#i just want to read tomas focused fic

[vikingpoteto]

currently being so normal about tomas vrbada

[eternalmarvel]

MK1 BI-HAN X READER ~ feint ~

an: no wayy almost close to 100 notes in just a day of posting my first work in so long thanks so much everyone 🫶 in honour of this ill be posting a short drabble (lets see how long this really is after im done writing) anyways this work is inspired by THIS tiktok linked below vvv !! if u don't watch it u won't understand what prompted this fic so highly advise u watch this before u read

note: bi-han and reader are married in this story

also guys this story WILL be having bespectacled bi-han bc u can NOT tell me that man does not wear reading glasses when he gets older. i can totally see his vision getting worse and him having to begrudgingly resort to glasses to read documents and books .... i included a rough image of what that looks like (dont come for me im not an editor)

it was not often that you saw your husband battered from kombat. most days when he went out to spar or fight, there's be a few bruises and scratches here and there sure, but nothing that was so severe that you had to sit down and tend to his wounds. even if he did get injured, most of the time he patched himself up before you could lay eyes on him. it was a bright fall day at the lin kuei stronghold, with most of the ombre-braised leaves littering the ground of the courtyard. you had taken over as a mentor at the lin kuei, focusing on the academics of each initiate's journey to becoming a ninja (though it took a lot of convincing your dear old husband before he ever agreed to let you onboard).

~~

"c'mon, bi-han. you can't just train the initiates physically. they gotta be trained mentally too! you can't possibly think the only problems people face are the ones in front of them -- it's the ones that are in their heads that they gotta defeat too."

bi-han propped himself up against the headboard of your marital bed, his hair messy around his head with his feet outstretched in a relaxed manner (which was much too rare for the grandmaster). he had his reading glasses on and a lounge hanfu wrapped loosely around his body, skimming some documents. rather than entertaining your antics, he ignored you and continued to read the ledger in front of him. you groaned sheepishly, prompting bi-han to look up at you with a hint of annoyance, as you plopped yourself right beside him.

"it's a good idea and you know it.....you just won't admit it..," you playfully pouted. bi-han continued to skim through his document as he gently ran his fingers through your hair and your scalp, prompting a deep sigh from you.

"not a sustainable idea, (name)." you quickly got up and faced him, determined to make a point. "i can make it sustainable! you have to give me a chance to prove it though."

bi-han closed his reading and you could now see the glasses perched up on the plateau of his nose. he was older now and his cryomancy did no favours for his vision -- as he increased his use of snow, his vision degraded. it was you that gave him the nudge to rectify his vision but he didn't budge, said that his vision was fine. it took getting suckerpunched by a VERY apologetic initiate at close-range for him to finally realize that his vision was nowhere where it used to be and if he wanted to retain his position as grandmaster, changes were going to have to be made. you made sure to help pick out his glasses, choosing the frames and lens meticulously and helping him put them on. you could hardly control ur salivation looking at him try on reading glasses that made him look all sophisticated and scholarly. after much pushback, you both decided on a subtle and sleek pair that wouldn't garner too much foreign attention (spoiler alert: it absolutely did). the first few days that bi-han wore the glasses, everyone found it hard to pry their eyes away from him. tomas had to stifle his giggles out of fear that bi-han would strangle him, kuai couldn't help but tease him everytime he laid eyes on his glasses, and the younger initates mistakenly (accidentally? who knows) referred to him as "dad."

bi-han leans forward, his hair clinging to his face, leaning for a kiss but you put your hand between the two of yours' lips as a barrier.

"you get nothing unless you agree to my idea, grandmaster."

bi-han leaned back against the headboard, faced towards you. he took a few brief moments to speak before giving you a soft small smile and gazing at you cautiously with his mellow brown eyes.

"if that is what my wife wishes," he whispers lowly.

~~

you had given most of the initates a set of books that they were to have studied by the end of the year. this prompted a bunch of groans and boos from some of the students, seeing that they wanted to get to the 'ninja' side of things rather than slowly well-rounding all their skills. no one dared to personally say anything to you though, considering you were the grandmaster's wife and any complaint directed at you would be personally dealt with by the grandmaster himself (and it would not go well for the complainant).

you drew out an elaborate web of themes and concepts on the board in front of you.

"alright students, which one of you would like to tell me what this represents. how can we use it practically in our routine?," you say, pointing to one of the themes on the board. the room was pitch silent and you could hear a few yawns here and there.

"come on guys. i'm not doing this for myself, i'm doing this to help you guys out. the quicker you guys can answer this, the quicker we can get out of here," you say matter-of-factly. before you can continue on with your lesson, you hear people arguing and yelling outside. 2 of the initiates at the back of the room pry open the training room's doors ajar so they could take a look and listen to what was going on outside, but you didn't entertain this at all. yelling, fighting, whatever it may be, it was a stronghold, of course it would be common.

"hey. there is nothing going on outside that you need to be familiar with more than what we have in here. pay attention to the lesson please!" you exclaimed with an exasperated expression. the initiates nodded their head and let out a meager "sorry ma'am" for their inconvenience.

"now, everyone. as i was saying, wh-" before you could finish your sentence, the doors to the training room were thrown open. you could probably punch a whole through the wall with all the anger you were feeling. who the hell decided this time that it was a good idea to interrupt you?

"(name), ma'am, the grandmaster is injured and i think you should take a look at him," one of the initiates breathlessly whispers. it's clear that he ran all this way to get your attention.

"what?! oh my god......is his condition stable right now? is he doing okay? where is he?" you exclaimed.

the initiate gestured you to follow him and you agreed.

"alright students, just a mere diversion but by the time i get back, you all better be done the next chapter because i'm gonna grill you on it!" you proclaimed as you zoomed down the stronghold's corridors. when you finally made it to the room bi-han was in, you walked in to see kuai, tomas, sektor, and cyrax crowded by his bed in the infirmary.

"bi-han...." you whispered quietly as your eyes went wide. your husband was laying in the bed, resting like a mummy. bandages curtained his chest, arms, and forehead. his face was stressed -- he was asleep and yet a frown graced his face indicating that he was conscious but unaware of his surroundings. your first instinct was to push past sektor and sit down beside bi-han on the chair. kuai had intentionally left the seat empty so that you could comfort bi-han.

"how the hell did this happen kuai?" you asked, furiously. kuai grimaced at your expression.

"don't blame this on me, (name). he's your husband. you know he takes too much on himself and then ends up all injured."

you looked at the physician who had just finished cleaning up your husband's wounds in desperation, wondering what the hell even happened.

"he's alright. i've patched up any severe wounds and stuck him to an IV. you'll have to nurse him for the next few days though." the bespectacled physician prompted, pushing his glasses to the ridge of his nose.

you chuckled, putting your hands on your bandaged husband's chest, caressing him. "nurse him? what is he, a baby? you said he should be fine."

the physician prepares for a response before bi-han stirs awake. you smile at him as you await him to fully regain consciousness.

"huh....who is....wha..." bi-han murmurs as his eyes adjust to the natural lighting of the infimary.

"bi-han....you're awake! i'm glad." you smile brightly, as your hands move up and down his treated chest. bi-han glances between your hands on his upper body and you, before letting out a loud groan and plopping his head back on his pillow.

"don't."

you look at him confused. "what?"

"i have a wife......she'll kill you if she finds out you've laid your hands on me," he says sternly with his hoarse voice.

you get up from your seat and lean in closer to him with a big smile shone across your face, a light blush spread across your cheeks. you found it adorable that even in such a horrible condition, your husband was loyal to you and you only. kuai looks confused at bi-han, wondering if dementia has caught up to him after all these years while tomas lets out a small chuckle at what his grandmaster was saying knowing that bi-han is too weak to really do or say anything to him.

"i am your wife, my love."

bi-han looks back at you with a neutral expression on his face and you can see his face shift into surprise, then pure flush. you stand there beautifully over him with the hair moved from your face, your scent lingering over him. there is a perfect mix of concern and amusement engraved into your expression, much to bi-han's arousal. a heavy blush creeps onto his face, unlike one you've seen before, and the monitor regulating his heartbeats goes off the charts. it's evident that bi-han's heartrate has boosted EXPONENTIALLY.

"well i'll be damned. our grandmaster might just have a crush on someone." cyrax states. you and the rest of the ninjas turn around and look to cyrax, chuckling but bi-han's gaze remains on you. it's almost as though he is in awe that he married someone like you.

"clear the room," you demand authoritatively. the ninjas and the physician bow their head and comply with your demand, leaving you and your husband alone in the emptiness of the infirmary.

"do you need more heat? are you doing okay my love?" you ask as you get closer to your husband. he looks at you carefully before speaking again.

"perhaps....a little more heat." you smile and obey, grabbing a few candles from the cupboard in the corner of the room and bringing it closer to him. bi-han props himself up against his pillow and disregards everything you're doing just to stare at you. it puts a bit of pressure on you and you get nervous. even if he was on litres of morphine, he was still a LITTLE intimidating. he grabs your forearm gently and starts to bring you close.

"i meant in perhaps a different manner....."

you entertain him.

"i'll let your wife know that you desire to engage in intimate relations with me," you smirk bringing yourself closer to him. he leans back and looks at you in pure confusion and a hint of disgust.

"but i t-"

you ignore his protests and put your lips on his, murmuring "joke, my love" into his mouth as he kisses you back passionately. the morphine was doing its job and bi-han was entranced by the passion. you could get used to your husband being all submissive like this for you for a while now.

[savebatsartedition]

Happy Birthday Hiccup Horrendous Hadock the Third!

I've never really had a chance to celebrate this little guy's birthday, so I went ALL out! (Are you kidding me? 10 year anniversary year of How to Train Your Dragon 2, year of the dragon, AND a leap year?? There was no way I was missing it.)

So, as a little gift I made two things for him! :D

How to Throw a Birthday Party - A short oneshot set after the ending of the final book in the series. (Under the cut or in the link right there. 2,088 words.)

PISTA TOMA - Httyd books meme - I've been wanting to make one of these memes for a while, and I have had no luck in figuring out characters to make it with, so if the above fluff fic didn't suite you, enjoy a little bit of vague angst. ...in animation meme form. (Youtube video below, but if you want to see the scratch version, possibly to remix, the link to that will be in the description.)

Notes: If there are any canon inconsistencies, it’s because I haven’t read one of these books in a little under a year lol.

I did try to write it like it was really a How To Train Your Dragon book though. :3 It’s really fun to try to do haha.

Hiccup yawned and stretched in his bed, feeling the Woodensfang and Toothless' warm wings flicker against his side as the little green dragon grumbled something half asleep about the mean master waking him up. Light gently glowed from the doorway into the main room in the hut, and for a moment Hiccup felt quite like going right back to sleep.

He rolled back into his pillow, planting his face right down in the soft fabric and feathers and hissing out another yawn in a failed effort to suppress it. At his side Toothless also hissed, and as Hiccup did his best to get back to sleep (in his tiredness, he was entirely unaware of how much his movements were disturbing Toothless), the little dragon’s bright green eyes snapped open to stare angrily at the back of Hiccup's head.

“ Mean Hiccup! ” Toothless all but yelled, causing Hiccup to jump up in alarm as if he had been shot, “ T-t-Toothless was JUST getting to bed! ”

Hiccup nearly fell backwards out of the bed as Toothless headbutted him in the shoulder, his little gossamer wings flickering in the dark morning air as wisps of smoke rose from his toothless mouth. 

Holding his shoulder, Hiccup regained his balance and began to apologize to Toothless. It seemed that even after achieving relative peace after the Dragon Rebelion, there wasn't much he could do about Toothless' attitude.

Hiccup chuckled and swung his feet over the edge of the bed, fumbling for his helmet (just a regular old Hooligan helmet, that pretentious bloodstained crown would never again touch his fiery hair if he could do anything to help it) before placing the familiar weight on his head.

As Hiccup adjusted the helmet in the reflections on a shield that had apparently been put in his room with him, Toothless flapped up onto his shoulder, seeming to have forgotten all about being tired as the distant scent of breakfast reached his little warty nose.

“ W-w-ill Toothless get some of that fish downstairs? ” Toothless asked, starting directly into Hiccup's eyes even as Hiccup focused on his reflection, “ T-toothless KNOWS there's food downstairs ,” he placed a claw over his heart, “ Toothless can s-s- SMELL it, ”

Hiccup laughed and finished readjusting his helmet. (It was surprisingly difficult to get it to intentionally miss covering his dragon mark.) “ Yes Toothless, ” he said in dragonese, which was the language dragons and hopefully humans spoke to each other in, “ I'm sure you can have the fish, ”

Toothless whooped in joy and jumped into the air, turning a little summersault before landing on Hiccup's helmet. (Which very quickly titled out of the position the boy king had so carefully put it in.) Hiccup sighed and reached up to pet the small dragon. Things had gone back to normal so easily, it was almost as if they had never even changed in the first place.

“ T-toothless is the best lost thing, after all, ” Toothless all but crowed, turning circles on Hiccup's helmet as he headed out of the bedroom and into the main room of the makeshift hut the vikings had set up. (Though he was sure to grab his sword along the way, just in case. Vikings worked fast, as the hut proved, and even if they were in a state of peace, he had no proof they would stay that way for very long, no matter how much he wanted them too.)

“ Yes Toothless, ” Hiccup replied back absentmindedly, skirting around the sleeping forms of his mother and father and past the empty rolls where he knew some other Viking royalty had been put to sleep, “ Yes you were, ”

He hadn't thought about it when he was in his room, but he was pretty sure that Fishlegs and Camicazi had been missing from their own blankets when he had woken up.

Quietly he slid open the front door, careful to shush Toothless until it was closed again in case he started yelling again. (He had seen his mother twist in her sleep when Toothless had last crowed.)

“ Do you think Toothless will get to have c-cod?! ” Toothless asked excitedly, “ T-toothless is in the mood for cod! ”

“ Does it smell like cod? ” Hiccup asked him, reaching up to pick up the little dragon (and also to fix his helmet, again), " If it smells like cod you can probably have cod, ”

"Or tuna," Toothless said thoughtfully, "Toothless ALSO in the mood for tuna..."

It was a shockingly warm day out for the season, but Hiccup still shivered as a chilly ocean breeze flew past him. Toothless didn't seem to mind it so much, but he didn't argue as Hiccup placed him back on the soft fur of the vest over his shoulder.

Hiccup followed the scent as Toothless struggled to place it, though he was also somewhat unsure of what it could be, he was hungry. Maybe it wasn't smart to be walking around camp as a newly crowned King of the Wilderwest all by his lonesome, especially when he was still fairly bruised, but he didn't care. He was hungry, and he was still tired, and maybe he wasn't thinking quite straight.

He turned a corner between the tents, and suddenly the source of the smell was within his reach.

A campfire, with a large pot presumably containing many kinds of fish hung over it, sat at the center of a small clearing in the tents and huts, but that wasn't even why his heart suddenly glowed.

“Fishlegs!” he called, waving to his friend as Toothless crowed and leapt off his shoulder, aiming straight for a pile of delicious fat fish that had not yet been added to the stew, “Camicazi!”

His two friends waved back at him, grinning wide grins, but they weren't the only ones around the campfire.

“We were going to invite your parents,” Camicazi told him, elbowing him in the side good-naturedly, her mood dragon Stormfly winding around her legs like a very long, very purple cat as she wished Hiccup a good morning, “But they were dead asleep and we didn't want to wake them,”

”Hey Hiccup!“ Fishlegs grinned at him, though he looked somewhat ill (which Hiccup guessed probably stemmed from the fact that a very sleepy looking Barbra the Barbarian was sitting and chatting with some of Camicazi's Bog Burglar friends.) ”Good morning for fish, right?“

Hiccup shrugged and smiled. (Though he certainly agreed with Fishlegs, he didn't want to insult the shivering shape of his friend's vegetarian hunting dragon Horrorcow, who had once again found her place as a large lump under Fishlegs’ vest.) ”Good morning to see you guys!“

”Hiccup!“ called a voice that Hiccup recognized as Thuggory the Meathead, ”Are you gonna ask Toothless to wait until everything is done cooking or are we starting right away?!“

Hiccup turned to see the tall Viking Heir struggling with Toothless, who was eating a humongous tuna that Thuggory seemed to have been right about to dump into the stew. 

”Oh Toothless!“ Hiccup called, racing over to his snickering friend and taking him (complete with the fish larger than he was) into his arms, ” Don't you want to wait until all the cooking has been done? “ He said, continuing in Dragonese.

Toothless giggled and continued chowing down. Clearly he preferred the taste of nice raw fish. (Hiccup couldn't say he agreed, but he was glad that Toothless seemed to be subdued for a second or two.)

Hiccup placed the tuna and dragon on the floor together, trying to ignore the loud sounds of chewing that floated up from them as he reached out a hand to shake Thuggory's hand. To his surprise, the Meathead heir laughed and drew him into a hug instead.

Hiccup nearly choked as he was lifted into the air, his feet dangling for a couple of seconds as Thuggory greeted him, before he was set back down. 

”It's great to see you again Hiccup,“ Thuggory explained, ”Especially after all that cool stuff you did back there,“

”Good to see you again too,“ Hiccup laughed, though he didn't really like the constant references to the battles of the Dragon Rebelion, ”Just doing what a friend of dragons has to do,“

”Hiccup!“ called Camicazi, catching up with him. (Though Fishlegs lagged a few steps behind, not so secretly making eyes at Barbra, who was now hissing at her cat Fearless and showing the Bog Burglars how sharp the claws of the little animal were.) ”Hey!“

Hiccup turned to her, though he was momentarily distracted by the sight of several Hooligan boys sitting together on a large rock. He had missed them more than he had expected in the time he'd been gone, it seemed, because even the sight of Dogsbreath (who was laughing with Clueless about something for a change) put a smile on his face.

“Yeah?” he asked, shooting Speedyfist a smile, “What is it?”

“Aren't you going to ask why we're all here now?!” he asked, putting her hands on her hips and glaring at him. Even though she was a head or so shorter than him, Hiccup thought she could look extremely intimidating if she chose to. 

“Um,” Hiccup thought for a second, but, still groggy from sleep, he had nothing. “Breakfast?” He asked, giving her a pained smile as she slapped a hand to her face and sighed. (*”Boys,“*)

”It's for your birthday!“ Fishlegs said, finally stumbling over to the group.

“My what?” Hiccup asked, completely blindsided by that answer. Hadn't his birthday been quite a while back now?

”You only get one once every four years,“ Camicazi pointed out, speaking slowly and patiently as if she really believed he was as stupid as she pretended she thought he was, ”and we felt bad that you missed it, so we wanted to throw a celebration!“

“My- ah!” Hiccup yelped as Toothless' sharp claws dug into his leg, he seemed to have had his fill of the fat tuna, “What- Thank you-“

Thuggory slapped him on the back, laughing again. ”It's what dragon markers do, eh?“

Fishlegs nodded, and even Horrorcow stuck her head out from under his vest for a second to speak. ” I do wish we had considered vegetarians before planning the meal, “ she said politely, ” do you happen to have any carrots? “

Hiccup frowned and stuck his hands into his pocket, he always carried a slice of carrot precisely for this purpose. ” In fact I do Horrorcow! “ He grinned, holding it out to the sad looking hunting dragon, ” enjoy! “

She thanked him and immediately began chomping into the orange vegetable. Hiccup smiled, to his tired mind, the interaction hadn't seemed odd at all, but as Camicazi spluttered into laughter and Fishlegs blinked at him in confusion, Hiccup began to realize that it might have sounded a bit odd to those that didn't understand dragonese.

“I should start teaching you guys dragonese,” he mused, scratching Toothless between his horns as he turned to look at the mess of fish guys he had left on the sandy rocks below them. (And on Hiccup's boots it seemed.)

“You're just not gonna address that?!” Camicazi half shrieked, half laughed, nearly doubled over at the force of her laughter, “You just had a carrot in your pocket? Why?!”

Hiccup brushed a strand or two of hair out of his eye and, in a fake offended voice, told her that he cared about his friends enough to do so if the friend in question called for it.

This caused her to howl with laughter again, and this time Hiccup couldn't help but join in. This all felt strangely comfortable, for some reason. From the small circle of closer friends that were giggling with (and at) him, to the gaggles of Hooligan boys and Bog Burglar girls on opposite sides of the fire, to the random smattering of hunting and riding dragons that had decided to stay with their humans, this felt nice.

“Thank you all,” Hiccup murmured, still scratching a now purring Toothless and Thuggory began to call that the stew was done, “It really means a lot that you would do this for me,”

“ And for m-me! ” Toothless said, yelping happily and jumping into the air as the covering once again came off the large pot, which he seemed to have just realized was the perfect heat for a dragon such as himself, “ T-toothless loves fish baths! ”

And it was all Hiccup could do to warn Thuggory that he was about to half to fish a very happy little dragon out of their food.

[bihansthot]

Ok lovelies I did it! I wrote the Kuai Liang side of the request for:

Hopefully you lovelies will enjoy this one! I actually had a really good time writing it which is weird because I usually struggle writing for Kuai Liang verses Bi-Han. I had fun though because I got to incorporate some of myself in this one too since it’s a reader insert for Kuai Liang, the reader, you are my sister-in-law! Fun right? It got a little longer than I expected a little over three pages maybe four? I don’t know Pages is kind of a weird app but really easy to navigate on Apple devices and since I write on my Ipad now using a bluetooth keyboard it seems to do the job, it’s just kind of annoying because there’s no page numbers and no word count, but whatever I guess. This fic also heavily features good brother Bi-Han and depicts the Sub-Zero Brothers in their natural enviroment, aka being antagonistic little shits to one another, but in a very loving way. Anyway I really like this one and hope you will too!

Title: What Are Big Brother’s For

Rating: Teen (some swears, what else is new for me)

Pairing: Kuai Liang x F!Reader, background Bi-Han x Sol (aka me) implied Tomas x Hallvard

Summary: You and Kuai Liang are expecting your first child together and despite reading tomes of literature it turns out the younger Sub-Zero brother has no clue what to do, thankfully Big Brother Bi-Han is there to help.

Author’s Note: As always lovelies please like, reblog, comment if you enjoyed it as it keeps me motivated to write more!

You exhale deeply and bend forward at the waist, extending your arms toward the ground as much as your huge, pregnant belly will let you as you follow along to your “Mommy and Me: Prenatal Yoga, Third Trimester” Blu-Ray. “Inhale deeply and slowly roll yourself upright,” the movie continues as you follow along wobbling a bit as your balance isn’t quite what it used to be. You hear the door open and you’re greeted with a cool breeze wafting towards you as you hear the footfalls of your husband, the Grandmaster inching ever closer. His cool lips press gently to your forehead as you attempt to continue following along with the video mimicking the tree pose. You can’t help but reach out for Kuai Liang’s well-muscled shoulders to steady yourself.

“Are you sure it’s ok to still be doing yoga this late into your pregnancy xīngān?” He asks, his deep voice laced with concern. Being a first-time father Kuai Liang is not sure what to expect or what is safe or not despite the mountain of literature he’s read on the topic, he’s asked his brother what to expect numerous times as Bi-Han was a proud father of four and had been through the ups and downs of his significant other being pregnant. Bi-Han has been an invaluable resource on the topic, but after four children he’s a bit more laidback on the subject and a little more “just let her do what she wants” for Kuai Liang’s taste.

“It’s fine Liang, this is the program for the third trimester, the Blu-Ray says you can do it up to labor, you know I want to keep my body as healthy as I can for our baby,” you beam and happily rub your belly as you try and transition into chair pose, something far more obtainable for a very pregnant woman to achieve. “Oh, that felt a little weird, I don’t know if the baby likes this pose,” you crinkle your nose and try and ignore the sudden burst of pain rippling through you.

Kuai Liang grabs your shoulders immediately in an attempt to steady you, “really xīngān you shouldn’t continue if you’re in pain, you’re due any day now, I’m sure our little one will understand if you take some time off,” his handsome face knits in concern as he expresses his fears to you.

“Really it’s ok, it helps keep my mind clear and not focused on the pain that’s coming,” you say that, but you’ve given up following along with the video, the cryomancer’s strong, but gentle hold on you making it impossible if you wanted to continue in the first place.

“Still, I think that’s enough for now, your feet look swollen, let’s get you in the chair by the fireplace and let me rub your feet for you xīngān,” Kuai Liang helps walk you over to the fireplace but you never reach it.

A loud “Oh” falls from your lips as liquid suddenly drenches you to the core and your feet are soaking wet with the warm, thin fluid.

“Oh, what?” Kuai Liang repeats with concern before realizing what had happened, “oh! Oh! Your water broke!? Your water broke!” He parrots over and over again, panic written all over the Grandmaster’s handsome face.

You groan as a contraction hits and squeeze his cool hand tightly, “Liang, I can’t stand,” you warn before going slack in his strong arms.

“What do I do, what do I do?” The cryomancer repeats over and over as he supports your weight with ease, it finally dawns on him to get you to the chair. He scoops you up bridal style and carefully makes his way over to the plush chair by the roaring fire. He sets you down in the comfortable chair before staring at you like a lost puppy.

You cry out again as another contraction wells up and lights your nervous system on fire, you grimace and look over at your husband, trying to remain calm, “call your brother?” You offer, hoping the older cryomancer might actually have some useful tips or information to deal with the situation, but deep down you hope it's his wife who answers.

“Bi-Han! Yes! Call gēgē he’ll know what to do!” Kuai Liang snaps into action as he makes his way over to the desk in the room to search for his phone, of course, he wouldn’t carry it on his person like someone normal would. It takes him a moment to locate the device as he frantically fumbles to unlock the device and scrolls through his most recent contacts list until he finally comes across Bi-Han. “Please pick up, please pick up, come on you asshole answer the damn phone,” he growls in frustration at the screen as you sit there trying to focus on your breathing.

“What do you want you, little shit?” You can hear Bi-Han’s voice finally answer as Kuai Liang switches over to speaker phone.

“What do I do?!” Kuai Liang desperately asks, not bothering to explain the situation to his brother at all.

“Shit, what’s wrong, calm down kiddo,” you notice the shift in Bi-Han’s antagonist tone quickly switch to protective big brother mode.

“It’s y/n, her water broke, she’s having contractions, I don’t know what to do, I’m not ready!” Kuai Liang laments, his voice cracking as if he was trying very hard not to start crying.

“Dídí listen to me, you have to calm down, you knew this was coming, she’s been pregnant for nine months, take a deep breath,” Bi-Han instructs. “How far apart are the contractions, is the pain manageable? Have you called her doctor yet?” Bi-Han asks in a deep, calm yet authoritative voice, the same type of voice he’s used to calm his little brother down for years.

“I, I uh I don’t know, I didn’t know you were supposed to time them,” he answers sheepishly, red tinting his cheeks.

“Ok, let's start with that, can y/n hear me?” The older cryomancer asks, trying to keep his younger brother calm.

“I can hear you Bi-Han, is, is Sol there by chance?” You answer taking another deep breath and cradling your stomach.

“Sol’s picking up the boys from soccer practice, but she’ll be back before anything crazy happens, she won’t want to miss your little one’s entrance into the world,” Bi-Han reassures calmly. “Now, have you been keeping track of the contractions since my knucklehead of a brother isn’t?”

“They aren’t urgent yet, maybe five minutes apart, but the pain is pretty rough,” you admit and wince as the pain builds up again.

“Ok, Liang, hang up on me, call the doctor, tell them y/n’s contractions are approximately five minutes apart, but the pain is worrying, I’ll be right over, I’m going to call Sol and tell her to meet us at the hospital ok? Don’t do anything until I get there,” Bi-Han instructs the younger cryomancer.

“Ok, ok gēgē, call the doctor, tell them contractions five minutes apart, but painful, wait for you,” Kuai Liang repeats before quietly adding, “thank you,” and hanging up. “Ok xīngān I’m going to call the hospital now, are you feeling ok?”

“I’m ok love, I’m just a little worried, I haven’t been through this before either,” you give your husband a worried little sideways smile.

“We’ll get through this together xīngān if Bi-Han can manage being a father I know I’m more than capable of it,” Kuai Liang scoffs softly not wanting to admit how grateful he was to have his older brother in this situation.

You can’t help but wonder if Bi-Han was as flustered as Kuai Liang is going through it for the first time, knowing your himbo king of a brother-in-law though he probably winged the whole thing and somehow managed to do things correctly, though not without his wife’s help. You vaguely ponder what it must have been like for Sol as your husband calls the hospital and tells them you’d be arriving shortly and going over the procedure for check-in upon arrival, highly impressed at your technology-hating husband’s ability to navigate two phone calls back-to-back. Suddenly the fire goes out thanks to a large draft in the room caused by your brother-in-law’s timely arrival.

“I sent the recruits home for the night,” he announces as you shiver, wondering how on earth your sister-in-law managed to get used to the cold that clung to the older cryomancer.

“Thank you, brother,” Kuai Liang replies and stands there awkwardly before Bi-Han’s large hands clamp down on his shoulders reassuringly.

“You got this little bro, you don’t have to do anything hard, you just wait, your wife has to do all the hard stuff stop freaking out, she has the same doctor who’s delivered my four kids, everything will be just fine,” Bi-Han informs Kuai Liang in a very confident tone.

The Grandmaster just stands there blinking for a few moments before finally coming back to himself, “you’re right, everything will be fine, if you can deal with this I certainly can.” Kuai Liang does his best to give himself a little pep talk as for once Bi-Han doesn’t question his capabilities.

Bi-Han makes his way over to you and crouches down next to the chair before placing a cold hand on your forehead, “are you feeling ok? You don’t feel hot, is the pain ok? Have you been abusing my brother’s hand properly?”

Something about Bi-Han’s simple gesture makes you feel at ease and you’re very grateful your brother-in-law is there in this moment and you can’t help but cry, emotions getting the best of you, but in a good way. “I’m hanging in there Bi-Han, the baby is behaving and not hurting as much anymore, but I get the feeling they’re eager to get here, my contractions are closer together now,” you all but sob as you ramble the information off to the older cryomancer.

“Shhh, it’s ok, you’re doing such a good job,” Bi-Han reassures, petting your head softly before glaring harshly at his younger brother and it doesn’t take Liang long to get the message to come over to hold your hand. “I called Sol and Tomas, Hallvard is watching the kids for the night, they’re already headed to the hospital, is your bag all packed?” Bi-Han asks soothingly.

“Yes, it’s packed, can you go get it for me? It’s at the foot of the bed, along with the baby’s bag and the car seat we borrowed from you,” you steady your breathing as you ask him between sobs trying not to let them turn into hiccups.

“Of course,” Bi-Han leaves you alone with your husband as he goes to gather the things the two of you need for your soon-to-be baby.

“She’s really almost here isn’t she?” You sniffle happily cradling your swollen belly, pride slowly replacing the panic you felt earlier.

“She is,” Kuai Liang repeats softly, “I’m so proud of you xīngān you’re doing a much better job of keeping things together than I am, I was so petrified I didn’t know what to do.” He strokes your head lovingly and places a kiss on top of your head as you tense with another contraction causing the Grandmaster to grimace from the intense pressure you inflict on his hand.

“Sorry,” you grin sheepishly and wipe away the last of your stress-induced tears, “are you ready to be a father?”

Pride gets the best of Kuai Liang as he answers, “if my idiot brother can be a father you can bet I’m ready, I will be the best father out there, our little girl will want for nothing and be loved more than anyone else this world has ever known.”

“Idiot brother who knows what he’s doing,” Bi-Han corrects as he saunters back into the main room or the Grandmaster’s suite. “I’m putting his stuff in the back, with you Kuai Liang, y/n can sit up front so she has more leg room, but I’m driving, no way in hell am I letting your frazzled ass drive right now.” Bi-Han dictates as he heads out to pack up the car.

“No. No! Absolutely not! There is no way I am letting you drive! We’ll never make it there in one piece!” Kuai Liang exclaims forgetting about you for a moment to run after his brother in a relatively normal display of sibling rivalry.

“I’m the oldest, and it’s my car, I’m driving, end of story, besides you’re emotional as fuck right now, you’ll drive us into a snowbank. No discussion.” Bi-Han barks back and Kuai Liang almost winces at the dominance in his brother’s voice.

You cry out from another contraction, “oh for fuck’s sake, let him drive Liang!” You shout at the two squabbling cryomancers.

“Do as your wife says,” Bi-Han hisses and holds the keys over Liang’s head knowing full well his brother couldn’t reach them without jumping for them.

“Fine,” Kuai Liang finally relents, “but you aren’t allowed into the delivery room.” He huffs hating to lose to his older brother.

“Jokes on you kiddo, you aren’t allowed either,” Bi-Han laughs and climbs into the driver’s seat as Kuai Liang makes his way back over to you to carry you to the car.

“Unfortunately he’s right again, only females are allowed in the delivery room love, something about Chinese customs, Sol and the doctor warned me in advance since it's different than what I’m used to,” you explain sheepishly.

“We’ll see about that,” Kuai Liang scoffs as he buckles you into the seat and climbs into the back praying to the Elder Gods Bi-Han delivers all of you to the hospital in one piece.

The trip down the mountain was harrowing but by some miracle, Bi-Han navigated the drive with surprising precision as he pulls up to the hospital’s entrance. “Ok, get her inside, I’ll park and bring the bags in, Sol and Tomas should be there already,” Bi-Han announces as he puts the car in park and idles at the entrance.

“Thank you, brother, I, I mean it,” Kuai Liang replies reluctantly as he steps out of the car and helps you out.

“Please let me walk Liang, I don’t need the hospital seeing you carry me please, it’s embarrassing,” you try and reason with your husband. Unfortunately for you though another contraction hits and you double over in pain causing Kuai Liang to immediately pull you into his arms and march you inside the hospital.

“There you two are!” You’re greeted with a bright smile as a cheerful, busty, pink-haired woman bounds towards you.

“Sol, how did you get here so fast? You barely had time to leave before us and you had to stop to get Tomas,” Kuai Liang greets your sister-in-law and looks over toward Tomas who looked white as a ghost.

“Do NOT let this woman drive,” Tomas merely states.

“I, uh don’t really know how to drive in the snow or ice, so I just floored it the whole way and hoped for the best!” Sol chirps happily as she pulls a wheelchair over and gestures for Kuai Liang to put you down.

You blink at her incredulously, “Sol, you’ve lived in Arctika over 15 years, what do you mean you don’t know how to drive in the ice or snow?” You’re so distracted by your overly excited sister-in-law you don’t even notice your next contraction.

“You think Bi-Han lets me drive? Like Mr. I’m in Control of Everything would give up driving, he only lets me ever drive the kids to school and back since it’s right down the road, and honestly, most days they walk anyway,” Sol explains giving you that looks of ‘you’ve met Bi-Han now try being married to that’.

“R-right,” you stammer trying to be polite as Kuai Liang informs the desk clerk of your arrival and receives directions to your room, and informs him the doctor is on their way from their private practice and should be there momentarily.

“Ready xīngān?” Kuai Liang asks as he takes control of the wheelchair away from the pink-haired woman.

“As ready as I’ll ever be,” you answer trying your best to feel as confident as you can.

The delivery process isn’t as bad as you feared, but you were very grateful for the epidural and your overly excited sister-in-law’s support. You cuddle your little girl to your chest for the first time and cry tears of joy as you’re soon joined by Kuai Liang who can’t help but become overwhelmed with emotion as he openly weeps upon seeing the two of you.

“Oh she’s perfect, absolutely perfect, she looks just like you xīngān,” he whispers softly as Sol quietly makes her way out of the room to give you two some space.

“Come on qīn, I wanna see my niece!” Bi-Han all but shouts as he’s forcefully pushed out of the room and you’re once again grateful for your sister-in-law.

You and Kuai Liang are left in quiet awe as your baby girl coos and opens her eyes for the first time blinking and looking up at the two of you before smiling brightly and making happy noises.

“I think she likes us,” you whisper to Kuai Liang, eyes still glistening with unshed tears of happiness.

“I think you might be right,” he agrees as he squeezes your hand in glee as your daughter’s chubby little fingers wrap around his finger and she squeals with excitement.

“Look, she knows her Bàba already,” you sigh happily cradling her close. “She’s cool like you,” you admire the small bundle in your arms as your emotions overflow with happiness.

“Your Bàba loves you so much little one, so much,” Kuai Liang whispers and allows himself to get lost in the moment, lost in the emotions of bringing a life into the world with the one he loves more than anything else. He hadn’t realized how much fatherhood would change him, but this simple, tiny little girl was suddenly the center of his world and he would do anything and everything to protect his little family.

[asnowfern]

The Writing's On The Wall - Chapter 1

Summary: She's a demon, he's a hunter. Their fates intertwined after a chance encounter. Can Nesta and Cassian overcome all odds to be together? Ancient Chinese wuxia AU setting/Inspired by the Legend of the White Snake.

A/N: Written for Day Four of @nestaarcheronweek 2023: Lover I am unbelievably nervous and excited for this fic. Wuxia/Xianxia shows were such a big part of my childhood, I really want to do it justice. That being said, I did change a lot of details as this is first and foremost, an ACOTAR fic. Please do not come after me saying that this is not traditional wuxia or wildly differs from the Legend of White Snake. It was intentional.

Now that's out of the way, enjoy! Read on AO3

Chapter One: 有缘 (it’s fate)

The trees swayed in the cool breeze, rustling its leaves. The lake glistened in the background as the fresh scent of rain permeated the air.  The night turned still as Nesta approached her targeted building. The temple stood tall against the serene backdrop of the trees and hills of Hangzhou province. The temple was large and opulent. 

Nesta adjusted her black scarf to cover her face and made her way to the temple swiftly, smoothly leaping from one rooftop to the next. True to her form, her movements were fluid and silent. 

Coming here was a risk. Tomas Mandray was a famed hunter and collector. Despite his identification as a monk, the man was ruthless to any demons and spirits, regardless of any actual malicious inclinations. Nesta's thoughts flashed back to Gwyn's pained face and attacked form. Sweet Gwyn who never hurt anyone, just like Clare never did. They may be the demons but it was without a shadow of doubt to Nesta that humans were the monsters. She felt the familiar cold rage burnt through her veins, hardening her resolve. 

Nesta had spent most of the day surveying the building. She knew the monk spent most of his day in a room at the corner of the left wing, likely his study. That would be her best bet for the orb. She crouched low on the rooftop and reached out her senses to identify any heat sources within the room. On the next beat, she was in the room.

The room was dizzying with qi relics. Nesta cursed inwardly and focused her senses once more, identifying the highest concentration of qi in the room. Hidden and tucked away behind a landscape portrait was her prize - the orb containing two hundred years of qi, stolen from the hermit of xihu , the West Lake. Nesta grabbed it and instantly felt the zap course through her arm. 

Shit.

She bolted but had barely made it to the courtyard when she heard the arrogant taunt that chilled her to the core, "You dare steal from me, demon?"

Nesta whirled around, her sword unsheathed in her hand as she faced Mandray. The monk gave her a cold appraising look, his sharp features, while blessed with an attractive aristocratic quality, sported a cruel smirk. 

"Return what you stole and I might just let you leave here alive." he crooned. 

Nesta nearly scoffed, "Do you take me for a fool?"

"Well, I didn’t say that you were leaving here unscathed," he said dismissively.

With that, he struck with his staff. Nesta parried the attack with her sword, gritting her teeth at the harsh impact of the blow. She crouched slightly to tilt her sword away and twisted her body to give the next swing of her sword a greater momentum. A move which was quickly blocked by the man. 

He gave her no time to consider her next attack and launched a series of quick strikes, leaving Nesta no option but to move into the defensive, blocking every jab and swing of his staff. Then she spotted an opening and took it, imbuing her blade with added qi, she lowered her stance and slashed the man's side.

Mandray hissed in pain and his face twisted into rage. He clutched his injured side and lept back a few steps. Nesta turned to flee the compound but was instantly immobilised with a blinding pain. She bit back a cry as she let her sword fall into the ground, leaning her weight into the weapon to avoid falling over. A low rumble of chants reached her ears as she took in the hexagonal golden light caging her in. 

Nesta heaved a breath and looked up to glare at her opponent, spitting out a taunt, “Couldn’t handle me by yourself?” 

“You knowingly snuck into a temple to steal from us. We have every right to defend ourselves.” Mandray shot back, his hand still clutched tightly against his injured side. “Give up, demon.” 

Nesta did not reply, her eyes swept around the golden barrier to search for any vulnerable point. Her jaw tightened as the chants grew louder and the pain intensified, setting her nerves alight. 

“Give up, demon.” he repeated, “There is no getting out of the structure. You are just prolonging your suffering. Return the relic and I will deliver you a swift and painless death.” 

Her mind zeroed in on his words. Structure. If the trap was a structure, it had to have foundations. She just had to find it and break it. Find it find it find it.

Her senses surged out, ignoring the man’s taunts and the chants. The edges of her mouth turned up into the barest of a smirk when she located it. She dug into her core and fortified her body, lighting her body in silver flames. With the next exhale, she shot a ball of flames into the ground to her right. She seized the opportunity the moment the barrier wavered, expanding the flames surrounding her outward, shattering the barrier. 

Mandray’s eyes widened in shock and disbelief. Throwing him one last look of derision, Nesta gathered her dwindling qi and transformed into her snake form, vanishing from the courtyard and into the night.

Nesta transformed back the moment she escaped deep into the neighbouring forest. She collapsed against the tree, yanking down the black scarf covering her face and breathed deeply. Before she fully realised it, darkness swallowed her consciousness.  

**

The memories spun mercilessly. 

“Nesta, Nesta! Look at what Chen gave me!” Clare cried out excitedly, shoving a delicate hair pin in Nesta’s face. 

“I think I might actually be falling in love,” Clare confessed softly, “Isn't it just silly to think? A demon and human could be in love?"

“He proposed, Nesta!” she swooned, her delicate face glowing in happiness, “Can you believe it? I’m getting married.” 

“Run, Nesta.” she begged, her voice weak from her injuries.  

Nesta tightened her grip around her childhood friend’s body, panting from the effort of running with the extra weight, “I’m not leaving you behind.” 

She fell to the ground when an arrow struck her in the back, dropping Clare on the ground. Nesta grit her teeth as she moved to cradle her friend once more. 

“Stop, Nesta.” Clare quietly commanded as a dusting of pink light surrounded her body, “It’s too late for me but it’s not for you. You have to run.” 

Nesta shook her head vigorously and said fiercely, “Don’t you dare give up on me.”

Clare smiled sadly as the dusting glowed brighter and her body faded, “You must live for the both of us, Nesta.”  

Nesta’s eyes snapped open, her chest heaving from the dream. Her eyes started to fall shut when the crackling of a fire caught her attention. She shot her body up and took in her surroundings. She was no longer in the forest but an abandoned hut. Her attention narrowed on the man tending to the fire. Her hand slowly moved towards her side towards her sword which was no longer attached to her waist. 

“Looking for this?” The male asked, waving a sheathed sword. Her sword, she realised belatedly. 

“Return it to me.” she demanded, her voice scratchy from disuse. 

The stranger gave her an infuriating smile, “So you can attack me? I don’t think so. Besides, you are in no shape to fight me.”  

Nesta narrowed her gaze, properly taking in the man before her. He was relatively young and sported a muscular physique. His ruggedly handsome face had a thin scar cutting across his right eyebrow. His dark complexion and shorter hair length revealed his western mountain origin. Reflections of the fire swayed lazily in his hazel eyes. 

Warrior. No, hunter. Her mind cautioned as she registered the numerous weapons on him.

“Relax, I mean you no harm.” he quickly assured her, cautiously handing over her sword, “Your qi levels are dangerously low and you are suffering from internal injuries. Don’t fight me.” 

“You know what I am then,” she surmised, her eyes darting around to locate the exit.

“A demon,” he agreed.

“So why haven’t you killed me?” she demanded, continuing when he raised a questioning brow, “You’re a hunter. Isn’t that what you do?” 

“I hunt malicious demons.” he answered easily as the infuriating smile returned. “You don’t seem very malicious to me.” 

Nesta threw him a scornful glare and sneered, “Spare me the act. You humans don’t care.” 

“I know,” he cut in, “that you’re in possession of a powerful orb. Probably stolen from Tomas Mandray, who had been bragging about it for weeks. Yet, you made no effort to absorb it, even in your injured state. In other words, you did not steal it from one of the most powerful hunters in jianghu for selfish gain. Like I said, not malicious.” 

The image of Clare fading into pink dust flashed behind her eyes. She gripped her sword tightly, “I applaud your efforts in not killing me then. I’ll be taking my leave.” 

She stood up, swaying slightly. The man reached forward to support her but stopped himself at her hard glare. 

“You’re in no position to travel.” he implored quietly, “There is a healing quarry lake about an hour away. We can leave at dawn. Just rest, please. I will not harm you.”  

"I'm fine." Nesta insisted, soldiering forward through the haze of weightlessness. She was halfway out of the building when it occurred to her that he seemed to be coming with.

She whipped around to ask, "Why are you following me?"

"You are in no shape to travel or defend yourself if anyone attacks. If you're not resting, I'm coming with you." he shot back, evidently annoyed by her stubbornness.

"Nobody is asking you to." she argued.

"You don't have to," he answered. Even in the moonlight, his eyes shone with honesty. 

Nesta bit back a retort. There was no getting rid of the guy. She replied with a resigned sigh, "I don't have time to rest all night. Now, where is that quarry?"

Nesta almost punched him for the shit eating grin he flashed her.

**

"My name is Cassian, by the way." he introduced himself a couple of minutes into their journey. 

He kept a step ahead of her. Close enough, she realised, to defend her when needed but stayed in her line of sight so that she knew that he would not sneak an attack on her. An effort that she appreciated.

"Nesta" she begrudgingly returned.

They walked in silence. Cassian would constantly check the stars and point them in a specific direction. Nesta felt her strength waning with every step, her skin misted with sweat from the effort of walking. 

The next time Cassian paused to navigate them, he passed her a canteen and said, "Let's take a short rest." 

Nesta took the canteen and drank from it, catching the sigh of relief before it could escape her throat. She let her eyes fall shut for a few moments as she drank the water. 

"Let's go" she snapped the moment she opened her eyes and slapped the canteen against his chest, stalking forward. If Cassian made a quip (which she was almost certain he did), it went unheard and ignored.

The sky was still dark when they reached the quarry. The water glistened against the backdrop of the rough surface of the quarry, reflecting the moon on its surface. Nesta knelt slightly to dip her hand under the water, sighing at the instant ease which flowed into her. She stood up, surprised to see Cassian making camp at the site. 

"What are you doing?" she blurted out.

"Settling in. There's still a while to go until sunrise." he answered easily, as if it explained everything. "I'm not leaving you defenceless in your meditative state."

"Why?" she asked, finally giving into curiousity, "I'm a demon. Probably the last creature, a human, much less a hunter, would protect."

"I'd do it for anyone," he replied quietly, his expression was serious but sincere, "I'll never hurt you Nesta. You're safe with me." 

Nesta found herself wanting to believe him. There was something in his eyes, something that made her think as she walked into the water that there was more to this, something that she was missing. She held onto the thought as the ground vanished beneath her, surmerging her fully. Nesta transformed, the process dragged in her injured state. Her limbs gradually combined and extended into its long length, curling as she settled at the bottom.

Nesta felt his gaze on her, its heat reaching her through the water. She ignored it, focusing her attention on absorbing the restorative energy of her surroundings. She meditated until the sun was high in the sky and her strength returned. 

She redirected the flow of qi in her body, gathering them from the far lengths of her long body back to her core, transforming back into her humanoid form. As the top of her head breaches the surface, she pooled the energy around her hands, ready at any given notice to throw out her silver flames.

Their eyes clashed, molten silver against burning hazel. Nesta held her breath. Would seeing her in her other form reveal the hunter as nothing more than the killer that he certainly is?

Maintaining the fiery energy around her hands, she drew upon enough qi to apply the glamour, ivory scales giving way to alabaster skin. A large warm hand covered her cheek at the point where scales met skin. 

"Don't," he said roughly, "You don't have to cover it up with me." 

Cassian's stare turned hungry, "It's beautiful."

Her brain screamed at her to remove his hand, to slap it away angrily, but Nesta could only stare into his eyes, transfixed with the flakes of gold dancing around his pupils and fixate on the warmth radiating from his hand to her face. Her heart pounded in her ears as she felt the heat spreading across her cheeks.

From a distance, a hawk screeched. The moment snapped like a taut rope and Nesta almost flinched from the impact, the blazing qi fizzled out pathetically in her hands. She stepped back immediately. 

"I've recovered enough to return," she informed curtly. Her expression softened slightly for a moment, "Thank you for helping me." 

Cassian smiled, slow and devastating. Nesta felt her heart stutter as he replied, "Come to the house at the southern tip of the West Lake. You will always have a friend there." 

Nesta nodded and took off, Clare's voice haunting her journey back. 

Isn't it just silly to think? A demon and human could be in love.

It was not silly. It was a tragedy waiting to happen. 

Next

Translation Notes: xihu/西湖 - The West Lake located in Hangzhou, China. qi/气 - Vital energy that flows through all bodies. jianghu/江湖 - The setting often used in wuxia stories. Think "The Valley" in Kungfu Panda.

A/N: I'm still relatively new to this and this would be my first multi-chapter fic that I don't have pre-written so do let me know if you would want to be added into a taglist!

[evasivaardilosa]

Most fics focus on just two or three characters. The ones I usually read at least. Specially oneshots, which I read the most, but I think a good amount of the last multichapters I’ve read where also like this, focused on two or three

My Second Chances 2.0 is clearly focused on three characters as well - Hanzo, Harumi and Kuai - but I want to give some light to some others. I think it will get at least one “chapter” (I’m still not sure if I will divide it in chapters) in mk1!Hanzo’s pov, and I don’t have anything planned for Tomas but it feels wrong to just ignore him completely while the whole rest of his family has something going. I do think the family dynamic of the Shirai Ryu should be just as important as the shippy stuff that is going on, and Hanzo’s arrival does affect all of them not only his future baes

(There will also be a little Bi-Han near the ending because I had to be all ambitious about the plot, and then I couldn’t just not try to at least fix things a little between the brothers. There is also some Hanzo & Liu Kang going on in the background that I may write a one shot about someday bc I didn’t plan it, it just happened and I loved it)

Not intentionally, but I happened to have been reading some multichapters that do focus on more than three characters. I didn’t realize it, at first, I was just noticing that something felt really neat about some fics I am reading and then I realized that this was a thing they had in common. I am binging one that has 7 main characters! And the neat thing I was struggling to word, is that the author manages to give enough attention to all of them, never seems to forget what one is doing, they all have conflicts that are intertwined

I was asking myself if I can do it. I obviously have work to do as I haven’t figured out what to do with everyone who is not in the throuple yet. But like, can I do it? Can I make it so people will read it and not thinking I am just shoving characters without caring about them?

We’ll find out. I still need to figure the voices for mk1!Hanzo and Tomas, though

[desertofsnowflakes]

Incorrect Order Chapter 7 (Nessian AU)

A/N: Do inform me if you wanna be added/removed from the taglist! If you happen to find my storyline similar to another fic or one of yours, I'm extremely sorry, I might've just not known. All characters belong to the author Sarah J. Mass. Enjoy!

Summary: Don't first impressions always affect the way you see someone? Well, what more with the Nesta Archeron? Nesta meets Cassian at few unexpected places and to say it didn't go well was a major understatement. Certain circumstances make them become enemies to tolerable company to friends to lovers.

Trigger Warnings: none ig

2097 words | Incorrect Order Masterlist | Read on AO3

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Wearing a tee is fairly simple. Just bunch it up and pull it over his neck, then, put his arms through. That's it. This is the third time he was trying to get himself in this damn t-shirt. The first time, he wore it the other way round. The next time he accidentally tried putting his neck where his arm was meant to go. He got snarled in the t-shirt in the process. It's a miracle the garment hadn't ripped off. His brushed hair also got mussed and tangled in the process.

Cassian sighed and held his dark brown tee up. His mind was still playing his memories with Nesta on loop. It just wouldn’t stop. Not when he was sulking, bathing, changing—

The doorbell rang. A quick glance at his wall clock confirmed that the hour was ungodly enough that most would be asleep. Wondering who exactly it was, Cassian opened the door—

—and his mind blanked out. There, standing in front of him, in all her glory was Nesta. Nesta, who had snapped at him earlier. Nesta in a white oversized sweater and black tight-fit leggings. A small bag was slung on her shoulder. He was pretty sure he was gawking like an idiot. He forced his mouth to shape her name.

***

“Nesta,” he breathed. Nesta could hear awe and reverence in his voice. So much that she shivered. There was pain in his voice too. Tears pricked her eyes. How selfish of her to run to him even after she hurt him. But she couldn’t turn away. Not now, not after walking from her home to here. She closed her eyes and swallowed. His bare torso didn’t help matters either. His torso was a wonderful masterpiece. His tattoos were starker in the moonlight. She longed to trace them with her fingers. Nesta immediately shut that train of thought. She didn’t come here for that. She came here because of Tomas. That’s it.

Cassian was peering over her shoulders when she opened her eyes. Frowning, he asked, “How did you come here? Has your cab left?”

“No,” she said. “I walked here.” His eyes snapped to her face. He took a step back and opened the door wider, “Come in,” he said.

Nesta could feel his eyes on her while she stepped through the threshold and took her time to look through his house. It wasn’t as big as Feyre’s but it was bigger than her apartment. She saw a rumpled t-shirt discarded on the dark blue couch and reigned in a smile. She heard the click of the lock and turned to face him. He looked at her and ran a hand through his hair, tousling it further. Her eyes tracked the wispy strands moving in between his slender, long fingers. Cauldron, she thought, this was going to be very difficult, indeed.

He nodded at the couch, “Have a seat. You must be tired. How long was the walk?” he queried.

She took her seat on the soft couch and replied, “Around half an hour including a short break I took.”

He nodded. The pained expression, mixed with one of longing, didn't leave his face yet. “Why are you here Nesta? Truly? Just a few hours ago, you were screaming in my face and now, you’re in my house looking rattled. What do you want?”

Nesta stared at her hands resting on her lap, took in a ragged breath and said, “Tomas.”

The shock was evident on his face. “Tomas?” he repeated. She saw as the shock on his face bled and became anger. “Did he disturb you again?” he demanded.

“No,” she whispered, wrapping her arms around herself. “No. He wasn’t really even there. I was on my bed. Trying to get some sleep. I couldn’t sleep, I kept tossing and turning on my bed. Sleep felt so far away. But after sometime I think I fell asleep. Then I felt like I woke up. It was bright. It all felt weird to me. And that was when I saw him. He was in my room. His hand was around my neck, squeezing. He was talking and talking.” The words were gushing out of her now, a panicked flow of words. She continued, “Then he slapped me. He also had a knife with him. He kept threatening me. Telling me about the way he said he wanted to kill me. And—and he used his knife on me. He stabbed my arm and kept dragging upward slowly. It hurt like hell. That was what I didn’t understand. The pain. It all felt very real. Most of all, my pain.” She looked back at Cassian. He was silently listening, she was grateful for that. “That’s why I came here,” she admitted. “I got scared. The vulnerability I felt… I want to be ready when he comes back. And he will come back. He isn’t the type to let things go. I need your help. Help me,” she pleaded. She wasn’t aware of the tear escaping her eye.

Cassian got up and seated himself beside her. He cupped her cheek. Unconsciously, she leaned closer to him. He gently brushed her tears away. “I’ll help you,” he said gently. “You’ll be ready. When the time comes, you’ll be ready. I’ll make sure of it. Only if you call me Cass.”

She grinned. “That wouldn’t be very difficult,” she said.

***

Cassian felt like he was selling his soul in a bargain to the devil. He knew. He knew that this wouldn’t end well for him. He knew he’ll end up having his heart broken. But he couldn’t resist. He couldn’t bring himself to say no to her.

Nesta wrapped her arms around his middle. He froze. The sensation of her hands on his bare skin was a shock to his senses and elicited a shiver down his spine. “Thank you,” she said. “Thank you so much. Really.” she gave him a playful smile. “Cass,”she said with more emphasis than necessary. And Mother, he didn’t regret letting her call him Cass one bit.

She yawned and stretched like a cat. He liked that too, he decided.

“Have you slept?” he asked.

“A bit. You?”

He shook his head. He gestured to her to follow him up the stairs. “You can sleep here till dawn in Mor’s room. You know, the room you used the last time.”

“Cass,” she said. He halted, turning back to face her. “I really need to say this. I’m sorry. Truly. I shouldn’t have said what I did last night.”

He didn’t say it’s okay because it really wasn’t. He just nodded, acknowledging her apology, showing her that he couldn’t forget how much it hurt him but he’ll try to come to terms with both of their mistakes. They reached Mor’s door.

She hesitated. “I don’t have any clothes to change to,” she said.

“It’s fine,” he said. “Mor’s clothes would fit you, though it would be slightly loose. You can also use the bathroom to wash up or anything else you want to do. I’ll be in the room down the corridor—” he said, gesturing to the second last door— “so just knock if you need anything, okay?”

She nodded and thanked him again before closing the door and preparing for bed. He entered his room and plopped on the bed. It might’ve been how tired he felt or it might have been her presence two rooms away, but in mere minutes, Cass was fast asleep.

***

A few fast and hard knocks on his door woke Cassian from his sleep. Groggily, he opened the door to find Nesta in a tank top and shorts. Very short shorts. She looked disturbed, though.

“What happened?” he asked her.

“I can’t sleep,” she said, her voice small.

Cassian’s heart, or at least, what was left of it, broke. He hated to see this. Cold, sharp Nesta now, standing in front of him, scared and afraid. He felt a surge of protectiveness in him. He wanted to tuck her to his side and shield her from every and any harm that would come to her.

He held his hand out for her and brought her into his room. “Sit,” he gestured to his bed, “What do you want to do?”

She smiled tentatively, “Would you tell me about yourself? We haven’t introduced ourselves properly. I think I want to hear more about you from you yourself. And if you want… I could tell you some things about myself too.”

He sat on the bed beside her and said, “That’ll be fun.” He saw this not only as a means to escape the horrid things in her head, but also as a peace offering. He couldn’t forgive and forget the things she told him earlier but he could try to play along with her patching up.

“Who’s gonna start first?” she asked.

He dramatically placed his hand on his bare chest in a variation of a bow and said, “After you, my lady.”

She laughed and asked, “Do you ever wear a shirt at home?”

“Why? Getting distracted already?”

“Can’t you just answer my question?” she asked hotly, though a light blush was creeping up her cheeks.

The corner of his lips kicked up a notch, “I do wear shirts at home.”

“Good,” she said and opened her mouth to continue when he interrupted her.

“Wait,” he said, “Now, you haven’t answered my question.”

“I didn’t deem it worthy enough to answer.”

He pouted, “You wound me, Nes.”

“Stop being overdramatic. And don’t call me Nes!” she snapped half heartedly.

“Twice,” aggrievedly, he said, “you wounded me twice. Also,” he smirked, leaning closer to her, “you like it.”

“Like which?”

“Being called Nes.”

“I don’t.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Now you’re the one who’s getting distracted. What did we plan for and what are we doing now? If this is how things are gonna be, I think you’ll prove to be a very bad teacher.”

“Now, Nes, you need to know that I’m good at many, many things and would prove to be an extremely focused teacher,” he said, voice husky. He knew she caught his meaning when the blush on her cheeks deepened. He leaned back on his palms, “Go on.”

So she spoke. She told him of her time when both her parents were alive; of the time when they grieved their mother’s death; when she kept herself away from her sisters after becoming orphans; when she made the mistake of falling for Tomas. “Honestly,” she had told him, “when I look at him now, I wonder how I fell in love with him in the first place.” She then told him of how her relationship with Tomas was a toxic one; him being abusive and controlling; how he made her feel low of herself; how he never respected her; how he kept cheating on her. She told Cassian of the day Tomas hit her and accused her of cheating just because he saw her paying for her groceries at a male’s counter. She told him of how she called the police immediately after and got him behind bars. By the time she was over, Nesta was curled by his side, tears silently streaming down her beautiful face, him rubbing soothing circles on her back.

Then he told her about himself. He decided to tell her the plain truth without any alterations. She deserved it. But it felt intimate, somehow, sharing the details he hadn’t spoken out loud. Even Az and Rhys had only seen what he did and never pushed afterwards. He told her as much before telling her about how much he loved his mother; of how he never knew his father and that was for his father’s own good; of how his mother was killed one day while he was at school; of how he beat the men involved into pulp; of how he was called a brute and a bastard there on; of how he first met Rhys and Az at his school; of how Rhys’s mother took him in as her own son; of the silly things and the trouble the trio would create.

“You are a very good friend, Cass. And an even better man,” Nes said

His heart warmed. He said, “Don’t care about what Tomas said. You’re a beautiful, intelligent, brave, witty and sharp woman. And I,” he paused, “I like you very much as a friend too.”

He didn’t understand the short pang of disappointment on his face. All he could think was, shit, I almost said I loved her.

taglist: @shadowsinger07 @im-someone-i-guess @saltyfortunes @cressjacquine @champanheandluxxury @zemiraa @nehemikkele @angelic-voice-1997 @heartless--aromantic @sv0430 @vinylcryes @deedz-thrillerkilller16 @sjm-things @dontgetsalmonella @ganseys-jane

[bookofmirth]

after rereading the series and finally finishing silver flames ( which i truly enjoyed, even when there were points which felt disappointing and a little incoherent ) i feel like i can finally pinpoint what is so jarring to me regarding this series. It just seems so disjointed, which becomes especially apparent after reading MaF and the immediately reading WaR.

We move from the first two novels of the series, which are coherent and clean, to WaR - which is hoenstly just a mess, something which was so blatant to me on the reread. during this time, it’s clear that sjm made several massive changes to link this book to the future spin offs, and also obviously changes her original plan to pair mor and azriel - which monumentally changes the way that the previous book is read, and the perception of their characters.

Even with FaS - setting up for cassian and nestas story, sjm completely changes direction between this release and silver flames. And all of that lead up with the Illyrian rebellions and cassians not being respected as a bastard, and his mission fighting for Illyrian female rights - amounts to absolutely nothing.

Don’t get me wrong, I really really enjoyed silver flames, and perhaps some of these ideas will crop up in azriels book and therefore won’t be wasted. But it just makes the series feel disjointed and leaves me at least, feeling unfulfilled.

Sjm is such a good author, in ToG the plot was expertly executed and when you reread the series, you can see hints and foreshadowing even back to book one. She knew exactly where she was going almost from the beginning, and each decision and plot point was used to create impact and build up to the ending. I don’t get that with acotar.

There is so so so much build, and almost no pay off - and I really got that sense in acosf, I loved it as a stand alone - but when we look at it through the perspective of the entire series, there were things which grated and a lot of things which I felt were built up to and nothing happened... Tomas, Cassians mother ( was so sure we would learn where she was buried at least ) the Illyrian rebellions and the Illyrians hatred and disrespect towards Cassian, Mor and Nestas relationship, CASSIAN AND MORS RELATIONSHIP ( I understand that the mor situation will be something which is focused upon primarily in azriels book, or hopefully her own, however their relationship involves Cassian as much as them both and I really wish Cassian had actually confronted the part he played in that whole situation - a part he played for 500 (!!!!) years. It’s a role which he was unable to relinquish in ACOWAR, and actively rejects Nesta to act as a buffer multiple times, seeing it as an obligation almost - and then in SF, pays it no attention at all. Feyre and Nestas relationship also isn’t really touched upon, as if that final act healed everything - what about that interrupted conversation in the library, when Nesta was cut off ? Why Nesta always favoured Elain, even Amren and Nesta - we still don’t really know what happened there... argh there’s just so much potential and so much set up, and it just seems forgotten about ? It makes the book seem disjointed and a bit of a let down.

Yesss I totally get what you mean here. ToG is honestly the superior series, and it’s because it has the cohesion that acotar doesn’t. Everything feels like it’s meant to be there, each character, each worldbuilding detail, their histories, everything just comes together in a wonderful way that just wrecked me when EoS came out and then was resolved perfectly in KoA.

Compared to that, acotar feels like sjm is figuring things out along the way and it is seriously driving me nuts. I’ve had multiple conversations with other people in Discords and they’ve said similar things. acotar at this point feels like sjm is just coming up with random ass ideas and throwing them in. No book in the series feels more like that than acowar. And it was that point where we knew that there would be more books, right? So combined with the fact that she pounded that book out and it got rather half-assed editing, you’re probably right that a lot of things were changed in order to set up the other books, even though it didn’t make sense with what she’d written before. 

I agree with you re: Mor and Az, and I feel like I’ve been seeing more people say that lately? That there is a feeling that they actually were supposed to be together and she changed her mind? I wrote a bunch of fics for them back in the day and they’ve gotten a bit more attention lately. But once acowar came out I was like, I’m gonna reread, and I’m gonna find all the clues, I’m gonna see where all this build-up was, and.... considering how often people say that sjm is so “good” at foreshadowing, I’m sorry, but not in this series. In ToG, yes, because she had a clear goal at the end! She knew where she was going and she stayed on that path. In acotar, idfk. Anyway my point is that I’ve reread the series a couple of times through since acowar came out and I’m still over here shrugging because up until that point, Mor and Az could be read in completely opposite ways. (Maybe it’s an Azriel thing, given the current discourse, idk.)

I will say, however, that we had clues that there was tension between them and I had noted that Az is quiet troubled and even pre-acomaf, I would not have been surprised by his extra in acosf. But all of that could have been addressed with Mor and Az still being together? We all had plenty of explanations at the time for the tension, and Mor being queer was like 1 of 100 of those explanations. 

If we look at Mor’s character through the books we have so far, I still see almost zero signs that she’s queer except for her literally saying “I like women and Rita’s has a lot of women and here’s my gay story”. Other than that, there is like..... nothing that feels organically queer about her!!! And I love her and I want her to be gay af!!!! But I wonder if my forgiveness of how acowar went down was more about my personal reaction than how well the story was actually done.

And the fact that, like you said, there is still no resolution to the fact that Cassian is supposedly a buffer between Mor and Azriel? Like???? We were all sitting here after acowar thinking “okay, well if she’s gay then someone knows. Someone has to know. She can’t just be gay and NO ONE WHO LOVES HER KNOWS.” 

Then in comes acosf with a big “fuck you, y’all thought” which just.... to me, it signals that her queerness was an afterthought. It’s still an afterthought because her queerness is limited to Mor and women blushing at her and Mor has her corner of the world in which she can be gay, but that gay never spills out into any other aspect of her life. It’s just conveniently isolated so that it doesn’t touch or affect other characters. 

In terms of continuity, acowar was such a huge shifting point in the series that people left in droves. It was a huge mess in the fandom. And then acofas was just fluff with no real point in pushing the story forward - even the Nesta stuff was a sneak peek, it had nothing to do with acofas itself. And now acosf comes in ignoring things she had set up previously, with almost zero nuanced discussion of the Cassian/Azriel/Mor thing, which means she still (?) doesn’t know what’s going on there. And I think that we did get some answers with Nesta’s reflection on her relationship with her mother, but the deal with the Illyrian rebellion was just in the way so let’s nix that, and then let’s focus on Eris (🤮) just because she feels like it even though she’s set up all these other characters whose stories need more. (Much like acowar, this paragraph is a MESS LOL)

And yes I KNOW that the series isn’t over, clearly, but she keeps setting things up and then letting them go nowhere, or making them seem important and then resolving them off-page, or changing character relationships (Mor and Az) but then having the characters involved act exactly the same, as if nothing had changed (by having the “buffer” situation still exist as a real thing).

I did enjoy the book, a lot, it was a fun read. But tbh we have so many arguments and disagreements within the fandom rn because things have been so left open to interpretation that we it’s not even a matter of “oh I saw this slightly differently”, it’s “WHAT book did these people even read???” That’s kinda weird, to me. There is reader response, and then there is what we have now, which is people having absolute opposite reactions to what they think happened in acosf. 

[weirdthoughtsandideas]

Please tell me how you are gonna rewrite Violetta. I wanna know it all.

You can read the posted chapters here, it's only in season 1 at the moment but i'm gonna rewrite all three seasons.

So, i'm not sure how I will do everything yet, since I often change my mind in the middle of writing, and while I think everyone who reads the rewrite has seen the show, I don't want to spoil all my changes... but here's the idea:

Angie tells Violetta she's her aunt right away. Mostly because I wondered what would happen if she just told it on the spot.

Germán lets Violetta attend the studio, although what he won't like her doing is the Youmix stuff, because he doesn't want her to be famous everywhere. So Violetta sneaking behind her dad's back is getting more of a plot when she wants to compete in the competition in s1.

There's more focus on people trying to figure out who they are - and while Leonetta will break up in season 1, it will... not exactly be because of Tomas, but rather because of... Leon noticing Violetta might be confused over something about herself...

Also I tend to bully Tomas a little... a lot. But he's gonna get some good scenes too.

Braco, Napo and Luca will stay all three seasons. Really they don't have to do much. Braco and Napo will just be in the background commenting on things and Luca will kind of do the same.

Also, with Luca staying, the Fran-moving-back-to-Italy-plot will be much easier to solve... making everyone happy.

I don't want to have Germangie a thing, but I will have to... just for a little while. Just because of drama, and also because of it making the story move forward.

Lara will also stay in season 3 and she may try to stop Gery from doing basically anything.

Camila's story arc will be interesting. Her canon storyline were like "season 1 - figuring out herself and what she likes", "season 2 - finding out what type of boy she likes", "season 3 - learning she likes to write songs and also act". I don't think I will spoil much when I say that Brodemila will NOT be endgame, rather Camila will figure herself out in other ways. Let's say season 1 will focus on her thinking about her identity, season 2 will focus on her exploring her identity in different ways and season 3 will be more of her... I guess accepting her identity more lol. I don't know how to explain it but I know what I will do with Camila.

Jade and Germán are never a couple - however, she is still very obsessed with him. But since I kind don't have Matias in my rewrite, Jade may much quicker get over Germán.

Also Esmeralda works for herself... she's just... well, you'll see.

Ludmila and Naty will have a lot to figure out... both on their own and together. I've already kind of started on this in my posted chapters... ;)

OKAY, now Francesca! I will let her keep her canon love interests, but I will put a little twist on it. Because every single one of her love interest seems to realize that... there's someone in Fran's life that she seems to value over everyone else. And she might have to figure out how she feels.

Also she and Diego doesn't fucking. Hide from Violetta. Violetta doesn't care, she's just happy they are happy.

There will be a mandatory Leonetta breakup in every season, but they will be for more valid reasons (especially in s3)

I despise the 2x20 kiss and I want to remove it. They will have a fake kiss on stage. HOWEVER, internet fans might think it's real and Diego is like "yeah we actually kissed lol" and still causing drama. But not AS frustrating.

Angie will still go to France because I think it's great for her. In season 3, she will have other focuses on her mind though.

I love the concept of Roxy and Fausta, but I don't like how canon did it. So Roxy and Fausta will stay, but this time it's more of Violetta and Francesca just kind of wanting to disappear for a while (for different reasons) and be other people. This will happen in my franletta fic, but I will try to make it differently played out here so they are not identical.

People are gonna ACKNOWLEDGE that Violetta has dyed her hair because I cannot let that go unmentioned

I'm not sure if the ending scene will be a wedding... we will see.

Mostly because... my endgames will be different. You will see.

Yeah and that's all for now. I have TONS more so just read my rewrite and see what you think this far!

[27emailsicantsend]

New Year’s Eve: A Rina Fic

Author’s Note: I thought it would be fun to make this a continuation off of my Christmas Eve Rina fic. So, if you haven’t read it, you can find it here. However, this can be read on it’s own too and still mostly make sense. Enjoy! ❤

“So... you gonna kiss him tonight or what?” Ashlyn elbowed Gina.

Gina rolled her eyes with a half-cackle. “You guyssss. For the millionth time, when it’s supposed to happen it’ll happen”.

“But it’s New Years Eve, Gina,” Nini encouraged. “You missed your opportunity under the mistletoe by a long shot”.

Gina gave Nini a side eye. “Nini, you were literally there and had just broken up with him. Besides, you know we didn’t have a mistletoe... money...”

“We could of made one,” Nini huffed under her breath.

Gina couldn’t help but giggle. Gina thought it would have been weirder than it was to go after Ricky after he and Nini broke up, but she and Nini had some really good talks after Christmas Eve. Ones where Nini elaborated that she only ever really liked Ricky as a way to hold onto her past. Seeing him still pine after Gina made her realize he was moving on and so should she. There was going to be someone that kept up with her dreams eventually, but she was focused on this potential new school in Denver and she liked seeing Gina happy. Nini encouraging them to date felt fun, girly, and natural- a comforting feeling Gina hadn’t had until now. She actually had friends; real friends that didn’t make her feel like she was invisible or forgotten once she moved. She was home.

“When it’s the right time, we’ll know. Besides, a New Year’s Eve kiss? Do you really want me to be that cliché?” Gina scrunched her face at Nini, Ashlyn, Kourtney, and Carlos who were overly invested in her love life as they made their way to the bus. The drama department did a fundraiser during High School Musical so the students could pay to go somewhere fun New Years Eve as a celebration for the play. The fundraiser made a lot of money due to the generous contributions of parents and a lot of begging.

The bus still had a crisp, chilly feeling from sitting over night in the Utah winter air. The smell of leather hit the students noses when they boarded and took their seats. Gina sat in a seat behind Nini and Kourtney, next to Seb and Carlos, with the other seats surrounding filled by other students from the show. She looked out the fogged window to the nearly empty parking lot as the bus quietly hummed. Gina took out her finger and traced her initials and a small snowflake on the glass.

Just as she was finishing her last stem on the snow flake, a tired voice jump-scared her. “Can I sit here?”

“Oh.. uh..uhm.. yeah.. that’s totally fine. Let me.. let me just see where I can put this...” Gina stammered as she clumsily grabbed her bag.

Ricky gave a tired smile as he fell into the seat by her. Nini and Kourtney exchanged glances and Big Red took a seat next to another stage hand. He turned around and gave a knowing smile and Gina pretended not to notice Ricky’s “cut-it-out” gestures to him.

“How’s your morning going?”

“Good. Just super tired. My mom came home late and I forgot to pack, so we were up doing that,” Gina replied. “How about you?”

“Same. I was trying to make this big breakfast this morning so I got up early to make it. But then I got a piece of toast stuck in the toaster. I got worried it would set our fire alarm off, so I had to run and find a towel to whip the smoke out, but I couldn’t find any that weren’t wet in the washer. So then I called Red...” Gina pretended to nod along to Ricky’s “Breakfast Adventures”, but she couldn’t help but notice, Ricky was wearing the hat she made him. She hadn’t really seen him wear it a ton, but he looked cozy in it. She refrained from smiling too much as she pretended to listen. Good thing she brought the scarf he made her- it was her bag, however.

The bus ride wasn’t super long, about an hour and a half. The front of the bus was mostly adults and students trying to sleep, with one or two in the back sleeping as well. Gina’s area of students was anything but quiet, however. The adrenaline of being with all of their friends, preparing for a super fun over night trip was beyond exciting to them. They cracked jokes, watched internet videos, sang “Bet On It” as badly as they could, and showed weird talents they had with their bodies (Ricky could wiggle his ears and Nini was double jointed in all of her fingers).

The bus finally arrived to a beautiful ski lodge nestled on a slope in the mountains. Fairy lights and snow draped the scenery. Pine trees scattered the winter wonderland with a beautiful blue ski canvasing the background. The snow was fresh with minimal footprints; icicles hanging from every part of the wooden rooftop.

The students walked in awe as they made their way up the slippery walk way, holding tightly to the railing on the iced over steps. Seb was the only one to really slip on the steps, but Carlos caught him before he completely landed. Gina and Ricky walked in slowly, taking in the sight inside.

The giant main doors opened up to a large foyer, with a grand double stair case sweeping in from either side. To the left, a large rock and marble kitchen plus dining room and to the right, a common area with a ping pong table, fireplace, large cozy couches and lazy-man chairs, and pull down projector screen.

A man about in his sixties wearing a plaid tucked in shirt, high-waisted pants, and clunky brown boots approached the foyer and faced the visitors. “Hi everyone! Welcome to my ski resort. I’m the owner, Mr. Tomas. I am so happy to have you here. There’s not much to know... let’s see...We left fresh towels in the bathrooms and any of the food in the fridge is yours to eat. Please don’t break anything and clean up after yourselves... I think those are all the basis, right?”

Miss Jenn gave an acknowledging giggle to Mr. Thomas.

“Oh, wait! One more thing. If you use any of the gaming stuff downstairs, please be sure to wind the cords back. It protects them from getting tangled, torn, etcetera.”

Down stairs? Gina hadn’t even noticed a downstairs. Mr. Thomas released everyone to start their vacation. While all of the students ran upstairs to claim beds, Gina walked through the common room and peered around the corned. In the back of the house, behind and under the stair case rested two wooden doors leading downstairs.

Gina opened the door and looked around to see if anyone else was around. She secretly hoped not, because she liked the idea of getting to see everything first hand. It was the only part she looked forward to with each move- getting to snoop around the house and find it’s hidden gems before anyone else did.

When the coast was clear, she flicked on the stair light and quietly closed the door. She held onto the railing as she made her way down the newly carpeted stairs. The bottom of the stairs opened up to a giant finished basement. It felt warm and cozy, like the rest of the house, but playful because of the many interesting things it held.

The room opened up to a large karaoke machine on a small platform. It had mini lyric screens on podiums and two microphone connected neatly to the podium. On one wall were about twenty shadow boxes, all with different game boards in them. The pieces most likely hidden in the back of the frames. On the other wall, a nook cut out in the middle of it, cushioned floor to ceiling with fairy lights, pillows, and blankets (which Gina claimed in her head before anyone else could). Gina noticed other things like a mini kitchenette, a large leather couch, a couple of bean bag chairs, and an air hockey machine. The entire room felt like an opulent version of Red’s bedroom or her house, but Gina wasn’t complaining. 

She quickly made her way back up the stairs, assuming all of the beds had been claimed. About half of the students were in the commons, a quarter playing outside in the snow, and the other quarter most likely upstairs in the bedrooms. Gina grabbed her suitcase from the staircase and went up the landing. There were two doors in front of her, another to her left and another to her right. The ones on the left were labeled “Boys” and the ones on the right “Girls”. She opened up the “Girls” door in front of her and was welcomed to a large marble bathroom. It had a long narrow walkway with stalls and sinks, and at the end 3 showers only closed off with curtains. Just like Mr. Thomas said there was a tall shelving system filled to the brim with fresh, white towels.

She left the bathroom and went to the other room labeled “Girls”. It opened up to several rows of bunk-beds and large dressers opposite them. Every bed had items on it except one bottom bunk in the back corner. Gina rolled her heavy suitcase to it’s rightful place and took a seat on her bed.

Whilst admiring her surroundings, she decided to pull out the scarf from her case and maybe go hang out with the other students outside. She grabbed the bright orange and yellow speckled piece of fabric and wrapped it around her neck.

“I don’t understand how you can make such an ugly thing look so beautiful”. Gina jumped to the sound of Ricky’s voice. Thankfully, the bunk was high enough she didn’t hit her head.

Blushing, she stood up quickly, eyes wide. “You scared me! Don’t do that!” Gina playfully shoved Ricky, as he giggled it off.

“I was just coming up to tell you dinner will be ready soon. Mr. Thomas ordered catering for tonight so we wouldn’t have to cook”. Ricky focused in on Gina’s eye contact more as he continued to grin profusely. “I really love this place”.

“What’s for dinner?” Gina asked as Ricky took a small step closer. “I really hope it’s like chicken...,” another step so their faces were about three inches apart, “or rice...or...” Ricky leaned in as Gina closed her eyes, letting her words drift. Their lips were breathing on each other when Red flung the door open.

“DINNER IS READY GUYS!” Both Gina and Ricky jumped back. Gina began to nervously straighten out her clothes, as Ricky grinned-obviously annoyed- and said through his teeth, “we’re coming”.

Big Red was either really good at acting or completely oblivious because he perkily said, “great! See you down there. I’ll save you a seat buddy!” And left with a spirited wink to Ricky.

Ricky flapped his arms out uncomfortably as he said, “well, guess we better go down”.

And Gina awkwardly agreed with an awkward thumb point to the doorway. “Guess so!”

They both ran down the stairs to the dining room. The table looked completely different from when Gina first saw it. The caterers worked fast. There were candles lit, satin napkins wrapping new silverware and tied with twine, and 3 large white plates with gold engravings stacked biggest to smallest. A white crocheted runner went down the table and large plates of food and wine glasses filled with water lined it. Everyone else seemed comfortable in their places, including Red who- as promised- had an empty seat next to him waiting for Ricky. But Gina couldn’t feel as at home with everything. She had never been to anything this fancy in her life. Ricky sat down quickly by Red as Gina walked shyly to the spot between Ashlyn and Carlos near the other end of the table- definitely out of speaking distance of Ricky.

The gang warmly greeted her as she sat down. Miss Jenn stood up and gave a nice toast, thanking everyone for their hard work in the play and encouraged everyone to “dig in”. The table became restless with people filling their plates as quickly as possible, dishes clattering and Seb taking way too many rolls. Once everyone settled down and got their food, the crowd chatted and ate to their heart’s content. Gina hadn’t noticed, but Ricky had looked at her about five times throughout the entire dinner. Red had, though.

“Ricky, dude, just enjoy the meal. You can kiss her later,” Red interrupted his fifth stare.

“Uh.. um.. what? No. I’m not gonna kiss her,” Ricky said defensively.

“We all know you want to know,” Red said as he dropped his voice.

“So what if I do?”

“Just eat your food. It’s New Years Eve. You’ll have the perfect opportunity tonight,” Red said as he scooped some more green beans on a plate.

Ricky stared at Gina again. He couldn’t help but feel like that was wrong... almost out of place for their relationship. If anything, they’ve been all but predictable. Even when he first began to like her, it came after a night of her bickering with EJ and Ricky saying something he honestly regrets now. Their first kiss shouldn’t be pressured.

Once the meal was finished, Ricky and the other boys washed the dishes while the girls gathered them from the table and brought them to the sink. The dishes were Mr. Thomas’, so the caterer’s were long gone by now. Seb and Carlos began play dancing in the kitchen, and soon Ashlyn and Red joined. Nini changed the song on the speaker to “Born to Be Brave” and soon the whole cast was dancing with each other. Gina was grabbing random people and being spun or doing funny dance moves with them. By the end of the second song most of the cast had left and by the time it got to the third it was just Seb, Carlos, Ricky, and Gina talking. Seb and Carlos decided to go join everyone else downstairs, but Ricky and Gina remained in the middle of the kitchen.

Nini’s phone changed to “Can I Have This Dance?” from High School Musical 3. Without hesitation, Ricky walked up close to Gina. She was still wearing his scarf, which he grabbed with a singled hand and quietly unwrapped it off her neck. He took a side step as he tossed it to the counter. Then he held out his hand as Gabriella sang, “take my hand”, singing along with her. Ricky pulled Gina in close, her hand in a fist on his chest, head nestled into his neck, as they swayed while he sang softly in her ear.

When the music ended, Gina pulled back and made eye contact with Ricky. Their faces close, slowly leaning in. Their moment got cut off, yet again, by yelling in the common room- which connected through the back to the kitchen- so there was no privacy. They both giggled while still holding onto each other. Gina pounded Ricky’s chest lightly with her fist and said, “let’s go downstairs”. Ricky agreed (with some resistance in his voice) as she grabbed his hand to lead him downstairs where the rest of the cast was. All of them were spread out on chairs talking, playing games, and EJ trying to set up the karaoke machine.

Gina walked over to assist EJ while Ricky played air hockey with Kourtney. The cast spent the night playing games and singing horribly to their favorite High School Musical songs. They drank a ton of soda, took cute candid photos, and laughed until they hurt.

Red took his phone out for the New York countdown and all of them watched the small screen giddily. They all held their small champagne glasses filled with cider as they watched with anticipation. 

“Five... Four... Three... Two... One... HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!” The gang cheered and hollered. Glasses clinked and shouts filled the room. Seb and Carlos gave each other a big kiss, Red cut between Gina and Ricky hugging to give him a giant hug, and everyone else gave hugs and high fives. Ricky and Gina looked quietly at each other while everyone continued to chatter in the background. Gina gave Ricky a small smile because he knew. He knew that it wasn’t the right time. He gave her a small peck on the cheek, which was returned with their beaming faces. 

At the end of the night, once everyone had settled down and finally went to bed, Gina was cleaning up the wires to the karaoke machine when EJ walked over to her. “Hey, thanks for helping me set up that machine”.

“It was no problem,” Gina said as she put a microphone in it’s stand.

“Honestly, thanks for helping me with a lot of things”.

Gina stopped and crinkled her nose suspiciously. She turned around and stood up so she was facing him now. “What do you mean?”

“I just mean, when you gave me Nini’s phone. Like we shouldn’t have taken it, but you really came in clutch for me. And trying to help me at homecoming get Troy and Gabriella’s parts, by making Nini jealous so she’d drop out. It was clever and I didn’t realize it at the time. I know we never got the parts, but I also never thanked you for trying to help me. I’m just sorry things didn’t work out for either of us”.

“EJ... we weren’t being good people doing that. Don’t you understand? It was wrong and we can’t tell anyone. Not Nini, not Ricky. Nobody. I’m trying to get a clean slate and I thought you were too”.

“Yeah, the confessionals thing didn’t really work...” EJ said, rubbing his neck.

“Look, it was all wrong. Nini and I made up and she is finally starting to trust you again. I say we just leave it in the past where it belongs”.

“I know. I just wanted to thank you for having my back- that’s all”. EJ said, definitely irritated.

“I can’t believe you two.” Gina and EJ flipped around. They hadn’t noticed the light on in the downstairs bathroom. Ricky stood puzzled.

“Ricky, it’s not what you think!” Gina said trying to grab his arm. He shook her off.

“Dude, you’re overreacting. It happened forever ago,” EJ defended.

“Not. Helping.” Gina glared at him.

“No, what happened is, you led me on. You created a bunch of drama and then tried to get with me so Nini would drop out! Not ok, Gina!” Ricky’s voice was raising and Gina hated hearing him so upset, especially with her.

“I wasn’t thinking, but I meant what I said that night!” Ricky began to go to the stairs. “Ricky, you’ve got to believe me!” Gina begged.

“I don’t know what to believe anymore,” Ricky scolded as he ran up the stairs.

“Gina, I’m so sorry,” EJ pleaded.

“Leave me alone, EJ,” Gina snapped. She followed in Ricky’s footsteps, going up the stairs to her room.

The rest of the night seemed to drag on. The girls stayed up talking and giggling, so Gina decided to take a shower to make some time pass until they fell asleep. Then she crawled into bed and listened to some music. The good news was that she was able to just fake a headache and since her bed was in a corner, she could actively avoid everyone for the rest of the night.

All of the other girls eventually went to sleep, but Gina tossed and turned. How could EJ say that? Wasn’t it all in the past? And why didn’t she see the bathroom light on or not hear noise from there? Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. She didn’t actually have a plan. EJ didn’t know that, but he should have figured it out. And when the plan failed, she was happy to have someone empathize with her. Make her feel better. Ricky did that. He made her not care what role she had, because he seemed to not care about his. She blinked some leftover tears away and sat up.

Gina knew that it was pointless to try and sleep by now since it was about 4AM, so she got up and snuck back downstairs to the basement. When she reached the door, she noticed the light was still on. It must have been left on after the party. She tip toed down the stairs and noticed Ricky sitting in the nook, glumly fiddling with her scarf.

“Is that spot taken?” Gina asked as she approached him cautiously.

He patted the area next to him. “All yours”.

Gina sat down, but because of where Ricky was sitting in the nook, she ended up slightly sitting on top of him. They awkwardly adjusted until they were sitting opposite each other, scarf in Ricky’s hands, a pillow in Gina’s.

“I’m really sorry, Ricky. To be honest, I was mad about Nini getting the part,” Gina closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. She refused to make eye contact with Ricky as she continued to talk, for fear she would cry. “It’s not normal for someone my age to get worked up over a part. It’s not normal to treat people like that for a lead in a high school play that might look good on a resume, but not to a dance school. I didn’t just want to be Gabriella... I had to be. Moving isn’t the only hard part of my home life. My mom puts a ton of pressure on me to be the best in any production. She thinks that if I make it big, the money will get us out of debt and we won’t have to keep moving. I’ve actually been looked at by professional scouts... like real professionals, but they always say ‘not yet’ or ‘you’re almost there’... ‘if you just do one more play you’ll make it big,” Gina said with mocking jazz hands.

“But I can’t tell you how sick I am of hearing the phrase ‘one more play’, ‘one more dance’... ‘keep practicing, you’ll get there’...” Gina began to choke up.

Ricky lightly put his hand on hers as he continued to listen. Gina finally made eye contact, her water-filled eyes glistening. “I don’t want to get there. It’s not my job to get there. I’m the kid! This should be fun!”

Ricky finally spoke. “Is there any part of it you do enjoy?”

Gina wiped a tear that finally broke with her free hand. “Yes. All of it. I love acting, and singing, and dancing- oh, especially dancing. I want to get into Julliard. But with the amount of pressure I get from my mom... I’m scared it’s going to get worse... or Julliard will put that pressure there for her. I just can’t win”.

Ricky thought carefully before he spoke again. “Gina, you are a great performer, but you’re an even better person. I can see you face a lot of pressure at home, but you can take down that wall with us. You didn’t have to do anything to impress me... or anyone else for that matter. You’re already remarkable, with or without your dance shoes”.

Gina smiled. “Really?”

Ricky gave her a sweet smile back. “Really.”

Gina sighed again, “I already said this, but I honestly am sorry. The way my mom treats me is no excuse for how I acted it. I shouldn’t have done it, regardless. But I meant what I said at the skate park. I meant what I said in the car. You’re one of a kind, Ricky Bowen”.

“Thanks. I appreciate it”.

Gina still felt a little tense. “Are we good?”

“We’re good”.

For some reason that was all Ricky needed to say to make the situation better. Everything felt normal again... well, aside from EJ, but she was going to deal with him later. For now, she just wanted to enjoy this time with Ricky.

The room filled with silence for a minute, until Gina broke it. “Umm... Ricky?”

“Yeah?”

“Why do you have my scarf?” Gina giggled.

He smiled to himself and fiddled it again. “Someone left it on the kitchen counter”. He reached over and swirled it back around her neck. “Looks better on you, anyway”.

Gina gave him a soft grin. He laid back and she curled up next to him, her head on his chest. She listened to the gentle rhythm of his heart and his slow-paced breathing as they drifted off to sleep.

Gina woke up to someone closing the bathroom door downstairs. She sat up from the nook- Ricky had already left. She wondered if it was him who was in the bathroom and how long they had been sleeping. But then a figure emerged in the doorway which caused her to sit straight up: EJ.

He dodged his eyes from her blatant staring as he headed to the stairs. Gina closed her eyes, taking another breath, ready to fix the rest of the damage caused from last night.

“EJ, wait”.

Ej stopped abruptly on the stairs, still holding onto the railing. He slowly turned around and looked at her cooly. “What?” he asked, his tone laced with irritation.

“Look, I’m not going to apologize for what I said last night. What we did was wrong and we need to work for what we want the right way. You need to talk to Nini or find someone new and I need to just practice more for my audition next semester. But I am sorry I dumped that drink on you, yelled at you, and bailed on you when you asked for my help. I overreacted and I’m sorry. I don’t know what got into me”. Yes I did, Gina thought, but she continued her apology anyway. “But it wasn’t ok. I should have helped you talk to her or practiced lines with you. There were better ways we could have handled that”.

“For sure,” EJ agreed. Gina sat back, taken back by what he said.

“And I’m sorry too,” EJ continued. “I really am trying to turn a new leaf, but maybe I wouldn’t have to if I would just make the right choices the first time. It’s just that I’ve always gotten everything I wanted. The girl, the grades, the positions on teams- when Nini left... it just seemed like, I don’t know, I wasn’t cool anymore? I wasn’t this great person, because I got dumped. And then I didn’t get to play Troy. It was like I was a fraud and my world I had known came crumbling down. I probably sound like the biggest, self-centered dirtbag for saying that, but I just feel so much pressure to be the person other’s want me to be, you know?”

“EJ, I get exactly what you mean,” Gina reassured. “And I appreciate your apology. But you and I both need to learn that it’s who we are that makes us happy. And none of our friends are judging us. As long as we’re good with who we are, then those who are good with us too will surround us. In turn, it will push out the fakes”.

EJ blinked a few times in shock. “Dang, Gina. That’s pretty deep. Who taught you that?”

Gina grinned, “someone really wise last night”.

Just then the smell of eggs, bacon, sausage, and hot chocolate filled the basement. It smelled heavenly. Gina sighed gleefully as it filled her nose. “That smells wonderful. Want to go get some breakfast?”

“Sure!” Ej replied.

“By the way, what were you doing down here?”

“My hair needs space and caution to get it just right. It couldn’t breathe being suffocated in that small bathroom with all of those dudes. And what about you?! What were you doing down here?”

Gina rolled her eyes playfully. “Don’t ask”.

Gina ran upstairs and quickly got dressed, making sure to brush her teeth and touch up her makeup. When she got back to the kitchen all of the cast was either sitting at the table, on the counters, or standing around and talking- plates in their hands and music playing again. A hand wrapped around Gina’s waist and she felt a quick peck on her cheek from Ricky, taking her completely by surprise.

“Good morning, Miss Gina. There’s breakfast and a seat next to me waiting at the table for you. Not the one on the left though, that’s Red’s”. Gina giggled to herself as she went to the kitchen counters and filled up her plate with breakfast foods assorted in giant metal containers, like the ones at hotels.

The rest of the morning was spent with more kitchen dancing, pictures, games, and sledding. Gina and Ricky shared a sled and crashed a few times. They ended up breaking out in a snowball fight and building a really unsteady snowman that caved in right after they took one slightly blurry photo with it.

When it was time to leave, the cast got on the bus and sat in their same spots on the way home (Red almost stole Gina’s seat though, but Ashlyn convinced him to sit next to her, so Gina still got to sit next to Ricky). The ride back felt similar to the ride there with snoring coming from the front of the bus, the gang playing games on their phones, and Gina tying the strings on Ricky’s hat to take funny photo’s of him.

When they finally got back to East High (where their parents could pick them up or their cars were parked), everyone gave each other big hugs and wished them a good next few days of break. There was loud laughter and singing as everyone parted ways. Gina’s mom came to get her, so she was waiting at the end of the parking lot for her to come. 

Ricky walked up to Gina and gently bumped his body into her side, “are you sure you don’t want a ride? It’s not too much of a hassle for me”.

Gina gave Ricky a silly look at his obvious sarcasm. “No, I don’t need a ride. My mom is coming”.

Ricky giggled and gave her a hug. “Good bye, Gina. See you, Monday”.

Gina smiled politely at him. “Goodbye, Ricky”. She wiggled her fingers good bye as he walked quickly to his car.

“Gina! Look at this!” Ashlyn called out. Ashlyn, Carlos, and Seb had made an igloo on the school yards that was supposed to resemble East High. Gina wouldn’t have known that from the structure, but one of them carved “EHHS” on the front, so she got the idea. Almost as soon as she had turned around she felt a hand on her arm. It flipped her around.

“Ricky! What are-”

Ricky cut her off. “I forgot something”.

He crashed his lips into hers. It hurt a little, but as she eased into it, the kiss became soft and warm. He picked her up in his arms and spun her around as they continued to kiss. He put her back down when their face broke apart and then he walked away with a goofy, clumsy grin as he said, “uhmm.. good bye, Gina. See you next week!... I guess!”

Gina laughed quietly as she said, “Yeah, see you next week,” and watched Ricky continue to walk off as she bit her lip and smiled. She looked down at her scarf, beaming. This was her Best New Year’s ever. She began to wonder what the other holiday’s would bring...

[tokowh]

Spyro Fanworks drinking game

DISCLAIMER: Just because a particular trope/cliche is listed here does not make it inherently 'bad'. As TV Tropes puts it, Tropes are tools. Even a cliche can be used in a new and interesting way. PLEASE DO NO HARASS ANYONE for using one of these cliches in their fic/comic/whatever. This is also written by someone who does NOT drink. As such, be aware that these ratios are not great since I have no frame of reference to work with. * Take a drink if the fic is set in the 'Legend of Spyro' canon ** Take two if the fic title has 'the Legend of Spyro' anywhere in it ** Take three if it's abbreviated to 'TLOS' ** Take three if it's 'the Legend of' with some OC or other character replacing Spyro in the title *** Add on another drink if its basically a rewrite of the game, but with other characters/OCs included * Take a drink if the words 'dark', 'darkness', 'blood', 'destiny', 'legacy', or 'prophecy' is written in the fic title ** Take two if it uses two of those words in the title ** Take three if there's more than three of those words in the title * Take a drink if the fic is about Spyro and Cynder facing a new evil ** Take two if its a 'new ancient evil' *** Add on a drink if one of the antagonist main motivations is 'getting revenge on Cynder' *** Alternatively, add on a drink if they claim they were behind Malefor the entire time *** Alternatively, take another one if Malefor ends up pulling a Dr. Wily and hijacks the plot. If it's used in conjunction with 'man behind the man' above, take another one * Take a drink if it's part 'whatever' in a massive fic series ** Take two drinks if it's referred to as books instead of parts * Take a drink if it's set exactly after 'Dawn of the Dragon' ** Take two if the prologue has 'You cannot defeat me, I am eternal!' anywhere in it ** Take three if it's either in all caps, bolded, underlined, or italicized ** Down the can/bottle if its any combination of the four *** Add on a drink if, after all that, it basically becomes a glorified highschool AU * Take a drink if Spyro has his purple dragon powers hijacked by someone ** Take two if it's by the main antagonist. * Take a drink if the fic focuses more on Cynder rather than Spyro ** Take three if people hating Cynder is a major theme of the fic * Take two drinks if the fic completely ignores the fact that Cynder said 'I love you' to Spyro at the end of DotD ** Take a drink if it does acknowledge it, but brushes it off as 'Spyro didn't hear her' * Take a drink if 'This Broken Soul' is copy and pasted word for word into the fic at some point ** Take three if Cynder's the one singing it * Take a drink if Ignitus reveals himself to be the Chronicler early on in the fic, thus negating any impact his supposed death had * Take a drink if another purple dragon besides Spyro or Malefor appears in the story, despite the whole 'only one purple dragon every ten generations' thing ** Take two if s/he's the major antagonist ** Take two if she's female ** Take three if s/he's Spyros brother/sister * Take a drink whenever an OC comes in that's in some way related to either Spyro or Cynder (mother, father, brother, sister, ect, ect...) * Take a drink if there's a human turned dragon in the fic ** Take two if they're happy about it and/or have always wished/dreamed/hoped this would happen ** Take three if its because they were unloved/abused in their old life * Take a drink every time Cynder angst about her past * Take a drink if Flame and Ember appear in the story, despite the whole 'Year of the Dragon genocide' thing ** Take two if the reason for them surviving is that their eggs were laid late, or they were saved in a similar manner as Spyro * Take a drink if an OC dragon around their age shows up in a similar manner ** Take a drink if they have a 'dark and trouble' and/or 'mysterious past' ** Take two if finding out about said past is a major part of the fic ** Take three if she's female *** Add on a drink if they're a blatant recolor of a canon character *** Add on another if it's a blatant recolor of Cynder *** Add on another drink if they get paired with a canon character *** Make it two if it's either Spyro or Cynder *** Add another one if (in-universe) people hate him/her for some irrational reason *** Make it another one if said reason is never explained *** Make it another one if said reason is explained, but it's something like 'too beautiful, everyone else is jealous' or those likes *** Add another drink if they're eyes change color based on their emotions *** Add on another drink if they're somehow more powerful than Spyro or Cynder *** Again, add on a drink if they're a purple dragon *** Make it two if they're some kind of special dragon that's somehow more powerful than a purple dragon ** Take two drinks if they possess some element that is not one of the canon four (fire, ice, electric, or earth) ** Take three if its something ridiculous like blood, spirit, or pure energy *** Add on another drink if they possess more than one element *** Down the can/bottle if the second element is equally ridiculous * Take three drinks if Ember's derailed into a complete bitch who tries to sabotage Spyro and Cynder's relationship * Take a drink if Spyro and Cynder break up during the fic ** Take three if it was caused by Ember *** Take another drink if they end up getting back together again three or so chapters later * Take a drink every time Spyro/Cynders superpowered evil sides are brought up ** Take two if they actually appear in the fic * Take a drink if the fic is set in the far future and focuses on a new purple dragon ** Again, take two if she's female ** Take a drink if any character in it is a descendant of Spyro and/or Cynder ** Take two if its the purple dragon * Take a drink if its revealed Ignitus is Spyros biological father ** Take two if it's revealed he's Cynders biological father * Take a drink if another war starts up over the course of the fic ** Take three if it's because of Malefor * Take a drink if the fic ends on a sequel hook ** Take three if it's already part of a massive series * Take a drink every time Flame gets jealous of Spyro (be it over his own fame or Ember fawning over him) ** Take two if he eventually attacks Spyro because of this. *** Take three if he eventually goes evil because of this. * Take a drink if Flame is completely head over heels for Ember, despite the fact that they never met in canon. * Take a drink if Flame is already in a relationship with Ember with no relevance to the plot what-so-ever just because the author doesn't want Ember getting in the way of SpyroXCynder. * Take a drink if Flame somehow becomes the new fire guardian. ** Take two if he beats Ember for the title. * Take a drink if the story has Flame acting like a hot-head, despite being rather cheerful and looking up to Spyro in the games proper. * If by some stroke of luck you're reading a classic verse fic focusing on Spyro X Ember, take a drink if the main reason Spyro's considering getting together with Ember is that he's going through puberty * Similarly, outside of characters like Ember, Flame, and possibly Elder Tomas, take a drink if said Classicverse fic ignores anything that happened between the Classic Trilogy and TLoS * Take a drink if you're reading a Classicverse fic that does acknowledge stuff that happened between the Classic and Legendverse trilogies, and is set after Shadow Legacy, but for whatever reason still has Ember fangirling and trying to hook up with Spyro, despite hooking up with Bandit over the course of that game. * Take a drink whenever a Classic Spyro X Elora fic fails to acknowledge the fact that Elora is far older than Spyro, and how massive the species gap between them is. * Take a drink if a Classic Spyro fic has it to where the only moves Classic knows are how to charge and flame things, despite knowing actually combat techniques and magic in Shadow Legacy. * Take a drink if the fic only ever has Classic Spyro use fire, despite the fact that he, too, also has more breaths than fire. * Take a drink if anyone swears using human swear words even though it's never been said before in either universe. * Take a drink if anyone has a name that fits into Classic series but not TLOS series. ** Take two drinks if the name is obviously human. * Take a drink if most adult dragons are useless in battle. * Take a drink when a fic has pointlessly gory or violent scenes for the sake of it. * Take a drink whenever a killed off in a glorified fashion that makes it clear the author personally hated the character. * Take a drink if dragons kiss each other on the lips despite having the wrong mouth shape.

[setsunatama3]

Chapter 17: growth and complications

AN/ sorry guys, I kinda got busy at work (several call-offs while prepping for a big Thanksgiving party) 😅. I haven’t had a day off to really sit down and work on this for the past month in half as its holiday season. Fortunately, I only have one more party to prep for, and that is on Christmas, Yule, Hanukkah, or Kwanzaa (or whatever appropriate religious holiday you celebrate).  I may have to slow down for a bit due to all the hours I am currently working. At my place of work. At least until January. So please have patience with me while I get through the holiday season. On another note has anyone out there caught the manga and historical reference I made in the last few chapters. If not, the reference is the use of the dead Tangut dialect. And its relation to the manga by the title of shut hell it is an excellent historical romance fantasy tale. Based on the actual real-world genocide of the Tangut people by the Mongolian horde lead by the (in)famous Genghis Khan. And I also but Voldemort in my fanfic by his real name Tomas Riddle (killed him off right and proper I did) and yeah its cause I got addicted to hp fics (stop looking at me like that I don't have a problem… 

No, I don’t have a problem. You have a problem.)

For any updates follow me on twitter at https://twitter.com/setsunatama3

  Chapter 17: growth and complications

Blake did not know what to think when she had sat down on the center island of the lake before the falls of truth. Honestly, she had felt that naruto was joking when he had told her. The only way for her to grow was to confront her darkness. So as one would expect, she was caught off guard when, after a minute of staring at the hypnotic serenity that was the waterfall, a figure came from its depths. A copy of herself down to the last detail. Only it did not hide its features proudly sporting her cat ears to the world. 

Standing up to walk over to confront her darkness. Blake's first thought was to fight. When Naruto's words rang through her head, they were not to fight but confront her darkness. But the real question was, what was her darkness? Why did she hide who she was from everyone else? Wearing a mask that only one person indeed saw through with only a glance. It was simple to fake who she was for so long that it soon became natural. It became her first instinct to hide who she was. Even when she faced discrimination from the masses for being a Faunus. Her first reaction was to swallow her pride and hate. For a mask of indifference. Just going with the flow. When her parents had founded the white Fang to protect the Faunus. It was one of the few times she felt anything other than apathy for the world at large. Then they changed, and her parents gave up on the Fang to hide away their shame in Menagerie. Her father, rather than curbing the violent tendency of the members of the Fang. He stepped down as leader, preferring to be a lowly chieftain of Menagerie. It was sickening to watch and caused her first act of rebellion to do what she had felt was right. By becoming an active member of the new white Fang. 

While in the service of the Fang, she met the man who would become her teacher. Her master in the art of the sword. She had served him diligently as his tool willingly. Whatever he desired, blake knew she would provide. That was at first. Until she saw the depths of his rage, the lengths he would go to get his revenge. It frightened her to her core. His willingness to kill the innocent and guilty all in the same stroke. Even though the world that they live in is in shades of gray. For her master, it was either you were on his side, or you died. 

It was why she had made a choice, she prepared to leave him. It was the hardest thing blake had ever done. To take the first steps on what she felt was the right path, a path all her own.

So with all her reflection of her past done. Blake knew what she had to do was not fight her darkness but accept it. As she walked forwards towards her double. Dropping her weapons and discarding her bow. She made to embrace her copy as if to tell it it's ok. When she felt the hot steel of the copy's clever in her shoulder. Even then, she did not stop. Not when for rounds from its gun pierced her stomach. The shade screaming at her. "Why, why, won't you fight."

As it backed away in fear using its gambol shroud to perfection, slicing open her throat. Still blake refused to back down with the single-minded determination to express her words. Even if her lifeblood was flowing free.

With blurry vision and losing blood. Collapsing to the floor at the feet of her shade. No longer able to even speak the words she was determined to say. Choking on her own lifeblood. So desperate, she focused on one goal. Even if it were the last thing she would do. She would put her dying will into this one message. 

Then she felt it power welling up from her core. Giving her the power that she needed to write her message in her own blood. And in her last moments of clarity blake wrote. "It's ok, but no more hiding…"

The shade could only stare at the message laughing maniacally. Collapsing to the ground in turmoil. As the last vestiges of her will broke, and with it the dam that held back, her tears broke as well. With remorse at what it had just done. Thinking that Blake was here to destroy her. She was Blake to all of her negative emotions. Her apathy, her rage, her wrath, greed, and, most of all, her loathing for herself. Kneeling down to the still form of Blake, her darkness chuckled. "No more hiding, huh, if you're going to do that, then we will do so together." the shade said.

Hugging her still form in her embrace. Accepting what this will mean. Her last parting words of wisdom to her other self where. "Hey blake, if we aren't going to hide anymore. Then you had better go after that, Uzumaki."

When blake next awoke, it was to a sensation she could not describe other than power. As if by accepting a part of herself self, she had awakened a power hidden within her. When calling back to the lessons of her father. "Your Semblance is the manifestation of your soul. Your truest self," Blake remembered her father saying.

So standing up from the patch of earth and undoing her bow for what she believes will be the last time. She stepped into the shallow water. Only for her shadow to extend like a solid platform. With a destination in mind. With a smirk. It appears that calling her semblance shadow clones is wrong now. Pondering what to call this evolution. When it comes to her from an old book, she had read about the yokai of Mistral from when she was young. At that moment blake decided what she would call her Semblance in honor of the yokai she would call it Hyakki Yakō or Night Parade of One Hundred Demons. 

"Hyakki Yakō," blake murmured allowed. Liking the sound of it. Remarking that she was now indeed a night parade. Not knowing that she had been in that trance for almost two days.

]|[

Weiss had never failed at something she put her mind to. So It was honestly frustrating when she failed to even make the flechettes move like instructed. The explanation was simple. The sealing script use for them enabled for independent flight. To control them was another story altogether, and to top it all off, she had not been able to replicate the proper ratios for the ice transformation. They had found while people with aura had an affinity towards an element or two. Like Weiss and her affinity with both wind and water. They also found that aura users were capable of using all the Elements, and it interfered with the transformation aspect of aura. Making it challenging to use anyone element. Thus the solution naruto and Weiss had worked out was to focus on one element at a time starting with her strongest wind. And through the use of Ninshu to speed the process. Bypassing on the experiences to her so Weiss may get a grasp on nature transformation. Working from there to learn how to do so on her own. It was why, while working on her first step. In the task of training to cut a leaf in halve. She was sitting under a tree in the clearing discarding another failed leaf, only making it partway through.

Taking a slow breath in and out, she grabbed another leaf to cut. Remembering the feelings naruto gave her. The sensation of two air currents grinding against each other as if honing a blade ever sharper. She felt her aura splitting in two. Then the sharpening into an ever fine edge. Building it higher and higher. Inhaling slowly, then exhaling Weiss released the building pressure into the leaf, cutting it in half for the first time in two days. Grinning like a loon, she ran off to find naruto.

]|[

Pyrrha stared blankly at the small tanuki of sand before her playing using its sand to make a castle. For the last two days that this creature had been a companion of sorts. She had thought naruto was joking. When he had come to her with the critter and had told her to learn from it. So for the past two days, she had been observing it, not knowing what to look for. It was honestly something that she thought was a waste of time. Until she felt it in the sand was particles of iron. So small she had almost missed it the finesse used to control all that sand was on a magnitude she had not seen. If she wanted control of her Semblance like the Biju in front of her, it would mean rethinking how she used her Semblance entirely. Starting with the flask of iron dust rather than the quicksilver.

Shukakku took note of Pyrrha's change in training. Rather than starting with the more malleable mercury, she was focusing on replicating his feats with the iron sand. Her control was not what it needed to be, but she was getting there, but with the time constraints of the upcoming mission, she would need help and a lot of it. Following Naruto's directive to aid her, he waddled over to her. He began to pour his chakra into her. Through the use of Ninshu, guiding her to refine her control over the element. It would not be long until she could use the iron sand in battle. But the quicksilver was still a way off. Even with the aid of Ninshu.

]|[

If one could describe the feeling of being one with nature. Yang would have to tell them bullshit because it was indescribable to, but the feelings into words would not do them justice. It was something that had to be felt first hand. But if she had to put it into words. It would be that she felt humbled to be allowed to be nature's avatar. It was why she was working under the steady guidance of Naruto. Focusing all her efforts in finding the balance in her meditation.

"Owwie," Yang shrieked as naruto had smashed what she had begun to call the stick of pain. Into her head once more.

"God, I would have preferred if you gave me spankings. But no, you have to hit me with that goddamn stick every time." Yang pouted. Rubbing the sore lump on her head.

"Sorry, yang, but unless you would like to turn into stone, this is the best way of purging the nature energy." naruto explained. Kneeling down to inspect the wound himself.

Seeing the opportunity, Yang leaned forward and stole a kiss. That Naruto reciprocated before pulling away. 

"Ok, I think you're all charged up and better now. So you can get back to work." naruto teased.

Yang huffed, giving her boyfriend her best pout. But naruto did not give in to her attempts at distraction. Forcing her to get back to her meditations without the oil.

Naruto could not help but think just how fast they were all growing thanks to the use of Ninshu to share thoughts and experiences. Exactly how it was intended for people to grow through their bonds. 

Going over his memories of his clones, he could see that Ren was taken to the medical training faster than he thought possible. Nora was doing good as well; it was rather frightening to see just what she would do with her affinity to lightning and earth release. The flexibility of aura was truly scary. Generating her own lightning to empower her strikes. Naruto shuddered when an explosion was heard in the distance, followed by a yell of "Nora!"

More explosions where the response to the yell. It was apparent that Nora was abusing her newfound ability to terrorize her partner into getting what she wants. Cacophonous detonations rang out in the distance, along with cackling laughter. Shouts of despair soon followed. It appeared as if Nora was having the time of her life. It was a slightly terrifying thing to hear, yet all the more impressive.

He was so focused on the clones and the memories he had almost missed it the flare of chakra. No, not chakra, he had to correct himself but nature energy. Yang had done it, and so much more, she had undergone a sage transformation. A perfect one on her first try. 

Yang's hands had grown claws and red scales up to the elbow. With trails of red script flowing up the rest of her arm to her collarbone and shoulders. Running down her spine and onto her ribs. Her ever-vibrant hair glowed with an ever-present fire. But what had set yangs transformation apart from the imperfect type. Was the markings of a perfect sage over her eyes. When she opened those beautiful eyes, they were red and slit. Yet just as expressive as before. 

When Yang gave him a toothy smirk, With her new fangs. Naruto could not help but grin as well when she leapt up and into his arms, giving him a passion-filled kiss. Losing her transformation soon after.

Breaking the kiss, Naruto voiced one thought on his mind. "How?"

Grinning even wider, Yang kissed him once more before answering. "I followed my instincts." 

The simple answer only leads to more questions. It would need to be investigated. Before allowing Yang to use this in combat of any kind. 

Pondering on what was known so far. Naruto knew a Semblance was the manifestation of one's most genuine self. A reflection of their soul made manifest. It could mean that until one comes to terms with their faults or overcomes some kind of life-changing event. When their Semblance manifests, it could easily be as a distorted weakened form of what it should be. It would mean that in Yang's case, it was always meant to be this way.

Done with his questions, for now, naruto decided the best way to find more. Was to observe the transformation in progress.

 Taking a step back from her, Naruto closed his eyes for but a moment allowing for the energy granted to a sage of six paths to flow through himself. Taking his six-paths form without using the cloak. The only difference was in his eyes. Having taken on the rippled pattern with nine tomoe in each eye showing the activation of the Rinne-Sharingan. And the marks of a sage.

Having transformed before Yang, she was a bit stunned when she felt just a portion of the power he held. Knowing she was not by any means, a sensor like what naruto had described. And she could still feel his power restrained as it was. Waiting to be free to destroy the poor souls who crossed him. She was brought back to the present when naruto called out for her.

"Yang, I need you to do what you did before to attain sage mode." naruto said.

"R-right," Yang stuttered. Blushing at the slip-up.sitting down and focusing on her breathing and soon clearing her mind. Slipping into the state of being to enter the  honored sage mode.

With his eyes, he could see the transformation guided by her will alone. The shading that marked her as a sage came first. Then he saw it that spark of her very soul he had briefly glimpsed came in full force for only a moment aiding in the transformation. As the script began its trek down her spine and her arms turning into claws. Completing her change in full. 

It was breathtaking and amazing all at the same time. It had also shown that Yang had the potential to grow even more.

]|[

As the debilitating migraines increased, Cinder was getting worried. She was having blackouts where she would wake up sore and disheveled with a searing pain in her neck and lower back. Finding bruises around her wrists and legs. Fearing the worst, she had gone to a hospital in secret. The one solace she found was that whatever was happening to her, it was not rape. But the not knowing was driving her up the wall. Making her paranoid causing sleepless nights. Unable to trust anyone. Getting desperate and reaching the end of her rope, she needed answers and soon, not knowing how much longer she would last.

Watching Cinder from the shadows, Mercury scoffed at her. The pawn in this game thinking that she was anything but disposable. In this game between the holy mother and that fool. Idly he could not help but remark how easy it was to manipulate the pathetic girl into doing what the mother wanted. Taking a maiden's power by force. He had to laugh. To do such a thing when you were incompatible in the first place is foolish. But to do so while the maiden in question is still alive is suicidal. Mother had placed him and his father in the perfect position to have one of them join her. The ideal place to keep eyes on the pawn as she danced about to mother's tune. It will be marvelous to see just how Cinder falls. Whether the power she stole rips her apart after her role is done or not is inconsequential. Cinder only needs to last until then. Mercury grinned with malice in his eyes as he watched her pace back and forth. It would be time to deliver the next dose of suppressants soon. They were the only thing keeping the girl sane and whole.

 After all, they were months away from completion, and Cinder must last until the plan is done. All he had to do was wait until she slept, then sneak in with the seer and set to work. 

When Cinder awoke the next morning with the searing pain returning in full force. And her mobility compromised. Unable to move her legs, it broke the damn of emotions inside her something was wrong, something had happened last night that she could not remember it was unsettling. She knew then and there she needed help but from where? Not knowing who to trust with this side of her. Cinder curled up into a ball and wept for the first time.

 Emerald was getting worried, pacing back and forth in her room over what to do. Things had not been working out, and Cinder's condition was getting progressively worse. With mercury acting like he did not care. She had no idea who to trust and little time in which to make a decision. She knew that, at the very least, Mercury could not be entrusted. He obviously has his own agenda. Emerald was quickly coming to the conclusion that she would have to gamble everything on getting Cinder the help she needed. Even if it cost her life.

With her decision made, Emerald stopped pacing and looked to her scroll on its charging dock. Grabbing the phone. Emerald hesitated only for a moment. Biting the inside of her cheek. As she went through her contacts, finding the number of who she was looking for. Dialing the number, she let it ring twice then hung up. All that was left was to wait for a call.

It hadn't taken long for her scroll to ring once more. Answering the call before the first ring even ended. 

"How did you get this number?" was the first thing she heard from the mystery man on the other end of the phone.

"R-Roman gave us the number." Emerald answered, knowing that this was her one and only shot at possibly saving Cinder." your K-Kitsune, right?" she questioned.

Naruto let out an aggravated sigh before replying with a very terse "yes."

"You have three minutes talk," Kitsune said in a clipped tone.

"I need your help. There is something wrong with Cinder." emerald pleaded. The desperation was evident in her voice.

Taking this into account, Naruto could undoubtedly think of several things. That could be wrong, the girl. He also remembered what the panther elder had said to him. Letting out another sigh of displeasure. He knew what it meant.

To get insight into whatever force was trying to infiltrate Vale on his watch, he needed Cinder.

"I will be there in twenty minutes. Make sure it is only those you trust with you and Cinder. Be ready to leave with her when I get there." Naruto said. Hanging up soon after 

The feeling of Annoyance that he had just hung up was only balanced by the fact Kitsune said he would help them.

]|[

Having just ended the call, Naruto was intrigued at the prospect of just what was really going on in Cinder's camp. Putting a finger to his ANBU tattoo, he sent a few quick pulses of chakra into it, letting Sarada know he was leaving Beacon in code. Making a clone to cover for him. Naruto vanished from Beacon in a flash of yellow.

Appearing in a safe house and putting on his armor and mask as his hair bled red. It only took a moment to gather the sage chakra to enter the honored sage mode. In another moment, he had found the apartment complex cinder's faction was using as a base. 

In a burst of speed and honed reflexes, he was traveling across the rooftops of Vale like only a shinobi could. When he reached the building, he paused. Sensing the area around him, many of the people in the crowd below were armed. Likely belonging to Cinder's faction. Sensing that Cinder and emerald were on the top floor penthouse. His approach would be noticed if he scaled the building. It left only a few options, one of which was his favored. Making the ram hand seal thinking (Mujin Meisai). Naruto faded from view as the water vapor in the air bent the light around his form. Utilizing the sensing technique of his clan (Kagura Shingan), Naruto kept track of everyone in the building as he leapt down to the street and made his way to the building.

Once he was at the entrance instead of entering through the front, he leapt to a third-floor balcony picking the lock and letting himself in without tripping the alarm. He pulled out a blank scroll from his vest pouch and a brush writing out the formula for the Hiraishin on the scroll and pressing his hand to the scroll, intoning (Ninpō: Chōjū Giga) the script became a small ink mouse. Scurrying into a vent. All that was left to do was wait until it made it to the top floor.

]|[

Emerald was getting worried that her gamble had not paid off. That possibly Kitsune had chosen not to find them in the twenty minutes he had said. Even so, she had managed to pack a small bag without anyone the wiser. When she walked the short distance to Cinder's room, she had seen mercury leaving her room and a pit of despair formed in her stomach. Worried but not wanting to show it, she entered soon after his leaving. Cinder was unconscious, and her arms and legs had developing bruises on her wrists and ankles. She pushed past her fear, gathering what she could and waited. It was all she could do now. 

As the minutes passed by, Emerald began to panic, looking to the clock on the wall. There was only a minute left on the given deadline. Biting her thumb in frustration of the longest minute of her life. She was about to give up hope. Maybe try to solve this on her own when a mouse crawled out of the vent across the room. It looked at her for a moment as she stared back blankly. Until it swelled to twice its size and popped silently into words. Walking over to the odd sight, Emerald could only stare blankly as she read what was left behind. ~Are you and Cinder alone? If so, press on the text once for yes, twice for no...~

It was a relief that Kitsune was here somewhere. And it was evident that he was taking no chances of discovery. All he was waiting for was confirmation that the room was secure. A confirmation that emerald made sure of one last time before pressing her hand to the ink. 

 It flashed once before an odd mark was formed from the script. Before her eyes, Kitsune appeared in the room in a flash of red light. 

Without speaking, he walked over to Cinder. Who was still out of it and looking paler than the last time they had met. He had to grimace.

Emerald was about to speak when Kitsune raised a finger to his mask. Telling her to be silent. Pointing back to the script on the floor. It read,~ There is someone just outside of the door don't say a word.~

Nodding in response, she could only hope that he had a way out of this. She looked at him, oddly make signs with his hands. When wooden copies came out of his back.

Naruto flashed through the hand signs Tiger → Dog → Snake thinking (Moku Bunshin no Jutsu). The two clones he needed fully formed and sentient transformed into exact copies of Emerald and Cinder down to the last detail. Acting on his instructions as he went to pick up the comatose girl and walked over to emerald. He latched onto her with a chakra arm as she grabbed the bags she needed, and they disappeared in a flash as the ink on the floor faded.

]|[

Reappearing in one of many safe houses, Naruto let go of Emerald. Who paled and looked like she was about to be sick. When he spoke to her directly for the first time that night. "If you're going to be sick, the restroom is two doors down on your left," he said.

She took off at a dead sprint rushing to the restroom. Naruto walked over to the couch and set Cinder down. Pulling out a scroll, he opened the medical scroll enlarging it, and began to write the necessary seals.

By the time Emerald had come back to the living room of the house. She was in awe at what she saw. Kitsune was rapidly filling out a scroll the size of a person. She was somewhat surprised when he lifted his mask enough to pull down the second mask he was wearing. Yet Emerald could not see its face as it was masked by a distortion. When he bit into his thumb hard. It made her wince. As the man bleed freely into the scroll. 

It seemed to glow briefly. Then the script shifted to form the outline of a person. He stood from the floor and made his way towards Cinder. 

It was something Emerald could not abide without knowing just what was going on. 

"Ok, I know I asked for your help. But just what are you doing?" Emerald stated. Quirking a brow as she stepped in front of her savior, shielding Cinder from his view.

"The scroll I just filled out is for a full body medical scan. I intend to find out just what is wrong with Cinder. As you asked me to do." Kitsune replied. To ease her suspicions.

Seeing her relax her as the tense atmosphere faded. Kitsune walked past her to Cinder. He began to undo the buttons of her nightgown and pulled it over her head. Removing her underwear as well. Picking up the unresponsive woman, he laid her nude form on the scroll.  

Emerald watched as he formed two distinct hand signs and spoke in a dead language that she could not place. And his hands glowed green. As he ran them over Cinder's prone form.

After making the Modified Ox → Tiger hand signs for the (Shōsen Jutsu). Naruto knew right away that something was wrong with the girl before him. What was apparent immediately was that she was drugged heavily so. 

So much, in fact, it was a wonder that she was still breathing. Naruto knew what he would have to do. Knowing that he only had a limited time to extract the narcotics from her system. Even if she would not wake any time soon. So he made the hand signs Tiger → Horse → Rabbit → Rat → Dog for the (Chakura no Mesu) without a word said. 

With a finger, he made an incision on her chest just above her heart. And with one hand on her chest and the other hovering just above the cut. He pushed hard onto her chest with his chakra. Forcing his chakra throughout her body, gathering the narcotics in her system. Pulling it out rapidly with the other. Once, her system was clear of the drugs muddling her aura. It was plain to see what was wrong with her. Cinder was dying due to the power she contained. Or rather the halve she held. It would need to be addressed, and soon she did not have more than a month left to live at this rate. Sooner the more she used her aura. The two halves were trying to become one, once more. It was ripping her apart from the inside, and this was the result.

He stood up from her prone form with the swirling ball of the drug in hand, pulling out a scroll and unraveling it with one hand. He sealed the narcotics into the scroll for later examination.

He turned to emerald. "follow me to the kitchen. We need to have a discussion. Naruto said. Making a clone to take care of dressing cinder.

Once they entered the kitchen, Naruto set about making tea while emerald waited at the table. When he was done, he set the kettle on the table along with two cups. Pouring out a cup for emerald and himself. He broke the building silence first.

"The power she has is killing her. Whatever that drug I purged from her system was. It was suppressing her aura and thus that power as well." Kitsune said.

Needless to say, that emerald was shocked. The plan to steal a maiden's power failed spectacularly, and they had only managed to get half.

"I sensed that the power is trying to leave her. And it's ripping her apart from the inside out to do so. When she wakes up, we need to have a rather frank discussion with her about what to do next." Kitsune added on. Taking a sip of his tea using a genjutsu to hide his face from view. The pair sat in silence as emerald digested the bitter truth of the situation they found themselves in.

Kitsune left soon after that his only parting words were a warning. "If I were you, I would convince Cinder to give up that power before it kills her. I will be back to discuss things in the morning." with his peace, said Naruto disappeared in a flash of light.

]|[

After leaving Emerald and Cinder Naruto had not made it back to beacon until the afternoon of the next day.upon dispelling his clone, he learned of the events that followed in his absence and was pleased to know that while he was gone blake had confessed to her fellow RWBY teammates. About being a Faunus and their acceptance of it. The girls had elected to go into town to celebrate there growth and progress in their training. His mood, however, was brought back down when he got a text from neo. ~hey foxy, going to rob the latest shipment of dust from SDC at docks Fang is involved see you tonight- neo~

Naruto could not help but curse his luck as he let out a long sigh. Thinking to himself, "man when it rains, it pours."  

]|[

-Sixteen hours earlier-

Yang was focusing on mastering the aspects of sage mode without transforming. Naruto had told her since she was no longer in danger of turning into stone. Yang could practice senjutsu on her own now. That if she mastered sage mode without transforming, then she would have better control over how long the power lasted. So far, she was able to hold the form for a single minute. 

Naruto had mentioned that her transformation, while it allowed her to gather natural energy on its own, so there was no need to make a summon contract for her. It was just that the form was a power hog. Thus it drained more natural energy than it gathered. Making it an issue about control rather than the amount of power gathered.

She was only broken from her meditation. When she had sensed Blake, Ruby, and Weiss coming her way.  

When they entered the clearing, Ruby could definitely say that this was the first time she had ever seen her sister so still. Just like a statue. If she did not know any better, then Ruby would have believed Yang was dead.

When Yang opened her eyes, she gazed at them with slitted pupils of the most vibrant red. They were almost glowing. Weiss definitely would say that it was the most fantastic sight. This was what Naruto was teaching them. In just forty-eight hours, she knew they had all come to some revelation and grown in some way. 

"So, what's up?" Yang asked.

"Well, I have something to tell you, girls." Blake began. Reaching up to her bow and pulling at the ribbon. Undoing it to show the most adorable set of cat ears.

"Ok, so you're a Faunus. That's cool." Weiss said casually dismissed the revelation. "I also suppose that you were a former member of the white fang too right." she snarked.

"How did you?" Blake questioned.

"Huh, never thought I was actually right," Weiss said. Stunned that her guess was right. 

While this byplay went on, Yang and Ruby just started watching the princess work.

"Well, you have been researching any information about the white Fang you can get your hands on. Also, we live together in a dorm. Do you really think I wouldn't notice those extra ears you have? Several other things are not important. But yes, I figured it out, and I don't care, Blake." Weiss explained. 

"B-but you're the heiress of the SDC, and I know just what the white fang has done when targeting your family." Blake started with a tone of derision. "You should at least hate me for joining the white fang."

"Blake, I have had to do a lot of growing up recently. And I have chosen not to let hatred guide me. But rather to seek equality through understanding." Weiss said. Embracing blake in a hug.

Not wanting to be left out, ruby and Yang joined in on the hug.

This was the scene naruto's team and clone walked in on. 

"Aw, isn't this adorable." the clone teased

Team RWBY soon separated. With various shades of red on their cheeks.

"Naruto," ruby whined.

"Naruto, don't you want to tell us something, it's why we were looking for team RWBY," Pyrrha suggested. Trying to get things back on track.

"Uhh, right, so since classes are already over today, you can have today off like a light maneuver day." the clone explained.

Ruby lit up with glee. Quickly pulling up her sleeve and removing the weights faster than anyone else. Dashing off soon after disappearing in a haze of rose petals. Where she was heading was anyone's guess.

As they all separated going about their own methods of personal relaxation. The clone noticed that Yang had simply sat back down in the clearing.knowing that this was definitely odd for the blonde bombshell. He sat down next to her. Taking comfort in the silence as she repositioned herself to rest her head on his shoulder.

"This is peaceful, isn't it?" Yang inquired.

"Yea, it is. I wish everyday could be like this." naruto agreed.

"Yang, I would like to take you out on a date this Friday." naruto asked. 

All Yang could do is meekly nodded with a blush on her cheeks and a small smile. Mumbling, "it's about time, foxy." 

Knowing that the boss would be relieved, the clone replied. "So at six then." the Naruto clone confirmed.

"Yeah, cool, but where are we going?" Yang asked.

"Well, I figured that you would like to go to the latest book signing for the next book Icha Icha: west. Then we can go for a ride and get dinner." naruto idly said.

Yang froze at that moment as what she had just heard settled in. In the next moment, her whole body turned unnaturally, and she hugged the clone. Excited that the next book in the series that the girl loved so much was coming out and having a book signing soon. She was so happy that she accidentally popped the clone in her embrace with her strength.

Coughing as the smoke cleared, Yang let out a meek, "oops." At the lack of boyfriend in the clearing with her. She came to the obvious conclusion that it was a clone. 

She was not surprised when another clone soon appeared in the clearing. Scowling at her, the clone let out a sigh. As Yang reiterated, she meekly stated, "oops." while giving him an adorable pout. The clone cursed the boss for making him an exact copy. With all his personality traits. Including a weakness to forward pouty blondes with a penchant for getting into trouble. It was how Ino snuck up on him after her husband sai died on a mission that when south. She hadn't known she was pregnant when Sai had fallen. But nonetheless a shinobi's life is short. And she moved on not long after his death. Despite just wanting to be there as a friend for the blonde. She almost literally forced her way into his life. Determined to live her life the way she wanted after Sai. 

Ino told him to shove it and kissed Hinata, his wife. Despite the protests and eventually got what the girl had wanted. Forcing her way into naruto's heart. Naruto had to laugh a bit. At the fond memories of Ino even at six months pregnant. Swollen ankles and all still active and ran circles around everyone driving him crazy. It was honestly refreshing to have met a girl just like his Ino. The clone thought to himself. As he sat back down, hugging her in his embrace. While thinking, man, if I pop like this, what a way to go.

With all things, the time together soon came to an end not more than forty minutes later. When a blushing, Yang hopped out of his embrace. With an excuse of, "I just remembered I have got to go meet up with my team, bye." Yang's retreating form yelled. 

Leaving the naruto clone snickering at her apparent panic.

]|[

Yang was panicking in her joy for her first date with naruto. She had not realized that there were so many things that needed to be done in preparation for the date. Running to her room, she threw open her closet, panicking over the fact that while she had feminine clothing. It was not a large selection to pick from due to her tomboyish style. It was time for a shopping spree, and she would need help. 

Pulling out her scroll, Yang looked up the one which she hoped would answer her s.o.s. 

~Yang: need help urgent~ after Sending a text to Weiss. Yang proceeded to pace back and forth in a fit of nervous energy.

Until Weiss had responded to the text not more than five minutes later with a text of her own.

~Weiss: whats up?~

~Yang: I have a date and nothing to wear. Freaking out fml~

~Weiss: calm down will get the girls will go shopping in Vale in an hour~

~Yang: Kk thanks~

As they continued to text each other. Yang had finally managed to calm down a bit. But still, she couldn't help but have butterflies in her stomach. After all, it was going to be her first date with the man she loved.

It was not long after the string of messages between Yang and Weiss. That Weiss had managed to get the other girls together. And onto an airship headed to downtown Vale. Under the guise of relaxation and therapeutic shopping. Little did they know that this trip would be one of the most interesting of the night.