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a-small-batch-of-dragons · 3 years

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Dumb Luck

Prompt: the usual "Everyone knows Merlin has Magic but Merlin doesn't know they know" but Arthur's being really fucking thick about it. Everything that could possibly be magic Arthur has brushed off as luck or something. At some point Merlin realizes that the knights know (or maybe he's known all along) and the knights tell Merlin that Arthur knows but he's being stupid, which leads to Merlin performing increasingly extravagant/impressive/silly magic in front of Arthur until the point Arthur just asks if Merlin would like him to acknowledge the fact that he doesn't care that Merlin has magic

no brain cells for these boys, leon stop hoarding them

Read on Ao3

Warnings: none!

Pairings: merthur, can be platonic or romantic who tf knows

Word Count: 2943

Alright. Merlin’s going to be honest. Is the absolute best at hiding his magic from people? No. Is he a damn sight near better than some other bastards would be if they had his magic? Yes, yes, he is, thank you very much. They would do quite well to remember that he is magic, and he’s had it since he was born, so he knows what he’s doing when it comes to knowing that he has it. Yes, thank you, he doesn’t go around doing every single thing he could with magic because well, then he’d never get to do much of anything ever again.

And that would be boring.

But yes, maybe he’s a little petty or lazy sometimes. Honestly, he’s just being efficient. Yes, he can justify pettiness as efficient. He’s just getting them back for something that he would otherwise have to expend so much effort doing. It’s very handy.

So the knights work out he has magic. Big surprise there, he knows. Lancelot is Lancelot, Gwaine is Gwaine. Percival stumbles in on him lifting too much a little too easily and cracks a joke about having Merlin pull his weight more on hunting trips and patrols. Elyan watches him fix armor and immediately clamors to bring Merlin to his and Gwen’s forge so he can actually show him how to fix armor.

Leon takes him aside quietly one day and thanks him. Merlin doesn’t start crying, he doesn’t end up breaking down into Leon’s arms, and Leon definitely doesn’t promise that although Merlin may not have been knighted, he thinks of him as his brother in arms.

Leon is very rude sometimes, as a matter of fact.

But Arthur doesn’t seem to notice.

Now, Arthur doesn’t notice a lot. Doesn’t notice Merlin shifting his chair a little bit so he crashes onto the floor, doesn’t notice Gwen spending just a hair too much time with Morgana in the evenings, doesn’t notice the guards that don’t even pay attention to the dungeons. Like, at all.

But there are some things he…should notice.

Like when a branch suddenly lifts itself up from a forest floor to trip a bandit.

“Bandits,” Merlin mutters under his breath, “why is it always bandits?”

He deflects a blow and sends one of them flying into a tree. Behind him, Elyan parries a blow and deftly clubs the man over the head. Arthur is battling another bandit a few paces away as one tries to run up behind him.

Merlin’s hand is out in a flash and the tree branch right in front of Arthur wheels up and smacks the man across the face.

Arthur whirls around and cuts the other man down, successfully putting an end to the fight. Around the clearing, the knights shake their heads and go about picking up the rest of their camp. Really, being far too calm for men who just killed a bunch of people.

Except for Merlin.

Merlin, while this is happening, is slowly coming to the conclusion that he would like to be swallowed up by the ground and never emerge again.

He just used magic, very obviously, in front of Arthur.

Is this the first time he’s done it? No, not by a long shot, but it is the first time he’s done it without any regard for whether Arthur can see.

Arthur turns and Merlin’s heart drops to his stomach.

Arthur wrenches his sword out of the ground and stalks over to him.

Arthur roughly grabs his shoulder. Shakes. Hard.

“Merlin! Merlin, answer me?”

“…Arthur?”

Arthur’s face is drawn. Grim. Almost his father’s. His grip hurts.

“Where are you hurt?”

Merlin blinks. What? Where is he what?

“Where is it, Merlin,” Arthur growls again, already looking him over, “where did they hurt you?”

“I’m—I’m not hurt.”

“You’re paler than a damn sheet, Merlin, you must be losing blood.” Arthur’s hand is…surprisingly gentle as it lifts his chin. “Tell me where. Come on. Now’s not the time for shame.”

“No, no,” Merlin mumbles, “I’m not—not hurt. Didn’t get hurt.”

Arthur slows, grim expression morphing to confusion. “Then why do you look so…”

If in doubt, poke fun at yourself.

“Just scared, I guess,” Merlin tries with a self-deprecating laugh, “wasn’t expecting bandits.”

Arthur huffs, lightly shoving his shoulder. “Leave it to you to be such a drama queen that I think you’re bleeding out.”

“’S nice of you to care.”

“Just glad I don’t have to drag your corpse back to Gaius.”

So that was…bizarre. Not the most bizarre thing that’s ever happened to Merlin, not at all, but bizarre. Arthur may be a little unobservant at times but he’s not that oblivious.

But, in fairness to him—which is something Merlin tries not to do too often—he was in the middle of a fight and had just killed a man. Knights may not be known for the smarts but they are known for their overprotectiveness.

Yes, he can hear you lot protesting over there, it’s true and you know it.

And maybe…maybe Merlin’s been getting a little sick of Gaius screaming about how secret his magic must be kept in broad daylight with the door wide open. Listen, if you think he’s about to get scolded by your parental unit and not immediately find some way to rebel, you don’t know Merlin very well.

And yes, maybe there’s a sick little thrill he gets out of doing magic in front of Arthur.

Maybe.

So. The next time they’re on a hunting trip and he’s as sure as he can be that there aren’t any bandits around, he decides to push a little bit.

Arthur is lounging around because you can take the prince out of the castle but you can’t take the castle out of the prince and he thinks he’s still about to receive the finest of dishes that Camelot’s kitchens can prepare. Well, no, but he is about to not have to cook it himself.

“Light the fire, Merlin, it’s not that hard.”

“Have you ever lit a fire a day in your life?”

“Sure, when I was training.”

“Training? You needed training to learn how to light a fire?”

“It was survival training, with the elder knights. Had to survive a night on my own.”

“On your own?”

“Well, my own campsite. They stayed about a league away.”

Merlin just sighs and crouches down. He eyes Arthur, who is tending to his sword, and then very slowly but pointedly sets the flint and steel aside. Arthur isn’t paying much attention to him.

Slowly, Merlin leans forward and lights the fire with his magic.

Arthur looks up. Merlin looks back at him. Arthur swings the sword off his lap. He sets it on the log, his hand still wrapped around the pommel. The tip of the blade points straight at Merlin’s chest. It gleams in the firelight.

“See? I told you it wasn’t hard.”

Is…is he serious?

As it turns out, yes. Arthur is completely serious.

And at this point, this is science, now, what Merlin’s doing. Experiments. He has to know the limits! He has a hypothesis, he has a method, he wants to reach a conclusion.

Hypothesis: Arthur is really, really oblivious to anything magical.

Method: do increasingly obvious magic in front of Arthur until he notices.

Conclusion: how oblivious is Arthur?

An important caveat: Merlin doesn’t know how Arthur will react to finding out he has magic, but he can burn that bridge when he gets there.

So when he wakes Arthur up the next morning, he draws the curtains with a flourish and when Arthur turns over and pulls the blanket up to his cheek in protest, he flicks his wrist and yanks the covers off the bed.

What does Arthur do?

Mumble and groan and stumble out of bed saying Merlin’s worse than his first governess.

“Wait, first?”

“Morgana and I snuck a toad into her bed. She quit after that.”

“You two did what?”

“Think there’s still frog spawn in that bed frame. Father had that chamber closed off for a while.”

“You—eat your breakfast, you prat.”

“You’re the one that pulled my blankets away!”

…okay, so he needs to take it up a notch.

One of the ones that pisses Gaius off the most is when Merlin uses magic to polish multiple pieces of Arthur’s armor at the same time. So when Arthur is at his desk, Merlin lays his shield across his lap and grabs two polishing rags. He sets the can of polish next to him and starts working on the shield. When he’s sure Arthur is focusing, he uses his magic to lift the breastplate up next to him and start to beat out the dents.

“Merlin,” Arthur sighs, “can you keep it down any?”

Showtime. “Don’t know what you mean, sire.”

“That bloody racket! Can you at least be a little quieter?”

“What racket?”

Arthur shoves the paper away from him and glares at the ceiling. “That banging! It’s so loud I can barely hear myself think!”

“It’s no louder than you normally are, sire.”

“Oh, you—I ought to—“ Arthur just mutters to himself as he claps his hands over his ears.

But he never looks toward Merlin.

Huh.

So maybe Arthur isn’t ignoring him because he’s oblivious. Maybe…maybe he knows already and is…is trying to protect Merlin.

Uther is still King of Camelot. Morgana is outspoken against his cruelty but he is still very much in charge. There’s only so much protection the knights can afford him. There’s only so much protection Arthur can afford him.

So…so maybe Arthur is pretending he doesn’t see because he knows he can’t save Merlin if he has to acknowledge it.

Merlin takes a few days to process that. The knights are concerned, they ask him what’s wrong, what does he need, how can they help? He waves them off, says he’s just thinking.

“Maybe,” Lancelot says kindly, “but with you, Merlin, you’re never just thinking.”

“Or at least it doesn’t stay that way for very long,” Gwaine agrees, slinging an arm around Merlin’s shoulders, “and I don’t know about you lot but I like a little bit of forewarning before I wake up to ale in my shoes.”

“You asked for another round, you didn’t say where.”

“Why the hell would I want them in my shoes?”

Gwaine does what Gwaine always does and steers the attention away from Merlin, leaving Leon and Lancelot to carefully prod him a little more privately. He waves them off too, even though he’s sure he isn’t keeping as much as he would like to be from Leon.

Merlin stops using his magic as much. He does his chores as much as he can using his two hands, lugs buckets of water without complaint, polishes armor until his nose burns and his eyes sting. He uses his magic for particularly stubborn stains in his room and keeps a sharper eye out for how to move this bandit’s sword a little to the right, or how to make this knight’s staff a little heavier.

He thinks Arthur is trying to hide for him, so he hides for Arthur.

Then he can’t hide.

A sorcerer is threatening to collapse the walls of Camelot in on themselves. The entire citadel shakes as Merlin and the knights rush out, dragging as many people as they can. The stone trembles and the wood groans and there are screams. More screams than Merlin could ever bear to hear join the chorus of more than he could ever know that plague him every time he closes his eyes.

He shuts them anyway and runs.

He runs away from the knights, magic pushing him faster, faster, faster with the need to protect the castle, protect the people, protect Arthur. The sorcerer is pulling him away from his people and for that…for that, he must pay.

By the time he gets to the field, it is rippling with magic. Merlin’s fingertips, his ears, even his nose tingles as he rushes deeper, deeper, deeper, trying to get to the eye of the storm.

There, in the middle of a patch of grass, stands a sorcerer. In robes deeper than night and hair whipped up in the wind of the spell.

Merlin grits his teeth and says no.

And when the Greatest Sorcerer to Ever Walk the Earth calls, Magic answers.

The sorcerer is dust before he manages to open his mouth. The field settles. Magic returns to the earth. And Merlin collapses to his knees as the knights run up behind him.

He isn’t a fool, despite what others may have led you to believe. He knows this was magic, could only be magic, and could only be stopped by magic.

So when the knights rush up to him and collapse to their knees around him, muttering that he’s alright, he did it, he’s safe, he did it, is he hurt, all he can think of is how he’s going to have to explain this to Arthur.

They tell him he doesn’t need to explain anything. That Arthur already knows, that he doesn’t care.

Merlin doesn’t believe them. Even if he saved Camelot, which he’s already done, he has magic. He used magic to do it.

They tell him again that it doesn’t matter, that Arthur doesn’t, won’t care.

But Merlin still has to tell him.

“Tell me what?”

+1.

Arthur rushes into the clearing. He can hear him behind them. He can’t find it in him to get up. The knights are still around him, he can hear Lancelot’s voice in his ear, feel Leon’s hands on his shoulders, but he can’t move. Can’t speak.

“Tell me what,” Arthur repeats, and oh, he sounds angry, “what is it?”

“Merlin,” someone—Gwaine—is muttering, “Merlin, it’s alright, he won’t care, he doesn’t care—“

“Of course I care,” comes the cold, cold voice and Gwaine falters, “now move.”

Merlin’s chest clenches. There’s the sharp sing of steel as Gwaine draws his sword.

“Put it down.”

“Nope, can’t do that.”

Then Leon stands up. “Arthur, please think carefully about this.”

“I don’t have to think carefully about anything. Merlin is hurt, let me tend to him. He’s mine.”

“You won’t hurt him.”

“No, I certainly don’t intend to, so move.”

Lancelot’s hands are the last to leave him. Merlin is cold. It’s so cold. His magic buries deep inside his chest and it feels hard to breathe.

Boots. Boots on the ground in front of him. They flatten the grass as a shadow blocks the light. Armor creaks as the figure kneels down. A gauntleted hand cups his chin.

“Merlin,” comes a voice that’s soft, too soft, “Merlin, I need you to look at me.”

And what is he supposed to do, disobey?

Arthur’s face is too warm when Merlin looks up at him. His mouth tugs up into a little smile as Merlin finally makes eye contact with him.

“There you are,” he says, still in that soft voice that doesn’t make sense, “now, are you hurt?”

Merlin can only blink.

“Merlin,” he says, and his voice is a little firmer as he cups Merlin’s chin properly, “are you hurt? What happened?”

His throat is too dry. “Not hurt.”

Arthur relaxes, only marginally. “Then why do you look so upset?”

The world could collapse and Merlin would be frozen here, trapped in the silence of Arthur’s gaze.

Unbidden, his eyes flash gold.

Arthur takes a sharp breath in. Merlin braces for a hit only for—

“Oh, you idiot,” Arthur whispers, “do I actually need to tell you I don’t care if you have magic?”

Pause.

Go back.

One more time.

What?

“I don’t care, you idiot,” he says in a tone that is too fond, “I don’t care that you have magic. You have it, you’re still Merlin, I don’t care.”

Rough metal gauntlets cup his face and oh—it’s cold—

“Merlin, look at me.”

“I—I am.”

“No, look.”

He blinks and has to focus on looking at Arthur.

“I’m not mad,” Arthur says firmly, “and I don’t care that you have magic.”

Merlin starts to laugh. Because of course, of course, Arthur doesn’t care. He’s been so stupid. Arthur doesn’t care. Arthur doesn’t care. He’s doubled over before he can stop himself. The laughs keep pouring out of him, his magic rushing back to his fingers, his nose, his chest. He laughs long and loud and hard and then Arthur is murmuring at him again because no, no, he isn’t laughing anymore, he’s crying.

“Come here, you big baby,” Arthur murmurs, tucking him into the gentlest embrace he’s ever had from someone wearing armor, “yes, there you go, that’s it.”

He doesn’t care. He doesn’t care.

Arthur has known Merlin has magic and he doesn’t care.

…wait, does that make Merlin the oblivious one?

Nah, that couldn’t be it.

It’s not like Arthur is hiding anything else from Merlin.

#dragonbabbles #fic #merlin #merlin bbc #bbc merlin #merthur #merthur fic #arthur pendragon

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borkthemork · 3 years

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Finally cleaned up this draft based on @/popcornbee’s art and it is now officially on AO3 as well, so I hope all of you enjoy!

---

There were numerous pathways for a sparrow to travel. Following their migration patterns, they'd travel down to warmer lands, typically somewhere protected for the nights. In doing so, they'd rest in the winter and return back all new. Refreshed for the upcoming springs and summers.

For American Tree Sparrows, these patterns were necessary to survive.

For Joe Sparrow, the true information depended.

He liked to flit about on rapid wing beats. He preferred curdled mealworms due to previous battles hurting his digestive system. For migration, he remained stubborn on whether he liked the warmer breezes or if the Newtopian stables were of true home than anything else.

Newtopia had a history of domestic birds. Joe Sparrow was the mixed case when he grew all-natural, got captured and owned by one or more owners who called him previous names, and then found Marcy in the middle of sweltering rain. Where a mission lead to something new and surprising, bold and unorthodox, and the moment Joe saved her — chose her hand of all people — Marcy promised to keep him safe. Safe, protected, cared for.

And nothing had pulled these two away from each other. Not even the fleeting concept of gravity. Or the fact winter threatened his nests.

Anne asked about him before. On one occasion, where Marcy groomed him under Plantar barn shade, Anne looked at his big, round, puffy belly and wondered out loud where the scar above his eye fit in out of all things.

Of course, Marcy had the answer.

“Oh, you know Joe,” she sighed. “He keeps pushing his limits. You won’t believe how many scars this bad boy got during his old career. For the eye one, he actually got that scar back when he was just a fledgling, but this was during the morally ethical times where amphibians didn’t really care for mounts unless they were battle resistant.”

Her hand parsed through his plume, giggling when Joe tweeted pleasantly against her skin. “But now he’s in a morally ethical place, aren’t you, boy? Yes, you are.”

Anne snorted. She ruffled Joe’s feathers too, and the two giggled quietly when the sparrow seemed to lean into the touch. Almost as if the sparrow connected immediately to Anne.

And Anne teared up over the thought. “It’s just like mother nature intended.”

The week afterward reminded Marcy of her sparring days, but instead of swords and smoke bombs, she had worms and patience. Lots of patience as Anne attempted to feed some mesh into Joe’s beak — and ultimately got stuck when she leaned too hard into his mouth.

It was funny how all this bonding time left her blind to anything else on the schedule. Marcy could instruct Anne to direct the mealworms to Joe for hours and still find Anne’s laughter to be the highlight of her day. Maybe Joe would sit on Anne, and leave her yelling and laughing under floof-fulls of bird, and Marcy would sketch that scene than the typical mission schematics Lady Olivia instructed her to look through.

Marcy hypothesized that Joe's love for attention spurned her focus. It made sense for birds to tease if they didn’t get the proper reaction out of people. It made sense for a bird such as Joe to find affection in someone who exuded goodness from their heart. But then Marcy would remember Anne. For Anne had Joe’s affection at the palm of her hands but irritated the bird enough to prefer dipping her into a nearby pond just for the sake of playfighting. And that enough had gotten her intrigued.

Was it another phenomenon she needed to analyze? To understand fully until the cusp of discovery?

Perhaps. Not right now though.

Marcy had found a breakthrough. A breakthrough in Animal-Human Sociology. But her focus lingered elsewhere, came down to how she rested next to a bucket load of dirty feathers — snoring into her best friend’s shoulder until the moon rose high above the Amphibian mountains.

---

When Marcy stared through the sky, and the act alone reminded her so much of Kid Icarus. If she ignored the wings branching out from the corners of her eyes, and only focused on the colors then she thought of herself as flying. Flying through skies that bled yellows and reds like Aivazovsky, framed so well against the crisp horizons that Marcy could almost paint the perfectest picture in her mind.

And when wind buffered her hair, parted the clouds with her hands, she swore that the taste on her tongue was of fresh saltwater.

Navigation. Freedom. The fades from orange to blue to maroon. Marcy loved riding for a reason. She held onto Joe’s reins with the utmost quickness, spelled out her name with short dives and leaps through cumulus tufts. And in the aftermath, she wrung her coat dry of moisture.

At least, until Anne became a priority.

Anne Boonchuy. Friend of ten years. Friends since the term friends became part of the Merriam Webster. Now, the latter sounded silly, but friendship could be a frank concept at times, it was something Marcy had no clue how to navigate, and yet Anne found her and decided Marcy was worth her time.

So they were here now: One readying an avian saddle, the other petting Joe’s tufts with the heaviest affection. And aw, Joe seemed to like it, what with the amount of cooing he’d been doing for the past hour.

Not like Marcy didn’t want to get in on that action. She just needed to finish clipping on the latches — and when she did that, it would be go-time, her a-game.

“Anne, can you push me that satchel?”

“Sure thing, Marce.” With ease, Anne somehow lugged a chair-sized bag over to where Marcy was, and they remained silent afterward as she finished the remainder of preparations.

What preparations? Well, the kind that remained out of her league.

“Sooo, where are ya’ going, exactly?” Anne asked. She had the same perturbed look to her ever since she whiffed the scents from the bag itself.

Marcy couldn’t help but rub her neck, not knowing how well to respond. “Well, I’ve been planning to scout an area somewhere high up in the Southern sect of Amphibia. I got wind that some bandits plan to use a route to jump ambassadors from here and there on the pathways, and I just wanted to make sure that doesn’t happen again, you know?"

“For sure, dude. I mean, you are the boss after all. That stuff’s gotta be pretty important if you’re getting loads of homework for it.”

“Well,” Marcy puckered her lips. She was right in some sense. Chief rangers plopped themselves into some high category up in the Newtopian ranks. It made sense. “Correct, kinda. I don’t really call it a boss position, more so a job. A very fun job, actually. You’d be surprised at how many prefer office desks to infantry, it’s nuts.”

Although, the more she thought about it, being able to stay safe in a big ole’ cube than getting skewered by bandits did sound appealing. Less probability for harm, sure. But Marcy loved the hunt way too much for her own good.

If Andrias gave her another objective, she might as well do a little dance at this point; there was always something exciting to partake in.

And with Joe, the fun always doubled with him.

At least, until she remembered that Anne had been staring at her, snapping her fingers in front of Marcy’s nose. “Marbles, you good? Another zone-out moment again?”

“Oh yeah, definitely. Thanks, I was about to get worried, the internal dialogue I had was getting way too extensive for my taste."

"Well, now that you’re out of your internal dialogue stuff, I got to ask.” Anne peered at Joe again. “Can I get on your bird?”

Marcy blinked at her. “Oh. Of course. You don’t really need to ask me if you’re curious about riding him.”

“I know, but he’s a big softie, really wanted to make sure I got your permission before anything else.” She coughed. “Plus I’m not gonna take any vehicles without permission. Tried that once. Didn’t go so hot.”

Somehow, Marcy found herself giggling. She couldn’t pinpoint why; Anne’s honesty must’ve just been that funny. “Well, if you want to jump on the SS Joe Sparrow, I’d be happy to show you around and get you a front-row ticket to some action.”

“For real?” Anne beamed, only for her expression to melt into a frown, scratching her chin at the thought. “Aren’t you on ranger duty though?”

Okay, she had a point there. “I mean, yeah, but I’ve mainly done this stuff solo. Sure I’ve got Joe to accompany me but it’ll be interesting to have a second person on board for the ride.” Without a skip in her beat. “And why wouldn’t I have you go with me? Of course, I would. You’re always the best on road trips.”

And with that, Anne’s smile grew tenfold. Oddly beautiful. Oddly hard to describe. Weirder to even have herself think those things in the first place. “Count me in, then. Let’s go, Marbles!”

Oh well. She’d think about that later.

---

Joe softened his landings in-between. And at certain points, when the mountains dipped to valleys he rocketed around and buffeted the gales just for the heck of it. He had the heart of a little kid sometimes, every moment he swooped through some current or plummet forward if he got the chance. He liked to make himself seem so grand when he cheeped. And Marcy confided in the idea that no matter how aged this sparrow would become, he’d still be the softest avian around.

Always there. Always playful. Always…eager for potential mates. He was the total package for best mount in all of Amphibia, and Marcy didn’t want it any other way.

So with Anne, Marcy became delighted when Joe kept that same kindness. It wasn’t just Marcy doing rough landings against solid ground or her zipping through the air. There were two people, two people to consider on the back of his saddle.

And Joe never disappointed her. He pivoted, swerved on command, and coaxed giggles from the girl behind her, whose arms pressed tightly to her waist until their hair puffed out from the wind.

“Keep your arms locked in, Annie B!”

Marcy’s hands whipped the reins, whooping at the top of her lungs when the dive pushed oceans of air into their faces.

The straps and belts dug into their laps when Joe pulled up, braced them in a loop-de-loop that had their eyes rolling when they finally exited out to a steady level.

And Marcy could hear the laughter behind her.

The laughter spoke of so much joy and happiness, of a symphony that Marcy had heard so many times before, and Marcy leaned into her warmth when they passed from the hallowed groves to the shimmering Newtingale creaks.

All throughout the Southern sect, all throughout the faint rattle of Marcy’s heart.

---

The ride home had been a lot darker than Marcy expected. For most of her trips in and out of the valleys, a lot of her path-finding culminated in something one could describe as an adventure. If one described her and Anne beating up an entire bandit group disguised as a clown posse to be an adventure, then yes. That was what happened.

They went head-to-head, toe-to-toe. All while decked out in white makeup and smelly rotten clown noses. This all sounded ridiculous, but out in Amphibia, one should never ever underestimate a theatre group.

For entertainment was their cruelest weapon.

Anne had been the first to ambush the bandits during the mission. With the agile reflexes of a cat, she deflected each oncoming slash with ease while Marcy took aim, calculated her crossbow trajectory until the enemies all knocked unconscious in the mud.

If one ignored the clown get-up, then what she talked about seemed like a typical day for Marcy. Always saving someone. Always doing her best. Always making sure no newts got chewed up by some toad or frog dressed up in rogue wear.

But the difference today was that she had someone to accompany her. Or how that same someone jumped onto Joe and gave that feisty bird a few scratches to his feathers, trying to wash her face in the water bucket they stored earlier today.

It all seemed domestic-like. The kind that Marcy dreamed about in fantasy stories, where the protag had a close ally to travel the world until their dying breaths.

And gosh, it was so cool that Anne became that friend.

She seemed to enjoy it too, what with the close embrace when they finally took off for the night, her chin propped on her cloaked shoulder, or the fact her exhales drifted in crisp Amphibian air.

A sign that she was enjoying everything. Everything from the swoop of Joe’s wings, the purple haze of the night, or how the moon cloaked their forms in red lighting — masking the landscape in darkness like a blanket over bedding.

Anne sighed contently. Her face nestled close to Marcy’s neck. She didn’t show that she regretted being here.

Not one bit.

“I’ve never been this high up before,” she mumbled. “The only times I did were when some creature flung me up into the middle of nowhere.”

Marcy hummed to that. Anne's fingers ghosted the triceps of Marcy's arms, left goosebumps to form and bristle in the cold, it made everything feel weird. Comfortable. Safe. “So is this less traumatizing and more exciting then?”

“Oh yeah, definitely.” Her voice rang, all charmed and sweet. “By a long shot.”

And Marcy was glad about that. Ever since she found Joe, a lot of her adventures had gotten easier to deal with. From zooming over to the Dry Swamp to the many forests hidden deep underneath solid canopies, one of the many pros of having a steed like Joe was of the view.

A view that made scouting ten times easier. The kind that entangled her in clouds, the song of avians, and the dance of the breeze. The kind that chilled her nose, left cumulus droplets on her thumbs, and when she settled down from grazing the upper layers of oxygen her body’s equilibrium warmed her up like it always intended to.

To have Anne feel that same experiences — the same elation — made the trip all the more worth it. Especially when Marcy’s skin grew warmer under non-equilibrium circumstances. All due to the cuddly contact.

Oh, Anne.

“If you want, I know a froggy pitstop nearby that sells slushies twenty-four-seven,” Marcy said softly. Joe went into a descent, already maneuvered by Marcy’s quick hands at the reins. They weren’t going to land yet. At least until Anne said so. “Wouldn’t hurt to take in the view on a full stomach.”

“That sounds amazing.” Anne pressed closer, and Marcy tried not to think about the murmur, how low it rumbled against Marcy’s ear. Gosh, she must be really relaxed by now. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m ready for some grub.”

“Well, they aren’t really grubs more like a mish-mash of every insect on the palette.”

“I try not to think about it.”

With laughter escaping them, Marcy directed Joe into the forest space below, her heart synced with the beat of sparrow wings.

#amphibia #marcanne #annarcy #Finally it's its own standalone fic #anne boonchuy #marcy wu #I mainly just placed this stuff in the drabbles comp but I loved this one too much that I had to clean it up #I FORGOT TO PUT THE MARGINS

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shyrose57 · 3 years

Note

Thank you other anon for wishing me well!! That means a lot to me!

He does but Raq doesn't actually know Rans backstory. So he doesn't know Ran has siblings. He just assumes his mom either died or abandoned him due to finding Ran completely alone and being a hybrid. Before Ran would just scream at Raq in Enderian, now both Raq and Ran scream at eachother in it. Jackie describes it as, "A screaming match to assert dominance."

Yep, his body was already straining itself to fend off the posion and the teleporting ended up straining him more than he could handle. So as soon as he teleported them he collapsed and wasn't able to even stand.

That just made me imagine them digging down only to look up and see Phil clambering down after them like a mole.

After he made a scavenger hunt made out of everyone else's items. Phil found his axe in a destroyed tree trunk and Ran found his sword buried in the ground. While Sapnap found his bow hidden behind stones and Jackie was never able to find his particularly because Ranboo forgot where he hid it.

Yes, although its very rough.

Porkius is very very suprised and needs time to come to turns with them being there. While Porkius reacts well to Techno, Techno does not like Porkius and has threatened to punch him a few times and one time he followed through and punched him hard enough to make him fall to the ground.

Definitely.

---------------------

Ranboo is still his ancestor! Ran feels mostly confused, startled, scared, and oddly a bit comfortable. Phil makes him feel comfortable because he reminds him so much of Watson who was a very close and comforting figure to him. But Techno kind of scares him cause while Porkius was kind to him he was also strict, so he's afraid Techno will be stricter and mean just due to how he looks. He also just kinda ignores Ranboo at first because he can't handle the fact he's looking at his now alive ancestor.

Not really I'd say, even though they all have different enderman percentces, they have the same instincts. Though due to Ranboos memory problem, his memory of enderman culture is almost non-existent, and instead presents itself through his instincts. If any of that makes sense?

Karl is terrified upon seeing Ran, as soon as he even hears he's here he immediately drops what he's doing and after a few questions runs off to find and confront him. Tubbo is incredibly fascinated by Ran and at first he respects Ran's boundaries and stays away from him, but as soon as Ran is walking around outside and exploring the surrounding environment, he sees that as the perfect opportunity to bombard Ran with questions. Eret (who I like to headcanon is like a medic and knows a lot more about medicine than most), doesnt comment at first and is instead focused on helping him, but after he learns more about Ran, he is fascinated by him but takes time to get to know Ran and work on making a friendship with him. No one else, not even Michael knows about Ran being there, though they do eventually find out.

A multitude of reasons 1. He landed wrong and ended up breaking an arm and cracking two ribs due to the sudden stop. 2. He isn't used to traveling through time so time travel had the affect of making him very sick, including headaches and nausea. 3. When he was dragged into the timetravel a match in the Pit just ended and he had a few bruises and cuts that hadn't been taken care of yet, so the travel and harsh landing just aggravated them and re-opened some. 4. The harsh landing ended up also giving him a concussion.

When Ran is finally consciousness enough he refuses to speak in anything other than Enderian. At first Phil and Techno are scared he can't speak nor understand their language. But Edward steps in and tells them he can both understand and speak it he just doesn't want to necessarily. So Edward does the communication with Ran on their behalf, he also takes the time to comfort and help him come to terms with him being there. Edward is also the one to gently push/convince Ran to actually speak to them.

Agreed, uh, maybe From Future to Past? Idk.

------------------------

I already have a name for this au thankfully, Tip of the Iceberg AU. (Also I wanna say real quick not every single character in the Dream SMP or Tales From The SMP will be featured in this au because it's just to many characters for me to keep track of, it'll mostly be characters I feel like I understand if that makes sense)

They end up everywhere, the Bandits end up in Las Nevadas and end up robbing the place before they bolt, running with no real direction in mind. Zack and Cletus end up just outside of Las Nevadas but they run off into the woods once they hear yelling inside the country. Isaac, Porkums, and Grievous end up in Kinoko Kingdom. Ran lands in Erets castle and accidentally breaks a window from his entrance. Jackie, Jon Jon, and Sheriff Sherman end up in Pogtopia but manage to get out (expect Jackie who is stuck and they can't get him out so they actually left for help). Benjamin lands into the ocean around the Guardian farm. Ranbob also lands near the Guardian farm but instead on land. Charles and Watson land somewhere nearby Foolish's summer home. Ranbulter and James get dropped onto Tommys Memorial Island. And Ash lands in Snowchester. (Note I believe these will be all the tales characters I'll be mostly using, but if any get added I'll probably mention where they also ended up).

Something important though is that almost no one stayed where they landed, Ran ran off into the surrounding forest so he could focus on regathering himself and calm down without worrying about getting attacked, Benjamin just randomly picks a direction to go (North) and ends up picking up Ranbob to join him. John John and Sherman went different directions to look for help; the Kinoko Kingdom group argues before finally Porkums and Grievous head off together having elected to follow the oceans edge (they think the Kingdom is abandoned and think following the ocean will eventually lead them to a city or something), while Isaac calls them stupid and stays around the Kingdom, exploring and taking stuff; and Charles and Watson just kinda walk around though stay in the general area. Anyone I did not mention stays where they landed or is close to where they landed. SOMETHING IMPORTANT THOUGH IS THAT NONE OF THEM GET DIRECTLY SEEN BY ANY SMP MEMBERS RIGHT AWAY, its only found out what happened when Quackity accuses Fundy of stealing from him which he heavily declines. And instead says that he saw others riding out of the country so it must've been them (he saw them from a distance), and their descriptions are enough to unnerve Karl who then goes back to Kinoko Kingdom to look at his Tales from the SMP books where he runs directly into Isaac and realizes what he feared is true.

Once Karl gets confirmation that people from both the past and future are here he immediately calls an emergency meeting and just tells everyone almost immediately that he's a time traveler so it doesn't become a problem later, they don't believe him but Isaac is kind enough to help convince them. Soon everyone is convinced and while everyone is included only a few are actually part of a active search party. Those people being Techno, Phil, Ranboo, Tubbo, Foolish, Quackity, Sam, Eret, Bad, and of course Karl. Everyone else is assigned to just keep a eye out. Not everyone is in the party because they didn't want to be or they had other stuff to be doing.

He explains the In-between and Other Side but other than that they never really interfere, if anything he gets dragged into both sides when sleeping and the two sides both push him to find everyone and fix it all.

Jackie, as per usual, is the funniest gremlin on the block.

Poor Ran!! At least he gets some rest?

Absolutely terrifying image, I pity the poor fool who witnesses it.

Pfft. Can you just imagine the chaos? Half the time it's probably just caused by his memory issues. Prank war a few weeks ago? Ranboo forgets the traps he put up, and everyone ends up with brightly colored hair, and a large amount of rabbits in their house, and he;s standing right there with them trying to figure out who did it.

It's something, so I'll take it!

Technoblade: Nearly starting wars since...uh, whenever he spawned in, I'm not really sure of the details there.

Good.

-----------------

So Ran is aware Ranboo is his ancestor? Does he have the same backstory as Brothers AU!Ran?

Does this mean Ranboo is working solely on instincts when around other Endermen or Ran? How does that work out?

And since Enderwalk has all his memories, what are Ran's encounters with him like? Is he aware of Enderwalk state, or was that lost to time? Where do their instincts lead them? Does Ranboo get a bit more hesitant towards Ran when he's leaning more on them? Or is he more open and welcoming? Can he tell Ran shares his blood?

Confrontation? Uh oh, how does that go? Especially considering Ran's possibly the only one to have a vague idea of Karl's hobby? Does it end up coming out?

How does Ran feel about having Tubbo constantly ask questions? Is Tubbo just curious, or is he trying to figure things out? Does this mean Ran ends up in Snowchester, or does Tubbo head to the Antarctic? Medic Eret?? What kind of relationship do they have with Techno and Phil to get called in and come to their aid? How do Eret, Karl, and Tubbo learn of him, if this is being kept hush-hush, and why is it being kept such?

Poor Ran, he's really gotten the short end of the stick here. So time traveling can negatively effect those not used to it/built for it? Does Karl suffer similarly?

And Edward speaks Common, then? Also, Edward!! Is he still Techno's roommate here? Does he have a little nearby area? Or does he head back to the End when he's not hanging around? Has he been helping Ranboo as well?

Sounds good!

-------------------------

Gotcha, gotcha.

The fact that the bandits first instinct upon appearing in a strange new place with no prior warning is to rob it brings me great joy. How does that go for them? How far do they get, what do they steal?

Cletus & Zack: Dunno who you are or where I am, but I don't like the sound of that, so lets bolt.

Issac, Porkums, and Grievous actually don't sound like a chaotic combination, so they probably don't cause too much trouble.

Poor Eret. Imagine just trying to enjoy your day and coming back in to see your window broken.

Jon Jon and Sherman with Jackie just sounds really funny actually. The blatant contrast from time periods and all, and Jackie's pure chaotic energy...Also, they'd both be so much taller than him. Why was he stuck though? What happened?

Another question is, at what point was everyone tossed back? Long after Karl had left, before meeting him, in the middle? Is it different for some? How do those who've met him before react? Why does Isaac believe Karl, and how does he help convince the others?

Who's found first? What happens then? Is anyone hurt? What are both sides definition of 'fixing it all', and how does being dragged in between the two effect Karl?

#Brothers AU #dream smp #dream smp au #From Future To Past AU #Tip Of The Iceberg AU #tales from the smp #karl jacobs #ranboo #tubbo #technoblade

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tfw-no-tennis · 3 years

Text

the animorphs continues, david trilogy style

here we are...we finally arrived....the david triology

I did remember a good amount of these books from when I read these when I was like 11. but I also forgot a lot an hooooly shit

WHERE TF DO I EVEN START. so that shit slapped obvs. it really felt like the series has been leading up to this - all the characters have had to make really difficult no-correct-answers decisions, and it leads up to this - the ultimate shitty situation with absolutely no good, clear solutions, and everyone gets to contribute to the awful conclusion!

one thing that really stood out to me is that with David's inclusion as this kind of ‘outsider’ within the group, even though none of it was from his POV, we still get a huge sense of the animorphs being an extremely well-oiled team, who all know and trust each other very well - especially w/Jake as the leader - Jake has to make a lot of decisions in these books but the other animorphs always listen to him

this all probably didn’t help David, who was already thrown into a completely crazy situation, and who now has to deal w/this group of kid superheroes who work very well together. it also doesn't help that David doesn't really try to find his place on the team

anyways I love how much wild shit happens in animorphs always. like they try to steal the blue box as birds and then David chases them off w/a bb gun? and then they end up in this huge alien showdown with visser 3 and his troops in David's house? batshit

also the hilariously 90s part w/the email...lmao. like its the 90s so there's no way to shut off the automatic email remotely, they HAVE to go to David's computer, and they also can just unplug it...lmao they should've just taken out the phone lines tbh

also I completely forgot about the whole plot w/the world leaders meeting and the yeerks and stuff. that really served to ramp up the tension and also make it obvious that David was an outsider as he consistently fucked things up then played it off

also KAA did a masterful job of making David juuuust a little sympathetic in book 20, but still Off enough that you're like ehhhh I don't know about this guy...then he goes full awful creep and it becomes obvious that there’s no way they’ll be able to let him stick around in any capacity

the bit where David kills the crow for no reason is the first Real indication that this is gonna go seriously wrong. but even before all that, his conversations w/Marco gave me like, school shooter vibes

these books are full of some REALLY good tension. the whole end of book 21 was so tense - they've been gearing up for this mission for days now, and they’ve had to do some crazy stuff to get where they are, so the realization that it’s all a trap is completely chilling

and then when David tried to betray them to visser three...the gravity of that decision is unmistakable, because then the yeerks would find out that the animorphs are (mostly) human children, and they’d even know who they are, and that would be the end

I loved the part where David tries to act like he was just setting up an ambush w/his betrayal to the visser, and Jake immediately has everyone play along - and they do. earlier in the series someone - probably Rachel or Marco - likely would have ignored Jake bc of how slimy David was acting, but they've basically become a highly efficient military squad at this point, and it was a perfect slow slide into that over the last 20 books, and now is the time when the reader kinda realizes this (at least for me)

even if they don’t agree w/Jake and think they should just address the David problem right then and there, they all trust Jake as their leader to make that decision

also the fact that these are the first books to do the ‘to be continued’ thing rather than wrapping the plot up...it really made it feel all the more tense

in other books I normally look at the page count and go ‘ok so this conflict will be solved in this scene cause there are only 15 pages left’ (which is st I do a lot I now realize lmaooo I can pretty much gauge what’ll happen based on how many pages are left - and I do this when I read fanfic too, by looking at where the scroll bar is...anyways)

BUT w/these books its totally up in the air cause they can end anytime and just get continued next book, which makes it so much more tense imo

also I fucking loooove the part in book 21 where they’re hiding out with that little pool of yeerks - and I actually bookmarked some pages for these liveblogs, so I have quotes, this one from Jake -

‘There was something wrong about killing defenseless slugs. I was pretty sure about that.’

Oh, Jake, that opinion is gonna change someday....

it is a little ironic considering he jacuzzi’d those yeerks in like book 7 or w/e. but alas its still a fantastic line that serves to show in the end how much things have changed

also I love that the decision not to kill those defenseless yeerks end up helping them later - the yeerks check the pool bc they’re so certain that if the andalite bandits HAD snuck in, they surely would have killed the helpless yeerks. but they didn’t, so that means the andalite bandits didn't sneak in....

I like when the characters do a morally good thing and are then rewarded by the narrative for it - it’s pretty rare in this series, where there are usually NO morally correct choices (such is life) or they’re actively punished for making a ‘good’ decision (one could argue that the decision to make David an animorph instead of letting him become a controller was a morally good decision, but it had dire consequences).

Ok and the part I have to talk about w/these books of course - everything w/Rachel. bc damn Rachel really goes through it in this trilogy. I absolutely LOVE the character development she gets, and I especially enjoyed the way her and Jake's relationship was developed

anyways, one of the best and most fucked up quotes of the series, from Jake’s POV in book 21 -

<Ax? I think Tobias is dead,> I said. <I think David killed him.> <That would be a most terrible thing,> Ax said. <Yeah. Get Rachel. If David’s killed Tobias, we may have to do a terrible thing, too. Get Rachel.>

AUGHHHHH fucking chills I swear. also eternal love for them saying dead/killed/etc and never shying away from it. it really wouldn't have the same impact if they used the normal kid-safe PG words

but yeah Jake asking for Rachel when he thinks that they may have to hunt down and kill David? phewwww.

and the significance of this is never downplayed. this essentially confirms that Jake sees Rachel as the one who is willing and able to do the dirty work - and specifically in this case, it’s also likely bc it was Tobias who was ‘killed’ and he knows how Rachel feels about Tobias

but like, that’s so fucked up, I love it. they give this situation the exact amount of weight it requires - ch1 of book 22 has this part from Rachel -

‘If David had hurt Tobias, I would... But what was the point in making threats? I didn't need to make threats. I knew what I would do. So did Jake. That’s why he’d sent Ax for me.’

at first, it seems like Rachel is on the same page as Jake, but when it becomes clearer later that Jake sent Ax specifically to get Rachel bc she could do the terrible thing that had to be done - instead of just bc they needed reinforcements and she was closest - then things change

but even when Rachel gets rightfully upset later over this, you get the sense she still never really sees any option other than to kill David. it’s not even the ‘killing David’ part that upsets her, it’s that Jake, her cousin, immediately thinks of her as the person to do the deed

so, another fantastic quote from Rachel -

‘Tobias was dead. Jake might still die. And I was going to have to go after David. I was going to have to hunt him down. I was going to hunt him down and destroy him. No, not destroy. That was a weasel word. It was vague, meaningless. I was going to kill him.’

fucking WOW. like really. that bit right there is just perfect quintessential dark animorphs. it just subverts the classic kid-friendly phrasing, using words like ‘hunt down’ and ‘destroy’ instead of kill. But Rachel says it like it is. she’s not going to destroy David, she’s going to kill him.

But then a few pages later, after Ax tells her the quote where Jake asks for her specifically -

‘It definitely made me feel strange. Jake had called for me specifically. Because he wanted someone who would do precisely what I was planning to do. Like I say, I’m not big on feelings, but something about that felt wrong.’

I say it a lot but wow do these kids need So Much Therapy. these are like...8th graders. jesus christ. when I was in 8th grade I was busy planning sims-playing get-togethers w/my fellow 13 year old friends. christ animorphs

and fuck, the part where Rachel threatens David’s family, and shoves a fork in his ear? jesus. and the fact that Jake knew that Rachel was going to threaten David and let her go do it...

and then afterwards, Rachel says -

‘I felt...not exactly ashamed. But I knew I never wanted to talk to Cassie about what I’d just told David. Or Tobias. Or even Marco.’

I'm gonna make some leaps here but I think it’s really interesting that Rachel even mentions Marco here, and says ‘or even Marco.’ like, the ‘even’ seems to imply that Marco would otherwise be somebody she WOULD talk to about something like this.

which...kinda tracks, tbh. Marco is Mr Ruthless, he’s a cold, pragmatic strategist when he isn’t cracking jokes as a coping mechanism. it makes sense that Rachel would talk to him about things like this - he would make jokes, but he’d also understand

I'm just so interested in all the highly varying dynamics that exist within the group okay

and then right after Rachel says -

‘But I swear at that moment I hated Jake far more than I did David. I should have told them all what had happened. But Jake already knew, didn’t he? Jake, the smart, determined leader, already knew all about me.’

that's fucking daaark okay. It paints this picture of Jake having become this master manipulator who knows all about Rachel’s violent tendencies and is using them to his full strategic advantage

Oh my god okay and then all the stuff w/Saddler, christ. I had completely forgotten about that plotline but there was so much fucked up stuff there, too

and the scene where Rachel gives some good life advice to her little sister, and it’s a good bit to remind the reader and characters of the world outside of animorphs conflict...and then David speaks up.

that was such brutal mood whiplash, when you realize that David is morphed and hidden in Rachels room somewhere...fucking chilling

that whole scene just oozes disgusting creepiness. David’s fixation on Rachel specifically, and his rage at being ‘bested’ by her, really feels like misogyny to me. while David butted heads w/Marco, you never got the same sense of anger and disgust that he displays towards Rachel.

and the line where he says ‘hey, enjoy your shower’ made me shudder in disgust. christ. there are a lot of revolting, dark implications there.

also, book 22 obviously does a ton of fantastic character work for Rachel, but it does the same for Jake, too. and Cassie, but ill get to that later

we get to see so much of Jake as a leader and a strategist here, and pitting him and Rachel against each other (so to speak) makes for some excellent characterization, like when Rachel starts questioning why he asked for her -

“I thought David had killed Tobias. I thought he might kill me. I wanted...firepower.” “I see. You wanted me for my morphs.” It was a good answer. It could have almost been true.

and then we get a brief pit stop at the children's hospital where the fucked up parade continues - David morphed Saddler, Rachel and Jake’s injured/dying young cousin, and is pretending to be him, miraculously recovered from his accident

and meanwhile he DUMPED THE REAL SADDLER’S BODY DOWN AN ELEVATOR SHAFT. I literally cant, what the FUCK.

and they never really follow up on it but the whole family and all the Drs think its this miraculous recovery against all odds, but then obviously David disappears and therefore so does Saddler - do they ever find his real body? how completely fucked up that must have been - so much worse than if saddler had just died from his injuries - the miraculous recovery completely overturned by a bunch of stuff that doesn’t even make sense to anybody except Jake and Rachel....

anyways, after all that completely fucked up bullshit, we have the Jake and Rachel confrontation, Jake’s whole speech about Rachel is amazing, but here are my highlights -

“I think you’re the bravest member of the group. I think in a bad fight I’d rather have you with me than anyone else. But yeah, Rachel, I think there’s something pretty dark down inside you. I think you’re the only one of us who would be disappointed if all this ended tomorrow.”

I mean, christ. imagine your fellow 13 year old cousin saying this to you. oh MAN. and I love so much that Jake isn’t wrong, but he also is? he understands what Rachel will do, but not why she’s doing it. and I talked abt it before but Rachel has found herself in this box of ‘the brave/reckless blood knight,’ and feels pressure to live up to that reputation.

so how much of it is a façade that she puts on bc she’s expected to, and how much of it is how she really feels? well, she got that reputation initially for a reason, but she gets pushed more and more in that direction as the series progresses, both bc of the unintentional pressure to live up to her role as the Xena of the group, and bc it’s really, really useful to have somebody like Rachel on your side

Then Rachel says -

‘I tried to look at myself the way Jake saw me. Was it true? Did I love this war?’

I'm gonna lose it, these poor fucking middle schoolers. Rachel, listen, you’re 13, you’re a child soldier, of course you don't love the war you’re fighting...I need every child therapist on the block to come here right now

like jesus being 13 is hard enough without all this nonsense. it’s such a tenuous time in development, and add something like this - someone like Rachel, who is somewhat pigeonholed by society as ‘vapid, pretty blonde who loves to shop’ would of course flourish in an environment where she gets to show how much of a 3-dimensional Person she is - she can love shopping and also kick ass! nice! but also, like, trauma.

So then Rachel says this about Jake -

“Jake, you’re a leader now. You make life-and-death decisions. All the time. You’ve learned to do that. And,” I added bitterly, “you’ve learned to use people. You use them for their strengths and their weaknesses.”

Fucking read, wow. I feel like Rachel is absolutely correct here, if not simplifying things a lot. like, yes, Jake does make these unfathomable decisions on the regular, but he’s got tons of conflict over every single thing he does, and there was a lot of uncertainty and trial-and-error leading up to this. but she is correct that he’s learned, and is clearly a lot more comfortable in his role as a military leader now.

I just love the contrast these two have. Rachel, with the burden she carries as the bravest - the fighter of the team, who must be relied on in battle and to do the things that nobody else will do - and Jake, the leader, who has to make decisions knowing that he could get his friends killed at any time, and still trust that they’ll listen.

And then Jake says -

“But everyone draws their own line[...] For example, see, I used to think my line was drawn at using my friend, my cousin, to do my dirty work. Guess that turned out not to be true. Sorry, Rachel.”

And then they hug and vow to murder David together, as a team. Heartwarming cousin bonding! Again, so much therapy.

So yeah I love that scene. especially when you take into consideration Rachel’s ultimate fate, and Jake’s part in it. excuse me while I go weep.

Anyways, to the end. THE ENDING....it gets me every time. I’ll never be over it. I don’t remember much about animorphs from when I read it at age 11 but I really really remember the ending to book 22. The way they masterfully set David up, the rat morph, the pipes, THE LEGO, the reveal that they planned the entire thing, the moment when David realizes what’s going to happen to him....oof. It’s not something I could forget, even w/my notoriously horrible memory when it comes to media

Also I feel like there was more subtle misogyny when David insists on humiliating/subjugating Rachel, just because she proved earlier that she was stronger and smarter and better than him...eugh David is just such a disgusting creep that you don’t even end up feeling bad for him even though he’s a middle schooler being handed a fate worse than death. I mean, he tossed a dead/dying kid’s body down an elevator shaft in a children's hospital. I’m pretty sure he deserves this.

And here’s the part where I talk about Cassie. because even though she didn’t get a POV book in the David trilogy, she still got some brutally fantastic character development. here we see David starting to realize what’s happening -

‘Cassie was crying. David hadn't asked who the mastermind of the plan was. Who it was who had so accurately appraised his emotions, his need to build his ego, the fact that he would choose me to be his “companion.” Cassie, of course. Cassie had worked it out, step by step, after Jake and I had failed to come up with anything. For Cassie, it was an improvement over the alternatives. See, no one was going to have to die. But David’s life would end, just the same.’

CASSIE. The dark horse, except not really, bc this is perfectly in line with what we know about her, especially coming off book 19, her last POV book before this. in that book she makes some absolutely awful decisions, all to avoid having to kill somebody.

After all of Jake and Rachel’s badass vows to take David down, it’s Cassie who finds the solution.

To a lot of people, David’s fate could be considered worse than death. To Cassie, it’s a better alternative. That speaks volumes about her, and I love it.

Also, the MANIPULATION. Cassie in the David trilogy really gets to flex her interpersonal manipulation skills, which I love to see. It’s such a fascinating aspect of her character; a really interesting use of empathy

Like the scene in book 20 where David freaks out as a roach and she manipulates him into not giving them away by pitting him against Marco, someone who David doesn’t get along with, by saying ‘if Marco can do it, can’t you?’ because she knows he’ll fall for it. And he DOES.

And then the part in the cafeteria where she basically plays the ‘good cop’ to everyone else in the group’s ‘bad cop.’ Not ONLY does she manage to get David to shut up and listen to her, she also posits her theory that he wants to blue box to trade it for his parents - which his reactions to her questions confirms as true. and nobody else in the group suspected this.

She lures him into a sense of security by talking kindly and quietly about how she understands how he feels, then hits him with what she knows and gets him to confirm it, which then allows Rachel to accurately threaten him.

And then Cassie, offscreen, comes up with the entire plan on how to trap David as a rat, because from the beginning she had him figured out. David didn’t pay much attention to Cassie - more misogyny tbh, as Cassie is the girl on the team who isn’t an aggressive, feminine blonde - and that ended up being a huge reason for his downfall.

David also didn’t pay much attention to Tobias, and clearly didn’t see him as human at all, and that made Tobias very valuable after David assumed he had killed Tobias.

Ok, back to the ending - the fact that it was Rachel and Ax who stayed there to wait the two hours for David to become a nothlit....

Rachel says -

‘Jake’s a good leader. He knows when to use us. He knows when to protect us. He knew he had to protect as many of his people as he could from what was going to happen.’

fucking brutal. TWO HOURS of listening to this awful kid beg and threaten and barter. I can’t even imagine.

And Ax too! He gets overlooked a lot as an alien, and it’s probably true that all of this impacts him differently than the other human animorphs, it can’t be in any way pleasant to have to sit there for two hours and act as a living timer to count down this kid’s life. Ax is a kid, too, and an isolated one at that, being the only Andalite on the team.

So yeah that scene is awful. Rachel even says -

‘Two hours. But that two hours of horror will last forever in my mind. If I live a hundred years, I will still hear his cries, his threats, his pleading, each night before sleep takes me. And beyond sleep, in my dreams.’

I know I’m beating a dead horse here, but jesus christ, THEY NEED SO MUCH THERAPY. The fact that one of the constants in all of the POVs is the nightmares that all the animorphs consistently have....geez

Okay so I know in my last two liveblogs I ended them by comparing animorphs to another series - hxh and mtmte - but I honestly am drawing a blank for this...

I guess the only thing I can think of is to compare it to mob psycho 100, which is another very good, very subtly subversive series

In mp100, the entire Point is that the very powerful psychic middle schoolers DON’T end up using their powers to fight life-or-death battles against adult enemies in order to save the world and whatnot. the Point is that that’s fucked up, and these kids shouldn’t be responsible for something like that, no matter how powerful they are

and basically the character who says all that is Reigen, an adult who actively prevents the middle schoolers from joining what would be some very traumatizing fights

basically my point here is less to compare the two shows and more to say - the poor animorphs could really use a Reigen huh. like, they seriously need an adult who’ll step in and say ‘wait a second, these kids are doing WHAT? hold the fucking phone, no way, get some actual adults in here to solve this shit. not today!’

the closest they could've come to an adult figure in their lives is Elfangor and he dies like 5 minutes after giving them superpowers, soooo....

man mp100 slaps I should rewatch it. anyways yeah the theme of this post is ‘the animorphs need therapy and also a stable adult figure in their lives to help them not get traumatized all the time’ thank you for coming to my ted talk

#this is like a whole ass thesis lmao i have quotes and everything look at that #lj reads animorphs #had to fix that tag bc it used to say 'read' instead of 'reads' smfh #animorphs

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officialleehadan · 4 years

Text

Intelligensia

Hello darlings! I hope you're all staying safe if you're in the haze of all the fires. I've definitely been hiding inside a lot!

Today's story was brought to you by Arcanist Lupus! It's always a delight to see your comments, darling. Thank you so much for your support!

Prompt: Fluffy's Master Plan for World Domination with extra points for the Beast in question not being a cat!

+++

(Day eight hundred and sixty-four of my incarceration. The Human seems to be growing incautious of my daily attempts to escape.)

Isabis casually walked past the huge, floor to ceiling cage housed one of the shelter’s cleverest and most aggressive residents. On her way, she spared a glance at the lock, and pretended not to notice the way the stunning African Grey parrot inside had bitten most of the way through the latch that held the door shut.

She kept telling the head keeper that they needed a metal lock for him. Unfortunately, Hasani was far too clever for anybody’s good, and reliably managed to look cute and harmless whenever anyone inspected his cage for security. Isabis did her best with what she had, but it was hard to convince anyone of the parrot’s evil nature without admitting that she could speak to him. Well, not speak, exactly, but she could hear his thoughts. She could, in fact, understand most birds, but none were as coherent as Hasani.

Or, as it happened, as determined to escape his imprisonment and take over the world.

She wasn’t even sure he could take over the world, but from what she had heard of his pans, she wasn’t about to call it an impossibility.

She didn’t want Hasani as an evil overlord, thanks. The wretched bird had a mean streak a mile wide. He had bit right through the heavy falconer’s glove the vet used the last time he had to be examined.

(I feel she may even become an ally. Certainly, she seems smarter than the rest of her wretched kind.)

Oh boy. The bird. The evil bird, wanted to recruit her.

Her life had gotten a lot weirder since she started hearing the birds. The only ones who knew she could hear them were the owls, but they thought everybody was beneath them or food, and weren’t going to tell any of the others.

She didn’t think she wanted the damn bird recruiting her, all things considered.

(Keep walking human. Keep walking and ignore the signs of my escape, and I may yet permit you to live)

Isabis really didn’t know how to take that. It certainly seemed directed at her, but it might also be nothing more than the bird’s frequently-malicious internal monologue.

(I know you can hear me.)

Not monologue.

“If you try to bite me while I change your water,” Isabis told him politely. “I’m going to change it with a hose tomorrow. You will get wet. I will make sure.”

(A threat? How novel.)

“Bite me and see if I’m bluffing, feather-duster.”

(There is no need for insults.)

“You gonna bite me?”

(Not today.)

Isabis watched him out of the corner of her eye as she cautiously opened the door of the cage. Hasani watched her, puffed and interested, but when he stayed politely on the far side of the cage, Isabis quickly swept out the bottom of his cage and changed his water. His cuttlefish bone was looking pretty thin, so she paused to replace it.

As a reward for good behavior, she pulled a whole handful of macadamia nuts, still in their shells, out of her pocket and left them on top of his food dish where he could crack them at his leisure.

(Always so thoughtful.)

“It’s bribery for good behavior. You don’t bite me, I make your life more comfortable. Square deal?”

(A better deal would to give me my freedom.)

“Not on the table.”

He hissed at her, but Isabis was already outside his cage and was much less cautious of him now that she could negotiate with the evil bird.

(I would improve your would immensely. Clearly, a great many countries need a strong claw on the reigns. I would be that claw.)

“You can see the staffroom TV from here, can’t you.”

(It’s not like you humans tell me what’s happening on the global stage!)

“I’m not letting you out.”

Hasani used to belong to a senator who, after his bird reputedly attempted to murder first his dog, and then his housekeeper, surrendered Hasani to the shelter for rehoming.

Hasani, of course, was nobody’s idea of a good pet, and had immediately made himself hated throughout the whole shelter. He was also, unfortunately, a protected species, and couldn’t be put down, despite his foul temper and vicious intent.

“Okay, time to make a deal, and remember that the only thing you have to bargain with is good behavior,” she offered, and leaned against the signpost that warned visitors not to put their fingers anywhere Hasani could get at them. “Since you know I can understand you, I will listen to reasonable requests regarding your cage.”

(My prison cell, you mean?)

“You are a bird. This is a cage. You would have a bigger, nicer cage if you would stop biting your handlers.”

(I don’t want to be in a cage at all.)

“Yeah, your designs on ruling the planet aren’t exactly encouraging me to let you out. Also your species is super protected.”

(Fine. A deal. I want several hours of flight time every week, to be increased as you decide that humanity should really be culled for better health. In exchange, I will allow you, and only you, to see to my health and care in safety.)

It was probably the best deal she was going to get from the parrot.

“Fine. I’ll see about giving you flight time. While you get it, you can’t attack anyone, including other birds and humans, and you need to be good for your vet check in two weeks.”

(I see my choice of minions was well-founded. You drive a hard bargain. Very well. But I want to ride on your shoulder to the flight range.)

“You gonna bit me in the face?”

(Not for now.)

“That’s as good as I’m gonna get, isn’t it?”

(Yes.)

“Okay, fine. Give me a few hours. I need to finish my rounds and get clearance, but I’ll see if I can get permission to use the range this afternoon. Now, try not to terrify the public, and I’ll see you later.”

+++

Beastly Familiars:

Animals will be animals, no matter how intelligent. Sometimes animals will be… well… Beastly.

Nothing but Trouble

Bad to the Bone

Oil and Water

Master of All

Hunting Practice

Under the Desk, Up on the Bookcase

Mouse Hunters

Hooter

Bandit

In the Walls

Stone’s Throw

Fish Bucket

Caterwaul

Tilting at Windmills (Subscriber Only!)

Blue Rings and Crabs

Pounce (Free on Patreon!)

Fruity Fruit

Eyes Up

On Emerald Wings

Hood and Strike

Treachery Trouble (Subscribers Only!)

Golden Weaver

+++

More Stories!

+++

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ratisnotcrying · 3 years

Text

one day

Summary: Of course Merlin knew this day would come. As convincing as he was as the bumbling fool of a man servant, he was actually quite intelligent. So he knew that, one day, Arthur would find out that he had magic. But he didn’t prepare for it, he didn’t prepare because he still clung to the blind hope that maybe, just maybe, Arthur wouldn’t find out.

Or: I'm a sucker for Arthur-finds-out-fics and happy endings, so here we are.

Pairing: Merlin/Arthur

Warnings: none!!

Word count: 2.3K

A/N: this is crossposted on AO3 under the same title

~~~

Of course Merlin knew this day would come. As convincing as he was as the bumbling fool of a man servant, he was actually quite intelligent. So he knew that, one day, Arthur would find out that he had magic. But he didn’t prepare for it, he didn’t prepare because he still clung to the blind hope that maybe, just maybe, Arthur wouldn’t find out.

“I have to leave.” There was no room in Merlin’s voice for argument, but Gwaine was a stubborn bastard.

“Merlin, stop being such an idiot and listen to me,” Gwaine snapped, sitting on the bag Merlin was trying to pack, “Arthur will not have you executed - how could you think he would, after all this time, after everything you’ve been through together, why would he kill you? He loves you Merlin - you know this!”

“He doesn’t, not anymore, not after today. And as for why he would kill me, I don’t know, maybe the fact that I'm a warlock would incite him to personally hoist me onto a pyre and burn me himself!?” He cried hysterically before shoving Gwaine onto the floor so he could continue to pack.

“Fuck me, Merlin, you are aware we’re talking about Arthur, not his father? Actually, better question, have you had your memory wiped? Have you forgotten about the time he helped the druid boy escape? Have you forgotten about the multiple occasions he has disobeyed a direct order and risked his life for you, Merlin? Have you forgotten, or did I hallucinate you telling me all of this? He would not hurt you.” Gwaine stood again, grabbing Merlin by the shoulders and slamming him into his cupboard. He was angry with Merlin for thinking Arthur would do anything to hurt him, but he was even angrier with Arthur for allowing Merlin's imagination to run as wild as it was.

“You’re right, all of that is true - but you’re missing out the parts where he always, always ends up hating magic again. He hates magic, and he hates sorcerers, and he sat by whilst his father killed them, whilst his father killed innocent people! And now he is going to watch me burn, too!”

Gwaine took a step back. He had never seen Merlin like this. He had seen him stressed and tired and angry, but never had he seen Merlin so… hysterical, so completely full of fear. Merlin was shaking so hard that when he tried to tangle his fingers in his hair, he actually missed the first few times, his usually pale skin was blotchy and red, tear tracks highlighting the desperation that simmered beneath his skin. Merlin’s bedroom door creaked open and Lancelot slipped inside, closely followed by Gwen.

Lancelot took in the sight before him, the half packed bag on the bed and the broken, unrecognisable Merlin beside him.

“You’re leaving, then?” He said, arms crossed.

“Yes, he is, bloody fool. I’ve told him that he won’t be executed.” Gwaine said, rolling his eyes as Merlin went back to his bag.

“Merlin, how can we make you see? Arthur will not kill you. His love for you is stronger than his father’s beliefs about magic.” Gwen’s voice was panicked.

“No!” He shouted, taking a deep, calming breath when Gwen flinched, rubbed his hand over the small cut on his neck, and continued, “You were not there. You didn’t see how he reacted.”

~~~

It was supposed to be a simple hunting trip - perhaps thinking it was going to be a simple hunting trip was too much temptation for the universe, who just had to balls it all up. It had only been the two of them, just Arthur and Merlin, alone in the forest for a few days - it was meant to be relaxing, a moment of peace away from the hustle and bustle of the castle, and it had been.

Until today.

As Merlin and Arthur were packing up to return to Camelot, they heard the sound of twigs snapping, the official soundtrack for trouble. At first it seemed to be three, maybe four men sneaking up from the north - which they could handle, but, over the sound of Arthur’s sword being drawn, they could hear five, six, seven more. They were surrounded.

As the bandits moved closer, weapons raised and lips curling into a sneer, Merlin realised that this would likely be it. He would be the first to admit that Arthur was skilled, but even he was going to struggle. Merlin had to do something, otherwise they were both going to die here.

He flinched when they shouted, rushing forwards, and for a moment he wondered if Arthur would have laughed at him. Arthur managed to kill two of the bandits almost immediately, twisting from one the other in a move that would definitely have thrown Merlin's back out, before he was overpowered. A third had Merlin pinned to a tree. The remaining few were advancing on Arthur and-

This is it, he thought.

He raised his hand, took a breath and closed his eyes.

He had never realised how far his voice carried, how the foreign words rolled so naturally off his tongue, how, when spoken aloud for everyone to hear, they seemed to sound that little bit more magical. He never noticed until now, when the bandits had fallen to the leafy floor, dead, before Merlin had even finished the spell. Arthur stood before him, his sword hanging limply from his hand as he watched Merlin’s eyes fade from fiery gold.

“Arthur…” He began, but he didn’t know what to say. The look of betrayal on his face caused any coherent thought to die in his throat.

“You have magic?” Arthur breathed, shrugging helplessly. All Merlin could do was nod and watch as betrayal morphed into confusion, and then pure, unadulterated rage. Arthur lunged forwards, sword now held tightly in a white-knuckle grip, and, with his free hand, he slammed Merlin back into the tree, the sharp blade pressed painfully to his throat.

“Arthur. Please.” He blinked, eyes wide with shock. He had hoped Arthur would surprise him, spare him - but apparently he would have no such luck. He couldn’t very well lie his way out of it now - not that he would want to.

Arthur pressed the blade more firmly against his throat and Merlin tried desperately not to wince. He failed.

“Don’t be so pathetic. How could you betray me like this - after everything I’ve done for you?!” Arthur shouted, so close to his face he could feel spit land on his cheek.

“I’m sorry, my lord - I was going to tell you, I swear, I was just waiting for the right time. I wanted to sit down and talk to you about it, I was-”

“Enough!'' Arthur roared, taking a few steps back. Merlin immediately fell silent and averted his eyes. He used his sword to point to Merlin's horse. “You will leave. Immediately. When I return I do not wish to see you.”

Merlin may have fallen to his knees, had it not been for the tree behind him.

“Arthur, please, can we talk about this?” His voice cracked at the end, a few tears falling when he realised that Arthur wouldn’t even look at him. Merlin nodded and tried to blink away the tears before squaring his shoulders, mounting his horse and riding away.

~~~

The sound of Arthur’s door slamming open echoed through the whole castle, only no one heard because Morgana shouted louder.

“Arthur Pendragon what on earth is wrong with you?”

Arthur pinched the bridge of his nose so hard it’s a wonder it didn’t bruise.

“Please, Morgana, feel free to come in, make yourself at home.”

Morgana ignored him, choosing instead to stand toe-to-toe with him, staring him down with a look that would have made a weaker man cry.

“Explain to me why my Gwen has just visited me, in tears, I might add, because Merlin is leaving? How could you let this happen?”

“How could I do this? You have got to be joking. He has lied to me - he has lied to me every single day since we met, and you do not think I have a right to be angry?”

Morgana jabbed him in the chest. “Don’t you dare put words in my mouth. Of course you have the right to be angry, but you should not have left him in fear for his life - it’s heartless!”

“I have given him so much, Morgana, I have risked everything for him time and time again, and all along he has been lying to me. How do I know who he truly is? Magic is evil, Morgana, and those who use it are dangerous, and he has worked his way into my life, into my he-”

“Really?” She said, looking as though she had been slapped in the face. “Magic is evil? You do know it’s me that you’re speaking to, don’t you? The same, scared child who confided in you about bad dreams that seemed to predict the future, all those years ago? The same girl who you swore you would protect if Uther ever found out about my gift. If you put him to death, if you make him leave, it will be over my dead body.”

Arthur had the decency to look ashamed, finally averting his gaze, but he still didn’t look convinced. Morgana took a small step forward, her finger still pressed hard into his chest.

“If you kill Merlin, you will be killing the only person who has ever helped me.” She hissed. Arthur looked up in surprise.

“What do you mean he helped you?”

“The day he arrived in Camelot, he knew I had magic - I’m not sure how - but he committed himself to helping me learn, to helping me control my gift and to use it for good. He is a good man - you know he is a good man, he is your good man and he thinks that you are going to execute him.”

~~~

The other knights had joined Gwaine, Lancelot and Gwen in Merlin’s chambers and for a moment, all Merlin could think was how tiny his bed was, what with six fully grown adults squashed onto it. They had all tried, to varying degrees of failure, to convince Merlin that yes, he should stay and no, Arthur would not kill him.

Leon sighed. “Merlin, we have all known about your magic for some time now - you truly were obvious about it - but you must know that we would never let any harm come to you. If you believe nothing else we’ve said, you must believe that.”

“I do believe you. You are loyal friends, but your loyalty to the King, to Camelot, must come first. I must leave, I must leave so that you do not have to choose a side.” Gwaine clenched his fists and made to move, no doubt to try and shout some sense into Merlin, but Percival held him firmly around the waist.

Gwen rose and stood before him, her hand gripping his forearm, “Merlin, we may not agree with your decision, but we will support you.”

Merlin opened his mouth to thank her, but he was interrupted by Gaius’ door slamming open. Everyone jumped up - everyone except Gwaine, who fell off of Percival’s lap - and stood in front of Merlin, who was trembling again. Only a second later did Merlin’s door crash open, revealing a rather distressed Arthur.

Gwaine got up, planting himself firmly at the front of the group.

“He’s leaving. Let him do so in peace.” Gwaine looked as though he was physically restraining himself from killing Arthur with his bare hands.

“He’s not going anywhere. Not until I’m finished with him.” Arthur said calmly.

“No. I will not let you harm him.” Gwaine swung at Arthur, who ducked and pushed him into Lancelot, who hauled him back.

Merlin was still shaking, but there was a look in his eyes, not quite acceptance - perhaps he was just resigned.

“It’s okay. It’s okay, whatever the King has decided, he will have decided for the good of Camelot. I trust him to do what’s right.”

Arthur tried not to be offended by the skeptical looks he received, he really did, but he couldn’t help forcing the door closed on everyone the moment they left. Merlin kept his gaze fixed on the floor.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” He was surprised to find that his voice carried no bitterness, in fact there was an uncharacteristic tenderness lacing his words, and this, he thought, could be what caused Merlin to look at him, to really look at him and see that he wasn’t angry.

“I’m sorry, si- Arthur. I wish I had told you sooner, but you must understand why I didn’t - the danger it would have put me in.”

Arthur stepped forward cautiously and when Merlin made no move to distance himself, arthur placed his hand on merlin’s shoulder, just where it met his neck, and brushed his thumb gently over the thin cut there.

“You are an idiot, Merlin.” Arthur sighed, “ I do understand why you hid it - but you must know that I would never have killed you. Despite what my actions may sometimes suggest, things have changed since my father was king.”

“I know. Of course I know that; it’s down to me having made you less of a royal prat.” Merlin said with a cheeky grin, glad of the normality.

“I’m serious, Merlin. I would never hurt you, no matter what you did or said.” Merlin nodded, leaning into the hand that was still on his neck.

“Good.” Arthur moved his hands to Merlin's hips, pulling him in protectively. “Now how about we get rid of my knights, who are no doubt still at the door, and then you can tell me about all the times I missed your magic.” Merlin simply wrapped his arms around Arthur's neck.

“Come to think of it, a lot of falling branches seem to make sense now.”

#merlin #merlin/arthur #hurt/comfort #arthur finds out #morgana doesnt get radicalized by uther in this fic sorry

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vagrantblvrd · 4 years

Text

@rogueghost Tumblr’s still acting weird for me so I had to do the old DIY reply to your ask, but here you go. :D?

Oh, friend! There’s so much lore to Destiny that I haven’t kept up with myself because ~lazy. The AUs I’ve written are a mishmash of Destiny universe and ~artistic liberties on my part, so yeah.

(There’s an amazing video here about the lore thus far that I hope to watch One Day? But, again, lazy and lack of time to sit down to properly absorb it.)

Quick background on the games/Ghosts for those who don’t play the game/want to see me ramble on about A Thing:

The game tells us is the Traveler (giant white space orb/messiah/McGuffin showed up in our solar system which resulted in what’s called the Golden Age where human technology advanced like whoa. (But surprise, surprise, the Traveler was being pursued by an enemy referred to as the Darkness and things got messy for humanity, something that happened to several races that happened to run into the Traveler before us.)

There was an extinction level event several centuries before the events of the Destiny games called The Collapse when the Darkness caught up to it. The Traveler “died”, creating the Ghosts as it did to seek out Guardians...who tend to be dead at the time (they get better) who then join the ranks of the Guardians (who for the most part) fight to save humanity/the universe and/or engage in shenanigans such as flinging themselves off the Tower for funsies and the whatnot. (Guardians have no common sense, btw. Also, lunatics.)

BUT.

Back to your amazing prompt???

It would be this entire Thing on its own because I want to set it before the games back in the days before there was a Vanguard, which from what I gather from the lore I have read was not unlike ye olden medieval days/wild west with sci-fi twist, because yes. (Also, it was referred to as the Dark Ages, so yeah.)

Geoff and Jack are among the first Lightbearers that are referred to as Risen in various bits of game lore, right? Before the Iron Lords and the whole “Guardian” business with the Vanguard and the Tower and all that good stuff.

Back in the days where there were some like them who abused their powers over those who weren’t like them. Grabbing land and wealth for themselves and gaining followers through fear and the whatnot?

They spend a long, long time trying to figure out what the hell is going on because no memories of their past lives and this hellish world they’ve been brought back to with Fallen and God knows what else wandering the lands.

Just these little glowing balls of Light and sass nagging them about finding shelter and armor and weapons, getting them into hiding when Fallen patrols or other bandits go past.

Abilities before there were proper classes and sub-classes and all that.

Geoff and Jack both lean more towards the floofy jumps and glides of Warlocks. (not that they know what a Warlock even is at that point, of course.)

Jack’s abilities and whatnot lean more towards a support role, but he’s not defenseless, oh no. He learns to use his Light as a weapon and that goes for Geoff too.

They carry guns and knives and in a pinch whatever is at hand.

Run into each other in a little settlement somewhere and at first it’s this Thing where they’re keeping their Ghosts out of sight – Warlords and so on who flaunt their little Ghost friends and the way people have learned to react to them. (And also? Just smart not to go about advertising the fact you’re harder to kill than most, that if they don’t know you have a Ghost you won’t stay down once someone tries to put you in the ground.)

There’s an attack, Fallen or human bandits or some Warlord’s goon squad trying to terrorize the settlement into rolling over for them. Pay a tax or whatever they’d call it back then to “protect” them from the roving bands of Fallen and other enemies.

Can’t do much without giving themselves away – and why would they? They don’t owe these people anything, and that old woman scooping her wares off the ground where her booth’s been knocked down tried to shortchange Geoff less than an hour ago.

The asshole with the weapons parts Jack needed is – okay, he’s kind of dead now, but he lied to Jack’s face about not having them in stock. Said he’d have to ask around, and wouldn’t you know it that would cost more. (Jack can see the parts he was after spilling from a box hidden at the back of the guy’s booth and into the grass, blood all over them and what a mess.)

Still.

Jack quietly takes the parts he needs and leaves the money he would have paid fairly for them and a little more with the boy crouched beside the booth. (His mother’s a settlement over, said she’d be a bit before joining his father with the parts she was bartering for there.)

Sighs as he looks down the road the goons left on and starts after them. Geoff’s munching on an apple he got of a nearby tree and watches him go, all thoughtful about it because there are people mourning here and they don’t owe them a damn thing, and what does that idiot think he’s going to do about it?

So of course he follows, just to see.

The end up killing everyone at the Warlord’s little castle, wherever he’s holed up because none of them will listen to reason and the man’s a blowhard. Full of himself because he’s clearly been chosen for a reason, and what else could it be than to rule over the weaker, lesser people in this section of the world?

And Geoff, God, Geoff.

Died several times getting to this asshole, right? Snipers and assholes with knives and other melee weapons and he was in dire need up upgrading his armor before he waded into this fight, but he’s got his trusty Ghost buddy and this stubbornness that just won’t quit. Smiles because this pathetic weasel playing king and is just like, “Oh, buddy, have I got news for you.” and behind him Jack pops his super, Radiance lighting up the Warlord’s pitiful little throne room.

Geoff lets that sink in for a moment before he fricking nova bombs the Warlord in the face.

It kind of hurts a little, when they see the asshole’s Ghost hiding in a corner of the room waiting for the right moment to resurrect the bastard, because their own Ghosts and the bonds they’ve built with them, you know?

But the little Ghost floats out to the center of the room, looks down at the body of its chosen and sighs because it knew a long time ago it chose poorly. (Maybe the Warlord could have done great things with this second chance, but he chose to do terrible things instead.)

They could kill the Ghost, make sure the Warlord didn’t come back, but -

There’s no point to it now. The Ghost is surprised at their decision, maybe disappointed. (Easier for things to end and not have to consider everything that went wrong because of its choice of course. Having to go on however long with that hanging over it? Nothing like mercy, is it?)

So.

They leave the Ghost behind, and all the dead in the halls and rooms where they fell. Find the path that leads away from the settlement and that small little Warlord and keep walking. (Swear they see a light in the woods along the castle grounds following them for a distance, but they leave it be and eventually it vanishes, wandering as aimlessly as them.)

And then!

They kind of fall in together after that, aren't really friends but there aren’t that many directions to go in, you know? And sometimes the Fallen patrols and whatnot are tricky for one Risen to deal with alone and it’s just.

Convenient.

They’re not bad guys, really, certainly no villains, but wouldn’t you know it? There are a lot of people out there who claim they are?

All these warlords with their bounties and other thieves and grifters with grudges to bear against them. Settlements who aren’t sure what to make of them and are wary of strangers because it pays to be paranoid.

And sometimes they kind of do bad things, pilfer some goods off a settlement where the leader’s an asshole and it’s doing well enough for they won’t miss just a little and so on and so forth. (Ignore the fact they maybe stop ‘round a poorer settlement or homestead kind of place to barter their stolen goods for a place with a roof over their heads for the night and so on. Because unimportant and definitely not a Good Deed or anything.)

Eventually they happen on this little asshole of a Hunter, a kid, really. (Well, no. Just. Young.)

Skittish, almost, the way he acts around them and after they win his trust by sheer dint of doing nothing he joins them beside the campfire they’ve set up.

Well, not nothing. Just. Something?

They set up camp in a clearing of the forest they’ve found themselves in this time. Tired after crossing a snowy mountain rage and it’s warm enough where they are they won’t freeze to death at night. (Once was enough, thanks.)

Hunt and fish and forage for food and leave the Hunter they spot lurking about alone when they realize he’s no threat to them.

Eventually Gavin gets curious enough, or maybe something else because he comes to their campfire with tidbits of food of his own. Treats and delicacies he’s made himself or bought or traded for somewhere else to supplement whatever Geoff and Jack caught/foraged for themselves.

They share stories, mostly Geoff and Jack about their adventures up to then. Little ones, because they’d hate to spook Gavin, scare him back into the forest and probably gone off somewhere they don’t stand a chance of finding him again.

After a while Gavin offers up some of his? Mostly advice for the area around them, dangers to look out for like Fallen patrols and the like.

Geoff asks after this human bandit encampment he heard about from a settlement nearby and Gavin goes quiet. Shifts uncomfortably before he tells them it won’t be a problem anymore and leaves it at that.

They don’t ask because they have stories of their own that end like that and it would just be rude after the goodies Gavin shared with them, so they don’t press.

The three of them wander around the forest for a few days, a week. Headed the same direction to another settlement nearby and it’s pretty nice having someone else around for a change, you know?

But once they reach the settlement Gavin vanishes on them and knowing how skittish he is, they don’t go looking for him.

A few years – twenty, thirty, maybe more – go by before they run into Gavin again.

They’ve left Earth a few times since then, gone wandering in these Jumpships that fell apart on them before too long and they ended back up on Earth.

By that time there’s a new group of Risen calling themselves the Iron something or others, and they’re out there giving the Warlords a time of it to hear the stories.

(A few from this shady guy who owns a bar in this little settlement that grew up to be a tiny town. Tells them about this lady named Efrideet responsible for the hole in the ceiling of his fine establishment, but he doesn’t seem too annoyed about it, so it’s probably fine.)

Run across this kid in a town somewhere, angry as hell and taking on some Warlord’s stooges with just his fists. Seems weapons would just slow him down because he’s doing just fine resolving whatever argument or debate he’s engaged in by punching the shit out of his opponents.

When it’s over they buy him a drink because it saves them the trouble of handling things themselves – picked up a bounty not too far away the kid took care of for them – and they offer to split the reward money since he did all the work.

And Michael, okay.

Squints at them because he sure as hell doesn’t know them, but who is he to turn down a free drink?

He agrees to taking a quarter of the reward because it seems they won’t accept anything less, but whatever. He would have have kicked the shit out of those assholes anyway for trying to bully the people here and this way he’ll have a little extra money in his pockets. (Whatevers.)

They part ways there, but he tells them if they need a hand they’re welcome to in touch with them.

Geoff and Jack wander a little more. Hear about these Iron Lords or whatever they’re calling themselves these days and are understandably concerned because the warlords business and who says these idiots are going to be any better?

(Say they’re out to protect people and all that, but entire settlements, towns, have gotten caught in the crossfire between them and the warlords and the only ones to walk out of it are these Iron Lords. So. Yeah. They’ve got some trouble thinking anyone’s a good guy in that scenario.)

More time goes by and they’re at some little outpost somewhere when Gavin pops up out of nowhere.

Strained look on his face and eyeing Michael who’s with them warily.

Says, “I could use your help,” which is a first because whenever they run into him he’s the one helping them out.

Hell of a sniper and no one better they’ve met when stealth is needed and anyway, anyway, they say yes because of course they do.

Like this little idiot who creeps around the wilds like it’s second nature, goes delving into Darkness Zones looking for God knows what. All kinds of trouble he gets up to and no one watching his back and just.

They worry, okay? They do.

More so with the way he’s all wound up about something. Won’t even tell them what it is until they’re out of the outpost and miles into the woods. Ghosts telling them no one’s around to listen in and even then he’s nervous.

Michael, who’s been quiet through all this loses his temper, snaps at Gavin to get on with with it already, fuck’s sake.

Jack goes to rein him in because Gavin and skittish and just, not what they need right now?

Only as it turns out, it kind of is because Gavin just.

Spills this story about coming across a crashed Fallen ketch in the mountains nearby. Too deep into Fallen territory – and treacherous terrain besides – for anyone to have reason to go up there.

But because Gavin’s an idiot and his Ghost is just as much of one, they went up there anyway.

Snuck past Fallen patrols and the whatnot to get into the ketch and found a Ghost in an odd little device that kept it from transmatting somewhere safe. Little thing begging them to find its chosen because the Fallen had caught them by surprise.

Overwhelmed them in an ambush and caught the Ghost in the cage it’s stuck in, kept its chosen because they thought he had answers they wanted.

Gavin glosses over the interrogations the Ghost told them about, how they’d torture its chosen to the point of death and have it resurrect him to do it all over again and the worst part is its chosen honestly didn’t have the answers to the questions they kept asking him? Resurrected a year ago a most when they were captured and wandering through the area by chance and just bad luck all around.

Anyway, anyway, he knows they don’t know this poor bastard, but Gavin can’t just leave him there, okay? He can’t get the guy out himself, but if they don’t want to help that’s fine, he understands, he’ll find a way -

Geoff and Jack are just like, no, you little idiot no, we’ll help. Just. Don’t do anything stupid okay?

Gavin is like “...okay?” because he didn’t know if they’d say yes – none of their business and sure, they’ve been pretty vocal about not getting involved things that don’t involve them, but that’s all just talk.

(They’ve been getting into trouble that didn’t concern them for a long damn time before now, and hey, Gavin’s kind of their business because they like him okay?)

Michael doesn’t know what Gavin’s deal is, but he’s always up for a fight and nothing better to do and when Geoff and Jack ask if he wants to go along he’s just like, sure, why not?

Gavin isn’t sure about him because Michael is a stranger to him? But he doesn’t seem too bad and Geoff and Jack like him and anyway, the more the merrier?

Thy follow Gavin up to the Fallen ketch, take out Fallen patrols and whatever else in their way headed there. Gavin has to sneak in ahead of them because there are traps and security measures the others would trample their way into and just.

“Be back in a moment,” and goes invisible because he’s got all them Hunter abilities and the whatnot.

There’s this uncomfortably long bit of time where the others are in hiding to avoid being detected and wondering if Gavin got caught by the Fallen. This whole argument about having to break in and save him too, which is when Gavin reappears, all “Took longer than I expected, but it’s all clear now,” and scares the bejesus out of them because Hunter and stealth and where the hell did he come from?

Gavin shrugging and totally not laughing at them as he takes the lead.

They get pretty far in before they’re noticed, and then it’s all fighting and shooting and maybe dying once or twice to be resurrected by their Ghost or picked up by a teammate.

Gavin makes for the trapped Ghost first, figures they might need it by the time they reach this captured Risen which, yikes? (But also smart, and also it’s easier to get and on the way and just. It works out.)

The Ghost they rescue sticks close to Gavin and his Ghost, nervous little thing after all it’s gone through and then there’s more fighting and the whatnot to get to this idiot who got himself caught.

Dicey moments and definitely some dying on their parts because there’s a Fallen tank in the ketch - naturally - and all these Vandals with their fricking wire rifles they don’t see until it’s too late, and anyway.

It’s a hell of a fight to get the guy.

Have to deal with a Kell, because of course they do, but four Lightbearers deal with him better than one or two would have and then they get to rescue the poor bastard.

His Ghost tutting and fussing and Ryan – because of course it’s Ryan – is just like, I’m alright, stop worrying and also?

Suspicious of his rescuers because he’s never seen them and four Lightbearers? Makes him Concerned, okay.

Things aren’t as bad as they were before the Iron Lords or whoever showed up, but it’s still.

He’s not very trusting, is the thing.

Grateful for the rescue and all, but not super friendly. (Which, understandable considering his recent experience.)

The group sticks together for a few days after they get out of the mountains and back down to a nearby settlement. Aren’t surprised when Ryan goes his own way – tells them he owes them one and goes off with his Ghost for more adventures or what have you.

No one is surprised when Gavin follows him all stealthy-like.

Well. Not as stealthy as he could be, because he doesn’t want to make Ryan jumpy about feeling like he’s being watched? But Gavin kind of bonded with Ryan’s Ghost a bit when he first ventured into the Ketch. Couldn’t sneak out right away and ended up living inside it avoiding Fallen for a few days. Crept down to see Ryan, talk to him when he could to tell him he’d find a way to get him out of there, you know?

(Hiding out in some little corner somewhere in the Ketch – too risky to sleep or too paranoid and there’s one or two Fallen watching Ryan he can sneak around to see him. Think about how it’d feel if he was the one in Ryan’s position and how easily that could happen to a lone Lightbearer and how awful it is that Ryan’s been there all that time and no one knew and just. He’s attached now, alright?)

Ryan too out of it most of the time to know about it, but his Ghost tells him about the idiot who went snooping where he really shouldn’t have been. Lurking about the Ketch even after he could have gotten out to make sure he had the layout and patrols memorized before going for help and just.

Everything.

So he’s not worried when the same idiot follows him when he goes on his own way, getting more bold or just bored/curious when he stops pretending he’s not following Ryan and walks into the little camp he makes somewhere.

The two of them traveling around together for a while, a few years, maybe more before they get a call from Geoff and Jack because Michael’s in a situation thanks to this asshole he fell in with somewhere.

Nothing too dire, just need the extra firepower and they help get Michael and his buddy Jeremy out of a Cabal base somewhere.

And then they go somewhere to celebrate and just. Stick together for a while?

Nothing more pressing to deal with – the Iron Lords have things pretty well in hand and all, warlords mostly gone and a semblance of order to things.

But there are still baddies out there, places the Iron Lords don’t have resources to protect just yet and they make a living out there.

Bloody, ugly living sometimes because baddies who were born that way and no one else to handle things and they’re not the bad guys here, but they’re not good either.

The SIVA clusterfuck happens and there’s this...chaos, panic for while. Things get hectic, threaten to go back to the way they were before the Iron Lords and it’s awful right?

This little group of Lightbearers out there doing what they can to keep things from getting too bad even if it means liberating goods and supplies from people hoarding them, refusing to share with those in need. Stopping the more aggressive assholes from trying for power grabs and the lot.

Maybe a few of them think twice about forming the kind of bonds they have when they see what happened to the Iron Lords because they’re not invincible even with their little Ghost buddies, you know?

But they keep on keepin’ on and watch as more and more Lightbearers show up, the City grows and Titans built its walls and the Vanguard come into being. Lightbearers start calling themselves Guardians, of all things.

And that gets derisive snort from Geoff because pretentious much? But the Guardians grow in number, fight against the Fallen and whoever – whatever – else threatens humanity. (Their City.)

Put out patrol beacons and organize strikes and all that nonsense and all these freshly resurrected Guardians going out and doing good things with their second chance. (Some driven by the desire to help mankind and all that, others by the promise of loot and prestige, and those with nothing better to do and a Ghost nudging them in the direction of being helpful.)

Still they hold out for a while, not wholly trusting in the staying power of the Vanguard and what they’re doing in that City of theirs or their Tower after seeing what happened before them.

Eventually though, they get curious.

Or maybe the Vanguard’s heard about them and they got curious.

Whichever one it is, they end up running a few strike together. Do some patrols on the side because guaranteed glimmer for some menial task they would have done for free. (Would have gotten parts and supplies anyway, handful of glimmer, but now? Better pay and earning trust in the bargain.)

Stop having to scavenge for the stuff they need and – this is bonus in Gavin’s mind at least because he’s never forgotten what happened to Ryan – someone besides one of them who’ll notice if they’re in trouble or go missing.

Who will send others to look for them (how many times have they done the same for the Vanguard already? Asked to find some wayward Guardian who bit off more than they could chew) and mourn them if they can’t be saved.

To be honest, Geoff and Jack are all about that side of things with the idiots they’ve joined up with, you know? Michael and Jeremy are one thing, get into trouble for the hell of it sometimes, but Ryan and Gavin?

Those two get up to trouble because they’re too damn stupid. Go off on their own into Dead Zones and everything else all the damn time, wander the wilds for weeks on end where communications are spotty and they won’t know they’re in trouble until long after the fact.

Ray’s even worse, but he’s one of the most capable Lightbearers any of them have met so it’s. Bad, but the whole trust thing?

(And anyway, there won’t be a time they aren’t worrying about any of their idiots, so. Yes.)

Maybe this Guardian business isn’t such a bad thing after all.

Still takes a while before they decide to throw their lot in with them, move to the Tower, but eventually they do.

Have this hidden base of sorts in the wilds all nice and locked down in case something goes wrong – Cabal attacking the city and cutting off their link to their Light, for example – and other hidey spots and boltholes all over the system because.

Paranoia for good reasons and being prepared, and anyway, anyway.

They have this little section of the Tower for their group, little clan, if you will. Pick up new Guardians every so often. Freshly resurrected or ones they hit it off with when the Vanguard sends them on strikes and the whatnot.

Lindsay and Trevor and this whole slew of new idiots Geoff and Jack watch over in their own way.

Gavin is thrilled at not being the only Hunter in the bunch when they find Alfredo. (Or maybe he finds them???)

Anyway, there’s this feeling of safety, security they have now they didn’t before being part of something bigger than themselves. (Not perfect, because the Vanguard can be horrifically shortsighted at times, but they’re doing their best.)

Also?

Loot.

Lots of loot and glimmer and that’s the important thing.

Really.

#ragehappy #fahc destiny au #rogueghost #Prompt Fills #technically not a fic #vagrant fic #i just #have FEELS about pre-Tower era or whatever it's called #i'm also bad at game lore #so my timeline for this is probs jumbled up #¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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boethiahsboytoy · 4 years

Note

The OC ask meme, all of them for Sena?

I’m sorry for replying so late! These questions are here for anyone interested, and my answers will be under the cut!

👹 How does you OC act around different people and how does their personality change to match the environment they’re in? How do they act with: friends, family, strangers, children or their lover(s)?

Her personality really changes around everyone she’s with and where she’s at. With friends she’s loud, boisterous, and fun. With family she’s much the same, with the addition of being protective and careful around them. Around strangers she’s rather cold and aloof for the most part, to the point where most people think she’s just. Fucking Mean.With children she’s much softer, even playful, and is the sort to happily show off Cool Things like magic and stuff to entertain them. With Vyrthaal she was instantly Insanely Fucking Protective; not only was he a 13 year old Dragonborn, but he was also what she believed to be the last Snow Elf alive and uncorrupted by the Dwemer. It wasn’t until Marzog stopped her from going completely nuts protecting him and watched him actually fight and successfully take out a group of bandits all on his own that she understood Marzog had taught him how to take care of himself and didn’t need a Bodyguard.

🥊 Does your OC prefer to take the lead or follow orders? With everyone or just with certain people? Is there a reason for this?

She’s most definitely a leader, but she’s not the shitty sort of person who refuses to follow orders because of that. The only exception being if an order she’s given goes against her moral code or something similar.

🍅 How easily is your OC embarassed? What subjects make them flush and why? What event has made your OC the most embarrassed they’ve ever been?

She doesn’t get embarrassed easily, but when she does get embarrassed she blushes so much and it’s impossible to hide. She manages to keep her composure fairly well, but it’s still super obvious. I don’t know what her most embarrassing moment would be though, but it probably involves her being unexpectedly clumsy or snorting with laughter/spraying a drink out of her nose or smthn similar lmao.

🍊 Does your OC have any triggers? Why do these things trigger them? What are they like when triggered and how do they calm down after?

She does have a few. Being attacked with magic for one, as it reminds her of the Falmer attack on the Chantry. Loud noises like rock slides for the same reasons. When she is triggered she goes into a state of shock, falling silent and going still, often unable to react out of terror. To calm down she needs to get to a quiet, secluded place and simply take her mind off things. Doing anything repetitive that requires all her focus tends to work, like chopping wood, but if something happens during, say, a fight, she can sometimes pull herself back enough to at least get out of immediate danger.

💥 Are there any emotions your OC doesn’t know how to deal with, doesn’t understand or hates having to feel? Any reason behind this?

She’s not great at romantic feelings. Most of the people she’s had romantic feelings for she knew she’d outlive, and so she tends to ignore crushes and attraction and the like. Otherwise, she’s good at remaining composed even under times of great stress, with exceptions to the things mentioned above.

🏀 Does your OC have any skills that people wouldn’t expect them to have? Do they have a hobby or pass time that others would consider strange or weird? How did they learn this particular skill or pick up this hobby?

She loves gardening!! Taking care of plants and crops, watching them grow and making sure they’re healthy. She also enjoys hunting as well (though only for food and resources, not for sport). In her spare time, she also knits, and she’s really good at making and mending clothes of all kinds of material.

☀️ How well does your OC take care of themself? Do they tend to put others before their own wellbeing and if so how often? What is their favourite way to pamper themself?

She’s pretty good at taking care of herself, but she doesn’t pamper herself often. When she does pamper herself, for her that’s just Not Doing Anything n sleeping in all day, maybe having more sweetrolls than she normally would lmao. For the most part she will put others before herself, but not to an unhealthy degree where she’s actively damaging her health because of it.

🌙 What are some of your OC’s favourites? Favourite food, colour, season, stuff like that! Give some general simple facts that tend to get overlooked!

Food: Simple, home cooked meals made with lots of love, and from things she and her family has grown and/or caught.Color: Various shades of grey and blue.Season: She finds things to enjoy for every season, but she really thrives in the cold of winter.Misc: Hobbies: Knitting and sewingAnimal: RabbitsStyle of music (in a modern AU): Classic rock and ska punk, some pop songsType of nail polish (also in a modern AU): Glittery!

⭐ Does your OC like to sleep alone or do they enjoy sharing their bed? Have they been to any sleepovers? Have they ever been camping? What did they think of the experiences if so?

She doesn’t necessarily like sharing beds, but she likes having other people in the room with her as she sleeps. I doubt sleepovers were really a Thing(tm) for Snow Elves but even if they were she likely wouldn’t enjoy them. And she loves camping!!

🍏 When your OC says “I had a bad day” what does that tend to mean? Is it really as bad as they’re saying or are they being a bit dramatic?

Sina’s never dramatic: If she says she’s had a shit day she’s had a shit fucking day, Please get her the strongest mead you can find. A bad day for her generally means she had a specific goal in mind and she failed to reach it after multiple attempts, and it’s something she believes should have been easy for her (even if logically it wouldn’t be).

🐍 Is your OC a good liar? How easy is it for them to tell lies? What is the biggest lie they’ve ever told and did they ever get found out? On the other hand, what is the biggest lie someone has told your OC and did they believe them?

She is; not because she lies a lot or enjoys being dishonest, but because she always speaks in a cool, monotone voice and doesn’t ever give away her feelings or thoughts unless in private with friends or family. And because she has such a powerful, authoritative, and intimidating aura I doubt many people would lie to her, or if they attempted to they’d be so shaken by her that it would be difficult. She also just...doesn’t trust people until they’ve proven themselves to be trustworthy, so there’s that.

🐉 How religious is your OC? Do they pray to any god(s) or do they not believe in that kind of stuff? What is their view of religion in general? Where do they believe people go when they die? If your OC is not religious why not and what do they believe in otherwise?

She’s very religious! She was raised to be a Knight-Paladin of Auri-El and even after fleeing from the Chantry, still worshipped him (as well as Others Snow Elves traditionally worship). When she became close with the Nord family that took her in they began teaching her about their own religious beliefs and ways of worshipping their gods. She believes people go where their religions Say they go, which is....pretty canon lmao,

💧 What is something from your OC’s past they’re the most ashamed of and why? What is something they’re really proud of? And lastly what is something in their past that could make them shake with dread?

I think I’ve touched on this before but she’s most ashamed of fleeing the Falmer attack. She abandoned one of the last surviving Snow Elven things, period, as well as her friends and comrades, while turning her back on her primary God. The knowledge she did that will haunt her until she reunites with Gelebor.I don’t know what she’d be most proud of though. TBH, she’d be filled with so much self hate and regret over her past actions that she’d rarely Ever be proud of herself, feeling like her mistakes and cowardice will always outweigh any good she does.

🌊 What does your OC do on their days off from working, school or whatever else it is they may do? Do they enjoy relaxing, shopping, hanging out with friends? What is a normal day like for them?

She doesn’t really have days off, but when she’s able to rest she likes spending time with her loved ones, mostly. Doesn’t matter what they’re doing, being in their presence is enough.

🐟 What was your OC like as a baby? What were they like as a child? A teenager? An adult? How do you think they’ll develop ten years into their future? Twenty years? Will they live to old age?

Baby: Talkative! Noisy! Messy! Also very, very affectionate.Child: Rambunctious and wild whenever she could be, but beginning to mellow out.Teenager: Pretty much the same as an adult: stoic, cold, aloof, etc.Adult Knight-Paladin: Quiet, reserved, etc. etc.Later on: Same but with the feeling of someone who’s seen and done so much that they’re permanently some degree of tired.

She’s already pretty old, as a human she’d be in her mid forties to fifties (and I don’t think Skyrim is a place where people get much older very often, probably). But she does grow Old, even for a snow elf! And as she gets older she becomes less...Like That and gets a lot more soft and sweet on the outside.

🍇 Does your OC have any bad habits? Does your OC have any addictions like smoking or drinking? How did they fall into these habits and why?

I haven’t thought much about that tbh, I don’t really know! :’) I don’t think she’d be addicted to anything though? She wouldn’t be the sort to self medicate (probably. she’s still technically in early stages of development)

🔮What does your OC think is their best trait. What is actually their best trait? What about their flaws? Are they one to admit these flaws or do they like to pretend they’re perfect?

She has fairly low self esteem and doesn’t really think she has any good traits. She knows she’s smart and skilled etc., but that’s. About it. I’d say her best trait is that she cares for people a lot once she’s gotten close to them. She’s got powerful mom energy on the inside.Her biggest flaw is that shes sort of close minded sometimes, even now. She wouldn’t admit to it at first because she doesn’t see how its a bad thing, but when she eventually does realize it she owns up to it and does her best to change.

🍆 (feel free to skip this one if you don’t feel comfortable answering it for a particular OC!) What is your OC like in bed? Are they particularly sensitive or have anywhere they really like being touched? Are they loud, quiet, intense? What are their turn ons and turn offs?

Skipping this one just because I haven’t really thought of it that much?? I don’t really develop my OCs sex lives that much tho lmao. She’s a switch tho, but wouldn’t really be super into anything Not vanilla so she’s neither domme/sub.

🌸 What’s a sentence that would make your OC’s day better? One that would make them laugh? One that would make their day worse? Why? What words would you have to say to them to completely ruin their day?

Make her day better: I appreciate what you’ve done (or anything that lets her know her actions are valued).Make her laugh: She doesn’t laugh much (though she does love jokes!), but she’d probably laugh at herself if she does an unexpectedly funny thing or smthn?? Also like. Any time Marzog tries to make her laugh there’s a 99% chance she’ll laugh her fuckin ass off, she’s so in love,Make her day worse: Anything she perceives as her failing, because it “proves” the incorrect belief she has that she’s useless.Words: Anything related to That??

🌷 How much effort does your OC put into their looks? Do they care much about how they’re dressed or what their hair looks like or are they not bothered? Could they be considered a snob or a slob?

She doesn’t anymore, really. I feel like in ancient Snow Elven culture they’d take a lot of pride in their looks and frown upon people dressing shabby or being sloppy no matter who they are or what their status is, but now that simply isn’t practical. Before the Thalmor destroyed her village she worked as a farmer or else went out to hunt, and there’s not really any reason she’d need to Look Super Gorgeous for that. Afterwards she travels to join up with the Stormcloaks (who she views as a lesser of two evils, and if Ulfric is sooooo dedicated to Ancient Nord Ways(tm) he’d let her fight him for the right to lead the Stormcloaks as a whole) so on the way she...tries to look less like a farmer and more like someone who can fight. But then she joins up w/Marzog and Vyrthaal after a while and decides to go back to the remains of her village, where her former set of armor has been hidden away in a cellar beneath her farm. So she no longer cares as long as her clothes, hair, accessories, etc. get in the way of what she needs to do, But she does take good care of her armor ofc.

🌺 What additions would your OC make to their body if they could? Lets say, if they don’t have a tail would they want one? Wings? Horns? Do they wish they could shapeshift?

Sometimes she’d wish she were shorter, but she wouldn’t want to permanently be shorter. But secretly she’d think it would be fuckin’ sick if her eyes glowed, and if she ever meets Jo’safiir she’d be insANELY fucking jealous that his do (until she learns it’s because Meridia is trying to fully claim his soul as hers but that’s a whole thing abt Jo’safiir that she’s not actually at all involved with).

BONUS QUESTIONS:

❤️ What inspired you to make this OC? How long have you had them? How have they changed in the time you’ve been developing them?

My inspiration is I Love Snow Elves!!!! They’re fuckin’ rad! I haven’t had her very long, and because of that she hasn’t changed that much! I’m sort of still fleshing her out, tbh :’3

🧡 What traits of your own do you see in this OC? Are they a little bit self-inserty? Don’t be shy, we all put parts of ourselves into the creations we love!

She doubts herself a lot and constantly puts herself down internally. She’s afraid of failure and struggles with self hate. Other than that, damn we’re really not that similar (though I’ve been told I have dad energy?? So. We got that parent energy, I guess????)

💛 What is your personal opinion of this OC? Do you love them or are they your trash child? Are they your baby?

I’m Love She,,,,,Sina adopt me plz,

💚 Are you writing anything with this OC or planning on writing anything for them? Do you rp with them or are they just for fun to mess around with?

I’m not writing writing her story, but I’m like.....working on it internally, y’know? I Might end up doing a bunch of comics abt my Skywim OCs, her included!

💙 How important is this OC to you? Are they a character that’s helped you through some pretty tough times or could you scrap them without feeling a thing?

I mean...I love her so much, but like I said she’s pretty new; I think I’ve had her for maybe two months at least? But like. I’d never scrap her, I love her so much and I want to develop her and her backstory a LOT more, she’s just not like a....Deep, Important, I Project On Her kind of an OC.

💜 Do you enjoy working on your OC or are they a bit of a chore? We all have that one character who is hard to develop!

I love working on her!! She’s hard to develop bc there’s really not a lot of info I can find on Snow Elf culture so a lot of her Back-backstory is gonna be my own headcanons, that I really don’t Have yet lmao. Which isn’t a chore to do, I LOVE things like this, I’m just. Lazy lmao,

💗 Ramble a bit about this character!

The family that found her after she fled the Chantry consisted of a mother and father, the mother’s mother, and three children. When the grandmother was dying it was about a decade after she arrived and had grown to be part of the family, so she decided to give her a name that represented that. So she was given the name Snow-Blade. She carries it proudly, and over time as her village grows, many given names are given by her, and as such have lots of focus on snows, the sun, even magic.

#oc ask meme #oc sinarwyn #again i'm s fuCKIng sorry this took 80 million years :')#but i dID IT....#anon #ask

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jsteeleuniverse · 6 years

Text

DAILY DRABBLE: LINK

DAILY DRABBLE is an exercise I’m doing. I’m just writing one-shots/short stories in one sitting to see what I can do. My goal is to reach 3-5 pages in Microsoft word per drabble, and to do 1 drabble every single day. On top of this, I am using the word of the day (https://www.merriam-webster.com/word-of-the-day ) to try and boost my vocabulary. Tools used: https://www.merriam-webster.com/word-of-the-day http://www.losmedanos.edu/core/documents/OneHundredWaystosaySaid.pdf http://rainymood.com/watch?v=cLTnvRoxfPk

Character: Link Word of the Day: Hortative (Flamboyant, Nativity, Conciliate, Abeyance) Definition: Giving exhortation; serving to advise or warn. Start Time: 12:16 AM End Time: 1:15 AM Final Word Count: 2,187 Words

How far away is what we truly seek? Is it within arm’s reach? Is it beyond the mountains of trial and tribulation? For one so learned on the unbeaten path of heroism and destiny, Link could not help but find himself contemplating life on this snowy eve. He was dressed for the weather, wrapped and warm in a large coat he’d purchased in the market during his travels. He only worried about keeping Epona warm, so their usual long days of travel was ripe with breaks, campfires, and sugar cubes to keep the spirits of his partner high. Though snow and slippery ice didn’t exactly bar their path, Link guided Epona while walking beside her through the snowy woods. His boots crunched downed branches and freshly fallen snow. His breaths created small clouds of mist, but not at a rate to suggest exhaustion. He was perfectly fine, but Epona’s snorts were one after the other. He affectionately stroked her neck and guided her carefully around bushes and gopher holes he spotted on the ground. Without the hortative Navi to assist them, the young man had to take point and act as a guardian for himself and his partner.

Hyrule was a long way out, but after being away so many years on a journey for self-discovery and adventure, it was time to come home. Every lead he had on Navi went cold. Either she was truly gone…or she did not wish to be found. Still, he was near blindly driven to find her. Blind enough that he left Zelda, Malon, and Ratu to fend for themselves. His friends; though at least two of them seemed interested in vastly more. They may not have known it at the time, but the young man who defeated Ganon was only an adult in stature, with the spirit of the young boy he truly was inside. The ways by of love and romance were lost to him at the time. Though the hero’s building fear was that perhaps returning now would be too little, vastly too late. After making camp and resting for the evening, Link did some light hunting to gather rations for the next few days travel. He only managed to hunt a few smaller birds and beasts this time around, but it would have to do. With the sun in the sky, and his horse fully rested, Link climbed onto Epona’s back. At his command, she began running. Malon’s prized horse had served him well, and Link felt it was high time he allowed the horse and her true owner to have a family reunion. Five years away from the land of his nativity and he was back. Though, nothing was the same. Hyrule had undergone expansion and reconstruction. The castle had gotten larger. The once vacant fields full of snow and life as smaller towns popped up with the Lon Lon Ranch in the center of it all. He followed the road with a call of Epona’s speed. She tore through the snow and powered beyond the smaller towns along the road. A few towns people looked just outside of their gates, watching as the green coat and hat clad hero returned to them. Everyone knew Link’s name. Zelda made sure of it. With Ganondorf in abeyance the world was allowed to live in peace. It was allowed to move on in the direction Zelda’s father wished for it. Until Ganon’s expected return, there was nothing for the people of Hyrule to fear of him for at least a few generations. He stopped in one of the smaller towns to barter and purchase. He sold his hunted kills for rupees and went to purchase food for Epona first, then himself second. He heard rumors circling the town as he ate. Many of the strongest men in town were trying to court the farm girl who was set to inherit the lucrative Lon Lon Ranch. The story was that the young woman had ignored advances for years. She never even replied to them when they tried courting her. Some men went as far as to call the girl an ice queen, but for the riches they would gladly endure. That didn’t sound like Malon at all. She was vibrant and full of life. Her singing was angelic and calming. He could still hear her singing in the farm at night, singing to the moon as it passed overhead. Singing to her deceased mother looking down from the plane beyond the stars. Often Link would play the song on his ocarina to play Epona to sleep, or just to remember the tune of her voice. Surely, these men had it all wrong.

After finishing his meal, Link passed by a flower shop. There were many great selections inside but…alas, he’d spent the vast majority of his rupees on food. He wanted to get one of the plants for Malon, as an apology for keeping Epona away so long. Even with his reputation, such delicacies required hard-earned currency! It was back to basics. He took up odd-jobs in town from anyone who would hire him. He and Epona rushed out into the fields and beyond, taking down bandit creatures and returning stolen goods to the assumed terrorized townsfolk. He rode to Death Mountain to conciliate with an angry husband to return home to his wife who promised not to compare him to Link again when it came to feats of strength. However, it cost Link a good set of gauntlets in his backpack to do so. Each job paid little, but the momentum of favor he obtained was a greater currency. Still, he was a long way from reaching his goal. Though once he did reach it, he didn’t even know what kind of flowers she would like. Roses? Tulips? Orchids? What seemed to be a good color for her? Link couldn’t decide, but lucky for him…a few men had the same idea as he did. “Hey, you!” One of the strapping, tall young farmers called out to him. “I’m looking for a gift for a lady friend. In all your travels I’m sure you’ve met with a lot of women. Not that I’m jealous or anything of that. I just want your input on what you think a lady is most likely to enjoy…at a reasonable price, that is.” Once the farmer was done, Link went with his first instinct. He pointed at the roses. At least in books women seemed to enjoy the roses more than anything else that happened to them in romantic stories. Sadly, he’d only had books to go off of. “Roses!” The farmer nodded. “Good call, my friend. I’ll be sure to invite you to the wedding after this!” As the man purchased the roses and left, Link went out to obtain a few more small jobs to gain the proper amount of currency. When he returned, the young man stood at the flower shop with his head down. “She didn’t even say a word! She just looked at me and walked away!” The farmer complained to the clerk at the door. He returned the roses and shook his head. “Real ice queen, that one! I’ll just make my farm outdo her farm, then!” After the man walked away, Link was called upon after being spotted checking out the flowers. “Excuse me!” Another man called. He was smaller in frame like Link, but with fire red hair and sapphire eyes. “Mr. Adventurer,” The flamboyantly dressed man was more akin to a court jester than a suitor of a farmer’s daughter. “As one who has certainly courted many women in his travels, what do you suggest to be a proper gift for a rather lovely woman?” Link, while genuinely trying to help, pointed out the tulips. “Ah! Grand choice!” The red-haired man clapped his hands twice and went to purchase the tulips. “A little something for your troubles! I’ll be filthy rich in no time!” He handed over a few rupees to Link and was on his way. While being on the cusp of his goal, Link set out again via request of townsfolk. He battled a few monsters, getting used to adrenalin rushing through his body from the challenge of battle for the first time in a few weeks. After the beasts were dispatched and the mission complete, Link returned to collect his pay. Though after he left his employer’s side, he noticed the red-haired man grumbling and returning the potted plant. “Tulips didn’t work! I have got to come up with a better plan!” As he stormed away, Link stepped up to the merchant’s door. “Yes?” She said with a weary gaze on Link. He pointed at the orchids, the last of the set of three. “Oh, Orchids? These are a lovely selection. They bring good fortune into the futures of those they are given to. But you have to be purse of heart for it to work, now.” She warned.

Link nodded in agreeance to her, and paid the needed rupees. With the plant now in his possession, Link nervously carried it out. If it would be a good apologetic present or not was beyond his wisdom, but he had hope she would forgive his extended absence. Though now he had to figure out what he was going to get Ratu and Zelda as a show of friendship and affection. Actions spoke louder than words, and Link was trying to make the boldest actions he could muster to leave a lasting mark on the women he cared for. Without Navi there, a void in his life needed to be filled. Companionship was yearned for with each passing day, and maybe this was in fact the correct move to make to fill that role needed in his life. Malon was the easiest to apologize to in the very least. Ratu may have been the most difficult because of what he suspected to be a temper looming around inside of her heart. Link climbed back onto Epona and set out into the vast fields of Hyrule. The peaceful ride put Link’s mind at ease as he fixated his eyes on the large walls of Lon Lon Ranch several miles out. Butterflies began to swell up in the pits of his stomach as he got closer. Funny, he’d never felt his nervous before. Evaluating his sudden shift in behavior, Link suspected it was just excitement to be back in Hyrule and being able to help others return to normal lives. However, it went beyond that. He wanted to hear Malon sing again and to see her smile upon being reunited with her horse. His only hope was that he didn’t too give him the cold shoulder. Apprehensive and approaching a sweat in the cold air, Link slowed down to figure out his approach. The moon was gliding across the sky and gave the cold snowy terrain a light blue hue. His shadow stretched across the ice as Epona trotted along to the entrance of the ranch. It was make or break time. Normally, he could hear Malon singing even when he was outside the farm. Tonight, he heard nothing. Not a single peep left the farm that wasn’t a cow or horse sound. Link began to let his apprehensiveness get the better of him and considered himself being a nuisance to Malon’s time of rest. Though nervous, his fortitude disallowed him to retreat. He rode Epona into the slightly curved passage into the farm. Everything was exactly how he remembered it as a child. Literally nothing about Lon Lon Ranch had changed at all. This was both comforting and worrying – did Malon still lose her farm in the time he was away? He came to a stop in front of the large house and beside the barn where the cows were kept. He examined his immediate area and climbed down from Epona’s back. Flowers in hand, Link walked forward with Epona trailing him. As he got deeper into the farm, he saw that the obstacle course and large fenced in area was not occupied. Malon wasn’t out singing, as she was in the prior timeline. His fear of her actually being asleep became all too certain. Rather than stick around and make a fool of himself, Link tracked back to the front door of Malon’s home. He squatted to put her potted Orchids on her doorstep and made sure they were nice and neat. The tag laced around the pot simply read ‘FROM: Link’ With the deed done, the hero returned to Epona’s side. He touched her head apologetically. Maybe next time they could see Malon. For now, it was back on the trials. He put one foot in the stirrups and threw his body on board Epona’s back. Just as Link turned to leave, he heard Malon’s door open suddenly and her voice cried out in joy. “Fairy boy! You came back!”

#daily drabble #nintendo #link #malon #lon lon ranch #link x malon #drabble #fan fiction #Legend of Zelda #Navi #word of the day #Hortative

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a-small-batch-of-dragons · 3 years

Text

Don’t Worry

Prompt: okay so i found your quarantine drabble "it started with a flower" merlin series and can we pls have more of gwen and arthur being worry warts while merlin continues to not understand why their worried? bonus points if merlin is immortal/cant be killed by human injuries so he's more reckless and gwen and arthur are just like "oh for fucks sake please stop merlin if for no other reason then we are mortal and you're killing us w stress" we love self-sacrificing merlin and his worried lovers

Thanks for the prompt, babe! It was so nice to look back at the true mountain of drabbles on this account...still can't get over the fact that a drabble is SUPPOSED to be 100 words exactly...also SHAMELESS D20 reference because that's how we roll babey

Read on Ao3

Pairings: merthur, gwen/arthur, gwen/arthur/merlin

Warnings: none

Word Count: 5653

Merlin has lived through many, many things. He continues to live through many, many things.

The fact that he can do this does not prevent Gwen and Arthur from worrying when he makes some, frankly, quite questionable decisions.

Or, five times Merlin makes Arthur and Gwen worry, and one time they make him worry in return.

1: Poison

In hindsight, the visiting lord was absolutely trying to kill both Arthur and Gwen. The man turned up with all his servants and knights in armor. Even the servants, yes, in leather tunics and with many different squires juggling things that were definitely supposed to be kept hidden. Arthur, of course, didn’t realize this because he’s been trying to be more focused on his own presentation—at least that’s the excuse he gives Gwen—but Merlin knows better. He’s been doing this for a long time.

So when the lord makes a show of rising to his feet amidst a jubilant feast, raising a goblet high in the air, praising Camelot, her strength, and the power of a strong, worthy leader, Merlin has to hide the roll of his eyes when he deftly removes both Gwen and Arthur’s goblets from their grasps. Arthur opens his prat mouth to ask what the hell is going on, only for Merlin to raise an eyebrow, toast to the lord, and down the contents of both.

“Merlin!”

Lancelot is out of his chair in an instant, rushing across the hall to catch Merlin as he slumps, followed swiftly by Gwaine who bellows for Gaius. Percival and Elyan don’t hesitate to draw steel, watching as the servants of the visiting lord hold up their hands.

“My lord,” the visiting lord simpers, “I have absolutely no idea what could have—“

“Save it,” Arthur growls, standing, “you have brought poison into the heart of Camelot. You will explain, but I have no wish to hear your pathetic mumblings right now.”

He turns his back on the lord as the knights rush him, holding the others at bay as Arthur kneels down at Merlin’s side. Gwen rises as well, her chin aloft, looking every bit the queen she is.

Merlin, of course, can’t hear a damn thing past the roaring of blood in his ears. This one’s a nasty one—he can feel it burning as it goes down his throat, splitting off into slivers that find their way through his body, into his chest, into his arms, right down to the tips of his fingers. It feels as though he’s both deathly cold and about to sweat out every little bit of moisture in his body.

He can’t see much either, his eyes squeezing shut to deal with the pain, but he can sense the moving of blurry shapes above him. Probably Lancelot, probably Gwaine, probably not Gaius yet, he’s quite far away.

Oh, is he being lifted? He’s probably being lifted. Alright, so they’re taking him to Gaius this time. That’s new. Wow, is the walk to Gaius’s always this long? Yes? No? He’s having a bit of a hard time keeping track of time right now.

“Merlin? Merlin, can you hear me?”

“Yes,” Merlin tries to say, only for his throat to explode in agony again the second fresh air enters, so he just ends up making this horrible half-screech-groan sound.

“Don’t try and speak,” the voice orders, presumably doing something other than just standing there watching this happen, not that Merlin can feel anything, “just hold on. We’re doing our best.”

Merlin closes his eyes fully and relaxes as much as he can onto the bench. Which probably isn’t very much if he remembers how most of these poisons work. He breathes, reaches deep into his chest for his magic, and waits, letting the slow golden light work its way around his body, helped along by whatever Gaius is doing to him.

He opens his eyes an uncertain amount of time later, looking straight into the most disapproving eyebrow he’s gotten in a while.

He swallows, cracking a smile when his throat merely tingles.

“So,” he croaks, “did I miss the rest of the feast?”

“Oh, Merlin!”

Ah, there’s Gwen—she flies into his arms, wrapping her own tightly around his middle, squeezing and holding on for dear life. Oh, her face is wet, has she—

“Hey, hey,” he mumbles, clumsily trying to pat her back, “it’s okay, ‘m alright. You’re alright too.”

“Thanks to you,” Gwen says, drawing back and wiping her face only to join Gaius in staring at him with the face of a disappointed parent, “Merlin, what were you thinking?”

“I was thinking that I have a much better chance of surviving that than you and Arthur?”

Gwen bats his shoulder with her shawl. “That is beside the point and you know it. You scared us.”

“Sorry, but—“

“No, Merlin,” Gwen says sternly, “no ‘buts.’ I understand what you’re trying to do, but you know this isn’t good for you.”

“I don’t normally down poison on the regular, no.”

He grins, big and cheeky, right in her face. And to give her credit, she manages to gold that stern queenly façade for a few moments longer before she breaks, smiling and shaking her head and rushing right back in to hug him.

“I trust you unconditionally,” she murmurs, “I just wish you didn’t have to.”

“I have to keep you safe,” Merlin mumbles, still quite tired from fighting the poison, “and I’m alright. I’m always alright, you know that.”

“I know, Merlin.” She draws back and cups his face with a gentle hand. “But I worry.”

“So do I.”

“Not about yourself,” Gwen whispers, “not nearly as much as you should.”

“Well, when I start reacting to deadly things like a normal person, I’ll be more worried.”

2: Bandits

They’re just on a hunting trip. It’s not even a patrol. The knights aren’t even in all their capes and obvious things that flap about in the wind like signal flags saying ‘yes! Hello! We are here and we are obviously from Camelot! Please come and try to stab us!’ Seriously, Merlin’s going to have words with whoever decided that a mandatory part of the knights’ everyday patrol wear is going to be massive red things tied around their necks. It’s a serious thing that he’s run into at least four times. It’s getting a little ridiculous.

Anyway, they’re not wearing those this time, because this is a casual hunt for only the king and his most trusted. Also known as: Arthur the prat is getting tired of being a prat in the castle and wants to go be a prat outside.

Also also known as: court life is hard and the knights—and Merlin—can see Arthur getting tired. So they drag him out to the woods where he can’t escape any of their snark because “There’s no one else here but us, Princess, get used to it.”

Merlin knows Arthur well enough to know he’s secretly very, very grateful for it.

You wanna know what he’s probably not grateful for? The inability of one of their hunts to go without running into at least one mess of bandits after an easy raid.

One hunt, just one. Please.

Merlin doesn’t even like hunts. He just likes not being in the citadel all the time.

He ducks swiftly behind a tree as a bandit takes a wild swing at him with his sword, getting it lodged in the trunk next to him. Merlin’s eyes go wide as the bandit rips it out again with a vicious snarl, drool leaking from his lips as he grins angrily at Merlin. His nose wrinkles as he smells the bandit’s breath.

“Ugh, you’re worse than Arthur in the morning.”

He uses the bandit’s momentary confusion to blast him across the clearing into a tree, knocking him out.

“So Arthur in the morning, huh?”

Merlin rolls his eyes as Gwaine blocks another sword. “Listen, if you want to try and get the prat out of bed, you be my guest.”

“And deprive you of that honor?” Gwaine smirks. “Not on your life.”

Merlin opens his mouth to make some snappy remark when he notices four bandits rushing at them over Gwaine’s shoulder.

“Look out!”

He sends Gwaine to the side with a blast of magic, ignoring the shout of protest. The bandits get closer, swords raised high, one of them letting out a vicious cackle.

Merlin sighs. Honestly.

He raises his hand and sends them all flying backward, smiling a little at the way the vicious cackle turns into a whine that would’ve made the runt of the new litter of dogs ashamed. The bandits lie on the ground, dazed, swords lying all across the clearing.

“Merlin!”

Merlin glances over, seeing Arthur rushing at him. He barely has time to turn before Arthur’s bowling into him, hugging him so tightly he panics for a second that Arthur’s under some sort of enchantment trying to kill him. Only to realize no, this is just his prat hugging him because he’s scared.

“I’m fine, Arthur.”

“There were four of them, you—clot pole!”

“That’s my word.”

“Yes, and it suits you perfectly! Merlin, you could’ve been killed!”

Merlin makes a show of looking around at himself, still fully intact, then back up at a panting Arthur. “I think I’m all in one piece, sire.”

“Don’t you ‘sire’ me, Merlin, you—“

“Did Arthur just admit that he likes it when I don’t refer to him with the proper titles?” Merlin glances around at the other knights that are trying valiantly not to laugh. “Did I just hear that right?”

“That’s what I heard.”

“Me too.”

“I mean we all knew it.”

“It’s taken him this long to figure it out.”

Leon simply shrugs. That man’s ability to keep a straight face is something Merlin will always respect and never understand. But he has gotten very good at spotting the way Leon will wink surreptitiously at him when he’s amused. Like now.

“Alright, alright, enough,” Arthur mutters, sheathing his sword and wrapping his arms tightly around Merlin again. “Don’t do that.”

“What, take care of all of our enemies really easily?”

“Scare me.”

“And now you’re admitting that you get scared when I’m in danger?”

“Only because I know Gwen would have my head.”

“Ah, yes, because Gwen is like that.”

Arthur glares at him. There’s a flash of something behind his eyes. Merlin spots it.

“I’m fine,” he murmurs, too quiet for the others to hear, “and I’m sorry for scaring you.”

“You’d better be.”

“Alright, lovebirds,” Gwaine calls loudly to various laughs, “let’s go. There are still tracks here.”

Arthur looks back at Merlin. “You’re riding next to me.”

“You say that as if I don’t already ride next to you.”

“Shut up.”

3: Fall

Okay so listen: when you chase people around the castle, they inevitably look for a way out. And if they’re high up, they’re going to go for a window if they get desperate enough.

Yes? Everyone on the same page?

Wonderful.

So Merlin’s currently falling out of a window.

In his defense, there was a rogue sorcerer who hadn’t realized that the ban on magic had been lifted and Uther isn’t king anymore skulking around the citadel. Merlin’s best guess is that they were imprisoned somewhere and only just got free, otherwise they’d’ve known. And, well, they tried to explain that magic is legal now—he’s so proud of Gwen and Arthur, really.

Someone just burst into their chambers in the middle of the knight and Gwen had been out of bed, offering him a drink and sitting down while Arthur asked the guards if they could bring food. They’d told him the ban had been lifted and that he was free to practice magic now. Then Merlin had shown up and asked what was going on and apparently, they’d taken it as a challenge? That Merlin—the Court Sorcerer—was going to arrest them for practicing magic.

In their defense, it was the middle of the night. Not in their defense, come on.

So they’d run, promising to bring down the walls of the castle. Merlin had rolled his eyes because he just got here, and taken off after him. They’d run around the top floors of the castle for a while, trying to figure out first, where the stairs were, and second, what the bloody hell was going on.

Then the sorcerer had jumped out a window. Sure. Alright.

Unluckily for him, when he’d broken the glass, a large shard had decided to make its home in his chest and he was dead before he hit the ground. Merlin, not realizing precisely what the plan was—when had he ever?—jumped after him, only to realize that there is in fact, no courtyard over here, just empty air until the cold stone of the square below.

So, falling.

It’s surprisingly peaceful, as a way to go. Time to enjoy the view, a good reminder that they should really make sure there’s someone at the front gate, and Merlin simply closes his eyes and concentrates.

There.

At the last possible minute, he slows, reaching almost a stop, before letting himself drop the last few feet to land harmlessly on the ground. Well. That could’ve gone better.

“Merlin!”

“Right on time,” he mutters, getting himself to his feet, and brushing off the little pieces of glass, looking up to see Gwen leaning out of the window.

“Yes, Your Majesty?”

“Oh, thank god,” she calls, “you’re alright. Now get up here, this instant.”

He grins, sweeping into a low bow before heading up the stairs. He opens the door to their quarters and is promptly yanked inside and into an embrace.

“Hello, Gwen,” he says softly, “it’s good to see you too.”

“Good to see—Merlin,” Gwen scolds, "you could’ve been hurt.”

“But I wasn’t.”

“That doesn’t make it any better!” Gwen wipes her face and oh…oops.

“I’m alright Gwen,” he says quietly, “really.”

It’s late. It’s the middle of the night and it’s dark and Gwen just had to put on every single ounce of royal charm she has, and watch Merlin take a fall that would’ve killed pretty much everyone else. As he watches, her queenly mask starts to break as she keeps a hold of his sleeve, dragging him to the table and setting a plate of food aside, glaring at him.

“Are you hurt?”

“Not at all, my lady.”

“Don’t. Not now, Merlin. Not while I’m this worried.”

“I wasn’t trying to,” he demurs, lifting his hands in surrender, “but really, Gwen, I’m not hurt. I’ve been practicing that spell, it won’t—“

“You’ve been practicing?” Merlin winces as Gwen draws herself up taller. “So you regularly throw yourself from great heights?”

“No, I just jump off my bed.”

“Off your bed?”

“The point is that I slow immediately when the spell takes effect,” Merlin says, “so I don’t need very much distance from the floor.”

She folds her arms and stares at him. “So what you’re saying is this is the first time you’ve done it from a great height and you weren’t sure it was going to work?”

Merlin’s hesitation gives her all the answers she needs.

“Gods, Merlin,” she mumbles, slumping into a chair and covering her face, “you’re going to scare me to death one of these days.”

“Nah. I’ll save you from that.”

“How, by doing some equally death-defying stunt?”

Merlin grins and takes her hand. “No. By not letting you see it.”

“Merlin…”

He relents, opening his arms and letting her give him another hug. He squeezes back firmly, trying to communicate that he’s here, he’s safe, and it’s okay.

“I’m glad you’re alright,” Gwen whispers eventually, “and I’m glad that everything…worked out. We do need to make sure that the sorcerers no longer feel the need to live in fear…”

Merlin chuckles as he feels Gwen’s brow furrow against his shoulder, probably already drafting things to do.

“Not tonight, Your Majesty,” he scolds gently, pushing her toward the bed, “you need rest.”

“Mm.”

“Where’s Arthur?”

“Probably looking for you,” Gwen murmurs as she slides back beneath the covers, “so you have to stay up until he gets back.”

“…and so he can yell at me too, hmm?”

Gwen snuggles into her pillow and smiles.

4: Stab

So.

Uh, Merlin doesn’t really know how they got here this time.

Because—right, well, it’s not really a secret that Merlin is very close to both Gwen and Arthur. It’s just not. Anyone with a pair of eyes who can walk into Camelot and see them is going to figure it out. Even Uther realized it.

Merlin will never forget the way Arthur burst out laughing when he told him what Uther said to Merlin that day before the tournament, looking up with tears in his eyes and just managing to gasp: “you’re telling me that you and I got my father’s blessing before Gwen and I even started seeing each other?”

Yes. Yes, he is.

Anyway, the point is, Gwen, Merlin, Arthur, they’re very close.

Also something that should be fairly obvious to anyone who’s been to Camelot in the last little bit of time is that one: magic is legal. Two: Merlin is Court Sorcerer.

Get it? Wonderful. So.

The man who is currently holding Merlin hostage with a sword to his throat knows that Merlin is important to Gwen and Arthur. He doesn’t seem to realize that Merlin is Court Sorcerer.

How those two things are not the first two things he realized Merlin does not understand. Honestly, he’s going to chalk that up to why he’s too startled by the fact that he’s got people coming at him with a sword to do anything about it. The sheer inability of those facts to reconcile in his brain prevents him from taking any action.

Honestly, he’s still figuring that out. Enough so that it takes him a while to realize that Leon is desperately trying to signal him and ask if he’s alright.

He gives back the okay and Leon’s expression morphs into one of soft exasperation. To everyone else, it probably doesn’t look like Leon’s face has changed at all, but they haven’t spent several council meetings with the man trading insults only through shifts in micro-expressions.

It’s quite entertaining, especially when they start to get really, really creative.

Anyway. Sword. Throat. Yes.

He’s not sure why currently being held hostage. Someone who wants something, probably. That’s generally why people get taken hostage, right? The sword presses a little closer and Merlin makes an effort to focus.

“Do this,” Arthur warns, his own sword out, “and you will never leave Camelot alive.”

“What good is Camelot,” the man scoffs, “if it allows for the devilish act of witchcraft and sorcery that will poison it from the inside?”

“You’re wrong.”

“Maybe,” the man snarls, spittle flying from his lips, “but not nearly as stupid as you.”

Arthur glances at Merlin. Merlin nods.

“Let him go,” Arthur says again, “and this might yet end well.”

The man throws his head back and cackles, the sword nudging insistently at his throat. Merlin winces. That was loud.

“This won’t end well,” the man says through his giggles, “and you know it.”

“Then let him go.”

“Alright,” the man snickers, “but you’ll have to give me a head start.”

Gwaine snarls, even as Arthur holds firm.

“I make you no promises.”

“I know. That’s why I’m giving myself a head start.”

Merlin’s about to wonder what the hell that means only for the sword to drive into his stomach.

Ah. That’s not ideal.

He slumps to the ground as the man lets him go, hearing the screams from the servants gathered in the hall and the shouts from the knights. He feels the breeze as they rush past him, two remaining behind to immediately put pressure on the wound and get him upright, wrapping his stomach tightly and promising that he’s going to be alight.

“‘Lyan?”

“Yeah, Merlin,” Elyan mutters, “it’s me. Leon’s here too, we’ve got you.”

“You’ll be alright, yes?” Leon whips off the bloodied tunic. “You will be fine.”

“Sit m’ up.”

They do, propping him up against the wall as the servants quickly rush for Gaius, for hot water, for bandages. Someone—maybe Malwen—sets a bowl at Leon’s elbow, followed by the quick assurances that Gaius is on his way.

Merlin closes his eyes and concentrates, trying to remember the few times Gaius tried to teach him about basic anatomy. Listen, it’s not that he wasn’t paying attention, it’s just that he—

Yeah, no, he wasn’t paying much attention.

Listen, like…three different people were trying to kill Arthur that day. He was preoccupied.

Stab wound. Right.

Merlin takes a deep breath, ignoring the way the breath aches and wheezes as it travels into him, and starts to gently draw magic from the well in his chest toward the stab wound. He feeds it slowly, trying not to overexert himself, just enough to staunch and stop the bleeding until Gaius can get here.

Something clatters to the floor next to him and he barely looks over enough to see Arthur.

“Stay still,” Arthur murmurs frantically, fussing with his tunic, “you’ll be alright Merlin, I promise, you’re going to be alright.”

Merlin knows, but he’s busy right now, so he can’t really talk back.

“It’s going to be alright,” Arthur repeats, over and over, “Merlin, you’re going to be alright.”

He manages to look over, catching sight of Arthur’s hair a mess, his eyes wild, his mouth a hard line. Arthur glances up from his slightly trembling hands and catches his gaze, doing his best to put on a brave smile. He reaches out and cups Merlin’s face gently.

“It’s going to be alright,” he says softly, speaking as much to both of them as he can, “you’re going to be alright, Gaius will fix you up, and then I can worry about how to make sure you’re safe, so this never happens again.”

His mouth quirks when something flits across Merlin’s face.

“If you try and tell me you can take care of yourself,” he admonishes gently, “I am going to remind you that you currently have quite the stab wound.”

One that Merlin is handling quite well, actually, thank you very much.

“I know you’d rather it be you than us,” Arthur whispers, laying his forehead against Merlin’s, “but you—you can’t just let this happen to you, Merlin, you’ll…”

He swallows, his eyes drifting shut.

“…you’ll break my heart.”

A surge of magic shoots through Merlin at Arthur’s hushed confession, filling the wound with a burning glow. Merlin leans forward as much as he can, resting his own weight on the wall and on Arthur. Arthur holds him gladly, muttering that he can’t wait until Merlin’s better so he can scold him for being so reckless.

Well, when Merlin figures out how the man didn’t realize he was magic, he’ll have one hell of a defense. Who knows, Arthur might get a kick out of it too.

5: Plague

At some point, Merlin thinks as he heaves another stone out of the way, we’re going to stop coming across cursed objects. There has to be a limit. There just has to be.

This one has a plague attached to it because of course, it does. The entire citadel had been overrun with shadow demons that could only be seen by one person, everyone jumping at every little sound, unsure of whether they were seeing real people or the figments of their nightmares. What made things far worse is that some of them could be seen by multiple people and some of them couldn’t. So you could never be sure whether people would believe what you were seeing.

Someone called this the Plague of the Shadow Cat.

Gaius had gone into the books, trying to figure out a solution. Turns out the only way was to go to this cavern out in the middle of nowhere and destroy these four totems that allowed the Shadow Cat passage, in order to break the curse. The problem was that the cavern was in the middle of a massive forest that no one wanted to go close to.

Merlin had sighed and packed his bags.

As it turns out, the forest was designed to keep people out of it—reasonable—and used magic to twist someone’s fears to keep them at bay. You know what Merlin has? Magic.

It was easier than it would’ve been for anyone else, surely, which is good. What isn’t good is that Merlin still has to survive going through this massive forest. He’s had enough of dried meat and berries for a long time, thank you very much.

After about a day or two of walking and not getting lost, he’s just being thorough, he reaches the entrance of the cavern. It’s piled high with rocks from what looks like a collapse, and starts trying to get them out of the way. Unfortunately, most of his magic is going to keeping the nightmares at bay, meaning he can’t really risk using it to get these stones out of his way lest he let the nightmares in.

He’s had enough nightmares for a lifetime already.

He grunts as he heaves another one out of the way. Honestly. Is there a checklist he can look at with all the cursed objects in the world? They’ve got to be at least halfway done at this point, come on. It’s been years.

At last, he manages to get the stones out of the way and ventures into the cavern. Around the twists and turns he reaches the center, seeing the four totems. He snaps his fingers to create a light, peering at each one. It seems as if he’s just going to have to disenchant them. Well, that won’t be too hard.

And…it isn’t. Huh. That’s a little anti-climactic.

He’s sure if he had to battle his way past his greatest fears and the Shadow Cat was actually here fighting him, this would be a lot harder. But, it’s not, so here he is, all done. Now he just has to get back through the forest. Ugh.

Merlin rides back into Camelot to see the people in the streets, happy, content, not afraid. He smiles, letting their joy wash some of the forests off of him. He slides off Cara and puts her away, wiping her down and giving her as many treats as the stable master will let him. He makes it back inside, to Gaius’s chambers, ready to throw open the door triumphantly and announce he’s fixed it!

The second he opens it to see Gwen and Arthur he freezes.

“…hello.”

“Hello, Merlin,” Arthur says softly, and oh shit he’s in trouble, “did you travel well?”

“A little damp, if I’m being…” He trails off when Arthur shoots him a look. “Yes. I did.”

Arthur nods sharply, leaning against the table and folding his arms.

“The curse is broken,” he tries, letting the door shut behind him, “and I don’t think it’ll ever come back.”

“That’s good, Merlin,” Arthur says in a tone of voice that suggests anything but, “that’s very good.”

Merlin nods hesitantly, glancing at Gwen. Gwen doesn’t look back at him, her eyes fixed on the vase of flowers in front of her. She withdraws one and holds it gently in her hands, turning toward Merlin, expressionless. Merlin fights the urge to flinch as she finally looks up at him.

“Do you know,” she says and this time Merlin does flinch, Gwen’s never sounded that cold before, “what happened the last time you vanished without telling us?”

Merlin’s heart drops to the pit of his stomach.

Oh.

Oh, no.

“I’m sorry,” he says, starting forward, “I didn’t realize—I—“

“No, Merlin,” Gwen says, still cold, “you don’t realize.”

“We trust you, Merlin,” Arthur continues, “but that doesn’t mean that you can just leave, in the middle of a plague, on a mission that could get you killed without saying goodbye.”

“You don’t get to decide that it’s worth it,” Gwen says before Merlin can interrupt, “and you certainly don’t get to decide that we don’t deserve a chance to say goodbye.”

Merlin deflates, their words striking his chest with such ferocity that for a moment, he wonders if this is the fear he’s meant to face. “I’m…I’m sorry, I just…I knew I could do it.”

He closes his eyes. “I have to protect Camelot, protect you.”

“We know, Merlin,” Gwen says, her voice finally softening just a little, “but you don’t realize that we have to protect you too.”

Arthur walks forward, lifting Merlin’s chin. Merlin stares at him, desperately wanting Arthur to smile. Something.

“You’re the most powerful sorcerer to walk the earth,” Arthur says instead, “but you’re still our Merlin. So we worry.”

“I know.”

“So,” Arthur says, giving him a gentle nudge, “don’t do that.”

“You may be nearly immortal, but we’re not,” Gwen adds, coming over to take his hand too, “and you will give us more reason to stress than any of the things you stop put together.”

Merlin looks back and forth between the two of them. “So you’re not…angry?”

“Oh, of course we are.”

Merlin winces, only for Arthur to pull him into a tight hug, his head tucking over Merlin’s shoulder.

“Completely furious,” he murmurs, nuzzling into Merlin’s neck, “aren’t we, Gwen?”

“Absolutely.” Merlin feels Gwen wrap her arms around him as well. “Totally and utterly furious.”

Merlin wriggles halfheartedly in their grasp. “I’m not getting out of this anytime soon, am I?”

“No. This is your punishment. Stay put.”

“…fine.”

+1: Cold

“No, Arthur,” Merlin grunts, shoving the prat back into bed, “stay, I will get you the soup.”

Arthur pouts, looking every bit a sad golden puppy in his read blanket as Merlin bustles about the room. “I can stand, Merlin.”

“No, you can’t, you’re sick. Now shush and eat.”

From the other room comes a sneeze that is far too close to the door.

“Gwen, you’d better be in bed when I come in there!”

He hears the quick pitter-patter of footsteps as he crosses the room to the other chambers, hands on his hips as Gwen glances up, guiltily letting the covers drop on top of her.

“I’m in bed,” she says, holding up her hands, “see?”

“Yes, I can see,” Merlin huffs, “but you have to stay there. You’re sick.”

“It’s just a cold, Merlin, I’m—I’m—“

Gwen is cut off by another spectacular sneeze.

“…handkerchief?”

Merlin rolls his eyes and offers her one, watching as she blows her nose and shakes out her curls. If Arthur’s the puppy, she’s the kitten, startling herself with the force of her own sneezes.

“What were you so desperate to get out of bed for?”

“The book on my desk,” Gwen mumbles, reaching for it, “I wanted to—“

“Keep working.”

“No!” At Merlin’s knowing look, she makes a face. “…maybe.”

Merlin sighs. “I will get you a book, but you promised you wouldn’t try to work like this.”

“But I’m fine.”

“Yes, and I notice your sneezes didn’t interrupt you this time.”

“Merlin, I am alright.”

“Yes, so let’s have you stay in bed and rest until you’re better, hmm?”

He hears a clang from the other room. He narrows his eyes at Gwen who blinks innocently at him. Without breaking eye contact, he waves his hand.

“Hey!”

“Get your arse back in bed, sire.”

“I’m fine, Merlin.”

Merlin raises his eyebrows at Gwen. “Will you stay while I get your husband back in bed, please?”

“…if you bring me the book on the desk, I will.”

Merlin glances over and waves his hand. Gwen’s poetry book—not her work book—flies into his hand and he gives it to her.

“All yours.”

“Merlin, that’s not—“

“You surely weren’t trying to work were you?” He raises his eyebrows. “Because that would be a bad idea.”

Gwen pops open the book and buries her nose in it. “…thank you, Merlin.”

“You are most welcome. Now you,” he announces, striding back to see Arthur trying to open the now magically locked door, “will go back to bed.”

“Gaius said we were fine, Merlin,” Arthur pouts, “so we can go.”

“Gaius also said that I was in charge, so you’ll go back to bed.”

“Well, I’m the King.”

“And I’m the Court Sorcerer.” Merlin lifts his hand, letting a little of his magic swirl around his hand. “Which means you should get back in bed.”

“Threatening a king is treason, Merlin.”

“Yes, yes, and I’m sure the knights would be thrilled,” Merlin replies dryly, shooing Arthur back to bed, “now you will stay put.”

He doesn’t quite swaddle Arthur in the blanket but it is a close thing. Arthur just grumbles a little, reaching out and grabbing Merlin’s tunic and dragging him down onto the bed too. “Then you stay.”

“I have to get your medicine.”

“Have the guards do it.” Arthur snuggles into his tunic. “You stay.”

Merlin resigns himself to his fate, curling around his king. Arthur rumbles happily, nuzzling into Merlin’s neck.

“That’s the last time I let you two go out for picnics in the moonlight,” Merlin grumbles to himself, “look at what’s happened to you.”

“Now you know how we feel,” Arthur mumbles sleepily.

“You realize that we are now even for all of the things I’ve done, then.”

“Oh, no. Not even close.”

“Shut up and go to sleep, sire.”

#merlin #merlin bbc #bbc merlin #merthur #merthur fic #gwen #arthur pendragon #fic #dragonbabbles

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damnitnappa1317 · 4 years

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The birds flew away.

The flapping of their wings was almost eerie as the sound faded away. The constant squeaking and chirping of the birds was the only thing to be heard for miles and with them gone, she was left with nothing but deafening silence and her thoughts. Since losing David, that's all that was left. She took in those few moments of calm before the storm hit. Because, when the birds flew away, danger was on the horizon. There was no real way of telling what it was that was headed her way, as there were so many things to be weary of these days. It might be some stray bandits looking for resources, or a pack of wild coyotes looking for food. She could only hope that whatever was headed her way could be as minuscule as coyotes or a band of humans. But then, is life ever easy?

She took a deep breath of fresh air. No telling when she’d be outside again. She walked through the doorway of the house she shared with David for 18 years. The memories of him were intrusive, but there was no time for nostalgia. She pushed the thoughts away, bolted the three strong bolts on the door that David said they’d never need since they lived in the country, and pulled the curtains closed. Whatever was headed her way didn’t need to see inside of her home. She gathered some food, books and other necessities and walked down the narrow hallway to her safe spot. Halfway down the hallway, She stopped and looked up and what, to most people, just looked like a flat ceiling. She smiled and remembered the day David painted over the attic door. He didn’t think it would blend in so well with the ceiling, but if you didn’t know it was there, you wouldn’t see it. A simple mistake that saved her life on so many occasions. She pushed David out of her head once again and set her things down. She needed to hurry, since there was no real way of telling what kind of danger was heading her way or how long it would be before it made it to her doorstep. She pulled the rug away from the wall and reached under a broken piece of floor trim, another clumsy mistake of Davids from when he tripped moving a piece of furniture down the hall, and retrieved a key. She pulled the foot stool out of the bathroom, stood on it and unlocked the attic. She pulled down the stairs, and they creaked and moaned with age, much like her bones did at this age. She put the stool back, gathered her things, and hurried up the stairs as fast as her old bones would let her. She pulled up the stairs behind her, sat the key in the window sill, and settled into her bed. She improvised out of old pillows and blankets. She dared not turn on any lights, as she was still unsure of what was heading her way, so she sat in the dark nibbling on crackers, looking out the window to assess the danger.

It wasn’t long before she could hear the commotion outside. Human voices, loud and raucous. A little sigh of relief slipped out of her lips. Humans were easy to handle. She’d done it many times since all of this started, with the trusty shotgun David insisted she kept in case a bear came onto the property clasped firmly in her hands. It doesn’t matter how old you are. If you have a shotgun in their face, they’re going to be intimidated. It was the others she was worried about. She watched as the group of 3 men and 4 women walked down the street. They were definitely intoxicated. She could almost smell the alcohol from her attic. They laughed, and screamed obscenities and they walked down that old dirt road, not even really giving her house a second glance. One girl jumped on another's back, giggling and snorting. They weren’t here to cause trouble. They were out being young adults, as they should be free to do. The old woman thought fondly about the time she spent running up and down that road with David and their friends. She smiled, as the group reminded her of them in a way.

The old woman caught movement in the field next to the road out of the top of her eye. A large figure was quickly heading towards the road. Her heart sank. She knew what was headed their way. She’d seen these creatures only twice before, but both times were so traumatizing, she knew she’d never forget what these creatures looked like. “Wait.” she thought “The sun is still out. They only hunt at night.”

She started knocking on the window, in hopes of getting the group's attention, but they had caught the movement too and two of the boys were investigating. She shouted, and screamed as she banged her old fists on the window, but to no avail. The creature jumped swiftly out of the brush, snatching the boy closest to it. There was barely any time to process the events that were happening before the old woman's eyes. A flash of black, and the first boy was gone. The second boy wasn’t as lucky. A long, black, tentacle flew from between the weeds, striking the second boy in the front of the neck, with a long black barb, protruding out the back. He clawed at the appendage sticking through his neck in vain. The creature shook his tentacle back and forth violently, blood and gore flinging everywhere, until the boy flew off the end of the tentacle and into the field. One of the girls screamed at the carnage. Her scream wasn’t long lived though as a large clawed hand reached out to grab her. The claws pierced her right side, and blood began to pour out. She was quickly jerked into the brush. The others ran but they found no mercy. One by one, the monster picked them off, pulling into the grass at an unnatural speed, in vivid flashes of red. The woman watched in terror, unable to do anything for them except pray that the monster makes it quick. But she knows it won’t. It didn’t when it got her best friend. It didn’t when it got her son. The woman sunk to the floor, trying to ignore the screams from the people getting massacred outside her window. They were loud, guttural screams of terror. It took everything the woman had to ignore them, as the thoughts of her friends and sons' deaths fought their way to the surface. She fought them harder though, trying to concentrate on the cracker she had in her hand. It was white, and had no smell. Crunchy, salty, and stale. Crunchy, salty, and stale. She tried to concentrate on those three words, as the screaming outside started to get closer and louder. So close, in fact, she could make out the words “Please. Help me! I don’t want to die!” She looked out the window and down on the porch below her was one of the young women from the group. She was bloodied, bruised, and dirty with tears running down her dark face. Her braided hair had grass and dirt in it. The young woman looked up and made eye contact with the old woman in the window. Her brown eyes got big with hope and she waved fervently to the old woman.

“Please!!” she screamed. “You can’t leave me out here! That thing killed my friends! Help me! Please!” she begged and sobbed.

The old woman was stunned. How did she escape that thing? How was she fast enough? The old woman knew she had to act quickly if she was to save this girl. She shuffled as fast as her old legs would carry her to the stairs and pushed the door open. She stumbled down the stairs, careful not to fall because who knows what a fall could do to her at this age. The stairs slide back up into place as she walked away, and the door clicked shut behind her. She hurried to the door, hands shaking and unsteady as she unlocked the three big locks on her door. After what felt like too long, the door was unlocked and flung open. The young woman shrieked in relief as the old woman opened the door. She stumbled through the door and the old woman slammed it behind her, locking all three locks as quickly as she could. The only thing that was left was the sound of both of the women breathing heavily. The young woman gulped and wiped her face.

“My name's Meghan.” she said in a small shaky voice.

The old woman's voice was just as shaky.

“Maryanne” she said simply.

Meghan cleared her throat.

“Well thank you fo-” her sentence was cut off by shattering glass and a sharp shriek. Maryanne stumbled forward to keep from being hit by the glass. She turned and the monster was towering over her. She may have seen one before, but never this close. It was tall, lean, and somewhat humanoid shaped. One long tentacle protruded out of its back. It was black and spotted red. Some was blood from the boy, some seemed to be spots that the monster naturally had. It had sharp red eyes, shaped more like bloody slits cut where eyes would be. It’s entire body was black, and almost slimy. It had large clawed hands, much bigger than a human males hands. Its claws are at least 8 inches long, shiny and sharp. It let out an unnatural groan as it approached Maryanne. She knew that this meant death. She was unsure if she should be mad at the girl for getting her killed, or greatful that she’d soon be with David and her son. She was almost ready to accept her excruciating death, when Meghan struck the monster with the glass insert from Maryanne's coffee table.

“NOT TODAY FUCKER!” she screamed as the glass shattered over the monster. It shrieked and stumbled. Maryanne knew that the thing would surely tear little Meghan in half.

“Stupid child!” Maryanne thought to herself. “Why didn’t she fucking run when she had the chance?”

Meghan pulled a small black box out of her pocket, and stuck it dead in the middle of the monsters face. She pushed the red button on the side and the monster started convulsing violently, shrieking and slowly falling to the ground. Smoke and steam began to rise from the spot she hit him. Maryanne was stunned. Meghan ran and grabbed her hand.

“Come on.” she said, pulling Maryanne to her feet. “We don’t have long before it's up. Is there somewhere we can go?” Maryanne, still shocked at the events unfolding before her, could only manage two words.

“Hallway. Attic” she said breathlessly.

“Let’s go then.” Meghan insisted as she softly tugged at the old womans arm. Maryanne shuffled quickly, in a daze to the hallway. Meghan stopped in the hallway and looked up.

“Where is the attic?” she said in a tense voice, but Maryanne was already pulling the stool out of the bathroom. She placed the stool under the attic door and reached for the key she stuck in the pocket of her baggy grey sweatpants. But her pocket was empty. She tried the other pocket. Empty. Where was the key? She began to panic. The only way up was with that key. She thought back to when she first went up to the attic. She got the key out from under the trim, went up the stairs, closed the door and put the key in her-- not in her pocket. On the window sill. Why would she put the damned key on the window sill?! David was always lecturing her about that kind of thing when he was alive. She groaned in frustration.

“What's wrong?” Meghan said, clearly panicked now.

“The only key to the attic is sitting upstairs in the window sill.” Maryanne said softly yet aggravated.

“What?!” Meghan shouted “Why is it in the window sill? Why wouldn’t you put it somewhere smart like, oh, I don’t know, your pocket?!” she said exasperated. Maryanne snapped at her.

“I didn’t think I’d be required to save an ignorant child this evening.”

“Don’t be so condescending.” Meghan retorted “All you had to do was not-”

A low growl got their attention and Meghan covered her mouth to keep in a shriek. Maryannes heart began to race. There was nowhere to go. They were exposed in the hallway, the key to their only hiding space sitting inside the hiding space and the growling was getting closer and more menacing.

#writing prompt #random writing

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tamibruce121 · 6 years

Text

Real Bride Diary: Lessons In Budgeting & Splurging

Or perhaps we could call it “Real Bride Diary: What I Want Versus What I Need”.

I’ve been accused of being a bit beyond “resourceful” – obsessively searching for the best value in every arena of life. While some might call this cheap, my major bargains have allowed me to indulge quite luxuriously when the opportunity deems appropriate – like lengthy vacations at private, cliffside villas somewhere. You know, spending my money where it counts.

Photo by Sotiris Tsakanikas via Bridal Musings

I generally live by a “do I want this, or do I need this” mantra when it comes to spending, and unless its travel or provisions (and horrendous NYC rent) otherwise, I don’t spend much at all in my daily life. So you can imagine how my bargain-hunting mind jolted when seeing wedding pricetags.

In the last six months of planning, I’ve certainly found ways to splurge, but most of my shopping and vendor hiring has included a little “how can I save on this?” research. So today, I share with you my notable budget finds and wedding splurges thus far.

Budget Finds – Bridal Shoes

A month ago I was walking my dog through the neighborhood and stopped dead in my tracks upon sight of these lime yellow LOQ sandals. Teddy and I bounded into the store to gaze upon my new found love. The perfect sandals: a short chunky heel for the beach in a funky color for Mexico and totally my LA cool-girl bride style.

The catch? They’re $310 dollars.

While I’ve contemplated just exercising the “you only get married once” argument or the “you’ll get plenty of use out of them” point, how many fancy, everyday shoes does a girl really need? New York City destroys shoes, rendering any pair I buy – luxe or bargain – a short lifespan.

I’ve been searching across ASOS, Zara, and other low-cost, trendy outlets for similar styles and I’m quite taken by these chunky heeled sandals. While they’re not a bright funky color, I appreciate the simple, hip style that definitely won’t clash with silk – oh, and the $30 price tag.

Wedding Bands

Rings top to bottom: Anna Sheffield, Sofia Zakia via Catbird, Sofia Zakia via Catbird, Satomi Kawakita via Catbird.

As far as wedding bands go, I’m a little less particular I could go with a variety of styles given that they’re made ethically and have some sort of personality.

If I wear my rings together, I love the top Anna Sheffield ring, and could absolutely vie for saving a few hundred smackers for the similar Sofia Zakia ring. I may even wear my solitaire engagement ring alone, and wear a Morocco-inspired band on another finger (You guys know I’m Morocco obsessed, right?)

Party Photos

Photo by Claire Eliza via Bridal Musings

It may be perplexing to hear a wedding photographer suggest she’s opting out of wedding dance party photos, but hear me out.

We searched far and wide and found the perfect photographer, thankfully she fit right in our budget – that is with the smaller five-hour package. We’ve already splurged by adding photos of our Welcome Party, which means if we’d like photos 9 pm at our wedding, we’re going to be well over budget in the photo department.

Lucky for us, I have a stockpile of instant, disposable, point and shoot cameras and film. Every camera has it’s own personality, fun flashes, and are easy to use. I think we may save the extra $500 and let our friends and family capture the late-night fiesta and enjoy the wild outcome – after all, there will be plenty of photos of the day.

Bridal Robe

Jack & Claire in the Dominican Republic by Claire Eliza

Working from home, and thus rarely wearing real clothes, I’m quite obsessed with loungewear. It doesn’t take an impending wedding to make me fill my virtual shopping carts with luxe, silk robes.

But, this is a serious case of want versus need. The fact is, I have a silk robe I bought in Vietnam years ago with Jack that has traveled with me everywhere. It’s colorful, meaningful, and only cost me $15.

So while I’d love to lounge in a luxurious new Loulette Lingerie Dallas Robe, I think I’ll stick to what I already have.

Wedding Flowers

Photo by Savan Photography via Ruffled Blog

Have I told you our plans to be floral bandits?

Todos Santos is covered in bougainvillea, and it’s one of the things that entranced me so much about our sweet little beach town. While I love flowers, I just can’t stomach the thousands of dollars florals usually cost when what we want grows wild locally.

My best friend and I are actually quite thrilled to run around town collecting branches. I figure we’ll drape piles wildly across tables, bundle oversized bouquets, and make use of whatever other dried, fallen palms and foliage we find.

Bridal Makeup

Photo by Jenelle Kappe Photography via Bridal Musings

I’m having a great philosophical debate about bridal make up right now – point being, I don’t wear any.

We’ll cover this controversial topic at a later date but in the world of cutting cost, I could really be okay with forgoing the professional makeup artist, buying my own new products, taking some tips at the counter and DIYing it myself.

Plates & Flatware

Photo via Wedding Chicks

Biodegradable disposable dishes everybody! Not only is this option cheaper and safe for the environment, but it stops anyone from having to do dishes at the end of the night and they’re actually pretty cute! We’ll probably spend about $40 total and I can’t tell you how happy that makes me.

Wedding Splurges – Venue & Stay

Accommodations are an area I’m an expert at splurging in. Our venue was well below the cost of comparable venues in the USA but still above what I expected to spend in Mexico. Not only that, my parents were generous enough to book the entire villa to stay longer than the minimum nights.

After our stay at Villa Santa Cruz, Jack and I will be spending more time entertaining our guests in Todos Santos (eating tacos, swimming with whale sharks, beachcombing) while staying privately at our own beachside pool villa – as newlyweds deserve something special.

Welcome Party Dress

Danra Dress by Leanne Marshall

Sample sale dress shopping is the best! While I’d like to point out that my Leanne Marshall welcome party dress is truly a bargain (purchased at over 90% off!) $300 might be more than any dress I’ve ever purchased aside from my own wedding dress.

With alterations to come, this gown is a bit pricey, but as a wedding photographer and bridal editor, this girl deserves more than one fancy dress to wear on our wedding week!

The Catering

Photo by Joielala Photography via Bridal Musings

When I pitched Todos Santos to Jack for our wedding destination it went as such, “And just think, we could hire our favorite taqueria to cater made-to-order tacos all night for practically nothing!” It’s true, for our 50 person guest list hiring a local taco spot would cost us about $700, and truly was our dream wedding dinner.

Unfortunately, you can’t always get what you want. Finding a way to contact our favorite taco joint from NYC has proven difficult, and others have put doubts in my ears about whether the whole street taco set-up would be executed properly without expert wedding catering experience.

I want to ignore the naysayers, but we’ve found a proper caterer who’s willing to set up a taco station, make fresh tortillas, and include a whole menu of appetizers, salsas, desserts and more. Plus, a best friend of mine is severely allergic to nuts, so a proper caterer feels like the safer choice, albeit the far more expensive one.

Photo by Sotiris Tsakanikas via Bridal Musings

We’ve got plenty more budgeting decisions to make, and purchasing to do, but I feel pretty good about our budget, splurging balance. By using the same financial philosophy Jack and I exercise in our daily life, we’ve managed to keep a good “Is this a high priority?” and “Would we be upset if we didn’t splurge on this?” mentality.

For more about our Mexico wedding planning, visit my Real Bride Diary. Find more helpful budgeting tips in our planning section.

Feature Image: Airbnb

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allofusandco · 6 years

Text

well, hello | sam and wynonna

Wynonna meets Sam Winchester while disposing of some vampire bodies.

with @thexboyxking.

Wynonna:

Ah, gross! Dead bodies were always gross. And in general, Wynonna preferred to avoid them. But dead bodies, and she wasn’t all that clear on some of the boundaries between the species but this was definitely…

Well, something. Revenants. Vampires. Whatever. She had bigger things to worry about but steering clear of things that weren’t revenants was looking more and more like a pipe dream.

There was a sound behind her.

Benefit of the doubt had, despite the odds, turned out to work better than anticipated in juvie and jail but Wynonna was done with it. She had her gun out and on him before he could open his mouth.

“Five seconds to convince me not to shoot you in the face,” she said. “Maybe avoid poetry.”

–––––

Sam:

Fighting off supernaturally powered creatures wasn’t a new song and dance for Sam, as a matter of fact it usually was just another day of the week for him. What was odd though, and the thing setting his little skirmish apart from any other, was what seemed like a regular average Jane kicking ass. Most civilians, even the ones that knew how to handle themselves in a fight, didn’t manage to get the drop on whatever baddie was cornering them.

They usually didn’t manage to get a gun pointed right smack in the middle of his face either.

“Hey now,” he held up his hand, fingers clicking the safety back into place on his gun as he took a step back from the woman. “Easy, I was just coming to help….not that it looks like you really need it. You a hunter?”

It wasn’t the usual up front kind of question even he would ask but seeing as she was two seconds from shooting him and had managed a handful of monsters on her own Sam figured a little bluntness wouldn’t kill him.

Alright, so he’d managed to convince her in under five seconds, well done. Still. She held the gun in place for a moment or two more, mostly for effect, before replacing the safety and slipping the Peacemaker back into its holster.

–––––

Wynonna:

“A hunter?” She’d met a few. She supposed the answer was yes, at least partly. She slipped her badge from her pocket. “U.S. Marshall. Um… U.S. Marshall, Monster division.” She cocked her head; he was cute. Hunters were usually a little more grizzly, but she wasn’t complaining. “Sort of. Slightly AWOL. We had a difference of opinion, but no one managed to take the badge off me, and it does come in handy.”

She turned back to the bodies, human and… not human, sort of disappointed the not-humans hadn’t been dragged into hell; but she didn’t miss revenants. “Could use some help getting rid of these. Assuming they’re vampires, but seems like every goddamn thing has teeth these days.” She wiped her bloody palm off on her jeans and leaned in to shake. “Wynonna.” He hadn’t earned a last name yet, especially since that tended to bring on a whole ’nother conversation she wasn’t quite ready for.

–––––

Sam:

With the gun off of hi Sam allowed himself to relax a little bit though he did keep his guard up just a bit. Just because she seemed to know how to handle herself around vampires didn’t mean she would maintain friendliness with him.

“Monster division,” there was a hint of disbelief when he said it, a grin twitching at the corners of his lips. “Yeah ok, if you’re going to be tossing around the fake ID’s you might want to actually go with a division that actually exists.”

Being a ‘professional’ hunter wasn’t going to win her any favors when it came to getting information on hunts and Sam mentally made a note that she seemed fresh to the job.

“I’m Sam, Sam Winchester,” he reached out and shook her hand before letting his eyes move back to the vampires. “A group like this it’s probably best we find a place to burn them. You don’t need the local cops finding a bunch of headless people and causing panic.”

He could handle helping her with that, maybe get to know a little back story on her too. It never hurt to have a few backup hunters you could call on when needed.

–––––

Wynonna:

Wynonna narrowed her eyes. “Black Shield, then. I’ve always thought of it as Monster Division. And it’s not fake. Just… technically, I’m not currently entitled to carry it.” From her cold, dead hands they’d have to pry it. She needed a little holiday, that was all. Sick of being told what to do.

That hand, though – roughly the size of a dinner plate, and strong, very nice. Maybe her night would be a little less lonely than she’d planned. Should probably play nice. Might be worth it to see what was under that shirt. “Winchester. That’s cute. I was thinking I might change mine to Smith, or Wesson. Maybe Colt.” She turned back to the pile of bodies on the ground.

“I had high hopes they might just themselves sucked into hell, but I guess it’s not my day,” she said. “Local cops can kiss my very perky ass. I don’t want kids stumbling across them. I’ve got a truck, if you’ll help me load them up.”

She had a truck. Probably hadn’t been reported stolen yet. Might never be, if the old lady went into her garage as rarely as Wynonna suspected.

“And it’s Earp. Yeah, that Earp.”

–––––

Sam:

Black division, monster division—whatever way she tried to sell it as Sam wasn’t buying it. In all his time hinting he’d never once run across anything that indicated that the government knew about the things that went bump in the night. It wasn’t possible, hell even going through the Bunker research hadn’t given any indication that the government knew of these things. It was absurd to think about them knowing and not ever helping.

“Earp, sorry that doesn’t ring any bells,” he said feeling slightly bad since she seemed to expect it of him. “You get a lot of things dragging themselves back to hell?” he asked ignoring the slight jab at his name. It wasn’t unusual, though to be fair he hadn’t gotten it in a few years now…also as a side thought Wynonna Colt didn’t sound awful.

“So where’s this truck of yours? We’ll get them loaded up and to a remote area, then we can burn them,” he half asked half stated as he glanced towards the bodies on the ground.

–––––

Wynonna:

Wynonna spun on her heel. “Earp doesn’t ring any – Wyatt Earp? Greatest US Marshall that ever lived? Put countless bad guys in the ground, back when robbing a train or a bank was a good idea? Even a career path?”

There were people who hadn’t heard of Wyatt Earp? Wynonna was borderline offended.

She patted the gun at her hip. “Depends on the thing. There’s a – family curse, blessing, what have you. All the law breaker old Wyatt put down tend to come back. I shoot ’em with this, the ground kinda… opens up.”

She was telling too much. Yeah, offended, had to be that. Might be tall and pretty but right now Sam was shit out of luck if he’d been hoping for a warmer bed tonight.

“It’s only around the corner,” she said. “Gimme three minutes.”

In two and a half, she was backing into the alley, and getting down to drag the bodies up. Strong she was, yeah, the heir and all, but that didn’t make it any more fun to get them up onto the back.

“Couldn’t help notice the implication of a hand,” she said. “And I accept. Couple of shovels there in the lock box. Get in the cab. Promise I’ll drop you home after.”

–––––

Sam:

Sam held up his hands in mock surrender as she rounded on him going on about her family name. In all fairness he was farily sure he’d had the same reaction in his own head a few times when other hunters claimed they hadn’t heard of him, Dean or the Winchester’s. He got the whole family pride angle pretty good.

“Earp, yeah sorry, I remember now. The whole wild west, cowboy thing is more my brother’s gig,” he added with a smirk. Dean would recognize her name right away, he probably knew about whatever curse she had going on too.

Grabbing one of the vampires he helped load them into the bed of the truck before making his way to the cab to get in. She was right, he’d offered help and he wasn’t about to back out of it now.

“Alright so this curse thing,” he said shifting in his seat to look at her better, “what’s the deal with that? We talking demons or ghosts or something else entirely?” Sam was naturally curious and family curses were sort of in the job description so he couldn’t help but want more details here.

–––––

Wynonna:

Wynonna shook her head. How any man could have so little interest in history she did not know, but she wasn’t going to stand around and feed him a lesson when they had a grave to dig.

She pulled out of the alley smoothly, trying to decide on the best route to take.

Was she going to share her story with a perfect stranger? Well, yeah, she was, because he was a captive audience and a hunter and a perfect specimen of the male form, so why the heck not.

“My home town is a little berg called Purgatory, where my great granddaddy was brung up, and lived most of his life. Everyone he shot and killed with this gun went straight to Hades. And every time the family heir hits the ripe old age of twenty-seven, the curse kicks in, and all those dead bandits get on up out of the ground again. And we put ’em back down. Call ’em revenants. They’re demons. Act a little like vampires, though, sure like chewin’ on folks. Nasty things. If you’re lucky y’can watch me put one down one day – earth swallows ’em whole, back down into the pit. It’s a thing to see.” She smiled. “Course, the gun will kill just about anything. Comes in handy when they send something else nasty after me. Nothin’ like the panic in their eyes when they realize their number is up.”

She turned down a logging path, deeper into the forest.

–––––

Sam:

That gun was sounding a lot like the Colt and the demons…well that sounded like an interesting little curse. He’d always thought his family had it bad, and he wasn’t going to even begin comparing that because when it came right down to it both situations sucked pretty bad.

“Hey not wishing one of these uh revenants on you or anything but hell yeah I’d like to see that one day,” he said grinning over at her. “My brother and I, we mostly track across the states hunting things like demons and other monsters. We have a gun that kills them too, Samuel Colt’s gun. It doesn’t open up the ground and pull them down in to Hell though. Just sort of makes them glow in their vessels before they’re just…gone.”

He shouldn’t have even been talking to her about it and Dean would be giving him one of those looks if he heard him but it was fine. She seemed like good people.

“We’ve not used it in sometime now though, bigger fish and all that,” he added shrugging. Those were easier times back then, even he could admit that. Now monsters were complicated, more so than yellow eyes ever had been.

“You’re the heir then?” he asked arching a brow at her.

–––––

Wynonna:

“I am indeed the heir.” Wynonna waggled her eyebrows. “And I guess I’ve been doing the same, last little while. See,” she said, conspiratorially, “I recently found something out about myself – I don’t like bein’ used. All very nice to be given a badge, but when the government doesn’t tell me jack and just points me where they want me I get a mite tetchy. Or make that a lot tetchy. I’m on my own, though. Got a sister back home, like the Wikipedia of monster crap – genius, speaks a bunch of languages I don’t even know the name of. But I wouldn’t drag her on the road with me. She’s home promising people she hasn’t seen me and figuring out where I should go next.”

Wynonna missed her so much it was like a stone in her throat.

“One of the best things about being a woman is the way men routinely underestimate you. And she’s just so damn small and cute, everyone underestimates her.” She gave Sam a sly grin. “This’ll do.”

Deforestation had been effectively stopped here six months back, and wasn’t likely to start up again anytime soon. “Long as there are no enterprising dogs, and we don’t give up digging too quickly this’ll work out just fine. We’ll be sipping margaritas poolside in a couple of hours.”

She parked the truck – fuck, she missed the motorbike, but she’d head back and retrieve it soon as she could – and stepped down and out, climbing into the back to fetch the shovels.

“Don’t get all delicate on me,” she said, seriously. “If you get hot and need to lose the shirt, there’s no judgment here.”

–––––

Sam:

Sam shouldn’t have been envious, not after so long of being a hunter, but there was a spark of jealousy down deep inside of him when she talked about her sister. That was what he wanted out of life back when he was a teenager. He’d wanted the safety, for Dean to tell him it was ok to not be a part of this life on the road and that whatever research he could help them with was enough. He’d never gotten that though and instead he’d spent his life on the road, partaking in the family business. It was a stark difference to what Wynonna had going on in her life with her sister and Sam wondered how long it would last and if it even could.

Pulling himself from the truck he took a shovel and gave Wynonna the same half exasperated glare that he’d give Dean for making a comment like that towards him or someone else. Shaking his head he set to work digging.

“So you and her, your sister, been doing this long?” he asked curious about the little life the pair of them had together. Was it the curse on their family that made them start hunting or had they put it off as long as they could like he had? Had either one of them tried to get out before this life had sucked them right back in to it? Sam wanted to know, it wasn’t often that he met people so similar to him and Dean.

–––––

Wynonna:

Digging holes was always fun. Well, they didn’t need to be pretty, just deep enough so nothing would start dragging body parts back up to the road.

“Well,” she said, between loads of dirt, “depends what you mean. Our daddy was the heir before me, and when we were kids… well, we knew. He told us the truth. And then one day they came for him, and my older sister…”

Okay, enough of that.

“Anyway, there was no heir, for a while, then. Now, me, I would have raised arms or something, but I was real busy. Bein’ in juvie. Several times. And then jail.” She leaned on the shovel for a moment. She really had wasted a lot of time behind bars for one thing or another. Probably better to avoid that for the foreseeable future. Wyoming had a three strikes law.

“Waverly, though,” she said. Still in awe. “She wanted to break the curse. Did college by correspondence, learned everything she could. So Wav… guess you could say she’s been in it a long time. But me, I turned twenty-seven almost a year ago, came into my inheritance that day, and that’s about the size of that.”

Monsters.

“Fought an Amazon or two in jail, if it counts.”

It was getting darker by the minute. Wynonna found a lantern and set it by the side of the hole.

“Next time, I’m thinkin’ dumpster. Do they really deserve a decent burial?” She took a long pull off a canteen and passed it to Sam. “Bet McDonalds wouldn’t be above using monster meat.”

–––––

Sam:

Hearing Wynonna talk about growing up in the life made a few pieces click in to place for Sam. That right there was why he clicked with her, maybe even why he was drawn to her, she knewthe life and not just from a year or two of being in it. She was young but she’d always known what was out there and was probably just as jaded as he’d been at twenty-seven.

“I didn’t think it was about giving them a burial but rather about the local kids not finding them,” he said flashing her a grin as he looked up from his digging position. “You’ll get used to it after a while, the digging I mean. Well the monsters too actually…it all becomes easier.”

It shouldn’t be easier though—Sam always thought that whenever he told someone. Killing things, burying things, covering your tracks and avoiding the law should never get easier but it did and he was a walking testament to that.

“My brother and I grew up in this all too,” he explained around spurts of digging. “A demon got our mom when I was little, only six months. Dad started hunting it, looking for revenge so Dean and I grew up knowing all this stuff was the real deal. They tried to keep it from me for a while but eventually Dean caved and let me know. I got out for a while, did a few years of school…pre-law, but got sucked back in to this.”

Everyone always got sucked back in, that’s the one thing about this life Sam knew for sure. Maybe Wynonna and her sister had a chance though, maybe if they broke the family curse they’d be free and could walk away.

“You uh, you ever wonder why your parents had kids and kept the family curse going? I just always thought you know if I was cursed and it was an inheritance type deal I’d probably just not have kids or something,” he mused thinking more out loud than anything else. Standing up he tossed the shovel aside and surveyed the hole. “I think we’re deep enough.”

–––––

Wynonna:

Well, that sucked. Losing a mother before he really knew he had one? Wynonna shook her head. She could sort of picture it, really, their daddy, his quest for revenge. Undoubtedly more to the story and Wynonna was definitely nosy enough to ask, but maybe when she’d known the guy more than four hours. She wanted to know… had revenge worked? Or did he still feel empty?

“Well, if you’re gonna escape for a bit, college sounds better than prison.” Or a psychiatric hospital, not that Wynonna exactly opened with that when she met someone new. Better they decide she was nuts all by themselves. “I’d ask if you’re sorry you got dragged back – but what could you really say to that? Hard to walk away when you know what goes bump in the night.”

She stopped digging for a moment and leaned on the shovel.

It was a question she’d asked herself before.

“I don’t know. On the one hand, I think fuck demons, you know, gotta live your life the way you want to live it for them, it meant three daughters. And on the other hand, I don’t know how anyone can bring kids into a world where when a kid says there’s something under the bed you get your shotgun and check for ’em. I’d ask daddy what he was thinking but he’s been a long time dead.”

She tossed the shovel aside, and climbed up onto the back of the truck.

“Not me, though. I wanna screw something up one day I’ll get a dog.” She looked through their pockets – jackpot! All three had wallets, and one had a few hundred bucks in cash that smelled like stale beer. Poker winnings. “Dinner’s on me, soon as we’re done. You ready?”

She half dragged and half rolled the first body towards Sam, ready to be tossed into the hole. Really was a pity he’d kept the shirt on.

–––––

Sam:

There was a memory in Sam’s mind of being momentarily afraid of things under his bed, when he’d asked dad about them he’d been told he was smart to be afraid of the dark places because he knew what lurked there. It had been a defining moment that had always stood out in his memories in later years like right now. He didn’t think he could ever bring a kid in to that, worry about his fucked up past putting them in trouble. Dean had tried it, once upon a time, when he’d settled down with Ben and Lisa. The job had come calling and before they knew it Lisa and Ben were put in harm’s way and that was always going to be the case.

Grabbing the body he finished rolling it off the tailgate and in to the grave followed by the next one.

“I always wanted a dog,” he laughed and took hold of the second vampire pulling it into the grave as well. “Dean won’t let me have one, says it would be too complicated having it on the road with us.” Though he hadn’t asked since they’d moved in to the Bunker, maybe he would just get one now and Dean would just have to deal with it.

“I’ll take you up on that dinner offer,” he added grinning as he dumped the last body and climbed over them to begin piling dirt on top of them. “You know anywhere good around here? I’ve not been in town long enough to know what’s good, not unless you want bar food.”

–––––

Wynonna:

“Is there any other kind of food?” Wynonna asked, guilelessly. “Suits me fine. And no, only got in yesterday, on a tip. All I’ve eaten is beef jerky and a meatball sub and I’m starving.”

It didn’t take as long the fill the hole as it had to dig it, but by the time they were done they were both filthy and covered with sweat; and it was dark. Completely dark.

“Let’s go,” Wynonna said, throwing the shovels back into the lock box on the back of the truck. There was some blood, not much. She’d clean it up at the car wash the next day. Looked no worse than if she’d been carrying roadkill anyway.

She had to agree that a life on the road didn’t sound great for a dog, not that they ever looked exactly unhappy sticking their big dumb heads out the window. “Too much responsibility for me, right now,” she said. “No idea how the next couple of years might pan out. The revenants…”

She opened the cab and climbed into the truck, waiting for Sam to join her before she moved on.

“They were limited to Purgatory. That’s the one in Wyoming, not the hell-adjacent one. But thanks to a spell the old limits are gone. And they hit the road. I have a list. Be nice if I didn’t keep getting sidetracked by other monsters.”

They drove back into town, and as they were approaching the place where they’d met, Wynonna spoke again.

“Figure this is where you left your car. My motel’s about six blocks that way and one north, big old palm tree in neon lights out the front. You can’t miss it. There’s a bar around the corner from there does a burger the size of your head. Or my head, at least. Meet you there in an hour?”

–––––

Sam:

Getting sidetracked by other monsters was a part of the job, sad to say but that was the truth. It’d taken dad so long to find Yellow Eyes because of everything else that kept getting in the damn way. The hell of it was that you just couldn’t bring yourself to stop because as a hunter you knew every kill you made saved someone else from going through the same heartache you went through. He wished he could tell Wynonna that it got better and that he revenge would eventually get done but depending on how long a list she had—well he wasn’t going to make a promise like that.

“I’ll meet you there,” he flashed her a smile and got out heading over to the truck he’d hijacked for checking out the town. Pulling out his phone he fired Dean a text to see where he was before making his way back to the motel to clean up.

With the vampires taken care of they could both relax a little…which for Dean would mean heading out to get laid and yeah so Sam was a little guilty of not sharing that the other hunter that had helped him was totally Dean’s type. It wasn’t his fault though that Dean had just assumed that when he’d said he’d bumped into another hunter he’d meant some bristly guy like them.

An hour later Sam found himself nice and cleaned up and waiting outside of the bar for Wynonna to show up and glad that Dean hadn’t decided to take an early night in and question him on where he was going out.

“Hey,” he greeted walking over to her truck to open the door for her.

–––––

Wynonna:

Wynonna showered, took an extra twenty seconds to shave her legs, just in case, and dressed in the last clean clothing she had. It was really time to slow down and do some laundry. Still, she thought, as she checked her reflection, at least nothing she owned was going to make her look like less than a badass monster fighting girl.

In a tank top, she was flashing the new tattoo. Still wasn’t sick of looking at the thing, he funny little nod to old Wyatt, one no one would ever recognize. She pulled a leather jacket over the top, and was out the door.

She’d driven the two blocks to the bar before she realized how ridiculous it was not to have walked. Didn’t matter, if she got stupid she could walk back, take the truck in the morning; she probably needed to move on, anyway, had a lead a day’s drive away. Didn’t sound like a particularly good lead, but she couldn’t really dismiss anything.

“And they say chivalry is dead,” she said, stepping out of the truck and spending a good half minute wrangling the lock. Lucky this part of the country was lax on their gun laws, because she never left the peacemaker anywhere. With it settled against her hip, she gave Sam a wonky smile, and followed towards the bar.

“Still getting a buzz from this,” she said. “Guess it wears off eventually, but not yet.” First instinct sent her to the bar, but she wanted to talk about things that might get them arrested or thrown in a loony bin and quite possibly tempt Sam into a game of footsies later on, so she pointed to a booth in the back.

“Couple of beers,” she said, knocking on the bar on the way past and indicating where they were headed. Wynonna was still too paranoid to sit with her back to the door, so she dropped into the far side. “Not a bad day’s work. Where’s this brother of yours?”

–––––

Sam:

There was a moment of hesitation just at the booth when Wynonna took the seat facing the door. In a normal situation he’d have Dean here and his brother always took that seat, years growing up on the road as the baby brother had always dictated that Dean take the lookout seat and handing it over to Wynonna took Sam a second to adjust to. He knew he could count on Dean and he knew he could trust his own instincts when surveying a room full of people…he didn’t know if he could do that with Wynonna but what choice was he left with? Sit beside her awkwardly or bring it up?

Realizing he was still standing a second too long he took the seat across from her and ran his hand back through his hair offering a shy awkward smile over his own goofiness.

“Yeah, not bad… um he’s out, he doesn’t exactly get on well with other hunters,” he shrugged his shoulders and forced himself to relax a bit. On the contrary Dean loved swapping stories with other hunters but he’d been in a ‘get laid’ mood and Sam hadn’t felt like watching him flirt with Wynonna all night long. Selfish? Maybe just a little but he knew Dean was hot and when it came to girls he always won.

“So were these your first vampires? I mean you’ve mentioned hunting, Revenants was it? You just seemed to handle yourself pretty well with them. I’ve seen a few newer hunters get a little freaked over new things,” he asked.

–––––

Wynonna:

Hmph. Didn’t trust other hunters. Yeah, Wynonna had already heard that more than once; and more than once it had been followed up by ‘but I might make an exception for you, missy’, with a good long look at Wynonna’s rack thrown in for free. Turned out, though, no matter how tough a hunter was, hitting them open-fisted across the ear made them fall over and sob for their mommas. She wasn’t looking to hurt anyone; they were all on the same side, after all.

Also, now she thought about it – this was definitely a sign she was raising her standards! Wowee, Waverley was gonna be proud.

“No bother,” she said. “Must be nice to have someone on the road with you, though. Missing Waverley lately.” She shrugged. Wav was safe. That was all that mattered.

“Do I look new to you?” Wynonna deadpanned. “Those weren’t my first vampires. I’ve been killin’ vampires since…” she thought back. “Tuesday last week. Damnedest thing. Shot one on the head on account of it had fangs that looked live a revenant’s. It went down, and then came up snarling like a possum. Cheeseburger,” she said. “No onions. With bacon.” Wynonna needed to refuel, but badly. “Thanks.” The waitress looked bored, barely met Wynonna’s eyes as she scribbled down the order, and it made Wynonna think of Waverley again, her quick mind working over things even when she was being worn down by assholes who stiffed her on tips and tried to grab her ass.

“So tell me, Sam Winchester, since it turns out I’ve got an errand in Tennessee and the woods are full of werewolves – silver bullet. True or false? I should be taking notes in case my tenth beer knocks it all out of my head.”

–––––

Sam:

If what she said was true then she picked up on things really fast. That was par for the course in this life though, you either picked up how to kill something fast or you got dead yourself. That’s just how it was, how it had to be. There wasn’t room for a learning curve here, not when you were a hunter. How many time had he and Dean learned that the hard way back when they’d been young and on hunts for the first time?

Countless.

Placing an order for a burger (extra cheese, no onions) and a side of fries Sam watched the waitress head off before letting his attention drift back to Wynonna.

“Yeah, silver will do it,” he said nodding. “Silver also takes care of skinwalkers—they’re these nasty things that can take the shape of any human they want on a whim. Iron for ghosts, salt works on them and demons. If it’s got a bit of substantial lore you it you can pretty much count on it being true actually. There are some exceptions but not many.”

“Vampire’s and demon’s the only thing you’ve run in to so far?” he asked.

–––––

Wynonna:

Wynonna watched Sam watch the waitress saunter off – it figured he’d like a woman with a little more curve to her. She forcibly prevented an eye roll and reached for her beer.

“Skinwalkers? Like shapeshifters? Gross,” she said, curling up her lip. “You know, I went to school with a girl called Mary-Beth, and if you think you could survive being called Mary-Beth your whole life, then picture this; her legacy was her momma’s beauty parlor.” And in all honesty it sounded like a fate worse than death, to Wynonna. But peaceful. So peaceful.

She pulled a coaster towards her and flipped it over. Pen, pen… she excused herself to the bar and came back ready to take a couple of notes. “Iron. Fireplace poker’d work great for that… salt?” A couple of bags of road salt in the back of the truck wouldn’t be the worst idea. And packing salt rounds wouldn’t be hard…

“So far,” she said. “Met a couple of hunters, they sure like to brag, for the most part…” Present company pretty much excluded, since he was actually asking her questions. And she didn’t bother mentioning that they’d all tried to get in her pants – or that at almost any other point in her life it would have worked. “I’m getting’ there’s more than one type of demon, though. I only know revenants. Glowing eyes, ‘don’t mess with me’ voices I just love cutting short with ol’ Peacemaker here. Once upon a time this job would have been a hell of a lot easier – they couldn’t leave Purgatory. Now, thanks to the skankiest witch you’ve ever hoped to meet, they can roam as they please. And I don’t even know quite how many there are.” She hovered over the coaster with the pen.

“Your daddy. Your brother. Did you find peace? When you got your revenge?”

Blunt. Maybe invasive. But she had to know.

–––––

Sam:

It took Sam a second (or ten) to realize what she was getting at with the whole Mary-Beth story but once he did he let out a soft laugh. Once upon a time in a life that was no longer his and Dean’s their legacy might just have been the garage John had opened with a friend back in Lawrence. They’d seen it once, back when they’d headed through town because his visions had lead them there. The place still seemed to be drawing in business. Sam wondered if he still would have been as unhappy with ‘the family business’ if it had been a garage instead of hunting. Something told him he would have been, cars had always been dad and Dean’s thing.

“Yeah, yeah we’re a bragging bunch,” he has the decency to look sheepish over it as he rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “Sort of comes with the territory I think.”

Not that he ever had anything to prove to anyone these days, he was Sam Winchester and the Winchester name had always carried a certain respect to it thanks to John. Even now people knew the stuff he and Dean had done and most respected it—though to be fair most people didn’t know half the messes they cleaned up were usually of their own making in some way or another.

“Yeah I mean I guess there are,” he sighed thinking about her first question about demon types not wanting to think about the whole revenge and peace thing just yet. “There’s crossroad demons, you can tell them by their red eyes when the go all demon on you. Then there’s just lower class ones I guess…or maybe they’re just regular demons now…it’s hard to keep up with all the changing around in Hell. Anyways, they’ve got black eyes.”

Knights of Hell—Sam didn’t feel like touching on that anymore than he felt like touching on the general lack of peace he felt with his own revenge. It didn’t bring mom back, it didn’t bring Jess back. It felt good for two seconds, like it was done and over with, but then the need to get back to work settled deep inside his bones. There was always a job, always someone who needed their help, life just went on.

“No—not really,” he sighed and stared down at his own hands remembering that day so many years ago when Dean had finally put a bullet through ol yellow eyes. He hadn’t felt any different afterwards and he certainly hadn’t felt any different either when he’d killed Brady or when he’d finally locked Lucifer in the cage and was free of it. “It doesn’t change anything. It didn’t fix anything. Didn’t bring them back—revenge is always empty Wynonna.”

–––––

Wynonna:

“I didn’t mean you,” Wynonna said, with a little half smile. “I’m talking about the assholes wearing vampire fang necklaces and carryin’ a tape measure in their pants for convenience’ sake.” Sam, by contrast, seemed a little understated, despite his ridiculous size. Or maybe because of it.

It really didn’t do anything to promote an air of tranquility when Sam started rattling off lists of demons. Crossroads? Who’d be dumb enough to sell their soul? “Really, if you found a crossroads demon, that would mean the whole Heaven-slash-Hell bit was real, and then you’d be kind of a chump to go through with it,” she said. Not all that interested in saving people from their own stupidity. Besides, she had a real job to do.

She sort of wished she hadn’t asked. About revenge. She supposed she knew the answer.

“When I was a kid, a bunch of revenants broke into my family home,” she said. “Took my little sister. Killed my dad.” That wasn’t the whole truth, but it was close as she could come. “Seven of them. First thing I did when I became the heir, when I got old Peacemaker here…” She tapped her hip. “I went after the seven. Wasn’t easy and it wasn’t fun but when the last one was down, I thought I’d feel something. But Willa was still gone. Dad was still gone. And there were still dozens of the things to put down.”

She sipped at her beer. Novel in itself – usually she’d chug it and call for another. The whole supernatural destiny thing was messing with her whole personality. She should have been sitting in Sam’s lap by now, suggesting they get back to the motel. Instead, she was making notes about killing things on the back of a bar coaster, and fantasizing about killing the next monster she found.

The thought prickled her eyes, and she blinked hard.

“So were the hell does a girl get silver bullets?” she asked. “Because last time I checked, K-Mart didn’t stock ’em.”

–––––

Sam:

There was so much Sam wanted to tell her, so many opinions he wanted to give. He knew crossroads were some of the worst deals but he also knew that sometimes people were tricked in to making them and sometimes people did it thinking it was for the good of someone else. He wanted to tell her that and explain some of the people he and Dean had come across in their years of doing this. He wanted to assure he that sometimes things were a gray area and you had to make the call in the heat of the moment and that sometimes (most times) it wasn’t easy.

It wasn’t just the crossroads either but Heaven and Hell.

Those were topics Sam loved to talk about, mostly because Hell brought of questions and memories of Lucifer that he’d rather keep locked down inside of himself. Still she deserved to know what he did about it all, even if it meant having to shatter that part of her world.

Instead of saying anything he listened to her talk about revenge for a moment and nodded. He knew that feeling, he was just sorry she had to feel it too. He wondered if it would have been different for him and Dean if killing yellow eyes had been the end of it. If there hadn’t been Hell and the apocalypse and everything else they’d dealt with…the same for Wynonna. If there weren’t more demons for her to hunt would it have felt different?

“You know after we killed Yellow Eyes, the one that killed our mom there was just more and more, it’s like it never stopped coming at us,” he said softly before taking a sip of his own beer glad for it. He wasn’t usually this open about this stuff and he needed to shut his mouth.

Clearing his throat he leaned back in his seat.

“I can give you some names,” he said nodding. “Some contacts of traders and what not. They’re all good people, most own little side shops or bars. They’ll get you what you need in the way of ammo. You know how to do fake IDs and badges? They come in handy too.”

–––––

Wynonna:

“Sam, I think you really need to know that you have one of the most expressive faces I’ve ever seen,” Wynonna said, crossing her arms in front of her. “I have no idea what you were just thinkin’, but you did a lot of it. Some of it has to have been terrible, because for a second there you looked so sad I thought someone shot your dog.”

And it wasn’t her business, but that didn’t make her any less curious. She sighed.

“I knew killing the Seven wouldn’t be the end of it, but I think… I thought… that killin’ the rest of the revenants would be. And now I’ve been on the road a few weeks, and apparently I’m a monster magnet, and I can already see it’s never gonna stop. There’s always gonna be more to hunt.”

She paused a moment as the food was delivered, and gave the waitress a look that said if she was planning to hit on any of her customers tonight she should really look elsewhere. And then a sweet smile. “Thanks for that.”

She picked at a couple of fries.

“Names are good. Numbers are good. I’m a fan of both. Bullets, explosives, I like ’em all.” But fake IDs and badges? “And that might be a good idea. Kind of annoying that I have a real badge, and no one has a clue what it’s for,” she said, fishing it out of her pocket. “Plus if anyone checks up on me I’ll probably have the feds all over my ass like I’m a damn thanksgiving chicken. You know, a few months ago, I was lying on a beach in Greece?” She shook her head. “I thought I was out. I thought I’d escaped the family curse and I was just going to have a nice, normal life. Talk to me about fake IDs some more. Meow.”

–––––

Sam:

“Sorry,” he mumbled and ducked his head as the food was brought out. He knew he was expressive, it was something in his eyes or something, he’d been told that before and just never bothered to fix it since he didn’t see it as a flaw. Hell half the time it was the only way to get Dean to really talk to him, didn’t mean he was going to tell Wynonna what had been on his mind.

“Yeah no, I don’t think you ever get out,” he said shaking his head. “I thought I had too, back when I left the life for a bit to start collage. I wanted to be a lawyer, had a full ride for pre-law at Stanford with an interview lined up for a full ride for actual law school. Then I got pulled back in and it’s been—it’s been non-stop for the last eleven years.”

That still seemed like a life time ago and was sometimes hard to wrap his mind around even now.

“Ok well badges are great for keeping local law from asking too many questions,” he said reaching out to take her badge giving a look over before handing it back. “Dean and I are pretty good at making them, I’ll set you up with a whole set. You’ll have to judge each situation for what you think will be best, you know CDC, FBI or whatever.”

–––––

Wynonna:

Still at. Even all tough and mumbly there was something kinda sweet under it all. Which Wynonna had to stop wondering about.

“School, huh? Yeah, I… that was never really my… I mean, I got my GED.” She thought hard for a moment. It was possible she’d never seen a certificate. “I missed too much school, between juvie and…” She wasn’t going to say the psych ward. “And then I didn’t quite pass, on account of… I didn’t go much.”

Way to sound like a complete dunce, Wynonna Earp. Well done. Wynonna never blushed, but she felt a rush of embarrassment.

“Waverly, though – she did a four-year degree by correspondence, on the occult and ancient languages, just to find a way to break the family curse. Smart girl.”

Wynonna knew she wasn’t dumb. Studying held about as much appeal as electro-shock therapy had, but she wasn’t dumb. It was just hard to care much, hard to summon up the energy to give a shit when she knew everyone who looked at her just saw the crazy girl who killed her own father.

Anyway. Back to the present. “Uh-huh,” she said. “Well, Sam, that sounds great, but all I know about the FBI is what I learned from movies. Isn’t just punching your way into something and sort of… stabbing your way back out more… practical? Wait, no, CDC’s the one they call after an outbreak monkey shows up in the backyard.” She paused. “Actually, that could be helpful.”

–––––

Sam:

“I thought that too,” he grinned when she mentioned it being easier just to fight her way in to a place. “When I got back from Stanford to hunting again and Dean had all these fake badges and stuff I was pissed. I don’t know, I had their weird respect the badge kind of thing going on or something but you know they don’t get it, half the time they’re already in too deep and don’t know how to work the case until we come along.”

Dean pulling fake badges saved them in a lot of cases too over the years.

“Besides, if you don’t know what you’re hunting and need information you can’t fight your way in to a morgue, that would be—” The word barbaric was on the tip of his tongue but he stopped short realizing how much he sounded like a typical Men of Letter’s, Dean would have had a good laugh over that. “It’s just not feasible or safe. Trust me, most of the time local cops won’t even question it so long as you walk in flash a badge and look like you know what you’re doing. If anyone ever gives you shit just tell them you’re calling your supervisor and put them on the phone with me, you’ll be fine.”

This stuff would come in handy for her one day.

“Look just trust me ok,” he grinned.

–––––

Wynonna:

Wynonna raised her eyebrows slowly, and leaned across the table. “Was all of this a ruse? So we could swap numbers?” She laughed to herself, nose wrinkling, and pushed her phone across the table. “Go ahead, Special Agent in Charge Sam Winchester. Better make me sound terrifying and badass if someone rings you.” And for the record, she didn’t want to do a lot of fighting her way into morgues. Or out of them, for that matter. Morgues gave her the heebie-jeebies.

Trust me. Weird thing was; Wynonna did trust him. Considering the only person Wynonna trusted completely was Waverley – Doc and Dolls were two days out of three, at best – this was a strange situation to be in. And probably a bad move. Still. She didn’t need to tell him that, and didn’t plan to.

“Thanks for this. Truth is my real name isn’t gonna open a lot of doors, except to jail. And I’d rather not go back, if I can avoid it. I bet there’s more than a handful of warrants out on you and your brother. Seems it’s impossible to hunt without breaking the law.” She shrugged. “I don’t know if it’s better or worse that people don’t know… I mean. The people back home, they were blissfully ignorant until a few months ago; now, they’re just mad as hell and blaming me for the fact that the town is overrun with undead assholes.”

She shrugged, and wiped condensation off the side of her glass, before reaching for the key around her neck like it was a talisman. It was getting warm; she took off her jacket and tossed it aside, pushing her sleeves up, revealing more than a handful of scars and the tattoo she’d gotten as soon as she was out of juvie, of a symbol that used to show up on Wyatt’s stationery.

Food. She’d been ravenous; but her appetite seemed to have drained away, a bit. Still, she took the burger in both hands, determined to get through it.

“So where to next?”

–––––

Sam:

Taking her phone Sam grinned at her comment and started to put in his number for her, a part of him hoping that she would call or text just for the hell of it and not only when she needed something. There was something about her that he was really enjoying being around.

“There,” he pushed it back to her and nodded. “Yeah, yeah we might have a handful of warrants out for us. We were the focus of a large man hunt for a while, some of the FBI’s most wanted and all that. Uh, it’s a long story. Ended up getting the poor guy killed in the end, I still feel bad for that. Then a few years later there was this thing with some leviathans, they stole our faces and went on a murder spree—basically if you hear anything about Sam and Dean Winchester that’s not hunting related do me a favor and don’t believe it, chances are it wasn’t really us.”

Having to take on that warning to meeting people was more than a little ridiculous but necessary after this many years in the game. Watching her take her jacket off he frowned when he saw the marking on her wrist, eyebrow arching in interest as he took a bit of his burger.

Swallowing he gestured to her arm.

“That marking, the tattoo on your arm…why’d you get that?” It wasn’t the classiest way to ask but his heart was racing at seeing the men of letters symbol on Wynonna, his brain working overtime to try to make a connection and understand.

–––––

Wynonna:

Wynonna stared at Sam for a good long while, and then snorted. “Alright, I’ll try to keep that in mind,” she said, still snickering. “FBI’s most wanted. I feel vicariously famous.” Leviathans. “Admittedly it’s been a long time since I so much as set foot in a church, but I’m pretty sure those were sea monsters. Reckon they’d stand out in plaid. And I don’t think they could pull off your hair.” She waved it off; most of what she thought she knew about everything, with the exception of her very good friends the revenants, had been wrong so far, so why not leviathans?

She glanced at the tattoo again, and shrugged. “No, it’s definitely a tattoo. Fading because I got it done cheap and nasty and I’m probably lucky I didn’t pick up an infection and lose my arm, but it’s a tattoo. I should get it touched up.”

She put her arm across the table so he could get a better look. If she flexed her fingers, she’d touch his stomach.

“My great great grand-daddy, Wyatt Earp – I’ll say it again, greatest lawman this country’s ever seen… by his own reckoning, anyway – once the problem with the revenants started up he started putting out feelers to people who might know a thing or two about the supernatural. Most of them ignored him, but he struck up with this group called the Men of Letters.” She nodded at the tattoo. “That’s the Aquarian star. Inside the double circle like that it’s their symbol. It never went far.” She pulled her arm back, and crossed both on the table. “Bunch of blowhards. My sister thinks they either died or disbanded in the fifties. Why, y’seen it somewhere before?”

–––––

Sam:

Blowhards, disbanded in the fifties, dead—Sam’s mind was reeling.

It had been one thing when he’d met Eileen and she’d ended up being a legacy too but for Wynonna to be one (or at the very least know about the MOL) was crazy. It was the sort of thing he wouldn’t have even guessed but it made sense.

“Um yeah, yeah I’ve seen it associated with the Men of Letters actually,” he said shaking his head in disbelief. “I mean I know it’s insane and you’re not going to believe it but I am a Men of Letters, me and Dean both. We’re Legacies, our Granddad was a part of them.”

It was just the three of them but now Wynonna could be as well and it was awesome.

“Did he join them? I mean I’ll probably have to look through our records and find out but anything you know could help me find the information. Do you know what year he got in contact with them?” he asked more than a little excited over the whole idea of this all.

–––––

Wynonna:

This was the sort of thing which could generally send Wynonna off to the bathroom, climbing out a window and running for the next week. She turned her wrist so she could see the tattoo again; she hadn’t even really understood, when she’d gotten it, what all of this really meant, not really. It was like a family adventure, despite the inevitable fact of her father’s death, and (presumably) Willa’s.

She tried to calculate the odds of Sam having been sent to fish her out of the world, get her comfortable, and then… what?

Despite general distrust, she liked Sam, even, maybe, trusted him. So where did that leave her?

“Your grandad?” She did the math. Obviously, Wyatt was older. It had never occurred to her, though, that they might have survived. The group. Or that it might have any relevance to her, to Wav.

It had been so long since she’d confided in anyone. She nodded, mostly to herself.

“He joined. I don’t remember the whole story. They were small potatoes, here, bigger in Europe; Wav knows more than I do. Wyatt’s journal was patchy, but I don’t think they liked him, much. Someone called him a barbarian. Which…” She shrugged; if he was a barbarian, she was no better, solving most of her problems with Peacemaker and the rest with alcohol. “I don’t know the dates.” How embarrassing. She needed to leave the braining to Waverley. “But he died in June ’29 and they were already not on great terms.” She narrowed her eyes. “What does this mean? The hell is a legacy?”

–––––

Sam:

Sam’s mind was still reeling and trying to catch up with everything, sort out dates and important information. The Bunker wasn’t finished until 35 so he wasn’t shocked that he didn’t recognize Wyatt’s name. Most of their records didn’t pick up until after the completion. Sam figured everything before then was handled by the main branch overseas.

“Um Legacy, it means out Grandfather was a part of them and our dad was supposed to be too and then us. We were raised as hunters though, some stuff happened back in the day and Henry Winchester, out grandpa, he was killed so dad never knew about the Men of Letter’s. We only found out within the past three years or so. They were building a Bunker, it wasn’t complete until ’35 though so I doubt I have records on your family but whatever your sister knows I’ll be happy to compile into a file.”

Maybe he was a little too enthusiastic about this but the Men of Letter’s could still be something today. They could pull together hunters like himself, Dean, Eileen and now Wynonna and her sister. They could be a positive force for hunters and then maybe so many of them wouldn’t have to die because they’d have the right weapons and information.

“Look I know this is crazy but I’m just—I didn’t think I’d find anyone else who knew about the Men of Letter’s, it’s pretty exciting,” he said grinning.”

–––––

Wynonna:

It sounded too good to be true, but then, maybe she had earned a break. Files… that sounded like it had serious potential. Wynonna felt her heart begin to race, and she leaned in.

“We need to break this curse. We need to find something that will send these bastards back to hell where they belong and never let them come back. Because I’m sure as shit not planning to have kids and my sister…” she thought a moment. “Well, if she ever becomes a mom…” For one, somehow Wynonna was pretty sure there would never be a blood heir. But mostly… “I don’t want anyone else to have to deal with this. She’s a genius. If you’ve got books, files, if there’s something that might help us find a solution, I need to see it, Sam.”

Maybe this was fate. Maybe the reason she hadn’t climbed on Sam’s lap was because there was something more important to do.

She took a breath.

“So, if Wyatt was a Man of Letters, and so was your grand-daddy, and you’re a legacy, then yeah, guess I am, too. Sam. I need to see this place. Where is it?”

She sounded like a stalker.

“I gotta admit, yeah, I’m excited too. Maybe not for exactly the same reasons, but… well, Sam Winchester, I’m very glad we met.” Maybe she’d climb in his lap next time. Those arms. She wished Waverly was there to admire her restraint. She smiled. “About time something good happened to me.”

She figured he could take it however he liked.

–––––

Sam:

Keeping the Bunker to themselves had never been an option, not after they’re started to find other people with the potential of being Legacies. It might be their home but if there was something he could do that would help Wynonna and her sister end this course, who were him and Dean to withhold that? They’d been in this sort of position before, needing information and not having access to it. He would help the best he could and he would get Dean on bored with it too.

“It’s in Lebanon,” he answered, not even hesitating or concerned about telling her. “It’s pretty hard to find but yeah, when you get there just call or I mean—you could come with now. I can call Dean and tell him we’ve gotta head home in the morning. It’s whatever you want but I’m sure we have something there that could help.”

Just because he hadn’t read up on these things yet didn’t mean that they didn’t have info stashed away somewhere on them.

“It’s out home so you’ll have to deal with Dean and I being there but there’s plenty of space for you and your sister to set up home base for a bit until we comb through everything, I don’t see it being an issue,” he explained, enthusiastic over getting to have her around for a while longer in his life.

–––––

Wynonna:

“Lebanon. Kansas? Near the… middle.” There was a spot near there; somewhere in dimmest memory Wynonna had filed away a moment, a road trip, her and some guy, drunk, leaning against the marker for the center of the forty-eight states, someone else taking a photo.

Not the time to think about it.

“Now sounds good to me,” she said. They were both on their first beers. Not drunk, which, hi, novelty. “I’m really not married to the motel room. There are shades of green which just don’t work on me, and that décor managed to use them all.”

This was definitely going to cut down on the likelihood of Wynonna ending up in Sam’s lap. Two cars. She couldn’t even talk him into the back seat. Couldn’t have planned it better (… though she really, really wanted to talk him into the back seat. That Impala. Nice).

Wynonna grabbed her wallet to count out a little cash, and the phone rang.

“There’s the genius now,” she said. An hour ago, Wynonna had been exhausted. Now she was energized. “Hey, sis,” she said, tucking her hair behind her ear.

Wynonna literally felt the blood drain from her face, listening to what had been happening. She rested her head on her hand, elbow on the table.

“I’ll be there,” she said. “Two days at the most. I’m hitting the road now. I’m sorry.”

All she could really say.

“Or maybe not now,” she said, to Sam. “Someone came after Wav. I’m sorry, Sam, I gotta go. I shoulda known she wasn’t gonna be safe on her own…” She rubbed her forehead.

“I’ll call you,” she promised.

Wynonna scooted out of the booth, grabbing her things, knees objecting to the lightness in her head. She had just past the edge of the booth when she stopped, and turned, and came back again.

On impulse, she reached out, caught Sam’s jaw in her hand, and kissed him. Just a peck. A promise, she supposed.

“I’ll call you,” she said again. And she was gone.

~ complete ~

#wynonna rp #v: out of purgatory #p: well hello #thexboyxking #all of us; & queue

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