Deicide - the killing (or the killer) of a god. Vere x Reader/Unspecified MC.
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VERE: DEICIDE
“Fuck fairness. Life’s not fair.”
If life were fair, this would all have happened differently. In a different time. Long before Eridia was even a smear on the maps, back when he wandered the world as a deity. With fresh air in his lungs and sweet blood on his teeth.
He'd track the tantalizing scent of you for days once he'd caught it on the wind. His mouth would water at just the echo of your taste; perhaps he'd have to stop for a snack just to keep his palate from tingling.
(But then–the lutist hadn't tasted of you at all, though the delightful promise of you had been heady–vibrant–thrilling to all of his senses. He'd dined on the composition of your suffering, the warm fear in your breath, the quick jump of your pulse beneath his fingertips. He'd kept the taste of you on his tongue, but still, he couldn't chase it fast enough to be satisfied indulging in another.)
He'd wreak havoc on the world to find you. Hunt you.
Let the people who hid you from him stew in terror at his approach. He'd eat a hundred unsatisfying appetizers just to bring the stench of death to those who dared...
Vere would demand you. Cast his shadow on your little shithole of a village and bear his teeth until they hand you over to him.
(And fuck. The way you'd smell up close–the new intricacies he could discern when he loomed over you, his snout bigger than your body. Would you tremble for him, would you fall to your knees?)
Vere should be your object of worship, your every thought and fear and desire, but instead he begs you for scraps. He twines pretty words around you when his chain is loose enough to reach. He tempts. He enraptures you with silky promises when you should be his by right.
Hundreds of years he's wandered looking for a counterpart, some hidden corner of his soul hopelessly devoted to the thought of a kindred spirit– not quite Human, not quite Monster.
You've been owed to him since his lonesome birth. He's ached for your presence ever since that first betrayal, a stinging knife lodged in the soft flesh between his ribs.
Oh, but he'd have been a kind god to you. Eventually.
But you? Selfish, loathsome, greedy little thing. Forever playing keep-away,
( –defiant eyes and quivering lips, in the damp corner behind the Wet Wick, cloying smell drowning out the odor of vermin– )
content to consume his thoughts and mind, ask all your questions and give nothing back.
He's been starving for you for so long. The least you could do is let him take a bite.
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Super interested in how you plan to write Leopardfoot! I feel like both fanon and canon tend to make her into a sweet mom(tm) who’s super sad that Tigerstar is evil, very similar to how Goldenflower is usually treated. What’s her thoughts on Pinestar and him leaving? How did she influence Tigerstar? What are her political beliefs?
Society has progressed past the need for sad moms who stare tearily at their evil sons and boohoo about all the murder. It's MOTHER AGENCY TIME
BB!Leopardfoot was FEROCIOUS. Her father was the indominable Adderfang, and he taught her about the importance of honor and glory. When Tigerpaw was given to Thistleclaw as an apprentice, she was proud of it. It felt perfect to her-- that her father's apprentice was now her son's mentor.
For his brief rule, she supported Sunstar completely. It helped that he came after the disastrous and embarassing exit of Pinestar, which ruined the legacy that she wanted him to give her son. Pinestar was a damn coward and a codebreaker... and she assured Tigerkit that he was more HER son than his.
She even gives him a life, for Legacy, in defiance of StarClan
She was friends with Bluemoon for a time, but after ascending to StarClan, she learned about the Forget-me-nots.
This changed her opinion of her. Leopardfoot supports Thistle Law, STRONGLY so.
She supported THISTLECLAW when he tried to forcefully void the Queen’s Rights. If Bluemoon hadn't broken the code, then what did she have to hide?
She backed off when Thrushpelt leapt to her defense though, "She didn't reveal it because she doesn't love me are you happy now??"
Leopardfoot: *awkwardly turns away feeling like an asshole now, tea SPILLED, her friend's dirty laundry EXPOSED, thought she was crusading for the law but she just dug up drama*
Towards the end of Pinestar’s reign, he was getting exhausted. He wanted peace. Leopardfoot wanted kittens around that time, and figured that there was no better cat than the son of Oakstar, architect of the infamous Crusade Era.
If Pinestar had no children, a glorious bloodline would have died out. She wanted it for her kits. Pinestar agreed on the condition that he would be their Mi, which she happily accepted.
So when Pinestar left, she jumped into the nursery to take over and had to explain to her kits where their Mi went.
She drove it home to them that he abandoned everything, because his weakness took over. They would never be like him, she promised.
Mistkit died very young. Nightpaw made it to apprenticeship before she also succumbed. Tigerclaw remembers very well how hard it was to lose his sisters.
Leopardfoot herself was taken shortly before TPB, in Spottedleaf's Plague. Her death causes Tigerclaw to have a bit of a moment.
After the trial in Bluestar's Flowers, Leopardfoot leaves StarClan along with a bunch of other Thistle Law supporters, including Thistleclaw himself. She joins the BOTTE at the end of OotS, fighting to the end with her son.
She misses him a lot, and remains in the Dark Forest to the current arc. She chose her path; and has the dignity to walk it.
She does miss StarClan sometimes though, and will tell you stories about it if you ask.
In terms of demon friends, she's somewhere in the clique between the harsher and softer spirits.
She dislikes Morningstar, Cloudberry, and Ryewhisker on the softer end, and has come to resent Thistleclaw and Finchflight on the other, but likes Darkstripe, Leopardstar, and Silverhawk.
Gets along with a range of "mid" level demons.
In particular I imagine she hangs out with Darkstripe a lot. Taste test buddy, he asks her to try his experimental recipes because she's honest but not mean. One of the few Thistle Law supporting cats he hangs out with after the double-death of Tigerstar.
He calls her Lefty. Her official nickname is "Left" but he calls her Lefty.
(Clanmew: her name is Saorpwyyar. Others call her Saopr. He calls her Sapyy.)
Her mom and dad Swiftbreeze and Adderfang are here too, following Thistleclaw like she did, but she's been minimizing her contact with her dad. She feels like she is owed an apology somehow but also doesn't have the emotional intelligence to know that it's what she wants.
She just knows that she feels really bitter talking to him, and that's unpleasant.
She used to be VITRIOLIC with Pinestar, who is also here, even going after him physically when he chose to join in with the Dark Forest trainees. But now... honestly so much shit has happened, she just doesn't like seeing him. She wishes he wasn't here.
I write her being very dignified. She doesn't like to admit publically she was ever wrong and speaks with confidence, quietly backing off and not wanting to speak about her mistakes. She loves her children and her family, but explores the world in a very "self-centric" way, trusting her feelings and personal judgement over anything logical.
A reactionary sort of person, if that makes sense.
Her Land Mar has to develop over time because she is an ex-StarClan migrant (damned souls get theirs instantly after judgement), but it's called the Fence Cliff. It's a picket fence that blocks off a sheer drop, making a sharp turn down the cliff face and acting as a walkway. Follow the fence down the slope, and you can access the Dark Forest's town biome.
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Trouble Man
this is. okay. this is. marvel fic. (throw your tomatoes now okay get it over with i understand i'll wait) but since we are in 2013 mentally. I thought i might as well? Bucky scene to follow!
[This is "canon compliant" if you imagine that the author has not seen any marvel movies post black panther (the first) and has seen maybe four episodes (not consecutive) of the sam bucky tv show. because she hasn't. enjoy!]
~
Sam lowers himself stiffly onto the steps of the porch, then keeps going, tipping his head back until it hits the top step. The stretch brings a good ache with it, a familiar one, that briefly overshadows the crueler hurts still lingering under the suit. He sighs.
He can feel Bucky more than see him, standing just outside of the ring of light cast by the porch lamp. He’s doing that thing that other people call looming, but Sam has come to see as more of an anxious hovering. Something Bucky does when he’s got something to say and isn’t sure how to say it, or thinks he should be doing something but he’s not quite sure what it is. It shows up a lot when Sam is fucked over and dead on his feet, so he associates it with the worst of Bucky’s mother-hen impulses. What a life he leads.
“Steve—“ starts Bucky, and thankfully stops there. Even the name hurts to hear. He doesn’t want to talk about Steve right now.
For a minute there’s just the darkness, the faint breeze stirring the wind chimes and the leaves, the distant rumble of a semi on the main road… all familiar and comforting and in their places. And then there’s Bucky.
“I make it harder,” says Bucky. “For you.”
Sam swallows. He’s grateful for the arm he threw over his face, for the way it obscures his facial expression. Bucky’s always looking. He looks too hard, like he’s trying to crack Sam open and see all the pieces. Figure him out.
“It was always going to be harder for me. It’s not because of you, man. This was always going to be…” he’s so tired. “Hard.”
“But I don’t make it easier.”
“Yeah, you’re a real pill, I won’t lie to you.”
Bucky snorts faintly, but he doesn’t loosen up and sit down next to Sam, toss the insult back, cut the hovering. There are faint clicks and shuffling as his arm recalibrates, the closest thing he has to a nervous tic. What has Sam’s life become, that the faint whirr of an assassin shifting his metal arm is familiar enough that he can pick it out of the sounds of home with his eyes closed?
He lets himself consider, for a moment, what it would be like if Steve was here. By his side again but with their places swapped, Captain America’s right hand man. Steve, with his wry sense of humor and his aw-shucks grin and his noble, idealistic heart. His roman nose that Bucky had broken with a fastball in 1937. His blond hair and his blue eyes and his experimental ubermensch shoulders and…
He tries to shrug, but it’s more of a wince. Everything is one big fucking bruise. “If it wasn’t you, it’d be something else. There’s always something else.”
Bucky is silent.
As the silence draws out Sam feels a flicker of fear. By the next breath it’s panic—that Bucky’s slipped away already, vanished into the dark like the ghost he is. That he walks away from all of this and leaves Sam twisting in the wind.
He sits up too fast, muscles screaming in protest, and Bucky’s right there where he always is. Looking at him.
“Don’t,” Sam starts. Don’t what? Don’t leave him alone?
He has dreams, sometimes, where he’s still chasing Bucky. Where he never stopped. Searching for him through cities and train stations and his own old high school gymnasium with the strange driving logic of dreams, knowing only that he’s lost something. Dreams where he’s running through a crowd, grabbing people to look in their faces—it’s never the right face.
He doesn’t want to do this shit alone. He’s a social motherfucker, he’s not cut out for the lone hero shtick.
He tries saying that, and Bucky only frowns harder. At least it’s his “I don’t understand the way you speak,” frown, which is a personal favorite.
“You have people. You have… options.” Options who aren’t infamous soviet assassins with weekly thinkpieces published on the topic of his guilt or innocence or sanity, Sam assumes he means.
“Options? Name three.” So maybe he’s being stubborn about stupid crap, but he’s fucking tired, okay? It’s been a long day, full of gooey aliens and collapsing buildings and combative press conferences, and now he has to deal with… whatever this has turned into.
“Torres. Natalia. Sh—“
“I thought you were my partner. I thought you were my… guy.” He glares at what he can see of Bucky. His frowning face is still half-hidden in shadow, because he’s an idiot who operates on vampire rules. An invitation, then, Sam can do that. “That means you’re here until I tell you to get lost, okay? Let’s make it real fucking easy. When I say you’re here, you’re here.”
“I’m here,” Bucky parrots. There’s something soft in his eyes as he moves to give Sam a hand up. Maybe it’s just the flickering yellow porch light, maybe not.
~
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