#i want to hoard every precious second of my one very short life to do what i want with it instead of having all the grief all the time

[dont-offend-the-bees]

ugh

[crescentsteel]

To All the Boys I’ve Loved - The Popular Guy (2)

route: Tooru Oikawa genre: fluff, crack wc: 6k

This is a collab from our server @babythotshq.

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[a/n: I love writing for Oikawa so much :(( ]

Just when you thought your day couldn’t get any worse, there you are, staring dumbfounded at Oikawa. 

“What?” you utter, incredulous from what he just said. You must’ve been hearing things from all the chaos this morning has brought you. 

“I was asking you out, y/n-chan.”

You couldn’t suppress the grimace that formed on your face. Among all the other guys you sent the letter to, it was him whom you thought would be the least of your problems. You thought that he’d be out of the scenario by default. You didn’t think your letter to him would matter. It would just be another fan letter.

By an ironic turn of events, it was him with you in this empty room, asking if you wanted to date him. 

It was preposterous. 

You should’ve burned those letters instead of letting them lie around. Now that you think about it, you shouldn’t have even written those letters in the first place. You and your stupid sentiments of ‘starting fresh’ led you to this.

You fix your posture, removing your forehead from resting on his back hand. Despite slouching towards your direction, he’s still towering over you.

“I don’t want to date you, Oikawa-san.”

He backs away slowly with his eyes wide, shocked by your immediate refusal. He must be. He’s the most popular guy in high school. A lot of girls would kill just to be trapped in the same room with him right now as you are. You can already hear the hearts of his fangirls being shattered if they find out that he’s interested to date someone. 

“But why?”

He sounds as if something’s wrong with you for rejecting him. Can you blame him though? Other than being perfection personified, you sent him that letter that explicitly told him that you have a huge crush on him.

“I don’t wanna be killed by your hoard of fans. I still want to live.”

He pressed his lips together and put his fist in front of his mouth in an attempt to suppress a laugh, but failed right after as his laughter echoed in the empty classroom.

“Seriously? That’s it?” Amusement still laced on his face.

“What do you mean ‘that’s it’? You don’t even go here, yet you’re immediately surrounded by girls. I don’t want to be caught in all of that. I want an amazing college life without girls going after my throat.” You said a bit too fast which made you catch your breath. You forgot that you sprinted just a while ago to get away from everyone.

Then he smiles at you, his eyes closed in arced slits, that prince-like smile that had everyone fawning after him. 

“Y/n-chan.”

“Y-yes?” You stutter, slowly losing the previous resolve you had to stand up against him.

He opens his eyes and looks directly at you. “Do you still like me?”

It should’ve been easy to say no, but you have a gut feeling that he would be able to tell if you were lying. You’re not an excellent liar to begin with. 

“Well.. uh. It’s not that I don’t, but errr.” You cower in the middle of your sentence, unable to deny what he asked you. You try to look somewhere else to prevent the fluster that was about to surface on your face

He suddenly puts his hands together like in a prayer, emitting a sharp sound that made you look at him again.

“Yaay! I thought you really declined me back then, y/n-chan. That hurt.” He said with feigned pain on his tone.

“But I just did?” You could’ve been more firm, but you, yourself, sounded uncertain as you find yourself getting mesmerized again by his presence, realizing that it’s him, the one you’ve always looked at from a distance with a dreamy sigh knowing that he’d never look your way.  

But you were okay with that! So it wasn’t really a problem.

He suddenly gets his phone from his pocket and looks at it for a short while. “Ah. I have to go now.” 

You feel conflicted. You should feel relieved that he’s about to leave and give you the peace you wanted, but also, you still haven’t settled the issue at hand. 

“Come on now.” He gets your hand and tugs you along with him to get out of the room. You absent-mindedly follow as you’re distracted with his huge hand covering yours. 

Once outside, he faces you. “I��ll be back, okay?” 

You summon the all willpower you have in you. “I told you. I don’t want to go” you pause when he faces you, “out… with….” You were rendered speechless from the calculating smirk he gave you, something you haven’t seen him do from all those times you silently watched him.

“Do you honestly think I’d accept that half-assed rejection?”

He lets go of your hands only for his fingers to go up to your chin. “Tell it straight to my face that you don’t like me. Then, I’ll stop.”

You had an inkling that from that night that Oikawa had this persona he wasn’t showing any one. He only showed you a glimpse of it. But right now, he’s revealing not only a glimpse, but a more concrete display of it.

There really is more to him than what he let on to everybody.

In a blink of an eye, he goes back to his pleasant demeanor, slightly pinching your chin before releasing it. “See you again, y/n-chan.” 

You watch his back gradually disappear from your sight while you’re completely rooted to the ground. 

--

The buzzer rang, signalling the end of your last subject for the day. You gather your things from your desk and start to head out when you feel your phone vibrate. 

‘Miss me, y/n-chan? :P’

You gape at the short message you just received. It was an unknown number, but you have a very good guess to who it is. In fact, it’s not just a guess. You were certain it was Oikawa. You could even hear his voice as you read it. 

‘How did you get my number?’

‘Have I told you what a wonderful being your lil sister is? So precious! >_<’

That witch! How much more did she tell Oikawa about you? 

“Ugh!”

She has no idea how lucky she was that you moved out. If you were at home, God knows what you might have done to her. 

You haven’t replied, but your phone alerted again. 

‘I’m waiting at your campus gates, mkay?’

Did your wretched sister tell him about your schedule too? Did she also tell him that you have a scar on your left butt cheek? Cause you wouldn’t be surprised if she did. 

Wait. What?!

You look again at what he just said, the thought of him actually being there waiting for you sinking in your head. 

You double your pace to reach the gates as soon as you can just to see if he was actually telling the truth. 

Like he said, there he was, gracing the area with his presence just by standing there. 

Your high school uniform looked great on him. But seeing him in his casual wear is a cultural reset you still haven’t gotten used to because he looked better than he already did before.

Your university didn’t have uniforms, but even so, you could tell he was different from other students. He looked out of place because he stands out. 

You weren’t the only one to notice as you can see some students buzzing around about that good-looking guy near the gates. 

Your eyes meet when you look at him again. He immediately smiles warmly at you, which made you blush a little. You’re about to approach him when three girls suddenly talked to him. You were not near enough to hear their conversation, but you didn’t have to be. You already know they’re ogling at him. 

While he’s distracted with them, you turn around and walk away as quickly as you can.

You scold yourself mentally. 

For a moment, you forgot that he was the great Oikawa.

You don’t know why he’s after you, but you don’t want to get caught up with all of that ruckus.

If he won’t take your refusal, you’re just going to have to ignore him. You came to terms with the fact that you’re a bad liar, so you can’t tell him to his face that you don’t like him.

Because you do.

--

As the days go by, you don’t respond to his texts. You ignore him when he waves at you, despite the other girls fighting for his attention, as he waits for you every other day in the school gates. 

He could’ve easily approached you again every time he saw you at campus. He did chase you on his first visit after all. 

But you knew what he wanted. He wanted you to be the one to go to him. He’s offering himself on a silver platter and baiting you to come get him yourself. 

It was irritating because you were tempted. Every time you saw him smile exclusively at you, your defenses got weaker. Each day you see him waiting is a scene straight from a shoujo manga, and you feel like you’re the dumb heroine. 

Finally, on his second week of relentless visits, you gave in. You did your best not to, but you also didn’t think he’d be that persistent.

Since he visited frequently, he unknowingly built a group of followers who’d wait for him as well. Even before he sees you, you march up to him and ignore the few people who are already hogging him. 

His face lights up when he spots you coming towards him and waves eagerly at you. Upon being acknowledged by him, the people make way for you until you’re standing right in front of him. 

“Y/n-chan!”

You thought he’d immediately understand that you wanted to get out of here, but he just looks at you innocently.

“Let’s go,” you say in almost a whisper before turning around and walking away from the small crowd.  “Bye everyone,” you heard him say cheerfully before catching up to you. 

You let him follow you until you reach a cafe outside the university. 

“I really thought you were going to keep ignoring me,” he said as he stirred the coffee he ordered.

“When were you planning to stop if I did?”

He sips the coffee and answers, “Today.”

You place your elbows on the table as you cover your face with your hands. You made a terrible decision. You should’ve been strong for at least one more day, and that would have been the end of it. 

 “Can’t believe you actually made me chase you,” he added. 

“I didn’t ask you to.”

“I wanted to.”

Even until now, his straightforwardness still surprises you. How does someone say things like that so easily?

It must be the confidence from being such an incredible person

“So, are we dating now?” 

You gawk at him. You haven’t even settled down yet from the previous conversation and there he was with another bomb already at hand. 

“No! I dragged you here to talk. Why are you so persistent in asking me out? Aren’t you busy?”

“Not really. I quit volleyball.”

Oikawa saw how your expression changed all too quickly when he gave you the news. He was expecting it. He knew the reason you admired him so much was because of the pedestal you put him on. Now that he’s just Oikawa, the model, he wonders how your perception of him would change. 

Instead of disappointment, you just stared at him. Your eyes pierced him like you’re prodding whatever’s going on on his head.

“What about university?” 

“I won’t attend one.”

That’s when you looked away, with your eyes glazed with soft melancholy from which he couldn’t understand where it came from. It seemed like you figured something out that made you feel bad for him. When you look at him again, you weren’t the flustered mess that you usually were. 

“Do you really want to date me, Oikawa-san?”

“I wouldn’t bug you for two weeks for nothing if I didn’t.”

“Then please be real with me, “ your voice suddenly serious. “Why did you quit volleyball?”

He pauses before answering, deciding which answer he’d give you, not that he’s going to lie. It’s just that the subject is lil bit too touchy for him to talk about openly. “Modeling suits me best don’t you think?”

You didn’t say anything but the way your jaw tensed up was very telling. You don’t agree with him. Still you say, “It suits you a lot, Oikawa-san.” 

He became utterly confused. You were earnest. You meant every word of what you said, but the expression in your face contradicts them. 

“It’s just that you looked incredibly unhappy when you mentioned you quit Volleyball.”

He froze, completely caught off guard by what you just said. He wasn’t even aware that he made such a face. 

“I will always support you, Oikawa-san. I guess as a fan myself, I just want to see you genuinely happy with whatever you choose to do. I think that’s what drew me to you in the first place. You looked like you enjoyed yourself in all the things you excelled at.”

The sincerity of every single word you struck him hard. And he wasn’t prepared for it despite being the one who went after you.

He never once doubted that it was you who wrote the letter, but seeing and hearing you say what you just said, it’s as if the letter materialized into a person that is you. It was fascinating how the words in that piece of paper took your form.

“Umm..”

You both look at the sudden interruption. “Oikawa-san? Can we get a photo? It’s my friend’s birthday and…” He didn’t hear the rest of whatever the bitch was babbling about. Internally, he’s pissed. You were talking about something important. Is she fucking blind that they didn’t see he was with you? 

When he looks at you, you’re gripping your cup while staring at the lady with discomfort in your eyes. You clear your throat to let her know that you were there presently, but she still didn’t pay you any attention. With a sigh, you look down in defeat. 

That’s when he understood why you blatantly rejected him despite the heartfelt letter. You knew these things were going to happen. He previously thought you were overreacting about him and his fans, so he didn’t pay any mind to it. But now he actually saw how it bothered you.

That fueled his irritation even more.

“Sorry. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m on a date with her.” He said with a fake ass smile as to not be completely impolite to a fan. 

The lady looks your way. “Oh,” finally seeing that he is indeed with someone. She suddenly bows down to you two. “I’m so sorry! I didn’t know you were dating someone.” Then walked out of the scene as fast as she could. 

Rather than relief, it was worry spread on your face when he looked at you again. 

“Why did you do that, Oikawa-san? They might spread bad rumors about you.”

“What could be bad about dating you?”

And there it was, the adorable panic settling on your face with pink tints surfacing on your cheeks. He’s used to people blushing because of him, but yours just hits him differently. You should learn to stop getting flustered so much around him. It eggs him on even more.

“We-We’re not dating!” Your voice almost cracked from how high your pitch was when you spoke. 

“Then what’re we doing now?”

Your eyes dart around, looking for an answer to his question. He lets you even though he’s still convinced this is a date. 

“We’re just hanging out?” You said uncertainly. “Yes. That’s it!” You nod enthusiastically, proud of yourself for finding a label for this afternoon, other than a ‘date.’ 

“We’re just hanging out.” You reiterate with a wide smile. 

“Okay.” He plants his elbows on the table and weaves his fingers together to form a surface he could rest his chin on. “So there’s no problem with us hanging out often then, y/n-chan?”

You, yourself, looked perplexed on how to answer his question. If you were just hanging out, then it shouldn’t be a problem. If you make a fuss out of it, then it’d be like you’re admitting that this is more than just hanging out. 

“I-I guess?”

He couldn’t help the tug in the corner of his lips. You had no idea you’re playing yourself right into his hands.

“Let me know when we can call it ‘dating’, oke?”

You sighed. “I don’t even know why you would even want to date me, Oikawa-san. I really am just a fan.”

No, you weren’t. The fact that you keep insisting you are makes him even more believe otherwise. You’re completely clueless on how different you were from everybody else. 

”I like you, y/n-chan. Is that reason not good enough?”

--

You still haven’t wrapped your head around what just happened between you and Oikawa at that coffee shop. It was too good to be true. You were actually convinced you dreamt the whole thing until you opened your phone when you woke up and saw a text from him. 

‘Good morning Y/n-chan <3’

You shouldn’t be getting your hopes up, but how can you not? You’re just a regular girl. It’s hard not to feel anything when someone you really look up to is pining after you. What could he have possibly liked about you? 

Maybe he’s getting lonely in life and wanted to start dating so he shuffled his fan letters and drew a lucky girl that could be his girlfriend. 

You shook your head. 

He’s not that shallow. Despite the sprightly, frivolous personage he has, that’s something he wouldn’t do. 

You look at your phone again. Should you reply to this? Does this message require a response or he just wanted to greet you? You groan from your own thoughts. You’ve liked so many boys in high school but never actually went out with one so you have no idea this goes. 

In the end, you texted back with a morning greeting even though it’s almost noon.

‘Wanna hang out today?’

You were so foolish when suggested to just hang out instead of date. That was basically the same thing, just a different label, especially to him who kept on asking you out. 

Still, it works out for you because you’re not sure if you wanted to date him for real.

If you’d be honest with yourself, you actually want to. 

Ever since that conversation you had in the cafe, you found yourself liking him even more. He’s shown you that he’s not the ever perfect guy everyone made him out to be. He also has a shadow behind that radiant light he emits. He’s not as unreachable as you thought. 

However, you knew that that line of thinking would do you no good. Even if you knew how he really is as a person, that doesn’t change the fact that he’s an incredibly great individual, and you’re not exactly that excellent to be staying beside someone like him. 

Dating him would mean entering his world completely and accepting that you will have to compete with each single admirer vying for him. You’re not ready for that. 

And it wasn’t just those You’d also be competing against his career. If he was going to date you, he’d have to actually make time for you. That might affect his success. You don’t want that. You’re satisfied with just cheering for him from afar.

So ‘hanging out’ is okay. He won’t expect things from you and you won’t expect things from him as well. 

That means you shouldn’t cancel your plans today just for him, even though it’s not really that important.

‘Sorry, but I told my cousin I’d watch their match today.’

‘Mind if I watch with you?’

You tell yourself it’s just casually hanging out, but you look like an idiot as you smile at your phone while walking towards the gymnasium where your cousin’s volleyball match is taking place. 

--

The match was ongoing when someone stood beside you. You look to see who it was and saw Oikawa wearing glasses and a face mask. Even with half of his face covered, you can still tell that it was him. 

“Are you okay, Oikawa-san? Are you feeling sick?”

He waves his hand as a no to your question. ”I didn’t want to be recognized. I don’t want a repeat of the other day.” 

You were moved. That was thoughtful of him. That incident made you upset, but you accepted right after that it was just natural since he’s him. He didn’t have to adjust for you, but he did. 

You look around to see if the seats were still as unoccupied as they were when you arrived. 

“I think you can remove them now. There’s not a lot of people here. There’s even fewer girls. It’d be a shame to cover your face.” 

When he removed his mask, he was grinning ear to ear. 

“Do you really mean that, y/n-chan? I look that good to you?” He asked frivolously, wanting to fish a compliment from you. But you just brush it off. To you, it wasn’t even a compliment to tell him that he’s a very appealing person. To you, it was an objective truth that you find no shame in announcing.

“Yes. You look that good, Oikawa-san.” 

He seems to look extremely pleased, which was weird cause he should already know that. His fans remind him every day. Maybe good-looking people need validation at random times, so you just shrug it off. 

“Is your cousin any good?”

“I honestly don’t know. He asked me to be here because he wanted to boast to his teammates that a girl is watching him play.” 

“He better play his best then.”

The second set starts and you both watch intently.

Every time your cousin scores, you cheer for him as loud as you can. That's why you’re there after all, to give moral support. 

“They need to calm down.” Oikawa suddenly spoke at the 23rd point of the opposing team.

“Who?”

“Your cousin’s team.”

You burrow our eyebrows together at his answer. “They look okay to me. In fact, they’re more aggressive than the first set.”

“That’s the problem. They haven’t been doing anything flashy, but they’re consistent with their attacks and receives earlier in the game. They want that break point, so they’re pushing themselves to do something to get it. At that last rally, the setter should’ve tossed the ball at the back instead of spiking it himself. He got impatient and it resulted in a misplay.”

Oikawa doesn’t hear you respond, so he looks at you. 

But you were already looking at him, doe eyes gleaming with the purest form of awe he’s ever seen.

“What?”

A smile that exuded joy spreads across your wonderstruck face. 

It made him wonder what it’d be like if it was him playing. What kind of smile would you give him when his team wins?

He mentally scolds himself. That shouldn’t have crossed his mind. He’s content with his increasing success due to modeling. That’s where he belongs. Not at the court, aspiring to stand with naturally gifted players who didn’t have to work as hard as he did. 

“Sorry, sorry. You just looked really cool while explaining all that. It reminded me what made me like you so much back in high school.” You giggled. 

That was the first laugh you ever graced him with. 

He was suddenly conscious of the words he should use for flattery. He hadn’t been exactly honest with his fans when he returned their compliments. He didn’t want to use adjectives such as ‘pretty’ or ‘cute’ because he threw those words like useless garbage whenever it suited him. 

He sincerely wants to let you know you looked beautiful just now.

A whistle followed by cheers of the small number of people in the gym causes the both of you to look at the match. It was over. Your cousin’s team lost.

“I’m going to meet him. Are you coming?” 

The moment was lost, so he let it go. There will be other times to tell you. 

You both go down from the benches and wait for your cousin. When your cousin arrives, instead of greeting you, his eyes travel to Oikawa.

“That was a good game. Next time for sure!” You consoled your cousin even though his eyes kept going back and forth to you and Oikawa. 

“Thanks nee-san!”

Your cousin leans to you to whisper something which he could probably guess as something related to him from the way you looked at him after your cousin spoke. 

“Ah, yes. That’s him.”

You both turned to him. “Oikawa-san, this is my cousin, Shin. And Shin, well… you already know him.”

“Yes, I saw you play! Your team crushed ours last year. It was awesome!” He said too eagerly. 

Is your whole family his fan? Maybe he should meet them all. 

“Are you dating nee-san?”

He saw you suddenly got stiff from your cousin’s question. “H-hey! Don’t go around asking stuff like that to people you just met, Shin.”

He raised his eyebrow from how you didn’t deny that you two were dating, even when it was you who said that you weren’t. 

“Nope! I asked her to date me but she said we’re only hanging out.” He said all too pleasantly.

Your cousin harshly turned to you and yelled, “Why?! You’ll never get someone as good as him!”

From that moment, Oikawa decided that he likes your cousin. He should definitely meet more of you relatives. Your sister gives out any information about you while your cousin wants you to date him. What a blessing your family truly is. 

“That’s none of your business, you high school brat!” You yell back even though there’s a faint shade of pink on your cheeks.

Your cousin ignores you and faces him instead. “Can you please come to our practice, Oikawa-san? Just once. Please.” 

“Knock it off, Shin. He’s very busy.”

Although he was indeed about to decline, an idea popped in his head when you spoke. “I’ll go, but she needs to go too, okay?” His answer was directed at Shin, but he was looking at you. 

Before asking to go with you this morning, their previous coach texted to meet up with him. He kindly declined. He’d be wasting both their time since he was sure their coach was just going to convince him to continue playing. And he was sure that his answer was no. 

But a measly practice with you watching, that he can do. You’ll get to see him play and in return, he might get to see that special smile of yours again. 

“Please nee-san!”

“W-wait. I’m not sure about-”

“PLEASE!” Your cousin was literally begging, and he couldn’t help but be delighted on how someone else was doing the work for him. 

“Fine! Just get up off your knees. You’re embarrassing me.” You frantically looked around to see if anyone was staring. 

“Yes!!” Your cousin laughed maniacally, and if he didn’t worry about his image, he’d join in on the laugh as well. 

When the three of you settled down, you bid your goodbyes and left. It was already sunset so he decided you two should eat somewhere before heading home, which of course you refused because you said you didn’t want to impose even though he’s the one who asked. 

Regardless, he did manage to convince you. ‘It’s all part of hanging out today’ was how he put it. 

It was completely dark out when you got out of the diner because of how slow you ate. 

You suddenly bowed. “Thank you for your time! Please stay safe on your way home!”

He wanted to laugh because you’re like one of those staff greeting their customers on their way out. “What’re you talking about? I’m walking you home.”

“Huh? You don’t have to, Oikawa-san!”

He sighs. “I don’t do things because I have an obligation to. I do things, because I want to, mkay?”

You give him a coy smile before nodding.

He asked about you on the way to your dorm. You knew a lot about him, but he knew almost nothing about you. So he used the opportunity to get you to tell him something about yourself. You were worried at first that you were talking too much because he’s quiet most of the time. But he was just listening intently because he wanted to ingest everything you’re saying. 

When you got comfortable, your stutters gradually stopped and he found that you’re actually talkative. It helped that you’re looking straight ahead instead of at him as you speak. 

A few minutes after, your dorm was in sight. That’s when the question popped back in his head. “How come you never cheered me on in any of our games?” He was wondering earlier but forgot since your cousin came.

“I did! I always watched your games.”

“Like how you cheered for your cousin, I meant.”

You paused before you spoke. “For starters, you already have tons of cheerleaders. My tiny voice was inconsequential.”

“But for someone who considers herself as a fan, you sure were quiet.”

“I don’t think you really needed people cheering for you. I doubt you even hear them when you play. You really lose yourself when you’re on the court. You don’t do it for the fans. You do it because you love it. Maybe that’s why I don't scream cheers for you. I, myself, get so caught up with you the way you play.”

He’s completely astounded by how spot on you were. He reveled in the glory of his popularity, but that was just a bonus he can do well without. How you were able to process all that just from watching from the sidelines, he could never know. 

He’s used to the flattery and the worship from his fans, but the way your eyes light when you talk about him. It wasn’t blind adoration. You saw what’s beneath the thin surface of his fame and that’s what you came to like. 

“I was also so envious of how you got the same grades that I did. It was infuriating! But also inspiring at the same time. God knows if I tried as hard as you did in any club I joined, my exams would suffer.”

You smiled into the nothingness in front of you, as if you were replaying a scene in your mind.

It didn’t sit well with him. He didn’t like how you were looking so far away. It was like you were chasing after the high school Oikawa, instead of the Oikawa that’s beside you right now. He wanted to do something. He wanted you to look at him, the person you admire so much. 

“I wish I could’ve watched you model too. I wonder how you looked like during your photo shoots. I want to know how the gorgeous photos-”

He grabbed your hand and stopped walking. You eyed his hand that was holding yours before meeting his gaze. 

Finally. You were looking at him. He wanted to let you know that he wasn’t just a far away image you were going after. He wanted you to acknowledge that he’s presently right there with you. 

“Y/n-chan.” He let go of your hand and advanced two steps until he was standing in front of you. 

He smiled at you. Being with him all day, you were starting to get used to him. So you smiled back. 

“Yes?”

“I really don’t mind this whole hanging out thingy of yours.”

His eyes were intently locked on your face, but it lacked the lightheartedness that was previously just there. The air around him unexpectedly shifted into something threatening right when you were just starting to get comfortable around his presence. 

“But won’t you mind kissing someone you’re not dating?”

Warning sirens ring your head, but you can’t move. You know he’s about to do what you think he’s about to do, making your heart pound wildly in your chest. The rational thing to do is to get out of the situation before he actually does it. You wouldn’t be able to handle it. 

You clearly know that and yet, you only hold his gaze as his eyes filled with hunger drop to your lips while he inches closer and closer.

Right when his lips are a breath away, he diverts his eyes back to yours.

“You have 3 seconds to say no.”

Great! Now is your time to refuse.

“Three.”

You really should.

“Two.”

You open your mouth to force the two-letter word to come out.

“One.”

“Oikawa-san...” You really should’ve said no. You didn’t even know what you were about to say after uttering his name. 

He cupped your cheek and smirked as he said, “That wasn’t a no.”

He crossed that tiny gap between your mouths and in an instant, his lips claimed yours.

You knew how amazing he was in everything he chose to do, and that included the way he kissed you. It was gentle, coaxing you to let go of whatever apprehension you held. 

And you did. For the first time, the wrong decision felt right. 

You closed your eyes and let yourself get absorbed on how his lips warmed yours in the settling cold of the night. It was soothing, but also left you wanting more. 

The palm of your hands traveled to his chest and slowly made their way up to his shoulders. One remained planted on the surface of it while the other went to his nape, yielding to your urge to have more of his warmth as you softly suck his lower lip 

His free arm snaked around your waist to pull you closer, just how you wanted him to. 

Every single second felt incredible. You never knew a kiss could be so intense but tender at the same time. 

Even in your dreams, you haven’t thought of kissing Oikawa. He was far too good for you that imagining such things is utterly absurd. But reality made you feel the contrary with the way he intricately moved his mouth against yours. You felt wanted.

You pull away slightly to grasp for air. He brushed your cheek with his thumb which caused you to raise your gaze to him. He wore a faint smile with genuine fondness dancing in his eyes as he looked at nothing else but your face. 

You were starting to believe that he really meant it when he said he likes you.

It made you weak.

“Aheeeeeem~”

You pushed yourself off of him from the sudden intrusion. You harshly turned your neck to see where it came from and found two girls giggling on their way inside the dorms while glancing at you and Oikawa. You’re relieved that they did not recognize him, but that’s only secondary to the embarrassment of getting caught intimate right outside the dormitories not even a month after university has started

Maybe they even saw you making out.

Your cheeks flared up at the thought. 

You face his direction and bow exaggeratedly that your body formed a perfect right angle. “Please drink a lot of water and sleep early so you won’t get acne! Thank you for today!” 

You wanted to slap yourself until you could see what kind of garbage your brain was made of. You panicked so bad that you spat out the most random thing you could think of just to distract yourself from what just happened. 

Without looking at him, you ran off with the worst cringe you’ve had in your entire life. 

Route masterlist.

Next update on 12/22

Taglist (crossed out can’t be tagged)

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[stiltonbasket]

In which Wei Wuxian needs a break, Jiang Cheng is smitten, and Xiao Xingchen finally makes his way to a safe haven.

Unfortunately for Wei Wuxian, twenty-five-year-old father of two and co-owner of Lotus Pier Bakery, his days always start at four o’clock in the morning. 

Right after his alarm rings, he showers (sometimes) brushes his teeth (if he remembers to) and combs his hair (if he can’t get away with wrangling it into a messy braid, which works for three days out of every five) before stumbling down the stairs to the kitchen, where he spends the next two hours mixing pastry dough and preparing enormous rows of stuffed baozi. After the buns and pastries are done—and pastry is always finicky, even for him—he takes out his pans of bread dough and bakes until his hands are numb from kneading and mixing, right before whipping up a sponge batter and making four different flavors of cake with it: plain, chocolate, a green tea sponge that is ridiculously popular despite only smelling like tea (though it’s still a good cake, as proven by his sister’s fondness for it) and strawberry. He also puts on a pot of lotus and pork rib soup, since the bakery serves meals during lunch and provides a free cup of soup with every order.

At seven-thirty, he hears the sleepy sounds of his brother moving about on the second floor, going about his own preparations for the day. Jiang Cheng’s morning responsibilities include getting himself ready, making sure Wei Wuxian’s six-year-old-son (an actual ray of sunshine, brought to life in the shape of a boy called Wen Yuan) is dressed and packed for school, and giving baby Xiao-Yu his first bottle before the breakfast rush begins. 

Wei Wuxian’s children are utter delights, though, so he counts that part as one of the many privileges that come with being an uncle to the two most precious baby boys in the world. 

“There’s also A-Ling,” Jiang Cheng says grumpily, when he comes down with shaving foam still stuck to his ears and A-Yu wriggling in his arms. “And I don’t have to change his diapers, Wei Wuxian.”

“It’s only once a day,” Wei Wuxian coaxes. He grabs the baby from Jiang Cheng and gives him a smacking kiss on the nose, his heart melting all over again as Xiao-Yu tries to imitate him and ends up licking his face instead. “How’s the most perfect baby in the universe doing today, baobei?”

Xiao-Yu only babbles at him, since he only just passed his tenth-month birthday and can’t really manage speech outside of the occasional “baba,” (directed at Wei Wuxian, of course) or the odd “mama,” which is also directed at Wei Wuxian because he is, as he tells everyone who asks him out and then runs the second he explains, very much a single father. Parenthood’s very bad for the dating scene, but he’ll gladly remain single for the rest of his life to make sure he can give his best to A-Yuan and Xiao-Yu. 

Not that any of them but Yanli ever thought about anything like romance or marriage, after the Jiang estate burned to the ground with their parents in it and left them dependent on a family friend’s charity for the next year and a half. 

A-Yuan comes bounding into the kitchen five minutes later, dressed in a tidy little button-up and neat grey shorts with a backpack strapped to his shoulders. “A-Die!” he cries, flinging his arms around Wei Wuxian’s waist and nuzzling against his stomach until his father bursts out laughing at how much it tickles. “A-Die, I’m ready. What do I get for lunch today?”

“First things first,” Wei Wuxian tells him, as A-Yu observes them through the mesh walls of his playpen with one chubby finger in his mouth. “Did you and your shushu finish all your breakfast!”

“Mm, we did! Shushu made eggs!”

“Then you can go pick out one of the buns in the cooling rack for you, and one for A-Ling. And two for your peacock uncle, since he always eats too much.”

Once A-Yuan makes his choices—a soft baozi with mushrooms in it for him, and and a green onion pastry with tomatoes for Jin Ling—Wei Wuxian fills up two tiny thermoses with hot soup and then fills up A-Yuan’s Spiderman water bottle, which is completely covered in the rabbit stickers he hoards every time someone takes him to the doctor’s office. 

“Lunches packed,” Jiang Cheng drones, starting up the various drinks machines behind the bakery counter as A-Yuan grabs his cousin’s lunchbox and tries to pack it himself. “I am now going to make coffee. And tea. And milk tea, since my elder brother is a cruel, cruel man.”

“The McDonalds down the street would have put us out of business if we hadn’t started serving bubble tea,” Wei Wuxian scolds. “And Wen Qing likes the way you cook the tapioca, so don’t even complain.”

He leaves Jiang Cheng blushing in front of the gargantuan coffee-maker and hustles A-Yuan out through the little door that separates the staff-only area from the dining room just before a large, expensive car pulls up just outside the sign in the window that reads Lotus Pier Bakery. 

“It’s Peacock-uncle,” A-Yuan pipes up, still amazed by the sight of Jin Zixuan’s luxury sports car, as if he doesn’t ride to and from school in it every day. “And A-Ling, and Auntie!”

Yanli breezes in half a second later, pouncing on A-Yuan the moment she crosses the threshold and covering his face with kisses. “Good morning, Yuan-bao,” she sings, as A-Yuan turns into putty in her arms and tucks his face against her shoulder. “Are you ready for school?”

“I’m always ready,” he informs her, before proudly displaying the two lunchboxes hanging from his elbow and the brown-paper bag held carefully in one hand. “See, I packed A-Ling’s lunch, all by myself! And Peacock-uncle’s!”

“Peacock-uncle’s going to be hungry again by lunchtime,” Jiang Cheng calls, sticking his head up over the espresso maker. “And he’ll be here at noon with the rest of the Jin crowd, just wait.”

“A-Yuan won’t be here at lunchtime,” Wen Yuan says peacefully. “A-Yuan will be at school.”

After that, Wei Wuxian gets A-Yuan settled in his booster seat, squeezes A-Ling, and waves at his brother-in-law with Jiang Yanli until the car vanishes down the street, leaving Yanli to put up her hair and march back into the kitchen to start cooking for rush hour. 

“A-Cheng, you’ve got the drinks and the registers covered, right?” she asks, before grinning from ear to ear as a young woman with a badge clipped to her shirt comes in and stares at Jiang Cheng across the counter until his face looks more like a roasted beet than anything remotely human. “Good morning, Wen Qing!”

“I’ll take my usual coffee order and a spinach roll,” Wen Qing says, sending a short, small smile at Yanli—which is more than anyone else except Jiang Cheng ever gets, because Wen Qing is a medical resident with no sympathy for anyone but her patients, A-Yuan, and inexplicably Wei Wuxian’s bad-tempered brother, who loses most of his senses whenever she walks into Lotus Pier and only gets them back about an hour after she leaves. 

“You’ve just missed A-Yuan,” Wei Wuxian complains, stocking the display case next to the cash register. “He kept asking when we could see you yesterday, you know.”

“I’ll try to get up earlier tomorrow,” she yawns, carefully not paying attention when Jiang Cheng overturns a box of sugar packets in an effort to wrap up her spinach roll as neatly as he can. “Or you could video call me at night, when those of us who aren’t bakers are most active. Like normal people do.”

“I go to bed at eight o’clock like an old man, thank you very much,” he sniffs. “My schedule’s murder on my old lifestyle—”

“You mean spending all night gatecrashing sorority parties like you used to back in college?”

“—and I have children to look after,” he finishes sagely. “Do you want soup, too, Wen Qing? I can throw in a free bowl.”

“We won’t make any money that way,” Jiang Cheng scolds him, providing a wonderful show of hypocrisy as he hands Wen Qing a cup of coffee with three protective sleeves on it to make sure she doesn’t burn her hands, a heat-safe straw jammed down the side, and a warm paper bag containing at least one more fresh pastry than Wei Wuxian remembers her ordering. “Here. Good luck today, Miss Wen.”

Wen Qing tosses a mouthful of coffee down her throat and then turns to stare at Jiang Cheng.

“If it weren’t for you and your perfect coffee,” she says, “I would have dropped out years ago.”

And then she strides out the door and climbs back into her car, leaving Jiang Cheng dumbstruck in her wake as Wei Wuxian doubles over and screams with laughter until he cries. 

“Stop that,” Jiang Cheng mutters, when Xiao-Yu’s adorable baby giggles ring out alongside his father’s. “Look, now Xiao-Yu’s doing it.”

“He knows denial when he sees it,” Wei Wuxian tells him. “Honestly, A-Cheng. A-Yu’s just trying to help!”

The rest of the day goes on much as days at Lotus Pier Bakery usually do; happily, but so very busily that Wei Wuxian ends up staggering back upstairs for a second shower with Xiao-Yu when the lunch rush ends. The eatery serves coffee and baked goods from opening to closing, and is open for dine-in restaurant meals from eleven to two-thirty; Yanli does most of the cooking, while Wei Wuxian does the prep work, and Jiang Cheng handles the take-out baked goods sales and the drinks and helps wait tables until time comes to wipe down the tables in the dining area after the lunch customers finally finish eating—and the result of it all is that all three of them are so drained that they can hardly keep their eyes open, especially after dealing with parties bigger than about four or five. 

“How is it only three-thirty,” Wei Wuxian moans, slumping wearily over the counter with Xiao-Yu tied to his back when Jin Zixuan comes by to drop A-Yuan off and pick Yanli up later that afternoon. “I want to sleep, A-Jie.”

“Have you looked into getting any more part-timers?” his sister asks, pressing a cool, soft hand to his cheek. “I know Xue Yang’s doing well, but he only comes three times a week.”

“A-Yang’s a gremlin,” Wei Wuxian dismisses. “And he barely talks, it scares the customers. I was thinking of having someone move into your old bedroom, but of course it isn’t so easy with Yuan-bao and A-Yu here.”

“What about Wen Ning?” Jin Zixuan suggests, absentmindedly turning A-Yuan upside down and swinging him back and forth while Jin Ling begs for a turn on his other side. “A-Yuan’s his cousin, and he dotes on A-Yu, so it could work out, couldn’t it?”

“Not until he finishes his degree. And he’s got a job lined up after that, so there wouldn’t be any point,” Jiang Cheng shrugs. Wei Wuxian and his siblings all went to college, graduating with degrees in dance performance, mechanical engineering, and economics, in order of age—but then the fire came along and ruined everything about a year before he and Jiang Cheng were set to graduate, and all the three of them wanted to do after that was spend as much time together as they possibly could, so they ended up opening the bakery instead. “And we don’t know anyone else well enough.”

“Well, something will turn up,” Yanli soothes him, tiptoeing up to kiss his forehead and then Wei Wuxian’s before lifting A-Ling into her arms. “Promise me you’ll get some rest, A-Cheng. And A-Xian, you have to promise, too.”

“We promise,” they say dutifully, before watching her leave with her husband and son. 

Letting her go doesn’t seem half so bad these days, since they know how loved she is at home, and that she’s always going to come back to them in the morning. 

“She’s right, you know,” Jiang Cheng sighs, after a long pause. “We really do need to get some new staff, or we’ll run ourselves into the ground.”

“I’ll start making ads tomorrow night,” Wei Wuxian promises, sending A-Yuan upstairs for his afternoon nap and dearly wishing he could go have a nap, too. “Let’s get through the rest of the day, and then I’ll put in a call to the printers’ so we can put up flyers.”

___

As it turns out, however, the answer to their quandary comes about two hours later, after Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng put the “closed” signs in all the windows and shutter the blinds behind them. Jiang Cheng is just about to unroll the blinds on the reinforced glass doors when he takes in a sharp breath and shouts for Wei Wuxian, who comes rolling out of the dining room in five seconds flat before trotting over to stand beside him. 

“Is it just me,” he says, “or is there someone staring at me outside?”

Wei Wuxian looks. There definitely is someone outside, dressed in shabby, misshapen clothes and holding a dark little bundle to his chest, and that someone looks more than a bit familiar. 

Almost, he realizes, like a certain long-absent member of his family, from whom he has not heard anything in the past two years save for three very hurried phone calls. 

“No way,” he breathes, unlocking the door and running out into the street just in time for the someone to fall straight into his arms and burst into tears. “Xingchen!”

[k7l4d4]

Midnight Striga: Fairy Tail/Owl House Cross Fic Episode 5 Part 6

Once more, we delve into the world of Midnight Striga! Everybody Clap Your Hands!!

Eda roared, leaping toward the man, the monster, who had just casually murdered a child right in front of her!! Whipping her staff down to crush his skull, she was caught dumb when he casually leaned out of the way, a frost clad fist slamming into her face as she fell forward. A gasp of pain burst out as she was sent sprawling. Luckily, Eda had been in plenty of brawls. Gathering her wits, she tucked into a roll, coming up flat on her feet.

“If you think I’ll go easy on you ‘cause you’re human, you’ve got another thing coming!!” She shouted, eyes glancing at Lily, still prone against the wall. What was up with her, this was an emergency!! She growled, shifting herself to spring between Lily and the goons following that monster.

“Go... easy... on me? Pfft HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA!!” The bastard laughed, actually laughed!, at Eda’s claim, as if the idea that she could beat him was so utterly ridiculous it deserved nothing but ridicule. The fact that his goons echoed him was like rubbing salt in the wound. “That- That was truly amusing!! In exchange for that wonderful jest, allow me to introduce myself.” He bowed, a mocking leer stretched across his face. “I am Rudolph Cranwin, practitioner of the most noble art of Frost Magic, not that I ever really cared about the alleged nobility of it; twas but another tool for me to kill with, nothing more. I look forward to seeing how long I can drag out your demise!!” He said cheerfully, as if her death would be the highlight of his day.

‘To this piece of shit, it might very well be.’ Eda bitterly thought to herself. Her thoughts were cut off by his next words.

“However,” Rudolph mused, “This crowd truly is far too large. Better to thin it out a bit before I let my precious brethren have their fun.” He raised his hand, a cold wind building into a ball in his palm. Eyes widening in shocked comprehension, Eda lunged forward, a massive ball of flames building along Owlbert. She had to get there in time, she needed to! If she didn’t… Rudolph gave her a mocking smile. “Too late, Owl Lady. Winter Spite.” With those two words, the ball exploded in all directions. A huge burst of extreme cold, so deep that it effortlessly extinguished Eda’s building spell, ripped through the stadium. In an instant, the entire place was coated in frost. Just from what she could see on the ground, Eda saw several Demons and Witches in the crowd frozen in place, ice and frost coating their bodies; from the few she could clearly see, at minimum twenty had died, a quarter of which were children. The smallest she could see looked to be about five. As if some signal had gone off, the hoard of Mages lurking behind Rudolph burst forth, screaming in bloody rage, sickening grins coating their faces, spells primed to rip and tear.

“Tree Shot!” “Big Head Blast!” “Sword Beam!” “Wind Cleave!”

Eda braced herself for the attacks; a tree root tore out of the ground, ripping across Eda’s ribs, a spell shaped like a giant head rocketed past her, a beam of light shaped like a blade cut into the stadium, and slashes of winds tore at the bystanders. And more. So many more. They weren’t all incredibly powerful, but they all had something in common; the palpable desire to hurt leaked out of each and every one. Bearing her fangs, Eda whirled around, launching a wave of magic upwards, cutting off as many spells as she could. Her quick timing was used against her, however, when a blast of cold smashed against her back, sending her flying.

“Ah, ah, ah! No interfering with the games, Owl Lady!” Rudolph mockingly chided. She turned her head towards him, eyes burning with hate. He merely grinned. “If the crowd wishes to live, they must defend themselves, or have one of their own act as a champion! You, and your sister I suppose, are my prey.” Rushing into her guard, his palm glowed. “Winter Punt.” A burst of frigid air formed underneath her gut, angled upward, and as it released, Eda choked on her own air as it drove her into the sky.

What was with this guy!? She had decimated Lily earlier, and while she was feeling some of the effects of pushing herself that hard, that quickly, she shouldn’t be this hampered. She sighed, freezing up as she saw her breath, as if she was in the middle of winter. She looked down, and saw her limbs coated in patches of frost, weighing her down, slowing her reactions, and who knows what else. She genuinely didn’t even feel the cold, not really, but her body was acting as if she was naked in a blizzard!!

Rudolph smirked. “I see you’ve noticed.” He chuckled, slowly stalking towards the Witch and her prone sibling. “Yes, a fun little aspect of my magic is that it clings to the body of those it hits, slowing them, filling them with cold, stilling the flow of magic. The longer our fight goes on, the slower, weaker, and more feeble you will become.” He cocked his head, a look of mockingly fake sympathy playing across his features. “Oh, how tragic, to be cut down so short.” He cackled, an uproarious sound that resounded through the arena.

“Bastard.” Eda bit out, trying and failing to flake the frost off her limbs. “If I wasn’t dealing with this, he’d be flatter than paper!!” She glanced back at her sister, still stuck in that pose from where she had dropped, dead to the world, tears pooling at her feet. ‘What’s up with you, Lily? We don’t have time for this! ...Please, whatever’s going on, I’ll help you, but you have to snap out of it!’

Luz growled as she and the others passed by yet another corpse, this one bearing the distinctive signs of Retic’s harvesting; the chest ripped open, organs carefully partitioned and severed from the surrounding tissue, and the corpse tossed aside like a rag doll, whatever body parts he didn’t take flopping uselessly. The others stoically pointed forward, steadfastly ignoring the gore and death surrounding them; they knew that if they stopped, they wouldn’t continue. But with each corpse, each tragedy they passed, the burning rage built up within them.

“So…” Willow drawled, trying to distract them from the horrors surrounding them. “You mentioned you were a member of this group. What was that like?” She instantly felt like kicking herself, but it was the only thing she could think of off the top of her head.

Luz snorted, but decided to answer; it would come out eventually. “I wasn’t a member of the Black Dog Squad specifically, but I often got saddled to them; they provided a big, bloody distraction, I completed the objective, whether it was stealing a priceless relic, assassinating an enemy, or just setting the pieces for something bigger in motion, I got it done. I hated every second of it.” It was truly the most painful chapter of her life, bar nothing.

“If you hated it, why did you join?” Amity stated more than asked. Truthfully, Amity cringed at the accusatory note in her voice; all of this pain was like nothing she had experienced before. The fact that the girl in front of her, that snarky, selfless, free-spirited girl had been in any way connected to a group capable of this? It was jarring. She had to know why.

Luz gave a small chuckle, the kind of empty, hollow ache that only came from someone trying to humor the most tragic and heartbreaking of requests. “I didn’t exactly want to join. Suffice to say, I entered Oroboros’ field of vision when I interfered in a few of their operations, not that I knew it at the time. They ended up deciding to pay me a visit. The reason? Join them, or someone will die.”

Gus cocked his head in perplexedness, deciding to ask what he felt they all were thinking. “Well, you didn’t seem to have a problem sacrificing yourself earlier.” He hoped he didn’t sound accusing, but it really was confusing to him.

Luz snorted, morbidly amused. “I never said I was the one being threatened with death.” She calmly replied, causing the others to pause for a second. Luz continued, nonchalant. “Yeah, whenever Oroboros decides it wants someone in its ranks, but they have a few too many morals, they take a hostage, someone that person cares about dearly.” The others felt a sinking feeling at Luz’s words, as she rambled on. “Whenever the recruit talks back, their hostage gets beaten. Whenever they fail, their hostage has a limb broken. Whenever they succeed, the hostage gets a wonderful meal, after having been deprived of all but the bare minimum of food and water needed to keep them alive during the extent of the mission of course. Every aspect of an Objectionary Recruit’s time with Oroboros, someone like myself, is intertwined with the health and safety of their hostage. If the Recruit dies, so does the hostage.” She finished, walking on.

The others exchanged alarmed glances, before Willow spoke up, voice loaded with uncertainty. “Then… did you leave your hostage behind?” She didn’t think Luz had, none of them did, but the only other alternative…

“HAHA!!” Luz cackled, as if what she asked was funny. “No. No I didn’t. They begged me to leave, to save myself, to do the right thing. But I didn’t! I stayed. I killed, and stole, and ruined countless lives, for the life of someone dear to me. But, ultimately, it was for nothing. A guard, one who would’ve been a perfect fit for the Black Dogs if it weren’t for his lack of magical training, decided he wanted to have some fun. My hostage took exception to that. An hour later, their bodies were found. The guard had been strangled with his own belt… my hostage had a knife slid into her liver.” She turned her head towards the others, an almost beatific look on her face. “It’s hard to threaten someone with a hostage when they’re dead, afterall.” And then, Luz laughed, the broken, empty laugh of someone who didn’t know how to find any other way to make it stop hurting.

And so the group moved onward in silence, the Witchlings carefully ignoring the splotches of tears that followed behind them; they didn’t want to tell Luz she’d been crying ever since she started talking.

Boscha growled, hastily ducking under another clumsy swing from the disgusting pile of fat in front of her. With a roar, she leapt into the air, an axe kick launched for the fat thing’s head, a curved blade of bloody flames trailing in its wake. She yelped when he caught her kick, slamming her into the ground with a painful Crack! Cursing, she bobbed under another lunge, slamming a burning fist into his stomach, something that prompted a horrific squeal from the disgusting beast.

His smile dimmed, Fatso charged Boscha with a roar, his mouth distending into the massive chasm of flesh he used to swallow his foes. Screaming in challenge, Boscha belted out a burst of flames, gushing from her mouth; it was an honestly surreal experience to be literally breathing fire!! Fatso squealed, flailing back from the flames that avoided his colossal mouth. Boscha smirked. ‘So I just have to keep him from eating my attacks, eh?’

“Try and eat this, you fat fuck!” She shouted, unleashing a wave of flames. Even if he ate some of it, the rest would scorch him badly, something Fatso was apparently smart enough to realize. With a shocking level of agility and strength, he hurled himself into the air, beaming in childish delight. Out of the line of fire, he opened his maw, inhaling with all he had; the massive wave of flames was sucked into his gut. Boscha cursed. Why wasn’t this working!? Her flames, her damnable flames, the one thing she could reliably use, were worthless against this creep!! Whispers started creeping in, the sound of screams building in her head. She shook it off as best she could; she knew trying to fend it off was temporary, but she couldn’t afford to be distracted.

“Oooooohhh you’re a funny one! IIiiiiiiii’llll have lots of fun tenderizing you!” Fatso cheered, rushing up to Boscha, slamming his corpulent fists into her legs, a scream of agony ripping out of her throat; he had definitely snapped a bone or two. Before she could move, he gripped her by the skull, violently slamming her against the stone. “Iiiiii’mmmm gonna have so much fun with you, and when you get all nice and tender, I’ll get to eat you all up! Wooooonnnnn’ttttt that be fun!?” He kicked her in the stomach, her lunch spilling out in response. “Aaaaaawwwww, you lost all that food! Tttthhhhaaaaattt’ssss no good! Nooooowwwwww you won’t taste as yummy when you get in my tummy!” He whined, hurling her away in annoyance. He pursed his lips, placing a pudgy finger on them. “HHHhhhmmmmm maybe I’ll have better luck if I try finding that scarf girl?”

Boscha’s eyes snapped open. Shakily rising to her feet, she screamed. “YOU KEEP AWAY FROM HER!!” With a roar, she rushed him, only for him to dismissively backhand her away, not even bothering to look at her.

“YYyyyoooouuu’rrrrrreee no fun anymore.” He said without a glance, waddling off. “Aaaaaaalllllll you can do is throw that stupid fire. Nnnnoooooo fun, no fun at all eating the same stupid trick.”

“Fun?” Boscha whispered, eyes widening in incredulousness. “You think this is supposed to be FUN!?” She half-screamed. Tears started building in her eyes. “HOW IS KILLING US, ATTACKING US WHEN WE’VE DONE NOTHING TO YOU, SUPPOSED TO BE FUN!?!?!?”

“Hhhuuuuuuuhhhh? Wwwwwhhhhaaatttt kinda stupid question is that? IIiiiiiittttt’ssss fun because I’m strong, and you’re weak.” He said, as if saying that the sky was red, or that plants were purple. “Tttthhhheeee boss said that, because I’m part of Oroboros, I can do whatever I want, eat anything I want, anyone I want, because I’m strong and they can’t stop me, so whatever I do is fun, because I say it’s fun!!” He cheerfully explained. “Eeeeaaaaatttttiiinnnnnggg is so much fun, I could eat forever!!!! BBbbuuuuuuttttt when I eat people-meat, it’s even more fun, because they give the bestest screams when they go in my tummy!!” He patted his gut for emphasis.

Boscha’s blood pounded in her ears. Strong? This… fat piece of TRASH thought he was strong!? No… he didn’t know the meaning of the word. She had seen real strength. He might’ve been powerful, but he wasn’t strong. If he faced someone with real strength, he’d be crying like a bitch. Boscha pulled herself to her feet, utterly indifferent to her previous pain, nothing but burning rage flowing through her veins at the moment. Flames sparked, sputtered… and raged. Boscha wasn’t sure if she was fully conscious at the moment, but she didn’t care. This bastard had threatened one of the few things in this life she actually cared about still, and he had the balls to pretend he knew what strength was, and that he was strong?

Flames pooled at her feet. In a burst of heat, Boscha zipped to Fatso’s side, fist cocked back. With a roar filled with the rage of a wild animal, Boscha slammed her fist so hard against his gelatinous face, she would swear later that she felt his bones bend around her fist. “You think you’re strong?” She asked, the deathly calm doing nothing to hide the burning hate hidden within.

As Fatso rocketed back, eyes snapped wide open in disbelief, Boscha rushed in, flame-clad knee slamming into his gut, watching in grim amusement as he coughed up a mix of blood and miscellaneous bits, whether the blood was his own or not was up for debate. “You don’t know anything about strength.” She ducked under his clumsy swing, landing a clean blow to the throat, prompting him to choke. “Strength isn’t about lording what power you have above someone else.” She slammed across his face, knuckles landing a solid hit to his eyes. “It isn’t acting as if you’re above the same rules and laws everyone has to follow.”

He grunted, and roared, swinging both arms down towards her skull. She leaned back, letting the attack whiff by, slamming home a kick to his chin. “It’s about making a difference.” She caught his next punch, her eyes narrowing at the panic in his gaze. “It’s about looking after what’s precious to you.” She twisted his arm to the side, prompting a squeal of pain. His eyes furrowed, before he lunged forth, attempting to swallow her, only for her to catch his face with her free hand, fingers covering his eyes and digging into his temples, arresting his movement. “It’s what happens when you stop standing on the sidelines to cruelty, or acting to further cruelty yourself.” Flames started licking up her arm, prompting Fatso to start struggling.

“I don’t think you’ve ever seen real strength before.” She casually continued, ignoring his screams as the flames scorched his face. “I wonder, if I had never seen real strength, would I have turned out as something like you?” She pondered, even as Fatso begged and pleaded for her to let go. “Even so…” She murmured, glaring at Fatso, even as his skin blackened and peeled under her grip. “How can you call yourself strong… when you’re losing to someone AS WEAK AS ME!?!?!?!?” She screamed, wetness pouring down her face. She screamed and screamed and screamed, all while the skin, fat, flesh, and what little muscle remained of his body all turned to ash, tears pouring down her face all the while. When all that was left was his scorched, pitted, blackened skeleton, Boscha fell to her knees, tears falling in pools. “I’m so sorry I’m weak. Maybe if I was stronger… you wouldn’t have had to die so slowly.” And with those words, Boscha fell, her strength spent.

[ghosstkid]

lonely is my hoping, empty is my sweet thing

title from the song ‘daybed’ by FKA Twigs 

this short is a part of this series <3 

Wet, slushy snow gathers on the stones in the courtyard. The rose bushes are skeletons, all thorns and ice. A grey sky hangs over the quiet house. There is no moon, no stars, only thick grey clouds and cold, wet snow.

The lady of the house watches the large, wet snowflakes land on the stones. She sits at her little writing desk by the window, her quill in hand but no words come.

The clock on the mantle ticks, idly counting down the seconds. To what exactly, she is not sure yet.

As much as she longs for a letter, she dreads what it might say.

She wants to hope for the best, that soon her home will be full of laughter, love and warm dinners once more. She wants to hope that the clouds will part and the warm sunlight will bring her lovely garden back to life. She wants to hope that a warm spring day is coming, and on that day, she will admire the roses, arm in arm with her two captains.

“How beautiful they are this year,” she imagines James saying. Francis will agree in his quiet way and she will smile, full of pride for her roses. She imagines them wandering through the gardens together to a blanket under the shade she had prepared for them, complete with a simple lunch and sweet treats.

“Yes,” Ann whispers to herself. “When they return, we shall have lunch outside every warm day.” She pushes aside the blank letter page in front of her and makes a note to remind the maid. That was what they wanted when they returned from Antarctica, she remembers. They had spent many afternoons in the shade, eating fresh fruits and drinking in the warm summer sun.

“Why would we ever go to such a hellish place when heaven is right here?” James had asked from where he lay with his head resting on Ann’s lap, pillowed by snow-white lace and ruffles. Francis merely smiled, lifting his wine glass to his lips. He sat beside Ann on the blanket, watching the birds in the trees around them.

Yes, Ann thinks now, wet snow falling on the dead grass outside. They would sit out there again, drink wine and make promises to one another that they would never leave.

Once they returned she would never let either of them go again. She felt like a girl again, hoarding her precious dolls so no one else could have them. She would lock them away in her dollhouse; only she would brush their hair and sew their buttons back on when they fell off.

The cold wind rattles against the window, startling her. The clock ticks. She dares to glance at it, sighing at the late hour. She slowly turns her gaze back to the blank page before her.

She does not know what to say. She knows her words will be read by the Admiralty before the letter is passed on to James, wherever he may be. The thought of someone other than James reading her letter sends a rush of anger through her.

“They do not care,” James had spat as he stormed into the room where she sits now, his anger unsettling her.

“W-Who does not care?” Ann had managed to say. James’s hands were trembling. She listened as he struggled to explain what had been said to him, his brow creased with pain, his eyes wet and hopeless; they had hope for the passage, rescue was only second. Her eyes welled with tears as she watched him sink to the floor in front of her. With a heaving sob, he laid his head on her lap, clutching her skirts tightly. She ran her hand through his curls gently. Tears slipped down her cheeks. “Go for Francis,” she managed to say. “Bring him home…”

She now grips her pen so tightly it might snap. She wipes her eyes. Maybe she should instead write to Francis, hope for his health and a swift return home. Or maybe she should write to both of them.

Or maybe…

She throws down the pen. Ink splatters onto the desk and the white, blank page. Feeling the pinprick of tears in her eyes, she pushes herself away from the desk and stands, wiping her hands on her navy blue skirt. Her hair escapes its bun, strands falling down the nape of her neck and brushing against the lace of her white blouse.

She stops in front of the window, staring out into the darkness. In the distance, she can see their pond and in the middle of it, two little islands. James had named them. Erebus and Terror, always side by side.

Like lovers.

She turns away from the window. She glances around her quiet sitting room. The candle burning on her desk flickers, illuminating the soft lounge chairs and the bookshelf. A vase on the side table is bursting with roses.

“I think I would read more memoirs if they were half as dramatic as this,” James had laughed from where he lounged on the brocade chair, the tails of his coat spilling out from under him. In his hands was a new book, its green cover glinting in his gentle hands. Francis leaned over the back of the chair, reading over his shoulder. He looked casual in his white shirt sleeves and red waistcoat.

“I think they are dramatic enough...” Francis muttered, earning a snort from James.

The rain suddenly patters on the window, making Ann jump.

She presses her hand over her chest as she turns away from the empty chair. She forces herself to take a deep breath.

The letter can wait a little longer, Ann thinks.

She reaches for the candle on her desk. Her step is quick as she flees from the room, finding herself in the long, dark hallway. Her glowing candle illuminates the large paintings on the walls. The darkness feels as though it might suffocate her, her candle doing its very best to fight it back.

She wishes for her captains.

She hurries for the stairs. She grips her skirts tightly in her free hand as she jumps up the stairs. Her candle flickers as she reaches the landing and the window there.

“How beautiful!” James had called up to her from the bottom of the stairs, his beautiful uniform dripping in gold. She had laughed as she spun around in her pink ball gown. The smell of roses was in the air.

“Yes, quite beautiful,” Francis had said as he descended the stairs to the landing, just as lovely as James in his uniform. He reached for her gloved hand.

Now, that hand clutches the candle shakily. Ann forces herself to keep climbing. Her slippers are silent on the steps. She reaches the top of the stairs. The hallway up here is just as dark. She almost runs towards their bedroom, her navy skirts swirling around her. She fumbles with the door handle, throwing open the door. She jumps when it hits the wall. She quickly shuts it behind her, leaning her head against the wood.

She never liked the dark.

She glances around the candlelit room. The ornate headboard looms over the bed. The small chandelier shimmers in the dancing candlelight. At the far end of the room, she can see herself in her vanity’s mirror, trembling and alone.

“It is always dark in the winter months,” Francis had said. Ann sat at her vanity, staring at him through the mirror with wide eyes as he gently braided her hair.

“That must be terrifying…” she whispered. Francis shook his head.

“We create our own light,” Francis said quietly. He secured the braid with a blue ribbon.

Ann slowly walks further into the dark, silent room. Rain and snow ooze down the windows. The clock on the mantle ticks. The fire in the small fireplace is dying. Her gaze drops to the trunk at the foot of the bed. Slowly, she sinks to the floor, setting the candle down beside her. She grips the lid and pushes it open.

The treasures inside are not the kind that one hears about in bedtime stories of pirates on the high seas but they are no less valuable to Ann whose greedy fingers clutch the heavy, navy blue fabric, the gold embroidery above the tails glinting in the candlelight. She pulls the uniform coat close, pressing her face into it. She can smell them; the salty ocean wind on a summer day.

“Ann… Why do you make that face?” James had said when he finally returned from the furthest south. She had run down the stairs to him, throwing her arms around him. He had picked her up, spinning her around with joy. When he set her down, her nose wrinkled.

“You stink,” Ann laughed. James frowned, looking down at himself. He ran his tired hands over his coat, an embarrassed blush rising on his whiskered cheeks.

“I, well… It has been… It is not easy to-”

“I will draw you a bath. It’s no matter,” Ann insisted and to reassure him more, she pressed a kiss to his stubbly cheek.

Yes, she thinks now. A bath. For both of them. They will have a warm bath waiting for them when they return home.

She sets the beautiful coat aside, careful not to wrinkle it and reaches into the trunk. This coat is heavier, worn and dirty in some spots. She runs her fingers over the loose, golden buttons and wonders if she should sew them on more tightly. She wraps the heavy greatcoat around herself, the large fur collar brushing against her cheeks.

How warm it is.

How delightfully heavy it is, as if being embraced by a lover.

Her fingers clutch the greatcoat tightly.

Slowly, she stands. The greatcoat is heavy on her shoulders as she bends to pick up the candle. She places it on the bedside table, beside a vase filled with pink roses. She falls onto the bed, pulling the coat around herself. The bed is too big for just her; too empty, too cold.

“Your feet are cold, my love.”

“Are they?”

“Yes, James.”

“How cold?”

“Stop it!”

There had been a flurry of pillows and quilts before they finally settled once more. Ann had giggled, hiding her face in the soft pillow.

“They are not that cold,” Ann laughed.

“Frank is just a dramatic old man,” James said as he curled his arm around her, narrowing his eyes at Francis over her shoulder.

“Ann how can you sleep with such a rude man in your bed?”

“How can I sleep with two of them?” They had been taken aback. She giggled again. “I sleep quite well.” The bed was warm, their arms gentle and heavy around her. “Quite well…” she repeated with a content yawn. James’s arm tightened around her. Francis pressed a kiss to her curls.

Yes, she thinks now, pulling the heavy greatcoat closer around herself. There will be a warm bed when they return home.

[magioftheseas]

Scale for a Wish

Summary: In which Nene climbs a mountain to get her desire for a chivalrous romance granted by a dragon. It turns out that she didn't think this through very well.

Rating: G

Warnings: None.

Notes: I just thought this would be a cute idea to write Nene confronting dragon!Hanako. It’s pretty short, simple, and sweet. It’s more about writing them banter than any of my usual overly complicated setups. But also this is dedicated to the several rocks that hit my character in the face as I was trying to get the blue feather in Harvest Moon: Magical Melodies. I wish I married Jamie, my precious genderfluid rival. Please get remade so that I can marry them.

***Alternate Ao3 Link***

Commission? Donate?

There is a legend that speaks of a powerful dragon seated upon a high, treacherous mountain. It is said that the dragon is a mischievous sort—a being that grants wishes to those with the strength and courage to confront it within its domain. But be warned—for the beast’s power is great and great power cannot always be comprehended, especially to those who do not wield it.

Yashiro Nene, a mostly normal young girl with very little to lose beyond her life after the decimation of her pride, is too bull-headed to heed such warnings. She’s also too stubborn to be deterred from her efforts in scaling the treacherous mountains even as the climb is arduous and the wind whips her face mercilessly.

Legends aside, it can truly be said that humans have no limits in their bravery.

Nor their stupidity.

--

The (mostly?) normal girl has arrived at the peak. She is covered in dirt and sweat, her gloved hands bruised and calloused. She is determined, even as she has to take a moment of rest. After panting and gasping like a fish out of water, she recovered, regained her poise, and marched her way towards the cavern where the dragon slept.

Keeping her hands clasped, her heart racing, Nene entered the cavern. Her gaze darted about nervously, not sure what she was to bear witness. Riches? Bones? Books? A dragon’s hoard could be unpredictable. And it seemed—this dragon was sleeping on paper. Blinking a few times, Nene stepped forward carefully, soundlessly.

Hands tightening, she took a deep breath, and called out to the mound of shadow and obsidian scales.

“Hanako-san, Hanako-san. Please grant my wish.”

The dragon stirred. Slowly but surely, eyes the color of liquid gold began to open. Its head began to raise, and it towered over Nene, so enormous that its very shadow threatened to fully encompass her being. It turned its great, terrifying head towards her, snorting a puff of smoke.

Yashiro Nene, allegedly mostly human, trembled under its glare but she kept her head high, her own gaze fierce and defiant.

“I’ve come to have my wish granted,” she exclaims, voice clearer. “Hanako-san!”

“You...”

“Eek!” She jumped, nearly cowering. “S-Sorry! Sorry! I probably shouldn’t have woken you.”

The dragon stared at this girl, curled up and shivering with fear. It let out a throaty chuckle that was—surprisingly high-pitched. Actually, it sounded less like a fearsome dragon’s snarl and more like a cheeky boy’s snicker. Almost doing a double take, Nene turned back to face the beast, still falling to her knees from shock.

“It’s been a while since a human made it this far,” the dragon admitted, surprisingly good-natured. “And you’re quite—different from the norm, aren’t you? Quite plucky, aren’t you? Miss Heroine, I presume.”

H-Heroine?! Such flattery! Nene quickly got to her feet. But! No! Not yet!

“My name is Yashiro Nene!” she cried, puffing out her chest. “I have come to Hanako-san to have my wish granted! And that wish—is for you to hold me hostage so that a super handsome knight on a while horse can come to my rescue!”

The dragon stared. It did not answer. The silence stretched on. So much so that Nene ended up faltering.

“That’s—something you can do, right?” she asks, frowning and tilting her head. She then realizes. “Oh! No, I’m not asking you to die for something like that, Hanako-san! No, no, no!” She waved her hands furiously. “I just want you to face off against the knight! Once he proves his worth and defeats you honorably, you can just—fly away! Leave us to our happy ending! That’s not too much to ask for, right?”

The dragon continued to stare.

“I-I mean,” Nene stammered, beginning to feel surprisingly awkward. “I’ve heard you grant all kinds of amazing wishes. Um. Riches. Magic. Entire kingdoms. Compared to all that, this...shouldn’t be that hard, right? A lot of fair maidens have found their knights this way, and I—I’ve yet to be abducted by a dragon naturally, so that’s why I’m here! To request the services of Hanako-san!”

And, then, finally...the beast lays its head back down. Its eyes fall shut. It resumes sleep, to Nene’s dismay and exasperation.

“I-It’s not a joke! Nor is it a dream!” she cried, flailing. “I’m serious! And I scaled the mountain! You owe me a wish! That’s how it works, right? Right?! Hanako-san? HANAKO-SAN?!”

She pushed at the dragon’s side repeatedly, wailing and whining as she did.

“H-Hanako-san! Come on! Come on, come on, come ON!!”

It only rolled away from her, onto its back. Nene chased it desperately.

“Hanako-san!”

And then, to her utter shock and dismay, the beast was trembling. Trembling with restrained bouts of laughter. Its tail flailed, clearly trying to not smack either the ground or the wall, but the mountain still shook from mirth. With a yelp, Nene fell down and curled up, covering her head.

It didn’t last for long. Everything stilled after less than ten seconds, but Nene’s heart was still hammering terribly.

“Ah, sorry, sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you like that, Yashiro.”

The dragon had settled back into a more harmless position, head on the ground with rather doleful eyes. Even when talking, it seemed careful to not show Nene too much of those rows of razor-sharp teeth, many of them about the length of her arm. She still shuddered in spite of the dragon’s best efforts.

“I-I-I-I-It’s fiiiiine.”

“You don’t sound very fine,” Hanako said quietly. “I really am sorry. So what was that about abduction and knights? I mean...it sounds to me like you’re looking for a matchmaker.”

“That’s—about right.” Nene nodded in quick succession. “I’d like to be set up with a noble, handsome, knight in shining armor on a white horse. Please and thank you.”

Hanako turned its head to snort so that the ensuing smoke didn’t hit Nene in the face. She still coughed a little. As she rubbed her throat, those slitted golden eyes softened.

“You climbed all this way. It couldn’t have been an easy feat.”

“It wasn’t that bad!” Nene exclaimed. “Actually, I’m used to scaling mountains for herbs and flowers! I’m pretty accomplished in agriculture!” Though she seemed proud of that fact, she did falter as she added, “Just not so much romance. It’s pretty difficult just talking to a guy, and when I try, a lot of them are pretty disinterested in me compared to my friend, Aoi. I think—well, a guy who’d go out of his way to save me... That’s at least someone I might be able to thank earnestly?”

“So, it’d just have to be someone who’d go through trials for your sake?”

Nene’s cheeks puffed.

“When you put it that way, you make me sound pretty selfish and demanding. I just want a good man, I’ll have you know. Someone cool, confident, and chivalrous!” She huffed. “I’ve got no interest in a shallow prick who only cares about slender legs!”

“Slender legs...” Hanako muses, gaze drifting down. The dragon is deterred, however, by Nene yanking down her jacket with quite the ferocious glare. The dragon averted its stare, pretending nothing was amiss. “Well, unfortunately, not every man who goes out to fight dragons for fair maidens is—all you’ve said. Some of them are just glory hogs. But, I could always just eat those types since I’ll be the one guarding you.”

“Oh.” Nene shook her head furiously. “N-No eating! Murder is a bit—it’s a bit much, don’t you think? Or, well, I guess you’re a dragon... S-Still, it’s extreme! Just scare those guys off!”

Hanako does show more teeth, and Nene paled even more.

“Don’t do it!” she pleaded. “Murder is bad!”

Hanako doesn’t answer. There’s just a nod before Hanako’s head drops docilely to the ground.

“Your strange wish comes with caveats, so I suppose you are smarter than I thought.”

Nene bristled even as she remained visibly anxious.

I did come this way to make requests of a dragon... Anyone could point out that’s pretty reckless. But, I—

“I wasn’t exactly sure what else to do besides wait, and I didn’t even know how long I’d have to wait be it months or years. In the time it took, I’d probably get left behind.” Fidgeting, Nene’s eyes flicker to the ground, a solemn glimmer in her stare before they fell shut. “I don’t want that. So I guess—here I am? Instead? Hanako-san, I... Please do grant my wish. There are always knights looking to save maidens from dragons. Surely, among one of them is someone that I can...!”

Hanako hummed softly.

“You’ll still have to wait. You really think that because you won’t be in easy reach that it’ll make you more desirable? Well—it’s true that humans are drawn to that which is difficult to obtain. Even then, it’s not exactly a noble attribute. But I guess what you’re really looking for is someone who’s so compassionate and true that they simply can’t ignore a maiden in trouble. That said—you’ll still just be one of many saved by them.”

Nene flinched.

When you look at it that way—it’s true, isn’t it? There are tons of other maidens to save. I’m not special just because I made a deal with the dragon.

“Of course, who knows,” Hanako went on. “You might get lucky, and I’m pretty bored so maybe we can try it. How about it, Yashiro?”

Rather than look pleased, Nene was now on the verge of tears.

“U-Uh.” Hanako’s eyes widened considerably. “Y-Yashiro?”

“This was stupid!” she yelled, covering her face. “This was so stupid! I’m so stupid! There’s not even a guarantee that this would work the way I want it to! I’m so dumb!” She began to sob. Wail, even. “I-I’m so, so dumb! What was I even thinking?! Waaaaah!”

“H-Hey,” Hanako stammers. “I-It’s okay—”

“It’s not okay!” she shrieked. “I’m so tired! I ache all over—I could have died just getting here a-and for what?! J-Just to try and get a dragon to abduct me?! In hopes I’d be saved?! What kind of desperate, s-selfish—s-stupid—?!”

“U-Um, even if that’s true, you still...”

“Even Hanako-san knows!” Nene wailed, tears running down freely. “It’s so obvious! It’s so, so obvious! Why did it take me this long to see how dumb I was being?! Urgh! I’m—I’m the worst! Just the worst!” Pressing her weeping face back into her palms, her shoulders quaked and quaked. “S-So stupid...! So humiliating...! All I ended up doing...was making an absolute fool of myself...!”

And then, suddenly, surprisingly gentle clawed fingers brushed her hair back, brushed some of the tears away. Confused, Nene uncovered her eyes to blink tearfully at the nervous figure before her.

A boy—of sorts. With messy black hair, golden eyes with slit pupils, and dressed in a black cloak. If it weren’t for the claws, those eyes, the horns protruding from his head, the tail, and the remnants of scales on his cheeks, this person could’ve been mistaken for any other human. But with an expression like that—Nene found she didn’t doubt his humanity at all.

“Please don’t cry,” he murmured, awkward but kind. “I didn’t want to make you cry.”

“...Hanako-san?” Nene blinked, and Hanako wiped away more of the tears that came down her face in rivulets. Sniffling, Nene rubbed at her nose. “I—no, I’m sorry. It’s not Hanako-san’s fault this happened. I... I should be apologizing. First for wasting your time...”

“I don’t mind visitors,” Hanako muttered, not looking at her, but seeming a little embarrassed. “Regardless of the reason—it’s nice to have company. It’s lonely up here.”

Nene does look around. Now that Hanako was roughly the same size as her, she could see just how large and empty the cavern was.

Why—does he even stay here, I wonder? Maybe he has nowhere else to go?

“Well... I can still make the climb pretty easily, all things considered,” Nene pointed out meekly. “If you want someone to visit you more often, I can do that.”

Hanako does stare at her, perplexed.

“You came up here to ask me for a favor.”

“I-I know! B-But I don’t mind being nice to you, either!” she stammered, flustered. “Being lonely is sad. I know that, even though I have Aoi. You don’t seem like a bad person, er, um. Dragon?”

“This is as much my form as the other one,” Hanako said. His tail beat a little against the floor. “You’re not scared by it.”

“I was surprised, but...” Nene shook her head. “Hanako-san comforted me. So, you must be nicer than you are scary.”

“I could still kill someone like this.”

She does recoil, gritting her teeth with fear flashing over her features before her eyes narrowed sharply.

“N-Now you’re just being difficult, Hanako-san! I-I just wanted to be nice!” Puffing her cheeks, she pouted quite fiercely at him. “If you’re uninterested, just say so!”

“I wouldn’t say I’m...uninterested.” His gaze is sweeping over her, rather intense. Nene felt herself warm, her heart skipping a beat. “Yashiro, what kind of person were you hoping would save you?”

“I-I... Um.” She can’t help but be sheepish. “L-Like I s-said, someone cool, confident, and chivalrous. S-Someone who would cherish me and protect me... But also someone kind.”

“I can be kind,” Hanako said, rather sweetly. “And I’m definitely strong enough to protect you.” He does reach out, but he hesitates for a moment, instead gently pinching a lock of her hair between his claws. “So, how about it? This is much less complicated, don’t you think?”

With her face flushed and her eyes wide and watery with emotion, Nene waited until he had let her hair slip from his grasp before she made an X with her arms.

“Sorry! You’re not my type! I like tall, princely guys! Not short, dragon boys! I’m really, really sorry.”

“Oh.” Hanako exhaled. “Okay. Well. I guess that’s to be expected.”

“That! Said!”

Before he could pull away completely, Nene had grabbed his clawed hand and squeezed, mindful of the edges but firm all the same.

“Hanako-san, let’s still be friends!” she exclaimed. “I don’t mind being friends!”

Hanako blinked at her, seemingly taken aback before he laughed.

“Even though I’m a dragon that can eat people?”

“W-Well,” Nene swallowed. “You haven’t actually eaten anyone, right?”

“Who knows?”

“I’m taking that as a no.” She didn’t have any interest in pondering it further if Hanako was going to be so vague about it. She’ll just take it as him not being used to having friends. Or something. Yeah. Yeah. “So, let’s be friends. I mean. For my wish, I guess...you can just bring me down the mountain safely?”

“That’s a small price to ask for. But, yes, I can do that easily.” Hanako showed a rather toothy grin. On a face like that, it was much less intimidating than before. “Consider it the favor of a friend, though, not a wish granted.”

Nene smiled back brightly, completely unaware of the mischievous glimmer in Hanako’s eye.

“I’d really app—aah!”

Before she even had a chance to protest, she had been swept away with ease. Carried like a princess, Nene could hardly even breathe. She only remembered to when she was met with Hanako’s grin.

“Hold on, Yashiro.”

Just what did I—

He was off at a speed she could barely comprehend.

Just what did I get myself intoooooo?!

[aire101]

Ferrum Chapter 3

Something was wrong with the kid.  Other than the fact that they had just gotten locked into a death game, of course. Tony couldn’t put a finger on exactly what, but he didn’t like it.

Knowing who Tor was now, he also knew that this ‘something wrong’ predated Kayaba’s villainous monologue in the town square.  He could see it in the way he would sometimes catch Peter staring at him out of the corner of his eye with an expression as if he were chewing on glass, the way he reacted to being called ‘kid’ before their identities were revealed…

Then there was how the kid looked like he had seen a ghost after the reveal.  Or worse than that, considering the strangeness in their life and work.

It was obvious that something had happened in the last few years that he couldn’t remember.  Something that to Peter made it almost impossible for Tony to be here, stuck in this game with him.  But try as he might, he could remember nothing.

He could only hope that whatever it was he had broken this time, there was still a chance to repair it.

It didn’t take long for them to make it to the outer edge of the city.  And right inside the Eastern gate they found a small inn with a friendly NPC keeper who informed them that a double room would be 15 Cor for the night.  Tony quickly made the exchange and hustled them upstairs to their appointed room.

“Would you like dinner brought up?  It would be an additional 5 Cor for the both of you,” asked the keeper as they were shown to their room.

Honestly, Tony hadn’t even considered the concept of food since he woke up in this virtual world.  What was the point?

“Yes please,” said Peter, ever polite even to coded entities.

The keeper gave a smile and nod of confirmation before heading back down stairs.

“Is there a point in eating inside a virtual environment?” asked Tony as he closed the door behind them.

“Eating food in the game works like a placebo—it doesn’t actually help your body, but it makes you feel full.  Obviously our actual bodies will have to be put on a support system to be maintained, but if we don’t eat in game we’ll just go around being hungry sometimes,” said Peter as he plopped down onto one of the beds.

Shit… Tony hadn’t thought that far ahead yet.  And with Peter’s metabolism and mutations he would need care tailored to his physiology…

“Where are you?  In the real world?” asked Tony.

“I’m at Ned’s.  I’m actually on his Nervegear system.  He let me have the first run on the game.”

“I’m assuming at this point he would have heard about the situation.  Who do you think he will have called?”

“Probably Aunt May.  And if he called Aunt May, her first call would probably be to Happy,” said Peter.

Tony gave a relieved sigh.  If Happy was on the short list, he was sure Hap would get Peter squared away with Tony’s medical team ASAP.

“Alright, we’re here.  Now out with it, what did I do?” asked Tony

Peter stared at him with wide eyes, “Wha— What do you mean?”

“You’ve been acting weird since we first met up, and now that I know its actually you I’m even more concerned.  What did I do?  Did I take your suit away again?  Did I actually hit on Aunt May?  What?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” muttered Peter, not meeting his eyes.

“Kid, you’ve been walking on pins and needles around me.  Not all the time, granted.  It comes and goes.  Which is even more weird, to be honest.  So what the hell happened that you periodically can’t bring yourself to look me in the eye and can barely handle hearing me talk?”

“I’m not mad at you or anything… It’s just— it’s hard,” said Peter, looking away again with a pinched expression.

“What’s hard?  It’s me kid.”

“I know.”

Tony groaned, running a hand over his face in frustration.

Just then a knock interrupted.

Peter jumped up quickly, obviously eager to avoid the conversation. The same innkeeper from before stood at the door pushing a cart baring two plates of steaming pub fare and two pints of what Tony assumed was supposed to be water.

“Thank you very much,” said Peter, placing the food and drinks on a table against the wall of the room.

“No problem, let me know if there’s anything else I can do for you,” said the innkeeper with a smile before he stepped out, closing the door behind him.

“Don’t think dinner gets you out of this talk.  I’m not afraid of grilling you over food,” said Tony, sitting at the small table.

“Yeah, yeah I know…” muttered Peter, taking the other seat.

“So spill, what happened?”

“You know, you’re not the only one that has questions.  And considering you don’t seem to remember much of anything, I’d say mine are more important.  How do I know you’re really Tony?  You don’t remember much of anything about this game, and there’s plenty of stuff I’ve mentioned that you should definitely remember,” said Peter.

Tony swallowed his food down hard, coughing a little when it almost felt like it stuck.  “Mmm… most delicious placebo I’ve ever had,” he said, taking a deep drink both to wash it down and to give him precious seconds to put off Peter’s very valid questions and concerns.

“Now who’s procrastinating…”

“Shut it, Underoos, old people need time to organize their thoughts.”

“Oh, so you’re ‘old people’ now?  Last time I called you old you informed me in no uncertain terms you were never old, only vintage.”

“I don’t remember that, but since it definitely sounds like my usual load of bull I’ll accept it,” grouched Tony.

“See, that’s what I’m talking about.  You’ve spent all afternoon saying you can’t remember stuff—”

“That’s because I can’t.  I can’t remember things passed a certain point, and that certain point is definitely way before whatever date this is for SAO to be in commercial release,” said Tony, his voice rising slightly with the panic he’d worked so hard to repress for the last several hours.

Peter went quiet, eying Tony’s expression.  Finally he asked the obvious question, “What’s the certain point you can’t remember passed?”

Tony pursed his lips in frustration, but eventually answered, “The last thing I remember is the meeting with Kayaba about moving forward with the AI development I was working on for SAO.  The problem was that in order to do further development and testing it would require me to deep dive into their systems, and for reasons I’ve discussed with you earlier today I was entirely unwilling to open myself up to that.”

“…but that was in early 2018?”

“Exactly.  So you tell me kid, what the hell happened?”

“Ok, but first I want you to tell me something that only Mr. Stark would be able to tell me,” said Peter.

“Other than the fact that I called you Underoos?”

“Someone could have overheard it.”

“Pft, unlikely,” scoffed Tony.

“Unlikely is not impossible, so cough something up.”

“Alright… the day before that meeting with Kayaba we were working on your webshooters and you told me about an incident you had as Spider-man with some asshole who apparently has the ability to harden his whole body completely and how you said to him—”

“OK NEVERMIND I BELIEVE YOU—”

“’How did you get so HARD so suddenly?!’”

“DID YOU REALLY HAVE TO RAISE YOUR VOICE A WHOLE OCTAVE TO QUOTE ME?”

“Yes.”

“Ugh, fine…” said Peter putting his face in his hands to try and hide the bright blush coloring his face.

“Kid, it’s me… what happened?  Why can’t I remember… anything?”

Peter sat with his head in his hands, clearly debating how to say what needed to be said.  Eventually, without raising his head, he spoke quietly but clearly.

“There was a battle… you won, but you took a lot of damage.  You’ve been in a coma ever since.”

Tony blinked.  A coma…

That didn’t make sense at all.

“If I’m in a coma, how am I here?” asked Tony, quizzically.

“I heard they were doing tests to try and use full-dive tech on coma patients to see if it was possible to reach them directly through a mental interface.  Perhaps there was some wires crossed in whatever system they are using on you and you ended up here?  Or perhaps the plan was to use SAO and interact in this world?  I honestly can’t tell you.  I just know that I haven’t been able to speak to you in a long time and today has been like a dream and a nightmare all at once.”

Tony finally took note of the tears dripping silently from Peter’s hidden face, glittering as they fell on to the table.

“I don’t know what’s going on, Mr. Stark.  I just know that I’ve missed you so much, and things have been hard and you weren’t there.  And it wasn’t your fault, I know that, but now you’re here and I just don’t know what to say, I can’t—”

Tony was starkly reminded just how young Peter really was, even considering how much time must have passed since his own memories ended.  When his own parents had passed he had been twenty-one and had been a complete wreck for months.  To have your parents and a guardian dead before fifteen, then… whatever Tony was taken away in every meaningful way only a few years later…

Awkwardly, Tony reached a hand over and rested it on Peter’s head.  Slowly Peter’s rambling quieted, though his breaths still caught audibly, clearly still fighting tears.

“I’m sorry, Peter.  I didn’t mean to put pressure on you.  I don’t expect you to have all my answers.  At this point, we’ll probably just have to wait for those until after we get out of this hell hole,” said Tony, eventually pulling his hand back after giving Peter’s hair an affectionate ruffle.

Peter continued to keep his face down for a moment, surreptitiously wiping at his face, as if he could hide the tears Tony had already clearly seen.  

“In any case,” said Tony, “How I even got here should probably be the least of our worries at this point. Better to worry about the immediate future.  So what do you think the plan should be?  I grant you, running down the road at twilight was perhaps not the best idea, but my point still stands— we’re better off getting the jump on this thing and putting some space between us and the angry hoards.  What do you think?”

“You’re probably right, I mean you usually are, but—”

“Ok, so I’m assuming we’re going to want to stick together for the foreseeable future, yes?” asked Tony.

“Yes?  I mean if you don’t want to I really wouldn’t blame you, but—”

“Then you are definitely going to have to learn to call me on my bullshit, kid.  We’re both geniuses as well as hero’s, and we both know that fuckups happen.  So whatever hero-worship you have left at this point is going to have to die a hard death right now.  I may be brilliant but I never really got into rpgs, and I hardly remember a damn thing about this game, so at this point you are the expert here.”

As he said it, what little color in Peter’s face paled.

“Not to put any pressure on you… or anything,” said Tony lamely.

“Uh… sure, right…”

“Seriously, kid.  What was your plan in this game, anyway?”

Peter sighed, and looked up at Tony for the first time since the talk had really begun.  His eyes were still red-rimmed and glazed from his bout with tears earlier.

“Honestly?  I just wanted to exist somewhere for a little while where I was just like everyone else.  Not just pretending to be like everyone else,” admitted Peter, looking mildly ashamed as he admitted it out loud.

“Hey, there’s no shame in that.  I used to occasionally put on a photostatic veil to go sit with a coffee down in Central Park.”

“I know, I know but it’s not the same.  When you wear a mask, you’re still you, just no one else knows its you.  I wear a ‘mask’ every day.  But in here there isn’t a mask— I’m just as weak as everyone else.  In here, I figured I could finally feel what normal felt like again,” said Peter.

“Kid, even if every one of your super powers was taken away, you still could never be the same normal as everyone else.  You are so much more than normal, and that has nothing to do with a spider bite,” said Tony with solemn affection.

Peter swallowed, his eyes filling up once again.

“But anyway, no real plan to speak of I guess,” said Tony, attempting to move on before he managed to make Peter cry again. “So how about this— we wake up early tomorrow morning and head out from here to go to the next town.  We’ll take the scenic route, hitting some encounters on the way and going over that beta file a little more thoroughly. Once we get there, we will reassess the situation and decide whether to camp out for a while or keep going.  Wash, rinse, repeat… until we figure out where we want to be.”

“About as good a plan as any, I guess,” said Peter with a nod.

“Alright then, now finish eating or I’m going to ground you.”

“Uh huh, sure… ground me from what?”

“I don’t know yet.  But I’m sure it’ll be petty.”

“You always are.”

“Shut up and eat your fake broccoli.”

[atimefordragons]

IN THE NAME OF THE MOON, I SHALL PUNISH YOU! || EHS

☾♔; May 19, 2020 ☾♔; 2:19am ☾♔; sotd: Man of the World (Takanashi Yasuharu) ☾♔; cotd: Kuruma ☾♔; Elite Highschool ☾♔; Audition

𝐓𝐢𝐭𝐥𝐞: Sailor Moon, the Champion of Justice!

𝐀 𝐋𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐏𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐦𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐑𝐚𝐦𝐛𝐥𝐞 (𝐌𝐚𝐲 𝟐𝟑, 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟎): Finally done, I'm soz for taking so long! I've just been Narutoing. He's my boy, dattebayo!  

☆──════ ⋆ ☽ ⋆ ☾ ⋆ ════──☆

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐁𝐀𝐒𝐈𝐂𝐒

➤TITLE: S̶p̶o̶r̶t̶y̶ ̶S̶p̶i̶c̶e̶  The Sports Star ➤OC NAME: Katarina Văduva ➤AGE: 16   ➤BIRTHPLACE: Brăila, Romania ➤BIRTHDAY: December 31 ➤FACE CLAIM: Bruna Marquezine ➤USERNAME: @.dracarysbitch

𝐏𝐄𝐑𝐒𝐎𝐍𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐓𝐘

➤LIKES: football (soccer, not the american one), eurovision (obvs), tennis, volleyball, basketball, ice hockey, figure skating, anime, manga (loves shoujo, but would rather die than admit it), a song of ice and fire (of course), russian literature (tolstoy is a fav ofc), winter, blizards, snowstorms, fresh snow, sweet foods, video games (dragon age, assassin's creed, the witcher, until dawn, pokemon), sailor moon, pink, blue, stitch, disney (sleeping beauty is her fave, even though she doesn't really match her personality, it's more that her parents gave her away for her safety, and Kat used to imagine it was the same for herself when she was a kid), space, faberge eggs, sanrio (her favourites are Kuromi and Pandausa)

➤DISLIKES: sasuke uchiha (fucking bitch), supercilious people, the lodge (lol, grow up you fucking losers), shows that go on forever and never end (please, please just end), shows that have shit endings, game of thrones (fucking dumbfucks), americans, right-wing politics (it's so stupid, just grow a heart), religion (what a scam), being alone (either physically or with her thoughts, let's bury that shit), losing, being wrong, having to concede any ground on any matter whatsoever, not knowing things

➤HOBBIES: anything that is physical (fucking jocks, amirite?), she's loves going for jogs (can't relate - secretly naruto runs during night time jogs 'cause no one can see her being lame), and playing streetball, etc. watching anime, reading manga, ranting on the interwebs about her shows and books (in general she avoids the bigger internet drama 'cause it's stupid, but sometimes you gotta put a bitch in their place, 'CAUSE DAENERYS IS THE PRINCE THAT WAS PROMISED, FUCK YOU!), watching reruns of pro-games (can't relate, so boring)  

➤STRENGTHS: determined, perseverant (is that even a word?), passionate, relentless, protective, observant, straightforward (usually ends up insulting people though, so it's more of a weakness tbh), goal-oriented, independent, self-reliant, has enough self-awareness to not go off on weeb/otaku interests in front of most people, but if it's like a "smart" anime, she'll discuss it (like Death Note, she's not gonna fucking admit to still loving Naruto at this age, shut up), diligent, loyal, a bad bitch (lol, not so much, but she likes being perceived as a strong girl who can and will stab you with her stiletto. the image only lasts for a few seconds, she more just comes off as rude).

➤WEAKNESSES: stubborn, very blunt, which tends to come off as brash and rude, though she's not always intending to be mean, despite that rude, blunt nature, she's also a bit tsundere, and struggles admitting her to deeper feelings. Gets flustered when complimented (outside of sports, there she's fine 'cause I'm the best bitches, or so she says), and she just can't admit it when she needs someone, whether it be a friend or romantic interest, especially if it's a romantic interest, 'cause she's also of the mind of who needs a boyfriend when there's food? while she's observant when it comes to changes in people's behaviour, she in general lacks the capacity to act well on her observations, and is awkward when trying to comfort someone or cheer them up. When it comes to her own feels, part from rage, annoyance, or "Jock Mode", she can barely admit to them, let alone discuss them with other. Speaking of "Jock Mode", she is competitive AF, somewhat dismissive (this usually only comes out in games, but she tends to ignore weaker opponents in search of stronger ones who pose a challenge). Also tends to display some arrogance in the sports she's most talented it, particularly volleyball. It's not quite a personality flaw, but she's weak for loving parents, or just a loving family in general (in life and when watching movies, it makes her fucking cry every time, which really puts a damper on her tough girl image, it's not usually a visible one, but she can't hide the longing in her face when she watches a parent and their child being a normal, happy family). Definitely has tunnel-vision, once she has a goal in sight, that's all she sees. Can even be paired down to dumb things, like C-grade trashy alien movies. She tends to notice only the aliens and revel in their destruction, while ignoring everything else, including the plot. Has plenty of issues; abandonment, trust, ptsd - none of which she is dealing with. She's just ignoring it and hopes it goes away once she becomes a cool, reliable adult™️ (lol, good luck that, adult life is a lie).

𝐁𝐈𝐎

➤SHORT BIO: Katarina is half-Brazillian, half-Russian, though she is under the assumption that she is Romanian, she is biological the daughter of Vasily Raevsky, a Russian Oligarch, and Xuxa Amalia Reis Moreno, a Brazilian businesswoman and all round bad bitch. For reasons unknown to her, Katarina was in effect abandoned at birth and placed in a Romanian orphanage in Brăila, which is also presumed to be her birthplace. Her birth certificate lists both parents as unknown, the orphanage named her. Having no parents or known family, and raised in an orphanage has given Kat many self-reliant skills, and allows her to live independently, but it has also left her with a deep sense of loneliness (not to mention PTSD 'cause Romanian Orphan life is a nightmare). She recognizes that much of her yearning is still childish fantasy, and often covers up that desire with her brash nature or jock hobbies.

Growing up in the orphanage was... not easy. The Brăila Home for Children was not the best, to say the least. Though it could've been worse (*shudders at the case of the Sighetu Marmației institution for disabled children* - do better Romania, oh my god). The orphanage was under and poorly staffed. They would often neglect and abuse the children, one year shaving every childs head so they all looked the same, and often chaining rowdy children to their beds. During Katarina's time, many of her fellow orphans died from minor illness or injuries such as cataracts or anemia, which were treated poorly or simply ignored, and a number also starved to death. Because of this, Katarina has a habit of hoarding food, and keeping snacks under her pillow. She also has difficulty sharing, and despises headboards that are railed(? the ones with gaps, idk what to call them).

When she was around eleven, the orphanage received ample anonymous donations, leading to much improvement, and the arrival of a new Director, Ileana Cojocaru, who, over time, earned the trust of Kat and her fellow orphans, and became something of a surrogate mother. Ileana did a nearly complete staff overturn (fun side note, some of the staff, especially those who harmed Kat have gone missing in the past few years, coincidence? no), as well as hiring accomplished childcare professionals from all over the world to help the children. It was Ileana who sparked Kat's, or rather Rina as Ileana called her,  interest in sports, though Ileana was more into football herself, she encourage Kat to explore whatever she wanted, though particularly team sports so that Kat could foster dependent relations. Kat herself particularly enjoyed volleyball, joining a little league team and winning a number of competitions. Due to her skill both in setting and spiking, she usually plays in the Opposite Hitter position.

Katarina entered EHS in Highschool, on what she assumed to be the Elite's scholarship program, arranged by Ileana, who even said as such, though in truth, her entry and tuition are all being handled by an anonymous benefactor. This fact was revealed to Kat last summer after Ileana died (of p̶l̶o̶t̶ ̶d̶i̶s̶e̶a̶s̶e̶ cancer), whose lawyer was put in charge of the bank accounts meant to pay for all of Kat's needs. The lawyer refused to divulge whom the anonymous benefactor is, citing a non-disclosure clause, though the need to discover who has given Kat a whole new mission in life.

➤FAMILY: On Katarina's part, she doesn't believe she has one, though she does consider Ileana to be her family, and has grown to care somewhat about her fellow orphans from the Brăila Home, while growing up they were rivals struggling to survive. Ileana's death devastated her, and she's dealing with it by straight up ignoring it. Lol, I'm not sad, my eyes are just glistening with the ghosts of my past.

Biologically, despite her complete lack of knowledge of it, Kat comes from rather a rather illustrious family. Her mother, Xuxa Amalia Reis Moreno, is a Brazilian Businesswoman, herself the daughter of a self-made millionaire, Xuxa is expanded the Moreno parent company, MC Inc., an oil and mineral company in origin, into numerous side ventures, owning and operating businesses ranging from restaurants to magazines and clothing lines. Her father meanwhile, Vasily Raevsky, is of the (former) noble House of Raevsky, now oligarchs in modern-day Russia, who virtually control Russia's diamond and precious stone industry, currently owning controlling shares of ALROSA, the largest diamond mining company in Russia, and accounting for 95% of the countries diamond production, as well as 27% of the global diamond extraction, and the House of Fabergé, which they purchased after the fall of the Soviet Union. If she remained in the care of either of her parents, her name would technically be Katarina Vasilyevna Moreno Raevskaya, which is a fun and utterly useless fact.

Her parents met at a rich people conference (idk, Davos or some shit like that) and engaged in a short lived affair. Her father was already married and could not accept her, and her mother had no interest in being a mother at all, let alone a single one, leading to them choosing to give her up in Romania, an arbitrary choice that fucked her up, lol.

Via her father, she has an elder brother, Viktor Vasilyevich Raevsky, who is in fact her anonymous benefactor. Viktor discovered her existence after Vasily had an accident and was close to death, so he confessed his sins and what not. Viktor eventually tracked her down and sought to improve her life. Though he wants to bring her into the family, he doesn't for the sake of his mother who cannot deal with the affair, though she refuses to divorce Vasily for appearances sake.

𝐄𝐗𝐓𝐑𝐀

➤MOODBOARD: https://tinyurl.com/y8a2gjy8 ➤SCHOOL WARDROBE/AESTHETICS: https://tinyurl.com/ycodubrb ➤PLAYLIST: https://tinyurl.com/y6wwmp74

➤TOP 3 CHARACTER PICKS: the Sports Star, the Princess, The Rebel(de) <-- lol, see what I did there? I'm so funny.

[eleanor-writes-stuff]

a language that i never knew existed before - Day 6

For @kaikoura716, who left a really fun post-apocalyptic AU prompt I’m just going to quote in its entirety: “Years after watching all the people she loved die, either from a plague or being killed by other survivors for supplies (or sport) Rey flees to the forests where she always felt safe from those who would hurt her, she comes across a seriously injured man whom she knows won't survive the night without her help”.

I had to leave out some stuff and throw a little history between them in to keep this from turning into a full-length one-shot, but I hope you like it anyway! Thanks for the prompt!

If anyone else would like a holiday ficlet of their very own, sign up here!

25 Days of Reylo Also available on AO3

There’s a kind of peace in the forest that Rey hadn’t known before, not even in the years when the world was still somewhat okay, certainly not after it completely went to shit and the Draught ruined everything.

In the forest she has a home of her own, which is more than she ever had in the desert. Sure, it’s just a rotting old cabin, but it protects her from the elements just as the woods protect her from the resource wars, and that’s all that matters. This far removed from it all, one of the less than hundred people hiding out in Maz Kanata’s forest, Rey can almost trick herself into believing that none of it is real, that she never watched the closest thing she had to family die in front of her very eyes, that she never dragged her only friend’s body across town in the dead of night to bury him before the desperate and starving could get their hands on him.

She pretends that none of it ever happened, not even Jakku. In the morning she wakes up to birdsong and a tranquility that can no longer be found anywhere else on Earth; in the evening she takes long walks and marvels at the way life continues to bloom here in the woods while everything else and everyone else dies a slow, painful death beyond the perimeters of Maz’s sanctuary.

There’s peace here in the forest, peace that Rey has never known before, peace she’d like to hold on to for the rest of her life–

–but then she nearly trips over a man on her evening walk one day and all of it is shattered, as sudden and violent as silence being pierced by the sound of a gunshot.

Worst of all, when she crouches down and turns the man on his back, a face from her past stares right back at her.

“Ben,” she gasps, her voice hoarse from disuse; tears cloud her vision in the second before she blinks them away, forces herself to get a grip. It’ll be dark soon, and he shows no signs of stirring, not even when she gathers up the courage to shake him. Rey works quickly, climbs a nearby tree to get the leaves and twigs necessary for a makeshift stretcher; it doesn’t take long after years of practice, of dragging her catches across the forest floor back to her home.

He groans just once, when she accidentally pulls him over a rock and one of the leaves rip, but mercifully the stretcher remains intact and he remains unconscious. When they get to her cabin Rey stops at the door, and decides with a heavy sigh that it’s not worth dragging all that dirt and mud in. She bends down, slings his arm around her shoulder and tries to pull him upright, but Ben – or whoever he is now, whoever he turned into after he abandoned her – is as heavy as she remembers, as warm as the reassuring weight she sometimes imagines on top of herself when the forest feels particularly cold and isolated. After a brief struggle, Rey grips the fabric of his sleeves and drags him across her floor, gets him settled on her threadbare rug before she secures the door and windows for the night.

She goes about her usual evening routine, stopping only to peek at him every once in a while as she carefully stokes a small fire in her hearth and chops up vegetables for a stew. When he remains unconscious even after she’s done with her half of dinner, Rey allows a hint of dread to curl around her heart. She’s always known that there’s a distinct possibility that Ben was in danger somewhere out there, that maybe he was no longer somewhere out there. But to stumble upon him after all these years only to watch him slowly slip away would be too cruel to bear, too much after everything the world has put her through.

Rey walks over to him as quietly as she can, kneels by his side as she rests one trembling hand on his chest, over his heart. A lifetime ago, in the brief days after Jakku and before the Draught, she used to sprawl over him, press her ear to his chest and listen to her favorite sound in the world. Now she holds her breath, squeezes her eyes shut and prays to all the gods she stopped believing in a long time ago, please please please���

A heartbeat, faint and weak and slow but there.

And even better, the sound of his voice.

“Where– Rey?” Ben breathes, voice hushed in awe and eyes wide with disbelief until a terrible cough overwhelms him and forces him into a sitting position as he curls in on himself.

“Wa–” he chokes between coughs as she flutters helplessly around him, asking what he needs. “Wa–” It’s so obvious she almost wants to hit herself for not realizing. Rey rushes to the kitchen, comes back with a chipped bowl of water and carefully helps him drink from the half that isn’t jagged, broken ceramic.

She sets the bowl aside when he’s done, and when she turns back Ben is looking at her like she’s some kind of miracle; she recognizes the look from their earliest days together, from before the wars and the Draught and–

“Why are you here, Ben?” she asks before he can say anything, her voice shakier than she’d like it to be. “Aren’t you supposed to be in your precious First Order, helping that man destroy the world?”

Snoke, her mind supplies even as she refuses to let that monster’s name pass her lips. Snoke, Ben had told her with feverish eyes lit by hope, by desperation, Snoke will help us, Rey, he owns all of the forests now, all of the resources, and he said I can bring you with me–

But only her, and none of her friends, none of his family. In the end, Rey had fled into the last safe forest with them while Ben, Ben left them all for dead and pledged his loyalty to the man hoarding the world’s resources instead. It had been, in her short life full of too many hardships, the most difficult, most painful thing she’d ever done.

And now here he is, four years later.

“I…” Ben drops his gaze to the floor, and she watches as his shoulders slump. “Rey, I… I killed him.”

A sharp gasp escapes her, and Ben takes it as his cue to look up, to shuffle closer. “I killed Snoke. It was… I hated it, every moment, but I didn’t think there was anything else for me, I didn’t think there was anything left for me, so I went along with it. But three days ago he told me Maz’s fences were still up, that everyone who escaped was still alive, and…” he stops, closes his eyes. “And… he ordered me to fix it. To burn the forest to the ground if I needed to.”

He’s here and Snoke’s dead and she trusts him, even after all this time she still trusts him, but Rey flinches anyway, recoils from him and pins him with a wary gaze as she asks, “Are you… is that why…”

“No!” Ben hurries to assure her, almost lunges forward but thinks better of it, gives her some space. “No, Rey, I could never–”

She’s seen him do worse, seen him kill his father under Snoke’s orders to prove his loyalty and secure a place for her in the compound. But Rey, Rey is tired and hurting and the forest has a way of making things feel a lifetime away, of making you let go.

Ben moves closer, just a bit. “I had my doubts, even before. I’d seen the way the outside world was starving, the way he chose to let mountains of food rot away rather than distribute it just because he felt they were not worthy, because he wanted to punish them for not joining us. None of that matched what he told me, what he told everyone about starting a new world, bringing back peace and stability.”

A bitter laugh rips past her lips. “If you ever, even for a second, were stupid enough to believe that–”

“I was,” he admits. “I was, god, Rey, I was so stupid, such a fucking idiot, I can’t believe I left you–”

“Don’t,” she snaps, digs her nails into her palm so hard it breaks her skin. “Don’t talk about that, I don’t want to– I can’t,” Rey chokes through the lump in her throat, wills herself not to think of the worst day of her life, of the beseeching look in his eyes right before she turned her back on him and ran with the others, of the realization that he wasn’t firing even though he had a clear shot at all of them, exposed as they were–

“I don’t want to think about it,” Rey whispers, looking down at the beads of blood seeping into her nails.

From the corner of her eye, she catches Ben crawling towards her, looks up to find him towering over her even though he’s on his knees. “It’s all I can think about,” he confesses, half-reaches for her hand before he falters, draws his arm back. “Rey, for the last four years all I’ve done is think about you, worry about you, regret everything that led us to that day–”

There’s a dream Rey keeps hidden in the darkest corner of her mind, a dream she pretends not to have – and it looks an awful lot like this. Tears spring to her eyes, and she muffles a sob behind her palm. “Don’t, please, Ben, just don’t–”

He reaches out, takes her bleeding hand. “When Snoke told me you were still alive, when he asked me to kill you… I knew what I had to do. I knew what I should’ve done in the first place. After I killed him I ran away, I begged Maz to let me in, to let me see you again. I thought that was it in the forest, that I’d starve to death or something else would get to me first, but to wake up here…to wake up with you…” Ben shifts closer, until his knees bump against her own. “Rey, please, please say something,” he urges, looking like the lost child she first met all those years ago, when he and Han stopped by Jakku and her life was changed forever.

Faltering under the onslaught of memories and the weight of the moment, Rey lets herself fall forward into Ben’s waiting arms. “I missed you,” she admits, hides her tears in his shirt. She loves the forest, loves the peace, but god does she hate the silence that was all she knew before him, the cold nights that remind her too much of the desert, the empty space in her life where he used to be.

Ben wraps his arms around her, and for the first time in four years she’s warm again. “I missed you too, sweetheart, I’m so sorry, I’ll never leave you again–” he whispers frantic promises into her ear, and she lets her tears soak his shirt.

In the morning she’ll bring him to Leia, who lives in the main cabin with a few others. With his knowledge, maybe he’ll be of help to the uprising his mother has been putting together for the past three years, maybe he’ll be the one to finally turn the tides.

But for now, for now it’s just him and her in the forest, just the two of them in their own little world.

This is nearly 2000 words. I’d say it’s a double-length feature to make up for it being a day late, but really, we all know it’s just me failing miserably at keeping to the word limit - as usual.

Lots of backstory that I couldn’t get to, but I hope the little bits scattered throughout are enough to make sense of it all. Thanks to the incredibly detailed prompt, this is more plot-based than word-inspired, but hopefully that’s okay.

Anyway, thanks for reading! And as always, please don’t hesitate to like/reblog/comment if you enjoyed this.

[paladin-andric]

Jotober, Day 9: Precious

A bit of a happy short for you all, featuring a favorite character of mine...

Wind gently breezing, the beast moved through the sky. The winged lizard moved toward the city.

A dragon.

The people had been debating about this all day. The old empire had been destroyed, individual towns, villages and cities ripe for the taking. What the other races didn’t conquer or reconquer, the dragons took. With no real system of law in place besides cultural norms and taboos, the dragons all rushed about the humans’ lands, taking whatever uncontested land they could and declaring it theirs.

The humans living there were their property, in the dragons’ eyes. Most of them, at least. They COULD exterminate them, but the populations of the cities had already been slaughtered so much that there weren’t many left in the first place. Most new dragon “lords” treated the populace as a source of income, and nothing more. They taxed and taxed, bleeding the people dry to gather their own personal hoard.

Well, there were a few exceptions. The dragons, though united in their conquest, were now bound to no law or leader. Completely operating by their own merits and ideals, their treatment of the people varied, from brutal oppression to benign neglect.

With the dragon overlords came conflict. As more and more territory was claimed, the “free” cities and towns were becoming very low in number. Draconic norms and codes of honor had resulted in peace thus far, but there were more dragons than towns. Some arrogance and rivalries would result in bloodshed, eventually.

It was these things the council debated. They were a major city out in the open, thus far unclaimed. What would they do when a dragon came? Arguments all the way from fighting to the last man to groveling for mercy were brought up, but they had their consensus now.

They would ask for partial autonomy, showering the dragon in gifts and treating it with honor if the beast accepted. If a hike in taxes was the only difference in city life, they would just have to deal with it.

If the beast murdered randomly and tormented them however, they would resist. Likely fruitlessly, but there were some things no human being would tolerate.

Now, a dragon approached, their plan put into action. A few people came outside to greet it, with archers on the walls. They were told to ‘go for the eyes’, the only thing not covered in impenetrable scales.

The dragon landed. It had black scales...a horrifying realization. These were rumored to only feel emotions when relishing in torturing and killing. This was the worst possible outcome. Out of any type of multitudes of dragon in the known world...they just had to get a black dragon.

Were negotiations even possible?

They noted that the dragon was very small...by draconic standards anyway. It was either just barely reaching adulthood, or was still near the end of adolescence. Well, that was...good? Maybe it wasn’t experienced in diplomacy. They could make it think it was getting a much better deal than it was, perhaps.

A man approached, offering a bow. “Greetings. Welcome to Pasir.”

The dragon seemed to be, well...appraising them, eyes running over every person there with vested interest. What did it plan? Were they all about to die?

Nervous, the man continued. “I am Vercan. I represent the mayor of Pasir. I’m here to negotiate with our new...ruler.”

More silence. A smile slowly formed on the dragon’s face. What horrid torture fantasies were running through its head?

“Ah, we, had some propositions on the shifting of power, and your lordship. Perhaps you might like to hear some of these proposals…?”

The grinning dragon finally spoke. “Lordship…?” its voice was shockingly soft and gentle.

“Err, yes. That is why you have come, no? To claim this land as yours?”

The dragon let out a soft chuckle. “First of all, that is LADYship to you, sir…”

“O-oh! Terribly sorry, Lad-”

“And secondly...I suppose, while technically true...I have no interest in being your mistress. You may put me down as the ruler of Pasir on parchment, but...I am not here to tell you what to do.”

A few people looked at one another in confusion and surprise. The diplomat, Vercan, retorted. “The people may need your clarification...what is it you intend? We had a reorganized legal system made to incorporate your rule ready for you to review…”

“I just...wanted to learn more about you all. I am certain you can tell, but...I am very young and inexperienced,” she gestured to herself, “I have never met humans before, and well...I just had to see for myself! And my goodness, are you so precious!”

Everyone was taken aback by this. Even the militiamen on the walls lowered their bows and looked at each other with both amused and incredulous looks on their faces, as if saying to one other, “Can you believe this?”

“Err...I’m sorry?”

“Oh you are just so small, and yet courageous, facing me plainly! I do so admire your resolve! You impress me, good sirs!”

“I...thank you?” Vercan, experienced in diplomacy as he was, couldn’t keep a straight face. He shook his head in disbelief.

“I would just love to learn more about you all! I would like to stay and speak with you daily, learning of your activities and culture! Could I do that? Would that please you?”

The dragon had a look of anticipation and excitement on her face, as if a child who had just been told they would be getting sweets.

Vercan, recovering, put on a false smile, still inwardly in disbelief. “Nothing would make us happier, Lady…?”

“Ah! Oh, goodness! How could I forget to introduce myself! How rude! I hope you will excuse this slight. I am...Gira!”

“Well, Lady Gira...you said you would be taking the mantle of Lady of Pasir, correct? Yet you also said you don’t want to rule...what is it you WOULD like, than?”

Gira scratched her chin with a claw. “Hmm...oh, I know! Do you have any sick or injured? If so, bring them to me!”

Vercan managed to hide his shock and fear, though some broke through the facade. “Are you...culling the weak?”

Gira look horrified. “N-no, never! I would never harm a hair on any of your lovely heads, humans! I promise, I am only trying to help!”

The diplomat grimaced. He wasn’t sure that was true, but to maintain good relations with their new “ruler”...

“...very well. I will speak with the people.”

A few people emerged from the gates, two groups carrying two different people. The first was an older looking bearded man, covered in bandages all over. There were even wraps over one of his eyes. The second was a young woman, covered in pustules and slick, greenish skin. Her eyes were vacant, as if she was unaware of everything around her.

“Oh, no! What is this?” Gira asked, looking at the two with concern written on her face.

“This is Mikkos,” Vercan pointed at the man, “He’s an herbalist. He was out foraging when he was attacked, and then mauled by a wolf. Gregory, a hunter, heard his screams and just barely got there in time. He’s been ruined, and the poor man’s lost an eye.”

“Oh dear!” Gira cried, genuine sorrow apparent in her eyes.

“And this is Rhea,” Vercan announced, pointing to the woman, “She came down with...some kind of horrid pox. No one knows what it is, but she lives in agony. We fear it to be contagious as well, so...these brave volunteers that brought her to you...whatever it is you’re planning, I hope it was worth it.”

Gira gasped. “Oh, no! Please, you fellows, place the two on the ground before me! You bringers of Rhea, stay as well! I shall aid you all!”

The two groups complied, bringing the two close and laying them in the grass before the dragon.

“Wonderful! Now...this may be frightening for you, but just remember that there is nothing to worry about! I am here to help, this I swear!”

Varcan frowned. “W-what is it you’re planning on doing, Lady Gira?”

“Just trust me!” the dragon exclaimed happily, “And please...just Gira will do! Now...” She lowered her gaze to the sick woman and injured man, those that had brought them standing beside the two. The dragon, for the first time, didn’t have an excited or joyful expression.

If he could place it, Varcan would wager she looked...determined. He wasn’t sure if that was good or bad.

Suddenly, she reared back, moving back and then forward as she opened her maw. For a split second, Vercan thought they had been had, and she was about to devour the two. Why she wanted to eat a diseased peasant, he didn’t know.

Instead, she leaned close and blew a strange, blue mist over the group. As everyone watched, the boils on Rhea shrank, and shrank, and shrank, until they were all gone, and her skin was back to the normal, pale complexion that it had been before the illness.

Both her and Mikkos sat up, suddenly fully awake and energetic. The man tore at the bandages on his face, revealing...a perfectly fine, functioning eye! As he tore at the rest of his wrappings, he found no slices or gashes, and no scars...it was as if he was never attacked in the first place.

Gira looked to be absolutely beaming with pride and joy as everyone else stared with gaping mouths.

“There! See? I told you all that you could trust me!”

“W-what…? How…?”

Gira continued grinning. “My father was a black dragon, and my mother was a white dragon! Though I completely inherited my father’s scales, I inherited the healing breath of a white dragon! I can only help you with this power!”

She pointed at the citizens that had carried Rhea. “And you! If you did happen to catch anything from bringing the fair Rhea here...my magic has surely purged it from your systems!”

As Mikkos and Rhea stood up, looking up in wonder, Vercan approached, bowing. “L-Lady Gira, on behalf of the Council and People of the City of Pasir...I offer you our deepest, sincerest thanks.”

“Oh, it is nothing!” Gira said shyly, “I just...like helping you, is all!”

“It is NOT nothing, Lady Gira...if there is ever anything we could offer you…”

“I said Gira would do!” the dragon cried, eyes averted in a show of timidness, “I-I am not your mistress! I do not mean to turn this into obedience! Please, I will take you up on this offer, but...I only ask to be allowed to stay beside the city, allowed to speak with your fine people as I reside here!”

“...of course. If that is what you want, you are more than welcome to stay wherever you wish...Gira.”

A sudden roar in the distance grabbed everyone’s attention. Far up in the sky, another dragon approached...headed right for Pasir!

Gira’s head shot up in alarm. “Quickly! Get behind me!”

No one asked questions. Everyone moved behind the admittedly small, black dragon as she turned and stood as imposingly as she could, facing the newcomer.

The other dragon, red in color, noticed her, quickly shifting its flight to the side, passing by Pasir in search of different territory.

Everyone was silent as this happened, until the red dragon was finally gone over the horizon.

Gira turned back and smiled. “There! We are safe! Do you see now? As your technical ‘ruler’ I show the other dragons that these lands are considered occupied, and so they are not allowed to impose on you!”

Vercan shook his head. “You can heal all of our people, and turn away other dragons, sparing us all from their tyranny and wrath...and you ask for nothing more than to live here in return?”

“Correct!” Gira said happily, “I am simply dying to meet you all, and learn more about all of you! You can do whatever you want, I will not be dismantling whatever old system you had in place, surely I would only muck up the effectiveness of it!” she said with a laugh.

“So...you do not want to divert the treasury funds to your own collection?”

“Oh, how silly! What use do I have for coins?” Gira asked, “It is not like I will be buying tomatoes from a market! I will sustain myself, and you will do, well...whatever it is you do! I just want to be your friend and helper, is all!”

She looked over the crowd. Those humans, all looking amused and in awe…

Goodness, how precious they are!

Tag list: @thereisnothingwrongwithbeingmad, @lady-redshield-writes, @paper-shield-and-wooden-sword, @sheralynnramsey, @the-true-shadowmaster, @tawnywrites, @writer-on-time, @oceanwriter, @zwergis-spilledink, @fluffpiggy, @elliewritesfantasy, @homesteadhorner, @laurenwastestimewriting

[pengiesama]

Pharos of My Soul: Dragon Tales (Fic, Sorey/Mikleo, Dragon/Fantasy AU)

Title: Pharos of My Soul: Dragon Tales (Chapter 1 of 3) Series: Tales of Zestiria Pairing: Sorey/Mikleo

Summary: Tales of a man-eating dragon, a prince, and their growing family.

A collection of shorts from Pharos of My Soul / Dragon Bride AU.

CHAPTER ONE: PUPS VS. PUPS

Mikleo squares off against a hoard of slavering Beasts that invade his peaceful home.

(CONTENT WARNING: mpreg, xenophilia, and generally weird biology.)

Link: AO3

This is a joint collaboration between me, Ali (@eachainn), and Nami (@shamingcows)! Ali and I wrote a dual AU very loosely based on the 2015 Russian movie “He’s a Dragon.” Ali’s version, as well as her short stories in the universe, are available here in the AO3 collection. Mine are there too I guess.

Read on Tumblr!

Mikleo had defended this island for centuries. What the befuddling mist did not keep out, Mikleo was sure to drive off with tooth and claw. It was the only home he had ever known; the resting place of his mother’s bones. He knew every inch of the sandy shore, every winding path through the mountain caves – he had paced them, years without end, lost in a book he was struggling to read, lost in thoughts, lost in idle loneliness. Now, it was all that and so much more – it was a place of precious memories, and a bower for his pups.

But after hundreds of years of tireless duty, Mikleo had a fatal lack of judgement. No, it wasn’t in the doing of capturing Sorey from his home, it wasn’t in the doing of – doing Sorey, it wasn’t in the duty of allowing him to stay, or allowing him to return.

Beasts had invaded their home, and Mikleo was powerless to stop them.

“Mikleo…”

Mikleo stayed, stiff and unmoving, crouched over his pups. He could feel them trembling underneath his belly, hidden by his feathers; their soft whimpers piercing his heart with guilt. He would protect them. He would keep them safe. But he was terrified as well; terrified of the Beast, terrified for his children, terrified for Sorey.

Sorey took a slow, careful step forward, and placed one of the Beasts down in front of them.

“Mikleo. This is Elize.”

The tiny Pomeranian puppy blinked at her surroundings. She clearly wasn’t able to see terribly well over the purple plushie held gently but firmly in her wee jaws, especially considering it was almost as big as she was. All the same, she did not seem interested in putting it down any time soon. Sorey stroked a hand over Elize’s pale golden fuzzball fluff to try and smooth it out a bit, then scratched the top of her head with a single finger. Elize made a tiny peep, and raised herself up onto wobbly hind legs in an attempt to chase the feeling of Sorey’s petting hand. Her front paws swam in the air for a moment before she toppled over with an audible puff! to the ground.

It was in Sorey’s nature, Mikleo suspected, to try and befriend things that could kill him in a matter of seconds. That was how this whole – this whole everything started, after all. Sorey staying here, Sorey making himself a precious and irreplaceable part of Mikleo’s life. Mikleo had thought Sorey’s parents could be trusted – they were odd, just as Sorey himself was odd, but upon their second visit to the island they had brought these Beasts, claiming them to be playmates for the pups. Playmates. The idea that they considered those dangerous creatures proper playmates for his sweet children was insult enough, even if the horror of their very presence had not gripped him from the start. The moment the Beasts had poured off the ship, snapping and snarling and howling, Mikleo had gathered up his pups and fled in a flurry of feathers to a secluded outcropping at the mountain’s top. And there they had stayed for the past few hours, and there he intended to remain until those humans contained the horror they had unleashed on his home.

His husband’s behavior today was – indecipherable. Instead of demanding that his parents rein in their Beasts and remove them from the island, Sorey had climbed up to their stronghold almost immediately; to plead his parents’ case, to claim that the creatures were harmless. He had even brought one with him – a Beast with a coat as black as the maw of an open throat. It was dressed in a little outfit and Sorey called it “Jude”, and asked the Beast to do a few tricks. It could rise up onto its back legs and do a tiny dance, and could offer its paw in some sort of perversion of human social niceties. Mikleo dared not move an inch, dared not allow this creature a step closer to his children.

Eventually, Sorey shook his head, gathered the Beast, and carried it back down to the beach. Mikleo thought that he’d finally gotten his point across – he’d give Sorey a piece of his mind once those Beasts were gone, and Sorey would find himself not welcome to sleep in their nest for a few days, but as long as he did his part in atoning for his lapse in judgement, Mikleo could find it in his heart to forgive him…

Or at least he thought he could, until Sorey brought up another Beast. And then another. And another.

This Beast that Sorey had brought up was smaller than the rest, this much was true. Mikleo was fairly sure that he could best it in single combat, if it decided to make its move. Even if he had little chance of escaping without grave injuries, he had little choice in the matter – he would place his life on the line to save his pups, and would give his everything to ensure Sorey’s safety, even if he had endangered himself through his naiveté and innocence. For in truth, that was just one more thing that Mikleo loved about him – one more thing that he wanted to protect, always. The Beast had finally wriggled to its feet, with effort, and stared at Mikleo with its terrifying predatory gaze. Mikleo fluffed up the crest around his neck and head, raised his hackles; tried to make himself look as menacing as possible, even as he tried to control the shaking of his limbs.

He was a dragon. He was an unstoppable force of nature, as swift on land as he was in air, and deadlier still when underneath the waves. He was the protector of this island and the surrounding seas; ruler of the misted isles. He was the father of these innocent pups, the husband of that – that frustratingly simple man, and he would no longer cower in a corner. He would stand tall, and face this battle with courage.

He could not control the undignified squawk of terror as one of the other invading Beasts barreled into the cave; breaching their last bastion of safety. It was fast as lightning, darting in and out of the shafts of light filtering through the cave openings. Mikleo saw the flash of its teeth, the glint of its awful claws. The Beast pounced, lunged –

Sorey groaned. “Oh, Milla, honestly…you act like mom doesn’t feed you.”

Milla looked over her shoulder at Sorey as she munched on the bug she had been chasing. The green iridescent shine of the insect’s body and the half-buzzing wing still hanging out of her mouth identified it as one of the species of dragonflies that lived on the isle. This particular species were terrible pests, and aggressively swarmed the island’s shaded pools during their breeding season; crowding out the less loathsome breeds of dragonflies, and multiplying so quickly during their peak that the fish and birds that fed on them couldn’t keep up. When walking by the water at night, it was all one could do to avoid getting stung, and their swooping and buzzing spooked the pups so. This one’s demise, as gruesome as it was, was hardly a loss. Milla held her fluffy tail up high and proud over her haunches, and gave it a cheerful little wag as she swallowed down her prey. She shook out her coat, then pressed her snout to the ground; snuffling about to see if she had missed any bits and pieces of her mid-morning snack.

“Just please, don’t puke that up in the boat on the way back,” Sorey asked her, as if the Beasts could understand anything but the language of violence and terror. He had picked up Elize again, and she was perched in the crook of his arm. She blinked her eyes, slowly, as if she was about to fall asleep. “And don’t try to eat it again afterwards.”

The Beast known as Milla yipped, and trotted out of the cave; her body language easy and confident, as if she already knew the caves like the back of her paw. Mikleo bristled at the very idea – in offense, and in horror. If the invaders had already mapped out the cave system, what hope did they have?

Mikleo was too busy fretting to feel Aster squirming out from under his belly, too distracted to see him poke his head out from underneath his feathers, watching the scene before them. Aster was a shy, quiet boy; cautious, and not prone to the recklessness of his sisters. But what Mikleo failed to recall was that Aster was still his parents’ child, and thus, was possessed of an insatiable curiosity. Had Mikleo remembered this fact, even in such a stressful time, perhaps Mikleo would have kept a closer eye on him – or at least, a more firm seat on him.

Mikleo let out a panicked, desperate cry as he saw Aster dart out, out of the corner of his eye – his claws gripped at air as he tried to reach out and snag him back. He was too small, too quick, too determined to see the new “friend” that his papa was promising him. Sorey smiled as he saw his son approach, and knelt to the ground to put the Beast in his arms at eye level with Aster.

“There we go, that’s my brave little boy. Say hi to Elize.”

Mikleo was absolutely certain that he was about to see his precious baby boy eaten alive. Little Aster, who he’d had to coax out of his egg; gently calling to him to encourage him to break out. Little Aster, who loved nothing more than being held and read to, who always let Mikleo groom him without complaint (or kicking), who always needed his papa’s lullabies to fall asleep after a nightmare. He had to move quickly, before the Beast struck – but if he moved, he would leave his daughters unprotected, and the Beasts had already proven that they knew the caves. What if more were lying in wait, biding their time until they could descend and make off with his sweet little babes? He was gripped by this agonizing, impossible decision.

Aster rose up on his hind legs, and drew in his arms politely as he gave Elize a delicate sniff. Elize squirmed, whimpered, and began to tremble. Sorey made a soothing noise, and stroked his hand over her fluff once more.

“Aster’s just a little baby like you, Elize. No need to be scared.”

He couldn’t imagine what Aster had smelled on the creature, but it made Aster twitch his tail, fluff his coat, and let out a joyful (and loud) squawk. The noise made the Beast yelp, and its panicked thrashing caused Sorey to lose his grip. It fell to the ground, and fled out the cave entrance; its nails scrabbling for purchase on the rock as it went. Aster seemed to deflate at the departure of the creature, but Mikleo could not have been more proud of him. He wanted to weep in relief. His precious, brave baby boy. He had stared death in the face, squawked at it, and saved them all.

Sorey darted after the creature, and yelled over his shoulder as he went:

“Sorry, just – she’s too little to run around on her own! I’ll be back in a minute, stay here.”

As long as Sorey was finishing the job of driving the creature out of their home, Mikleo was willing to be ordered around. He was just…too relieved. He found himself transforming into his smaller form, and bundled Aster into his arms; nuzzling and cooing to him. It was unlike Aster to turn down cuddles – Sorey liked to call him a “love bug” for it. Strangely, though, Aster was having none of his father’s affections today. He squirmed and wriggled until Mikleo put him down, and sat almost sullenly as his sisters closed in on him; sniffing at him suspiciously, as if they weren’t sure he was still alive after that encounter.

Mikleo made a questioning noise, and Aster turned his gaze to him, his eyes soulful and sad.

“Papa said she was a little baby. I scared her.”

Mikleo was baffled. “That’s…Aster, it was dangerous. It’s good you scared it off.”

“Didja see how the one ate that big nasty bug whole?” Anemone whispered in clear awe.

“I liked the first one’s dance,” said Allium, before she briefly, and shakily, tried to imitate it on her own hind legs. “And his jacket. I bet Grandma made it, just like the clothes she makes for us.”

His children clearly did not understand the gravity of the situation. But they were innocent, just like Sorey. Mikleo gathered the three of them up – two under one arm, one under the other, and carted them through the cave and up to the nest room. It wasn’t easy, and wasn’t entirely quick. They were growing bigger every day, it seemed – soon he wouldn’t be able to do this, and so, he indulged himself whenever he could.

“Can we play with those things when papa comes back?” asked Anemone. “Please?”

“You were scared of them,” Allium accused. “Just like daddy.”

“Was not! And you were too!”

“Yes you were! You were crying like a little baby and all puffed up—”

Mikleo made a warning noise, and the girls quieted down. Aster still stared at him; stared at him with those eyes, so hopeful and sweet, so much like Sorey’s.

“I’m going to go find your father,” Mikleo said. “The three of you are going to stay in the nest, and not move until I get back. Or else no bedtime stories for a week.”

Mikleo knew his children – and more than that, he knew their parents. As insurance against the inevitable escape, he murmured a spell at the nest room’s entrance; activating the protective charms there, creating a barrier that kept things in place – nothing out, and nothing in. He felt the magic thrum in his veins. It was a spell that drew from his own life-force, and would stay in place until he dispelled it or died. Whichever came first.

Mikleo could remember that awful day, so long ago: when he cowered under his mother as that human stalked their home, when she had hidden him away in a secluded spot (too far away from their nest to make a break for it) and told him not to move until she came to get him. He’d waited hours for her to come back; too scared to move, too scared to make a sound.

Hours became days. He was hungry, and terrified, and desperate for his mother to return…but she never did. When he finally gathered the courage and desperation, he crept out of hiding to search for her. And find her he did – most of her.

Sometimes he idly wondered what would have become of him if Lailah hadn’t decided to come calling that day, if she had been less willing to care for him. If, when she saw him slowly digging a grave, she had simply turned around and left. But, she didn’t. She stayed, and comforted him, and raised him. He was forever in her debt.

Now that Mikleo had…given himself some time to think, perhaps his children had a point. Perhaps he could grant that these Beasts were not deadly threats – certainly not as deadly as the human that had taken his mother away from him, at least. But what he could say about them was that they were loud, and messy, and were traipsing all over his island as if they owned the place. Now that he was confident that he did not have to fear never returning to his little ones in the nursery, he could march himself back down to…wherever his in-laws were lurking around, and tell them firmly to gather the Beasts and leave. But he supposed that would be easier said than done. Mikleo had read books on marriage that emphasized the importance of boundaries with in-laws, but there was also the matter of respect, and marital harmony, and…

A dragon’s senses were sharp; far sharper than a human’s. Moreover, the cave system was like a sprawling spider’s web – it carried sound and vibration from all over the island. He could detect Sorey’s heavy footsteps toward the northern end of the system, and could confidently state that he was nowhere near where that one Beast – “Elize” – had run off to. And as for Elize…he could hear faint, frantic little whimpers, and the scratching of claws on stone.

Mikleo hesitated. They were frightful little Beasts, and messy, and annoying. But those whimpers were so plaintive, and so like those of his own pups that he found himself drawn in to them, driven by parental instinct.

It was no trouble navigating the cave system to find her. Mikleo watched, cautiously, hidden behind an outcropping. The Beast was scratching frantically at a crack at the intersection of wall and floor, and whimpering as she did. The purple stuffed toy that she had previously held in her jaws was absent; and, perhaps due to its absence, the Beast appeared to be quite distressed. Mikleo felt that it was a safe assumption that, in the process of fleeing from Aster and Sorey’s pursuit, the Beast had skidded into this room and lost her grip on her toy, sending it tumbling into the crack in the stone that she was now clawing at.

The Beast, engrossed in her mission to save her toy, did not seem to notice Mikleo’s slow, cautious approach. It was not until he was standing over her that she noticed his shadow. She froze in place, and then, began to tremble once more.

The stuffed toy had not fallen too far into the crack – it was beyond the reach of a Beast, perhaps, but Mikleo had thumbs in his current form. It was a small and painless task to retrieve it. He placed it on the ground in front of the Beast, and watched as she carefully, gently picked it back up.

She had stopped trembling, and stopped whimpering. Those eyes of hers were just like Aster’s and Sorey’s.

…There was no more time to focus on this. He needed to discuss things with Sorey’s family, now. Mikleo rose out of his crouch, and continued on his way down to the nearest exit. He heard the tip-tip-tap of Elize’s claws on the stone floor; following him as he went. He sighed, and bent down again. If it was as Sorey indicated, and she was no older than the pups, she surely was already exhausted from running blindly through the caves. She was quite light, at least – certainly lighter than his children were now.

In no time at all, they emerged into the afternoon sun. Mikleo squinted and looked around, until he spotted—

“Mikleo! You found her!”

Sorey jogged up, with his mother Selene not far behind. Selene tearfully held out her arms, and Mikleo – perhaps more hesitantly than he expected of himself – handed her Elize.

“Thank you,” she said. “Oh, goodness, Elize, you gave me quite a scare…”

Mikleo looked at Sorey, expectantly. Sorey scratched at his head.

“We’re…rounding up the rest. It probably wasn’t a good idea to bring everyone at once.”

“No,” Mikleo said. “No, it was not.”

Sorey gave him those Eyes, and Mikleo looked away with a huff before he was drawn in.

“So? The rest of them?”

“We’ve got most everyone rounded up,” Sorey said, gesturing behind him. There was a little yellow Beast barking repeatedly at a fish in a pool, a gray-muzzled Beast sunning itself on a rock, and a reddish-black Beast gazing dramatically into the horizon; perched on a rock, backed by a waterfall. “I sent Jude off to look for Milla, and dad went off to look for…”

Mikleo felt the brush of something on his leg, and jumped a mile. It was the doing of a new Beast, who appeared to be undeterred by Mikleo’s rejection, or his scream of terror. It closed in and tried rubbing on his legs again; giving him what could only be described as…an extremely fake and off-putting attempt at puppy eyes. Sorey sighed and grabbed the Beast before it could dart away into the brush.

“That’s Alvin. We’ve been chasing him all over the island. Don’t let his act fool you; he just doesn’t want us to put his leash on him.”

Selene tsked and shifted to hold Alvin under her other arm. “You naughty thing, always running off to cause mischief. It’s time for the harness of penitence again…”

She ignored Alvin’s mournful howl, and carried him and Elize off to the pool to be supervised. Sorey offered his arms to Mikleo, and Mikleo decided he would grant it. Sorey’s arms were so strong, and held him so tightly. He tucked his face against Sorey’s chest, against the warm skin revealed by his open shirt, and sighed.

“Are you doing okay?” Sorey asked quietly. “You seemed…really rattled up there.”

“It’s fine,” Mikleo whispered. “I’ll talk about it later, maybe. Once these creatures are rounded up and off the island.”

Sorey kissed his head, right at the base of his horns, and Mikleo couldn’t help but purr. Sorey was all too aware of his weak spots: kisses to his horns, kisses to the scales at the nape of his neck, stroking fingers through his feathers, ticklish touches to his ribs and sides. Sorey himself, in general. It really was hard to stay upset with him, even when he brought chaos in his wake.

They were interrupted, then – politely interrupted, but still interrupted. The Beast known as Jude was shifting back and forth, stretching out his paw and trying to get Sorey’s attention without spooking Mikleo by barking. Once he had gotten their attention, Jude whimpered, spun in place, and trotted to point out the path through the brush and trees that he’d taken.

“Did you find Milla?” Sorey asked. “Come on, let’s go get her.”

Jude led them along, and they eventually emerged near an island pool – to a scene of utter destruction. The thing was, it was mostly destruction revolving around those nasty pest dragonflies. At this time of year, the air should have been thick with them…but the pool had apparently been cleansed of their reign of terror. Half-eaten dragonfly bodies littered the ground and water. The birds and fish were enjoying a feast, and the other insects that made the area their home – the butterflies, the bees, the colorful little beetles – were able to go about their day in peace. It was…idyllic, and Mikleo didn’t know what to think. (Except to be thankful that those fucking dragonflies were dead. He was sure to kick one of their corpses into the water for a fish to eat as they walked.)

Continuing to follow Jude, the trail of insect corpses slowed. Mikleo recognized the area as a prime spot to gather melons from the fruit trees, and recognized the carnage on the ground as the remains of many melons. Finally, they spotted their target: Milla, passed out in a half-eaten melon rind. Her tongue lolled almost completely out of her mouth, and she breathed slow and heavy. Her body was sluggish with bug meat and melon, and she barely reacted when Jude came up to her to lick at her face.

“Come on, Milla, let’s get you back to mom,” Sorey said soothingly. He bent down to pick her up. “Hey – hey! No more!”

Milla weakly tried to take another bite of the melon as Sorey tried to move her. Thwarted in her gourmet quest, Milla tried to howl to the heavens, but it came out as more of a fat gurgle. Jude picked up the half-eaten melon in his jaws, and brought it along with them as they travelled back to the waterfall where the rest of the Beasts awaited. Mikleo could respect his dutifulness.

Selene did not seem entirely surprised at the state that Milla was returned in, and graciously accepted the gift of slightly-eaten melon from Jude. Although the Beasts were now…under control, Mikleo was clearly quite through with having visitors for the day, and it was late in any case. While Georg set about carting the Beasts back to their main ship via rowboat, Selene stayed ashore. She bowed her head to Mikleo.

“I…I must apologize for the commotion today,” she said. “Please don’t blame Sorey. He told me that I should only bring one, maybe two of my pups for the grandchildren to play with. I thought I knew better, but I clearly didn’t.”

Mikleo gathered his thoughts before he responded.

“…It’s not that they’re unwelcome,” Mikleo explained. “Perhaps I wouldn’t mind them again. The children were interested in them. And the one’s appetite, you see, could be useful for a problem we’ve had for some time—”

As the saying goes, when one speaks of the devil, the devil is called to appear. A lone dragonfly, apparently seeking revenge, buzzed ominously towards them – more specifically, it was targeting Milla’s bloated, prone body on the sand. Jude stood in front of her, ready to defend her in her time of digestive need. The dragonfly was not impressed, and divebombed the both of them – stinger out, ready to give Jude the welt of a lifetime.

The reddish-black Beast, Gaius, walked in front of Jude with a dominating and absolute sort of confidence. He locked eyes with the dragonfly. The dragonfly skidded to complete stop, mere centimeters in front of Gaius’ unflinching muzzle, and – after a long, tense moment – dropped completely dead to the sand. Gaius snorted dismissively, then turned and kicked sand over its corpse with his hind legs. He then trotted to Selene, and permitted her to scoop him up for kissy-kissies.

Sorey and Mikleo bade their guests farewell, and retired to the nursery to free their own pups from confinement. The pups swirled around their legs, chittering at them in accusing tones – you were playing with those fluffy things without us! – and were only soothed by the promise that yes, grandma and grandpa would be visiting again soon. Yes, you can sleep in the big nest with daddy and papa tonight. And yes, you can have an extra story before bed.

Mikleo couldn’t help but worry, sometimes. Old wounds seemed to rip open at the most inconvenient times. He brushed his lips over Sorey’s forehead, and leaned to put out the lantern. But Sorey’s arms were so warm, and his pups’ purring was so soothing. It grounded him in the present, and kept him in the moment – and kept him hopeful for their future, together.

[cristalknife]

Kadam Week 2021 Day 4 ~ You are my treasure, can I keep you as part of my hoard? 2/4

(In four parts Part 1, Part 3, Part 4 or read complete on ao3 or ff.net)

To his immense surprise and relief it was an acceptance letter. As he kept on reading he discovered some strange peculiar notes that made him frown.

For one, he was offered a double major in stage combat and musical theatre with a minor in costume design. No other option, no choice about having only a single major, or even only one major and one minor. The whole affair seemed rather weird to him, but at the same time the price tag to it was not as inflated as he thought it would be.

The tone of the letter made it very clear, it was either accepting the offered position, or reject the suggested plan and choose a different school, no changes allowed for any reasons.

But Kurt reasoned that it wouldn't be too much of a problem, he wasn’t afraid of working hard, and it wouldn’t be a greater economical burden.

He knew he could do it, even a perfect stranger at Nyada, after seeing his audition had thought he could do it, so he couldn't see why he shouldn't believe in himself in the same way.

The second weird part was that they requested a private interview with him at his earlies convenience to work out living accommodation for the duration of his studies and that more would be explained in person.

Third even more puzzling part was the final note that any concerned parents were allowed to join into those informal interview.

When Burt reached that line the small distressed growling sound he had been emitting faded into nothingness.

Looking up from the letter and still seeing the expectant looks on both Carole and Finn's face Kurt smiled and said simply "I got in, they asked for an interview to better manage the living arrangement"

Both of them grinned and congratulated him and then Finn continued "Man you're so lucky, maybe the interview is to set you up with a cool room mate. Wish other school did that as well.”

Kurt hummed pondering on Finn's guess, if that was the case then it would be really cool indeed, however he had a slight suspicion that wouldn’t be the case, more likely it would have to be something connected to his newly discovered supernatural heritage.

Kurt didn't know exactly what to expect, but he reasoned that he would find out soon enough at that meeting, after all he had still time before he needed make a decision whether to accept his place or not.

Burt was considering their options then said "We should call the school hear if they do those fancy meeting on a short notice basis, we could even make a long weekend trip out of it, some family time”

Kurt looked intrigued "You thinking about getting the car and drive the ten hours there, the train or flying?"

Burt shrugged sending a warning glare at Kurt's teasing emphasis on the last one "I do have free miles we could use to get tickets there, all those times flying to DC must bear some fruits somehow…"

Finn started looking uncomfortable... "If we all go, can we please not saying anything to the others? Like can we totally avoid mentioning anything to Rachel in specific?"

Carole, bless her soul asked worried "Why there's something wrong with having a family trip together?"

Finn looked down and started shuffling his feet "It's just Rachel is going to blow things out of proportion, and either demand we take her with us because we're almost married and thus practically family already. Or she would give me hell for not telling her about this.”

Kurt allowed a small scoff leaving his mouth "You know that the easiest solution of all would be not getting married to her in the first place right?"

And for the first time Finn looked as lost as he really was "She's still my girlfriend.."

Kurt opened his mouth ready to retort, but seeing the confused look still in Finn's eyes, he choose instead of closing it up again and pressed his lips in a thigh line.

He was raging internally at how Rachel was making his brother feel like he had no other options, but it would be counterproductive if he started to say anything about it before Finn was ready to hear and listen to what Kurt had to say.

Sadly he had a very good idea that Finchel wouldn't survive Rachel’s New York aspiration .

As he had just asked few hours ago to not have people interfering in his own private life he couldn’t very well barge uninvited into someone’s else. However Finn was family, so he simply offered him a lifeline saying calmly "If you want to talk about it, you know where to find me"

The grateful look on Finn face would have been enough, but the added looks of pride present in both Carole and his dad's eyes made it all even more worthwhile.

The phone call to settle and schedule the date of the interview solved Finn's problem easily enough, when it was explained that the concerned family allowed in the interview were solely blood relatives sharing the same heritage as the student.

Namely it was a pretty neat line to make it clear the supernatural aspects of Kurt's life were the one going to be addressed.

And while it sounded a little discriminatory, it was also pretty understandable why other supernatural beings wouldn't want to admit or talk about such things in front of people not able to fully grasp the situation.

At least they were helpful and suggested that if only his dad was a blood relative, to simply saying that their interview would allow in only one parent anyway. So that the meeting wouldn’t be cause of tension or distress for their family.

It worked neatly, and Carole was very understanding, once they were alone Kurt asked curiously "So air plane flying or you flying flying?"

Burt snorted and shook his head "Come on kiddo what do you expect? Have you seen many flying lizards around the news?"

Kurt shrugged and chuckled "No but we are in Lima, I doubt such news would even pass the local censure..."

Burt found himself chuckling as well and patted his son back "Nah no need to get exhausted when a plane could do all the work for us and without even having to learn the way..."

Upon arrival at the school they were met at the front door by Madame Tibideaux, the same person Kurt auditioned for.

To his credit, he blinked his surprise away and put on an easy calm smile on his lips within the first minute, noticing how the woman's smile grew after that as she nodded approvingly

"Mr Hummel, Kurt, please follow me we can have our talk in my office, it's this way."

As they started following her Kurt noticed a very faint and intriguing smell reminding him of sugar and cinnamon with a hint of peppermint.

It was a very attractive scent and he unconsciously licked his lips. The knowledge he'd soon be here to properly chase it down, until he found to whom this scent belonged to, was the only thing that kept him from going into a frenzy search right in that instant.

He had remained a step behind as Madame Tibideaux was giving his dad the selling pitch.

Kurt got distracted by a couple of students sneering down pointing alternatively at a poster and at the tall redhead they were badmouthing.

Their interaction escalated quickly to the point the duo started to physically push the read headed guy.

Something in Kurt roared to life at the mere sight, what were just darkening embers turned into molted lava, and he could feel the low growl reverberating in his chest.

He didn't even throw a glance at the two adults to see where they were going, he wasn't even sure why he felt that he needed to step in, he simply knew he had to.

He walked up to the snotty duo and asked in an icy tone "Is this how supposedly topnotch talents from all around the country behave in this school? I thought this was a college not a kindergarten, but if I am mistaken, then someone ought to be put down for a nap for being so cranky"

His words had frozen all three students, but Kurt didn't even take notice of that, instead he went directly to help up the redhead, receiving a small grateful smile in return and a look of awed admiration

"Thank you, I don't think anyone else would have dared to go against them, but it's too late for you to be a second semester student and I'm sure I would have seen you before..."

Kurt smiled sincerely and offered his hand "Kurt Hummel, and no I'll be a freshman starting from september, just to know beforehand, am I to expect more of this once I start here? Because honestly it's a little bit of a put off for me”

The redhead took the hand and shook it smiling brightly "James Porter, and well the school has its own internal working, but I can tell you it's not as bad as it looks, most of the times. This was really nothing, they would have just continued throwing some more insults at me and at the group I'm part of, and then left once they reached their daily quote of mean girls attitude"

Kurt frowned and for the nth time his eyes fell back onto the poster as he started to point it with a finger, almost reaching up "So I guess you're part of the Adam's Apples then?"

James offered him a bright smile noticing how Kurt's eyes kept returning to the poster every once in a while "Indeed, I can see you like our poster, would you like to take one with you home? So you know exactly who to search for when you come back here in the fall?"

Kurt smiled grateful at the offer, and this time he didn’t fought the instinct of reaching up to touch reverently the precious piece of paper.

It was… he didn't know what it was or what it had around it, but for some weird reason being close to it just felt right, in a way he didn't recall anything else ever feeling that way before.

James chuckled at the besotted look on Kurt’s face, then proceeded to remove the poster from the bulletin board and roll it up.

He fished a couple of rubber bands from his pocket and secured the poster in position before offering it to Kurt, admiring how it was accepted like a precious treasure.

He then looked around and asked Kurt "So how come you're here all alone?"

Kurt said before even looking around "I'm in here with my dad for an interview, Madam Tibideaux is leading us to her office"

James' eyes grew larger and then he nodded "I can take you to her office before they notice you've lagged behind, one suggestion as thank you for what you’ve done, when you get back home if someone else from your school had been accepted, try to keep under wrap that you came here for living arrangements. That is the kind of information you don't want people to know upfront."

Kurt look taken aback and blinked in surprise, he had not realised that in getting in the middle of this situation he would risk to lose his guide.

However the new information that James gave him made sense, he simply nodded his understanding. Despite the warning he could not feel threatened by having shared that information with James, so he took it as a sign that maybe the redhead was trustworthy, he surely felt that way.

Instead Kurt asked "Can you please take me there now then?"

James nodded then after few steps he looked back at the two still frozen students, and asked "What about them?"

Kurt turned to look and then waved his hand dismissively "They are free to go when they have cooled their hot tempers enough to know that sometimes it's better holding one's tongue."

And true to his words, as soon as Kurt said that, the snotty duo scrambled away sending incensed looks, but kept their mouth shut, to James' satisfaction.

The older boy grinned at Kurt and nodded, then proceeded to take a shortcut to the vocal performance dean's office.

True to James' promise Kurt walked right behind his father as if he had been there there the whole time.

From a afar, James noticed that the poster had found its way safely and discreetly into Kurt's messenger bag.

Feeling extremely pleased and satisfied with the outcome, he carried on with his day after sending a message to the other Apples that they were more than likely to gain a new member in their group in the the fall.

When later that afternoon Adam came to James asking "How can you be so sure of that?"

James grinned like he knew something important, something that they were all going to figure out on their own, when they'd finally meet the new freshman "Because I met him, his name is Kurt Hummel, and he stepped in to defend me, in the main hall when the snotty duo was throwing their daily dose of insults my way..."

Adam looked just as impressed as James had been "Mind if I ask you how he did it?"

James' whole body language became neutral and his smile placid, not giving anything away, and yet that level of neutrality was a tell in and on itself.

"He had few chosen words to say and they were very effective, but the part I think you'd probably should find more interesting, was that he kept looking longingly at our poster. Like he couldn't take his eyes off of it, and he had reached to touch it more than once. Though I doubt he'd even consciously realised it, so I took it off and gave it to him."

Adam's breath caught at that and he looked up at James hopeful as he asked in a low rumbling voice "And?"

James offered a small genuine smile "And he looked like I had handed him a treasure, I didn't even notice how or when, but before he went on with his day as we parted ways, he had already put it safely away, I suppose in the messenger bag he was clutching for dear life.

Adam's grin grew as he closed his eyes briefly whispering softly "Just one last summer and then we'll meet. Thank you so much for telling me James, I appreciate it"

James only hummed in response, basking in the happiness this day brought.

Once inside Madam Tibideaux’s office, Kurt discovered that, as James had promised, his absence had not been noticed. In fact it seemed as if the time he spent with the other students hadn't passed at all.

The way the two adult were talking, it seemed as if his presence or input wasn't at all needed nor necessary.

He was getting quite lost in his own thoughts, when suddenly Madam Tibideaux asked him if he felt comfortable in shifting and letting her see his form.

Something in that request rubbed him in the wrong way and he couldn't stop himself from asking "And exactly why would you need to know that?"

Burt offered the dean a knowing smirk and a shrug of his shoulder, as if to say ‘told you so… Feel free to try to convince him’

Madam Tibideaux, smiled in what probably was supposed to be a reassuring and friendly way, but to Kurt it just felt off, "We just want to make sure your accommodation would be comfortable, allowing you the downtime to relax in your more natural form"

The words had the shiny appearance to seem aimed to aid him, but something, more than one something actually, felt so terribly wrong.

If he was to reveal his form, he was pretty sure it would be listed somewhere, information that then would be stored somewhere inside or anyway connected to the school.

Kurt might not have been aware of his supernatural heritage for a long time, but having lived in such a small town as Lima had taught him that there were things best left unknown to the general populace. Some things were private and were supposed to stay that way.

James' advice was also still ringing in his ears. If he wasn't supposed to be that liberal in sharing the fact that, as supernatural being, he had been granted living accommodations.

Then more than likely he wasn't supposed to share exactly what he was or allow any record of it, or even pictures to be added to his name in some file cabinet or database.

Returning an equally friendly and placid smile, just as fake as hers, Kurt replied politely "I'm sure that such organised school as yours has rough shape classification catalogue or book that could be used to indicate a student's shift dimension. Probably even cut in categories like small, medium and large if not able to go in even more details. I'll be more than willing to pick from those lists the current size of my shifted form."

Madam Tibideaux looked like she had been handed a basked full of lemons to swallow, but still she managed to smile "I see your point Kurt, in that case let me pick the shape size book for you."

Burt quipped smiling "I'd say you probably should take directly the medium large part of it"

Kurt managed to restrain himself and didn’t look as shocked as he was feeling.

He simply allowed his father to lead the discussion, he wouldn't have said that he was that big, but to be honest during the times he shifted he had been more preoccupied with other things like grooming and flying lessons on top of other similar activities that were supposed to be taught early on.

And with his late awaken he had to have crash courses to be sure of being ready by the time he left home.

Madam Tibideaux put the shape book in front of Kurt and he tried to gauge what to do. Clearly his dad was suggesting he'd declare a larger shape than his current one.

Maybe he still had growth sprouts left in him, at least as far as his shift shape was concerned.

Looking at his dad he noticed he was pointedly looking up at the sky outside the window, and a small smile formed on Kurt lips.

He kept reverently pass over the shapes as he had done before and then shook his head moving forward to bigger ones, as if he had been looking longingly wishing he had a smaller size than his actual one, instead of trying to gauge which one would be more a more accurate one.

If he was supposed to have enough space to fly then he was going to declare to be at least trice as big as he actually was.

Adjusting the book’s position in his lap he didn't notice that his bag shifted, and a whiff of that faint scent of sugar, cinnamon and peppermint reached his nose making him stop for a moment.

They were going to gauge the living accommodation to house his size, but that scent made him want to have a nest.

A place he would be able to keep beyond his school years, and that meant he had to be redirected to external sources rather than take ‘advantage’ of the ‘opportunities’ the school offered.

On a whim he closed the book and reopened it on the last page before commenting softly "Dad I might be wrong, but I don't think even the biggest one in this book is quite as large, what do you think?"

To his credit Burt barely blinked, he took the book that Kurt was passing to him with the hand that had inconspicuously petted the poster, and carried on it the new scent that was quickly becoming important to to Kurt.

Burt's eyes glimmered for a moment, almost assuming a reptilian pupil, that returned normal in less than a blink of an eye. He hummed making a show of looking between the book and Kurt and then nodded "Indeed you're right son"

Then he turned to Madam Tibideaux and asked "Are those all the dimensions you can accommodate?"

She hummed thinking throughly. She was clearly trying to decide whether the two men in front of her were serious in their affirmation, or if they were toying with her, in the end she decided to answer neutrally "That is the top rage that we can accommodate on school properties. We do have though contacts of other friendly places where accommodation could be found. But I'm afraid then that the school would not be able to provide for the costs of such option. It would be exactly as if Kurt was an off campus student, while if instead he could manage to stay within school properties, that expense would be taken care by the school"

Kurt raised an eyebrow and tilted his head asking innocently "But weren't you the one saying just now that I was supposed to feel comfortable and able to relax in my shift's natural size?”

And with that Madam Tibideaux knew she had lost any chance to actually have Kurt under the school's watchful control. She sighed internally and nodded "You're correct, in that case let me offer you the list of agencies that will know exactly what to offer you and be discreet about it if you mention that you're going to be a Nyada's student."

Burt raised an eyebrow and questioned "And will those report back to you and tell you which place we might end up renting?"

Madam Tibideaux smiled intrigued and then shook her head "No, they will only report how many of their special heritage friendly places have available, nothing more."

Both Kurt and Burt nodded pleased at the news, then Burt collected the list then said "Guess we are all good then?"

Madam Tibideaux nodded and stood up soon followed by the two men "Can you gentlemen find your way out or shall I take you back to the entrance?"

Burt smiled and said swiftly "I'm sure we can manage to find our way out, thank you so much for your time. It has been a pleasure"

Once out, Burt looked at his son and asked "So are we going to check the places now and try to see if we'd get a good deal?"

Kurt looked surprised, "You know that if we do that I'll be in here probably from the beginning of the summer?"

Burt nodded "I know son, point is you have already shown me you can deal with most of the issues that might came out. Mind you kiddo, I don't really want to push you out of the house, but I also know you are ready to fly away from the nest, and that you'll do wonderfully"

Kurt hugged his dad and said in his ear "Then can we please do it now and see if we can land a place already?"

To their surprise their search didn't last long. On the second name on the list had exactly what felt like home to Kurt, it was a big empty loft in Bushwick, it was a top floor with private access to the roof.

It required quite some work and care, in fact the agent showed it only because it was the biggest they had available, but warned them it was very much a rundown property that probably wouldn't suit the needs of the younger man.

However, when they walked into it, Burt saw just how enamoured Kurt was of the place…

Kurt was striding through the whole space with a sure footing, touching the walls every so often, and looking like he could already see what the place would be like, rather than how it currently was.

So Burt asked all business like "Is there a rent to own option for this place?"

The agent looked surprised and then checked twice on her phone "Actually, could you give me a moment there's something I need to double check"

Burt nodded and the lady went to the very opposite end of the open space. Kurt was checking on the state of the bathroom, finding it in perfect conditions, clearly a recent renovation.

Both Burt and Kurt tried to not overhear the rather frantic call the agent was having, but it was sort of difficult when her voice sounded crystal clear in their ears

“Are you sure that number is correct? Yes, yes I know, and yes I know that those were the exact words but… I know, look it’s just weird I… Yes, of course, of course I didn’t mean to be disrespectful. Yes sir, yes I’ll talk to them, I’ll let them know and bring them back to the office to sign the papers… Yes Sir”

Kurt at that point had stopped running around the place and returned to his father’s side.

The agent then returned to them with an embarrassed smile and said with some hesitancy “To answer your question sir, yes there is the option of rent to own, but you see, it’s something that the owner would like to discuss at the agency, if you’re really interested, you know so you could talk things through.”

Both Burt and Kurt looked at each other and then nodded. The ride to the agency was silent, the agent clearly wasn't that comfortable, but neither men felt the inclination of starting some small talks just to ease the tension in the car.

Once they reached the office the owner of the agency came out to greet them with a big smile.

Kurt was quickly starting to pick up that everyone who felt more whole,this far had ended up being somehow connected to the supernatural, a world he was still growing accustomed to.

Burt was met with a firm handshake and a smile, when it came to Kurt's turn something tingled in his mind and without really knowing why, Kurt returned the offered handshake with a smile of his own as he said "Kurt Hummel, Ser Leonids, a pleasure to meet you"

And to the agent’s surprise, the owner of the agency smiled extremely pleased. The British Ser Lionel Leonids, had been living in the states for little over four decades, he never lost the birthright to his title, but he also never advertised or even used it. So Kurt, in all honesty, shouldn't have been able to known about such detail, even less knowing to use it.

And if someone had asked later on, Kurt himself wouldn't have been able to pinpoint exactly what made him say that.

However, that was all the proof Lionel needed to exclaim "I'm so glad you've finally arrived. Come in, come in, let's clear up all the pesky legal details and set up to the conditions...”

Burt was pretty surprised by it all, and when they all sat down, Lionel asked to Kurt "So tell me have you already met many of your future classmates?"

Kurt blinked and then shook his head "Just three, two of which I could have done without, but James sounded like a good friend to have and he seemed friendly enough with me"

Lionel dug a little more, evidently both curious and in search of something in particular "And does your friend also have a last name"

Kurt looked straight into the older man eyes, trying to gauge his intentions. Instead of answering like he felt slightly compelled to, he offered a smile of his own and replied gently

"Of course he has one, but I don't see how that would be important, or even relevant to me signing a lease for the loft in Bushwick.”

If Kurt was honest with himself, he thought he would have received the stinky eye for offering such a borderline rude answer. Burt for sure was looking at him like he was torn between being proud and wanting to scold him.

To everyone's surprise Lionel laughed pleased "Well done boy. I was worried for a minute that you'd be too soft for New York, but you'll feel right at home here. You've chosen one of the best places to build a nest in. And it will come to serve you well. Here's my offer, I'll give you one year of lease in your name, so you can built your credit score. In one year time you'll return and let me know if you want to keep the lease as it is or if you've found someone else to be added as co owner.”

Burt frowned at the insinuation, while Kurt found himself both curious and intrigued by the notion, Lionel continues as if he hadn’t taken notice of the two men reactions.

“If you have found someone, I'll give you a further year of lease so you’ll both will have better credit score, and then it's going to be officially yours, with the rest of the payments to be paid in monthly instalments until you have reached the whole sum, or until you gathered the whole amount needed to finish buying it off. How does this sound?"

Burt raised an eyebrow the incredulous snort in his words barely concealed "A little too good to be truth in my opinion..."

Lionel smiled and nodded "It's not an offer I would have done to anyone else. Let's put all our cards down on the table, shall we? "

He waited until first Burt and then Kurt nodded their agreement and then Lionel continued

"We're all dragons in here, and from the still settling scent I can get from young Kurt here he had most likely already scent marked the loft as his territory"

Burt raised an eyebrow thinking about it and then nodded slowly "I suppose that was what he was doing. I didn't realise that."

Kurt blushed especially as soon as Lionel smiled and asked again "And weren't you doing that while holding something precious? Already trying to picture where it would be the best place to hang it, so you could see it from every angle of the loft and get comfort from it?"

Kurt instinctively wrapped his arms around his bag making sure it was close and the poster inside was still safely there.

Lionel just chuckled at the gesture and raised his arm in surrender "Peace young one peace. It was not an attack, I was merely pointing out that I already know this happened because in my bloodline there was a strong affinity for the foresight. I knew there was going to be a young strong couple that would settle in my city, and who will need help to have a nest worthy of their position and of the work they were going to do for our community. I didn't have any names, or dates only, few exact details, All I had to do was be there at the right time waiting for them. So I settle down and waited. And now you're here..."

Kurt fund himself purring softly in agreement, it was a very soft and low sound that made Burt look at his son with tenderness, and a little bit of fear, seeing his son so ready to take over and live his life as an adult standing on his own.

Lionel continued "So do you find my terms agreeable?"

Kurt nodded happily, his mind flying already back to the loft, and the promise and potential it held.

Lionel chuckled and took out the papers, Burt asked to see them first and Kurt didn't mind his dad's interference at all. It felt like it was going to be one of the last things his dad would be able to do for him.

After all the highs and lows of the day it took a surprisingly short amount of time to set everything up. The lease would start from July, allowing Kurt a whole summer to work on the loft and to make a home out of it.

Lionel promised to have the loft cleaned and fixed up into working condition with a neutral coat of paint so Kurt could decide to decorate as he pleased without having to wait for the paint to dry.

Once they returned back to Lima, with the promise that Kurt could drop by the agency on July first and pick up the keys of his new home, the first thing they did was talk with both Carole and Finn about how the interview was not something offered and available for everyone. They explained that it was a special scholarship open to only to a limited number of candidates, and it was better not let people know that Kurt had been offered it.

Kurt actually took his brother to the side and asked earnestly "In fact could we please not mention at school that I've got in? I rather not have to hear Rachel complaining on how unfair it was that I could get in without doing all the ‘hard work’ she had to do to convince Madam Tibideaux to let her in... Is that ok with you?"

Finn looked almost relieved "Yes please, no offence lil bro but I really don't want to hear her moaning and groaning about that all the time. It's going to be difficult enough if I don't get any letters from New York..."

At that Kurt looked worried and asked "I'm not the one to judge, you know I've wanted out of here since forever, but is that what you really want?"

Finn just shrugged "Isn't it too late now to think about that?"

Kurt shook his head "It's never too late. Just please consider thinking and searching for something that you enjoy doing, and not something that could support Rachel's dreams and fits her fantasies..."

Finn looked like he had swallowed a stone "You don't think we'd survive New York do you?"

Kurt bit his lower lip and asked softly "what answer do you want to hear?"

Finn looked up and asked worried "What answers do you have?"

Kurt started listing and counting on his fingers "The one meant for comfort that’s not necessarily truthful, the brutally honest unadulterated truth, and the one where your worried brother tries to give you an honest opinion without being too rough on you."

Finn looked up and asked in an almost child like manner "Can I have brother answer then?"

Kurt gently patted Finn's shoulder and invited him to sit down on his chair while Kurt himself sat on the nearby stool

"I think that Rachel is very focused on reaching her own goal, uncaring of what are the costs she and the people around her have to pay. I think that you are a sweet guy who wouldn't really mind the midwest way of life of getting married right out of high school, and get a job to take care of the family you’re building."

Finn was nodding along glowing at the praises, and the Kurt squeezed Finn's hand gently "And I think Rachel is not really mature enough to have the kind of relationship where both people make compromises and meet each other in the middle.”

A confused look started to form on Finn’s face as he listened, as if there was something he didn’t quite understand or figured out. Kurt still continued talking.

“That is the kind of relationship you deserve. One in which you are and your partner are equal, a relationship where your desires and dreams are just as important as your partner's"

Finn frowned confused and then showing an hindsight not as rare as it might have seemed, he said "But your relationship with Blaine wasn't like that, you always did what he wanted. Just like I do with Rachel…"

Kurt smiled sadly and nodded "You're right it wasn’t like that, and that's precisely why I ended things with Blaine. It was not the kind of relationship I wanted or deserved, so I got out of it."

Finn nodded looking lost in thoughts. Kurt gently patted his back and mechanically Finn raised from the chair and went back to his own room.

Graduation came and passed, Blaine was still under the illusion that Kurt would come around, despite the fact that Kurt had made sure to prepare and return to the boy, a box full of all the stuff borrowed, gifted or in any way connected to Blaine. ~End of Part 2~ Next

[maychorian]

Weekly Voltron Fic Recs #48

Rules: You can find past weekly rec lists here, and non-list recs in my general fic rec tag. Also follow @maychorianrecs for individually tagged posts, the easier to search and reblog. This is stuff I like, and I have a huge bias toward Lance, hurt/comfort, and general fluff, in that order. Gen unless otherwise noted. Please comment on the fics if you read and enjoy them!

Why it sucks to be a snake in space by EboniObsydian for polarspaz Words: 31,825 (8/?) Author’s Summary: It had been a month since the transformations, since the ill trip through an electrical storm transformed the humans into creatures of myth - Shiro became a dragon, Hunk became a troll, Lance became a centaur, Keith became a naga, and Pidge became a gorgon - and there were still things and quirks to get used to. Even so, the castle floors were still cold and slick and Lance still slipped on them when he was unawares. Shiro still scared the heebeegeebeez out of everyone with smoke occasionally emitting from his nose and mouth and his icy touch, Pidge still didn’t dare remove her blindfold around anyone and Hunk still lurked indoors during light hours when planetside. Between him and Shiro though, no one knew whose hoard was bigger. Alternatively titled “Myths in a Space Castle" — Inspired by @polarspaz’s Snakes & Horses AU where Keith is a Naga and Lance is a Centaur. Not strictly adhereing to the AU since Shiro is a chuvash dragon instead of a vampire and Pidge uses female pronouns. Updates sporadically.now you can find me on tumblr! @bucketoffudgeinamuffin My Comments: This is such a FUN fic. It reminds me of a survival fic where characters have to deal with a new and crazy situation and learn how to survive and find food and build a fire and all that. The mythical creatures the paladins turn into are all very fun and interesting and fitting, and the way they have to adapt is so well thought-out and fascinating to read. I’m really enjoying this, and I’m really looking forward to more. This one sucked me in, for sure. The Keith and Lance friendship is especially good, but no one is neglected.

When You Are Alone by BossToaster (ChaoticReactions) Words: 26,355 Author’s Summary: 5 times Shiro and Ryou disagreed. Updates every other day. My Comments: Part of an excellent, wonderful series in which “Kuron” is redeemed by Team Voltron and stays on as Shiro’s twin, Ryou. This entry is a great exploration of both characters learning to adapt to the changes and exploring their own personalities. Humor, angst, comfort, deep conversations, everything I like in fanfic is there. It’s so good.

humility by bobtheacorn Words: 1,446 Author’s Summary: “Before I turn this on,” Pidge begins, “I’d like to just go on the record and say that Hunk is hands down the best member of this team.” “Seconded,” Lance says without hesitation.Pidge continues, “And his tireless contributions to the emotional well being of his fellow paladins is commendable and beyond reproach. If I had a medal, I would give it to you, Hunk. As a matter of fact, I’m making you one first thing tomorrow.” “Stop, you guys,” Hunk says, and whether he’s feigning being emotional or it’s genuine is hard to say. He’s fanning a hand in front of his face, blinking at the ceiling. His voice is a little choked, “Man, I said I wouldn’t cry.” Keith is sitting beside him on the couch with his arms crossed, bewildered by the formalities. //Keith doesn’t know anything about video games. Outrage ensues. My Comments: This is so cute and funny and adorable. Love these kids hanging out and having fun.

CUPS by SerenePhenix Words: 4,385 Author’s Summary: Coran was willing to sacrifice far more than just his wellbeing for the sake of these young people in his care. Anything to ensure that they could win this war. Anything to ensure they did not have to worry about something like making an alliance. My Comments: When you find a good hurt!Coran fic, you gotta hold on to it, because it’s rare and precious like a jewel. This is great, though of course Coran is kind of an idiot for not just telling someone. But of course he has to be strong. For all the kids. Sigh.

Exploration by luoup (ravenic) Words: 1,573 Author’s Summary: Day 4 Prompt 2: Exploration Shiro & Lance&Hunk: going somewhere new and interesting and fun My Comments: What a great trio! It’s so nice to see them hanging out and chilling and enjoying a cool area. Fun, relaxing read.

in the places where it is soft and quiet by kingwise Words: 2,807 Author’s Summary: Pidge found this rose quartz room one day while exploring what would be her new home. She didn’t quite want to call it that though. Home was rumbling laughter, round glasses, and the smell of frozen peas heating in the microwave. And now, the only thing she had left were the glasses. (When she wore them, it felt like back when she played dress up with Matt. They were a burning memory she clung stubbornly to.) or, where pidge feels terribly sad and misses her family, and lance tries to help in the end (takes place pre-s4) My Comments: Love Lance being such a sweetheart with sad Pidge. Always good to have more of those two.

Sugar Cookies by Gootbuttheichou Words: 2,538 Author’s Summary: Lance is more than thrilled to be attending the Galaxy Garrison in order to become the world’s best pilot; however, he didn’t expect there would be so much studying to do. Luckily, his roommate Hunk is happy to study with him, and happy to bake treats when his friend is gloomy from studying. My Comments: Aw, sweet boys. Hunk is such a good friend. I want them to be roommates in canon so bad, but for now at least I have fics.

Fever Can Wait by oldmythologies Words: 2,138 Author’s Summary: Prompt fill: “Hey there! Can I request a sickfic where Shiro gets a fever so high he starts babbling and gets disoriented. Maybe he gets a cold bath before it gets worse? :O” from crazy-indigo-child on tumblr. My Comments: Really sweet sickfic with delirious Shiro and gentle Keith. Hits the spot.

Fireworks by AmnesiaticRoses Words: 7,397 Author’s Summary: Voltron is treated to a victory party – a planet-wide one. But not all of the locals are celebrating, and are instead looking to exploit the party as the paladins let their guards down. Written from prompts provided from Grimkohai, technically using the one for the third week of October – “Festival” – but if I don’t get this out of my hands I’m going to tweak it into a mess. My Comments: This is an EXCELLENT fic, and the fact that my comment is the only one is an absolute travesty. The action, characterization, and worldbuilding are all fantastic. It feels like an adventure in a place you’ve never been but would like to visit someday. The paladins are all smart and competent, but special spotlight on Lance for being smart and brave while concussed and captured. It’s so good, you guys. Read this fic. Comment. It deserves more love.

as the lion loves the lamb by Demenior Words: 3,986 Author’s Summary: The Lions are powerful, ancient machines that have existed for eons. To be chosen by them is an honor only few have, for they pick only the greatest of heroes to serve them. But to serve a Lion is a life sentence. And a Paladins life is always a short one. The Lions are hungry. My Comments: Seriously horrifying take on what the lions are and what they want. This creeped me out, and it’s pretty rare for words on a page to do that. Excellent stuff.

Cold As Ice (With No Sign Of Life) by PastelClark Words: 1,826 Author’s Summary: It is a dark, terrible thing that only crawls to the surface, like frost over metal, when she is alone. When she feels her paladin go with one of her siblings somewhere far away enough that her hold over the bond fuzzes and fades out, flat-lining into the barest of sensations, and she is left with only herself. And she must be broken, she decides, to feel this way—because she is a leg, meant to be stable and secure and strong, as she has known from the beginning of her creation. Legs do not get paranoid, or frightened, or…or lonely. But she does. When her paladin leaves, the cold sets in. And the cold, it is nothing but lonely. My Comments: Angsty little Blue POV on losing Lance. It hurts.

Chamomile Tea by SerenePhenix Words: 3,937 Author’s Summary: Deciding what’s best for oneself is never easy and just a long process of trial and error. OR: Pidge fucked up and Shiro’s there to help. My Comments: Part of a series, a modern AU where the paladins are roommates and take care of each other. So here’s Shiro taking care of Pidge. Lovely.

Light of the Galaxy by thekingoftrash Words: 5,308 Author’s Summary: Sometimes, it’s the aftermath of freeing a planet that gets you. OR Shiro’s hurt, Hunk’s helpful, and Lance and Keith argue over the proper grammar usage of quiznak. My Comments: Hurt Shiro, supportive team, what else can you ask for?

Sweet Dreams Are Made of This by tymedfire for mssstilinski Words: 3,172 Author’s Summary: Lance gets Earth music again. My Comments: Cute fic with the team appreciating dancer!Lance.

Nose Knows by sedna_mode Words: 1,861 Author’s Summary: Following a one-off comment from Hunk about how good his sense of smell is, the team devise a challenge to test him. The only thing is they… forgot to involve Hunk himself. Good thing he’s always up for a challenge, and Hunk is good.And he knows it. My Comments: Absolutely perfect fic based on a preview from one of the comics. I love this view of Hunk and the team.

Made of Stardust by itsthevoid Words: 3,819 Author’s Summary: Altea was destroyed long ago, and since then, Allura hasn’t had a planet to call her home, not even Earth. This doesn’t mean that she’s homeless. My Comments: Really lovely futurefic in which all of Team Voltron gets to go home, even if it isn’t what they expected. I loved the conclusion.

Spring Gifts by wingedflower Words: 3,535 Author’s Summary: Lance is always homesick, but some days are harder than others. Especially this day, when he would give anything in the universe to be back on Earth with his family. For the time being, his space family will have to do. But maybe it’s not so bad after all. My Comments: I adore the way everyone was so supportive of Lance once they realized he was having a rough time, emotionally. They treated his sadness like a wound, something that deserved to be acknowledged and cared for, and they were all willing to drop everything to do it. Just lovely.

Siren’s Curse by Internal_Screaming Words: 2,051 (½) Author’s Summary: Galra are slowly taking over the kingdom, only a few villages stand against the empire, and even those are disappearing quickly.Pidge remembers the day they took her family, and every day since, she had tried to find a way to get to them. Then her answer comes, as she finds Shiro during a storm. She believes this may be her chance to get on land and find her lost family.Galra are a specific race on earth, mermaids and sirens are different species and believed to be myths. Pirates roam the seas and are known to either give no shits about the war against the Galra or have chosen a side. Usually the side being that of the Galra. My Comments: Really cute fantasy AU with mermaids, sirens, humans, and pirates. Fun read, and I’m looking forward to more.

Survivor’s Guilt by Agapostemon Words: 8,281 Author’s Summary: “What were you doing at my house in pajamas this morning?” Shiro groans.“Oh, uh…” Matt stammers, “Y-your boss called me? You didn’t show up to work, and she was worried. And then I got worried, because… your texts last night were a little scary to begin with, but then you didn’t show up to work? Anyways, I drove over to check on you, and your door was unlocked, so…” he gestures vaguely. My Comments: Modern AU in which Matt supports Shiro through PTSD, depression, and a suicide attempt. It’s pretty dark, but with a hopeful ending. I enjoyed it thoroughly.

stillness by bobtheacorn Words: 3,088 Author’s Summary: “You’re all too young to really understand the nuances of Pac man,” Shiro says, trying to get a rise out of them, though it backfires.“Vintage is cool, Shiro.” “Yeah, old things are in! Why do you think we have so much respect for you?” “Oohoho! Pidge!!” //Coran finds something interesting on the scanners and takes everyone on a detour for some well-deserved rest and reflection. My Comments: It’s so nice to see the Voltron crew just hanging out and enjoying each other’s company. Fun, relaxing read.

Lost in Translation by EdgarAllenPoet Words: 22,178 Author’s Summary: “Keith shook his head, not knowing how to communicate that he didn’t understand him. Kolivan’s face turned to stone.” My Comments: Keith accidentally goes to an alternate universe and runs into a BoM where no one understands him, and when they do, they don’t believe him. It’s brutal, especially if you’ve read the other fics in this story where Kolivan and Antok are father figures to Keith. Very intense read, I couldn’t stop once I started.

Kiss From a Rose by BossToaster (ChaoticReactions) Words: 14,176 Author’s Summary: 5 times Shiro got kisses from the team, and one time he returned them My Comments: Absolutely adorable fic, notwithstanding some pain and suffering along the way. All of the platonic kisses were incredibly sweet and cute, and the ending was ridiculously satisfying.

Casting Shadows by BlackFriar Words: 74,777 Author’s Summary: An encounter with an ancient creature leaves Keith a child and Shiro reliving the past. While searching for a way to get their red paladin back, the team uncover a connection between a savage race of aliens and one of the universe’s oldest mysteries…and learn the past is never truly behind anyone. My Comments: This is an absolutely home run of a fic. Intense and horrific at times, but a thrill ride. It weaves together past and present in a great way. This is not a cute, fluffy deaged fic, though. Young Keith is terrified, for good reason, and that never really goes away, though the ending is perfectly satisfying. There’s also a lot about past child abuse that gets really awful at times, and the enemies in this fic are particularly disgusting (think the Reavers from Firefly/Serenity). Warnings aside, though, this is a fantastic fic. Plot, characterization, and worldbuilding are all spot-on. I really enjoyed it.

Muzzled by Emls479 Words: 5,181 Author’s Summary: The blade of Marmora aren’t the only ones with time altering technology. Days on the outside can be months within. Keith finds this out a little too late. My Comments: Holy crap, poor Keith. This was brutal, most especially because from his perspective, he was abandoned by his team, even while they were doing everything they could to rescue him. The comfort at the end was very good, but oh man, Keith goes through some awful stuff in this one.

If It Helps You Breathe by LynnLarsh Words: 5,632 Author’s Summary: A bad night with alien liquor puts Lance in a headspace he’s spent years trying to get out of. It’s a downward spiral that he eventually realizes he needs help dealing with.Trigger warning for self harm. The tags are important on this one. Please tread carefully. My Comments: Warning for self harm, so mind the tags. I really appreciate that Lance sought help on his own, eventually, because I know how hard that is. The hurt/comfort is good, and it’s realistic about how hard it is to deal with issues like this.

Grey by Skiewrites Words: 4,281 Author’s Summary: Grey is a secondary quintessence, made of Black and White quintessences. It represents the movement and manipulation of quintessence from one host to either another host or outside the host in an unnatural form. The most common use for Grey quintessence is during attacks in the form of lightning bolts. The physical representation of Grey quintessence is storm. Lance learns a lot from his family during his childhood, ranging from him being an alien and about the species that destroyed his home planet 10,000 years ago, to the legends of Voltron and the quintessence they use to protect the lion they’re currently hiding with.It’s a shame he never really said goodbye. My Comments: Really interesting twist on the concept of Altean Lance, with great worldbuilding and family interactions. I’d be interested to read more in this ‘verse.

Honest Work by juniperallura Words: 1,365 Author’s Summary: Based on my random HC that Shiro likes to garden because it’s peaceful and dear god someone give that man some rest My Comments: A relaxing little fic with Shiro getting some satisfaction from working with his hands.

cutthroat by buttered_onions Words: 1,363 Author’s Summary: Lance volunteers.(A Voltron/Hunger Games AU.) My Comments: Another amazing AU from buttered_onions, though Hunger Games scenarios always make me sick. There’s going to be more, but this is already brilliant.

Previously Recced Fics That Updated:

Shadows of Stars (33466 words) Coran's Guide to the Care and Keeping of Earthling Humans (37525 words)

[nothingbythebook]

First, an apology for the title slug. I know you’re all sick and tired of plays on A Love in the Time of Cholera. Still. There’s a reason we’re doing it.

Second… but really first:

i. A catalogue

I recently moved, and as part of the uprooting, I culled my physical books to the essentials. (Ok, I moved like 500 metres away, but hey, packing and thus purging was definitely involved.) Stress on the physical: thank gods for my e-readers, a library of thousands always in my pocket.

Still. I was pretty ruthless. Totally ruthless, actually. Goodbye, university textbooks. Goodbye, books from the “I was a teenage Wiccan” phase. Goodbye, big thick books that look good on my shelf and make me feel smart because I own them—but let’s be honest, I’m never going to read Infinite Jest. I tried. It’s unreadable. I read Gravity’s Rainbow—goodbye—and, frankly, wish I hadn’t, don’t remember what it’s about, and I’ll never get that time back.

Goodbye, all of Jeanette Winterson’s not Sexing the Cherry books. Goodbye, gifted books that missed the mark—goodbye, self-bought books that I read, don’t remember, will never read again. Goodbye, books I once loved but don’t anymore—that cull was the hardest.

What’s left was still heavy to move and comprises about ten shelf equivalents. But each of these books is loved. Important.

Like The Letters of Sylvia Plath and this little known book of the poet’s drawings:

I don’t actually own Plath’s The Bell Jar or Ariel. How is this possible? Note to self: must buy. Response to self: this is how it beings, hoarding, pack-ratting expansion. Don’t do it. Response to response to self: Shut up. I want my Sylvia.

All of my Polish books:

Some of these have travelled the world with my parents and me for almost forty years. The Polish translation of A.S. Lindgren’s Children from Bullerbyn (which used to belong to my dad’s sister, actually—she got it and read it the year I was born) and of Winnie The Pooh—the first “chapter” books I ever read. And, of course, Sienkiewicz, Mickiewicz, Orzeszkowa, Rodziewiczówna. Kapuścinski. The more modern poets: Zagajewski, Anna Świrszczyńska and Wisława Szymborska, not in translation.

This cultural heritage of mine, I have a very… fraught, complex relationship with. So much beauty, so much passion, so much suffering—so much stupidity, so much pain.

Governments do not define a national, a culture, or a people, I suppose. But in a democracy, they reflect the will and the hearts of the majority of the people, and, if the current government of Poland reflects the majority of the will and the hearts of the (voting) Polish people, they are repugnant to me and I want nothing to do with them. I am ashamed of them, of where I come from.

But I do come of them, from there, do I not?

Still. I keep the books. Including the one celebrating our first modern proto-fascist, Józef Piłsudski. History is complicated; ancestry not chosen.

Next, a shelf of all of my favourites.

All of Jane Austen, of course. Most of Nabokov. Virginia Woolf, because, well, it’s complicated. Susan Sontag’s On The Suffering of Others, and E.M. Forester’s Maurice—I gave up Room With a View and the others. J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, not so much because I’ll ever read it again but because it was so important back then. Anthony Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange, because nothing like it has been written before or since. Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas—I mean. I had to keep it, hero of my misspent university youth. I put him right next to Charles Bukowski’s Women, which isn’t great, but which… well. It taught me a lot about writing. Then, Jorge Luis Borges’ The Book of Imaginary Beings, which always makes me cry because a) it exists and b) I will never write that well.

Edward Said’s Orientalism, the only book to survive my “why the fuck did I keep all of these outdated anthropology and sociology and history textbooks for 25 years” purge. Margaret Mead’s New Lives for Old, which wasn’t one of them, but a later acquisition, kept in honour of the woman who dared live her life, do her thing. She wasn’t the smartest, the brightest, the most original—but fuck, she dared. Fraser’s The Golden Bough and Lilian Faderman’s Chloe Plus Olivia, both acquired in my teens—the first gave me religion for a while, while I freed myself of the Polish Catholicism in which I grew up (“freed” is an aspirational word; I suspect the religions we are indoctrinated into in childhood stay in our bones forever—the best that we can do is be aware when that early programming tries to sabotage our critical thinking and emotional well-being), and the second showed me I wasn’t a freak, an aberration, alone.

Next, The First Ms. Reader and the Sisterhood is Powerful anthology—original 1970s paperbacks bought in a used bookstore in the 1990s when I was discovering feminism. Monica Sjöö and Barbara Mor’s The Great Cosmic Mother—I suppose another Wicca-feminism vestige. I will never read it again, but way back when, that book changed my life, so. Here it is, with me, still.

And now, back to fiction: The Doorbell Rang, my only Rex Stout hardcover, although without the dust jacket, and a hardcover, old, maybe even worth something, with protected dust jacket intact, of P.G. Wodehouse’s Psmith, Journalist. Next to them, The Adventures of Romney Pringle and The Further Adventures by Romney Pringle, the single collaboration between R. Austin Freeman and John J. Pitcairn under the pseudonym of Clifford Ashdown. Written in 1902 or so, both volumes are the first American edition. In mint condition. Like the P.G. Wodehouse—and The Letters of Sylvia Plath, and the unique, autographed, bound in leather made from the butts of sacrificed small children or something, Orson Scott Card Maps in the Mirror short story collection, which is next-but-one to them on the bookshelf—they were a gift from Sean.

A lot of the books on my shelves, here with me now, are a gift from Sean.

Between them, a hard cover Georges Simeon found at a garage sale, and then G.K. Chesterton—Lepanto, the poem about the 1571 naval battle between Ottoman forces and the Holy (that’s what they called themselves) League of Catholic Europe, which I will never read again, but which is associated with a specific time and event in my personal history, so I keep it. Next to it, The Collected Stories of Father Brown, in battered hardcover, which I re-read intermittently, and which are—well. Perfect, really. Then, all of Dashiell Hammett in one volume. Then, almost all the best Agatha Christie’s in four “five complete novels” hardcover collections, topped with two multi-author murder mystery medleys from the 1950s.

Looking at this shelf makes me very, very happy.

Next, the one fully preserved collection. Before the move, these books lived on a bookshelf perched on top of my desk. Now, they are here, their “natural” order slightly altered because of the uneven height of this case’ shelves. The top shelf is, I suppose, mostly reference and writing books:

The Paris Review Interviews, Anne Lammott’s Bird by Bird, Neil Gaiman’s Make Good Art, Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style, and their ilk. At the end, a couple of publications in which I have a byline.

The next shelf, the smallest on the case, is a bit of a smorgasboard, but is very precious to me:

Do you see Frida and my Tarot cards? Also an Ariana Reines book that I really should give back to its owner…

Next, my perhaps most precious books.

Philip Larkin’s Letters to Monica and Nabokov’s Letters to Vera. Anne Carson’s If Not Winter: Fragments of Sappho. Four Letter Word, a collection of “original love letters” (short stories, they mean, pretentious fucks) from an assortment of mega-stars, including Margaret Atwood, Leonard Cohen, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Neil Gaiman, Ursula K. LeGuin… a strange assortment, really. But some lovely pieces in there. Some lame ones too—and I like that too. Even superstars misfire, every one in a while.

Then, Leonard Cohen, Pablo Neruda, Walt Whitman, Jack Gilbert, Vera Pavlova. Finally, Anaïs Nin’s Delta of Venus and Little Birds, and a bunch of battered Colettes. Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer right next to Colette, of course. Then, my Frida books.

The next shelf is full of aspirational delusions.

Farsi textbooks next to Hafez, Rumi and Forough Farrokzad translations. I will never be able to read Hafez in the original Persian. But maybe? Life is long. Maybe, one day, I will have time. Then, Jung’s Red Book, Parker J. Palmer’s A Hidden Wholeness, Rod Stryker’s The Four Desires, Stephen Cope’s The Great Work of Your Life, Thich Nhat Hahn’s The Art of Communicating (I failed), The Bhagavad Gita (still trying).

As I said, the shelf of delusions.

The bottom shelf is aspirational/inspirational, and also, very tall.

And so, that’s why my Georgia O’Keefe books are there, as well as The Purple Book, and Obrist’s do it manifesto. Perhaps there is room there for my leather-bound Master’s thesis, currently tucked away in the closet, right there, next to a course binder from SAIT? Then, all of my Spanish books, including Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s El Amor en los Tiempos del Cólera… which, also, one day, I will read in Spanish and actually understand. Life is long, right?

Next, not really a book shelf as such, but the top shelf of my secretary desk, where the reference and project books of the moment live.

The Canadian Press Stylebook has a permanent home here, of course. And I’ve got two copies of Canadian Copyright: A Citizen’s Guide there, one for me (unread, but I’ll get to it, I promise myself, again), one for a colleague. Both snagged from a Little Free Library, by the way.

Almost done.

In the bedroom, the books of vice.

A shelf of battered Ngaio March paperbacks, tucked beside them some meditation and Kundalini yoga books that I’m not using right now, but, maybe, one day, I am not ready to give up on this part of myself yet.  Below, a shelf of even more battered Rex Stout paperbacks.

I read and re-read these books—as did their original owners—until they fall to pieces. They are my crack, my vice—also, my methadone, my soother.

Below them, space for library books, mine and Ender’s:

I am finding Anna Mehler Paperny’s Hello I want to Die Please Fix Me unreadable, by the way. I pick it up, put it away. Repeat.

Will likely return it to the library unread.

Currently not on display: books by friends. Some here with me, some on the shelves in the Co-op house. There are a lot of those. Can one be ruthless… with friends?

ii. A reflection

Books, for readers and writers, are the artifacts that define us. When I enter a reader’s home, I immediately gravitate to their bookshelves. What’s on them?

What’s not on them?

What I’ve chosen to let go of, to not bring with me here tells me… a lot.

What am I going to do with this information?

xoxo

“Jane”

Books in the Time of Corona: what’s on my shelves and what’s not, and the story it tells First, an apology for the title slug. I know you're all sick and tired of plays on…

[ckyking]

sur le bout des doigts

welp, this was supposed to be short to get me back into the thick of things but gladio didn’t seem to agree with me. so, here’s some gladnoct set in my aranea!noct au which is getting fleshed out at the moment. more pairings to come in that au~ 

Fresh out of the shower, skin rosy with heat that he lacks at any other time, Noctis looks almost vulnerable, his carefully tended armour laid aside in favour of softness and comfort. Water beads at his hairline, slides down the pale column of his neck one shining crystal after another and soaks the thin cotton of his sweater. The white material grows translucent under the mass of half-dried inky strands climbing down his back in a messy disarray, as different from his military meticulousness as night and day.

The sight is one that Gladiolus will never tire of, the savage beauty of fire and viciousness subsumed into the pale loveliness of a winter day. Silence and untouched wilderness for miles around, steam curling from a favoured cup and the weight of a blanket draped across one’s shoulders. Gladio carefully tucks away the urge to experience the clean taste of his skin for later, focuses instead on the muscled thighs peeking from under the borrowed garment’s hem, on the silvery scars marking the tempting line of his legs.

It’s only the two of them for now, no Ignis to share a private smile with over their leader padding into the room on cat’s feet, rubbing sleep out of his eyes with a sleeve-covered hand in an almost childish gesture, scratching at his stubble with the other; little quirks he keeps under lock and key when out in the world.

Like this, it’s easy to forget they’re mercenaries—the mercenaries if he’s honest with himself, and he usually is. Lionhearts is a name whispered far and wide across Eos; by nobles wanting another trophy to add to their collection, by overwhelmed hunters, by the upper echelons of the Empire. The infamous Dragoon and his companions shrouded in red, weapons held high against the darkness; quicksilver smirks and a tongue sharper than any blade.

Doesn’t mean that Noctis isn’t a brat under the veneer the world knows them as.

A slight grimace of discomfort twists Noctis’ features as he lifts his hair out of the way in an automatic movement, plucking at the soaked fabric in a vain effort to keep its coolness away from his shower-warmed skin. As always, Gladio is captivated by the blue glimmers playing in the night-dark tresses, the harsh light of their shared apartment turned into so many stars hidden amongst the hair sliding through Noct’s lithe fingers.

The movement turns purposeful once he spies Gladio lounging on the couch, book carefully held over his bare chest. With a smirk, he starts parting his hair in sections in preparation for a quick braid, amber-green holding amber-blue tauntingly all the while.

What would be a growl for any other man is but a sound of disgruntlement for Gladiolus, and gratification widens Noctis’ smirk at the immediate reaction. Since they were young, he’d always been very particular about how he cared for his hair, and Noctis who keeps them long for his sake indulges him with pleasure. Still, teasing is not above him – far from it – and the near pout on the giant’s face is always worth it.

An exercise in restraint. Hands that could and had broken through solid steel trembling as they slid through dark strands. Finger shaped indents in a wheelchair’s handles. A smaller hand bleeding black black black on his, guiding it back to an oh-so fragile head.

“I trust you.”

“Don’t do that.” Gladio grumbles as he sits up, spreading his legs and wordlessly signaling Noct to get his ass over here. “You’ll damage them even more.”

Laughing, Noctis lowers his hands and fishes out the comb he stashed in the elastic band of his boxers in prevision for this moment, revealing it with a flourish and making the other man roll his eyes in exasperation. Still, a tiny smile tugs at the corners of his scarred lips at the mischievous twinkle gracing Noct’s eyes, so unlike the detached and predatory glint he assesses the rest of the world with.

Those eyes stay focused on Gladio’s as he walks closer to the sofa, his stride unchanged by the lack of his customary boots; heel to toe, the swaying gait of a predator on the prowl. The bigger man’s mouth dries out at the intent in every single one of Noct’s movements, at the avian stare pinning him in place, softened only by the fond crinkles of his eyes, the sweet purse of his lips. Like this, Gladio knows with absolute certainty that his partner can see the bob of his Adam’s apple as he swallows, the minute twitches of his muscles, the flecks of colours in his eyes—blue for the father he’s never known and the one he does, gold for their stabilizer.

Ancient Lucian comes to mind as he drinks in Noctis’ efficient motions, the comb dancing between his fingers like one of Ignis’ stolen daggers. It’s no fancy thing, a trinket Ignis picked up in Lestallum one day, its craftsmanship not worth mentioning but for the runes decorating the stained wood, matching the cracked leather of the book Gladio spends his spare time translating.

Tales of conquering kings and cunning queens, their lives slashes of ink on yellowed pages, indents he follows with callused fingers as he deciphers them, drawing parallels between Modern Lucian and Solheim’s barely remembered language to bring them back to life for a brief instant. Noctis reminds him of them now, a shadow stepped out of the book he cradles against his naked thigh as he waits to complete their daily ritual, a small piece of normality they grasp at and hold close.

It’s no wonder that Noctis sounding each world carefully in his ear, arms wrapped around his waist and head tucked in the crook of his neck, has always felt so natural, he thinks. On his tongue, each word is gilded in gold and silver, their grit coated in nacre by the softness of his mouth and given back proper meaning. Without understanding why, Gladio knows that each quiet exhalation against his skin, each twist of Noctis’ tongue fit the ancient language perfectly, the truth of it shivering down his spine in time with his lover’s breaths.

Even stripped down to the bare minimum, he radiates command, each of his steps teeming with the potential to break down cities as easily as he crosses the distance separating them. But it is not this dignity of old that kindles his heart, that warms his chest at the very sight of him. No, what binds him to Noctis is softer and easier, but infinitely more complicated.

As Noctis finally reaches him and alights on his thigh like a curious bird, his head tilted slightly to the side as he surveys his perch, Gladio’s heart fills with tender feelings he dares not name in fear of banishing them forever. The unsaid words between them sink like pearls in his chest, tiny treasures he hoards like the most precious of jewels.

Fingers gliding across his brow, still sweaty from his morning run, and tucking stray hair back behind his ear in an hopelessly fond gesture assures him that he is understood, that his feelings are echoed back with the same intensity. When those same fingers shift their course to trace his features and the scars that mar them – “X marks the spot.” – he closes his eyes and leans into it, his arms coming up to wrap securely around a trim waist. They brush against his stubble, follow the slope of his nose teasingly and finally come to rest against his mouth, fingertips light against the swell of his lips.

Only then does Gladiolus open his eyes again to gaze into his lover’s devastatingly open ones, laid bare in the face of the vulnerability no one except Ignis and him has ever seen from him, the Executioner. Just like his book, the comb lays forgotten on the couch, both items discarded for the time being, the past put aside to make space for the present.

The contrast of shower-warm skin and cold hair against his forehead anchors Gladiolus, keeps him rooted in the moment as Noct’s hands leave his face in favour of his hair, seeking the hair pins keeping them up and out of the way out of habit. Each time one of them is carefully eased from his bun, the warrior’s heart tightens a little more, as if his carefully built defenses are unravelled one by one, sweetly and without afterthought.

He observes Noctis as he does so, the steadiness of his hands, the look of almost peace that spread across his features, each pin a prayer bead under his fingers, each one a word that drops from his lips.

Only when he is done does he look down again and meets his gaze, smile overflowing from his eyes to reach his lips as he tangles his fingers in the hair he so carefully freed. Running his fingers through it as he does so, Noctis slides himself more fully in Gladio’s lap, not relinquishing his hold for a second, a sentiment shared between the two of them.

Then, finally, he bends down and curls a arm around the strong neck bowed to him, dragging him infinitely closer, uncaring of the sweat coating Gladio’s chest in a glistening layer. The bigger man’s mouth comes to rest against his collarbone, where his sweater slid out of the way in his ministrations.

“You’ll catch a cold if you don’t deal with your hair.” Gladio mouths against the scarred chest offered to him, against the pale wing of his collarbone straining against the bruised skin covering it.

“Do it for me?” Like a secret, like a request, Noctis whispers in answer.

“As you wish.”

Something infinitely softer than command, a relationship born out of thousand of moments and renewed each day as Gladio braids and cares for Noct’s hair, each twist another layer to the Dragoon’s armour, another door slamming shut between their own private universe and Niflheim’s coldness that awaits just beyond the threshold.

Gladio guiding him down to rest between his legs, heat bleeding from his hands in soothing waves. Noct’s trimmed nails gliding along the muscles of his calf and digging slightly, talon-like as light sparks beneaths his fingers. The repetitive motion of comb-strokes, the familiar one-two-three of weaving.

Perhaps it is nothing more than an old habit given more significance than it deserves, but it is theirs all the same; moments lost in time, moments that will never be recorded anywhere but on their skin, in the mismatched pieces of their hearts.

The tales of those forgotten rulers pale in comparison, the dying light of far flung stars compared to the fever-warm skin beneath his hands, the glorious life beating in such a lithe body.

Gladiolus breathes out slowly, the Executioner breathes in, closes his eyes and ties off the marks of his love and loyalty in Noctis’ hair, familiar roads leading straight to his heart, to the decades old promise lodged in his chest.

No books will ever be written about them, and nothing but their weapons will be left once their bodies return to dust. But they have each other, and it’s enough.

It has always been.

[arlessiar]

Eleven questions

I’m incredibly late with answering this, but it took me a while and then the whole Kingsman SDCC thing happened in-between. So no idea if people are still interested in this, but now that I’ve written it I also want to post it. :)

I was tagged by @notbrogues @hartwin-af and @spockri

rules: 1. always post the rules. 2. answer the questions given by the person who tagged you. 3. write 11 questions of your own and tag 11 (or however many) people to answer them.

Questions by @notbrogues

1. Describe your least favourite character.

In general, the pointless love interests, the boring villains, the almighty and flawless heroes, the dumb and helpless females

(And just in case, the opposite – my favourite characters are the caring doctors, the smart geeks, and the loners, misfits and underdogs *g*)

2. A go-to comfort meal/snack/treat.

When my Mum crumbs meat or veggies to fry them she always makes a small fried bread/omelette from the rest of the eggs and breadcrumbs. She adds salt, pepper and some cheese. It’s an old Silesian tradition, my Gran always did that and we still do it today. It means home and comfort for me and I love it and I’ll defend it from every other hungry person in the house. It’s mine. My precious. Me eats it alone! *eg*

Apart from that – Avocado. Chickpeas. White chocolate. Chocolate digestives.

3. Describe a perfect vacation,     with no limit on funds or how long you can stay there.

I go there quite often, but still, London. It’s been my happy place for years. And from there I’d go to Cornwall, to the Lake District, the Brecon Beacons and the Highlands. With unlimited funds I’d take my parents with me or my BFF, and we’d spend lots of time visiting all the manors and country houses!

4. Do you listen to podcasts? If so, what are you favourites?

Listened to the Three Patch Podcast in the Sherlock fandom, but only a few times. Not really my thing in general.

5. One widely accepted fanon headcanon that you just don’t agree with?

Hmm, I like most of the fanon and can live with the rest. Not so keen on Percival being Roxy’s Dad. Distantly related, yes, but I can’t imagine him as her father.  

6. One story/movie/song/album/piece of art that resonated with you and that you will never be able to forget?

There’s so much I could write here, but I have to make a decision, so:

Stories, movies – too many to count!

Song and album – R.E.M., Automatic for the people, “Everybody hurts”. My fav forever band, and that song saved my life during a very low phase I went through in my teens. Oh, and Jeff Buckley’s version of Cohen’s “Hallelujah”. Listening to that for the first time was a revelation.

Piece of art: My favourite picture is Caspar David Friedrich’s Wanderer above the sea of fog. I could stare at it for hours. Also, seeing Van Gogh’s Sunflowers for real in the National Gallery had blown my mind and I’ll go to look at it every time I’m in London.

When I was a teen there was an exhibition in my city with photographs from Nan Goldin. Our art teacher took us there and most of my classmates weren’t prepared for this rather explicit art. For me though a gate had opened, I finally understood the art of photography, and it’s been a passion of mine ever since.

7. If you have a day off, no responsibilities or pressing matters to attend to: what are you doing for the rest of the day?

Three words – Lego, AO3 and tumblr.

8. Favourite past trend that you are most nostalgic for?

I honestly never really followed trends a lot, so I’ve no idea what to say here. ^^ What I really really miss is the way they made computer games in the Nineties. Give me a good old fashioned Adventure with tricky puzzles and I’m happy.

9. What’s a hobby/skill you’ve always wanted to learn?

Playing the harp or the violin. And archery. Might still try the latter one day.

10. Where do you see yourself in ten years?

So sorry, but I have to skip this one... I don’t dream much anymore. The only thing I can say is: Hopefully still surrounded by the people who I love more than my own life.

11. What was your first fandom? First OTP? First NOTP? Any memorable experiences from those early days?

My first fandom was Star Trek, around 1991. I always blame my Dad for me becoming a geek because it was him who told me to watch TOS. :) Wrote my first story in a notebook when I was twelve, no OTP though then, it was rather Mary Sue-ish. ^^ Then we got our first computer, and I had moved on to DS9. More stories, now on computer, still no OTP but lots of h/c. Then we got internet in 1996, and I was having some sort of epiphany – there was this world-wide phenomenon called fanfiction! I was not alone! An amazing discovery! Saw my first slashfic at that time, Garak/Bashir, and I was 16 and all like ‘ewww’ and backed away from it (so that was probably my first NOTP).

Being a Tolkien fan for years I easily fell for the LOTR films later and wrote FF for that and published my first stories. Arwen/Aragorn was my first fandom OTP I guess. Saw more slashfic, Legolas/Aragorn, and I was still not convinced, but I read one. While I never shipped that pairing, slashfic in general suddenly started to look appealing. Well, and today I say “all I’ve learnt about sex, I’ve learnt from fanfic”, because those years were really educational… ;)

Next fandom was Stargate Atlantis (OTP McShep), my online fan-life started in earnest then with the Gateworld forum and LJ, then Torchwood (OTP Ianto/Jack), then Sherlock (OTP Johnlock). And here I am now, in the Kingsman fandom, with Hartwin and Merhartwin being my OTPs.

Now @hartwin-af

1. Who are your favourite artists/actors/fictional characters?

I admire Viggo Mortensen both as an actor and as an artist. And Colin Firth has been one of my favourite actors for many years. Closely followed by Chris Pine and Matt Damon. I also think Meryl Streep is a goddess.

Fav fictional characters: Aragorn, Sherlock, Mr Darcy and tons of others, among them right now Harry Hart :)

2. What are your favourite tv shows/movies?

Fav TV shows from the past: Star Trek DS9, Torchwood, MASH, SGA, Sherlock, Flying Doctors, Diagnosis Murder, Queer as folk

Recent TV shows: Agents of shield, Poldark, The Handmaid’s tale

3. What/Who do you fear?

Dying alone

4. What are you looking forward to the most?

At the moment my summer holiday and Kingsman 2.

5. What’s your biggest pet peeve?

The acceptance of ignorance you see nowadays. It’s ok to lack knowledge, but one shouldn’t be proud of it. It’s no badge of honour to boast about. There’s something you don’t know – go and look it up.

6. If you could make one thing canon in your fandom, what would it be?

DAISY UNWIN

7. Do you hoard usernames? 

Nope. In fact I’m known for having the same username for decades and almost everywhere…

8. Coke or Pepsi? Tea or Coffee? KFC or McDonald’s? 

If at all, Coke. Coffee, with tea being a close second. McDonald’s, but rather Burger King!

9. What would make today better?

Less humidity. Apart from that it’s been a pretty fine day. :) 

10. What’s your favourite scent?

Privet when it’s in bloom.

11. What’s your proudest achievement?

Finishing my university degree (MA)

And @spockri

1)  Are you a morning person or a night owl? 

100% night owl

2) What is your OTP (and you can only pick 1!) and why? 

Currently Hartwin. It just… happened. Love the fact that they’re so different and yet so similar, and that there’s tons of chemistry between them.

3) What is your favorite thing about Colin Firth? 

His smile. Absolutely.

4) What’s your favorite book and how would you recommend it to someone who’s never heard of it? 

That is in fact Atwood’s “The handmaid’s tale” and has been for years. I would recommend it as a book that’s become scarily relevant again in the light of the current political situation in the US.

5) Where is your favorite place to read? 

Used to be my bed, but the older I get, the less comfortable it becomes. So today it’s my desk chair. And Parliament Hill when I’m in London.

6) What was your last impulse buy? 

Clothes. I have way too many clothes… send help! Or Livia Firth, so that she can rip me a new one. Or Colin so that he can rip my clothes off… ok, wait, I need to stop.

7) What is/was your favorite subject in school? 

That was English and Art

8) Are you an introvert or extrovert? 

Introvert, INFJ. And an HSP. 

9) Do you have any trips/vacations planned this year? 

Most likely London again in August, and a short trip within Germany to visit two wonderful friends in October

10) What would you do if you saw Colin Firth walking on the other side of the street from you? 

In my dreams I’d work up the courage to walk over to him and smile and say hello and ask politely for an autograph… depends on the situation though. So in reality I’d most likely try not to bother him to respect his privacy and just stare at him from afar… while silently hyperventilating

11) I probably know you because we’re both into Kingsman, so when did you first watch Kingsman and what drew you to it?

When it came out I saw many posts about it on my tumblr dash and had no idea what it’s about. Thought it must be a big thing though and decided to watch it one day, but ignored it then on tumblr in order not to spoiler myself accidentally. It was on my list for a while and I finally bought the DVD in November 2016. Watched it with my parents. Was hooked in a second. This rarely happens to me, but I liked that the movie didn’t take itself overly serious but was still believable, and that the story had no loose ends. Also, suits and Savile Row (love a man in a good suit), and Colin Firth. Sold. The rest is history.

- - - - - 

Now, eleven questions from me, just in case anyone still wants to do this and isn’t sick of this meme already. :)

1)      What did you want to become as a child, and what did you become?

2)      If you were allowed to dress your favourite actor however you’d like, who would it be and what would she/he look like afterwards?

3)      Did you ever cry while reading a book or watching a film, and if yes, when was the last time that happened and why?

4)      What is your favourite piece of jewellery that you own?

5)      If you could invent and play any kind of yet non-existent role in an existent movie, who would you like to be?

6)      You have to share a room with a Kingsman character for one night. Who will it be and why?

7)      Did you have a comfort toy as a child and if yes, what happened to it?

8)      What is the colour/design of your bedclothes?

9)      What was your happiest fandom moment so far?

10)   The last film you saw in the cinema

11)   You invite your favourite fictional character for dinner and you’re having pizza. They say it’s your choice – what kind of pizza would you order for them?

You all probably did that already, I’m sorry!!

@agentdagonet @ripgalahad @jeherion @jesspaw @londongypsy @letmecomealong @galahadthelate @solarrift @lady-mephistopheles @fideliant @deepdarkwaters