#first time rendering armour too... its hard

[qualityqueenqueen]

💙🩶🖤

lansoni,,,,,,

[raayllum]

27 with Janaya?

27. "I'm going to carry you, okay?" Plus send me a number with a ship and i’ll write it (accepted ships are tdp canon ships + rarepairs (claudiez, sopreli, corvus/terry, sorvus)

Six months into her stay at New Aurea, Amaya breaks her wrist.

The attempt to take back Lux Aurea is far more costly for plenty of her and Janai's troops—no bodies to bury, the dead taken further into the dark army that had befallen their city—so Amaya cradles her wrist to her chest and orders a more formal retreat while Janai comforts her brother, who has never been more shaken.

It's only when Gren hugs her—too hard, too strong just in her current state—upon return back to camp that it becomes apparent to everyone else that something is wrong.

"Amaya!" Janai is by her side in a second, a cry of alarm seared on her lips. "What—oh."

"It's nothing," Amaya signs with her other hand, weak and clumsy. It's been a long time since she's had to practice signing one handed at all, and a lump forms in her throat.

She won't be able to fight like this. Won't be able to help with any further excursions into the city. Won't be able to spar with Janai or—

"Nonsense," Janai says, and then glances back at the surviving wounded behind her. She purses her lips, torn. She wants to help both of them, but... "I—"

"I'll rally Marcos and General Miyana," Gren chimes in, like he knows he'll probably have an even harder time getting Amaya to listen and rest; she pouts. "Get everyone settled while you take care of our general here."

Relief is evident on Janai's face. She squeezes his shoulder. "Thank you, Gren."

Janai is careful, trained in first aid as anyone on the frontlines would be, as she guides Amaya to one of the medical tents and after the medic has given the go ahead, begun to tend to and make a splint for the wrist. She leans in close enough that Amaya can smell the cinnamon on her breath as she ties the sling around her arm into a knot above her shoulder as well.

"There," she says, drawing back. "Much better."

It isn't. Even with advanced Sunfire healing, it takes four weeks for Amaya's wrist to heal. Four weeks of struggling to dress herself, four weeks of feeling vulnerable in just her tunic instead of her heavier armour, four weeks of watching her men spar and being regulated to the side lines, four weeks of straining her sling or splint because she forgets she can't sign with two hands, and—

It's one such morning of struggling with a thicker winter cloak, and its various buttons along the front, that makes bitter tears well up in her eyes.

She has always been able to do anything, all by herself. How could one little injury render her so inept, and weak, and—and—

The fluttering of her tent flap in her peripheral vision catches her attention, red brokered by a golden crown as Janai steps in. "Amaya?"

Amaya curses internally. To say she hasn't been avoiding Janai a little would be a lie. The queen is already so busy, and Amaya doesn't want to add more to her plate. They'd only been courting for a few weeks before the disastrous attempt to take back the city, and Amaya's broken wrist means that she hasn't been very fun the past month. No sparring, none of their newly discovered intimacy in the privacy of Janai's tent, no being able to help with the construction of the camp. Amaya hasn't even been able to help teach her how to sign that much, since it'd be pointless for Janai to learn a one-handed version just because...

Janai shouldn't have to see her be so weak. Amaya is stronger than this; or at least, she should be.

There is nowhere to hide, though, even as she wishes the white cloak would swallow her up and make her disappear.

Janai's smile fades once she sees her—because of course it does—and she steps forward. "Amaya?"

"I, uh..." Amaya presses her lips together. Her eyes burn. This is so stupid. "I couldn't get the cloak on right."

She watches as Janai's concern and confusion gives way to something... fonder. Warmer? A soft, wide grin spreads over her lover's face. "That's alright. Would you like some help?"

Amaya's eyes narrow. "Do I really have much of a choice?"

Janai laughs a little, stepping forward. She tucks the arm and its sling carefully under the broader sweep of the cloak, shortening the other side so that her uninjured hand will be easily visible even as Janai does up the buttons, one by one and smiling.

"You don't have to avoid me, you know," Janai says, glancing up at her. "All generals have their injuries. I broke my arm sparring with Karim once, when we were young. I was so embarrassed."

"I'm not embarrassed—"

"Love." Janai touches her face, brushing a thumb over the scar on her cheek. "You don't always have to be so strong all the time. You're not alone."

"But I—I know that," Amaya signs, lamely. She averts her gaze before glancing back to lip read.

"Do you?" Janai presses. The silence speaks for itself and she sighs, leaning up to give her a brief kiss. "Do you remember the first time I wept in front of you, about my sister?"

Janai had sobbed into her shoulder, the sun setting behind them. I shouldn't—Khessa was cruel to you—

This isn't about her, Amaya had countered firmly. This is about you.

"I do." She tries not to think about how much that sounds like another kind of vow, of remembrance. They are only two months in. But, at their age, with what they've been through...

"And I listened to you. I trusted you meant what you said. So trust me now: it is natural to want to carry your own weight. And you are. But also—let me carry you." Janai grasps her free hand, squeezing, so bright brown-eyed and caring that the lump in Amaya's throat dissipates. Something thuds dully in her heart, heavy and light in her chest. "I am going to carry you, okay? I want to. I know that we are stronger together, and I know somewhere deep down, you know that too—" A twinkle enters her eyes. "Or you wouldn't have the rule we can't be on the same team while sparring another pair."

Amaya puffs out a breathy laugh. Then she settles into, the steadiness of Janai's gaze, the calloused gentleness of her hands. She breaks away just long enough to sign, "Okay."

"Good." Janai smooths down the cloak and then steps back, taking her hand. "Now come with me to the camp meeting." She winks, heat seeping into her hand at will. "I'm sure I can keep you warm better than any old cloak, anyway."

[astranauticus]

ok one last post about the Project to truly exorcise it from my brain. just some process/design thoughts (also now that it's done if you want to read my liveblogged whinging for whatever reason here it is)

first off some stats because i kept stats like the nerd that i am:

time wise making this animatic took about 93.5 hours give or take (thanks procreate process replay) spread across exactly 2 months

anyway when i said i finished this project mostly through stubbornness and sunk cost fallacy this is what i meant lol like a lot of my thought process through this was just 'no way in hell am i letting some of these drawings disappear into my drafts forever'

on average each frame took about 2 hours 45 minutes but thats a bit of an overestimate since i forgot to count some of the animated bits from the first two lines (so id guess the actual number is more like.. 2 hours 20 minutes?)

btw that line with the starry apparition fading away? 12 hours total

the single longest and most painful frame to draw was the one of the crew walking through tu'narath (5 hours 30 minutes) because a. perspective b. architecture design c. for some reason i put a lot of detail into rendering the armour on all the githyanki i drew why on earth did i do that

(its especially painful bc that frame was one of the ones that didnt... feel like an important enough moment in the actual story of the show to be worth capturing the way the wish or even like, endellion is, i just needed to put that there for the storytelling flow or whatever of the animatic itself and it bothered me so much)

one other interesting little mishap was that i did all of these on canvas size 1080x720px (so that's why the youtube resolution isnt particularly high lmao) which is why procreate let me put an absolutely absurd amount of layers in one canvas (all 8 frames of with memories projected on the astral sea were done on one canvas. 159 layers) because the layer limit for that canvas size is 400 BUT. i accidentally started the starry apparition fade on an A4 canvas (my default canvas size for like all my normal fanart) and i only realised after finishing all the lineart and starting on colouring because i hit layer limit so i had to resize the canvas which did... interesting?? things to the lineart resolution

also if youre wondering how i drew K-LB that many times in something resembling timely fashion the answer is i sacrificed some... amount of sleep to 3d model and rig him in blender which. honestly? i consider it a roaring success

splitting the frames by bar was a Choice and certainly a choice ive.. had doubtsTM about but thats the kind of thing you cant really change without bringing the whole project crashing down so if the frames seem to move a bit too fast im so sorry there was really not much i could do there

idk if people actually noticed the very very tiny drawings of the crew moving around on the ship in the 4th line especially since they sometimes get obscured by the subtitles but the REASON for that is in my original drawings the subtitles went in the top left corner but they kept conflicting with other stuff so i just gave up and threw them to the bottom (also i originally included the chinese lyrics but then i got lazy lmao)

anyway that little detail like VR-LA angstily looking at the sea reminiscing about the JourneyTM and the crew sort of appearing along with the memories of their adventures together was one of those things that seemed SO COOL in my head but once i actually execute it its like. hmmmm not sure if that worked out the way you thought it would buddy. also the tiny crew was EXTREMELY hard to draw so put that down as another point in 'me subjecting myself to deeply painful and out there compositions for no good reason'

anyway i called this my magnum opus but i do actually have some thoughts about another one (a companion piece, if you will) for another song by the same band because now that i know what capcut can do im.. really itching to try something a little different because this like powerpoint presentation style? fully a product of me using iMovie as my only available video editing software for the past like 7 years of my life

[ultraguardindia]

How to Clean Your Car without Damaging PPF

So you've invested in a paint protection film (PPF) so your car can stay brand new for years—good decision! But now we have the hard question: how do you wash your vehicle without damaging that clear, almost imperceptible armour? Wrong washing methods can scratch or peel off the film, rendering the car paint protection film investment useless in the first place.

Don't panic—don't worry—we've got your back. In this guide, you'll discover safe and intelligent cleaning tips to care for your car's PPF coating while preserving that mirror-like finish.

What is Paint Protection Film (PPF) and Why It Matters

Okay, first things first—what are we even protecting here?

Clear PPF or paint protection film is a thermoplastic urethane coating put on the exterior of your car. It protects your car from rock chips, bug splatter, small abrasions, and damaging UV rays. A good PPF car coating not only maintains the paint of your car but also makes your car look better and increases its resale value.

But the twist is that it needs a bit of care and affection. If you wash your car wrong, it could lead to scratches, fading, or worse, flaking.

1. Don't Wash Immediately After Installation

Let the paint protection film heal properly. Experts suggest waiting for at least 7 days after installation before you wash your vehicle. Water, soap, or pressure from a hose can interfere with the adhesion process and produce bubbles or lifting.

Pro Tip: If you notice tiny bubbles or a cloudy look during this time, don't worry! It's normal and typically clears up once the film stabilises.

2. Apply the Two-Bucket Method

A bucket for clean, soapy water; another for rinsing your wash mitt. This technique minimises the likelihood of rubbing dirt particles back onto the surface, reducing scratches on your clear PPF.

Use a ph-balanced, non-abrasive vehicle wash specifically for cars that have PPF coating. Harsh chemicals or high-acidity cleaners can soften the finish or discolour the edges of the film.

3. Avoid Drive-Through Car Wash

Drive-throughs may be convenient, but those whirligig brushes can be harsh on your car paint protection film. They typically pick up dirt from other cars, which is washed and can leave swirl marks or rip the edges of the film.

Instead, wash your car by hand with soft microfiber towels or mittens. It is more work, but your paint protection film will appreciate it in the long term.

4. Soft Drying Methods

When washing, don't allow water to remain on the surface—it can lead to water spots, particularly for PPF coating for cars. Use a clean, dry microfiber cloth and softly blot or pat the surface. Be careful not to wipe aggressively or use dirty cloths.

Optional: Use a car-specific air blower to dry water along the edges and seams without physically touching the film.

5. Naphtha Containing Wax

If extra gloss is needed, then go for it, but select a safe PPF wax or sealant. Also, avoid naphtha, kerosene, and other harsh solvent-containing products. They can dissolve the adhesives in your paint protection film and leading to discolouration.

There are also certain ceramic coatings designed specifically for clear PPF, which can enhance shine and hydrophobicity without damaging the film.

6. Observe the Pressure

Pressure washing? No issue—but keep it far away. Keep at least 12 inches away and never shoot directly at the edges or seams of the film. Too much pressure can lead to peeling or lifting of the car paint protection film.

Conclusion

Taking care of your paint protection film doesn’t have to be complicated. A touch of mindfulness when it comes to washing your car will go a long way in helping maintain its condition as well as prolong its lifespan. By using the right tools, avoiding harsh PPF chemicals, and employing gentle cleaning techniques, the benefits of clear PPF can be enjoyed without compromising its durability or clarity. And remember—when it comes to protecting your car, every gentle touch counts!

Ready to give your car's defence game a boost? A properly maintained PPF coating for a car not only keeps your paint in check, but it also protects your pride and joy on four wheels. Treat it with care, and it'll shine for miles ahead.

FAQ

How to clean a car with PPF coating?

To clean a car with PPF coating, always use a ph-neutral car shampoo, the two-bucket method, and soft microfiber towels. Avoid abrasive tools or high-pressure sprays aimed directly at the edges.

Will a car wash ruin PPF?

Yes, automated car washes with brushes can damage paint protection film by causing scratches, lifting edges, or dulling the finish. Hand washing is the safest option.

What is the best car cleaner for PPF?

The best cleaner is a PPF-safe car shampoo—look for products that are ph-balanced and free from harsh chemicals or solvents. Avoid strong degreasers or acidic cleaners.

Which is the best car wash for PPF?

A gentle hand wash using the two-bucket method is ideal. For those who prefer services, choose a professional detailing centre experienced with clear PPF and car paint protection film maintenance.

[omgreally]

Close - Din Djarin/F!Reader - E - 1k-ish Words

Warnings/Summary: dry-humping and din. that’s it. that’s the plot.

Din’s not sure how it happens the first time.

How each of you falls into the other. Drawn, like gravity in the heart of a dying star. And yes, it feels desperate - frenetic - clawing back some feeling after the numbness of battle, after the closeness of death.

He winds your hair around his fist and pulls, and your bare throat is like an invitation for him to tear his helm from his head and set his teeth to your pulse. He’s not quite sure how he resists. He feels uncertain - dizzy with this, almost - the effect your presence has had on him since the moment you met, deniable at first, unignorable now as he draws you to him. 

You turn confused, then surprised, then almost savagely gleeful - he backs you up against the bulkhead and reason disappears, fizzing away in a blink.

And so, Din has no trouble wedging your legs apart with his knee and forcing his hips into the space between. The coldness of durasteel at your back, you gasp at the intrusion - at the aching welcomeness of it, at the arching chase of heat between your legs. 

It’s the only place Mando doesn’t have armour but he’s no less hard for it. He grinds into you and you swallow a whimper as the all-too-covered ridge of his dick presses against the seam of you through your pants. He’s half-hoisted you into his arms already, the wide leather-covered breadth of his hand digging into the meat of your thigh as he lifts your knee up to his hip.

“Mando-” you utter, sense and words yet to flee you completely. And, in the last vestiges of his, he replies-

“Din.” 

His name. Oh, Maker. “Din,” you repeat. He’s everywhere, pressing against you, into you. And you are everywhere - surrounding him in heat, and the friction of the roll of his hips is all he can think about wanting.

The growl he emits is something not entirely human - he wants to be closer but he doesn’t know how, the shameful baring of any flesh still so alien to him. His religion, somehow retained after being shaken to its core, prevents him from experiencing so much.

It’s rare for him to see it as something that holds him back. But in this moment - in the raw heat of the feeling that springs sweat to the back of his neck - he does.

You are no help, with your willingness; with the way your hands clamp onto his biceps, with the relentless squirm of your body trapped in his grip. He feels a frenzy quite unlike the one he feels in battle - the rush of hot blood through his veins experienced in an entirely different way. He tries to pin you in place while he gets a hold of it, while he calms the frantic drum his heart, but you keep moving. You roll your hips in such a way that drags the full, clothed length of him against you, again and again.

“Din,” you say again, and from your lips it’s like a prayer. He shudders, shoves against you, and your nails dig into his jacket. The durasteel rings with a dull sound at the impact. You moan, and that’s the final nail in the coffin of his self-control.

You feel his wide fingers, splayed and digging into your ass as he lifts you. You feel the bunch and tense of his biceps beneath your palms. You feel the underside of his cock, the pressure of it against the aching point of your clitoris. You feel the distant roar of an approaching orgasm ringing in your ears, in the clench of your empty cunt.

“Fuck,” Din mutters, his voice punched-out and breathless, rendered sibilant by the vocabulator in his helm. He presses his forehead against the bulkhead over your shoulder and tries to breathe through the sweet agony of pressure, needing more. 

Then you wrap both your legs around his waist and grind, hard and needful, into him.

It’s too much, the welcoming cradle of your body, the heat and damp he can feel  through your layers as well as his; his body so starved of touch that it can’t parse the closeness of yours in time to hold back the spasming clench of his abdomen and the heat that throbs in the root of his cock and the tightening of his balls.

He barely even notices that you’re coming, too - holding your breath with your eyes screwed shut against it, and then gasping in fits and starts as you tense through your thighs and shake. The fist in your hair has drawn pain-tight and Mando is rutting against you with decreasing intensity, until suddenly he is still and you realize that sound you can hear through the thunder of blood in your head is him panting past Beskar into your ear.

“Did you just..?” he wonders haltingly and the hitch in his voice makes your heart skip. You manage to loosen your grip on his arms and he lets you down - your legs wobbly and barely supportive, you lean back against the bulkhead, and let him hold you up.

“Yeah,” you murmur, and you know you must look a mess - your eyes feel glazed and your cheeks flushed. But, to your surprise, once Din lets go of your hair his gloved hand is soft as it cups your jaw.

“That was…too close,” you manage, as some sort of excuse - and you feel the threat of absurd laughter bubble up in your chest. Then, something cold - you open your eyes and your vision fills with silver as Din presses his metal forehead to yours.

“You have no idea,” he says, and soon the rich rumble of his voice joins yours in the giddy beginnings of a laugh.

[sserpente]

A/N: Heyho there my lovelies! I’m finally back! I missed posting so much! This Imagine is based on a TikTok I found and what can I say? It inspired me! After this, next up, will be the 20k Special! Enjoy everyone!

Words: 3205 Warnings: colour-blindness

“What if I never find him?” You murmured, glancing at the fruit bowl with a saddened expression. Yellow bananas, green grapes, red apples. To you, they were all different shades of grey. Dull and boring, like you had been sucked into a 30s black-and-white film. Only you didn’t get a cheesy romance out of it.

You had been born with what doctors today would call a ‘remarkably rare, complicated and fascinating condition’, for you had lost all of your colour vision at the age of twelve. You still remembered what the world had looked like before—bright, rich, intense—then someone flicked a switch overnight and all you could still see was grey, grey, grey and greyer. The colours would only ever come back to you once you found the love of your life—your soulmate.

A sigh escaped your lips. Only a few people still existed with this… defect and to make things worse, you had had no idea you were one of them. Not until your twelfth birthday. Society admired and pitied you all the same and yet, being a hopeless romantic, at the end of the day, you longed to finally fall in love.

Tony chuckled. “Heads up. You’re too young to worry about settling down anyway.” He responded cheerfully and pointed at you with a screwdriver in hand. He had been trying to fix the dishwasher for a solid twenty minutes now and for a man who had built himself a pretty much indestructible suit that could fly, it was utterly amusing he couldn’t figure out why it had stopped working.

You were not an Avenger, mind you. The sole reason you were, as of right now, in the Avengers’ kitchen munching on grey chocolate chips was that your best friend, who in turn was friends with Clint’s wife, had managed to flood your shared flat over the weekend. It was utterly inhabitable now and it would take quite a while for the landlord to get it all dried up again—and since insurance would not cover the cost for staying in a hotel, for the time being, Clint’s wife had suggested you’d stay with them—right until Tony Stark had shown up and you had graciously offered you’d come hang out at the Avengers Tower. Okay, technically you had begged him but either way and needless to say, you had jumped at the opportunity and somehow even hoped that you would learn some dirty superhero secrets—but so far, nothing. Nothing but what superheroes did when they were not out and about saving the world. Truth be told, seeing Thor in Hello Kitty pyjamas and witnessing Natasha Romanoff of all people scream watching an Asian horror film had its perks but you had somehow expected for them to be called in for an urgent mission where they required a skill only you had and then they would rely on your help and you would fight and become an Avenger and… your fanfiction had always sounded too good to be true.

“Are you still there? How is that fruit bowl so interesting?” Snapping yourself out of your thoughts, you blinked.

“Sorry. What were you saying?”

“I was saying that…”

“Tony?” It was Bruce who interrupted you two, peeking his head into the kitchen almost timidly. You waved at him and he nodded, yet he failed to reciprocate your smile. Uh-Oh.

“Did something happen?”

The scientist nodded. “You might wanna put on your suit.”

“What happened?”

Bruce pursed his lips. “We’ve located Loki.”

-

Your eyes were still widened by the time you rushed after Tony even after he had told you explicitly (three times, to be exact) to stay put and hide until he had been put in custody.

The Loki. God of Mischief, Thor’s brother, Frost Giant, the I-tried-to-take-over-the-planet-guy. It was exciting, somehow, meeting a villain and oh, would it fuel you for your fan fiction. You almost bumped straight into Thor when they all came to a halt all of a sudden, his body a wall of flesh and muscle and making you grunt in pain—you might as well have hit a brick wall. With his hammer in hand, he ensured no one would approach his dangerous brother closely enough for him to try anything funky.

But the fact that Loki was even more handsome in person and the first villain you ever saw in person when he turned around the corner with a proud and arrogant expression on his face despite his shackles, was not what startled you to the core.

All of a sudden, there were colours. Everywhere.

Your lips parted, the impact of all the pigmentation around you making you dizzy. Loki’s armour was black, his cape was green, his eyes were blue, and his hair reminded you of the plumage of a raven. And your surroundings... The compound was silver now, the sceptre they had taken from him golden. Nauseous, you held on to Thor’s muscly arm for support. The God of Thunder frowned in concern. His eyes were blue too, his hair blonde, his cape red… too… many… colours. You suppressed a gag, overwhelmed by the sudden return of your colour vision.

“Are you okay?” Thor asked.

“G-guys… I can see colours.”

Every single head in the room, including Loki’s, turned in your direction so fast you flinched. Tony’s face was the first to fall in response.

“You are joking, right?”

Mutely, you shook your head. Your eyes locked with Loki’s, electricity rippling through you when they did. His blue irises froze you from the inside out, like each and every one of your limbs failed to resist the magnetic pull you felt towards him, and your cells longed for you to throw yourself into his arms—despite the fact he was handcuffed... and for a good reason too. Swallowing thickly, you forced yourself to look away.

Loki was your soulmate. That was impossible; and quite frankly, the god in question appeared to be thinking the exact same thing.

You chewed on your lower lip, anything to distract yourself from your predicament all the while everyone was still staring at you like you had grown two more heads.

“Take him to the cells, I’ll stay with her.” Clint’s hand on your shoulder did little to console you. Part of you still barely resisted the urge to start at Loki like a succubus, the other… the other was terrified and meant to hide in the archer’s embrace.

You could feel Loki’s blue gaze still resting on you when he led you away from the scene, staring daggers into your back and rendering you speechless until you were finally out of sight and Clint shook your shoulder gently.

“Are you sure it’s not one of the security guards that helped bring him in?”

“No… no, I saw them first. Loki was behind them. It’s… I don’t know how to explain it but somehow, Loki was in colour first, you know what I mean? First him and then, a split second later, everything else was colourful too.”

“And now?”

“Now what?”

“Do you still see in colour now?”

“Of course I do.” Clint sighed and buried his face in his hands.

“So what happens if you don’t… act on this soulmate thing?”

“Nothing. Nothing happens.” You said.

“So you don’t have to… stay close to Loki or anything?”

“No. Not that I know of. But Clint—“

“Good. Because he might find a way to use you against us. Stay away from him. Thor’ll take him back to Asgard soon enough. All we need to do first is find the Tesseract.”

Your lips were pursed when he turned to check on them and if Loki was wreaking havoc while they were trying to get him imprisoned.

Stay away from him? Of course… it was the most reasonable thing to do. Loki was dangerous, a criminal… but was that right? Now that you had found your soulmate in him?

-

You couldn’t get him out of your head that night. Screw the danger, you had to see him. And eventually, your curiosity and that inexplicable and strange pull you felt towards Loki got the better of you. With a deep breath, you threw your covers back and let your bare feet hit the cold floor before quietly tiptoeing out into the dark and empty hallway.

Your blood was rushing in your ears, making you hear things your paranoia and imagination cooked up to the point your heart was pounding in your chest so hard and fast you feared it might jump right out of your ribcage. No one could know, of course. Clint would positively kill you—he, along with Tony, somewhat considered himself responsible for you here. You couldn’t really blame them. If something happened to you, they’d never forgive themselves. You were an innocent civilian, after all.

And now you had been tossed into the greatest fanfiction yet. Shivering, for the cold slowly crept into your bare skin and through the tanktop and shorts you were wearing to sleep, you finally reached the corridor leading to the elevator. The prison cells, a rather new addition to Stark Tower, were located at the very bottom, the cellar, or… what you preferred to call it, a modern dungeon.

You found Loki with his back turned to you in his cell, looking pale through the glass pane. Your heart skipped a beat when he suddenly spoke up.

“I expected you would find a way to come and see me at some point. I’d dare say the Avengers have taken quite the precautions to keep you as far away from me as possible.” He mused. He lifted his chin, approaching the glass window.

It was quite ridiculous to assume that this tiny and meagre prison would keep the Trickster at bay after everything he had proven to be capable of. If only he wanted to, he could shatter that glass with but a flick of his wrist or break the heavy metal door posing as the only barrier between you.

If you were to just… unlock that door to touch him… it would be so easy. Blinking rapidly, you shook your head to chase the thought away.

“Who are you?” He asked and for just a brief moment, you believed to see genuine interest and curiosity sparkling in his stunning blue eyes.

“No one, really. You already know my name, I presume but that’s all there is. I’m not special—I mean, I don’t have superpowers. I’m just a regular human with a rare condition.”

“Oh, I see. Surely you had not hoped for a criminal of all people to be your soulmate then? A murderer? A monster?” His expression hardened.

Yes. But you were not going to tell him that. He was still the person to have made you see colours again, regardless of who he was and what he had done. There must have been a connection between you, you felt it after all! And you were certain that he felt it too.

“Thor will take me back to Asgard and the great King Odin,” he continued, his voice dripping with sarcasm, “will surely have me executed. You will never see me again. So do not worry.”

“I don’t want that.” You finally chirped, barely daring to look him in the eye. His gaze was scrutinising and intimidating… almost as if he was able to see right into your soul with but one single glance.

Loki frowned.

“I bet you’re not happy about this, are you?” A desperate scoff escaped your lips. “I’m not sure I am…” You confessed and sat down on the chair in front of the window. It creaked a little under your weight, the unpleasant sound echoing through the empty hallway.

This man right in front of you was not be trusted and yet, the desire to pour your heart out to him was so strong you felt it like a sea of emotions attempting to drown you.

“You know ever since my twelfth birthday I wondered when I would finally meet my soulmate. Who they would be, what they would be like… and then so many years passed I was beginning to worry I might never see colours again. That I’d be alone and grey for the rest of my life.”

Loki licked his lips and glanced up at you, listening intently to every single word you said.

“Now I met you and they all tell me not to trust you. I mean… I know who you are, I know what you’ve done. I can’t say I’m happy about the fact my soulmate is…” You stopped yourself, breathing in sharply. “What was the universe thinking? You are a god and I’m just… me. We live light-years apart!”

Eventually, after a moment of surprisingly pleasant silence between you, Loki hummed. “The Norns do have interesting ways.” He said, locking his eyes with yours, almost as if he was pondering if… if what? If he could imagine being with you?

“So what should we do? Never speak of it again? Pretend we have never met? I can’t just… come to Asgard with you.” You held your breath when you realised what you were considering here. Loki must have thought the same. He smirked in response—not mockingly but bitterly. “Odin would never allow a mortal on Asgard. If I was to survive my trial, that is.”

“Don’t say that. I don’t care you’re a criminal right now, I just found my soulmate, and I don’t want to lose him again right away, regardless of what happens between us.”

With a start, his face fell. “Nothing will happen between us. That would be unnecessarily cruel, would it not? Your life in the nine realms is but a heartbeat compared to mine.”

“So… this is goodbye?”

Loki hesitated. You noticed by the way his lips slightly parted without a single sound escaping them just yet.

“Yes. This is goodbye.”

-

The fruit bowl had become your new best friend. In the morning, tired and rather absent, you sat at the kitchen table holding on to a steaming mug of coffee all the while studying the different colours of the fruit before you like a complicated Maths formula.

“Did you have a good chat last night?” Clint barked at you when he entered the room, skipping the ‘Good morning’.

“Huh?”

“With Loki?” He probed, raising his eyebrows in an I-already-know-what-you’ve-done manner.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” You said, shaking your head and focusing your gaze on the fruit bowl again. Yellow bananas, green grapes, red apples. In colour.

You flinched when Tony spoke your name. “We saw the footage on our security cameras. You sneaked to his cell last night knowing fully well why you should stay away from him, especially with… with… you know.”

Fuck… the security cameras. You had completely forgotten about those! Of course the legendary Tony Stark would have had security cameras installed all over the damn place!

Busted, you shrugged your shoulders as nonchalantly as you could muster. “I just wanted to talk him. I had to talk to him. I know what you’re all thinking—that he’s evil and brutal and cruel and ruthless… and… and you’re probably right? I… I don’t even know but… he is still my soulmate. I can see colours again because of him for Fuck’s sake! I can’t just… ignore that.”

“I get it. We don’t know what it must feel like. But it’s for the best. We don’t want him to hurt you.”

“I am his soulmate, too. He wouldn’t dare hurt me. You know maybe he’s not the monster you all think he is.”

“Are you saying that because you know him so well after last night or because that is what you want to believe?”

Both. “I just… have a feeling.”

“Right.” Tony clapped his hands. Your name left his lips almost like a plea. “You have to trust us.”

Thor nodded. “Loki is dangerous. You should stay away from him at least until we know he is not still plotting the domination of your planet.”

“What do you mean ‘at least until’? You can stop staying away from him when he’s back on Asgard and out of your reach.” Tony snapped.

“We’re just trying to keep you safe.” Steve intervened. You sighed.

“You know what? I’m getting a headache and I’m still tired, so I’m gonna go back to bed.” That wasn’t even a lie—well, at least the fatigue bit wasn’t. Besides, the blackout curtains in the room Tony let you stay in were heaven-sent.

That was until a loud tumult in the Tower woke you up again, even though you were not sure anymore you had actually fallen asleep once your head hit the soft pillow.

“W—“ Your scream of protest was muffled by a cool palm covering your mouth. You struggled briefly, ripping your eyes wide open in a weak attempt to make out who was assaulting you in the comforting darkness of your room when you suddenly heard a soothing voice shushing you.

“It’s me…”

“L-Loki?” You choked out when he removed his hand again. “Did you… did you break out of your cell?”

“It would seem so. Come.”

“What?”

He tilted his head. “I don’t have much time.”

You stood, throwing the covers back when he already reached for your hand and held it tightly, pulling you with him into the hallway and towards one of the more hidden exists of Stark Tower, a flight of stairs illuminated only by emergency lights.

“W-what are you doing?”

“I am proving to you that I am more than just a criminal.”

“Oh… but… um… where are we going?”

Loki smirked. Your eyes widened when he pulled out the Tesseract seemingly out of nowhere, its blue light glowing brightly in the dark and throwing artistic shadows on his face.

“Hold on tight.”

“Loki…”

The God of Mischief pulled you close, making you gasp. Your chest hit his, his arm wrapping around your waist. With his face only inches from yours, you could feel his warm breath on your lips, and suddenly longed to kiss him.

“You are my soulmate. I am not leaving you behind.”

“What happened to ‘goodbye’?” You chirped.

Loki tilted his head almost threateningly. “You are mine. Don’t you think I wanted to leave this place without looking back?” His expression softened. “But I couldn’t. Because of you.” And you might just be the only woman to ever love me in this way, he added silently.

“B-but… Y-you said Odin will never allow me on Asgard and… and…”

“I never said we were going to Asgard, now was I?”

Your lips parted. Could you trust him? The stranger who had finally made you see colours again? If you told him No, would he let go of you? Would he let you run to Tony and Clint and Nat so they could protect you from him? Swallowing thickly, you met his intense blue gaze and nodded.

Loki smirked and winked. “You are in for an adventure.” And you knew he wasn’t lying. Next thing you knew, you were both hurtled through space and into a shared future.

-

A/N: ☕

[acourtofsnakes]

Mesh’la - Rogue, Chapter 18| The Mandalorian x Force Sensitive! Reader (f)

(I know the gif is Javi, but there aren’t exactly many Mando gifs that would fit this chapter.. I’ve also had this for a while so let me know if its yours and i’ll tag you♥︎)

Summary: After Din’s revelation, walls that have been crumbling for a while, finally break. 

Warnings: 18+ Swearing, smut, cunnilingus/fingering(f receiving),unprotected sex,  p in v sex, flufffffffff finally. Let me know if I forgot anything!

AN: I have nothing to say but… enjoy. 

Word count: 7.6k +

Rogue Taglist:  @snipskixandbeskar​   @weirdowithnobeardo​ @the-bottom-of-the-abyss @jackgrzs @sarahjkl82-blog @boomtownboy @goldielocks2004 @seninjakitey @what-iwish-you-knew @queenofthefaceless @rosiefridayrogersunday @greeneyedblondie44 @itsnottilly @welcometothepedroverse @xgoldenjenny @heyitsjaybird @mamacitapascal​

Rogue Masterlist | Introduction| 1: Solus| 2: Arir | 3: Tor | 4: Gaa'tayl | 5: Kyr’am | 6: Cabur | 7: Ret'urcye Mhi | 8: Haran| 9: E’tad | 10: Tome | 11: Aliit ori'shya tal'din| 12: Mar’eyce | 13: Kov’nyn| 14: Ne’tra| 15: Or’dinii| 16: Dar| 17: Haalur| 18: Mesh’la

Mando’a Translation: Mesh'la - beautiful

“I love you.”

“I love you.”

Those three little words echoed around your mind, bouncing around the walls of your conscious and then travelling down to your heart where they curled up there, settled into the space that had been carved out for Din, long before you met him. 

“You…” Your voice broke a little, so you cleared your throat and tried again, talking over the splash of the water that was no doubt going to turn cold any moment. “You love me…?”

Din was breathing heavily, the wet fabric of his clothes pulling over his chest and he nodded. “Yes. I love you.” His voice was still soft, but imploring you to understand him, to listen and stop saying such things about yourself. “I… I’ve loved you for a long time, sweetheart.” 

Well.

His words rendered you… sort of speechless for a moment. 

He loved you. 

Din had loved you for “a long time”. 

Just as you had loved him. 

You blinked up at him, water rolling down your hair, making beads over your skin as steam floated about the small space. It probably wasn’t doing his helmet any good, but there was no way either of you could leave this moment. “I… I had no idea...” 

Din laughed, it wasn’t cruel, it was more a sort of exhausted laugh, yet there was a level of love in it, “I know… You’re the most intelligent person I know, and you could talk your way out of anything... but when it comes to noticing what’s right in front of you…” His voice was a little teasing, “You are a little blind, princess.”

Despite the revelations and the shock – and elation - screaming through you, you did have to pout. “You can’t blame me… How was I supposed to know?”

Din leant against the wall, “Well, I know this…” He tapped his helmet, “Makes things a little difficult but…” He huffed a little, “I didn’t really know it myself at first. It wasn’t until people started to mention it… I realised that everything I’d been feeling...” Din seemed to stumble a little over his words again. “For weeks… I… I’ve just... needed to be close to you. After I sent you to Nevarro, I met Haran for the first time on Tatooine. He told me he knew who you were, that he was coming after you and I only had a week. I was… I felt something I haven’t felt in a long, long time. True fear. And when I got into that cantina… and I saw him sitting there with you…” Din shook his head, looking down. “I wanted to kill him. And then you started shouting at me…” He laughed a little, “You always have such a fire in you when you’re pissed at me… It’s like flying into the sun.” 

You couldn’t help the soft laugh of your own, “I’d say I’m sorry but…” 

He lifted his head, tilting it and you could feel his eyes on you through the visor, “Then I’d know that fall had done more damage than it already has.” The laughter visibly drained from his body, his voice, “I thought I’d lost you… You were…” He seemed to almost choke on the words, “You were dead. In my arms. Your heart wasn’t beating… You were just… gone.” His voice broke and he sucked in a breath. “My whole world stopped.” 

The feeling of darkness, of those icy bands wrapping around you and filling your lungs washed over you, and you shuddered. You wouldn’t be forgetting the feeling of having the air crushed from your lungs for a long, long while. 

You could only imagine what it was like for Din, having to pull you out. Having to coax your broken body into living again…

“I tried and tried, but… it just wouldn’t work. You were dead.” His voice was stricken, haunted and you had a feeling you might be waking up to Din’s nightmares soon too. 

He sucked in a hitched gasp of his own, touching his helmet like he would run his fingers through his hair – his hands were shaking, almost violently and he curled them into a fist.

“All I could think was... how am I supposed to go on? I let you down, in the worst way possible. I let you slip away, I let him take you and hurt you and then you died... without... without seeing my face, without knowing what keeps me up at night, the things I so desperately want to say to you. That threaten to come out every time I see and... and I have to change the subject or leave because I look at you and I just...” He lifted his head again, watching you, his chest heaving, “Lose my mind. Lose everything I know. It all just fills with you. And then I don’t know which way is up or where to go that isn’t by your side. I want to be there, all the time. I want to hear the way you think, I want you to shout at me when I annoy you. I want to watch you play with the kids and get them to do things when they don’t listen to me. I want to see the world through your eyes, see the beauty in every single thing.” 

You couldn’t speak, couldn’t do anything but let these words, this outpouring wash over you and listen to the way he’d been feeling for… months. 

“And to know that you would have died without knowing that, without me being able to tell you just how much you mean to me, how much I need you in my life and I want to protect you. How you make me a better man and-” He made a little noise, like he was winded. 

“Din.” You limped across to him, cupping the jaw of the helmet, “Din, breathe.” There were tears rolling down your cheeks, your mind reeling at his sweet, meaningful words, but he was going to send himself into some kind of attack in a minute. You slid your hands down to rest on top of his shoulders, feeling the broad strength beneath the fabric. 

At your touch, even with the layers, he groaned like he was in pain. “Whenever you touch me… I feel like I’m burning. Like… electricity is searing through me. It makes me feel alive. I… Mandalorian’s don’t really… we don’t really experience touch.” He motioned loosely to his armour, being careful not to bump you – or move you away. “We don’t get to feel the breeze on our hair… or the sun on our skin. We don’t feel a casual touch or a hug or… anything.” He sounded a little hesitant, speaking such words that he would never, ever have previously said aloud before. His tone was a little jagged and stilted, like he was torn between keeping the anonymity of the Mandalorian’s and telling you everything.

“But… When I feel your touch, your skin… It’s like... I’m feeling everything all at once.” He lifted his hand, brushing wet, gloved fingers down your cheek, but the touch still ignited you, “That night I felt your hair... and when you had your nightmare… I thought I was going to die. From how you felt around me, the way you were so… ready… ” Another ragged hitch of breath. 

You turned your head into his touch, goosebumps rising over your skin, “So, touch me again.” 

Din’s fingers stilled, and you almost heard his heart thud, “I… what?” 

You lifted your hand, brushing your fingertips over the edge of his gloves, “Touch me.” You looked up at him, heat coiling in your belly, your very soul, “Din, touch me. Please.” Desire and pleading coloured your voice, your expression. A wildness came over you, and you shed yourself of your torn top, leaving just the thin bandeau around your chest. 

Din’s hands curled into fists as you took off your top and he looked at you, your lips parted, your cheeks flushed, desire burning through your eyes and darkening them. 

“Close your eyes.” His voice was husky and rough, equally desperate for you. 

Without a hesitation, you obeyed, squeezing shut your eyes, barely able to restrain yourself. 

You heard the sound of leather on skin, two wet plops on the floor and you expected Din’s touch on your skin but… instead, you heard him pick up your top. 

A soft ripping noise was heard over the water, and then you felt the sodden fabric against your closed eyes. He was tying it behind your head, like a blindfold. “Din, what are you…” 

“Shhh, cyar'ika.” There were some sounds you couldn’t identify and then… 

Then the sound of air hissing – a little bubbly -, and then something hard and metallic being set down on the floor, then the wet plop of his top. 

Your heart stopped. Everything stopped. 

Something hard. 

And metallic.  

Oh, Maker and all the stars above. 

“Din…” You whispered his name this time, your heart suddenly pounding a frantic beat in your chest, your neck, your wrists. Heat flooded across your body, your skin tightening in anticipation and it was a little harder to breathe. 

He’d taken off his helmet.

You heard footsteps, and then Din’s hands cupped your cheeks, big, a little rough and always so warm. “Princess…” He whispered it back, and you had the sense of him coming closer. 

The first brush of his lips consumed you. 

They were a little chilly, but plush and unimaginably soft. And there was a scratchiness on your lips…

Oh, by the Maker, he had a moustache… That did things to you. Things that resulted in heat and warmth between your legs. 

Din moved those lips over your own, like butterfly wings, checking you were okay with this. 

Like he wasn’t the one who had just removed his helmet for the first time, properly around you. Like you weren’t standing there with just a piece of torn cloth shielding your eyes. You could easily reach up and swipe it away and see his true face. 

But you would never do such a thing. 

Never even think of it. 

And he knew that, which is why he trusted you so much. 

It made your heart ache, in the best way. 

But this soft kissing… it wasn’t enough. 

You angled your head more into his, his rough hands still cupping your jaw and you kissed him with a little more pressure. Your hands reached up, fingertips brushing his bare shoulders and then you dropped them to his waist instead, and you grasped his hips, letting him know he could let go, that you needed him to let go as well. 

Din made a little noise against your lips, and by the way he went still, you just knew it was with restraint. You could feel that tidal wave inside him, cresting and so close to crashing back down. 

You wanted it. No… you needed to consume you both. 

Needed him to consume you. 

You pulled back mere millimetres, just enough to whisper, “Din… Let go…” You brushed your hands along the sodden fabric of his trousers, your thumbs brushing the bare skin of his hips.  

That simple touch, that whisper of a caress on such previously untouched skin melted any restraint within him. 

With a noise like a moan and growl all in one, he pulled you closer. His mouth came down on yours, kissing you with a sudden fierce intensity that seared through you. 

It broke your own walls, and you curled your fingers into his belt, rising up on tiptoe and matching his frantic pace. 

Within seconds, his tongue lightly traced your lips, and when you parted for him, he moaned low in the back of his throat, that proper taste of you nearly bringing him to his knees. 

The press of his hot tongue against your own was a blessing, a curse, and a damnation all in one. 

He tasted like… like cool water on a hot day, like fresh tea in the morning, like the best chocolate cake, all rolled into one and topped with his distinct, smokiness that clung to him. 

Din’s arms snaked around your waist, sliding up your back, holding you into his body but it wasn’t close enough, not enough for how long this had been building between the two of you. 

That intense heat never failed to take over, whether you were teasing each other, arguing, or doing delicious things like this. 

It had been there from that very first moment on Sorgan. 

You took the initiative, summoning the strength that had been building again and you pressed against him, pinning him to the wall just behind so you could lean your full body weight into him, so you could feel every inch of his body against yours. 

It was heavenly, the feel of his bare skin, so new to you, against your own and the contact made your eyes roll back into your head a little bit. 

He was solid, warm, and so familiar beneath your body, that every cell just cried out for more, no matter how close you were. 

Din made a choked noise of his own, his entire body shaking with all the contact, a sensation he had never felt for years. It was like stepping into the sunlight for the first time, like sinking into hot water, or being electrocuted. 

You felt him shaking against you, felt the ragged drag of his breath and you pulled back from his lips, “Din, if this is too much-“ 

He shook his head, chasing your kiss, his voice almost tortured, “No, don’t. Don’t stop, please. I… Just don’t stop.” He gasped a little, bringing his mouth back to yours. 

You needed him, needed him in body, soul and mind and wanted to burn with him forever. 

A torn sound of need escaped against his lips as you fought his tongue for dominance, tracing your tongue over his teeth. 

Din groaned, his hands leaving their roaming over your back, just long enough to slide down over your ass and the backs of your thighs. He grasped them, bending his own knees and he picked you up, winding your legs around his waist. 

He brushed against your core, and your moans of unison echoed over the pounding of the water. He rocked his hips against yours, the friction pressing against your burning heat, the rub of every hard in of him. He needed you, as much as you needed him and you were prepared to ask him, beg him to take you right here in the ‘fresher, against the wall…

Except, it chose that moment to go absolutely, completely, ice cold. 

You squealed, pulling away from Din and ducking your head into his shoulder, trying to hide from the icy spray that was now hitting mostly the back of your head and neck. “Fuck me, that’s cold!” 

From somewhere above you, Din burst into a chuckle, “Hang on, princess.’ His voice was low and husky, and only heated you even further, the icy water having no effect in diminishing the fire. 

He turned off the taps, and the sudden silence was almost as loud as the water had been. 

He gingerly stepped from the wet floor, holding you against his body still and he fumbled with one hand before a towel was swathed around your body. “Let’s get you warmed up.” 

I can think of way you can warm me up.

There was a soft snort, and you knew your face had given away that thought, even with the blindfold. You rested your head back against Din’s neck, allowing him to carry you back to your room, just relishing in the feeling of being held by him – in more ways than one.

He made his way expertly through the ship, his feet making wet squelches on the floor that had you giggling. 

By the time the doors to your room opened, you were both laughing, cheeks flushed and hearts stumbling over each other. 

Din set you down carefully, his hands on your upper arms and the laughter faded away into something much more intense and serious. 

You could feel his eyes on you, dragging over your skin like he was taking in every single inch. His breathing was ragged, his touch searing through your skin and warming your very bones. It occurred to you that you knew this man, inside and out. You could tell the change in his mood from his breathing, the tenseness of his body or what his head tilts meant. 

You hadn’t seen his face, or any of his skin and yet… you felt like you knew him deeper than that, deeper than just what was on the surface. You could locate him in a dark room, from the sound of his breathing alone. 

And he knew you too. 

He always had. 

His warm, broad hands brushed up your arms, over your shoulders, tracing a path. “Are you okay?” The rough cadence of his voice told you that he was holding back, everything in him that was still threatening to come out. But he was making sure you wanted this, wanted to cross the wall that had been crumbling ever since that night you broke down. 

One word from you, and he would haul that wall back up and it would be fine. 

Your lips parted at his touch and his voice, desire and a need for him coiling in your belly. You wanted to be close to him, to feel his skin on yours, his touch, map his body blindly and just… Rise to the stars and never fall back down, wrapped in him and everything he had bought to your life. “Yes… I want this… Din, I want you-”

No sooner had you finished talking, Din made a noise low in his throat and then he was on you, his hands sliding up your neck to your jaw, framing it in his hands like you were something precious and rare, and then his warmed lips came down upon yours. They were soft at first, dancing against your own with an almost shyness. And then it changed, his tongue brushing over your lips and then slipping inside your lips when you granted him permission. 

His tongue danced with your own, and just the brush of his facial hair and the taste of him could have brought you to your knees. You moaned low, arching your body into him so you were pressed against his tall, broad frame, the bare skin of his belly and the tickle of his happy trail only making you wetter. 

As you battled for dominance in the kiss, Din walked you backwards, pulling from your mouth with a tug to your lip and then he was planting kisses along your jaw, trailing them to your ear where he sucked your earlobe gently, earning a breathy moan in return. 

He pushed you gently toward the bed, but not before pressing soft kisses down your neck – and then tracing back up the line of your throat with his tongue. 

You felt that stroke of his tongue everywhere, the wet heat of it searing a line straight down your spine and you cried out a little, hand flying up to the back of his head to grip his hair by instinct. 

And you froze. 

You hadn’t asked for permission to touch him – if it was even okay, if he wanted you to. “Din, I – I’m sorry.” Your voice was choked with need, your fingers loosening. 

“No!” Din shook his head rapidly, “No, keep it there – I... Touch me. Please.” His voice was hoarse again, his words hot and desperate against your throat. 

His repetition of his words from the ‘fresher assured you it was okay, and you wound your fingers back into his hair, curling the locks around your fingers as he mouthed over your skin, dragging his teeth, “Din, I need you...” 

The edge of the thin cot hit the backs of your thighs, and he pressed a chaste kiss to your cheek, “I know, sweetheart...” He kissed underneath your chin, then the hollow of your throat, “I’ve needed you, for so, so long...” His lips trailed lower, ghosting over your collarbones where he paused for a second, tracing a hot, wet line along them with his tongue again, “I think since the moment you tried to kill me on Sorgan.” The trail of lips moved over your chest, then your left breast, on the fabric of your bandeau, “When you teased me every moment after…” His words resounded with your soft, breathy moan, and he moved to the right, “And on Nevarro…”

He groaned a little, slowly sinking lower and his hands came up to your sides, as he bit gently on the skin of your belly, “Those words that came out of your mouth on Nevarro… You were killing me, you were seeing right into my head and telling me my dreams, like you knew them.” His tongue darted out, tracing a circle around your belly button and a shudder ran through you. 

You dropped your hands to his shoulders, needing more grip and balance. And there was more than enough. You knew his shoulders were broad, but fuck, actually holding them was a completely different story. 

Stars, you were going to fall apart and all he was doing was kissing you. 

“You have no idea how much I wanted to do those things, how long I’ve wanted to… but… Most of all, I wanted this. To be able to take my time, and explore,” He kissed underneath your belly button, his facial hair scratching gently on the sensitive skin, “Every…” his hands slid down to grasp the belt loops of your trousers, and the waistband of your underwear, “Single…” He slid them both down over your hips, exposing your bare skin to him, “Inch,” He dropped down to his knees as your trousers reached your ankles, and he helped you out of them, “Of your body first.” He sat back on his knees, his voice sounding hoarse and choked again. “Look at you…”

Through the thin fabric of the blindfold, you could just make out the silhouette of him on his knees in front of you, a faint outline of his broad shoulder, a fuzzy outline of curly hair. 

Your knees were trembling in anticipation, in fact your whole body was trembling as he just… admired you.

On his knees, worshiping you for the warrior goddess he believed you were. 

His fingertips danced up your calves, your knees, grasping the backs of your thighs and then you felt his nose against your skin, his hair tickle your lower belly and then, finally, the press of his lips on your wet heat, but too soft, too gentle. 

A ragged gasp emerged from your throat, and you lifted your hand back to his hair, pushing him closer, “Din.” You didn’t care how pleading your voice was, but you needed more than soft kisses. 

A low chuckle rumbled against your sensitive bundle of nerves, and he nudged his nose to them once more before his hands tightened on your thighs. 

The first brush of his tongue elicited a cry of relief from your lips, echoing with Din’s appreciative half growl at your taste, at how wet you were for him. He went in after that, dragging his tongue through your folds in broad strokes, like he already couldn’t get enough of you. “Shit, you taste...” he groaned again, burying his face further between your thighs, his tongue probing your entrance before sliding back up between your folds again. 

You already couldn’t breathe, the moan getting caught in your chest and resulting in a soft, high whine and you leant into his touch, arching your spine. Letting your head drop back, you could do nothing but feel the hot stroke of his tongue, licking every inch of you. 

He tilted his head back just slightly for a better angle, circling your clit with the tip of his tongue and your legs shook again, aching as they held you up and trembling.  

“Din, wait-” You reluctantly tugged his head back, then half collapsed back onto the bed, and Din followed you like a magnet. He remained on his knees at the edge of the bed, and hooked one of your legs over those sinful shoulders, allowing him a better angle, a deeper angle to devour you like he was starving. 

He pressed his tongue flat against you, before sucking on your clit with an intensity that made the room spin. It was like he was pulling electricity through your veins, making every nerve stand to attention, wait for his command. 

You dropped your back onto the bed, both hands fisting into his hair and your hips rocking upwards against his lips. There was an ache within you, you wanted to feel more of him, needed just a little more – 

Like always, he read your mind, and mere seconds later, he was sinking two long fingers into you, curling them up exactly as he had that night. Exactly as he knew you liked. 

“Fuck, Din-” You keened his name softly, hips moving to match the pace as he pumped his fingers in out, curling them up into that spot that he found so easily. 

He heard every noise you made, every reaction of your body and adjusted his pace and pressure in response, tucking away your reactions so he would always remember what you liked the most. 

His rhythm wasn’t perfectly balanced, but it altered according to you. He learned fast and made sure that every single action provided the best possible feeling for you. 

And stars above did he do a good job. 

That electricity and fire was curling tense in your lower belly, singing through every inch of your soul. You were so desperate for him, your body crying out for him so badly that he had taken you to that edge already. “You… Shit, keep going, just like that…” 

Din switched pace so fast you didn’t register it at all. One minute, his lips were sucking at your clit, his fingers stroking you – and the next, his tongue was pushing inside you and his fingers were on your bundle of nerves instead, drawing rapid circles and figures of eight that made you fully arch up off the bed. 

“Din!” You cried his name, your whole body crying his name actually. It just felt so good, so devastatingly good that you weren’t sure how you were supposed to not want to do this all the time. 

Your back arched further, your fingers wound so tightly in his hair as you shamelessly rode your hips to his rhythm, chasing down your high that he was holding you above. You knew you must be hurting his head, but he didn’t seem to mind, if anything, it was spurring him on, knowing that you needed to hold onto something to try and contain the pleasure. 

His hands shifted to your hips, not to hold you down, but to pull you in closer, so he could bury his tongue deeper inside you, his own moans and growls of pleasure vibrating through the soft flesh. His stubble and moustache scratched against your sensitive skin, and that in itself was herding your body closer and closer to the edge, dangling you over. 

Words were beyond you, the hot press of his tongue inside your walls was something you could never forget, and as he curled his tongue upward, brushed against that spot and pressed his fingers down harder, light exploded across your eyes. 

The heat of your pleasure seared through every inch of your body, taking over with a pleasant hum, rendering you almost helpless as his name fell from your lips again and again. 

Din didn’t stop, working you through your orgasm with that same pace, until your hips stopped rocking, your fingers relaxed in his hair and you could see again.

“Fucking hell…” You mumbled the words, shivering as Din cleaned you up, soft gentle strokes with a husky chuckle. 

He pressed kisses back up your body, allowing you to catch your breath but by the time he reached your lips, and you tasted yourself on his tongue, you were ready, needing him again. 

And by the hard line of his trousers, you knew he must be too. 

As soon as his lips touched yours, you kissed him with fierce intensity. Your hands roamed down his back, mapping over his scars and bruises, painting an image in your mind of the man you loved, bringing him to life in the darkness. 

He groaned into your mouth as you slipped your hands between your bodies, feeling the tenseness of his stomach muscles, layered with a softness that showed his age – which you absolutely adored. 

This man wasn’t some young, bumbling fool. He was mature, devoted, and you loved every single inch of him. And he had never been touched like this before. 

Sure, he’d had sex – as you found out one slightly drunken night when you were asking each other questions – but you knew that it was just… a release. No touching, no armour off, maybe not even his gloves. 

Who knows how long it had been since this man had been touched like this on his bare skin, with love and passion? You could easily guess it was the same amount of time as you – longer. 

And… you were the first person. 

The first person to feel him. 

To lay your hands upon his skin and show him how truly magnificent he was. 

Spurred by his gasps of pleasure and surprise, you roamed lower, over the happy trail and began palming him through his trousers and pressing your hand into the hard length of him.

Then, quickly, you slipped your hand inside his trousers, feeling the tickle of short, coarse hair and then you gently grasped him, fingers wrapping around his thick, swollen length.  

He moaned roughly against your lips, sucking in a sharp breath and you pumped him a couple times and his hips jerked forward against your touch. 

Your mouth watered at the feel of him, and you pressed your thighs together at the thought of him filling you, being buried inside you and coming undone…

You had never been more grateful for stopping in a town a few years ago and shelling out the obscene number of credits for getting a contraceptive implant in your arm. 

It was something you didn’t really need to bother with worrying about, but sometimes, the lonely nights got to you – and you didn’t want to have to worry. 

And now, you could almost get on your knees and thank the Maker for that stroke of luck, because now you would be able to feel him inside you, every ridge, every vein, every inch of him. 

Din only moaned louder as you brushed your thumb over his head, catching the drop or precum there and he rapidly pulled away. 

You had no time to worry if you’d stepped over a line, because you heard him working at his belt, the sound of metal catching like it wouldn’t release. 

Din swore under his breath and you realised the fumbling was due to his fingers trembling, in anticipation and the result of what was about to happen. 

Heart melting, you sat up, reaching out blindly and finding the belt yourself, “Let me…” 

You managed to undo his belt, even with your eyes covered and pop the buttons on his waistband, all the while feeling Din’s belly rise and fall unevenly as he watched you. 

It felt like hours, but maybe it was only seconds as you heard Din rid the rest of his clothes and climb back over you, one hand next to your head. His breathing was a staccato rhythm and matched your own as your entire body held tight and coiled like a live wire. 

He lined himself up at your entrance, nudging the head of his cock against you and he swore again under his breath as he felt how wet you were for him again, soaked and swollen. “Shit… You... you really want me…” His voice was full of wonder and surprise. 

He still couldn’t get over it, that he had this effect on someone. That he made you half mad with need for him and he could make someone, make you feel that way. 

You wanted him, wanted whatever he could give you and you were happy with it. Lying there, teeth sunk into your lower lip, cheeks flushed and your body open and yielding to welcome him home. 

It was the most beautiful sight he had ever seen. 

“Din…” Your whisper broke him from his reverie, and then he was pushing into you, his hand curling into a fist in the sheets next to his head as if to hold himself back from going any quicker. 

He was thick, and you felt every inch as he slowly sunk into you. 

You both moaned in unison as he bottomed out, and he paused for a second so you could adjust to him, a slight sharp sting there but it felt absolutely delightful. 

You would feel this tomorrow, feel that you had finally been joined as one, finally broken down those walls. 

A few seconds later, sheer delight coursed through you and you slipped your hand up to his wrist, curling your fingers around it, “Move... Maker, please, move-”

Din pulled out slowly, before jolting back into you with a force that felt like your very spine would dissolve into nothingness. He felt so good, so perfect inside you and if you had any doubt that soulmates existed, it was gone now. It was like you were made for each other, slotting into one another souls and lives perfectly. 

He started a slow, building rhythm, dropping his head into your neck to suck at the skin, rocking his hips into yours, “You have no idea how good you feel, sweetheart.” His words were a tight whisper into your neck, and you could feel the tense, rigid line of the muscles in his wrists from his clenched fist. He was still holding back, still afraid to hurt you or push you too far. 

You tilted your head into his hair, your words clear, if not a little high with need, “Let go. Din, stop holding back – please, you won’t hurt me. You won’t scare me.” Fuck, you needed this just as much as he did. You didn’t want slow and gentle. You didn’t want to keep dancing around each other. It had been too long, and you had wasted far too much time trying to hold back in front of the other. 

He was still hesitating, still unsure so you took initiative, hooking one of your legs around his waist and pressing the heel of your foot into his lower back to further emphasise your point. The angle opened you deeper, made him sink a little further in so you clenched around him, tight. 

Din choked a little into your neck, his resolve breaking and then he lifted his head, grabbing your knee for grip and then he really began to move. 

He snapped his hips faster, every few thrusts slowing down to push all the way into you, to hit that spot he was so acquainted with until you shouted his name, a prayer and a plea in one. “Fuck, sweetheart – you look… so beautiful, so fucking beautiful-” He moaned the words, watching you arch under him, your hips moving in tandem to match his pace thrust for thrust. 

He dropped his head back to your chest, kissing and sucking at your breasts and nipples, adding new sparks of pleasure along with the deep fire of him pounding in you. 

It wasn’t rough, not at all but it was raw, intense, your bodies syncing and moving with each other in a new dance, saying everything that needed to make up for the past few months. 

Time ticked past as you climbed higher and higher together, your moans echoing with Din’s jagged praise, your nails scratching lines down his back as he pushed up even deeper inside you, hitting places you didn’t even know you had. 

You lost sense of where you ended and Din began and you felt the threads of your lives tighten around each other, saw the golden threads strengthen with each rock of your bodies, further and further as you both flew up and up, exploding into light and stardust. 

Both of you fell apart at the same time, your walls clenching tight around him as he exploded into you, filling you with heat as his hips jerked and stuttered. You both rode each other’s orgasms out, drawing them on and on until you were both utterly spent. 

Din pressed open kisses to your neck, his rough growl still echoing in your ear as he mumbled sweet nothings against your sticky skin, his body weight heavy and welcoming into yours, “You are so beautiful. So, so beautiful.” Again, and again, he whispered these endearing things, until he eased out of you, leaving behind an incredible sense of loss. 

You lay there blissfully, catching your breath, feeling a delicious ache in your bones that had replaced the dull pain from the week’s ordeals – and drowning. 

How surprising such a day ended like this. 

Though you didn’t doubt you would be hearing about it later. 

Din returned, flicking what sounded like a switch on the way back in. 

You heard him kneel next to the bed, and then a warm damp cloth glide over your thighs as he cleaned you both up, before slotting himself against you in the thin bed, facing you this time. 

You eased onto your side, curling up against the wall and his body, a sated smile on your lips, “I… That was…” You shook your head a little, unable to stop the huge grin on your lips. 

Din laughed softly, a quiet, rough laugh that caressed over your body and settled up in your heart. “Amazing? I never knew you were such a cliché.” He tapped your nose playfully, and you could hear the grin on his lips. 

You couldn’t help the slight ache to your heart, the longing of wanting to be able to see how beautiful that grin was, see it light up his face and spark in his eyes. But you would never ask, never even let the thought of asking pop into your head. You appreciated every single thing he gave you, and you were more than content with whatever he was willing to offer. 

So, you shoved that thought away, and instead lifted your fingertips to his face. 

“Uh, sweetheart, you’re about to poke my eye.” 

Indeed, you felt the soft brush of his eyelashes on your fingertips like moths’ wings, and you mumbled a sorry before tracing the line of his eyebrows, up his temples and across the slight wrinkles on his forehead. “I told you to stop frowning.” 

Din huffed softly at your teasing, his warm breath tickling your wrist. 

You followed a path down his nose, feeling the gentle bump to it that added a new little unique feature to the blurry map in your mind. On your fingers went, over the hair lining his upper lip that you could still feel the ghost of between your thighs. “I like this…” You couldn’t stop the slight cheeky smile, your toes curling a little. 

He chuckled again, his lilt to his voice letting you know that his smile had turned wicked, “Oh, I know. I tasted how much you liked it.” A warm lick of heat tickled in your lower back at his voice, and you shook your head adoringly. 

Next up, his lips. Those soft, plump lips that should be made sinful. You ran the pads of your fingertips over them, then yelped softly as Din suddenly bit them, lightly and playfully. “Hey!” 

“Sorry, sweetheart.” He didn’t sound sorry though, he still sounded like he was smiling, and you realised it was... the happiest you’d ever heard him. 

You were about to say as much, when you heard him move and then suddenly, the blindfold was tugged off your head, disorientating you with the unexpectedness of it.

You gasped, squeezing your eyes shut rapidly, “Din! You haven’t-“

“Relax, cyar'ika. Open your eyes…” 

“But-”

“Open them, princess… Trust me.”

Hesitantly, you opened your eyes the faintest slit, and you were met with… Darkness?

Opening them further, you realised why. 

Din had turned the lights off on his way back in from getting the cloth. That’s what that sound was. 

The entire room was swathed in darkness, only the faint glow of the control panel over his shoulder. It provided the barest silhouette of light, allowing you to see the slight outline of those ridiculous shoulders, and just about the edge of his ear. 

“I couldn’t stand the thought of you keeping that blindfold on… I… I know this isn’t… me… but… That way… You’re not kept out entirely. I could never keep you out...” His voice was a little rough, and you could feel the rapid beat of his heart. This was the barest he’d ever been before you, the most exposed. 

The amount of trust he was bestowing in you was almost heady. All it would take is one tiny malfunction in the ship, for the lights to come back on and then you’d see him. 

You swallowed, your own heart pounding and you gazed in the general direction of his face, seeing him but... seeing none of his features at the same time. But still, to know he was right there, to feel his breath on your skin and see the tinies outline of him… it shattered you nearly.

“Thank you… I… Thank you. This… all of this... I can never thank you enough, Din. For everything you’ve ever done for me. For throwing away the bounty puck, for keeping me safe, for rescuing me… You’ve kept me alive far more than you know. You saw something in me and chose not to give up. And that’s more than a lot of people have every done for me, ever. When I’m with you… I feel safe. To be myself and… I feel like I could conquer anything, as long as you were there.” 

You felt his hand snake to your waist, tracing slow, soothing circles on your skin. 

“There’s so much I have to thank you for, so, so much I want to say to you. I’m… not always good with words… And it’ll take me time to… to open up fully but…” You shook your head slightly, all of the words tumbling over in your head, and you didn’t know where to start or if you would ever end. So, you settled for the four words that would be just enough for now. “I love you, Din.” Tears sprung to your eyes as you finally said those sweet words aloud, “I’ve loved you since I saw you in that alleyway, pretending you didn’t know me to keep me safe.”

Din’s breathing stuttered, catching over itself as he caught his breath. You felt him shudder a little as you mumbled the words, he had so longed to hear. He leant in, pressing his lips to yours in a slow, tender kiss that was so blissfully warm, so loving that it almost hurt. “You don’t ever need to explain yourself to me or feel like you need to tell me things. We’ll… we’ll work on it together, okay?” 

Work on revealing yourselves to each other, bit by bit. 

You smiled, breathlessly and teary against his lips, “Okay…” 

~

It might have been hours later, but you were wrapped up in Din’s arms, your legs tangled, his arm over your waist and the other under your head – the bed was still extremely small.

You’d both drifted off to sleep now and then, in between the gentle kissing, the random conversations about Grogu and Duru’s mishaps or whether the best flavour of macarons was blue or pink. 

But you were awake now, something floating around your head that was still there form a few days ago. Din was relaxed in front of you, his breathing even and deep, tickling your skin. 

He had given up so much of himself to you already, even more so tonight allowing you to touch him, to see him in a way. And you loved him with every single fibre of your being, and... knew that he felt the same. 

And… it was time. 

You wanted to. 

You wanted this. 

Despite that, you still had a nervous writhing in your stomach, and it was a good fifteen minutes before you plucked up enough courage to speak, “Din? Are… you awake?”

 His previously still fingers traced up the tattoo on your spine, “Mmm…” His voice was a rough hum, but you knew he was awake. 

No more secrets. Starting now. 

“I… I want to tell you something. About me… My past.” You bit your lip, fiddling with your necklace. 

You heard Din nod against the pillow slightly, “Okay… Anything.” 

Swallowing, you closed your eyes, like it might give you strength. “I want to tell you… why I have a bounty on my head. And why it’s so high.” Your words were a near whisper. 

Din went very still around you, so quiet you might have thought he had gone back to sleep. Just before dread began to curl in your belly, the low rumble of his voice broke the silence. “I… I know what you’re going to tell me. And… I know.

At that, your eyes flew open, shock filtering though you, “What?

Maybe he misunderstood what you meant, or had heard another rumour…

Like always, he could read your mind, what you were thinking even in the darkness. “Sweetheart, I know.”

Previous| Next.

[magicman111]

A Moth to a Flame - Chapter Three

Plumes of thick smoke billowed above the guard tower, blotting out the dusk sky with an ugly, brown smog. Burning red embers danced and flickered in the air, a single stray spark singeing Sasha’s right cheek.

Two girls stood, a dirt clod’s throw apart from each other. They stared each other down. The squeaky toy and Grime were already engaging in a battle of their own, leaving the two former friends alone on that tower. It did little to make the tension any less palpable.

Anne held her sword firmly in both hands, and the rage-filled scowl etched on her face made it clear she was itching for an excuse to ream the blade through her ex bestie’s chest cavity. The sheer hatred boiling inside her veins could not be overstated. Sasha, however, was a different story. She remained cool and kept both open palms raised, a sign of her peaceful intentions. Already a hard sell considering less than an hour ago, she’d ordered her flunkies to lock her and her family up in the dungeon after using and backstabbing her for the fifteen thousandth time.

She knew perfectly well what was at stake here. She knew the consequences not for them, but for this entire world if she failed. Convincing Anne to believe her now was going to be an uphill battle and the rematch she’d spent months prior fantasising about now seemed inevitable.

The irony surrounding both those things was not lost on her.

“Anne, I need you to listen to me!” she shouted over the hot gusts of wind whipping her face. “There’s something wrong with this Andrias guy! We should—”

Anne was having absolutely none of it. “You expect me to believe you?!” she asked her incredulously. “After all the lying and manipulating you’ve done?!” Sliding the sword back into its sheath, she turned her back on her in disgust. “Sorry, Sasha, but you’re out of chances.”

Why didn’t she take a photo? This would’ve been so much easier if she’d just thought to take a stupid photo! Stupid, stupid, stupid!

Or maybe if she’d given Anne any reason to trust her.

The gates were now drawing close to slamming completely shut as Anne resumed pushing the lever. If Sasha squandered any more precious time, their fast-approaching army would be locked outside the city. She felt her twin swords weigh heavily on her hips; the tips of fingers twitched.

Whelp, in for a penny, in for a pound. She took a deep breath.

“I think Marcy’s in on it.”

“Yeah yeah!” scoffed Anne. “Blah blah bla—what?”

It was a hail mary that paid off. Anne froze in place and glared back at Sasha as if she’d caught her in the act of stomping on Domino’s tail.

“What... what did you say?” she asked, her voice fittingly ice-cold.

“Anne, look... I get it, okay?” Sasha gutsily stepped forward, closing the gap between them. They still had a glimmer of hope in ending this without a fight, so she knew she had to cobble her thoughts together and choose her next words carefully. “You don’t trust me a-and I don’t blame you, but I swear I’m telling you the truth. Grime and I found these—these weird pictures hidden in the throne room. They... one of them was showing the king with the music box. Th-then there was also something about Marcy’s family, I... I don’t know exactly what it all means...”

Amazing how they’d spent the past months going on wild adventures, escaping dozens of near-death experiences with the many monsters infesting the place, yet this was the one thing she struggled to make sound plausible. Of all the times for that natural charisma and confidence to falter. The way Anne was looking at her like she’d sprouted a third arm out her forehead told her it was going about as well as expected.

“All I know is we shouldn’t be giving either of them the Box. Not right now.” She finally lowered her hands back to her sides, adding, “Just come back to the throne room with me and I promise I’ll show you everything.”

A silence fell over the guard tower, punctuated only by the th-thunk of hundreds of armoured boots rising in the distance.

Now the ball was back in Anne’s court. She’d been rendered speechless by everything she’d been told. All she could do was stare the other girl square in the eyes. Dumbstruck.

Relief washed over Sasha as the tension appeared to simmer down, to the point she felt confident enough to move in closer, stopping when they were only feet apart. Tentatively, she reached out and brushed her fingers against her friend’s knuckles.

“Anne. Please.”

This snapped Anne out of her stupor. Reacting as if she’d been touched by something filthy, she broke her hand away from hers. Her expression turned on a dime from bewilderment to one of unadulterated hatred.

“... how dare you.”

Instead of withdrawing herself, Anne shoved Sasha away so violently it nearly sent her off her feet.

“I cannot believe I almost fell for that again! I mean, wow! Seriously, Sasha?! You’re gonna try and save your skin by throwing Marcy under the bus?! HOW DARE YOU!!”

Another jab to the breastplate silenced Sasha before she could respond. Anne was advancing on her dangerously, every step she took forcing her to back up. The only other instance she’d legit felt intimidated by her was back when she’d stood up to her at Toad Tower and even then, a secret part of Sasha was also impressed.

Now she’d touched upon what was already a frayed, raw nerve and it was scary.

“Let me tell ya something, Sash!” yelled Anne. A third strike nearly caught Sasha in the throat. “Marcy’s been more of a friend to me than you ever have! Marcy hasn’t lied to me! She hasn’t pushed me around! And she definitely hasn’t tried to kill my family! Unlike YOU!” She gripped the hilt of her sword, the menace in her eyes daring her to give her a reason. “She’s not only a real friend, she’s my best friend! And so help me, if you ever talk about her like that again, I will personally stick this thing right in your—”

The sounds of stomping boots and clattering armour had grown so loud they became impossible to ignore. Anne looked to her left to witness the sea of helmeted toads congregating outside the city walls.

How could she have let herself get distracted? They were coming. They were practically here.

“You were right; I am better off without you.” She hissed at her with so much venom it practically poured over her lips. “We both are.”

With that parting diss, Anne sprinted back to the lever. She had a job to do and she’d wasted way too much time and oxygen on this cretin already.

Sasha was left standing there stricken, feet glued to the floor. Anne might as well have slapped her across the face to achieve the same effect.

A determined scowl of her own soon spread across her features. You can’t say she hadn’t tried.

She drew the twin swords from her belt and assumed her dueling position.

“Anne, I can’t let you close that gate!”

“Oh yeah...?”

Anne roared, leaping through the air, sword unsheathed and aimed at Sasha’s head.

“JUST TRY TO STOP ME!”

Any swordsman worth their salt should know better than to leave themselves exposed like Anne just did. Sasha had a clear open to cut her in two instead of blocking her strike with both swords if she had so chosen.

To Anne’s credit, she wasn’t nearly as foolhardy as she had been when she first arrived in Amphibia. Right now, however, as they flew around the tower and did battle with the ferocity of dueling birds of prey, Sasha could plainly see it was Anne’s anger guiding her sword.

Anne was hostile, her moves unpredictable. Toad Tower didn’t have nothin’ on this. She wasn’t an exceptionally skilled fighter, neither of them realistically could be when you consider they’d both only first taken up the sword months ago. Still, there was underlying talent between them, and in Anne’s case, hers was currently being amplified by a seemingly bottomless well of passionate fury, which encouraged every last nerve to screw her courage to the sticking place.

She was actively going for the kill.

Narrowly dodging a plunge from her sword and, holding both her own in one hand, Sasha reached the other between Anne’s arms to grip her by the shoulder.

“Anne, stop this!” she begged through gritted teeth. “Marcy—”

“SHUT YOUR LYING MOUTH!!”

Anne freed herself by kicking Sasha in the chest with her socked foot. The collision of her unprotected sole against the metal breastplate hurt like all get out, but she wasn’t going to allow a trivial thing like pain stop her from taking a fatal swing at her opponent’s golden head.

Cat-like reflexes were what saved Sasha from getting scalped. If there was any hope in her mind that Anne couldn still be reasoned with, it was surely dashed now.

None of the paths leading out of this graceful dance of death were great. Simply keeping up her defenses and waging a war of attrition until Anne’s wild attacks inevitably tired her out wasn’t going to work. Whatever it was fueling Anne’s rampage, she didn’t look to be running out of it any time soon. Every parry, thrust and dodge drained a little bit more of Sasha’s stamina. She couldn’t keep this up for much longer.

Frog knows she couldn’t rely on those toads to drag their warty butts through the stinking gate already!

Unless she was able to disarm Anne and fast, the only other option was to meet her viciousness in kind with expectedly grime results. Her training with Grime had taught her that every sword fight was already a potential life or death situation, regardless if you lacked the intent to harm, but however much they’d literally been at each other’s throats, Sasha was not prepared to have Anne’s blood on her hands.

An idea hit just as she arched her back away from a swing that easily could’ve taken her head off. Muscle tissue developed over years of cheerleader practice kicked into gear and in those vital seconds, Sasha flawlessly pulled off a handstand and kicked the sword out of Anne’s hand. The blade plummeted to the city streets below.

That should have been the end of it. With her opponent disarmed, Sasha felt the adrenaline rush sustaining her crash. Her lungs were on fire. Pink and Green suddenly felt ten times heavier in her damp palms. She truly couldn’t have gone on a moment longer.

Unfortunately, Anne was nowhere near spent. In an act of near superman-levels of varsity athleticism, slid behind Sasha, grabbed the hem of her cape and jumped over her head.

Before Sasha was able to register what in the ever-lovin’ Frog just happened, Anne had already tied the cape over her eyes. She barely even had a chance to flail like a dizzy ballerina when Anne’s fist smashed her in the face!

It was a blow powerful enough to send her spinning across the tower. She landed flat on her face, not an ounce of strength left in her muscles to pick herself back up. It was miraculous she didn’t black out then and there.

All that happened around her next was a mad din of noise. She made out the slam of what must have been Anne finally closing the gate. Then someone somewhere sounded a horn, followed by a voice she dreaded to hear more than anything else.

“Royal Newt Guard! Assemble!”

Oh Frog! They’d already freed the king! Anne must’ve sent the rest of her frog family or worse, Marcy to free him from his cell. She’d been so focused on stopping Anne, she didn’t even factor in what the others were doing.

Anne’s smug tone reached her ears, “End of the line, Sash.”

Sasha crawled up to the ledge on her belly. She tore the cape off her head, scattering it to the wind.

What she saw only confirmed her worst fears. Sprig standing atop a knocked out Grime on the roof below. Newt guards were rounding up her soldiers left and right; the tadpole’s giant robot was holding a bunch of them in its mechanical arms.

Then she saw her, a perky smile plastered on her face, shooting a ‘mission accomplished’ thumbs up at Anne.

“Oh no.”

[lavendersb]

Our Ultimatum

Chapter 1: Charity 

Boba Fett x Reader

Summary: Finding yourself stuck between a rock and a hard place, you take a gamble and seek the mercy of the new ruler of Tatooine.

Warnings: Spoilers for S2 Ep8 (It’s set some time after the end credit scene), implied age gap, Boba flirting the entire time, mentions of slavery, gratuitous use of the phrase ‘little one’

This is just an excuse for me to be h*rny over king boba i’m so sorry, the smut will probably be in the next chapter! 

Things couldn’t get much worse.

Life had never been easy on Tatooine. With the harsh weather, the hellish wildlife, and the abundance of seedy criminals there wasn’t too much to celebrate on the planet that you had grown up on. You’d always been conscious of the risk of poverty, on this desert world it seemed almost everyone was working off their last credits and thankfully you’d always managed to make yours stretch.

That was until a few cycles, ago when things had taken a turn for the worst.

You see, though the rebellion had brought with it many prosperous outcomes, like the end of the Empire and a half-decent attempt at eradicating slavery, it had also caused a few problems. Tatooine, being the hub of criminal activity that it was had faced a rather thorough clean-up, and the New Republic had pretty much scared away the local bounty hunters guild, taking with it most of the planets custom. Since then raiders seemed to pillage every town on a near weekly basis, leaving you and many others penniless and desperate.

You’d just managed to scrape by, but since losing your job and being evicted from your sorry excuse for a home you’d been faced with a tough decision. One that had lead you on this perilous trek through the desert.

With just the clothes on your back and a small satchel of your few personal belongings, you were headed to Jabba’s Palace, or at least the palace that had once belonged to Jabba the Hutt. Since the death of the Huttese criminal overlord, the Palace had changed hands many times, most recently into the possession of a notorious bounty hunter with a growing monopoly on the criminal underworld. You didn’t know much about this new leader, other than the fact he ran a tight ship, but sadly he might be your only hope.

You’d heard stories of destitute citizens like yourself travelling the Dune Sea to offer their services to the Hutts, a life of slavery in exchange for a roof overhead and a meal every-day. Much more than what most could expect living free. You could only hope that this new leader would be open to the same sort of offers. You’d never thought you’d end up in this situation, but the universe works in mysterious ways.

The palace was a great, monstrous thing towering high above the rocks and dunes surrounding it. You’d once heard it had as many floors underground as it did above, even containing its own exotic animal menagerie. Perhaps you’d soon find out for yourself if that were true.

“What business do you have here?” an armoured guard called out as you approached the doorway to the palace’s main tower.

Adjusting your grip on your satchel, you try to regulate your breathing.

“I’ve come to see Boba Fett,” you announce in what you hope is a determined tone.

The guard seems unconvinced, turning to his partner and laughing beneath his leather helmet. Suddenly you feel very small, and painfully aware of how pitiful you must look right now.

“He’s a busy man,” The guard says, turning back to you “He doesn’t have time to talk to kids like you”

“If I had any other choice, I wouldn’t be here. I’ve come here to offer my services” You snap back, angered by his patronising tone.

The guard bristles, incensed by your little outburst. He shifts his weight and raises his blaster slightly, just enough for you to feel the threat there, but before he can respond his partner interjects.

“Look, sweetheart, this isn’t the place for you. Go back to town and don’t worry yourself with what goes on in here. It’s grizzly business.”

He’s right. You can feel how out of place you are, but right now that just isn’t an option for you. The only thing waiting for you back in Mos Eisley is an empty stomach, your only shot at a future is behind those big metal doors.

Slowly you reach for your pocket, bringing out your last fistful of credits and holding them out in front of you. It’s laughable really, barely enough to buy a bottle of Spotchka and yet it’s all you’ve got to bribe your way in.

“This is all I have left. You can have it if you let me inside”

The guards stare at the pile of credits for a moment, before the first one reaches forward and takes the whole lot.

“Fine. If you’re so sure it’s what you want” he snaps, motioning for his other (and arguably nicer) partner to let you in.  

The guard opens a small door behind him, ushering you through ahead of him. You try to ignore the look of pity he gives you as you step past him.

You emerge into a large, cavernous hall dimly lit with warm lights that hang suspended from wires of various lengths from the ceiling. Distantly you can hear the sound of many people talking and laughing, perhaps some music too. In the centre of the room, a wide descending staircase leads to the lower levels, curving off to the left and into the darkness. It sounds like that’s where all the noise is coming from.

The guard nudges your shoulder softly, gesturing towards the stairs.

You descend into what might be the busiest, loudest room you’ve ever been in. Filled with all sorts of species conversing loudly in groups all over the room, underscored by music that emanates from somewhere you can’t see. It’s dimly lit with a low ceiling that makes it feel like the room is about to collapse in on you, and the gravity of your situation slowly starts to dawn on you.

The guards were right, this Boba Fett really is busy, and you know you don’t belong here.

“He’s up there. Say what you need to say and try not to get me into trouble” the guard says, before stepping back against the wall and out of sight.

You look to where he had pointed, and instantly your blood runs cold. At the back of the room, sat on a raised dais and surrounded by the fiercest looking soldiers you’ve ever seen is the man you’ve come here for. He sits sprawled across a large stone chair- no, throne in his green Mandalorian armour that seems almost black in the low light. He has his face turned towards a woman beside him, her dark hair plaited tightly on her head as she nods along to what he says.

As though she has felt your stare she looks up. Saying something you can’t quite make out, she refocuses the armoured mans attention to you, and now, even from the other side of the room you burn something fierce under their combined gaze.

Boba Fett readjusts himself on the throne, spreading his legs just a fraction wider in a way that is both devastatingly inviting and frighteningly dangerous. He tilts his head, and you take this as your cue to step forward, weaving through the crowd until you reach the space before the dais.

“Are you lost, little one?”

Oh dear.

His voice rings out clear despite the noise around you. His pitch is low and measured, and pierces right into you. For a moment he’s rendered you useless, until you remember he asked you a question.

“No,” you respond in a voice you hope is as clear as his.

He huffs out an amused laugh and tilts his helmet. A few of the soldiers that surround him have turned their attention to your conversation as well.

“Forgive me. It’s not very often I get to see pretty things like you down here. As you can see I move in very specific circles” He gestures with his fingers, and you follow where he points.

Not that you needed to. You’ve been well aware from the minute you set foot down here that you don’t blend in with the numerous bounty hunters and criminals that fill the palace.

“But it seems you’ve come here with a purpose. What can I help you with?” Boba says, leaning forward slightly.

Right, you’ve practiced this. You had plenty of time whilst walking the desert to plan what you were going to say, and now as you face Boba Fett in all his imposing majesty, you’re infinitely glad you did. You probably couldn’t voice an original thought right now even if you tried, not with the nerves coursing through you under Boba’s unwavering gaze. You take a slight breath, ready to begin your well-rehearsed spiel.

“I have nothing. No money, no food. I’ve heard the stories about the people who came here looking to work in exchange for shelter- “

“You mean the slaves?” The dark-haired woman interrupts, throwing you off your rhythm and forcing the words to die on your tongue.

“Well… yes” you say, barely above a whisper.

“How dare you?” Hisses a zabrak bounty hunter that’s been lurking beside the throne “comparing our actions to that of the Hutts?”

The zabrak jumps down from the raised stone plinth, stalking towards you and causing you to shrink away. You’ve barely opened your mouth and already you’ve managed to ruin things. Honestly, you wish the ground would swallow you up.

“That’s enough, I’ve taken no offence” Boba warns, and the zabrak eases off slightly “but you should know we don’t do that here. Strangely enough there is some semblance of morality among us”

“I’m sorry” you offer lamely, hoping to repair some of the damage done in this conversation.

Boba studies you from beneath his visor for a moment, before offering out his hand to you.

“Come here” he asks, and not wanting to cause any more offence, you comply

Tentatively you step forward, eyeing the leering zabrak cautiously before taking Boba’s hand. Your hand fits neatly into the leather of his gloved palm, and he easily helps you up onto the dais to stand directly before him. Boba inspects your face again.

“You look tired, little one. Did you walk across the Dune Sea?” You faintly notice he hasn’t released your hand yet, still clasping it gently in his. You nod, not trusting your words just yet. Boba makes a quiet sound of sympathy that makes your heart flutter, much to your horror.

“And where did you walk from? Where’s home to you?”

His voice has dropped so it’s barely a whisper, a conversation just for the two of you alone.

“I don’t have a home.”

Boba doesn’t respond right away, instead reaching up to thumb the threadbare and sandy material of your tunic. He does so for a moment, seemingly lost in his thoughts before snapping his head up to face you.

“You must be tired. Follow my friend here, she’ll take you somewhere you can rest,” Boba points to the dark-haired woman beside him “Her name is Fennec.”

Shocked by his response, you can only babble out a strangled little “thank you” before Fennec promptly takes you by the arm and starts leading you away. As she ushers you into the crowd again, you turn one last time to meet Boba’s visor. He gives you a nod before you disappear into a hallway.

“I’ll admit you’ve got courage coming all the way here” Fennec says as she leads you along “most people choose come by speeder, the Dune Sea is a dangerous place”

“Well, I didn’t have many other options” you say, taking in the hallways you pass through, trying to commit them to memory.

“So it seems,” she responds, before turning to face you.

“You know if you really want to work for us we could probably sort something out. We can try and find you a job that’s safe and out of the way”

You’ve stopped outside a door, and the woman quickly presses a few buttons on the keypad to open it. Inside you catch a glimpse of a room, its fairly plain but still much nicer than anything you’ve ever had before. The bed looks divine, and you can’t wait to burrow under the covers and rest.

“I’d like that” you respond with a grateful smile; glad your little insult earlier hadn’t ruined all your chances here.

“I’ll see what I can do. There’s a refresher in there. You should wash, and I’ll find you something clean to wear. Rest as long as you need.”

Thanking Fennec you head inside, dropping your bag at the foot of the bed and reaching out to feel the sheets. They’re soft to the touch, but the sand that coats your body in a fine layer falls onto it, ruining the silky texture. Stepping back you begin to strip from your clothes, unwinding the binding that seals the cuffs of your sleeves and trousers. They’re supposed to keep the sand from getting under your clothes and irritating your skin, but in their threadbare condition the bindings haven’t done their job. When you shake out your trousers, half of the Dune Sea seems to fall out of them.

The shower amazes you. It’s a decent size with strong water pressure and it takes you a few moments to figure out how to change the temperature. You take your time under the water, enjoying how relaxing it is compared to the sonic showers you had used your whole life. When you’re sure you’ve washed away all the sand on your body, you wrap yourself in one of the soft towels and pad back to the main bedroom.

Someone had left a set of new clothes for you on the bed, a simple grey tunic and loose-fitting trousers, socks, underwear, and over by the door a soft looking pair of shoes. As you change you vaguely register your growing hunger but thinking of the soft sheets and just how tired you are, you decide that’s something you’ll fix after your nap.

As you lie under the covers in silence, you can just about make out the distant sound of chatter from the throne room. If you concentrate hard enough, you think you can hear Boba, his voice cutting through the noise as he calls out words you can’t make out.

It’s plaguing your thoughts. The kindness he showed you and the feel of his hand holding yours. The way his gaze pierced you even from behind his dark visor. This bounty hunter king was not at all what you expected him to be, but funnily enough you weren’t too mad about that.

  You wake to a series of short knocks to the door.

“Hello?” you call out blearily, trying to regain your senses as you switch on the bedside lamp.

The door slides open to reveal Fennec. She steps inside, leaving the guard she brought with her in the hall and smiles at your groggy state.

“Seems you slept well” she quips.

“Yes, thank you,” you say, reaching up self-consciously to fix your hair.

“Boba wants to talk. Get yourself ready and follow the guard, he’ll take you to him” Fennec says.

The prospect of speaking to Boba again sent your mind into a frenzy. Your brief conversation earlier had left you dumbstruck, his measured tone and focused interest in you effecting your brain in an almost embarrassing way. How were you supposed to pull yourself through an entire discussion with him?

Fennec leaves you to get ready. You do your best to calm your hair, splash some water on your face, and slip on your new shoes, and as the guard leads you through the palace hallways, you work on trying to steady your nerves.

The room you’re led to is empty. It has the same stone walls and floors as the rest of the palace, and windows in the ceiling illuminate the sizeable stone table that sits at its centre. The table is set for one, with a decent amount of food and a large bottle of spotchka. You’re quickly reminded of your hunger but don’t dare take even the smallest piece of food without permission.

“You gonna eat that food or just stare at it little one?”

Boba’s voice makes you jump. Spinning around you see him standing in the doorway, hands resting on his belt as he watches you. You can’t quite manage to make your mouth work, and in the absence of a response Boba steps forward, walking past you to take a seat at the table.

“Come on then.” He points to the chair in front of the plate of food.

He doesn’t need to offer again. Even if Boba has rendered your brain useless, your stomach is still fully aware of its need for food, and you waste no time getting stuck into the meal offered to you. Boba chuckles softly at the speed at which you eat.

“Spotchka?” He lifts the bottle of glowing blue liquid.

With your mouth full, you shake your head. Boba nods and pours himself a glass instead.

You’re so preoccupied with your food that you nearly miss when the bounty hunter lowers his head and removes his helmet to drink. Suddenly your food is a lot less interesting, now your undivided attention belongs to the face of the man opposite you.

He’s older than you, that was no surprise, and handsome too in a hardened, grizzly way. The scars, however, that wrap around his handsome face have certainly piqued your interest. Of course it makes sense for a bounty hunter to have a few scars, but scars of that severity must have a particular story behind them.

“I’m not the nicest to look at, am I?” Boba quips without looking up at you. His tone is light, thankfully not offended by your staring.

“No!” You say, before you can stop yourself “Wait no…I mean… I think you’re very nice to look at”

Wow, how eloquent.

Boba seems to find your flustered state very amusing, laughing lowly as he looks at you over the rim of his glass.

“Well thank you, and I’ll be sure to thank the sarlacc for not maiming all of my face”

A sarlacc? Well that certainly explains the scarring, but how could anyone survive a sarlacc pit? It seems that the more you learn about this bounty hunter king, the more questions you’re faced with. Your face must give away your thoughts, as just when you open your mouth to question him he pipes up again.

“You’re an open book little one, I’ll tell you about it some other time. Now though, I want to talk about you” He says, placing down his spotchka.

You tell him nearly all of your life story, from your name to your rather precarious financial situation and Boba listens diligently despite your babbling. By the time you’ve finished explaining to him the decision you had made to come to the palace, Boba has sat back in his chair, studying you.

“I can’t thank you enough for your hospitality so far, its far more than I deserve after the way I spoke to you earlier,” You conclude, but Boba wave his hand in dismissal.

“It’s hardly an issue, your courage and honesty endeared me to you” he says, “but I want to do one thing more for you,”

“Yes?” you prompt softly.

“I’m going to take you up on your offer. I’ll give you work, and you can stay here at the palace, but I will be paying you a salary.” He lets the offer hang in the air. You’re too shocked to respond, this is much more than you thought you’d be given.

“You’d be free to leave our employment at any time, and you can stay in the palace for as little or as long as you want. I want you to understand you won’t be a slave here, you’ll always have your own autonomy,” He elaborates.

This is certainly not what you expected from such a hardened figure. It seemed almost comical for the leader of the criminal underworld to be offering you, a nobody, this level of charity. It baffled you.

“I- thank you,” you respond, mouth numb with shock and unable to fully articulate yourself.

Boba downs the last of his spotchka before fixing his helmet and rising.

“You’re very welcome. Finish your food, little one. We’ll find you some work in the morning.” Boba turns to exit, leaving you alone at the table with your mind running a mile a minute to process your new situation. Jumping up from your chair, you go to stop him before he leaves.

“Wait,” you say, reaching out to grab his arm. He turns back to face you quickly, and for a moment you worry that you’ve overstepped a boundary by laying hands on him. When the scolding you’re anticipating doesn’t come, you continue.

“I don’t understand, why help me like this?”

Boba cocks his head.

“Why would I not?” He says simply.

“You could have just accepted my original proposition or sent me away.”

“Do you want me to send you away?” Boba quips. Leaning towards you, you can almost hear his teasing grin behind his visor.

“No,” you respond.

“Must a man always have a reason for his ways?” He reaches out to smooth the collar of your tunic, letting his fingers skim across your collar bone.

For some reason you’re not entirely convinced by his answer, but the feeling of his touch does a remarkable job at diverting your attention. His fingers follow the tunic’s neckline, stopping when he reaches the lowest point of the shallow v neck. He lingers there for a second before raising his hand to tap your chin with the back of his curled forefinger and let out an amused little huff at your dumbstruck expression.

“I’ll see you soon, little one.”

[leejafythe]

Fixing You - https://archiveofourown.org/works/39132561

Leeja kept looking around and over her shoulder as she and Thancred made their way back to Camp Broken Glass. “Are you alright? You’re a lot more nervous than usual” he frowned and squeezed her hand tightly. 

“Something is messing with senses, I don’t know what it is. I can’t tell if its the overwhelming aether but my echo hasn’t triggered, I can’t focus properly and–”

“Are you sure it’s not just stress, darling? You’ve had this before” she sighed and gently bumped her head against his arm. “I am not dismissing your symptoms, we both know that, but we both know stress plays a big part” he put his arm around her gently. 

“I know. I know stress is a problem and I’m trying to be better with it but given the gravity of the situation, I think I can get a pass for being stressed.” Thancred chuckled and they continued on their way.

They both stopped as something behind them caught their attention. By the time they both turned around, they were surrounded. They both freed their weapons and stood back to back “congratulations, you get to be my dance partner, love” she smirked and grabbed his hand quickly and channelled aether through her body into his, linking the pair, as she quickly setup her dance to begin her attacks as Thancred did his best to pull all the attention onto himself while Leeja did her best to take down as many of the tempered Garleans as she could without killing them. However, they didn’t seem to understand they were trying to help, not if their fresh wounds were anything to go by. 

Leeja cried out as the swipe of a gunblade caught her face and neck, rendering them to bleeding. Thancred wasn’t fairing much better, despite his various mitigating attempts. Leeja growled angrily “get them in a line in front of me and then stand back, this ends now!” She dashed back slightly and waited as Thancred pulled them into position. She waited a single heartbeat before channelling her Crimson Lotus “move now!” She hardly gave Thancred enough time before she triggered the attack, taking out all of the tempered quickly. 

Once her attack finished, she crashed to the ground, panting hard and unable to heal her wounds properly while Thancred spoke on his linkpearl quickly before realising. “Send Urianger as well, quickly.” He crouched down and took over putting pressure on the wounds with the rags Leeja was already using. “Are you not about to heal yourself?” She shook her head.

“Too much energy went into Crimson Lotus. Don’t have the energy to heal myself” she murmured the words slowly. 

“Rest, Urianger is on his way and we’ll get patched right up. Let me take over holding these but you need to stay awake.” She looked him over and noticed his own injuries. “I’m fine, nothing serious that my armour hasn’t absorbed.”

Her ears flicked as she heard the sounds of approaching footsteps. “Urianger and others are here.”

“Thancred? Leeja?” Urianger couldn’t see them and sounded worried.

“We’re here, behind the rock. Can you come and heal Leeja first? She’s got a wound to her face and neck that won’t stop bleeding” he poked his head out from behind the rock.

“Aye. What happened?” He knelt down, noticing the blood soaked rags and focused on healing the injury quickly.

“Got ambushed. ‘M struggling to…” she bit her lip and lowered her voice. “My senses aren’t as sharp and I’m struggling to discern my surroundings. ‘S too much aether, I can’t focus.”

“I don’t have nearly as sharp senses but I didn’t sense anything wrong until it was too late and by that point, running wasn’t an option” Thancred stood and watched the tempered be taken away.

“I know Y’shtola’s having the same problem, it’s why she’s staying in camp” the wounds knitted together the best they would and the bleeding stopped. “Thanks, Urianger.” Leeja rose to her feet slowly, feeling achey and rolled her shoulders. “Let’s get back to camp, we can inform our comrades of what happened here, rest for a bell and get back to it. I should be fine to finish healing our wounds as well when we get back” she slipped her hand into Thancred’s and they made their way back with less of a delay. 

G’raha and Alphinaud immediately made a fuss of them upon their return. “What happened? Are you both alright?”

“We’re fine, a touch tired but we’re okay. Just need to rest for a moment” Thancred waved off their worrying quickly. “Come, let’s go warm up and finish patching the last of the damage” he tugged Leeja away gently as she grabbed her pack. They were given the privacy as they entered one of the smaller buildings.

“Coat off, love. Let me take a look” she pulled out her small medical kit as she sat down.

“Oh no, I’m fine. It’s you I worry for, your armour isn’t nearly as resilient as mine. Leather is fine to a certain degree but you took a fair few hits” he sat in front of her and shrugged his coat off. Leeja did the same and grimaced at the feeling as several cuts and bruises were pulled on. Thancred grabbed the kit from her lap and opened it on the table. “This is why. It makes me wonder why you don’t just wear your paladin armour.”

“Because plate is heavy and I can’t fight properly in it. And before you ask, no I cannot wear my gunbreaker armour as it’s back in the Rising Stones. I only have my paladin gear because someone insisted I brought something protective with me” she carefully removed the damaged chest piece and hissed quietly as it peeled from some of the wounds. She shuffled the leather pants down her legs, revealing the long slash on her thigh.

“I apologise for caring about your safety” he smiled a little. “This is going to sting and no, punching me isn’t an option” she pouted playfully. She hissed and hit the table hard as Thancred pressed against her thigh with the cotton boll and rubbing alcohol.

“At least it isn’t my previous dancer gear” she grit her teeth hard.

“No, that would would have been much worse since it offers you very little protection.”

“Doesn’t need to if I’m quick enough to evade attacks” she breathed out slowly as he carefully placed a clean dressing over it and covered it with a bandage, tearing it with his teeth as his breath tickled the sensitive skin of her thigh. Thancred smirked a little at the quiet moan he heard leave her throat.

“Not now, later. If we have time” he purred the words and kissed her quickly. She felt her face flush at his words, making him laugh. “Let me check your back and arms, I know how terrible you are for admitting your back hurts.”

“Aye but it’s not my fault. It’s a pride thing” she yelped as he pressed down on a bruise. “Arse.”

“Case and point, darling. You’ve got no terrible wounds on your back but your shoulder needs covering.” Leeja slid the pack back toward him with her less damaged shoulder and flinched when he began to clean it up. 

“I am getting you back for this” she groaned hard and bit down on her fist, fangs digging into her skin and piercing it ever so slightly. She felt him secure the dressing and watched him sit back down in front of her.

“Take it off, I’m checking you for injuries” Leeja stood and pulled the leather trousers back up, securing them once again and wincing as it pressed against the wound. 

“I am more bruised than anything, darling. You are fussing for no reason” Thancred indulged her, removing his chest piece and placing it off to the side after noticing the fresh cracks in it with a slight frown.

“I’ll repair it before we leave, don’t want you going out in damaged gear.” She took his arm in her hand and traced it lightly with the tips of her fingers. He looked a little confused for a moment before the warm flow of aether followed in their wake. He felt the stiff muscles relax and the bruised skin feel better. She repeated the action on his other arm before standing and moving behind him. “Take slow, deep breaths. This might feel strange and I apologise if it does. Do you trust me?” She leaned down and kissed his temple, resting her head against his for a moment.

“Of course” he breathed out softly. She placed her finger tips on his back and channelled the aether through them once again, trailing them down his back slowly. Every bruise, graze, break and fracture became non-existent as her aether found its way to each injury and healed it. He felt the spasm of the muscles ease and the tension leave at the same time. “Stand up for me, love” Leeja kissed his shoulder gently and removed her hands. Thancred stood and he felt her hands on his lower back and groaned softly as the tense muscles relaxed and the ache faded. She moved around to his front and placed her fingers just under his collarbones, channelling the aether again and slowly pulling her fingers downwards, fanning them out slowly to reach more of his chest. Thancred sucked in his breath sharply as she hit a particularly sensitive spot. “Sorry, I’ll be careful” she looked up at him and gave him an apologetic smile. Leeja’s fingers gently traced each muscle slowly, her aether seeping into his skin and helping to speed along his healing. Thancred leaned his head down and rested his brow against the top of her head lightly as her fingers glided slowly over his abs and down to his hips before stopping. “How does that feel now?”

“Much better” he tipped her head back gently. “Like the embrace of a warm blanket on a cold evening mixed with an incredible massage” he smiled softly as she chuckled lightly.

“Ah, the famous silver tongued bard hasn’t lost his charm, has he?” She teased him gently.

“I should hope not” he kissed her gently. “Thank you. We should probably rejoin everyone.” Leeja hummed slightly in disappointment as she grabbed his chest piece.

“Let me fix this and we can go.”

[yespolkadotkitty]

Querida

Oh, fucking hell. This fic has eaten my life for the past 2 (?) days.

Tovar and William arrive at the Great Wall and things change irrevocably.

Warnings: first time, shameless smut, indulgent smut, no actual plot.

Word count: 4,000

When the outsiders were dragged in, they looked more animal than human, long hair and thick, knotted beards, covered in thick, dirty armour and furs. You struggled to make out their features from across the huge hall.

If this was what existed beyond the protective barrier of the wall, well, you weren’t missing anything. 

The only other Westerner you’d seen was William Ballard, the former mercenary who’d been held here since he tried to steal black powder over twenty years ago. You were only a small girl then, but over the years he’d taught you English, gained your slightly dubious trust. 

You saw him eyeing the two strangers - one fair haired, tall, one darker, stockier, and wondered if he’d try and make friends.

Ballard was polite to you, even kind sometimes, but you never suspected that he’d stopped trying to escape. He always looked furtive, always seemed to have an agenda crawling under his skin, barely concealed.

The strangers were led off to the barracks. You could smell them from here, and, disgusted, you dipped your head back to your bowl of hot, fragrant stew, pairing it with soft, spiced bread.

You hadn’t missed the way the captured soldiers had eyed the food and suspected they were hungry. Maybe even starving. According to reports from the scouts, there was precious little in the way of vegetation of sustenance in this part of China, so they’d have been hard pressed to stay well fed.

******

As you trained with the fellow members of your patrol unit, all the gossip centred around the two strangers, and how yīngjùn  - handsome - they were after cleaning up in the barracks. You bent to your task and tried to ignore the idle chatter. Sometimes you indulged, but ever since your mother had been savaged by a Tao Tei that breached the wall, costing her her arm, you’d forgone any sort of idleness or pleasure, focusing on being strong, preparing to fight the monsters, and helping to work on strategy against them.

At dinner, you joined everyone in the great hall, and after gathering your food and sitting, you found yourself opposite the two Europeans. You stared for a moment, reconciling them with the two hairy, unwashed oafs you’d seen only yesterday. 

“Evening to you,” the fair-haired one said in a lilting accent. He elbowed the darker one. “Tovar.”

Tovar looked up from his food. “Buena noches.” He’d shaved all his beard save a moustache and some scruff around his jaw. The removal of the scraggly beard showed off the shape of his face, drew attention to his big, soulful brown eyes.

“That’s “good evening” in Spanish,” the fair-haired one added, amused. “I’m William.” He seemed to have a sunny disposition, his jaw also freshly shaved, hair tied back as he ate amiably. In contrast, Tovar ate in silence and you noticed a wicked-looking scar arching over his left eye. He glanced around as he chewed, as if worrying someone might remove his food at any moment.

You introduced yourself. “Thank you both for helping. Yesterday, against the Tao Tei.”

Tovar grunted in response. William smiled lopsidedly, his manner affable and relaxed. “You’re welcome.”

******

After that, you didn’t see much of the Westerners. Every day it seemed the weaponsmiths came up with new methods to keep the vicious Tao Tei at bay, and you immersed yourself in learning, as usual, between visits to your mother in the secluded gardens within the widest part of The Wall. She was in good spirits for once, letting you help her eat, laughing at your descriptions of the stinky Europeans.

When you left her, you stopped by the armoury to change your daggers. The ones you’d been using for a few days would be sharpened by the boys drafted there. No one could afford a blunt weapon when every moment the Tao Tei seemed to be evolving; everyone needed to be as sharp as their blades.

Yours were useful in targeting the eyes, you’d trained hard and your aim was often true.

You stopped dead at the sight of Tovar in the armoury, hefting an axe as if testing the weight. You must have made some sound, because he turned, brown gaze raking over you suspiciously. He did everything suspiciously, it seemed.

“Where’s William?” you asked, to cover the fact that you’d started to admire his broad form in the leather armour.

Tovar scoffed. “You like him, do you?”

You shrugged. “Everyone likes him. He’s friendly.”

Turning the huge axe in his hands, Tovar scowled. “And handsome, I guess you’re going to say next.”

You weighed your words carefully. 

Yes, William was easy on the eye, and several of your fellow soldiers had said so. You suspected even Commander Lin Mae had a crush, though she held her cards close to her chest like any good military-bred woman. But your dreams had been filled with soulful brown eyes and what the touch of scarred hands might feel like. How it would sound to have Spanish murmured in your ear in the darkness.

“He is pleasant to look at,” you said at length. 

Tovar looked away, muttering something, and for a second before he’d turned, you thought you saw a flicker of sadness pass over his stocky features, but the light in the armoury wasn’t good enough to tell.

You left him to his grumpiness.

****

You woke with a start at the sound of the horn blasting - an attack was on its way.

Dressing deftly with practiced speed, you hurried up to the wall to see several lines of soldiers already in place. Other women and men from your unit joined you in full armour. A few feet away, William and Tovar were also fully armoured up, grim expressions on their faces. Unlike you, they’d only faced Tao Tei once before in their lives, and although they’d proved themselves formidable, it only took one mistake, one slip in a pool of blood, one misjudged dagger throw, and a warrior could be cut down in an instant.

The crane unit deployed as the creatures climbed over each other, jaws snapping, eyes blinking red and gold in the half-light of early morning, the lit torches only adding to the atmosphere of the scene unfolding.

As usual, Ballard hid behind a pillar, only half his face visible.

Then two creatures breached the top of the gargantuan wall, and all hell broke loose.

You swung your swords as best as you could, holding the line with your unit, the armour of the soldiers atop the wall a cacophony of colour and reflecting light as the fighting raged.

Out of the corner of your eye, you saw Tovar and William battling the second, hulking Tao Tei, jaws stringy with saliva, reptilian eyes wild, claws scrabbling. Tovar caught it in the belly with an axe as William scored an arrow in its left eye, and the scaly beast crashed to the floor in a pool of blood, twitching.

You turned back to your own fray as lightning crackled, luminescent and fierce. Thunder followed, the sound splitting the pitch black blanket of the sky. The remaining Tao Tei on the wall tossed its head in fury, its jaws snapping and catching the soldier in front of you by the spear, hurling them over your head, knocking out William, whose bow went hurtling away across the stones.

Frozen in fear, you stood rooted to the spot as the Tao Tei opened its jaws, and you stared into the yawning darkness of its mouth, towards certain death.

The scream of an axe flying through the air broke the spell and just in time, you ducked as the spinning blade sliced through the jaw of the hulking green beast, throwing it off its stride. Undeterred, it reached out a huge claw, dripping with the thick blood of your comrades, and swiped-

The air was knocked out of you, and your back hit stone, cushioned by your thick armoured doublet.

Tovar stared down at you, breathing hard. “Eager for death, querida?”

Embarrassed both because you were caught like a deer in headlights, and because you’d reacted instantly to the feel of his hard body pressed intimately to yours, you shoved him off. “I can look after myself.”

Tovar lay on the stone for a second, staring at you, and then shook his head, standing. “Obviously.”

You struggled to get your head back in the game after that, but managed to use your throwing knives to cut out the sight in one of the Tao Tei’s unblinking eyes, internally sighing in relief that you weren’t rendered totally useless in combat.

****

It took a long time to cut up and drag away the two dead Tao Tei. Sometimes, they were tossed over the wall, but this time, Strategist Wang had deemed that too big a risk before the bricks broken today were repaired.

You headed to the courtyard garden to lick your wounds - mainly your pride, thankfully - and stopped short, seeing Tovar sitting on the edge of the fountain, washing his face.

He looked up at your approach and then looked away, a scowl crossing his darkly handsome face. Come to think of it, you’d never seen him smile.

You sat a polite distance away, decided that washing might feel good, and scooped up water.

As you looked into the reflective surface, your face as well as Tovar’s looked back at you. His hair curled damply, the scar across his eye pale in the morning light, his mouth set into a grim line.

“What I said earlier,” you began.

Tovar looked away. Forget it, si?”

You couldn’t forget the look on his face. The one that said he’d handled a lot of rejection and now expected it, handled it with standoffishness and grumpiness. He stood up, his shoulders set, and turned away.

“William is pleasant to look at,” you ground out, “but I prefer looking at you.”

Tovar stood stock still, so you knew he’d heard you.

“Do not make fun, querida,” he said, very softly, but his words carried to you in that husky voice.

“I’m not.”

He turned back to face you very slowly, his face set in a serious expression, and then a slow smile slid over his face, lighting it up, and for a moment he was so handsome, he stole your breath.

****

From then on, whenever you saw each other, you and Tovar would sneak little glances. Sometimes if you sat together at the long dinner tables, his thigh would touch yours, and your heart would thunder in your chest.

For his part, Tovar seemed much happier to be within the confines of the Great Wall, joining in the combat drills and showing some of the patrol units his axe throws.

Life continued, without any attacks from the Tao Tei, for some time. Spring started to bloom all around, and the three large cherry blossom trees in the garden courtyard sprouted perfect, pale pink flowers.

The morning after they bloomed, you found one waiting for you, tucked into the door handle of your small quarters. And another, the day after that, until the blooms dropped to the ground and were swept away.

“Thank you,” you murmured to him at dinner.

“De nada,” he smiled, looking at you with those dark eyes, and you wondered what he wanted. What his endgame was. All you knew was that when he looked at you, you melted inside, and each little touch stoked the flames, until you’d reached fever pitch.

You finished your food, went to stand, and he touched your arm. “Meet with me, si? In the courtyard. When the moon is high.”

You nodded shakily, your heart somersaulting, ready for your little routine of smiles and heated glances to move to the next level.

******

The full moon hung waxy and heavy in the sky, surrounded by pinprick stars, when you entered the courtyard on stealthy feet. Your eyes adjusted to the darkness and you made out Tovar’s silhouette under the cherry blossom trees, now entirely green and leafy.

He tipped his chin in silent greeting as you crossed to him, standing awkwardly for a second, unsure what to do, how to act.

Fantasizing about him covering you in the night, his deep voice murmuring to you in Spanish, was very different to being only inches away, breathing in the scent of his rosemary soap and just a hint of the lemon oil he cleaned his armour with.

“Querida,” he whispered. “You want this, no?”

The edge of trepidation in his tone made your decision for you, and you closed the distance. Tovar cupped your face in his gentle, scarred hands, and dipped his head to kiss you. You met his lips eagerly, if a little clumsily, and drunk in his little groan as your tongues danced. He tasted of spice and tea, addictive, and you slid a hand up his neck into the silky mass of his dark hair, threading your fingers through the strands.

Tovar was not the first man you’d kissed, but the incendiary feelings this kiss incited in you made the others pale into insignificance.

He slid his arms around you and pulled you close, aligning your body with his, and you thrilled to the feel of the evidence of his desire hot and heavy against your belly.

You sucked in a breath when Tovar broke the kiss, his dark gaze searching yours. “You truly do not fear me, little one?”

“I never have. Should I?”

“Never, mi corazón,” he whispered. “I should fear you. What you could do to my…. Old, scarred heart.” He tipped your chin up with a gentle hand. “Do not give me hope where there is none, si?”

“But there is.” Sweet man, you thought, pulling him in for another kiss. “Come…. Back to my quarters?”

He nodded silently, and you felt something drop in your stomach, as if things were about to change irrevocably.

You led him by the hand up the steps to the main gatehouse, and through the silent corridors to your quarters. The sound of the key in lock seemed loud, but then Tovar shut the door behind you, and he dominated the space in his black tunic, leathers and breeches. 

Unsaid words littered the space between your bodies, the only light a faint glow from the wall sconce above your tiny desk.

Anticipation pooled in your belly, warring with nerves. “I.. I’ve never done this before-” Twenty-four summers old you might be, but when you lived in a cold, stone fortress, with the constant threat of a Tao Tei attack and cared for your mother, there wasn’t much time for romance.

“We will start slow, then.” Tovar closed the gap between you and again cupped your face in his hands, kissing you again, seducing you by tiny increments. You felt your body begin to relax as the kiss turned leisurely, and your hands slid up the wall of his chest, his heart beating a ragged tattoo under your palm.

His armoured leather spread warm and soft under your hands, but you wanted more. His breathing hitched when you started to unlace the tunic fastenings, but he slid his hands down to your hips, letting you have your way.

Outside, an owl hooted in the distance. Your own heart thundered in your ears, desire making your blood feel syrupy, as you pushed the leather off his shoulders, only the worn, soft fabric of his black shirt underneath. You met Tovar’s gaze and found something dark and hot and yours in his tea-dark eyes, and it made you greedy, so you gripped the hem of his shirt and pulled it up. Tovar helped you, lifting his arms and bending, and you’d seen what his arms and hands could do with an axe, so his gentleness both humbled and aroused you.

The shirt fell to the floor on his armour, and oh God, he was big and broad and muscled. Fascinated, you spread your hands over his chest, your skin pale compared to his golden tan, mapping the myriad scars over his chest. A wicked one ran from one nipple down to the side of his hip, the end white with age, and, overcome with how painful it must have been, you bent and pressed your lips to it.

He was silent, breathing ragged, as you did the same for all the scars you could see, tracing them with first your fingers and then your lips, learning the feel and taste and smell of him as his heart thundered, hands clenched on your hips.

A sound that might have been pleasure or pain escaped his lips, and you looked up, meeting his gaze, seeing fire there. “Enough,” he bit off, and he lifted you off your feet and carried you to the bed, laying you down as gently as if you were the most precious of jewels, and in the next breath he covered you, and your arms wound around him. 

You spread your palms over his back greedily, drinking him in by touch, and he lowered his mouth to yours, starting the whole process anew. Kissing you until that fluttering starting in your belly again, until you were arching your hips to get closer to him, to feel more of the hard, hot length of him against you.

Curious, and eager, you snuck a hand between your bodies to cup him through his breeches, and a muttered slew of Spanish passed his lips as he bucked into your palm, then grabbed your wrist.

“Next time, perhaps. It has been too long for me, comprende?”

He guided your hands upwards, set them on the pillows above your head. “I want to focus on you.”

And wow, that made want and need clutch at you, deep inside.

Tovar undressed you slowly, and you watched his scarred hands work in the low light from the flickering sconce flame, peeling back each layer of your robes. “Hermosa,” he whispered reverently, and then, as if remembering you didn’t speak Spanish, he added, the butterfly wings of his breath warm against your skin, “Beautiful.”

His words warmed you inside out, and then he touched his mouth to your skin and all thoughts left your head.

Aside from a handful of nervous fumbles in the armoury, right now was the closest to sex you'd ever been. As Tovar drank you in, his tongue learning the flavour of your nipples, you broke the invisible hold he'd put on your wrists and touched him, raking your fingers through his hair and smoothing your palms over the golden skin of his broad back.

He mumbled what you guessed was praise in Spanish as he licked and kissed endlessly. You felt him hard and unyielding against your thigh, but he seemed uncaring of his own needs, existing, for now, purely for your pleasure.Time ceased to exist and your world narrowed to each lick of his warm tongue, each stroke of his big, scarred hands, over your skin.

“What did I do to deserve such beauty?” he mused, moving down to feather kisses on your stomach.

“You… bathed,” you muttered, completely at ease with him, and he coughed out a surprised laugh.

“I’ll spend the rest of my life under water, querida, if this is my reward.”

You opened your mouth to reply, but then he spread your legs and put his mouth on you, and nothing else mattered, save the curl of his tongue where you were damp and ready, the glide of his lips on your inner thighs, then the tickle of his facial scruff across your clit, the press of his fingers inside you. You clenched your muscles around his digits and felt him sigh against you, pleasure and anticipation wrapped up inside that single breath, and you arched into his face, chasing the sweet release that every flick of his tongue promised.

Your thighs trembled as Tovar gentled the pace, then sped up again, keeping you on the edge of your climax. This was nothing like what you’d experienced at your own hand, you were bent to his will, control out of your hands-

He licked a long strip over your with the flat of his tongue and you came with a keening cry, turning your face into the pillow to keep from making a sound. The walls might be stone here, but it was better not to take chances.

Tovar propped himself up on his elbows, and the pleased look on his face made your stomach flutter anew.

“Now, I think you are ready, hermosa.”

He disrobed quickly, and you watched every inch of tanned skin revealed in the half-light from the wall sconce. The sliver of moonlight through your window kissed the curve of his shoulder, the scar across his eye, and you had never seen anyone so beautiful.

You sighed with pleasure as he moved atop you again, gloriously naked, and his skin was smooth and hot, and instinctually, you shifted and wrapped your legs around his hips. Tovar growled into the curve of your neck and positioned himself, and your inner muscles clenched greedily in breathless anticipation of this, the first time having a man inside you.

“I will be gentle,” he promised, and you nodded, mumbling his name, not sure what you wanted, but just knowing you needed-

The hot press of him inside you kindled another fire deep in your belly. The head of him brushed the sensitive bead at your apex and you arched desperately -

The pain sliced through you, and Tovar dropped his forehead to yours, going totally still inside you. You felt him trembling slightly, braced on his forearms, his dark eyes filled with concern.

“It’s..” A tear rolled down your cheek and he went to pull away. The fact this big, world-weary, grumpy, strong mercenary would stop, without a word from you, made your heart turn over, and you banded your arms around him.

The pain gave way to a feeling of fullness, and you experimentally clenched your inner muscles around him. Tovar bit off a string of curses in Spanish, shifting slightly, and the movement sent little licks of pleasure ricocheting inside you.

“Good?” he whispered against your lips.

“Good,” you agreed, breathing him in, tasting yourself on his mouth when he brushed a kiss over your lips, the breath shuddering out of him.

He moved slowly, seducing you again with his gentleness, capturing your little gasps of sensation with his mouth, until there was more pleasure than pain, and you needed to feel all of him. Testing, you lifted your hips, dragging him deeper, and he made that addictive growl again, his hips moving faster. You clenched your hands on his big shoulders, digging your heels into his thighs, urging him on. 

“Carajo,” he cursed, his hips stuttering, and he thrust out and back in again, touching a spot inside you that crashed waves of pleasure through you, and you keened his name, pressing your face into his shoulder.

Tovar went still, eyes closing for a second, then pulled out, taking himself in hand and finishing across your stomach, his breath coming raggedly, before he collapsed beside you on the narrow bunk.

After a moment he turned on to his side and stroked damp strands of hair back from your face. “Querida.”

“What does that mean, exactly?”

“Darling.”

He dropped a kiss on your lips and then moved off the bunk, finding your bucket of water, refreshed each day, and soaking a cloth, wringing it out before gently cleaning off your stomach, then standing awkwardly, his gaze searching yours in the low light, questioning.

Your heartbeat settled. Tomorrow you would have to wake up with the sun, and train again, and fight for your life. Tomorrow you would have to decide what you wanted to do with this new thread between you and Tovar, the emotions that lightened your heart and swam in your head. But for now, it was night, and you wanted to push the Tao Tei and the fighting away, to not think about whether Tovar would one day want to leave the safety of the Wall.

So you crooked your finger and lifted up the blanket. “Stay.”

Relief crossed his dark, handsome features, and he did as you bid, gathering you close. You snuggled your cheek into his warm, scarred, solid chest, burrowed into his warmth, and, forgetting about everything except the sound of his heart beating, you dropped into sleep.

Thankyou so much to @restingnurseface​ for the company, read-throughs and encouagement.

Tagging people who might like this @bunnyart-blog​ @spacegayofficial​  @tiffdawg​ and my regular “whole shebang” taglist: @wolvesandhoundshowltogether​ @just-the-hiddles​ @littlemissthistle​ @palaiasaurus64​ @adorkabeezle​ @myoxisbroken​ @nonsensicalobsessions​ please ask to be added or released!

[marginalgloss]

I turn 35 tomorrow. How better to celebrate that than with some notes on the handful of video games I have managed to finish over the last ten months. In no particular order:

Judgment (PS4)

Something I think about often is that there aren’t many games which are set in the real world. By this I man the world in which we live today. You can travel through ancient Egypt or take a trip through the stars in the far future, but it’s relatively rare to be shown a glimpse of something familiar. Hence the unexpected popularity of the new release of Microsoft Flight Simulator, which lets you fly over a virtual representation of your front porch, as well as the Grand Canyon, and so on.

I found something like the same appeal in Judgment, a game which took me longer than anything else listed here to finish — seven or eight months, on and off. Like the Yakuza games to which it is a cousin, it’s set in Kamurocho, a fictional district of a real-world Tokyo; unlike other open-world games, it renders a space of perhaps half a square mile in intense detail. I spent a long time in this game wandering around slowly in first-person view, looking at menus and in the windows of shops and restaurants. The attention to detail is unlike everything I have ever seen, from the style of an air conditioning unit to the range of Japanese whiskies on sale in a cosy backstreet bar. And this was a thing of value at a time when the thought of going anywhere else at all, let alone abroad, seemed like it was going to be very difficult for a very long time.

It’s a game of at least three discrete parts. One of them is a fairly cold-blooded police procedural/buddy cop story: you play an ex-lawyer turned private eye investigating a series of grisly murders that, inevitably, link back to your own murky past. In another part you run around the town getting into hilarious martial arts escapades, battering lowlifes with bicycles and street furniture. In another, you can while away your hours playing meticulous mini-games that include darts, baseball, poker, Mahjong and Shogi — and that’s before we even get to the video game arcades.

All these parts are really quite fun, and if you want to focus on one to the exclusion of the others, the game is totally fine with that. The sudden tonal shifts brought about by these crazy and abrupt shifts in format are, I think, essentially unique to video games. But the scope of Judgment is a thing all its own. As a crafted spectacle of escapist fiction it’s comprehensive, and in its own way utterly definitive.  

Mafia: Definitive Edition (PS4)

I was amazed when I found out they were doing a complete remake of Mafia, a game I must have finished at least three or four times in the years after its release back in 2002. Games from this era don’t often receive the same treatment as something like Resident Evil, where players might be distracted by the controls and low-poly graphics of the original. 

A quality remake makes it easier for all kinds of reasons to appreciate what was going on there. (Not least because they have a lot of new games in the same series to sell.) But in the early 00s PC games like this one had started to get really big and ambitious, and had (mostly) fixed issues with controls; so there’s a hell of a lot more stuff going on in Mafia than in most games of that era. It was also a very hard game, with all kinds of eccentricities that most big titles don’t attempt today. Really I have no idea how this remake got made at all. 

But I was so fond of the original I had to play it. The obvious: it looks fantastic, and the orchestral soundtrack is warm and evocative. The story is basic, but for the era it seemed epic, and it’s still an entertaining spectacle. The original game got the balance of cinematic cutscenes, driving and action right the first time, even while Rockstar were still struggling to break out of the pastiche-led GTA III and Vice City. 

They have made it easier. You’re still reliant on a handful of medical boxes in each level for healing, but you get a small amount of regenerating health as well. You no longer have to struggle to keep your AI companions alive. Most of the cars are still heavy and sluggish, but I feel like they’re not quite as slow as they once were. They’ve changed some missions, and made some systems a little more comfortable — with sneaking and combat indicators and so on — but there aren’t any really significant additions.

The end result of all this is that it plays less like an awkward 3D game from 2002, and more like a standard third-person shooter from the PS3/360 era. Next to virtually any other game in a similar genre from today, it feels a bit lacking. There’s no skill tree, no XP, no levelling-up, no crafting, no side-missions, no unusual weapons or equipment, no alternative routes through the game. And often all of that stuff is tedious to the extreme in new titles, but here, you really feel the absence of anything noteworthy in the way of systems. 

My options might have been more limited in 2002 but back then the shooting and driving felt unique and fun enough that I could spend endless hours just romping around in Free Ride mode. Here, it felt flat by comparison; it felt not much different to Mafia III, which I couldn’t finish because of how baggy it felt and how poorly it played, in spite of it having one of the most interesting settings of any game in recent years. But games have come a long way in twenty years.    

Hypnospace Outlaw (Nintendo Switch)

If this game is basically a single joke worked until it almost snaps then it is worked extremely well. 

It seems to set itself up for an obvious riff on the way in which elements of the web which used to be considered obnoxious malware (intrusive popups and so on) have since become commonplace, and sometimes indispensable, parts of the online browsing experience. But it doesn’t really do that, and I think that’s because it’s a game which ends up becoming a little too fascinated by its own lore. 

The extra science fiction patina over everything is that technically this isn’t the internet but a sort of psychic metaverse delivered over via a mid-90s technology involving a direct-to-brain headset link. I don’t know that this adds very much to the game, since the early days of the internet were strange enough without actually threatening to melt the brains of its users. 

(This goes back to what I said about Judgment - I sometimes wonder if it feels easier to make a game within a complete fiction like this, rather than simply placing it in the context of the nascent internet as it really was. Because this way you don’t have to worry too much about authenticity or realism; this way the game can be as outlandish as it needs to be.) 

But, you know. It’s a fun conceit. A clever little world to romp around in for a while. 

Horace (Nintendo Switch)

I don’t know quite where to begin with describing this. One of the oddest, most idiosyncratic games I’ve played in recent years. 

As I understand it this platformer is basically the creation of two people, and took about six years to make. You start out thinking this is going to be a relatively straightforward retro run-and-jump game — and for a while, it is — but then the cutscenes start coming. And they keep coming. You do a lot of watching relative to playing in this game, but it’s forgivable because they are deeply, endearingly odd. 

It’s probably one of the most British games I’ve ever played in terms of the density and quality of its cultural references. And that goes for playing as well as watching; there’s a dream sequence which plays out like Space Harrier and driving sequences that play out like Outrun. There are references to everything from 2001 to the My Dinner with Abed episode of Community. And it never leans into any of it with a ‘remember that?’ knowing nod — it’s all just happening in the background, littered like so much cultural detritus. 

A lot of it feels like something that’s laser-targeted to appeal to a certain kind of gamer in their mid-40s. And, not being quite there myself, a lot of it passed me by. Horace is not especially interested in a mass appeal — it’s not interested in explaining itself, and it doesn’t care if you don’t like the sudden shifts in tone between heartfelt sincerity and straight-faced silliness. But as a work of singular creativity and ambition it’s simply a joyous riot. 

Horizon: Zero Dawn (PS4)

I stopped playing this after perhaps twelve or fifteen hours. There is a lot to like about it; it still looks stunning on the PS4 Pro; Aloy is endearing; the world is beautiful to plod around. But other parts of it seem downright quaint. It isn’t really sure whether it should be a RPG or an action game. And I’m surprised I’ve never heard anyone else mention the game’s peculiar dedication to maintaining a shot/reverse shot style throughout dialogue sequences, which is never more than tedious and stagey.

The combat isn’t particularly fun. Once discovered most enemies simply become enraged and blunder towards you, in some way or another; your job is to evade them, ensnare them or otherwise trip them up, then either pummel them into submission or chip away at their armour till they become weak enough to fall. I know enemy AI hasn’t come on in leaps and bounds in recent years but it’s not enough to dress up your enemies as robot dinosaurs and then expect a player to feel impressed when they feel like the simplest kind of enrageable automata. Oh, and then you have to fight human enemies too, which feels like either an admission of failure or an insistence that a game of this scale couldn’t happen without including some level of human murder. 

I don’t have a great deal more to say about it. It’s interesting to me that Death Stranding, which was built on the same Decima engine, kept the frantic and haphazard combat style from Horizon, but went to great lengths to actively discourage players from getting into fights at all. (It also fixed the other big flaw in Horizon — the flat, inflexible traversal system — and turned that into the centrepiece of the game.) 

Disco Elysium (PS4)

In 2019 I played a lot of Dungeons and Dragons. I’m talking about the actual tabletop roleplaying game, not any kind of video game equivalent. For week after week a group of us from work got together and sort of figured it out, and eventually developed not one but two sprawling campaigns of the never-ending sort. We continued for a while throughout the 2020 lockdown, holding our sessions online via Roll20, but it was never quite the same. After a while, as our life circumstances changed further, it sort of just petered out.

I mention all this because Disco Elysium is quite clearly based around the concept of a computerised tabletop roleplaying game (aka CRPG). My experience of that genre is limited to the likes of Baldurs Gate, the first Pillars of Eternity and the old Fallout games, so I was expecting to have to contend with combat and inventory management. What I wasn’t expecting was to be confronted with the best novel I’ve read this year.

To clarify: I have not read many other novels this year, by my standards. But, declarations of relative quality aside, what I really mean is that this game is, clearly and self-consciously, a literary artefact above all. It is written in the style of one of those monolithic nineteenth century novels that cuts a tranche through a society, a whole world — you could show it to any novelist from at least the past hundred years and they would understand pretty well what is going on. It is also wordy in every sense of that term: there’s a lot of reading to do, and the text is prolix in the extreme. 

You could argue it’s less a game than a very large and fairly sophisticated piece of interactive fiction. The most game-like aspects of it are not especially interesting. It has some of the stats and the dice-rolling from table-top roleplaying games, but this doesn’t sit comfortably with the overtly literary style elsewhere. Health and morale points mostly become meaningless when you can instantly heal at any time and easily stockpile the equivalent of health potions. And late on in the game, when you find yourself frantically changing clothes in order to increase your chances of passing some tricky dice roll, the systems behind the game start to feel somewhat disposable. 

Disco Elysium is, I think, a game that is basically indifferent to its own status as a game. Nothing about it exists to complement its technological limitations, and nor is it especially interested in the type of unique possibilities that are only available in games. You couldn’t experience Quake or Civilisation or the latest FIFA in any other format; but a version of Disco Elysium could have existed on more or less any home computer in about the last thirty years. And, if we were to lose the elegant art and beautiful score, and add an incredibly capable human DM, it could certainly be played out as an old-fashioned tabletop game not a million miles from Dungeons and Dragons.

All of the above is one of the overriding thoughts I have about this game. But it doesn’t come close to explaining what it is that makes Disco Elysium great.

[countessofbiscuit]

Please, please vindicate me on this. In Fantasia Fourteen is Fox in Phase II armour yet, it really is *so* much sexier than that Phase I crap

Hate to disappoint and possibly taint Fantasia for you, but no. Fox is still in Phase I, as the story takes place about three months after the Senate Hostage Crisis — or, by my reckoning for this canon-compliant ‘verse, in the last week of the sixth month of 21BBY. Excepting a prototype teaser in a previous episode, Phase II isn’t seen on troops until the first arc Season 4 (Water War), which occurs after the passage of the Army Enhancement Bill (that time the Senate agreed to an injection of 5 million more clones). 

I figure upgraded armor had been part of Kamino’s proposal for that bill, designed free of charge and offered at discounted rates for all new clones and current cadets; then a supply for all deployed clones gets earmarked. Interoperability and all that jizz. It starts being fielded to combat units sometime in the first month of 20BBY, though it’s a few months before Phase I is totally superceded and all officers have been persuaded to dump their old gear. 

So while I can’t give you vindication, I can offer a consolation fic?

. . . . . 

Deuce Gear | ao3

Commander Fox dons new armor and is reminded that being kept by the well-heeled Republic isn’t all awful. 

. . . . . 

Fox stood at the foot of his cot. He flipped a large roll of tape in his hands as he studied the shiny plastoid shell he’d arranged. 

His “phase two” self. 

News to him that the armor they’d been sporting this last decade had been the first phase of anything. But Kamino’s armorsmiths had been as busy as Baktoid’s bugs, the DOD was making clones shed their carapaces, and it’d been a carousel of cargo vessels at every barracks on Corrie since the new year. K81 Operational Combat Plates Mk2 didn’t flat pack. 

For all the logistical fuss, the plates weren’t all that different. More angles than curves, and lighter too, Force save their knees (steroid injections couldn’t now, and unless the Veterans Budget bill passed, they wouldn’t be getting those either). And there were updated instructions for wearing spaulders upside-down that would exasperate sergeants for weeks. 

Fox had been surprised to find his new issued kit fit like a forgettable dream. After all the back-and-forth bellyaching between the corps’s QM, Procurement, and Kamino about the need for flexibility, the need for funds, and the need for reduced caloric intake, someone on the longnecks’ side had clearly folded — or someone was getting kickbacks. There were more than two sizes now; no clone’s gains would be limited by the armor he could squeeze them into, or the shimming he figured could safely get away with. 

The helmet had borne the brunt of the overhaul. Its faceplate was more humanoid, in a skeletal kind of way. Fox still hadn’t decided how he felt about it, besides robbed. Clones didn’t have much to call their own, and nearly every brother loved his bucket like it held his last breath. More importantly, how would she feel? He glanced over at his old helmet — the face she’d smiled at first — and considered how badly he’d be reamed for ‘misplacing’ it. Eloquently and with extreme prejudice. ‘Losing’ a damaged spaulder was one thing; the helmet was serialized and must be handed back. The spanks were the same for all ranks where INFOSEC was concerned. 

Fox returned his attention to the bed. The new helmet still featured a mounted lamp and an enhanced comms and sensor array, but the polarized lenses rendered the visor redundant. He’d requested one anyway: it made a complex HUD field easier to scan and incoming data feeds easier to triage in sunlight — and it was always sunny in Galactic City.

Finally, there was a stiff new kama. Fox had taken a fastcutter up the back and along the edges and the lethris was now in need of some trim. He couldn’t cannibalize the silk from his old one: it was utterly sky-shredded where not scalded from three weeks of near continuous down-draft. And to his kama’s credit, Fox had burnt through more than one jetpack traversing a goodly part of the planet via its sewers, storm drains, and skytunnels in a quarterly sweep of the infrastructure. It was impossible to keep them totally clear of criminal elements, but at least a red wave could keep them from getting too comfortable. 

Someone knocked on his door. It was Floren, bearing caf and two cans of spray paint in the unit’s new color because continuity was for chumps. 

“They give you any trouble?” Fox asked. The motorpool mechs were stingier than medics sometimes. Mostly with good reason. 

“No, sir. There’s crates of the stuff. No repulsor threads for the larties, ‘course, but enough paint to make sure they go down in a blaze of fresh Corrie red.”

“Sell tickets and call it a lightshow.” 

“I’ll put it to the ladies down at the RSO,” Floren replied, accepting Fox’s desk chair. He squirmed around in his seat for a minute, like a cadet newly graduated to hard plates. Or a grunt selected to play officer lackey for a day without really knowing why. “Still stumped, sir?” 

Fox nodded. 

(continue reading for the spice) 

[10kiaoi]

For the 007 Fest Anon prompts: Magical realism

Scav hunt item #55: Create art using a prompt from the MI6Cafe Weekly Art Prompts + “Mayday”

Notes: Unbetaed as always. Canon typical violence.

"Mayday, mayday, mayday-!"

The city is caught in a deluge when he arrives. 

Traffic is backed up for miles, vehicle after vehicle trapped in complete  frustrating gridlock. 

He's walked the two miles to his destination, leaving behind an irate cab driver with a generous tip for his trouble.

Along the way, a young nymph looking to be no more than 10 summers old, offers a flower garland weaved of fresh white Heather from the shelter of a narrow porch. He eyes the fresh cut hanging over the front door. 

He purchases two, to the girl's cheery delight. 

----

“We've lost three engines! Requesting immediate vectors to the nearest airfield! Mayday, mayday, mayday! Shit, Number 4's go-"

----

One mile in, he stumbles across a heavily flooded street.

Earsplittingly loud lighting cracks overhead, an occasional flash that lights the street up. 

The flood waters are ice cold. With the water level at thigh height, his wellies do nothing to keep them from gushing around his equally frozen feet. He resigns himself to a hot bath later.

Here, no cars are able to pass through at all. 

Despite the hazards, there are people out and about in front of their buildings. There are merchants desperately hauling their merchandise to higher ground, attempting to salvage what they can from the havoc. Some are putting up brightly coloured banners and decorative displays. At every door, a stalk of white Heather hangs, children gleefully arranging whole seashells in intriguing patterns around them. 

The mood, though dampened by the terrible weather, borders on festive. 

There are neighbours exchanging sweet breads, a friendly trade of roasted poultry, a shared fish or two in covered dishes to shield the food from the downpour. 

Their joy is a distant consideration in comparison to his inner disquiet. 

An elderly man catches sight of him standing and staring openly at the activities. He glances down to his hand, to the two Heather garlands cradled protectively.  The old man tuts reprovingly and wades through the waters towards him. 

"Shells," the old man tuts as he offers two perfect clam shells, canine tail wagging, "Intention means nothing without it."

He crosses the street, with his gifts in hand. 

----

"Mayday, mayday, mayday! We've lost all four engines- Christ, we're not going to make it back to land-!" 

----

He hears the adolescents well before he sees them. 

In a deserted street, dull with old street lamps and filthy storefronts, the hooded teens giggle with cruel delight as they rip down fabric banners and shatter the crystal glass figurines of various marine creatures. The lovely shells and stalks of white Heather meet the same dismal fate.

Amidst their destruction, one of the teens happens to look up, forked tongue flickering out to taste the wind. Their eyes drop to his arms and they elbow their companions. The group sneers, wisely backing off momentarily and not doing anything as foolish as engage him in a fight. 

Given his state of mind, it is more than likely that the teens will not come out the other end of the fight unscathed despite the protection of armoured scales. 

"The sea witch's a fucking sham anyways!" the kid yells over their retreating backs, "ya'll nuts for believing that shit!" 

When the last teen disappears round the street corner, he sighs, taking the moment to sweep the glass shards to the side with his foot instead of leaving them in the middle of the pavement for some poor sod to injure themselves on later. The rising waters will take care of the mess soon enough anyways. 

The glint of light on glass draws his eye to the ledge, where several pristine figures lie untouched. He is irrepressibly drawn to one in particular- a carving not of an animal but a floating feather caressed by an invisible wind. 

His eyes surveys the street warily for a moment. The glass feather slips unnoticed into the depths of his jacket. 

In the distance, the sea churns with rage. 

----

"Mayday, mayday, may-"

----

There is little else he can do but scour the shores, buffeted by strong gusts and blinded by sea spray. 

The boats are all docked away, no skipper daring enough to take on the sea in her volatility. The worst of the storm is miles away from land, but its effects are felt all the same. 

A set of files arrives in his email courtesy of Q Branch and Tanner- maps and coordinates and prediction models, all of which he studies intensively in the comfort of his temporary safe house. The glass feather sits prominently besides his laptop, a silent but steadfast companion to his activities. 

It, along with the Heather garlands and clam shells, bear witness to him smashing his ceramic mug in a fit of fury. 

The lone image glares accusingly at him from his laptop screen, a low quality shot worsened by the movement of the camera it was shot with. 

The object is a blurry mess, details rendered indistinct by the rolling waves and heavy rainfall. But enough of the form remains for the item to be identified- its implications are what trigger his episode of temper. 

A lone tail fin, ripped from its place at the rear of an aircraft, is a death sentence. 

----

He's on his fifth bottle, drowning his sorrows with a vengeance. Outside, the deluge lets up a little into a light patter against the balcony. 

The helplessness weighs heavily like an albatross around his neck. 

Squeals waft up from the street below, a pod of local mers grasping the opportunity the flood waters present and taking the chance to explore streets they have never traversed before. Their melodious cries of astonishment and wonder, once music to his ears, prove too much for the dark cloud hanging over him. 

He throws back his head against the couch and guzzles down more bitter ale. 

----

He comes to in his tiled bathroom, curled over the toilet seat with acidic sick stinking up his nose. It's no gentle thing, he wakes up with a jerk, disorientated and without memory of how he has gotten to the bathroom in the first place. Adrenaline rushes through his veins. 

With the fog in his head clearing up, he notices the rattling coming from his balcony, accompanied by quiet curses. 

He gets up, hand curling around the walther under his arm. He creeps towards the source of the commotion, feet as light as a cat's paws. Whatever and whomever the intruder is, he's of no mood to be gracious. 

The rattling pauses, an indignant squawk of frustration follows it. 

It speaks volumes of his training, both military and 00 that he does not drop his piece from shock. 

There on his balcony, his Quartermaster scowls angrily at the offending lock while looking like a drowned rat. 

In his chest, his heart leaps. 

His movement draws Q's attention and it's then he's hollered at to "open the bloody doors before I kick them down!" 

There's no word vast enough, deep enough to encompass the depth of his emotions as he swiftly undoes the lock and throws the double doors open. Heather and shells are sent flying but all he cares for is pulling Q into a bone crushing embrace. 

----

The rain picks up, droplets soaking through the cotton of his shirt. The front is already soaked through, thoroughly pressed against a sopping wet Quartermaster as he is. 

He pulls them inside, away from the storm, away from the windows. Disbelief and hope war within his chest as he studies Q with an anxious eye, warm towels in his hand to replace soaked clothes. 

He says nothing of the massive bruising on Q's torso, a large swath that belies the extent of physical trauma its owner has gone through. 

Belatedly, he registers the noticeable lack of glasses, the raw scrapes and bruising over pale cheeks and knuckles. 

The hulking set of white wings tipped with black and dusty grey. 

"Albatross," he breathes reverently.

He'd assumed from Q's presence in the tunnels of Q Branch, the way he draws comfort from his underground haven, that his Quartermaster is a member of an underground species of sorts- a Null even, rare as truly non-magical folk are amongst the general population. The personnel file certainly hasn’t provided much insight either given their propensity for obfuscation when executive members of staff are involved.  

"Yes, well, turns out I was just a late bloomer" Q sniffs, squinting at a dust speck on the wall through the conspicuous lack of glasses, "you're not on the water all the time either." 

Bond smiles indulgently though offers no contest. 

With his parents and kin long gone, there was simply no incentive to remain near his family’s seat of power all the time. The murky depths of the loch holds no interest, lacking in the thrill and constant entertainment cities like London offer. Besides-

First M, a hawk, now Q, an albatross - he's always been drawn to the sky much more than his peers. 

He feels out Q's wings carefully, stretching one out to examine the feathers and bone. The appendage trembles under his tentative scrutiny, morphing into a full body shiver that goes right down to Q's toes. The first wing passes muster, so he moves on to the other. 

Q yelps loudly as his fingers prod a particular sore spot. 

It has him relaxing his fingers immediately, though he does not cease supporting the injured wing. 

"I don't think it's broken," Q whimpers, fingers twisting anxiously. 

Like a dam, Q's hard won composure crumbles. "Couldn't get them out," Q sobs, "They were too far forward, I barely got myself out-" The frantic babble dies away into hitched sobs. 

He croons lightly in response, a soothing rumble he's heard mers sing to their fry. He runs his fingers through mussed curls, letting the grief and guilt run its course. 

The kit he has isn't stocked for treating winged individuals or traumatised ones for that matter, but he's a witch- he'll make the best with what he has. He'll get them both home. 

---

In the distance, the sea finally calms.

[hobbitsnapes]

The Red Hoods Protègè chapter 20

Older Damian Wayne x ofc

(Photo made by my lovely friend @iamhollows)

Summary:Red Hood has taken a young vigilante under his wing and subsequently changes Damians life forever.

Tags: @comic-nerd-dc @comic-brew @psychovigilantewrites @psych0crybaby

Her feet screamed in pain as she walked into the cave, each step growing more tiresome than the last.

It was a long night, going from 9 to 5 in the morning. The sun hadn’t rose from the sky yet, not for another hour or more. The first 3 hours was nothing but sit and wait, the cold November air shaking to her core as she sat and prayed that they would just hurry along.

At midnight was when they finally came, her patients slim to none due to the freezing temperature.

She managed to get the information and take out majority of the men with little bloodshed.

The next 6 hours was spent delivering the information to her fathers bunker, where he sadly wasn’t there to meet her. Also managing to stop 3 robberies, 2 hit and runs, and stopping an elderly man from being jumped.

The night had been fairly uneventful, that was until her bike halted mid way to the manor. She swore up and down for half an hour as she walked her bike back to the manor, through the storm that conveniently hit when she started walking back.

A groan leaves her as she peels her suit from her body, her muscles sore from having walked from the middle of the city back home.

A hiss breaks the silence as she feels a sharp pain in her right shoulder blade. Feeling behind her and wincing when she felt the small drop of blood.

Her scars had almost completely heeled over the years, no longer open wounds that would always scream out in pain. But once in a while, when she might have swong her arms wrong, some of the deeper scars would slightly open up.

It was nothing major, nothing that required stitches or immediate care. Just a clean and a bandage

A tear slips past her eye when she saw where it was, the largest j scar on her shoulder was slightly dripping, reminding her of the first time she saw them.

A gasp leaves her as she looks in the mirror in horror, sobs wrecking through her as she fell to her knees. Raw skin and stitches barley healing covered her shoulders, some of the skin being completely gone and looking like chunks were missing. The skin was red, some lighter and darker as blood dries along all the wounds.

She knew it was bad, the excruciating pain that she constantly felt a clear sighn that it was going to be large. But nothing could prepare for the mangled skin of her back that once was scar free.

Her heart throbbed in pain as she yells out in anguish. Her sobs breaking as she passes out on the dirty bathroom floor.

She wipes away her tear as she grabs for the alcohol, sucking in a deep breath before squirting the liquid on the cut.

A hiss breaks out as the burning consumes her shoulder, trying to steady her breath. Once the pain subsided, she patted the skin dry and applied the large bandage to the cut, finally turning away from the mirror and walking back to her room.

The sharp air hit her skin almost immediately, sending a wave of goosebumps to erupt from her skin.

It was snowing, quite lightly in fact. The ground barley had a layer of the fine white snowflakes over it, like a sheet covering a bed.

Her feet walked along the ground, watching each step as to not slip. Looking around the vast garden as the small flakes made a beautiful picture. This is what she wished winter could be. But alas, it would only be a matter of weeks before a thick layer of snow blanketed every inch of the beautiful garden. Rendering it near impossible to venture out past the lines of the old manor.

She walked out past the large tree, over past the small patch of plain grass to, a walkway?

She had never seen this before, a path through the thick forest.

She walked into it, seeing the footprints in the almost frozen dirt. She bent down to look, noticing the size difference between hers and the prints.

The wide space between each prints indicates running, and the almost perfectly pristine prints showed it was from today. But who would be out running today? Then she remembered.

She watched as he walked by her open door, a plain under armour shirt with tight sports shorts. He didn’t glance once at her, his permanent furrowed brow on his blank face.

But why would he be running this morning? He hadn’t gone in weeks, preferring to exorcise in the cave as of late.

She decided to stop it and continue walking, ignoring the prints as best as she could.

She came to a stop when she spotted it, no more than a hundred feet in front of her was a pond. It looked almost perfect, no trash, no leaves or grass, only a few lily pads scattered around.

A laugh bubbles out of her when she sees a family of ducks in the pond. She walks up to them, careful as to not scare them. She notices one in the back who was having trouble swimming with the others, flapping its small wings around and trying to keep up. She reaches over to the little one, petting the little bird with the pads of her fingers. “Hey little guy.” She cooes, watching as the small duck shakes it’s soaking body.

She reaches out, grabbing one of the lily pads, and sets him on the pad. “There we go little guy.”

She watched as he sits on the pad as if it’s a ride, a smile on her face at the sight.

Neither one noticed each other when they walked down the hall in opposite directions. Colliding into one another, making them jump and look up, pains igniting in their chests. They just stood there like dear in headlights, both not knowing what to say. Should he say something? Should she apologize? Neither said anything as they looked away, walking back down the hall, their eyes slightly glossing.

She ran down the steps as fast she could, her heart pounding out of her chest as she nearly misses a step.

She runs through the door and barrels over to her dad, running up and latching onto him like a koala bear. He picks her up, laughs bubbling out of him as he spins her around. “I thought you said you’d be here tomorrow?” She says, muffled by his chest. “Welll, I kinda lied cause I wanted to surprise you.” He laughs, letting go of her.

They hadn’t seen one another for about a week, having trouble not only finding the time but a way to get there. Jasons motorcycle had been in the shops for a few weeks, having engine problems that even he couldn’t fix. He’d use his car, but had forgotten to get it inspected.

She hears him before she sees him, the smoothness of his voice a stark contrast to Bruce’s gruff and raspy tone.

A gasp leaves her when she sees him, the tall man in blue jeans, a red flannel and smooth jet black hair and blue eyes.

Jason looks behind him, seeing his daughters hundred yard stare. A laugh bubbles out of him when he sees she’s looking at Clark. He can’t help but find it funny, he remembers the day he met the man of steel for the first time, mirroring the same look as her.

“Robin, meet Superman.” Bruce says to the young boy, a smile on his usually cold face. Jasons heart drops in his stomach when he sees him, nearly at his waist.

Clark bends down to the young boy, a fond smile on his face. “Hi Robin.” He says, extending his hand. Jason shakily resigns the favor, feeling the impressive grip from the kryptonian. “H-hi Superman.” He shakily says back. A chuckle leaving from the man at his shyness.

He smiles at the fond memory, looking back at her and seeing she has the same look as before. “Wanna go meet him?” Her head whips to her father at his question. Eyes wide like a deer in headlights. “Are you kidding? That’s Superman!” She whispers. A large laugh leaving him at her statement. He lightly grabs hold of her shoulder, slowly walking her over to him. “He’s not as scary as you’d think. I was exactly like this when I met him.”

Her heart beats so loudly she is sure he can hear it even without his heightened senses. An awestruck look on her face when she gets closer. Jason walks behind her, a hand still softly planted on her shoulder.

Clarks head turns when they both walk up, a large smile on his face when he recognizes Jason. “Well if it isn’t Jason Todd.” He says, pulling the now grown up man into a hug. “Nice to see you too Clark.”

Both men pull apart and look down at her, Jason having trouble keeping a chuckle in at her face. Her eyes wide and mouth slightly agape. “And this must be that daughter of yours.” Clark chuckles, making her face erupt in red. “Nice to meet you, I’m Clark.” He says, extending his hand to her, like he did to her father all those years ago. “Y-you’re Superman.” She stammers. Making all three of the men laugh. She doesn’t even acknowledge his hand as she stares at him. “That I am.” He chuckles, finding her look of pure awe Endearing. “I-I remember seeing you fly once when I was 4. My parents said it was a fever dream.” She says, making each of the men laugh so hard they held their stomachs.

“What do you do if you’re in the middle of flying and you have to pee? Like I’m talking no holding it you gotta pee NOW?” She asks, making him laugh. “You know, I’ve been asked many questions over the years. But none like that.” “Well it’s a genuine question that I’ve had for years now. I mean it must happen at least once in your life?” He can’t help the laugh leaving him. “Alright fine, once in a while it does. And what I’ll do is find the nearest body of water, and apologize to Arthur.” He chuckles.

“What does it look like up there? Does everyone look small like ants?” She asks, face resting in her pals as she lays on the couch in her stomach. “It’s, hard to describe. And you haven’t been up in the sky before to know?” He asks, “I mean, I’ve been on top of buildings before so kind of?” She replies. “Wait so you’ve never been in the air before? Even gliding with a cape?” She sighs at his question, looking down at her hands. “I don’t have the same gear as Bruce or the robins. The closest I’ve come to is gliding with a grappling hook, but I’m more so looking in front of me rather than below.” She replies. A smile breaking on his face at her confession. “Come on then, I’ve got something I think you’ll like.”

Both of them stand outside of the manor, watching as everyone but her father walks out. “Um, what’s going on?” Tim asks, seeing Clark wrapping his arms around her. “Taking her on a trip like I did for all you kids.” Clark replies, a smile on both their faces. He looks down at her, feeling her hands gripping onto him as hard as she can. “You’ll be safe, I’ve done this for all of them.” He whispers, calming her stammering heart slightly.

“Alright you ready?” He asks. She shakes her head yes, legs slightly shaking. “Alright on 3,2,1.” He says, before she feels her heart and stomach drop as she shoots high from the ground. She can’t help the scream that erupts from her throat as she feels the wind fly around her.

She clutched onto him with her life, tears nearly escaping from her closed eyes. She feels, weightless, but a strong force surrounding her at the same time. Her heart beating wildly in her chest as her stomach catches. Feeling the shaking of her insides as she holds on tighter.

She feels him come to a stop, the force of the wind no longer astounding her. “Hey, open your eyes.” He whispers. She finally opens her eyes and moves her face from his chest, her eyes widening. She’s right above central Gotham, high above every building in sight. She looks around in sheer wonder and awe as she takes in the sight. People below her walking look so small, it’s hard to believe that she’s the same size as they are. Buildings that shed gaze up at, now look small in comparison to the skyscrapers that she's level with.

He can’t help but let out a chuckle at her expression, reminding him of her fathers exact same expression when he was young. She might not be his, but she was surely meant to be his daughter. He watched as her pupils adjust to take in all the sights. He hears her heart calm but still aratic against her chest as the adrenaline courses through her. “Wanna see a trick?” He asks, watching as her attention is now back on him. She shakes her head yes, a gleeful childlike smile on her face.

He tucks her head back into his chest as he shouts through the sky, laughing at her scream of excitement.

“And today’s top story is this photograph taken just this morning. It appears to be a set of angel wings written in the sky. Some eyewitnesses say it was work of a plane, some even say they saw the infamous Superman. While some believe it’s a sign from God. Maybe there will be some saving grace for our city after all.”

Her and Tim let out a laugh as they watch the TV, barely able to hold the bowl of popcorn between them. She falls into his side, trying to stop her wheezing breath but to no avail. He wraps his arm around her, trying to stop himself from crying.

They hear his footsteps before they see him, watching at the open door as he glares at the two. “TT” he says, before walking away. She sighs as she gets off of Tim, rubbing her temples. “I don’t get it, why is he so pissed when I’m around you? I mean doesn’t he know?” She asks, annoyance heavily laced in her words. He looks away and sighs. “Actually, no he doesn’t know. None of them do.” He admits, hearing a gasp from her. “Tim, why haven’t you told them yet? I mean no offense but, how do they not know?” “I had a girlfriend at one point. Everyone thought we were gonna be like dick and babs, they, were all shocked when we split. And since then, I haven’t dated or even mentioned anything about it.” She puts her hand on his shoulder, making him finally look at her. “Tim, this is something they should know about you.” He scoffs as he moves her hand from his shoulder, a pain shooting through her heart. “Oh yeah and how would I even bring it up? Oh hey Damian that line you drew looks pretty straight, speaking of straight, I’m not. Oh and also I’m in love with my best friend for years. They’re all emotionally constipated. You’re the closest one here who’s actually got some emotion in you.” He says, both anger and sarcasm in his tone. He feels her hug him, wrapping his arms around her. “We’ll figure something out, but only when you’re ready.”

[pathofcomets]

soldier, keep on marching on (3)

fandom: mass effect andromeda

pairing: (eventual) jaal/ryder

summary: Sara Ryder will replay that moment before she died for the first time many times afterwards.

playlist: spotify

Sara didn’t image that mourning a death will take so many celebrations. Doctor Carlyle takes her through the basics regarding her new connection with SAM, a voice now ever-present, experiences always shared. But the Nexus staff – her bosses now, she thinks – are quick to celebrate the new Pathfinder and the return of the human ark. She sits through the speeches, feeling her skin crawl with how much she despises everything. She wants to curl up in her dad’s bed and cry. Scott has still not woken up. Cora is upset with her now, over a situation she had no say in. She gets it though: working your entire life for something, and see a good-at-nothing fledgling take over instead.

And she hates Foster Addison, with her cutting words and the superiority complex that has no backing. Director Tann at least knows his limits and apologizes when he’s wrong, though he seems to keep an air of superiority that irks Sara more than the direct aggression of his human counterpart. Kandros is too busy with his teams to pay too much attention to her, though he is nice whenever she passes by his office. Kesh though, Kesh could become a friend, because she is the only one who takes the leftover Ryder seriously. Like someone who is here to get things done, as much as anyone else.

Of course, Sara has not been trained for any of this. But she is her father’s daughter, and when thrown in the midst of Eos with only a new crew that she has no idea how to make her friends, she picks up her gun and carries on. She takes Vetra and Cora – one because she has no idea what she’s capable of, and the other because she knows exactly what she’s capable of. There’s still some stiffness and awkwardness between them, but in the middle of a battle, it won’t matter.

It goes away when the Pathfinder jumps in the middle of a battle, her shields trembling all around her as bullets fly off, trusting her team to have her back. Later on, Vetra will attribute it to the fact that she’s never been in actual combat – just the training on the Citadel. Because Sara Ryder has no regard for her well-being, accepting chips in her armour if it gets her closer to a clean head-shot. Adrenaline junkie like her father and brother, Cora will say. But for Sara, this is just the way she knows how to fight: straight through the enemy lines, no pain no gain. And because the others are the veteran fighters, they learn to accommodate the erratic battle style of their Pathfinder. In the middle of a battle, the only thing that matters if they end up alive on the other side.

“You fight like that; you win the battle. Not sure if you’ll last to see the entire war through, though,” Vetra chastises when they’re going through broken armours and containers.

“It’s the only way I know how,” Sara replies, but so frustrated that she is close to tears.

She loved sniper training, once, when she was young: but when enemies drop from the air, when beasts are unleashed on her, she can do nothing but hope she has enough bullets in her gun and shoot. She has no idea how to properly fight, her body just goes on auto-pilot, survival being the only thing that matters. That she’s brimming with anger, which numbs the cut of the bullets or the itch of a bite, then that’s the bonus.

Still, her fighting is no more erratic than that of Nackmor Drack. He’s a legend between his people, SAM lets her know – and apparently an acquaintance of Vetra. Sara knows, immediately, that she wants to fight by this man’s side, though he is wary of the Initiative. She understands why, because after seeing the state of the Nexus, she wouldn’t want to be associated with it either. Too bad she has no choice in the matter, their insignia over her suit, her ship flying in their name.

The truth is, Sara is not doing anything in the name of the Initiative, but in that of her family. Whatever the Pathfinder may mean for the Nexus, for humanity – for her it’s the last few links she has with her dead parents and her comatose brother. She pushes forward, fighting Remnant and Kett alike because if she’d stop, the Ryder name would not go on, all the work of her parents would be for nothing. She cannot let that happen now, on the other side of the universe, when they tried so hard to make it happen in the first place, when they threw away not their own life, but that of their children as well. Her mother died because of her work, not before she had her son born with biotics. Her father died for his work, not before passing over his title and responsibilities to his daughter. They were always making sure to share things equally between the twins.

If Scott were to wake up, he’d say it’s not fair that she’s got a head start, while he is still sleeping. Sara closes her eyes against the churning sun, in the middle of the desert, and tries not to think how far away a world in which she heard his voice is. Then she fights more Remnant, preparing to start up vaults and terraform worlds.

She’s pretty sure that’s not in the job description. She’s pretty sure she’s not even being paid for this job. But she has no choice. If she stops to question it, if she stops from running around, listening to SAM, uncovering the secrets of the Andromeda galaxy, then no one else will survive. This is a life and death matter, for four different species.

Why on Earth did Alec Ryder think that his historian daughter would be fit for this? Even her schooling is nothing compared to Peebe’s bright curiosity – and she allows her to join them in revving up the Remnant technology because SAM cannot know absolutely everything, only guess.

She remembers the dust, coming to swallow up intruders, and as she runs for the door, air burning her lungs, stinging at her eyes, Sara Ryder loses herself inside her own mind. Her body works on its own, at saving her, and she crushes into Vetra’s hard shell when finally, the door closes shut behind them, rendering them safe. She rubs at her nose, silently accepts Cora’s outstretched arm to stabilize herself.

She has run away from something like this once before. She lost her father to it. In her gaze, the others can read this painful truth, and know that wherever the Pathfinder is right now, it’s not here with them anymore.

SAM’s voice is soothing inside her brain, familiar enough not to panic her even further, but firm enough that she snaps out of it. Of course, they managed to terraform Eos. It’ll take months, years, maybe even decades before the effects will show, but the planet is now habitable. The sun won’t burn off layers of skin anymore, though the desert heat remains almost unbearable, the mind playing tricks in the scorching rays.

“An outpost?” Cora asks, because that’s the actual Pathfinder procedure, that’s what they’ve been sent out to do, at the end of the day.

The rest is just making sure the people she’s sending out won’t die anymore.