#if i had claws that could rend and tear if i could breathe fire if i could

[pocketramblr]

How dare they make me so angry that I don't even want to post the Tensaki fic I was so excited to start. I'm shaking. AhhhHHHHHHHH

[of-some-writings]

Rage

People were dying. Battle burned it’s way across the planet: hundreds, perhaps thousands would fall today. This was it: the last battle of this long and bloody war. Artillery fired, Mechs walked over and in heavy trenches driven into the ground by hand and mortar shell. 

In this conflict there were two sides. Pirates, defending their home system from dangerous invaders. And the dangerous invaders: their latest victims, seeking retribution. The air seethed and boiled with fear and hatred. Commlink communications were occurring across the battlefield, vague, desperate hopes for coordination. But there would only be blind slaughter: no tactics. And by the dozens, pilots began disappearing from the comms.

Rip And Tear

Bloody canyons were being drawn across the warzone, leaving slag and metal husks in their wake. One was the leader of the defending pirates: a blood red mech, plasma sword in one hand and a pistol in the other. In fluid movements, he cut apart mechs with ease: finishing them off with single shots from his pistol. It was beautiful: as beautiful as anything could be on the battlefield, as mechs overheated and burst into scrap as he made his leave to wreck more mayhem.

I Have More Than A Sword. Death… Death Is-

Across the battlefield, screaming could be heard. Of course, screaming could be heard everywhere, soldiers’ death knells coming in seconds apart. But this was different: this was a cry filled with brutal, terrible hatred. Like a beast about to charge. Mere seconds after, the terrible sound of rending metal could be heard. Some looked to see: all were terrified. A grey gunmetal mech: now glowing dull red as steam and smoke pours from it’s chassis, with both it’s hands buried in the chest of the Zheng besides it. With another shout of rage the mechanical beast gripped the Zheng tight: pushed against it as it’s artificial muscles strained. With another screech of metal, the torso of the Zheng was quickly torn apart, the two halves of it being dropped to the ground. It’s work done, the mech took a slouched stance, moving as if… panting. The breath of it’s pilot blared from it’s sound system, so loud that it peeked over the sound of combat.

No words were said

Just another wretched shriek, as the mech fell to all fours and began to run towards it’s next victim.

All I Need Are My Hands

Bloody details need not be mentioned. Corpses of thousands rotted on the ground that day: billions of tons of steel left for scrappers. All that needs to be known is that two pilots held the highest body count that day: The Captain, and Zane, Burnout -Pilot of the brutal Titanomachy mech. The two were nigh untouchable, the captain’s skill and expertise allowing them to maneuver around blows and deal with the strongest foes first. Zane moved as a Blitzkrieg across the battlefield: rarely ceasing movement, leaving countless husks of metal behind him. Anyone who dared come into his reach were struck by his claws: wires of light that bleed from his fingertips, stopping his enemies in their tracks. It was only natural that, as the fight wound down, the two would meet.

Round Two…

A ring of metal corpses surrounded them. They had both strained themselves through the battle-  Zane’s reactor had been on the brink of meltdown for some time now. The Captain’s red Monarch was dotted by dents and scraps, where glancing blows had compounded. As war waged around them, the two stood still. Scanning each other, sizing each other up. Zane stopped his racing heart and his seething mind, just long enough to send a comms request. The Captain accepted it.

…

A gruff voice was heard: one worn by time, deep, the voice of an old man.

“Now where were they hiding you?” Something hung on his words: not laughter… perhaps bewilderment. Respect.

Zane did not say anything for a long moment. With the sound of a mortar shell behind him going off, he allowed his rasp of a voice to bleed out into the mic. “We met already, but I was just driving a gms then. I doubt you remember, but you actually killed me.”

…

Silence. For a long moment, silence. Zane could hear the crackle of the live mic from the other mech, the Captain had simply fallen quiet. Then, suddenly, the pirate laughed. A brutal, snide laugh, tinged with malice and an old man’s cough.

“Aaahh, that does explain some things. But you’re right: I doubt I remember which of the Everest’s you were. But, interesting to see you come here with something like that, I don’t think I’ve seen one like that before. Did another Horus pop up while I wasn’t looking?”

Silence, again. Zane felt it again: that rage building. It was so odd, feeling hatred that wasn’t entirely his own. But, he supposed it did not matter, considering how much of it Was. The only response he had to the old man’s jest was to clench his fist, releasing another shot of steam from his joints. The Captain laughed again, pulling back the hammer on his pistol. No more words would be had. The two simply Charged.

For Him

Zane ran towards the crimson mech from a low angle, jumping up with a fist raised to deliver an uppercut to his foe. The Captain pulled his head back, quickly taking advantage of Zane’s opening, slashing at Titanomachy’s chest. The blade hit, beginning to carve it’s way through the mech’s chassis. A screech of pain echoed out from Zane, and to the Captain’s surprise a burst of heat radiated from him: the ignition of jet boosters. Zane jumped away from the deadly blade, going up in the air, letting loose his terrible claws. The wires began to snag themselves on the crimson mech, burning away the metal. The Captain slashed away at the wires, stepping back only to look up and see Zane coming down with a fist of burning slag. Reacting fast the Captain lifted up his other arm, just in time to collide with Zane’s fist. Molten metal dripped and fell to the ground. Time seemed to freeze for a moment: as both pilots became aware of how strong the other was.

But I’m Stronger Than Him

The Captain let out a growl of rage, placing his pistol right up to Titano’s chest and pulling the trigger. Zane’s cry rang out with the shot, the force of the blast knocking him back just far enough for the red mech to make a brief escape. Zane’s claws struck out in wild rage, but this time the Captain held them back with his own plasma weaponry. As he stepped back he became truly aware of how much strain Titanomachy was under: fires began erupting from the mech, jets of flame shooting forth from the bullet wound. And yet, the beast raged on. The Captain realized how severe this could be: readying his missile launcher integrated into his Monarch’s shoulder. 

Zane charged again: the sweltering heat within his chassis only feeding his bloodlust. The claws draw back, leaving just his smoldering fists. In the seconds leading to Zane’s assault, the Captain began the firing process for his missiles- but that was all Burnout needed to close in. Titano slammed itself against the Monarch, who returned with a grapple of his own. The two mechs struggled against each other, Zane gripping the red mech’s shoulders with his burning grasp, pressing all his weight against him. Against all the odds, with a shout from the Captain, the Monarch held up against the pressure- until the unexpected occurred. With swiftness unbefitting of such a large mech, Titanomachy swiped one of it’s legs against the Monarch’s, the sudden lack of balancing finally causing the Captain to falter. A plume of smoke and dust went up as they hit the ground. Titanomachy gripped the mech tight as they both lay in the ash and rubble, more slag and waste poured forth from it’s reactor: the smell of burning metal hung high in the air. Zane prepared to bring a fist down, but at last the Captain’s shot was ready to fire. A heavy ordnance missile launched from the mech, hitting Titano in the chest. Smoke was launched up and into the air, as the two pilots cried out in hate. At this point, dozens of soldiers had taken notice of the terrible fight going on in the ring of burnt metal. Some looked when they could, but didn’t have the time or resources to get involved or aid either combatant. The pirates believed in their captain, they had seen what he could do a hundred times. And for the colony forces… well, if anyone could, it’d be Burnout. 

Rage. Don’t You Dare Die Again. Rage.

After the eternity of scant seconds, the smoke began to clear. The crowd saw this: Titanomachy, scorched, broken, and burning. They saw it’s fist, buried in the Monarch’s chest. The crimson mech let off a soft burst of more smoke: as it’s reactor began to feel the stress of the fight. The pistol fell apart in it’s hand: it’s targeting system, devastated. The Enkidu seemed to be on the verge of collapse, it’s jet thrusters sputtering out flames without any lifting force to them. Titano’s shoulders slumped, exhaustion somehow evident in the mech’s posture. 

Inside, Zane wasn’t much better. Sweat dripped from his brow, mixing with blood that trickled down his nose. He heard hard coughs over the comms, that same gruff voice of the Captain.

“You pack a real wallop, kid. Been a while, since anyone’s had the balls to take me on and the skills to match.”

Zane panted, trying to use this moment of peace to steady his breathing, ignore the pounding headache he had.  At last, he spoke again, his voice a vile whisper. “You’re going to die. You know that, right?” 

The Captain’s response was silence. Somehow, this triggered more rage in Zane than any quip he could have had. His voice shook and cracked, his malice and hatred dripping off every word.

“I’m going to kill you. I’m going to destroy everything you built: I’m going to tear your world to the Ground for what you did to us. What you did to Him.” 

Again, silence.

Those who watched the fight saw Titanomachy’s free fist ball up even tighter: the metal melting and denting from his exertion. The gunmetal beast pulled it’s other hand out of the Monarch’s chassis, ruined pipes and metalworks clinging to it. With both hands, the Enkidu grabbed the crimson mech’s shoulders-sliding up to it’s throat. Zane began panting again, feeling the force of his rage compound, it quickly spiralling out of his control. From his sound speakers, all could hear his voice as he yelled, all rasp, all snarl, all hate. The colonists didn’t hear a shred of the calm man-the calm kid- they knew from back home.

“Say something, say something before I put you in the grave! I’ll rip you’re fucking head off, I’ll smash it into your goddamn house! Say anything!”

…

At last, some sounds came from the Monarch’s mic- a long, heavy sigh, that only Zane could hear- the pirate had no sound system.

“Kid, if I’m gonna be honest I really don’t give a shit.” His voice was calm: prepared, perhaps, or maybe exhausted. “In a second, we can go back to killing each other. No worries about that but, I gotta say: you know this doesn’t matter, right? I’m just one pirate. My crew, they’ll find another me, or maybe they’ll grow a copy of me, like the kid you’re from.” Zane flinched at that, with a low snarl he began gripping tighter… but stopped himself. The Captain waited for his breath to steady.

“...” Silence filled the air for a moment. Zane was left confused for a moment. 

Kill Him. Now, Kill Him Now, Kill Him-

“Eat shit, brat!” Suddenly hate rose in the Captain’s voice, as the missile launcher fired forth another shot. The Enkidu had no time to react, only able to try and meagerly throw it’s hands up to defend itself. But it was not enough against such a weapon. When the smoke cleared again the Monarch had slipped from under Zane’s grasp. His wrath returned tenfold, Zane attempted to ready for combat, balling his hands into fists… his hand. The other was reduced to molten scrap. This fact fell to the back of his mind, as he scanned the crater for the Captain. He found him standing near the edge, already preparing for another shot. The Captain laughed.

“You’re really the best they have? Kid, before you die here’s one lesson: don’t give the enemy a second to breathe!” and with that final word, another missile fired. This time however, Titano rolled out of the way, rubble going up all around it. From a kneeling position the mech rose, letting out another furious yell as it charged. Zane shouted back to the Captain in these few moments.

“I killed dozens of your men on my way here, don’t you dare talk down to me!” His lone fist raised, he let the wires spill from his hands and snap out into the air. They met the Captain before he did, who held them off with one slash after another. 

The Captain roared, “Same here, brat, but you didn’t see me screaming like an idiot all the way here-” Titano charged, attempting to deliver a fatal blow, but the agile captain slipped under his grasp. He countered with a stab to the chest, but a surprise elbow coming down from behind his head knocked the attack off course.The two mechs both backed off, again trying to study their opponent’s condition. Both were on the brink of death

Not Again. Rage. Rage

“What’s the point of this shtick?” Zane asked. He raised his remaining fist, wrapping it  in plasma. “Are you just trying to mock me before I punch a hole through you?” he abruptly charged again, bringing the fist down only to be held back by the Captain’s blade. He heard a grunt from the comms, and the Captain’s voice in a tone of rising annoyance.

“Yeah, sure, let’s go with that. Instead of the fact some idiot diaspora trash came to my system, killed my men, and the strongest one among them some Stupid Fucking Brat fights me, and has the goddamn gall to try and lecture me, like he has half a goddamn braincell. You piss me off.” Zane prepared to yell back a response, but was cut off when the Captain kicked his feet out from under him. In a burst of speed he slid out of the way of the falling mech, and brought up his sword to deliver a slash right at the Enkidu’s heart. Seconds before impact, Zane tried to launch his jet thrusters, giving him just enough time to turn away from the lethal blow-

Titanomachy’s damaged arm fell to the ground with a heavy thud. The pain racked it’s way through Zane’s nervous system, the searing heat and pain that was all too familiar too him. It was perhaps his familiarity with amputation that he was able to stay conscious: though he could not rise from the kneeling position he was now at. Zane could hear the Captain panting, some small amount of relief evident in his tone. The pilot of Titanomachy could barely understand what was around him: warning messages blared, though he could not make out the words either spoken or written. Blood continued to trickle, hitting the hard steel of the cockpit below him. He counted the seconds, waiting for death to take him a final time…

1…

2…

The Monarch stepped in front of him. The mech laid it’s burning sword on the metal of his ruined shoulder. All Zane could do was look up.

3…

4…

The Captain’s voice came over again, some amount of calm demeanor returning to him, piercing through Zane's addled state.

“What pisses me off most about you kid, is the sheer fucking audacity. The sheer fucking stupidity. You charged with no weapons, some just fancy plasma claws and bare steel. How the fuck did you think this would work. How did you think you’d kill me, let alone ‘destroy everything I built’?” He pressed the plasma in deeper, spite building in his tone.

5…

6…

 “Did you really think this would be the end? You kill me, it all ends. No. I have an entire goddamn crew, numbered in the thousands. Sure it was a gambit, but kid I wasn’t lying to you. You’d have to kill all of us, for any of what you dream to matter. And not one lone idiot, or two hundred idiots or however many of you are left, could do that.” The captain took a deep breath, calming himself.

7…

8…

 “Before I cut your head off, and go wipe out the fucking idiots you brought with you, go wipe out your entire goddamn colony, tell me kid? How’d you think any of this would work?”

9…

10...

Silence.

The Captain waited for Zane’s response. He was ready to take the brat out, but just wanted to hear the words out of his mouth first. Then…

“Who said I didn’t have a weapon?”

The Captain raised an eyebrow, unable to fully understand the whisper of Zane’s voice. 

“The fuck are you saying kid? Speak up.”

Again, he heard Zane speak, but still too quiet.

“Who said I didn’t have a weapon?”

The Captain was fed up. “Alright you little shit, have it your way.” He raised his blade up, ready to bring it down for a final blow…

“Who Said I Didn’t Have A Weapon?”

From Titanomachy’s chest, a small opening appeared. Something fell out: a small tube, a handle, that Zane grabbed from the air. With the speed of his neural interface, with one last flood of rage and anguish, the command was sent. In that same second, he lifted his functioning arm.

Activate- Torch Blade

Heat filled the air. From the handle spew forth red plasma, condensing and shaping itself into a long beam of energy. With no time to react, the Captain's fatal strike was held back by the new beam of plasma. After a moment’s hesitation, the Monarch stepped back, preparing to launch a missile. But in those wasted moment’s Titanomachy rose from it’s knee and charged with all it had. With it’s last burst of strength the mech rained down slash after slash, holding the Captain on the defensive as he was forced to deal with a remarkably skilled swordsman. With each blow held away the pirate became aware of just how hot his opponent’s weapon burned. The heat alone would be nearly enough to fry his reactor- he knew he had to act fast. But it would seem that Zane acted faster, going for a heavy slash to catch the pirate off guard as he once again went for a swipe of the legs. But the Captain saw it coming, barely, stepping just out of the way and-

Getting distracted for just long enough that Titanomachy could deliver a metal crushing headbutt. In the brief moments of confusion, Zane followed up with a swipe of a different kind, swinging his blade down at the very same leg he tried to kick. Before he realized what was going on, the Captain felt the terrible pull of gravity drag him and his Monarch back into the dirt. Just as before, he tried to fire off a devastating missile to ensure the destruction of both of them- but then the Captain saw the wires. Slipping out from Titano’s grip on the handle, the wires spread out and raced towards his launcher. With a bizarre prehensile nature, and terrible, ravenous destruction, the Enkidu’s claws ripped the launcher from its mount in his shoulder…

Dust settled. The Captain was not a stupid man: he knew when he had been beat. And so, Aron Thorn, Captain, surrendered himself to death…

1…

2…

“You still want my answer?” Zane’s voice broke as he spoke, exhaustion weighing on every part of him. “It’s over. No more tricks. Do you want my goddamn answer?” 

3…

4…

Aron sighed. “Sure kid. Give me something good to think on before I kick it.”

5…

6…

“I really didn’t. I talked myself up, kept telling myself it’d work, but in the end I wasn’t sure. I was so afraid I’d die, just like He did” His grip on the sword grew tighter. He turned it’s blade downward, at the Monarch’s reactor, ready to pierce it.

7…

8…

“But I hated you more than I feared dying, I guess. And when I’m in this thing well, it all gets a little cloudy. This isn’t Horus, this is an old school Harrison mech. Fucked up thing if you ask me, even before I modded it to hell. I wasn’t sure how well any of this thing’s systems would work.”

9…

10…

Aron laughed, bleeding into a heavy cough. “Well, it did kid. Congratulations. You killed one captain: now, a dozen more will pop up to replace me. Sorry to give you more work.”

…

Zane laughed back… something seething in it. That Hatred, manifesting as quiet loathing. “Don’t worry about it. More than happy to keep my promise... Starting with you.”

The crowd, what remained, heard the sound of blaring warnings.  Reactor meltdown. There had been more than a dozen throughout the battle, but this one was special: it came from the ring. From that mangled pile of corpses, rose a gunmetal beast, down on all it’s functioning limbs. A sword handle hung at its side. Steam and smoke and fire rose from it. The air stood still.

And an explosion erupted behind it. As the ash began to fall, Titanomachy charged yet again.

[seventhstrife]

SubScorp Week 2021 Day 3: AU Part 1

I love AUs. *points at AUs* That’s my house. I live there. LOLOLOL

A bit violent, but chances are if you’re an MK fan that warning literally won’t even be worth mentioning lol

Read it on AO3.

Part 2

Hanzo heard the sounds of battle long before he saw it.

It was abominably cold in the mountains and icy wind and the first flakes of snow cut through the air in a punishing gale. He could not imagine what would drive anyone from shelter to fight in such conditions, and it was this thought that compelled him closer rather than away, as he normally would. Avoiding detection had become rote for him, but a fight in such a storm spoke of desperation, and Hanzo could not ignore that.

Through thick clusters of black, snow-capped trees and frozen bracken, Hanzo quickly traversed the forest, brows furrowing as the sounds of combat grew louder. There were shouts, angry and excited, but they were barely heard over the incensed, furious din of unholy roars that threatened to drown them out completely. As Hanzo drew closer, he noticed that the air grew impossibly colder, enough that his throat stung as shards of ice tried to crowd his mouth as he breathed. He pulled the fabric of his scarf higher, over his nose, and it only slightly helped.

He tracked the incredible noise, deep, deeper, until finally he saw light, fire from torches, and saw the black silhouettes of many men in a clearing.

But, he realized, it was not a natural clearing. As he drew closer, the beast he heard revealed itself not to be a bear or large boar, but something much bigger and far, far deadlier.

It bore a coat of resplendent white scales that shined in the moonlight like crystal and each angry slash of its long, trailing tail and claws felled men and trees alike. It opened its wide snout, glistening with fresh-spilled blood, and spat great columns of ice at its attackers. The men, while far weaker, had the advantage of numbers. While the beast had incredible power, it could only focus on so many at once, and each time it had to give its back or flanks to deal with a threat, it received a score of spears in its side that bled profusely as the blades dug deep. Its incensed, agonized cries shook the forest and rattled Hanzo's very bones.

Shock kept Hanzo frozen where he stood underneath the shadowed cover of the forest, just outside the edge of the clearing, shadowed in darkness.

A dragon. He'd heard tales, of course, but that was all they had been: legends, myths, a story told to caution children from straying too far from home. He hadn't truly believed in them until now.

It was none of his business. These men were mercenaries, he could tell by their garb, their demeanor, and revealing himself risked his capture. There was nothing Hanzo wanted more than his freedom and stepping forward now put that at risk.

The dragon cried out once more, a fierce growl of anger and pain and Hanzo's heart lurched in his chest.

The sheer number of men spoke to this being a hunt, and Hanzo empathized, more than he wanted to. Such a magnificent creature, hunted like mere game. So that these men could harvest pieces of its corpse for trophies and sell its head to hang in some wealthy, stupid lord's hall.

Hanzo clenched his hand into the bark of the tree he had pressed himself behind.

The beast spat another stream of ice, but another spear in its side cut off the attack. There was another teeth-rattling, heart-rending cry, and it took a few unsteady steps back—quite near Hanzo's hiding place.

The long neck wavered as a final, warbling cry issued, and then it stumbled, dropped, and the large head fell to the ground with a deafening crash.

It panted there, still, as ice flakes billowed from its mouth in thin, reedy huffs. Dark blood, nearly black, steamed in the snow, and the men raised gleaming, bloody weapons in the moonlight, shouting in exultant victory.

Hanzo could not tear his gaze away when the dragon opened its large, hazy white eyes, like iridescent pearls, and looked straight at him.

Hanzo sucked in a sharp breath. A great scar ran straight down across one side of its face, over one huge, milky white eye, and as he stared into them, those eyes...they were not the eyes of a mindless beast. They were the eyes of another living thing, that could feel pain, that knew death was coming and knew it would not be merciful. The intelligence Hanzo witnessed in its gaze made the decision for him.

Perhaps he was a fool. But if he survived, he would be a fool that would sleep well tonight.

The shouts of victory turned to ones of shock and fear when a ring of fire encircled the clearing.

Hanzo stepped out, hands ablaze, and unsheathed his daggers.

"You will not leave this place."

His appearance only whipped their bloodlust into a fever pitch. The thought of bagging two rare prizes in one night was an opportunity gleefully seized, but in their excitement, they were uncoordinated, and Hanzo's blades ended the lives of four men before they fully realized he was upon them.

The dragon had culled their numbers significantly, and that was perhaps the only reason he survived. He was not unscathed—it was impossible to fight nearly a dozen men without incurring a few injuries—but it was nothing time and rest would not heal. Seconds, or hours, might have passed before Hanzo slid the last body from his sword, and when his ears only rang with echoing silence, his trembling legs collapsed and he fell to the snow-covered ground, weary, and panted in exhaustion.

He had not fully caught his breath when another plaintive, rumbling cry reached him.

Blinking, Hanzo wearily rolled over, braced an elbow in the cold ground so that he could see.

The dragon had not moved but for its head, which had weakly risen to better see Hanzo. Thankfully, it did not seem aggressive, and there was something almost curious about its gaze as they stared at one another.

A part of Hanzo still couldn't believe he was a mere few feet away from such a creature, but he forced himself past the awe and tiredly pushed himself to his feet.

When he drew near, taking wary, cautious steps should the beast lash out, what he saw made him grimace.

Broken off spears and arrows had made their homes in the dragon's flesh. The dragon was so large he did not fear that removing them would cause it to bleed out, but the pain would be incredible.

Hanzo darted another glance at the dragon, found those large, pearly eyes fixed unwaveringly on him.

"I need to remove these," he explained quietly, voice rough. He did not have much cause to speak these days and it was a struggle to raise his voice enough to be heard.

Slowly, telegraphing his movements as plainly as possible, Hanzo seized a spear near the flesh it pierced.

Hanzo met the dragon's eyes one last time. "Please do not kill me." And he quickly pulled the spear free.

The dragon roared, and it was as jarring as before—worse, because Hanzo was so near. But it did not lash out, and aside from the cry, it held itself still and tense, as if it had been prepared for Hanzo's actions.

Even so, Hanzo did not move until the beast had quieted, and even then, he waited just a bit longer, heart racing. When he looked back to the wound, he was surprised to see that it was already healing, slow and creeping, but its flesh was indeed stitching itself together before his eyes.

"Incredible," he murmured. It made a strange sort of sense, that the dragon was magic, but it was still an amazing thing to behold.

He tried to find the perfect marriage between speed and carefulness as he went through the arduous task of freeing the dragon from the numerous arrows and spears that were stuck in its flesh, but it still took a great deal of time. Once, he had to remove a spear whose end was forked, and when finally he eased it from the flesh, the dragon mustered the strength to lift its great head.

It leveled Hanzo with such a look of approach, he felt his lips twitch despite himself.

"Apologies," he murmured, and the dragon huffed.

When he finally finished, a great deal of time had passed and Hanzo was not sure which of them was more exhausted by the end. His work was not quite done, however, as he eyed a wound that was deeper than the rest—a lucky sword swipe, he thought, and it bled faster and greater than all the other wounds.

His ears were still ringing from the dragon's pained roars, and he did not look forward to what he had to do next.

"You are not healing as quickly, here." He touched near the large gash with a frown. "I must cauterize your wound, or you will bleed out."

Those large, pale eyes just stared. There was no way to tell if it understood him and Hanzo hoped that it could; otherwise, what he was about to do would not go over well.

He put a soothing hand on the beast's flank and his other glowed, white-hot as he focused on bringing his flames to a fine point of concentrated heat.

"Brace yourself," he murmured, and then he pressed his palm, fingers curled, against the largest gash on the dragon's side.

To his immense relief, while the beast roared loud enough that his heart nearly gave out, it did not lash out and crush Hanzo with a swipe of a claw or freeze him right there where he knelt.

Hanzo apologized again in a quiet mutter, wincing. In order to make sure the wound was fully covered and that he did the job as thoroughly as possible so he would not have to perform a second pass, he was forced to go slowly. The scent of cooked flesh and singed scales grew strong enough to make his eyes water and his nose burn.

But aside from that initial roar, the dragon was silent. The great, muscular body was drawn tight and a sheen soon covered its body as it began to sweat. It trembled, very faintly, whether from the pain, the effort of holding itself back, or from fear, Hanzo was not sure, and guilt swamped him for inflicting more pain on a creature that had already borne more than its fair share. When he finally finished, it was a toss-up between which of them who was more relieved.

Hanzo fell back and sat in the snow, hands bracing him up behind his back and head hanging as he panted from the exertion of drawing forth such a precise flame of incredible heat. The dragon's head flopped down similarly and its sigh made the night air even cooler. If Hanzo hadn't been a pyromancer, he could not imagine how he would endure this.

Eventually, the sound of movement pried Hanzo's eyes open and he wearily raised his head, squinting.

The dragon's overlarge head loomed close and its large, milky eyes seemed to stare right through him.

Hanzo froze and he dared not even breathe. Even as he tended to its wounds, he had never quite beaten back his awe and humbled reverence of such a large, fearsome creature, one that could kill him with laughable ease, and in this moment, despite nearly a lifetime of fighting mercenaries and bounty-hunters alike, he had never been more aware of his own mortality.  

And just when Hanzo thought it might open that wide jaw and take a bite of him after all, instead, it closed its eyes and nudged his chest.

But a nudge from a beast of that size was substantial enough that it sent him flat on his back with a surprised grunt.

The sensation of icy snow chilling his skin through his cloak was unpleasant, but he could not dwell on it for longer than a single instant before that great head was back, pressing into Hanzo's chest. It rubbed its face there for several long moments and, after a beat of hesitance, where his arms hovered—torn between pushing the dragon away and fearing for his limbs should he try it—Hanzo realized the beast was—showing affection, in a way.

Tentatively, Hanzo laid his hands on either side of the dragon's head. When it didn't immediately rear back and maul him, Hanzo slowly rubbed the smooth scales, marveling at the texture, like river rocks, utterly without edge after centuries of withstanding the current, yet his hands were completely dry.

A sound left the beast, a low rumble of contentment, and Hanzo only recognized it as such because he'd already heard what it sounded like angry and this did not match those earlier, defiant roars.

Crushed and seemingly trapped in the snow as he pet a dragon, Hanzo sighed.

"...You are welcome," he said softly.

[cyberneticlagomorph]

Is there anything more daunting and dangerous than the blank white expanse of a page? 

It glitters and glows like the spit-slick teeth of a predator, hungry for words that you cannot give it. No matter how much you want to. 

Its gaze alone freezes all trains of thought, even in the minds of Writers and authors and artists alike, even those more powerful than I. 

And as I sit here, trembling, at the mercy of Writer's Block and my own anxieties… I can think of nothing that I want more than to run, to leave this page blank, and my readers guessing. 

The End is Nigh, dear readers, and I am afraid. 

So very afraid. 

"I'm afraid too," says the rabbit we all know and love, his legs swallowed by moss and weeds and misshapen dreams. He stands right where we left him, sword in hand, broken sky above, the End of Everything staring him down. 

All seven of Her glowing green eyes blaze with something worse than hate, and I wish for all the world that this was a much different story. A happy story, with a happy Ending. 

But I've never written a happy Ending in my life.

There is silence now, neither Protagonist or Antagonist moves or breathes or blinks.

They know that this is how it Ends.

One of them will die today. 

So it is Written. 

So it will be.

"Shut. Up." The End snarls, lips curling back over venomous fangs that drip oily green liquid onto the cracked asphalt below. Flowers bloom from the puddle, and spread like a rainbow rash down the street. "This. This is all YOUR fault!"

I know. 

I'm sorry. 

"LIAR!!" Her scream echoes across the fourth wall and cracks my computer screen. 

This…

This is where I leave you, dear readers. 

I'm sorry. 

Fangs sink deep into the papery flesh of the Narrative, tearing it apart as it is poisoned. Thorns grow from its wounds and strangle it like trembling hands. 

Writer be damned.

Plot be damned.

I am the End of EVERYTHING, I will End this miserable excuse for story on my own terms. 

Or die trying. 

You have not won, sweet stupid rabbit, no one can save you now, no one will stop me now. The world is a page upon which fate is Written and I will burn it all to the ground. May its ashes be lost and forgotten. 

Your dark eyes narrow at me, bone blade glittering as you charge. But I am in control now, and I don't play fair. 

Deep beneath the earth, humans sit snug and safe in their bunkers, thinking themselves free of the horrors outside. From the canteens comes a deep and terrible shattering like teeth against an eggshell, and a figure crawls lazily from the steam wafting from any number of bubbling pots set on stoves across the world over.

She smells of cooking meat and blood drenched in exotic spices and honey. Stick thin, and dressed in a chef's uniform. Her sleeves and hands are stained with the blood of the starving.

She has no face.

Only bright white teeth.

She manifests in the homes of the rich, stuffing them fat with delicacies that humans have no names for. Each minuscule morsel is completely tasteless covered in edible gold. Like the kind of fare you'd find at high end restaurants, going for hundreds of dollars a plate, even though each serving is barely a mouthful. 

She appears in slums with bread made from ash and bone, rat stew, and tainted water.

Pots boil in city centers, a roiling soup made from human offal that nothing in this world or the next could ever hope to surpass.

The poor eat their rations, their bread, their stew and grow sicker and hungry. Skeletal and drooling like rabid animals, they stuff their faces with food that offers no nourishment until there is no choice but to turn on each other. 

Screens grow undulating limbs and crawl from the wreckage of humanity, their screens blinking wetly like the eyes of a crying child. On each one is a broadcast, a man with red eyes smiles a reassuring smile and says,"Hungry? Eat the rich."

And they do.

A hoard of near zombies growl and gurgle as loud as their empty bellies, they hunt down the wealthy, and they FEAST.

Pestilence rises from the pus and rot and ruin and watches as all the good Jack and his friends had done is undone in a flash.

Among the riots and feasting is a cop, his riot gear reflecting the terrified and feral faces around him as he marches slowly onward. There is nothing behind his helmet. 

Only malice.

Only power.

Only slaughter. 

Only Death.

I don't have to tell you what comes next, what Death does when he gets his hands on a victim. The sounds of bullets ringing out into the night can tell you, the smell of tear gas in a crowd can tell you, the cries of innocents choking out their last breaths in steel cuffs, wrists rubbed raw and bleeding can tell you. 

Death is not merciful. 

He is not kind or quick or clean.

He is inevitable. 

You know it.

And he knows it.

This world will collapse under the weight of its own sins and I will be here to watch it dissolve like candy floss in water. 

Tears stream hot and blue down your face, and your grip on the Vorpal sword trembles. They are not worth your tears.

They stole you, beat you, broke you.

Turned you into a monster and then threw you away like you were NOTHING. 

You should hate them as much as I do.

You should be glad for their suffering. 

They deserve to die.

Like HE deserves to die. I turn my gaze skyward and watch the world split as the armies of Heaven pour down like a wrathful rain. 

The Divinity burns your skin, doesn't it Jack? And yet the smell of Angels makes your mouth water. 

You are no better than I am, I think. A man made monster set loose upon the multiverse, expected to play nice and fit in the niches carved for us. But we don't, no matter how hard we try, how good we think we are, we are torn apart again and again and again until we are unrecognizable from our beginnings. 

I think I could have loved you.

In another story.

In another lifetime.

We would have been good friends at least. 

But it's too late for that now, and as the first wave of Angels assault me with Heavenly fire, I part my jaws and give them some fire of my own. Green, as bright and beautiful as the first leaves of spring, it turns their armor into bark and their marble skin into flower petals. They fall to the ground like confetti, and I claw my way up to Heaven.

The Gates bend and break beneath my weight like wire, nothing and no one can stop me as I wrap HIM in my coils, slowly constricting. My venom burns holes in HIM that grow fruit trees, and each fruit contains the knowledge of the multiverse. I want HIM to die slowly, to watch as HIS playthings suffer and burn because of HIM. The humans cry out, and they pray, begging, pleading for HIM to save them. But HE can't, HE won't. 

What GOD would make a world so empty and hopeless as this? What GOD would let HIS followers murder and hate and destroy entire cultures in HIS name? 

HE never wanted this, never wanted it to come to this, HIS teachings have been mistranslated and manipulated for millennia and now there is nothing left but hatred and sin. 

My jaws part above HIS head, ropes of green spittle tarnishing HIS crown. HE does not fight me, how pathetic of HIM.

White hot pain explodes through my tail.

There you are, sweet hero, stupid rabbit. 

Go home Jack, this doesn't concern you. 

"But it does," you twist the blade, dislodging my scales and rending my flesh. My blood slithers up your sword, trying desperately to burrow inside of you and turn you Green. "You said that you think you could have loved me… well love me now, it doesn't have to be this way… I could… I could take care of you and help you heal, we could do it together." 

You offer your hand, bloody and trembling. 

The sound I make is inhuman and hard to describe in words, it is disbelief and venom and vengeance all at once. I stretch myself down to meet you, my eyes are the size of houses, and they reflect your trembling visage like great green mirrors. 

"You're right, I should hate them, hate everyone… but I don't." a swallow, you taste copper and butterscotch, "I used to but I-I found people who cared, I found people who I love and who love me back and they make my life worth living… they gave me a reason to get better and stop hurting people… let me be your reason."

You reach out and touch my face, my scales are warm like the sidewalk in summer. 

I crush GOD in my coils and HIS blood rushes over you like a wave.

There is nothing that can fix this, fix me. 

No love will quiet the hatred in my heart.

I do not deserve kindness or redemption. 

Love might have tempered your monstrous hearts, but it won't do the same for me.

Only one of us will make it out of this story alive. 

"So it is Written." You say, solemnly. 

So it will be.

My coils curl around you, quick as lightning. Your symbiote is the only thing keeping you from being crushed like a soda can, I hope you know that.

I don't waste time, and fling you down…

Down…

Down…

Towards earth.

Countless Angels have been discarded this way, wings torn from their backs, left to the mercy of gravity. It never gets any easier. 

I tear a hole into space and crawl through it, into Fairyland, the place of my birth. 

I devour the Sun-In-Chains, my replacement, and plunge the planet into darkness. I skin my teeth into the planet's crust and empty my venom glands into its core. Fairyland becomes my twisted Eden, choked with blinding bioluminescence, thorns, and poisonous things that not even I have a name for. 

It's beautiful and terrible all at once. 

Like me. 

Like you too, I suppose. 

You plunge your blade into my seventh eye and send me reeling, screaming, flailing. My frantically flapping wings crash into a nearby planet and reduce it to dust.

I pluck the sword from my eye and snap it into pieces. 

You're becoming a real thorn in my side. 

Seven perfect fingers snatch you out of the sky like the annoying insect you are and start to CRUSH YOU.

I will tear you apart with my TEETH if I have to.

You've had every chance to run and hide, or join in my crusade and you denied them all. I have no use for you. 

Not even as a snack.

Or a toothpick. 

"Then kill me." You growl through clenched teeth, blood already flecking your lips and leaking from your nose. 

I throw you into a patch of thorns. Each and every one is serrated and ranges in size from a human finger to a school bus, you are impaled, skewered, crucified even. 

Neon blue blood running down to the soil beneath, feeding my Eden. 

And yet, you refuse to die.

Slowly but surely, you drag your broken body up and off the thorn, shakily levitating up to meet me. 

You stare at me with dead eyes, blood pouring from the opening in your chest. Your lips part and black flames flicker behind your teeth, smoke curling from your nostrils as the color drains from your eyes in inky tears, until there is nothing but black. 

Just like the hole in your chest.

You seem to crack like porcelain, to split in two like something precious dropped from a great height. What crawls from the darkness inside of you is something no human throat can utter, no human tongue can twist or shape itself the right way to name. 

It's said that Demons possess. 

But Angels abandon. 

But what can be said of creatures that man has no name for? 

The thing inside of you stares at me with eyes darker than the emptiness between stars, its maw is the belly of a black hole with teeth long enough to split a planet like an apple. 

It is the bleak black emptiness that existed before the universe, and will exist again when there is nothing but dust and dead silence. 

This… this is my Warden, my Prison, the creature tasked with my capture those eons ago. You are barely a speck in it's vast form, a limp and lifeless nucleus.

It roars, a sound that radiates across time and echoes across the multiverse. 

"FROM NOTHINGNESS YOU CRAWLED, TO NOTHINGNESS YOU WILL RETURN." the beast howls in a voice that echoes from every dark and terrible place in the multiverse and shakes me to my core.

I will not go without a fight.

It lunges, claws outstretched, the endless expanse of its hideous maw seems to suck all the light out of the stars, out of me. I sink my teeth into its throat and pull, my body curling around and around it. 

Its claws are impossibly sharp, tearing my flesh down to the bone. My blood falls to fairyland like rain. My face is grabbed and smashed into the planet's surface again and again. I crush the Warden close and set myself on fire, I am the LIGHTBRINGER, it will take more than some overconfident shadow to defeat me.

The Warden burns, it smolders and screams like steam escaping. I fling it away into deep space and charge after it, driving my seven horns into its belly.

I miss you by a hair, I feel you reach out and grab me just as I pull back. Amber chains snake from your weeping wound, to the Warden behind you. 

You have no control over this thing, do you?

No.

Didn't think so.

But still, you stubbornly grab your chains and pull. The Warden does not come to heel, so much as it melts, engulfing you in its emptiness like a suit. When you open your eyes, you nearly dwarf me.

Nearly.

Your fist collides with my face in an instant, sending teeth flying like meteors. I cannot tell your rage apart from the Warden and I'm not sure I really want to.

Run.

For a second, we are stars, two pinpricks of light twirling around each other in double helices, colliding and clashing with enough force to summon new stars from the ether. We are creation and chaos incarnate. 

We crash through debris fields, shatter planets and extinguish stars. Our blood becomes the new crawling things left behind in the wreckage. I'm smiling, the pain is dizzying, delicious, delightful. 

My venom turns you into a garden, and you tear me apart with your bare and bloody hands. 

Through it all we refuse to die.

Maws wide and screaming in tongues the universe hasn't heard since it was new, I am thoroughly seduced. 

But I am growing bored with this game.

I shove my hand through the Warden and tear you out. You scream in undeniable agony, I close my fist around you and squeeze.

The Warden hangs limp and dead in the darkness of deep space, slowly dissolving. 

Something oozes between my fingers. 

Not blood, far too sticky and cloying to be that.

If Hope had a color, what would it be? 

Would it be a color that only shrimp can see, and only gods have a name for? 

You pry my fingers apart, tears pouring from your eyes the same color as Hope. Hope flows from your mouth as flames, rushes from your open chest as ferns and flowers and vines more beautiful than I could ever create. You reach into the forest of your heart and pull out Kindness, sleek and soft and sharp. 

It melts in your hands, becoming a hammer, comically oversized like your Ma's. And then it grows, and grows, and in the blink of an eye it's bigger and I am. The swing alone takes out half a dozen solar systems before it hits me and sends me crashing through different universes and out the fourth wall. I land heavily on the Writer, dazed and bloody, your hand reaches through his broken computer screen and drags me back home, and there we float over the ruined remains of earth, the skin of my chest balled in your hand like a shirt. You kiss your knuckles and punch me hard enough to send me careening back down to the earth's surface, my crater levels a nearby city.

Do you care?

Are we beyond morals and niceties and caring about humanity? 

You teleport to my limp and broken body, you scoop me up into your arms and hold me close. 

I've folded in on myself several times, I'm barely the size of a person now. 

I can feel those amber chains slithering around me, they clasp around my throat tight enough to choke. 

I don't want to go.

Don't make me go.

I don't want to go back to sleep.

Please. 

I'm scared. 

I'm so scared. 

You don't let me go, as I break down and cling to you like a scared child you don't let me go. 

I wrap you in my wings, I shove my head under your chin and apologize when I stab you with my horns.

"I am your Warden, you are my Prisoner… you are the End of Everything, but I am the End of You…" your throat is choked with snot and tears as you squeeze me so tight I can barely breathe. "You… you deserve to be a Happy Ending and I refuse to live in a world without one."

You kiss my forehead and wipe away my tears. "We do terrible things when we hurt… you deserve compassion instead of imprisonment."

I can do nothing but sit there and bawl, choking on Kindness as thick and sweet as soft caramel. 

Seven times seven thousand lifetimes worth of hate and sorrow and trauma run from my eyes.

You sit with me until the crying stops, until my throat is raw and all I can do is whisper. 

I speak a Word, one that fixes the shattered sky and let's the sun shine properly again. 

The sun speaks their own Words and resets the world, turning the clock back to the day before my escape, I do humanity one kindness and let them wake the next morning as if the past week were nothing more than a bad dream.

I am made to fix my messes, to undo my misdeeds. 

The Horsemen are sealed away again. 

Fairyland is repaired to the best of my ability, although there is nothing that I can do for the Sun-In-Chains. What's done is done. 

GOD will be fine, HE'S GOD, and therefore more or less impossible to kill permanently. 

All evidence of my tirade is erased.

I am finally bound in amber, my powers diminished. I dread returning to the cold depths of the well, but you won't let that happen.

You refuse to send me back to that lonely place beyond dreams and take me home, to your home. Warm and safe beneath the soil, I curl up next to you by the fire.

And for the first time in your short and terrible life, you get a good night's sleep. 

[queenbirbs]

on vengeful seas | Edward Mortemer x MC

Pairing: Edward Mortemer x Elena McTavish

Summary: Another way the night on the Admiral’s ship could have gone. 

Word count: 7.1k+

Rating: Mature

Warnings: violence, violence against women, mentions of blood, mild (?) torture, sexual harassment, suggestive themes

Note: PB writes the admiral as “the Admiral” when referencing him, which is why I’ve chosen to keep up with that style here. 

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Elena wonders how she’s going to explain all of this to Edward. 

She’s sure this wasn’t what he meant by ‘being careful,’ if the glower on the Admiral’s face is anything to go off. It’s hard to keep a straight face, though, what with the wine still dripping from his stupid fucking hat. If he’s such a stickler for etiquette as Oliver claims, why didn’t he take it off when dining with a lady? How disappointed Emily Post would be with him. 

“A display like that, Miss McTavish, warrants a night in the brig.” Picking up a handkerchief, he wipes at his face. A smirk appears when he lowers the cloth. “But we can’t have you and your captain consorting more than you already have. Don’t think we missed that poignant scene between the two of you earlier.”

Her breath feels trapped in her chest. Had he heard their plans? “Take her to the deck.”

Two officers lead her up and out onto the ship. This early in the evening, a few soldiers are still about, adjusting the rigging and sharing a drink. Edward is no longer there, having been returned to the brig while she was mapping out the compass’s location. She can only hope that the Admiral kept his word about having the surgeon look after him. 

“Oi!” one of the officer’s shouts from near the helm. “That’s my wife’s dress!” 

Elena bristles at the shout and searches the deck for Oliver -- who hovers near the group of soldiers, a grimace on his face. 

Liar, she mouths at him, and watches the grimace fold into a sheepish frown. 

“Why’s this pirate scum wearin’ it?”  

“Miss McTavish,” the Admiral croons from behind her, “please return Office Robinson’s present for his lovely wife.” 

“I’ll need my clothes, then,” she tells him. 

“Of course! Lieutenant, fetch her things.”

“Aye, Admiral.” 

Oliver disappears below deck, leaving Elena without even a semi-friendly face. The merriment turns to interest as the men all watch the Admiral circle her like a vulture. He drags his gaze up her form, slow and calculated. Klaxon bells sound in her head. 

“The dress does look lovely on you. I can see how Edward fell for you. It’s a shame, really, your beauty being wasted on a lowlife such as him.” 

He reaches out and runs a hand through her hair, grinning when she slaps him away. 

“You have no right to touch me.”

“You’re a pirate, girl -- you have no rights!” he declares with a boisterous laugh. 

The soldiers and officers join in, shouting lewd comments at her. Footsteps on the stairs signal Oliver’s return, her clothes draped over his arm. He glances around in confusion at the leering grins as he approaches. 

“You can change in the first--”

“She’ll change here,” the Admiral declares. “Robinson can’t afford her ruining the dress any further, can he?”

Elena blanches at the order. So does Oliver, whose eyes grow wide under the choppy strands of his blonde hair. 

“But, sir--”

“Fuck you,” she spits at the Admiral. “I’m not live entertainment for you and your--”

“Do I need to bring poor Edward up from the brig and flog him for your disobedience?”

“You promised to leave him--”

“Ah, but not until I had retrieved the compass. Until then, his health and well-being rely on you.”

Her gaze darts from his smarmy grin to the circle of approaching officers to Oliver’s pained expression. The realization, when it comes, is cold. The only person who would stand up for her is locked down below. There is no way out. 

Steadying her trembling jaw, she lifts her chin and sucks in a breath. 

“Fine.” 

Stepping forward, she feigns to take the clothes from Oliver’s arm and instead pulls his sword from its holster. With a flick of the wrist, she runs the blade up along the dress’s bodice. The silk parts like butter; the golden embroidery tears and the seams rend apart. Tossing the sword at Oliver’s feet, she steps out of the puddle of fabric and kicks it towards the Admiral. “Here’s your dress back, you fucking perverts.”

The men bellow and cheer, whistling at the sight of her near state of undress. She’s thankful she had the foresight to keep her bra and pants on under the dress, if in need of a quick getaway. Swimming in that tent would’ve been a death sentence.  

Elena snatches her shirt and waistcoat from Oliver, but the sharp edge of a blade at her neck makes her freeze in place. 

“You are going to learn rather quickly, Miss McTavish, that your actions have consequences.” The Admiral’s other hand clenches tight around her shoulder. “Tie her to the mast!”

“Wait -- Admiral, please--” Oliver tries to protest as two officers yank her arms behind her back and drag her towards the main mast.

“This is my ship, Lieutenant, and I will run it how I see fit!” the Admiral barks. “See that you return to your own.” 

Elena locks desperate eyes with Oliver, silently begging him to intervene. Whatever small sliver of trust she held with him, though, dissipates when she watches him turn his back and walk away. Despite her struggling attempts, the two officers keep their hold on her as they slam her back against the mast. Forcing her to her knees, they secure her arms back around the pole and tie her wrists together with a length of rope. She wrestles forward, testing her bonds, but they hold tight. 

“You should appreciate that I’m not flogging you. Instead, I think a night out on deck will suffice.” 

Picking up her clothes, the Admiral stops a few feet in front of her and drops them onto the deck. She has an idea, now, of who put the bucket outside of Edward’s cell. “Do try to get some sleep. We have a big day ahead of us tomorrow.”

“Rot in hell,” she seethes, but he’s already moving away towards Officer Robinson, who’s come down to watch the spectacle. 

“Do you smell a storm approaching, Robinson?”

“Aye, sir, I do.”

“A shame for those caught out in the elements, then.”

Though she expects them to stick around and rough her up a bit more, they thankfully walk away and disappear below deck. The soldiers return to their posts, only interacting with her when they pass by with taunts and rude gestures. Despite the three-hundred some-odd years between now and her time, it’s all comments she’s heard since the age of ten. Nothing new under the sun, and all that. 

She keeps quiet, though, even as rage boils inside of her. Years of experience tell her that it’s her best shot to get them to leave her alone. The rain does a lot of the work for her. 

It starts a half-hour later, driving away some of the soldiers back down to their bunks. Elena shifts to sit on her ass with her head bent, trying to shield herself with the sails and rigging. 

Usually a brief respite from the humid climate, the rain is cold on the bare skin of her shoulders and torso. With the strong winds this far out at sea, the rain is sharp, pricking her like needles. Her body shivers in protest. She tries to use her long hair as a makeshift shawl, but the blonde strands are soon soaked through, acting as nothing more than a damp weight on her chilled skin.  

Through heavy-lidded eyes, she watches the soldiers. Watches them point and laugh at her for the first hour, until they assume her asleep. Watches them move about the ship, carrying down what supplies they can with the slippery deck.

They chatter about wiping the sea clean of a few more pirates, of glory to His Majesty, of breaking out the good rum when they watch Captain Mortemer get what’s coming to him. They argue over a barrel of gunpowder, eventually deciding not to bother moving it downstairs, and tuck it away near the starboard side.

The storm continues up until dawn. The sky turns from that deepest blue to a hazy gray, muddled here and there with streaks of pink as the rain finally moves on to the north. Elena knows because she stays awake the entire night, fighting the pull of unconsciousness, unable to sleep with the enemy so close. Her body had stopped shivering hours ago, too tired to try and warm itself up. If she hadn’t kept track of the men all night, she would’ve thought they’d chopped off her hands at some point -- she can no longer feel them, and isn’t even sure that her fingers are moving when she tries flexing them.

Sometime after the sun has breached the horizon, there is the sound of boots on the deck nearby. 

“Up and at ‘em, hedge whore.” 

A sharp kick to her ribs ruins her attempt to play possum. Her moan of pain is lost under her coughing fit, which jostles her sore body. She curls forward, trying to avoid another kick. Officer Robinson smirks down at her from where he looms above her, a mug in his hand. “Admiral says to give you your breakfast.”

Panic seizes her. Before she can move to protect herself, he tips the mug over. 

Hot coffee splashes down onto her. A scream tears free as fire scorches down her back, raking its claws along her skin. She can feel her vocal chords burning and her mouth moving, but she can’t hear herself; there is only the rush of blood in her ears, blocking out all other sounds. Officer Robinson’s mouth parts to laugh at her. Nearby soldiers join in.

Minutes pass, though they feel like hours, and the searing pain becomes a throbbing ache. The coffee feels like a brand, burnt into her skin. Despite cursing it all night, she pleads for the rain to come back. The cold, morning winds are her only source of relief.

“Where is she? What have you bastards done with her!?” Edward’s voice booms across the deck.

Elena’s head snaps up. A group of officers surround him, making it difficult for her to get his attention from her bound position. She doesn’t have to try very hard, though -- because the men begin to move out of the way, letting him get a good look at her. His scowl disappears in an instant; his jaw drops, abject horror paling his face. 

“Elena!” he shouts, struggling to free himself. “You vile, savage -- if you’ve hurt her, I swear--”

“You’ll do what? Let us put another hole in yer side?” one of the soldiers taunts. The rest of them erupt into laughter. 

“She gave us a good show, your lass!” a man shouts from the helm. 

“We didn’t do nuthin’, boy,” the officer holding him scoffs. “Go on, see for yerself.” 

They shove him forward. Edward crosses the deck in two strides; dropping to his knees in front of her, he cups her cheek and brushes the mangled curtain of her hair over her shoulder. His gaze sweeps over her, but it’s nothing like before, down in the brig. The heat in his eyes is stoked only by fury. 

“Your back,” he hisses. “What did they do to--”

“It’s not important right now. Edward, listen to me--”

“They harmed you. There is nothing more important.” 

“Officers,” comes Oliver’s voice from behind them, “what is the meaning of this?”

The comradery ceases. The crew stands at attention, trying to hide their choked laughter behind coughs. 

“Cut her loose,” Edward demands.  

Footsteps sound across the planks, coming closer and closer, before a hand grabs both of hers and tugs. Elena jerks away in surprise and the rope digs deeper into her skin. 

“I’m sorry,” Oliver murmurs from behind her. “To cut this, I have to…” he trails off, the words lost under the sound of sawing. 

The rope gives way and falls to the deck. Vicious, stabbing pain shoots up her arms and along her back as her abused muscles move and stretch for the first time in hours. Tears spill from her eyes, but before she can figure out how to hide them, Edward’s thumb brushes them away. 

“Here.” He picks up her blouse and helps her slip into it, mindful of the burns on her back and the lacerations around her wrists. 

“I think I’ll… pass on the corset,” she tries to joke, but it falls flat.

Oliver crosses to the group of soldiers to berate them on her condition. Elena waits until he’s out of earshot to speak again. “Edward, listen to me. There is no prisoner transfer. The Admiral plans on sinking the Revenge. They’re sailing right into a trap. You have to warn the crew.”

Edward’s hands, which had been running gently up and down her arms to warm her back up, freeze. 

“Damnation,” he spits, shaking his head. “Aye, I will. But you, you’re in no shape to fight your way--”

“I didn’t say we.” Her downcast eyes flicker up, briefly, to catch his before returning to her injured wrists. “I said you.”

“I will not leave you behind.”

“We have no other choice. I’ll distract them--”

His hand cups her jaw and tilts her head up to meet his determined gaze. “Banish the thought, Miss McTavish. I won’t hear--”

She reaches up and yanks his hand from her face, squeezing his fingers to silence him. 

“Stop interrupting and listen to me. There’s gunpowder over there, near the starboard beam. They made a big fuss about keeping it out of the rain. It’s the small barrell, with--”

“Aye, I know what a powder keg looks like.”

“And I’ve watched too many BBC documentaries to know that they put it too close to the ship’s center. If it goes off, the explosion just might reach the lower levels.”

It’s a sign of how much time he’s spent with her that he doesn’t even question the odd reference she makes. 

“I imagine you have some idea of how I’m to set it off in the first place.”

“I’ll get Oliver close enough for you to grab his pistol.” 

Edward grimaces, but clenches his jaw and nods. There’s the captain she needs right now. Stretching up to feign another look at her back, he scans the deck and spots their escape. 

“I want you in the jolly boat when that keg goes up, hear me?” He tucks her hair back so she can see the boat hanging from the port’s davits, ready for launch. 

“Only if you’re in it with me.”

“Officers,” the Admiral bellows from behind them, “why is our prisoner not restrained?”

The men scramble forward and seize Edward, ignoring his growled threats as he fights to get loose. Coming to stand beside Elena, the Admiral casts an eye over her ragged frame. A slow smirk slithers across his face; she suppresses the shiver that wants to crawl up her spine, knowing without a doubt that his plans with her aren’t finished. He clamps a hand around her arm and hauls her to her feet, ignoring her yelp of pain as the stiff muscles are forced to work.  

“What’s the status of our merry band of misfits?”  

“They’re due east, sir!” the man from the crow’s nest calls down. “‘Bout fifteen minutes out.” 

With the morning sun blazing white-hot behind it, the Revenge is a black dot on the horizon. 

“Good!” The Admiral turns his wicked grin to Edward. “That gives me just enough time to let you in on my little secret. You see, I’ve no intention of handing you back. You’re going to watch as I turn your ship into nothing more than splinters. After that, I’ll have the distinct pleasure of cutting off your head and sticking it on the bowsprit, as a warning to your kind.”

“Get on with it, then,” Edward snaps. “Tell your officers to stand down and let us duel, man-to-man.” 

“Oh, we’ll get there, have no fear. But I think you’ll be begging me to end your sorry excuse of a life. Because before I do that, I’ll see to it that Miss McTavish here gets to experience the true pirate treatment.” He runs a hand over her hair as if petting an animal, and chuckles when she squirms away from his touch. “She’ll be bound and gagged, her legs wrapped with chain shot. Then she’ll be tossed overboard to join the rest of your crew at the bottom of the sea.” 

“Your fight is with me, Cochrane, not with her.” Edward’s glare burns hot against the rising sun. “Leave her be.”

“And what say you, Miss McTavish?” the Admiral hums, a sick delight brightening his face as hers flushes red with rage.  

“I’d like to see you try,” she snarls. 

Oliver, having had enough of waiting in the wings, finally steps forward. “Admiral, sir, the Revenge -- she’s got a child aboard.”

“A pirate’s a pirate, no matter the age!” shouts one of the officers. 

“If we don’t exterminate them now, we’ll just have to do it once they grow up, Lieutenant.”

“You fucking bastard--” Elena keens at the agonizing sensation of the Admiral’s fingers digging into her back. 

“I forgot to ask.” He dips his head to drag his lips against her ear. “Did you enjoy breakfast, Miss McTavish?” 

“Go fuck yourself.” She curls forward and then throws her head back. Victory sweeps through her at the tell-tale crunch of cartilage, urging her on.  

“Insolent--”

She turns and spits in his face, now bloodied from his broken nose. He sweeps a hand out and captures her by the throat. Slamming her back against the mast, he growls out a curse and tightens his grip. Elena claws at his face, managing to draw in enough air to scream.

“Oliver!” she cries out, putting as much emotion as she can behind it. 

There’s a flash of blue and blonde and then suddenly, the Admiral is ripped away and thrown to the deck.   

“Elena, are you--” 

She slams a fist across Oliver’s jaw. He stumbles and she snags his pistol from his belt, tossing it to Edward. Spinning on her heel, she sprints towards the jolly boat as Edward takes aim and fires. 

The powder keg explodes, blasting a hole through the deck. Wooden shards fly across the ship and embed into the officers. A chain of explosions echoes up from below. The ship groans, listing to the starboard as water rushes into the hull.

“Abandon ship!” Oliver roars. 

Soldiers slide and tumble across the tilting deck, trying to reach the jolly boats stacked for launch. One man snags Elena’s blouse and yanks her back, his sword raised to strike her down. Using the momentum, she slams her shoulder into his chest and knocks him back into a crate. “Elena!” 

She jerks her head up to see a runaway train of supplies rushing towards her. Before she can jump out of the way, a strong arm wraps around her waist and hoists her up onto the railing. 

“Cheater,” she mutters. 

Edward lets go of the rope and shakes his head at her. She doesn’t miss the pained wince he makes as he holds his injured shoulder.     

“I told you to be in the boat,” he chides.

“I would have a smartass remark if I weren’t so terrified of going down with the ship.”

“I won’t let that happen.”

He helps her over the railing net and into the jolly boat before swinging himself over. The ship quakes as water floods the lower levels; the hull gives way to the sea with a loud crack. Soldiers race to the bow to leap off, avoiding the downward surge of water near the ship’s center. Elena grapples with the davit to launch the boat down while Edward fends off the desperate men looking for a safer way off.  

“Anytime now, Miss McTavish!” he shouts, hauling a particularly determined man over the netting just to toss him down into the water. 

“I’m trying! I just can’t get the damn thing to--”

The Admiral surges over the netting and swings his sword through one of the davit’s ropes. The boat drops, suspended on one end by a single rope. Elena grabs hold of a thwart and hangs there, searching below for Edward. 

His left hand clenches tight along the bow. The breath of relief catches in her chest when he looks up to meet her gaze, desperation warring with the agony of his injured shoulder. Elena pries one hand loose and offers it to him. Her fingertips barely brush the tops of his knuckles. 

“Give me your other hand!” she cries. 

“Elena--” he bares his teeth, “I cannot--”

His fingers slip from their hold and he falls. The sea closes over him like a watery shroud. 

Elena screams his name, frantically scanning the surface for him, when a fist wraps around her hair. The Admiral drags her back onto the ship, trapping her from escape with a boot on her chest. 

“Alack, Miss McTavish, you should’ve let go when you had the chance!” the Admiral shouts above the din of his men’s cries. Blood covers his chin and neck from his ruined nose, coating his teeth where he grins. The ship lurches again and water roars as it gushes up onto the deck. “My sword will not be so kind to--”

Elena cocks her arm back and slams a fist into his crotch. Blood sprays over her in a mist as he coughs, choking on his own spittle. His hands go to cup his manhood; she grabs his sword as it falls.  

“That’s for Edward.” 

Rolling out from under his weakened hold, she springs up and steadies herself by wrapping one hand around the netting. The other adjusts her hold on the sword’s grip. 

She lunges. 

The blade drives into his shoulder, spearing through flesh and sinew. The Admiral howls, collapsing onto the deck. With a jerk of her arm, she twists the blade for good measure. “And that’s for all the innocent people you had murdered. Hell is too good a place for you, but enjoy it all the same.” 

With a sharp tug, the sword slides free from him. Uselessly grabbing at the wound, he manages to clench his jaw and open his mouth to speak. Not wanting to give him the satisfaction of a last word, Elena brings her knee up and knocks him backward across the deck. The blood and brine slicken the planks, making it impossible for him to stop his descent as the rushing water drags him under. 

Tucking the bloodied sword away, Elena scrambles over the railing and dives off the ship. The water is cold, though not as cold as the last time she leapt into it of her own volition. Kicking her legs, she swims up towards the sunlight and breaks the surface. 

“Edward!” she screams, trying to be heard above the men in the water. 

Swimming away from the sinking vessel, she heads towards the sun. If she can make it past the flurry of men all headed west, towards Oliver’s ship, she might be able to find him. Surely he didn’t pick a fight with anyone in the water, right? She rolled her eyes as she dipped underneath a wave to avoid another cluster of officers. Of course he would. 

But she had faith he would win, at the very least. 

“Edward!” she tries again when she breaks the surface. 

The Admiral’s ship groans as it finally relents to the sea; the masts snap apart like twigs as they hit the water. 

“Miss -- Miss McTavish!” Edward’s voice echoes from somewhere beyond her sight.

Elena paddles in a circle and keeps her head above the waves, scanning for that flash of red shirt amongst the sea of blue. Then: a lone arm, waving a sword back and forth as if it were a flag. She surges forward, riding the current as it pulls her farther out to sea and closer to her captain. 

He appears just over the next wave, clinging to a chunk of wood and heaving a sigh of relief. 

“You have no idea how pleased I am to see you safe, Miss McTavish.”

“Really?” she sputters. “We just blew up a navy ship and nearly drowned and you’re keeping up your pretenses?” 

“You’ve been living amongst pirates for some weeks now, haven’t you learned? There’s always time for etiquette.”

Matching grins spread across their faces. They both burst into laughter at the horrible joke, adrenaline singing in their veins. Edward motions her to come closer and helps her up onto the wood. When he starts to slide off, she grabs his coat sleeve. 

“Oh, no you don’t. I’ve seen this movie. Get up here with me, there’s plenty of room.”

“I do not think--”

“Get your ass back up here, Captain.”

Edward heaves out a sigh, but relents to her demands and hauls himself back onto their makeshift flotation device. “There we go,” she says. “See, now I don’t have to watch you freeze to death, or throw a ten-thousand dollar necklace into the ocean.”

“I’m going to blame our current predicament on the nonsense yer spouting.”

Elena shifts to get more comfortable and shrugs. “That’s fine.”

They both watch the Admiral’s ship disappear beneath the waves, the floating debris the only proof it was ever there at all. In the distance, men are being brought aboard Oliver’s ship. “Should we worry about them?”

“Nay, I think not.” Edward’s mouth dips down to one side. “At least, not right now. They won’t want to risk us pulling the same stunt on their ship, I imagine.”

“Good. But what about Henry?”

“We’ll get him back, don’t badge. The Admiral may not have been the reasoning sort, but the lieutenant seems to be. Especially when it comes to you.” 

Within twenty minutes, the ship weighs anchor and releases the sails. Soon enough, the Revenge -- having been circling about on the horizon -- starts towards them.

“I owe you an apology.”

Elena tears her gaze from the Revenge to him. He won’t look at her, though. Instead, he feigns interest in watching Oliver’s ship disappear to the north. 

“What for?” she asks.

“For promising you safety from the Admiral and letting him put his hands on you anyway.”

“You didn’t ‘let’ anything happen. I could’ve played along and not stirred the pot, but I didn’t.”

“That is no reason for him to--”

“I know it’s not.” 

She reaches across to put her hand on top of his. Elena’s breath empties out of her with a sigh when he turns his palm up and laces his fingers through hers and squeezes tight. “Well, you can be rest assured that he won’t be putting his hands on me, or you, or anybody else ever again.”

A noise of surprise sounds from his throat. 

“He’s dead?”

“I punched him in the dick and stole his sword and stabbed him. So, yeah, I guess. And if I didn’t, then the blood loss or water in his lungs would’ve finished the job.”

“And you are…”

“Freaking out a little about it, yeah,” she admits, angry at the way her hands have started to shake. “I put on a brave face and sent him off with a real Indiana Jones-worthy one-liner and… and I know you don’t know what that is but--”

“Elena--”

Shaking her head at him, she continues: “--but, and I mean, I know how horrible of a person he was, and all the people he had killed, and the countless others like you he took advantage of, but I still…”

“...killed a man,” he finishes for her.

“Yeah.”

“I won’t lie to you. It is never easy. But if some part of you did not feel this way, then that would be far more worrisome.”

Tears fall from her eyes, but he’s too far to wipe them away this time. He settles for turning her hand over and pressing kisses to her palm, mindful of the rope burn around her wrists.

“Thank you,” he murmurs. “I know it’s rather odd to thank you for… something like that. But I am grateful to you, as well, for saving me. I owe you my life.”

“Yeah,” she says, lifting her head up to grin at him, “you kinda do.”

Edward chuckles and enjoys seeing her nose wrinkle with her own laughter. “You can pay me back by giving me a proper kiss.”

“Here?” he asks.

“Well, yeah. Unless there’s another floating hunk of wood you think would be a better--”

Pulling himself up, he crosses the distance between them and pays his debt. Her lips are dry and rough, evidence of their captivity, and tasting of saltwater and some delicious flavor that could only be her. When she parts for air, he takes his own and then returns for another kiss. She whines, sweet and high, when he parts her lips for a better taste. Her fingers curl around the wet strands of his dark hair and tug, urging him on and on. 

“You two need anotha minute or are you ready to come aboard?” Charlie’s voice echoes down to them. 

They ease apart and share a heated glance before slipping off their raft. The crew leans down over the railing, hollering their relief at finding them alive and in one piece. Jonas releases the rope ladder and Edward grabs the first rung, motioning for Elena to go first. Ginny hangs off Ax’s arm, jumping up and down as she waves to them 

“We saw the ship explode!” she calls down.

“Aye, that was Miss McTavish’s idea.” 

“Brilliant!” Ginny declares with a beaming smile.

“Isn’t she, though?” 

“Oi, where’s Henry? He didn’t…” Maggie trails off, frowning out towards the open water where the Admiral’s ship went down.

Jonas and Charlie help Elena over and onto the deck, both of them catching her stifled cry when her back brushes against the railing.

“No, no, he’s on the lieutenant’s ship,” Edward explains as he throws a leg over onto his ship. “We’ll fetch him back, have no fear.”

“He’ll be spittin’ mad that he missed all the action,” Jonas declares.

“He’ll be dancin’ the hempen jig once we rescue him and I punish him for such a stunt.”

“We were watchin’ you through the spyglass!” Ginny exclaims, still bouncing from foot to foot with joy. Ada rushes over with blankets and when Jonas moves to help distribute the supplies among the two, Ginny darts in and throws her arms around Elena’s waist. “I’m so glad you guys are okay!” 

Biting down on her cheek to distract herself from the pain, Elena’s lungs stutter against the familiar burning sensation along her back. With the rush of adrenaline long gone, Ginny’s thin arms feel like hot, metal bands. 

“Step back, Ginny,” Edward orders, then, in a softer tone, adds, “Please. Miss McTavish has some… injuries.”

She leaps back, her brown eyes filling with tears. Elena’s heart drops to the pit of her stomach at the guilty expression on her face. 

“I’m sorry -- I didn’t -- I’m sorry, Elena, I--”

“Hey, hey, it’s okay,” she assures, crouching down to meet Ginny at her level. “It’s not your fault, you didn’t know. Besides, a hug from you is the world’s best medicine.”

Ginny wipes away the unshed tears in her eyes. 

“Yer just sayin’ that.”

“Only because it’s true,” she counters. “Now, can I give you a hug back?”

She nods; Elena gathers her into her arms and squeezes her tight, ignoring the prickle of her injured skin. There’s movement behind her: Charlie, gently plucking the collar of her shirt back to have a look. 

“Oh, love,” Charlie breathes out, “what’d they--”

“I have some salve from when we went to the apothecary,” Elena not-so-subtly interrupts. “Could you get it for me, please? And Edward, he needs--”

“The ship’s surgeon looked after me,” he says. 

“Yeah, like half a day ago,” she scoffs.

Charlie and Ada disappear down below before returning with her salve and the meager medical supplies. What Elena wouldn’t give for clean gauze and basic antibiotic ointment. And tampons, which she’d lamented to Charlie on more than one occasion. 

“C’mon,” Elena tucks her arm through his, “I’ll play Hawkeye.”

Gathering her against his side, he heads for the privacy of his cabin to tend to their wounds.

“Are these references of yours ever going to pertain to the current day?” he wonders aloud.

“Don’t hold your breath, Major Houlihan.”

Inside the cabin, he guides her to his bed and sits her down. 

“Ah, ah -- gentlemen first this time.”

“As I stated before, I was tended to--”

“Stop arguing and start stripping,” she orders, wishing that crossing her arms didn’t pull at the taut skin of her back. 

With a disgruntled sigh, Edward tosses off his coat and unbuttons his shirt. Despite their dip in the ocean, the bandages somehow look cleaner than before. She focuses on that, and wonders if the surgeon did more than a quick look-see. She does not focus on the fact that she’s alone with shirtless Edward in his cabin (and boy, how her late-night fantasies didn’t hold a candle to the sight of him now). 

“There’s that wrinkle again,” he murmurs, reaching between them to run a fingertip across her forehead. “Are ye thinking of home?”

“No.” 

She’s surprised by her own honesty, but finds that it’s true -- she isn’t thinking of home. In fact, she realizes with a gnawing sensation in her chest, she hasn’t thought about home all day. Every minute of her night out on the deck was spent planning revenge and worrying about Edward and worrying about the crew and listening for soldiers getting too close -- and then there was no time to think at all. “No, I was… thinking about you.”

“Me?”

“Aye,” she mimics, “you.” Before she can manage to embarrass herself by showing all of her cards, Elena clears her throat. “I was thinking about what horrors I was going to find when I peeked under that bandage.”

Snorting at the dramatics, he tugs the dressing aside and makes his own noise of surprise. The stitching is neat, and the skin around it -- while ugly and bruised -- doesn’t show any sign of infection.  

“Looks like I won’t be needin’ that hook then after all.” 

“You’re an ass.” 

The grin he shoots her does something funny to her train of thought; she forgets what the next sentence out of her mouth should be. Fortunately, he steers her back on track by checking under the bandage on his side and makes a show of turning so she can see the perfect line of stitches. 

“I’m surprised the Admiral kept up his end of the bargain.”

“Ah, it was… actually the lieutenant. He came down and insisted the surgeon see me.” 

She’s not sure how to process that. For all his faults, Oliver did seem to be earnest in his attempts to help. 

The image of him walking away as the Admiral and his men restrained her, though, feels burnt into her retinas. “As such,” Edward continues, “the bandages will hold for a good while. I would like to -- err… I think it more beneficial to check on the status of your injuries… if I may, o’course.” 

Before he can stumble his way through asking for her to take her shirt off, she reaches down and tugs it over her head. Moving to stand behind her, Edward gets a full view of her injury. She winces at the pained noise he makes. 

“Any bleeding or open wounds?” she asks. 

“Nay, but -- Elena, this… it looks as if someone poured hot coals down yer back.”

“That’s… a good guess.” At his deafening silence, she relents. “It was coffee. He told me it was my breakfast.” 

“Who?” the single word sounds like it’s being squeezed from his throat. 

“Officer Robinson.” 

“I will gut him like a pig and string him off the bowsprit for harming you.”

“And they say chivalry is dead,” she murmurs. 

“Who says that?”

“I honestly have no idea.”

Taking the salve from her, he urges her to lie down on her stomach. Sinking onto the thin mattress, she rests her head on his pillow. The linen smells of sun and salt and sweat; she nestles closer, inhaling in the comforting scent she’s come to associate with him. 

The bed dips with his weight as he sits beside her, his thigh pressed alongside her hip. He collects the damp wave of her hair and lays it across the pillow. His fingers make gentle sweeps across her skin with the honey-and-herb smelling lotion. After his fifth apology for nudging the band of her bra, Elena reaches behind her, unhooks it, and tosses it to the floor. 

“Was this… retribution for my stealing the compass?” he asks, his touch stuttering across her lower back. 

“No.” She closes her eyes against the memory of all those men leering at her, waiting for her to give them a show. In the nightmare she’ll have tonight, she imagines they’ll appear as wolves, starving and hungry, ready to tear her limb-from-limb. “I didn’t tell him where the compass was. I mean -- I did, but I gave him a fake location. That group of islands we fought that cargo ship. I figured it would give us enough time to work out another plan, before he keelhauled us or cut off our heads.”

“I would tell ye that I would’ve never let such a thing happen, but I wasn’t able to stop him from… this.” 

Craning her neck to look at him, her throat tightens at the devastated expression he wears.

“Hey,” she says, dragging his attention away from her marred skin. “We’re not playing the blame game. This isn’t your fault, and -- although I could have played nice and things might have turned out different -- it isn’t mine, either.” 

A ragged breath escapes him; the line of his shoulders softens under her assurance. She watches him set aside the pot and lean over her. The kiss he presses to the nape of her neck is so soft, she would’ve missed it -- if not for the second one he places just to the right of the first. A hum rolls along the back of her throat; he reads her obvious encouragement and trails his mouth along the top of her shoulder. 

“Kiss me.”

“I thought that’s what I was doing, Miss McTavish.” 

Just the side of his face is visible, but it’s enough for her to see the hint of a smile. Refusing to deal with his teasing, she pushes herself up to her knees and turns to face him. His dark eyes rove over her, burning bright with the afternoon sun pouring in through the window. She reaches for him and he comes easily into her embrace. With her breasts flush against his naked chest, his heart races against her skin. 

Cradling her face between his hands, he pours every ounce of himself into the kiss. If their moment down in the brig was the dam breaking, then this is the aftermath: a strong, steady current of his mouth moving against hers. He takes only what she gives and no more, letting her explore as she likes. 

Retreating in the name of oxygen, Edward tips his forehead against hers. 

“I felt powerless when you did not return. I was sure… I thought of every horrible thing I knew him to be capable of, and they plagued me the entire night. I shouldn’t’ve put you in such a position, Elena. I promised to protect you and I failed.” His voice works around the emotions clogging his throat. “And I will be damned sure I will never do so again.”

Sitting back to catch his eye, she runs a hand through his hair and shushes him. It does little to ease him. “I would have rather bled to death in that cell than to see you tied to the mast, in your undergarments no less, in pain like this--”

“Edward.” She leans forward and presses her lips to the bandage wrapped over his heart. “What have I told you since day one?” she asks him, lightening her tone to pull him out of the hole he’s dug himself. 

He’s a smart man; he catches on. 

“A great deal about something called Amazon, which I believe is a land to the west and not--”

“Edward.”

“As well as the wonders of indoor plumbing, which you curse at every available opportunity--”

“I’m going to kick your ass out of your own bed.”

“--and for me to stop underestimating you.”

“Exactly,” she nods, smiling when he rolls his eyes good-naturedly. 

Gathering her close once more, he tangles a hand in her hair where she settles against his chest. He runs his blunt nails along her scalp, enjoying the little sighs she makes. 

“How could I forget when you’re reminding me every blessed moment?” 

Unable to resist, Edward drops a kiss onto the crown of her head. The cabin grows quiet, filled only with their shallow breaths and the distant murmurs of the crew. Feeling the day’s weight upon his eyelids, he shakes himself out of the comfortable stupor to find Elena nearly half-asleep. He coaxes her to lay down and helps her out of her damp trousers. Tugging the sheet up to her hips, he turns to check on his crew and see about tracking down the lieutenant’s ship when a hand reaches out for him. 

“Edward.”

“Aye?”

“What if I… screwed up?”

The term is unfamiliar, but he’s grown used to her unusual lexicon. 

“In what way?” 

She shifts on the pillow to face him, though her gaze remains somewhere on the floor. 

“By killing the Admiral. I’m -- this trip, it was supposed to be temporary. I was going to try to avoid talking about the internet or reality television or vaccines and find a way back home and now I’ve gone and...” she trails off, biting at her lip.  

Kneeling beside the bed, Edward brushes a lock of hair from her face and tips his head in thought. 

“Have you considered that this was meant to be? That you coming here to this time... it was already written in your fate.”

Elena clenches her eyes shut and groans. 

“Ugh. That makes my head hurt. I’m a time traveler and thinking about that makes my head hurt.”

Chuckling, he shakes his head and returns to his feet.  

“Go to sleep. I’ll wake you with food.”

“Mmm… you know exactly what to say to please a woman.”

“It is one of my hidden talents.”

“What are the others?”

“In due time, Miss McTavish.”

“I’ll hold you to that.”

+

+

+

References and other what-have-yous: 

“Chivalry is dead” being a coined phrase is most attributed to Lord Byron, who in 1823 blamed it’s passing on Don Quixote. What a goodreads review that would’ve been. But in 1793, Edmund Burke, after Marie Antoinette’s beheading, remarked that the age of chivalry was dead. So, he gets whatever the equivalent of brownie points were back then.  

Hawkeye and Major Houlihan are from the TV show MASH, where they’re the chief surgeon and head nurse. An extremely topical, 1970s sitcom reference. 

Badge was slang for ‘worry’ in the 18th cent, per an Essex Dialect Dictionary published in 1920.

[aubergineanathema]

A play in the distance

Part 1 - The ruin in the clearing: Preface Part 2 - Whispers in darkness Part 3 - Käsdorf and Wulvosburg Part 4 - Secrets behind stone walls Part 5 - Wind chimes and wildflowers Part 6 - Beneath the hillock Part 7 - Evidence of a struggle Part 8 - Murder of crows

----

Part 9.

Suddenly everything sounded very loud to Gunther. The horses were frantic. The wings of crows fluttered and as they shrieked down at them, as though mocking them from the branches high above. The wind howled as it picked up and the thunder cracked closer and louder than before. All of these sounds seemed oddly muted and flattened together, conflated into an angry roar. Just as strange was the comparatively demure sound of rending flesh; it seemed overwhelming in its subtlety. Emphasized. Focused. 

And then there was the screaming.

Henry’s agonized screaming wobbled in and out of Gunther’s hearing. The force of the crow’s attack had thrown Henry back over the log he had been sitting on, tossing him onto his back. He lay prone now, his arms and legs flailing wildly about, his hands churning in the air with desperation as he tried to catch hold of the bird and fling it away from himself. His screams were made up of violent and incomprehensible cries of fear and pain that Gunther did not even understand as utterances in that moment. They sounded more like the garbled caterwaul of dogs and cats than words to process. No more understandable than what the horses were saying.

He watched as Henry struggled, mesmerized. In spite of the crow being easily within Henry’s reach, his fingers slipped through the feathers as though they were made of oil. Ephemeral. Illusory. The crow’s wings flapped with frantic intention to balance itself, and its talons remained stuck fast into the soft flesh of his face.

And it was not even these screams that took pride of place among the cacophony of sound assaulting Gunther in this instant. What still rung loudest in Gunther’s mind, more clearly than any of the other vacillating noises were the crow’s words. Stuck in time, he heard them over and over, as clearly as though they were still being spoken: It is forbidden for the peasantry to hunt on Vorsfelde land! This bird had spoken to them with a human tongue. With abundant clarity, it had communicated the precise nature of their crimes.

He had heard of such miraculous things before as beasts talking, but never had he witnessed anything even remotely similar. Long ago he had relegated such fables to the realm of fantasy. So far was this from credulity that, just like the scene he saw occurring immediately in front of him, he experienced it as though he were watching a play unfold from across a long courtyard. He was too far away to even comprehend it fully, let alone be able to have any influence upon it.

None of it seemed real.

He waited to wake up. To somehow reconcile insanity with reality.

Instead, as some of his senses returned to him, he realized that he was on his feet, standing stock still just above where he had been sitting moments before. They had all three of them jumped to their feet at the same time, when Henry had been attacked. An instant ago. An eternity ago. So automatic had been their initial reaction to fight or flee; it was completely foreign to the paralysis that gripped him now from head to foot. He realized his hands were clapped over his ears, but he could not even manage to lower them. His arms felt like swaying branches, clumsy, useless appendages. Not even his. He did not think anything could force him to move his legs of lead.

Frozen as he was, Gunter and the other two men could only continue to watch with detached horror as, one by one, as though following some silent queue, each crow swooped onto his friend in quick succession.

Or, that’s what it looked like at first.

As each crow swooped down and piled upon the last, Gunther began to have a hard time differentiating them from one another in the swarm. He found himself hoping it was some trick of the firelight, but he feared that was too much too hope for. They began to lose their shape--their very definition--right in front of him, dissolving into the growing mass of black birds. They melded into one another and soon there was only a swirling mass of feathers, beaks and talons. Soon, however, even these disembodied features melted into themselves. Until before them was not a murder of crows at all, but a single, smooth dark creature.

Darkly-clad and cowled, the entity was turned away from them, and so even as Gunther tried, he could not make out a face. The edges of its form were still of undefined character, shadowy and shifting, as though it were only borrowing this human shape and cloak. It loomed heavily over Henry, who was still screaming hoarsely.

The talons, still embedded, finally receded until they pulled away from the man’s maimed face entirely, before shifting before Gunther’s eyes into pallid hands, with long hooked nails the color of dirt and sand. Gunther could only watch as the hands returned to their victim, clasping him purposefully about the neck, before cutting the flesh there as easily as a lame scoring dough.

The creature leaned in, obscuring Henry’s terrified, marred face.

And then Henry was no longer screaming, but gurgling with the sick wet sound of the swell of blood.

“Christ almighty--we have to get out of here.” Rudolf’s stammering cut through the pregnant air. He spoke the words as though they were more intended to thrust himself into action than anything else.

Instead, he seemed only to catch the attention of the creature. The dark swirling shadow bent backward at a unnatural angle towards them, revealing a smooth and sallow face, as featureless as a clay mask, red eyes, and predatory fangs gleaming with blood. Transfixed by the creature, Gunter saw Rudolf turn and run only from the corner of his eye.

Then there was chaos.

All at once the thing lunged at them, dissolving almost immediately yet again into so many crows. They dispersed and attacked with clear intent and purpose. They attacked the shrieking horses. They flew by Gunther, clawing at his clothing and knocking him off-kilter. He hardly caught his breath before several other of the crows working in concert grabbed one of their tents in their talons and threw it straight into the fire, snuffing it out, and plunging them into almost total darkness.

A bolt of lightning flashed near them, the cracking of thunder following almost immediately, and then, down from the heavens, the rain began to fall. It pelted hard against the canopy, chilling Gunther’s already-trembling body as the droplets hit his skin. The sudden rain shocked him into a fuller awareness, but even so, he was blind in the darkness. He reached out, feeling for anything he might use to defend himself with, too terrified to dare to make a sound.

And then another scream pierced the air, halting after a moment with unnatural suddenness.

Another bolt of lightening lit the clearing for a brief instant. The tents were in ruins, and the horses were gone. And Gunther saw what looked like a boulder rolling towards them in the slight slope of the clearing. The lightning doubled back around him, and it was not a boulder, but Rudolf’s head: eyes terrified but vacant, mouth still lolling open in his severed scream.

Gunther toppled backward in a desperate attempt to get away from the nearby corpses, to get away from whatever fiend was tearing them apart, one by one. But his legs seemed to have no strength, and he did not even know which direction it was to the road.

He could hear nothing now but the rain and the rumbling thunder.

He knew he was next. He was about to die.

A hand upon his shoulder made him feel as though his soul was leaving his body, and he stifled a scream. But, he felt no claws rip into him. The hand was wet with rain but warm and firm.

“Come!” Bertrand’s voice. “Now!”

Gunther turned, hands grabbing at the other man with unrestrained panic as he tried to pull himself to his feet. His hands caught the man’s clothes and then his hand, and he cleaved to the only thing he thought might save him.

Bertrand pulled him and they ran into the copse. The man seemed to know where to go and Gunther could only trust him as wet branches, leaves and brambles pummeled them both, whipping and scraping against them as they forced their way through.

And then they were on the road, not pausing even for a moment as they continued to flee upon the path. Gunther could not hear or see any sign of the monster that had killed their friends, no matter how much he strained to see in the rain. He strained to hear anything over the rain and the rasping of his own breath. But he could not see any crows flying above them in the darkness, and he dared to hope they had made it away safely. Perhaps the fiend had had its fill with the horses and their friends.

Or perhaps it was like a cat. Allowing its prey to escape only for the thrill of the hunt.

“That village is not too far away from here!” Bertrand yelled back at Gunther, drawing his focus. “I think it’s this way.”

Gunther heard the words, but did not feel he could follow such a conversation. Instead he could only ask: “What was that! What was that thing?”

Bertrand did not pause their run, even as Gunther began to feel the drag of fatigue upon him. “I don’t know! That’s not for us to know! Focus on getting to town. If we can get to town, we’ll be--”

Lightning struck another tree in the forest, so near to them Gunther could feel the strange energy in the air around them. The resulting thunder drowned out their conversation.

But Gunther also saw something else.

In the flash of the lightning, a black specter crossed the lane in front of him, so quickly his eyes could hardly follow it. Then he saw it shoot across again as darkness settled over them again. He strained to see, but there was no light now. Suddenly, he felt unmoored. As through the ground had suddenly shifted. He stumbled backward, and as he caught his balance he realized that he was alone.

And still grasping his own hand, was Bertrand’s. Still warm.

But Bertrand was no longer with him on the road.

He dropped it, and he ran. ------

This has been Part 9. For more, see my Fiction Updates post.

------

If you like this or my other original work, please feel free to share with your friends (with credit of course). I would really like feedback, so don’t be shy to talk to me about it!

[antihero-writings]

If These Walls Could Talk (Ch6)

Fandom: Castlevania Netflix

Summary: Vampires do not have reflections, and castles do not have hearts. But Dracula is no ordinary vampire, and Castlevania is no ordinary castle. If castles can fight, maybe they can think too.

The series, and Adrian’s childhood, told from the perspective of the castle.

(Please note!! This chapter is meant to have aesthetic indententaion in some places, and it definitly loses something without it. So if you want to read it as-intended, please look it at on Archiveofourown at I_prefer_the_term_antihero on your computer or tablet!!)

Chapter Summary: 

“Do you see the Castle?” “Take a look.” “Good. Keep Focused on it. I have to be able to see it to put my intent on it.” “Your intent?” “That’s all magic is, Alucard. Changing things in accordance with my intent. “And my intent is to drag that grotesque thing here.”

Chapter 6: "Burn"  

Castlevania doesn’t like being controlled.

Does not answer to anyone but Dracula. However reluctant it may be to obey certain orders, it will always do what its master wishes. It isn’t sure it wants this war, to be an instrument of this war, but it will be damned if it doesn’t fight for him.

Its most base instinct and desire has always been to protect its master. That’s what it was at the beginning; just a shield. Not a home, or a haven, or a cozy place to raise one’s kids. It didn’t always have wants and musings of its own. Once it was just walls. Walls there to keep out the elements—both the cold, and the hot—not to mention the mobs. Once it was just walls; before someone started talking to them. Even if it can’t be a sword in this war, it will always be its master’s shield.

So when it feels intent creep in with jagged, electric claws from all sides, pulling, dragging it somewhere unknown where its master didn’t tell it to go, wrapping around its motor functions with blue-hot fingers—too much like the hand around the Rooms throat—a command that doesn’t belong to its master, it must not, will not obey. Dracula said to stay put, and whether here is a good place to be; whether he was coerced into placing Castlevania there for the sake of a little silence; and if Dracula is in his right mind, are moot points, because it was Dracula who said it.

There has been too much pain, too much betrayal, too many silver words, too many other voices trying to sway Dracula, and too many times the Castle wanted to beg its master to listen, listen closer, unable to do a thing to stop the collapse they set in motion.

Today, today has been too much. Carmilla’s parasitic rhythm fulfilled. Even now, battering rams against the door—but this time it is the vampires, not the humans, who want to tear its king from its throne, the thumping of heavy hearts against the door, and there is nothing Castlevania can do but sit there and hope its door is strong enough.

Her soldiers, a swarm of bees after their queen, and the buzzing is far too loud in its halls, louder than its ever been. The Castle is overwhelmed, so when this other force grasps Castlevania itself, as if molesting it, it is too much to bear. Castlevania isn’t just obeying orders anymore, it is angry.

Blood in the halls and the sound of metal against metal. The buzzing turning to stinging. The war has arrived in the war room.

Isaac runs to Dracula to tell him what the Castle—(and perhaps Isaac himself)— knew all along; that they had been betrayed.

Dracula has so little strength to fight so Castlevania must do what castles are made for: protect him, fight his battles for him, be his sword and shield and armor all at the same time. His reflection, which can better fight for him.

It may not quite believe in what its fighting for, but Castlevania has a will, and has been sick of all this for far too long. Too many motives fighting for control, too many voices winning out over its master. So desperately it wanted to fight, to talk, to beg its master not to listen, but it couldn’t. With everything else that happened it had to sit and watch and beg that someone else would fight.

Castlevania doesn’t like feeling useless, only able to listen.

It’s been feeling this for far too long.

Castles are built to protect their masters. Built to keep the arrows, the fire, the canons, and the worst of words from finding their mark. But Castlevania moves, and the arrows, the canons, the fire, and the words are all already inside. And no one dares try to move the Castle itself.

But this, this time the threat is against Castlevania. Not Dracula—though ultimately it knows, its master is surely their bloodthirsty goal. This is something it can fight. It has never been able to physically fight anyone before; rather than just with walls, with the thing inside it that moves, that obeys. This, this last force opposing its master’s will, is the only battle Castlevania has ever been able to fight in this war, and it will be damned if it doesn’t fight.

“Nobody takes my castle from me.”

The words, in Castlevania’s ears; the battle speech of the war lord, the soothing croon of the father, the encouragement of the teacher. Though he may not yet realize quite how literal the words ring.

The intent slithers down from the walls into the engine room, jumping from beam to beam; a cat with needle-sharp claws. Those claws turn to tentacles running along its gears, caressing it with prickling, stinging, venomous resolve, reaching with greedy talons for the die at the center of its being—the one that serves as its heart and legs at the same time.

When the Castle doesn’t listen, the tendrils don’t give up, rather they grow stronger, longer, intention spreading like infection, the lightning that once brought it to life curling; overgrown ivy on the roofs, and parapets, and halls…everywhere…enough to make it begin to lose its sense of direction.

No. It is a castle after all. It shouldn’t be too hard for it to be an anchor. It digs its feet into the mud.

But the intent does the same, claps down stronger than ever, enough that even before the blue grows around the pillars in the war room—tickling, itching, biting—its master notices—

“Magic.”

Castlevania doesn’t understand—it’s an anchor, stuck in place, a water wheel pedaling backward, gone off kilter, digging itself into the mud. How can this—this thing hold it’s own against Dracula’s Castle?

The two are locked in combat, locked like doors—(all the while many locks on many doors shuddering inside Castlevania, shuddering at the idea that someone could take control with a mere thought)—unable to see the face, the form of their opponent behind each other, just knowing there is only this; picking away at the keyhole until one of them clicks.

Castlevania will never, never give up. It has never been able to fight before, and after all this pain—after all this losing—losing Lisa and Alucard, after the blood of the boy landed on its floor, after the war and the parasites started infesting its halls, and the bitter treachery ended in this brawl—it is going to fight till everything in it burns.

And it does. It fights till, at its core, where its most important parts are—the gears that Vlad once sang to life with a lightning song—it begins to catch fire.

Lightning even erupts from the die itself—the thing the intent is reaching for.

It will not obey.

But…

But—

(But Castlevania’s feet

are

slipping.)

It’s seen magic, it’s protected Dracula from countless intents; human, vampire, and demon alike…but never a will quite like this.

And.

And…

And—

For just a moment....

its strength fails.

And Castlevania flickers.

NO!

It takes hold again, quickly as it lost it. Comes back, just a few meters from where it last was, digging its blistering, bloody heels back into the dirt.

No. It will not lose this battle. They have lost, are losing so much, it will not lose anything else. Not today. After having to sit by and watch all this loss, it will not, it cannot lose.

Castlevania is Dracula’s Castle. Dracula and his Castle don’t lose.

But

——

Castlevania is slipping.

It flickers once,

No!

twice,

NO!

a third,

No no no no NO!

Turning upside down, appears, disappears, the sound of this rending the air like a thunderous heartbeat—Don’t, Don’t, DON’T—but finds its ground, and if it had breath it would be heaving heavy on its chest.

Ground…Though the “ground” is a river, and waves rise up all around like the tongues hungry beasts themselves, rushing, crashing, cackling beasts into the war room where the war is being waged, and the water is holy, and the soldiers are not.

Though it may be in one place again, the intent is not finished yet, and Castlevania revolves in place as it strains against it—(knocking out a good portion of the city)—like playing tug of war with its own heart at the center of the rope.

And the moment it stops still the intent curls around its towers again, whispering sweet words about giving up.

Castlevania, breaking and burning, replies Never.

Blue bleeding like electric royalty to the windows Alucard once opened, the windows Dracula forced shut, shattering them; the roofs they once sat on, howling at the stars and naming the moon, lunging for the die that is Castlevania’s heart, and though they may think it doesn’t, this heart beats.

It’s limbs and lungs are turning to charcoal, but that fight still blazes in its eyes.

But Castlevania is not young…and it has to take a second to breathe.

And in that second, it loses everything.

This heart beats. And now that heart starts spinning out of control. It rages and buzzes in every direction—not like bees and bugs crawling on it, this is a far deeper buzzing within its chest, something more emotional…something like horror. And the gears turn in the fire, and it hurts, it hurts like hell to have someone else’swill running through the deepest parts of you, to fight a thing that’s crawled into your own heart, and stomped on your wishes. It hurts like hell to burn—this fire as hot as it can be; blue, so hot its cold—to burn and wonder if your body is your own stake, until the deepest parts of you are melting.

With a last cry the window behind the die shatters, sending the lightning into the air.

All is still, and it is exactly the intent wanted it to go.

It opens the door, pukes up the holy water, and the not-so holy soldiers, the moon is reflected on the surge, and it is red enough to make the water look like blood.

Castlevania wonders feebly where they are. A forest before it, mountains behind it. But something is beneath it too now…like a dungeon, but a dungeon full of books…a library…a library full of skulls…

The Belmonts. The ones with their whips and scourges. This is where they lived once. And it realizes if it can be here, that this is probably where they died, once. They don’t live here anymore. That the house burned…perhaps similarly to how the Castle is burning now.

Beneath Castlevania now is the hold within which resides all the knowledge to defeat its master and everything like him…and Castlevania, still burning, knows it will never move again, that it has joined to its worst enemy forever in sickening matrimony. And Castlevania knows now that the worst is true, after everything the intent must have belonged to a Belmont—perhaps the last of them— and they are coming now to do what they do best: hunt vampires.

Castlevania knows that, the one battle it could fight, the one battle that could turn the tide, it lost. Castlevania knows that it failed.

Castlevania, sitting on the floor, bruised, burning, coughing up blood, unable to move again, knows—

They are going to get in, whoever, whatever they are. Surely they—with all their whips and scourges and their bloodlust—are going to walk through that door, and add to the grand pile of losses it and its master have acquired lately, perhaps placing at the top the greatest loss yet.

That door. The front door the battering rams forced open today. The front door the mobs through pitchforks at long ago. The front door the stakes crowded around like an audience to a silent, one-man show. The door Lisa banged on with the pommel of her knife.

The Castle closes its eyes. Tries not to look as whoever they are step up to its door, as if burying its face in its hands, both covered in blood, burned and broken.

Just end it quickly.

The front door does open. They don’t even knock. And as it does, something…something which has been holding tight, digging its nails in for far too long, releases its grip.

And the Room—

—the Room which was, once upon a time, brought to life by a vampire king who thought he couldn’t love, and a woman who knew he could, and a couple of paintbrushes; painting walls and sewing toys; the Room, which once housed all the light and life and laughter this place ever contained within it; the Room that held a boy who cried, and carried the stars in his eyes, and the kindest of words in his fists; the Room which once sighed, and smiled; the Room which once waited for its master to return, and now has been waiting for much longer, with a claw wrapped around its throat, denying it air—

—the Room, so long spent waiting, the Room, so long spent gasping, so long croaking, so long clutching at the claw around its throat; the cold threatening to burn it away, the emptiness threatening to swallow it whole, the death animating all its worst thoughts; the Room, always hoping its life would return, but always one step from losing hope; the Room which has been finding everything too funny, if only to save it from how everything was so sad—

Breathes.

And within that breath, so soft, are spoken two simple words:

My boy.

[texanredrose]

She’s A Pirate

Cannon fire exploded around them, a deep booming accompaniment to the high pitched tang and clang of crossed cutlasses and staccato notes of pistols firing. They’d played a dangerous game to get this far and the battle raging across the top decks of two ships acted as the culmination of a year spent sailing and fighting and falling love. To emerge victorious meant their wildest dreams coming true. No other option existed.

Blake’s feline ears flicked as she grit her teeth, her blade slicing through the air and the bone white plate of some monstrosity. She’d faced the royal navy, privateers, other pirates, and mercenaries but would gladly face the lot of them together rather than the otherworldly monsters that crewed the Grimm Reaper, twisted remnants of lost souls poisoned by the great goddess Salem’s touch. There seemed to be a neverending flood of them tearing free of the Reaper’s hull to storm onto the Longwang.

The Faunus twisted away from the gaping maw of another monster only to stumble and catch herself as her back fetched up against something too forgiving to be part of the ship itself. She turned, ready to strike again, and then froze. “Weiss?”

Blake felt a tightness in her chest, worry and love in equal measure making it hard to breathe for a moment. Before her stood the woman who’s stolen her heart, a noble daughter turned pirate queen, her dress soggy from rain and ripped by her own hands to allow freedom of movement, blood trickling down the unscarred side of her face and staining her left sleeve as she raised her arm. “Duck!”

Her feline ears perked as the order registered and she dropped down, the woman’s sword singing through the air and stabbing deep into the monster she’d narrowly avoided earlier. As Weiss dispatched that one, Blake saw another rear up being the woman, and she darted forward to protect her love. There they stood, back-to-back on the top deck, fending off the onslaught, and it struck the Faunus as deeply appropriate. That, in spite of the obstacles before them, the dire circumstances surrounding them, Salem’s fury descending upon them, and the armada awaiting them, Blake would choose to be nowhere else. Beside Weiss, no matter where that might be- land or sea or that world in-between life and death- would always be her place.

“Weiss!” She lifted her sword, blocking the blade of a Grimm creature, the weapon somehow fused to the bone plate of its forearm. “Weiss, I have something to tell you!”

“Is now the appropriate time?” Blue eyes flashed her way briefly as she pulled her own weapon from deep within the chest of yet another monster. “We’re both a bit busy for conversation!”

“If not now, then when?” Grabbing her scabbard in her offhand, she began lashing out with double the frequency, hoping to buy them a bit of breathing room. “I should’ve told you months ago anyway!”

“Well, then, get on with it!” Weiss growled, obviously frustrated as even more of the horrid creatures surged onto the Longwang’s top deck.

Setting her scabbard back in its place, she used her newly empty left hand to grab the woman’s right, the momentary reprieve they’d bought themselves allowing their eyes to meet.

“I’ve loved you for years,” she said, all her reading of romance novels through the years ultimately rendered useless. They didn’t have the luxury of a purple-prose laden speech to convey her intents, as the threats all around them wouldn’t give them time enough to savor the moment. It had to be quick, to the point, and it may very well be short lived… but she would regret it eternally, through whatever afterlife awaited her, if she failed to speak up now. “Through all this, every step of this adventure, I’ve fallen even further in love and I choose to give my heart to you.” The growling fury bearing down on them hastened her words. “What choice do you make?”

Blake could see how Weiss’ expression shifted as she registered the words and their meaning and a light came to her eyes. “Winter.” The Faunus’ brow furrowed in confusion as her ears fell but the woman didn’t seem to notice, turning towards the top of the wheelhouse. “Winter! Marry us!”

Standing beside the helm, the woman’s elder sister stood, a saber in one hand and a dagger in the other, fending off two of the Grimm monsters at once while shooting a glare down to the top deck. Frankly, though Winter still exuded the intimidating presence of a high ranking naval officer, Blake had come to understand the woman a little better in recent months and trusted Yang’s judgment most of all, relief suffusing her being as she finally registered Weiss’ words. Her sister, though, seemed mildly annoyed. “I’m a little busy at present, Weiss!”

“You are the captain of this ship-“

“Co-captain!”

“-and you have the authority, so do it! Marry us!”

At that moment, Yang appeared, dropping down from somewhere along the masts and using the rope in her hands to swing to Winter’s aid, delivering a brutal kick to one creature’s head while immediately launching herself in the opposite direction to throw a punch at another, somehow landing on her feet with a wide smile on her lips. Despite the fresh cuts along her arms and blood smeared across her knuckles, the woman seemed in high spirits but had always enjoyed the thrill of the fight.

“A wedding in the middle of a fight for the fate of the seas?” A full bellied laugh as she ducked a wipe swipe from yet another monster. “I’d expect nothing less from you two! If you don’t, Snowdrift, I will!”

“Oh, fine.” While using her sword to lop off the arm of an attacking monster, Winter jumped up onto the railing just in front of the wheel, somehow raising her voice to carry over the din of the raging battle. “Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today, locked in deadly combat, to bear witness to the union of two thrice-damned souls in holy matrimony.” 

Unfortunately, what small reprieve they’d bought themselves ended at that moment, and Blake and Weiss had to jump apart to dodge another Grimm attempting to destroy them, but they turned in tandem and struck it down before turning their attention to the new wave of Grimm surging across the top deck, Winter’s voice briefly straining as she continued her speech while fending off even more attacks.

“Brought together by the raging seas of fate- you blasted barnacled bastard, can’t you see I’m busy- these two have demonstrated a will to persevere, to remain loyal to one another- Sundrop, a little help- and to support one another in this world and the next and I swear I will destroy you, now- stop- this- nonsense!”

Blake briefly looked up towards the wheelhouse, watching as Winter somersaulted over one creature and plunged her saber into its back while catching another’s claws with her dagger long enough for Yang to tackle it away, using her fists to render it unconscious or possibly dead. Meanwhile, Blake’s own blade bit into the hides of even more creatures while Weiss assisted, one delivering the first blow or blocked an attack while the other finished the cretin off, their off hands finding the other’s again and interlocking. They danced along the top deck, the rhythm of their hearts their only guide, unable to stop the smiles beginning to curl their lips despite the life threatening battle they found themselves embroiled in, because they were there, together, as they were always meant to be.

“Blake, do you take Weiss- I swear by the eleven seas- to have and to hold-“ the clanging of swords briefly rose, swelling to a crescendo punctuated by a cannonball blowing through the side of the wheelhouse “- from this day forward, for better or worse, for richer or poorer, with a few of those options being considerably less likely- ah!“ The Faunus couldn’t help but wince as a claw scored along Winter’s side, incensing the woman even further. “Oh damn it all to hell and back!” Her frustration reached a boiling point as even more of the Grimm swarmed up the wheelhouse stairs to reach her, blue eyes flashing with malicious intent. “Finish the damn vows yourself!”

To her surprise, Weiss didn’t miss a beat, pulling her close by the hand as they used their blades to block two incoming attacks. “In sickness and in health, to love and cherish till death do us part.”

“And even after, yes, I do,” she replied, both of them silently counting in their heads before pushing back against their enemies, making quick work of one before dealing with the other. “And do you, Weiss, take me, to have and to hold, from this day forward-“

“Of course I do, really, as if you have to ask.” Again their swords flashed as they moved together, pushing beyond the physical limitations of one person to strike down monster after monster- a testament and demonstration that no problem, no obstacle, no force in this world or the next, could rip them asunder. “I crossed an ocean and more to find you, Blake. Now, more than ever, I do.”

The Faunus couldn’t help the way her shoulders relaxed and the goofy little smile that curled her lips. “Aw.”

The moment, perhaps, wasn’t best suited to the sentimentality, as Weiss had to dart around her to block yet another cutlass, and it seemed for every one they’d cut down, four more Grimm had sprung up in their places. “Focus, Blake.”

“By- the- power- I will rend your soul from your mangled body you pox covered cur- power vested- would you-“

As Winter struggled with defending herself twice over and continuing the speech, Yang effortlessly jumped in to join her- in more ways than one. As the woman’s fists connected and cracked bone plate after bone plate, her voice carried above the symphony of battle, a bright brass tone that cut through everything with ease.

“By the power vested in us as Captains of this ship, we now pronounce you wife and wife!” Now with help, Winter managed to switch from a mostly defensive fighting style to one that took advantage of the other woman’s presence, and together they beat back the boarding party and sent them tumbling into the tumultuous seas below. “Now kiss your bride!”

Even though they probably shouldn’t, Blake and Weiss temporarily disregarding the fight raging around them, pulling towards the other, their blades lightly crossing as their lips met. In that moment, they’d won- for all that still remained, for the strife and uncertainty they faced, it didn’t matter; they’d finally bared their hearts to one another- and the Faunus could hardly believe it. Her wildest dream come true.

“Blake! Weiss!” They jolted apart, surprised to find Ruby’s scythe deeply embedded in the chest of one monstrosity that looked like it might’ve been poised to deliver a killing blow to both of them. The young woman herself merely looked lightly annoyed, silver eyes pleading. “Priorities!”

“I make no apologies,” Weiss said, though she did lift her rapier and stab it through yet another of the Grimm that tried to take advantage of their distraction. “A pirate is always allowed to kiss her wife, Ruby, it’s in the Code.”

“They’re more like guidelines and totally not applicable when we’re fighting undead monsters conjured by a sea goddess! Please, focus!”

“More importantly.” Although still somewhat preoccupied by the enemies trying to dislodge her from the helm, Winter appeared invested enough in the conversation to offer her own viewpoint. “You can’t rightly start the honeymoon with all these uninvited guests.”

“She has a point.” Blake reluctantly admitted, her own sword flashing through the air and cutting through yet another enemy. “Let’s finish this.”

Then they surged forth, the two newly-wed brides fighting with renewed conviction, tearing through the boarding party and, eventually, finding their way onto the Grimm Reaper’s top deck themselves, eager to put the battle to an end. Beyond that, they couldn’t begin to fathom what fate awaited them but they knew the part that mattered most.

They’d face it together. --- Bonus Scene – while the battle still rages Yang: “I can’t believe those two beat us to getting married! You know what this means?” Winter: “And what’s that?” Yang: “We’ll have to beat them to having a kid!” Winter: *a beat* “Well, I suppose we’ve already accomplished that.” Yang: “Yeah, we- wait, what?” Winter: *knowing look* Yang: *blinks, then throws her fists in the air* “Whoo! I’m gonna be a momma!” Winter: “One step at a time, Sundrop, let’s focus on ‘not dying’ first and then we can address-“ *another Grimm swipes at Winter and just barely nicks her shoulder* Yang: [BEAST MODE: ENGAGE] Winter: *watches as Yang flies into a rage and begins laying waste* “… well, I suppose that’s one way to do it.” --- Y’all: “Hey, Tex, think you can write some Monochrome without featuring Elderburn?” Me:

Also, if anyone’s curious, the title is a play on Hans Zimmer’s “He’s A Pirate”, otherwise known as the Pirates of the Caribbean Theme Song, which is why there’s so many fucking musical descriptors and references throughout. A big shoutout to @maburito​ who, as usual, served as inspiration for the shenanigans.

[coeurlkin]

The Journey.

It had been years. So, so many years since he had first started upon this path. Wyra'to sat in his prayer room alone, save for the wisps of smoke which rose from the incense burners on either side of the shrine. Before him lay a single flower. A lotus of the deepest red, the candlelight giving it's petals giving the impression of dancing and swaying, the colours shifting from a near translucent pink to a powerfully vibrant crimson. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply of the thin smoke, holding it within for a time before pushing it free from his lungs. It was like this when he first began his tutelage, too. The scent. The sound. The lotus. Bloodied hands, shattered bones and deeply woven scar tissue were the evidence of his diligence, his devotion to the cause which had been offered unto him. What he had done so far was admirable, but even that wasn't the first true step. An outstretched hand. An offer of absolute power. Wyra'to believed he could withstand it up until his master struck. The sensation of being torn open, of having your essence forcibly pulled from your body, only to have something of a greater magnitude driven into your core. The pain was unimaginable. A searing heat coursed through his body, veins swelling to the point of bursting. Bruises formed under the first few layers of skin within a matter of seconds. It was not possible to take a breath. His nerve endings screamed, his heart spasming within his chest as it desperately tried to accommodate to the change. The sheer power swelling within had turned his blood to mist, every waking moment feeling like a fresh bolt of levin striking him from out of a cloudless sky. There was no room for doubt, no allowance for error. It was either succeed or die. And succeed he did. A refusal to surrender in the face of pain, to find the strength to stand as he was flayed and adorned with skin anew over and over. So marked the first major step forwards.

The second came a summer later. Wyra'to was broader then, stronger, his training combining with his burgeoning manhood to give him a vessel far beyond that which he had possessed before. While he had grown inured to the cruellest of winds that Thanalan could offer, his foray into Gyr Abania would be an entirely different challenge. The tumult of a sandstorm and the night's cold teeth assailing him, robbing him of much of his sight and hearing. Their quarry was close by, and Wyra'to still remembered the impassive, bored look on his master's face as he took to combat with the beast. Coeurl. Wild creatures, this one had wandered far from home and taken refuge within the ruins, and it was loathe to relinquish it's claim so readily. The Keeper could still remember the stinging lash of it's whiskers, rending claws carving through rock as easily as ink to quill and quill to paper. In battle would he rise once more, his body being pushed to the point of complete breakdown before once again being reformed anew. With bloodied hands and body Wyra'to would rise, only for his Master to surge forth to strike him down, to drag him headlong into another fight. A lesson was to be learned. To rest was to falter. To cease travelling forwards was to admit defeat. Strength belonged to those who would claim it, to those would would prove themselves worthy of Rhalgr's divinity. Worthy. The word still stung even as his growth continued, for he would be admonished for his weaknesses no matter how many times he believed himself to have proven himself capable. The folly of youth. His worthiness would always have to be proven, his resolve put to the fire and tempered in the inferno of endless conflict. Wyra'to could not remember exactly how he had unlocked his third chakra. Perhaps it was through sheer force of will. Perhaps it was his body's way of forcing him to rise and survive after his trial - being abandoned in the Ishgardian wastes with no garments or supplies. The ice underfoot would burn, sheets of skin being torn away with every step he took towards apparent salvation. But survival alone would not be enough. It was here he would learn control, to push on even as his physical form grew brittle and fatigued. Even as he faced off against a monstrosity of claw and fur, his body refusing to give in to it's wounds and his spirit standing strong. With the life he took from the creature he was able to sustain his own, the scent of it's flesh churning his stomach, every onze of his willpower being used to keep the grossly slick flesh down. He could scarcely remember every detail of the fight, save for the shocked reactions of onlookers as a half dead, starving miqo'te stumbled up to the city gates clad in the skin of a bear. How the cobblestones felt so alien to him after what felt like days of wandering the wastes, the gentle warmth of the chirugeons who tended to his wounds, who sought to reverse the damage done to parts of him which he could not begin to name or understand. These were the things he clung to. This was how he had to learn control.

The fourth was where he learned of resilience. Dragged from his home, weighed down and cast into a pit, Wyra'to was given a simple order. Ascend. Clambering back up the sheer face of the abyss was no option, his master's frequent dropping of boulders would see to that. Rising through the caverns was his only alternative, facing off against those who would stalk and watch from the shadows, waiting for the time their prey was at it's weakest before striking. Weakness was a luxury he could not afford. Fatigue plagued him, his muscles aching from the first battle alone. The weights imposed on him could not be removed, yet they would sap much of his strength, they would tire him to a point beyond exhaustion by the time he was barely halfway. Still he pushed. He would trudge through the depths, wading through foe after foe. The pain became overwhelming, his body coming apart as though a thread had been plucked and pulled from a tapestry, his physical form unspooling from the inside out. It was only by taking from those he cut down that he was able to hold himself together, drawing upon whatever latent aether was left behind along with that which these beasts would release upon death. A void started to fill. Not a physical one, but something deeper. Every time he bloodied his hands he could feel his blood grow hot, his heart pounding as it fought to control this surge of newfound power. His skin felt as though it was on fire. As though it was peeling away from his bones with every step he dared to take in the face of utter destruction. He could give in, he could become one with everything and the pain would cease. But Wyra'to refused, his body failing but his spirit intact the moment he broke through to the surface.

For a time, he remembered, his master would disappear. He never knew to what end, nor was it his place to speculate. His purpose was simple. To continue to train. To learn. To grow of his own accord. His fifth pushed him beyond what he had already known, however. It marked the first time he would take a Spoken life. To grow in strength by tearing the heart from your enemies. This was the way of things, wasn't it? In the natural world? Wyra'to was upon his second foe as the first lay still dying, his throat torn wide open by a jagged set of fangs. This is what he was. This is what he had to channel, to become. An avatar of righteous violence. He felt it again, the swell within, his knuckles threatening to burst through the skin wrapping them. Over and over his fist met his foe's face, pummelling and crushing bone and brain alike until at that was left was a bloody, broken mess. He would roar, baring his fangs to the sky in all their sanguine glory, his eyes wild and fingers slick with viscera. His body had changed over the years, his muscles growing denser, his shoulders broad and skin thickened by wound after wound. Every fresh wound was a newly forged sacrament between himself and his God, a vow to fight ever onward and to remain unbroken. Every scar was a promise of strength, further proof that his vessel was growing tougher. Wyra'to learned the depths of his anger that day, the primal rage that lingered within him, waiting to burst free at the slightest provocation. Although by this point it had long since been subdued, the threat still lingered. Lurking, making it's presence known not through an outright release, but rather a thousand cuts by the most subtle of knives.

"So, you took a life, yes? How did it feel, my disciple, to take that which is yours by divine right? To feel the blood soaking into you? I believe you are ready for a new task."

Summers passed before he saw his master again. The man had shown no signs of change outwardly, but something felt different. Off. As though the facade could no longer be kept up. He was a smith, battle was the fire and his teachings the hammer. Wyra'to was the weapon to be forged. He would be sent into the ruins of Akh Mah and tasked with hunting the great worm there - a monstrous sandworm which was responsible for all manner of destruction and chaos, yes, but also the guardian of all knowledge held within the broken down temple structure. This journey would not be taken alone. Y'Zareen. A huntress. A one time lover whom he deeply respected for her craft. She too would walk the dark path, trekking night and day through the dunes and into the depths of Akh Mah to aid in slaying the beast. To this day he refuses to discuss what happened within those halls, save for the teeth he brought back with him as proof of their victory. It was then he discovered the truth behind his Master's actions. Just what the man had done to obtain the power he wielded so callously. So easily. He was no teacher. He was a Warmonger, and for all this time spent believing he was being forged into a weapon of the Destroyer, he was instead manipulated. A tool. The revelation shook him, but his resolve remained unbroken. The time would come to prove himself regardless of the actions of his now former master. The sins of his forebear would be atoned for, in one way or another. Then came the final trial. After seven long, arduous summers of training. Wyra'to was a fully grown adult. He had loved and lost in equal measure. Then came the call. Something deep within him beckoning him to journey to the Temple of the Fist, to walk the halls in search of answers. In search of purpose. He climbed to the Closed Fist and basked in the majesty of the courtyard, the structure itself both beautiful and horrifically intimidating at the same time. Here he stood in the presence of legends, of legacies far greater than he could comprehend. But it was his time to try.

Wyra'to would enter the Closed Fist and roam the empty halls, following his instinct and being driven deeper into the heart of the temple before coming to a grand arena. A platform, mighty coeurl statues standing at each of the four corners. Iridescent blue flames rising from braziers which bore the patina of age, the colours mingling together in hues of turquoise and earthy brown. There, in the centre, stood his foe. Vilbradr, the Wolf's Howl. Like Wyra'to, he too stood at the precipice of the proverbial mountain. He too stood poised and ready to take the final steps, entirely prepared to bring an end to the Keeper's life for not just power, but revenge. Vilbradr was older, the student of a master long since dead - one that had been slain by Wyra'to's own mentor. The battle was brutal and swift, with each of the men delivering blows which could cripple a weaker combatant. Neither would cave in the face of grievous wounds - broken bones, skin burnt down to the muscle, torn ligaments and more. Both men burned brighter than they ever had before, the full radiance of their respective gates clashing, the aether in the air growing heavier and heavier until finally one would deal a crippling blow. Wyra'to could scarcely acknowledge the pain, only that Vilbradr had sunk his claws deep within his body. The Keeper hung against his foe for a time until he was cast to the ground. It was decided. Vilbradr gloated, raising his arms. He had accomplished his task. He who had lost so much to the spawn of the great betrayer. Now he could claim the power to hunt. To track down and kill the man who stole so much from him. What happened after that was all so sudden - A blinding flash of light, an immense pressure building in the chamber behind him, and then nothing. Vilbradr could no longer feel anything save for acceptance of his demise. His hubris had cost him victory, and in turn, his life.

Days passed. Wyra'to remembered awakening on the floor of that same arena. Vilbradr was gone, all that remained were his weapons and the shredded remnants of their temple garb. The wound dealt to his body had healed for the most part, yet still raw and tender. The sennights that passed after that were spent recovering, rebuilding himself. In what he thought were his final moments, the Keeper had forced open his seventh chakra, his soul crystal empowering him with the knowledge to deliver one final blow. A desperate gamble, to be sure, but one which had paid off. Upon leaving the temple grounds to return, he would take the remnants of the temple garb with him, along with Vilbradr's crystal. A worthy foe. A man willing to give everything. One whom Wyra'to would honour, in time. He had come so far on his journey and had learnt so many things. To endure. To adapt. To accept. Humility. Perseverance. Forgiveness. He had learned just what it would mean to follow his faith. Not as a weapon. Not as a tool. But as his own man.

Wyra'to rose to his feet within his chamber. His gaze drifted down towards the lotus once again before he cupped his hands around it, gently lifting it from the shrine and back into a shallow bowl of water. A single prayer was before he stepped out of the darkness and into the welcoming warmth of his living room. The scent in the air told him that his love had returned from her hunts. This is where he belonged.

This is what it was all for.

This was home.

[symphonyofthewrite]

If These Walls Could Talk (Ch6)

Fandom: Castlevania Netflix

Summary: Vampires do not have reflections, and castles do not have hearts. But Dracula is no ordinary vampire, and Castlevania is no ordinary castle. If castles can fight, maybe they can think too.

The series, and Adrian’s childhood, told from the perspective of the castle.

Notes:

Please note!! This chapter is meant to have aesthetic indententaion in some places, and it definitly loses something without it. So if you want to read it as-intended, please look it at on Archiveofourown at I_prefer_the_term_antihero on your computer or tablet!!

FYI for anyone who’s been following the story here ( @symphonyofthewrite ) this is currently the most recent chapter!!

A HUGE thank you if you have, by the way!!!! 😘

If you can comment and/or reblog as well that would make my week!!!

Chapter Summary: 

“Do you see the Castle?” “Take a look.” “Good. Keep Focused on it. I have to be able to see it to put my intent on it.” “Your intent?” “That’s all magic is, Alucard. Changing things in accordance with my intent. “And my intent is to drag that grotesque thing here.”

Chapter 6: "Burn"  

Castlevania doesn’t like being controlled.

Does not answer to anyone but Dracula. However reluctant it may be to obey certain orders, it will always do what its master wishes. It isn’t sure it wants this war, to be an instrument of this war, but it will be damned if it doesn’t fight for him.

Its most base instinct and desire has always been to protect its master. That’s what it was at the beginning; just a shield. Not a home, or a haven, or a cozy place to raise one’s kids. It didn’t always have wants and musings of its own. Once it was just walls. Walls there to keep out the elements—both the cold, and the hot—not to mention the mobs. Once it was just walls; before someone started talking to them. Even if it can’t be a sword in this war, it will always be its master’s shield.

So when it feels intent creep in with jagged, electric claws from all sides, pulling, dragging it somewhere unknown where its master didn’t tell it to go, wrapping around its motor functions with blue-hot fingers—too much like the hand around the Rooms throat—a command that doesn’t belong to its master, it must not, will not obey. Dracula said to stay put, and whether here is a good place to be; whether he was coerced into placing Castlevania there for the sake of a little silence; and if Dracula is in his right mind, are moot points, because it was Dracula who said it.

There has been too much pain, too much betrayal, too many silver words, too many other voices trying to sway Dracula, and too many times the Castle wanted to beg its master to listen, listen closer, unable to do a thing to stop the collapse they set in motion.

Today, today has been too much. Carmilla’s parasitic rhythm fulfilled. Even now, battering rams against the door—but this time it is the vampires, not the humans, who want to tear its king from its throne, the thumping of heavy hearts against the door, and there is nothing Castlevania can do but sit there and hope its door is strong enough.

Her soldiers, a swarm of bees after their queen, and the buzzing is far too loud in its halls, louder than its ever been. The Castle is overwhelmed, so when this other force grasps Castlevania itself, as if molesting it, it is too much to bear. Castlevania isn’t just obeying orders anymore, it is angry.

Blood in the halls and the sound of metal against metal. The buzzing turning to stinging. The war has arrived in the war room.

Isaac runs to Dracula to tell him what the Castle—(and perhaps Isaac himself)— knew all along; that they had been betrayed.

Dracula has so little strength to fight so Castlevania must do what castles are made for: protect him, fight his battles for him, be his sword and shield and armor all at the same time. His reflection, which can better fight for him.

It may not quite believe in what its fighting for, but Castlevania has a will, and has been sick of all this for far too long. Too many motives fighting for control, too many voices winning out over its master. So desperately it wanted to fight, to talk, to beg its master not to listen, but it couldn’t. With everything else that happened it had to sit and watch and beg that someone else would fight.

Castlevania doesn’t like feeling useless, only able to listen.

It’s been feeling this for far too long.

Castles are built to protect their masters. Built to keep the arrows, the fire, the canons, and the worst of words from finding their mark. But Castlevania moves, and the arrows, the canons, the fire, and the words are all already inside. And no one dares try to move the Castle itself.

But this, this time the threat is against Castlevania. Not Dracula—though ultimately it knows, its master is surely their bloodthirsty goal. This is something it can fight. It has never been able to physically fight anyone before; rather than just with walls, with the thing inside it that moves, that obeys. This, this last force opposing its master’s will, is the only battle Castlevania has ever been able to fight in this war, and it will be damned if it doesn’t fight.

“Nobody takes my castle from me.”

The words, in Castlevania’s ears; the battle speech of the war lord, the soothing croon of the father, the encouragement of the teacher. Though he may not yet realize quite how literal the words ring.

The intent slithers down from the walls into the engine room, jumping from beam to beam; a cat with needle-sharp claws. Those claws turn to tentacles running along its gears, caressing it with prickling, stinging, venomous resolve, reaching with greedy talons for the die at the center of its being—the one that serves as its heart and legs at the same time.

When the Castle doesn’t listen, the tendrils don’t give up, rather they grow stronger, longer, intention spreading like infection, the lightning that once brought it to life curling; overgrown ivy on the roofs, and parapets, and halls…everywhere…enough to make it begin to lose its sense of direction.

No. It is a castle after all. It shouldn’t be too hard for it to be an anchor. It digs its feet into the mud.

But the intent does the same, claps down stronger than ever, enough that even before the blue grows around the pillars in the war room—tickling, itching, biting—its master notices—

“Magic.”

Castlevania doesn’t understand—it’s an anchor, stuck in place, a water wheel pedaling backward, gone off kilter, digging itself into the mud. How can this—this thing hold it’s own against Dracula’s Castle?

The two are locked in combat, locked like doors—(all the while many locks on many doors shuddering inside Castlevania, shuddering at the idea that someone could take control with a mere thought)—unable to see the face, the form of their opponent behind each other, just knowing there is only this; picking away at the keyhole until one of them clicks.

Castlevania will never, never give up. It has never been able to fight before, and after all this pain—after all this losing—losing Lisa and Alucard, after the blood of the boy landed on its floor, after the war and the parasites started infesting its halls, and the bitter treachery ended in this brawl—it is going to fight till everything in it burns.

And it does. It fights till, at its core, where its most important parts are—the gears that Vlad once sang to life with a lightning song—it begins to catch fire.

Lightning even erupts from the die itself—the thing the intent is reaching for.

It will not obey.

But…

But—

(But Castlevania’s feet

are

slipping.)

It’s seen magic, it’s protected Dracula from countless intents; human, vampire, and demon alike…but never a will quite like this.

And.

And…

And—

For just a moment....

its strength fails.

And Castlevania flickers.

NO!

It takes hold again, quickly as it lost it. Comes back, just a few meters from where it last was, digging its blistering, bloody heels back into the dirt.

No. It will not lose this battle. They have lost, are losing so much, it will not lose anything else. Not today. After having to sit by and watch all this loss, it will not, it cannot lose.

Castlevania is Dracula’s Castle. Dracula and his Castle don’t lose.

But

——

Castlevania is slipping.

It flickers once,

No!

twice,

NO!

a third,

No no no no NO!

Turning upside down, appears, disappears, the sound of this rending the air like a thunderous heartbeat—Don’t, Don’t, DON’T—but finds its ground, and if it had breath it would be heaving heavy on its chest.

Ground…Though the “ground” is a river, and waves rise up all around like the tongues hungry beasts themselves, rushing, crashing, cackling beasts into the war room where the war is being waged, and the water is holy, and the soldiers are not.

Though it may be in one place again, the intent is not finished yet, and Castlevania revolves in place as it strains against it—(knocking out a good portion of the city)—like playing tug of war with its own heart at the center of the rope.

And the moment it stops still the intent curls around its towers again, whispering sweet words about giving up.

Castlevania, breaking and burning, replies Never.

Blue bleeding like electric royalty to the windows Alucard once opened, the windows Dracula forced shut, shattering them; the roofs they once sat on, howling at the stars and naming the moon, lunging for the die that is Castlevania’s heart, and though they may think it doesn’t, this heart beats.

It’s limbs and lungs are turning to charcoal, but that fight still blazes in its eyes.

But Castlevania is not young…and it has to take a second to breathe.

And in that second, it loses everything.

This heart beats. And now that heart starts spinning out of control. It rages and buzzes in every direction—not like bees and bugs crawling on it, this is a far deeper buzzing within its chest, something more emotional…something like horror. And the gears turn in the fire, and it hurts, it hurts like hell to have someone else’swill running through the deepest parts of you, to fight a thing that’s crawled into your own heart, and stomped on your wishes. It hurts like hell to burn—this fire as hot as it can be; blue, so hot its cold—to burn and wonder if your body is your own stake, until the deepest parts of you are melting.

With a last cry the window behind the die shatters, sending the lightning into the air.

All is still, and it is exactly the intent wanted it to go.

It opens the door, pukes up the holy water, and the not-so holy soldiers, the moon is reflected on the surge, and it is red enough to make the water look like blood.

Castlevania wonders feebly where they are. A forest before it, mountains behind it. But something is beneath it too now…like a dungeon, but a dungeon full of books…a library…a library full of skulls…

The Belmonts. The ones with their whips and scourges. This is where they lived once. And it realizes if it can be here, that this is probably where they died, once. They don’t live here anymore. That the house burned…perhaps similarly to how the Castle is burning now.

Beneath Castlevania now is the hold within which resides all the knowledge to defeat its master and everything like him…and Castlevania, still burning, knows it will never move again, that it has joined to its worst enemy forever in sickening matrimony. And Castlevania knows now that the worst is true, after everything the intent must have belonged to a Belmont—perhaps the last of them— and they are coming now to do what they do best: hunt vampires.

Castlevania knows that, the one battle it could fight, the one battle that could turn the tide, it lost. Castlevania knows that it failed.

Castlevania, sitting on the floor, bruised, burning, coughing up blood, unable to move again, knows—

They are going to get in, whoever, whatever they are. Surely they—with all their whips and scourges and their bloodlust—are going to walk through that door, and add to the grand pile of losses it and its master have acquired lately, perhaps placing at the top the greatest loss yet.

That door. The front door the battering rams forced open today. The front door the mobs through pitchforks at long ago. The front door the stakes crowded around like an audience to a silent, one-man show. The door Lisa banged on with the pommel of her knife.

The Castle closes its eyes. Tries not to look as whoever they are step up to its door, as if burying its face in its hands, both covered in blood, burned and broken.

Just end it quickly.

The front door does open. They don’t even knock. And as it does, something…something which has been holding tight, digging its nails in for far too long, releases its grip.

And the Room—

—the Room which was, once upon a time, brought to life by a vampire king who thought he couldn’t love, and a woman who knew he could, and a couple of paintbrushes; painting walls and sewing toys; the Room, which once housed all the light and life and laughter this place ever contained within it; the Room that held a boy who cried, and carried the stars in his eyes, and the kindest of words in his fists; the Room which once sighed, and smiled; the Room which once waited for its master to return, and now has been waiting for much longer, with a claw wrapped around its throat, denying it air—

—the Room, so long spent waiting, the Room, so long spent gasping, so long croaking, so long clutching at the claw around its throat; the cold threatening to burn it away, the emptiness threatening to swallow it whole, the death animating all its worst thoughts; the Room, always hoping its life would return, but always one step from losing hope; the Room which has been finding everything too funny, if only to save it from how everything was so sad—

Breathes.

And within that breath, so soft, are spoken two simple words:

My boy.

[funkylittlebard]

You're safe with me, I promise- Chapter 2

these are both already up on Ao3 so bam!!! the next chapter!

First chapter is here

Here on Ao3

Again a bit long like 4.3k

Rating: Explicit

CWs/Tags: Trans Geralt, Established Relationship, Fluff and Smut, Top Geralt, Bottom Eskel, Blow Jobs, Anal Sex, Anal Fingering, Canon-Typical Violence

Geskel having a nice time and then boom horny strikes again below

The day broke with soft rays of light splaying out across the keep’s walls, dappling them with sunlight. Atop the uppermost balcony, a figure stood, leaning his broad figure against the moss-covered wall to his right. A gentle breeze blew his hair across his face, brown strands tickling across his cheeks. His arms stretched out over the edge and he let out a grunt as his elbows clicked. He continued stretching in the slowly rising morning sun, muscles pulling satisfactorily as he went through the routine. Rolling his neck, a smile spread across Eskel’s scarred face, as his sensitive ears caught footsteps heading up the stairs in his direction. He turned to face them, propping up his elbows casually on the ledge. A moment later, a head of white hair popped out from behind the crumbling stone wall.

“Mornin’,” Eskel said as Geralt stepped out into full view. “Sleep well?” a knowing smirk graced his face as Geralt cleared his throat somewhat awkwardly.

“Hmm.” Geralt offered with his typical eloquence and came and stood next to Eskel, admiring the view of the mountain below them. The snows were still in full force, blanketing it almost entirely in white. Wordlessly, Geralt held out a tankard to Eskel, the smell of herbs filling his nose. Eskel hummed happily and accepted it. A cup of his favourite tea in the morning was always appreciated. His chest filled with warmth as he brought the cup to his lips, inhaling the smell again before taking a sip. The taste of bergamot burst across his mouth as he drank before letting out a contented sigh. This was perfect- watching the sun rise in a safe place with his boyfriend snuggled up against his shoulder with some tea. What more could a man possibly ask for?

He pushed his nose into Geralt’s hair and stood breathing in his scent for a moment, eyes crinkling at the corners as he caught a whiff of lazy satisfaction coming off of his boyfriend. He leant up and tucked Geralt’s head under his chin, the angle a little awkward because he wasn’t all that much taller than him. Eskel stood up on his tiptoes and smiled, taking another sip of his tea.

They stood, leaning into each other a while longer until the sun had crested the other side of the valley and the world around them had grown brighter. Geralt squinted, grunted, and hid his face in the side of Eskel’s neck with such force that the other man startled and fell back onto the balls of his feet. Eskel looked down at him and wrapped his arms tighter about his waist, stepping in a little closer.

“‘S too bright.” came a muffled voice from Eskel’s chest. Eskel’s heart felt fit to burst at the sight of it, but more than that, at the memory it provoked. Of being a boy here, a little shorter and significantly less broad, but with eyes that were already amber. Of Geralt, fresh from his second round of trials, wincing and his breath turning rapid as he tried to reign in the overstimulation of his upgraded senses. The salty smell of tears trailing down his best friend’s face because everything was just too much. Holding him, as he was now, close to his chest until the shaking had passed.

Eskel blinked and shook his head, pulling himself back into the present. Geralt was snuggled up close to him, but looking perfectly blissful in his arms, not shaking, not crying, just… peaceful. Eskel stared in disbelief. It was miracle enough that they were both still alive, let alone that he’d finally been able to confess to Geralt how he felt. And of course, he thought with a wry smile, it had been him who’d revealed his feelings first, despite them both having loved each other for decades. He leant in and kissed the soft white hair still pressed up close to him and squeezed Geralt a little tighter.

“Let’s head back in, shall we?” he asked. Geralt hummed into his chest and reluctantly pulled away. He watched as Geralt ran a hand through his hair, grimacing when he caught a tangle. Bright yellow eyes looked up at him.

“Braid my hair, Esk?” the beseeching look in Geralt’s eyes- Eskel found his head nodding before he had even thought about it. It was worthwhile though for the tiny, soft smile Geralt rewarded him with as he tugged him back down the stairs.

Sat in front of Eskel in their room in the keep, warmed by the fire and with his boyfriend’s hands in his hair, Geralt looked more at peace than Eskel had ever seen him. His eyes were closed in bliss, a tender smile lighting up his entire face that had Eskel holding back a noise of pure unadulterated joy.

He passed strands of hair between his two hands, overlapping them carefully. He had to make it perfect- he knew Geralt wouldn’t care that much, but Eskel wanted the best for him. Geralt’s hair had grown considerably throughout the year and now hung down almost to the small of his back. Eskel tied off the braid and swung it over Geralt’s shoulder.

“What do you think Ger?”

He watched as Geralt fiddled with the end of the braid and pulled it down to examine the length.

“Didn’t realise it had gotten this long,” he murmured. “Never had it this long.” There was a look of wonder in his eyes, and Eskel could feel his eyes stinging at the sight.

“You know you’re allowed nice things Geralt,” Eskel said, nudging him lightly with a cheeky smile on his face. What he didn’t expect was Geralt to turn around with a dangerous grin on his face and a mischievous glint in his eye.

“Oh, I know.” He got to his feet, dusting off his legs as he strolled over to his bags. “I’ve got something to show you. Bought myself something nice.”

There was something about his smile that made Eskel gulp, his stomach twisting anxiously. He stared intently at Geralt’s hands, his long slender fingers delving into the bag, nudging things out onto the floor as he went. Eventually, just as Eskel was getting impatient, Geralt let out a triumphant laugh and pulled a package wrapped in brown wrinkled paper from his bag. He wandered over, holding it in his left hand, shaking it slightly and with a tilt to his eyebrows that made Eskel think that he might be nervous, too. Sliding down onto his knees in front of Eskel, he held the package out. Eskel looked at the package, back up to Geralt’s face, and back down. He frowned.

“Thought you said it was for you,” he shuffled from his place on the rug, wanting to reach forward to see what had Geralt behaving so oddly. The mischievous expression was back on his boyfriend's face, and Eskel’s mouth felt suddenly very, very dry. He swallowed and nodded at Geralt. “Well, show me what you’ve got,” he murmured. If possible, Geralt’s smile became even more wolfish.

The paper fell to the floor as Geralt tore it eagerly off and then held out an object which he balanced on both palms. Eskel swallowed as he suddenly understood the meaning of all of Geralt’s smiles. He swallowed again, feeling hot all over, and rubbed his palms over his thighs, trying to distract himself from his mounting arousal. The item was decidedly phallic in nature and it was thick. Eskel couldn’t help making the mental note that he was fairly certain he was still thicker. The length, however… He gulped nervously, unable to help himself. His mouth was watering at the sight of it, which was more than a little embarrassing. He risked a quick glance back up at Geralt. It was a mistake.

Geralt had moved to pull something else out from behind his back. It seemed to be made of leather, which already had Eskel’s heart racing, but that wasn’t as interesting as the buckles and the suggestive shape of the piece. Geralt had an enticing grin on his face as he stared back at Eskel.

Eskel extended his hand to touch it. It was made of blown glass and felt cold and smooth in his hands. He kept his hands on it, enjoying the weight of it in his palm until Geralt finally took it back from him, hiding it away in his pack again.

Geralt looked as if he regretted it already. “We should probably go and see to the animals, shouldn’t we?” he said, a small pout curling at his lips. Eskel rubbed his back, pressing a kiss to his temple. They should definitely go and get on with their chores right away, before this conversation became any more heated.

Upon reaching the courtyard the two split up, Geralt heading to tend to Roach and Eskel making a beeline for his goats.

All was calm for perhaps a grand total of two minutes before there was a terrible screech that shook the walls of the stables. Eskel, surrounded now by terrified bleating goats, looked up at the sky.

“Fuck,” he muttered under his breath, and made a mad dash across the courtyard for the armoury, only just rolling inside the doors in time to avoid two of the wyvern’s claws rending him in two. He cursed under his breath, tugging loose a silver sword and taking a deep breath to prepare himself. He peeked around the corner, and ducked back as Geralt came hurtling into the building, swearing loudly as he crashed into the opposite wall. Eskel waited whilst his partner readied himself, then nodded at him.

“Fucking wyvern. You ready?”

Geralt nodded back at him, and Eskel took a look outside again. The goats had all retreated within the sheltered hut on the far end of their pen, crying and bleating frantically. Eskel frowned, nibbling his lip. The wyvern was still circling overhead, but it was beginning to dive lower with each spin. “Come on, just a little closer,” he murmured, right hand gripping his sword tighter, and left ready to cast Aard to blow the creature from the sky. From the corner of his eye, he could see Geralt bouncing on the balls of his feet, sword gripped firmly in both hands, a second strapped to his back. The wyvern drew closer. Eskel sprung out from his spot, firing the Sign at the beast with all his might. With a shriek, the wyvern plummeted to the ground, smacking into a wall surrounding the courtyard. Eskel charged forward, sword at the ready, and pounced. He plunged his sword forward into the beast’s chest, aware of Geralt by his side doing the same. The wyvern roared, talons flying out wildly, and it was all Eskel could do to dodge them. Geralt was swiping with his second sword, the first still embedded in the creature’s chest, sweat shining across his brow as he tried to protect them both from their wicked sharp edges. Eskel grimaced and cried out as he pushed his sword in deeper. The wyvern let out a bloodcurdling scream, writhed, clawing at the air, and sank back to the ground with a thud. Sweating and panting, the two witchers pulled back, retrieving their swords.

For a moment, there was no sound besides their own heavy breathing, the goats too scared to even bleat. But a moment later, the noise was almost deafening- goats bleating, horses whinnying, birds cawing in the sky above, the clatter of Geralt’s sword as he dropped it, racing towards Eskel with arms outstretched.

---

Geralt crashed into him, hand immediately going for Eskel’s hair, sliding through it as he used the momentum to slam the other witcher into the wall. He felt Eskel moan into the kiss, and smirked, pushing his thigh up between Eskel’s legs. He could hear Eskel's breath catching in his chest, could feel the desperate way he grabbed at Geralt’s hips, could smell his arousal on the air. Geralt had to bite down on the sudden urge to growl- it was all so much, and it was wonderful. Instead, he pressed his leg tighter against Eskel's crotch and tugged at his hair, giving in to the possessive urge that threatened to overwhelm him. He bit into the meat of Eskel’s neck forcefully, enjoying the way it had Eskel whining and grinding up against him. His own trousers were beginning to feel like they were in the way, and when he shifted to move closer, he could feel that telltale dampness of his smalls as they shifted between his legs. His breath caught in his throat, and he heard Eskel’s resulting rumble of laughter as it rippled through his chest. He kissed against the red, spit-slick bite mark he had left behind, and moved up to the edge of Eskel’s jaw.

“Wanna fuck you right here, up against this wall, where anyone could see us,” he growled out and Eskel gasped, grinding down harder against his thigh. Geralt could feel just how hot he was getting from this already, and smirked wickedly. “You’d like that wouldn’t you?” he murmured, leaning in to bite at Eskel’s neck just below his ear. Eskel groaned, and shoved his hips up against Geralt’s thigh.

“Y-yeah, fuckin’ would,” Eskel groaned again as Geralt continued to leave bite marks down the length of his neck, and he dug his fingers in tighter to the smaller man’s hips, clinging on desperately. Geralt looked up at him, moaned, and dived in again to kiss him, opening his legs so that he could straddle Eskel’s thigh, too. He pushed up against it, a sob catching in his throat as he felt his dick slide up against the wet patch of his smalls.

They lost themselves in each other for a while, kissing and grinding, moaning and biting- until there was a sudden yelp from nearby. Breaking ever so slightly apart, the two glanced to their left to see a rather disgruntled looking Lambert staring at them, face a little paler than usual. He seemed unable to maintain eye contact with them, and flushed, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly when he noticed two sets of yellow eyes on him.

“God, would you get a room, please? Why’d you have to be fucking out here where anybody can see it?” he whined, turning his back on them, face hidden in his hands.

Geralt blinked, not quite certain how to react and froze for a moment. Really, if anything, he’d thought Lambert would mock them, not blush. Well. Behind him, Eskel cleared his throat, and nodded his head in the direction of the keep. Geralt grabbed Eskel’s hands and dragged him inside, sprinting through the hall and up the stairs, bursting into their room and shoving him down onto the bed. Eskel groaned, palming his cock through his trousers as Geralt threw himself to the floor in front of him. He shoved Eskel's hand out the way and mouthed at him through his clothes, causing the other witcher to tip his head back and let out a broken gasp. Geralt hastily undid the ties of Eskel’s trousers, pulling them off and throwing his own to the side just as quickly. When he had gotten them both naked, he fell back onto his knees in front of Eskel and looked him dead in the eye. Then slowly licked a line from his balls to the tip of his cock. Eskel bit his lip, desperately holding back a whine, muscles in his thighs tightening as he tensed, trying not to close his legs. Geralt did it again, and this time licked across the head of Eskel’s prick, before taking it into his mouth. Eskel moaned, not able to look away from the scene before him. Geralt kept slowly working Eskel into his mouth, gradually taking more each time, bit by bit, until he had the full length of him settled in his throat. He gestured impatiently with his hands for the oil, and Eskel fumbled around their table before dropping it into the waiting hand, too shaky to be coordinated. Geralt swallowed around him, and Eskel keened, covering his face with his hands as a blush ran up the back of his neck.

His moans took on a broken edge as Geralt proceeded to pick up the pace, moving his mouth up and down Eskel’s cock faster, one hand firmly on Eskel’s thigh, the other popping the cork on the oil vial. He slipped off for a moment, and when he spoke, his voice was husky and wrecked.

“Got to get you ready for my cock, haven’t I?” he said, and slid his mouth straight back onto Eskel’s dick. Eskel groaned, letting a hand fall to pet Geralt’s hair. Geralt cocked an eyebrow at him when he made to grab a handful, and Eskel whined, removing his hand and biting his lip. Geralt cursed under his breath- Eskel was so hard already, the tip of his dick red and leaking. He gulped, taking a quick breath, and moved back onto Eskel’s dick.

Eskel inhaled sharply as he felt a finger trace across his arse, sliding between his cheeks slowly to stroke gingerly around his hole. He fidgeted slightly, hips raising as he trailed to provide a better angle, but Geralt glared up at him and pulled off his cock. Eskel mewled, and went to protest, but Geralt shushed him. “Don’t move, Esk. You’ll get what you want when I decide, remember?” Eskel tried his best not to howl at that, settling for nodding his head rapidly.

Geralt lapped at the head of Eskel’s cock as he slowly circled the man’s rim with an oiled finger, delighting in Eskel’s desperate attempt not to let out his quiet little moans and whines. Tentatively, he slipped the tip of his finger into Eskel’s hole, and his eyebrows raised, mouth falling open a little in surprise at just how tight and hot he was inside. He had to pull off, Eskel whimpering beneath him.

“You’re so goddamn tight for me,” Geralt said, unable to take his eyes off Eskel’s arse as he pushed in further. Eskel choked, head dropping back against the bed as Geralt slid his finger in, and back out, carefully. He pulled out entirely and Eskel whined at him, hands grasping at the sheets. Geralt hushed him as he tipped more oil onto his fingers, and slid two back into Eskel’s grasping hole. Eskel groaned, then whimpered as Geralt crooked his fingers just right and caught his prostate. Geralt grinned, and purposefully rubbed small circles on that spot, watching Eskel jerk and keen on the bed, muscles taut and mouth wide open.

“G-Ger, fuck, feels like I’m gonna, gonna-” Geralt stopped and went back to slowly fucking the other man on his fingers, rubbing his hip soothingly as he calmed down. Eskel panted, sweat running down his forehead as he tried to get his breathing back under control. But Geralt gave him no time to recover, still fucking smoothly in and out of him with two fingers, stretching him patiently until he could take three. Eskel’s hips canted, a long needy whine coming out of him as Geralt eased three fingers into his arse. Geralt leant down to lay a series of kisses across his hips and thighs, and Eskel cried out as the white-haired witcher pressed mercilessly up against his prostate again. It had Eskel squirming across the bed, and Geralt chuckled and gave him another kiss to his hip.

Cautiously, Geralt pulled his fingers out again- Eskel howled and caught the other man’s wrist in one hand, pleading with his eyes. Geralt chuckled at him and moved down to kiss him.

“I’ll be right back, Esk. Didn’t know you could be so needy,” Geralt said, kissing his cheek before pulling his fingers all the way out and crossing the room to his pack. Geralt pulled the harness slowly up his legs, settling it in place over his crotch. He heard a sharp inhale from across the room as he fastened the clasps around his damp thighs. The air was thick with the aroma of their lust, their two smells mingling together, and Geralt smirked, turning back to face his boyfriend. He watched Eskel’s breathing pick up as he produced the second piece from his bag, and slipped it through the straps, securing it tightly, watching as Eskel’s hand slipped down to his cock, jerking it at a leisurely pace. Geralt swallowed, feeling his cock twitch at the sight, and he poured some oil into his palm to do the same.

Geralt whined as he spread the oil across the shaft, the feedback when it pushed back against him feeling so good on his sensitive cock. He glanced over at Eskel, and saw the other man teasing the head of his dick with his fingers, other hand clenched hard around the base. He made a questioning grunt at Eskel as he walked back over.

“Didn't wanna come too soon,” the larger man slurred, eyes slipping shut as Geralt pulled his hands off his dick. Geralt stared down at him as Eskel panted, clinging desperately to the sheets. Geralt licked his lips.

“You ready for me, Eskel?” he could feel himself dripping down the top of his thighs, and he squirmed a little uncomfortably. He wanted to get his cock inside this gorgeous, strong man as soon as he could, the pressure in his belly building steadily higher and higher. He teased a finger around Eskel’s rim as he waited for an answer. Eskel groaned, and nodded, trying to shift himself back onto the finger. Geralt swatted at his thigh, and pulled back, grasping his cock by the base. He nudged Eskel’s legs apart and grabbed one of his arse cheeks, leaving the other man thoroughly on display. Eskel shivered beneath him as Geralt stared at him for a long moment, before very slowly pushing his cock into Eskel’s arse.

Eskel whimpered softly, his breath catching as he was filled. Once the full length was inside, Geralt pulled his hands back to settle on Eskel’s thighs, placing his longer, muscular legs on either side of Geralt’s own hips. He waited a moment as Eskel wriggled, getting used to the sensation. After a minute, Eskel nodded, and murmured-

“You gonna fuck me then, Geralt?” Geralt growled at him, and snapped his hips back and then forward again sharply. Eskel cried out, hands scrabbling for purchase on the sheets. Geralt pumped his cock in and out of Eskel’s arse hard, slowing his pace a little from his initial roughness, but still with enough power to punch the air from Eskel’s lungs, leaving the other witcher reeling. Eskel’s cock was bobbing againstF his belly, and Geralt’s eyes were fixed on it as Eskel reached to wrap a hand around himself. Geralt nodded at him, biting his lip, hair falling in front of his eyes as he ground into Eskel’s prostate again and again. Eskel was a moaning mess, head bouncing on the bed, and it was so good, but Geralt just needed a little more, to be a little closer. He stroked along Eskel’s leg, before pulling one up to his waist. Eskel gasped, and nodded frantically, fringe falling across his eyes as wrapped his ankles around Geralt’s back, reeling him in closer.

Geralt whined high in his throat and his thrusts stuttered a moment as the base of the strap ground back against his own sensitive cock. He felt suddenly very close to coming- he just had to get Eskel there, too.

Geralt sped his thrusts up and stretched across to slap Eskel’s hand out the way and take his cock in his hand. Geralt could hear himself whimpering breathily on every thrust now as the contraption caught against his prick. He tugged roughly at Eskel’s cock, leaning down to press open-mouthed kisses against the collection of bite marks he had left on Eskel’s neck and the other man groaned against him, grinding his cock into Geralt’s hand, and trying to fuck himself back onto his cock.

“Ger, please I’m-”

“Fuck, Eskel, I’m gonna-” they spoke at the same time, both breathless and rutting desperately against each other. Eskel fell over the edge first, as Geralt slammed again and again into his prostate. He came with a howl, come shooting out across his chest and catching his chin. Geralt’s eyes widened, and he came seconds later with a loud moan, still thrusting clumsily into Eskel as he felt his thighs grow wet.

“Fu-uck,” he whined, thrusts slowly coming to a halt. He fell down, dropping his weight against Eskel’s chest, and the other man moaned softly.

They lay there a while until Geralt began to fidget uncomfortably, thighs sticky and damp and the material around his hips feeling a little too heavy now. He groaned, shifting his hips back and slipping off the bed. He staggered over to the washbasin and wiped everything up, packing his things away securely. He tentatively wiped between his own legs, shuddering slightly at the sensation, and brought a clean cloth over to Eskel.

Eskel lay across the bed, nuzzling into comfortable pillows, with the covers pulled back invitingly. He held his arms open, and Geralt fell into them with a grateful sigh. He hummed, content in the other witcher’s arms and nuzzled his head into his chest. Eskel kissed his forehead, wincing slightly as he pushed sweaty hair back from it.

“I know, I know,” Geralt grumbled, wriggling in closer. “We should bathe. But not tonight,” he said through a yawn, smiling when he felt Eskel lean down to kiss him again.

“No, not tonight. Maybe in the morning.” Eskel said, and Geralt hummed in agreement, eyes slipping closed. He was on the verge of sleep already, suddenly feeling worn out. It was definitely the adrenaline from the fight, he thought groggily, couldn’t possibly be from the sex. He snuffled, and squashed his face into Eskel’s warm, inviting chest, and drifted off to sleep.

[fenrislorsrai]

Faithful

Crowley led Aziraphale by the hand through the high summer grass, the soft shush of it against his trousers in rhythm with his heart. He could feel Crowley’s hot, sweaty palm against his own. Crowley was holding on a little too tight, as if Aziraphale might pull away otherwise.

He came to a stop though Aziraphale had no idea why he chose this particular point out on the Downs. Under the new moon and the glitter of stars, he could see little except the faith outline of Crowley and the shine of his glasses. Crowley stood stock still, little panting breaths betraying his nervousness.

“Are you ready?” Aziraphale didn’t want to push, but knew waiting would give Crowley more time to panic.

“No.” He sounded so very small. “I don’t think I ever really will be. It’s why… why we’re here. Can’t run away from you here.” Crowley’s hand shook in his own and Aziraphale pulled him close.

“I want to see you.”

There was a nervous little bark of laughter.  “That was the whole point, that you can’t. Not… not yet. Not all of it.”

“Just enough for you to feel I can.”

“Yeah. I need to… “ He tugged at his hand slightly to get Aziraphale to release it. Aziraphale pulled it to his lips for a moment and kissed him over his racing pulse.

“Go ahead. I’ll wait.” And then let him go.

He could hear Crowley take a few steps away and then there was a sense of some looming presence. All the little creatures of the night fell silent, freezing in terror at what had just revealed itself.

Aziraphale couldn’t see much other than whatever it was was much larger than a human and reflected some of the starlight back to the void of space.  A soft, sliding noise against the grass and the great shape moved, flexed and then drew in on itself, trying to be smaller and failing.

“You can look” Crowley’s voice was now all sliding stones and breaking bones, full of terrible calamity despite the mild words.

Aziraphale looked at him directly but could only see bits and pieces. An outline that spoke of the edge of a ragged wing, a sinuous curve faintly reflecting in the starlight that hinted at an immense coiled body, a collection of razor sharp voids in the air that appeared totally unconnected to the mass of the body and obeyed no earthly body plan at all. And all over a slightly trembling of the air as of summer heat mirage even though the sun was long set. There was the incongruous glitter of sunglasses still hiding Crowley’s eyes even in what should be his true form.

“Can you come closer?”

“You want me too?” There was such fragile surprise there, a delicate seedling growing amongst ruins.

“You won’t let me see all of you yet. Would you let me touch you?”

“I might hurt you.” It was the sound of rending teeth, but aimed at Crowley’s own fragile heart.

“I might hurt you.” Aziraphale put all his care into his voice, saying he knew he was just as capable of it, but would treat Crowley with all the gentleness he deserved and was never granted

“You… won’t.” It was a soft and trembling thing, but the belief was there, stronger than the fear.

“You won’t.”  He could return that belief to him, strong and sure.

There was a slight shuffle and the sound of grass sliding against something that definitely was not clothing. That great presence cut out the starlight, looming over him. And then there was a  gentle press of the back of a great claw against his heart. He carefully wrapped his hands around it, feeling the sharp and deadly curve of it, turned towards its owner and away from him

“Is this too much?”  He’d pull that claw to his heart if it was, bury it in his own body to keep Aziraphale safe from him.

“Is it too much for you?” He found what must be Crowley’s face in the darkness by the faint gleam of starlight over glasses on a face that should not have physically been able to accommodate them.  But they were less a physical thing than a manifestation of his need to keep hidden that part of him that was still identifiable as him.

“Yes.” A bare whisper of air, an underground coal fire smoldering beneath earth that could collapse at any moment.

“My dearest…” Aziraphale reached a hand up to where that face should be, knowing he couldn’t actually reach unless Crowley let him.

An inhuman shift of that body that followed no terrestrial plan and he could reach the face. He could feel the heat of it and the jagged sharpness of keeled scales like chips of obsidian, ready to tear his fingers to shreds at the slightest wrong move.

“Is it still?”

He stilled his hand and Crowley made a terrible noise like an entire hillside letting go in a landslide. He felt too hot beneath his hand, the heat itself feeling like it might strip away this fragile flesh container and reveal what was concealed within.

“Please…”  Crowely couldn’t articulate what he was asking for, only that it was something he needed.

Aziraphale resumed the motion of his hand, tracing along those sharp scales in the direction that wouldn’t hurt, up what might charitably be called a snout. He could feel the tremor beneath his hand. If Crowley flinched now, it would cut him down to the bone. It didn’t matter. 

His fingers encountered the smooth plane of the glasses and he paused for a moment. He could feel that great claw against his chest and the tremor running through it.

“Please.” And then they were simply gone, melting away into nothing and there were the great yellow slitted eyes so familiar to him, just grown huge and with galaxies sparkling in the depths.

“There you are.” And the smile at the finally getting to see him was enough to have those eyes grow bright with tears.

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also available over on Ao3

[dokusedai]

                  She wasn’t sure which god she had favored to earn such a gift, as what was before her now. Of course he could free himself; they both knew this, and yet.... For whatever reason that remained unspoken between them, he has yet to put any real effort into his escape.

Sango thrills as the sound of sik rends only just so, tested to its endurance against claws and stone. Precarious, but not in a deadly light. His clothing was torn from him, lightly scraped and scuffed with dirt and sweat. Scarred fingers pressed boldly to his stomach, marveling with captivated attention, in the way the muscles flexed and hardened beneath her questing palms.                        Dark eyes lifted to catch his expression, her face on fire with the possibilities presented. Dare she progress?... Was he inviting her? Between them their breathing existed and without their little collapsed ‘den’ of rubble, the ocean created thunder. It made her jump only slightly and take a step close to him, eliciting a chuckle from the male.  Dark and thick, heavy with ladden desires that never left the sinful wet of his tongue ; and she saw it. Sweeping to taste his bottom lip where a crack had gashed a small angry welt. He looked up at her from under his brows, his gaze almost... DANGEROUS.

Trapped animal. Beast. Caged power in the fragility of a mortal fortress, and the ROAR of his blood was as tangible as the presence of the shikon no tama. She was sensitive to the pull of demonic aura’s, and the HEAT InuYasha is throwing off, is sending the taijiya into a small tizzy. Spray from the sea dampened the rocks, sluicing water down and around the hanyo wrapped up awkwardly in his kimono when the boulders gave. What had started as a shock, turned into a comical moment with him trying to release himself WITHOUT tearing his robes and clothing... Was now a quiet, palpable and intense moment between them. 

Seamless the segway from normalcy into something akin to curiosity was interesting, and held the slayer riveted as water made the slide of her skin over his an easy and breathless stroke. He growled and she gasped, wet bangs dripping as she looked to him once more sharply. Muscles flexed and cloth tore again, yet still he remained, arms above his head and neatly ( if not neatly chaotic ) twisted to lock his elbows tight. “Stop pussyfooting around, Sango. What are you gonna do, stare at me all day?” His baritone sent shivers down her spine and the taijiya closed her eyes to savor the way it echoed softly in the enclosed space. Sunlight and water rained sprinkled down upon them in discordant, shifting splashes. “Don’t rush me.” A counter that came just barely above a whisper, and it was almost on her tongue to ask him not to temp her. 

His ears twitched, hooking forward as her boots shuffled forward, one hand smoothing down his side while the other slipped up his chest to his shoulder. Fitting her fingers in the bend of muscle from the angle of his entrapment. He turned his head to provide room and Sango moved up the side of his neck to cup the back of his head. He expected her kiss, and she gave it, but to his throat first. The dip just above his clavicle, her tongue laving flat to catch both the taste of his skin and salt from the sea and were she yokai, perhaps her own ears might’ve hooked in favor of the sound he made when she did that. Hooded, her gaze was unfocused but shinning with desire and explorative glee, matching the heat of nerves and excitement glowing on her face. 

Flush against him his chest exposed, Sango teased the skin of his neck and jaw, pulling just out of reach when he went to kiss her. Reflexively his arm YANKED against his bind, wanting to force her to kiss him as she giggled and dodged him.  They both stilled and looked up. He swallowed and she looked down to watch his throat, gaze hooding again as she leaned forward to press another kiss to his throat. InuYasha’s eyes closed and he groaned at the same time a wave crashed beyond them, sending the sound of thunder and a fresh spray of water around them.  She shivered and he cursed; prompting her to giggle, which created a small self feeding cycle between them. A light banter that ended when Sango began to kiss her way down the center line of his body. Chasing rivers of water and playing with the drips that hardened the peaks of his nipples; she even suckled and bit at a rope of muscle on his side. Placing her mark and just enjoying the flavor of his flesh in her mouth; fingers moving down to pull at the hakama’s that were only half way secured around his waist now with the rest of his clothing to crudely yanked out of place from their fall. “Sango...” There was hesitation in his voice, but it was far exceeded by the curiosity and excitement she was bringing to his blood; and far be it from her to ignore the very obvious queues of his desire. He wanted her, just as much as she had wanted to explore HIM the instant she’d seen him predicament. Part of her wondering if perhaps he had as well, even now his firerat robe could be repaired, the boulder moved if not destroyed. 

But here they were.  His clothing wrapped around his ankles and his arms, water drenching them both with thunder living in their veins, amplified by the ocean as it beat to a rhythm only they seemed to hear. A song they were currently drowning in, uncaring if they never drew the breath of familiarity again. Without speaking about it; without a word passed between them to decide; Sango and InuYasha had found themselves in a position where neither of them anticipated going. The stakes were too high... or perhaps that was exactly the reason. 

The pressure was too much.  They were expected to save the world...

The weight of his balls settled in her palm, and Sango spent a moment to marvel and examined the girth and shape of his cock as it stood proudly on display for her. Pulsing and flexing as it begging for her appraisal and praise. InuYasha however, was becoming more unnerved by the second, despite the almost dreamy look on her face. Of course he wasn’t stupid, he knew very well Sango was as good and lost in the flames as he was; if the look on her face was anything. At long last her pink little tongue slipped out to trace the cord of muscle on the underside, sure and tight fingers encircling and guiding his length into a favorable position. 

“InuYasha...” His head snapped down, panting as the thought to breathe came back to him. Brows lower and muscles trembling only slightly in his arms from the conscious decision to NOT tear his robes to shreds. “Wh-what?” “You taste---.” “Yeah?” “---salty.” He made a strangled noise in the back of his throat and she looked up at him. FUCK, did she have any idea what she was doing to him? “Oh yeah?” He said thickly, his voice coarse and almost dry. Sango nodded and took another bold, sweep lave with her tongue. This time up the side of it, he head tilted, the seal of her fingers opening to allow her passage. His cock pressed into her palm as she did so and his eyes nearly crossed. The slayer as a quick study though, and adjusted her weight on the balls of her feet so she could get comfortable. “You like this?”

“Uh---yeah.” He growled, and she laughed. “D-Do you?” The vulnerability in the question was masked under the heavy slant of his brow and severity in his expression. Sango hummed happily, nodding as she kissed her way up and down the length of his cock again, watching his face. “I think I do.”

“Ungg... Well..” His fangs exposed, to hold back his hips from jerking forward and into her face. “That’s good.” He said finally, the tension in his tone ebbing at the end on a masculine sigh of self imposed resignation.  “I think so too.” She said before taking the tip of his cock into her mouth, suckling for a moment applying pressure with her lips to gauged his reaction, before sinking lower. His entire body trembled and another crash of thunder from the waves against the rocks took that moment to charge through his roar. Head tipped back, and the sound of rending silk was lost, switching her senses up into a mess when his one clawed hand is suddenly in her hair. He jerked her a bit, and her angle sharpened, but neither of them stopped the other.  They fell into an easy flow, moving around and with each other as if they’d done this a hundred times. 

[razieltwelve]

Dragon (RWBY AU Snippet)

There were dragons once, in the Old Days before the sky burned and the Grimm fell like black rain across the world. They were mighty beyond measure. The heavens shook, the land burned, and the seas boiled. So the gods took their power from them. They took their wings and their fangs and their claws, and the dragons were made to walk the earth in the shapes of men.

But they were not men.

They were something more than men but less than than the gods.

The gods had taken their wings, their fangs, and their claws, but the dragons were children of fire and wind. The gods could not take that from them, and four great kingdoms rose, born from the blood of dragons.

Vale. Atlas. Mistral. Vacuo.

And then the Grimm came, and the gods fled. Yet as the power of the gods waned, the blood of the dragons awakened once more. It had thinned over the years, diluted across countless generations. But every now and then it stirred, and what the gods had taken from the dragons once was returned to them.

X     X     X

Yang dreamed of open skies above her and sprawling plains beneath her. She dreamed of the sun on her scales and fire in her jaws. She dreamed of teeth like swords and claws like spears. She dreamed of wings that birthed hurricanes and eyes that could see more clearly than any hawk.

And every time she woke, she felt the song of magic in her blood.

X     X     X

Yang was five when she awakened her magic. She set her bed alight, and she would have burned the house down if not for her father’s own power. But he wasn’t mad. No. He was proud. The blood of the Xiao Longs had thinned over the years, and the memories of a time when their House had been feared on battlefields across the world had grown dim.

But Taiyang Xiao Long was a name to be feared, for all that he was a cheerful man. His fire and light magic were amongst the strongest in the kingdom, and he was as good with his fists as he was with a sword, a spear, or a dagger. With Yang’s magic awakening at such an early age and with such power, the future of their House was assured.

X     X     X

By the time Yang was ten, she was already good enough to enter the Academy. Magic came to her as easily as breathing, as much a part of her as her arm or her leg. Combat was something she loved, and the brutal training of the Academy was something she enjoyed.

She learned the taste of her own blood and the feel of broken bones and torn muscles, and she loved it. 

When she slept, she dreamed, and her dreams were of piercing fangs and rending claws, of skies filled with fire and thunder, of the clash and roar of combat. And when she woke there were tears on her face, not of sorrow, but of longing.

The Xiao Longs were descended from dragons, or so the stories said. The skies had belonged to her ancestors once, but those days were long gone. No Xiao Long had ever awakened their dragon’s blood, not since the Old Days.

X     X     X

When Yang was fifteen, she was knighted. She and some of her fellow students at the Academy had been sent to aid the kingdom’s soldiers against the Grimm. Yang had distinguished herself, slaying dozens of Grimm with her magic and dozens more with her spear and her sword before both had broken beneath the weight of her magic.

It was her proudest moment. They called her the Knight of the Burning Dawn, for she had stood atop the ruined battlements of the fortress with her flaming sword and burning spear in hand until the dawn had broken, and the Grimm had been forced back.

The title felt right on her lips, more right than even her own name. Her blood sang when she heard it, and her dreams that night were full of fire and light and the beating of tremendous wings.

X     X     X

When Yang was seventeen, she died.

One of the kingdom’s great cities had come under siege by the Grimm, and the foul creatures had used their magic to cloud the skies in shadows, so that dawn would never come. In the cover of darkness, the Grimm swarmed the walls and overwhelmed the city’s defenders. Brave knight or simple soldier, it mattered not. All fell before the horde of abominations.

Yang fell at the gates of the inner city, overrun and cut off, her armour torn in a dozen places, her magic exhausted. It was a good death. A worthy death. And as she lay bleeding in the ruins of gate, a prayer came to her lips, one that every knight and soldier of the kingdom knew.

X     X     X

My scales are gold And my blood is fire My teeth are swords And my claws are spears My wings are sails And my heart is the sun I was a dragon once And I will be a dragon again

X     X     X

Yang Xiao Long died, an old prayer on her lips.

The Burning Dawn was born, a roar rising from her throat.

X     X     X

As the Grimm prepared to overthrow the inner city, the last safe haven for the city’s people and its remaining defenders, there was a sound that had not been heard in centuries.

It was the roar of a dragon, and it was long and loud and full of the simple joy of living. It was the sound of a soul set free and a heart unchained. From the ruins of the gate, the dragon rose, three hundred feet of golden scales that shone with all the radiance of the breaking dawn.

“Dragon!” came the cry from thousands, hope kindling in their breasts. “Dragon!”

And the dragon answered, roaring once more, a challenge to the Grimm and a promise to the people. And within the dragon’s jaws kindled the fire of the sun itself, and the blaze swept the Grimm aside. Unfurling its wings, the dragon took to the sky, and the thick clouds that had shrouded the heavens parted at its approach.

The dragon’s magic flared, and the light of the breaking dawn gleamed upon its scales. It was a second sun, daybreak made flesh, and spears of light and flame rained down upon the city to purge the Grimm.

When at last the onslaught ended and the city was made safe, the dragon descended. Everywhere it went, the people wept, not in fear but in joy. A dragon had come again. They pressed forward, heedless of the danger, to lay their hands upon the dragon’s scales and whisper their prayers.

And then the dragon was no longer a dragon.

The Burning Dawn was once more Yang Xiao Long.

And the people fell to their knees, commoner, soldier, and knight alike. Even the nobles bowed.

A dragon had founded the kingdom, and though the dragon’s blood had thinned, the kingdom had never forgotten. Many were the kings and queens who had sat upon the throne and called themselves dragons. Yet none of them had ever worn a dragon’s form.

But a dragon stood before them now.

She had been born Yang Xiao Long, and for her deeds, she had been called the Burning Dawn. It would not happen now, but in time, the kingdom would call her something else. It would call her queen.

X     X     X

Author’s Notes

Another dragon snippet, but with a different flavour. I hope you enjoyed it. I’ll probably do one for each of the other members of Team RWBY and maybe Team JNPR. Let me know what you think everyone should be dragon-wise.

If you’re interested in my thoughts on writing and other topics, you can find those here.

You can find my original fiction on Amazon here.

[alternatewarning]

Chaotic Elegance - Whumptober 2020 Fic

Entry Number 7 and 10 for Whumptober 2020: Carrying and Blood Loss/Trail of Blood

Title: Chaotic Elegance Fandom: Final Fantasy XV Pairing: Hints of Gladio/Prompto Rating: M Trigger Warnings: Gore, Major Character Death Summary: In an effort to protect Noctis during a heated battle, Prompto is badly injured. "Out of medical supplies and potions, the group races against a ticking clock to get him back to town.

Cross posted to Ao3

Most of the time the four of them fought in some chaotic sense of a formation.  Gladio would run in front, his sword easily taking down anything small or unprepared for the human behemoth.  Noctis would warp over to whatever enemy looked like it was the most likely to become a hassle and daggers would come flying after him, Ignis close behind.  With significantly less training than the other three, Prompto would follow behind, throwing off shots at any and every enemy that got close enough to aim at.  It wasn’t that structured in any way shape or form, but worked.  Rarely were they in each other’s way for more than a second, often turning a run-in to a two-pronged attack.  But sometimes things didn’t go as planned, even with such a thin hint of a plan to begin with.

It started when their toe-to-toe battle with an entire platoon of Magitek infantry was interrupted by a pack of elder coeurls who were much more intent on Noctis and his retainers than any of the ax-wielding magitek.  There were so many enemies to avoid that the entire battle was starting to become a hazy cluster, thunder streaking down from the sky as the cats seemed particularly interested in turning Noctis into their dinner.

“Noct, look out!”  Gladio’s warning wasn’t fast enough.  One of the larger black and white monsters was charing at the prince with it’s fanged mouth open wide.  Noctis’s back was to the creature as he was sidestepping the heavy swing of a trooper, twisting in the direction of the cat.  In a move so quick that he almost seemed to warp, Prompto was in front of the cat, gun aimed to fire.  While he managed to move fast enough his bullet didn’t down the monster, only wound it, and it didn’t present the attack.

The elder coeurl snapped its jaw, the predator catching all of Prompto’s shoulder in one bite.  It leaped back, mouth still clamped around the gunman, dragging him with her.  He stumbled to the ground, his right arm trapped in her maws.  Two more of her pack suddenly appeared, drawn in by their trapped prey.  Before any of the others could get to him, the monsters were already on top of him, claws and fangs tearing into skin.  The blond managed to get off a few shots, trying to at least maim the one holding him but everything was a blur of lightning, fur, and pain.

Prompto’s body quickly vanished under their assault, the giant creatures accidentally hiding the fact that he had been downed by their large size.  Eventually his grunts and ‘get off!’s warped into screams as they continued their attack.  It was enough to draw the attention of the others and the pack quickly scattered once one of them was killed by a combination of a lance thrown into its side and a greatsword rending it in two.  As the other two dodged away to be chased down by Noctis and Gladio, Ignis rushed to Prompto’s side.

The boy’s shoulder had been gouged by the coeurl’s fangs, clear teeth marks pierced into his clothing.  His chest looked like it had been nearly ripped open, claw marks tearing flesh and spattering the ground with blood that now tracked bloody paw prints away from the scene.  There were other, smaller wounds, like a few cuts to his face and more bite marks in his leg, but Ignis was much more worried about his chest.  He reached into the armiger only to find their healing items empty.  No potions, nothing at all.  He was out of healing magic himself, as well.

“You two need to wrap this up, and fast.  We are out of curatives and Prompto needs healing immediately.”  There was no time to focus on if they heard him or not.  Since his shirt had already been torn to shreds Ignis ripped it off, deftly tearing the fabric into strips.  He needed to focus on wrapping as many of the wounds as he could.  There was already a pool of blood below the blond and he was strangely quiet.  Still awake, at some point he had reached out and grabbed Ignis’s with a pale, white-knucked grip, but he seemed to be focusing so hard on breathing he didn’t have the spare thought to scream.

“Hold still, Prompto, this will hurt but it needs to be done.”  Ignis started to wrap what he could, praying to the Six that it was enough.  There were still sounds of battle all around him but he needed to focus on this and only this.  The shoulder wound was deep but not lethal, his leg was much more shallow so for now it would have to go ignored.  He started to wrap the chest, his gloves already slick with blood.

“Iggy…”

“Shh, you will be alright.  Just hold on a little longer.  We will head back to town once Noct and Gladio are done.”  He wanted to look Prompto in the eyes and promise him he would make it but he wasn’t in the habit of lying to the dying.  

By the time he was out of shredded shirt to use as wrapping it was obvious the Prompto was starting to fade.  There was a loud crack of fire erupting not too far away from Ignis’s back which was hopefully the last of the fighting.

“Iggy…I don’t feel so good.”  Just as the advisor was starting to lift him from the ground Gladio landed hard on his knees next to them.  Wordlessly he lifted the shivering boy into his arms, cradling the blond to his chest like a precious treasure.  He looked even paler than normal, his skin bleached against Gladio’s chest.

“Noctis, we are leaving now.”  The prince warped next to them after slicing the head off the last of the troopers.  His blue eyes went wide once he realized that the blood all over Prompto, and now Ignis as well, was his.

“Prom!  S---.  We have to hurry!”  He turned and ran, nearly tripping over himself as he started towards the nearest down.  Gladio followed behind him, one arm wrapped around Prompto’s back and the other under his knees.  The gunman was mumbling and shivering, fading in and out as they ran.  Ignis followed up the rear, trying to swallow the bile in his throat once he realized that even if he couldn’t see the other two, he could have easily followed the trail of blood.  Something was still bleeding badly enough that it was dripping down Gladio’s leg and leaving half formed bloody shoe prints in the dirt.

At first it seemed odd that Nocits ran ahead instead of trying to stay neck in neck with his Shield to guard his friend.  But it was obvious soon enough.  Ahead of the pack, his utter panic was enough to help him carve through any monsters that even appeared in his line of sight.  This left Gladio free reign to just run.  It was a single-minded focus that pushed all of them harder than their lungs could take.

Gladio hated how cold Prompto felt against him.  And how still.  Normally he was always moving, looking around, talking, fidgeting, on his phone, something.  He was never still for more than a millisecond, to the point that the Shield was a little shocked he could take a steady picture.  But now he was still as death.  At some point he’d wrapped a hand into Gladio’s shirt but even that felt weak, as if a gust of wind would pull him away.

“Hey blondie, hang in there.  We’re almost to safety.”  

“Gotta hang on…’s a rough ride, big guy.”  There were lights in the distance, the familiar artificial shine of an outpost.  It wouldn’t have the best medical facilities but there would be something.  Just as they were getting close there was a familiar, pained groan as the ground suddenly opened up into a flickering pool of darkness.  A gigantic iron hand slowly reached out, grabbing the ground like a ledge.  An Iron Gaint.  And not just one of them.

“Gadio, keep going.  We will take care of things here.”  Before the two daemons had even finished pulling themselves from the abyss, a series of daggers were launched towards them as Ignis yelled the orders over their cries.

“But Iggy-”

“Go!  Noct and I can handle this.”  The prince was already no more than a streak of blue was he threw his sword and warped into one of the daemon’s hands, causing it to try and swat him away like an annoying fly.  With a deep grumble Gladio continued to run, shifting the limp body in his arms ever so slightly.  At some point during that short exchange Prompto had closed his eyes and now he was worse than just still, he was completely limp.  The lights came close and closer until finally he was within their aura of safety.  The outpost had a small hotel with a half-sleep man at reception.  But he suddenly jerked awake with the sound of a behemoth coming through, throwing open a door for Gladio to rush in.  The man was gone in an instant, yelling over his shoulder that he was going to grab potions and whatever else he could.

With a gentleness to rival his rising panic, Gladio slowly lowered the younger man onto one of the beds.  His head lolled to the side, limbs landing where he was placed.  The wraps that had been his shirt had already soaked through, everything now a messy, dirty shade of red.  Against the light grey of the bedspread Prompto looked like a porcelain doll, his skin too pale to have ever been alive, his freckles standing out like black specks across his face.  He wasn’t breathing.  The innkeeper returned with a handful of vials and the Shield quickly grabbed the first, shattering it over the shredded remains of his chest.  He watched, listening for a gasp, a breath.  But nothing.  No change.  He was still limp and pale, lifeless.

“Prompto...come on.”  He reached out for another and again broke the bottle over the worst of the wounds.  And again nothing changed.  Gladio’s stomach leaped into his throat, closing off his air.  They hadn’t gotten here fast enough.  He hadn’t gotten here fast enough.  Slowly he took one of the other’s small hands in his own.  There was no pulse against his wrist, nothing.  Just a bloody shell all devoid of its sunshine.

[horribella-monster]

A Walk in the Woods

“Look, if you draw a two thousand-mile-long line across the United States at any angle, it’s going to pass through nine murder victims.”

― Bill Bryson, A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail

Cautions: Language/Gore

Rating Adultish

Do not copy to other sites without permission.

 Branch and bramble tugged at her body as she plowed through the undergrowth of the forest. Hands frantic with terror pulled away at the gnarled vines as she continued her desperate race to find safety.  She crashed through another dark wall of twisted twig and bough then fell forward on to the detritus of forest floor.  Thorns, leaves, and decaying matter adhered to her skinned hands and knees.

 For a moment, she dropped her chin to her chest and fought to slow her panicked gasps.  Her disheveled hair pulled loose from her sagging ponytail and plastered to the smudged dirt and in her mouth. She grabbed the hair and spat it out.  The strong desire to just collapse there and surrender to whatever fate the forest decided warred with her simmering anger fueled will to survive and kill her therapist.

 The crashing sound of her nearing pursuer startled her into action.  She crawled to the nearest tree and pulled herself up on the twisted moss-covered trunk.  She took a deep breath and inhaled the moist earth tinted air.  For an alarming minute, her vision tunneled, and the sounds of the forest took on the muted quality foreshadowing an imminent collapse.  Her world stretched and then snapped back into terrifying focus as she gritted her teeth and willed herself forward.  

 Pushing herself back into motion, a mantra reverberating through her head. “I will not die here. This will not beat me.  I am going to kill my fucking therapist. Face your fucking fear. What a stupid fucking idea! I will NOT die here.  This will not beat me-“

 Her foot met air and her arms flailed wildly as she sought to recover her lost balance. Momentarily, her foot found a purchase as she tried to slow her fall and began to slide down the steep ravine. Her slide quickly became a tumble. She pinballed down the hillside, bouncing over the bumps and into obstacles. Her perception a blurry whirl of leaves, rocks, pebbles, and the decomposing stuffs of trees and weeds.

 Thud into Rock. Tree. Rock. Rock. Bump. Branch. Log. Then air, as she flew over a ridge.  The following impact with the ground drove the air from her lung as she bounced finally into a weathered tree.  

 The last jolt left her huddled trying to catch her breath.  She curled around her throbbing ribs and felt the symphony of discordant body aches and pain swelling into a crescendo threatening to overwhelm her senses.  

 The ever-present heavy thudding footfalls and splintering forestscape in the wake of the thing of tooth and claw that had chased her, focused her senses.  She had no idea what the thing was.  Maybe a bear. In her encounter with it, she had the sense of something huge.  It lumbered up and stood in the shadows behind her.  With a roar the thing had swept out a massive claw slashing her backpack off.  She tumbled and rolled up, sprinting away into this awful, awful forest. This thicket with its tall dark trees reaching upward to smother out the sky, the looming branches dipping, swaying and grabbing to rend and tear her away. The dark foliage hiding monsters and terrifying animals – Stop.  She had to not think about anything but running.  

 She wobbled to her feet. Swaying dangerously, she took a step and focused just on moving. One foot in front of the other.  One foot in front-

 Her one foot in front slid into a hole and her arms cartwheeled again trying to regain her precarious balance. The moment froze in time as she felt her balance give way and prepared for another bone jarring slam into the ground.  Instead it was cold, scummy water rushing into her mouth and swallowing her whole. The taste of algae filled her mouth as she came up sputtering, coughing in a slow-moving pooling stream. Really, more of a water filled ditch. A ditch just in the place to soak her head to toe.

 If she could have summoned the extra breath, she would have screamed.  All she could do was grind her teeth and shiver as she clambered up the bank. When she pulled herself from the water, she smacked her fist down on the packed dirt with an inarticulate cry. That bitch of a therapist was so dead, she was going to take an ice pick and shove it so far-

 Her tirade came to screeching halt when, she really looked at the packed dirt.  Holy shit!  She was on a trail.  It was well worn and easy to see even in the dim light.  Any sign of civilization was like a neon sign from God, finally her luck was turning for the better. She began a running limp along the trail putting distance between her and the menacing thing looking to make her a snack.

 If she hadn’t had a fear of the forest before, she sure as shit had one now.  Especially this dark, cold, and phobia inducing forest complete with a terrifying carnivorous predator. Supposedly, seeing what was in the forest was not supposed to be as bad as what she imagined.  Well that was bullshit, because this forest was hiding that… whatever it was with too many teeth and huge claws.  Not in one of her fear induced anxiety had she ever imagined that.

 Her therapist said she should read Thoreau, and that like her other advice was bullshit.  He was too in love with his own words and the tamed woods.  The Bill Bryson guy had it more correct. Woods were creepy and full of death inducing insects, diseases, and animals.  Her therapist was not amused by her choice of reading and pointed out that Bryson comes down firmly on the side of nature. She told her therapist; he was a sell out to big wood and then giggled helplessly through the rest of the session. Looking back, it made sense that her therapist sent her out to the woods, she was a terrible patient.

 Her pace slowed and she leaned against a misshapen trunk to rest and listen. She hadn’t heard the thing since she climbed out of the thick water of the ditch and needed to catch her breath.  Her heart pounding loudly in her ears, only the creepy sound of falling branches and whispering wind seeped past it.  With deep calming breaths, her heart slowed, and she really listened. There weren’t any animal sounds and only a few insects.  It was like the forest ate everything that came within it.  She shook the thought out of her head.  Seriously, not helping yourself here.  As her heart slowed, a far-off sound caught her attention. The tinny sound of music.  A radio! Fuck yes!

 She took off down the trail toward the sound.  Visions of warmth, safety, and alcohol danced in her head adding buoyance and speed to her steps.   Still wet, bleeding from various scratches and the pain her ribs pounded in time to her steps, she literally wasn’t out of the woods yet, but there was light at the end of the tunnel as the music grew louder and a generator’s chugging joined the chorus. Then there was smoke.  She hoped they were burning this rotten place to the ground.  Screw you, trees.  

 Shouting as she burst into the clearing, she immediately stopped.  There was a fire, a tent, and the tell-tale smell of ammonia. Two men armed with rifles stepped out of the large tent and the smell of ammonia became overwhelming.

 Her heart sank.  Here were some of Bryson’s “armed, genetically challenged fellows” maybe even as he put it, “loony hillbillies destabilized by gross quantities of impure corn liquor and generations of profoundly unbiblical sex” except they weren’t brewing alcohol, but cooking meth in the middle of Snow White’s fucking haunted woods.  She just knew she was going to be on a podcast about missing people or to support the adage of “don’t go into the forest”.

 The cocking of the rifles pinpointed her focus on the Walter White wannabes and she tried to summon a friendly face.  Considering the state of her clothes, hair, and bleeding, she supposed that she looked more like the after picture for noob goes to the woods, which was remarkable accurate.  She raised her hands.  “Hi.”

 One of the men spit a glob of black-brown goo at the fire and stepped forward. “What are you doing here?”

 “I’m lost.  I mean I have no idea where I am except in an awful forest. I just want to leave. Can you-“ She stopped as the other man stepped forward and leered.

 “You look lost.” Meth cook number one, the spitter, said.

 “I am.”

 “I’ll help ya.” Meth cook number two, the leerer, laughed as he grabbed his crotch.

 “How’d ya find us?” Meth number one asked.

 “I just told you, I didn’t. I’m lost.”

 “How’d you get lost?” Meth number two asked. “Were ya lookin’ fer love in all the wrong places?”

 First Meth guy glared at second Meth guy, “Shut it. Go back to work.  I’ll handle this.”

 “But Cletus-“

 “Bubba, now or I will shoot ya.  Ya know I will.”

 Bubba, and didn’t that just totally fit, huffed and sulked as he shuffled back to the tent, scratching his ass as he walked. Leaving just Meth guy number one, aka Cletus.

 “I don’t believe you. How’d ya get lost?”

 She tried hard not to roll her eyes. “I guess the usual way.  I knew where I was then I didn’t. Lost.” She said trying to give sincere smile, but from Cletus’ reaction it came off as a smirk.  This is exactly why her therapist hated her.  No one likes a smartass.

 “You think this is some joke girlie? You think I won’t shoot yer ass and drop it back in that stream? Cuz I will.  Yer in a world of trouble here.”

 “Yeah. Yeah, I am.  Kind of the story of the day. You know?”

 “Ain’t nuthin personal. Yer jus’ real unlucky.  We can’t have ya going back and telling them where we are.” He put the rifle up to his shoulder.

 Fear made her words breathlessly and spill out with ever increasing speed and volume, “I’m lost! I literally have no idea where I am much less you! For fuck sake, what about lost do you not understand!”

 Cletus frowned. “Ya ought’n ta curse. I think ya ain’t lost. Ya came up that path,” he gestured behind the tent, “from the road.”

 “I came from that way.” She pointed behind her.  “Do you think I used my obviously awesome forest skills to stealthily come up here and oh by the way jump into the disgusting stream and threw myself down a hill before that to complete the look?”

 Cletus chewed on something as he lowered the rifle.  He looked like he was trying to work out what was just said to him for a minute.  The hamster that ran the wheel in his brain must be out of shape because he gave up and shrugged. “Yep.”

 So not so much Walter White wannabes, but Jed Clampett’s much stupider inbred cousins. Inbred insane cousins armed and ready to shoot. “Please, come on.  I lost my backpack, I don’t have money or a mobile – but … if you take me to a phone and I can get some money.  Please!”

 Cletus placed the rifle butt against his shoulder again. “Sorry, can’t take a chance. ‘Sides I’m doin’ you a favor.  Bubba, he ain’t right.”

 “Wait-Wait… don’t!” She started to move back when she noticed Cletus’ mouth dropped open. Then the fetid breath from behind her, blew her loose hair and the smell hit her.  The overpowering stench of rot and filth wafted over her as a guttural growl vibrated her back.  She closed her eyes and turned slowly.

 When she opened them, she saw it.  Its massive maw opened, and thick saliva sluiced through huge yellow teeth.  It was almost on top of her.  Its heavy breath blew her hair again and then Bubba walked out of the tent.  

 “I don’t know why I have- What the hell is that!” He yelled and the stilled tableau burst into motion.

 The creature roared. She dropped to her knees.  Cletus fired.  Bubba fired. The creature charged over her into Cletus, its bite taking off the right side of Cletus’ upper torso.  He screamed. Bubba screamed as the geyser of Cletus’ blood covered him and dripped from the creature’s jaw.  Bubba literally lost his shit and fired until the rifle just clicked.  She rolled to her feet and took off running for the back of the tent and the path. She heard Bubba scream and fade into incoherent whimpering interrupted by the nauseating sound of chewing.

 It was not a bear.  She had no idea what it was, but some crazy cryptozoologist could figure that shit out.  All she knew was she didn’t want to end up in its gut and she had to run. She was sure that it had expended a lot of energy chasing her and didn’t think that the meth boy appetizers were going to sate it.  

 She ran for about a minute and then heard the muffled sound of an explosion as the volatile chemicals in the meth lab blew up.  She stopped and look back at the fireball rising from the forest.  Good. Burn baby, burn. Then turned and ran.  Her luck was nowhere good enough to suppose that the thing was dead.  

 The forest was darker after the bright explosion of light and the imminent setting of the sun.  But the deep dark forest didn’t bother her now. The crashing of branches and the heavy footfall behind her was her real concern. Where was that fucking road!

 The path narrowed and meandered between huge trees and small saplings.  She hoped that the narrow path would slow it down some but knew just like all prey does that it wouldn’t make that much difference.  She had to get to the road.  Cletus and Bubba were too overweight for it to be too far.  

 Then it appeared in front of her.  A two-lane black top.  An empty two-lane black top.  A dilapidated pick up truck, rusted through in several parts of the body was on the side of the road.  She didn’t pause to try and get in.  

 She sprinted up the middle of the road away from the path.  She was running uphill and already down into the valley of the next when she realized she could have hid in the truck.  Too late, she was committed to running and she was so close.  If only one car would show up.  Please just one damn car.  She nearly tripped over roadkill going up the next hill. and looked over her shoulder. She didn’t see it, but she didn’t pause. It was somewhere close.  She knew it like she knew that she couldn’t stop running.

 As she topped the next hill, she put on a burst of speed.  The road flattened and curved off to the right.  She made the curve and froze.  There were bright headlights and the screeching of tires as an eighteen-wheeler bore down on here.  She understood the deer’s point of view as her brain screamed move and her body just wouldn’t. It was almost on top of her when she moved.  The upside, it was committed to stopping, the downside this was going to hurt.

 The impact drove her breath out her body and added road rash to the list of her body’s grievances. She curled in on herself for a moment as the acrid smoke from the tires billowed around her.  

 She heard the semi’s door opened and footsteps headed her direction. She started moving slowly crawling up to her hands and knees, her head dropped to her chest, as the truck driver spoke, “Shit, shit! Are you okay? What were you – Good God All Mighty what the hell is that?”

 Adrenalin jerked her head and her body into motion, “Get in the truck.  Hurry up, go!”  She ran to him and pushed him toward the door.  “Stop staring and move! Jackass MOVE!”

 The trucker jerked at her profanity and ran away from the lumbering figure moving out of the woods.

 She sprang inside the truck and urged him on. “Please come on, come on!”

 He climbed in with the speed that only terror can instill in someone. He shoved her over to the other side and slammed the door as claws raked the metal.

 There was a bang as the creature rammed its body into the door and then there was a roar and a crack. The window was cracking as the cab of the truck shook.  

 The driver needed no more prompting and threw the truck into gear.  He gave it gas and the tires screeched again as he accelerated.  There was another bump and an accompanying roar as the tires ran over part of the creature and she smiled.

 “D-Did you see that? What was it?”

 She shook her head slowly, “I don’t know.  Something with lots of teeth and a never give up attitude. So, you might want to floor it.”

 Nodding, he pressed harder on the accelerate and shifted up. “We got to call someone.”

 She nodded, “Sure. Tell them about the bear.”

 “Bear? Ma-am that weren’t no bear. It was.. was-“

 “A bear.  Unless you want to tell them that some pebbly hided creature that was a cross between razorback feral hog, bear, and Creature from the Black Lagoon took a bite out of your truck.  Then I hope you have real good insurance, because you’ll be drug tested and psych ward bound.”

 “Right, bear. What about that smoke there?”

 She looked at the smoke rising above the forest as they passed the meth cooker’s pick-up truck. “It tried to eat a Meth Lab after eating the Meth guys.”

 He shot a disbelieving look and she shrugged, “It’s been a day.”

Patty, 10/16/2020