#her bow is a collapsible one and it's purple

[heclingmuzik]

[snowy-vee]

ALL MINE (3)

oblivious loser bsf! ellie williams x posesive popular bsf!fem reader

n/a: I may have rushed things! but I prefer to trust the process and cook a little bit more. I hope you all like it. Also, does the taglist works how I've done it or there's another way to do a taglist?

trigger warnings;; mention of vomit (1), idk if catalog it into violence because there's none but intense argue(?

Pt.1 HERE

pt.2 HERE

pt.4 HERE

Inform yourself about what’s happening and how to help! FREE PALESTINE, FREE CONGO.

Ellie was in such a boring class that she barely noticed when it ended and people started to pack up; a few of her classmates were waiting for her at the entrance of the door, so she hurried out with them. They discussed the topics covered in class today as they walked to the dinning hall.

“Ellie!” you called out, causing both her and her classmates to turn; you were on the opposite path from her, so you had to run a bit to reach her side faster. You opened your gym bag and pulled out the folder Ellie had left in your room last night after studying together. “Your folder, you said you needed it today.”

You were dressed in your cheerleading uniform since you had practice right now. Ellie, who had been a little dazed watching the movement of your skirt as you ran, nodded, feeling her cheeks burn, and indeed, you looked so pretty, especially when you said goodbye and turned around, showing the small bow in the back of your hair.

“Sometimes I forget you’re friends with someone so popular. How is it possible that you’re friends with her?” one of them said, mesmerized by your presence, like the rest of the group

“Well, we are, best friends,” Ellie asserted with a smile. It’s true that she was annoyed when people questioned your friendship, but she was happy to have you as a friend, and perhaps she also enjoyed the feeling of envy from others…

“Yeah but she is popular, pretty, hangs out with her kind of cliché, goes to every party invited ¡Hell! She could be an influencer if she wanted to… and you are you”

“Hey, I have my own charm” Ellie said softly feeling a little bit offended “Whatever, we’ve been friend for so many years and that’s what matters”

“Really? Then do you know if the rumours about her and Abby are true? I think it’s the hottest gossip on campus, the cheerleading captain and the captain of the women’s basketball team.”

“They’re all lies, don’t believe any of that. She wouldn’t be with someone like Abby,” Ellie said, dismissing the comments, and she sounded so sure of what she was saying, especially because you assured her of it the same night of the party.

Finally, you had arrived home, you were so tired that as soon as you got to your room, you collapsed on the bed.

“At least change before you throw yourself on the bed,” Ellie leaned against the door of your room. You nodded, kicking off your shoes and getting up to grab your pajamas; you began to undress in front of her, caring little, as it wasn’t the first time.

Ellie, without changing her position, watched as you slowly untied the knot of your top and let it fall, exposing your purple bra, unbuttoning the button of your skirt and slowly lowering the zipper. The skirt fell quickly, revealing your white panties with purple bows matching the bra.

She bit her lip as she looked at your body until she reached your collarbones; there was a hickey, and it looked recent. “Did… Abby do that?”

“Hmm?” You looked at her, she pointed to her collarbone, making you look at yourself in the mirror, seeing the hickey.

‘Shit, I told her not to leave marks.’ you thought rolling your eyes mentally

“Did she do that to you?” Ellie had a slight grimace of disgust as she asked the question, obviously she noticed.

“Of course not! It was some guy I was dancing with.”

“You swear? Because you know that I do not like Abby at all.”

You fucking knew it, that’s why when you were mad at her you used to call Abby. You knew how much it would hurt her, you had no idea why they hated each other and everytime you asked her she said that she had her reasons and was protecting you.

“I swear, I would never do that to you. Abby does want something with me, I think she’s obssesed with me, she’s telling people things that never happen, spreading false rumors,” you sighed as you finished putting on your pajamas, approaching Ellie and putting your hands on her shoulders. “At the party today, she tried to talk to me and go further, but I told her no, to leave me alone, she got really mad and threatened to keep spreading rumors, and I told her I didn’t care.”

“Why didn’t you tell me any of this? I could’ve defend you.”

“Oh, Ellie, please, I know you can but do you know how many rumors there are about me? I don’t care what others think; I care that you trust me. Do you trust me?”

“Completely,” she smiled before you kissed her on the cheek and let her go while you went to the bathroom to remove your makeup changing the topic.

Ellie smiled too, of course she trusted you, that’s why she was now in front of her classmates denying the rumors, no matter how much you didn’t care, she wasn’t going to let people talk nonsense about you. No one knew you like she did.

“Are you sure? Because Abby has been telling the whole team how much of a naughty bitch, how good she could take her seven inches strap, other nasty things I can’t repeat and that she had video proof…” the guy beside Ellie spoke while looking at his phone.

“What? Unbelievable! Isn’t that like revenge corn?” Another girl said looking at his phone as well.

Her smile dropped. “What did you just say?”

She stopped walking, and with her, the group. The guy who said that showed her his phone, it was a group chat with the football and basketball team, and Abby had sent different pictures that one could only see them once. “You’ve seen them?”

“N-no she hasn’t showed them yet but would do it soon…”

“Can you confirm that she was talking about her”

“It’s pretty much her name and physic description, yeah,” Ellie licked her lips, nodding slowly.

“Does anyone know where Abby is right now?”

(What happened in the fight?)

.·:*¨༺ ༻¨*:·.

You began to climb the stairs to your floor, Ellie and you lived on the first floor so it took less than a minute, phone in your hand, calling Ellie for the twelfth time. Since you finished practice, you had been calling her to come pick you up without getting a response, not even a message.

By the time you were turning the keys and opening the door, your whole body was filled with worry, but seeing her shoes, you felt a little relieved. “Ellie? Hey, if you’re not going to come pick me up, let me know beforehand! And answer my calls even if it’s just for a second! You had me worried.”

You took off your shoes and left the keys at the entrance, noticing her backpack lying on the floor with all her things scattered about. You sighed, leaving your bag on the kitchen counter and crouching down to start picking up her things. “Ellie?”

You finished picking up and placed everything inside. The door to her room was halfway open, and you could see the light was on. “Don’t you hear me calling your name?”

You entered the room, placing the backpack next to the wardrobe. Ellie was sitting on the edge of her bed with her back to you. The atmosphere felt so tense that it made you involuntarily swallow.

“I want you to be honest with me,” she said in an intimidating tone, suddenly a shiver ran down your spine. “And I want the truth, if you lie to me…”

She let out an incredulous laugh. “If you lie to me again…” Your breath caught, thinking about what lie you had told Ellie, all small except for… Impossible, Abby wouldn’t spill, you had Abby under control.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. What’s wrong?” You tried to approach, but Ellie raised her hand.

“Stay where you are, or move away from there.”

“Ellie-”

“Shut the fuck up!” she interrupted you. “Did you or did you not fuck Abby?”

What you were praying that wasn’t the problem was exactly the problem. You didn’t know where to hide, your legs seemed to want to flee, you wished the ground would swallow you up at that very moment. You tried to say something, but your lips were trembling. Were you going to lie again? No. It was obvious that she already knew everything; she just wanted to hear it from you.

“Did you or did you not fuck Abby?” Ellie repeated the question, now more demanding and intimidating, making your eyes start to fill with tears. You hated confrontations, especially if it was your fault.

“Yes,” you whispered, looking at the ground and clasping your hands, embarrassed by how ashamed you were starting to feel.

“What? I can’t hear you.”

“Oh my fucking god, Ellie! Yes, I fucked her, I fucking did!” you exclaimed, tired of how tense your body was becoming. She nodded slowly, getting up from her bed and turning to face you. “What the fuck? What have you done?”

Her lip was split with dried blood on it, she also had a bruise next to her eye and a split eyebrow. Your concerned face made her chuckle. “If this worries you, you should see Anderson.”

You unconsciously approached, trying to touch the wounds, but Ellie stopped your hand at that moment. You were maintaining such intense eye contact that it seemed like you were communicating. You were asking her to let you clean her wounds and disinfect them; she was asking you how you could betray her like this.

“You lied to my fucking face. Was it funny?” Her grip felt more painful. “What? Were you two laughing at me behind my back?” You two were close, but Ellie started taking steps closer to you, so you had no choice but to take some steps back until your were was pressed against the wall.

“It’s not like that, Ellie… my wrist- you are hurting me,” you said, feeling tears running down your face.

“Not like that? And how the fuck was it?” She screamed, making you feel smaller and making you cry more. “Explain it to me! Because I can’t understand why the fuck my best friend went behind my back to fuck the person I hate the most out of everybody on the fucking earth. Oh God! I knew you were a whore, but I never thought you would sacrifice our friendship for some sex.”

You couldn’t answer as you cried; for a moment, Ellie loosened her grip on your wrist, and you could see her eyes also filling with tears. You couldn’t hate yourself more at that moment.

“Why? I just want to know. There has to be an explanation for you to do this to me.”

“It meant nothing, I swear, it was just a few times, nothing serious,” you tried to excuse yourself, wiping your tears with your hands, but it was useless, they kept falling.

“Did she give you the hickey?” You sighed exhausted, looking at the other side, but she grabbed your jaw, forcing you to face her and look her in the eyes. “Answer.”

You nodded. Ellie let go of you, shaking her head, raising her hands in the air, defeated, watching you slide until you were sitting on the floor.

“Incredible… When was the last time except for the party?”

“That morning… She was the one who drove me to class; we did it on the couch. But then I ignored her once we got to class, that’s why you saw me arguing with her in the hallway.” You didn’t even know why you were giving so much explanation.

“Why are you doing this to me?”

Ellie really wanted a clear answer, but it seemed so pathetic to tell her that you were fucking Abby to mentally punish her for annoying you. It was your way of torturing her without her finding out because many things Ellie did annoyed you, especially when she didn’t do things your way. You knew perfectly well how she would react if she found out, but you never thought it would hurt you so much. You shrugged, looking at her; you didn’t know what to say, but you knew what not to say.

“I can’t see you right now,” Ellie said, grabbing her jacket and leaving the room.

“Wait, where are you going?” you asked, almost crawling to follow her. “Ellie!”

You shouted her name, but the door slamming shut was enough to make you shut up and leave you there, alone on the floor, crying, and you could have kept going if it weren’t for the sound of a phone. Ellie’s phone.

You approached the bed where it was, seeing that she was being called. Dina was calling her and also sending messages; you managed to read one above:

Dina<333

Of course, you can come to my house, but are you…

As if someone had kicked you in the stomach, you ran to the bathroom to vomit until you couldn’t anymore. You had pushed Ellie towards Dina yourself.

No, that’s not how the story should continue. Everything was going so well. After the party, Dina started ignoring Ellie all week, and she barely wondered why the raven-haired girl wasn’t talking to her like before, because Ellie was busy looking out for you.

She would leave her classes directly to find you, not giving Abby a chance to talk to you. She accompanied you at the beginning of your classes even if it meant she was late for hers… She was there for you 24/7, and it was so perfect for you. What was the mistake you made? Did you make it, or was it Abby? It was her. She ruined your precious environment and your relationship with Ellie.

At least that’s what you thought as you grabbed your keys and quickly left the house. Oh, you were going to fuck Abby. Fuck her UP.

taglist;; @boobdrug @lovelyxbaby @pedropascalsbbg @cherryimaa

[qierxing]

Glass Doll

Commissioned by the wonderful thefangirlhasarrive Yan!Vil x F!OC TW/CW: Implied long term drugging, manipulation, unhealthy relationship, obsessive behavior

“So? What do you think?”

Victoria looks up from the crinkled script to the director, then to the nervous scriptwriter next to him, dark bags sagging under his eyes. 

In all honesty, it was a mess. The actions were near impossible to decipher, the transitions were abrupt, and the whole thing felt like a five tiered cake only a couple inches away from collapsing. But. But. There was a glimmer of something raw and rich in the text that had her pause in remuneration. She’s been through enough B-rated films and top grossing releases to know that what she read has a spark that she hadn’t seen in a very, very long time.

“I think it’s something that we can work with,” came her measured reply. The script writer looked ready to collapse in relief at her verdict, no doubt knowing that his work could have never seen the light of day if it weren’t for her approval. 

“Wonderful!” The director smiled, clasping a meaty hand onto the script writer’s shoulders, jostling the poor man. “I had a feeling you would see the potential. Mr. Schoenheit did as well!”

The smile drops from her lips as soon the words leave the director’s mouth. So it wasn’t just hinging on her opinion. Her lips curl ever so slightly in a sneer as the director continues going on about plans of casting, set dressing, and script refining. 

Now, Victoria had nothing against the up and rising actor Vil Schoenheit. She’s never crossed paths with him, so the only thing she knew was that he was a NRC alumnus and no matter how hard paparazzi did try, his private life is still a mystery to this day. In this day and age, she has to admire how he’s managed to escape the prying eyes of the ravaging media.

But she did not like being set aside like a delicate china plate in favor of prettier, shinier silverware.  

“And what exactly does Vil Schoenheit have to do with this?” Her cold question snaps the director out of his rambling to turn with a face of disbelief.

“Why, he’s your co-actor! We got him to agree a while ago–we just needed your agreement.”

–

It was after Victoria went through various dress rehearsals and makeup testing that she got to meet the person she is supposed to go mad for. He is indeed beautiful as the people say. Vil’s beauty is knife-like, all sharp edges with nothing to sand them down. His eyes, especially, are hypnotic; an enchanting amethyst purple that one could not help but look twice to appreciate. His shiny blond hair is done in a deliberate way that the stray strands curl and frame his face perfectly for viewing pleasure. Each part of his appearance is meticulously crafted to the point where Victoria wondered if he himself could pass as a work of art.

He introduces himself with a confident air that makes her lips tilt upward unconsciously. She did so like those charismatic enough to meet her fierce tawny eyes head on. Perhaps she can almost forgive the director for the earlier slight of weighing their opinions against each other. 

“Victoria De La Rosa. I look forward to working with you, Mr. Schoenheit.” His thin, bow shaped lips curl into a satisfied smile at her confident introduction. His bare hand accepts her own outstretched one with a surprisingly firm shake.

“As do I, Ms. Rosa.” 

The filming goes along swimmingly, with only the usual minor hitches and mishaps of a movie shooting. During breaks, Victoria has come to relish in the company of Vil, whose presence feels like a balm in the hustle and bustle. Although she is no stumbling wide-eyed rookie, Vil’s advice is insightful and not condescending, a refreshing change from her previous contracts.

“Your speech is slurring a bit here,” Vil taps a manicured finger on her paper, highlighting a line. “Make sure to enunciate. Lady Sigrid is not someone who minces words.”

She nods in agreement, making a mental note. The two of them were sitting next to each other in director chairs, going over their parts together while interns and prop designers rushed past to help set up the backdrop for their scene. 

“I didn’t think you were much into horror.” The words leave her mouth before she can think about it, and her face colors dark in embarrassment as she realizes what she’s just said to the famous actor. “It’s not that I don’t think you’re capable! It’s just–”

He cuts her off with a husky chuckle that makes her spine tingle in a strange way. “It’s just that I’ve never done horror movies?”

Victoria can only nod in response. He leans his head back with a contemplative hum, his white neck gleaming in the dull showlights like porcelain. (Seriously. She must ask him later about his skin routine)

“If I may return your question with my own?” Vil posits, “Why did you decide to act for this? I’m well aware an actress of your caliber has better pickings besides this smaller studio.”

A warmth blooms in her chest at the subtle compliment laced in his question. He wasn’t wrong. If she had to give one reason…

Psychological horror is something Victoria greatly adored, in all of her acting stints in movies. There is no need to rely on a hidden red paint bag to burst and cover your body in fake blood for the fear to sink into people (she certainly appreciated not having to clean it off each time they had to reroll). Indeed, what lurks in the recesses of the mind, she thought, would be far scarier than stab wounds or chopped gore.

“I think far too many people think that horror is something that is supposed to make someone scream,” she carefully says. “And it can be. But I’m getting tired of the predictable zombie apocalypse or serial killer thrillers. I want something that can truly make someone shudder and think about why we fear.”

Vil smiles with a flash of blinding white teeth almost akin to a snarl, as if he knew exactly what she would reply with. “Precisely. You and I both know what makes this particular production worthy.”

The director calls for them in the distance, and Victoria has no time to dwell on the way his pretty lavender eyes had made something burn in her core.

—

Being with Vil felt like downing sparkling wine–bubbly, fizzy, and most of all, titillating. 

Her heart soared whenever he handed her water bottles or leaned in close to whisper tasteful quips in that velvet smooth voice of his. It’s almost scary, just how much he knew what would make her perk up with pleasure. It’s like he actually understood her, not like the others who only saw her superficial shell. 

It made her hopeful, optimistic. Real friends were hard to come by in the industry. It was not that far of a stereotype to say that actors were cutthroat in their endeavors to reach the top. The games her fellow coworkers played were akin to the political machinations in the time of the Seven. As much as she wanted no part of it, Victoria knew she could not escape either.

It’s a rare day to relax for once. The first batch of filming had been done, so while the film was being post-processed, the director decided to let the actors have a quick breath before they were back to the grindstone.

She had intended to put the day to good use: a trip to the hotsprings spa she adored, then afterward, some time in the antique bookshop she had found a while back, and finally seeing Neige’s new movie that had come out. A ping on her phone distracted her from the planning in her mind.

With a huff, she’s about to mute her notifications when she sees the Magicam banner with the quote “@vdelrosa 👀 lookin kinda cozy”. Her frown deepens. It’s from a rando account, but her gut twists, and she taps her thumb on it, a post popping up. The comment was nestled under a picture. When she takes a closer look, she realizes with a strange sense of detachment that the picture is of Vil and her during the filming, when they were exchanging quiet conversation with each other. The picture’s angle is intimate and with a realization of disgust, Victoria realizes someone on the set had been leaking pics, or worse, paparazzi had managed to bribe someone. 

Victoria knew better than to look through the other comments. No doubt it would be a riotous mass of either those against her or egging on the tabloid like gossip. Her fury burned like a wildfire inside her, and before she could think, her phone was hurled into the soft covers of her bed, hard enough to make a weighted dent inside the fabric. 

Her phone chimes again and she groans as she realizes her phone wasn’t muted, so distracted by the post that had exposed her to the public. Victoria picks it up again and once again she pauses, because this time, it was a text message banner.

You had also gotten tagged in that post, right? Don’t worry, I took care of it, dear.

Victoria’s heart fluttered when she read the sender’s name: Vil. Her stomach churned even more at the sweet endearance. Dear. Dear. It was so casually said, yet she couldn’t help but feel like she was floating in the clouds at the nickname. 

And despite the danger that whispered, Victoria couldn’t help but hope that maybe, just maybe, she wasn’t alone anymore.

—

It was a simple vial that caught her attention.

Vil had invited her to practice their lines together in his dressing room, which she agreed readily, trying not to let her pounding heart show in her eager face. He had stepped out for a moment, but as the seconds ticked on, her eyes began to scour the room in fascinated curiosity.

In the midst of the rich swathes of fabrics thrown over chaises and makeup containers decorating the creaky old vanity table, a dark midnight blue vial stood innocently among them. Unlike the other makeup vials, it had no label and was unusually tiny. Against her whisper of unease, she picked it up and realized with a flicker of surprise, that it was translucent. An unknown liquid sloshed inside the glass, fizzing and bubbling ominously. 

She furrowed her eyebrows in distant confusion. As far as she knew, there were no brands of serums that had this kind of carbonation in the formula. It would be the first for her. Perhaps a nutrition drink of some sorts? But such a miniscule size–how much did he pay for it? And what were the benefits?

Before Victoria could blink, the vial was magicked away from her hand, and she whips around to see VIl with a mischievous smirk playing on his lips. It was the first time Victoria had seen someone use their magic so flawlessly, without any effort or incantation. Yet, despite the light countenance the actor bore, there was something taut with tension in his smile, like a bow drawn with an arrow.

“Didn’t your parents ever tell you that looking around someone’s belongings is rude?” His voice had none of the scolding she expected from someone having their belongings rifled through. Certainly, it was her wrong, but something didn’t feel right.

The awkward situation is remedied faster than expected, but Victoria doesn’t miss the way Vil treats the vial far more preciously than she had expected for a skincare item. 

—

“How’s your shooting going along?”

The sound of the coffee shop echoes around, clinks of cutlery and cups tinkling in booths behind them. The shop workers were smart enough to stick them in the hidden corner of the shop, where it was dim and only lit by the weak sunlight streaming through the one gothic window next to them. 

“Tori?” She finally drags her gaze from the stained glass to Neige’s worried chocolate eyes. 

“It’s been going fine.” She sips at her earl gray tea latte, relishing the warm sweetness that blooms over her tongue. It quickly warms her bones from the chilly Shaftlands air.

Neige purses his lips, but takes a sip of his own drink. Hot apple cider. He’s never been very fond of caffeinated drinks, even if his work would have been improved by it. Instead, he leans in on his elbows.

“How’s Vi? The two of you aren’t…fighting, are you?” Victoria bites her tongue at Neige’s cautious question. 

“No way,” she shakes her head firmly. Neige looks somewhat relieved at her response. 

“That’s good. A lot of people find Vi…” he pauses, tongue prodding the inside of his cheek in a thoughtful look.. “...hard to work with. But he means well. He always does.”

Victoria takes another scalding sip of her latte to stop herself from saying anything in response. Vil’s crooked smile flashes in her mind, the tiny bottle practically burning a hole in her pocket. She feels guilty for the ulterior motive of this supposed catch-up, but there was no one else she could turn to. 

“Neige, you’re a mage, right?” The question takes the young man back. He nods hesitantly.

“Yes?” He tilts his head with a raised eyebrow. The winter light makes him even more radiant, like an angel. “But why are you asking?”

Victoria couldn’t stop the question from leaving her lips. “How well versed are you with potions?”

For a moment, the only sounds that could be heard were the cafe patrons’ murmuring and the dry leaves blowing outside. Victoria’s own heart hammered, for she knew she was toeing the line of no return. Neige’s conflicted countenance flickers back and forth from concern and confusion. 

“Alchemy?” His voice lowers even more quietly. “I’m not exactly a pro at it, but I did decent in school.” 

He pauses, then: “If you really want someone with potion expertise, you should be asking Vi. I heard he was the top of his alchemy class.”

Something cold slithers in her gut at that. As if aware of Neige’s words, the vial presses into her leg, practically molding itself into her very skin. 

“It’s not that I don’t trust Vil,” she deflected quickly, “It’s just that I don’t want any chance of this being…you know.”

He doesn’t need any more explanation. Neige nods his head in understanding when Victoria extracts the vial from her coat pocket with sweaty fingers, sliding it over the table into his opened palm. 

“I’ll see what I can do,” Neige discreetly examines the vial with a scrutiny that was unfamiliar on his youthful heart-shaped face. “It’ll take me a while, though, if it’s not a basic potion.”

Victoria bites her tongue. By now, Vil probably had noticed it gone missing, and she could only hope by then, she would be apologizing for a misunderstanding. 

If it was a misunderstanding, that is. 

—

A celebratory toast. That’s all it was supposed to be. All it was meant to be. 

The box office release has been a smashing success, and Vil wasted no time in extending an invitation to share a drink over their ‘hard work’, in his words. 

But this?

She steps into the foyer of the regal penthouse, looking around rather uneasily. The interior was just as lavish with various tasteful paintings dressing the halls and elegant embroidered rugs lining the white marble floors. The click of heels turns her attention away from marveling silently to Vil giving his usual charismatic smile. 

He had dressed up, alright. It almost made Victoria self conscious, even if the midnight blue dress that hugged her form just right and the glittering pearls on her neck could hardly be called underdressing. Vil, on the other hand, donned a casual white peasant blouse that showed a generous expanse of his fair neck and collarbone, with waist high black pants. His hair had been slicked back, with only a couple strands of dyed hair free to frame his face and neck. 

“Thank you for coming. I hope you haven’t been waiting long.” Victoria shakes her head as he leads her through the hallways to the grand living room and seats her on a fancy deep purple Rococo style sofa. He wastes no time in taking the spot next to her much to her chagrin and directs her attention to the spread on the coffee table in front of them. 

“Please, help yourself.” He pours a bottle of champagne into two crystal glasses, handing one to her. She welcomed the familiar sensation of alcohol burning on her tongue, followed by the fruity lightfulness of the aftertaste. Just as she takes it, the doorbell echoes, and Vil excuses himself to greet it, leaving her disoriented by the sheer luxury of the room.

A buzz, disturbing and urgent peeled through the air like the hum of agitated wasps. It was her phone.

Tori, how did you get this potion?

Neige. Her heart immediately stops. Before she could type a reply, her phone buzzes again.

If I’m correct, it’s a love potion-and those have been banned for decades now. I don’t think it’s possible to have one unless you went to the black market or somehow brewed it yourself

Love potion? Her mind races with this information. What was a love potion doing in Vil’s room? Suddenly, Neige’s words surface in her mind.

 “If you really want someone with potion expertise, you should be asking Vi. I heard he was the top of his alchemy class.”

How many drinks has she accepted from Vil? Even this champagne that had already wetted her lips was not any different. She had simply trusted him, and because of that…

Another buzz. 

You’re not safe, where are you?

“My dear?” Vil’s silken voice cuts through her veneer of panic. 

Tori?

Try as she might, when she looked up, Vil immediately saw past her flimsy facade and bore witness to the muted horror that painted her face. She had finally pieced the puzzle together.

“You know, my dear, I didn’t want this to happen.” A sigh, as if he was a disappointed parent who was trying to make their child see sense. “It wasn’t easy making that potion.”

Her eyes desperately scanned the room for anything, any clue that could be used for escape, or more importantly, a weapon. But what could she do against a mage? Vil was blocking the only exit out of the living room.

”If you didn’t catch on, the potion would have done its work.” Her breathing quickened. “But, we’ll make it work, won’t we, my dear?”

“Nothing to lose, nothing to fear. The shining crown is meant for me. ” With faint dread, she realizes he’s chanting a spell, but as her body succumbs to the raw, primal instinct to survive, it is already too late.

“Fairest one of all.” 

Just as the last word leaves his lips, her body locks like a ball jointed doll, frozen in action of bolting, her last ditch attempt to escape halted right in its tracks. Her voice comes out in a frustrated scream, but even that, too, crackles in her throat.

“Come to me.”

Her body refused her control and with the same kind of seductive sway, her legs had floated her to the very villain who put all of this in motion. His smile now was cruel, puncturing with the jagged sharpness she had seen all those weeks ago. Still, embarrassingly enough, his hands were gentle as they caressed her sides and even worse still, made her burn with yearning. 

“Until you fall completely in love with me, my darling,” Vil’s warm breath hovered over her own lips, teasing with the possibility of what she could have. “You will not be able to disobey me. Curses are powerful things, as you know.”

Victoria wanted to scream. She wanted to punch Vil, throw things at him. But she couldn’t. All she could do was watch helplessly as her body perfectly curled into Vil’s own lithe form and her hands began to undo the laces that held his shirt together. 

She wouldn’t be alone. She just wouldn’t be able to remember what it’s like to be herself.

[mediumgayitalian]

She almost runs over her guitar on her way in the driveway.

For a second, the image is so obscene that she laughs. She’d gotten her hands on a permanent marker, when she was three, scrawled her name across the body with careful hands a tongue stuck out of her mouth in concentration. The N is backwards, and she’d creatively used the soundhole as the O. Hollered for Daddy to come look, to come ruffle her hair and swing her over his shoulders for a job well done.

He’d come to look, alright.

“Well, Helen,” he’d said to his wife, scrubbing a hand over his neck, “damn thing’s hers, now, I suppose.”

He’d always warned her to be careful with it. Scolded her for every sticker she’d slapped on the neck, every painted doodle on the face. Picked it up when she left it sprawled on the couch, placing it gently on the stand. Careful as he was with all her things, with her.

It’s strings-down on the pavement, now, half-crushed under the weight of her patched pink backpack. She takes a half step forward, chipped paint of her purple toenails scratching against the wood of the guitar. She crouches down and touches it, softly, wincing at the twang of the twisted strings.

“What…”

A flicker of movement out of the corner of her eye catches her attention. She looks up just in time to catch the pale blue curtains swish quickly shut over the bow windows, to see the lights flick off.

Mouth dry, she touches her stomach. The swell is barely there — barely noticeable. Barely far along enough to feel the kick.

She wants to scream. She wants to run up to the door and bang on it ‘til Mama swings it open, wants to collapse to her knees and sob and beg for their forgiveness. Wants to tell them about how scared she’s been for months. Wants Mama to grip her hand in her calloused ones, sit her at the kitchen table and get her the exact type of tea that’ll settle her stomach and soothe her heartburn. Wants Daddy to smooth back her hair and press a kiss to the crown of her forehead, squeezing the curve of her shoulder. Wants Wally the cat to hop up onto her lap, mrrping and bumping his head into her sternum.

Instead, she swallows. She swings her backpack over her shoulders, picks her guitar gently off the cracked driveway, and walks straight-backed to her car. The key sticks in the lock, as it always does, and in her increasingly desperate attempts to force it open she twists the damn thing, and the key is sad and thin and bent when she yanks it out and she cries, almost, the tears build and build and build in her eyes, util suddenly she grits her teeth and decides that she will not. She shoves the key back in the lock and twists the other way, bending it back into shape, wrenching open the door and throwing her backpack in, relishing in the thunk as it hits the passenger door. With her guitar she’s gentler, barely, setting it neatly along the backseats and wrenching her hand back as hard as she can to make up for it.

She sits in the drivers seat so hard the whole car shakes. The steering wheel is warm, still, from the heat of her palms on the drive here from Molly’s house, because she’s been overheated lately. For the last four months, to be exact. Overheated and cranky and nauseous and heavy.

“Well,” she whispers, resting her forehead on the steering wheel. She wraps her arms around her stomach, squeezing her eyes shut, biting her tongue as hard as she can. “It’s you and me and sheer fucking will, I guess, kid.”

She rifles through her CDs until she comes across a case with a wood-pattern print and a man with a revolver lounging across it. She pulls out the scratched disc and feeds it carefully into the player, waiting for the deep baritone to rumble through her shit plastic speakers, and listens to the first bar, the second, the third.

But this is for real, so forget about me. Eight more minutes to go.

The light doesn’t come back on. The curtains don’t flick. Her Daddy doesn’t come runnin’ out the door, screaming for her to wait. Mama doesn’t follow out calmly after him. All there is is shadow, shadow, shadow, and the shape her guitar made upside down on the pavement.

She backs out of the driveway where she tripped and fell and lost her first tooth, and drives, and drives, and drives.

———

When she was little, her uncle took her to go see Alien.

He shouldn’t have. It was far too old a movie for a kid her age, and the clerk had told him so. But Noah Solace had a penchant for being stubborn and a chip in his shoulder, so he’d taken her anyway. He should have left when the alien leapt from its nest and definitely when one of the freaky little parasites burst from the guy’s chest, but he didn’t, and Naomi had watched frozen completely in her seat, palms sweating, spine rigid, squirming at the thought of something growing inside her. Of being betrayed by something that lived in the deepest recesses of her body.

The day after she leaves home, she taps her chewed-up fingernail on the sides of the wall-phone by a rest stop. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. The Bell logo is covered partially by someone’s tag, by a curved C and bubble O B A L T. Ironically, the worn Sharpie ink is purple.

617 343 7844. She knows the number by heart. She knows the song of dialling it like she knows Jolene. Bah-duh-duh bah-duhduh duh-bah-duhduh. One, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three, four. Tap. Tap. Tap.

She sucks her lip into her teeth. Training her eyes on the purple COBALT tag, the obstructed Bell, the rainbow of wads of gum balled up in the corners, she presses the right buttons. Bahduhduh-bahduhduh-duhbahduhduh. Ring. Ring.

What is she doing. What is she doing.

Ring. Ring.

Naomi isn’t one for planning. She’s absent-minded, she knows she is. Flighty and distracted. Head in the clouds, never one to study. A coaster. A drifter. A real one, now.

Ring. Ring.

Hey, Uncle Noah. It’s been years since I’ve seen you. I keep forgetting to respond to your letters. How am I? I’m great! I slept with a god and now I’m nineteen and knocked up and homeless, to boot. Wanna come pick me up?

Ring. Ring.

God, what is she doing. What is she doing.

Ring. Ring. Ri—

“Fuck d’you want?”

Low baritone. Gravelly. Rough, slurring. Sleepy?

“Hello? Can you hear me? Who’s this?”

Hey, Uncle Noah. It’s been years since I’ve seen you. I keep forgetting to —

“Is this one’a them fuckin’ tele — fuck they called — tele…tele…”

— respond to your letters, great, nineteen knocked up —

“Tele…grams? Telefuckin…telemarketers! You one’a them fuckin’ telemarketers?”

— pick me up pick me up pick me up please —

“Swear t’a fuckin’ Jesus — I told you sons of bitches —”

— parasite —

“Ah, fuck you. You call here again I’mma fuckin’ —”

Click.

Riiiiiiinnnnnng.

She stares at her own finger on the receiver, white and bloodless. Inhale. Inhale. Inhale. Inhale.

You have disconnected. To reconnect your call, please —

She flings the phone from her hands, against the receiver, against the box, clink, clatter, bounce, tap tap tap tap tap tap against the pavement. Tap. Scritch. Tap tap tap. And flees to her car.

———

Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink.

She blinks back at the yellow little fuel light, humming along to the stereo. She can push it for a while longer, probably. Maybe even to the district line.

What happens if she just drives? If she drives and drives and doesn’t stop. Lets the little light blinkblinkblink at her, keepin’ time with Reba McEntire and her dying husband. That’s the night when the lights went out in Georgia.

She’d have time to pull over, probably. Coast on the speed she was going, cut across to the gravel shoulder. There’s no one else around, anyway. She could recline her seat and cross her arms over her chest and watch the clouds through the dusty top of her windshield. Sleep through the night and wake with the mourning doves’ cooing. Then what? That’s the night that they hung an innocent man.

Walk, probably. On the side of the highway, along the stretch of dying grass and reedy weeds. Guitar on her back and backpack tucked under her arm, strolling under the balmy March sun and sing to the cawing crows, to the rushing cars. Well, don’t sell your soul to no backwoods Southern lawyer.

Someone’d pull up next to her, probably. A trucker or a group of hippies. Headed to Oregon, they might say, round glasses covering bloodshot red eyes. Need a ride? ‘Cause the judge in the town’s got bloodstains on his hands.

And she would need a ride. She’d sing for them, maybe. Pluck along to Hey Jude on her out-of-tune guitar and holler with the wind rushing in from the old broken windows. They’d know someone in Cali, of course they would, slip her their card. He’s a manager, he’s looking for some new talent. You’re just what he needs. Well, they hung my brother before I could say.

Right. A knocked-up nobody who’s paying for gas with her last few bills and the four quarters she found in a sticky mess of juice in her cup holder. She’ll go platinum, right up there with the Stones and the Roses. Naomi Solace, part-time mom, full-time country star. The tracks he saw while on his way.

She drifts off the exit to the first gas station she sees. The blink, blink, blink of the light irritates her, now.

The highway town she drifts through looks like a carbon copy of the dozens of others she’s been to in her life. The giant grey rest stop, the 24 hour McDonalds, the three separate Mattress Firms. She skips over the Buccees — the stupid mascot gives her the creeps — and pulls into the first gas station she sees. Dollar twenty a gallon. Jesus.

There’s an old man at the pump across from her. He stares as he pumps his gas. Nausea builds in her stomach, but whether that’s the gross factor or the avocado-sized mass growing inside her, but she doesn’t stick around long enough to find out. She sprints for the little convenience store at top speeds, shoving open the door and ignoring the startled cashier and stumbling into the little bathroom in the back, barely making it to the stained toilets before emptying the contents of her stomach. She can see the half-digested junior bacon cheeseburger she had for lunch. It makes her throw up more. It also makes her mourn the eighty-nine cents she spent on it. Fuck.

She walks back into the convenience store grimacing at the taste of her own mouth. Nobody tells you that mouthwash and water bottles account for approximately eight billion dollars of your pregnancy cost. Of course, Naomi has never asked, but that should be a bigger part of the condom ads.

Or abstinence ads. She’s not sure how helpful a piece of rubber is against godly sperm. Mary seemed to struggle with the ordeal. Godspeed to her — she gets why the Catholics are so bananas for her now. This shit is hard and she handled it like a champ. Good on you, Mother Mary.

“Just these?” the cashier asks hesitantly, poking at the travel mouthwash, the water bottles, the singular packaged pickle, and the tiny jar of strawberry jam. And the plastic spoon she grabs from the hot table.

“And pump number 5. Please.”

“…Twenty-three sixty.”

Gas and water and a snack.

Twenty five dollars.

She has to count out her coins, hyperaware if the cashier’s dirty look. She bites back a comment about how frustrating it must be for them to have to do their job when it’s so busy out, what with one customer. Shame. Because she’s used up her irresponsibility quota for the next few years, she reckons, so she oughtta bite her tongue.

Half her fortune poorer, she walks back out to her car. The gas nozzle is still sticking out if it. She puts it back while holding her breath — do gas fumes kill growing babies? They probably kill growing babies — and shoves open her trunk, digging around. Blanket — no. Forgotten impulse purchases from months ago — no. Umbrella — no. Grad cap — no, and also why.

Finally, she finds what she’s looking for. She climbs onto the hood of the car, digging into her jam pickle, and flips open the paper atlas, turning the many pages until the map of Texas stares out at her, huge and overwhelming.

Twenty-six dollars and forty-nine cents. That’s what she has left. ‘Round twenty bucks for a full tank — that’s what she has left. 400 miles on a full tank. Seven or so hours until she’s out of the state.

“I could leave,” she says aloud.

And go where? New Mexico? Barely. She’s nowhere near LA, she’s nowhere near New York; hell, she’s nowhere near Austin. She’s nowhere near anything. Not even the nearest Amtrak station. She could drive until she runs out of gas, leave her car on the side of the road, and walk — to where? To the desert? To some serial killer’s basement?

To fucking find Apollo again?

“This is ridiculous.”

Slamming the atlas closed, she stomps back into the convenience store.

“There a secondhand store near here?” she demands.

The cashier regards her for a moment. Taking her in, probably, her ratty jeans that she can’t button anymore, her stained pink sweater, the greasy mess of her hair. The jam sticking to the corner of her mouth and the sliver of stomach pushing over the waistband of her pants. Her peeling flip-flops.

“Not here,” they say finally. “Highway town, ma’am. Ain’t got shit but what you can see from the road. You wanna real store, you gotta head ten miles east to Blowshow.”

“There’s a town called Blowshow?” she asks incredulously.

“There’s a town called Sheffield,” replies the cashier, mouth twitching, “which no one calls Joansburg, on account that the mayor was caught with his secretary gumming his green bean behind his desk by the film crew of the local news station coming to talk about a recent policy change. It’s got a main road and a general store, and will most definitely have a secondhand store.”

Naomi nods, rocking back on her heels. “Anybody hirin’?”

“Well, I ain’t been to Blowshow since last Sunday. And even then only to come see my sister. I wasn’t lookin’ at help wanted signs.”

“There’s gotta be somethin’.”

The cashier hums. The busy themself with a stack of cigarette boxes behind the counter, fiddling with a strip of cardboard come loose.

“There’s a diner,” they admit. “Di’s. Worst turnover rate than any place I ever been to.” The glance over at her, eyebrows raised. “Frankly, you won’t last a quarter year.”

Instead of sneering something about bowing out quickly and how they must know lots about finishing early, because that’s gross and also uncalled for, Naomi simply walks out. She gets in her car and starts the engine and turns the radio to thirty, making the warbling over the speakers so warped she might as well be listening to static, and guns it east. Or what she’s pretty sure is east, anyway. It’s fifteen minutes the empty pothole roads give way to something that looks like it’s seen a person in the last forty years. A little house sits nestled in the trees, bikes strewn about the driveway. A few hundred yards down road is a jogger that she gives a wide berth. In minutes, she’s pulling into a proper town — a tiny town, with more trees than people, but a real town with a real purpose. She slows to a crawl, eyeing hand-painted banners and peeling signs until she finds what she’s looking for.

The secondhand shop is small, clustered, and smells like mothballs. A shelf of broken old toys blocks her view of the rest of it and any people that may live inside of it, so she steps aside it, stepping carefully around chipped tile and stacked up boxes, looking for the right section. (The right shelf, really; nothing in this store is big enough to be a section.)

She finds what she’s looking for in a dusty old corner near the very back. Behind a broken typewriter and an ancient fax machine, and more random wires and cables than she can count, is a little portable cassette player. A pair of wiry headphones are wound around the hunk of black plastic, foam ear muffs cracked and peeling, and the worn label on the side reads Isobel. She grabs the clunky old machine carefully, brushing the pads of her fingers over the peeling paper label, and holds it to her chest.

At home she has a proper CD Walkman. It’s pink and pretty and covered all over in shiny foil stickers, and it’s chipped on the side from when she dropped it down the stairs. It skips every sixth song of an album without fail and she has to skip three backwards and two forwards to hear it. She has a collection of CDs to go with it longer than her longest shelf, and they’re arranged by colour and favour.

On another shelf, she finds a series of chipped cassette tapes. She flicks through the selection, frowning, trying to restructure hopes that were set too high and read labels written thirty years ago.

“I’ve got an extra box of them by the counter,” says a voice, making her yelp.

“Christ alive, you could kill somebody,” she snaps.

The man shrugs. He wears the loudest shirt she has ever seen and cutoff shorts that are way too short for someone his age. There are streaks of blue in his white hair, and four sweatbands on his left wrist. Green purple grey yellow. One, two, three, four.

“I’ll take a look.”

She spends another ten minutes in silence. The box, at least, has a little more variety than the shelf, so she picks out what’s worth it. She ends up with a stack the size of her arm.

“I have ten dollars,” she lies, Mama’s lecture about showing your cards ringing in her head. “That cover it?”

“Beautifully,” says the man, shiny gold-tooth smile. His bug-eye spectacles gleam in the yellow light. He holds out his hand. “Ten bucks for the player and tapes.”

Looking him right in the eye, she hands him her last twenty-dollar bill. He glares, when he sees it, muttering something about liars and thieves. Strangely, he looks at her with a little bit of respect when he slams her change down onto the counter.

She walks back out to her car, unwinding the headphones as she does. She’s half-worried the ancient things will disintegrate in her hands, but they manage to stay whole, if a little warped. She slides in behind the wheel and pushes back the seat, settling against the itchy carpet upholstery. With a quick glance out the window to make sure there are no creeps, she pulls up her shirt, bunching it up around her ribs, and lowers the waistband of her jeans. She eyes her belly critically.

There’s definitely a bump. Not much she couldn’t explain away with a particularly filling lunch, but it’s hard and there and constantly kicking at her from inside. Slowly, feeling foolish all the while, she stretches out the headphones until both halves rest on either side of her stomach. She picks out one of the tapes, slides it in the player, and clears her throat.

“Listen, kid,” she says, trying to sound less embarrassed than she feels, “I don’t want some lame baby who doesn’t know that Tina Turner was country first, okay? That’s a — waste of my time.” She clears her throat, hovering over the play button. “I better get some engagement.”

The twangy guitar is loud enough that she can hear it through the headphones. Or maybe they’re just that bad. Either way, Alien Parasite should be able to hear it just fine, amniotic fluid be damned.

“‘Means your true love daddy ain’t comin’ back,” she sings along. She closes her eyes and relaxes against the recliner seat, bare skin tingling. “‘Cause I’m movin’ on, I’ll soon be gone. Mhm, hm hm. So I’m movin’ on.’”

At the crest of the bridge, as the guitar speeds up and beats get harder, there’s a point of pressure right above her navel. Another, a few seconds later, at her pelvis. A third right below her ribs.

“Acrobatic little freak,” she mumbles fondly, smiling at her stretched taught skin.

She adjusts the headphones, adjusts herself, and turns the music up louder.

———

next

[tigergirltail]

Intruder in the System - Abstraction

"Synchronization achieved. Opening cognitive gateway. Five entities entering."

The synthetic voice of the Subconscious Mind Integration system rang out across the constructed virtual space, causing the assembled headmates of the connected systems to look towards the opening doorway.

"And that must be Alexis. Wonder what took her so long to connect?"

"Nerves, probably. It IS her first time."

"God, I remember our first time, she's in for a trip."

Through the glowing doorway, a series of silhouettes came into view, resolving into cohesive figures. A shorter woman, dressed in bright flowing robes with a circlet in her stark-white hair. A hunched-over bespectacled figure with blue hair peeking out from the hood of her comfy sweater. A tall and imposing armoured woman with long red hair and piercing, angry eyes. A purple-haired woman in a dark and elegant dress. A little girl with a bow in her blonde hair, seemingly trying to hide in the shadows of the taller figures.

Looking around the area, the five of them experienced their first exposure to a shared headspace, an abstract realm constructed by the combined wills of all the minds connected to the SMI session. The immediate area was a grassy clearing surrounded by trees, with various sorts of outdoor furniture set up for socializing, but in the distance was a skyline of a futuristic city, and the sky took the form of a starry night, with a number of colourful moons and planets clearly visible - a truly alien sky. Despite the apparent night-time appearance, the area was as well lit as if it were the middle of the afternoon.

The area was bustling with activity, as well. An entire crowd of headmates, alters, facets, fictives, all mingling and conversing, some of them just getting to know one another, others conversing like long-time friends. In one area, a strange masked figure sharing a quiet moment with a wolf girl. In another, a pink catgirl engaged in conversation with a fictive of Shadow the Hedgehog. Compared to this eclectic and varied group, the arrival of five apparent humans seemed utterly mundane.

Several of the more social among the nearby figures walked towards the new arrivals, offering welcomes and introducing themselves. The robed woman immediately took point, directing all of the socializing towards herself.

"Okay! So, introductions! I'm Hope, the one in the hoodie is Jade, the angry knight is Aurora, our resident goth is Lilith, and the little one is Ailsa! That's… That's A-I-L-S-A, not the princess from Frozen."

A cacophony of 'nice to meet you's and 'thank you for existing's followed, as the gathered headmates began to socialize. Hope and Lilith took to it well, while the other three were varying levels of apprehensive about the situation.

"So… no offense, but which of you is Alexis?", asked one particularly forward alter after a little bit of conversation.

"It's… complicated.", Jade answered uncertainly. "All of us are, but at the same time none of us are. Alexis is the vessel, the framework we all fit into. In a way, she's -"

"One entity entering." The synthetic voice called out again, interrupting the socializing and causing all conversation to be replaced with confused murmuring.

"No other bodies are connecting, who's…?"

"It didn't mention a new gateway, was there an alter staying behind?"

All eyes were on the cognitive gateway as a new figure entered the area - a tall and somewhat plus-size woman with long brown hair, dressed in a dark t-shirt and a long skirt. She had a distant and disconnected look in her green eyes, as if all higher thought had fully abandoned her.

"…Alexis?", asked Lilith. "But… how are we there, when we're already -"

She was interrupted by the new arrival collapsing the moment she crossed the threshold into the shared abstract space.

There was a collective gasp from the gathered systems. Hope rushed towards the fallen figure and knelt at her side, hands already glowing with healing light, then shrieked and recoiled backwards when the body started… glitching. Chromatic aberration, bursts of static, mismatched geometry, practically every unintended visual effect under the sun began tormenting the body.

"Uhhhh that's not supposed to happen, is it??" Jade was half asking herself and half asking the rest of the alters she had been in conversation with. Several of them were already shoving in to get a closer look.

"No, dear, I don't think it is!" Lilith turned to Aurora as best she could with a panicking Ailsa clinging to her leg. "Aurora, Jade, crowd control please! Hope, you've been distinct the longest, do you know what this is??"

Aurora began moving to interpose herself between Alexis' unstable form and the onlooking crowd. "You heard her! Give us some space or I WILL start taking it!" A handful of other system protectors took the hint and maneuvered to help form a barrier between the crowd and the scene.

Jade turned back to Lilith from her place at Aurora's side. "What are you going to do, Lil??"

"I'm… I'm not sure yet! Give me a minute here!" She turned to the child still holding onto her for dear life. "Ailsa, darling, I'm going to need you to stand back, go be with Hope right now, okay?"

Ailsa nodded silently, tears of worry in her eyes, and ran to Hope's side, Hope quickly leading her away from the fallen vessel and towards the crowd of onlookers as Lilith reached out for the fallen form of Alexis.

"What's happening?", an alter asked Hope once she was past the perimeter Aurora and Jade were establishing.

"I don't know.", Hope answered. "The whole, Alexis, she's never manifested in headspace, so we weren't sure if -"

"NEVER manifested in headspace?" The alter was incredulous. "Don't you switch out?? How do you communicate??"

"Look, it's… Our system is different, the five of us pass around control, but Alexis isn't a headmate, she's a shell!" Hope looked back at the glitching body with concern and anxiety, her eyes going wide as a realization struck her. "She doesn't know how to create a cognitive appearance…" She took a step back towards the body and shouted. "Lilith, I know what's happening! She's never been in a fully abstract space before, her cognition can't handle the unlimited possibilities!"

Lilith turned and stared towards Hope. "You mean, it's sensory overload?", she asked.

"More like cognitive overload, but maybe it's the same sort of thing! Can you force a shutdown??"

"I… can try."

Lilith's hands began to twist and extend into hideous claws as a creeping darkness began to climb up the rest of her body, aging and tattering her clothing, leaving her face gaunt and pale, her eyes now emitting an eerie glow, like distant lights through fog. Kneeling down, she laid her taloned hands on the fallen and glitching body and began quietly speaking.

"Just… let go. Let go of your effort, let go of your thoughts, embrace nothingness. Come into the dark…"

"She's doing the thing, isn't she?" Aurora was very consciously averting her gaze.

Jade nodded. "She's doing the thing."

Aurora winced. "I hate when she does the thing."

By now most of the gathered headmates had fully backed off, but many were still looking at the situation with concern and apprehension. A few more had gathered around Hope, as she at least seemed to be willing to answer questions.

"…She used to be our depression." Hope was answering a worried question about what exactly Lilith was doing to the fallen Alexis. "Sometimes she still is, when her will slips. It's… terrible, but there's no cure for an overstimulated mind quite like, well… emptiness."

"Look, it's working!" Ailsa had peeked out from around Hope to see what was happening. Jade and Hope turned to look as well, and sure enough the glitching around Alexis' body was noticeably reduced, replaced by a deep, dark shadow spreading out from Lilith's claws.

"Just… STOP." There was a low, gravelly quality to Lilith's voice. "Stop THINKING. Stop TRYING. Stop EVERYTHING."

"Might be overdoing it, Lilith…", Aurora protested, her back still turned.

"Shush. I'm working."

The darkness fully covered the last of Alexis' form, and Lilith withdrew her hands. They were in fact hands now, as Lilith was quickly returning to her typical presentation.

Jade abandoned her post next to Aurora, as calm seemed to have somewhat returned to the situation, and walked up to Lilith. "So what happens now?"

Lilith took a moment to breathe. "If I did it right, her cognition will reset, and she'll settle into a form derived from her most baseline mental processes."

"…And if you didn't do it right?"

"I'm… just going to hope I did it right."

Ailsa had walked up as well, and was gently holding one of the unconscious form's shadowy hands. "So if none of us are in there… Who's she gonna be?"

Jade turned to Ailsa. "That… is a very good question. Well, uh, her higher-level thought processes are all us, so without those she's basically a collection of autonomous processes and raw instincts. You know, pain response, perception of movement, need to eat and drink, that sort of thing."

"Oh. Like an animal?", Ailsa suggested.

"Yeah, like a…" Jade's eyes went wide and she slowly turned to look at the body. It was… shifting. Changing size, shape, form, to something… different. "…Oh."

"I know that 'oh'." Lilith turned to Jade. "What did you figure out, dear?" By now Hope and Aurora had returned and were watching the scene unfold as well.

"The answer to one of the questions that we've had for a long time. We figured out we're therian ages ago, so why -"

"Why do we all still present as human…", Hope interrupted.

Whatever re-shaping seemed to be occurring had slowed, and Lilith's shadows were melting from Alexis' form as her mental presence rebooted, revealing white fur, dark grey stripes, a long tail, paws and claws, and a feline head.

"Baseline processes…", Jade repeated. "Like an animal…" She shook her head and pinched her nose with a hand. "I should have seen it, her higher thought processes, everything that defines her as a person, it's all US! WE'RE her HUMANITY!!"

Aurora winced. "And when we crossed the threshold from the airlock, we took her humanity with us."

A renewed wave of curious and confused murmuring emanated from the assorted headmates of other systems as they observed this development.

And then Alexis woke up, and climbed to her feet - her four feline digitigrade feet. Still uneasy and unsteady, she stumbled to the closest figure - Ailsa - and stared deep into her eyes.

"…This is weird…", Ailsa whispered.

Alexis suddenly let out a happy chuff and gave Ailsa an affectionate headbutt. This one was a friend. This one was nice.

Ailsa cautiously reached out a hand and scratched the giant cat behind an ear, causing her to let out another happy vocalization.

The tension of the environment seemed to evaporate some as the situation had apparently stabilized. Some of the alters watching were concerned at having witnessed such a massive change in self-visualization, others were cautiously interested in getting to interact with the giant cat. Alexis was wary at the sudden attention and let out a few growls when the interactions were a little too familiar a little too quickly, but over time she settled comfortably into the role of a big friendly tiger.

"Awwh, she's so cute like this!"

"I know her sona's always been a white tiger, but I feel a little weird about this…"

"The whole point of SMI is to let us interact as our true selves, right? …This is Alexis' true self."

Meanwhile, Hope and Aurora were off having their own conversations with other headmates and facets, and even Ailsa was managing to shyly talk to some other inner children. Jade, though, was hanging back, brow furrowed.

"You've got that look on your face." Lilith's comment shook Jade out of her concentration.

"Wh-what? What look? I don't have a look."

Lilith took position next to Jade and wrapped an arm around her in a half-hug. "You absolutely had a look, dear. Whenever you're trying to solve a complicated problem, you get The Look. We're supposed to be having fun, so what's eating at you?"

"Just… should have seen this coming, I guess."

Lilith gripped tighter and pulled Jade into a full hug. "Listen, dear. I know between your analytical mind and my intuition we're practically precognitive, but even we aren't going to see everything coming."

"I should have known…"

"And what would you have done different, had you known? What consequences would have been avoided? We had a little bit of a scare, that's all." Lilith released Jade from the hug and pointed her towards the crowd. "Now look over there."

The scene was one of mirth - headmates and alters and facets from all the systems connected to the SMI session, sounds of laughter and happy conversation, and roaming through the crowd, a large white tiger, receiving all the attention and affection and species affirmation her therian heart could desire.

Jade allowed herself a little smile. "She IS cute like that…"

"You see? It all worked out." Lilith grinned. "Now let's go hit up that snack table."

"…You know it's not actual food, right? It's just the abstract concept of food given simulated form."

"You and I are both abstract thoughtforms as well, is there even a difference for us? Now don't be a spoilsport, I'm sure there's a very lovely sense of logic or organization we can get you to socialize with. That crystalline fairy over there seems quite nice, she's from the same system as a witch I've been speaking with."

The celebration continued on, scenery shifting as each entity left their mark on the shared headspace, and all too soon, the warning sounded that the session was about to end. Fond and tearful farewells were exchanged, with promises to do this all again soon, and then, each system's respective alters and facets left for their airlock spaces, and the shared headspace was once again no more.

Moments later, in the physical world, an attending operator was helping the human body that was Alexis out of the Subconscious Mind Integration machinery. All of the other systems in attendance were able to take care of themselves for the most part, but re-integrating multiple minds into one brain was always an ordeal for a first-timer. Even with the cognitive airlock having functioned as a buffer, she found herself gagging and retching as a subconscious reaction to the onslaught of memories and emotions and sensations.

"It's okay, I've got her." One of the other systems had walked up and was helping Alexis stay steady on her feet, helping her walk to a nearby cooldown room, somewhere with dim lights, sound-proof walls, and comfortable furniture, intended to minimize sensory input for minds that were having difficulties with the re-integration process.

Still in a mild daze, Alexis found herself being walked to and sat down on a sofa, and wrapped in a blanket. Her faculties gradually returned over the course of several minutes, but she was still pale and trembling.

The other system was sitting on the sofa with her, doing their best to help her readjust and reorient. "You're going to be alright, just take it easy for a bit and focus on your breathing. The first time is always a rough one."

"Hrrrrggh…", Alexis groaned. "Still trying to process having SIX points of view crammed back into my skull… Thought I was gonna be sick when I got out of that pod. Nearly WAS…"

"Well, now you know why they tell first-timers not to eat anything for eight hours leading up to it."

"Ugh… Speaking of food, I'm pretty sure one of your alters hand-fed me a steak while we were in there." Alexis pulled up the blanket, burying her face. "Fuck that's embarrassing… Can't believe I went full cat-brained…"

"Your protector aspect also punched someone, don't forget."

"WHAT??"

"Sorry, sorry, I'm just messing with you, that didn't actually happen, but I've seen it happen in another session with a different system. We had to sit them down once we got back to realspace and have an improvised therapy session about it."

"Holy hells… What happened next?"

"A whole lot of guilt, a whole lot of repressed feelings, and a little bit of ugly-crying."

"Mmn… I think I know the feeling."

The other system reached out and placed a hand on Alexis' back comfortingly. "I'm just trying to say, there are worse things that can happen in SMI than letting yourself be cat-brained. You looked like you were having a good time, too, and none of us thought we'd ever get to give a tiger head-scritches."

"I mean, I did have a good time I guess, it's just…" Alexis sighed and closed her eyes. "I didn't realize how much of myself I'd be showing in there. It's so much more… intimate, than I was expecting."

"…Do you want to do it again?"

There was a long pause as Alexis breathed and turned her mind inward, listening for the voices of her facets:

"I had fun!" "Yeah, I had a good time too." "It was… nice, to truly exist." "What do you think, little one?" "Let's go again! Let's go again!"

Alexis opened her eyes again, calmer, with a smile on her face. "Yeah. I think we do."

"Next month, then." The other system stood up and offered a hand to help Alexis up as well. "The rest of us were going to grab dinner, once you were feeling better, and you do look a lot better. Want to come with?"

Alexis accepted the hand and got to her feet. "Yeah, that steak was really nice actually, I kind of want a real one now."

"Do you want us to hand-feed you again?"

"Pfff, you shut up."

"Hey, if we're going to keep coming to SMI together, you need to get used to being cat-brained, I'm just saying!"

"Okay, yeah, maybe, but don't forget it's all of us back in this body now!"

Sharing a laugh, they left the cooldown room for the lobby together, where all of their system friends were waiting.

---

Inspired by Intruder in the System, a short comic story by @deadeyedfae, also featuring cameos of a few systems I know personally.

[two-white-butterflies]

already broken | aem. targaryen

Description: Aemond is troubled after the loss of his family. In which, you offer your company and end up falling in love with him.

Warning: Teen

Author's Note: Totally a parallel to Thomas Shelby because I love that man. If you love this fic, feel free to visit the main fic. This fic contains spoilers for cyip. coaxed you into paradise v2.

Aemond could never forget the look on his wife's face the day that her body was discovered. Pale skin with even paler lips. Body half rotten by the sea - and eyes that would never open again. Princess Alyssa Strong was dead, and her mother cried for atonement.

"You rarely speak nowadays, my prince." you opened your mouth to speak while folding his linen coverings. You've been his handmaiden since his childhood years - a friendship was beginning to form between the both of you - that was before Alyssa.

A putrid girl with an ill face.

She inherited her mother's petulance and jealousy. She could hardly stand any young maiden around her husband - always protective of what was hers. "There's not much to speak about." he turned to look at you, seeing those doe eyes engulf his whole being.

"Mayhaps spending time with the Queen will do you good, my lord." you tried to assure, seeing nothing but sorrow behind his purple eye. Blood and Cheese may have chosen to steal his son - but Aemond was the one truly murdered. Within a single turn of the moon, his life was ruined - his reputation scorned.

He did not reply after that.

He took a sip of his tea - and went straight to bed.

The following day - while you were walking along Kingslanding's crypts. You were able to see a ghost of the One Eyed Prince. His hands were behind his back, staring at the statue - seemingly looking for his son's eyes behind them.

"My prince," you bowed seeing that he noticed your presence.

"My lady, come sit with me." he patted the empty space beside him. He rarely tolerated the presence of his own family. It was a surprise to see him welcome you with open arms.

You did not argue with him. You gathered your gowns and sat beside him - as the youngest daughter of a minor house, you were taught to obey your superiors - to give the royals what they demanded.

"It's been months since the light of Prince Aelor has shone on the red keep." you kept the conversation light, opting to praise his deceased son instead of pondering on what could've happened. "It is the price of war, my lady." he responded cordially.

The hole in his heart yet to mend.

"King Aegon will surely bring the executors to justice." your eyebrows merged into each other, fearing war. The soldiers may boast their glory but women feared war - god knows what happens to little girls in the middle of warfare. Nothing good.

Reduced to nothing but a spoil of war.

"We brought it upon ourselves. The war shouldn't have been started. Rhaenyra is the rightful Queen, but it does not matter. Aegon the Conqueror was not the rightful King of the Seven Kingdoms." he breathed, and you turned to look behind you - ensuring that no one was able to listen in your conversation.

"You will let the murderers stay free?" you inquired.

"For now." he responded.

"Blood and Cheese were sent by Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen." you opened your mouth to speak. A letter was in your hands - a letter that came from Rhaena Targaryen - suing for justice over her half-sister.

Aemond could feel his entire world collapse. The same people that vowed to protect his wife and son were the ones that aided and abetted to their murders. "How does Lady Rhaena know this?" his eye narrowed, trying to understand why Rhaena (of all people) wanted to tell the absolute truth.

"She says; and I quote: the truth has been haunting me. Not even my father knows and I fear of what he'll do when he does. I heard the Queen talk a few fortnights ago, but I never believed that her target would be Alyssa." you read the letter, carefully searching for signs of disproval in his body.

Then suddenly, without any reluctance - he throws the glass of wine on his hand angrily. Allowing it to shatter into a million pieces. He mellowed in his grief - allowed himself to be weak - but now that the executioners were placed on the block, he wanted to swing his sword. Rhaenyra might've been the rightful Queen - and his brother may have usurped her - but it wouldn't save her against his fury.

"Leave me." he says in a calm tone.

Allowing his anger to grow by a thousandfold.

Aemond agreed to meet Saera in the fields of Harrenhal. Provided that none of them attack each other. "I did not expect for you to surrender, brother." her voice came out like a whisper.

Of all the times that his sister spent in the red-keep, he'd always remember her melodious voice - her soft pale skin and the red-black fabric that she'd always wear in council meetings. The sister in front of him was different. Colder - a stranger.

"I'm not here to surrender, sister." he responded in a tone that made sister sound like bitch or cunt. "Haven't you already done enough? You've taken my daughter and my grandson." her eyes narrowed, her loyal husband beside her and playing with his Dark Sister.

"I've not taken her - I only came here to tell you the truth." he scoffed, sensing that he wouldn't come out of his battle unscathed if he wasted any of their time. "What truth?" Daemon inquired.

"Of Aelor's murderer." Aemond announced in a bitter tone. This betrayal would cut deeper than any wound in Saera's body. "The Queen that you chafe your knees to, is she as innocent as she seems?" he responded vaguely, feeling Vhagar roar behind him.

"What is your proof, brother?" Saera's voice mellowed. Rhaenyra was the thickest of her blood. Both Aemma and Viserys combined. "Ask Rhaena," he turned to look at Daemon - before boarding Vhagar and leaving the sacred kingdom.

When Aemond arrived in the Dragonpit - you were the first to greet him. His only friend in Kingslanding. The handmaiden that has helped him all these years. "How did she react?" you asked, knowing that Saera could be dangerous when angry.

He ignores your question again - taking a step forward and allowing his fury to communicate words that could not be said. "Is she angry?" you added - and his pupils dilated.

He had angry eyes.

"My prince, I apologize if I overstep -"

"Draw me a bath." he commanded, before walking past you.

It was tiresome attempting to get into the good graces of Aemond Targaryen - but you reassured yourself. It was the only way that you'd stay safe in the Capital - seeing that your father aligned himself with Rhaenyra and her white hand.

Another sigh escaped your mouth; and you settle the lavender petals on the Prince's bath. Despite having rough hands, he enjoyed things that were of feminine tastes. "The bath is ready, my prince." you kept your eyes on the floor. "Stay with me." he said with reluctance.

And that was the moment that you fell into a deep - deep emotion with him. You could remember everything vividly - you leaned into his bath, combing through his matted locks - until your lips were planted on each other - mumbling curses and apologies.

"This will break you, my prince." you pulled away from his soft lips, and he gives you a smile (that best resembles a grimace, because everyone knows that he's lost the ability to smile again.)

"Already broken, my lady."

taglist: @watercolorskyy @sweetybuzz25 @newtsniffles @loveandlewis-reads @lovecleastrange @julkaamazing @schniiipsel @mirandastuckinthe80s @areaderinlove @i-yam-awesome @ladystardvsts @gracielikegrapes @sweethoneyblossom1 @issybee06 @tato0od @delaynew @thisbihreadstoomuch @plutoscosmoss @immyowndefender @marvelescvpe @batmans-love @luanasrta @tesha-i-guess @valeridarkness @apollonshootafar @jokerhorse @negar21 @seamonkie

[deathmetalunicorn1]

could i get a jack the ripper x male reader who is harry Houdini?((y/n knows jack isn't the real ripper))y/n/Houdini is the opposite of jack being very hyper & excited about anything & loves showing his tricks to jack who would sometimes almost have a heart attack about his extreme escape act, especially his Milk Can Escape acts oh the dried he felt.....but like in Valhalla they met & soon became a lovey dovey couple living there life in peace,until Ragnarok came..y/n would watch jacks fight with worry but in the end had happy tears seeing jack win..but was displeased seeing humanity in the end still hating him even after risking his life so they have a better chance in surviving!harry/y/n would stay by jack's side as he gets patched up,& y/n quickly became bestfriends with hlökk,

((y/n seemed to also be friends with a curtain horror writer...*cough* hp Lovecraft *cough*))

while this was happening Brunhilde found out the gods was planing to have a surprise round to throw her off but thankfully she found out before they could surprise her, when Brunhilde found out that the god picked would be a god of tricks & illusions[not loki] she immediately knew who to go...y/n aka harry Houdini!

she had to ask y/n in private because she knew jack would NOT let y/n enter not even a second thought about it, y/n would agree wanting to help humanity...y/n/Harry's weapon would be handcuffs that can summon any trap or confinement like chains,rope(both can be stretch infinitely), cuff's,cages, straightjackets & even an iron maiden,as well as traping his opponent in a large body of water

so imagine Jack's supprise when he saw you walking out of those gates ready to fight...when you said, you whare just going to get the tea😔

y/n would fight to his limits even unlocking a new ability,the ability is that y/n could now see through any tricks or illusions & know his opponents next move & skill set...his left eye would turn purple & Glow a faint light when he uses it((although it drains his energy rapidly))

in the end y/n aka harry Houdini would win...taking a bow as if he just got done with a another Escape act, before going backstage,in which he would be a greeted with a very unhappy, upset & nervous jack who was worried to god about him....

-Tears filled your eyes, seeing how cruelly your lover was being treated, willing to put his own life on the line to protect humanity, only to be treated like a monster.

-None of these cowards who were Jack so poorly were willing to put their lives on the line for humanity- they weren’t willing to fight!

-You had rushed backstage to the infirmary and all but collapsed into your lover’s arms, sobbing into his shoulder, as you had been so worried that you were going to lose him. Jack just smiled, holding the back of your head with his now clean hand, holding you close, letting you cry.

-Hlokk wasn’t surprised to see you there when she arrived to see how he was doing, once she was cleaned up, as she knew how much Jack loved you and vice versa.

-Jack couldn’t help but smile, seeing you and Hlokk getting along so well as the two of you instantly connected, especially when she realized who you were and you couldn’t help but show off, putting on a show for both of them, showing off your greatest tricks.

-You were so beautiful when you were like this, when you were happy- it was the color that Jack loved the most on you and always wanted to see it on you.

-As the matches went on, gods and humans exchanging victories, the gods were growing worried that they were going to lose, and they began to plot.

-Brunnhilde could sense the brewing storm, and she knew that something was up, with Zeus being so quiet. It’s a good thing that she has an inside person in the gods, one that was willing to help her and gave her the message that the gods were desperate enough to try to pull a fast one, as they didn’t want to risk losing this tournament- they couldn’t risk it!

-They were planning to have one more match with a trickster god, one who was skilled in tricks and illusions, even more so than Loki, as they believed there was no human that would be able to win against him.

-Armed with this knowledge, Brunnhilde was prepared, coming to you in the disguise of checking on Jack and Hlokk, who had forgiven her sister because she knew what had to be done, and that this Jack was the real Jack the Ripper- he killed murderers and left innocents alone.

-As she left, she glanced at you over her shoulder, giving you a look that she wanted to talk to you privately and you gave Jack a smile and went after Brunnhilde.

-She told you what the gods were planning, and she wanted you to fight. You knew that Jack wouldn’t agree to it- he probably would tie you up, if that would do anything against you, to keep you from putting yourself at risk.

-You agreed to fight but you had to be cautious, not wanting to upset Jack, which she agreed to and told you when to meet up with her to fight.

-You returned to Jack with a smile on your face as Hlokk was curious as to what the two of you spoke about, you just grinned, “Brunnhilde cares in her own way- she just wanted to know how you both were doing but felt shy on asking you herself.”

-Hlokk thought it was cute while Jack could tell that you were lying to him, but said nothing, as he knew that he could trust you.

-When it came time for you to fight, everyone was stunned when the gods announced there would be one more fight, Hlokk was yelling, saying it wasn’t far while you had a hand over your mouth in shock.

-He stood with a deep inhale, “I think we are going to need more tea for this.” Jack didn’t turn to you, nodding and you went to get it, giving Jack a peck on his forehead, your usually thing for when you leave his side.

-Your opponent went out first, cackling loudly at the booing humans, who were furious at this underhanded deed, and many of the gods, including several of those who fought, were booing as well- finding it dishonorable, worrying Zeus a bit that he shouldn’t have done this.

-A cloud of smoke appeared in the arena, shrouding the final human fighter in a cloud of mystery as Heimdall was hyping you up- as he wanted the humans to win- seeing the heart that they had.

-Heimdall pointed at the figure that appeared in the smoke, “The one- the only- Y/N!!!”

-The crowds roared with cheers as you beamed, spinning a pair of handcuffs around your finger, your Volundr item as you beamed brightly, waving around like you were about to perform.

-Jack’s eyelid twitched lightly as he ground his teeth together, you were supposed to be getting tea!! You were going to get an earful after this!!

-Your opponent was cocky, thinking he was going to easily win against you, but you were not to be underestimated. He charged for you, and you easily side-stepped him, swinging the handcuffs and in an instant your opponent was wrapped in chains, including his ankles and wrists being bound and he fell to the ground with a shout of surprise.

-Everyone froze, seeing this and you couldn’t help but grin, turning to him, “Let’s see you escape this!” the crowds were roaring as the trickster managed to easily escape, surprising you with his skills as he tried to do the same, chaining you up and stringing you upside down.

-He turned to the crowd with a grin, “Are you all entertained by this?!” the crowds were wide eyed, staring at something behind him and he turned as you dropped the last shackle, “That was a good try! What else you got?!”

-The match was back and forth, not so much with fighting and beating each other bloody, but trying to trap each other in elaborate ways to keep each other locked up to be able to land the final blow.

-It was entertaining, watching the two of you fighting, seeing you both escaping, but your opponent was getting pissed- finding you irritating- nobody was as good as he was!!

-When he actually attacked you, bloodying you up a bit, and you swore you could hear Jack screaming out your name as you were slightly dazed.

-You rolled, dodging another blow as you quickly got to your feet as you held the handcuffs and you smirked, “It seems like I should get serious too.” He glared as you charged, but when you ducked at the last second, dodging his blow, appearing behind him, he shouted in surprise as you grabbed him with your weapon and you smirked, “It’s time for the greatest trick the world has ever seen!!”

-The handcuffs lit up with a bright light before your opponent was wrapped in chains, then encased in an iron maiden, wrapped in more chains then suspended over a pool of water filled with piranhas before being lowered down into the water.

-The crowd was stunned as your hands came to your hips, a grin on your face as you saw the iron maiden moving as he struggled to get free. If he managed to get free of the chains, he was still trapped in the iron maiden, which was slowly filling with water, the spikes stabbing into him, making blood seep into the water, sending the piranhas into a frenzy.

-After a few moments everything went still and your greatest trick faded away, your opponent crumbling away as he perished, leaving you the winner which made the arena explode into cheers.

-You smiled, bowing to the crowd as if it were a show as you headed backstage, feeling a bit lightheaded from your wounds.

-“Y/N!!” you looked up, seeing both Hlokk and Jack running towards you and you did feel a bit nervous, as Jack looked mad, but he surprised you by leaping into your arms, his arms around your neck as he sagged into you, “You’re okay!”

-You smiled, hugging him like how he hugged you after his match, holding him close as he sighed, pulling back as he cupped your cheek, creating a tender moment before his other hand came up, cupping your other cheek before he grabbed your cheeks between his thumb and index finger, pinching and pulling your cheeks, “You reckless! Idiotic!! FOOL! Do you know how worried I was?!”

-You whined as he punished you, begging him for mercy but you knew that you deserved this for deceiving him as he released your cheeks, taking your hand to lead you to the infirmary while still scolding you.

-He was so cute- but you knew that he cared.

[reincrimination]

who were you expecting?

9-1-1 | eddie diaz x evan buckley

content warnings: hurt/comfort, injury

collection: buddie week 2021 (reposting sept '24)

read on archive of our own

Eddie twists to see the bruises better in the mirror, hands coming down to frame them as if they were a piece of art. He tugs his turnout gear past his waist and over his hipbone, trying to see how far it extends. The bruising ends abruptly at the top of his hip. Already, the edges are turning a sickly yellow, unflattering against the tan skin of his torso. It looks like a sunset, but maybe more like the type you’d see in a zombie apocalypse. The door creaks open and he turns with a start, exhaling when he sees Buck. “Oh, it’s you.” “Who were you expecting?” Buck hazards, but his gaze has already turned to the marred mess of Eddie’s side. “Hen, I hope?”

It’d been a rough shift.

It hadn’t been the kind of shift where Eddie would keep seeing a dying person’s last moments on the backs of his eyelids, or when the ride back to the station would be silent with everyone’s heads bowed in bone-deep exhaustion. Where the feelings in his chest hurt more than his muscles.

It’d been the kind of shift where the hits had kept coming, and coming, and coming. Call after call after call, with no casualties, but maybe some that would’ve been better off dead. When closing his eyes on the way to another scene was the most rest he’d had all shift, when the only thing he’d eaten was half a granola bar that Buck gave him. When Eddie had to shower not once, not twice, but three times, to scrub mud and soot and dirt off of him in-between calls, just for the last one to slather him in layers of concrete dust, anyways.

When a parking garage collapse had led to him, two stories aboveground and yet feeling like he was in the deepest cave imaginable, pulling a woman and her children from their crumpled car, he had expected to need another shower, but not to need medical attention, too.

He supposes he remembers it, now that he thinks back. He’d been leaning in to pull the youngest out of her car seat and a chunk of the roof, resting on top of the car, had shifted enough to pin him where he was hanging down into the sunroof. In seconds, Buck had moved it off and he had gotten the kid up and out. He doesn’t remember it hurting.

As he stands in the shower room, turnout gear shoved down and hanging off of his waist like a lumpy skirt, he figures it must’ve hurt when it happened. It certainly does now.

His ribs are painted a mural of blue and purple, bruises echoing from his flank to his ribcage, and stretching down to his hipbone. Small abrasions litter his torso like cat scratches, and they’d stung as the fabric of his shirt had peeled away from them. Eddie twists to see the bruises better in the mirror, hands coming down to frame them as if they were a piece of art. He tugs his turnout gear past his waist and over his hipbone, trying to see how far it extends. The bruising ends abruptly at the top of his hip. Already, the edges are turning a sickly yellow, unflattering against the tan skin of his torso. It looks like a sunset, but maybe more like the type you’d see in a zombie apocalypse. 

The door creaks open and he turns with a start, exhaling when he sees Buck. “Oh, it’s you.”

“Who were you expecting?” Buck hazards, but his gaze has already turned to the marred mess of Eddie’s side. “Hen, I hope?”

Eddie shakes his head, fingers quickly dancing along the length of his ribs. He doesn’t need to be checked out. “Nah. Nothing’s broken.”

“What about bleeding?” Buck’s already standing beside Eddie, so close the latter can feel his breath ghost along his exposed shoulder and collarbones. “When was this?”

“Parking garage,” Eddie mumbles, losing his focus as Buck’s palm comes to rest over the very center of the bruise. His palm is scorching hot. It soothes Eddie’s aching chest.

“The slab?” Buck hisses in sympathy, pressing in gently with his fingertips along the lines of Eddie’s ribs. He tracks down to the swell of his hipbone, palpating the expanse of blue and yellow. “Shit, I’m sorry, man- I tried to get it off as quick as I could- I didn’t notice it caught you this bad.”

“Don’t,” Eddie shakes his head, putting a hand over Buck’s forearm, stilling the man’s movements on his torso.

“Right. Not about me. Sorry.” Buck gently smooths along the rest of the bruise, tugging down Eddie’s gear like he had to see how far down it extends.

“Not what I meant,” Eddie murmurs, so softly that it makes Buck stutter in his movements. He looks up, finding Eddie’s gaze waiting. His eyes are tinged red, probably from exhaustion, and Buck wants to pull him into his chest and hold him until he falls asleep. “Not your fault.”

“Okay,” Buck breathes, unable to tear his gaze away from Eddie’s. His fingers still rest on the abstract art coloring Eddie’s skin.

“Broken? Bleeding?”

“No, I don’t think so. You should still get it checked-.”

Eddie’s turning away and shaking his head, then. Buck looks away as he strips out of the rest of his gear, now just in his nylon uniform pants that he’d worn underneath it. A thin layer of gray dust litters his hair, face, and neck- whatever had been exposed during the rescue.

“Let me,” Buck mumbles, grabbing a washcloth and wetting it before nudging Eddie towards the bench. He looks like he is going to protest, but the tiredness weighing down his bones is so profound he doesn’t, he just straddles the bench so he’s facing Buck and lets his head hang.

Buck does the same facing Eddie, scooting forward and gently cupping his chin with his own bruised, scraped hands. Eddie’s eyes flutter closed as Buck carefully wipes the dust off of his cheeks, his jawline, his forehead, under his eyes. He wets the towel more and starts on Eddie’s hair, trying to avoid having to rinse it again. Eddie’s completely pliant as Buck works on him, breathing slowing as he finds a moment to relax.

Buck gently rests Eddie’s forehead against his shoulder, letting the man sag against him as he moves onto the back of his neck and shoulders. He falls into the rhythm of swiping and blotting the dust off, wringing out the towel, and then re-wetting it and repeating. Eddie’s breathing is slow- not labored, Buck notes, as he listens carefully- and he thinks he might be falling asleep. When Buck is done, he cups the back of Eddie’s neck with a dry hand and rests his own cheek against the top of his head. He smells like cement and soot and a little bit of sweat, but underneath there is still the coconut of his shampoo that he shares with Chris, and the cinnamon pine of that nice cologne he buys himself.

Buck doesn’t know how long they sit there, one hand on the back of Eddie’s neck and the other resting gently over the bruise on his side, like his touch alone can heal it. The warmth from his palm seeps out onto Eddie’s cold-to-the-touch skin. Eddie is floating in that space between sleep and awareness, where his thoughts are slow like honey and incoherent, and he’s aptly aware of the sensation of Buck’s hands on him- but also feels like he’s floating in warmth.

He feels safe and he never wants to move.

Except his shift has been over for half an hour and his kid is going to be back from school soon.

Eddie groans, a pathetic noise, as he pulls himself away from Buck. The hand on his neck releases, fingertips dragging across the raised goosebumps that have sprung up like spring flowers across his skin. The hand on his side pats gently and then is gone, too. 

“Thanks.” Eddie’s voice is gruff and weary. Buck wants to smooth down the crease between his eyebrows with his thumb until it is gone, paint over the dark of his under-eyes with a color light enough to help him look alive. “Better get going.”

“Yeah,” Buck rubs the back of his own neck, fingers still tingling like he’d dipped them in lidocaine. “You have, uh, Chris waiting.”

“He’ll be home in a bit,” Eddie mumbles. “And you have, uh. Taylor.”

Buck looks like he’s going to say something, but he doesn’t. 

“Can I-?”

“Do you want to-?”

They stop at the same time, huffing twin laughs before tiredly meeting each other’s gazes again. There’s a new weight to it, now. 

“Come home with me?” Eddie asks, quick, before Buck can say anything else.

“Read my mind, Diaz.”

[thetomorrowshow]

learn to play it right

Previous

Final installment of the trust au.

There will, at a later date, be short stories set in this universe.

~

“What is going on?” Jimmy whispers.

Scott peers down, down at the massive crowd of people gathering, at the long line twisting down the mountain side and into the city.

“I have no clue,” he whispers back.

There are—there have to be hundreds of elves down there, all dressed in black robes, waiting outside the church. And not just elves—others, fae, humans, royalty. Far too many for any normal event. Far too many.

What’s more, a large portion of those actually gaining entrance into the building below are royalty, many of which are elves, but just as many . . . aren’t.

Scott and Jimmy are lying on the roof of the Church of Aeor, early on this cold morning, where they’ve been waiting for two hours—they had arrived just before sunrise, Scott’s exhausted wings barely carrying them to the church’s rooftop. There, with the vantage point it posed and the relative cover from any onlookers, they’d heard and seen the arrival of hundreds of people—including Lizzie, surrounded by a guard of twenty soldiers.

Jimmy had almost gone to her right then. Scott had felt him tense, heard the slight intake of breath, had panicked at what might happen to them if Jimmy were to shout down at her. Scott had subtly readjusted his grip on Jimmy's upper arm, ready to pull him back if need be, his other hand in the air, ready to cover the man’s mouth if he decided to do something stupid.

Jimmy didn’t do anything, thank Aeor. He just gazed down at his sister, mouth moving silently.

Scott turned his eyes back to her as well, marching up the hill to the church. Lizzie looked . . . strong. Her chin was held high, her hair braided back perfectly, her jewelry shining in the weak morning sunlight. She wasn’t dressed in greys and blacks any longer, the mourning period for Jimmy long over, but where she usually wore pastel shades of pinks and purples, her current dress was a deep blue, pinned up again and again in graceful layers, a train spilling out behind her.

Her presence was a regal one, and every person already making their way up to the church had slowed and stopped and stepped aside, allowing her to pass.

She had come straight up to the church—and Ilphas, of all people, had greeted her outside—and they had ushered her in, while the main part of her guard was redirected.

Since Lizzie, they've seen Joel, Katherine, and Pix arrive and be granted entrance, along with various other figures of elvish royalty. Other elves—and guards of arriving rulers, such as fWhip right this moment and Scott’s blood positively boils at the sight of him—wait outside, silent, looking toward the church.

Then Gem arrives, and Scott’s heart collapses into relief that she’s actually still alive. By some miracle—dear Aeor, how had she survived?

Last time he’d seen her, she had been in a heap on the ground, hair white as snow. That sight has haunted his nightmares for weeks.

She’s here, though, hair as red as ever, face solemn as she enters the church, followed shortly by Shelby (who looks exhausted in her shabby clothes, head bowed) and Joey right beside her (Scott blinks back visions of Joey pulling on his wings to wake him up), adorned with far too much gold weaved into a headdress and around his neck, the most brightly dressed of anyone there.

In fact, all of those waiting outside the chapel are dressed in black.

Scott is starting to have a sinking feeling that he knows why everyone might be showing up to Rivendell’s church on an inconspicuous weekday morning.

Pearl arrives last of all the emperors, marching right on in, and Scott knows that there won’t be anything to see from out here.

Not that Rivendell isn’t an . . . interesting sight, at the moment.

The fog of the morning obscures the nearby mountain peaks, tinged red in a way that could be the rising sun (though Scott doubts it). The landscape and city aren’t dead, but . . . muted, almost, as if some of the color and life has been slowly drained. There’s no snow on the ground, and it is summer, but usually there’s a morning frost year-round. The earth seems cracked, dry, neglected.

And, of course, red—red tentacles, he supposes, thread through the city—still, perhaps, but Scott swears they shift when he looks away. One stretching from a normally-busy intersection, curled around a lamppost. Another that wraps all the way around the library, the stones buckling inward under its grip. The flowers of the royal gardens are overrun, large and small vines choking them out of the dirt. 

The touch of his brother is clear, but to Scott, the most significant change is the eerie feeling of stale death haunts the air. Death that clings to the back of his throat, to the pads of his fingers, to his cracked lips.

He hates this. This is his land, his country, his people, and Xornoth—

No. Anger will get him nowhere but dead, and he can’t die yet. They have a purpose, here.

To think. He was so worried about Jimmy blowing everything by calling out to Lizzie, while Scott just has to look at nothing in particular to be tempted to scream out a challenge to Xornoth while his lungs still have air.

“We have to get inside,” Scott mutters to Jimmy, shamefully caring more about removing himself from his once-beautiful Rivendell as it suddenly overwhelms him and less about saving Lizzie. “There’s a window in the rafters with a broken latch—or, there used to be. I don’t see why anyone would think to repair it. We can go around to it and swing in.”

“Why do you know that?”

Scott shrugs as well as he can, belly-down on the roof, eyes still fixed on Ilphas below as the elf greets guest after guest. “Good place to hide out from my brother, growing up.”

Forgetting his anger, it might be best for them to get inside a building, anyways—every time Scott sees one of those horrid red tentacles out of the corner of his eye, he thinks it’s Xornoth come to kill him once and for all. They’re terribly exposed in their current place, and it’s a miracle they’ve not been spotted yet (though they’d had a close call with Pix glancing heavenward as he entered).

So Jimmy follows closely (close enough to touch, of course) as he shuffles down the roof, to the back of the chapel, where luckily nobody has begun to congregate.

It isn’t as easy slipping in through the round window there as it used to be—it swings out, for one thing, which almost knocks Scott off his balance entirely as his arm swings out with it. When he flips himself around and starts to slide down the edge of the roof, his feet dangle in freefall for a second (his stomach flips, though Jimmy has a tight grip on his wrist) and the windowsill is just too thin for the thick winter boots he's been wearing, his feet scraping against it for unfound purchase. With only a moment of panic, though, he manages to get both heels hooked on the inside and pulls with all the leg strength he has, slipping away from Jimmy, his back falling with another swoop in his stomach.

It’s more the flapping of his wings that helps to pull him in than it is his quad muscles, but Scott somehow manages to shimmy into the window, barely keeping himself from falling flat on his face.

He makes far too much noise, stumbling over his own feet and almost hitting his head in the cramped attic space, but once he has something of a breath in his chest he scoots over to the side (there's really only five square feet of space in there, after all) to let Jimmy in.

Jimmy goes about it in a . . . creative way, meaning that Scott’s heart almost drops out of his chest when he sees Jimmy fall past the window.

“Jimmy—” he gasps, reaching out far too late (frost brushing against the rough wood wall), just as he notices the fingers curled around the ledge.

Jimmy heaves himself up on his upper arm strength alone, and Scott knew he was betrothed to a swimmer but holy—

Jimmy falls into the room on his hands and rolls, landing hard on his backside. The entire tiny room rattles; they both freeze.

“Hopefully nobody heard that,” Scott whispers, voice pitched high.

Jimmy nods, laces his fingers between Scott’s, and scrambles to his feet (though still bent over to accommodate the low ceiling). “Yeah. Where to?”

Scott pushes past him to the only door in the room, an old, roughly-hewn door that probably hasn’t been opened in decades, lifting it just slightly to avoid scraping it along the floor.

The sound of low murmuring reaches Scott’s ears, along with the gentle strains of harp music. He takes a deep breath, then looks out.

The door leads to a dark drop, though Scott knows that in the darkness is a corner of the chapel partially walled off to hide a ladder. If he sat down here, on the sheet of wood before the door, his feet would find the first rung of the ladder on the wall below. But if he instead slides to the left, tiptoes along the wall a bit, that sheet of wood leads to the beams of the open main rafters—an access path for fixing the light fixtures.

And that is where Scott goes, carefully stepping across the beams, wings flared to keep his balance.

Jimmy is right behind him, his hand now clutched tightly around the joint where Scott’s wing meets his shoulder blade, keeping up a steady stream of whispered curses as he steps behind him. “Scott—if I fall—”

“You’ll probably land on some duke, so don’t do that,” Scott advises, glancing down at the dizzying array below. Sure enough, that looks like the Duke of Evien right under where Jimmy would land.

It’s an absolute miracle that nobody is looking up to the dark rafters, because the church is packed with people. The chapel seats close to five hundred, Scott knows, massive as it is, and yet every pew is filled, people left standing, lining the walls, crowding the entrance.

Scott tears his eyes away and creeps along, careful to test every step before putting his full weight on it, until he reaches a sheet of wood a bit more like a platform than the walkway, where he can kneel and peer down below. Jimmy joins him, slides their hands together.

“What’s going on down there? Why is Lizzie here?”

Scott scans the room, trying to spot everyone. All of the emperors are seated near the front—Lizzie behind Shelby and Joey on the left side, fWhip and Gem on the right side beside Katherine and in front of Sausage—and seated at the very front is Joel, then a priest that Scott remembers kind of liking whenever he attended chapel, then two empty seats.

And before them is the altar. Atop the altar is an unwrinkled white linen, with a very familiar crown resting on it. Scott's own crown. The one that had been hand-crafted for him when neither of his parents recovered from their horrible illness.

It’s a rather beautiful crown, if he does say so himself. A golden base, threads of gold crawling up to support and wrap around several white crystals, clear gems woven into the gold. Scott’s always been impressed by the workmanship that must have gone into such delicate materials to make them into the sturdy thing, and it’s clearly been polished recently, as the crystals catch every ray of light and absolutely sparkle.

Ilphas is walking down the aisle, he notices, and they pause right beside the altar for the briefest of moments before turning out to the crowd.

“Respected guests,” they say, voice ringing through the vaulted ceiling of the chapel. Everyone immediately hushes, turning their eyes forward. “The service will begin with a traditional elvish hymn, written thousands of years ago. The lyrics are in the Old Elvish tongue, but they envision the glory of the afterlife that awaits . . . that awaits. It will be performed by Sarelir of Arde’s Line and Cacil of the Far Forests.”

They incline their head and step back down to sit beside the priest, who shifts slightly, as the harp once again strikes up and an elf stands from the front row, rolling their shoulders.

Scott is absolutely transfixed.

“What’s going on?” Jimmy whispers again. “What is this?”

It’s so surreal, Scott’s not even sure what to say.

“This—this is my funeral,” he finally manages. “We’re watching my funeral.”

-

“This is so odd,” Scott whispers, for what’s probably the seventh time.

“It’s not fair, is what it is,” Jimmy tells him. “Did I have a funeral?”

“Yes, of course,” Scott says absently, too focused on the priest’s readings in Old Elvish to even look at Jimmy. ‘It was a lovely service.”

“I wish I'd been there,” Jimmy grumbles. “Who spoke?”

“Joel gave the sermon, but . . . several people spoke. Er, Lizzie cried during her speech.”

“Wow. Was it sad—I mean, she cried, right—but like, sad, or a good sad?”

“Why are they doing this in Old Elvish?” Scott wonders aloud. “Usually, the priest wants people to understand the blessings. My funeral ought to be entirely in Common.”

As a testament to the lack of understanding, the mourners down below are beginning to look a bit bored. Lizzie is paying rapt (if somewhat vacant) attention, and Gem seems to have some sort of idea of what’s happening (as she’s taking notes), but Joel is fidgeting with the buttons on his purple coat, and Sausage is pelting little pieces of paper at fWhip’s back.

Even the native elves seem confused, disinterested. Some are frowning, focusing hard to understand (and those must be scholars, librarians, and priests, those who have studied the language for a considerable amount of time), but most are simply gazing forward with no sign on their faces that they are even listening.

His people. . . .

His people look unwell.

Their skin appears somewhat wax, though perhaps that’s just the low lighting and the black clothing—even so, many familiar faces are certainly thinner than Scott remembers, and their eyes are dull and redrimmed and scared, and Scott can’t stand to see them so.

But how on earth is he going to make this any better? How will he do anything but fail?

There’s a quiet noise from below, almost a snort, and Scott looks away from the elves to see Joey, head slumped back and eyes shut, mouth half-open in sleep.

“I wasn’t gonna say it, but this is kind of boring,” murmurs Jimmy. “My funeral wasn’t, right?”

“Jimmy, I honestly don’t remember much of what happened at your funeral right now.”

“I wish I could’ve seen it. Then I would be able to compare.”

The priest finishes up cyr sermon with a statement that Scott recognizes despite the language barrier, one that’s spoken at every kingly event he attends—“Blessed by Aeor may our king be.” Then ce sits, and after a moment, Joel gets up and stands behind the altar.

He takes a moment to look out over the massive congregation, the scribes waiting to write down every word he says, the fellow emperors before him.

Scott sees Joel’s shoulders raise in a deep breath, then he speaks.

“When I was asked to do this bit, I was . . . kind of intimidated,” Joel says, straightening his sash. “Jimmy’s was different—there weren’t very many traditions I had to know about, but it seemed like every day I’d get a message from Rivendell informing me of whatever other thing I would have to keep in mind. I’m honestly just glad that there isn't a body—I never quite figured out which shoulder I was supposed to pour oil on.”

A couple of chuckles, mostly from royals of other empires. Some of the elves shift uncomfortably; Scott can just barely see Ilphas from this angle, but he can practically hear the elf’s disappointed sigh at Joel’s flippancy with sacred customs.

“We do the whole mourning thing a bit differently in Mezelea,” Joel says. “I know when Jimmy died, Scott had his year-long bit, and Lizzie had forty days. Mezelea has three days—and only that much if you’re close to the person who passed.

“I took those three days. I may not have known Scott too terribly well, but we were friends, I guess. We were friends, and I know what he’d want me to do.”

Joel looks out over the crowd again, massive as it is, head turning left and right.

“I’m not going to say what Lizzie did at Jimmy’s memorial,” says Joel, voice hard. “But know that I mean it. And the emotions that Lizzie incited in your souls then ought to be roaring right now. Can you feel that? Can you—”

CRACK.

A red tentacle bursts through the floor, and before anyone can do anything, before anyone can draw breath to scream or even acknowledge its existence, it smacks into Joel with enough force to send him flying into the wall to his right, where he slumps and lays limp.

“No—!” Lizzie cries out, standing, but she doesn’t rush forward as with a flash of darkness—all the candles and torches go out, flickering back as red, darkness seems to sweep the room like the death outside, and Scott swallows against the ill, sticky feeling in the back of his throat—the demon himself appears, standing before the altar.

His life as the usurping ruler of Rivendell must be treating him well. Gone are the torn robes, the grimy grey armor—he wears clean armor, matte black in the near-darkness, his robes below grey, a black cape fixed around his shoulders.

His hair is still unbrushed, long and scraggly, and the crown—or, perhaps, a physical pair of antlers—is still on his head, red glistening from the tips. Scott can’t see his face, but he’s dreamed it so many times that he doesn’t need to.

He can picture the way those horrible, bulging maroon eyes rove amongst the crowd, the too-sharp too-big smile with too many teeth as he surveys his prisoners, his prey.

Scott shudders.

He’s been (almost) killed by Xornoth once already.

Can he stand a second time? Can he walk calmly toward that horrifying visage, give him the deranged joy of his brother going to him as sacrifice, a futile attempt to save his people?

The new lighting bathes the chapel in an eerie glow and mist rolls out from Xornoth, obscuring Scott’s vision even further. Gasps and screams from the sudden appearance go silent as everyone waits, dreadfully, for the demon to speak.

Xornoth takes a long, deep breath, an inhale through his nose as he tilts his head back, taking in all the mourners in black.

“There is such power here,” he says eventually, distorted voice bouncing around the high ceiling. Jimmy squeezes Scott’s hand, silent and radiating terror.

Has Jimmy ever seen the demon? A nasty sight for the first time.

Or does he just sense the end, as awful and impending as it is for Scott?

“Such power. Godly power. And many don’t even know it,” Xornoth says, each word deliberate and dripping. “Who knew that the gods still dwell on earth?”

He stares out at—at someone, but Scott can’t tell who.

What? Gods?

There’s Aeor, of course, but Aeor isn’t physically present. Nor is Exor, despite both gods’ champions being here.

Scott knows that other gods exist, but most others aren’t terribly bothered with the elves. Different cultures have different deities, and of those of the Thirty-Three, only the two brothers had ever been documented in contact with the elves.

“And I will soon be more powerful than them. But first . . . a little victory, a personal achievement for me. Elf?”

Xornoth looks behind himself, and Ilphas, slowly, rises.

“Declare me king with my brother’s crown.”

Oh, now that is going too far.

Scott can feel his blood positively boiling. Of course, Xornoth has to have this. Not only is that his crown, it’s also entirely against every burial tradition and even ancient law! It’s nothing but a way to gloat, a move of blatant disrespect and total power.

Nobody will stand against him, though. Nobody can. All they would be met with is death.

And yet, as Ilphas carefully picks up the crown, held in their right hand, they tuck their left hand into their robe.

Scott sees it before anyone else, he thinks. Xornoth takes a knee at the altar, head bowed, setting his dripping and blackened crown of Exor (so it is a crown, not antlers—though—are those bleeding holes in the top of his brother’s head?) on the white burial sheet. The demon doesn’t see a thing. Not the way that Ilphas draws near, nor the way they hold the crown far from Xornoth’s head. Not the flash of silver that Ilphas pulls from their robe and drives into Xornoth's back—

In a fluid move that sends his dark cape swirling around him, Xornoth rises and spins on his heel and grabs Ilphas by the throat, just as he had Scott so long ago.

The hundreds of people in the chapel cry out in a cacophony of sound—Scott can’t see them, Xornoth stands and lifts Ilphas, Ilphas’s shaking hands drop both the crown and the dagger as they futilely push against Xornoth—

The elf chokes, Xornoth’s grip so tight that Scott just knows his windpipe is being crushed—

Xornoth throws Ilphas to the ground with a solid thud and raises his right hand, turned out so the audience sees all that happens. They all fall silent, waiting, dreading.

A red mist—or a flame, maybe, some kind of magic that glows and burns Scott’s eyes like smoke—begins to form in Xornoth’s hand, swirling and intensifying.

“Let this,” he growls, “be the first example of the punishment that awaits insolence.”

He closes his hand, curling the magic into his fist, and points it down at Ilphas—Ilphas stirs slightly, but not enough to move, to dodge the blast about to come, and Scott isn’t going to let another person die while he stands by and watches—

He doesn’t think. Scott throws himself down from the rafter, falling, air rushing through his ears and the ground speeding closer as his aching wings flare out at the last second to catch him, landing one knee on the ground, one hand out to steady himself (ice spreads out across the floor in a crackling radius from his fist), in front of Xornoth.

Silence.

And then the chapel bursts into noise.

Scott straightens up, dusts off his hands, even as Xornoth stumbles back, face slack with shock, the magic vanishing from his hand.

He may be about to die, but Scott feels that he ought to be acknowledged in history books for that entrance.

He’s about to say something cool, like “miss me?” or “I’d like my crown back, thank you” when there’s a whoosh of air right beside him—

Followed by a thud and a loud crack!—

As Jimmy lands in a heap beside him, one leg bent in a way that it surely shouldn’t be capable of.

Scott stares. Xornoth stares. Ilphas stares.

Jimmy raises his head, grabs onto Scott’s rough tunic and drags himself up, hands clinging to him, careful not to put weight on his leg.

“Did you just break your leg?” Scott hisses.

Jimmy nods, face scrunched up in pain.

“Why?”

“It’ll heal,” Jimmy gasps. “Just—just give me a second.”

“Jimmy?” a familiar voice cries, and Scott glances out to see Lizzie, vaulting over the pew between her and the front of the room. “I—what—?”

“What the f—” Sausage’s quite reasonable question is cut off by fWhip’s exclamation of “How are you both alive?”

Lizzie doesn’t get close at all before Xornoth points at her; another horrid tentacle bursts through the ground in an explosion of stone and wraps around her legs, tearing her dress. It swings her through the air over their heads and slams her into a marble pillar near the back of the chapel, which cracks and crumbles onto her motionless body.

The church goes silent again, every person who just moments ago had been rushing to get out of their seat and to the door now frozen in place.

“So,” Xornoth sneers, squaring his shoulders. “Back from the dead? And your little fish boy, too. Was losing once not enough?”

Kind of his thoughts exactly, really. Glad they're on the same page.

What on earth does Aeor expect him to do?

Why is he back?

He has to say something. He has to look like he has some sort of plan, because literally every second of this mission has been last-second decisions with nothing concrete to follow and he hates that, he can’t give Xornoth a reason to gloat atop everything else.

But Scott doesn’t even have the chance to come up with a witty comeback before literally everything explodes.

There’s a ringing sound.

A piercing ringing, drowning out every sound that might be expected, and when Scott goes down, it’s almost . . . slow.

Slow . . . slow, as if by some consideration, the air has decided to thicken to the point of near-water, taking Scott down . . . down. . . .

Scott’s sent flying forward, something hard crashing into his back, holding to Jimmy for dear life as he probably shouts but can’t hear anything but the ringing. They both crash to the floor, Scott beside Jimmy, his eyes squinted shut, one arm pulled up to cover his head.

A hand grasps the back of his coat, pulling him back, dragging him away from Jimmy; an acrid smell washes over Scott and he knows who has him even if he can’t open his eyes for all the dust and grime in his vision—

And then something else knocks Xornoth aside, and Scott stumbles to the side and rubs at his eyes enough that he can squint and see that the entire left wall of the church has been blown off entirely, right behind where he had just been standing.

Rivendell outside, not long ago looking more muted than anything, is bathed in the same red dimness as the chapel. The clouds overhead are dark, darker than a normal raincloud, the ground absolutely writhing with dozens of those massive red tentacles.

His Rivendell, his beautiful Rivendell. . . .

Xornoth is on the ground in the settling dust and splinters of the destroyed marble and spruce wood of the walls, wrestling with—with Katherine, of all people. Jimmy’s still on the ground, covered in scrapes and dust but sitting up, pouring from his waterskin onto his leg, and there are other guests everywhere, panicking and pushing—and the ringing fades, just slightly, then more and more and they’re shouting and screaming and trying to make their way out.

Scott ignores them and stumbles outside through the very large new door, tripping over chunks of marble. The air inside the church is thick with dust, and if he can get out of there maybe he’ll be able to properly see what’s going on.

Once he steps outside, however, something in the air shimmers. Then wobbles.

Then, out of literal thin air, the Grimlands army begins to emerge (clearly identifiable by their strange boxy uniforms and leather helmets), marching through the gardens between the palace grounds and the rest of the kingdom and inexorably toward the church and the masses there.

“No way,” Scott tries to say around the dust choking his throat, the words escaping as more of a cough.

He turns back around, ready to warn everyone to flee—

The guests, just moments ago a mass of chaos, are slowly forming rows behind him, each with a weapon drawn—lots of daggers, of course, but some short swords, some spears, some maces.

Where—what?

How? Why?

The mourners—all these people here to mourn Scott, not just those that were permitted into the chapel, but the hundreds outside as well—have somehow become a small army.

And Joel comes limping through the center of the crowd (they shuffle aside, clearly looking to him for guidance), covered in the dust of the rubble, a bit of blood trickling down his temple.

“Glad to see everyone’s here and ready to fight,” Joel shouts, heading up toward Scott. “We’ll be joined by more as soon as they notice.”

He turns, claps Scott on the shoulder, then points to the approaching Grimlands soldiers. “Fight!”

Their little band, so far no larger than the force of rebels that Jimmy had been leading across the prairie (so many less than the Grimlands, surely), breaks forward at a run, some yelling, some brandishing their weapons. In the middle of it, Scott and Joel stand (and Scott instinctively takes a couple of steps back, fully aware that he has zero control over his curse right now).

Joel looks exhausted—Scott had seen how hard Xornoth threw him into the wall, so he’s honestly surprised that the man is even walking. And not only walking, but apparently leading an army?

“I don't know how you’re alive,” Joel says, grinning, “but it’s good to have you, for however long it’ll be.”

Scott’s imagined this moment several times in the past weeks—reuniting with friends who thought him dead would be inconceivably emotional, perhaps even distressing (as it was with him and Jimmy). But instead of all the planned phrases he came up with for Joel, all he can manage is,

“Why does everyone have weapons?”

Joel chuckles. “We got them to everyone who needed one before the service.”

“You handed out daggers as party favors for my funeral?”

“We’re trying to take back Rivendell, we had to do something! We didn't really expect you and Xornoth to show up, honestly. Can you still do that ice thing?”

“I can’t control it without Jimmy,” says Scott, and as if to punctuate his statement, several icicles shoot up from the earth.

If Joel is confused by his mention of Jimmy, he doesn’t show it. “You don’t need to control it, you just need to not hit our people.”

Joel runs off before Scott can say that part of having a lack of control means that he can’t exactly avoid hitting their people.

There’s people running, yelling, fighting. Xornoth and Jimmy (and so many others) are somewhere in the rubble of the half-destroyed church behind him. Red tentacles are bursting out of the ground all around, lifting up their ragtag bunch of fighters. fWhip’s army is approaching, growing larger and closer by the minute.

And Scott’s here in the midst of it.

He flexes his fingers and runs, ice spreading from every pounding footstep.

-

Jimmy watches, biting his lip, as his leg mends, the bone tingling and straightening. The pain dissipates bit-by-bit, and though it isn’t fully done, Jimmy stands, shaking it out.

Joel’s on the ground, by the wall that collapsed, and Jimmy stumbles over to him. Miraculously, none of the wall fell onto him, but he’s still unconscious, blood dripping down his cheek.

Jimmy pours some water from the skin on his belt onto his fingers, lightly touches his head. Joel stirs, starts to sit up, starts to rub his eyes, as if he had never been more than stunned.

As much as Jimmy longs to stop and hug him, or talk to him, he moves on, over to the altar, beside which Katherine lies in a heap, alone on the floor, blood seeping out under her.

Where’d the demon go? Not his problem. He needs to help these people, then probably—Lizzie? Find her among the rubble? Go after Scott?

Jimmy kneels and places both hands on Katherine’s shoulders, holds her for a moment, letting the tingling feeling leave his fingers and enter her.

After a moment, Katherine moves a little, mumbles something, and Jimmy heads to the next person, just beyond Katherine.

Scott’s advisor, Ilphas, is sitting against the back wall of the chapel, massaging their throat. They look at Jimmy with something like wonder in their eyes as Jimmy kneels down before them and places a gentle hand on their throat.

Ilphas flinches back at the touch, but the appearing bruise recedes under Jimmy’s fingers, and when he draws back, they prod at their throat, apparently amazed.

“You . . . you are a god,” breathes Ilphas.

“Cod, actually,” Jimmy corrects, then heads to the other side of the room, toward a woman cradling her arm.

“Jimmy!”

Jimmy whirls to the side as someone grabs his elbow—Pix, smiling, eyes shining. He’s covered in dust, like everyone else, but he seems almost . . . happy.

“It’s time,” Pix says. He nods once, pats Jimmy’s shoulder.

“Sorry, time for what?”

“The sword.”

Right. Right! Pix had given him the sword, ancient and covered in runes, with the strict instructions to give it up when the time came. Jimmy’s been waiting, assuming that he would instinctively know the time, but apparently it’s . . . now.

He reaches over his shoulder, grasps the hilt, but Pix shakes his head.

“Not to me,” he says. “Scott. Give Scott the sword. Hurry.”

Oh. He can do that.

Which way did Scott go?

-

Lizzie is dying.

She knows she’s dying, because her vision keeps going grainy around the edges, and she can’t feel her legs, and a huge chunk of marble has pierced her stomach, blood seeping out all around it.

There’s something that she has to do, then.

She promised herself over a month ago that if she was ever dying, she would do it.

So Lizzie reaches with numb, trembling fingers into her satchel, past the cold hilt of a dagger and landing on the squishy-yet-solid mass that had been left in the pouch with the mysterious book.

-

Scott pushes a piece of hair behind his ear, rolls up his sleeves for the third time. He’s just narrowly dodged away from a soldier viciously slashing about with his sword, hidden briefly behind a tree that he had once read a history book under.

He’s in the midst of the battle, and he really doesn’t have any sort of control over all of the snow and ice, and he hadn’t carried any other weapon, so he's been trying to avoid just about everyone—

“Scott!”

He whips around—

Gem.

He’d seen her face back then, stone-like and motionless, her hair white, her body slumped in a way that clearly communicated she wouldn’t be getting up again any time soon.

He was certain he’d killed her when she wouldn’t respond to fWhip’s shaking.

But now, she’s alive. She’s alive and moving and breathing—and she’s hurrying toward him across the battlefield that used to be a very lovely park, her bag outstretched.

“You’re going to get him now, aren’t you?” she asks breathlessly, shoving her bag into Scott’s chest. It ices over as he accepts it.

“The crystal’s in there, and one of the boots—we couldn’t find the other,” she tells him with a grimace. “We’re really doing it this time, right?”

Scott just stares at her, his arms burning where her fingers had brushed them.

She’s okay.

He’s spent so many nights remembering that final moment, when the ice exploded out of him and she collapsed, when he barely had a moment to mourn before he was gone, too.

She’s here now, and there’s a bruise on her temple and her red hair is coming out its braid, and her face is smudged with dust, and she’s grinning and so very alive.

It feels good to know that he didn’t kill one of his friends.

Scott opens the bag, and sure enough, the crystal is sparkling within, a familiar, hated boot squished in next to it.

“Well?”

Scott looks back up at Gem, at the hope shining in her eyes, at the smile that he never thought he’d see again.

Does he tell her that he’s dying?

That she’ll have to go through it again in a matter of hours, at most?

Does he prepare her in some small way, or give her a couple of moments of freedom from the grief?

Scott doesn’t have time to make a decision, however, because something to the left crashes.

They both turn, toward the church, not too far away but far enough—

It happens as if in slow motion, crashing through the rubble and still-standing bricks, straightening to full height as stone cascades off it and any people nearby flee.

There’s a monster bursting through the remains of the collapsed wall.

A monster.

Hasn’t enough happened?

The monster is blue, and scaly, and twelve feet tall at least, with long pink hair that tangles down its shoulders and covers its face. It stumbles out of the church, stretches a little, and immediately grabs a Mythland soldier with both claws and chucks him as far as it can.

“What in the world—?” Gem gasps, running toward the monster.

As fun as it sounds to run directly toward the killer lizard thing, Scott decides to turn the other way, looping Gem’s bag over his other shoulder so it doesn't bang against his satchel. The monster, luckily, keeps heading down the path, towards the city itself and not toward his palace, which overlooks the entire city from its place beyond the church.

Scott heads that way, scaling the ivy trellises on the low wall between the gardens and his palace grounds, where already the battle has spread. There’s soldiers and Rivendellian rebels fighting right and left, and horrible black-and-red flags (hung in the place of Scott’s typical blue and gold) have been torn down and trampled, like rags under the feet of the battle.

Scott dodges through the fight—he isn’t sure where he’s trying to get to, just somewhere away, somewhere he can maybe pray for the strength to face his death with dignity—

There’s a storm coming. A snowstorm, judging by the dropping temperature and the little flurries that fall before Scott’s eyes. The land round about is growing even darker, the clouds above looming more and more threateningly.

Scott shoves past a falling soldier, stumbles over an uneven chunk of frozen ground, straightens and continues—

A flash of lightning, followed by a rumble of thunder—

He’s there.

Oh, no.

Xornoth is right there, up ahead maybe . . . maybe forty meters, waiting.

Staring at Scott.

His eyes are maroon pits of nothing, his skin grey and distorted. His blackened lips are stretched into a smile, his long, matted hair falling down around his shoulders. Again on his head is that horrid, dripping crown of antlers, in such opposition to the golden antlers in Scott’s satchel.

He is doom, he is death, and Scott can taste it on the frosty air.

This is the end.

Scott retrieves Aeor’s crown from the Codmade satchel at his side, sets it carefully on his head. Lightning flashes again—Xornoth is closer, red mist rolling out around his feet, spreading across the grounds.

The fighting gradually comes to a standstill—some unspoken beckon brings all eyes toward them, shifting in their formations until there's a good crowd of onlookers surrounding them, watching. Waiting.

Scott doesn’t have a weapon. With Jimmy’s hand in his, he hasn’t needed one—he’s been one.

But Jimmy isn’t here.

And Scott is going to die.

At least Jimmy won't have to see it.

He squares his shoulders, fumbles in Gem’s bag for a moment, extracting the crystal, cool and heavy in the palm of his hand. He lets her satchel fall, ignoring the boot within.

Xornoth actually laughs, the sound barely carrying to Scott over the growing wind.

“You’re going to try that again?” he calls, slowly striding toward Scott, each step deliberate, more mist clouding out with every thud of his clunky boots against the ground. “It failed, brother. Why would it work now?”

Exactly Scott’s question. But he doesn't really have a choice, at this point. It’s not like he can run from the demon.

The wind whistles in Scott’s ears, almost like the ringing of the earlier explosion.

This is it.

Xornoth draws his sword with a shiiing—black, and, like his crown, dripping. He didn’t have a sword before, back on the windswept plateau, did he?

Scott swallows back the cold fear in his throat at being run through with that sword, darkness spilling into his insides, but he puts up one hand, ready to send a burst of ice or something—

People are screaming, yelling over the wind—

There isn’t any ice—

Scott’s hair is whipped into his eyes by the wind and he can’t see much but he sees Xornoth come forward, sword ready to strike—

He can’t move, his feet are literally frozen to the ground—

He squints his eyes shut, dear Aeor please—

Something warm collides with Scott, holding him in a suddenly-warm (warm, home, his Jimmy) hug and he hears a sound kind of like a squnch followed by a gasp in his ear.

The wind dies—not calm, not dwindling, but sharply, leaving silence and the sound of Scott’s heaving breaths and thudding heart.

He opens his eyes to golden, too-long hair, and he feels just barely like he has a tenuous hold on his curse.

He feels warm.

Scott leans back just the slightest bit. Jimmy’s right here, and maybe it’s selfish, but he just wants to see his beloved once more before he dies.

Jimmy’s pale lips tremble as he gives Scott a small smile.

Blood drips from the corner of his mouth.

Jimmy is holding him, and Scott looks past his shoulder to Xornoth right there, holding. . . .

The sword in Xornoth’s hands is buried in Jimmy’s back, and Scott looks down—the point of it is sticking out of Jimmy’s gut, shining with blood. His tunic is rapidly becoming soaked with blood, and Scott realizes that Jimmy is less hugging him and more collapsing onto him.

He’s going to throw up.

He’s going to sob.

Jimmy is dying right in front of him, and Scott can do nothing but hold him.

Xornoth catches Scott’s eye, smirks, and twists the sword.

Jimmy grunts, eyes fluttering closed.

Horror wells up in Scott—horror and anger, cold and terrible, and the snow begins to fall properly as lightning flashes against the dark clouds.

His betrothed is dying in his arms—Jimmy threw himself in the way of the sword to save Scott and now he’s dying, he’s dying again, Jimmy is dying in his arms—

“Scott,” Jimmy breathes, trembling against him. “Scott . . . the sword. . . .”

“I know,” Scott says, frantic, not sure where to put his hands or what to do because everything sounds like it’s coming from underwater and he feels sick, he doesn’t know how to help, “it’s okay, I’ll get the sword out, you’ll be okay—”

“No,” Jimmy interrupts, the sharp nails of his left hand digging weakly into Scott’s shoulder. “Take the . . . the Rune Sword, Scott. . . . It’s time. . . .”

Scott’s eyes catch on the hilt of that sword that Jimmy always wears on his back, that he doesn’t unbuckle even to sleep, the one with the sparkling runes carved into the leather grip.

Xornoth notices it, too. His face goes slack with shock—and maybe a little fear—

In one fluid motion, Scott reaches around Jimmy and withdraws the sword from its sheath with a rring!

The effect is immediate.

Deep inside, the broken parts slide together perfectly with a satisfying click. A tingling spreads down Scott’s limbs, the ice around his ankles melting instantly.

His chest feels like it’s going to burst with something close to elation. Everything feels so—so right, so whole.

He feels like he can take in a full breath without fear that his soul will crack apart.

He feels like there’s a little warmth in his bones—not that the frost is melting, but that it’s a proper part of him.

He’d described it, once, as a door. A door that he had to push against with all his might to keep it shut, and he only had the strength to do so when with Jimmy.

That wasn’t quite right.

It isn’t a door. It’s a piece to a puzzle that has finally been recovered, set in place in the center of his chest.

He feels like everything is right.

He feels powerful.

Snow whirls around him, and he raises the rune sword.

Xornoth tugs his own sword out of Jimmy (who slides to the ground and lays there, crumpled) and raises it, more in a fighting stance than an execution this time.

Scott moves more on instinct than anything else—and not his own. The instinct of someone from long ago, someone who once wielded this very blade against Exor’s Champion.

He parries Conal’s—Xornoth’s attack, swinging the sword like he was born for it. He was trained with a sword, wasn’t he? Long ago—years—centuries—

He steps into Xornoth's space, keeps walking him back—Xornoth is definitely concerned, now, and it’s as if power is literally radiating down his entire body from the crown of antlers. This feels right, this is perfect, his every vein and nerve are singing in perfect harmony—

Alinar attacks relentlessly, frost curling down the sword, illuminating sparkling runes on the blade. The ground beneath them has become ice, and the demon slips with every shuffling step back and he was made for this. He swings and blocks and steps like it’s all a great dance choreographed by the gods, perfectly in time with his God on High, and the music within him swells as he spins Conal around, steps too close to him, and pushes him to the ground, kicking out his knee.

“Please,” Conal-Exor-Xornoth gasps from the ground, his sword fallen to the side, “please . . . Aeor, have mercy. . . .”

“This is mercy,” Alinar-Aeor-Scott says, and he drops the crystal onto the demon’s shoulder before plunging the sword through it, dropping to his own knees to drive it as far as possible.

The crystal ripples as the sword passes through like water, and straight into the demon’s shoulder—

Scott screams, it burns, his arm—

Conal screeches as well, writhes on the ground where the sword has him pinned, red mist is bursting out of him and slowly being absorbed by the crystal and it hurts, it’s as if a sword has cleaved through his own shoulder but Alinar holds on, he has to save his people—

And then it’s over.

The crystal lands on empty, frozen ground, now purely red.

The demon is gone.

It hurts too much to keep going.

Scott had fallen to his knees to push the sword into Xornoth, and now he falls the rest of the way.

He slumps to the ground, sword under him, and knows no more.

-

It nudges at his cheek, hairy and soft, and Scott’s eyelids flutter as his vision blurs and clears, barely focusing on the stag’s noble muzzle.

Scott lets out a breath, short and shallow. His whole body aches, from the tip of his forehead down to his toes, and he cannot even find the strength to raise his head, see his injuries.

For a moment, it seems that blood streams down from between the stag’s antlers, as it so often has.

He’s lying on the forest floor, spongy mud and soft grass under him.

It gives him a moment of vertigo—usually he looks down on the ground, no?

Then the stag speaks, its white eyes fixed on him. It doesn’t move its mouth, just stares at him as Scott hears its words echo through his head.

“Ni’iun ñe ndie Ndíoxī xi’iun, se’eii. A va’a?”

Scott’s mouth whispers the response.

“Va’a vá.”

The stag huffs, nudges again at his cheek.

“Kunda’avi iniyuu yo’o, se’eii. Kundi yu’u nu takundi’i ña’a, ra kuvi kī’viun ñe ndiviyuu xi’i kūsūnku.”

His eyes roll, just slightly, as the stag blurs in his vision.

“Va’á và,” his lips breathe. “Tixa’viniu.”

“Kūsūn, se’eii.”

-

Scott’s eyelids are almost too heavy to open.

His body aches, somewhere not quite beyond the realm of consciousness. It feels. . . .

He isn’t awake. Not really. Just drifting toward wakefulness, the pain more present with every passing moment.

There are strange, oddly-shaped words on the tip of his tongue.

The way his body is laid is beginning to be uncomfortable. He shifts a little to see if it’s a better position, and it is for a moment before becoming exponentially worse, so he shifts back to how he’d been.

Where is he?

(A forest floor?)

His first thought is Jimmy’s little tent out in the woods, but whatever he’s lying on is far more comfortable than Jimmy’s worn bedroll. And his second thought is the Rivendell infirmary, but he banishes that thought from his mind as soon as it appears. There’s no way that would be possible.

Maybe it’s just a really soft patch of ground?

Scott forces his eyes open, blinks a couple of times to adjust. It’s very . . . white, he supposes. Very clean.

Very familiar.

This . . .this is the Rivendell infirmary, isn’t it?

He tilts his head up as much as he can, looks around himself.

It’s rather dark. Only one lamp is burning on a bedside table across the room, all the curtains drawn.

And beside him, snoring in a chair, is Pix.

Of all people, Pix isn’t really the one that he expected to see here. He didn’t really expect to see anyone. Usually when he wakes up in the infirmary, he’s all alone.

Why is he in Rivendell?

It takes a moment of retracing his steps—traveling to the Ocean Kingdom, getting sidetracked, taking all night to fly to Rivendell, crashing his own funeral—to get mentally caught up.

He remembers being . . . more. More than himself. Those moments are odd in his memory, as if in slow-motion, and he doesn’t quite feel connected to them.

Did he . . . did he defeat Xornoth?

No.

Against all odds, did he do it?

Did Jimmy die?

“Pix,” Scott croaks, swallowing. His throat is so dry. “Pix.”

Pix starts, sits up properly. “What? What is it?”

He blinks several times, pushes his shaggy hair out of his face (his crown is nowhere in sight) and scans the room until his eyes fall on Scott.

“Oh,” Pix says, eyes widening with clear surprise. “You’re awake. How are you feeling?”

Scott’s really not sure how he’s feeling. He feels sleepy, for the most part. Sore. Like his limbs are weighed down. “I don’t know. Jimmy? Is . . . is Jimmy okay?”

Pix smiles, just the slightest bit, absolutely still surprised. “Of course. Yes, he’s doing all right. Still healing, I believe—it takes more than a day to recover from a mortal wound, after all. Now, how are you? How is your arm?”

Jimmy’s all right.

Jimmy survived.

They both survived and Xornoth—

“Xornoth—?”

“Defeated.”

“And everyone else?”

Pix chuckles. “Everyone is fine, Scott. Well, Lizzie’s a little . . . different. But there were surprisingly few casualties from the battle, and Rivendell has been reclaimed—I believe Joel tried to claim it for his own, actually, so you may need to be reinstated relatively soon—but you needn’t worry about anything while you recover.”

While he recovers?

Recovers from what?

Why is he in the infirmary? Scott doesn’t remember getting injured. The last part he remembers is—well. . . .

He was different, wasn’t he?

It hurts his head to think about. It’s odd to try and place himself in those final moments, a sword that both was and wasn’t his dancing in his hands, the absolute rightness of the union within him, the fear on his foil’s face.

“How is your arm?” Pix asks again, and Scott looks down at himself.

Lying atop the grey blanket that covers his body, his arms look normal. They don’t feel out of the ordinary. He flexes the fingers of his right hand, then—

Pain shoots down his left arm as he tries to move it, and Scott can’t quite bite back a groan. Now that he’s aware of it, his arm just aches—his shoulder seems to pulse with angry heat, and it’s suddenly all he can do to not just lie his head back on the pillow and cry.

Dear Aeor, it hurts.

He doesn’t remember injuring his shoulder. He doesn’t remember getting hurt at all, but with his battle with Xornoth being so . . . odd (he remembers not being himself, thinking thoughts that didn’t belong to him) so it could have happened, he supposes?

There’s no wrappings on his arm, though. He's still wearing that old tunic that used to belong to Jimmy, and the tan sleeve of his long-sleeved undershirt hasn’t been cut away or rolled up. Nothing seems out of the ordinary.

“What happened to my arm?” Scott asks, doing his best not to panic, when a fresh wave of pain has mostly passed and he can speak without gritting his teeth.

Pix’s eyes are sad, old, and he takes a moment for a deep sigh. “You’re so young, Scott. Alinar was over six hundred when he defeated Conal. You’re just over a hundred.”

A strange statement to make, but not untrue. Scott waits as Pix seems to collect himself, resists the urge to demand more answers. Pix will tell in his own time.

“The sword that belongs to you,” Pix says after a long moment, “is a sword that was crafted by the God of Death for Aeor himself. He used the sword to bind Exor to the Void in the End, and when Conal found Exor and brought part of him back to this world, Alinar wielded the sword to bind him to a crystal. As you did with Xornoth this morning.”

Silence.

What?

“This is all—much information,” Scott says, head spinning a bit—Aeor? The God of Death?—as he tries to figure out what exactly Pix is and isn’t saying. Why does Pix even know these things? “But what does that have to do with my arm?”

“That sword,” continues Pix, “is a binding sword. The runes that adorn it are the magic of the God of Death—it imprints itself on one’s very soul. It bound your magic to you, instead of letting it run wild. And it now has bound Xornoth to the crystal that Gem created.”

Pix sighs, scrubs at his bearded cheek. “The sword could have been more precise, of course. But when two persons already are bound to one another, what the sword does to one will affect the other. And you and your brother have been bound together since before your birth.”

“I—how? Because we’re twins? Or—”

“I don’t wish to worry you with prophecies and the like,” Pix interrupts (which, for the record, sounds like an excuse to Scott). “But know that many have spoken of you, surrounded by the living gods as you are. And since both you and Xornoth have pieces of Alinar and Conal, and Aeor and Exor . . . even without the prophecies, you have been bound.”

That doesn’t make sense. Bindings? Gods?

Does it?

What sort of prophecies is Pix talking about?

“We’re really just lucky Jimmy never accidentally stabbed himself,” Pix mutters. “That would have been bad for you.”

“Sorry?” Pix waves him off. “Oh, nothing. We can discuss it more at another time. Just know that you and Xornoth are bound, and the sword is also binding, and in using the sword to pin Xornoth to the crystal you’ve also pinned your own arm."

He’s what?

“Does my arm still work?” he asks, trying to move his fingers again. His index finger just barely twitches.

“Not well, certainly. And it will hurt for the rest of your days. As far as I’m aware, and not due to his lack of trying, Alinar never discovered a way to regain the use of his own arm without freeing the demon.”

Right.

Um, that’s. . . .

That’s fine. That is absolutely fine. So his arm will always hurt. For the rest of his life, he’s essentially going to be one-handed.

He can process that later.

He’s curious. Terribly, terribly curious. How on earth does Pix know all this? Why has he chosen to tell Scott now, after everything, instead of saving him some time and giving him the answers before any of this happened?

Those questions pale in comparison to his most important concern, of course.

“But Jimmy—”

“Is going to be fine,” Pix finishes, smiling again. “He’ll probably be in to see you in the morning. Now, would you be all right alone? I have some other business to attend to.”

-

It’s maybe two hours later that the infirmary door creaks open again and Scott hurriedly wipes his eyes with his one working arm. He’s a king, and kings don’t cry when something bad happens. And in all honesty, something good happened. Something very good happened. He’s selfish to think of himself in this time.

“Scott.”

Scott’s head shoots up at that achingly beloved voice. “Jimmy,” he whispers desperately.

Jimmy’s standing there, in the doorway to the infirmary.

He’s a little green around the gills, and his green tunic is torn and stained coppery around his stomach, and the shadows under his eyes are deep and waxy, but he’s alive. He’s alive and right there and they made it.

It only takes a moment of staring at each other before Jimmy hurries over to his side (his stride is stilted somewhat, one arm clutched around his stomach) and kisses him.

It’s quick, and not at all deep, and just once Scott wishes they could have a kiss that isn’t urgent and aggressive with the thrill of survival, but it’s Jimmy and it’s kissing, so he supposes he doesn’t mind it too much.

Jimmy only breaks the kiss to pull Scott into a hug, and he smells like river and earth and is very damp, but Scott just hugs him back with his one arm and tries not to cry into his shoulder.

Jimmy’s alive.

They’re both alive, and Xornoth is defeated, and they can finally just be happy.

They made it.

“I can't stay,” Jimmy says, voice muffled against Scott’s shoulder. “Lizzie and I are going to go reclaim the Codlands.”

Scott gives a wet little chuckle. “By yourselves?”

“Honestly, we probably could,” Jimmy laughs. “Have you seen Lizzie yet? She’s massive.”

“Sorry, what?”

Jimmy finally pulls away, eases himself into the chair that Pix had vacated with a bit of a grimace. “Yeah. Apparently she ate this weird, squishy ball thing that she found in an old book? And—”

“No,” Scott groans. She didn’t. “I literally told her—”

“—and it turned her into this huge blue sea monster. So she’s giving me a ride to the Codlands, and we’re going to kick Mythland out once and for all!”

Scott does recall seeing a monster break out of the church during the battle, before choosing to go a different direction. And that was Lizzie? “Is—is she going to turn back?” he asks incredulously.

Jimmy shrugs. “We’ll see. She and I . . . we have a lot to talk about. And Pix said something . . . odd.”

“Did he imply that you’re a figure of legend that had been prophecied about?” asks Scott drily.

Jimmy nods.

“Well, that makes two of us.”

Jimmy grins, looks down at the floor.

It’s quiet for a moment. A comfortable quiet, not strained or awkward or anything of the sort.

Scott takes a moment just to stare at him—at Jimmy’s straw-colored hair, the glimmering scales pushing through the scar tissue on his face, the sharp cut-off of one of his ears, the delicate spindles of the other.

In the low light of the moon’s glow, he’s gorgeous. He’s always gorgeous, of course, but something about the way the light cast from the window falls over his lover’s brow leaves Scott in awe.

Jimmy is beautiful.

Scott’s sorry there was ever a time he hadn’t noticed.

“I’m sorry,” Jimmy says eventually, just as Scott’s mind has turned back to pondering his arm.

“What?”

“For—for everything. For the whole—” Jimmy waves his arms. “You know.”

Slowly, Scott shakes his head.

“Lizzie told me—well, she said it was really hard. And I know it was, but I kind of figured that—well, I’m not that important. I didn’t think anyone would be very sad about my death after a week or so had gone by.”

Jimmy shifts, one hand on the back of his neck; something in Scott’s stomach squirms uncomfortably, something that he’s been resolutely pushing down since that hug that broke his curse.

“And Lizzie—Lizzie didn’t like that. She said that I don’t know what you all felt and went through, and I don't get to decide what you feel. She’s kind of mad at me, now. And I didn’t really understand why you were upset with me at the camp, but I think I’m starting to get it now. So, I’m sorry.”

It does still hurt. Scott can’t just forget crying himself to sleep almost every night. He can’t forget looking at himself in that black veil every morning, his eyes red and heart broken.

But Jimmy’s here.

“I’m not sure I really get it, either,” Scott confesses. He doesn’t, kind of. He had been so terrible with Jimmy, and for what? For being alive? “But . . . she’s right. I—I lost you, Jimmy. I thought I would never see you again. It . . . it was difficult to leave that grief, I think. It was difficult to have it all built up inside, then have the reason taken away. You’re left with all sorts of awful feelings and . . . and no reason to have them. Does that make sense?”

Jimmy doesn’t respond.

But after a moment, he reaches out and takes Scott’s good hand in his, thumb tracing over the back of Scott’s hand.

His stomach flips, just like every time.

“You don’t have to hold my hand everywhere anymore,” Scott says, more for a lack of anything to say than to try and push Jimmy away. “Something about the sword being magic and fixing it, I’m not really sure. But I can control it now.”

Jimmy frowns. “Wait a second—the sword?”

At Scott’s nod, he continues, “Does that mean that it was the sword all along? Because I, like, always had it with me?”

Wait.

Does that actually make some sort of sense?

Scott had thought it was the power of Jimmy’s love, overcoming even the most stubborn of curses, but maybe Jimmy was just a conductor of sorts for the sword, giving Scott a temporary binding whenever they touched.

Scott’s head hurts. They’ve won, yes (and how wonderful it is to think those words), but each of his current issues feel beyond comprehension. His whole body kind of aches with the need to sleep, the need to process everything that’s happened, the need to just take a break.

“What time is it?” he asks idly. Jimmy shrugs.

“Past midnight. I’ve been asleep for a while, so I’m not really sure.”

So has he.

Well, he’s spent enough time resting. He needs to get up, organize his country, help the injured, properly send fWhip’s army packing.

Jimmy tries to push him back down when he sits up, but Scott swings his legs over the side of the bed and stands, his left arm hanging limply (and hurting quite a lot) at his side.

That's going to take some getting used to.

Dear Aeor, he desperately wants to lie back down and rest until the end of time (or, at least, until Jimmy returns from the Codlands). He doesn’t give in to the longing, though, just squints his eyes shut for a very long time and eventually takes a step.

He really doesn’t want to sleep, anyways. Memories (bad, sharp, unforgiving) push from the sterilized scent of the infirmary, and now that he’s stood he just wants to leave.

He doesn’t want nightmares.

“A king never rests,” he says when Jimmy tries to convince him to lie down. “There’s a lot of work to do.”

“Let Pix and Katherine handle it, okay? Sleep—”

“But you’re going to be—”

“Lizzie and I will be fine, you can—”

“I don’t want to sleep without you,” Scott manages (which was absolutely not what he meant to say), and Jimmy goes a little pink in the cheeks.

“And I need to explain some things, and organize, and . . . there’s business that requires me. Just as there’s business that requires you.”

Jimmy shakes his head, gives him a gorgeous little smile. “Right. Just don’t overdo it, okay? I’ve got to go, but I love you.”

Jimmy leaves with another soft kiss—and Jimmy’s alive, Scott thought he’d gotten over the novelty of it weeks ago, but Jimmy’s alive and they’re back in Rivendell and they have their whole future ahead of them—

And then he leaves the palace as well, stepping outside to look over the kingdom, once again rightfully his.

Even in the dim light of the night, Scott can see the destruction. The very walls of the palace has been pulled down, rubble all over the grounds. The gardens are wartorn, the grass stained red with blood or demolished tentacles, and there are people here and there, cleaning or carrying away bodies. The full moon shines upon the destroyed church down the hill, illuminating its crumbled walls in a holy glow.

Scott limps down the stairs, down, down to the palace grounds—he picks through patches of destroyed grass, abandoned weapons and armor, exhausted people helping others. He walks down the lawn, down to that spot where the grass is so beaten down that it forms a clear circle where soldiers had paused to watch, all eyes turned toward where the final battle had taken place.

And in the grass near the center of the circle, he finds a cloudy red crystal, the size of his palm.

Scott picks it up, weighs it in his right hand.

Then he puts it in his pocket.

~

The language used to represent the language of the gods is Mixteco.

[translation:

“You have the power of god with you, my son. How do you feel?”

“Bad.”

“You are my beloved, child. Follow me in all things, and you will enter into my rest.”

“Okay. Thank you.”

“Rest, my child.”

End translation.]

[midnight-moth-musings]

The Butcher's Boy, Part 1

John "Soap" Mactavish x reader, medieval au

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4

---

I stare at my reflection in mirror in front of me, trying to ignore the endless chatter of my mother and the seamstress behind me. The dress is gorgeous--fit for royalty I suppose. The expensive, purple silk cascades down my body and pools down to my feet just right, hugging my corseted waist tightly. I begin to tug at the long sleeves with mild frustration. The expensive silk itches at my skin as I try to adjust it. My mother approaches from behind and slaps my hand away.

"Stop with your fidgeting. Ladies do not fidget." I would roll my eyes at her, but that would call for a later punishment--one that I would like to avoid.

"Yes, mother." I murmur. I avoid making contact with my own eyes in the mirror, knowing that there are likely glossed over as the reality of my situation sinks in.

"Many girls would kill for a chance like this. You have been chosen as a possible wife for the king, are you not happy?" I turn to face my mother. A stern woman, one who has embraced the life of a noblewoman steadfastly.

"I am happy for you and father." My mother purses her thin lips and silently seethes at my reply. Before our conversation can progress further, the seamstress approaches. I envy the older woman's calm demeanor and her simple life.

"How do we like the dress, dears?" She smiles brightly at us. Her hair is greyed, long and curly, only pinned back to reveal her face. My mother looks down on her, I can see the judgement in her eyes every time we enter her shop.

"We will take it." My mother replies quickly. The seamstress nods and begins to undress me. She begins to help me undress and put on the dress I came in. My mother walks outside to our carriage to wait, albeit impatiently.

"Thank you, Miss Imelda." I smile at the seamstress as she finishes fixing my hair by tying a silk scarf around my head. I walk outside the shop and enter the carriage slowly to try and avoid the stern talking to I will likely receive. Instead, I am hit with silence as my mother ignores me. The carriage lurches forward and I stare outside the small window as we travel home. We reach home after minutes of silence, and I am helped out of the carriage by one of the footmen. My mother pushes past me quickly to enter our home and I walk upstairs to my room alone. I collapse on my bed and burrow my head against one of my pillows in a huff.

"Lady Y/N?" I tilt my head up with a groan to meet the smiling face of my maid, Clara. I feel the bed move as she sits beside me. "It seems you had great fun at the seamstress." She giggles as I roll my eyes.

"It was awful. My mother insists on dressing me like a doll. If she insists upon dressing my hair in pins and bows, I may impale myself on one of the pins to escape it." Clara rubs my back gently as she smiles down at me.

"I could think of worse fates than to wed a king." I begin to roll my eyes again, but Clara pinches my cheek. "Hush." I swat at her shoulder grumpily as I rub over the sore skin. "Would it brighten your mood to join me for some errands?" I sit up with a grin, eager to leave the confines of my home as I am often not allowed to leave for such trivial tasks.

"Of course!" Clara giggles again as I hug her tightly and stand up from the bed.

In town, Clara and I walk from shop to shop as she collects a variety of items. I scrunch my nose as we approach the butcher, already imagining the stench of raw meat and blood. Clara tugs me along impatiently as we enter the shop. She walks over to the end of the counter to speak to an older man who awaits her with a smile. My eyes flicker around the shop as I stand in the corner. I take a few steps toward the counter hesitantly, looking to the array of raw meat and animals products strung about. My attention is distracted by the sudden entrance of a young man through the back of the shop. Clad in a white apron stained in red, his bulky frame approaches. My eyes trail from his muscular arms down to the large piece of meat in his hand. He carries it almost weightlessly.

Slam! I'm snapped out of my daydream as he slaps the meat on the counter and begins to chop at it with a knife. Instead of repulsion, I find myself oddly interested in the action as his thick arm slams down on the meat to separate it into pieces. Blood splatters on his already dirty apron as I watch him quickly butcher the piece of meat into small pieces. Ladies do not stare, I begin to repeat. He begins to wrap several pieces in brown paper, tying with string to keep it intact. His nimble fingers quickly tie knots around the paper, gripping the packages with his large, calloused hands. Dark specks of coarse hair cover his hands and arms. I begin to imagine the feeling of it contrasted with my soft skin. Ladies do not stare. His head tilts up and I'm met with the bluest eyes I have ever seen. Dark brows and a coarse beard frame his face almost perfectly. I quickly avert my eyes to the stone floor as he notices my staring, cursing at myself for my lack of manners.

"Need somethin' lass?" My stomach drops at the unfamiliar voice but I raise my head cautiously to see the man staring at me with a boyish grin.

"N-No, I'm just waiting." I curse myself again for stuttering. Ladies do not stutter, my mother's voice replays in my head. I catch a glimpse of dark tufts of hair sprawling down his neck to his chest as he leans against the counter.

"Aye, you're here with Clara hm?" I look back over at Clara, who is in a deep discussion with the older man. I muster a nod as I look back at the man next to me. "I haven't seen ya here before. Would've remembered a face like yours." I find myself reddening as he winks boldly at me.

"I-I...no, I haven't. I'm Y/N." I gulp as he extends his arm to me. Never allow a commoner to touch you, mother says. Throwing caution to the wind, I take his hand hesitantly and he pulls mine in for a soft kiss. The bristles of his beard brush against my skin as his lips touch my knuckles gently. I almost forget to breathe for the moments that follow. Our hands disconnect and I carefully put my arm to the side as the area he touched remains tingling.

"Johnny." He smiles brightly at me. "Johnny Mactavish. It's a pleasure to meet ya bonnie." I smile back at him widely, my cheeks red as he stares back at me. We stand silently for a few moments before Clara walks over and grabs my arm.

"Ready, Lady Y/N?" I'm snapped away from his blue eyes as I look over at Clara next to me. I nod, wiping at my cheeks as if I can remove the blush with only my hands. She smiles over at the man next to me--Johnny.

"Safe travels, ladies." Johnny waves at the both of us, focusing his attention longer on me as he sends me a second wink. Clara walks us out of the shop and I feel almost empty as we leave--as if my soul just found a missing piece of it and is now being ripped away. I smile softly to myself as Clara and I travel back home, unable to fully immerse myself in her chatter as we walk together. Later that night, I catch myself dreaming in a sea of blue as I trace a finger over the skin of my knuckles that he kissed.

---

This is the dress that I imagine for the beginning ^^^

-P

[jerzwriter]

I've written an extensive background HC for Eli, and I have one for Zoe, too, though it's lived only in my head and never made it to paper. This short series is meant to change that.

Series Summary: About a year after the solstice, Zoe Rivera is dreading her upcoming birthday. It's a day that has always been difficult for her, but with the loss of her sister, the only connection to her past, this year is proving to be harder than most. As her friends and found family attempt to help her through, Zoe makes many discoveries about herself, her past, and the future she hopes to build.

Part 1: Ring the Bells That Can Still Ring

Book: Wake the Dead Pairing: Eli Sipes x Zoe Rivera (F!MC) Characters: Troy Hassan, Shannon Fox, Angel Savage, Mina Arbogast, May, Feather, original characters Rating: Teen TW: Mentions of death & loss Words: 3,200 Chapter Summary: Angel is excited to start new traditions at Olympus, but Zoe makes it very clear that she wants no part in one. As Eli & Troy attempt to help her deal with feelings of grief, Zoe makes a conscious effort to focus on what she has today. But a trip to scavenge for supplies lead to some fateful discoveries.

A/N: I expect this series to be 3 or 4 parts. I'm participating in @choicesjunechallenge2024 - Threshold, Beginnings, and Endings.

It was a relatively quiet night at Olympus. Springtime had returned and brought a multitude of chores to be completed along with it. Most of the colonists had spent the unseasonably warm day gardening or tending to building repairs impossible to complete during the harsh winter months. It was no surprise that most were petered out and already tucked into their beds. But a small group who weren't willing to let the evening just yet were gathered in the great room.

Troy, Mina, and Shannon were in a corner playing an old game of Jenga that Troy had recently acquired as others gathered around the fire to sing and tell stories. Eli sat nearby, half-listening as he worked on repairing his bow, while Angel lounged on a nearby couch, extremely excited over her activity. Tapping the purple pencil in her hand against her notebook, she exclaimed.

“I’m almost done! I only need to more people!

“Who do you still need?” Shannon hollered over.

“Just Feather and Zoe.”

Fresh out of the shower, Zoe entered the room, vigorously drying her long hair with a towel.  “You need Feather and Zoe for what?” she responded.

“Oh! I’m making a birthday list for the colony. This way, no one’s special day will ever be forgotten.

Troy’s eyes popped up and darted immediately to Zoe. His brow furrowed in concern; he wished he could have spoken to Angel just minutes sooner.

“Thank you, Angel. But I’d prefer not to be included,” Zoe replied curtly.  

But Angel wasn’t taking no for an answer. “Zoe, we need to include you! Do you think we’re going to celebrate everyone’s birthday except yours?”

“Angel, I said no!” the usually affable leader snapped.

Clearing his throat, Eli placed his bow at his feet and went to Zoe’s side. He was almost there when a loud clattering noise caused him to jump, and everyone turned in Troy's direction.

"Sorry!” Troy blushed; the collapsed Jenga tower crumbled before him on the table.

“How did you manage that?” Mina blurted. “There were a dozen safe moves you could have made!”

“Don’t question it!” Shanon grinned. “This might be our chance to finally win!”  

With the chaos as a distraction, Eli locked eyes with Zoe as he took her by the hand and cocked his head toward the exit. Once Troy was certain they were gone, he began to reassemble the bits of fallen wood again.

“I want a do-over!” He complained.

“Not a chance,” Angel laughed. “But I still need Zoe’s birthday. Where’d she go?"

“Yeah, about that,” Troy grimaced. “It’s best to let the birthday thing go with her. It’s... complicated.”

“What’s complicated?” Angel shrugged. “We live in a zombie-infested world. I spent most of my birthdays alone, playing whack-a-mole with them at the mall. I want to embrace the good, and that includes celebrating birthdays with my new family.”

“I know. But you have to understand Zoe’s birthday has always been a touchy issue. When we were kids, she didn’t like celebrating because she said it was the day her mother gave her away, then when her fathers died, she didn’t want to celebrate at all. If not for Ana convincing her, she wouldn't have celebrated at all."

"Well, what did Ana tell her?" Shannon asked. "Maybe we could do the same thing."

"She told her how happy she was to have a little sister, so they had to celebrate the day she came into the world.”

“That’s so sad but lovely, too,” Shannon stated. “With Ana gone now, it must be especially hard for her.”

Troy sat back and ran a hand through his well-coiffed hair, a somber look in his eyes. “This stays here... right?”

“Of course,” they all agreed.

“Zoe’s birthday is coming up soon. May 24th, to be exact.”

“Wow! So her birthday was just before we all met!” Shanon remarked.

“It was on the day we met. You had to be 25 to be a scout, and that’s what Zoe always wanted to be. She insisted on starting her new position that very day."

“You’re kidding! That’s how she wanted to... Oh my, God,” Shannon covered her mouth as the tragic realization set in.

“Yep,” Troy frowned. “Ana died on Zoe’s birthday.”

“Oh my goodness!” Angel wailed. “That’s terrible!”

“It makes sense that she wouldn’t want to celebrate,” Mina nodded.

“But she’s so special,” Angel inserted. “And it seems unfair to celebrate all of us... but not her.”

“We have to honor her wishes,” Troy insisted. “Eli and I have both spoken to her and told her Ana would have wanted her to celebrate. But Ana was the family she had, her only link to her life before the outbreak. If she’s not ready, we can’t push her.”

“We could just celebrate on another day?” Angel offered. “Like November 9th is official Zoe day!”

But Troy shot the idea down. “I think it’s best we let it be, at least for now.”

~~~~~

Upstairs, Eli sat in bed beside Zoe, gently rubbing the distressed young woman's back.

“She meant well,” Eli mumbled. “I can talk to Angel."

“I’m sure Troy already has,” Zoe said, leaning into Eli’s embrace. She didn't like dwelling on the losses she had endured, but sometimes, like now, it seemed impossible to escape. She tried to lose herself in Eli's woodsy scent and the warmth that radiated from him, but the seed had already been planted, and within moments, her tears began to flow.

“I miss her, Eli," she wailed. "I miss her so much.”

“I know,” he comforted. “I know.”

In a world where no one was immune to tragedy and loss, Zoe knew Eli truly understood. The loss of his brother and the loss of Ana had many parallels; it was something that had drawn them together. She reached out for his hand and held it close. It was good to not be alone.

“I hate that you lost her on your birthday... of all days.”

Zoe tried to shrug it off. “Birthdays weren’t important at the Tower. It was rare that they were even acknowledged. But growing up, Ana and Troy always went out of their way to make me feel special on my day, and I did the same for them.”  

“Would it help to tell me about some of those days?” he asked.  

“Well, Troy always knew how to... find... treats and things we weren’t supposed to have, even as kids.”

“Good ol’ Troy,” Eli smirked.

“Exactly! He’d knock at our door with some cookies or candy in hand. They weren’t even all that good – but compared to what we usually ate, we thought it was incredible! Ana did her best to keep some of our family traditions alive, but she even admitted she wasn’t sure she was doing them correctly. We were so young when the outbreak happened, and with all the trauma, her memory wasn't the best.”

“So you started your own traditions,” Eli said. "That's what mattered."

“I guess,” Zoe smiled. “As I got older, one of those traditions became Ana securing a whole bunch of beer. We’d lock ourselves in our room, drink entirely too much, and act like total idiots. The evening usually ended with us dancing or Troy putting on some sort of a performance.”

Eli shook his head. “Please tell me he kept his clothes on, at least.”

Zoe laughed at the thought, and Eli instantly felt some of the tension in his shoulders drift away. Seeing her suffer was never easy, and her laughter warmed his heart.  

“If he did, I was too drunk to remember.”

“You were lucky to have each other.”

“We were,” she agreed. “What were your birthdays like ... after the outbreak?”

“My birthday was in the winter. That was good because it meant fewer zombies to worry about. We could let our guard down a bit. But winter also meant fewer supplies and sometimes storms so bad we were confined to the cabin. Still, my parents found ways to make it special. My Mom made pudding or a cake when she could, Dad would play his guitar, and David always drew something for me, too.”

Zoe snuggled against his chest. “You were lucky, too.”

“Yeah...” Eli replied with a soft smile. “I was. We were. We still are. We have each other... and all the lunatics downstairs. I don’t have my family anymore, but I have a family again. In this world, most people aren’t lucky enough to get that once, but we got it twice.”

Zoe lurched into an upright position and turned to Eli with a half-smile. “Is this where you tell me that’s why I should still celebrate my birthday? I get that. But I'm not comfortable celebrating the anniversary of my sister’s death."

“Of course not,” he replied, pulling her back to him. “That has to be your call.  I just want you to remember, there are still people who are grateful you’re here, who love you very much... and I’m at the top of that list.”

~~~~~

The following day, the gang was up bright and early to head out and scavenge. They piled into their old van, and as Troy drove them through meandering roads, it took Zoe back to that day nearly a year ago. Her chest tightened as the dark cloud attempted to envelop her once again. Angel sat just a few feet away. She had been especially quiet this morning. Knowing it likely had something to do with her, Zoe reached over and squeezed her hand.

“I hope you don’t think I’m upset with you,” Zoe stated. “Because I’m not.”

Angel had a shadow of a smile when she placed her head on Zoe’s shoulder.

“I didn’t mean to bring up any bad memories. I'd never want to hurt you."

“I know that,” Zoe sighed. “My birthday is... complicated, to say the least.”

“I know, Troy explained.”

Troy looked in the rearview mirror, aghast. “Gee, thanks, Angel! What happened to what happened in the great room, stayed in the great room?”

“It’s all right, Troy,” Zoe chuckled. “I know you’re trying to help me.”

Zoe took a deep breath before addressing her friends. "I'd like to give you an explanation. Ana and I had two fathers; our mother wasn't in my life from the start. From what I was told, she left my father one day when he went to pick up Ana from school. He was distraught and happy when she returned a couple weeks later. But she didn't come back to stay; she wanted to let him know she was pregnant. She wanted a divorce, but she didn't want me. But Papa convinced her to have me and promised he'd raise me and Ana alone. She agreed, and on the day I was born, she handed me over and never saw me again.”

“Zoe,” Shanon whimpered, taking her friend’s other hand.

“Yeah, well, screw her!” Angel blurted. “It was her loss! Your Dad & Ana loved you. That’s all that mattered.”

“But how did you end up with two dads?” Mina asked.

“Papa, my bio-dad, was good friends with Sam. After my mother left, he was there to help my father and Ana through. By the time I was born, they had fallen in love and not long after, they were married, and Sam legally adopted us. Ana said they were so happy; our family was complete."

“So the story had a happy ending,” Shannon started. “Until the outbreak, at least.”  

“Yep,” Zoe snapped. “But at least I had Ana and later Troy – they became my family, and Ana insisted I celebrated my birthday each year. But now that she’s gone, I just....”

She shielded her eyes when her voice cracked, not wanting others to see her cry, but she was following no one.

Eli and Troy shot each other a look of concern in the front seat as Shanon, Angel, and Mina tended to Zoe.

“I’m just afraid,” Zoe sniffled. “I’m afraid I’ll forget the little I know about my family. Ana was my touchstone; everything I knew about Papa and Dad was because of her, and she’s gone...”

“You’ll remember,” Eli called back. “You’ll remember, and we’ll help you. You can tell us the stories you know over and over again, and we’ll help keep those memories alive.”

“That’s a great idea,” Shanon nodded. “We could all talk about our former lives so we don’t forget the things that make us who we are today.”

“I’m so glad I have all of you,” Zoe declared.

“And we’re glad we have you,” Angel replied as the women embraced in a group hug.

The van wobbled slightly as Troy pulled over to the side of the road.

“Ladies,” he smiled. “And Eli...of course... we’re here. If you want some time, Eli and I could start, and...”

“No,” Zoe insisted, standing up and dusting herself off. “No, we have a job to do. Let’s do it!”

They split into groups to survey the well-picked-over stores and homes on their route. It didn't take long to realize they weren't going to find much in the rubble. Zoe was about to announce they should call it a day when something caught her eye.

Using her jacket sleeve, she brushed a thick layer of dust off a glass counter and smiled tenderly as she gazed at the treasure inside. She reached in and pulled out an old, weathered doll. The poor thing had seen better days but was in remarkably good condition. Her dainty porcelain face and arms were still in tact, and while her clothing was in need of a wash and had some loose trimming, it was amazing it survived this long. Noticing the enchanted look on his friend's face, Troy snuck up behind her.

“Whatcha got there?” He asked.

“A doll,” Zoe beamed. “I remember Ana and I had similar ones when we were little. Look!” She handed the doll to Troy. “I think her clothing is traditional Mexican attire. Papa was Mexican, and I believe my mother was half Mexican, too...”

“I know that,” Troy winked, handing the doll back to Zoe. “And you did have dolls like this growing up."

"I did? How do you know that?" She asked.

"Because Ana had described them to me. She told me to be on the lookout, and if I ever found one, to please let her know."

Zoe took the doll back, a feeling of contentment she hadn't felt in days washed over her.

"I think you need to give her a new home," Troy smiled.

“I most certainly do!"

Home. Zoe couldn’t wait to get home. She wanted to clean her new treasure and reminisce about a simpler time. Perhaps she could find more information in the old encyclopedia Troy put in the library.  She looked out the window of the moving van; the sky was now just whisps amber in a field of grey as the day neared its end. Home. She was heading home surrounded by her new family and the tranquility of the moment was cherished... but, alas, short-lived.

“Whoa, watch over there!” Eli yelled, pointing to a shadowy figure lurking on the side of the road. He raised his bow into position.

But as they neared the figure, something in Zoe came alive.

“Eli, wait,” she blurted. “Don’t shoot... I don’t think that’s a drone; it looks like a person.”

“And that makes them any safer?” Eli questioned.

“It’s an old lady,” Shannon snapped back. “She shouldn’t be out by herself at this time of day!”

“In the woods, no less,” Mina chimed in.

“Troy,” Zoe ordered. “Stop the van.”

“What?” Eli spat. “Are you out of your mind.”

“I said stop the van!”

Zoe opened the sliding door and jumped before anyone could stop her; Eli and the others were quick at her heels.

“What are you doing?” Mina asked. “You have no idea who that is!”

"Finally, some logic," Eli muttered.

“It’s an old woman out alone at night, and I’m not about to leave her. I know we live in a dangerous world, but if we lose our humanity - then we will truly have nothing left."

"Fine," Eli said, holding his bow in place. "But I'm keeping this out... just in case."

“Simmer down there, cowboy,” Troy mocked. “She’s hunched over and looks like she is ninety years old!”

“No matter... one wrong move....”

“Excuse me,” Zoe said, startling the old woman at first. “Do you need help? You shouldn’t be alone at night... especially not in the woods.  It will be completely dark any moment now."

The woman turned to Zoe slowly, and even in the dim light, with her wiry grey curls covering much of her face, it was easy to see her gentle smile and the kind look in her warm, brown eyes.

“It’s all right, child. I’ll manage. I always do.”

“Do you live around here? Can we at least give you a ride home?”

"The world is my home."

“You don't... you don't have," Zoe turned and looked at the others, but made the split-second decision on her own. "You're welcome to come with us and stay at our colony, at least for the night.”

The woman looked over Zoe’s shoulder at her friends huddled behind her, nodding at Eli, who still had his bow aimed in her direction.

“That one loves you very much,” the old woman teased.

Zoe looked back and rolled her eyes. “Eli, put the bow down.”

“No, no, no... mi vida,” the old woman smiled. “Leave it be. He’s protecting you; you should be grateful to him. But I assure you, I am of no danger to you.”

 “Eli....” Zoe repeated, but he was unmoved.

“Not... just... yet.”

“I'm sorry," Zoe apologized. "If it makes you feel any better, that’s how he and I met, too, and now... I love him.”

“That’s good to know,” the old woman chortled.

“Look, if you don’t have someplace to stay tonight, our colony isn't far from here. Come and stay with us."

“Oh, no," she shook her head, the grey curls bouncing in every direction. "I don’t do well living in colonies.”

Zoe couldn't explain why, but something inside her couldn't let this woman walk away. She had to protect her, and no was an unacceptable answer.

“I understand, but just for the night, then. You can wash up, get a good night's sleep, have some breakfast, and be off in the morning if you like. What do you say?"

She looked between Zoe and her friends, and with a polite nod, she agreed for just one night.

Troy extended his hand before helping the woman into the van.

"Hello, I'm Troy. I'm the nice one.”

"Troy," Zoe laughed, playfully hitting the back of his head. "Shut up!"

"We're all nice," Angel grinned. "Even the scary-looking one up front... as long as you're not a zombie or don't cross us."

"I'll take that into account," she smiled.

"I should introduce everyone. I'm Zoe, and you've already been introduced to Troy. This is Shannon, Mina, and Eli."

"It's very nice to meet you all. My name is Adelina."

Shannon was the first to reply. "It's lovely to meet you, Adelina." She gestured to a bag at her side. "We can eat back at Olympus, but there is water here if you'd like some."

"Thank you," Adelia replied, happily drinking the bottle of water in one long gulp. Zoe smiled. Obviously, the woman needed more help than she let on.

"We should be back home in about twenty minutes," Zoe informed. "You can rest if you like."

"Gracias, mi vida. I think I'll do just that."

Adelia looked out at the night sky. The shades of amber were long gone, replaced by a swath of black velvet. The scattered silver speckles were stars, the stars that would guide them home.

Home, Adelia smiled, then drifted off to sleep.

@choicesficwriterscreations

Tagging others separately.

[beautifulloverwitch]

By Fire, Sea and Blood

the untold tale of an approaching collapse

Act I: Chapter twelve: Depravity

Previous ///// Next

Summary: the realm gathers to mourn the death of a child they had long forsaken. As the commit her to ash and quickly send their condolence to the distraught heir, one question lingers in the air, what had happened to princess Daenerys?

A/n: Filler chapter, a lil something before the end of Act I!

_________________

Pairing: Aemond Targaryen x Daenerys Velaryon (Strong! Oc)

WC: 3.9k

Warnings: Rated +16, Death, Denial, implied rape, religious punishment.

Masterlist

The silent sisters, the strangers' wives.

Stood clad in grey around the charred body of the young princess. Hands carefully adjusting the position she was burnt into, folding her curled hands over her chest, pushing her spine gently down so that it would straighten, adjusting the remaining bent leg to lay down against the cold stone, seeming terribly indifferent to what they were doing, for they had seen every horror left behind by their cruel husband for them to clean. 

They began their work, to their fortune it would not be long, for all that was left was bone and shrunken flesh. No organs to pull, nothing to stuff full of fragrant herbs and salts to hide the smell of rot. They placed a roll of hay where her right leg should have been, to make the wrapping part ever so slightly easier.

The tired Rhaenyra stood back as she watched the silent sisters set to work. Her wavy hair cascading down her back and hanging around her gaunt face, donning a mask of defeat with her black robes and velvet headpiece etched with embroideries of red. 

They grabbed a long strip of cloth and began at her foot, tightly wrapping it, ensuring it would not slip from its place and making their way up.  

Rhaenyras eyes stared at the head, it had been days before she had allowed for the Silent Sisters to begin their work. She did not even move to console her children in the short time since her daughters return. She had spent those days raking the blackened corpse for some inkling of her daughter.

There was not a thread of her chocolate brown curly hair adorning her scalp, no flesh covering her once full cheeks, and no lips to curl up into a smile nor a frown that Rhaenyra would have given anything to see again. 

Her gaze moved up to her eyes, or atleast where they should have been. The two inky wells making doubts curl around every nerve that controlled reason, where were her eyes? She would ask herself, as she remembered their glow and their ethereal nature. The flecks of blue and yellow that would shine within the pools of purple in the right light. 

This was not her daughter.

It could not have been.

While her daughter glowed, this body absorbed all light around it, a void. A void that called itself her daughter.

This was not her daughter.

While her daughter approached the world with open arms, this body greeted its home with curled ones.

This was not her daughter.

While her daughter's eyes gleamed with wonder, those two hollows radiated a terrible omen.

This was not her daughter. 

“Rhaenyra.” 

Her eyes fluttered as she drew her attention away from the body, instead landing on the face of the man she chose.

Daemon bowed his head, not meeting her gaze, not ever meeting her gaze since her daughter was returned to her. He was ashamed, for he had failed to fulfil his first promise to her as her husband, the husband she had chosen to protect her to strengthen her.

A certain anger at herself licked at her heart, this is who she had chosen, this is the man she had long longed for, and it only cost her only daughter's life.

She glanced back towards the table back at the body, but now it was wrapped in a beige fraying cloth, tied together by brown leather. There was truly nothing left for her to recognise only a body she was supposed to assume to be her daughter.

This is not your daughter.

“It’s time.”

A tired breath left her lips before she moved away towards the door, without Daemon. He sniffled as she walked past him, paying him no mind, driving the poisoned dagger he impaled into his own chest further.

Her handmaidens patiently awaited her outside, gentle as they fixed her up, brushing away the wrinkles in her gown, tucking stray hairs behind her ears, she had not let them do anything else to her mane. 

Elinda, her youngest and newest handmaiden stepped forth as the others all stepped back, her face a mask of sorrow as she pulled the black veil over Rhaenyras face. 

They parted a path for Rhaenyra to tread, towards the field where everyone had waited, all the guests she did not recall sending letters to, excusing her from bothering to greet them.

Her children waited at the door with big glassy eyes beyond it. The poor boys received no comfort from their distraught mother and barely any consoling from their now step father.

Their grandmother had offered them and their cousins her shoulder, doing all she could to soothe this terrible grief.

But besides that they had no one other than each other.

They were not told how she had died, a decision of the kindest intention, but it had left them to imagine what horror must have taken the life of their sweet sister.

The sombre and sniffling Jacaerys held his brother close to his side, a sombreness he found difficult to maintain. He knew he needed to be strong for Luke and for Joff, but who was to be strong for him, his sister was gone, his mother was beside herself, he was alone. 

Footsteps came from behind him prompting him to look away from the outside and towards the hallway. His breath hitched in his throat as he saw the shadowy silent sisters breeze past, in their arms, the shrouded body of his elder sister.

She was so small, so still, so quiet. 

Lucerys sobbed as he saw her, his voice so broken as her name fell from his quivering lips, calling out to her as though she would arise. He moved towards her but his brother's tightening grasp kept him in his place. 

Rhaenyra walked behind the three sisters, her red eyes staring blankly ahead of herself, refusing to meet the figure in the arms of the strangers' wives.

“Dany?” 

A quiet voice came from her right, she turned to look towards the source, her eyes landed on the curly head of hair that belonged to her son, Luke, how red his thin cheeks were, how deep the lines of his anguished frown had embedded themselves into his young flesh.

Her eyes then landed on the arms around him, trailing up and meeting the startled face of her now eldest child, a truth that tasted bitter on her tongue. 

She searched around them looking for the third head of brown hair but it was not there. A space marked where she once stood between her two brothers, a space that seemed so noticeable.

Lucerys sobbed, a fresh wave of tears flooding his still wet cheeks as his sister moved past. 

“Luke,” his mother called.

His vision was too obscured to realise the figure to be his mother, she was shrouded in so much black cloth that he had mistaken her for a fourth member of the silent sisters.

He tore himself away from Jace and ran to his mother. His arms tightly wrapped around her waist as he nuzzled his face into her stomach, wetting her dress with his unending tears.

Her hand moved from her side and rested on his head, brushing through his curly locks while she continued to emptily stare at the empty space between her sons. The faint sound of her dragon’s roars outside, ringing in her ears.

Daemon joined her side, hands tightly wrapped around Dark Sister “īlon līs ōregon kostōba gō zirȳ,” We must hold strong before them he muttered beneath his breath to Rhaenyra who snapped her head towards him.

She refused to look at him as he did her, instead nodding in acknowledgement and placing her hands on Luke's shoulders, gently prying him away and lifting his chin up to look up at her. Holding a stiff lip as she saw his face aged by grief “it’s time,” she grabbed his hand in hers, to which he rested his other hand upon as well pushing himself into her side, Frowning and squirming in discomfort at her coldness “Jacaerys?” 

Jace looked away from the body as it was set up upon the yet to be lit pyre, his eyes remained agape with horror as he looked back towards his mother who offered him her open hand.

He slowly made his way to her side, staring at the ground as he felt her brush his head before grabbing his limp hand in hers.

A shuddered breath left her lips and she moved forward with her sons in hand, to bid an unwanted farewell.

The sisters descended into a field of stone that overlooked the angry seas. The sky was as solemn as those who had attended, there was no joy in attending the committal of a child. An itching guilt gnashing at their skin. 

As they passed the king a shudder of terror past his lips, for he had yet to accept the truth of this nightmare. Tears began to swell within his eyes again for his eldest granddaughter tightly wrapped in fine cloth, lifted to rest upon a bed of wood and wilted flowers.

Alicent refused to look, her wide eyed gaze plastered to the ground as she clenched the star that sat heavy on her chest. Whispers of safe travel for this poor child's soul falling endlessly from her chapped lips. 

Her whispers were challenged by the whispers of her disturbed daughter, who muttered beneath her breath a riddle over and over as she swayed around on her feet, knees daring to give way. Seemingly in disbelief of its falseness as she stared at the corpse ahead of her.

“The darkness has called and the seas have roared, to the tides she succumbs and from the tides she will rise, thrice more.”

She searched those words for comfort but they offered her none as the proof of their falseness was laid before her, so she decided to shut her eyes to the truth and trust that it would soon be proven a lie.

Aegon was quiet, uncommonly quiet, he stared at that corpse with trepidation in his eyes.

Beside him was his younger brother. Who stood tall by his brothers side, lips twisting and turning as he battled with his feelings for her. 

A twisting hurricane of hate and anguish swirled within him. He was anguished for having lost her, an anguish that denied him having ever come to hate her, but his hate for her kin, her craven brothers and her sorry excuse of a mother. It was their fault she had died, they had not kept her safe, he would even assume they had not treated her kindly. For why else would she have ever left? 

He wished that she had come to King's Landing, he wished that she had taken whichever ship headed that way. He would have kept her safe, and if she so wished it, he would have hid her away from her mother if she had come for her.

He had no sympathy for them for what right had they to grieve. ‘Twas their fault, may they suffer for it.

Many bowed their heads respectfully as Rhaenyra and her children passed by cutting through the field of umbrellas as they made their way to the front.

Syrax’s cries grew ever louder at the sight, crying out to the child that lay still and unmoving. Her song planted fear and sorrow within those who were around to hear it, some winced at how familiar it sounded.

Lances neck ached as they passed by, his chin touching his chest as he bowed his head, standing beside his father and brother. He discarded his armour for a change of noble black robes, lined with yellow. 

Rhaenyra stood ahead of her father, paying him no mind for she was too focused upon the unlit pyre. Preparing the word to fall from her tongue, but it seemed as though her mouth went dry the closer she had gotten.

The king frowned with worry as his daughter walked past. Glancing down to the two boys at her side “Jacaerys, Lucerys, here my boys, come here.”

The two sniffled as they looked his way before glancing up to their mother who squeezed their hands assuringly before letting them go, to huddle around their downhearted Grandsire.

Two more steps and all behind her had disappeared from her sight, leaving her feeling alone as she stood before that body. This felt all too familiar to her as she squirmed in her place, only now she had not her father to blame, only herself for this. 

She swore she could still here her yells, her shouts, her anger but it was all in her head.

What she would give for that corpse to rise and yell at her with her daughter's voice, prove to her that this was her daughter.

But no such confirmation would arise from it and hence, it made her next action so much easier.

“Dracarys,” she commanded her grieving dragon.

Syrax was reluctant to obey, turning to look towards her rider, croaking at her, as though she were advising her not to, to not turn what was left of her forever to ash.

A furious look crossed Rhaenyras tired face, tearing back her dark veil as she faced her dragon commanding once more “DRACARYS SYRAX!”

Syrax flinched at her command but complied nevertheless, stalking down from the stone hill she had stood on whining as  she grew closer to the pyre. A final roar passed her lips before she bathed the pyre in flames, making quick work of turning this already charred corpse to ash. 

The stiffness of Rhaenyras face quickly fell as she saw the pyre disappear into the flames. Taking steps towards it, reaching to grasp the ashes flowing about before being smited by the drops of rain pushing them to the ground.

A hand wrapped gently around her arm, pulling her back. 

She shook her head as she saw the flames clear, revealing nothing left but a broken and charred pyre. 

There was nothing, nothing left, all was gone, she was gone. 

Her body began to shake with sobs as she began to curl into herself, her mouth hung open as silent cries fell from her wet lips. 

Daemon wrapped his arms tightly around her, keeping her upright, keeping her strong, trying to be the pillar she could lean on when her knees gave way. But nothing could stop the wails that poured from her lips as she cried out her daughter's name, clutching at her rounding belly, that had begun to feel so terribly hollow.

A green little dragon looked curiously about the field as it watched from afar, croaking as a familiar scent reached its snout.

Many had returned back inside, away from the rain as the downpour grew heavy.

 

Rhaenyra sat beside the hall's hearth, staring blankly into its flames, her face still red with grief and her fingers bruising each other as they tugged at her rings. 

Daemon had left to wallow in his failures, finding no strength to stand by Rhaenyra after his terrible shortcoming.

Her sons had long departed her side, instead embraced in the arms of their grandmother, who had taken to comforting both them and their cousins.

Baela and Rhaena were beside themselves, exhausted by all this loss, only months ago they lost their mother and uncle, and now whatever hope they had for their cousin not meeting the same fate was so quickly smited.

In hushed whisper some have into their curiosity and began to speculate what terrible fate the young princess had succumbed to. Some said she was found beaten beyond recognition, the only thing that proved it was her were the shine of purple within her clouded eyes.

Some said she was found discarded in an abandoned house, her face untouched but her body defiled, and her eyes plucked out.

Some were daring and said she was burnt alive, spurned in her attempts to claim a dragon, Aegon would deny having entertained such speculation.

Lance kicked his feet against the ground as he stood beside his father and brother. Still a nagging shame gnawed at him every time he heard a sob fall from one of the Velaryon childrens lips. 

His younger brother, Alan, eyed him worriedly from the corner of his eye. He held himself tall besides his much taller elder brother. So that his elder brother would not be mistaken for being the heir to honeyholt.

He bowed his head towards his father “Might I fetch you some wine father?”

Lyman’s eyes fluttered before his face softened “that would be appreciated my boy.”

He gave him a tight lipped smile before grasping his brother's arm and pulling him along to the wine table.

Lance was surprised by the action, trying to pull his arm back from his brother. He may have had height but his younger brother had great strength. 

Alan let go once they stood before the assortment of wines, opting for honeyed wine, a favourite of his fathers.

“I know the occasion is solemn, but never would I have expected you to be in such low spirits brother,” Alan remarked as he poured three cups, offering one to his brother before taking one for himself “It has been a terribly red and wet spring this year.”

“A child has died Alan, tis not something to be pleased with,” Lance chided.

Alan raised his hands in the air “am I jumping and hollering?” He sardonically asked his brother “I am empathetic, I understand the weight of such a loss, but you, you’re acting as if you knew the princess.”

Lance squirmed, looking down at his cup as he recalled that night, feeling sick as he recalled the sound of her leg crumbling beneath his foot.

“I was one of the many that were appointed the duty of finding her,” he quickly excused, twas no lie “I am only dismayed that we had not found her sooner.”

Alan pursed his lips at his brother, resting a hand on his shoulder “You’ve been appointed an impossible task brother, for in no way does a girl survive a world like this alone,” he explained, trying to meet his brothers avoidant gaze “as bad as this may sound, I am thankful for your failure in your search, gods know I am not ready to mourn you and father yet brother.”

Lance felt a cold roll through him as he recalled hearing what had become of Mychael, felled by the hands of the Rogue and cruel Prince. Face caved in by his own helm. Lance swore he could still smell the coppery blood that had seeped and dried into the floor's surface.

“Why father and I?” he frowned as he asked, trying to forget the terrible fate of his superior.

Alan did well to hide his chuckle “Gods know his old heart would not be able to take it.”

A weak smile cracked the sombre expression on Lance's face, bowing his head as he shook it. 

Alan smiled at his brother, happy to see him smiling. He then hesitantly offered “I will be returning to Honeyholt after this, I had hoped you would join me, there is a place for you at my side, as my guard if you so wish to keep your sword and armour.”

Lance pondered his brother's offer, before recalling a task he had yet to fulfil “as thankful I am for the kind offer, I’ve still much to do here.”

Alan frowned, dismayed by his brother's answer “what else do you have to do?”

“Tis a difficult task to explain,” Lance said.

Alan breathed out a heavy breath through his nose, worry etched upon his brow as he whispered “tis not safe for you here, the dragons thirst for a toy to play with, and knights seem to be their favourite.”

Lance frowned, he would not deny the inkling of fear that had existed within him, but it was not enough for him to forget his mission. One appointed to him by the very man, who he owed his life to. He took his fathers cup and left his brother to continue his protests behind him.

Alicent moved through the ground, the desire to leave this suffocating room growing so great. She felt the room's judging eyes bore into her as she lifted her seventh cup of wine to her lips. Her composure fraying at its seems as she shrunk beneath their stares. 

Do they know? She would ask herself, do they know of my prayers, do they know of the vengeance I had pleaded from the father?

A sudden breeze came from beside her and she froze, feeling the discomforting presence of a looming Larys. 

“Such tragedy…” he spoke, a note of pity in his often unnerving indifferent voice “such potential… wasted,” he went on, pursing his lips as he reminisced “she was a favourite of my late brother’s.”

Alicent tensed shuddering as she felt her hands go cold, downing another gulp of her wine to feel some warmth.

“I can only imagine what must have happened…” He nonchalantly trailed off playing with the handle of his staff.

Her eyes snapped to look towards him, a shuddered breath leaving her parted lips as she recalled their ominous exchange on the ship returning from Driftmark “you didn’t…”

He frowned, as though offended. “I would do no such thing my queen, your wishes have not lowered themselves to such depravity.”

Depravity, that word had nauseated her.

He watched her face pale, tilting his head credulously as he asked, curiously “have they?”

Her head began to vigorously shake in denial, before quickly making her way back to the kings chair “I shall retire to my chambers for the evening, my king.”

He frowned as he looked up at her, disappointed that she had yet to approach Rhaenyra to express her condolence, he waved her off.

She was quick to leave that room, tears flooding her eyes as she felt Larys’s slimy gaze follow her out of the room.

She felt disgusted.

She ignored the worried look from Ser Criston as he tried to keep up with her as she rushed to her rooms.

Entering she saw her ladies in waiting and roared for all of them to get out, tears already beginning to streak down her face.

She slammed the door behind them and fell against it. Sinking to the ground as she began to sob and cry. She was not depraved, she was a woman of faith, she would wish no such harm to befall a child.

Her palms began to bleed as they gripped the star on her chest tightly, the point of the father, the mother, the maiden and the stranger all piercing her palm. A punishment she would happily take if it would allow her to atone.

Taglist: @takemetotheweirdness @grungegrrrl @paininmyasgard @deadunicorn159

[deer-with-a-stick]

I've rewatched the cinematic like 6 times now in a row and here some of the things I've noticed:

Kindred (Lamb specifically for the first two) is vaguely hinted at three times before the big Tryndamere scene. Once when Tryndamere looks up and sees her silhouette before his eyes close, once when Kayle's fire flares and consumes Aatrox, and once when Yasuo looks up, sees Wolf's eyes looking at him, and Lamb's arrow flies out in front of the storm of regular arrows.

Morgana's helmet does not match her at ALL, but it mirrors Kayle. Kind of like saying Morgana's forcing herself to be a warrior like Kayle at first, with the identical helmets and sword.

She then later casts the helmet off, leaving her sword in the ground. Kayle is the one who picks it up.

Kayle looks completely at home with the whiteness of the clouds but Morgana stands out a lot with the purple. But she doesn't match Aatrox's red either.

Morgana gets up immediately. Kayle does not.

The first thing Morgana does is look back for her sister.

The difference in Kayle's eyes when she first sees Morgana stand up in front of Aatrox compared to the almost disinterest or contempt in them when Morgana is visibly straining to keep her corrupted chains intact.

Kayle's transformation/embrace of her power seems far less taxing/painful than Morgana's (eyes simply start glowing golden with no hint of pupils or the iris while Morgana still retains a distinction between the pupils, iris, and scelera. Darkness also starts creeping down out of her eyes, like cracking through her skin.)

When Morgana collapses, Kayle does not look back.

Aatrox's body burns away but the sword doesn't (I still can't get over the brief flash of kindred's silhouette in the fire. It's there for like a quick second and you get the impression of something humanoid and with a bow).

Yasuo no longer has his original sword (no sheath on him when he appears either) and wraps wind around the blade he picks up every time he attacks. Doesn't necessarily look like he's actually killing anyone (except for maybe the first two people. or maybe they do die but they don't animate the gore).

It's almost like the wrapping on his arm is keeping the wind inside of him and/or keeping him together as he uses his power. Underneath the cloth, the pattern of wind or magic seems to mirror his spirit blossom skin's arm.

And again, Wolf's eyes shining out of the darkness and using the faint shape of the trees in the distance to hint at his head. Yasuo sees it, closes his eyes and accepts his death, so Lamb's arrow soars out in front of the mortal arrows, all the while Wolf still watches.

The fade in so it looks like the bare branches of the trees against the pale sky are like tendrils of darkness encroaching on the light, converging on a snowflake that almost bursts into existence. The snowflake is also unnaturally large and when it sinks into Tryndamere's blade, it almost melts and reforms, sending a bit of ice crawling across the blade as though following grooves carved into it.

Tryndamere has visible scars across his body. He sees no enemies but Kindred in the space around him.

Wolf alternates between looking like a shadow wolf and just a bunch of shadows in a vaguely wolf-like shape, blinking out of existence as he fights, which helps emphasize the whole "Lamb is the corporeal one out of the two" aspect of Kindred's duality while also making him scarier than just a floating head in space during the fight in my opinion (since he feels heavier and that helps with the "yes he's a THREAT" feeling)

Wolf is significantly more dynamic than Lamb is, and she doesn't really seem to move unless its necessary.

Slow head tilts, once when Tryndamere swings his blade at her, and again when she backflips out of the way, but this one is more noticeable. Wolf attacks immediately, but Lamb observes. Adds to spooky factor. Despite the fact that she literally had a big sword pass under her chin, she still moves slowly and deliberately.

The light of Ashe's arrows clears up the darkness in the background when they fly past Lamb, and the light switches from cool lighting to warm lighting.

The arrows don't move like real arrows as well (no wobble while flying), so if you misses the blue glowy thing then here's more confirmation they're magic! Also makes them seem unnaturally stiff, which works with the "they're made of magic ice" thing.

Tryndamere's eyes immediately shift towards the camera (to where Ashe/Lamb is standing and away from Wolf) and his expression also immediately loses that rage that has been keeping him alive (the expressions were REALLY good holy shit).

Ashe appears and Lamb melts away, taking the unnatural darkness that covered everything beyond the immediate battlefield away.

She's not wearing a god damn bikini and instead some actual leather armor, which has nice gold designs on it. Her bow is also steaming despite the cold air, which makes sense because True Ice is like 5 degrees Kelvin or something

Tryndamere's shoulder pad still has a set of claw marks slashed through it (was originally whole), and Ashe notices, immediately turning around as if to see if she missed an enemy.

There's also another dude or two still there, and idk what happens to them.

[ask-the-splitmind-au]

Meet the Ranger (Splitmind AU)

Reblogs > Likes (Reblogging helps out a lot, even if it doesn't seem like much!)

The forgotten third sibling makes an appearance

Tagging Station

@doodlebug091

@keeper-of-magic

@angeliteonfridgeduty

@stupidscav

@batnip <- You can blame them for this /pos

@riverripplespeaks

@cherry-b0mber

@luxdraconia

@voldkat

@lunas-sketchbook

Pre - Innocence

After the fateful day where Ranger lost both older siblings, his family was torn by grief. Of course, his parents loved him, but they kept an extremely close eye on him, desperate to protect their last child while hoping the other two found their way back to them. Still, being slugcats and being such a small family, they kept on the move, exploring, bonding with new groups, finding new grounds to settle down at for cycles at a time before moving on.

Eventually, the family (along with some other scugs) found themselves exploring in UI's region. A few even made their way into her structure, including Ranger and his family.

Unfortunately for Ranger, Innocence had been visited by the strange slugcat and knew she wanted to try putting her mind into a creature as well. But being as bad at genetic altering as she was, she didn't want to make a creature of her own from scratch. Instead, taking something young, easily moldable, and making it her own. Ranger fit the bill perfectly, and she kept him from leaving. Ranger's parents tried to fight Innocence, not about to let their only child be taken from them, and while she was going to simply kill them, seeing Ranger's distress over them made her change her mind and force them out of her chamber instead. They never stopped waiting for their precious child for many cycles, all the way until the structure collapsed and they were forced to leave.

Post - Innocence

Specifically, Innocence wanted the freedom of movement and almost flight she had as her puppet. So, she wanted to give Ranger wings before she put her mind into him.

However, the project . . . went far from as planned. As mentioned, Innocence wasn't very good at modifications, and her wing project came up with nothing but small feathery appendages on Ranger's back, nowhere near capable of the flight she dreamed of. However, she was eager to try the idea out, and as such, went ahead with the process and put her mind into Ranger's.

With such a young slugcat, Ranger didn't understand much of the world. He'd learned how to make and use a crude bow and arrow (something Innocence helped him refine a bit when she first met the kid), with a quiver fashioned from pole plant leaves, and arrows made of broken spears tied with vulture feathers. When he woke up with a voice in his head, he thought it nothing more than his imagination, despite how real she proved to be.

The duo never traveled far, with Innocence being timid and Ranger hoping to find his family, but grew fond of the other. Ranger looked up to the voice in his head almost like a mother, and Innocence felt a strange connection whenever she was able to guide and give advice to her host. In his small travels on his way to another iterator (one Innocence particularly wanted to visit to tease him about her newfound freedom), Ranger met a much older slugcat, purple and could pull spears from it's tail like it was nothing. Ranger wanted to follow them, but they didn't want to stick around, only giving Ranger some needles to make new spears out of before disappearing into the world.

When they'd reached the iterator Innocence was talking about only to find him already collapsed, she was irritated but insisted they find the puppet to see if he was really gone. While walking through the broken structure, Ranger bumped into a much, much bigger maroon slugcat with a similar eye and many battle scars. He initially tried to run, but the slugcat blocked him off and instead of hurting him like Ranger expected, they dropped an eggbug egg in front of him, gestured to eat it, and set off, hunting again.

Ranger ate the food and watched, almost curious and anticipating the slugcat's return. When she did, hauling a scavenger corpse, she too, dropped that and insisted Ranger to eat it. With a bit of hesitation and some struggling to tear any flesh off (Arti helped out), Ranger was able to get a full meal from the body. Afterwards, he decided to stick with the fierce slugcat, who did nothing but gush over him and talk about how she wanted to take care of him. Keep him safe and healthy and well-fed. Everything a mother would do for a pup.

Ranger stuck closeby to his new mother, even as she met other slugcats (he was not allowed to meet them at first, since it could be dangerous), and even aided her whenever she looked in a tight spot, raining arrows down on whatever she was fighting. Ranger made himself useful in her final fight, too, as when his mother was fighting the scav chieftain, he was sitting up high, taking whatever shots he could at the leader.

As he, his mother, and another aquatic slugcat they'd met traveled deeper into the earth, Rivulet eventually took Ranger and sat with him so that he wouldn't have to see his mother ascend herself without him. However, Arti's ascension failed, Ruffles pulled her out, and she almost immediately scooped Ranger up and set out to fix things.

Ranger then got to witness the change of heart firsthand as his mother gave pearls and weapons to the same creatures he'd been helping her kill this whole time. It all led up to giving the very mask she'd once held so high back to the very scavenger Ranger remembered pelting with arrows from afar.

As Arti became more comfortable with the scavengers, fixing her reputation, Ranger even got a new father figure: The scav chieftain. Now, he lives with his parents and the rest of the scavengers, happy, but still wishing he could find his old family one day.

[a-very-sparkly-nerd]

Rayllum Month 2024! (11/13)

i guess love is never logical

July 21st - An Outside Perspective

~

Tiadrin of the Silvergrove still wasn’t quite sure what to think of humans. This generation, this batch generally seemed nice enough, having shed the prejudices of their elders, with far more open minds than Tiadrin had ever possessed.

But humans couldn’t all be grouped together, she supposed now. With what a human had done for her, for Lain and Runaan, for Rayla- she had to breathe, Tiadrin reminded herself, the exact same words from Lain brushing against her ear, holding her upright and her doing the same with him.

They staggered through the snow, the five of them, two freeloaders sitting on Rayla and the boy’s–Clem? Camel’s? She still wasn’t quite sure, and frankly didn’t have the brainpower at the moment to care or even think–shoulders.

Rayla’s arm lifted, a shaky finger pointing ahead through the blizzard. Her voice croaked as she said, “There.”

They veered to follow where she'd pointed to, and Tiadrin eventually spotted the mouth of a cave built into craggy gray mountains, nearly invisible. Perfect for hiding, waiting out the storm.

She rushed to help Rayla sit down once they were tucked safely inside, except her daughter was already easing Callum to his feet and batting her off, slipping his backpack off his shoulders.

“What if they-” Runaan started, but she cut him off sharply.

“I’ve got it.”

Callum’s bloody fingers grasped for her wrist, and Tiadrin bit back every instinct to yell at him to get his hands the hell off her daughter, to back away. He was still a human. A human whose right ear, creeping onto his cheek, was cracked gray stone, and it hadn’t been like that when she’d caught her first glimpse of him, surrounded by a dark purple something and then collapsing into Rayla. Rayla, her daughter who had grown up so beautiful and strong and brave and broken. But a human who’d brought her back from the other side, who clearly loved her no matter how wrong it seemed.

“But you’re weak. And we’ve got moon opals-”

She knelt to kiss his forehead, silencing him with heart eyes Tiadrin could hardly stand. “Don’t waste them. I’m fine.”

A nimble finger traced a shaky rune in the air, glowing the lavender of her eyes, and Rayla’s trembling voice recited, “Mystica-Mons.”

Runaan spoke next, the familiar feel of being cloaked by an illusion rippling over Tiadrin like a blanket. “You could have let me do it.”

She shook her head and knelt to light a fire with a match procured from one of her bag’s pockets. “You just got out of a coin and lost your arm. I’m not completely incapable of magic.”

“A mage, is that what you are?” Lain asked in an attempt at lightheartedness, settling down in the new light of the fire and weighing his polearm in his hands. Rayla’d handed it to him in a rush back at the Starscraper before all went to hell, shoving Tiadrin’s sword into her arms and throwing Runaan his bow before whipping out twin blades of her own and going back-to-back with Callum– yes, that was his name. The sword stashed somewhere in one of Stella’s portals, they’d had to fight their way out. Tiadrin still wasn’t sure whose blood all five of them were covered in.

Rayla glanced back to Callum, a soft smile growing in spite of everything, and it definitely felt like they were intruding on something worlds more than private. “No. I just learned from the best.”

Read more on AO3!

[dellalyra]

FAMILY FORMATIONS - PART FOURTEEN

Summary: Shibuya.

CW: angst, violence, lots of it, anger, angst, blood, violence - Shibuya. Need I say more.

A/N: So this is nearly more of an experiment in writing for me so forgive how shit it is. This is gonna be the last plot-centric part for a while then we’re going back to what Family Formations does best - tooth-rotting domestic fluff <3

Recommended Listening:

Me & The Devil - Soap&Skin

Fear and Loathing - Marina

Murder in My Mind - Kordhell

GOODMORNINGTOKYO - TOKYO’S REVENGE

Scrambling – sprinting – running as fast as you can, your lungs are raw from screaming and fighting for hours now. The smell of smoke is putrid as everything collapses around you.

You felt it - Satoru’s gone.

He’s captured, you’re alone.

You had heard names whispered around.

You needed to find someone – anyone, you needed to find someone alive, the hordes of transformed people had been pushed to you by Mei Mei – your claws and fangs show no signs of retracting now they’re all dead. There’s too much adrenaline coursing through your body for you to slow down or properly comprehend anything that happened – or even feel the slash bleeding down your back. You can’t concentrate long enough to transform with your technique into something faster or with better vision.

The shouts of your husband’s defeat and imprisonment resonated through your skull and just wouldn’t quiet down. Hope felt like it was slipping through the cracks caused by Sukuna’s rampage in the pavement. You had the blood of several hundred on your body – your feral technique and anger and grief over the loss of your husband and fear for your loved ones transformed into sheer rage as you slashed and twisted and tore your way through the curses littering the station which were blocking civilians exit. You knew you’d saved thousands of lives single-handedly that night.

But you’d lost.

Noritoshi Kamo and Miwa had somehow ended up with you through everything, and you followed a signal from the airborne Momo and simultaneously you and Kamo notched arrows with a view of Mai and a sniper rifle in the distance.

Just as you turned to loose your arrow.

You saw him.

A walking ghost.

The bow and arrow dropped as Kamo loosed his arrow and Mai made her shot.

But no sound of weapon art would drown out the ragged scream your body released.

Frozen in place you watched events unfold like you were in a dream. So this was how they got Satoru.

You walked forward into the clearing. You suddenly felt 17 again.

“Oniisan?”

The body turned to you.

He moved like him. He looked like him. He spoke like him.

But it wasn’t him.

“Ah! Welcome to the fray, it’s been a long time hasn’t it, little Dryad? What was it I called you? Oneesan?” The body asked.

“It wasn’t you who called me that. It’s was Suguru Geto. You – you are someone else. You have taken and defiled my best friends corpse and imprisoned my husband. I will kill you, you sick fuck!”

“You certainly have the spirit and temper of the women of your family. Your great great grandmother was very similar.” He easily deflected your arrow before sidestepping the vines grasping for his ankles.

That gives you pause – great great grandmother?

But before you could move another muscle, the man is turning away and you’re being dragged away by Utahime as you thrash against her.

“Greetings, Choso.”

A tall, broad man clad in purple has entered the clearing. Who is this?

“Ah, it appears you have noticed.” Pseudo-Geto says to the newcomer.

The rage coming from this Choso rivals your own – but it’s directed at your apparent common enemy.

“NORITOSHI KAMO!” He screams and simultaneously all (modern) heads whip to look in shock at the 17 year old Kamo heir, seeing the surprise on his own face.

You stop thrashing away from Utahime’s grasp and stare at her.

“Utahime if that’s Kamo – then…” you say.

“The thing inside Geto is over 150 years old!”

You’d read many accounts of the blight on the Kamo Clan, the most nefarious sorcerer to exist.

“How dare you try to make me kill my little brother Yuuji Itadori?!” This Choso screams.

Wait, what?

And before you know it Choso is fighting tooth and nail for Yuuji and you’re sure of your theory – he is also a Kamo, but he must be one of the death painting wombs that Noritoshi Kamo created. Noritoshi is his father, but how is Yuuji related? He’s not a Kamo. But, if… no, that’s crazy. If Noritoshi had been surviving by moving body to body, then maybe - it’s true. A death painting womb has blood connections to its siblings, so Choso would know. You’re grateful you paid attention in cursed object theory in high school.

And speak of the devil, beside you, beside Panda – is Yuuji. You scream his name and he looks to you and you almost cry in relief he’s alive. He’s badly injured and there’s something hollow in his eyes. Yet, now is no time for reunions.

Panda moves to attack but before any of you can make a move to retrieve the prison realm holding your husband and father of you children, a wave of ice encases your allies. Your body had protected itself subconsciously by wrapping yourself in your sunbeam technique – making you too hot for ice to approach.

Opening your eyes, only yourself Yuuji, Momo, and Choso were not frozen.

“You could try calling me big brother once you know?” You hear Choso say as you approach the duo.

“Take this seriously!” Yuuji replies.

“Yuuji! I think he might be right! I’ll explain later – we have to get Satoru!” You unfurl the tendrils of ivy from your hair and begin to focus.

But once again – you don’t get a chance.

Because in front of you stands your saving Grace – the woman you idolised since childhood.

“It’s been a while, Geto, can I get your answer from before? What kind of girls are you into?”

Yuki Tsukomo – one of the four other special grade sorcerers apart from yourself.

You ran to Yuuji, checking him for damage.

“Y/N. I’m –” he starts to say before you hush him and press a kiss to the top of your head, shaking your head because you can’t handle him apologising now - you’re too raw.

Yuki was stalling Geto. You didn’t know why, but you trusted her.

A rumble hit the ground and you finally tuned into the conversation despite your ringing ears.

“I’ve marked people as vessels, non sorcerers given abilities. Many have been in a deep slumber since I chose them, but as of this moment - they’ve awoken.”

Deep slumber? Cursed? Oh god. Please, not her too.

“Are you listening Sukuna? The Heian age has returned!” Geto shouts, gleeful and proud as hundreds of cursed spirits emerge from him, spirits Geto has absorbed through the years.

He reaches his arm into his sleeve, and produces a box. A cube. Covered in eyes, big, shining blue eyes held by your son Akio – inherited by

“Satoru!”

“Gojo-sensei!”

And with that he is gone.

Your first instinct now that he’s gone – your son. Where is Megumi? You sprint around, shaking shoulders of everyone you know – desperate to locate your son.

Utahime approaches you.

“Iori! Have you seen Megumi? I have to find him. Satoru – he –” she pulls you into her chest, still smelling like the perfume you bought her for Christmas.

“Y/N. Listen to me. I don’t know where he is, but you have to listen.” The panicked look in your eyes made you looked crazed. She hadn’t seen this side of you since the Star Plasma Vessel incident.

“Y/N. Satoru has been named an enemy of the jujutsu society and a law has been made that he must stay sealed. Y/N, you’re counted in that. The elders want you dead, they say you and Gojo were conspiring with Geto. Yaga has been arrested, he’s been sentenced to death – for inciting the violence. The stay on Itadori’s execution has been lifted - he’s to be executed on sight, Yuuta Okkutsu has been named his executioner.” She steadies you, keeping you upright.

Your face changes from fear to anger.

“Y/N, we will get Gojo out. For now, you need to find Megumi, and get Yuuji and get out of Shibuya. Get Akio away, hide him. Okay? We’ll get him out Y/N.” She says.

You pull her into your chest.

“Thank you, Utahime. I love you.” You say. Your face has turned to stone. The warrior in you has returned and you’re currently planning your next move. You turn away, whipping out your phone. The veil is down and you can call your mother.

“Momma listen, I’m okay. You need to listen to me. I don’t have long. Satoru has been captured, by Noritoshi Kamo - he’s in the Prison Realm (your mom screams), him and I have been named traitors because Kamo is in the body of Suguru Geto. Mom, please, just let me talk – I don’t have – momma! They want to kill the kid, sukuna’s vessel, I need to find Megumi. Tsumiki, I think she’s part of Kamo’s plan. Yaga is to be executed – our allies are hurt or dead. I don’t know where most people are. I think most are dead. You need to get Akio out of the country. Take him - don’t tell me where. It’s not safe for me to know. Keep him hidden, and keep him safe. In my jewellery box is a baby bracelet – put it on him and he and you will be untraceable. Whatever you need – talk to Gojo’s uncle, he’s at the estate. I love you, I love Akio – please let me talk to him.”

The phone is passed to your toddler son.

“Hi baby boy,” you are trying so hard not to cry, you have to hold it together.

“Mama! Hi mama! Nana momma and papa working!”

“Yeah baby, momma and papa are working – you go with nana okay? Going on an adventure. Akio, I love you so much, my beautiful little boy - you’re our angel and papa loves you so very much too. I have to go help Megumi okay? I love you baby, be good for nana.” You let out a sob, resolve cracking.

“Momma – I gotta go. I’m going to fix this. I’m going to keep everyone safe.” And with that you hung up.

You take a deep breath and grip your arm, the vines tattooed with Satoru, Megumi, Tsumiki and Akio lacing in elegant letters through the leaves reminding you why you’re still standing.

You stand for them.

You shake your head, focus, Y/N. Save your babies.

Yuuji. You have to find him. He’ll know where Megumi is. Wait, where’s Nobara? Toge? Maki?

You walk into the direction you saw Yuuji leave, and you see a pink shock of hair beside a head adorned with two spiky buns.

Yuuji – and Choso.

They’re sitting on the steps.

You sprint to him.

“Yuuji! Where is he? Where’s Megumi? Are you hurt? Are you okay?”

His jaw is tense.

“He – he used Mahoraga, Y/N. I –” you collapse on the ground. That was suicide.

“No! He’s alive! I promise, but Sukuna – he saved him. He’s plotting something with Fushiguro. He’s badly injured, but alive.” You fling your arms around him and feel Yuuji wilt in your arms.

“Y/N. Nobara – she, I don’t know if she’s alive. Sukuna, me, he killed so many people, it’s all my fault. But I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry I couldn’t – Nanamin, he’s, he’s dead.” He croaks into your neck, his mentor killed in front of him and he’s apologising to you.

Hearing Akio’s godfather was dead, best man at your wedding, star of every Thursdays Kooking With Kento at your home as you made dinner together. You felt a fresh wave of sobs and you let them escape. Later, you’d mourn later.

“You did everything you could, Yuuji, it’s okay. You brave, brave boy. You’re not at fault. You’re so strong.” He pulled himself from your grip and wiped his eyes.

You saw Choso, from the corner of your eye. He stood, sheepishly and curiously watching the exchange.

“I need to find Megumi – but Yuuji, you need to come with me. The execution order has been brought up and I’m a wanted woman. We need to get away from here.” You look at him.

The sound of footsteps crushing the debris echoes through the empty street.

“Well well well, it must be my lucky day. The traitorous harlot and Sukuna’s rampaging vessel served to me on a platter. What honour the head of the Zen’in clan will bring to society by killing you both.”

That voice. That grating fucking voice.

How many days had you spent since childhood fighting with the owner of that fucking voice.

“Naoya Zen’in. You lecherous cunt. Here to revel in the death and misery like the reaper you are?”

You spit out at him, pushing Yuuji behind you.

“See – bitch. This is why I never liked you. God, you’re beautiful – such a goddess among women and you’ve already proven yourself fertile with the Gojo brat but your issue is your mouth. Such a shame, a waste of a perfect breeding bitch if you ask me: perfect body, pretty face, esteemed lineage, powerful technique but you just can’t shut that whore mouth can you?” He leers, eyeing your body like meat.

Your snarl in response makes even Choso grimace.

“If you just learned to be a nice girl, sit still and just look pretty – then I’d have married you in an instant. You’d be a pleasure to knock some kids into, just all that temper and ego. Oh well, your protectors gone now, so you’re fair game to kill. I’m now head of the Zen’in family –”

“God Naoya, you really never got smarter did you? Even after all those years in school you’re still a dense bastard. You’re not the Zen’in Clan head, if Naobito is dead – which I’m guessing he is, good riddance I say, and Satoru Gojo is dead or in any way incapacitated – Megumi Fushiguro will be named head of the clan, as per the deal made with Toji.” You smirk, knowing you’ve the upper hand here.

He clicks his tongue. His displeasure is palpable.

“Such a smart mouth. Of course that’s the case, but, I’m going to kill Itadori and you, and then – it would hardly come to fruition if Megumi Fushiguro was dead now, would it?” He smirks.

And that was the flash lit to the powder keg.

“Oh Naoya, I’ve wanted to beat the ever living fuck out of you for so long – you sexist prick.” And with that, years of rage renewed by threats against you and your kids, and insults to your family kick you into 6th gear.

“Yuuji Itadori, I have been appointed your executioner and I am here to put you to death.” A familiar voice calls out from above.

Yuuta.

God, he’s grown. Several inches taller, his hairs shorter and he looks so healthy. He’s filled out, almost 19 now. Not a boy anymore, but a man.

A man, who is trying to kill the boy you’re shielding.

“Step aside, Gojo-San.” He calls as him jumps down from the bridge.

“Ah, you must be Okkotsu. I’m here for the Gojo whore - I’ll leave the vessel to you. I propose an alliance, given our common goals.”

The ringing in your ears returned, surely, Yuuta wouldn’t kill Yuuji? He’d promised Satoru.

He’d promised to protect him if anything happened.

Why would he do this? This wasn’t Yuuta.

Wait – no. It’s not Yuuta. Yuuta is honest, and true to his word. He is also smart and will one day surpass both you and Satoru in talent.

“I’m afraid, I must ask you again to step aside Gojo-San.”

Yuuta never called you that, he just called you Y/N.

“I made a promise to those I respect and trust. I must keep my promises.” Yuuta looks at you.

He doesn’t mean the elders.

He means you and Satoru.

He’s praying to anyone that you’ll understand.

“Yuuji Itadori must die.” Reversed Curse Technique.

You squeeze Yuuji’s hand.

“We can defeat them. Choso – stick with me. Yuuji, you’re with Okkotsu.” As you turn – you whisper ‘trust me’ into Yuuji’s ear. Choso and Yuuji together would hinder the plan, so you needed Choso to stick with you.

You needed to get Choso angry.

“Naoya, you’d forsake your brothers just for power?”

And with that, the thought of fratricidal tendencies – Choso was off. With Naoyo distracted by Choso, you nod at Yuuta – giving him your go ahead. You trusted this man with your life, and the lives of everyone around you. He wouldn’t fail you.

You turned to your personal mission.

“Naoya Zen’in! Too scared to fight me? Scared you’ll lose to a girl?” You shout at him, you didn’t need your bow for this – you tossed it to the side. Fangs and claws and vines weaving out of you. You wanted to do this up close and personal.

And with that you, Choso and Naoya were a flurry of blood red, forest green and shadows. There was no way either of you would match his speed – but that’s okay. It was two versus one and you quickly found out that you and choso fought incredibly well side by side.

Naoya’s continued taunts only fuel your fury. He wants to kill your son. He would kill Megumi just for a title. He had bullied and threatened the women of the sorcery world for so long that all of this was something you could not allow to continue.

Naoya Zen’in has to die.

Choso has him pinned, poisoned by his own blood. You grab your daggers, from where they are holstered on your thighs.

You stand above him.

“Choso – go to your brother.” You say.

And he does. Leaving you and a fatally injured Naoya laying on the ground.

“The women of the world will sing praises of your death, Zen’in and I will forever be proud that it was made you sent you to hell. Let this be a lesson. Don’t touch my fucking kids.”

And with that, you sent a dagger through his temple. A quick death. More than he deserved.

You move to where you sense the boys you’re with. Their energy is heavy.

Choso is standing beside Yuuji, a scene you expected. A fire lit, Yuuta sitting on one side, Yuuji laying – covered in blood but recovering on the other.

“Ballsy move, Yuuta.”

All heads turn to you, and Yuuta stands and you wrap him in a hug.

“I knew you’d understand. I couldn’t risk fighting you too – this was the only way. Thank you, Y/N.”

“No, Yuuta. Thank you. You kept your promise to Satoru and I’m eternally grateful.” You squish him into you. Why are all your kids so much taller than you?

Turning to the brothers.

“Thank you, Yuuji. For trusting me. I’m sorry that this had to happen. But Satoru had contingencies in place for an event such as this.” You say, Yuuji’s haunted eyes look up to you.

“I always trust you, and Gojo Sensei. Dying isn’t fun – but if it’ll keep everyone safe then I’ll do what I need to do.” You stand beside him.

“You’re as good as a son to me Yuuji. You’re safe as long as the Gojo’s are here. This guy too, apparently.” You say, nudging Choso.

“The man in the street?” He asks.

“Dead.” You reply.

“I am sorry for the part I played in your husband’s imprisonment.” He says, facing you.

“You protected Yuuji, and saved us both. We both share the commitment to fight for our families - we’re gonna be really good friends Choso Kamo.” And the death painting womb is exceptionally confused by the way you wrap your arms around his chest and squeeze, but he returns the ‘hug’ and feels a sense of peace.

As you pull away, you’re glad to be beside Choso and Yuuta – the days event seem to have caught up to you. You lose your footing and the world swirls around you. You’ve used so much cursed energy today.

Satoru - he’s gone. Who knows where.

Faced a ghost.

Sent your son off to a place that you can’t know.

Learned your adopted daughter is cursed and a tool in a war.

Had to let a boy you trust kill another boy you love.

Defended your son to the point of killing.

And lost a fuck lot of blood from the wound your adrenaline had helped you ignore.

“I’m okay – I just, Choso can you use your blood manipulation to stop the bleeding? Im guessing your reversed out, Yuuta?” The boys fuss over you and when you feel stable – you turn to Yuuji – a crying mess of a shell of a boy.

You scramble and pull him into you.

“I’m here, you’re safe. I’m so sorry Yuuji. For everything.” You croon.

“I killed so many people. I deserve the death penalty. Sukuna came out and it was a bloodbath.”

Yuuta sat down too.

“You aren’t to blame.” Yuuta says. Decidedly sure in his voice.

Just as the boy goes to respond, a voice sounds out.

“Itadori. What are you doing? Let’s head back to Jujutsu High.”

“Fushiguro.”

“MEGUMI!”

He hadn’t spotted you behind Choso’s imposing frame.

“Mom! I thought – I thought you were gone too. I thought - you’d go for him. Shit, I thought they had you too.” He stumbles into your arms and you collapse holding him.

“God I was so worried I’d lost you. I couldn’t find you anywhere.” You say.

“Megumi. You know don’t you?” You say, brushing his hair from his face.

“Tsumiki.” He says, face grave.

You’re distracted by counting the cuts on Megumi’s face, you vaguely hear talking.

“So start by saving me, Itadori.” Now you’re listening.

“Noritoshi Kamo has made plans for those involved with Jujutsu to face off in a Culling Game.” Megumi claims,

“And Tsumiki is ensnared in that. So I’m begging you, Itadori. I need your strength.”

Yuuji can never say no to Megumi. God you hope these two get their happy ending.

“Like hell am I letting you boys go in alone.”

“Mom – it’s not safe. Akio –” Megumi immediately rejects this.

“Akio is safe, don’t forget who you’re speaking to boys. I might be your mom – but I am also Y/N of the Y/L/N clan. I’m the first person to hold my technique in 600 years - I’m the head of my clan. A special grade sorcerer. Wife of the strongest sorcerer alive and mother of the head of the Zen’in clan. There is no woman more influential or strong as me alive. Today, I nearly lost most of my kids, all but one of my best friends are dead and the other is back from the grave, my husband was taken, my eldest son used a technique he knew would kill him and then sorcery’s biggest bully came to execute both of my sons – and I responded by stabbing a dagger through his skull. Do not underestimate me, boys.”

“Megumi – putting all of that aside. I have 3 children. One is hidden, and safe – the other two are being sent into a death match. I vowed to protect you all with my life. That is what I’m doing. You – are my son, and I am always by your side.” You clutch his burned cheek in your palm. Pressing a kiss to his temple. A part of you is nostalgic for the days you didn’t feel any stubble on those soft cheeks – just baby soft skin. He wanted to protect you now, but no matter how grown they get - you’re still their momma.

You stand up, holding his hand – and gesture to the boys to do the same.

“Where are we going, Y/N?” Yuuji asks.

“We’re going to get my fucking husband out of that box and end this shitshow, let’s go boys.”