#i wonder if I’ll turn into a jar of sand when i die

[dashastoudenova]

Been feeling very drained and depressed recently, will push through.

[marshmallow-phd]

Book of the Dead

Genre: The Mummy AU

Pairing: Junmyeon x Reader

Summary: After traveling to the fabled city of Hamunaptra, you read from the Book of the Dead and accidentally resurrect an ancient mummy with extraordinary powers and quest for revenge. The only thing to do now is try and convince your less-than-traditional guide to help you save the world.

Part 1 I Part 2

**

You ran up the smooth stone steps as quickly as your night dress would allow. If only you had had the time to change into something a bit more practical. Unfortunately, the immortal, god-like mummy that was currently lighting the city of Cairo up with the ten plagues of Egypt was exactly willing to pause for you to put on a different outfit. 

“Run this by me one more time?” Baekhyun huffed a few stairs behind. 

Rolling your eyes, you said again, “We’re going to read the stone with the inscription of the location of the book of the living. Once I translate its location, we’ll head back to Hamunaptra, retrieve it, and send Mr. Bones back to the underworld.”

“You really need to work on the nicknames,” Junmyeon grumbled as he placed a hand on your lower back to urge you upwards at a faster pace. 

“Sorry that my sarcastic wit doesn’t work best under pressure.”

“Trust me, it hasn’t been working with or without the pressure.”

You shot the soldier a dirty look, which only led to you tripping over your own feet. Junmyeon caught you before your knees could meet the edge of the last step. Looking up at him, you opened your mouth, whether to say thank you or to release another sharp remark, you weren’t sure. Those stupid brown eyes were scrambling the thought pathways in your brain. But thankfully, one thing was able to connect and bring back your focus. 

“The stone!”

A large black stone taller than you and wider than your forearm sat to the right of the staircase, a block of polished wood at the base keeping it upright and away from the wall. You ripped out of Junmyeon’s grasp and scrambled for the stone. Your eyes scanned the hieroglyphics. A few feet away, Baekhyun was half bent over in an effort to regulate his breathing. 

“Can you do that a little quieter?” you gritted between your teeth as your fingers slid over the etched surface of the stone. 

“It wasn’t that many stairs,” Sehun said. 

“Sorry, not all of us are as athletic as the muscled up soldiers over here.” Baekhyun hooked a thumb towards Junmyeon, who was hardly paying attention as he stared out the open balcony. Baekhyun and Sehun joined him, the former then gulped. “You might want to hurry up over there.”

“Patience is a virtue,” you sang. 

“Not right now it isn’t,” Junmyeon mumbled grimly. 

That was when you heard it. 

Hundreds of voices chanting in unison. 

“Imhotep. Imhotep. Imhotep. Imhotep.” Over and over in monotone sounds, growing closer and louder. 

Oh, shit.

“I hate to agree, but yes, faster would be better,” Professor Bey urged. 

His power was growing. Fast. You buckled down, translating the pictures into the ancient language and then again into your own tongue. 

“They’ve become his slaves,” Ardeth said with more morbidness than you previously thought possible. 

“A side effect of the boils and sores, I’m sure,” Baekhyun said, not helping. Another plague down. The final one, if your counting was correct.

Block them out. You needed to block all of them out. “Alright, so according to the Bembridge scholars, the gold book of Amun-Ra is located in the statue of Anubis.”

“But we found the black book there instead,” said one of the Americans. 

Baekhyun moved to your side. “So, they were wrong?”

“Obviously.” Arrogant men who thought you didn’t have enough experience to join their society. “They mixed up where they were buried. So if that was where the black book was located….”

A crash. The front doors of the museum must have been breached. 

“I got it! The golden book is located inside the statue of Horus!” You slapped the rock with your hand in victory. “Take that, Bembridge bastards!”

“Alright then, let’s run!” Baekhyun took your hand and hurried you down the hall while the others stayed close at your heels. Down the stairs and through a back corridor, you were able to make it to the car while avoiding the mind controlled citizens. Safety be damned, you all piled on one another into the topless car as Baekhyun turned over the engine and gunned it. Hordes of the poor men chasing you poured out of the doors of the museum and managed to keep up with the four wheeled vehicle that now raced through the dirt streets in the dark. Junmyeon remained on the trunk of the car, reloading his gun and punching anyone who was able to get close enough. 

“Those are innocent people!” you yelled over all the noise.

“Yeah, well, right now, it’s us or them!” Junmyeon kicked one off but lost his balance in the meantime. He nearly fell into the crowd before you were able to grab his arm and yank him down. “Thanks,” he muttered mere inches from your face before clearing his throat and righting himself. On his other side, Sehun was fighting along with Ardeth to keep you all from being overrun. Imhotep must have been able to give the controlled men advanced abilities. An unfortunate event. 

But right when you thought that you might be able to get away, several men climbed onto one of the Americans and they all fell from the car, lost in the crowd. Without thinking, the other yelled and then jumped after his friend. And then he was gone, too. 

“Crap.”

“Rest in peace, old chaps,” Baekhyun murmured, looking over his shoulder. And then crashed the car. 

“Baekhyun!” you shouted angrily. Junmyeon hoisted you out of the car, not wasting a moment, but the six of you were trapped. The mind controlled men were coming at you from all three streets. You were blocked in against one of the walls of the city. 

“It's the creature,” Professor Bey whispered. You frowned, unable to see past the ones that surrounded the group. Then you saw him. 

Imhotep. 

“He’s fully regenerated.”

Not a single spec of mummified skin remained. He’d gotten to the Americans. 

Stepping closer as the crowd pushed in, he started speaking in the ancient language, lapdog Beni right behind. 

“Come with me, my princess,” Beni translated with a false sense of superiority. “It is time to make you mine. Forever.”

You scoffed. “For all eternity. Idiot.”

Imhotep spoke again, this time with his hand outstretched.

“Take my hand and I shall spare your friends.”

You looked around for any chance of escape. There was none. “Just wonderful.” You turned to Junmyeon, who was slowly putting himself between you and the mummy. “Any good ideas?”

His face was twisted and his eyes darted from left to right. “I’m thinking. I’m thinking.” 

“Good. Keep thinking and think of something fast. Because if he turns me into a mummy, you’re the first one I’m coming after.”

Junmyeon’s eyes snapped to you, wide with shock. “No!” But you were out of arm’s reach before he could stop you. He pulled a gun and pointed it at Imhotep, ready to fire. Sehun and Ardeth both managed to stop him. 

“He has to take me to Hamunaptra,” you explained. “In order to perform the ritual.” With your eyes, you tried to add in the rest. Follow us there, get the book, and I’ll read it. 

“She’s got a point,” Sehun said. “If we live today, we can fight tomorrow.”

Junmyeon hesitated, then lowered his gun. You held his gaze, trying to let him know silently what you were feeling in this moment. That you were glad to have met him. And you wished the two of you had more time. 

“We’ll see each other again,” he promised. 

With an arm around your shoulders, Imhotep led you away. The sound of Junmyeon saying your name reached your ears and you almost ran back to him. 

“Hey, that’s mine!” Baekhyun yelled. Running up next to you, Beni tossed the octagonal key to the books in the air. Well, that wasn’t necessarily a good thing. 

Gripping your arm tighter, Imhotep gave out one final order. “Kill them all!”

“No!” You fought and kicked and tugged to get away. “Let go of me! Junmyeon! Baekhyun!” It was no use. As you looked back behind you, all you could see was the crowd closing in on them. 

**

You traveled for what felt like hours in the sandstorm of Imhotep. When you were finally deposited onto the sand, rolling in it from the momentum and getting it everywhere, you managed to open your eyes and see where he had decided to stop. You were right outside of the city of the dead. You were back. 

A loud buzzing noise caught your attention. Looking up into the sky, you saw an old fashioned pedal plane carrying more people than it was built for. You smile. “Mr. Kim.”

After walking a few paces ahead, Imhotep raised his arms and called up a sandstorm so large, it blocked out the sky. Forming into a face, it ruched at the tiny plane. And then the storm swallowed it whole. 

“No!”

The sandstorm dissipated and the plane was no longer visible. Imhotep smirked then walked towards the city. You had no choice but to follow. 

You were going to die. 

That didn’t stop you from following the mummy down into the depths of the temple, your glare switching from Imhotep’s back to Beni, who walked beside you. 

“Your face will stay like that,” Beni warned. How childish. 

“And nasty little boys like yourself always get their comeuppance,” you shot back.

Beni stopped in his tracks. “They do?”

You smirked. How stupid. You did believe that he would get his own form of punishment for helping the ancient priest - you just hoped that it was sooner rather than later. 

Down in the main chamber of the temple, a loud noise stopped Imhotep mid chant. Taking one of the sacred jars, he emptied the ash-like substance into his hand and then blew on it, letting the particles drift through the air. Then he spoke out a spell and mummified bodies ripped themselves free from their walled-in prisons, leaving behind deep human-shaped impressions among the hieroglyphics. 

“Kill them and wake the others,” Imhotep ordered. Turning back to you and Beni, he nodded at the latter, who then forced you down onto the stone slab next to a pit that at first you thought was water, but the liquid was too thick and too black, like ink. You were too focused on the substance to notice Imhotep’s hand coming near your face. He spoke a single word and your vision went black. 

It could have only been a minute that you were out, but it was enough time for your wrists and ankles to be tied down and the sacred jars to be lined up against your side.  Seeing a strange lump out of the corner of your left eye, you turned. 

Then screamed. 

The mummified body of who could only have been Anck-Su-Namun was lying right next to you, ready to be revived. You fought and tugged at your restraints, desperate to get away, to put distance between you and the woman who killed the pharaoh. One by one, the resurrected priests circled the slab, fell to their knees, and began chanting as they bowed. Imhotep stepped up, the black book in his hands. He caressed the side of the mummy’s face lovingly. Despite the reality of the situation, a small part of you couldn’t help but be in awe of his devotion. All of this, for his love. 

That didn’t mean you wanted to help. 

“Junmyeon! Baekhyun! Sehun!” One of them. Any of them! Please, just let one of them get in here with the book!

From the pit, the inky substance rose, formless, shapeless as it drifted through the air, over you and settled into the body. Imhotep finished the enchantment and the mummy came to life with a shrieking gasp. It turned and looked at you with knowing eyes. The scream of pure terror was ripped from your throat. 

No, no, no, no!

Appearing on the other side of you, Imhotep said one last time that with your death, Anck-Su-Namun would live. He raised a dagger with both hands and let it hover over your heart for just a beat. 

“I found the book of Amun-Ra! I found it, cousin!” 

Standing at the top of the large stone staircase, Baekhyun waved a giant book of gold over his head, the proudest grin shining from his face, visible even from this distance. 

Imhotep hesitated, lowering the dagger. 

“Fantastic, now shut up and help me off of here!” you shouted back. “You have to open the book! Open it!”

Like in a trance, Imhotep walked around the slab, placing the dagger down next to Anck-Su-Namun, and continued towards the stairs. 

“I can’t open it! It needs the key!”

“His robes!” You motioned towards Imhotep with your head. “It’s in his robes!”

With Imhotep coming closer, Baekhyun took off down the hallway that had led him here. Out of the shadows the opposite way, Junmyeon jumped out, swinging a large golden sword at the priests. Sehun wasn’t far behind with a sword of his own. Toegher, the two of them cut the mummies into pieces. With everyone distracted, you worked at the ropes around your wrists that had loosened in your many struggles, freeing the right one first and then moving onto your ankles. Only the left wrist was left to be freed, but this one was choosing to be difficult. 

“Are you alright?” Junmyeon asked as he took down another priest. 

“For the most part,” you answered, jangling your hand. Junmyeon lifted the sword to cut it free but suddenly fell from view. The upper bodies of the priests had grabbed hold of him and were holding him down so another could get close enough to drop the giant rock it was carrying onto his head. “Junmyeon!”

Junmyeon struggled to reach the sword he had dropped. Sehun was too busy with his own fight to notice his cousin needed help. You tried for the weapon yourself but it was too far out of reach. A disembodied hand was crawling with its fingers across the floor. When it wrapped its palm around the hilt of the sword, Junmyeon managed to grab the arm and swing at the mummy holding the stone, taking its legs out from under it. It fell backwards, squishing itself comically. He took care of the others and freed himself. He cut the bindings from your wrist and helped you off the slab. “Better late than never, right?”

“We’ll reevaluate that later.”

Baekhyun emerged from a side corridor. Oh, thank goodness. As if he were reading the Sunday paper, he studied the front of the book. “Cousin, I found an inscription here. Rash- Rasheem oola… kashka!”

A pair of doors burst open and out marched mummified soldiers with shields and spears. 

“Oh, wonderful.” At least you weren’t the only one who mucked up by reading out loud. 

Two by two, they came out until there were ten now facing you, Junmyeon, and Sehun. 

“This just keeps getting better and better,” Sehun muttered angrily.

“Baekhyun, do something,” you begged.

“Me?” Baekhyun squeaked as he backed up against a pillar. 

“Yes, you! You raised them! You can control them!”

“You’re joking, right?”

The soldiers marched on, coming in closer. You weren’t armed and you doubted Junmyeon and Sehun could hold all of them off. “Finish the inscription on the cover, you idiot!”

“Oh! Right!” Baekhyun scrambled to hide behind the pillar. 

Focused on the enemy in front of you, the one that had just been resurrected had been left forgotten. 

Anck-Su-Namun snatched you away from behind just as the mummified soldiers pounced. You managed to get out of her grip and were now playing a rather unfun game of tag while she chased you with the ceremonial dagger, keen on killing you herself so she could be fully revived. 

“Baekhyun, hurry up, please!”

“I can’t figure out this last symbol!”

“What does it look like!” You ran around the pillars and figures, lucky that you still had all of your ligaments to move quickly with. But Anck-Su-Namun had caught on and cut you off from around a corner, clutching your neck as you fought to keep the dagger away from your heart. 

“Its… its, uh… a bird!” Baekhyun started flapping an arm in a wing-like motion. “No! A stork!”

You pushed the air past your throat to give him the answer. “Ahmenophus!”

“Ah! That makes sense!” He read over the sentence again before yelling, “Hootash im ahmenophus!”

With a kick to her brittle rips, you managed to break free from Anck-Su-Namun right as the mummy soldiers froze. Right on time, too, as it seemed both Junmyeon and Sehun were about to be impaled. You ran to Baekhyuun and ripped the book out of his hands. “Give that to me!” Turning back to the one who had tried to kill you, you said, “Fa-kooshka, Anck-Su-Namum!”

The soldiers didn’t move as Anck-Su-Namun stalked closer. 

“Oh, fine!” You motioned for Baekhyun, who very smugly repeated the order. The soldiers backed off Junmyeon and Sehun, going for their new prey as Imhotep tried to stop them with his own shouting. It didn’t work. He watched in horror as, for the second time, his love was taken from him. All you saw was the soldiers surrounding her, then stabbing. She shrieked in pain and then was once again… silent

Imhotep roared in anger. He swept up sand as he turned on you and Baekhyun, vowing death to you both. Junmyeon ran up from behind and cut off one of his arms, getting his attention instead. The robes slipped from Imhotep’s body as he picked up the severed arm and reattached it, stepping determinedly in Junmyeon’s direction. 

The robes. 

The key! 

You hurried forward, eyes never leaving Imhotep in case he remembered what he had left behind. It took a moment of searching the folds of black, tattered fabric, but eventually you found the key. “Keep him busy!” you told Junmyeon. 

“Yeah, no problem,” was grunted back to you.  

Inserting the key, you twisted it three times until the claws clicked open. You flipped through the heavy slabs, eyes constantly on the search for the right inscription. There was so much here. So much knowledge, so much history, you were getting distracted. 

Save Junmyeon! You told yourself. Stay focused and save Junmyeon!

“Hurry!” Baekhyun urged. 

You growled back, “You’re not helping!”

Imhotep now had Junmyeon by the throat, feet off the ground and face turning purple. You were running out of time!

There! “I have it! Kadeesh mal! Kadeesh mal! Pared oos! Pared oos!”

A wind from nowhere kicked up through the air. From the top of the staircase, a ghostly horse-drawn carriage came sailing in, down the stairs and straight for him.

Horrified and knowing exactly what was headed his way, Imhotep dropped Junmyeon and tried to run. But the carriage was faster. 

It barreled through him, taking with it a translucent outline of himself, rounding the room before trotting back up the staircase and through the purplish wormhole that it had come from. Imhotep chased after it as if he could steal what was stolen from him back. But that was impossible. 

Junmyeon picked up his dropped sword and scrambled to you, weapon high for the next round of the fight. “I thought you said that would kill him.”

Imhotep stomped forward, eyes fixed on your group. So focused on his target that he never saw Sehun come in from behind and stab his own sword through Imhotep’s back. 

 You smirked. “He’s mortal now.”

He stared down at the blade that was protruding from his stomach. Staggering, his eyes were round from shock, little by little the light of life fading. His feet shuffled closer to the pit’s edge until he finally fell in and sunk beneath the surface. As he faded from view, his skin disintegrated until he was back in the form that you first found him. Words echoed around as he gave one last message. Handing the book back to Baekhyun, you translated it for the others. 

“Death… is only the beginning.”

“Thank god that’s over,” Baekhyun sighed. 

You squeezed his shoulder, thankful to whomever that he was alive. That you all were. “We should get out of here.”

“Where’s Beni?” Sehun asked as he surveyed the room. Oh, right. You’d nearly forgotten about him. 

“Probably halfway back to Cairo with a bag full of gold,” Junmyeon said bitterly. 

Then, suddenly, the walls began to tremble, sand fell in falls from the ceiling 

“Time to go!” Junmyeon grabbed your hand and headed for the exit. Baekhyun, who was leading in front, slipped on a pile of sand as he crossed one of the bridges. You watched in horror as the book flew from his hands and into the water, sinking beyond retrieval. 

“You lost the book! How could you lose the book!”

“Oh, come on!” All three yelled at you. Nothing could be done. The Book of Amun-Ra was lost. You’d cry about it later. 

Navigating the halls, sand and walls were falling all around you, seeking to trap you in. Junmyeon led the group through a giant room filled with gold. Baekhyun whimpered at all the treasure he was able to take with him, but at least he kept running. 

“Wait for me! Wait for me!”

As you left the hall of gold, you turned to see Beni running after you. The ceiling above was slowly lowering. If he didn’t pick it up, he’d be trapped forever. A small opening barely big enough for a human was starting to sink beneath the floor. Baekhyun made it through. Sehun made it through. You made it through. 

Junmyeon came in last, sliding across the sand and then flipping over, his hand reaching out towards Beni, who was still a good ten or fifteen feet away. “Come on, come on, come on!” Hate him or not, Junmyeon would try to help. But Beni didn’t make it and the opening disappeared. Junmyeon sighed. Then shrugged. “Bye-bye, Beni.”

He jumped up to his feet and rejoined the group. 

Finally outside, the columns and temples were also falling, causing you all to zig-zag all around the city as it crumbled to the ground. The sand beneath your feet shook. You made it out of the city’s boundary. When you were far enough out of the blast zone, you stopped and watched as what was once a great archeological find sink into the sand, never to be seen again. 

Baekhyun screamed out of nowhere. You panicked, thinking Imhotep wasn’t truly dead. But then you saw the shadow. And then the camel. And then the man riding it. 

“Ardeth!” You were so happy to see him alive! You had been so worried about getting out yourself, you hadn’t been able to ask the others what had happened to him. 

“Thank you for that heart attack,” Baekhyun scolded as he rubbed his chest. He would be fine. If the wine and women hadn’t killed him yet, you were sure he would live through this. 

Ardeth bowed his head. “From me and my people, you have earned our respect and gratitude.”

Baekhyun chuckled, waving it off with false modesty. “Well… it was nothing.”

“Speak for yourself,” Sehun muttered as he spat dirt from his mouth. 

Ardeth grinned then clicked his tongue to urge the camel on. 

Shaking his head, Baekhyun turned back to the flat surface that used to be Hamunaptra. “Wonderful. We go home empty-handed. Again.”

Junmyeon looked down at you and with the softest expression, disagreed. “I wouldn’t say that.”

Heat bloomed on your cheeks as his meaning sunk in. Sehun understood as well, rolling his eyes and turning away. Cupping your jaw with his fingers, Junmyeon leaned in and kissed you deeply, pulling you in closer.

Yes, he was right. You were truly walking away with the adventure of a lifetime.

[bright-eyes-strawberry-lies]

I can always tell when people haven't read the books and are just parroting shit they hear thinking it’s so hot when it’s icy cold so welcome to another segment of Robin Educates Ya'll With Quotes From The Series: Nico and Percy edition!

--

“I won’t tell on you,” he said. “But you have to promise to keep my sister safe.”

“I...that’s a big thing to promise, Nico, on a trip like this. Besides, she’s got Zoe, Grover, and Thalia -”

“Promise,” he insisted.

“I’ll do my best. I promise that.”

[Titan’s Curse, pg 119]

--

Bianca’s jaw tightened. “No. I’ll go.”

“You can’t! You’re new at this! You’ll die.”

“It’s my fault the monster came after us,” she said. “It’s my responsibility. Here.” She picked up the little god statue and pressed it into my hand. “If anything happens, give that to Nico. Tell him...tell him I’m sorry.”

“Bianca!” But she wasn’t waiting for me. She charged at the monster’s left foot.

[Titan’s Curse, pg 196]

--

Awestruck, I looked to Nico. “How did you-”

“Go away!” he yelled. “I hate you! I wish you were dead!”

The ground didn’t swallow me up, but Nico ran down the steps, heading toward the woods. I started to follow but slipped and fell onto the icy steps. When I got up, I noticed what I’d slipped on.

[Titan’s Curse, pg 308]

--

Annabeth and Grover helped me search the woods for hours, but there was no sign of Nico di Angelo. [Titan’s Curse, pg 309]

--

“I can’t let Nico be in any more danger,” I said. “I owe that much to his sister. I...I let them both down. I’m not going to let that poor kid suffer anymore.”

“The poor kid who hates you and wants to see you dead,” Grover reminded me.

“Maybe we can find him,” I said. “We can convince him it’s okay, hide him someplace safe.”

[Titan’s Curse, pg 310]

--

“So the Nico boy is gone now?”

“I-I guess. I tried to search for him this spring. So did Annabeth. But we didn’t have any luck. This is secret, Tyson, okay? If anyone found out he was a son of Hades, he would be in danger. You can’t even tell Chiron.”

[Battle of the Labyrinth, pg 38]

--

“Percy has been worried about you, Nico. He can help. I let him see what you were up to, hoping he would find you.”

[Battle of the Labyrinth, pg 167]

--

“We missed you at dinner,” I said. “You could’ve sat with me.”

“No.”

“Nico, you can’t miss every meal. If you don’t want to stay with Hermes, maybe they can make an exception and put you in the Big House. They’ve got plenty of rooms.”

“I’m not staying, Percy.”

“But...you can’t just leave. It’s too dangerous out there for a lone half-blood. You need to train.”

“I train with the dead,” he said flatly. “This camp isn’t for me. There’s a reason they didn’t put a cabin to Hades here, Percy. He’s not welcome, any more than he is on Olympus. I don’t belong. I have to go.”

I wanted to argue, but part of me knew he was right. I didn’t like it, but Nico would have to find his own, dark way.

[..]

“Makes sense,” I admitted. “But I hope we don’t have to be enemies.”

He lowered his gaze. “I’m sorry I was a brat. I should’ve listened to you about Bianca.”

[...]

I wasn’t sure what he meant, but I nodded. “Keep in touch, Nico.”

[Battle of the Labyrinth, pg 342-344]

--

He looked up at the Furies and took a deep breath. “I’ve done what my father asked. Take us to the palace.”

I tense. “Wait a second, Nico. What do you -”

“I’m afraid this is my new lead, Percy. My father promised me information about my family, but he wants to see you before we try the river. I’m sorry.”

“You tricked me?” I was so mad I couldn’t think. I lunged at him, but the Furies were fast. Two of them swooped down and plucked me up by the arms. [...] “All right, traitor,” I growled at Nico. “You’ve got your prize. Take me to the stupid palace.”

[The Last Olympian, pg 119/120]

--

The mountain of darkness loomed above me. A foot the size of Yankee Stadium was about to smash me when a voice hissed, “Percy!”

I lunged out blindly. Before I was fully awake, I had Nico pinned to the floor of the cell with the edge of my sword at his throat.

“Want...to...rescue,” he choked.

Anger woke me up fast. “Oh, yeah? And why should I trust you?”

“No...choice?” he gagged.

I wished he hadn’t said something logical like that. I let him go.

Nico curled into a ball and made retching sounds while his throat recovered. Finally he got to his feet, eyeing my sword warily. His own blade was sheathed. I suppose if he’d wanted to kill me, he could have done it while I slept. Still, I didn’t trust him.

[The Last Olympian, pg 129/130]

--

Nico slid off Mrs. O’Leary’s back and crumpled in a heap on the black sand.

I took out a square of ambrosia - part of the emergency god-food I always kept with me. It was a little bashed up, but Nico chewed it.

“Uh,” he mumbled. “Better.”

[...]

I caught him before he could pass out again.

[The Last Olympian, pg 132]

--

“Go back to your father,” I told Nico. “Tell him he owes me for letting him go. Find out what’s going to happen to Mount Olympus and convince him to help.”

Nico stared at me. “I...I can’t. He’ll hate me now. I mean...even more.”

“You have to,” I said. “You owe me too.”

His ears turned red. “Percy, I told you I was sorry. Please...let me come with you. I want to fight.”

“You’ll be more help down here.”

“You mean you don’t trust me anymore,” he said miserably.

I didn’t answer. I didn’t know what I meant. I was too stunned by what I’d just done in battle to think clearly.

“Just go back to your father,” I said, trying not to sound too harsh. “Work on him. You’re the only person who might be able to get him to listen.”

[The Last Olympian, pg 139/140]

--

Percy stared at his jelly donut. He had a rocky history with Nico di Angelo. The guy had once tricked him into visiting Hades’s palace, and Percy had ended up in a cell. But most of the time, Nico sided with the good guys. He certainly didn’t deserve slow suffocation in a bronze jar, and Percy couldn’t stand seeing Hazel in pain.

“We’ll rescue him,” he promised her. “We have to. The prophecy says he holds the key to endless death.”

[Mark of Athena, pg 172/173]

--

“Plans?” Hazel asked. “Nico has until sunset - at best. And this entire city is supposedly getting destroyed today.”

Percy shook himself out of his daze. “You’re right. Annabeth...did you zero in on that spot from your bronze map?”

[Mark of Athena, pg 384/385]

--

Otis trudged over to the dias, stopping occasionally to do a pile. He knocked over the jar, the lid popped off, and Nico di Angelo spilled out. The sight of his deathly pale face and too-skinny frame made Percy’s heart stop. Percy couldn’t tell if he was dead or alive. He wanted to rush over and check, but Ephialtes stood in his way.

[Mark of Athena, pg 508]

--

At Otis’s feet, Nico shuddered. Percy felt like a hellhound hamster wheel somewhere in his chest had started moving again. At least Nico was alive.

[Mark of Athena, pg 509]

--

The past week or so, Percy had imagined a lot of scathing things he might say to Nico when they met again, but the guy looked so frail and sad, Percy couldn’t muster up much anger.

[Mark of Athena, pg 536]

--

Nico’s eyes looked like shattered glass. Percy wondered sadly if something inside him had broken permanently.

[Mark of Athena, pg 539]

--

To recap: Percy never promised Nico that he wouldn't let Bianca die - he promised to do his best. Percy never promised Bianca that he would look after Nico. Percy spends months looking for Nico and never not even once told him to get lost. Nico was manipulated by Hades so that he'd bring Percy to him, and Percy was rightfully angry about it. The last person to betray Percy was Luke (and you all want Luke to die for that). Percy constantly worries about Nico.

Percy doesn't have to apologize to Nico for shit and he didn't "do him dirty" in the slightest.

[eriklivesinmybasement]

Rise of the Guardians: Is it as good as we remember?

(Oof! I’ve been working on this one for a long while! Buckle up buttercup, this is gonna be a long one!)

(Before I get into this, I want everyone to know that I’m not claiming anything to be fact. This is just my personal opinion).

Back in November of 2012, we were greeted with Rise of the Guardians. This movie, based on the books entitled The Guardians of Childhood, written by William Joyce, gave us a new and unique take on our favorite childhood characters. This included Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, Jack Frost, and more.

While it didn’t do so well at the box office, it seemed to explode in popularity. It spawned a fandom fairly quickly, even spawning a couple fandoms that branched off of it. For a long while there it seemed that, wherever you looked, you saw cosplays, fanart, tribute videos, fanfiction, etc. Loads of people seemed to absolutely love this movie, and I, as a twelve-year-old at the time and thus a part of the target audience, was no exception.

Even now eight years later, I still claim to love this movie. Even though I haven’t seen it in a long while, it left a huge impact on me as a writer and artist, which is why I am sad to see the fanbase slowly dwindling away. So I went back and watched it again, and as I sat there ready to press the ‘play’ button, I began to wonder. 

Will this movie be as good as I remember it?

And the answer? Yes and no.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I still really like this movie, and I still stand by it being one of my favorites. But just like everything else in life, nothing is perfect. And while still amazing, this movie does indeed have some flaws. 

And as I like to save the best for last, I’ll start off by diving into some of the movies flaws.

Flaw #1 - Pacing

The pacing in this movie can be a little awkward from time to time. Nothing super jarring, but enough to make me go, “I’m sorry, what?”. 

Some scenes seemed to just jump from one to the other without much warning. Either that, or the transition from one scene to the next seemed a little off. One example of this is when North, Bunny, Sandman, and Jack Frost set off to the Tooth Palace. There was nothing inherently wrong with these scenes, but the transition between the two seemed a little awkward. One minute we were having a nice, calm moment between North and Jack, and then all of a sudden we get a quick, action-like sequence with the sleigh.

Another moment that felt awkwardly paced was the introduction of the movies villain, Pitch Black. It seemed like there should’ve been more buildup to him. We got a bit, but moments of buildup seemed quite few and far between. When he was introduced it felt almost a little random, him just appearing for a few moments and disappearing just as quick didn’t seem to work or do him justice.

There are other scenes, but I won’t go over those now, as I guess I’m probably already bugging some hardcore RotG fans.

Flaw #2 - Unexplored Questions and Backstories

Alright, before I get people shouting me down about how, “If I want backstory and questions answered I should read the books”, hear me out.

When you make a story, whether it be in the form of a movie or book, you’re going to want it to make sense. You’re going to want everything to tie together. It’s true that the original books do this, but it’s not seen in the movie. So for those who watch the movie, they may walk out confused about some aspects of it. The two parts I’m going to focus on here are Pitch Black’s backstory, and how Sandman came back to life.

Every story needs a good villain, and Pitch Black is certainly a well-defined villain. But here’s the problem. We get no backstory or explanation as to how he came to be. We do get a quick flashback to Pitch during the ‘Dark Ages’, which gives us his motivation as to why he’s doing what he’s doing. But that’s it. We get no other real backstory to how he came to be. Actually, we don’t get that for any of the other Guardians besides Jack Frost. But again, the other Guardians lack of backstory could be forgiven, as none of them are the main characters. But it’s important to tell a villains backstory because it gives the audience something to connect with.

Onto the next question. How exactly did Sandman come back to life?

This is a question that’s actually been on my mind for a while now. How exactly did Sandy come back? In the movie we clearly see him die, so how did he come back from the dead? The only lead I got is that maybe the kids somehow brought him back. During the final confrontation with Pitch, Jamie touches some of the black nightmare sand and it turns gold. It’s later on after that that he looks to the other kids and says, “I know what we have to do,” and they run offscreen for a little while, only for Sandy to show up soon after. Did Sandy come back through the kids believing in him again? Did they preform some sort of ritual to call him back from the dead? Who knows. It’s a dumb nitpick, I know, but I still wonder.

Well, now that I got that out of the way, and the RotG fandom is probably coming after my head, I’ll go over the strengths of this movie. And trust me, these really help the movie stand out.

Strength #1 - The Characters

All the characters in this movie are phenomenal! But to be honest, Jack Frost was the reason I originally wanted to watch this film when it first came out. Growing up I never really heard any stories about Jack Frost, and the only Jack Frost I ever saw in the media was of a withered old man. So seeing him portrayed as a teenager seemed pretty interesting. And the character was handled and written very well. His backstory was intriguing, he had a fun and enjoyable personality, but that’s not all.

One thing that was really great about Jack Frost’s character was his struggle throughout the story, and it’s actually a pretty relatable struggle as well. In the story, Jack Frost starts out not knowing who he really is or why he’s even alive. Not only that, but it seems that no mortals can see him, effectively making him invisible to the entire world. The story follows him as he looks for answers to his identity. 

This can be a very relatable situation, especially for preteens and early teenagers who are still trying to figure themselves out. And most all of us get to this point. We reach a time in our lives, often in our youth, where we start to wonder exactly who/what kind of person we are. Along with the desire to discover ourselves, there is also the fear/feeling of being invisible and isolated, not understanding where we exactly fit in. Again, everyone reaches a place like that as well, where we feel invisible to the world. Just a passerby. Like we have something amazing to share, if only we could get someone to see it. 

The other characters don’t come off as deep or complex as Jack, but that doesn’t make them any less enjoyable. Santa, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, and Sandman were all very creatively designed and portrayed. A lot of the fun from this movie actually came from all these strong, drastically different personalities clashing with and bouncing off of one another. It made for some fun dialogue and hilarious moments which had me laughing off and on throughout the beginning of the film. 

Strength #2 - The Villain

Pitch Black is, without a doubt, one of my favorite DreamWorks villains. I loved everything about this character. From the voice, the design, the aesthetic, it’s all wonderful! But the one thing that set this villain up above many others was that he straight up killed an important character onscreen.

Reminder, I was twelve when this movie came out, and up until then, I wasn’t often exposed to death scenes like this in animated films. I grew up majorly on Disney animated movies and shows, and when a character died, it was usually offscreen. And on the occasion it was onscreen? The villain only indirectly killed a character. For example, in the Lion King, Scar pushed Mufasa into a gorge where a stampede was taking place. Scar killed him indirectly, as he’s the one who put him there, but the stampede is what really did the work.

But in this case it was much different. It’s not like Pitch took Sandy off to the side and killed him there. No, we legit saw this whole scene happen and play out on screen. When I first saw it, it blew my mind! This was actually kind of new for me! We saw Pitch take that shot at Sandy, and we actually saw Sandy’s final moments as he died. When you have a villain physically kill off a beloved character on screen, it sends a message. It sends the message that this villain isn’t all talk. That this villain really does have great power of their own, and that they are serious about getting what they want. That they aren’t going to let anyone get in their way. They mean business. And that was perfectly executed in this scene. (No pun intended).

Strength #3 - The Creativity and Art

I think it goes without saying that this movie is unbelievably creative! Everything from the locations, animation, and the characters themselves in both personality and design are just bursting with creative energy! The animation is incredibly detailed, and for DreamWorks as an animation studio, I think this has to be some of their best work. The colors, textures, details, and everything in between are just so beautifully done. In terms of creativity, two of the locations I want to talk about are the Tooth Palace and Pitch Black’s lair. 

When it comes to the Tooth Palace, the artists and creators were given a lot of creative freedom. In media there is no set idea of a place where the Tooth Fairy lives or operates. We all know Santa lives in a workshop, and it makes sense to think that the Easter Bunny lives in a Warren, but no one really knows what to expect when it comes to the Tooth Fairy. When we saw the Tooth Palace, we were treated to some highly detailed and stunning imagery, all with a lovely color scheme of soft pinks, purples, and blues with accents of gold. Not to mention the design of the structural design was a spectacle itself to behold.

And then we have Pitch Black’s lair. As a lowkey goth at twelve years old in the early 2010s, the aesthetic here made it one of my favorite parts of the movie. This set here is similar to the Tooth Palace in that, the creators had a greater level of creative freedom, as we never really think about where exactly the Boogeyman lives. I mean, we know he kinda lives under beds, but that doesn’t sound as cool as living in a spooky, gothic underground secret lair. (But in all honesty, I do really enjoy the detail of the entrance of his lair being under an old, broken down bedframe. It’s a very good nod to the old stories).

It’s like a maze. A labyrinth full of shadows, and looks like the interior of an old, gothic castle that’s somewhat tilting into an abyss. It’s color scheme is predominantly full of grays and blacks, and the surprisingly elegant-looking cages hanging from an invisible ceiling really helps to establish a more gothic look. And since the lair is very dark and shadowed, it fits and aids Pitch black perfectly, in that he can morph in and out of shadows as he pleases. This gives him plenty of places to hide as he’s making an effort to mess with and get into Jack’s head.

The last piece of creativity I want to touch on is how the characters are presented. And holy crap after this movie this is the only way I can view Santa, Tooth Fairy, Easter Bunny, etc.!

They take these beloved characters that we are already familiar with, and, while still somewhat showing them as we know them, present them in an entirely different way. 

We all see Santa Claus as this huge, lovable man with a big belly who’s always jolly. And while that is what we get from this Santa, or North, as they call him, it’s very much flipped on its head. While still jolly, North is very eccentric, high-energy, and is strong-armed, duel broadsword wielding Russian warrior with tattoos. Seriously, who thinks of a Russian warrior when they think of Santa?! Well, now I do! Also the fact that he’s not always super happy like other incarnations of the character. We get to see that he’s very capable of getting both upset and frustrated. It’s a pretty interesting way to humanize such a beloved character.

We then have the Easter Bunny, who is played by Hugh Jackman. Say that out loud. The Easter Bunny is being played by Hugh Jackman. Growing up, me and many other kids saw the Easter Bunny as a small, cute little critter who hopped around the world leaving baskets and painting eggs. Not a tall, boomerang wielding fighter from the Australian outback. Not only that, but giving him a small rivalry with North was interesting, and snot something I ever really thought about. As well as the idea of a the Easter Bunny having somewhat of a temper.

In terms of character design, I feel like both the Tooth Fairy and Sandman had the most creative freedom. We don’t see these two characters often portrayed in media, so they were able to receive some really cool and unique-looking designs. Especially the Tooth Fairy. Did you ever think of the Tooth Fairy looking a like an elegant cross between a beautiful woman and a hummingbird? No, of course you didn’t. But Rise of the Guardians gave us just that, and it truly set its place for it’s own individual take on this childhood legend. 

Pitch Black is a fairy creative villain as well. When you hear about the Boogeyman, you don’t get very scared. The name actually sounds a little silly when you say it out loud. And even then, because of the success of The Nightmare Before Christmas, you usually think of their incarnation of the character when you hear that name. But this version of the character is actually much different. He’s not this weird, in-your-face kind of monster. He’s a very subtle, yet terrifying character. When I first saw the movie in theaters, there were kids in the room crying at moments when Pitch Black came on screen. It’s also interesting the way his powers work. We all grew up knowing the Boogeyman as someone who just hid under beds. We had no idea what magical powers he may or may not have had. So giving him the ability to morph into the darkness and into shadows was a pretty cool concept, but also solidified that he had a weakness. Light.

So, In Conclusion...

As I have gotten older, I admit that this movie does look a little different to me now, versus when I saw it as a preteen. I’ve noticed some interesting flaws here and there, but I’ve also been able to remember why I fell in love with it in the first place. It’s a very different kind of movie, but that’s part of what makes it so much fun and interesting.

The characters are delightful, the villain is intimidating, the story, while awkwardly paced, is still pretty solid, and is all tied together with a great lead character. And as you get invested in the story, you’ll find yourself getting really into the all artistry that went into creating this movie.

At the end of the day, it makes me sad to see the fanbase for this movie slowly dwindling away. But I feel there are always going to be people out there who enjoy this movie. And you know what? You never know what the future holds. Perhaps there will be a movie in the distant future. Or more likely a animated series on either TV or Netflix. And for the hardcore fans, go and read the original books. 

All I can say here is that, every now and again when it starts to get a little nippy outside, I’ll sit in my living room with hot chocolate and give this movie another watch.

[tsarisfanfiction]

Desert Sands: Part 4

Fandom: Thunderbirds Rating: Teen Genre: Hurt/Comfort/Family Characters: Scott, John, Alan, EOS

Oops, been a little while since I last posted anything so I thought I’d chuck some more of this one out into the void...  I’m still not done writing this one but that’s the fault of the other fic I’m attempting to work on (which keeps throwing me into stumbling blocks at the moment, which is super annoying). 

<<<Part 3

John’s knees jarred when he made the jump from the top of the space elevator to the hot sands below.  In front of him, the large monstrosity of an EMP generator loomed and he stumbled across to it, running his eyes over the control panel.  No Thunderbird Five, no EOS.  No communications at all.  It was just John and the EMP generator, alone for over a hundred miles in each direction. By the time Thunderbird Two returned, he had to have it disabled, otherwise their third and final Thunderbird designed for atmospheric flight would join her sisters in the sand.

No pressure.

The inelegant solution would be to smash it, but it was huge, towering far above him, and John didn’t have the strength nor the tools to break the entire thing.  Gritting his teeth, and wishing he had gecko gloves, he started to climb.

Behind him, the space elevator retracted, travelling at a much faster speed than it had dropped him.  Thunderbirds Five and Three must have been out of time; he’d been hoping the elevator would have been able to stay until he’d dealt with the generator, but apparently not.

He was going to need retrieving as well, but with no working communications he couldn’t contact his brothers to organise that; he’d just have to trust that they wouldn’t forget about him with the overriding priority of Scott in the fore of their minds.  At the very least, EOS shouldn’t forget about him.

But no-one was going to be retrieving him until the EMP was gone. Armed with a selection of short-circuited tools and his own brain, John reached the control panel, which glared at him tauntingly.

You can’t stop me, it jeered.  You’ll fail and die and with no-one to reach Scott, he’ll die, too. Thunderbird Two will crash, and then Alan’ll be the only one left.  International Rescue is finished.

Unfortunately for the control panel, John had long since learnt to work through doubts, facing down the odds over and over again because if there was one thing he loved more than space, it was his family, and he wasn’t going to let them down.  Not now, not ever.

They didn’t call him a genius for nothing.  A selection of short-circuited tools and his brain was all John needed to break it.

And time.  With no gear, John didn’t know how long it took before the thing gave a pathetic whine and powered off.  Just to be sure, he awkwardly scaled the entire thing, watching for fail safes and backups, breaking anything that looked remotely like it could be used to repower the EMP.  Only once he was certain the machine couldn’t possibly restart did he back away from it.

Job done.  Thunderbird Two could reach Scott now.

He flopped down onto the sands, letting gravity have its way because that was less effort than fighting it.  They were hot, even through his uniform – his short-circuited, no longer temperature-controlled uniform – and John belatedly realised he didn’t have any water with him.

Well, nothing to do now except stare at the sky and wait to be retrieved.

His retrieval was nothing like he’d anticipated.  He’d thought Thunderbird Two would fly overhead, pausing just long enough to collect him, before they carried on towards Thunderbird One and Scott.

The sight of a giant red rocket landing in the Sahara despite her pilot being told numerous times that he was going nowhere except home was a surprise, although given the situation, John couldn’t scold Alan too much.

“Drink,” his little brother ordered the moment he succeeded in clambering into the cockpit, shedding the dead exosuit and his sand-encrusted helmet. He watched Alan climb around his cockpit, fastening the discarded gear and handing him his spare helmet from Thunderbird Five as he emptied a water bottle.  “Strap in, we’re going to get Scott.”

“What about Thunderbird Two?” John asked, obeying.

“Thunderbird Two is still thirty two minutes away from Thunderbird One’s location,” EOS informed him coolly.  “Thunderbird Three will make the journey from your current location in four point eight minutes.”

“So we’re going on ahead,” Alan said, firing Thunderbird Three’s retros to get them back into the sky.  “Hold on, this might get bumpy.”

Bumpy was one way of putting it.  Thunderbird Three was most definitely not suited to flying so close to the surface of the Earth, and John watched as his youngest brother wrestled with the controls, keeping her barely on course until they reached EOS’s co-ordinates for Thunderbird One.

The expulsion of the Vernier jets blew away the light covering of sand as they passed overhead, revealing the damaged Thunderbird in all her glory.

“She’s belly down,” he observed, frowning.  That made things more awkward – with both the pilot exit and the cargo doors buried, access would have to be done by the dorsal hatch.  More clambering, wonderful.

Alan set them down alongside, and John immediately disembarked, trawling through the sand to the other Thunderbird.  Her hull was scorching hot to the touch, even through his uniform, and he grimaced as he clambered up, using dents as hand and foot holds until he reached the dorsal hatch.

It was jammed shut because of course it was.

Behind him came a clunk, clunk, and he turned back to see Alan using his magnets to clamber the hull, a bag over his shoulder.

“Here,” the blond said, nudging him out of the way.  “I’ll cut the hatch.”  In his hands was his hand-laser, usually referred to by the teenager as a tin opener.  He wasn’t calling it that this time, clearly as aware as John that it was one of their own ships they were slicing open.

As soon as the dorsal hatch surrendered, John was through, dropping down into the confines of Thunderbird One.  He was dismayed to find that the air inside the ship was just as hot as outside, if not more so – clearly the EMP had knocked all of Thunderbird One’s temperature controls out, leaving the metal hull to conduct and amplify the unforgiving heat of the desert even inside.  It was also pitch black; even the emergency lighting had fallen victim to the EMP.

John fumbled with glowsticks, snapping them and illuminating the interior of the Thunderbird in a sickly green glow.  That observation, however, paled against the unmoving form slumped underneath the pilot seat, face down.

“Scott!” he exclaimed, picking his way forward and crouching on the broken glass that had once been the viewing window-come-pilot access.  His brother didn’t react, and with a sinking feeling he realised that the visor of the helmet had broken.  Blood had congealed on Scott’s face, the source unidentifiable from John’s angle, but more concerning was the sand invading through the broken window and helmet, peppering Scott’s lips and plastered to his face.

Scott’s eyes were closed.

“John?”  Alan dropped in behind him, and made a noise of shocked distress.  “Scott?”

“Did you bring a medical scanner from Thunderbird Three?” John asked, not daring to take his eyes off his fallen brother.  One appeared in his view, the gloved hand that held it not quite steady, and he accepted it, immediately setting it to assess Scott for injuries. “Find out how far out Thunderbird Two is.”

He tuned Alan out as the teenager started talking into his comm, glaring at the scanner and willing it to work faster.  Out of all of them, he had the least medical training – there was less of a need for it when he so rarely took part in rescues – but it was clear even to him that Scott likely had a concussion, and considering how hot it was inside Thunderbird One, they’d be lucky if they only had to worry about heat exhaustion.

Even heat exhaustion would be bad enough, but before John could touch him he had to make sure there were no other injuries – especially internal ones – that could be worsened by movement.

While he waited for it to finish, he glanced up at the seat above them. The restraints should have prevented Scott from falling out of his seat, even if he’d fallen unconscious, but they were lifted.  That was odd, unless…

“Scott?” he called again, resting a hand lightly on his brother’s left shoulder as the medical scan showed up nothing majorly wrong with it – some nasty bruising was in Scott’s future, if it wasn’t already starting, but that was all. There was still no answer.

“They’re ten minutes out,” Alan reported, coming up next to him and crouching down in the broken glass.  “How is he?”

“Scan’s still working,” John shrugged, watching the holographic copy of his prone brother appear piece by piece above him, red warning lights flashing up near the right shoulder.  Oranges and yellows dotted the rest of his body; to John’s relief, his bleeding head was only flagged yellow – whatever impact it had taken had obviously been mostly absorbed by the broken helmet.  Heart rate was also flagged up as too slow, while his body temperature declared one oh four and still rising.

“I’ll get a blanket,” Alan said, standing back up and heading for one of the many lockers that decorated Thunderbird One’s interior.  John heard the hiss of the manual release and then Alan was back, laying the blanket down next to their brother.

“Good thinking,” John praised, zooming in on the results of the shoulder and wincing.  Right, that made things a little more complicated, but they needed Scott on his back to best fight the heat exhaustion.  It was only the one issue, however, and John sent a quick prayer of thanks to their Mom for Scott’s comparative lack of injury before directing Alan to Scott’s legs.  “Roll him on three.  One… two… three!”

Scott wasn’t the lightest fairy in the world, and John was hyper aware of the broken collarbone as he guided his brother’s torso over, keeping an eye on the suit for any sign that the bone had broken the skin.

There was a quiet groan as they got him settled on the blanket, John carefully detaching the remains of the helmet and clearing broken fragments away from his face.

“Scott?” he tried again, lightly brushing the sand away from where sweat had stuck it to his brother’s face.  Eyelids fluttered, but didn’t open.  “Alan, we have to get his temperature down.”

“Already on it.”  A cutter was pressed into his hands.  “Get as much of his uniform off as you can while I get the cool packs working.”  John didn’t stop to think, the powerful tool sheering through the baldric at the shoulder, hip and thigh to remove the grey material and reveal the full extent of the blue flight suit Scott wore.

Considering the relative minority of Scott’s injuries, John was very grateful to that flight suit.  However, it had done its job, and he didn’t hesitate to pull the zipper down and re-engage the cutter to lop parts of the uniform off.  It was sticky with sweat, despite Brains designing it to be anti-sweat, and John sacrificed a moment to remove his own gloves from his dead suit. Scott was cool and clammy to the touch, but it was easier to feel the rise and fall of his chest which, even if it was rather slow, reassured them that he was still with them.

John had every intention of making sure he didn’t leave them.

Part 5>>>

[apriki]

RISE OF SKYWALKER

IT HAS BEEN SEEN MY FRIENDS... LET’S GO

IT WAS A LOVE STORY ALL ALONG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YOU. GUYS. I AM SO... ALIVE RIGHT NOW I 

okay that opening scrawl i laughed so hard... THE DEAD SPEAK!!

‘supreme leader kylo ren’ will never not be funny

OKAY OPENING WITH KYLO I SCREAMED.... HIS BEAUTIFUL FACE

I LOVE HIM SO MUCH I CANNOT EVEN BEGIN TO EXPLAIN TO YOU.... HOW MUCH

okay and his ruthless hell bent search for this silly macguffin.... we love a demonic legend

and ALSO his determination to kill the past!!!!!! HE HAS LITERALLY BEEN CIRCLING THIS THE WHOLE SERIES

look, i am biased because kylo is my favourite and he has been the one thing that’s been consistently written and done across this trilogy and i’m very spoiled because i got everything i wanted here

but KYLO REN. KYLO REN!!!!!!!!!!!

laughed my ASS off at the snoke in the tube and palpatine being like ‘surprise bitch.... bet you thought you’d seen the last of me’

laughed decidedly LESS at ‘i’ve been every voice you’ve ever heard in your head’

look this isn’t going to be a review.... just my thoughts really and this decidedly isn’t a comparison with the last jedi which it seems like everyone wants to do in a weird victorious kind of way

but kylo killing snoke/his abuser in tlj was a terrifying powerful moment to watch and i loved it fiercely and still do, and for kylo to see that he hadn’t done that at all.... and that evil still abides.... fucking nightmare, honestly

and that’s when i started getting a feeling in the back of my head because look he is so determined to kill the past

(let the past die)

that he will kill himself as well to do it. that has always been kylo’s character since the very beginning. SO!!!!!

also the structural integrity of palp’s hideaway.... not great

palps: kill rey heh heh

kylo: i am absolutely not gonna do that but okay

omfg when kylo was like ME AND MY KNIGHTS OF REN ARE GOING HUNTING

i cannot explain to you how HILARIOUS the knights of ren are to me

they do nothing! they say nothing! they just stand around and look stupid in their stupid helmets..... i laughed every single time they were on screen

it’s like kylo’s uselessness manifests into what 6? 7 more useless things. the Knights of Ren

‘we’re going hunting’ are you TWELVE YEARS OLD

this film felt like it was going a million miles an hour, all the time, and that started for me in that first scene in the falcon which was going all over the place? for some reason?

anyway THERE’S A MOLE IN THE FIRST ORDER and i know it is hux but i kind of wanted it to be kylo on the side.... though i know he is not capable of any such subterfuge. about as subtle as a wrecking ball... and my SON

loved the comraderie with poe and finn. i liked the lived-in feeling of the relationships between the rebellion characters this time around

felt like they had that new alien dude in the falcon for no reason and for two seconds like... why

(to sell toys, of course. the same reason why they have a new tiny droid)

but that of course is just the first in a long line of new and underdeveloped characters in this movie. but you know what? i can accept this because the core emotional story was strong and also, it’s star wars? a big sprawling mess is what it has always, always been. ANYWHOMST

REY IN THE FOREST LEVITATING!!!!

the white outfit!!! how at one she is with nature??? SORRY IT WAS BEAUTIFUL

and okay the specific framing of rey and rey’s power in this movie as not only a part of the force but so specifically as a woman using the force... like the power of empathy! the power of healing!!! IT WAS BEAUTIFUL WHATEVER

when she called leia her MASTER? MY HEART

THE POWER OF WOMEN!!!

on the flip side, doesn’t it kind of feel like poe has a problem with women?

like as soon as he started riffing with rey i was like GET A JOB STAY AWAY FROM HER

but in hindsight i feel kind of better about them and their interactions... more on that later

FINN! finn in this movie was WONDERFUL

(except it annoyed me how they had the whole ‘there’s something i want to say to you’ and never had him say it... like even if he was going to say he loved rey okay just don’t leave it hanging like that?)

FORCE FUCKING SENSITIVE!!!!!!

look i really think they did they best they could with a really difficult job in incorporating leia and previous footage into this movie. it wouldn’t have felt right without her and the scenes were a bit clunky but again, a very very difficult thing to do

LEIA AND REY’S RELATIONSHIP..... MY HEART HURTS

i love that rey’s storyline has depth and motivation and kylo’s storyline is literally revolving around rey like she’s the sun

like i literally love this. MORE OF THIS!!!

FORCE BOND STILL EXISTSSSSSSSS

KNEW IT CALLED IT CLAIMED IT LOVE IT

the soft gasp rey does whenever kylo is about to show up for forceskype i love this song

the knights of ren standing around while kylo’s helmet got fixed omfg they are the stupidesttttt

kylo: maybe i don’t want to wear the helmet

the knights of ren: maybe shut the fuck up 

Let’s Go To Burning Man

i actually kind of liked seeing these people doing their own cool cultural thing. like again this movie went at lightspeed but i did enjoy that. what’s better than this? just aliens being dudes

when rey talked to that little girl and she asked her last name i was like LOLLLL HERE WE GOOOOOOOO

as soon as lando showed up it was like ‘oh it’s lando’

‘i offered you my hand’

‘I’LL OFFER YOU MY HAND AGAIN’ 

WHY DID HE SAY THIS... LIKE IT WAS A PROPOSAL

I WAS SCREECHING SORRY... WOW.

i have never really found C3PO funny but um he was going off in this movie... when they all looked at him and then he looked away I CACKLED

and the mind wipe like whew man... one day we’re gonna have a conversation about Droids And The Uncomfortable Conclusions About Droids in these movies

but also, i wish they’d had the guts to stick with it and not restore his memory because, what a symbol for the past dying and the end of a saga? like 3PO has been there since the start!! the star wars live in his memory banks ???? and R2 as well i suppose

don’t think too long about this cause then you realise that for some reason they’re still using like 80 year old iphones and R2 and 3PO should be decommissioned for scraps

WHEN HE TOOK THE NECKLACE OFF HER I FOUND IT HOT I FOUND IT SEXY I FOUND IT UMMMM

the sand was a cool visual thing but then THE SNAKE

it felt so GREEK HERO MYTH but then rey stops the script!!

AND DOESN’T FIGHT IT

AND SHE HEALS IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

as soon as rey healed that snake i was like

‘kylo ren is that snake’

blah blah dagger blah

the sith language and being forbidden actually interests me. i want more proper sith lore

basically i want a revan and bastila movie. make it so

keri russell was WASTED in this movie

but that one scene with her and rey where they had Mutual Respect was so much better and more important than anything she did with poe

poe is like... sure i guess. i mean i liked him better in this movie than tlj and i liked him more as the movie when on but hmmst 

but hey if i get to have a kylo then the poe people can have i poe. i begrudge no one

except, uh.... hux people. y’all really got done this movie huh. ouch

double as bad cause there was literally no point to the new general character. should have just been hux and then had him die in the final battle?

but i laughed when he was like ‘i don’t want you to WIN. i want kylo to LOSE’

THAT’S KING PETTY 

omfg when kylo was like ‘where are you’ and then saw the vader mask and was like ‘oh you’re in my room’

SCREECHED

KYLO’S EVIL BOARD MEETING

LAUGHED MY ASS OFF

WHEN HE SMACKED THAT DUDE TO THE ROOF

sorry the first order is a startup. not even an ‘evil’ one especially because they’re all just a bit evil 

when kylo reacted to that guy saying ‘we should take more children’ and the small thread winding through this movie about children being indoctrinated and rey and ben stopping THAT cycle.. important to me and i wish it had been bigger but i was glad it was there 

all kylo did in the first half of this movie was chase after his girlfriend and tell her how they were meant to be together and that he wasn’t going to kill her even though he should. i love one stupid man

kylo flying his ship at rey deliberately wanting to ‘push her’ and her jumping over it and crashing the whole damn thing

and then him just getting up and walking out of the wreck not a scratch on him

like some kind of hero in a romance novel in his stupid cape lmfaoaoooo... you love to see it

THE PUSH/PULL WITH THE TRANSPORT?

THEIR POWERRRRRR

and then rey with her fuckin LIGHTNING

as soon as that happened i was like, oh lol rey palps then....

but also, THE LOOK OF WONDER BUT ALSO VICTORY ON KYLO’S FACE

ADAM DRIVER SIR

okay to be honest the whole soujourn to the like space swiss village is kind of a blur to me

keri russell was wasted, did i say that already?

although okay that bit when poe was like ‘were you a stormtrooper? were you a scavenger?’ maybe give him his rights

when kylo said WE’RE TWO PARTS OF THE SAME BEING

A DYAD

TWO WHO ARE AS ONE 

two? WHO ARE? AS ONEEEEEE

NEITHER WHOLE WITHOUT THE MOTHERFUCKING OTHER I 

‘i never lied to you’ AND HE NEVER HAS AND NEVER FUCKING DIDDD!!!!!

all the stormtroopers getting knocked back and kylo steadying himself with the force lol... it’s these little things ok 

JODIE COMER? 

rEy PaLpAtInE

I LAUGHED MY ASSSS OFFFFFFF

like... sure jj. sure

look, i have always understood and respected the choice to make rey ‘nobody’ (like anakin was! the force just makes who it needs to create the balance!) but if rey was going to be anyone i guess.... this is the best choice?

and i think there IS merit in the story going from ‘person burdened with legacy vs person with no legacy’ to ‘person with a legacy of good turning evil and person with a legacy of evil turning good’

i gotta think longer and more about this but. besides its inherent silliness i do not hate this ‘twist’ 

this movie jumped from planet to planet like a ping pong ball! it felt a bit jarring but my mum pointed out that the galaxy IS big and they’ve never really done this before and i was like hmmm Points Were Made

THE FIGHT ON THE OLD DEATH STAR

KYLO DODGING REY’S SWIPES AND NOT EVEN PULLING HIS SABER UNTIL HE HAD TO

THEN ONLY FIGHTING DEFENSIVELY

and her DESPERATION

ALMOST LIKE SHE’S FIGHTING HERSELF

BECAUSE THEY ARE TWO HALVES! OF ONE WHOLE!

and then oh my god

‘you can’t go back to her (leia). just like i can’t’

and the VICTORY in his eyes and the acknowledgment of the truth in hers

because THEY ARE THE SSSAAAAAAMMMMMMMMEEEE

when rey SCREECHED and force threw finn back.... oh fuck

(sidebar the way finn was so determinedly THERE for rey this whole movie... even when she said about the sith throne... his faith in her didn’t waver im verklempt)

WHEN HE DISAPPEARED AND REY LOOKED BACK HORRIFIED

because he can’t go! because the fight is what they have and what she’s clinging on to!

AND THEN HE WALKED UP OUT THE WATTTTEERRRRRRRRR

absolute romantic nonsense.

AND THEN

SHE KILLED HIM

SHE KILLED HIM!!!!!!

SHE KILLED KYLO REN WITH HIS OWN DAMN CRUCIFIX SWORD

I COULD NOT

BE LEEEEAAAF

THIS HAS BEEN MY DREAM ENDGAME SINCE THE START AND IT’S HERE TWO THIRDS THROUGH THE FUCKING LAST MOVIE?

A GIFT. LICH RALLY A GIFT TO MEEEEE

leia gave her LIFE for her SON I...

this was the only moment in the movie where i started to get some tears cause like... IT WAS JUST SO MUCH

AND REY.... TOOK LEIA’S ENERGY THROUGH THE FORCE... 

AND SHE PUT HER HANDS ON HIM

AND SHE HEALED HIM

SHE’S A SCAVENGER

SHE FIXES BROKEN THINGGGGSSSSS

HE DIED BECAUSE SHE KILLED HIM 

AND HE LIVES BECAUSE SHE HEALED HIM... 

WHEN. WILL. YOUR. FAVES?????????

‘I WANTED TO TAKE YOUR HAND. BEN’S HAND’

take my hand? take my whole life too

IIRENGOWENRGKLJEWNGFKJBKJBKJBKJLB

ALL THE BEAUTIFUL WINDSWEPT CLOSE UP SHOTS OF KYLO’S BEAUTIFUL WINDSWEPT FACE IN THIS MOVIE. I WAS BREATHLESS

KYLO STNADING ON THE EDGE OF THAT SEA WITH THE WIND GOING AND HIS LEG OUT LIKE THE STUPID BYRONIC HERO HE IS

HEATHCLIFF? HEATHCLIFF ON THE MOOR?

HAN’S HAND ON BEN’S FACE

HE CALLED HIM. DAD

‘kylo ren is dead’

OHHHHHH BABBBBYYYYYY

look i loved the crossguard saber but i understood why it had to go

and like ben shedding the persona he had built as a defence mechanism... rey killed that part of him? powerful too powerful

i know i have rose coloured glasses because i care about the core story of kylo/rey enough and i’m passionate enough about it but okay the way they are entwined with one another on the journey to identity is the greatest thing a silly blockbuster series has maybe ever given me 

it’s tam lin. IT’S FAIRY TALE NONSENSE AND I LOVE IT 

i 100% know in my bones they wanted the scene with han to be leia but they obviously couldnt have that so that was fine. when ben turned his head around and heard her and felt her.... DONT LOOK AT ME

the most emotional moment in this movie was when chewie heard about leia and broke down and collapsed and screamed

:(

us too buddy. damn 

rey stealing kylo’s ship and yeeting away lmfao

and when she went back to ach-to and burned it and was like IM STAYING HERE 4EVA >:(

she’s literally the exact same stupid reckless as kylo and i love

rose was wasted in this movie. very annoying

i DID laugh when they said ‘we should pull a holdo manoeuvre’ like of course that’s the one thing jj took from tlj. ohhhh jj

loved finn meeting the ex stormtrooper lady. i always felt like the one weakness of tlj is that it dropped this thread of finn’s indoctrination that i thought was being woven alongside rey and kylo’s issues with their childhoods in force awakens. the look of wonder on his face when she said that the whole battalion defected.... and saying the force lead them to do it like it lead him... and you could see john boyega feeling that with his whole heart!!!

i laughed at palps’ fleet of star destroyers that like all have death star capabilities now? so dumb

and also, a star destroyer is basically an aircraft carrier.... do you think the people who make star wars realise the empire is america? no...??? alright imma head out

missed opportunity for a shot of jar jar or a gungan when the galaxy fleet showed up like those towboats at dunkirk. to be HONEST

where did sheev palps find that stadium of goons? are they on retainer?

yeah so palpatine’s lair is the underworld and rey is eurydice and ben is orpheus. YEAH. YEAHHHHHHHHH

LEIA WAS TRAINED AS A MFING JEDI

THAT FLASHBACK WAS EVERYTHING FUCK

LEIA’S SABER!!!!!!!!!

i have Questions about leia ‘seeing her son dying at the end of her journey’ like ?

BUT HER PUTTING AWAY THE SABER TO PROTECT BEN!!!!

THIS FAMILY

fuck. benjy solo in that jumper.... USING A BLASTER LIKE HIS DAD.....

THE X WING AND THE TIE FIGHTER PARKED NEXT TO EACH OTHER!!!!!!!!!

PALPATINE CALLING THEIR BOND ‘AS POWERFUL AS LIFE AND THE FORCE ITSELF’

NOT FOR GENERATIONS HAS THEIR BEEN A DYAD LIKE THEM!!!

FUCKING

DESTINED

BITCH

THEY ARE EACH OTHER’S DESTINY? WOW SORRY.... WOWOWOOWOOWOWOOWOWOW

ben versus his idiot knights of ren.... yeah i love my son

sorry rey had a vision of her AND kylo sitting on the throne but the throne is.... one seat? what are the logistics here? her on his lap? him on her lap? both of them sitting on an armrest like awkward kids taking a photo with santa?

I THOUGHT ABOUT THIS FOR LIKE FIVE MINUTES COMPLETELY DISTRACTED

THE LITTLE SHRUG BEN DID WHEN HE GOT THE LIGHTSABER AND WAS LIKE ‘YEAH SORRY NOW YOU’RE GONNA DIE’

I SCREAMED. IM LOVE HIM

rey giving ben the saber through the force bond!!

ACROSS SPACE??? LOVE THAT TRANSCENDS THE WORLD

palpatine taking, SPECIFICALLY, the power of rey and kylo’s BOND to strengthen himself because it is THE STRONGEST THING IN THE FUCKING UNIVERSE???????? CANONICALLY????????

REY AND BEN FIGHTING WITH LUKE AND LEIA’S SABERS

FUCKING... I FUCKING....

when palps like flicked ben away sorry i laughed... i mean i was like REALLY? FOR THE BIG FINALE HE’S GONE? but i understood why and that rey is the hero etc etc

THE JEDI SPEAKING TO REY! OBI WAN! QUI GON FUCKIN JINN

yoda is there too

AND THE POWER OF THE JEDI FLOWING THROUGH HER!!!!!

god her power.... SHE AMAZES MEEEE

(initially i thought ben was gonna kill palps for rey because of the whole The Sith Live in My Killer thing and then she’d have to kill him but HOISTED ON HIS OWN PETARDDD)

palpatine:

and the power was too much and it killed her ooooof

(the power of being a legacy... of channeling all that has some before!!! these movies get so ridiculously meta sometimes. best believe we’ll talk about THIS)

BUT HERE COMES BEN

BENJY BOYYYYY

his hair JUST long enough to be scraggly and devastating

literally dragging a broken leg 

ADAM DRIVERS PHYSICALITY IN THESE MOVIES (WELL ALWAYS) (BUT SPECIFICALLY IN THIS ROLE)

and he knows

WHAT HE HAS TO DOOOO

HE FINALLY FOUND SOMETHING HE LOVED ENOUGH TO DIE FOR

I JUST CAN’T BELIEVE THIS 

when he held her body holy shit... HOLY SHIT, GUYS

FULL CIRCLE????CVMSDFJNVDSLKFJVLDKJFVLKJDBFV

A PIETA.... A FUCKING PIETA

OH MY GOD THIS MOVIE

and his heartbroken face.... stumbling back to her... oh my good goddd

and then

‘I KNOW WHAT I HAVE TO DO BUT I’M AFRAID TO DO IT’

HE DIED FOR HER

HE GAVE.... HIS LIFE..... FOR HER.....

I CANNOT BE LIEVE THISSSSSS

HE GAVE UP HIS LIFE!!!!! HIS FUCKING LIFE!!!

he fought.... his whole life.... and he gave it up....

THAT’S LOVE? THAT’S FUCKING TRUE LOVE HOLLYL SKDJBVDKBF

REVAN AND BASTILA!!!!! REVAN AND BASTILA!!!1

and then she was alive again!!! ROMEO AND JULIET OKAY WOW

AND 

THEY

KISSED

I’M SORRY I DID FREAK THE FUCK OUT

HIS SOFT EYES

(super spoilery shot coming up here but)

OH MY GOD

FOR FUCK’S

SAKE.

i’m sure people will be mad about how little kylo like... talked in this movie but like sorry this was perfect

she saved his life! and she saved the world! and he quietly gave his life to her, for her?

this humble act of love? PURE LOVE?

WHAT WONDERFUL AND TERRIBLE THINGS THEY ARE CAPABLE OF. 

THAT THEY PUSH EACH OTHER TO

THIS TRILOGY WAS MADE FOR ME AND ONLY ME. THERE’S NO OTHER EXPLANATION

and her look of JOY and she said, ‘BEN’

look. i have been on the record for YEARS as saying my dream endgame would be for rey to kill kylo and for him to be forceghost with her always

AND SOMEHOW UMMMM THIS IS BETTER?

1. SHE DID! KILL HIM! AND THEN BROUGHT HIM BACK

2. AND THEN HE WILLINGLY DIED FOR HER? 

3. AND NOW SHE CARRIES HIM WITH HER ALWAYS??????

when his body faded and leia’s did too..... wo OOOOOOOOOOWWWW

SHE TOOK

HIS FUGGIN

LAST NAMMMEMELRKNWELKJBNLKJBFLKJBFKLRBJKLERJB

I’M SORRY THIS MOVIE WAS MADE FOR ME. KYLO REN WAS BREWED UP F O R MEEEEEEE

listen. there is a video game where a lady’s boyfriend gets killed and his soul goes into a sword and she carries the sword around with her

THAT IS THE RISE OF SKYWALKER

I CARRY YOUR HEART I CARRY IT IN MY HEART BITCH??????

THE FUCKING ORANGE SABER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

and look. ben’s story is allowed to be just about rey and rey’s is allowed to be bigger than just him. that’s EQUALITY. that’s JUSTICE

look i know it’s very douchey of me but i wrote this paragraph about a character of mine in a book i wrote and it is like..... LIKE IT’S JUST KYLO REN OKAY

he was never gonna be someone who could settle down and live like a quiet life of monkhood or whatever luke was doin on ach-to.... 

okay when finn poe and rey hugged at the end okay I DID FEEL SOMETHING IN MY COLD DEAD HEART

FINN JUST LOVES THEM! SO MUCH! THERE IS SO MUCH LOVE IN THAT BOY’S HEART

and probably up until that moment i hadn’t really cared about having a Trio in the new movies like we had han and leia and luke but that hug had me feeling like... okay... Friendship IS Great

okay back to kylo, i tweeted this but i’ll repeat here: my favourite arc in media has always been snape’s, to me it is the perfect ‘redemption’ arc (and yes this will make people scrunchy-nosed angry, so i will point out: redemption to me has always meant redemption in the eyes of the reader/viewer, not in-world, this is true for anakin/vader too, who also has a nearly flawless ‘redemption’ arc) but now it’s kylo solo ren ben

I LOVE HIM. I LOVE HIM SO MUCH I CAN’T STAND IT A LITTLE

HE FELL IN LOVE? AND IT SAVED HIM

HE WAS LOST AND HE FOUND HIS OTHER HALF

AND HE DIED BECAUSE SHE WAS STRONG ENOUGH TO CARRY IT ALL

CARRY THE LEGACY WHEN HE COULDN’T!!!

IT’S JUST SOSSOOSOOSOSOOSSO

i want a funko pop of ben in his comfy jumper running to fuck sheev palps the fuck up

i don’t even LIKE funko pops

naboo has a lot to answer for. literally all of these problems come from naboo

sure this movie was a big ole mess and i surely can’t wait for the good old disk horse

but i’m riding this high for as long as i can

because it was always about LOVE! LOVE CAN IGNITE THE STARS

so sure, this movie pandered terribly. but i am one of the people it pandered to and i am HAPPY INDEED

remember when maz kanata was like ‘your parents aren’t coming back but there is someone who still could’ YEAH IT WAS BEN!!!!!

:)

[almostkoo]

Taehyung on the Cliff (01)

pairing: taehyung x reader (platonic), jungkook x reader (platonic)

summary: series! ponyo!au, ponyo!taehyung, basically the story of ponyo! reader finds taehyung and becomes friends with him, while taehyung figures out his next move on land ( slice of life, slight humor)

word count: 2.5k

warnings: mild language (unedited)

The cool early morning breeze came over you in a chill. You hugged yourself tighter, arms covered in a thick, corded blue sweater. Midterms were finally over and walking along the side of the shoreline had become your second home. You found yourself resting on top of your favorite rock that you lovingly named Fred. Fred, had kept you company many of nights when you found yourself often breakdown from your courses.

You rubbed your hand against the top of the rock. Taking in the sunrise, you let out a sigh.

“Well Fred, I’d say we’re about done here. Midterms are all wrapped up. I have nothing but time on my hands. Feels like I can finally catch my breath.” you smiled. You wondered if you should call up some friends to celebrate. You pulled out your old cracked phone, scrolling through the contacts until you settled on one. You hit the call button and waited for the rings. Hopefully your friend would be awake.

“Jungkook? Did I wake you up?” you hesitated slightly.

Your friend let out a soft chuckle. “Surprisingly no. I’ve been up all night kicking ass playing Overwatch.” you scoffed at Jungkook. The boy found out Overwatch existed and hadn’t gone a day without playing. The only time you saw him if it was your study group for English Comp. You could picture Jungkook sitting there on his beanbag, pitch black room probably a couple of stray cups of ramen on the side of him. You were surprised you didn’t walk past his room and it smelled.

“Please tell me you have your Visine drops by you.” you groaned.

“ Yes Mom I have my eye drops. I’ve been taking breaks. Albeit five minute breaks if that. It still counts for something. What did you need me for? It’s like five am. Are you in trouble?” he asked.

“No I was just gonna ask if you had plans this evening. Midterms are over. We have at least two weeks before everything goes back to shit might as well live in the moment and enjoy it. I’m trying to celebrate.”

“What do you mean: celebrate? I am celebrating. I’m doing a Overwatch marathon. It’s what I deserve for all of my hard work thus far.” you could hear the smile in his voice as he spoke.

“You know what I meant, Jungkook. Like a party or something like that.”

“Are you inviting Jimin?”

“If I invite Jimin will you take a break from Overwatch to celebrate with us? Or are you still going to stay holed up in your room the whole time?”

“No I’ll come out. No worries. But there better be food too.”

“You can’t throw a party without food. We’ll plan when I get back I’m sure you’ll still be up.”

“Maybe. I’m not gonna make any promises. I know you’re at the beach. Bring me a seashell back if you see a pretty one I can add it to my collection. Gotta go.” and with that Jungkook ended the call. You shake your head, pocketing the device. You watched as the waves crashed. The sound is comforting. You stood up off Fred and rolled the cuffs of your pants up. You slowly walked into the water letting it rise up mid calf. You let out a deep breath. Inhaling the salt water. You looked at the sand trying to spot a seashell to bring back to Jungkook. His collection had started when you started your own trips to the beach.

The only downfall to collecting seashells was time you had accidentally brought one that had a small sea crab in it. On the upside you passed the small crab over to your friend Yoongi, who worked at a pet store. Hopefully he had been able to take card of the small crab.

Your eyes scanned the floor until you landed on a clear jar a few feet away that had a fish inside. You carefully stepped over to the fish taking caution to any stray shells or other debris along the ground. You picked up the jar examining the fish inside. It had pretty blue scales that seemed to reflect different colors as you moved it. The fish inside had big eyes. It almost seemed as though the both of you were looking over each other. How did a fish get trapped in a jar? The jar was about the size of a container of mayo and had strange writings on the side. You went to unscrew the lid of the top when the fish started frantically swimming in a circle. You paused looking at the fish.

“What’s wrong little dude? Don’t you want to go back home?” you asked it as if it could talk back. You could’ve sworn the fish swam in a way that would have been equivalent to a person shaking it’s head no.

“Well little dude” you sighed, walking out of the water. “ maybe Yoongi might know what type of fish you are. He’ll probably know all about your species. Probably would know all different stuff about you. Don’t worry you’ll be in safe hands for sure.”

<>

You opened up the door to the apartment, being wary of the fish you carried under your arm.

“Jungkook? Jungkook?” you called. Your friend came out of his room. Jungkook’s hair was all over his head, as he rubbed his eyes. You doubted he actually had his eye drops with him. He wasn’t going to be satisfied until his eyes turned red from playing that game. He was dressed in the same flannels and black shirt you saw him in two nights ago that raised questions you didn’t even know if you want the answer to.

“Did you bring back a shell?” he grumbled.

“Nope! Even better!” you held the jar out proudly to show the blue fish.

“Dude why would you bring that thing back? That’s another mouth to feed. We can barely cover ramen and drinks.” Jungkook groaned.

“Stop complaining I’m gonna pass it over to Yoongi . We just have to hold on to it until he gets it. Now the real question is I need somewhere with more space so the little guy can swim around. So would you rather me fill up the tub or kitchen sink?” Jungkook huffed, tilting his head back.

“Fuck it. Fill up one side of the sink and put it in there. I still have to take a shower.”

“Thank you, Kookie. I love and appreciate you.” you blew a kiss to your roommate. Jungkook made his way to the refrigerator , peering inside of it,

You turned the faucet letting cool water flow into the sink and you grabbed the stopper. You unscrewed the lid on the jar, slowly letting the water and the fish flow into the sink. When suddenly your grip slipped and jar slipped causing the top of it to break. A piece of glass cut into your hand. You yelped out in pain, blood dripped out of the wound into the water. The blue fish looked at you swimming up and leaping out of the water and latching on to your finger. You shook your hand off, the fish fell back in the water and into the corner of the sink facing away from you.

You muttered a soft. “What the fuck?” and walked down the hallway to the bathroom to retrieve the first aid kit. You kicked open the door. Jungkook was topless and in the middle of pulling his sweats down.

“What the fuck are you doing in here?” He jumped back in shock.

“My hand is bleeding!” you showed him the cut on your hand. Jungkook covered his mouth like he was about to vomit.

“You could’ve told me and I would’ve believed you the same. I still would have believed you.” he turned away.

“Move over I need to get to the cabinet.” you pushed him out of the way. Reaching for the handle to the cabinet door underneath the sink. You pulled the first aid kit out with your good hand. Sitting down on the tub you opened up the kit, grabbing the antiseptic out you started to clean your hand.

“So was the noise I heard in the kitchen you causing this?” Jungkook asked, as he leaned in the doorway of the bathroom.

“Don’t be an asshole obviously it was me. The fish jar slipped out of my hand and cracked, a shard cut me.” Jungkook shook his head. You tended to draw misfortune in the kitchen. In the time you and Jungkook had been roommates you had so far: broke the handle off a knife, shattered a hot porcelain pot under cold water and accidentally tore a cabinet door off the hinges. Which Jungkook fixed before the landlord came for the monthly evaluation of the apartment.

You wiped the blood off your hand, expecting the cut to be there. But it wasn’t. Jungkook looked at you in confusion.

“What’s wrong?”

“The cut isn’t there. There’s blood, but no cut like it disappeared. I know I cut myself I felt it.” you inspected your hand.

“That’s… weird.” Jungkook stepped over to you, grabbing your hand in his. He turned yours over inspecting your hand just as you did. Right when you went to open your mouth to respond you both heard a loud noise from the kitchen. You both froze, catching each other's eyesight.

“Did you lock the door when you came in?” Jungkook whispered.

“ Yes I locked the door when I came in.” You snapped. You were scared. When you came in you closed the door, adjusted the jar in your grip, called for Jungkook, walked in the kitchen. Wait. Wait a second. You did not lock the door. You felt your blood run cold. There was probably a robber in your apartment, because you did not lock the door. You were gonna die because you did not lock the door.

“You didn’t lock the door did you? I knew you didn’t. Oh my God we’re about to die.”

“We are not about to die. We are about to go and fight” you grabbed the can of Lysol that rested on the back of the toilet and handed Jungkook the plunger. “You are a wall of muscle and now you have a plunger we are gonna defend our rinky dink apartment.” you whispered. You turned him around by the shoulders and slowly lead him out of the bathroom. You hid behind him, treading towards the kitchen. You gripped the Lysol can hard. The kitchen slowly came into view and much to your surprise, it wasn’t a burglar but a wet scared naked man.

He was attractive too. Why was the stranger in you and Jungkook’s apartment attractive? Wait, why was he there?

“Dude, you better say something right now or you’re getting a plunger and Lysol combo.” Jungkook warned.The handsome stranger turned around placing his hands in front of his lower regions. His blue hair fell in front of his eyes as he shook his head back to get it out of his field of vision.

“Can one of you tell me what year it is?” The man said. His voice a deep, low tibre. You and Jungkook both looked at each other in confusion.

“2020?” you both replied in unison. The statement came off like a question. The man’s face contorted further in confusion.

“Are you alright? Can you at least tell us your name?” Jungkook asked, dropping the bat slightly.

“Taehyung.” He replied, shortly. Taehyung turned in circles attempting to make himself aware of his surroundings. You and Jungkook studied the man. He didn’t seem to pose a threat. He too himself was confused and didn’t seem to pose a threat.

“So did you like- break in? Or what?” You asked. Taehyung’s eyes darted from you to Jungkook back and forth.

“The sink. Well technically the ocean. I got sort of trapped by a fisherman’s daughter-” Jungkook threw his hand up signaling for Taehyung to pause.

“The ocean? Why were you in the ocean? Were you like lost at sea or something?” He asked.

“Well if you would’ve let me finish” You and Jungkook paused to allow Taehyung finish.”The fisherman didn’t let his daughter keep me. So she threw me overboard without releasing me and eventually I made my way to the surface where you found me.” He said, pointing at me. Jungkook looked at you and then back at Taehyung.

“Wait, so do you mean to tell me that Taehyung was the blue fish in the jar?” Jungkook asked. Thoughts started racing around your mind. You looked closely at Taehyung. His blue hair almost matched the jar fish’s blue scales to a tee and oddly enough something about his eyes seemed slightly familiar. You walked over to the sink to check if the fish was there and surely it wasn’t.

“Okay you could have thrown the fish out the window.” You stated.

“I kind of believe him. To be fair we do believe in aliens, it’s just for once the weird stuff is happening right here with us. At least it isn’t a yeti or something right?” Jungkook cracked.

“I can’t believe this is happening.” You said, dropping your head.

“I can’t go back home right now either.” Taehyung said, quietly.

“You WHAT?” You and Jungkook questioned in unison. Taehyung shrugged his shoulders.

“It’s a long story. I can pull my weight around here. I can find a job to help you two with bills. I even healed your cut. I'm a reliable person.” You listened to Taehyung ramble. Until you processed the second half of his statement.

“Taehyung, what was the last half of that statement?” You asked.

“I licked your wound after you broke the glass in the sink. My saliva.. Has healing properties.” You and Jungkook paused, stiffening up a bit.

“I don’t think I wanna know why.” Jungkook softly said to himself. You were taken back by his statement. Very confused but very curious. You looked over at Jungkook who’s brows were furrowed in confusion that matched yours.

“Well” you said. “I mean you don’t seem like a threat. You seem pretty harmless.”

“He has magic.” Jungkook said.

“Okay but that’s not a bad thing.” The sentence itself sounded more like a question instead of a solid statement. You weren’t quite sure if the magical person standing in your kitchen was completely harmless. Taehyung didn’t look scary. He just looked like a man with blue hair standing in front of you trying to figure out what was going on.

“So what ? You want to let him just stay here?” Jungkook asked.

“He can sleep on the couch” you looked at Taehyung. “If you don’t mind me asking what exactly do you eat?”

“I can eat human food. If that’s what you’re wondering.” You and Jungkook let out a breath of relief. Trying to put together some intricate meals for Taehyung was gonna be a problem so hearing he can eat the same food works into the ramen budget you and Jungkook set aside.

“What’s the worst that can happen? If he stays here at least that’s money going towards the rent right?” Jungkook shrugged.

“Okay you can stay here but we’re going to find you a job today.” You said. Taehyung smiled, wide and boxy.

“Thank you so much I promise you won’t regret it.”

And you hoped you wouldn’t.

[what-even-is-thiss]

Fic, Off of Land, Out of Water, Part 1, Time.

Yeah this is part 1 of the merman fic I should’ve posted like a month ago. I’ve got the first three parts written. There will probably be six in total. It involves both humans and merpeople heavily so I hope you like it. Only the core four are here so don’t ask where the dark sides are.

Warnings: None I can think of. 1,986 words

Abstract: It’s time for something to happen. Logan and Virgil have different ideas about what it’s time for. Virgil knows more than he’s willing to admit.

Last   

Next 

1. Time.

Logan floated along lazily, smelling the dust he occasionally sent up into the water. A turtle swam above him. Technically he probably shouldn’t be in waters this shallow but today it would be the only place to get some alone time. There would be people all over town, getting ready for the new years celebration and the graduations tomorrow. The boats above still wouldn’t see him. It wasn’t a big deal. He closed his eyes.

“Stone and stone they placed, ten thousand strong.” he mumbled to himself. “Sand compressed to glass and…”

“Practicing?” said a familiar, ominously deep voice.

Logan opened his eyes. A fanged smooth face hung several feet in the water above him, the messy black, silver, and white pattern on his tail made for camouflage in much deeper waters than these, his light freckled skin free of scales and contradicting what his tail normally would have done for him.

Logan smiled with his mouth closed, refusing to return his friend’s playful threat.

“And where have you been?” Logan asked.

The other merman turned upside down.

“Not so much as a ‘Oh, so good to see you, Virgil.’ Christ.”

“What?” Logan asked. He didn’t understand that last word.

“Nothing.” Virgil said quickly, also turning himself right side up. “I’ve been out exploring. You know me. Scared of people. Need some time away. Whatever.”

Logan turned himself upright as well. “Well did you remember where you went this time?”

“I’ve conveniently forgotten it again.” Virgil said in a series of noises and clicks.

Up until now they had been speaking in English. Logan wondered about this. Normally he and Virgil spoke English together. Virgil spoke the local human language very well. He had taught Logan when they were younger. It was like a secret code between them. He had given Logan a “human name” as he called it.

……….

“Logan sounds like logic.” thirteen year old Virgil had said.

“Okay.” thirteen year old Logan had said, counting the decaying plastic beads they had found just outside the city, arranging and rearranging them in his hand. “So humans made these?”

“Yeah they make them out of oil or whatever.” Virgil had said. “Uh, I haven’t…” he made a series of clicks to translate the word “oil”

Logan shivered at that word. He remembered a story that he was made to memorize from just before his own lifetime. A story of a human boat carrying that substance that had caused a great famine that had forced all of them to move to their current location. A location where he, and he assumed Virgil, was born.

“How could something that destructive make these?” Logan asked.

Virgil carefully picked all of the purple ones out of Logan’s hand and shrugged. He left the blue ones.

“Don’t go finding out, Logan. It’s not worth it.” he had said.

……….

In the present day Logan fingered the ruined beads held to his wrist by a braided rope. He did this purely out of habit. He also double checked to see that Virgil was wearing the purple ones purely out of habit. He was. Logan switched to the mer language, guessing that maybe Virgil wanted to practice. He did have sort of a speech impediment. For all Logan knew he had been teaching him the wrong pronunciation for the human words all of these years.

“So are you graduating too?” Logan asked.

“Tomorrow? I doubt it. I’ll probably never graduate if I’m being honest.” Virgil said.

They both started swimming against the current to go back to the city. The water opened up dark and deep below them as they left the reefs. Virgil was always a faster swimmer and never really slowed down. Logan had to strain to keep up with him. Virgil slowed as they began swimming downwards.

The city was carved into rocks and lit by the sun. Sunlight captured in glass orbs, jars, and bottles that would look like windchimes if the current didn’t blow them sideways and encourage them to float.

As they slowed down even more, Logan grabbed ahold of Virgil’s arm. Virgil didn’t protest and pulled him along, giving the weaker merman some rest.

“Hey blank face! You’re back!” someone yelled from a window.

“Who was that?” Virgil asked.

“Doesn’t matter. Ignore them.” Logan said, pulling Virgil’s head away from the source of the calling. “Can’t have you killing anyone today.”

“I don’t kill people.” Virgil said, obviously resisting the urge to look around for whoever had called him the name. “I just… get defensive.”

……….

Logan grabbed the new kid’s face and whistled in genuine interest.

“You have no scales on your face.” Logan said. He pulled his arm and looked at his back. “Or anywhere else but your tail.”

The new kid backed up quickly and looked horrified. He showed his fangs in a serious way.

“Don’t touch me!” he said, his words slurring together and sounding almost like a two year old.

Amused clicks, whistles, and laughs sounded around the classroom. Logan looked at the other teenagers kicking up sand with their tails and arms and clearly having fun at this kid’s expense. The teacher on break in the corner was carving something into the stone wall. It didn’t look like she was going to intervene.

Logan took a breath, letting the saltwater clear his head.

“Apologies.” he said, holding his hand out, palm up. “I was unaware that you don’t like to be touched. It is unusual but I’ll adjust.”

The other kid seemed to be unsure of what to do but after a moment carefully placed his palm on top of Logan’s, formally accepting the apology.

“I’m Virgil.” he said. “Watch yourself.”

“Can I ask about the scar?”

“Absolutely not.”

……….

It was routine at this point. Had been for years. They got back to Logan’s parents’ apartment, now just Logan’s apartment.

“Can I ask about the scar?”

“No.”

Always the same. Almost like an acknowledgement that they were home. A greeting. Except for this time.

“Can I ask about the scar?”

Virgil paused as he adjusted the magic bottle full of sunlight hanging in the middle of the room to be slightly brighter. He ran his fingers through his short black hair. He looked back at Logan. With the way his eyes moved it looked like he was considering the different shades of blue scales winding around his friend’s torso until they rested just above his eyes on his forehead.

“Tomorrow.” Virgil said.

Logan paused.

“What?”

“You can ask me about it tomorrow.”

“Why tomorrow? Is it because we’re coming of age? Graduation?”

“You’ll see.” Virgil said solemnly. “Or hopefully you won’t.”

Logan was immune to Virgil’s cryptic tone at this point so he shrugged it off.

“Alright. Are you staying here or going to your place?”

“Staying.”

They secured the doors and slept together. It’s not like merpeople have to hold each other while they sleep anymore. They live in a modern world. They have buildings now. The tides won’t take them away from each other. But instincts die hard. Old habits die hard. Old assumptions die hard.

So they clung to each other through the night, on the stone floor. Logan slept. Virgil just listened to him breathe, hearing the water move impossibly through a human-like respiratory system. In his dreams Logan thought he heard a voice.

“Why don’t you question why we have lungs?” It said.

……….

“You are swimming off again?” Logan asked.

Virgil stopped. His bare back and arms tensed and then relaxed when he registered who it was. He floated slightly away with the current.

“You’re my only friend here. If I’m forced to keep coming back I’ll always come back to you.” Virgil said.

“Fine, don’t tell me where you go. But if you miss our graduation I…” Logan couldn’t finish.

“Your graduation.” Virgil said, turning around. “I will never graduate from this.”

“Falsehood.” Logan said.

“I wish I’d never taught you that word.” Virgil said.

The buildings towered above Virgil’s often abandoned sand level apartment. Crabs and other bottom feeders often wandered into it by mistake only to be crushed under Virgil’s bare hands. Unlike almost every other merperon Logan knew Virgil didn’t carve pictures into his walls. They were just as blank as his upper skin. Except of course for the…

No, it was impolite to harp on that more than he already did.

“Where do you even go?” Logan asked. “We left the north seas generations ago. Nobody knows who we are in that area of the ocean. I’ve been trying to figure it out, and you won’t tell me. If I’m your only friend then it’s only logical I should know everything about you, but I know nothing. It has been almost ten new years since we met. Still I don’t know why you live alone or who your parents are.”

“My parents aren’t from here.” Virgil said.

“Then where?” Logan asked. “A twenty two year old shouldn’t be living alone unless your parents are dead like mine. I have tolerated this for far too long. Who are you?”

Virgil swam close fast and put both hands on Logan’s shoulders, a gesture that Logan had only ever seen Virgil use for a friend. A frightening gesture that usually meant dominance over a slain enemy but for some reason in Virgil’s world meant that he was about to tell you something serious. Something that requires your full attention.

“I am an adult, Logan. I am more of an adult than you. You don’t understand yet but you will. Until I come back, don’t go to the surface.”

“I was not planning on it.” Logan said. “I’ve never been there. Why would I start now?”

“Good.”

Logan tried following him. He said “But you’re not an adult. What are-“

Virgil swam away too fast for Logan to keep up. He didn’t finish his sentence. It wouldn’t be logical if Verge couldn’t hear him. Logan watched the distance until his friend was just a dark speck in the water, no bigger than a normal fish swimming about. Logan considered yelling. Letting out a long sorrowful farewell akin to the crying of a whale. But that would be too public. Not like him. Not like Virgil. It would be too primitive. He began reciting things to himself instead.

“And then the ancients learned to shape the sand and the magic henceforth remaned in…”

……….

“Did you sleep?” Logan asked.

“No.” Virgil said

“It is tomorrow. How did you get the large inverted scar on your stomach?”

“Logan, what do you know about human history?”

“Nothing.”

“Do you know what I work to memorize and why I will never graduate?”

“No. Because you will graduate even if you don’t tell me what you are memorizing.”

“What is your job again, Logan?” Virgil asked.

“To preserve the knowledge of our community. To memorize our history and the history of merpeople worldwide as much as I can. I am being tested on this today. I will have to recite all that I’ve learned since birth. I was chosen. You know this. You were chosen too. You are studying to be…”

“You don’t know enough then.” Virgil said. “Hopefully you make it to the test.”

“What’s with the scar?”

“Do you know how humans are born?”

“Like mammals?”

“Than you should know what this scar is.”

“I don’t know what you are talking about. The test will be starting soon. I knew you wouldn’t tell me.”

“I’ll tell you after the test. If we have time.”

“Oh I am so sure of that. That last statement was sardonic.”

Virgil didn’t laugh at that like he usually did  when Logan pointed out that he was being sarcastic. Instead he nervously looked around and followed Logan out the door.

“You seem nervous. We are adults now.” Logan said.

Virgil took a shaky breath.

“That’s exactly why.”Next

[scarletgardensrpg]

UNDEAD ♦ TWENTY-SIX ♦ NEUTRAL

EVANDER BUCHANAN is the Gravekeeper of the Oude Kerk. While Evander does not uphold most traditional priestly duties, such as Sunday sermons and rituals, he offers Undead baptisms, wherein the newly rehabilitated are “purified” as a means of initiation into Amsterdam—a common practice for nearly all Undead citizens, regardless of their religious affiliation. He was killed and transformed into a rotbeest at the age of twenty-six by Cecile, then resurrected in the Carpathian Mountains by Julian in 2045. 

BIOGRAPHY

tw: alcohol and drug abuse, death

“Fuck. Fuckfuckfuck.” Julian, on the other end of the line, sounded tinny and unimpressed. Thank you for that, good morning to you as well. Now if you'll be more specific... “Okay, um. I’m still at the beach.” A long silence. “I took Papa’s Porsche.” An even longer silence. “It’s, like, not in great condition. Anymore.” This last stretch of silence went on for so long, Evander pulled his phone back from his ear to make sure the call hadn’t disconnected. “Julian.” Is it still driveable? “Yeah, I think so. Maybe. I dunno, the wheels look fine?” That’s not—okay. Drive it to the nearest collision center. Now, it was Evander’s turn to be silent. For the first time, in a long time, he felt something akin to shame. He was nineteen, and still trying—failing—to make his brother proud. “I’m, uh, still kind of drunk. Sorry. Do you think you could—” Yes. I’ll be there soon. Click. Evander swore under his breath and shoved his phone back into his pocket. His eyes hurt, there was sand in the depths of his ass crack, and Ce was going to mock him for a week. 

- ❀ -

Spare the rod and spoil the child. He came last: after Julian had been born and deemed favorite and heir, after Cecile had been born and deemed illegitimate and unwanted. Evander, then, found himself with nothing to prove and nothing to endure: it was all roses. Handsome, good grades, star of the football team; he’d spend his youth living out some iteration of the American fantasy: a young prince without a care in the world, idling indulgently by an emerald infinity pool—the very picture of privilege. But, of course, as with all things that seemed too good to be true, there was the untarnished gleam of good appearances and saved face—and then, there was the truth. The Buchanans, for all their money’s worth, were a study in psychopathy: generations of well-dressed bastards who had lied and cheated their way up to Heaven, and scaled up the ladder of power using their claws and teeth. A thousand ruined lives could be put to Papa’s name—his own children’s being chief among them. It was a beautiful life, filled with exotic vacations and designer clothes, more money than he’d ever need, enough to fill entire rooms with—and it was an ugly life, marred by screaming matches, broken furniture, and five perpetually unoccupied seats at the dinner table. 

In the end, it was enough to drive Julian to heartlessness, Cecile to madness, and Evander to debauchery. He, especially, wanted no part in any of it all. His siblings were formidable and hungry: the boldest and brightest of the Buchanan clan, with enough conviction to set the world aflame and enough ambition to swallow it whole. What candle could he have held to those big people, those big dreams? He had no interest in trying. Instead, at Dartmouth, he would retreat into his expensive amusements and vices: liquor and wine, lines of cocaine, a quarter-million dollars blown on a bad bet in the casino, yes-men all around him. You’re so pathetic, Cecile would say disdainfully each morning she found him passed out in the foyer—and this, Evander knew, was the one thing she and Julian could agree on. He didn’t mind. That meant there was one less thing he had to listen to them fight about. He loved them, dearly and inexplicably—and he had thought they loved him, too. Wasn’t it enough that they had one another? The answer was, printed in neat clinical letters atop a stack of biochemical consent forms: No. He had underestimated both of them. Julian’s love and Julian’s ambition were two breeds of the same beast. Cecile’s wrath and her ambition were two strains of the same poison.

So: he would die by the hands of his siblings. At this point, it was so trite to talk about: six years of experimentation, Cecile shouldering the brunt of it—not out of concern for Evander, but a twisted need for it to fucking work, already before it got to Julian. When at last it did, and Cecile came out of the bloody waters a dead woman with gleaming eyes, she’d make plans to raise hell, as was so typical of her—but this time, intended Evander to partake in the chaos, too. He had bled to death at her feet, cheek pressed to the filthy basement floor, more afraid than ever. When his mind sank away from him at last, Cecile let him up and swung the door open. It’s me, Ce, she cooed. You always liked to have fun. We’re going to have some fun. And was it fun? In the moment, it might’ve been. Evander couldn’t say. He would come to in three years, in the mountains with Julian’s blood in his mouth and no recollection of what had occurred in the time between the night he’d died and now. His brother looked older, icier than ever. Cecile was nowhere to be found. There’s no need to save her, Evander had spat into the snow. She saved herself. 

At least I’ve saved you, Julian said. To that, Evander could only laugh and laugh, until the incredulity wore off, and there was only grief.

CONNECTIONS

IVONNE – PESKY WOMAN. Evander understands she is his counterpart of sorts—a Priestess to the living in the same way he is a Gravekeeper for the dead. Evander doesn’t understand how this, alone, is sufficient justification in Ivonne’s eyes to enter and leave his church as she pleases (“Evander, this is public property. Your attitude is un-priestly.” “I’m not a priest!”) with armfuls of baked goods, insisting matter-of-factly that he doesn’t eat enough, among a myriad of other baseless declarations she makes to him, about him. They are, in Evander's opinion, vastly different people: where he had happened upon the abandoned Oude Kerk and, in seeing no better option, made a reluctant home for himself there, Ivonne is a zealous New Worlder type. She is a peculiar woman in general: for all her power and popularity, it doesn’t seem she has many friends, nor particularly wants them. In some ways, Evander thinks she’s even lonelier than him. Despite this, he remains quick to brush her off—sometimes aggressively, the hurt of having someone to look after him after so many years both sharp and jarring, and other times begrudgingly, between bitefuls of (admittedly delicious) lemon meringue. She is not exactly motherly, per se—Ivonne acts more like a disapproving corporate manager, or a disinterested therapist—but her attentiveness for Evander is both overwhelming and...neither appreciated, nor unappreciated. He’s conflicted. You know, I can take care of myself, he told her once. Ivonne had lifted a single, elegant brow. Yes, I know. I wonder all the time why you don’t.

JULIAN & CECILE – TWO KNIVES IN HIS BACK. It’s hard—no, impossible—for him to reconcile that Julian, who read him to sleep after nightmares and took a welt to the cheek for Evander after he’d crashed the Porsche, had also watched impassively from across the expanse of an infinite table while Evander signed his life away—and that Cecile, who cried in the bathroom when nobody came to her recital, and accepted expulsion from six successive schools for the simple want of being loved, had been the same woman to draw Evander calmly into her arms, only to kill him between teethfuls of flesh and blood. Once, Evander thought his older brother and sister hung the moon. Cecile never was able to accept Julian’s kindnesses—ones she called debts, mouth wrapped sourly around the word—but Evander would have been content to bask in that kindness forever: diamonds and Jaguars, exotic beaches, lovers in every city—and above all other luxuries, the one of knowing the three of them would be together, always. That hope of his has come true, he supposes, in the most twisted of ways. True, he has Cecile to thank for not abandoning him in a basement in Palestrina—but she’d left him three years later instead in Poland. And he has Julian to thank for resurrecting him—but Julian was the pronouncer of his death sentence to begin with; and what’s more, he’s carried him out of one Hell, only to drag him into another. They were never a happy family, but they were a family. Now, whatever it is that’s keeping them together—science, death, and that ugly word, debts—Evander wishes it wouldn’t.

KISARA & OKSANA – THE LOVERS. He really, really, wishes they would stop making out in his cemetery. Well—they are not exactly kissing, but by the way they spar and wrestle, eyes gleaming bright with the closest thing to feeling alive : it might as well be kissing. Kisara is an old friend—someone he used to visit at the Moulin Rouge when he’d first arrived in Amsterdam, having defaulted back to sex and gambling to quell his misery. The two of them had once gone to depraved depths with one another, lost their minds eating seeds, tumbled about in satin sheets— Eventually, he turned his back on all of it once and for all, but Kisara stuck around. According to her, Oksana is new meat. I’m showing her around, she says, feinting disinterest as she goes to examine her perfect, shiny red nails. Evander snorts. Yeah, showing her around your bed. When Kisara jabs him in the rib with a snarl, he has to roll on the ground and make exaggerated sounds of pain for like, a while, before she finally laughs and forgives him. Kisara and Oksana have been coming around more often—De Wallen is cramped and unsightly, while Centraal Station tends to overrun itself with creepy 200 junkies when it gets late enough. The Oude Kerk, decrepit and, exempting Evander himself, void of people, is an admittedly good place to have some privacy. In truth, Evander doesn’t really mind. Kisara is welcome to come whenever she’d like, and he likes Oksana enough: she’s witty, abrasive, and reminds him a lot of Cecile. But perhaps it’s that very resemblance to his conniving sister that makes him uneasy about her. Kisara, too wrapped up in whatever it is they have going on, doesn’t seem to see the way Oksana holds herself: calmly and calculatively, showing just enough teeth to pass off as fully feral. Evander knows her kind. He’s not inclined to trust her.

OPEN ♦ FC: SEAN O'PRY

[thiefcat-niao]

Sand and Gold (Chapter 2)

Fandom: Yu-Gi-Oh!   Characters/Ships: Atem, Thief King Bakura, Mahad, Priest Seto, Priestess Isis, more to be added~   Rating: T Length: Chapter 2 / ?; 3200 words

Summary:

Prince Atem once found a small thief, and hid him for a time in the palace courtyard. The thief promised to return; to explain his hatred, and to have his vengeance.

The Pharaoh and the King of Thieves were supposed to be enemies, but neither is willing to abandon the tenuous bond they forged as children. Now the Royal Priests, Seto foremost among them, try to recover their kidnapped Pharaoh, unaware that Atem left with the Thief King of his own accord. Bakura has declared war in the name of his beloved Kul Elna, and yet wears the Millennium Ring that Pharaoh willingly gave him.

Read on AO3 Previous Chapter – Next Chapter (Coming Soon!)

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The Thief King gazed out across the royal city; grinned.

It had been nearly ten years since he had been to the palace. He had kept his promise, and returned.

“I’m back...” he murmured, relishing the feel of the wind in his long red robe. It doesn’t matter if you remember me... I remember you. I’ll have my vengeance... and I’ll keep you beside me.

It had occurred to the Thief King, during his endless ruminations on the subject, that the boy from the palace may not be merely a servant—the more the thief thought about it, the more sense that made. But it didn’t matter. If the palace child was a nobleman’s son, now grown into a noble himself, or a royal magician, or even one of the pharaoh’s high priests, it didn’t matter.

You may hate me... when I take my vengeance... but I won’t let you perish along with your pharaoh. I won’t let you die with your kingdom, because you didn’t let me die, that lifetime ago. The Thief King clenched his fists; felt his heart begin to beat almost uncomfortably fast. I’ll keep you with me, after I take the Millennium Items... after I claim the dark powers that I seek. I’ll have vengeance, for my beloved Kul Elna... and I’ll save you, keep you beside me, to repay your kindness...

I’ve come back.

... ... ...

Pharaoh Atem sat on his throne, listless. He hadn’t slept well, the night before; each time he’d drifted off, he’d started awake as if in answer to a call of his name.

He could hear Siamun, beside him, talking about something that was probably important, and that kept him awake—barely. There was a petty thief being judged; his priests, Seto in the lead, were bringing about the pathetic man’s punishment.

This thief... is nothing like...

Atem often wondered if the small thief was still alive. If Atem looked at things from a strictly analytical viewpoint, the chances were rather slim. The thief may have recovered some of his strength, under Atem’s watch, but he’d still been precious more than bones and spite when he’d left. The wound on his face had been healing well, but it could have easily torn open again and started festering. He could have gotten sick. He could have starved. He could have been killed.

When Atem really thought about it, though, he found it hard to believe the thief was dead.

Priest Seto was advocating for having the petty criminal drawn and quartered; Atem spared a moment to be irritated by the priest’s overzealous approach. Akhenaden didn’t let things go too far, however, and announced a sentence of hard labor for attempting to rob the tomb of the previous pharaoh—of Atem’s father, Akhenamkhanen.

“Great Pharaoh!” That was Seto again, and Atem started. “I request permission to enlist more troops to strengthen the guards at the Valley of Kings!”

“Er, yes...” Atem replied, trying to hide his lapse of attention. “I leave it to you...!”

Then Siamun began chattering about secret preparations for Atem’s own tomb—a subject the Pharaoh had no real desire to discuss. He was disturbed by the attempt at robbery of his father’s tomb, of course, but was too preoccupied with matters of the living to be concerned about his own inevitable death. He trusted Siamun with that task, and wished his valued adviser didn’t feel the need to talk to him about it in excess.

“What is it, Isis?!”

Atem looked up at Akhenaden’s shout; watched as Isis announced, “My Millennium Tauk has picked up a... disturbing... future. An evil shadow approaches this palace... someone with incredible powers of heka!”

Atem shook off the last of his weariness as Mahad, too, said, “My Millennium Ring has detected a great shadow power...”

Several guards rushed in, then, one shouting, “Your highness!” and another calling, “A grave robber calling himself Bakura, King of Thieves, is heading toward the pharaoh’s chamber!”

As his priests expressed disbelief and indignation, Atem sat up straighter. Grave robber? King of Thieves? Coming here?!

And then, from the darkness of the entryway, the grand hallway that lead to the pharaoh’s chamber, a shape became visible. Guards closed in and were knocked aside as gnats; the priests, instinctively, closed ranks around their pharaoh.

“At last... the throne room...”

Atem stiffened; there was something about the voice, deeper though it had grown, that stirred an old memory in him. The thief was clothed in a grand red robe and decadent gold—funerary gold. He wore a maize hood that all but hid his gray hair.

“Lose something?” the grave-robber continued. “Here!” He let an array of funerary relics fall with a clatter. “These are the treasures I just removed from Akhenamkhanen’s tomb! I even brought this thing I found in the coffin! Can’t you set better traps than that?!”

The grave-robber’s words were clearly meant for the pharaoh, but he was scanning the other people in the room intently; searching for something or someone, clearly. Atem’s heart leaped up into his throat, then stopped altogether as he stared at the thief—the so called King of Thieves, who had come dragging the mummified body of Atem's beloved father, the previous pharaoh.

“I’ve come for the Millennium Items...” the thief continued, and at last turned toward Atem. Then he, too, stalled; seemed to lose his line of thought, for a moment, as their eyes met.

Atem saw the scar—the deep slash down the right side of the thief’s face. His first feeling was near-overpowering relief that it had healed so well, after all.

“To step unbidden before the throne of the pharaoh is a serious crime!” Shada’s voice broke in. “You will not be forgiven!”

The thief seemed to give himself a shake; averted his gaze, staring up toward the ceiling.

“There’s something I want,” he growled, his voice far less manic than before. “Your Millennium Items—I’ll ask you once nicely... will you give all seven to me? Well?”

Atem gripped the armrests of his throne; started to rise, and then stalled. Millennium Items... His eyes flicked from the thief to his father—his poor father’s battered mummy.

“Heh heh... For a miserable thief, to stand before the six priests takes courage... We’ll make sure the canopic jar for your guts is a somewhat largerone,” Priest Seto said, a nasty little smile on his face.

Then Akhenaden was off about the Millennium Items, but Atem couldn’t listen; could only watch as the thief’s eyes flicked from the ceiling to the priests and then to him, Pharaoh Atem, and then back to the ceiling. The King of Thieves took one shifting step backwards.

“If a person like you,” Akhenaden was saying, “with a heart of evil, were to touch a Millennium Item, your very soul would burn away.”

No... Atem thought. No... but your heart isn’t evil... tell them they’re wrong...

“You excite me,” was the thief’s reply, with a slightly strained smile. “Now I want them even more! I’ll take on all of you priests at once!”

“There’s nothing to worry about, Pharaoh,” Siamun said softly, misinterpreting the Pharaoh’s tension. “The thief should be the one to worry... No sane person could stand against the heka of the six priests!”

No sane person... Atem’s eyes remained fixed on the thief. No sane person would try to dig up those scraps to eat... but you were desperate. You were dying. Something pushed you... What’s pushing you to act this way now?!

A blank stone slab stood at the ready; Siamun said solemnly, “His ka is likely low-level... it will soon show its evil form... and be sealed into the stone by the heka of the priests!”

But as the thief—as Bakura, self-proclaimed King of Thieves—braced himself, his eyes fell once again onto Atem. The Pharaoh saw confusion there, conflict... but also conviction, unshakable.

“I hate your stinking pharaoh. I stand by that. I’ll kill him, one day.”

“I’ll come back, one day, I swear it. Then you’ll understand.”

You kept your promise...

The priests stirred, clearly distressed; Shada recoiled with a shout, upon looking into the thief’s soul. And then Bakura, King of Thieves, summoned his ka.

“Stop it!” Atem yelled, rising from the throne despite Siamun’s shout of objection. His voice was drowned by the roar of the thief’s ka—of Diabound, the god-spirit. While the priests were in disarray, questioning how that could be, the thief once again met Atem’s gaze.

A god-type ka... was all the Pharaoh could think, his heartbeat quickening with awe. The glimmering silver serpent opened its jaws wide, the ka's humanoid figure staring down at the court in stoic judgement. I should be surprised. I’m not surprised, though, not at all... A god-type ka which rises to stand against the pharaoh and his priests... What grievance have you, Bakura, that a god dwells within you?!

Priest Seto attempted to seal the thief’s ka, but the sealing stone shattered after a few heartbeats. It seemed the thief should shout something mocking or triumphant, but his face was grim; he kept his silence as Priest Seto stepped forward to challenge him.

Stop... stop this...! Atem nearly cried it out once again, but couldn’t think of a way to explain the order. Stop... please...

When Priest Seto‘s servant was defeated, all the priests moved to attack at once; Diabound, and its master the Thief King, stood unflinchingly against them.

Someone will die...! Atem thought, his heart pounding as the priests and the thief clashed. He’ll kill one of my priests... or they’ll kill him... but either way... someone is going to die...! It was that thought that drove him forward, despite the wild grab that Siamun made for him, toward the raging battle.

“Stop this! Stop!” he shouted, and the thief spun sharply toward him. The ground beneath Atem’s feet lurched as one of the priest’s attacks flew wide, narrowly missing him, and he stumbled.

“Pharaoh!” Priest Seto’s voice rose, horrified and furious. “Look out! Get down!”

Atem had no time to dodge the next attack, clearly aimed for the King of Thieves. But before it could strike him, a wall of white scales rose up; knocked him violently forward, onto his hands and knees. The blast of heka hit Diabound’s flank instead of the Pharaoh, and the serpent-ka gave a deafening shriek of pain. Atem, on the ground, stared fixedly at the thing lying inches from him—at his beloved father’s mummy, tattered and beaten with a humiliating rope tied about its neck and the foot of the Thief King planted firmly between its shoulder blades. The noise of battle faded, even the priests’ frantic shouting muffled as Diabound coiled tighter around the three figures, encompassing them in an artificial little cave.

The King of Thieves stepped down from the old pharaoh’s body; crouched, on one knee, to level their heights.

“It is you...” he murmured, with such tenderness that Atem’s throat ached as if with coming tears. “By the gods...”

“And it’s you...” the Pharaoh replied, pushing himself up onto his knees. He met the thief’s bright eyes, and said, “You kept your promise.”

The Thief King’s eyes widened. “You remembered.”

“How could I forget?” the Pharaoh asked, honestly. And the Thief King chuckled.

A sudden explosion rocked their enclosed little world, and the Thief King pitched forward; the two of them grasped one another spontaneously, for balance, and then immediately sprang apart. Atem scrambled to his feet, eyes wild.

“I can’t...” he murmured, and glanced over as the Thief King rose beside him. The thief’s gaze had a hostile edge to it, once again—a feral gleam, like the look he’d had that very first night. “You have to...”

“I’ll do what I came here to do,” the thief growled, and another barrage of attacks made Diabound scream.

“No!” Atem snapped, and for a second the thief looked over at him, surprised. “You can’t win against them. I’ll handle this.”

“You underestimate me, Pharaoh,” the Thief King growled.

Atem felt panic spike his blood; the powerful heka building up just outside of Diabound’s coils made his skin prickle. “Don’t—I’m not! I mean... trust me! Trust me, please!”

“Trust you?!” the thief snarled, and then bore his teeth. “Why should I? You’re the Pharaoh!”

And Atem replied, his voice steady, “I have never lied to you.”

The thief’s hostility melted, suddenly; his shoulders dropped, and his expression eased. He still said, “A lot can change in ten years.”

“But you kept your promise,” Atem replied. “Let me show myself to be just as dependable.”

The Thief King hesitated for a moment longer, then reached back; touched the trembling flank of his ka, Diabound.

“Come back, Diabound. You’ve done enough. Thanks.” There was a rumble of uncertainty from the great serpent, and the Thief King glanced over at Atem. He took a deep breath that rattled in his narrow chest, and said, “I trust you.”

Atem nodded; braced himself.

Diabound dissipated in a great gust of wind; the priests were buffeted, and Siamun actually skidded several steps backwards. Then they leaped forward, servant monsters poised to strike from a dozen different angles.

“Don’t hit the Pharaoh!” Priest Seto’s shout rose, just faintly, above the cacophony. “Aim only for the thief!”

The Thief King crouched low, eyes wild; defenseless, suddenly. The sight made Atem’s heart lurch, and he raised his hands.

“Stop! Don’t attack!”

The priests hesitated, even as Atem moved physically in front of the Thief King; paced, slightly, to make himself harder to aim around.

“Dismiss your servants!” Atem shouted, summoning every scrap of authority he possessed in his voice. “He’s surrendered! Do you hear me?! Dismiss your servants!”

Mahad stepped slightly forward, and his Magus of Illusion drifted backwards—didn’t vanish, but at least distanced itself. “Pharaoh... are you certain? We could—“

“No!” Atem called, sweeping out one hand to further create a barrier; he felt the thief shift behind him, and prayed, Oh gods, don’t jump, Thief... don’t make a move... they’ll kill you... they’ll really kill you...! Trust me...! “This is my order—dismiss your servants!”

“The Pharaoh’s speaking nonsense!” Priest Seto shouted. “That thief must have done something to him, just now!”

“He did no such thing!” Atem’s voice rose, desperate. “Seto! Do not question me so! Not now of all times!”

“Lord Pharaoh, to take such a man prisoner would mean...” Siamun began.

Priest Akhenaden took a step forward. “Pharaoh, I would advise—“

“Noted, Akhenaden, and dismissed!” Atem shouted; his priest stalled. “My order stands! Dismiss your servants!”

“Shada?” Mahad asked, turning. “Can the Key detect any evil that might be influencing the Pharaoh?”

Shada shook his head. “No... there’s nothing unusual within the Pharaoh’s soul...”

“Isis?” Mahad asked.

The priestess cupped the Millennium Tauk in both palms; closed her eyes. Her breath quickened, head tipping back for a moment. Mahad, alarmed, moved towards her, but she recovered a moment later.

“I see...” Isis breathed, and then met Atem’s gaze. She lowered her head. “I see the thief in chains. He has surrendered.”

Mahad let out a long sigh of relief; dismissed his ka. Siamun rushed forward, and Atem moved subtly to keep himself between the Thief King and his adviser.

“Are you truly uninjured, Lord?” Siamun asked, and Atem nodded.

“I am.” He turned towards the Thief King—Bakura, by name. Please... please trust me... just a bit longer...

Bakura held his gaze; gave a nearly imperceptible nod.

“See this so-called King of Thieves taken down to the dungeons. I must tend to my poor father.”

... ... ...

Thief King Bakura made no trouble being led down to the dungeons. Pharaoh Atem scooped his father’s bartered body from the ground; held it close, and wept briefly when the trauma caught up with him. He apologized, in furtive whispers, to his father—apologized for the heinous dishonor, and for the fact that he had no intention to take vengeance for what had been done, as a good son should. Then he handed the mummy over to Siamun and Mahad, with the utmost faith that his father would be laid properly to rest once more. He told the other priests that he was going to rest; they bade him go—they would tend to everything, of course. Atem felt a stab of guilt regarding his deception.

When he reached the dungeons, the guards were surprised to see him—without any entourage, no less. But Pharaoh Atem informed them, calmly and with all the authority of his title, that he’d come to question the prisoner, the King of Thieves. They asked him if he’d like assistance; he thanked them, and assured them it wouldn’t be necessary.

“Please,” he added, “there’s no need for my priests to know about this. They worry over me so much already, I hate to give them more reason to do so.”

And the guards, awed by their kind Pharaoh’s intentions, agreed.

The Pharaoh arrived at the cell of the Thief King; let himself in.

“Gods damn... I told them not to...” he muttered, leaning up to unlock the chains that held the Thief King’s hands high above his head.

Bakura sighed with relief as his arms dropped, then rubbed at his wrists. “I wasn’t surprised. I killed quite a few of your guys, after all, even before I brought Diabound out.”

Atem’s eyes narrowed; he was on his knees, now, freeing Bakura’s ankles from their shackles as well. “I am a little cross about that.”

“I told you you might hate me, when I came back.”

Atem sighed. “I don’t hate you. I’m a little cross, that’s all.”

Bakura chuckled. “What a guy... So, you were the pharaoh’s son all along, huh?”

Atem nodded; sat beside him, on the cell floor. “I was.”

“Fancy that.” Bakura chuckled; rubbed his ankles, as he had his wrists.

Atem took the opportunity to examine the thief in more detail—while recognizable by his scar and ratty grey hair, he was far from the half-dead foundling that Atem had once sheltered. His muscles were well-defined, but wiry; there wasn’t an ounce of extra flesh between them to soften the lines, and he had a look of chronic hunger about him. He was slightly taller than Atem, now, but perhaps not as tall as he should have been, under ideal conditions; his eyes were bright, keen, but ringed with shadows of fatigue. His skin was calloused, worn rough by wind and sand. He had the look of an outlaw—a wild beast.

Despite that, he ducked his head for Atem; looked at the Pharaoh with due wariness, but without hostility. “What now?”

Atem sighed. “I don’t know... I’m just glad no one else died, today... if you’d killed one of my priests, I doubt I would’ve been able to stop the others.”

“You talk like I was going to lose,” Bakura said, with humor. “I wasn’t, you know. Diabound could’ve beaten them all.”

“I’ve no doubt,” Atem said, although he couldn’t say for certain who he thought would have won.

“You’re just glad no one died,” the Thief King guessed, with a sneer. “No one except a couple of those weaklings you had posted out-front, of course.”

“Don’t!” Atem’s voice was sharp, and the Thief King stiffened. “Those were my men. I understand, in times of violence, that such things happen. But those were my loyal men that I must now bury, and they died defending me. You won’t speak so lightly of their lives, which you took.”

Bakura’s lip drew back, and for a moment it looked as if he might argue. Then he let out a breath; smiled. “Sorry. My bad.”

Atem, too, breathed out heavily; said, “I know. It’s fine.”

There was a moment of silence—comfortable silence, even after so many years. The dimness of the dungeons evoked memories of the little cave beneath the pharaoh’s statue, and with that came a warm rush of familiarity.

“Are you eating alright?” Atem asked, and Bakura smiled.

“I’ve never eaten anything that compares to palace food.”

“I’ll bring you some, later.”

[nadiineross]

requested by @ladies-of-lodge for “chloe on her deathbed”

note: i call this one “adventure grandmas and their glory days”. i wrote this in chunks and did some editing so bear with me i promise its not that bad

Chloe woke up with a heavy feeling in her gut, a sense of foreboding hanging over her. 

Today was the day she was going to die. 

She wasn’t sad or angry or any other emotion she thought she’d feel when the time came, just quietly acceptant. Then again, she always assumed she’d die somewhere darker, some way darker, and by the hand of someone that wished her ill. She also thought it would happen in her thirties, forties at most. 

Two and a bit decades too late for something like that to happen. She retired in her sixties, well-off enough to last her till this day. 

The first part of her retirement was eventful, to say the least. (She doesn’t think elderly women scaling the climbing wall faster than young college students at the local gym is an ordinary sight.)

While her permanent residence was in South Africa, where she was now, she had spent most of her later years still living like a nomad and embarking on low-risk adventures. 

She had only officially thrown in the towel barely a decade ago when a particularly nasty fall busted her knee and gave Nadine a rather unpleasant concussion. After that, her health started to decline. Nadine’s did too, of course, but not at Chloe’s pace.

Speaking of whom... 

“Morning.” Nadine rolled over, muffling her yawn with the back of a thin hand. 

Chloe smiled, blinking through the bleariness and reaching out to lay a hand over Nadine’s cheek. “Morning, love.”

After pressing a chaste kiss to Chloe’s palm, she turned and pushed herself off their mattress. 

Nadine’s birthday passed a couple months back. It was a quiet affair since most of their friends had passed, from natural causes or otherwise. Chloe had taken her to a nice restaurant by the ocean and they’d walked along the coast to their bench afterwards, sitting and talking for hours. 

She had cracked every joke possible about feeding pigeons as a hobby when they’d first sat on that bench. 

She sat up then, watching Nadine shimmy into a pair of cargo pants. “I want to go to the beach today.” 

Nadine glanced over her shoulder and her lips twitching into a smile. “Okay. Should I save some leftover toast for the seagulls?” 

“Oh. Yes,” Chloe said, “Crust, whole wheat. I take my hobbies very seriously, Ross.” 

Nadine laughed. They did not have bread or similarly hard to chew foods that didn’t return in flavour in their home. That’s just something Chloe will have to die resenting. 

It was a few hours later when they were both ready to go. She still remembered the first casual morning they had spent together. It was stormy outside, so they had all the lights on and the space heater plugged in. 

Ah, to be young and in love. Not that she would’ve ever admitted to herself that she was truly and deeply in love with her partner at the time. No, that would take her two more years and a gunshot wound to finally say it out loud. Nadine was not enthused about the timing, but she’d said it back anyway through bloody, grit teeth. 

Chloe sighed and examined the spots on her hands. That was what retrospection did, made her sigh forlornly and out of nowhere.

“What?” Nadine asked, coming around the corner with a baseball hat on this time. 

“Nothing,” Chloe replied immediately, looking up and grinning. Then, she sighed again and grasped Nadine’s hand. “China?” 

The corners of Nadine’s eyes crinkled when she smiled. “Ja?” 

“I love you, really, but the hat needs to go.” 

Nadine rolled her eyes and, very pointedly, turned to the door and said, “I love you too.” 

She came back a moment later with two canes, one she leaned against on her forearm, the other she levelled out, handle pointing at Chloe. “This or the chair?” 

“I think I can make do without today,” she said, heaving herself to her feet. Nadine, out of pure instinct at this point, held her by the bicep until she was steady with the cane. She leaned over to kiss Nadine thoroughly on the mouth and grabbed a water bottle. “Ready?” 

“Ja, I’ll get the door.” 

Chloe scoffed, patting Nadine’s calf with the end of her cane. “I can still open doors, wrinkles and all, thank you very much.” 

Nadine twirled their house keys around one finger and raised an eyebrow. She opened the door with a wry look. “It’s called chivalry, but okay.” 

The door closed, Nadine outside and Chloe left alone in the hall. 

Chloe gave an indignant huff, but couldn’t help the face-splitting grin when the door opened again a second later, Nadine peering through the crack. 

“You’re ridiculous.” 

“Learned it from you.” 

“You pass with flying colours. Want a little reward or two?” 

Nadine’s smile turned coy. “Do you want to go out or not?” 

It was a ten-minute walk to the bench at their usual pace, but Chloe found herself unable to move quite as fast as she did the night of Nadine’s birthday. Nadine didn’t complain though, occasionally straying to lean against the fence separating the boardwalk from the sand and watch the birds swoop down. 

There was a breeze blowing by, on the cusp of being too cold, but pleasant enough as it was. For Chloe, at least. When they finally reached the rickety bench, however, the first thing Nadine did was burrow closer so that Chloe could do nothing but lift an arm to drape around her shoulders. 

Nadine had stopped being shy about these things decades ago, though if Chloe really tried, she could still make her go beet red. Not today.

Nadine sighed, head lolling to bump briefly against Chloe’s. “Goddamn cold.” 

“If you want my coat, you’re going to have to ask for it,” Chloe teased, moving to unbutton the front anyway. 

“I’m fine,” Nadine said with a roll of her eyes. “In a mood, are you? Killing chivalry and romance, and all before lunch.” 

Chloe grinned, impish. “Yet you’ve stayed with me for how many years exactly?” 

They’re quiet for a while, introspective suddenly. As they grew older, Chloe realized that she had a lot to reflect on and she happened to take the time to do just that much more frequently than she would’ve thought. 

It’s true for Nadine, too. They often found themselves in thoughtful silences, especially after their retirement, no job to distract themselves with. Well, either that or their years together are showing through. She never imagined she’d be in a relationship that lasted this long, grown so familiar that she could sit in a room in complete and utter silence for hours on end — and without starting something either. 

Chloe supposed that if her old self were surprised with the way her life had gone, she must have done something right. She was, in all honesty, a bit of a mess in her twenties and thirties. 

“Almost sixty years,” Nadine said suddenly, jarring Chloe out of her own thoughts. 

“What?” Chloe blinked down at the top of Nadine’s head, dark grey hairs tickling her cheek. 

Nadine’s eyes fluttered shut as she inhaled deeply, softly, through her nose. “We’ve been together fifty-five years in total.” 

“Huh.” Chloe raised her eyebrows. “Nice number, that. Over half a century.” 

It would’ve been past that number if they hadn’t split when she was in her early forties and Nadine was in her late thirties. Chloe refused to call it “breaking up”, even if that was what technically happened. It was more of a four year long hiatus taken so that they could give single life one more go and then mature enough to realize that it was, overall, a very shitty and very boring way to live. 

After they met again on an island whilst hunting for the same treasure, after fighting and fucking and fighting again, they settled their differences and hadn’t parted since. Chloe thanked whichever higher power there was for it. 

Here they were, fifty-five years in total. They wouldn’t reach fifty-six, Chloe knew, but she was relatively happy with how they’d spent the years they were afforded together.

“Did you take your meds this morning?” Chloe asked. 

Nadine didn’t reply. Instead, she produced three small plastic containers from her pocket and gave them a prattle. 

“Do you have water?” 

“No, but you do.” 

Chloe scoffed, uncapping and handing the bottle over. 

With some care, Nadine removed her pills from their containers, gathered them in a cupped palm, and tossed them all in her mouth. “Thanks.” 

Even with all that, Nadine was the healthier of the two. Chloe had at least always known she would be outlived by her partner, this she did not have any doubts about. 

She had only grown frailer after her retirement. Who knew a career that involved landing dangerously high falls and suffering from multiple concussions could affect your health in the long term? 

Nadine had suffered her own share of health issues but not quite as badly or as many as Chloe did. 

Because of that, Chloe had quickly tired of hospitals and had been proportionally horrified at the idea of being put in a home. Nadine slept in the guest room for three days after proposing that brilliant idea. 

She lifted her hand experimentally, watching it tremor and quake. Frankly, she was a bit disappointed her body had fucked up so soon. The doctors had told her what was coming and their general predictions, so she had mostly made peace with it. Still, she could be quietly disappointed, couldn’t she? 

Nadine, ever alert, caught onto her souring mood and set out to lift her spirits, grasping Chloe’s wobbling hand in her own as tightly as she could without hurting — which wasn’t very. 

“You okay?” she asked, barely over a murmur.

Chloe let out a slow breath and grinned. “Of course, love. My arthritis puts me in a wonderful mood.”

“Me too,” Nadine said, putting on a serious face. “That’s why I’m with you.” 

“My arthritis?” 

“Ja.” Nadine was only encouraged by Chloe’s stifled guffaw. “Gets me going.”

Chloe burst out with a laugh, lightly slapping Nadine’s knee with her other hand. “You’re terrible.”

“Don’t pretend you aren’t with me for my aching joints either.” 

They dissolved into giggles, huddling closer to each other. 

Moments later, calmed down and in a better mood, Chloe took a hold of Nadine’s face in both hands. Nadine waited, unwavering in her stare.

“I can’t express why I’m with you because I’d have to explain how you make me feel and there aren’t enough words to describe that,” she started, hushed yet firm. “I just...” 

Nadine slipped her hands over Chloe’s, opening her mouth to speak. 

Immediately, Chloe shook her head. “Listen, please.” A beat, then a single nod. “I love you. You’re smart and amazing and, god, so strong.” 

“I’m not.”

This, she knew Nadine couldn’t stay silent about. She might not have said in so many words, but she was someone who was built like a god and had slowly atrophied with age and going through it had put many a dent in her ego. It had turned out to be a sore spot for Nadine, one she had gotten better with, yes, but she would still be occasionally self-depreciating when she reckoned she could get away with it. Chloe would always shut her right up though. 

“No. Nadine, you are the strongest person I know, and not because everyone else we know is either sick or dead. We’ve been through thick and thin; you’ve toughed it out.” She smiled. It felt bittersweet. “And I know you’ll get through whatever else that might come after. I just want you to know that. That you’re strong and that’s one of the things I love you for.” 

Nadine was not an idiot. Any fading traces of her good mood vanished abruptly. “Frazer.” 

She couldn’t help it, she laughed. Frazer? Nadine only whipped that one out when she was pissed and Chloe would know if she were before she even said it. Not this time. 

It felt like India, all those years ago. 

Instead of a smoking helicopter and the carcass of Shoreline in the background, they had the gentle blues of rolling waves and the afternoon sky. This seemed much more fitting for a final goodbye speech. 

She choked on whatever humour she had felt. Her final goodbye. Christ. 

Nadine had the same look on her face in India: eyes soft with pleading, eyebrows knit, jaw tensed shut. Everything felt so fragile in this moment, Chloe didn’t dare move. 

“Chloe,” Nadine said, pitched low and measured. 

A stronger gust blew by, shaking out the loose strands from the side of Nadine’s head, where her stupid cap didn’t reach, into her face. Chloe still did not move. 

“We’re old. We both take a cocktail of meds every morning and night. It’s natural.” 

“If I listened when people told me about what was and wasn’t natural, we would not be here,” Nadine spat, gone rigid against Chloe’s side. And, as if she could read Chloe’s mind, she drew away, putting them at an arm’s distance away. 

Chloe blinked, looking down at her hands and following the bones jutting from her skin. 

“You can’t save me from old age,” she said, mildly. 

She didn’t doubt that if Nadine could physically brawl it out with Death, she would. 

“You don’t need to.”

Nadine scooted back, taking one of Chloe’s hands in hers, and said earnestly, “We’ll go to the hospital. I’ll call a taxi.” 

“Oh, china,” Chloe sighed and then finally moved, stooping lower to catch her eye. She decided, looking at Nadine, she would give her one last lie to tide her over. “We all die. It happens, and we always knew I’d kick the bucket first. It might happen today, tomorrow, next bloody year, but it will happen. I just wanted you to know that I love you before I go. That’s all.” 

Nadine regarded her in silence, hands slackening just slightly. She had gotten better at telling when Chloe lied, but there must have been some part of her that didn’t want to call this one out because she stayed silent. 

They’re old, death was, reasonably, an oft touched upon subject. They had even managed to make writing their wills a fun activity, both tired of how morose they could get when they talked about their fast-approaching ends. 

And even before they had retired, considering their occupational hazards, they had talked about it. 

Chloe remembered the promise she made decades ago about her death. Perhaps it was foolishly agreed to, but it was a promise nonetheless. Not that she had always kept them, but she tried her best for the important ones and owned up to it when she didn’t. 

(It was midnight. She was laying on Nadine’s naked chest, listening to her quickened heartbeat, when she brought it up. Nadine’s hand in her hair had stilled and she’d tucked her chin over her collarbone, looking at Chloe with a deep frown. 

“What do you mean?” 

Chloe had shrugged, kissed Nadine's chest, and said again, “I think I’d know on the day of my death that it would be my last. I mean, if it was of old age. Unlikely, but...” Nadine’s frown deepened. “I’d wake up in the morning and it would just make sense. I would know.”

“...Like a sixth sense?” she asked, slow and incredulous like Chloe was an idiot. 

Chloe had narrowed her eyes and clapped her hand on Nadine’s abdomen for that. “You could call it that.” 

“Okay.” Nadine laughed, shrugged awkwardly, and tightened her arms around Chloe’s middle. It was endearing, so much so that Chloe decided then she would not bring this up again, but then Nadine had asked, “Will you promise to tell me? On the day?” 

Chloe remembered she had felt funny upon hearing that Nadine thought they’d last that long. She remembered she had nodded hastily and pushed up to meet Nadine’s mouth, so she didn’t have to think about it.) 

Chloe supposed she could stand to break one more promise. 

It didn’t really count. Nadine knew now, in some way, shape, or form. Besides, just bringing it up would have at least prompted Nadine to start mentally preparing. She hoped it would, at least. 

Nadine’s grip tightened again. “You’re such a dickhead.” 

“I know.” Chloe lifted a hand, brushing springs of hair away from Nadine’s eyes with the back of her fingers. “We’ve lived a fun life, haven't we?” 

“Yes.” 

“A happy life?” 

“Yes.” 

“A good life?” 

“A good life,” Nadine echoed in agreement. 

Chloe leaned forwards, pressing a small kiss to the corner of Nadine’s mouth. “That’s all I could’ve asked for.” 

She reclined into the bench, pulling Nadine along so they were pressed together once again. 

“So... want me to go back to listing why I’m with you?”

Nadine hid a grin in her collar. “Don’t start.” 

“I was only going to say your arse.” Chloe sniffed but broke into a grin when Nadine dug her chin into the dip of her shoulder. 

There was a natural lapse in the conversation, the sound of waves and overhead birds filling in the silence. 

Nadine must have still been cold because she wedged closer into Chloe’s side and shivered. 

That was her cue. Chloe kissed the crown of her head and reached for their canes. “Let’s get going. We’ve got yesterday’s leftovers for lunch.” 

Nadine got shakily to her feet and pressed in for a kiss, something warm and intimate and long as their kisses were wont to be. 

The way back was faster, lacking the pit stops this time. The ocean really was beautiful, but they’ve seen it a thousand times before. 

Their afternoon was spent similarly: sat down, silences filled with conversation and pauses filled with whatever senior citizens did in their free time. 

Nadine had picked up the habit of reading all of Chloe’s old reference books she’d used for their adventures. She'd spent two days emptying Chloe’s many storage units into their spare room and had been slowly making her way through it all. Sometimes, she stopped to point out an old scribble Chloe had written years before or to discuss something she’d read which, more often than not, ended up being a nostalgic session of remember-whens and back-in-the-days. 

In Chloe’s case, she liked to fall into a stream of endless clickbait articles and banal smartphone games. 

Today, however, Chloe was content to just lay her head in Nadine’s lap and listen to the turning of pages and the muted sound of Nadine’s reactions. 

Nadine, being considerate as always, made sure to pause more often than usual to point out a fun fact about an artefact they’d found back in the summer of 20whatever. 

For dinner, Chloe made Nadine’s favourite Indian dishes. She considered spicing up the presentation but didn’t bother in the end. She wanted some sense of normalcy, even though she hadn’t put this much effort into making a meal since New Year’s. 

Nadine caught one whiff from an open pot and was already sitting down at the island. They had a dinner table, but they only ever ate there if guests were over. 

As she watched her fork shake in her hand, Chloe found that she didn’t feel any bitterness. She figured that there wouldn’t be any last minute regrets rearing their ugly heads tonight. She’d be getting her last supper exactly the way she wanted it. 

Afterwards, they did the dishes side by side. They had a dishwasher, but neither of them used one growing up and preferred to do it by hand when they had the time which was almost every night now that they were old. 

“Do you have any regrets?” Chloe asked, suddenly. 

A plate slid into the drying rack. Nadine picked up another. “No.” 

“Anything you’d like to do before you die?” 

Nadine gave her a look. “I’m 86, I’ve done everything I’ve wanted to do already. Probably before I even turned fifty.” 

Chloe pouted. “You’re no fun.” 

“Well, what about you?” Nadine asked, accusing, and when Chloe didn’t answer for several long seconds, she snorted. “Exactly.” 

She would’ve tossed some soap at Nadine if she were younger and could stand without leaning against the sink. She made do with plonking a bowl into a soapy tub of water, splashing some suds onto Nadine’s shirt. 

Nadine only smiled. 

There was something charming about this. Just the thought of them, so old and still pathetically in love with each other, upholding traditions from when they were younger makes her smile.  It was why she loved their house and the off-colour bench overseeing the ocean, though she’d never voiced this.

It was mostly because of this that she was okay with dying and with knowing it would come very soon. 

She had hated and loved and been broken and fixed. Her life had been full and had turned out to be fuller. It was only fitting that she’d die while still with the woman who she had found and had stayed by her side throughout what came after.

She was content with how things were with Nadine and how things had gone with everyone else; all her loose ends were tied and tied well. 

It made sense that she would pass in this stage of her life, where she was blissful and accepting of it. Not many of her old acquaintances were spared a peaceful death; it was, frankly, extraordinary that she would die on an ordinary day.  

While Nadine organised the drying rack, Chloe finished off rinsing the last plate and handed it off. 

Routine.

It was something that Nadine had found herself returning to after their retirement and gradually Chloe came around to it. 

That wasn’t to say she had abandoned spontaneity entirely; retirement lacked excitement and they were both closeted adrenalin junkies, they were bound to break routine up just for the fun of it — they travelled on the drop of a hat and ordered from new takeout places regardless of bad Yelp reviews. Chloe called it lukewarm adventuring.

The point was: routine was safe and comfortable and reliable, and that was what Nadine needed right now. Some part of Chloe found she enjoyed it too, though she suspected this was largely due being around a carefree Nadine. That, she would never tire of. 

So they followed their nightly rituals which mostly consisted of getting ready for bed and taking their pills. 

Nadine brought a book to bed, a different one from the one she had in the afternoon, and took out her reading glasses. They were thin and sometimes hung around Nadine’s neck by a string if they weren’t perched on her nose. 

When she first got them, she had held Chloe’s hand just a tad too tight on the way home, staring down passing trees in a stony silence. Clearly, they both had some issues handling their bodily deterioration with grace. 

Eventually, after months of Chloe jumping her while in glasses, she didn’t seem to hate them as much. She even cracked a joke or two when she was in a mood. 

Chloe smiled at the memory. 

“Are you going to say something?” Nadine asked, barely sparing her a side eye. “Sexy librarian jokes? Four eyes?” 

“No,” Chloe said after some consideration. 

“No?” 

“Should we have you fitted with hearing aids?” 

Turning, Nadine put her book on the side table. “Insufferable.” 

“You love me.” Chloe grinned, but before she could make out another word, she felt an itch in her throat. 

Quickly, she flipped onto her back and broke into a coughing fit. She let her body hack itself raw, resigned. 

When she looked over, Nadine had a tissue box in her lap and was sat up in attention. 

Chloe wordlessly accepted a tissue and let Nadine place a soothing hand on her shoulder. 

“Jesus fuck,” Chloe wheezed.

“We’ll go to the hospital tomorrow,” she said as Chloe coughed one last time before subsiding. “Chloe.” 

“I’m fine.” She held the tissue over her face, squinting at it. There was a spot of red. Instantly, she scrunched the tissue up. Nadine shouldn’t see that. “I’m fine, love. I promise.” 

She was. Mentally, at least. She doubted Nadine would agree with this definition, so she pushed herself up with a great amount of effort and aimed for the bin. 

“Kobe,” she hooted, or croaked, really. It fell short and she sighed. 

“You’re not funny.” 

Chloe fell back with her eyes squeezed shut. Shit, she had a headache. “Nadine. I’m fine.”

After a moment, she felt the bed shift and then dip once Nadine returned. She sank down too, their arms glued to each other under the blanket. 

Nadine curled her fingers around Chloe’s limp hand. 

Finally, in a tone so low and so soft, she spoke, “Chloe. Please.”

Chloe rolled her head to the side and found Nadine already looking back at her, their faces only inches apart. 

“I love you,” she said, raspy enough to be barely audible. “I’m glad I got to spend today with you.” 

Again, she had that look on her face that made Chloe ache in her chest. Nadine’s eyes were wet with muted sorrow, a subtle twitch at her jaw as she clenched and unclenched her teeth. 

“God, don’t do that,” she said, reaching out to cup Nadine’s cheek. “You have made me a very happy woman. You don’t even have to bloody do anything, I just love you.” 

Nadine’s eyes fell to the outline of their hands under the sheets and then fell shut. 

“And don’t get me started on your arthritis.” 

Nadine laughed wetly, grip tightening as she did. “You’re such a dick.” 

“I am, aren’t I?” Chloe agreed with a snort. “Good to hear me say it?” 

“Ja.” Nadine nodded. She arched forward and Chloe met her halfway for a chaste kiss. “I love you too.” 

From their distance, Chloe could count Nadine’s eyelashes. She didn’t, watching Nadine’s lips part for a shaky exhale instead. 

Chloe pulled their joined hands to her face, sighing into the knuckles. 

“If you want to sleep in the spare—”

Nadine inhaled sharply. “Maybe later.” 

“This is how I wanted today to go, okay?” Nadine didn’t reply. “We’ve talked about this, love. No hospitals, I just needed you. You’ve made it perfect.” 

Her hand twinged from Nadine’s grip, but she didn’t complain. 

“Okay,” Nadine said, then stopped short. 

Chloe smiled. It was sad and genuine. She rarely ever faked them nowadays. “I’ll see you in the afterlife.” 

“The first time I came with you with certain death guaranteed, I was riding shotgun and you were driving.”

“We’ve come full circle,” Chloe said. 

Today was a day tangled with reminiscence, it seemed. 

“Shit,” Nadine muttered, first covering her mouth with a hand, then dragging her knuckles under the corner of her eye. 

Chloe felt her own eyes prick. She really was okay with this, but it was hard not to be empathetic when she was face to face with the one person who might not be, held in her arms. 

“I love you,” she said because she didn’t know what else to say. 

Nadine smiled — or bore her teeth — and nodded. She pulled back, took a deep breath, and sat up. 

Chloe understood, really. Who would want to go to sleep knowing the person they’d gone to bed with would be a corpse in the morning? 

She reached out for Nadine’s forearm who stilled under her touch. “One more time?” 

Nadine’s back shifted, her whole body sagging with her sigh. She put her jaw against her shoulder, eyes moving from the edge of the mattress to meet Chloe’s. Her cheeks were damp.

This time, her smile was real. 

“I love you.” 

Chloe closed her eyes and relaxed into her pillow. 

Nadine shuffled out, cane tapping lightly against the wooden floor. The door closed with a click. 

And, well, Chloe Frazer had another train to catch. 

[swanqueeneverafter]

54. I’ll Be Your Mirror, Pt.2

Storybrooke. Present. Zelena’s Farmhouse. (Zelena drinks her tea as Archie is put to work caring for the baby.) Zelena: “Keep bouncing. She likes it. And if you know what's good for you, you'll add some funny faces. (The Evil Queen appears in a cloud of smoke:) About bloody time.” Evil Queen: “Oh, good, you're here. What a day. Thanks for watching him.” Zelena: “Yeah, thanks for asking. You know, I could've called Regina and turned him over.” Evil Queen: “Yes, you could have, but you didn't. You know what, Sis? I know exactly what you need. Come with me.” Zelena: “Come with you? What about Robin?” Evil Queen: “Oh, we have the perfect babysitter. (To Archie:) If the baby dies, you die. (To Zelena:) See? Now put a barrier spell over this dump to keep the vermin in and come along. Your little sister can make everything better.” Storybrooke. The Three Bears Day Spa. (Regina and Zelena are having a spa day.) Evil Queen: “Have you seen Gold's new haircut?” Zelena: “Yes, I bumped into him today.” Evil Queen: “He's looking good, isn't he? That man needed to get away from that blithering bookworm.” Zelena: “Have you and the Dark One ever...” Evil Queen: “Have you?” Zelena: “God, no. (Chuckling:) No. But I did try once. Back in my wicked days.” Evil Queen: “You know those days don't have to be over. So, what's holding you back now, hmm? I mean, isn't this what you've always wanted? A family who gets you, who chooses you? Regina and the others only tolerate you. They want you to shun your gifts. But I choose you because you're wicked.” Zelena: “But what if my daughter doesn't?” Evil Queen: “I understand. Now, don't forget I spent 10 years lying to Henry about who I really was because I thought, well, if he ever saw the real me, I'd be rejected.” Zelena: “But isn't that exactly what happened?” Evil Queen: “Only because I lied to him. You see, I never gave him the chance to accept the real me. But you, Zelena, you are strong and powerful and wicked. But your daughter won't embrace who you really are unless you embrace yourself first. Who knows? (Chuckles:) She may just turn out as wonderfully wicked as you.”

Regina’s Vault. (Regina is fixing a potion as Emma walks down the steps and enters the vault.) Emma: “You, uh, took off kind of quickly.” Regina: “Well, I'm sorry. I'm trying to save your life.” Emma: “Fair enough. Regina, about my vision-” Regina: “I said I’m fine, Emma. We both know it can’t be me under that hood. At least not ‘me’ me. I’m more worried about how Henry took the news. How is he? How did the Charmings take it?” Emma: “They’re a little upset I didn’t tell them, but honestly, they’re as anxious as us to figure this out. Now, what are we making in this jar of nightmares?” Regina: “It's a different kind of locator spell.” Emma: (As Regina adds another ingredient to the mixture:) “I thought everything Aladdin had was hot property.” Regina: “So did I, but then I realized there's one thing Aladdin didn't steal. His magic. This potion links like magic... in this case, the magic of two Saviors.” Emma: “Mine and Aladdin's.” Regina: “All you have to do is drink. Let's go find Aladdin.” Agrabah. Past. Cave Of Wonders. (Aladdin is still reeling from discovering he has magic.) Aladdin: “So, you knew? This whole time you knew, and you didn't think to mention it?” Jasmine: “You would've believed me?” Aladdin: “Of course not. (Sighs:) I need to be alone.” Jasmine: “As you wish. But before I go... This scarab was given to my family by the people of Agrabah many generations ago, a gift for freeing the kingdom from darkness. It's a hero's scarab. (Places it in Aladdin’s hand:) And now it's yours, because even if you don't believe in you, I do.” (Jasmine turns and leaves the cave. Opening his hand, Aladdin looks down at the scarab as Jafar appears in a cloud of smoke behind him.) Jafar: “Oh, hello, Aladdin. So how does it feel to be the Savior?” Aladdin: “Feels pretty good, 'cause I get to defeat you. Isn't that part of the job description?” Jafar: (Chuckles:) “Yeah. Perhaps that, too. But what happens then?” Aladdin: “I live happily ever after?” Jafar: “Not quite. Would you like to see what happens to your little hero endeavor, hmm? (Indicates the red bird sitting on his shoulder:) This is no ordinary bird. It's a type of an oracle. (The bird’s eyes glow red and images flash before Aladdin’s mind’s eye:) And what it's showing you now... is your the future. Not pretty, is it? But death is the fate of all Saviors.” Aladdin: “Is there any way to change it?”

Jafar: “Well, your future's not set in stone yet. There is a way to alter your destiny with these. (Holds up the Shears of Destiny:) Once belonging to the Three Fates, these shears can sever the ties to your own destiny. You will live, and you will no longer be a Savior.” Aladdin: “So, I... I won't have any power?” Jafar: “But you'll live a long, prosperous, happy life, paid for by all the treasures from the Cave of Wonders. You said it yourself, Aladdin. You didn't ask to be a Savior. And perhaps when you're free, you can buy yourself a new title. Doesn't Prince Aladdin sound so much more appealing than dead Savior?” The Palace. A Short Time Later. (Jasmine opens the doors to her father’s chamber and enters.) Jasmine: “Father? Are you in here? Father.” Sultan: “Jasmine, my dear. Have you seen my new castle?” Jasmine: “We don't have time to play with toys, father. I have to get you somewhere safe. A great battle is coming.” Sultan: “But Agrabah is at peace.” Jasmine: “Agrabah is dying. I know you can't see it right now, but Jafar has torn our kingdom apart, so I found a Savior who will defeat him.” Jafar: (Entering the room:) “Defeat the Royal Vizier? That sounds like treason.” Jasmine: “Don't listen to him, Father. Jafar is controlling you.” Jafar: (Stepping between Jasmine and her father:) “Yes. I am. (Using his magic, Jafar sends Jasmine hurtling across the room:) So, I can do what I want to you.” Jasmine: “You stay away from me. The Savior will be here soon.” Jafar: “Oh, do you mean Aladdin? The thief with a heart of gold, or is it the heart that desires gold?” Jasmine: “You don't know him.” Jafar: “Oh, but I do. Your Savior took the gold and ran. Now all that's left between me and the throne is you.” (Using his staff, Jafar traps Jasmine inside a large hour glass. The sands of time falling upon her.) Aladdin: (Suddenly entering, upon a magic carpet:) “I wouldn't be so sure of that!” (Aladdin circles the room, much to the delight of the bemused Sultan.) Jafar: (As Aladdin lands:) “You should've used the shears.” Aladdin: “Yeah, probably. But I'm still the Savior, and I don't care what price I pay for it.” (Using his own magic, Aladdin frees Jasmine and breaks Jafar’s staff in two, releasing the Sultan from Jafar’s spell.)

Jafar: “Spoken like a thief who's never had to pay a price for anything. But you will. And someday you'll realize that today was no victory.” (He leaves.) Aladdin: (Rushes to the princess’ side:) “Jasmine. Jasmine, are you all right?” Jasmine: “I'm fine. I just didn't think...” Aladdin: “What was wrong? Was the magic carpet too much?” Jasmine: “No. I just thought you had abandoned us.” Aladdin: “Yeah, um... Well, to be honest, I-I almost did.” Jasmine: “And what changed your mind?” Aladdin: “You.” (They lean in to kiss when the Sultan interrupts them.) Sultan: “Jasmine! Who is this young man? And why is there a toy castle in my throne room?” (Aladdin and Jasmine both stand to address the Sultan.) Aladdin: “I'm a friend of your daughter's. (Holds up the scarab and places it in Jasmine’s hand:) I just wanted to return something she had lost.” Jasmine: “Keep it. It's yours now. So you'll always remember that you have a friend who believes in you.” Storybrooke. Present. Woods. (Henry, Jasmine and Regina follow Emma, who, after taking Regina’s potion, has become a sort of human divining rod.) Emma: “We're getting close. It's... it's like we're connected. (Images flash through Emma’s mind which direct her on the right path:) It's this way.” Crypt. Emma: “This is the place. He's here.” Regina: “Here? We're directly under the cemetery in some kind of forgotten...” Jasmine: “Crypt. This is a crypt. Aladdin can't be here. You must've made some kind of mistake.” Emma: (Sympathetically:) “I don't think so.” Henry: “Why don't we wait outside while the others look around?” Jasmine: “No. Give me one of those torches.” (Jasmine takes a torch and moves further into the crypt. Coming upon a body, she sees something glinting in the torchlight. Reaching forward, she picks up the object, gasping in horror as she recognises the scarab.) Emma: “Jasmine?” Jasmine: (Cries:) “You were right. (Voice breaking:) He is here.” Regina: “Are you... are you sure that's Aladdin?” Jasmine: (Sniffles:) “Yes.” Regina: “I'm so sorry.” 

Henry: (To Emma:) “Mom. Does this mean...” Emma: “I... I don't know. I think I need to be alone for a minute.” (Slowly, everyone leaves the crypt, giving Emma her space. Silently, she moves to lean against a wall, sliding down it to her knees. Looking down at her hand, she sees it begin to shake again as her vision plays in her mind’s eye once more.) Henry: (Re-entering the crypt:) “Mom?” Emma: (Startled:) “Kid. I said I wanted to be alone.” Henry: “I know. But... (Crouches in front of her:) I'm so sorry.” Emma: (Placing her hand on his:) “What?” Henry: “This is all my fault.” Emma: “What... what are you saying?” Henry: “If I never knocked on your door, If I never dragged you to Storybrooke in the first place, none of this would be happening. I forced you to become the Savior.” Emma: “You didn't force me to do anything. You helped me believe.” Henry: “Believing won't stop the future.” Emma: “Maybe not. But it gave me a family. It made me a mother. I have actual magic in my life. I have you. If I could go back, I wouldn't change a thing.” Henry: “But it's not fair.” Emma: “Oh, kid. (They stand:) Let's not worry about the end of this story, okay? Endings usually suck. Let's just... enjoy the middle, the journey together.” (They hug and soon Henry hears a noise.) Henry: “Someone's there.” Emma: (Stands in front of Henry, her arms up ready:) “Stand back. I got this.” Aladdin: (Emerging from the shadows, notices Emma’s shaking hand:) “Sure you know how to work that?” Emma: “Aladdin?” Aladdin: “From one Savior to another, that is no fun, is it?”

Agrabah. Past. Marketplace. (Aladdin and Jasmine walk together through the busy streets.) Aladdin: “How is he, the Sultan?” Jasmine: “He’s my father again, thanks to you.” Aladdin: “I had some help. But don't tell anyone. My reputation, you know?” Jasmine: “Oh, that reminds me. Father insists you have your pick of the royal treasury.” Aladdin: “I don't want a reward.” Jasmine: (Chuckles:) “The greatest thief in Agrabah turning down the Sultan's riches?” Aladdin: “Yeah.” Jasmine: “Your reputation is doomed. (Chuckles:) So, what does the Savior want?” Aladdin: (Hesitates:) “Just to be the Savior. You know, save people.” Jasmine: (Slightly disappointed:) “Right. Well, a falcon arrived this morning. Jafar was sighted in the eastern provinces.” Aladdin: “Right. (Steps closer to her:) Come with me.” Jasmine: “What?” Aladdin: “We make a good team. We could fight Jafar together. And I could show you the world. What do you say, Princess?” (They lean in for a kiss once more but Jasmine stops herself.) Jasmine: “I... Oh, I can't. There's much work to be done here. Someone once told me that my kingdom was in pain for a very long time.” Aladdin: “Mm-hmm.” Jasmine: “They were right. (Sighs:) And they also said that I was selfish. (Chuckles:) Also right.” Aladdin: “I wouldn't listen to him. (Jasmine chuckles:) He sounds like quite the scoundrel.” Jasmine: (Sighs:) “This isn't goodbye. You'll defeat Jafar. And then... You know where to find me.” Aladdin: “Then I'll be seeing you. Princess.” (They part ways, Jasmine looking after him for a long moment before heading back to the Palace. Aladdin enters a side street when a satchel magically appears over his shoulder. Opening it, he pulls out the Shears of Destiny. He reads the note attached.) Jafar (VO:): “For a rainy day or the coming storm. When the Savior's burden becomes too much, you'll thank me.” Storybrooke. Present. Crypt. (Aladdin stands holding out the Shears.) Emma: “You used them.” Aladdin: “Yeah, I did. And Agrabah fell. So... I fled to the Enchanted Forest and got swept up in the curse.” Henry: “So, you've been in Storybrooke this entire time?” Aladdin: “Lucky for me, the sheriffs in town are too busy saving the world to notice a common thief. A very good one, to their credit.” Emma: “So, you planted the scarab. You didn't want us to find you.” Aladdin: “Well, I never intended to reveal myself. But after hearing you and the boy, I couldn't keep these to myself.” (Hands Emma the Shears.) Henry: “But Jasmine... She's looking for you. You... You need to go to her.” Aladdin: “She was the first person to believe I could be more than just a selfish street rat. I can't see the look in her eyes when she realizes that's exactly what I am.” Emma: “I was... I am a street rat, too. I made plenty of mistakes. But I found people who kept me strong and cared about me as much as Jasmine clearly cares about you. Maybe the real mistake was keeping the Savior burden to yourself.” Aladdin: “Our story never even begun.” Emma: “You two never... In the movie, you...” Aladdin: “Duty always got in the way.” Henry: “It's never too late to start.”

Storybrooke Heritage Park. (Jasmine sits alone on a park bench, the golden scarab in her hands.) Aladdin: (Approaching:) “Hey there, Princess.” Jasmine: (Exhales sharply:) “Aladdin? (They embrace:) I thought you were dead.” Aladdin: “I thought I'd never see you again. (They hug, again:) So, now what?” Jasmine: “Now you need to help me. That's why I've been searching for you. Agrabah is in terrible danger. We need the Savior.” Aladdin: “Yeah. Um... about that.” Zelena’s Farmhouse. (Archie stands in the kitchen with baby Robin in his arms as the sisters return.) Archie: “Where have you been?” Evil Queen: (Taking a seat:) “Yes, mothering isn't easy, is it?” Zelena: (Taking the baby from him:) “A spa day is exactly what Mommy needed to get back to basics, isn't it?” Archie: “Basics? What... what... what are you gonna do? You gonna... you gonna torture me? Kill me?” Zelena: (Laughs:) “Please. Don't be ridiculous. (Places the baby in the crib:) That would be a bit too, well, evil for my tastes. No. I've got to show my daughter who her mommy is. (She transforms Archie back into a cricket, hanging him in a cage above the baby’s crib. Laughs:) Wicked.”

[fuminorikyou]

Sand Mixed With Peach Juice by L’Oreal

I died a few years ago. At the very least, that’s what it seems like. On that fateful evening in November, I had wrapped a noose around my neck and hung myself. I had lost consciousness, then came to, noticing the following: Hanging up by a noose hurts like hell. Your passage ways are constricted, plus the pressure of all of your bodyweight is being placed on your neck. I took myself off the noose, then punched the bed, frustrated at my own cowardice. It was around this time I got admitted, and then medicated. Ever since that time, I’ve just been hovering around, feeling like a ghost trapped in purgatory. To be perfectly honest, it actually does feel like I’m in purgatory.

What got me to this point would be long and tedious. However, there was someone I was hoping to meet again. She was just a twenty year old girl meeting the big world. How we met was quite something else. My friend at the time invited me over to his place, saying that another friend of his was coming. He stated that she was seventeen. Being twenty-one, I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Why in the hell are we hanging out with a high-schooler? I came anyway. I’m not sure of the reason, I think it was due to me having relationship problems and not wanting to deal with them. That girlfriend of mine (well, ex-girlfriend now) was draining the life out of me. It had gone on long past the point of us needing to break up, but I was optimistic. Maybe one could even call us foolish. Maybe we were just young. At any rate, I found myself at my friend’s house, sitting on the familiar couch that I’ve plopped myself on for five years straight, inside the house that had begun to feel like my own. My friend came down the stairs, and the door opened, and thus she had entered the house and my life. She looked cute, but I wasn’t going to hit on a literal child.

I can’t recall the conversations we had word for word, but I do remember us becoming friends immediately. She was from Arizona, was a complete stoner (without being annoying about it), had done the same drugs as I, and had a boyfriend, who seemed to be super controlling. She was Mexican, and her name was Taylor. Taylor Hernandez. It tickled me how she had a Spanish last name and an English first name.

I spent the rest of that summer going to my friend’s house, hoping to come across her, as well. She almost always came, usually with food from the restaurant she worked at. My friend ate it, I ate whatever was in his house. Like I always did. We talked about everything and nothing. At some point, the friend who introduced us would become the third wheel. To his dismay, he even became the butt of our jokes.

The summer passed, we exchanged contact information, and then she went back to her life in Arizona. The seasons went by, both of our relationships ended, and we continued to talk over the phone. We wouldn’t become close until the end of next summer. We did LSD together, along with her boyfriend at the time, for a good portion of that summer. At some point, they had an argument and he left. The main factor was likely due to her shoving him down the stairs. No, that was definitely the reason. It had something to do with his continuous acts of cheating. (Or at least trying, there were times he got rejected.)

It was around this time we started to grow close. Both of us were single and had a lot of free time. I wonder what I should call this short time period. Maybe “The Happiest Days of Our Lives”, or perhaps “Happiness Found in the Mundane.” I’m going to go with the latter, for the days were very dull and uneventful. Little did I know that these days would be some of the most joyful days of my life.

There was one particular day we dropped acid, then decided to go to McDonalds. Beforehand, she was showing me this skin cleanser. It had sand mixed in with peach juice. I couldn’t help but laugh. “Do you seriously think sand mixed with peach juice will help your skin?”

“Well, my skin certainly looks okay.”

“It looked okay to start with. If anything, that’ll ruin your skin.”

“Shut up.”

“Maybe I can make a living doing that. I’ll add California sand to lime juice and say that it’ll get rid of blackheads. I’ll make millions.”

We both laughed as she was applying literal dirt to her skin. I grabbed a bike, she grabbed a longboard, and off we went. It was dark out, and only the moon lit our way. We somehow managed to dodge every branch that came across our way. Looking at her back, I was imagining telling her kids all about our silly adventures. We made it to McDonalds, got paranoid because of the cops suddenly arriving (thankfully not for us), then went back to her place.

Later that autumn, she went back to Arizona, winter came, then I went to China. We spoke some more times, I left China, then we hung out, then we stopped seeing each other for a minute. I cannot fathom the reason why, we just stopped seeing each other. Winter came, I got put back on the car insurance, then I saw her again. I picked her up at her other friends house, then we got pizza. I remember paying for everything, but I didn’t mind. After all, is it not up to the older sibling to foot the bill?

We talked a lot during that icy evening. Once again, I cannot remember the exact words that were exchanged. We talked about opiates. We talked about relationships, and the horrors of the dating world. She called me a POS for casually dating two girls at once. I couldn’t help but agree with her. Being the true friend that she was, she wasn’t afraid to tell me when I was in the wrong.

I won’t delve too deep into the following months that followed, for I don’t feel like jotting down every memory I had with her, so I’ll skip ahead to the very last time I saw her. I arranged for my friend group and her to go get pizza, go bowling, and drink. We were all high on cocaine, and frankly, we were having fun. Me and her ended up at her place, where we finished off our coke and smoked some marijuana. We talked about many things, and for the first time in a long time, had a heart to heart.

“You know, I always find myself going to you whenever I have a problem, but you don’t do the same. Okay, like, you tell me about your problems, but…..you don’t talk about how you feel about them, you know?” For some strange reason, that sentence resonated with me. I decided right then that I was gonna rely on her more, like she relies on me. The next day, she went to Phoenix.

At this point, I went on a desperate love quest, speaking to her often on the phone. She was having an interesting time in Phoenix. She wasn’t quite twenty-one yet, so she had to ask her roommate to buy beer for her. I judged her for getting Tecate. She said that it was a great beer and that I was too picky.

I told her about the chick I was dating, and she in turn told me about this guy she was seeing. We gave each other advice and calmed each other down, making sure that neither of us went too crazy. I slept with said woman on the same night she told me all about this oxy pill she found. She didn’t respond for a day. I thought that she was just busy with her new life. In other words, I didn’t think too much about it.

The following morning, I got a message from her mom telling me that she had died. What do you mean she’s dead? What kind of silly joke are you guys pulling? She’s not dead. She’s the least dead person I know! After all, she can’t die. We both can’t, we had that conversation. We agreed that our one curse was that we couldn’t die. I called her phone multiple times. There’s just no way. She’s probably laughing at her own dark joke in Phoenix. She’s gonna enroll in the University of Phoenix, she’s gonna work in forensics when she graduates. That woman sure did love looking at corpses. She loved perceiving herself to be tougher than she actually was. She can’t be dead, she told me that it was impossible for her to die! She’s likely bothering a snail right now with her marijuana smoke. I swear she had a grudge against those things. She told me that her curse was that she couldn’t die. She’s not dead. She-

Her mom then called me, confirming that she was, in fact, dead. She thanked me for being her friend, then hung up. I couldn’t help but breakdown. I called my best friend and sobbed into the phone. I still wanted to be in denial. I wanted someone to call me and tell me it was just a joke, but I knew in my heart that was impossible.

I eventually got her in a jar. She’s currently inside my box with my prescriptions. I haven’t exactly felt the same since her passing. In all honesty, they probably never will feel the same. I loathe my birthday these days. When she passed, I was twenty-four, she was twenty. We were supposed to go drinking when she turned twenty-one, but God had other plans. I turned twenty-five that year. She remained twenty. I hung out with her sister to reminisce. The bitch just talked bad about her and ended up crying. A whole year passed after that. I turned twenty-six, my friend remained twenty. I hung out with her sister again and the same thing occurred.

It’s been two years now. I’ll turn twenty-seven, and she….will remain twenty. Her younger sister will be turning twenty-two. Twenty-two! I know that must be fucking with her, even more so than me. Even more so than Taylor’s other friends. Up until the bitter end, their relationship was rocky.

There’s no real lesson nor even entertainment value of this story. All I did was jot down my memories so that she can be immortalized. I still feel like I haven’t done her any justice, but in all honesty, I don’t think any amount of writing ever will. How does one convey intense platonic love? Amazingly, that’s all this was. Platonic love. A friendship that could last a lifetime. The bitter irony is that we would’ve lost communication anyway, what with her being in Phoenix and all. She would’ve made new friends and forgot about me. And you know, I would’ve been happy for her. I would’ve thought about her less and less, then we would be distant friends.

However, there is one thing that gives me comfort. She died happy. She was on her way to fulfilling her dreams, and whatever pessimism or cynicism she may have faced in the past had since faded, and she was looking to the future with a gleam in her eyes. And I know that she would want me to look at the world in the same way.

[newstanmarshblog]

The Average and Unusual Couple: Chapter Sixteen

   Some minutes ago before the goth kids accidentally unleashed a sandworm into South Park, Beetlejuice was on a date with a greenish woman at The Eyes Cream Shop in the Netherworld. They were having their eye cream together at a small table just outside the shop while also getting to know each other.

   Beetlejuice: So, Miss Argentina, how exactly did you die again?

   Argentina: During my country’s beauty pageant of 1937, I was so determined in becoming the most beautiful woman that Argentina will ever have in its history. But then after losing the pageant to a woman name Elba Tardits, I just couldn’t grip with the reality that my country doesn’t see me as the ultimate beauty that I was so hoping to gain. I didn’t want to live in that type of reality. So, I put a snake viper’s venom onto a knife, and then I used it to cut my two wrist to end it all. And just thinking about that final moment where I took my own life is something that I now completely regret.

   Beetlejuice: …..Yeah, I ain’t gonna make a joke on that one.

   Argentina: And what about you? What was your result with death?

   Beetlejuice: I was one of many people that died during the bubonic plague of the 1300s.

   Argentina: You mean the Black Death?

   Beetlejuice: Yep. I caught the disease while tying to pull a prank onto a local renaissance artist, and then died within a week afterwards.

   Argentina: Looks like we both die in such tragic deaths. 

   Beetlejuice: Life can be such many things, and for it to be a bitch at times is definitely one of them.

   Closely hidden nearby were Scuzzo and his brother, Fuzzo. They’re about to make their scheme onto Beetlejuice.

   Scuzzo: *laughs* At last, Beetlepuss is in the right position where he’ll least except on what’s coming to him uninvited. Do you have our clown camera on for recording, Fuzzo?

   Fuzzo: *A couple honk noises*

   Scuzzo: Good. Everyone often fails to get back at The Ghost With The Most, but that’s about to change. I’m finally gonna be able to not only get my revenge on him for good, but to permanently end his wonderful afterlife in the Netherworld once and for all! *laughs hysterically*

   Fuzzo: *A couple honk noises while expressing some second thoughts on the scheme*

   Scuzzo: You think this is too extreme, even for our standards? Ha! We’re not in a kids show anymore! So we can be as R-rated as we like to now, even when it comes to the violence.

   The clown opens up a jar that’s filled with sand, then carefully throws all the sand towards to Beetlejuice’s shoes, and uses his Worm Your Way spray can to spray onto the shoes.

   Scuzzo: Dinner is severed. *laughs*

   Beetlejuice: Maybe someday I’ll introduce you to my living friends, but for now, I have my grossly reputation to protect. *begins to smell something* I’m beginning to smell something that’s way off.

   Argentina: Overdone your bug eating habits, I assumed?

   Beetlejuice: I wish that was the case, but it’s not that. It smells like…*recognizes the smell*…that Worm Your Way product. *smells agains* And it’s coming from my feet.

   He looks underneath the table, and sees the pile of sand all over his shoes. Beetlejuice begins to act nervous.

   Beetlejuice: Shit! Someone must’ve set this all up to get…

   Without warning, the monstrous back and white sandworm raises from the ground underneath Beetlejuice. As the sandworm continues to come up, Beetlejuice hangs on tightly onto the worm’s snout, and Miss Argentina falls to the ground due to the impact of the creature’s raising up so fast and aggressively. 

   Beetlejuice yelling: MMMMEEEEEEE!!!

   Argentina horrified: Oh my god! Beetlejuice!

   Scuzzo meanwhile was watching the whole screen with great excitement.

   Scuzzo: Ooooh, it’s the most dangerous subspecies of sandworm in all of the Netherworld. This dinner show is turning out way better than I could’ve imagine! *laughs hysterically*

   As the sandworm was trying to get Beetlejuice off of its snout, it was approaching to where Scuzzo and Fuzzo were at. Fuzzo panics in fear while dropping his clown camera.

   Scuzzo: Crap, it’s heading towards us! Run!

   The clowns flee from the worm while their camera gets run over by it.

   Not too far from The Eye Cream Shop, some bystanders were watching in fright for what they’re seeing. Within the bystanders were Jacques and Ginger.

   Jacques: So unreal. I’ve never seen a sandworm like this before.

   Ginger: Hey, isn’t that Beetlejuice on the worm’s snout?

   They both noticed their friend hanging on very tight onto the sandworm’s mouth.

   Jacques: Mon Dieu, it is him!

   The monstrous worm begins to approach them in a very fast speed.

   Ginger: Now it’s coming for us! AAAHHHH!!!

   Just as the worm was getting very close to them, it suddenly vanishes entirely out of the Netherworld along with Beetlejuice.

   Ginger: Huh? It disappear all the sudden.

   Jacques: Oh no, someone must’ve said Beetlejuice’s name three times from the living world. I just hope they don’t end up in a populated area because who knows what kind of danger that particular sandworm is capable of.

   Meanwhile back in the living world, the sandworm and Beetlejuice ends up in South Park where they automatically appear close to Henrietta’s house. The giant worm continues to move its head trying to get Beetlejuice off of its mouth.

   Beetlejuice screaming: WAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!

   As the sandworm moves into the street, it was finally able to have enough head strength to get Beetlejuice off of its snout. Beetlejuice crashes next to the school bus pick up area. After getting crash-landed, he recognizes the kid crossing street sign next to him.

   Beetlejuice: Huh, I wonder what Stan and Lyds were trying to call me for?

   But he had no time to figure out why he was called for as the sandworm was fast approaching him while also letting out a loud roar. As the worm was getting closer to him, he can still smell the Worm Your Way spray on his shoes, and that was when he thought of an idea.

   Beetlejuice: Sorry, you guys. I love your smell, but I’d rather save my own dead body odor first.

   He takes his shoes off, and then throws them towards the giant worm. The sandworm suddenly stops moving, and begins to smell the shoes. As it was smelling Beetlejuice’s shoes, the South Park police shows up in trying to stop the worm by force.

   Yates: Alright, you guys! We’ve dealt monsters larger than this, and I’m very sure that can take this one down too. No problem!

   Beetlejuice: Uh-oh. Those cops have no idea on what they’re dealing with.

   Stan: Beetlejuice! Over here!

   Beetlejuice turns around to see Stan and Lydia running up to him.

   Lydia: Beetlejuice, are you alright?

   Beetlejuice: We’ll discuss that later, but right now, we gotta get the fuck out of here!

   He begins to fly into the air while taking Stan and Lydia along with him. The cops meanwhile were ready to launch their full weaponry assault against the sandworm.

   Yates: Fire!

   The cops uses all of their firearms from assault rifles, shotguns, and pistols to take down the giant worm. As all the bullets were about to hit their mark, none of them doesn’t penetrate through the worm, and instead the bullets just bounces off from the worm’s skin to the ground. Despite on not getting punctured by the bullets, it still caused the sandworm to become very agitated with the bullets bouncing off of him constantly. It lets out an another loud roar.

   Yates: Shit!

   The sandworm uses its tail to destroy many police vehicle while also causing some serious injuries onto the cops, and then it dives down to the ground, disappearing. Sergeant Yates being lucky in not getting hurt checks out the giant hole that the worm had left behind.

   Yates: Looks like we’re dealing with a Mongolian death worm here. Better call in for some extra reinforcements.

   At the outdoor basketball court near main street, Beetlejuice lands on the middle of the court, and gently puts down his friends.

   Lydia: First off, are you alright overall?

   Beetlejuice: Physically, I’m fine. But mentally, absolutely not!

   Stan: That sandworm left you dramatized?

   Beetlejuice: Yes! I was having an eye cream with a good old friend of mine, and someone put sand underneath me while also sprayed the Worm Your Way product onto my shoes. When I finally noticed the sand around my shoes, that fucking sandworm came bursting from underground and tried to eat me! And then we ended up in this town. Did one of you two tried to call me early?

   Lydia: No. Me and Stan were at my house studying for our prehistoric project when we heard the loud commotion.

   Beetlejuice: So, then who else said my name?

   ???: It was us!

   They turned around to see who it was. The goth kids. Stan and Lydia had a bit concerned look on their faces while Beetlejuice looked displeased.

   Beetlejuice: You two know these non-conformists?

   Stan: They’re the goth kids. Before Lydia moved here, they were the only goth people in all of South Park.

   Henrietta: I’m Henrietta, and right beside me are Michael, Pete, and Firkle. We were the ones that said your name, Beetlejuice.

   Beetlejuice: For what for?

   Pete: We wanted to know on how your poser friends were able to visit the Netherworld so that way we can leave this god awful world for good, and spend all eternity there.

   Beetlejuice: Well, way a go, jackasses! Because of you guys, that apex sandworm is gonna be creating a lot of mayhem, and no weapon in existence can’t kill it.

   Lydia: Apex sandworm?

   Beetlejuice: That worm isn’t like the normal sandworms that you and I have seen many times before, Babes. This apex sandworm is far more dangerous! It’s faster, smarter, has a great sense of smell, an another mouth within its mouth, and its skin is so thick that no weapon or bite force can’t ever penetrate it. And once that worm eats you up, you’re permanently dead dead for good no matter if you’re currently alive or had already died once.

   Stan: Even if we can’t kill that sandworm, we must stop it immediately before it causes a lot of casualties! *turns to the goth kids* And you’re gonna help us too!

   Henrietta: *sigh* Despite our different opinions on life, we didn’t mean all of this to happen.

   Michael: And for that reason, we’ll help you posers just for this once.

   Stan: Do you know any weakness to this apex sandworm, BJ?

   Beetlejuice: Fully grown apex sandworms are perfectly adapted for hot environments. But once they enter into freezing temperatures just below zero degrees, they’ll begin to slow down. And if they stay within that temperature in thirty minutes, they’ll die.

   Pete: Well, fuck. The temperature out here is at 25 degrees.

   Lydia: There’s only one place close enough to get the worm to feel that kind of freeze. Stark’s Pond.

   Stan: Yeah, that’s right. The surface of the pond should be cold enough to weaken it so that way BJ can sit on top of it, and we can send it back to the Netherworld by saying that B word three times.

   Firkle: How we’re gonna get that worm to the pond?

   Lydia: One of us will have to play bait to lure it towards the pond. And as the sandworm gets closer to Stark’s Pond, we should also use something with freezing temperatures to slow it down.

   Beetlejuice: Hmmm….I know! *uses his magic to make water buckets* Water buckets that’s about below 0 degrees! You kids take positions on top of each different building while I’ll make that stinking worm come after me. And as me and the worm passes by each of you, uses your bucket to dump the freezing water onto that sandworm.

   Pete: What if the worm decides to get one us after we dump the water onto it?

   Beetlejuice: Don’t worry about that, kid. I’ll keep the worm busy no matter what.

   Lydia: Just be careful, Beetlejuice. If this sandworm is as dangerous as you said it is, then don’t be foolish with it.

   Beetlejuice: Not with this worm, I won’t. Instead, I tend to taunt it like an internet troll. *transforms his face into an internet troll face*

   Stan: Good luck to you, dude. Now come on guys, let's save this town!

   Not too far from where the group were at, the sandworm was causing a lot of destruction to South Park. It so far destroyed the mayor’s building, City Wok, a local brewery, and a couple homes. Along the way, many people got injured by the giant worm’s rampage. The only death casualty so far is Mr. Twig for he was eaten up by the sandworm. The worm continues on with it’s wrath as it was now causing some major damage onto main street area.

   Inside the Tegridy store, Randy was just finishing up cleaning his store while being unaware what was going on outside the store for he had country music playing on his radio.

   Randy: Phew! Finally, I can get this store back in business.

   Then suddenly without warning, the sandworm comes bursting through from underneath between inside and outside the store. The glass windows gets completely destroyed, and many dozens of weed jars fall to the floor.

   Randy frustrated: OH, GODDAMNIT!

   As the giant black and white worm lets out another loud roar, Beetlejuice was standing in the middle of the street, and then he makes a loud whistling noise to get the worm’s attention. The sandworm turns its focus onto Beetlejuice.

   Beetlejuice: Hey, Dune worm ripoff! I got twenty bucks right here saying that you’ll never keep up with me!

   Twenty Dollar Bill: You’re never keep up with the B guy!

   The worm lets out a huge roar once again, and begins to go after Beetlejuice.

   Beetlejuice: *making funny faces at the worm* NANA NANA NA! *begins to fly off*

   As he flies by the Photo Dojo, Lydia was on the roof of the building waiting for the sandworm to come by. Once the worm’s face was close enough, she uses her bucket to dump the freezing water onto the monstrous worm. The water hits above the worm’s eyes, causing it to stop moving forward and starts shaking its head.

   Beetlejuice: Awww, what’s the matter? Did you just gotten an icy rinse? *laughs*

   The sandworm does a loud growl, and pursues on in chasing Beetlejuice. After about a minute chase later, they’re about to be passing by the Raisins building where Henrietta and Firkle were there waiting for them on the roof. As Beetlejuice fly passes by them, the two goth kids then dump their freezing water onto the sandworm. The impact of the freezing water then resulted for the giant worm to start shivering and slow down a bit, but not by too much as it was still fast enough in keeping up with Beetlejuice. Later on they were close to the Elementary school building where Stan, Michael, and Pete were waiting for them.

   Michael: Hey, Stan. About what I said to your girlfriend during the first day of school, I take it all back. She isn’t as much a big dork as I thought she was.

   Stan: *laughs a bit* Well, she can be a bit nerdy when it comes to insects, but I understand on what you’re saying. Thanks. *smiles*

   Pete: Here they come!

   They can all see the giant worm still pursuing on Beetlejuice, but it was also beginning to slow down. After Beetlejuice flies by them, the sandworm was about to come by them too.

   Stan: Three…two…one…now!

   They all use their buckets to dump the freezing water onto the sandworm. Not only did the impact of the water caused for the worm to shiver even more, but it also really pissed it off. The worm then turns its attention to where the water was thrown from, picks up the scent of the three boys on the school roof, and decides to go after them.

   Pete: Ah, crap.

   As the sandworm opens its double mouth and was about to kill the boys, Beetlejuice suddenly appears right in front of it.

   Beetlejuice: Hey, what’s the big idea?! Have you already forgotten about our little competition? *takes out his twenty dollar buck*

   Twenty Dollar Bill: *laughs hysterically while turning its head into Slowpoke from Pokemon* What a slowpoke!

   The sandworm lets an aggressive roar, and goes back in trying to kill Beetlejuice.

   Beetlejuice: I’ll only give you the twenty bucks that is if you can catch me first. So, come on and get me, you sandfucker!

   He flies off as the giant worm goes after him in a slower speed.

   Stan: Ok, let's get to Stark’s Pond. Come on!

   At Stark’s Pond, Lydia was sitting on the bench all alone as she sees Beetlejuice heading towards her along with the sandworm following not too far behind. Beetlejuice turns himself into a jackhammer to break the ice until he hits the water surface of the pond. He then turns himself into a water hose, and Lydia picks him up.

   Beetlejuice: Ready to give this lousy worm the ultimate arctic bath of a life time, Babes?

   Lydia: Come closer you stinking worm, make my day! *she aims the BJ hose straight towards the approaching sandworm*

   Beetlejuice: *laughs* That’s my Lyds!

   Once the sandworm was in perfect range, Beetlejuice opens up his hose mouth, and unleashes the freezing water right at it. The giant worm halted its pursuit for it can’t stand being hit by the below 0 degree water on its face. The worm begins to shiver more severely, and dives down to the ground to get away from the freezing water.

   Beetlejuice: Uh-oh, we can’t let that varmint get away to see this world another day.

   Beetlejuice turns himself into a cowboy, and uses his rope to catch the worm’s tail. Once the rope was secured around the tail, he uses all of his strength to keep the sandworm from going down deeper.

   Beetlejuice: Yeehaw! Looks like I’ve caught myself the greatest worm catch of the century! Now uses those B words to send me and the worm back home, Lyds!

   Lydia: Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice!

   Beetlejuice and the sandworm magically disappears from the area.

   Lydia: *sigh of relief* See you around next time, partner.

   Straight ahead of her were Stan and the goth kids as they run up towards her.

   Stan: Where’s Beetlejuice and the sandworm?

   Lydia: I’ve send them back to the Netherworld. As long as we don’t say his name for probably up to at least the rest of the day, we’re all gonna be fine.

   Henrietta: We all saw what you and BJ did against that sandworm, Lydia. Never before have we ever seen any type of goth acting so bravely against something that huge and lethal. Even though I don’t think we’ll ever become friends with one another due to our difference on gothic nature, but we do have a new mad respect for you now. You’re one hell of a hardcore goth unlike any other, and we totally respect you for that.

   Lydia smiling: Thank you. I’m glad that we can at least respect one another for what we are.

   Michael: Although we still want to visit the Netherworld very soon.

   Stan: We’ll ask BJ about it and see how we can arrange it for you all. But promise us that you’ll keep all of this a secret. Nobody in this town or anywhere else on Earth can’t ever know about the Netherworld, nobody. Understand?

   Firkle: Deal.

   The rest of the goth kids: Deal.

   Lydia: And don’t have any high expectations once you’ve seen the place because it’s not exactly what you guys think it is.

   Pete: *Pfft* Whatever. Until next time, you lovebird conformists.

   As the goth kids leaves the Stark’s Pond area, Sergeant Yates shows up on top a blue M1 Abram tank along with a couple armor police vehicles.

   Yates: You kids need to clear out the area right away if you two want to save your own skins from this Mongolian death worm!

   Stan: I don’t mean to spoil your fun, but that giant worm isn’t around here anymore.

   Lydia: Yeah, Mr. Beetleman took care of it without getting a single scratch.

   Yates: I’m not falling for anything like that. Now get out of the way, or else we’ll force you two out of here!

   Stan: It’s true, Officer. Mr. Beeteman specializes anything supernatural and giant creatures. Ask my dad about him at the Tegridy store. He’ll tell you everything that you need to know about him.

   Police officer: He’s right, sir. Mr. Marsh did say some things about Mr. Beetleman while I was at his store earlier this week.

   Yates: *sigh* Alright, fine. But I swear if you kids are just pulling my leg here, you both are gonna be in a lot of trouble! *talks to his men* Alright, men, let’s head back to base and play some Fortnite!

   The Police force leave the area while cheering in excitement to get back to Fortnite.

   Lydia: You’re totally right about those cops, Stan. They’re all really terrible.

   Stan: And I’m not too surprise that they love that bandwagon game. *sigh* I can’t believe that I used to play that stupid game when I was twelve.

   Lydia: I tend to stay away from video games that can get too addictive, and only play video games in moderation.

   Stan: Good for you, Lyds. It’s those types of video games is the whole reason why I started playing board games in the first place. It helps me to keep away from any addictive mobile and console games.

   Then suddenly, ringtones can be heard from their phones. They both pick up theirs cellphones, and answer it.

   Stan: Hello?

   Lydia: Who is this?

   Beetlejuice: I’m calling from beyond the grave! *laughs*

   Stan: *sarcastic laughter* Very funny, dude. Anyway, is that sandworm putted back where it came from?

   Beetlejuice: It’s all good, Stanny boy. Once I returned back to the Netherworld, I shoved that worm back into the hole where it originally bursted out from, and then had concrete to shield it completely. And then not too long after, I’ve found out on the bastards that tried to kill me.

   Lydia: Who?

   Beetlejuice: Scuzzo the clown, and his brother, Fuzzo.

   Lydia: Wow, they actually tried to kill you? That’s something I never thought they’ll ever do.

   Beetlejuice: Scuzzo threw in a good amount of sand around my feet, and then sprayed the Worm Your Way product onto me afterwards. That fucking clown purposely lure in that sandworm just to have me killed! Even for my standards, that’s a kind of dirty trick that I’ll never use.

   Stan: Have you told the authorities about those clowns yet?

   Beetlejuice: Actually, they’ve caught them already. Jacques and Ginger witnessed the sandworm trying to eat me earlier before we got sent to South Park, and they so happened came across a clown camera shortly after they checked in to see if my old friend was alright. That clown camera had the smoking gun video in proofing that Scuzzo and Fuzzo were the ones responsible for luring in that sandworm. After Jacques and Ginger presented the camera to the cops, they’ve watched that video, and then arrested those clowns within serval minutes.

   Lydia: That’s good to hear, Beetlejuice. I’m just glad that this whole worm madness is finally over.

   Beetlejuice: Me too, Babes. I just can’t wait to see Scuzzo being sent into sandworm land instead of me for once. *laughs*

   Stan: Well, at least justice is being severed to them, even if it’s too severe.

   Beetlejuice: I gotta get going now. I still need to finish my date with Miss…oh shit! I mean, finish hanging out with my old friend! Bye! *hangs up*

   Stan: *laughs* Just as we thought.

   Lydia: Yep. I can’t wait for him to let us meet the lady that he’s dating with once we get him to convince about it.

   Stan: Same. But anyway, we should be heading back to your place. Our parents must be worrying sick about us by now.

   Lydia: Yeah, I was thinking of the same thing.

   Stan: You wanna hold hands on the way back?

   Lydia smiling: Not unless if you kiss me first!

   Stan smiling: I’m down for that, you brave perky goth.

   They both hug, and kiss each other for a few moments.

   Lydia smiling: And you have great bravely within you to. I saw you prowling that icy water into that worm as I was making my way here, and it takes a lot of guts to do something like that onto a killer worm.

   Stan smiling: *laughs* Thanks.

   They both walk together holding each other hands with the sound of relaxation surrounding on the sweet couple everywhere.

   In the next chapter, Stan and Lydia presents Sharon a huge gift that’ll decide on the future of the Marsh family.

[galadrieljones]

zero: chapter 6

Fandom: Horizon: Zero Dawn | Pairing: Aloy x Nil | Rating: M (Mature)

Content: Existential Angst, Touch-Starved, Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Alcohol Abuse, First Loves in the Wild, Slow Burn, Violence, Love Triangles, Nightmares, Hurt/Comfort, Friends to Lovers, Friendship/Love, Post-Traumatic Stress

Chapter 1: Zero | Chapter 2: Driftless | Chapter 3: Borderlands | Chapter 4: Keep | Chapter 5: History | AO3

Forgiveness

“He won’t be there,” said the barmaid. She was putting together a nice cup of coffee for Aloy. The tavern had big, wooden walls and low, brass lights, and it was rather crowded for a typical morning in the Maizelands. Somebody was talking like a parade had come to town. New merchants from the Borderlands with new wares, and this got the villagers excited.

“What do you mean?” said Aloy. She had her hands folded on the counter in front of her.

“If you’re going to see brother Nil? He won’t be there. He caught word on some bandits from Oseram travelers. He told me to tell you if you came, and he left a note where his camp used to be. He said it would be a note that only you can read. Whatever that means.”

Aloy got red in her cheeks. She felt the go-between nature of this barmaid and the rest of her life, and it was making her itch. She sighed and rested her chin in her hands. “More bandits,” she said. “Great.”

“Are you surprised?” said the barmaid. She handed Aloy a little cup and saucer. The coffee smelled good. They didn’t have coffee in the Sacred Lands and Aloy was growing used to it here.

“Not really,” said Aloy. “He’s not really the sitting-still type.”

“And neither are you, I take it,” said the barmaid with her green eyes. She introduced herself as Brissa. “I knew Nil as a kid in Meridian Village. I don't know that he remembers me exactly whenever he comes in here. I was a touch younger, but I remember him.”

“Did you know Avad?”

She blushed. She was tall and rangy and beautiful, but she wore a wedding ring and had some ceremonial tattoos on her neck that communicated the rites of a Carja marriage. “No,” she said. “Only Nil knew Prince Avad.”

“Does everybody know Nil? It seems like they do.”

“Not everybody,” said Brissa, smiling. “But many do. None speak of him anymore, of course. They all think he was a betrayer, but I remember what happened in Sunfall, and a lot of us know the truth behind his allegiances.”

“What truth?” said Aloy.

“That his mother was murdered by Oseram mercenaries,” she said, almost casual. She began polishing a glass with an old brown rag. “Mercenaries who later joined Avad’s cause in Meridian. Nil was a teenager. It was a big deal.”

Aloy felt suddenly very far away and cold. “His mother was killed by Oseram?” she said.

“Yes,” said Brissa. She set down the glass and rubbed her eyes. Then she looked right at Aloy, very serious. “He doesn’t talk about it, does he?”

“No,” said Aloy. “He doesn’t.”

Brissa sighed. She seemed unsurprised by this, the fact that Nil had kept it all a secret. “I guess you two just live in the moment then,” she said. She looked up. “Am I right?”

“What does that mean?”

“You both hurt, but you don’t talk about it. Why not?”

“I’m fine,” said Aloy, so quick and so certain, she almost convinced herself.

But Brissa was not so easy. She sort of squinted, leaning over the bar as if she were reading the glyphs of truth on Aloy’s soul. She nodded, once. “Right,” she said, smiling. Then she changed the subject. “When he moved away from Meridian Village, you know, we were all so sad.” She sighed. “He was so cute, and he writes good stories. He used to read them at the campfire and change his voice for all the characters.”

Aloy allowed herself to laugh at this. “Nil?” she said.

“He used to be much happier,” said Brissa. It was a blunt fact as she tended to her nails with a slender file from her pocket. The Carja spoke with a forward measure. They rarely hid their truths and were uncontained with bravado like the Oseram or the Nora. They wore their bravado on their faces in tattoos and ceremonial make-up. They wore it on their head-dresses and elaborate fashions of metal and ceramic plates. “He was light on his feet back then.”

Aloy nodded, feeling a little guilty for some reason.

“Were you ever light on your feet?” said Brissa.

Aloy gave her a look. She pushed the hair off her face and felt suddenly persecuted. “What’s with the interrogation?”

“Nothing,” said Brissa, innocently. Like it was all a joke. “I just get that you’re a warrior-type, and him, too. So serious. My brother’s a little like that. Not my husband. He’s a fisherman and he just wears his emotions like jewelry. That is why I love him. But still, working at a bar, I’ve had some practice.”

“I’m not that serious,” said Aloy. “I can be…less serious. And I don’t even know if I’m a warrior. I mean, I’m good at stabbing stuff, if that’s what you mean.”

Brissa laughed at this. “You’ll come around one of these nights, Aloy, and I’ll get you toasted off your ass,” she said. “We can talk about your whole life, and your big handsome lover Nil and his childhood brevity.”

Aloy felt very tense in her face and her neck as she drank her coffee. The room was warm and itchy. She tried to pay with a couple coins before she left but Brissa would hear nothing of it.

Afterward, Aloy encountered a distressed man in Brightmarket who had grown worried upon the disappearance of his daughter. It came suddenly, like a big wind in a canyon and took Aloy off guard so that she could not escape him. She’d been busy, walking along the river, gathering up ridgewood for her arrows, trying not to feel both sad and elated at once. She didn’t even see him coming and then suddenly she was involved in his life, and he had a very sad face that made her think of Rost, and then it was too much, and it was in this moment that Aloy felt her heart shut itself away behind a curtain and she began to realize exactly what Brissa had meant about her being a warrior, and she felt annoyed.

The man’s name was Lahavis. He was a diplomat, high born, and he had dealings in the Carja Civil War, and Aloy wondered about his allegiances. His daughter, Elida, had disappeared, and Lahavis was worried that she had taken her own life.

“Why would she do something like that?” said Aloy. They stood by the river, which smelled of medicine. It was late morning, and she had a whole bundle of ridgewood beneath her arm, on her way out to Nil's camp.

But the man looked disheveled. He became uncertain and panicked. “I don’t know. Why would she? She is about your age. Why would a young woman about your age find herself in despair?”

Aloy sighed and didn’t have the answer. “People get sad,” she said. It seemed to be the only true response. She gave in, because the man seemed desperate, and he offered to pay her. “I’ll find Elida.”

“Thank you,” said Lahavis, and then he started to cry and leaned into the railing of the bridge over the river where they talked beneath the rising sun. “You have no idea how grateful I am.”

Elida was pretty and mild, and it turned out she had stolen a boat off the Brightmarket docks and rowed it across the canal to an abandoned little island covered in moss. It was hell getting over there. Aloy tracked her to a beach that faced out against the lake, and she was surprised by a Snapmaw, which she killed quickly, but those things were long and evil, and she sustained a kind of bad frostbite to her left arm. She sat swearing and sweaty down the beach from the big, sparking beast and all of its severed electronic impulses. It was dead. “Stupid fucker,” she said as she examined her injury and spat into the sand. She saw a girl then, climbing down from the mesa overhead. This startled Aloy at first, as she was on her guard, but then she noticed the delicate weaving of the girl’s lavender dress, her shiny hair. This was a noble girl, hesitant, and Aloy knew right away that it was Elida, and she sighed with relief, as she assumed this meant her job was complete.

But Elida was atypical in her behavior. She did not speak at first and seemed unwell and frightened. She rushed to her little camp under one of the escarpments in the cliffside, and she rifled through a little hope chest without a word until she found a small covered jar full of a thick salve that Aloy recognized, and then she approached Aloy with the utmost caution.

She held out the jar. “Thank you,” she said, shy. “Here. For your wound.”

Aloy took it without question, staring at her and trying to figure out what to make of this scenario. “Elida?” she said.

“Yes,” said Elida. She then became curious. “Where did you learn to fight like that?”

“Like what?”

“You killed that Snapmaw with just a tripwire and your bow. It was incredibly fast. I thought you were going to die.”

“Oh,” said Aloy. She sighed. She unscrewed the jar and smelled the contents inside. It was hintergold and something stronger. “I’ve had a lot of practice. I don’t recommend it.”

“How do you know my name?” said Elida then, sitting down beside Aloy. “Did my father send you?”

Aloy rolled up her sleeve. The patch of frostbite was small and incomplete but it hurt like fuck. “Yes, he did.”

“Did he pay you?”

She wouldn’t lie. “Yes. But I’m not going to make you do what you don’t want to do, Elida. I just came to make sure you’re all right. I’m not here to force you home if that’s not what you want.”

Elida nodded. She seemed to trust Aloy. She glanced back to her camp. It was set up with a square garden of pretty herbs and a tent and a dead fire, some dead rabbits strung up and many more salves and potions for medicinal healing. The day was bright and new, the sun hot overhead. Aloy noticed that the camp had two bedrolls, and she looked around, but there didn't seem to be anyone else there on the island.

Meanwhile, Elida took off her elegant head-dress, and she drew up her knees and hung her head between them, and she sighed. She had red And puffy eyes. It looked like she’d been crying on and off for a very long time. “I’m alone,” she said.

“Are you?” said Aloy.

“At the moment, yes. I’ve been waiting for someone, but I don’t know where he is. I am okay, though. I promise.”

“Who are you waiting for?”

Elida became troubled. She looked away and her cheeks were very pink. She began drawing shapes in the red sand at her feet. An elephant, a butterfly. “Your name is Aloy, right?”

Aloy looked down at her hands as Elida changed the subject, the linen wraps around her knuckles and wrists, and she played along. “Yes. I’m Aloy.”

“I’ve heard all your stories,” said Elida. “How you saved King Avad from the Oseram invaders. How you can tame machines with your spear.” She looked up, curious and bright. “And yet now, you’re here for me? My father must be paying you a lot.”

“It’s not about money,” said Aloy, rubbing her hands together and pressing them into the sand. “Or, maybe it is a little. But in the end, I think you’re kind of my age, and I just—took an interest. Your father was worried you’d killed yourself, Elida. That’s serious.”

“He was?”

“Yes.”

“Maybe you’ll get it then,” said Elida. She drew some more shapes: a tree, a sun, a hand. “Maybe I can tell you. Maybe you’ll understand.” It was almost like she was talking to herself. “You’re you.”

“Maybe I’ll understand what?”

“What I’m doing here,” she said. She sniffled. She started to cry. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t cry,” said Aloy. “Don’t apologize.” She put her hand on the girl’s shoulder, but she felt brute in her attempts at comfort as she always did. She did not feel like a comforting person, and this made her insecure. She did not know how to be soft, and she didn’t know what this meant for her. She was not a wise, soul-reading barkeep or a noble maiden wasting away on an island of moss. She had never learned those things. She was an outcast. “Please.” She lowered her voice anyway. She tried, because that’s what Aloy did. “It’s okay, whatever it is. It can be fixed.”

“Can it?” said Elida, a question.

“Well, maybe not,” said Aloy, giving in, feeling tired all of a sudden. “But I can’t know unless you tell me what’s wrong. Is this about another person? The person who shares your tent?”

“Do you know about that?” said Elida. “Have you ever been close to someone like that?”

Aloy thought hard about it. Despite the untold histories, the secrets, she knew now that she had. “Yes, a little.”

So Elida took a deep breath and told Aloy about Atral. She told Aloy that Atral had helped her plant the little garden by the camp, that they had used to be friends but now they were more than friends. She told Aloy that he had joined the Shadow Carja, and that this was their doom. She said that the war had changed him, that it had changed them both irrevocably, and that in answering that change, they fell in a kind of hard love, the only thing that could save their young souls. It was the only thing, like bells ringing in a far away land, and it drew them to its beauty but it was impossible, and it was ghosts. All ghosts. She needed help finding him and making sure he was okay, and she felt belittled by her weaknesses, and her father was too curious and too concerned to be of any help at all, and so she had to leave him or else go crazy. “He won’t get it,” she said. “All he’ll see is treason.”

She spoke of Atral’s sad eyes as the sun went up and up over the mesa. She spoke of how the war seemed to make him both taller but also brittle and sad. Aloy became so wrapped up in the story, she cast her eyes to the sky and then she closed them. She forced her mind into darkness for it was all she knew. Elida was a proper girl with good posture and enunciation, that is what she tried to think about. Elida did not deserve this, because she was an innocent. But then, Elida said something at the end of her melancholy prayer of love, and it was gritty and strange, and it jerked Aloy hard into the moment in which her idiotic deflection tactics fell away like an old curtain, and she saw only Nil inside her mind’s eye, and everything that became of him when the sun went down.

“It’s like…I’m dead,” said Elida, still drawing those shapes in the red sand. But they’d started to mix together, and Aloy couldn’t tell them apart anymore. “It’s like I’m dead, and I only come alive when I’m here with him.” She looked at Aloy, the utmost earnestness in her strange, royal eyes. “Do you know what that’s like, Aloy?”

Aloy became confused, because she did not. No matter what had happened to her, she had never once felt dead. She wondered if Nil felt dead sometimes, because that is who she thought of when the big questions came to mind. “No,” she said. “But I can understand what you’re feeling, Elida.”

Elida nodded, her eyes like little sad lights in empty windows. “You’re lucky then,” she said, wiping away all of the pictures she’d drawn in the sand, smoothing them free with her palm. “I feel so empty.”

“I’ll find Atral,” said Aloy, like a reflex. “Don’t worry.”

  And she did. She did find Atral, but it wasn't what any of them wanted. Even still. I’m not dead, she said to herself that day and all night, like a chant, a reminder of self-forgiveness for all the things she wanted and wished for and how it measured up with what had come to pass. Losing Sickle, kissing Nil by the river. I am me, she said as she lit an entire patrol of kestrels on fire, and as she watched, covered in blood, as Atral died on the dirty fucking floor of a cliffside watch on what had otherwise been a very clear and beautiful moonlit night. He was sturdy and good and he had kind eyes, and she didn’t understand what could make a young man like this get caught up inside a war like that. But how could she? Knowing what she knew now, or what she didn’t, rather. He gave Aloy a little metal key, all bloody, pressed it into her palm as if to symbolize the entirety of young love and life right there in a single gesture. Then, he asked if Elida was safe, and he asked for forgiveness. He promised that he had never betrayed her or their secret meeting spot. He said, “Give her this key, and please. Tell her…tell her it’s all worth it.”

Aloy left Brightmarket that very night, feeling mixed and torn, with Elida tucked into her grief and her loving father’s arms behind her. Elida had cried, but she was oddly filled with a new and tearful optimism that renewed Aloy. The woods were warm that night, and welcoming to her weary soul after she found Nil's note, accompanied by a cryptic map, and she sprinted cleanly through the forest, staying in the shadows, as quiet as can be, and when the moon was high and she knew that it was getting into the witching hour, and she had traveled many miles and made it very far,  she found a freshwater pool somewhere isolated off the river with the moonlight sprinkling through the trees and the fireflies off in the distance, and this is where she decided to build her simple camp for the night, and she took off all her clothes and folded them neatly beside the bedroll, and then she went into the water and washed Atral’s blood out of her hand creases and out of her hair. It felt good in the water, and she wasn’t afraid. She slept in her tent with the flap open and no fire, sound traps and tripwires planted everywhere, on all sides, but it was quiet that night in these parts of the Sundom, and nothing and nobody disturbed, almost as if someone had cleared a path for her.

Sometimes, when Aloy thought about Nil, she thought only about his demeanor upon killing a man. He stood tall and fierce as he ripped the spear from the meat of their spine, as if certain he could never die, and he let the body fall heavy to his feet in anger. But at the end of the day, there was nobody better at building and maintaining a camp than Nil. His delicate ways in how he applied the medicine, braided her hair. She wondered what it would have been like to hear his stories in childhood, all his different voices to pass the time. She thought about those days after Sickle, and how many nights she’d spent in the Borderlands, punishing herself—but for what? Punishment for something she couldn’t place. But she knew now. Survival is not a crime. This is what Aloy decided that night, young and feeling young. It is all worth it. She drifted, safe and sound in the far-flung weeds of existence with the big bugs buzzing in the treetops overhead. Her hair was down and unbraided as she slept, drying to frizz against the pillow that smelled of aloe and pine.

[rudderless-in-an-ocean-of-stars]

even as a shadow, even as a dream

More from my post-IW series, between dust and despair.

Contains spoilers.

Find it here on Ao3:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/14533974

Summary:

Tony Stark is no stranger to grief.

//

Continuation of the previous work in the series, ‘memento mori’.

“Come back. Even as a shadow, even as a dream.” - Euripides

After his parents‘ funeral, Tony remembers going back to the mansion and sneaking into his mother’s room.

He’d crawled into her bed, buried his face in the pillows, and breathed in the mingled scents of her shampoo and perfume. Lilies and lavender. He was still wearing the suit Jarvis had promised him she would have loved to see.

For the next few days, he’d repeated the same routine, over and over up until the day he realized her sheets no longer carried the smell of her.

He’d cried then, finally.

He hadn’t cried when Jarvis had broken the news to him. He hadn’t cried at the fittings for the suit he would end up wearing to their funeral instead of the opera his mother had planned for them to attend. He hadn’t even cried as he sprinkled handfuls of dirt into their graves.

But he’d cried then, when the smell of lilies and lavender was gone and the reality that his parents were never coming back had finally sunken in.

After Yinsen had died, he’d built himself armor, literally and figuratively, to keep the world at bay. He didn’t need or want anyone else ever getting close enough to see how deep his scars truly ran.

After Obie’s death, he’d locked himself in his lab to work for days at a time, determined to keep himself from ever being so vulnerable again, all the way up until the symptoms of palladium poisoning had become clear. Then he’d sent his life into a tailspin of inadvisable actions to compensate for the time he thought he’d never get.

He doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do now, trapped in another ‘after’ where he knows people will expect him to have a plan. Strange had expected it, the cryptic bastard, had given up an infinity stone for whatever solution he expected Tony’s brain to come up with. But right now, Tony’s head just feels like the rest of him, heavy and hurting and in too much pain to properly function.

There’s no Peter, no Pepper, no Happy, no half of the universe.

3.8 billion people have just been left on Earth with nothing but dust and hollow spaces where their friends and family should be.

If May is still alive...

He narrowly resists the urge to slam his fist into the wall.

If.

Tony’s spent his whole life chasing ‘if’s.

If May Parker is still alive, he’s going to have to be the one to tell her the last member of her family is dead. That isn’t even anything left of him to bury. That all of this is a result of the seriously flawed logic of a giant, purple, alien egomaniac who had decided to erase half of the universe’s population at random, and he’d failed to stop it from happening.

He’d failed to keep Peter alive.

There’s a small, sick part of him that hopes he won’t find her when he goes back to New York. That wherever Peter is, death or heaven or whatever, she’d ended up there too.

Shame burns through him at the thought.

Leave it to random probability to spare the shittiest person on the planet, he thinks with no small amount of bitterness bubbling up in pit of his stomach.

Guilt tears at him, ripping him open and leaving him bleeding out on the floor as though he’d never been healed in the first place. He drowns in it, chokes on it, wonders wildly if it’s possible to die from the weight of his regrets alone.

In the end, he drags himself to his feet and stumbles out into the hallway, moving towards the room he knows is Natasha’s, fueled by pure instinct and the desperate need to do something, anything, to keep himself from simply laying down and crumbling into nothing like so many others.

Maybe living isn’t what he deserves, but he can’t let himself go just yet. There are still debts he has to pay.

Three doors down, to the left.

He just has to make it there and everything will be alright. Natasha will help him. Won’t she?

The door slides open in a matter of seconds after his knock. It jars him again, for a moment, the way almost all the color has been leeched from her hair. But her eyes are still the same.

The words pour out of him in rush, tumbling out of his mouth and onto the floor like a spilled glass of water before he can put them in any semblance of order.

“New York- I have to get to New York. Take me? Will you- please? I just- I need- I have to get to New York.” It takes him a moment to realize how hard he’s breathing, like he’s just run a marathon instead of walking a few feet to get to her room. “Please?”

Natasha tilts her head in response, reaching out to rest a warm hand against his cheek. She does it slowly, her motions gentle and deliberately telegraphed, soft in a way he knows Natasha rarely lets herself be.

“Tony, calm down.” Her gaze never wavers from his, not for a second. “You’re shaking.”

He doesn’t need calm right now. He needs to go to New York.

“Nat-“ It takes more effort than it should to speak.

“I’ll take you,” she soothes, lifting her other hand to wrap her fingers around his shoulder, firm. Solid. “We can take the quinjet, okay?”

He nods, a jerky, sudden movement that pulls his face away from her fingers. She lets her hand drop down to his other shoulder, and he finds himself relaxing under her grip. Natasha would help him. Natasha would take him to New York.

His panic subsides to a low thrum in his chest at her acquiescence, and the fog blurring his brain begins to dissipate.

“Okay.” He breathes out a long, slow breath as the tightness around his lungs eases. “Okay.”

After a few more seconds, some tiny part of his brain dimly notes that his body’s finally stopped trembling.

“We can go in the morning, okay? It’s late right now, and we’ll need authorization to open the barrier.”

Natasha’s right, of course. The thought of dragging Shuri out of bed at this hour, after everything, makes his gut twist.

Let her rest, a tiny voice in his mind agrees. She’s been through enough for today.

Still, the thought of waiting sends a flicker of agitation pulsing through his veins. He should’ve thought of this earlier, realized what he’d had to do the moment the ship breached the atmosphere and gone through with it as soon as he’d woken up.

If May Parker was still alive, he’d just sentenced her to another several hours of fear and uncertainty for a nephew he should’ve already told her had died a hero. He’s all-too familiar with the weight of the awful dread that comes with not knowing.

“Tony?” Natasha’s tightens her grip on his shoulders, not enough to hurt, but enough to drag him back to the present, back to the hallway. “Is that okay?”

“Yeah.” He sighs, tilting his chin up to meet her gaze as evenly as he can. “Thank you, Natasha. For everything.”

For putting up with me.

For listening.

For helping me, in spite of the fact that you’ve spent the last two years on the run because of me.

There’s a flicker of something he can’t decipher that flashes briefly in her eyes, gone too fast for him to even try.

“You’re welcome.”

Behind her, he can see the sky through her windows, inky black and dotted with stars. A tiny sliver of crescent moon, gleaming. An otherwise innocuous sight if the memory of a battle lost weren’t still playing over and over in the darker recesses of his mind.

The dark, gaping void inside of him gnaws away at another piece of his soul until he finally forces himself to tear his gaze away.

Natasha is still staring at him with those emerald eyes, luminous even in the darkness of the dimmed lights all around them. They almost seem to glow, bright with open, honest concern and he realizes that her hands are still on his shoulders.

He coughs up an admittedly poor attempt of a casual, nonchalant laugh and steps out from under her grip.

“I should, ah, let you get some rest.” He turns away before she can respond, starts moving back towards his quarters. “Good night, Natasha.”

“Night, Tony,” she calls out behind him, barely loud enough to be heard.

When he crawls back into the bed, he’s careful to keep the windows behind him.

In the morning, he prepares. Brushes his teeth, takes a shower, gets dressed, affixes the arc reactor onto his shirt. The routine settles him, somewhat. There’s still an order to the world, to the way things work, even now.

When there’s a knock on his door he answers it robotically, automatically, expecting one person but coming face-to-face with another.

“Tony.” Rhodey’s face is visibly etched with relief. “You had me worried, man.”

He doesn’t resist when the other man pulls him into his arms.

For a moment, he tastes sand in his mouth, feels the scorching heat of a desert sun on his skin. A lifetime ago, Rhodey had welcomed him back to the world of the living with an embrace just like this.

This time, however, he’s painfully aware that there won’t be an airport to return to, or a woman with strawberry-blonde hair who’ll insist her tears weren’t for him with a smile on her face that tells him otherwise. There won’t be a man sitting in the driver’s seat of a limo, acting as a chauffeur in spite of the fact that he’s too overqualified for the job.

It’s only when Rhodey releases him that he realizes he hadn’t moved to return the embrace. He’d just stood there, arms limp at his sides, frozen in place. The worried look on his best friend’s face doesn’t escape his notice.

“It’s good to see you, buddy.” Tony tries for a smile, but the familiar mask of the playboy billionaire is now woefully out of reach.

“What do you say we go get some breakfast together, hm?” Rhodey claps a hand on Tony’s back and begins to steer them down the hall. “I haven’t eaten in hours, and I could use the company.”

The phrasing of his invitation is clever, Tony will admit. But what else does he expect? Rhodes is more than used to coaxing Tony into taking care of himself when he otherwise would push thoughts of things like food and water to the back of his mind.

“Sure, Rhodey.” It doesn’t even feel like he’s the one moving his own lips anymore, but Tony has always been good at figuring out what others want to hear. “I could always use some coffee.”

When they get close enough to the kitchen for Tony to hear gut-wrenchingly familiar voices, it’s too late for him to back out. As if sensing his train of thought, Rhodey’s arm around his shoulder tightens. The gesture is comforting, even if it keeps him from running away and retreating back to his room.

“It’s fine, Tones. Just the team.”

What’s left of it, thinks Tony, and something inside him fractures just a little more.

He keeps his gaze trained on the floor as Rhodey ushers him inside. It’s almost irrationally childish, but maybe, if he tries hard enough, he’ll go unnoticed.

“Tony!”

No such luck.

He looks up just in time to see Bruce clamber awkwardly out of his chair and walk towards him. Behind him, the rest of the team is scattered around the room, some sitting at the table, some standing around the kitchen island. Natasha’s perched on the countertops, Steve standing by her side. Thor is at the table, next to an armed raccoon he can only assume is Rocket. He’s glad Natasha warned him about that the day before, otherwise he might actually wonder how solid his grip on reality really is right now.

The only person’s eyes he can stand to meet is Nebula’s, standing in a corner of the room with her arms folded across her chest. He knows he won’t find anything like pity or concern there.

“Hey, Bruce.” He makes it a point to react when the other man reaches for him, return the embrace and clap him on the shoulder before he lets go. The look on Bruce’s face when he pulls away is almost expectant. He doesn’t know what else to say.

‘I’m glad you aren’t dead’? ‘At least the end of the world didn’t take you too’?

His skin feels tight, like his body’s too small to hold everything inside it. Like he’s moments away from splitting open into a broken, bleeding mess of raw, exposed nerves on the clean kitchen tiles.

It’s Nebula who saves him, again.

“Terran,” she calls out. “Are you ready to begin our hunt?”

All heads in the room swivel around to focus on her.

“Hunt?” Steve’s voice sends a pang of- of something- through his veins. “What are you talking about?”

“For Thanos.” The smile that stretches across her face is a promise of blood, a promise of pain. Tony shivers, glad that everyone’s attention is too focused on her to see it. “He must die.”

“Count me in,” growls Rocket, standing up in his seat.

Natasha frowns.

“Now,” she says, sliding off of the counter and onto the floor in a neat, fluid motion, “Let’s hit ‘pause’ for a second, shall we? Nebula, I understand you’re eager, but we need to take our time with this. The people of our planet are still reeling from what happened yesterday.”

“Your planet is too green,” Nebula spits back, her words carrying an undercurrent that, it seems, only Rocket understands. The raccoon almost seems to wilt in place, and Tony finds himself doubting that the use of ‘green’ is idiomatic. “Besides, I don’t need your people. I only need him.”

He watches as Steve starts to take a step forward, but Natasha wraps a hand around his arm and drags the supersoldier to a stop before he can get closer to Nebula’s corner of the room.

“I get that you’re angry, but we need time,” she says, and Tony recognizes the calm in her voice for what it is- a quiet, nuanced threat. “Tony needs time. Thanos isn’t going anywhere. We’ll hunt him together as soon as we make sure our world is stable. In the meantime, you can stay here, make preparations. Plan.”

Nebula goes almost unnaturally still after she turns her head to regard Tony with those unsettlingly dark eyes.

Then she shrugs, and some of the tension begins to seep out of the room.

“That sounds agreeable,” she says, slouching back against the wall. She tilts her head, narrowing her eyes at Natasha like she’s seen something interesting in the other woman. “Will you join us?”

Natasha’s gaze sweeps across the room, and it makes Tony all the more aware of all the empty spaces there are between them.

“I think I speak for everyone in this room when I say we all will.”

Nebula’s smile returns, all sharp edges. “Good.”

Thor clears his throat, moving to stand up from his seat at the table. “In that case, we should go see to the ship. Nebula, rabbit, would you accompany me?”

Tony watches them leave. He’s seen a lot of things, but an angry, gun-wielding raccoon stomping out of the kitchen muttering under his breath is still something that makes him pause. Especially with a blue alien and a thunder god in tow.

“I think I’ll go too,” Bruce says, “There’s still some cleanup to be done in the field. Colonel?”

“Sure.” Rhodey pats him on the shoulder one last time. “You okay to eat without me, Tony?”

Tony resists the very sudden, very real urge to run. Why is everyone so intent on leaving him alone with-

He stops, mentally shakes himself, and focuses his gaze on the far wall.

Natasha’s still here, chirps a tiny voice in the back of his brain. She’s taking you to New York. Everything will be fine.

He forces himself to look back towards Rhodey and smile. “Yeah, Rhodey. I’ll be okay.”

And then they’re gone, leaving him alone with Natasha and Steve.

“Coffee, Tony?” Natasha’s already pouring a cup. “Sit, I’ll bring it over.”

He moves to take one of the vacated seats at the table woodenly, every movement bringing him closer and closer to the one person in the world he’s still not sure how to talk to.

It’s stupid of him, really. Just a day ago he’d been prepared to make that call.

But that was before. Before Peter. Before Bucky.

Another person he’d failed to save.

They had been so close- the gauntlet was almost off-

A steaming mug of coffee slides into view.

He looks up in time to see Nat slide into the chair across the table from his, a mug of her own still in hand.

“Thanks, Nat.” He wraps his fingers around the ceramic, relishing the warmth that sleeps into his skin. He’s still so cold. He doesn’t know why.

In the periphery of his vision, Steve lingers by the kitchen island, nursing his own drink in silence. Behind him is the stove, where a still-steaming kettle sits.

Probably for Bruce, he thinks. Bruce always liked tea.

He wonders what it would be like to place his hands on the grill of a lit stove, wonders if that would be enough to chase the chill from his bones.

Do it, purrs a voice from one of the jagged crevices in his chest, smooth and silky-sweet. Burn.

“Tony?”  Natasha tracks his gaze to the kettle. “Do you want tea instead?”

“No.” He tightens his fingers around the mug and lowers his gaze to the table. “Coffee’s fine.”

“Right. Well, I already spoke to Shuri this morning and she says we’re clear to leave whenever you’d like.” She shifts in her seat. “If it’s okay with you, I told Rogers he could come along, stretch his legs.”

“It’s not that kind of trip,” he mutters back, fully aware of the way his skin prickles under the weight of Steve’s gaze. “I’m going to Queens. To see May Par- Parker.”

He hates himself just a little bit more for stumbling over her last name. Peter’s last name, too.

“I have to tell her about Peter,” he finishes lowly, hunching into himself.

Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Steve take a step towards the table. He tries not to flinch. Part of him is still angry about the deceit. Still remembers the pain of breathing with a cracked sternum, the line of bruises stretched out across his chest for weeks afterward in a slightly curved shape that would match the edge of a shield. Still remembers how heavy a suit without power suddenly becomes, like he’s trapped in a coffin specially designed for him.

But that flicker of anger feels infinitesimal in comparison to the guilt that cycles through his bloodstream with every beat of his slowly breaking heart.

“You can come,” he blurts, pushing his chair away from the table and standing. His pulse hammers in his chest, loud enough to make the world seem muffled to his ears. “It’s fine.”

“Tony-“ Steve’s holding a hand out towards him, like maybe he wants to make Tony stop retreating, like maybe he wants to hold Tony in place so they can finally talk, really talk, for the first time in two years. But the risk that he’ll only end up pushing him away again is too great for Tony to ignore.

He stumbles backwards towards the doorway. Natasha looks like she wants to reach out to him too. She shouldn’t. Everything he touches turns to ruin. He doesn’t dare look back towards Steve.

“I have to get ready.”

Then he turns and runs walks down the hall and back to his room.