After Angband, Maedhros had a complicated relationship with his hair for a long while. The thing he once used to cherish and carry with pride, inherited from the mother he had left behind, was now tainted with memories of unwanted attention and derogatory touch.
After his rescue, it had to be cut short for the sake of his recovery, and he could never quite figure out whether he was more hurt or relieved by the act. It was Fingon, during those times filled with anxiety and doubt and shame, who helped him learn to accept his own appearance again– from the stump of his right arm and the scars littered across his freckled body to the locks of copper hair, ever so slowly regrowing to their former glory.
And little by little, the lingering memories of malevolent hands harshly yanking at his scalp were replaced by the feeling of tender hands carefully braiding familiar golden ribbons into his hair, once again beloved.
257 notes
·
View notes
Lucid Dreamer (2/2)
part 1
Gepard stalls almost a week before he finally goes out to the safehouse, and it takes him a couple days to find it because Sampo didn't have the time left to be wasn't super specific about the location. But he does find it.
It's pretty bare bones, really. Gepard knows that was probably to be expected, but… It feels crushing, when he realizes there are so few personal things here. It's nothing specific to Sampo. Just some food, some medical supplies. A cot and a heater and a lot of mismatched blankets. Nothing to remember someone by.
But he does find the letters, in a metal box stashed away under the bed.
There are two for him. Three for Natasha, and two for Seele. One for Hook, one for Serval, one for Pela, one for Bronya.
Bronya's is mostly business. They knew each other from the whole Stellaron incident, but not much beyond that, and the incoming catastrophe is a more pressing matter. Seele's is actually two copies of the same letter, and Gepard realizes why when Seele is so angry she rips the first one up without reading it. He gives her the copy a couple days later, and she slinks off without a word.
Pela seems completely normal after hers is delivered, but Gepard knows better than to trust that. The next day, he finds her asleep in bed with Serval, bottles abandoned on the floor, both their eye makeup smeared and running and Pela's glasses horribly smudged and crooked on her face. Serval doesn't read hers in front of him, but she's clingy with Gepard, Pela, and Lynx for quite a while after. She throws herself into her work a lot. She insists the heater from the safehouse is busted and she needs to keep it. It's too dangerous for use by someone who's not an engineer. Might burn their house down or something. Gepard doesn't argue.
Hook's letter is short, with easy to read words. The rest of it is actually a treasure map, and she and the moles spend the next several days running through the Underground, finding hidden candy and toys. Hook asks them when Sampo is coming back, because one of the marbles she found from his map looks green, just like his eyes, and she wants to give it to him. Natasha shoos Gepard out of the clinic before he can even begin to think of an answer.
Natasha refuses to let him see what's in her letters, which ok, fine, he'll respect that. He hears from Bronya who heard from Seele who heard from Natasha herself though that one of the letters was a map and the other a catalogue, with all of Sampo's hidden "warehouses." Gepard promptly marches himself back out to the frontlines, where he can turn a blind eye. If a ton of stolen goods suddenly enters the black market, and if the orphanage and the clinic suddenly have new supplies, well, technically that's none of his business.
Gepard goes to bed, curls up under mismatched blankets and closes his eyes.
He doesn't dream.
One of Gepard's letters was also business, like Bronya's and Natasha's. He and Bronya follow everything meticulously, down to the letter, because there has to be some good to get out of all this, there has to be. Gepard can't let it all be for nothing, it would bury him.
And so the catastrophe passes. Not without casualties, and not without a lot of damage and destruction. But Belobog survives.
And after that, time just kind of…goes on. Gepard has been a part of the Silvermanes since he was old enough to enlist. The Fragmentum had gotten so much worse in the years before Welt sealed the Stellaron. He knows the statistics, it is literally his and Pela's jobs to keep track. He knows when he sees a face everyday in the camps and then it's suddenly gone. He's not unfamiliar with things like grief and loss.
He still catches himself checking the trashcans and the supply crates and soldiers' footprints sometimes, though.
But there comes a night where Gepard goes to bed, holding the mismatched blankets to his face, and he dreams. And it's strange, it's off, it sticks with him. Sampo doesn't look the same. He's thinner. His muscles have atrophied. He looks like how Gepard has seen soldiers after months in the hospital.
The most unsettling difference is there's a scar across the left side of his head, Gepard can see it over his ear, peeking out past his hairline, carving towards his cheek. Sampo is always careful about his face. Gepard once saw him dodge a Fragmentum monster and literally let it cut across his neck just to keep his face clear. He wouldn't let that happen for nothing.
Their actions in the dream itself aren't new. Sampo seems tired, run down and worn out, but he announces his presence with aplomb by lobbing a bunch of smoke bombs off the rooftops and sending his soldiers scrambling. Same shit, different day.
The new part is what he says when Gepard chases him out to the edges of the camp, tackles him into the snow. Gepard pins him to the frozen ground to detain him and Sampo doesn't even fight it, just looks up at him like he's seeing sunrise for the first time in months.
"I'll be home in one week."
79 notes
·
View notes
ok but like think about how joshua graham was sitting there in deep denial about how he was projecting his own desire for revenge against caesar onto his faith, right? and how he probably knew that shit deep down even if he was delulu about it which is why he hadn't outright decided that taking down caesar in the name of the lord or as a holy war was the long game or whatever. it's cooking, it's there, but the idea of acting on it feels bad to him for some reason, and he's probably talking to God about it a lot but honestly using the internal dialogue of prayer to try and convince himself that it can be justified eventually, but he still can't unwrap why that makes him feel so guilty and full of shame deep down, so he keeps brushing those feelings of shame aside and pretends it's the same guilt and shame that comes from his hand in building the Legion. not only is he wrestling with his desires to take his revenge and act on his hurt and anger, but he's wrestling with WHY he's wrestling with it.
and then the Courier shows up in Joshua's gun cave out of seemingly nowhere following such a coincidental and random happenstance that not only led them to Zion but led them to meet Follows-Chalk and by extension Joshua, and waves and is like 'oh, I killed Caesar btw!'
like, on the surface he takes that well, but deep down inside? Do you think he was freaking out? Do you think he felt this inexplicable sense of relief wash over him because he no longer had to make that decision? Do you think he was secretly thankful because he wasn't ready to address his own anger and the fact he hadn't truly healed in the way that's become his identity and what keeps him going? Was he thankful that he wouldn't have to unpack why he still felt so angry about what Caesar did to him when Joshua's done far worse to far more people for far less, that he wouldn't have to admit that it was the betrayal of his closest and most trusted companion that hurt the most and left him literally too angry to die?
Do you think he felt that relief and looked at the Courier and decided that the Courier was something divine? A message from God? Sent by the Lord to relieve Joshua of that burden? Do you think that's why Joshua was so ready to listen to the Courier when they pushed him to spare Salt-Upon-Wounds? Do you think Joshua looked at the Courier in awe of God's grace, or in fear that God knew exactly what was in Joshua's heart?
54 notes
·
View notes