, swirling shapes against the black universe - an awesome sight

Weirdo described the sky with perfect, flowery detail, expressed outright the colors that were swirling above him and the way the stars swirled and made shapes. He wouldn’t have been able to do that if he was too focused on his own thoughts to pay attention to it. This is what I mean when I say that SM hasn’t really mastered the First Person POV. This would have absolutely worked if instead of ‘I’ it had said ‘he’. 

As a note: Weirdo calling Bella ‘unremarkable’ in terms of how she looks just comes off as those shitty ‘you aren’t even that hot’ responses from people when they get rejected.

And Weirdo describing the way Tanya leaps at him reads really flat and boring. The play by play method to show how Graceful and Ethereal the Pires are is gross and the flat emotionless tone makes it read like a laundry list of actions. 

Chagrin sighting number two. And I’ve gotta say, this little thing with Weirdo and Tanya reads a little more realistically than any interaction between our main couple throughout the entire Twilight Saga. Sure, Widdle Eddie isn’t into her, but they’re openly and honestly communicating about it, which is more than Bella and Weirdo ever did.

Mostly Tanya preferred human men

This sentence right here completely invalidates Weirdo’s entire argument about how he would murder Bella with his Schlong if he ever gave into his desire for her, as there is clearly a way to hook up with a pathetic, weak human without killing them.

Two chagrins in one chapter, I am blessed.

though her feelings were not deep, hardly pure, and, in any case, not something I could return.

This goes back to that thing I was bitching about in chapter one about Weirdo and only reading surface level thoughts. He isn’t an empath, he can’t descern from her surface thoughts how deep her feelings might be. Based on how his power comes across, it’s likely that he can’t actually interpret any kind of tone at all, and is guessing at the emotion behind the thought. Just because Tanya makes a passing thought about Eddie that may be ‘unpure’ (gag) doesn’t mean that her feelings for him are strictly lusty and naughty.

By the way, it’s only chapter two and I’m already sick of hearing about Bella’s ‘chocolate brown eyes’.

That time jump that they did from Snowy Alaska back to Fork High cafeteria was jarring. We have literally travelled through space time to get back to The Plot(tm) as quickly as possible. Maybe, just maybe, it would have been beneficial to see some of Weirdo’s drive back, get some more introspection, more of an idea of how he plans to handle himself re: The Bella Thing, even if it is in his whiny, affected urple prose.

Humans were constantly desperate to feel normal, to fit in. To blend in with everyone else around them, like a featureless flock of sheep.

Unlike our great, wonderful, perfect Pires, of course. They would never dare to try fitting in with the Sheep that they have decided to live among and try to blend in with. This goes to prove my point that SM’s Pires don’t give a flying shit about blending in with humans, even though it is supposedly Vampire Mafia Law that they don’t get exposed.

"Maybe you're not as scary as you think you are,"

Despite the fact that SM tries so hard to make him come off as the stereotype of ‘dumb jock’, Emmett deserves a better series than this one. Not being afraid to roast Weirdo is absolutely fucking A+ in my book.

We are, yet again, applying Pire logic and physics to not Pire things to show how Strong and Powerful and Amazing our Pires are. I must once again posit that these things are not Pires, and therefore, would not behave in this manner, even when a Pire is interacting with it.

I am once again unconvinced by this Let’s Shit On Jessica Stanley thing I’m having to schlock through. Sure, she’s a lil petty, but she doesn’t come across as overt mean girl bully and she never has. SM never made her feel like anything more than a (in fairness, extremely stereotypical) teenage girl trying to be nice to the new girl in school and being put off by her weird behavior.

Small point to make here, just because I realized how bored I was with the debate over whether Weirdo would go to class and murder Bella or not. Because this is a companion piece to an already published novel, we know what’s gonna happen. Now, a good author wouldn’t let that stop them from making the tension feel real. Even though I know the outcome, I would still be focused on the journey to get there. But I’m not, because it reads as dry and dull. The tension isn’t there and I’m not enjoying the journey to get to the ending I already know. The characters aren’t even likeable enough to keep me entertained. This is why companion pieces and POV shift retellings are so hard to do.

it was hard to believe that anyone so vulnerable could ever justify hatred.

I feel like this is supposed to be the first lil glimmer that Weirdo is In LUV with Bella or whatever in this POV, but the thing is, his patronizing tone and the way he is seemingly always going on about how weak and pathetic Bella is just kinda makes it feel like he’s acting like her Dad. 

Though they didn't want to stand out from the herd, at the same time they craved a spotlight for their individual uniformity.

I only have one thing to say about this. Fuck You Edward Cullen.

I feel like Weirdo is starting to craft this idea of Bella in his head, much like he does with everyone else, but because he doesn’t have the crutch of using his surface thought mind reading powers, he has to guess at her thoughts (much like typical normal human people do because we’re weak and pathetic unlike the Pires), and he’s basically assigning her the thoughts he thinks she should be having. He’s crafting Bella into the perfect ideal for himself without taking her atonomy into consideration.

"Ladies first, partner?"

This is a continuity error. In Twilight, he did not say ‘Partner’, just ‘Ladies first’. It’s nitpickey, and I’m aware that it’s nitpickey, but it’s jarring if you know Twilight well enough to know the dialogue. If we’re going to see the same scene from a different POV, the only thing changing should be the inner monologue, not the dialogue between characters.

I could feel myself warming slightly to the higher temperature.

Bzzzzt, no. I already talked about this earlier, but everything established in canon shows that Eddie doesn’t ever warm up. He and Bella cuddle under a blanket and he is still described as rock hard marble adonis ice. He can’t warm up, according to established canon.

And in this chapter, we finally start the Shitting On Mike Newton run. Mike is the fucking worst in this book and is treated like shit, all because -- can you guess??? -- all because he thought the new girl was pretty and had a little crush on her. Mike gets shit on SO FUCKING MUCH in this series just for daring to think Bella is pretty.

Ignorance was bliss to the human mind.

OR EDDIE YOU’RE JUST ARROGANT AND RUDE AND NOT AS INTERESTING AS YOU THINK YOU ARE. The Cullens fucking PRANCE around this school in their designer beige turtlenecks with their flashy fucking cars and look down their noses at the pleb humans who could never be as good as they are, and especially with the way SM wants to paint Forks as this fucking insular hick town where everyone knows everyone and are probably socioeconomically lower than American average, its RUDE AND GROSS and makes them look like stuck up fucking JERKS. But sure. Keep touting on about how humans are scared of you.

And yet again, we get an example of Eddie boy ignoring the fact that Bella (for all of her faults) is a HUMAN PERSON and not some game for him to play. ‘Wahhh, I can’t read her thoughts, that makes me angy and frustrated’ and whining about how he wants her to GO AWAY because her blood makes his froat hurt but how he wants her to stay because she’s so MYSTERIOUS AND DEEP. 

This didn't fit with the scenario I'd been constructing in my head.

And this is exactly the point I was making up there. Edward is making wild assumptions about Bella based solely on his experience with the human condition from his immortality, but he is also crafting her into what HE thinks is the right way for her to be in his mind without taking into consideration that she is a complex human with feelings and emotions. But instead of actually correcting himself, he continues to do this, and we know he does because he continues to posit that she’s deep and wise even though we know different from being in her POV for three and a half books. 

A lot more of this dialogue is changed from the conversation in the original Twilight than I thought. It should be easy to keep at least the dialogue consistent.

I clearly was not as perceptive as I gave myself credit for.

This is the most true thing that Eddie is going to think in this entire book, and it isn’t even genuine and that upsets me so much.

my mother always calls me her open book.

I would like to use my solid four years of Twilight knowledge to point out that Bella Swan is not an open book, she’s a lying liar who lies about things, even though she says all the time that she doesn’t like lying. She was always going on about how she fakes her emotions for the benefits of others, she is not an open book at all.

The reason she was upset was because she thought I saw through her too easily.

And, of course, Weirdo eats this shit right the fuck up.

"I find you very difficult to read." "You must be a good reader then,"

This exchange didn’t make sense in Twilight, and it still doesn’t make sense here. Unless Bella is being sarcastic based on her previous statement, the exchange just... isn’t good. And it’s pretty clear that Bella isn’t being sarcastic. So. Explain it, someone, pls.

Emmett still deserves a better book than this one. He is literally out here like ‘Everyone makes mistakes, Eddie boy.’ But we are still talking about murder here, so... 

And that’s chapter two. I didn’t mean to do it all in one long post, but I couldn’t really see a good break in it to cut it in half. The human bashing is already getting worse and it’s making me annoyed. As you can probably tell from the Cap Locks. We get the first glimpse of Eddie being ‘protective’ that we know is gonna get creepy and paternal as the story goes along. And I know that SM was going for an old timey thing with Eddie, but Bella’s inner monologue was really dry and boring, and Weirdo is even worse in that area. Yet again, we see the First Person POV slipping. Little things that just don’t work in Eddie’s head.

Join me tomorrow for more, and thanks for reading along. 

[flowerflamestars]

Destined and Dreamt

PART ONE  PART TWO  PART THREE  PART FOUR  PART FIVE  PART SIX  PART SEVEN

Nesta Archeron wasn’t sleeping.   Wrapped in a quilted silk robe, she paced the length of her bedroom, once, twice, before giving into the urge to throw back the curtains from her windows. It was the darkest part of the night. Thick clouds had long shrouded the stars, the only light the reflection back from the fire burning in the grate across the room.

But still, it felt a little easier to breathe.

Her life had felt like cage for a long, long time. Like any other creature of clipped wings, when Nesta slept, she dreamt of the sky.

There were so many places she hadn’t seen and longed for: the impossible high mountain gardens in the Sky kingdom, the sharp gold eyed fairies of Hesperia;, that Blooming Country, under their lavender sky. The horrible beauty over the Wall, wilder and more dangerous than the fae of the continent she worked with. Fifteen thousand year old trade routes that crossed between the sacred spaces of the Great Desert, books written by the hands of gods in the Weeping City.

The mountain peaks in her dreams, so vast their summits turned the very wind to song.

Tonight, however, it was the nightmares that kept her awake.

Some were nearly as old as she was: Feyre devoured by magic, Elain with cold metallic eyes, Nesta alone- Nesta a monster, without her sisters.

Newer, were what was haunting her now: humans turning on them. Elain in chains, Nesta made ready for a pyre, the horror Lucien would unleash trying to get to Elain before the sheer number of mortals brought him down.

It should have been a comfort- if everything went to hell, they were going to burn too.

But hell was coming for them in worse, different ways. It wouldn’t be their neighbors condemning them- if Feyre got her wish, took that gamble on all their lives, it might be the Queens to whom their tiny human world was personal property who ordered all their deaths for consorting with faeries.

Or Hybern, bringing their brutality to bleed all of Prythian dry.

In the very back of her mind, Nesta heard again, soft and fathoms deep, the voice that had responded to Elain’s charm. We’re called Illyrians, born hearing the song of the wind.

Behind her eyes, the mountains sang the icy air to shape. Not words, but feelings that bubbled up beneath her breastbone and completed a longing so desperate tears ached in Nesta’s throat.

She had nightmares, and then nightmares.

Nesta had bargained and cheated, lied and bought her freedom. She might not have been able to save her baby sister- a failure she could never, ever take back- but Nesta would be damned if she failed their vassals too. Failed Elain or Lucien, besides.

The cold wind in her mind was a wilder thing than the chill of this snowy night, she could almost feel it if she tried. Ice and power and freedom, the air twisting around her like an embrace.

There had to be a way to keep them safe.

Beauty would not distract her. It was the oldest human story, wasn’t it? The innocent maiden and the wicked faery. The lost kingdom and it’s chosen heir, a quest, a sacrifice.  Destiny. The trick at the end- the pure of heart is worthy, but faeries always lie.

This wasn’t a tale and Nesta couldn’t freefall through the very sky into the arms of her true love.

She’d find those mountains someday, climb them until Nesta touched the clouds herself. Cross the dangerous, fathomless enchantment of an ocean to follow the path of her families old compacts in blood. Her mothers homeland, the faery smith who’d bound gold on steel for the first Archeron Lord, maybe even Lucien’s lost and savage Autumn.

She would live, and she would see it all.

Nesta just had to find a safe route through a war first, and nothing- no one- was going to stop her. 

— Lucien was a liar. It was possible it was in his blood- learned over the cradle, crooned by his mother the deceptions that would keep him safe.   He’d let himself believe the lie he could survive Beron intact in youthful fury. Shed his colors and lied through centuries of brittle, false Spring Court charm. He would lie now- lie and burn and bleed if it meant he could protect the Acheron sisters from what was coming.   Sleep had never arrived.

When Elain finally gave into the overwhelming exhaustion of magic and conflict a few hours before dawn, he’s stayed still. Felt the soft sigh against his shoulder as her eyes tipped shut, halfway through the litany of what he knew of the Day Court, the exchange for a cheekily retold explanation of the ties between the Archerons and the north’s fell High Lord.   “We’re not his subjects,” Elain had all but growled, face pressed to his arm. That several hours into that tangled space between them, curled together on her floor, she’d cajoled him out of his coat and most of the asinine human layers Lucien wore these days, was not something Lucien would let himself dwell on.   How infinitely pale she was in comparison, the smooth curve of a freckled cheek pillowed on his bicep.   “The original oath ensures it,” Elain went on, “Prythian’s courts don’t allow humans to belong to them in legal truth, but for us it’s a protection. Not under Rhysand’s rule, but we can enter the protected city- carry things from it on our ships to countries who don’t know it exists.”   Adamant to his gold, but that wasn’t right either- aspen, ash to his birch bark maple, the trees that cut paths through Autumns heart.   “Velaris,” Lucien crooned back at her glee, the syllables smoke in his throat.   “The City of Starlight,” Elain’s laugh had no sound, the amusement a twist in her voice as it swept over his bare skin.   In an urge he’d been turning over and ignoring for the better part of an hour, Lucien risked reaching out to brush the curls from her face where they’d fallen into bright, half-lidded eyes.   “Wherever a High Lord is,” Lucien found himself saying, as the silence stretched a beat too long, as he looked into those dark, dark eyes, “is their court. Rhysand has more power than any of them- wherever he is, Night lives.”   His hand was still in her hair when sleep took Elain.   The trust of it- asleep against him, like Lucien wasn’t High Fae, magical and monstrous as they came- froze him in place.   It was a longer while than he’d ever admit before he carried Elain the scant step to her bed, left her wrapped in warm down- the temptation to stay so huge- and insane- that Lucien started walking and hadn’t stopped until he was here; deep in the snowy woods.   Dawn was only now cresting through the clouds, the light silvered pink and slow to reach him.   It was too damned much.   His mother- not just alive, or miraculously unhurt as he only hoped and dreamt of- but apparently seizing her own fate with a surety Lucien hadn’t known existed in his entire lifetime. His mother’s freedom.  They’d both be safe, at least as much as was possible, from Beron and Lucien’s brother’s wrath. For the first time in his life.  How had she broken a bond of blood? Stolen a High Lords crown?And why, after untold centuries of it’s wildness trapped in Beron’s hands, would it accept being wielded by one human girl? And what- he was truly afraid of the answer- what waited in the Day Court for them?   Lucien had only one guess, and it made it hard to breathe.   While he was already damned and ceding oxygen, Lucien let himself think of Elain. A Court’s crown should have had an effect- magic, in it’s truest, oldest aspect, shone on the skin of mortals- but Elain remained herself.   An utterly human, utterly feminine beauty. Bottomless clever eyes and a vicious, brilliant mind only countered by that kind unforgetting heart- everything in the world Lucien wished to hold.   It wasn’t fair, but he blamed Feyre.   He’d had it locked away. Bound in so much red ribbon behind his ribs to call enchantment down- and then Feyre in her pointed frustration had spent an entire day making asides about how ridiculous it was, how unnecessary it was, for Lucien to marry her sister.   While he’d been braced for the condemnation, for Nesta to brush away Feyre’s fears in that cool way of hers, that wasn’t his first impulse. Like a madness- like the High fae that he was- Lucien wanted to get in a fight.   This was where he belonged. In pace with Nesta, forever at Elain’s side.   He wanted to tear apart anyone who’d try to take that away. His home, his family, his-   Love was not a word Lucien allowed himself to think. It hadn’t lived in his vocabulary for enough centuries it had been easy to bury. Passing fondness of course existed, friendship- though his last lover had in fact been killed by Feyre’s hand, in these very snowy woods.   Andras hadn’t even been allowed to die wearing his own face.   There was nothing Lucien wouldn’t do to keep the eldest Archeron sisters alive.   He’d forgiven Feyre- been as close to her as he had anyone in decades, a friend- but Feyre had protectors too powerful and numerous to name now.   Before the sunlight reached the forest shadows Lucien’s body had melted through the snowdrift, burned so hot he was settled in summer warm soil instead of mud. A few red plumes of leaves had tried to unfurled out of their time on the oak behind him, scattered down at his displeasure between racing thoughts.   He’d never burned Elain. Lucien wasn’t actually sure it was physically possible for him- and that thought, at least, was a balm.   Lucien needed to bury it all.   Needed the lying diplomats face he’d perfected, the utter and complete act he, Elain, and Nesta pulled off in concert- Lucien needed the lie. Not to escape what he was feeling- it wasn’t possible, and he didn’t want to lose all the insane hope and fear he carried- but to face this day as the clever fox he’d been and find a path through.

  If Rhysand planned on endangering them, he had another thing coming, Nightmare Lord or no. — Elain woke up alone.   It shouldn’t have been a surprise- much less an imposition that filled her with the sort of blinding frustration a less keen observer associated only with her elder sister- Elain was the maiden daughter of Lord.   Not just a Lord, so far as the gentry were concerned, but Flatha, scion of a distant crown across the ocean, given their noble lands in totality from the personal property of the Council of Queens, their dangerous wayward relations contained within their own tiny kingdoms. Six centuries ago, Elain would have been gormflaith;  a princess named for the blue of her blood, just for being born Archeron.   For her purity.   The reality was, of course, that her father was an absent, worthless wastrel at best and Elain very clearly remembered falling asleep in Lucien’s arms.   Brown skin warm on her face, the air around them sparking- with Lucien’s laugh it ignited, a hundred little shining flecks to mix with the deep sound.   In the darkest part of the night, it had seemed like a whole other world. Effortless magic everywhere, that she looked on with such enormous fondness it was impossible to hide, a wreath of flower and bone- where exactly in the Autumn Court had the bone of a dragon come from?- tucked in her hair and humming with a power that lit along Elain’s muscles like adrenaline, easy as breathing.   Tumbling into Lucien’s embrace to bask in the predator-intent, faery savage way he watched her face.   His hand in her hair. Gentle, so impossibly gentle as curls rasped over knife callouses, the gesture completely separate from the wickedness in his molten eyes.   Waking up alone, under no less than three layers.   Elain bit the inside of her cheek and rolled over, kicking off suffocating blankets two and three as she went. The one left tucked around her with the precision of rolled pastry was rabbit fur- warm, soft, and usually housed across the room on a divan near exclusively used by Nesta.   The perfect repose of a noble heiress- but most women of Elain’s outsize standing were not hiding a house full of dangerous faeries. Did not turn every bit of glittering charm and very real companionship on their fake- but not quite- fiancé to get them out of their eminently fashionable great coat, all the way down to a silken tunic that left perfect, near obscenely sculpted arms bare, only for fire to paint the air with happiness. The average daughter of Flatha weren't able to summon the crown of Court of Prythian out of thin air, or possess a High Fae sister, and a triplicate strand of pearls that lived on her wrist to hide a scar whose sensitivity felt like- felt like-   Elain rolled back over and groaned.   There were a thousand things to do. Nesta needed to know that Sorcha had passed them off impossible power, offered refuge that could reshape their plans. Lucien needed to sign off their shipping manifests, go to port and glamour smuggled faerie cargo.   Their farms needed the roads cleared, the staff accounted for in the blizzard, extra supplies taken to the orphanage to begin the winter holiday celebrations. A ball to finish planning, ash wood to burn and hide, Feyre’s arrival to stage so that she could move freely at home.   Elain was busy. But instead of moving she was staring out the diamond paned window that showed her pink sky and blinding white snow; thinking about Lucien’s hands. She wanted to hold those hands and let their matching rings clank together. Let him feel the pulse in her wrist and see how pleasure arced over her skin from that silvered mark.   She wanted Lucien at her side for everything. — Back in fighting form, at least on the surface, Lucien was more intrigued than alarmed when halfway back home he ran into Feyre, coming out of the woods.   It was that old friendship- Feyre the huntress, Feyre the human unafraid of magic tempered spring green groves, Feyre newly changed and desperate to be outside- that kept him from the immediate warning sign.   She was alone, for one thing.   Smiled that cocky, antagonistic smile he hadn’t seen since she was a human. “Vanserra,” She called, and Lucien heard cauldron damned Rhysand in the syllables.   It was not like when Nesta called him by his surname.   Because being pricks to each other was the friendly foundation for them, Lucien squashed his shoulder into hers in reply, the snow liberally sprinkled in her hair sliding over his still bare arms. “Where’s your crown, little Fey? Thought Night Court fashion had rubbed off on you.”   With a half smiling snarl, Feyre used both hands to send him careening, before hiding them away in the deep pockets of a gigantic leather coat he could smell Illyrian blood on. Hair in a simple braid, she was leagues closer to the woman he’d known.   “Rhys is dramatic,” She said, unbearably fondly.   Rhysand was setting her up as an equal, and the ruler of the most populous court in Prythian, but Lucien was not going to be the person to tell her that.   “Dramatic,” Lucien repeated with a grimace, melting the snow in his path. He didn’t miss that Feyre watched impossibly fast motion- ice to slush to water, soaking deep into the soil at his behest- with rapt attention. “What are you doing out here?”   He was going to make a joke about her hunting pheasant with unfair fey advantage, perhaps extol the virtues of the terrifying, wonderful woman Nesta had employed as a cook and really grind in the fact of his life here, when Feyre blinked. 

And then again.   High Fae tells were dangerous, subtle things. Control was a mark of age, and power, with the rush of instincts that ran thick in their blood with adulthood. High Lords were volatile, courtiers deadly.   Feyre, for all her obvious immortal grace and power, still feigned like the nineteen year old mortal she was in many ways.   And lied like one.   “Practicing,” Feyre recited, face normal and eyelashes fluttering. Untruth changed the entire tone of her voice. For someone who looked so damn much like Nesta, sounded so much like Elain, the lack of ease felt bizarre. “Rhys is training me, but I can’t control all the courts power yet.”   The woods led to both the main road out to the farms and the local village, in the other direction, apple orchards and the shattered Spring Court border. Lucien decided to play along.   “No more accidental fires?” He teased.   Feyre laughed, almost genuine. “Autumn is easy,” She insisted, which told Lucien enough to know that whatever drop of Beron she possessed, its depths had not been reached. “Darkness is obvious, but I’m still finding out what came from who.”   Before he could reply, Feyre twisted, fluid as a Dawn Court assassin, to pose before Lucien. “Spar with me?”   He’d fought her as a human. Fought Tamlin for the chance for her to learn to master her new body, retrain in old skills. Even if Feyre had been fighting with Illyrian’s every day for the last year, Lucien had three centuries and an impossibly savage upbringing on his side- there was no danger.   But still, his pulse said look closer.   “You should know,” Lucien teased, mirroring her wide stance, “I did already fight the ceremonial duel with Nesta for Elain’s hand.”   Feyre stopped mid motion darting forward lightening fast to laugh. “Nesta held a sword?”   Something utterly indignant, blood red and fey, twisted in Lucien’s chest. He caught the hand that had been about to slap into him and sent Feyre flying back, her knees hitting the snow bank his melted path had created. “Hand to hand? No weapons or magic?”   Feyre grinned, shoulders aligning. “Just one round, fight me for real.”   Lucien didn’t immediately realize what a mistake it was. — Elain’s first sign something was off was Nesta’s pale face, crashing through her bedroom door.   It was early enough- the house empty enough- that much like much like Elain pulling Lucien into her bedroom the night before, Nesta looked like herself. Ink already visible on both hands, her wine colored dress without the sleeves laced on, carrying both books and letters balanced under one arm, the Archeron seal clutched golden in the other- this was the real Nesta.   Who tossed herself down on a chaise, catlike, to glare at Elain.   Not at Elain- not really, no true malice could live between the eldest Archerons- at the world. “Feyre didn’t sleep in her room last night.”   The fur blanket tucked around Elain’s shoulders slid to the floor as she turned, taking the comforting smell of Lucien’s hair with it. “Did she stay with Rhysand?”   She’d thought, not yet. Feyre might speak to him like a lover, invade the High Lords space in that half casual way Elain assumed faeries would take very seriously, but they didn’t seem there yet. There was a restraint, hunger in those ancient purple eyes.   Starvation.   Nesta sighed, began to shuffle the books she’d set down into a perfectly straight pile. “No, she took one of the guest rooms. It wasn’t even made up.” It wasn’t even- Feyre had come home, crossed the continent back to the land of their childhoods, and pointedly slept in a room without fresh linen? Or candles, or water brought in?   Elain joined Nesta on the chaise, silk magic warm beneath her.   Feyre’s rooms were exactly where they had been when they were children. The eastern wing, where she could see the sunrise over the gardens from her bedroom. Before the house had been plundered straight to the ground to pay debt- the very beams and rooftiles sold- the room next to it had been a tiny childrens library, just for her.

They’d rebuild it three times the size with more windows than walls. Elain had spent an obscene amount on fine glass, Nesta filled it with supplies from four countries- a studio, for their sister who’d always wanted to make beautiful things.   Elain swallowed the hurt, shared a look with Nesta that said all that needed to be said.   With it went the thoughts she kept thinking seeing Feyre’s face, both utterly young and preternaturally frozen, beautiful. Mortal freckles but no smile lines left. That same unrestrained laugh, but their mother’s blue eyes looked at Rhysand for answers. She was back, she was alive, she was- “Why do you think she came home?”   Nesta handed her the largest envelope.   It contained not one letter, or map, but more than a half dozen missives on blue paper, written by equally many hands. Elain dumped them on the cushions between them and began to read.   Humans in business with faeries had unique tactics to stay ahead. For one thing, compacts bound to bloodline meant most of the immortals didn’t care to know their business partners, after all, by their standard, they’d be dead soon.   But mortals stuck together. Many of their ancestors had been the same once, royal blooded and wild with nothing to loose. Explorers, who’d gone looking for whole new lands to gift their children, bereft of a crowns direct privilege.   Their descendants learned care in the cradle, and the power of passing knowledge.   Blue paper for the secret city’s Court, incendiary powder ink for High Fae information, moon silk ribbons, for Sangravah, the weaving capital of the world.   Elain compared the words, reiterating the same thing again and again, before meeting Nesta’s blazing eyes. “The Night Court has been invaded?”   Of course it had come from a dozen people; merchants made money in conflict. Human worlds changed, when those conflicts were fae. The danger was near suicidal for mortals in magical wars- but those rare survivors ended up rich beyond promise.   “No one knows who it was.” Nesta said lowly, frustrated, “They infilitrated the civilian population, took something, and burnt half the city to the ground once it was found.”   A valuable something, if they needed that much chaos to dissuade pursuit. What did Sangravah have? The best rugs and tapestries in the world. The only port where Dawn Court silk could be bought. Libraries and temples, pink light and poetry.   “Isn’t Sangravah a stone city?”   Nesta’s pale bitten lips said yes without the words. Elain swore.   For something to do with her hands she tipped the book pile closer and read down the spines: Alchemic Fire: A Compendium, Mother’s Moon: The Priestess Orders, and White Stone, Silver Blood, The Complete History of Northern Conquest. That Nesta hadn’t slept wasn’t a question Elain needed to ask, anymore than she knew that she’d find colored coded annotations if she started reading along. Completely illegal tomes, of course, Nesta’s favourite import.   She tried not to picture centuries old stone made molten, leveled to the ground. The heat, the chaos- the magic it would take for that kind of destruction.   “Hybern?” Elain asked, her own doubt clear.   The shake of Nesta’s head knocked loose her hasty updo, wooden pins catching in the freed waves of her dark hair. Recognizing the sheen and sharp points, Elain tried and failed to sympathize with the storm Rhysand had coming.   Nesta was walking around with ash wood in her hair.   “Hybern,” Nesta repeated with equal dubiousness, “Or Night Court rebels, or another Court or the Queen’s Council. Rhysand has more enemies than the thrice damned Plague Lord.” A High Lord who had specialized in bloodline curses- a single faery who’d brought the continent to it’s knees, a thousand years before. Elain wondered if they were of any relation. The male Feyre called Rhys and laughed with seemed to have an equal notoriety with his own people.   And possibly worse power running in his veins.   “Prythian,” Elain began carefully, “Might be even less stable than we know.”   Whispering despite the warding, echoed adrenaline making her awake, awake, awake, Elain managed in a steady voice to tell Nesta about Sorcha. Crowns and the Autumn Lords crimes, asylum waiting in the most foreign of places. — Feyre cheated immediately.   Lucien, who’d once had nightmares about that exact look of mischief on a human face, like a Suriel waiting in the dark, knew it was coming.   So when the youngest Archeron sister rolled out of the snowbank he’d neatly tossed her into with a laugh, Lucien was able to smartly dodge the ice that came railing toward him. Not sharp, but a barrage like giant hail that cracked against tree trunks, sent snow flying.   Feyre had never actually seen how fast Lucien could move.   And he wasn’t trying terribly hard now. If she’d been training with Illyrians all along, she’d be used to superior ungodly strength, but not the speed of High Fae. Even if she hadn’t been given the opportunity, Lucien thought Feyre would have sought it- Nesta’s infuriated face that those were Illyrians, childhood legends made real was evidence enough.   Rather than reengage, half a kind thought to the looming oak behind Feyre had the tree shaking every bit of wet snow off its drooping branches.   The weight of the snow knocked her back down with a groan. “You talk to trees now?”   Lucien straightened from the trunk he’d been leaning against and tried not to sound full of the vague insult he felt, “I always talked to trees.”   Feyre didn’t bother to get back up, shaking the slush from the hugely oversized shoulders of her coat. Narrow eyed, she tilted her head in question. It was still bizarre to see Feyre so- the mix of her human mannerisms and the instincts of a faery body muddled, indistinct. It was even more confusing now that he knew her sisters. When Nesta had the same posture, with her utterly similar and painfully different face, it was all fae- aggression, focus, the shape of a hunt.   Feyre looked baffled. And angry? “How’d you learn that from Spring?”   He waited a beat too long for the quicksilver teasing smile, for the punchline. It was long enough for the temperature to drop several degrees, for her brow to furrow completely. Lucien swore. “You’re joking.”   Incised, Feyre tossed an impressively articulate fireball at him, straight autumnal gold. “Of course I’m not joking. Spring controls plants.” Spring controlled plants. Gods and immortal honey.   “What,” Lucien growled, pausing to dodge Feyre’s barrage of fire, “In the Crones darkest mercies is Rhysand teaching you?”   It was an obvious mistake to snarl Rhysand’s name like that in her hearing. Like he hated the bastard- which in some ways he did. The High Lord, even if it had been Feyre’s idea as Lucien feared, had brought death and danger to the Archeron’s doorstep.   Was, after a sole year of what was clearly painfully basic training, touting her as the greatest magical force in Prythian.   Feyre’s eyes visibly flashed and Lucien braced himself.   But what he was met with was a wall of fire. Not warding, not bloodmagic, not sunfire, but only Autumn’s burning grace.   He could have parted it like a curtain. Eaten it up with hotter flames, pulled back until it belonged to him. It was exactly the sort of magical pageantry Beron insisted upon- no one raised in the Forest House wanted to be the weaker end of that pull.   Disallowed, Lucien’s thoughts still managed to flicker to the crown that fit his head. Day’s gold and Autumn bone, a missing piece, a-   Lucien stepped into the fire.   He could tell she was angry just from its depth, roil. Like stepping into the titanic baths of a Winter chalet, like the Summer court sea; Lucien had forgotten how good it felt. Living heat coiled up his arms, caressed his face.   Swore he could taste just a hint of bonfire on the back of his tongue. The ritual kind that burned and burned under a full moon, hawthorne and rowan, violets and rose. It was, he thought, painfully near the scent of Elain’s rage, protection that littered the air like embers.   Lucien was only aware he’d closed his eyes when it all went away. The world was blinding white, and Feyre was talking so fast her words bled together.   -“why the hell would you do that,” She was saying, “Do you think I actually want to hurt you? Shit, shit shit.” Lucien tried not to smirk, but the action was ruined by his recoil when Feyre grabbed his bare arm with both hands. Not that it stopped her- she kept swearing right up to the moment she actually managed to trace up his arm, staring at his unblemished skin with giant eyes.   Friendly, afraid, and awed; but still Feyre’s touch crawled over his skin with wrongness.   It had a name, a very specific reason, but Lucien wasn’t about to use the word, even in the privacy of his own mind.   Finally he snarled, discomfiture actually real enough for Feyre to drop his arm in sheepish apology. Clearly, some fae things she had learned.   “I don’t understand,” She said, “What just happened? Are you okay?”   It had been easy, Under the Mountain, to forget the savior of Prythian was a teenage girl. “Of course I’m fine. You didn’t hurt me, Feyre.”   Forcefully, Lucien made himself remember that he’d once wanted to be her teacher. Trapped under Tamlin’s rule, less than a shadow of himself, he’d wanted to make sure the world leveling power in her veins didn’t destroy her. Now, he wondered what in Cauldron’s name Feyre had been doing for the last year.   And wished, wished, he’d thought to take a real shirt with him leaving Elain’s rooms.   Feyre was still staring at him in that half hollowed out way that spoke of something like human shock. Lucien made himself smile through the grimace. 

“Fey, you know who I am now? My history?”   Feyre nodded, pulse visible in her throat. “Heir to the Autumn Court.”   He didn’t let himself blink, but it was a near thing. The North still called him heir? How that must burn in Beron’s gut, infuriate Eris.   It wasn’t the right time to explain his banishment, the price on his head. Much less grin over it. “Could you drown Rhysand in darkness?”   Caught between the human impossibility of Lucien’s utter lack of injury and what she had been taught was a fearsome faery weapon, it was a long moment in the frozen morning before Feyre smiled again.   “He’d like to see me try,” She drawled, giving much more information that Lucien really wanted but- “You’re flame retardant? “   Lucien laughed, but the warning bells hadn’t stopped. There was no one in their history who’d ever had the power Feyre did. Some things were universal to High Fae; instinct and strength, winnowing and healing, longevity and vengeance. But even a faery child born whose parents had mixed two court bloodlines, or grandparents, or great grandparents- it could happen for generations down, still the result would be the same. A favoring of one, maybe two Court’s vital skills.   There were theories about how it worked. That the solar courts had more malleable, airy skill, but the elementals blood was more physically shaping.   Lucien himself was not a good example.   He’d taken the name Vanserra the second he could for a reason- he’d favored completely Sorcha’s skills from the cradle. There had always been talk along with it- Lucien who burned a little too bright, whose very name was light like his mothers.   Remarks about his deeper skin, the shape of his mouth, and the height he grew into- so unlike his siblings.   The last Vanserra heir. It was the savagery that saved him long enough to grow; had the Lady of Autumn’s whole family not been slaughtered? The male heirs had disappeared centuries before, the loss of all the rest to Hybern was a tragedy that bore the mark of Beron’s fingerprints.   Of course Lucien would be unloved- hated. So different than Beron, than his brothers- yet still the most powerful son of all. A walking reminder of crimes and bloodshed, it made a very Autumn sort of sense.   Lucien was a very Autumn-blessed faery.   But that didn’t mean he didn’t receive a basic education on other courts before his banishment. He was not fire retardant- like calls to like. Too much an Autumn blaze to ever feel anything but it’s embrace; but sunfire would burn him. A ward twinged with Summer’s roaring heat could wound.   He wasn’t the child of every Court like her- but he knew the difference.   Lucien kept right on smiling, despite the peaked horror. How could she be ready for war?   “Not inflammable,” He drawled right back, laid on an eye-roll whose familiarity brightened her smile, “Just Autumn born.”   Liquid fast, Feyre reached out to tug on a long red tied braid in his hair, “I would have never guessed.”   Could she smell Elain on the ribbon?   Not letting the thought show, Lucien swatted at her playfully. He loved her- not like he loved Nesta, but affection all the same. Her youth scared him. “So fires so easy,” He asked, “Are you getting all the elements now?”   Feyre started walking again, meandering toward the house as she talked. Fire and water, darkness and wind. Was it actually possible a drop of each court wasn’t enough to obtain their more esoteric skills?   Or had she simply not learnt to access them?   “-the hardened wind shielding is dead useful, not sure if it’s Day or Summer. The same with the light show, but I don’t know what it does”-   “Light show?” Lucien interrupted.   Feyre raised her eyebrows. “Sometimes when fire won’t come I get light instead, this kind of glow?”   Summer Court light was weapon, she’d have known if she conjured it accidentally. But if it went along with flame-   Lucien summoned a ball of flame. He didn’t need to hold it over his hand like a showman, but it would be better for his point. “Is all your fire red?”   Feyre only made a face in response.   He started slow, relying on the old adage that instinct would catch up once possibilities were realized. Red to orange, orange to gold, gold to peach and pink. Pink to the burning, seething white he carried around in his chest, the natural color of Lucien’s flames.   Delight and determination shaped Feyre’s face, before she mimicked it perfectly.   The white of the snowing, pristine world before had nothing, nothing, on the gleam and glow. It was identical. But, but- Lucien realized, flames gutting out, it wasn’t fire.   Pure magic, the rise of the sun that fed the world. Feyre couldn’t tell what the light did, because she hadn’t let it loose on darkness. It was cleansing, hungry as his own flames. Daylight.   Enchantment had always been Lucien’s specialty.   Now that he let himself think it, the prospect that he’d never questioned was insane. His mother was a creature of blood and the Bone Forest- her spells were binding, clever. Had he ever seen her break one?   Had her flames ever eaten magic, destruction tempering in a whole new shape?   The fire of High Fae is not always, simply, fire.

@breath-of-sindragosa

@flxwer-petals

@ladyvanserra

@illyrianinterrasen

@missanniewhimsy

@tntwme

@ourbooksuniverse

@pitterpatterpot

@thestarwhowishes

@abillionlittlepieces

@my-fan-side

@the-eightofswords

@wonderland–memories

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@cohen-theeleven

 @donnarosemary

[ven-uzumaki13]

A FROZEN DEVICE

In the middle of the Alpha 13’s centre room, a boy named Ven was in the kitchen making food for his friends Kree, Abby and Jake they were taking about what their next mission was until Abby brought up her past in joking manner saying, “Well my family thinks I'm a god or something” Kree then asked about Ven’s past “what about you Ven I couldn't find your proper file” Ven stop cutting carrots and leaned onto of the counter and says, “what my file said... that I was flouting in space for a thousand years with a celestial spirit inside me.” “so, nothing” Ven shortly followed up with “What about your name Ven that’s important... right.” Jake shouted across the room “Uzumaki...?” He whispered to himself “No I think it's all a gang now...” the glare in his eye fades “hmm what about you, Jake... those arms, are you ready...” Ven says with a knowing smile. Silence for just a moment until “yea...yea” he said staring at his metallic arms “it was that apollo game 2 years ago there was an attack everyone was running, screaming you know... I blacked out and woke up... with my arms gone they couldn’t find them; I lost my mom's bracelets they were everything... to me at least.” Jake then held his face crying, Abby who was sat next to him gave him a hug and held him “we have all lost something ether memories or families” Ven said trying to make the mood lighter “what about you Kree? How's your life.” “well, it's not that much better… my family was crushed in the same attack, Abby saved me.” Kree said holding back tears his green hair falling over his face.  

“I could have done better it's my fault.” Abby said with a deep angry in her voices, Kree and Abby arguing over who is to blame until Ven steps in “guys none of you are to blame it the ones who attacked... speaking of which did they catch them ye...” Ven is cut off by a large device smashing into the coffee table, covered in snow and ice, everyone jumps up and looks at it until it blinks away, Ven walks over and raises his wrapped hand and a wave of energy scans the table “This is new... a blink drive? hmm... we have them now?” Ven looking around at the others, Kree looking confused and says, “no we can't make it yet, were still decades away.” “Maybe it's not ours” Jake said standing from his seat, Ven eyes narrowed as he orders Jake to open a portal to the bridge of the eclipse, “thank you.” he says as he walked throw the portal.

The portal spins to existence in the rush of dust and lighting and as Ven walks out fairing his armour and helmet in a blaze of fire washing over his body his 2 red eyes breach the helmets tinted visor, staring at the captain, his white coat flows behind him as he says “Ven what are you doing?” “A blink drive just broke my coffee table and I'm here to find out more about it.” Ven says as his gun slowly materialises on his thigh “you're not going to use that?” the captain says raising an eyebrow “no” Ven says with a smile his helmet fades away his clothes returning to normal “so the blink drive was that you or?” Ven says looking around the empty bridge “no but we have tracked it to a planet not that far away I was about to call your team and then...” the captain pointing at Ven with his arms outspreaded “you and your team will be on the move in ten minutes.” the captain says this as Ven walks bye and goes back throw the portal, the rest of the team is watching kree spin his knife around his hands until Ven walks throw the portal and says, “ok the captain know where the device came from, get ready.” Ven and his team loaded into their ship the vanguard a smooth model curser class designed to get in and out and cause an explosion or 2, the ship was held in a small hanger just outside the communal area of the Alpha 13 command centre the ship engines turn on its clamps holding it in place released, and the ship started to fall into the deep void of space the vanguard meet up with 2 other ships before they jumped, it opened a chamber under the nose of the ship a slip-space cannon lowed itself and fired a single shot causing a large and loud opening to slip-space its edges violently trying to close the 3 ship enter the portal and it closes shortly after, the ship was shaking due to the energy bouncing of the hull “VIOLENT isn't it” Abby said fighting for control of the ship nav system, “OK when we land make sure that you’re wearing your cold-protection Armor” Ven said while putting on his coat, Jake starts to put on his vest until Ven says “Jake you'll need to cover your arms too, you don't want them freezing you won't be able to do much” Jake nods and grabs a bigger coat.

A slip-space portal opens with a grinding screech and loud blast of energy the purple vortex expands and 3 ships slowly crawl out and enter an orbit of a planet frozen in time, as the Vanguard was preparing to drop to the planet the other 2 ships would stay in orbit and bring backup if needed, the Vanguard’s engines turn on and it heads to the planet passing throw a snowstorm as large ice shards fall from the sky doges and narrowing missing the ship the Vanguard’s shield fairing changing from green to red, the ship passing throw the storm leaving a hole in the clouds revealing a white plane surface of snow with a small building the back hanger door of the Vanguard open and the ship spins to show the hanger, Ven, Abby, Kree and Jake all go to the hanger wearing there cold-protection Armor a gust of wind nocks Kree to his knee in reflex Kree grabs a railing as he is blinded by the snow, his eyes reeling in a small pain  to adjust to the snow “Kree” Ven yells as the wind blows by “are you ok” he continues the ships door reaches the snowy floor “okay everyone spread out try to find a door, it’s really cold”

Ven told the team on the radio the winds howl ringing in his ear, a static howl screeches throw the radio Ven concerned with this he jumps into the sky and a blast of energy is sent from his chest his eyes split like a dragon and can see 5 energy signals, 3 signals were intertwined almost dancing Ven realised there were fighting he calls this on the radio and the team charges the building Ven braking down from the roof the debris falling with him fire rising from the ground with him he looks up to see Abby who had delt with 2 unknown individuals “I expected something else, not going to lie” Ven said laughing a little “well I am an Alpha member Ven” Abby said with a smirk “yep” Ven said looking around the room “this place is really old” Ven said “yea these guys were tiring to delete some files they also tried to steal this" Abby handing Ven a smaller version of the blink drive “take this to the ship we need it” at this point Jake and Kree run throw an aged door slowly opening Jake uncovering his face from his red scarf “HURRY there are ships on the way, 40 of them" Jake gasping for breath.

Ven looking at Abby and says “go" as she starts running, “ok where're holding the line, none of them get to the Vanguard!” Ven ordering the rest of his team, Ven getting to the roof and can barely see the fleet of ships “scavengers” Ven whispered to himself as a large bright light is placed on top of the small stations hut the storm closes in and the hut’s lights fade into the dust and wind of the storm the presence of the ship cannot be forgotten the sounds of the engines were louder than the storm Ven blast the side of this ship it did not have shields Ven grind and jumped back down his entry hole “Jake I need a portal from lower orbit... I have a plan” Ven smiling as he puts on his helmet as Jake opens his portal the sky Infront of him he jumps, and dives throw while Ven was falling he was building up kinetic energy to part the clouds and allow a signal throw bringing the 2 ships in higher orbit as Ven is falling from the clouds Binary emerges from his shoulder in a small blaze of fire this small dragon says, “are you sure you can do this?” Ven nods does a spin and confuses his fall, Binary says “fine but hold on!" As she covers his in a flaming cloak of fire that tuns into a larger version of Binary they both breach the storm pashing the ships in a Blair but before Ven hits the ground he releases his built-up energy in a blast so powerful it pushes back the 40 ships along with the storm 26 of the scavenger's ships crashes into a frozen ocean of pure ice Ven’s blast had blown away all the snow around the hut making a makeshift wall.

The Vanguard spins up its engines and slowly flouts above the hut it weapons charged as the rest of the scavenger’s ship raise from the snow, the falling snow causes a mist under the ships the storm as its background and a loud horn can be heard as a hoard of smaller ships are launched “great they have attack ships now” Kree said holding his Eletronic swords hilt spinning around his hand and ignites his blades “the signal has been sent we have like 30 minutes” Jake said messing with a small panel “HOLD THEM OFF!” Ven said summoning his 9 spirit orbs, Ven them preforms a small hand sign interlocking his fingers and pushing them out launching a blaze of fire that transformed into Binary she then charges the largest ship latching on top of its hull ripping Armor pieces off until she can see the reactor of the ship, she tilts her back and blasts the ship with hell fire breaching the core and makes the ships engines explode dropping it to the snowy floor, Ven creating another hand sign to attack a different ship once binary is released Ven fly's up and forms a small sun in his hand he then throws it at a larger ship, Ven hit the ground and runs to attack a drop ship as he does the large ship flies over head and explodes as it hits the ground he raised his hand and fired a small blast witch destroys the drop ship in a ball of fire as he slides under a closing door of hut “11 left let get this done!” Ven calls over the radio.

Abby spinning the engines of the Vanguard and flies behind the rest of the fleet launching a barrage of missals a second horde of smaller ships start to chase the Vanguard, Abby realises and runs into the storm the horde follows her blindly, Kree blitzes throw a small group of scavengers until the Vanguard flies over head he throws his blade into a Scavengers head the lighting stored in the blade expels pushing back the rest of its group allowing him to grab his blade and kill the rest of the scavengers and run back to the hut “ok that’s like 3,4 ships maybe how's our backup going and where's Abby and the Vanguard?” Ven said loading his pistol “the backup ships are 2 minutes away and I think see flew back into the storm” Jake said with his face into a console “ok you fine here... right?” Ven asked “yes I'm fine go” Jake said trying to push him out of the room Ven grabs his helmet from the table and heads outside as Ven opens the main door a gust of wind hits him in the face and Kree is standing Infront of him and says, “alright what's the plan?” “we have 3 minutes until backup gets, here” Ven says holding up 3 fingers “so deal with that” Ven says pointing at a scavenger dreadnought.

Dreadnought pushing itself out of the storm “great, you said 3 minutes... right?” Kree said tired from fighting “ok yes let's try this” Ven said raising his hand pointing all 5 fingers towards the dreadnought, a small energy builds up on each of his finger and is released ripping throw the air the 5 beams intertwine and hits the dreadnought’s shield causing minor damage “great...” Ven said while his helmet folds into a cap and the smoke from his finger fades “that all you got...VEN” Kree said mocking Ven’s attack “do you want to try?” Ven said clenching his fist and a small flame emerging from it “nope do wana try punching it, that usually work” Kree said sliding down a wall, out of breath while Ven staired blankly at Kree tilting his head, Ven looking out into the snow-white ground the sky corrupted by the dreadnought presence he again tilts his head and notices a small crack in its shield and a small drone lacing it with an energy healing the ship “hmm that’s interesting” Ven said as Kree popped up from his small nap “What. Where. Who? oh hi... Ven what's happening” “Kree were you asleep really … anyway I found that the dreadnought has drones that heals the shield” Ven said while helping up Kree “get to the Vanguard and attack that ship with everything”.

Ven looking down at the ship he starts to run from the left side of the hut’s door he runs until the snow is built up too much to run so he jumps and starts to fly a blast of energy pushing him into his flite Ven lifts his right leg up to his chest and a second blast of energy pushes him faster the ships turrets start to aim at him, Ven pulls his arm and starts to attack the ship in a repetitive blast of fire, Ven releases binary to cover him while he charges a concentrated beam hiding himself inside the snow storm, Binary covering the ships shield in flames its turrets firing blindly throw it until the ship stops suddenly and turns to the storm pointing directly at Ven, the fire still raging on top of the shield the ship was detecting Ven inside the storm, the turrets aimed and fired into the storm until a bright white beam of light breaches throw the storm and charges towards the ship, the ship pushes itself up trying to dodge the blast but one of its engines stops, overloads and explodes stopping it from its escape then the blast hits its shield braking it under the weight shattering it too Pieces and all that remains from the dreadnought is a fire ball falling to the ground lighting up the storm.

Ven dropping to the snowy floor and as he walks to the hut he falls and laughs trying to breath before Ven can stand the Vanguard flies throw the storm and lands Infront of the hut a large ramp lowers from the back of the ship Abby and Kree walks out and points to Ven laughing in the snow and says “Jake is he okay? how long has he been like this?” “just a few minutes" Jake said leaning on the huts wall “WHERE ARE THOSE SHIPS, WE CALLED FOR!!!” Ven said getting up from the snow and brushing himself off, he then looks up into the shy to see both ships remains flying towards them “RUN!” Ven shouted ordering everyone into the ship as they prepare to take off, the remains catching fire from re-entering the atmosphere causing large explosions across the large empty snowy field the shockwaves shaking the ship as its engines push it into the sky, the clouds covering the bridge’s window until the Vanguard rocketing throw into orbit as the ship’s nose lowered to show 600 Scavenger ships surrounding the ship and its crew...

[aithrauniverse]

Chapter 18-Aithne

As we walked along the magical tightrope (or at least Laila and Astra walked. Me, uh, it’s safe to say I mostly tripped and fell rather ungracefully), I looked back. 

Laila seemed pretty confident, striding forward with her wings out for balance. But Astra seemed troubled. Her head drooped downwards, and she absentmindedly fiddled with the feathers on her wings -something she only did when she was nervous. Clearly, something was troubling her.

And I had to get to the bottom of it.  

Praying that I wouldn’t fall on my butt again, I turned backwards, inching towards Astra. Somehow, I managed to make it without toppling over. (Okay, fine, maybe I did fall once or twice. Or five times.) Slowly, I placed my hand on Astra’s shoulder. She hesitantly looked up, tears glistening in the corners of her eyes and threatening to spill over.  

“What?” she snapped.  

“Are you okay?” I asked, a concerned look on my face. (At least I hoped I looked concerned. And not, like, constipated or something.)

“Yeah,” she lied through her teeth, swiping at her face. Yep. Definitely something bothering her.  

I raised my eyebrows. “There’s no point trying to hide it, Astra. You can trust me.”

She took a shaky breath. “Fine.” Inhaling deeply, she blurted out, “I’ve been thinking about what would happen if-if everyone found out about the Great War. About the truth.” Then it hit me like a tidal wave. Of course. Everyone would be at a loss for words, to say the least. It would completely turn Almoria upside down. Riots would break out. Rebellions would strike. The demons would want revenge for the decades of unjust. Buildings would be vandalized and cars, torched. It wouldn’t be safe to even step out of our homes. The city would be reduced to utter chaos. No wonder Astra was so...so devastated. This was her home. No, this was our home. And we would defend it with all we had.  

I tried to sound soothing. “Don’t worry,” I spoke calmly. Internally, I was a wreck, but I couldn’t let that show. “It’s all going to be okay. Everything will be fine. Almoria will still remain the city it is. It’s going to take much more than a myth or two to destroy our city.” I put on a grin, even though I was trying to convince myself just as much as I was trying to calm Astra. I swallowed hard, and pushed the knot of worry downwards, where I wouldn’t have to worry about it. For now, at least.

Astra looked up once again. This time, though, her indigo eyes (yes, a unique colour, I know.) shone not with tears, but with a new spark of hope. “Really?” She sniffed. “You-you think so?”

Looking at those eyes, I thought of Endra. I thought of her current predicament, and our vow to her. This time, though, I had made a decision. We had sworn to fix this mess, and I wouldn’t stop at anything if it meant we could save our home.

“I know so.”

Wiping the last of her tears away, Astra stood straight, a new, much more confident energy radiating from her. “Then what are we waiting for? We have a final spirit to fight. Come on!”

For the next few hours, we walked on, carefully teetering on the rope. Now, it was even more dangerous, the thin wire hanging over ice-capped mountains. Beautiful view, but probably not where I wanted to die. Laila still led the way, but gradually slowed down, eventually standing still. By now, we were all sweating buckets. “We need a break,” Laila declared, panting.

“Couldn’t agree more,” Astra puffed from behind me, her head tilted down at the valleys as if she saw something I didn’t. I merely raised an extremely floppy thumb, too tired to even speak. Without bothering to explain WHY she would take away the rope and leave us to fall from the sky, the guardian angel snapped her fingers, and the rope poofed, leaving us with about half a second to react before gravity took over. (Stupid gravity.)  

 Bad news- I wasn’t very fast to react, and spent three seconds screaming my head off as I fell through the sky, bursting through clouds and forming large Aithne-shaped holes in them. (“Shush, Aithne!” Laila yelled.) Thankfully, a voice in my head chose that perfect time to scream at me, “YOU HAVE WINGS FOR A REASON, DUMBASS!!!!!” That caught my attention. I furiously flapped my wings, slowing my fall and preventing me from being flattened into a (completely unappetizing) pancake. A few more beats, and I touched onto solid, grassy land for the first time in five hours.  

I instantly collapsed onto the soft vegetation, folding my wings up and tucking them into a sort of bowl below me. (Extremely comfortable and safe. Try it at home, kids! Oh wait – you don’t have wings. Never mind.) Astra and Laila followed, dropping onto the ground. Tiredly, I pulled out three granola bags from my rucksack. Having handed them out, I unwrapped mine, taking a bite out of the heavenly-tasting grain.  

Next to me, Laila downed hers in two bites, while Astra nibbled on hers, still staring off into space. Finishing up the bar, I popped the last bite into my mouth, crumpling up the wrapper. (At least there wasn’t a Mdm. Danton here to scold me for it. Hah, take that, old hag.) I pulled my knees towards me and stared at the snowy peaks and lush vegetation, deciding to enjoy the view while it lasted.

God, only five hours to nightfall. Time really was against us.

After about ten minutes, I dusted my hands, pulling myself into a standing position. The other two followed, Astra clapping her hands. In a flash of light, the rope appeared yet again. We flew back up, took our positions and continued our journey, walking on in silence. I supposed we all had the same thoughts-the same worries bubbling and brewing in the deepest pits of our despair. But no, we were so close to saving Almoria. Just one more fight, I told myself. Only the final battle is left. You can do it.

Around one hours later, the fluffy white clouds began to grow thicker and more clustered. “We’re close,” Astra deduced. “The altocumulus is turning into stratocumulus.” I stared at her blankly, not understanding a word of what she had just said.

“Uh... in English, please?”

Astra rolled her eyes. “The clouds here are growing thicker.”

”Oh.”  

Watching the clouds get darker, Laila shuddered, “Looks like somewhere Satan would love to be.” She quickly realized her mistake. Almost immediately whipping her head towards me, she sheepishly apologized, “S-sorry. Didn’t mean it that way.”  

“It’s fine.” I nodded. At least she didn’t say that on purpose.

We closed in, the rope steeply curving downwards. Astra clapped once more, and the rope disappeared with a flourish, leaving us to fly down on our own.

We touched down on warm land, folding our wings up. This place looked like nothing we had seen before. Hard-black dirt lay in mounds, occasionally pulsating from some sort of seismic force. The dry, empty fields were punctuated with occasional craters that looked like ponds, only these weren’t filled with ordinary water. In fact, they weren’t even filled with water. They were filled to the brim with...lava. Hot, bright orange magma that would scald us terribly, and make us the perfect flambéed treats for any hungry monster lurking around.

And the HEAT.  

Astra rolled up the sleeves of her uniform. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have worn this...” she glared at the uniform.

Laila shuddered. “Wow. This is actually scary.”

Then, just as I thought it couldn’t get worse, it got worse. Because obviously.

A flash of bright, unearthly red light drew our attention to the center of the fields. A man stepped out of the light. I squinted, almost stepping forward to get a closer look, but Astra held me back with one hand.

“Don’t!” she warned. “This could be a trap!”

The man stepped forward. “How smart, my dear.” He smiled, revealing razor-sharp fangs. His dragon’s wings flapped in the air, a red similar to mine. I looked him up and down. Those immaculately polished boots...that scarlet vest...those deep crimson horns...that ebony hair...wait a minute. It couldn’t be. Was it...

“Father?”  

“Oh, well done, sweet girl, you’ve recognized me.” his lips curled into a devilish sneer, his glassy eyes staring right into mine. (Oh, I get it, devilish, ha ha. Very funny, brain.)

I backed away, narrowing my eyes at him. “How could you do this?” I spread my hands, gesturing towards the wastelands. “This isn’t you!”

He snapped his fingers, and a dusky rope wound itself around the three of us, tying us up and yanking us towards each other before we could react. I was immediately squashed against Astra and Laila. Great. The foul creature hadn’t even given us elbow room.  

He stepped forward. “Let me tell you something, my dear,” he purred, stroking my hair. “It’s been so long, and times have changed. So when a powerful entity came to me and offered me powers beyond my wildest dreams, of course I accepted them, with great joy, as anyone would feel when given more liberties. But of course, there was a catch.

“I had to bring the three of you to my master. Alive, mind you. I don’t know what he plans to do, but it’s probably best you don’t argue with him.” The demon I once called my father shook his head. “He gets very cranky when he doesn’t have his way.”

“You’ll be meeting him soon. But for now, you’ll have to wait a bit. He’s...busy.” The man dragged the last word in deep thought. Then, as if he was denying something, he shook his head and wiggled his fingers in a wave, grinning diabolically. “Toodledoo! Have fun!” With one last glint of his fangs, he was gone, leaving us all alone and with no way out, with nothing to do but watch the sun sink deeper down, turning the sky a pinkish-purple.

I turned to face Astra and Laila, and two terrified pairs of eyes stared back at me. But nothing could match the pure shock pulsating through my mind.  

The man who’d raised me – fed me – told me bedtime stories – had just left us helpless, victims to the last spirit.

Fun indeed.