#in lieu of more handholding

[muzzlemouths]

Were the DMD boys ever witnesses to a baby's firsts? Like first words or first steps?

Superstar Shopping Center, circa 1977

“Did you need help with that?”

Sun moseys up to a mother who looks like she’s got her hands full – literally. Four shopping bags balanced on one arm and a baby in the other. A second child — five or six, if he had to guess — clings to the tail of her mother’s jacket in lieu of a free hand, dressed in her Sunday Best. She ducks behind her mother’s arm as Sun nears and addresses him with a look tied between awe and apprehension.

Contrarily, her mother regards Sun with nothing but relief, handing over all but one of her bags the moment his hands extend to take them. “Well, thank you!” She reorients the remaining bag to sit at her elbow so the little girl at her side has a proper handhold and gently scolds her for continuing to hide.

“It’s quite alright,” Sun assures her with a kind smile. He crouches to be more at eye-level with the child and offers her a little wave, taking no offense to the way she peeks only slightly out from behind her mother. “That’s a very pretty dress,” he says. It’s a Carter's collared plaid, Christmas-time red, with a white dog-eared collar and rabbit embroidery. Perfectly suited for the season. “Are you headed somewhere special?”

“Just down to Shutterbug,” the mother laughs, answering Sun’s question when her daughter doesn’t budge. “I know it’s still early in the season, but I have an endless list of things to get around to before the month’s end, so we’re just going to get our photos done now, and the family will just receive their cards a little early, this year.”

“Oh, certainly,” he nods sagely, as if he’s even once sent a Christmas card himself, “better to get it over and done with before everyone and their mother realizes they’ve forgotten to sign and seal their envelopes!”

“Exactly!” She laughs again. “I figure, well, I might as well get some gift shopping done since I’m already here, but–”

Right on cue, the infant in her arms begins to wail his poor little head off, and she grimaces.

“Finding it hard to get anything done with your hands full?” Sun asks, waiting for her nod before continuing. “Well, that’s nothing I can’t fix! I could carry your other bags for you, or–”

“Could you babysit?”

He straightens with a jolt, nearly dropping the bags he already carried in the process. “Oh! Well, um, company policy doesn’t exactly allow me to–”

“It would just be for a few minutes. An hour, at most.” She gives him a pleading look. “You’re coded with childcare protocols, aren’t you?”

“I–” Sun scrambles for an answer. “My training extends to some childcare etiquette, but–”

“Perfect!” She lofts the infant into his arms like he is nothing more than a small sack of potatoes. “This is George. He’s nine months old as of last week, was just changed, and ate an hour ago, so he should be an angel for you.”

“W-What about his shoes?” He tucks the child against his shoulder and gestures worriedly towards his itty little toes, clothed in nothing but the navy blue footie he wears.

“Oh, don’t be silly, he’s still too young!” The woman insists, “George has only just learned how to crawl, I doubt he’ll be walking any time soon. You have nothing to worry about!”

“But–”

“I’ll come find you in an hour when I’m all finished up. Thank you again!”

The mother turns on her heel like she’s being chased out by fire, leaving Sun there in the center of the mall aisle, still as a statue and stunned into silence.

There was a kernel of truth to his words. Both he and Moon had been programmed with the know-how in terms of child rearing basics, and in fact it was the very first frame of coding that he recalls having. For what purpose, he isn’t sure. It has lied dormant beneath layers of more relevant protocols for years and only ever makes an appearance when he’s interacting with the few children the mall sees from time to time. Even still, it is nothing in the way of proper training for how to care for an infant so small, and for so long.

Needless to say, he was panicking.

The first thing he does after quieting the infant’s cries is find another employee and hand off the bags, instructing them to be brought to Shutterbug and kept behind the desk for the time being.

With his hands freed he can focus all of his attention on the child who, for what it’s worth, has been a perfect angel in the short time since he was haphazardly carted into Sun’s arms. Quiet as a church mouse after that first little outburst, and just as cute, too, the little bundle of joy looking up at him with big brown eyes full of wonder.

Sun returns his gaze with a long sigh. “Now then, what are we going to do with you?”

The protocols that once were dormant now rose to the surface and screamed at him to engage the child in “stimulating activities“, whatever that meant. Instructions for playtime involved everything from games like peekaboo and patty-cake to more developmental activities, such as playing music, coloring, or toying with building blocks. Sun doubted that Bee Gees’ hit single “Stayin’ Alive” was anything in the way of educational for the tiny tot as it played over the speakers, and — to the best of his knowledge — he can’t recall ever having access to building blocks or coloring books. That left nothing but the traditional baby games, tried and true, and easy enough!

He borrows a small blanket from a store nearby and finds a cozy spot on the floor, tucked safely between two plant boxes, to set him down. Sun finds that playing these games comes almost naturally to him — but that’s a given, isn’t it? He follows the instruction manual in his code to the letter, pride and joy overwhelming his stint of uncertainty each time he comes out from hiding behind his hands to the sound of shrill laughter, every “Peek-a-boo!” earning him a motley of giggles and a baby-toothed smile.

Distraction arrives in the form of an employee struggling to carry a stack of boxes into the store behind him. He’s on his feet and across the room in an instant as one protocol briefly overrides the other, and it’s only for a moment — just a moment — but when he turns around again it is to the sight of an empty blanket.

His charge has gone missing.

Panic overwhelms every one of his sensors, rushing along his circuits like adrenaline through veins gripping him with a fear so potent it threatens to shut down his system right then and there.

No, think! His mother said he had only just learned to crawl, which meant little George couldn’t have gone far. Unless the infant hadn’t gone anywhere by himself at all, and rather, someone had come along and–

Sun shut down that train of thought the moment it struck him. He would never forgive himself if something so terrible happened on his watch, saying nothing of what management would do to him if a child was abducted right from under his nose.

He decides the best course of action right now is to follow the same protocol he would use for any other “lost” child. Yes, lost, that’s all they were. It’s so easy to get lost in a mall as large as this one. Sun comforts himself with the knowledge that he has never let a lost child go unfound before. His success rate is a perfect 100%, and he intends to keep it that way.

First, he scans the security cameras for any sight of the child. He is sure to look in every nook and cranny, and he deflates with growing dread when that little navy footie doesn’t appear anywhere on the screens. His voice cuts through the employee radio a moment later and describes the child with every possible detail he can think of, asking that any sighting of the little straggler be reported to him immediately. He hopes against every star in the sky that the mother doesn’t happen to overhear from an employee nearby.

Lastly, he heads out in search of help.

Moon is meant to be working on the upper floor today, helping Sun handle the usual holiday rush, and his lack of response to the radio call is concerning. Not too concerning, though, given that Sun finds him right where he’d been expecting to.

That is, sprawled atop the lockers in the employee break room, one arm dangling over the side, the other resting casually over his waist, and a VOGUE magazine draped over his face.

‘Lazy’ doesn’t even scratch the surface of the words Sun wants to use. They’ve talked about this, the bad habit having put Moon in trouble a number of times already, but that’s an argument for another day.

There’s no time to mince words right now, and so he doesn’t. Instead, Sun stalks across the room and slams his fist against the lockers beneath his sleeping coworker, who sits upright with such force that his head makes contact with the ceiling and crashes through like a train into glass.

It might have been funny if Sun wasn’t as whipped up into a panic as he is, but as it stands he can hardly even keep from raising his voice when he addresses Moon with a scowl. “Good morning, sleeping beauty,” Sun hisses, arms crossed, foot tapping impatiently. “I take it you didn’t hear my radio call?”

Moon serves him with a glower of his own, snarling deep within his voicebox as he runs his hand over the glassy side of his faceplate to ensure that it’s still intact. He has the decency to look a little guilty, if only for a moment, cerulean blue eyes lowering to the radio attached at his hip that is visibly turned to OFF.

“Of course not,” Sun tuts.

Griping, Moon dusts the ceiling powder from his shoulders. “What could be so important that you had to–”

“I lost a baby.”

The words render him speechless, a long, uncomfortable silence taking up the space between them for all of a minute before Moon blurts out, “Sun, you don’t have a baby.”

“That’s because I lost him!” Sun shrills, beginning to pace. “I was helping a mother with her bags, and she asked me to babysit, a-and I know we aren’t technically allowed to, but– but it all just happened so fast!” His arms flailed for emphasis. “She said he wasn’t even walking yet, I thought it’d be easy! Everything was going so well, too, we were playing a game of peek-a-boo and then – then someone needed help. I only had my back turned for a minute, Moon. Maybe even less! But then I turned around, and…”

“You lost a baby,” he mutters to himself. Moon runs both hands over his face, sighing into his palms. “You lost a baby,” he repeats. “How do you lose an entire child?”

“I don’t know!” Sun answers, voice cracking with guilt. “Will you help me find them?”

“Obviously.” Moon hops down from the lockers (pointedly ignoring the massive hole in the ceiling – he’d come up with an excuse to tell management later) and is already crossing the room when he speaks again. “Management will take it out on both of us if they find out, so you need to get a grip. Your face looks like you just watched someone plummet to their death, for fucks’s sake.” He pauses at the door. “Did you get a scan of their face?”

“O-Of course!”

“Good. Transfer the image to me along with any other information that might be helpful. I’ll search the exits, you take the first story department stores.”

“What about the second floor?”

He fits him with a quizzical expression, going as far as to form an eyebrow with the stars on his faceplate screen and arch it pointedly. “You said this kid wasn’t walking yet,” Moon reminds him. “If someone ‘napped the little guy, they aren’t going to stick around, much less be caught shopping. They’ll head for the exits, first.”

“I guess that’s true…”

“And if you just coincidentally happened to have been babysitting the world’s fastest crawler, they would still be stuck on the first floor,” he continues, “which is why we’re checking there first.”

“Right. Right. You’re right.” Sun’s nod is shaky at best. His hands wring together with a tension that threatens to pop the joints out of place with each anxious tug.

Moon sighs and crosses the room again to place a hand on Sun’s shoulder. “We’ll find him,” he comforts, giving the shoulder a gentle squeeze, “but we need to go now. You won’t fix anything by standing here worrying.”

“Right,” he repeats, working to smother his nerves for the sake of focusing on the task at hand. “You check the exits, I’ll check the department stores. We’ll meet up at the fountain in thirty minutes if neither of us find anything?”

“Ten minutes,” Moon asserts. He wastes no further time, leaving Sun with only that and a firm nod before pacing out of the room.

Sun hopes they aren’t already too late.

-

Their search yields nothing but more disappointment. Ten painfully long minutes of searching that ends with them meeting at the fountain equally empty handed and with no further leads.

“We’re too late,” wails Sun, already catastrophizing. “How am I going to explain this to their mother? She’ll never forgive me, I’ll never forgive me–” His fingers hook around the rays beside his chin, the thin metal groaning beneath the force and threatening to snap right then and there, “–and management — stars, Moon, we’re going to be dismantled over this!”

“Lower your voice!” Moon snaps. He looks around, ensuring that that their crime — Sun’s crime — hasn’t been overheard. Luckily, it appears the fountain has drowned out their conversation sufficiently. “You need to calm down,” he continues. “I’m sure they’re somewhere around here.”

“We’ve checked everywhere!” His left ray bends under the pressure, molding to the shape of his fingers, slowly but surely. “I should have never let this happen. What was I thinking, turning my back on them? Now they’re all alone, o-or hurt, somewhere, or–”

“Hey, hey.” Moon takes him by the wrist, careful yet firm as he pries Sun’s fingers away from his mangled ray then holds his hand at a distance, so he can’t hurt himself further. “You made a mistake,” he agrees, “but it’s not fair to hold all of that blame yourself. You have no frame of reference for this sort of thing, we aren’t meant to be taking care of children in the first place.”

“I should have known better!” Sun insists. “How can I be expected to run a daycare if I can’t even look after one kid?”

Moon freezes, his optics flickering in a blink. “We–” slowly, he releases Sun’s wrist, “–we aren’t a daycare, Sun. We’re a mall. Are…are you feeling okay?”

“I…” Alarms and notices flood his screen, blocking Moon from view. Corroded files long since forgotten behind firewalls and newly instated protocols. He looks for answers in their overwhelming code and finds nothing but more questions; a lingering sense of awareness always just out of his reach. Then they’re gone, swept away all at once as his system tidies itself up, and he can think clearly again. “We’re in a mall,” he echoes, nodding to himself, “we run a mall. We’re mascots, not – not–” He faces Moon with a calmer disposition, forcing a smile, “I’m alright, now.”

“I always preferred the term Icon,” says Moon, “’mascot’ makes us sound like those people in animal suits waving around signs outside of businesses.” He laughs, and Sun laughs, too, but it’s strained. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

He sighs with the last crumb of uncertainty. “I’m fine, just…confused, I guess. I think the anxiety is getting to me.” When he straightens again it’s with newfound gusto, a determination to make things right. “None of our employees have reported seeing anyone carting off with a baby that fits George’s description, so he must still be here. Do you want to try the second floor after all?”

“I guess it’s worth a shot,” says Moon. He takes another look around, eyes scanning the area for any possible lead, until his star-studded eyebrow arches downward. “You said he was wearing a blue footie?”

“Navy blue,” Sun nods his confirmation, “with a little white pocket on the front.”

“Like that?”

He follows Moon’s point all the way to the escalator, where good ol’ George is sat, halfway up to the second story, already, suckling at his thumb like this is any other Tuesday.

“That’s–” Sun feels like he’s going to scream, “that’s him!”

“Huh. Baby on an escalator,” he mutters inquisitively. “Never seen that before.”

“Moon!”

Not wanting to risk any more dillydallying, Sun rushes past him and beelines through the crowd, anxiety pulsing through him tenfold as he gets caught up in a group of customers gathered on the escalator themselves.

Moon takes an alternative route, opting to skip the escalator steps all together. Instead he leaps directly onto the handrail, steady and practiced, and carefully avoids his customer’s fingers as he races upward.

Sun meets him at the top an excruciating few seconds after and feels his composure slip further upon seeing him empty handed. “Where–?”

“I don’t know,” Moon interrupts, looking just as confused. “He was already gone when I got up here.”

“Seriously?” He braces both palms across his arms, hugging himself tightly so he doesn’t just rip out his rays all together. “He’s a baby, for Pete’s sake. How far could he have gone? How does this keep happening?”

“There!” Moon points a little ways off, where little George — somehow, someway — is spotted riding a runaway janitor’s cart, its wheels spiraling uncontrollably forward and headed straight for the wall.

“Stop that cart!” Shrieks Sun, already halfway across the room and hot on the cart’s tail.

The crowd is thick, clusters of customers all aiming to get their holiday shopping in before the real chaos begins, and it makes the already out of hand situation that much harder.

Sun hears the crash before he sees it, and feels his battery operated heart sink. The sight he’s met with upon finally reaching the end of the balcony is disastrous at best. The cart rests in a broken mess on the floor, having evidently bounced into a pair of trash cans rather than collide with the wall. One of said cans has toppled onto its side from the impact, and the trail of garbage leading out of it paints a perplexing picture.

Moon catches up with him a minute later, fans whirring like he’s out of breath. “Is he–”

“Gone,” Sun answers, aghast. He points to the breadcrumbs (literally) that trail out of the toppled can. “I think he fell into the garbage.”

“Well, that’s better than the wall,” hums Moon. “Maybe it cushioned his fall? And then the trashcan fell over…” he trails off.

“And he just…crawled out?” Sun finishes the thought, then raises his chin. The two share a dumbfounded expression.

“Sun, what kind of mutant child did you agree to babysit?”

“Don’t be rude!” He chastises. “George is just…special.”

“Yeah, specially designed to outwit us. They should have called him Curious George.” His eye follows the garbage trail until it peters out a few feet down. “Where do you suppose he went now?”

“Your guess is as good as mine,” Sun groans. “Should we split up?”

“Good idea. You take the east wing, I’ll go west. Reconvene in thirty minutes?”

“Ten,”‌ corrects Sun, grimacing at the deja vu. “His mother promised an hour, and it’s already been over half of that. If we can’t find him in ten minutes, then we - we–”

“We are going to find him,” Moon assures, bolstering Sun’s confidence as best as he can. “We just need to focus, alright? No more running around like chickens with our heads cut off.”

Sun nods his agreement. “Right, okay. You’re right. I won’t let a baby run me in circles around my own mall.” His frazzled expressions calms, at that, and he smiles. “Just a nine-month infant who crawls a little faster than normal, that’s all he is. Easy peasy!”

-

What happens next is neither easy nor peasy. In fact, calling it ‘running circles’ is an understatement. In the next ten minutes alone, little George sends both of them out on nothing short of a wild goose chase, appearing in nigh impossible positions each and every time and always just out their grasp.

Sun is the first to find him. Tucked into the one corner of a store that the cameras don’t reach, donning a pair of sunglasses of all things (upside-down, mind you), and playing with a silicone whisk from the kitchenware section. Sun is only a short distance away when a customer taps him on the shoulder and asks where they can find the bathroom. Of course, the little tot is already gone when he turns back around.

A few meters down, Moon discovers some discarded sunglasses on the floor. He spots a familiar pair of white padded feet a moment later and finds George climbing the side of an information kiosk. The employee inside is busy with a customer and doesn’t even notice the little rascal scaling the grounded kiosk sign like he was born to climb Everest. They notice Moon, though, and are all too eager to introduce one of the mall’s very own mascots to the customer who is, apparently, visiting for the very first time. It’s all Moon can do just to act polite in front of the woman as his guest-orientation protocols take over, keeping him paralyzed there even as the infant merrily drops from the sign and disappears from his sight.

Five minutes later Sun hears a shrill of laughter and turns around a corner to see George playing in the plant trough like it’s a sandbox, his navy footie all but smothered in dirt. An internal scream rips silently through his system as he grapples with the knowledge that he’s now going to get an earful even if he does successfully get his hands on the kid.

True to character, George is nowhere to be found when Sun winds up in front of the planter. He calms his nerves and protocols alike by fixing the poor flowers back into their proper position from where they had been carelessly plucked out and thrown aside. He knows there’s no saving a few of them, and he’ll need to reorder more seeds to make up for it, but that’s a headache for another day.

The current source of his vexation appears to have shown some mercy, at least. Sun finds a trail of muddy footprints leading out of the trough and down the aisle. An employee glances up from their storefront desk upon seeing him and points to the right, towards the candy store, knowing exactly what he was looking for, already. For the life of him, Sun cannot understand why they — or anyone else for that matter — hasn’t thought to stop the runaway infant. Apparently, a nine month old crawling around without parental supervision is nothing to bat an eye at to anyone in the mall’s entire vicinity.

Moon is passing by Waning Lights theater when he hears a small commotion inside. On a hunch he peeks in, expecting nothing in particular, and instead sees two enormous baby hands covering the screen. That is, two very small baby hands waving in front of the projector.

He’s up the steps in a matter of seconds, mechanics racing with the adrenaline of having finally caught the little devil, only — of course — the little hands have already disappeared, and the seat is empty, leaving only a confused employee where he once was. “You’re joking…” Moon whispers, exhausted. An already irritated customer shushes him from somewhere downstage. Distantly, he hears the telltale sound of infant babbling and begrudgingly follows it out of the theater again.

He bursts through the door and right into Sun, colliding with a loud clatter of metal and recoiling, each holding their heads respectively and groaning in perfect unison.

“Did you find him?” Sun asks around a wince.

“Technically yes, but–”

“He got away from you too?”

Moon nods. “What is it with this kid?”

“I don’t know, but we need to figure out a different plan soon. We’re already over our ten minutes.” He looks around once more for good measure, knowing the child couldn’t have gone too far, already, if they had both just spotted him a moment ago.

That’s when he sees it. Little George, nine months old, walking down the balcony aisle. Rather, the little tike is running like he’s off to the races.

“Well, that explains why he’s been able to get everywhere so fast,” says Moon, following Sun’s gaze. “I thought you said he was only starting to crawl?”

“He’s, um, a fast learner?” Sun answers sheepishly. He watches George go for all of one long, lovestruck moment — feeling like a proud parent himself — before the swell of pride in his chest shatters to make way for circuit frying terror.

See, little George has shown himself to be quite the impressive little acrobat. He can walk, he can run, he can climb, and at that very moment he is making quick work of closing the distance between himself and a stack of boxes pressed up against the balcony railing.

The only thing awaiting him on the other side is a long, long fall.

Sun darts forward without a word, but Moon is faster, weaving through the crowd with a nimble speed that he cannot compete with. “We aren’t going to make it,” Sun gasps, announcing it to himself, mostly, as horror grips him throughout. Even if they reach the railing on time, George is already at the top of the stack, raising himself onto unsteady feet and peering out into the great beyond. He’ll be over the edge before they can stop him, and they won’t make it to the first floor on time to catch him there.

But then Sun hears it; the whir of a wire, quick and sturdy as it races through its ceiling track to Moon’s beck and call. He watches its metal hook begin to lower from a few paces away, just as the infant topples up and over, and his body seizes with fear as Moon leaps over the railing after him.

He hears a click, the wire latching out of sight, going taut. Sun holds his breath until the sound of giggling follows. Peering warily over the railing, hands shaking, he sees Moon dangling halfway to the floor. Little George bounces in his arms, clapping and cheering and laughing away like this is all just another game.

Moon lowers himself the remaining distance to the floor as Sun scrambles down the elevator to meet him. He looks rightfully shaken, his faceplate screen blank of even stars, but his grip remains persistent. He’s not going to risk putting the kid down for a moment, even if he feels like he’s going to bluescreen any second now. Their landing is celebrated with the undeniable sound of George taking the world’s largest shit, and though Moon wants to be angry, all he manages to come up with in response is “Me too, kid.”

A voice calls over their internal radios right as Sun’s feet hit the floor.

“Can someone ring the mascots?” Asks the employee, “I’m stationed at Shutterbug with a customer and she says they have her baby…?”

“I’m on my way!” Sun answers the radio aloud. He takes the baby from Moon, who extends George to him from a distance, grateful — now more than ever — for their ability to turn off their nose receptors.

“What about the footie?” Moon gestures to the dirt-soaked clothes once his hands are free. “I don’t think she’s going to be happy if he’s brought back all dirty – or naked. That might be worse.”

On a whim, Sun turns George over to check the footie’s tag. Relief floods his system when he reads the name. “We carry this brand – I’ll bet anything that we have this exact footie somewhere in the store. Can you go find it?” He makes a face and turns his own nose receptors off a moment after. “Maybe a pack of diapers, too,” he laughs. “Oh! Can you also pick up a rabbit from Fluff-&-Stuff?”

“What about you?”

“I’m headed to the bathrooms so I can clean the little guy up.” He holds George up, then, wielding him like a stinky little weapon. “Unless you want to try changing a diaper?”

“Navy blue footie with a white pocket, got it,” answers Moon, already turning on his heel and heading in the opposite direction.

-

Ten minutes later, Sun exits the bathroom feeling like a brand new person. A scarred, mortified person, but new all the same. Who knew baby poop could be so traumatizing?

Moon had returned a moment before, toting with him the items that Sun had requested, and together they figured out how to dress the freshly cleaned child in a new diaper. Whoever said it wasn’t rocket science was right. It was somehow worse. Still, they persevered, and at the end of it all they had a clean, happy, freshly diapered baby to show for their efforts. Now it was just a matter of delivering him back to his mother.

“Why did you want the rabbit?” Moon asks as he trades over the stuffed animal, happy to hold little George now that the little tike isn’t a stink grenade.

“You’ll see,” answers Sun, refusing to elaborate. He rounds the corner with Moon following at his heel and steps into Shutterbug, greeting the mother with his best customer-pleasing smile. “So sorry for the wait, ma’am. George here had a bit of an accident on our way back.”

The woman tuts guilty, but is happy to see them all the same. “Oh, goodness, how embarrassing. I can pay for the diapers you used.”

“Nonsense!” He tells her with a casual wave of his hand, “We’re happy to lend a hand, and it’s not like the little guy could help himself.”

“You’re a sweetheart,” she smiles. “And he behaved for you, otherwise?”

Sun glances over his shoulder at Moon, and the two share a look.

Nodding, Moon steps forward and hands the child over when his mother extends her arms for him. “He was an angel,” Moon tells her.

They had both already agreed to keep their mouths shut on the entire ordeal, including and up to George’s newfound capabilities. Aside from how much trouble they would both find themselves in if anyone ever found out about the chase this single child had put them through, it simply wasn’t their place to mention it. Sun, especially, didn’t want to take away that special moment when his mother rightfully deserved to have it to herself.

“Well, I’m glad to hear it,” she sighs with relief. “Thank you again for watching her. You two are a real blessing, you know that? I wouldn’t have been able to get all my ducks in a row without your help.”

“Anytime!” Sun answers. He spots a plaid dress hiding behind her, and lowers himself into a crouch. “Hello, again,” he calls to the little girl using his kindest voice, and extends the stuffed rabbit for her to take. “I noticed you had some bunnies on your dress, so I thought you might like this.”

Behind him, Moon relaxes into a fond smile.

“That’s very kind of you,” says her mother, who nudges her forward gently. “Go on, it’s okay,” she reassures her. “It’s a gift.”

The child hesitant, but eventually she peeks out from behind her mother just enough to take the offered rabbit, which she tucks against her chest in a great, big hug. “Th…Thank you,” she whispers. Then, feeling brave, she rewards him with a gap-toothed smile.

Moon clears his voice-box. “Well, we should let you get to it,” he says, full-well knowing that Sun would stay here cooing at the children all day if he let him.

And Sun, for what it’s worth, knows exactly what the vocal nudge means, and detaches himself from the family with a wave and some merry goodbyes before the two of them depart together.

“That was sweet of you,” Moon comments once they’re out of earshot. “You aren’t hoping for kids of our own, are you? I don’t think I’m ready for that level of commitment.” He elbows Sun with a smile, getting a hearty laugh out of him.

“Moon, I’ll be honest. I will be the happiest bot in the world if I never have to change another diaper again.” This time it’s Moon’s turn to laugh, and he laughs until his vocals strain with effort. “But, you know, it wasn’t too bad. Taking care of a baby, I mean. I think we make a pretty good team – and decent parents.”

“I’m the better parent,” Moon says around a wide grin. “You’re too much of a stick in the mud.”

“And you’re too spoiling!” Sun laughs, “Don’t think I haven’t seen you giving out candy to the kids that sneak off without their parents.”

“I’m teaching a valuable lesson,” Moon insists, hand flying over his heart like he’s offended by the notion. “If parents want to leave their children unattended, they have to face the consequences. It won’t be me dealing with the inevitable sugar rush.”

A gasp in the distance interrupts their playful bickering. They turn halfway, back towards Shutterbug. 

“Did you see that?” Chirps the mother, loud and clear. Her giddy voice followed immediately by the shutter of a camera. “Look – look! He’s walking!”

Again, the two share a look. Surprise becomes amusement becomes pride, then joy, and they laugh, and laugh, and laugh.

[bee-whistler]

My husband and I were talking about the absurd choices likely to be available in the 2024 Presidential race and he offered a far more entertaining alternative to the election.

A steel cage match. Put the two old geezers into a steel cage and see who falls apart first. We discussed it for a while and have drawn a few conclusions:

Trump would hold his own at trash talk but Biden would outlast him with folksy old school insults while Trump falls back on cheap schoolyard taunts.

Biden is scrappy but Trump has weight in his favor, if he uses it right. He’s not especially nimble, though, so this seems unlikely.

Biden would show up dressed for a match but Trump would still be in business dress. This will give Biden an advantage; leather soled shoes have poor traction.

Trump would fight dirty if he was willing to get his hands dirty at all. Biden would fight dirty because he enjoys it.

Trump’s hair is a vulnerable point and will give Biden a ready handhold. Biden’s doesn’t look likely to hang on in a crisis. I mean, assuming Trump isn’t sporting a rug.

If either picks up a chair to bash the other, he is just as likely to fall over backwards instead.

Bone loss and its consequences are a very real concern.

I for one would like this method to be used in lieu of wars as well. Maybe have designated thugs to settle all land disputes in a wrestling ring instead of murdering civilians. Just a thought.

[star-spacer]

Know It Like the Back of Your Hand

Adashino x reader x Ginko

Their hands. You've memorized every facet of it.

For someone like you, tactile touches came easily, hugs, and grazes of skin against skin like second nature to you. Whether it be because of the loving environment you’d grown up in so, so long ago, or a desperate burning need to recreate it, you’d never know. But what you knew was that you relied on it like a drug, stealing touches from Adashino and Ginko like a drug.

It wasn’t uncommon for the villagers to see you hanging off of either one’s shoulders or arms, each time received with chuckles and knowing looks, any sense of impropriety long gone with how closely you all stuck to the other. Times where you jumped out to wrap around them were attributed to the spirit half of your heritage.

But more than the actions disguised as joking hugs and your mischievous Yokai nature, was the handholding.

Something you cherished viciously, a dragon hoarding its treasure. It was almost second nature, for yours to seek out theirs whenever the moment arose. For such a simple, nondescript act, it satiated that hungry, hollowed-out part of you. And it was like the men knew, offering their own hands for you to latch on, gorging and gorging yourself on the delicacy that was their love. You knew you were being greedy, but neither of them ever pulled away from your monstrous hands, even when your claws pricked and scratched at them.

Adashino’s hands held the smoothness that stemmed from a value of those limbs. Fingers long and nails well-trimmed, with a writing callous from the records he kept on his patients’ health. He was more prone to getting cold, and you always liked reaching for him on hot summer days.

Ginko’s hands were more calloused, though both bearing almost similar, parallel trades—doctor of the mundane, doctor of the arcane—he was out in far more fields in far more environments, so he gained callouses almost as fast as he did experience. The work-roughened palms made you feel soothed by your own not-quite-genteel hands, made you happy to be close to someone so intimately intertwined in another world like you were.

Sometimes, when Adashino’s work would get the best of him, you would take an ink or herb-stained hand into yours, cold and stiff from overworking, and worked away the aches and pains you knew would be there.

Sometimes, after a particularly harsh case, a minutely trembling hand would seek yours out, fingers entangling with yours in lieu of a cigarette that Ginko so badly wanted to smoke. During particularly bad cases where he sought you out, you would hold his hands, and squeeze, silently offering him your support.

Sometimes, when nightmares kept you half-ensnared in their grips, refusing to let you fully wake, hands slipped into yours from the men sleeping on either side of you. One calloused and broad, the other warm and soothing.

And when blinded and deafened, hands were the only things you could identify, touches from them were usually the first thing that hit.

It was those very same hands now, that tipped your head back, fingers beneath your chin. You struggled a bit, shaking your head and dislodging them from your face as you hissed and swiped blindly at the assailant. Your eyes were clenched shut, unable to be used due to the explosive that burned at your retinas and for fear of the blood from your head wound trickling in.

A groan vibrated out from someone and after a moment, you realized it was coming from you, everything sounding like they were underwater. Buzzes of voices echoed in your ears, but you couldn’t tell who exactly surrounded you. Animal instincts flared up, sharp and hot terror as you bared your teeth blindly, hands and feet scrambling to push yourself back on the dirt, too weak from the explosive light trap to stand up.

A faint call, something like your name. You brought a shaking up, claws extended, only to find it seized by warmer, broader hands. Ready to jolt away, it wasn’t until your fingers grazed across a rougher patch of skin by the meat of the thumb that you froze. It was Ginko’s hand, that callous you knew from him using a chipped pestle that he refused to replace to grind his remedies.

“Ginko?” The vibrations of your own voice followed by its familiar sound was barely heard beneath the ringing of your ears, and you hoped your voice didn’t garble up his name. 

The hands squeezed, responding to your words, and you knew it was him.

Then that meant the other hands…

Your head swung around, the less blood-covered eye peeking open to try and catch sight of the good doctor. Only for you to slam it shut again as bright light pierced it painfully.

Once more, cool, smooth fingers tipped your face up. Only this time, you didn’t resist, lips pulling up into an unrepentant grin in an effort to stave off the scolding you knew you’d face soon.

Slowly, as Adashino and Ginko worked on your injuries, the fear turned into sedation, your body, and senses going lax as you put your trust into their hands, content to allow them to take stock while your senses were scrambled.

You flinched when the hand abruptly left, a noise of fear bubbling up in your throat. But there wasn’t a need to worry as two warm presences sat on either side of you. Their weight pressed into either side of you, and you relaxed, a sigh escaping your nose.

Eyes were the windows to the soul, and furthermore, hands were their vessels, tasked with putting the will to the world, the way in which their identity formed and in which the world knew them. For you, it was the marker in which you’d identify friend or foe, it was your connection to the world.

And, despite both Adashino’s and Ginko’s lesser proclivities to physical touch, you were infinitely grateful that they never denied you when you slipped your hands into theirs.

[thearchivistsjournal]

Day 320,

Author's Notes / Content Warning: An intense nightmare with a long fall, injury, and lots and lots of bones. Questioning one's perception of reality. Fears regarding potentially exposing a child to traumatic experiences.

I woke up this morning with the blanket draped over me and the rest of my bedsheets cast aside.  Maiko says I woke her up with my screaming.

This nightmare began much like the other one, just a long straight tunnel going down at an angle.  Over time, that angle got steeper and steeper.  After a certain point there were no more bones on the floor; they would have slid and tumbled away.  Eventually it was almost more like a climb than a walk wherein I was in a seated position, slowly inching my way forward and downward, relying on friction in lieu of handholds to keep from falling.

And then friction was no longer enough and I went tumbling down into the dark.

The tunnel never reached a true vertical, but that made my fall no easier to halt.  As I said, no handholds, and inertia was quickly working against me.  If anything, the tunnel was growing smoother as I went.

I suspect this long slide was where I woke Maiko.

I know not how long I tumbled like that, but it didn’t feel as long as that fall from the bridge.  This landing was also less calamitous than my prior fall’s; perhaps because of the angle, perhaps because of what I landed on.

I landed on bones.

To my waking, lucid mind, I can’t help but think this should have been even worse than stone to land on.  True, there may have been some give to the surface, but bones still aren’t soft and there would be far more opportunities for something to stick out and puncture me as I landed on it, especially if it snapped from the force of my fall.  As it was, either luck or dream logic saved me from anything more than bruises and a shallow gash along my side where bone snapped and scraped against me.

That scream of pain probably echoed into the waking world as well.

Staggering to my feet and looking around I beheld a sea of ivory.  For as far as I could see in any direction but up there was nothing but bones.  Surely such a place could only exist in nightmare.  Would all the bones of everyone that had ever died even begin to match such an expanse?  There in my landing spot, I was atop a mound, the pile where the chute in the ceiling unreachably high above would presumably deposit its osseos rain.  In the far distance, I could make out other such high spots.  And yes, I could see further than I ever had in the Catacombs before now, by that same directionless ambient light I’d been using to see from the beginning.  Or something similar anyway.  It slowly pulsed between painfully bright and pitch black.

I found myself uncomfortably reminded of a heartbeat.

Even in that depth of Depths, the imperative towards movement persisted.  Nothing for it but to press my hand into my side, pick a direction, and start walking.  Bone is more treacherous to walk on than stone, particularly going downhill.  The uneven surface would shift beneath my weight.  Some bones were more brittle than others and would snap as I stepped on them.  My feet would get caught on protrusions.

I lost count of the number of times I fell.  

The worst part (other than sheer the existential dread of being in a place so fundamentally different than what came before) were the sounds.  The crunches and cracks under my own feet, yes, but also the noise of the pile shifting behind me.  Impossible to tell if it was in response to my mere physical passage upsetting the delicate centuries-old (or older?) equilibrium of ribcage atop skull atop ulna, or if there was something else there with me.

I continued wandering that bonescape until I awoke.  I suspect Maiko’s return of the blanket saved me from being more shaken by that place than I was.  Even so, I was rattled enough upon waking that I forgot all about the class I was supposed to be teaching and lingered in the house until close to noon.

The previous night, I’d lost my sense of fear to resignation.  Now, the fear is back tenfold.  Even after a visit to Siren Overlook, I still see that impossible ossuary when I close my eyes, pulsing from a black blindness to a bright blindness and back with ivory and shadows between.  It’s not the same as the episodic flashes that come from staying awake through a mist night, there’s not the same sense of displaced presence, but if I allow my mind to wander that vivid memory is the path it inevitably finds itself drawn down.

In truth, my memory of this morning is foggier than my memory of the nightmare.  I believe there was crying (or at least whimpering) and huddling in place with the blanket wrapped around me involved.  I don’t think I was entirely rational or lucid for a time.  I vaguely recall a sense of relief bordering on disbelief that I was back in the world of the living and a fear that I would slip away again at any time.  At least that is gone now after my visit to the Overlook, but before then, I’m not sure how long it would have taken me to get functional if some part of me that was still myself hadn’t remembered the marble.

Maiko accompanied me on the road back into the Village.  Even with the marble muting my fears it would have been harder without her.

We ran into Cass on the road.  When I hadn’t shown up by the noontime recess she’d sent the class home early for the day.  I’m impressed that she managed that long on her own.  She was angry with me, and had every right to be.  She’d had to spend no small amount of time convincing kids that I hadn’t been taken away by the shades in the night.  If it weren’t for the bracelet she would have feared the same herself.

The marble muted the sting of her words as well as my fears.  And I suspect the presence of mind it gave me made my explanation to Cass of how bad off I’d been rather less convincing.  So I handed her the marble.  While I was holding it, fear of her reaction to finding out about it this way didn’t concern me too much, nor did the thought of what would happen once I released it.  

That was probably a mistake.

The sensations didn’t hit me all at once as soon as I handed the marble over, but they came quickly enough.  The cobblestones of the road weren’t all that different from the tops of skulls if you thought about it.  The rustling of branches in the seasonal wind and rain called to mind the shifting of the bone pile.  The snapping of a twig, the cracking of a rib underfoot.  The existential dread regarding the relative realities of this world and that of the Catacomb Depths began to creep back in.

I don’t know what my face must have looked like,  but it was enough to make Cass shove the marble back into my hand, close my fingers around it, and start leading me by the other hand along the road toward the Village.  I told her she didn’t need to do that, but she was not inclined to let go until we reached Siren Overlook.  The way she kept glancing over her shoulder at me reminded me of the terms of continued apprenticeship we’d negotiated in the wake of my last nightmare-induced breakdown in front of her.  In those furtive glances was she afraid for my wellbeing, afraid of me, or afraid that I’d invoke those terms after this new incident and end her apprenticeship?  

I didn’t say anything about it today, but I need to soon.  She’s a child, she shouldn’t have to deal with me like this.

As we approached the Village Maiko split off from us to circle around and meet us on the other side.  This visit to Siren Overlook was considerably less restful than the last.  The rain coming down significantly harder this time around had a lot to do with that.  After an hour or so of sitting directly under the archway I was able to think clearly again without the marble, admittedly in a detached sort of manner that still persists to my current writing.  Cass and Maiko, who had been taking in the song from further back, seemed at least somewhat more at ease as well.

On the way back the topic of what to do next came up.  Cass suggested I talk to Pat about this.  I told her I already had last time and that he had little advice to give.  And then Maiko surprised us both by asking why not talk to Theo.

Cass and I had similar knee-jerk reactions to that suggestion, albeit hers were a shade more anger-tinged than mine.  I brought up that the other times I’ve talked to him even he admitted that I can’t trust anything he says about the truths of what things are or how they work.  Cass asked how Maiko could even think of going to him for help after what he did in arranging and manipulating that night.

Maiko countered that that’s exactly why she wants to talk to him and had been working up the courage to bring it up even before this latest nightmare.  And as for the nightmares, we wouldn’t be asking him what they mean, only how to stop or manage them.

I hated to admit it, but she had a point there.  If anything, trying to stop the nightmares would be the opposite of digging for hidden truths.  We made a plan that tonight after dark Maiko would sneak into the Village and spend the night in the library then hide out down in the archive while class was in session for the day.  After class Cass and I would go looking for Theo and ask him to come back to the library with us to talk.

I imagine Maiko should be arriving for the night any time now.  Let’s hope this plan isn’t a bad idea.

<==Previous          Next==>

[badass-at-fandoming]

Fandom: Ikémen Revolution

Pairing: Seth Hyde x gn!Alice x Sirius Oswald

Tags: Polyamory Negotiations

Thank you to @voltage-vixen and @xxsycamore​ for organizing this event!

On your last morning on the island, you wake up to a large hand covering your mouth.

Your eyes fly open. Sirius hovers above you with a finger on his lips. It's still dark out, and the snores of your compatriots still rattle the air. When Sirius removes his hand, you rise and tidy up as quietly as you can. After the sauna, the Army spent a day hiking around volcanos. The landscapes dazzled sharp with renewal; smoky with promise. You'd oo'ed and awe'ed and carefully stuck to trails. Though the air of wonder could not be dampened, it also held a tinge of melancholy. The cratered vistas were your last true vacation day—the remainder of the trip would be returning to Cradle.

Yesterday, the Army had traveled down the mountain. It was well-dark by the time everyone had bedded down on the floor of a massive, shoreline lodge. Beside you, Seth is already awake and returning his borrowed bedroll. You follow suit and trail Sirius outside.

The beach sand is gray and cold. Wind chaps your lips. You'd slept in your clothes to save time, but you shiver for missing the blanket's warm cocoon. Seth throws his jacket around your shoulders. You smile your thanks.

Without question, you follow Sirius. He's dressed too, in the boots, jeans, and vest he favors for his off days at the Army. The early morning darkness makes him appear saturated—his hair is almost black; his skin, a shade paler. At least you can see him without assistance. When he turns from the beach into a small woodland, your brain kickstarts enough to wonder at your destination.

Seth has similar ideas. "Sirius?" he says.

"Here," Sirius smiles. "Look."

It's like reverse Jack and the Beanstalk. Sirius is a giant besides a little bush of a flower, which sprouts strong and straight up. Prickles serve as handholds. In high contrast to the sharp and waxy the leaves, the crowning blossom appears delicate as crepe paper. The broad, white petals converge on a cheery yellow center and magenta stigma. It glows with simple beauty in the dim blue morning.

A little sound of wonder escapes your throat. Sirius' smile broadens. "This is a pua kala, or Hawaiian poppy. I spotted it yesterday and it looked about ready to bloom. The flowers only last a day, so we're lucky to catch it. I wanted to share it with you two."

Seth's hands fly to his mouth. "Oh! Sirius, this is so thoughtful and lovely!"

"I also brought tea and sweet bread," Sirius adds, pulling a thermos and rolls of puffy, doughy goodness out of the depths of his coat.

"You know a way to a woman's heart 🎶."

The tea warms you to the bones, and the act of chewing brings you fully awake. The sun must be creeping up, as the light eases bluer and bluer. Munching and admiring the pua kala feels pleasant and homey. The leaves lighten to Seth's favorite shade of green. Birds begin to hop and twitter awake, and you can pretend its a little morning symphony just for you three.

Sirius clears his throat. "I also, uh, wanted to say thanks. That is, for the…." His cheeks go pink.

"Orgasms?" Seth supplies helpfully.

Sirius scowls. "You always have a comeback, don't you?"

"Part of my charm ⭐️."

"I don't want it to end," Sirius says, heated now. "I want to keep going once we're back in Cradle, if that's all right you."

Seth and you share a look. He licks his lips. It's not like you had any other plans, besides working towards peace. Maybe the generation of love and friendship can begin more at home than you thought.

Your boyfriend reads your face and throws himself into Sirius' arms.

"No, I'm holding the tea!" exclaims Sirius. You catch the thermos mid-air as Sirius catches Seth mid-flight. Wrapping his legs around Sirius' waist, Seth plants a wet, sloppy "mwah!" of a kiss on Sirius' mouth.

"We'd love to have you," you say, in lieu of an interpretation. You nuzzle into what part of Sirius you can reach, which happens to be his bicep. Mmm, boy-muscle.

Seth licks a stripe down the earrings in Sirius' ear. The Queen of Spades shivers at the promise.

[anlian-aishang]

Kinktober Day 27: Formal Wear

If you're comfortable with it maybe you could do a formal wear kink? Like maybe they're at one of the parties in Mitras and the reader gets all worked up seeing Levi dressed all fancy and whatnot, and eventually they go into one of the empty rooms to "spend time" together because she can't keep her hands to herself lol. also as a bonus could you include a glove kink? (Like maybe Levi's outfit includes some fancy white gloves and he just looks so good in them haha) 

Word count: 1800 Tags: smut, levi x reader, slight voyeurism, fem!reader

Remember! Levi hates art theft.

You had not really thought over what Levi would be wearing, you were too wrapped up in getting yourself ready to think about anyone else’s appearance. When you first laid eyes on him tonight, though, you found him better than anything you could have dreamt of. Really, when it came to Levi, you did not have to fantasize, but pale moonlight, slow music, and a sharp black tux could do no harm.

Three swift knocks on your door broke you out of your concentration. With only one shoe fastened, you hobbled to the door, clutching the handle for balance and letting him in. Suddenly, your heels were not the only reason you were tripping. When you opened up, you almost did not recognize him. His hair was slightly gelled, shoes so shiny that you saw your reflection, it was the first time you had seen him this dressed to the nines.

Your reach extended with a mind of its own, fingers scooping his collar and pulling him through the door frame. “Look at you…”

A slight smirk, taking in your appearance and appreciation, “Cleaned up, you’re not half bad yourself, brat.” With his undermined way of speaking, his infatuation was clearly spelled out - your feelings undoubtedly mutual.

Even though the compliment had simple face value, any sentiment was ramped up when it came from a man in a suit, even more so your captain. Jitters all over were unable to hide, earning a couple chuckles from your date. The seductive charm he always had was multiplied. In just this first exchange, you were already helpless.

Hand trailed from his collar to his tie. Loosening a bit, you pulled him towards you and suggested, “Maybe we could be fashionably late…”  

A strong hand met yours at his knot, bringing you into a handhold instead. “Not tonight, we can’t.”

Your vision was clouded and he knew it. There was no way either of you would get away with being tardy to this event. With a diagonal tilt of his chin, he gave a glance that read you know better before offering his elbow and beckoning for yours. You crossed your arms, tapped your foot, and tested the waters. However, he did not budge, not anywhere but his eyes. Steel grey gaze solidified and he cleared his throat, a sequence that always meant: Get over here, little lady.

You rolled your eyes and huffed, throwing in the towel and linking your arm with his. He lived on the edge at the most dangerous times but played it safe at the most innocuous times. It was one of your biggest differences, in your mind, one that was sure to change.

// // //

Levi was not the only one. It turned out that almost everybody in the regiment was unrecognizable tonight. In lieu of green capes, brown boots, and ODM gear, the Scouts’ uniform had been exchanged for tuxedos and gowns at this black-tie affair. Levi sensed your eyes taking in everyone else, he wanted your attention and yours alone. He tightened his hold on your hand and escorted you to the dance floor.

It was not that he was thrilled to dance necessarily, it was that he was even less enthused by the idea of exchanging pleasantries with the guests. In the upscale capital of Mitras, the nobles were all lining up to speak with humanity’s strongest. Underneath the superlatives, however, he saw himself as nothing more than a thug from the underground who had a handle on blades - a man who had little, if anything, in common with these stuck-up aristocrats. Over the years and events, tasting Hors d'oeuvres, sticking beside Erwin, even hiding in the coat room, none of them had been able to protect him from the curious. Interrupting a slow dance, though, not even these citizens would be so arrogant. He never used you, but having a girlfriend had its perks.

Hands cupped together in Cs, palms pressed, thumbs hooked around the other’s. At a sound distance, you were able to scan his entire outfit. The jet black suit was a flawless match to his obsidian hair. The white button-up accented his light skin tone. Of course, all garments were ironed, pressed, and splashed with hints of his cologne. The details were what really captivated you. Just as you started to succumb was the moment he pulled you closer. With each song, your dances grew less and less polite: chests meeting, hips touching, toe to toe. No, it’s everything about him.

Chills cascaded throughout your body. This close, he felt them just as you did. Levi teased, “You cold?”

Some senses were dulling, some sharpening, you failed to pick up on his sarcastic tone. You bit your lip and shook your head slightly, “That’s not it.”

“Mm?” His intonation rose as his hands fell to your hips, drawing a few more shivers, “What is it then?”

You looked to your feet and stammered before lifting your gaze to his. A sparkle in your eyes told him all, “I like the way you look tonight.”

“Yeah?” His grip tightened, bringing you just close enough to whisper, “It’s just for you.” A split second bite at the cusp of your ear, “You know that, right?”

You closed your eyes and shuddered, exhilarated nerves making vibrations between you. You had no idea how long or how short the night had been thus far. All you did know was that since the moment you saw him at your door, you had not been able to get him off your mind. In fact, each passing second only further cemented your craze.

For the first time all night, your gaze deliberately left him, but with good reason and bad intentions. Two quick glances around the room affirmed: his eyes were the only ones on you. All others were caught up in conversation or in choreography of their own. You snickered in a deviant delight. Maybe it was optimism. Maybe it was the truth. Maybe it was the work of hormones. Who knows? But all of your being was screaming to you: You can get away with it.

A smirk you could not hide tugged at your lips, “Levi, darling…” a fabricated bourgeois tone, “I’m thirsty...”

He raised his brows knowingly at which you played up, “Would you be so kind as to…” you trailed your fingers from his neck to chest to abdomen, down down down. “...as to fetch a refreshment with me?”

Levi took your touch from his chest, brought you to his lips, and spoke against your fingertips. “Just what kind of date would I be?”

// // //

It was one thing you two had in common: no care for bells or whistles. Some seclusion, a flat surface, that was all you needed. A bed, a desk, even a vertical wall would do. The second you found that, it did not matter if it was a bedroom, a bathroom, in the case of tonight - a closet, you were at each other like no tomorrow. You had the nature of the Scouts to thank for that.

Dragging him here, your knuckles were bright and plans dark. With each hurried step you took away from the crowd, the further out of sight and out of mind they became - the freer your inhibitions grew, even going so far as to loudly slam the door behind you.

With the door slam came your snap. In an instant, you were at his neck, sucking love marks from his jawline to his clavicle. You breathed against his dampened skin, “I don’t think you know what you’re doing to me.”

In this tight, hot, dense space, your pheromones were raging. Levi brought a hand beneath your chin and tilted up with both haste and tenderness. He bit your lip and tugged before speaking into your mouth, “Oh, I think I do…”

Levi hiked up your skirt, bringing his hands to the back of your thighs. His nails made crescents in your skin as he, in one swift motion, lifted you up and pushed you against one of the four tiny walls. Satin gloves were lovely on your skin, even nicer than sheets, as he snuck his fingers past your panties and to your moistened slit. The folds in his fabric felt incredible on yours. You stuttered, “I - I like your gloves…”

“Ahh?” His interest had piqued, “I thought you would.”

Huh? Even in the dark of this closet, your expression was clear to him. He brought his hand to your nape and tugged down, bringing your ear to his mouth once again, “Didn’t I tell you…?” He ground his lengthened member between your legs, hips rocking with their own volition. “This is all just for you, princess.”

Jaw fell to the floor. Your impression had been that you were the needy one, that this excursion would have been a surprise to him. Instead, in just one exchange, did you learn that you were the one who had played into his hands. All just for me? Your head, your discipline, was truly spinning out of control.

At a volume you may not had otherwise reached, you were shouting just feet away from the public, “Fuck me, Levi…” a series of desperate pants interrupted, “...now, please…!”

His low growl and surging erection conveyed, he was also releasing his reins. By your neck, he kept you pinned against the wall as he unbuckled, unbuttoned, unzipped himself from the confines of his slacks. Around the outlines of the door, dim lights of the party outside illuminated his dripping length, making you lick your lips in anticipation.

Tension had been built up all night, he wasted no time. With a deep drawback and full forward thrust, he sheathed his entire length into you - so far back that, with the addition of his hands at your hips and breasts, three points of contact kept you upright. You dug your nails into his back, claws oscillating up and down his section as you bit your screams down on his neck. He grit his teeth, barring gasps of both pain and pleasure meant for your ears only. Once again, with haste, his hips began their instinctual pace as they had so many times before - this time, with an added hurry.

Silk white gloves kneaded your neck, sandwiched your nipple. The flawless traction made your hairs stand on end, your buds peak in his pinch. The thought that he had saved these just for tonight - just for me. Within this fantasy you were living, you got even more lost in tantalizing thought. He relished your sight: eyes rolling in the back of your head, skin prickling, body yearning. Already, he knew: he was whipping these out again - more often, too. Along with you, his mind began to wander, thinking up even more ways he would put them to use in the future. Anticipation rose. Rate accelerated.  

From base to tip, he was so fucking big. He filled your need, hit all your spots with each and every fuck. With the formal foreplay you had been engaged in all night, your lubrication told you and him both: you would not need - could not last - too much longer. You threw a hand at the back of his undercut - leverage - and arched your back against the wall for that last-needed angle, that last-needed stimulation. You wrapped your arms and legs around him, allowing not an inch between you, “Levi, I… Levi, I…!”

“Cum.” He grunted, reaching his own as well. “Cum for me…”

This was what you wanted all night, you and him both. All of your muscles tensed around him, seizing him as all yours. A handful of thrusts combined with your rhythmic clenches brought you both to orgasms that took heaven and hell to bind. In your flurry of gasps and groans, neither of you truly knew how well you had kept quiet. If the pleasure you felt was any indicator, though, you were thankful for thick walls.

As you came down from your highs and the ringing stopped in your ears, it was just the moment you heard the band restart, right outside and rather loud. Breathless, you snickered.

Another song. Another dance. Another round.

Kinktober Year 1 Masterlist

[ufonaut]

bruce stranger handholding 3 and kisses 43

3. cold hands in warm hands + 43. “we’ll see each other again” kisses

(takes place after the phantom stranger 1987 miniseries)

Stranger comes and goes as he pleases. Cassandra Craft had explained in hushed, gentle tones, the one time she’d met Bruce for tea and coffee -- as preference allowed -- in one of those quaint little cafes next to the university, that it was his burden to bear. The curse dictated, she’d said, that no attachments were to be formed. Stranger manoeuvred around it to the best of his ability.

Truth be told, Bruce had already grasped that much from sudden, sorrowful departures and reappearances in the dead of night, startling like Eclipso had once been then acutely soothing in turn. The periods of quiet, however, have grown longer and longer and Bruce knows something had shifted into place when Stranger had defied his masters, a shade of humanity that hasn’t quite worn off.

Days have turned into weeks and Stranger has stuck around, clumsily playing at the goings-on of mortal men and pointing out the beauty of the world in places Bruce had never thought to look. It’s an existence he’d hadn’t tasted before, not with Mona nor when the darkness had gripped his heart and sunk into it. Stranger, who is warmth and sunlight and something indistinctly divine, has taught him much about Eclipso and wishes that do not -- cannot -- damn him.

Tucked into bed in this little Gotham apartment of his, all moonlight and twinkling city through the seventh-floor view of a window that offers very little of note in the waking hours, Bruce no longer flinches at the reality of the man in his arms. He gets to have this, he thinks, giddy with the routine of it.

Neither can sleep, the closeness is enough. Stranger lacks the need to do so but he joins Bruce in bed night after night all the same, through bad dreams and insomnia alike. Tonight, the latter is the culprit.

It’s all easy with Stranger. He calls them soulmates and means it and smiles one of his rare dazzling smiles every time, eyes half-closed like an especially contented cat. Bruce believes it, too. It’s all there in the beat of his heart and their clasped hands, Stranger’s nearly cold as if in lieu of the immediacy of life but firm and present still.

And the lull shatters as Stranger turns, shadows thrown oddly over him in the dark. He smells of incense and little else, Bruce has grown to think of it as home.

“I am being summoned by the Conclave,” he says, quiet but not unfeeling, nothing as much as indifferent. The thought must wound him as it does Bruce. “I will return, Bruce Gordon, do not fear.”

Bruce doesn’t.

It delights him to know that Stranger might. It would’ve hardly crossed his mind before.

“Hey, I’ll be here waiting for you, okay, bud?” Bruce says and cups Stranger’s cheek, unsure of his own intentions but grateful for this last trace of contact. There are no boundaries of love to Stranger, friendship does not preclude what they’ve fallen into and the line is translucent, bending and twisting as needed.

Stranger nods, solemnly serious.

“I love you, Bruce Gordon,” he states it as an irrefutable fact and leans in close, pressing his lips against Bruce’s and lingering in the languid moment. It’s nothing more than that -- a pressing of the lips. It’s nothing less either.

As they part, Stranger vanishes into thin air as if he’d only been a trick of the dim light. Bruce is left with his smile, certain of a swift return.

[wildwoodmage]

I’m very proud of Sonic and Manic’s dynamic in their first meeting. These two went from 'hey this guy seems cool, maybe we could be friends’ to brotherly bickering in less than five minutes. Must be fate.

Read Dead Reckoning on AO3

“Are you lost?” Manic’s knight in shining armor said. It was a voice he’d heard plenty of, although never in person. Sonic Charley was shorter than he’d expected, but Manic still felt very small compared to him.

“That’s a weird way of saying ‘thank you,’” Manic said. “And after I went to all this trouble distractin’ the bots for you.”

Sonic laughed, dry but not unkind. “Fair enough. You did a damn good job kickin’ the hornet’s nest. Usually that’s my whole thing.”

Much like a hive full of furious, stinging insects, the labyrinth had not quieted now that a single bot had been downed. Any second, more would converge on their location, and if Manic had any sense he would already be making a break for it. He wasn’t sure why he wasn’t, except that it felt kind of nice to make Sonic laugh. “Don’t let me steal your thunder, dude. I’ll just head out and you can do your Enemy of the State thing. Hey, which way’s the exit?”

In lieu of an answer, Sonic stepped forward and gripped either side of Manic’s waist. Manic could not be held responsible for any undignified yelps that may or may not have left him as Sonic lifted him like he weighed nothing. With Manic slung over his shoulder, Sonic took off just as another bot took aim. A laser blast scorched the ground where he had been standing just a moment ago.

If Manic hadn’t been lost before, he sure was by the time Sonic stopped. It had only been a few seconds, and yet it seemed like miles had flown by beneath his feet. Manic’s knees buckled as Sonic set him down, and it was only by bracing against the wall that he managed to salvage the last of his dignity. While he regained his bearings, Sonic scrolled through a holographic screen that projected from his wristband.

“Exit’s that way,” Sonic said, jerking his thumb in one direction. “Take two rights, then follow the tunnel that heads upward.”

“Hi Manic, nice to meet you, hey do you mind if I throw you over my shoulder like a sack of grain?”

Sonic had the sharp-toothed grin of one who was far too confident in his ability to take a punch. Manic was torn between admiration and bone-deep jealousy. “That’s a weird way of saying ‘thank you.’”

“See, it’s charm like that that has everyone in Robotropolis wanting your head on a pike.” Despite himself, Manic was grinning right back. At least, he was until harsh footsteps snapped him back to reality. He grabbed Sonic’s wrist and yanked them both off the main path, where the ground crumbled away, providing a convenient drop down to a lower level. No sooner than the two of them drop through the opening did the ambient light of searching SwatBots pass by. Sonic and Manic were still and quiet, their shadows traveling across the floor as the patrol approached and receded.

When they were alone once more, Manic dared to breathe. “And that’s my third close call of the night. I’ve got a three-strike policy, you see, and honestly? That’s way too many. See you around, except probably not, because I’d rather not have the Empire thinkin’ I’m in with your crazy rebel suicide mission.”

“You sure? The Resistance is always recruiting,” Sonic said.

“Absolutely sure. Look, I know I haven’t exactly been demonstratin’ it tonight, but I do have a shred of common sense. Later, dude. Stay frosty. Don’t get arrested.” As he spoke, Manic turned to grip the crumbling stone wall, scaling it with a spider’s grace.

“I could probably toss you back up, if you want,” Sonic said, to which Manic risked falling, sacrificing a handhold in order to flip him off. By the time he blinked, Sonic was gone. Manic huffed out a sigh, then hauled himself the rest of the way back to the upper level. He couldn’t vanish quite as quickly as the famed freedom fighter, but he didn’t plan to stick around. He at least needed to be somewhere else when Sonic realized that his wristband was missing. Manic didn’t head toward the exit.

[twitchesandstitches]

Average Day for Hyper Muscle Polypa

commission for a slice of life story featuring the hyper amazonian and muscle gut Polypa from one of my most frequent comm-ers!

Features hyper muscle, mini-giantess aspects, and a vore scene later on.

--------

It took some time for the mutated troll woman, Polypa Gozee, to wake up all the way. She rolled and shifted around in her recuperacoon for a while, her impossibly muscular and oversized body straining the poor device’s ability to contain her. The questionably fleshy recuperacoon’s surface was strained particularly hard by one especially huge lump forcing out its front, and two significantly smaller (but still quite big) spheres on top of that. As she woke up, they shifted heavily, forced this way and that way as she slowly got to her feet inside the sopor slime. And then, she yawned heavily, so hard that the windows of her hive almost rattled. And then, there was a gurgling growl from her massive stomach that did make the windows shake almost out of their frames, and the sound knocked down a couple trolls who had been walking past the huge and overbuilt complex of her hive.

It was surprisingly large for an oliveblood, who never got the kind of resources for something like that. But when it came to questions about Polypa, her hive being too big was really the least of it.

And in any case, even her hive, engineered as it was to cope with her unique and empire-compliant mutations, couldn’t quite cope with the kind of power even her hungry rumblings could perform.

Consider a view through her hive, through its many winding hallways, its twisting corridors, the walls with handholds put into them near furniture at just the right angle for beings of a considerably smaller size to move up, and a general sense of scale. Walking into this home was a bit like being transported into a world where you were suddenly far smaller than you ought to be; everything suddenly looked massive.

It was also the home of a fangirl, it seemed. Finished assembly kits for many different series lined the shelves end to end, arranged into complicated dioramas telling their own self-contained stories. Models and miniatures, patiently handpainted with a few sloppy mis-strokes that indicated someone not well suited to precise movements, occupied display shelves.

And the scale of the rooms, and its furniture, were massive. Most trolls were giants compared to the unfortunate aliens they met, save perhaps for the mineral entities known only as the Gems, and the titanic shapeshifting robots known as the Autobots, whom had called an alliance together specifically to stonewall the Condesce so badly that in her frustration she had postponed her eternal conquest and allowed the adult trolls to return to Alternia, to repopulate and bide their time. And even so, the size of these rooms would make even the biggest troll brute feel like a lost infant wriggler. A chair alone, for instance, was more than ten feet across (by the measurements of humans, at least), and higher than most trolls were tall.

The walls were decorated in the colorful and bright shades of various animated series, some fairly obscure and some autographed in the careful, pictogram calligraphy of the written languages in the regions they had originated in. Most of these were of cute characters, with incredibly buxom, amazonian troll-women as the primary focus; given that the cultural expectation was for women to be more ruthless, cruel and ferocious than the smaller and frailer men, they also tended to be somewhat bloody and gory. Even the cutesy and lighthearted shows featured at least a few bloody heads on pointy sticks here and there. Fuchsia princesses predominated, their frilly dresses and armored attire suggesting a few popular trends from a troll genre broadly similar to the romantic and self-discovery of human shoujo series, but other posters, as well as a truly shocking breadth of collectable miniatures, models and dioramas constructed from those very collectibles, had the softer and more stylized looks of something like action-packed shonen series.

(Those were not quite the same terms as trolls themselves would have used, but in lieu of direct translations, those terms suffice to get the general vibe of those genres across.)

It bore some repeating that the collectibles weren’t just fairly diverse, but they were hand-painted, though not handcrafted. They’d clearly been bought from a store or assembled from kits, but they had been painted at home, with a lot of love, if not necessarily a lot of skill. They were something of a contrast to the bloody trophies kept in little glass desks throughout the home, like a predator’s way of saying ‘heck yeah, I killed THAT’.

They were unlabeled, preserved in jars and transparent boxes and even living jelly spheres that kept particularly brief things going, but they were clearly trophies from dead trolls. A broken horn there, its base scarred by some kind of horribly vicious digestive fluid that still tinted it olive-green. Several orange-red bones, preserved in fluid. More than one or two skulls, and there weren’t many of these larger trophies. There were necklaces and bracelets of teeth presumably taken from dead jaws, torn out and strung up, and it was always one tooth per kill. There were many necklaces, a bit bloody from their original owners, mostly in the colder shades.

There was another oddity of them; the hive was mainly made of a blend of the various living substances trolls built their homes out of, interlaced with a tough resin that was pretty similar to some plastics and provided al ot of structural strength, and the composite was a hardly material that would gradually heal most damage done to it. It was, after all, a living thing. However, this hive’s walls were coated in a glassy substance often used in fireproofing; it had a very high melting point, and saw a lot of industrial use. It protected the cases all her books, movies, animations and various collectibles were all set in, and the impression was that she was worried about fires. There were still a few scorch marks, here and there, in the shape of handprints and footprints.

Now, consider her bedroom.

It was a surprisingly small space. There were fewer collectibles and trophies compared to the rest of her home, and only a few photos. Most of those were on a small desk on the other side of the room from her recuperacoon, and generally showed her with the long-dead lusus who had raised her from wrigglerhood. There was one photo from before her adult molts, with her moirail Tegiri. The photo showed her towering over him even them, one buff arm looped around his neck, him with a stoic expression of long-suffering complacence, and the other photos of them largely followed this trend, even some of the more recent ones that had so much trouble fitting her into frame. Besides them were the ashes of her lusus, preserved in a jar. They were positioned in a way that the sleeper would immediately see them as soon as she woke up.

Most of the room was otherwise taken up by a monstrously huge recuperacoon; a gigantic cocoon, oozing a green ooze with sedative qualities to soothe the mindness rage and lust for blood inflicted upon trolls by mysterious entities in the distant past. It filled up the entire room, which was still a fairly large room despite being small by the hive’s general template standards, and was filled nearly to capacity by a very big, extremely feminine, and rather rigidly built body that had been tossing and turning for some time.

A pair of horns poked out the ground; using human measurements and scaling them up to troll size, they would perhaps have been about five feet long each and two feet wide, from a height of nearly 20 feet, bringing the height of the recuperacoon and its occupant at around 25 feet, by the measurements of trolls (which used different terminology, but was fairly close to the human Imperial measurements).

Both horns extended at an angle, branching into heavy hooks, and one had a large chunk broken out of it, still raw and green all these molts later. They rose up as Polypa groggily stood up to her full height in a slow and groggy way, her amazon figure looking like something being constructed out of the cocoon. It became clear, as the huge distensions at the front moved upwards, and the cocoon shrank inwards as more Polypa rose up, that it was almost all her. Massive shoulders rose out of the cocoon, each one at least a few feet around and looking even bigger from inhuman levels of muscular development; alien analogues to deltoids extending at least a foot away from her in ropey curls, the chitinous armor of her black skin adhering to her form as closely as latex.

The first impression of her was ‘no troll should be that big’. Her presence was a physical force, distorting attention around her like a lead weight shot of a cannon into a wall. The second impression was of sheer, unbelievable muscle mass, swelling out of her to such an extreme that it was hard to tell what was actually her main body, and what was muscle grown so huge and heavy that it had swelled out into a kind of meaty carapace.

Polypa kept rising upwards, and the two huge lumps surged out as a pair of gigantic rumble-spheres, or breasts by human nomenclature; if her belly had been slimmer, they would have dipped down all the way to her thighs, heavy and laden with some form of nectar. Certainly her nipples (or sap ducts, as trolls considered them) were enormously huge, puffy and ready to disgorge into a receptive mouth. Each rumble-sphere was wider than the entire circumference of her body by a foot or so, and would likely have projected out by eight feet, at the least.

They nonetheless looked small compared to her belly, which was the much larger lump beneath her boobs. It flopped out through the lip of the cocoon, which made it deflate and contract in relief around the rest of her admittedly still gargantuan body like a living film. Her stomach surged out and smacked heavily into the ground, denting the floor beneath it, and settled; all of Polypa’s body, nude as she was in the sopor, was absurdly muscular, her body mutated to increase her muscle development to the point that most of her apparent mass was…

Well. Very little of it was her actual body. She was a massive troll even for her size, but most of her bulk was just muscle mass grown straight from her body. Her head, dwarfed by her growth, poked out like someone piloting a mech made of muscles, and seemed startlingly small compared to her overall size.

This beefy carapace was bulkiest around a few specific areas, such as her arms and legs, but nowhere was more heavily muscled than her stomach. Round though it was, abdominal muscles completely encased it, so solidly defined they looked like carved markings on an anatomical engraving; latissimus dorsi like slabs lined the sides beneath her rumble-spheres, external oblique were a muscular rim jutting out over even her enormous hips, and her abdominals proper stuck out so much that they made her belly a surprisingly gravid globe.

That it was nearly as long as she was tall, and wider besides, gave such an awe-inspiring sense of mass. It gurgled faintly, mysterious chemical processes going on in that magnificent gut; it was the secret to her tremendous growth, it's perfect digestion breaking down all food and turning it into raw mass to fuel her increased size and muscle mass. Bones, trees, poisonous fungi, other trolls; if it was organic, Polypa could digest it and neutralize all poison, making them all nothing but fuel for her magnificent form.

It was quite sensitive, to boot; Polypa shivered as her nook and bulk (both swollen to extreme heaviness beneath her belly) rammed into its lower regions, and she grinded her hips into it as an automatic reflex, enjoying a particular abdominal crease she clenched around herself right there, and spent about five minutes ramming into herself, until the early morning lust resolved itself, and her head cleared.

Polypa stepped out of her cocoon, thighs nearly eight feet across and as hyper muscular as the rest of her moved out, her digitigrade legs flexing and the clawed toes powering her out of the cocoon. A short, slim tail bulging with more muscle slapped against a huge butt rather softer-looking than the rest of her body. Her mane of hair fluttered down, messy from the sopor and sliding against her butt too.

Sopor slime dripped off her face, off the scars. The burns were terrible, distorting almost all her face except for a small circle around one eye into a mass of off-green crags and pinched sections, the chitin there half-melted. Even her lips, massively puffy and swelling outwards, had uncomfortable streaks tinting them a faint green from those old injuries. The burns continued down her neck, at least until the swelling piles of her neck muscles swallowed them up.

The chitinous carapace of much of her body still bore some sign of those old burns, all the same. Down her back, a meandering trail across her arms, erratically spiraling around the base of her tail, and a few dappled spots on her thighs and finally the heavy tread of her feet, and even that was still scarred by old fire.

And as she walked out, her body shimmered, psionic energies in her eyes, and heat pulsed out from her hard enough to nearly evaporate the slime off her body on the spot.

With a grumble, Polypa sloughed off, dripping sopor slime off her nude body all the way to the showers, her digitigrade paws scraping her short claws against the ground, and her tail dragging behind to make little trails in that slime behind her.

The shower woke her up a little bit, though it wasn’t easy. Polypa didn’t do well in confined spaces, and even if her shower had been built for over a couple dozen trolls (if they didn’t mind getting unnecessarily intimate), she filled it pretty much to capacity. Her stomach did, mostly, which was the main issue. She kept bumping into things as the water washed the slime off her, and she hissed with suppressed pleasure as her stomach ground sensually into the hydration spigots. There was so much to… entice her. Polypa’s butt ground against the wall, her rumble-spheres were pushed into the ceiling, she had to wedge her face into those rumble-spheres just to avoid headbutting her own ceiling.

And then. Her soft and sensitive muscles pressing into each other with an overpowering friction with every other movement so that this tight space was a sweet kind of hell. And her rumble-spheres, packed tight and full as they were, kept getting pressed against each other, and her face, and the walls, and her own massive arms, and kept gushing out sparkling and frothy streams of green nectar right all over her front like a hose going off, so much that she almost screamed.

A lot of green fluids wound up washing down the drain when she was done. It wasn’t just her nectar either.

Polypa finished her shower, with some embarrassed difficulty, but figured it was best to get that sort of thing out of the way so the need as fierce as her hunger or various other cravings didn’t overwhelm her during her morning run.

A small towel hung by the shower, far too small to dry her off. And the reason why became clear, in this bathroom with the walls so very heavily reinforced by fire-preventing slabs. Heat pulsed from Polypa, and she felt her muscles swell up a bit as she tapped into just a small store of the psionic powers unlocked by her mutations. It was enough for her rather singular talent.

There was probably a technical term for it. In plain terms, she burst into flames.

Heat swirled around her as she glowed, her scars shining even brighter so that their ragged dips and swirls looked like mystical runes, and then she ignited completely, flames exploding from her. It whirled around her like an aura, blasting into every inch of the room with so much force that it was like an explosion going off. The room was reinforced to deal with it, and there was no damage caused.

After a few moments of this, Polypa shut it off. The flames that her body was continously creating and converting raw psionic energy into fire simply went out. She was left still smoking, an exhiliaration and rush still pulsing in her, and there was a faint steam from all the water being evaporated right off of her.

Polypa thought to get dressed, but the pressure in her rumble-spheres demanded otherwise.

She left her bathroom and went to a storage cabinet in one of her hallways. With a stoic expression, she hauled out a milker and slapped its cups to her engorged nipples, her rumble-spheres still totally full, and powered it on as she did her stretches: she bent low, tensing her back and adjusting her back shell and twisting her muscles in various directions, as the milker went to work. She panted in relief and pleasure, both from the feeling of her muscles working, and the sweet delight of being milked.

She twisted her arms up, one after another, and they were massive, broader across than the average troll’s entire body, her biceps nearly eight feet across each, bigger even than her torso. Her rumble-spheres bounced atop her gut, rivers of green flowing down the tubes, and she very carefully maneuvered her arms so she didn’t get lost in the moment and popped something loose; the mess would get everywhere. ...Again.

Then her hips; enormously wide even on her titanic body, swayed back and forth as she limbered up. This went on for about five minutes, and her industrial-grade milker sucked her nectar with commendable ferocity, its contents ejected in several tanks large enough to feed a dozen trolls each for a day. A large milking lusus might be expected to fill one or two a month; Polypa went through a dozen in just those five minutes alone. She kept doing more stretches, and ten minutes passed as she warmed up her body with a variety of movements to wake herself up as much as possible, until a faint burn suggested she was done.

Her belly rumbled, and a faint but demanded emptiness inside her beckoned. Polypa glanced at the many nectar tanks, and reached for the closest one.

The first to slake her hunger, but far from the last. A body like hers demanded a lot of food.

-----

A while later, her belly was stuffed with her own nectar and happily gurgling it away,, and Polypa set off at her morning run, to the expectant delight of the neighborhood.

Her belly was a bit more distended, sloshing audibly with each heavy slap against her bulbous thighs, a slight swelling in the lower regions suggesting various splinter-stomachs had been filled up and were happily digesting her breakfast. Polypa struggled to maintain her sense of decorum, frowning faintly. ‘Can’t believe I went through almost the entire morning stack’, she thought grimly, only a few of the tanks she’d produced tucked under one arm, ready to be sold.

She’d changed, too, after her milking; a sports bra did an admirable job of at least supporting her massive rumble-spheres even if it couldn’t do much to conceal the puffy juts of her nectar-ducts, and a pair of micro exercise shorts showed off her spectacular leg muscles to all their extreme spectacle. Bandages wound around her face, soaked in a sopor derivative to minimize pain to her scars, leaving only one olive-green eye to indicate her feelings. Her big lips did press against her bandages, but she rather liked the impression of that.

More bandages covered pretty much most of her limbs. It was a bit time-consuming to put them all on, but she felt much more comfortable when she had them worn. The sopor treatment kept her scars from hurting or feeling too sensitive, and it also helped her control any periodic outbursts of psionic flames if she got too worked up or surprised. The bandages wound around her arms and fists completely, thin enough to show off her build, and were a bit more sporadic around her legs. They only needed a few loops at the base of her tail, which was just as well; it was hard enough getting that covered.

The bandages had to be changed daily, and more than once Polypa considered moving in with her moirail, Tegiri. He would be happy to help her keep her bandages changed, and she did need to change them every day. It was a lovely thought, imagining him living with her and patiently working the sopor into her scars, or to cuddle him and kiss him, platonically, between his horns, a gesture so pale it almost made her blood-pusher twist in longing.

She wasn’t quite sure if she was ready for that, though.

And her flaming psionics, she thought grimly as she walked, was something to be careful about. Tegiri knew, yes, but even during her occasional expeditions into arson Polypa didn’t like anyone seeing her. Not even her enemies as she slew them. Mutations were treated leniently if you could be useful to the Empire; even something as dramatic as Polypa’s transformation was fine, as long as she could fight for her empress. Olives with psionics were rare, but not too unusual, and her muscles being produced by an excess of psionic energy made an okay explanation, but still: Polypa didn’t want to take any risks. Not to herself, not to Tegiri, not to any of her friends.

Eventually, these serious thoughts winded down, and she got to the serious work of just jogging and getting herself warmed up for the day.

As she ran, her hair swayed with the movements of her monstrously wide hips, gathered into a loose ponytail, the loose bits of mane lengths making a dramatic display against her slabbed back.

Her mouth still cold with the taste of her own delicious nectar, Polypa picked up her speed a bit, her early morning grumpiness fading into a calmer alertness. She didn’t have much to do today; she’d probably have what she euphemistically called ‘commissions’ be brought her way (and that would be another breakfast sorted out, if it happened soon), and certainly she’d meet up with Tegiri in a few hours to do some friendly shopping. There was a particular show she’d recently gotten into and she wanted more merchandise for it, though she was pretty sure Tegiri had mixed feelings on it.

He hadn’t said anything negative about it, though. He normally never held his tongue, and that was a great show of respect. She felt a bit happier thinking about that; it was good to know there were people on your team, however it was expressed.

Polypa completed a couple laps around the neighborhood block she lived, and attracted a small group of muscle enthusiasts, troll boys automatically lured to the biggest and most imposing girl around, and a few who just really wanted to try to be the ones to beat her. They might have been trying to play it cool, but their tails were whipping excitedly, smacking into each other like a little soundtrack playing for Polypa.

She did her best to mind her own business and not bother them, but she just knew they’d be fixed on her. She felt their attention refocus at every wobbling gyration of her swelling backside as her thighs beat it up and down, at the gravid thundering of her gut smacking up and down with her stride-strokes, and a great surge of pride flowed through her at this. Not so long ago, she had been a slimmer troll, and it had been hard to get noticed at all.

Now everyone noticed her. It was gratifying, to say the least.

She kept these thoughts to herself. She always did her best not to say anything to anyone at these times (unknowingly giving herself a reputation for being distant and imposing). She did love the blushes, the looks of shamed infatuation they sent towards her immense bulk and power, but she just had no idea what to do with herself then. She had little experience with it; before moving to this more upscale area, Polypa’s neighbors had generally shied away from a monster like her as a matter of common sense.

Here? People would run right up to you and dare you to snarl back, just as a challenge. Polypa was a direct troll, but she needed a bit of a run to do challenging right back; she usually approached it from the side. She always had a bit of a tense moment whenever someone approached her.

Fortunately, today she didn’t really have to do that. It was a tealblood woman, a stout and busty girl in the uniform of a legislacerator trainee outfit, that ran in a game attempt to keep up with her longer stride. Polypa didn’t know her name, just that she was a reasonably friendly neighbor. “Morning, Miss Goezee,” the competitor said politely, from somewhere around Polypa’s knee at a comfortable distance.

“Sup,” Polypa said shortly.

She noticed her early morning companion glanced up at her, and Polypa was smugly gratified to see a faint tremor in her blinking eyes. A nervous sort of look, even after her living her for half a sweep. Her eyes couldn’t keep from studying the rigid swells of Polypa’s monstrous biceps; the spiky protrusions along her chitin, and the way her chitin slotted so perfectly against the growth of her muscles. The extreme swell of her thigh muscles, her legs swinging out and then slamming back together in a shockwave that sent her belly jiggling right up and down.

Polypa put a little extra swing into it, just for an impish thrill. She had an uncanny control over her muscles, able to flex them in ways impossible for normal trolls, and she flexed at her butt at just the right time to make it wobble in every direction at once, a careful set of clinches threatening to make her sweatpants tear in very sexy ways. Her thighs swelled and contracted, muscles sliding against each other with an audible noise, veins standing out like swollen tubes against her bandages and clothing. Her tail lashed out, accidentally smacking against the tealblood’s shoulder, and then into Polypa’s enormously round bubble butt.

This went on for some time, as they ran a couple laps around the neighborhood, a sweet burn filling Polypa’s muscles with a relieving sense of exercise, the wear and tear making a strange euphoria for her. Polypa’s teasing escalating a bit, to the point that she was briefly blinded by her rumble-spheres slapping up right in front of her eye, blocking her vision, but she still had a sense of her surroundings, and she smirked smugly when the tealblood’s composure slipped, just for a moment. Polypa heard a faint panting noise from her, a sound of longing, desire, and quite a lot of envy.

“Something wrong?” Polypa said, her tone flat and calm enough that she sounded perfectly serious.

The tealblood flinched. Her tail, long and slightly broad like some kind of reptilian monster that snapped at things in rivers a lot, shook a lot with a cute wiggle at the tip. “Absolutely not, Miss Goezee! I was just…” She paused for a brief moment, just enough to sound genuine while also giving her time to come up with an excuse. “Thinking. Yes, indeed.”

Polypa chuckled, in a way conveying that she absolutely did not buy it at all. The tealblood had the dignity to at least scoff and turn her gaze pointedly aside. And, for a while, they and the small crowd of admirers and the curious that Polypa tended to accumulate like an elder god attracted worshipers carried on in silence. Companionable, between Polypa and her neighbor. Tense and adoring and lustful, from the crowd of trolls from across the hemospectrum, their shining eyes fixed on a juggling butt big enough for them to sleep on, on the undulating wobbles of a belly they could all have been sucked down into, the hypnotic wiggling of her muscle-swollen tail, and the slightest shift of her ponytail across shoulders broader than any of them were tall.

Being around them made Polypa feel bigger; it made her feel good. She wondered, sometimes, if the Condesce or her Heiresses ever felt like this, and she supposed that they were so confident and on top of the world that their baseline mood was somewhere past the soaring feeling she got when she really worked out just how much people adored her, sometimes.

Perhaps to change the subject, one of the runners spoke up, his chunky tail curled like a bit of punctuation with a tuft of fluff at the tip. He sped up just to keep pace with Polypa for a brief time; getting too close was an extremely bad idea, as with the one troll who had accidentally been hip-checked by her and had sort of… splattered. “How’d do you get your belly to stay stable like that?” He asked, apparently honestly curious.

Polypa glanced down at him, and he froze up so much he almost tripped in the resulting leg confusion. Fortunately for his dignity, he managed to keep moving. “Whaddaya mean?”

“Your stomach should be hitting the floor. It’s, big. Really, really big. How do you keep it up like this?”

“I got real good muscle control, and VERY strong belly muscles.” Polypa raised her arms up over her back, and just for a moment, relaxed. The muscles lining the side of her belly went limp, and her stomach sank against her approaching leg, kicked back into the air. Polypa winced at the sensation overload, and the heat in her hips, but she mastered it and devoted a tiny bit of concentration to her belly muscles again. They stiffened, encircling her gut like a built-in girdle or harness, and pulled up, raising her stomach to a marginally more practical level.

He goggled. “How do you even keep concentrating enough for that!?”

“It’s a gift.” She wiggled one huge claw scoldingly. “Pretty sure it's rude to ask too much about hemospectrum-compliant mutations, kiddo!” He swallowed, taking the point, and slowed down until he was again part of the crowd.

Polypa secretly crowed to herself as she passed the rest of her morning run in relative silence, the milk jugs nestled into her biceps already processed to food-quality levels by the sheer force of her body’s impact on them; she needed very sturdy containers just to survive it, and avoid additional leakings. But she loved those kinds of questions. Seeing those tiny faces off the ground, staring up at her in envy, in awe, in open admiration of her and the smallest details of her body…

She loved it. She got questions like that every day, and she had gotten good at pretending to be the confident and cool badass she assumed people expected someone as big and strong as her to be. She privately made a note to study some shows later, to really look for hints on being as cool and inspiring as possible. She was pretty sure she’d missed on the empathetic and distant vibe that she was trying really hard to project.

One by one, people peeled away, still giving her longing looks. Polypa felt a vague sense of loss, as if not having worshipful eyes on a particular part of her body at once was a physical pain to her.

Ah, well. She continued onwards, leaving her neighbor and the others behind to their own business.

-------

Her own business came up as she fitted herself, with some difficulty, into a warehouse used by an acquaintance who sold slightly illicit and moderately discouraged merchandise. She felt her palmhusk, as trolls called their equivalents to cellphones, vibrating in a concealed pocket against her vast hip, and her tail looped in to fetch it out as she dropped the milk jugs onto a counter. With a sense of irony, she peered down at a yellowblood, who put some effort to look spooky, from between her other milk jugs (to turn a phrase) and said, “The regular stuff, on demand.”

The yellowblood whistled, tapping the jug. It gave the faint echo of a container full of liquid, and he popped it open to dip a cup in. He took a swig and visibly wavered back, his tail slapping against the ground to keep him upright. “Geez, that’s almost as strong as a dose of the mind honey! Without the side effects, too.” He wiped off a smear of green nectar from his mouth and sealed the jug up again. “The stuff you bring in keeps getting thicker and stronger; I’m making a killing off it! Where the hell are you getting this stuff?”

Polypa, as far as she knew the only troll who had mutated to produce nectar in these amounts, shrugged. “Hey, don’t make me give up trade secrets, buddy.” Her palmhusk continued buzzing insistently.

“Fair enough.” He turned around and got to a load-bearer, his own mild psionics levitating the jug to it.

Polypa turned around, discreetly. The other troll’s back was turned, and she never could be too careful, given her real line of work. Her palmhusk wasn’t holding a call, just a text message. Her expression didn’t change as she saw the plain message there.

It didn’t have a return name; she made a point to avoid specific names, even from repeat commissioners. She didn’t want to get embroiled in political conflicts or highblood power struggles, or even underground revolutions she hadn’t made a choice to side with. She did what she had to, as everyone did. Nevertheless, she was pretty sure she knew this one; as usual, it was signed off with a strange sign that looked a bit like a pair of shackles, or crab’s claws.

The message, unsigned, read: ‘cerulean target. Is in your vicinity. Has unfavorable proclivities, if that mmmmatters mmmmuch for your commmmfort.’ this was followed up by a photo of a tall troll woman; her skin the deep black of a grown troll, her armor polished and chipped away as if to imply she had no need of natural protection; her claws long and thick, her fangs almost like a rainbow drinkers, and her huge belly and massive rumble-spheres so enormously swollen even in her clothes that Polypa was stunned. That was a lot of troll.

Her appetites had shifted over the years, and her belly rumbled at the sight of her… well, prey.

Polypa checked her appointment schedules, and studied the time. She calculated the odds of resolving this in, say, twenty minutes or so.

Okay, she decided. She might cut it kind of close, but she could pull it off.

She banged a hand on the counter, almost cracking it into pieces. “Gotta head off, man. See you with my next batch tomorrow!” She paused. “Um. Someone else busted up your counter!”

“No they didn’t!” he scolded her from deeper in the warehouse as she hurried away.

-------

As a rule, Polypa didn’t much like going into rich areas, even if she was big and imposing enough to pass as any shade of highblood she cared to attempt. She didn’t care much about the hemospectrum as some did, but the idea of pretending to be a colder shade just gave her the screaming willies.

For such a massive troll, Polypa moved through it in complete silence. She didn’t move in the open, either, but she climbed up sheer walls, above the oblivious highbloods and driving her claws on both hands and feet right into the plasticine exteriors, and hauling herself up. The weight of her belly pressed against the walls, and wiggling her legs underneath her stomach, provided so much leverage that she was effectively catapulting herself upwards. It was a bit of a mystery how she was able to still be silent, doing that.

Her biggest advantage, as far as potential onlookers were concerned, is that trolls didn’t often look up.

She slid against the wall, moving so smoothly and quickly she seemed to be sliding straight up it. Her inability to see over her gigantic rumble-spheres or in front of her at all from her belly, it did not hamper her very much. Polypa’s muscles weren’t just impossibly strong, flexible, or in some way fusing with her body fat, but a unique property of their outer surfaces functioned as an all purpose sensory organ. Her twitching, veiny and swollen muscles could ‘see’ as well as anything else, and given that even the compact muscles stuck out a full foot away from her body, she had a 360-degree view of everything around her, to the smallest detail.

So up she went, hopping from one wall to the next, leaving behind surprisingly little damage. These buildings were made from very high quality breeding lines of bio-structure, and they’d eventually heal the damage. Not quickly, but they would repair themselves. Holes in the wall from her claws that would heal eventually, and deeper dents where her belly had moved up there, impressions of her abs.

Polypa climbed up to the ceilings, and quietly made her way to the next rooftop, and all the while, her muscles kept twitching.  Her unique vision showed her an elaborate neighborhood of sprawling buildings and expansive complexes, most of them shining with gilt and complicated murals that advertised how fabulously rich they were.

Polypa turned her attention from the most opulent buildings to the ones that were still richer than anything she’d normally have gotten in her entire life, the ones that had a little less gold or imported coral hauled right from the seas where the Condesce supposedly had arisen like a particularly bloody-handed goddess out of ancient fables. Highbloods, as a rule, had the money to afford decorations like that as a matter of course, but the warmer their shades, the less extreme it got.

She flowed across what were probably proper blueblood homes, the wings of the mansions providing plenty of space to move skyward and get a better view for her target. She turned herself slowly, biceps swelling and pivoted in such a way that was probably a little similar to a telescope aligning itself for the best possible vision. The armored sections shone like polished latex, and she moved carefully towards manors that were less gilt-studded, but far more rich than teal homes like what Tegiri lived in.

The homes of cerulean trolls. Tradition and population distribution usually saw them living near the sea, perhaps an echo of their traditional role as naval powers, but that wasn’t really an option for the few ceruleans in subgrubs like this. That said, they tended to look a fair bit like boats that had been flipped around, and Polypa found what she was looking for sitting around all seductively near a energy-burst shop designed to look like a swashbucklers arena, and considering the many flags around it, it made it quite useful for Polypa to gently swing her way across the rooftops to it, and then down.

The troll matched the photos. She was tall, perhaps nearly up to Polypa’s mid-thigh, her horns dramatically hooked at various angles; even the gashes in her horns looked hook-shaped. Her stance was haughty, her high ankles and foot-claws secured in spiked high heels that made her look even taller than she already was. Every bit as buxom and stout as her photo had suggested; the tight skirt and half-dress she wore clung to her body like a wrapper, and the whole image would have been nicely set off by long hair, rather than the short and prim bun she actually did have her quills pulled into.

Between the fishnets, her glasses, and the general air of cold disdain she projected, Polypa felt that she was giving an impression somewhere between ‘high class dominatrix’ and ‘librarian you do NOT want to cross’. Polypa withheld other judgments; she was a mercenary, not someone who made judgments. Still, she was getting very good at giving a feel off people, and she did not like the feeling she got off this troll.

And no one came her way if they didn’t deserve to be killed, in some way. Her callsign for this business was ‘Goezee’s Lightbulbs; I Make The Universe Brighter’. Nothing made things brighter like getting rid of people who made it worse.

Polypa waited, and mulled over a few plans to draw her out, and they all fizzled up as her target got up and swaggered towards the side of the building, out of sight of the main street on some errand, and most importantly from a tactical perspective, right below Polypa.

Her target didn’t look up, either, and it was a grave mistake for her.

Briefly praising the good luck of this morning, Polypa swung her gut off the gargoyle she had positioned it on, and the bit of statuary broke off in surrender to the inexorable pressure of Polypa’s body; it plummeted down, banging against the ground right next to the cerulean; she paused, her haughtiness freezing and her swinging stride halt. “What?” She said, looking for the noise. And above her, as the gargoyle piece had fallen, Polypa had taken advantage of it and crawled down the side of the building just like she had crawled up other walls early, her eyes glowing a faint green.

No one looking in from the street could see them, despite Polypa’s immense size. All the better.

The target picked up the gargoyle piece. “Who is littering around here?” She wondered aloud, not noticing a massive shadow falling over her until Polypa landed on her, belly first.

The noise was surprisingly soft, because Polypa held her gut back as much as possible, so it wouldn’t hit with all its force, but it was still enough to break nearly every bone in her target’s body, and the volume of it muffled her pained screams. Polypa didn’t say anything to her: not ‘shush’ or ‘be quiet’, or anything like that; she took it as a matter of professional dignity not to open up a dialogue with her targets. She had standards, after all.

Polypa’s belly wriggled, and the abs writhed, and clenched in ways that grabbed at her target’s body, slowly hauling her up with a few solitary whimpers. They kept her pinned firmly into Polypa’s belly, so that she couldn’t yell for help or otherwise alert anyone, and Polypa hissed at the marvelous bulge-pumping shiver of the curvy body being slid against her stomach, her muscles twitching and giving under her, molding to her and little fibrous bunches clutching her as tight as firm hands, and the yielding of her target’s own body. Her waist was wide against her, her rumble-spheres squished so nicely into her.

‘Focus’, she told herself as she did her best not to pant or anything. Stay on track. Do not get all… ravenous.

Her target was forced up into her rumble-spheres, and by now Polypa was able to grab her with her hands, forcing her upwards, making sure to squeeze her hard enough that she couldn’t breath enough to yell. And now Polypa was tugging her bandages off, just enough to reveal her mouth.

Her target’s face briefly curled into disgust at her scars, and Polypa was gratified to see her face sour into a horrified look as Polypa’s mouth widened. “No! You don’t dare-!”

Polypa’s massive lips met against her face, sucking on her so hard the breath was forced out of her air-sacs, and then her face slid right into her mouth, resting on her tongue. Several tickling feelings went on in Polypa’s jaws as several biological locks opened themselves; sinews and chitinous ‘pins’ kept her lower jaw together. A troll’s lower jaw was actually a pair of mandibles, normally locked together. But they could separate, to swallow particularly big meals.

Such as this cerulean, for instance.

Polypa’s lower jaw split, gaping wide and spreading wider than her face, her mandibles spreading out into her rumble-spheres, and a thick, green membrane connected them. The cerulean’s face was mashed into this, outlined against its surface, her rumble-spheres and shoulders mashing into the rubbery ring that was Polypa’s lips; without any real effort, Polypa pushed her in, her head, her rumble-spheres and her shoulders all easily sliding down her throat.

Polypa swallowed. Her throat muscles were as strong as the rest of her; more bones broke, and she felt her prey squirm in pained reflex as her chitin was pulverized nearly off her body, shards and fragments sliding down her moist insides. The lovely sensation of a solid, moving mass sliding down her mouth, moving down her meat-slide. Her prey’s thick body, her big belly, her huge butt; none of it posed a hindrance. It all slid down with a delicious ease, down into her guts.

The plural mattered. Polypa’s on-going mutation had multiplied her stomachs into a complex network to digest her food, treating them to a chemical process perhaps more similar to industrial refinement until they were a raw biological soup, or perhaps an organic grist, that her body simply absorbed and converted into energy and more muscles.

Her digestive fluids gushed in, drenching the cerulean still doing her best to wriggle inside Polypa; she said something, but Polypa’s belly was several feet thick, her abs even bulkier, and any sound was muffled. Polypa simply enjoyed the sensation, for a while, and lay there.

The first stage was simple enough; her pre-treatment fluids gushed in, drenching her prey and invading her body through her mouth, absorbed through her skin, plumping her up and softening her skin, bones and muscles.

Fifteen minutes passed in this manner. Polypa suspected she was pushing her luck, in her meeting with Tegiri and hanging around this neighborhood without getting noticed, and shakily stood up. It was harder to get up now, with an additional weight inside her, but it felt very good, her sliding around inside her-

Oh, she just slid down, into a secondary stomach. She must have been primed and, well. Juiced; Polypa suspected that anyone in that situation probably looked considerably puffier and slimy. She was still wriggling in there, though not very much.

As Polypa hurried out of the cold neighborhood, other fluids pumped into that belly, efficiently absorbed by the treated flesh of her target, who was pinned down, compressed by the stomach walls pressing down on her like a trash compactor. Polypa felt her wriggling slow down, and something in the texture of the troll in her guts shift. It wasn’t much of a change. It took days for her live prey to fully digest, and they were zoned out of their minds for most of it, and there wasn’t any particular change at this point, but Polypa supposed this stage of the digestion process started doing something to their body. Made it a bit more fluid, perhaps.

As Polypa went on her way, hurrying along and enjoying the bubbling sensations going on inside her, the cerulean calmed down completely. She felt a few solitary wriggles, possibly out of habit. Her belly muscles kept her pinned, but only because that was her default flex; the chemicals injected into her must have had a sedative quality, perhaps not too different from the sopor, because all her live prey went very quiet and peaceful extremely quickly.

Polypa called a buggy, and put her target out of her mind, apart from a few pleasured shivers at the way she slid down into another belly to be pumped full of digestive fluids on the gradual route into being reforged into bulk for Polypa’s muscles, thicker nectar glands, a bigger butt, perhaps a few more inches to her height, and incidentally making the universe better for her absence.

Alternian society did not have much of a problem with this sort of thing; Polypa upsetting the hemospectrum would have been the issue, and she didn’t much care anymore.

As her buggy arrived, Polypa mused that as so much of her bulk had come from assassinations she had carried out like this, her body was a testament to the number of people she’d removed from the world. She flexed a little bit, and catching a sight of her magnificent biceps, and a glimpse of the gigantic abs rising up even over her cleavage horizon, it was a warming thought.

Polypa sent a quick message to her commissioner. ‘Job’s done * will update you further in a few days.’

She received a fairly prompt reply, so ambiguously worded that they could have been talking about artwork or a coding commission. ‘That was speedy. Will update you for any further jobs. You how it is; always a little mmmmore to do.”

Polypa texted back. “Sure thing * always good to do your work * you’re reliable at these, you know that? *|’

Before she left, Polypa bent low, picking up the gargoyle statuary she had destroyed, and deposited it in the nearest salvaging bin. She might have been an assassin, but she wasn’t a litterer.

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

Tegiri was a quiet troll, and had a way of fading away even when he was the only guy in the room. In a crowd, he became a background detail, lurking there, and drifting like a shadow.

Here and now, his shift from passively lurking to moving so abruptly he appeared to have materialized, was marked by an especially large buggy not so much rolling up, as sliding in, a bit like a cholera-bear that was opting to move without actually engaging it’s legs at all.

It rose up as its passenger departed. The long, heavy horns of Polypa appeared over the other side, and then rose up as she stood to her full size, stretching. People around froze up and turned to look at her bulbous form with awe, their eyes fixed on the shift of her platform-sized shoulders, and those closer to her were totally still, their eyes wide, completely overwhelmed by the sheer scale of Polypa unexpectedly appearing before them.

‘Weak’, Tegiri thought unsympathetically. If you couldn’t handle a little bit of majesty in your life, how were you supposed to serve the Condesce?

His secret shame was that he sincerely believed, in the rare moments where he could admit it to himself, was that he thought that Polypa looked far more impressive and mighty than the to-scale images and models he had seen of the Condesce.

A great heresy, to be sure, but he didn’t care about that anymore. It bothered him that he didn’t care, but as the days went on, it didn’t bother him as much.+

Polypa bowed again out of sight behind the buggy, to discuss something with the driver. At least, if you didn’t count her belly sticking out and rising above it, with her rumble-spheres buoyed atop it, and her backside very plainly visible from the other end, her tail curling around one leg and the tip wiggling anxiously. Tegiri couldn’t hear the fine details of what Polypa might have been saying, not over the soft murmurs from the crowd around both his side of the street and hers, but he had his suspicions; the buggy WAS a lot lower in the street, and any vehicle trying to carry her tremendous weight was bound to sacrifice itself in that noble goal.

The buggy tipped over briefly; Tegiri supposed that Polypa had thrust one muscular arm in it, with such force that the air moving from her hand alone had nearly knocked it over; if he knew Polypa, it was to over-pay the driver in apology for any damage transporting her had incurred. He made a point to suggest to the local consort-governance, running the city on behalf of the Heiress, to make a budget specifically for repairing damage caused by especially big trolls like her.

Then, she was moving across the street. Slowly, yes, actively trying not to put so much force as she could into it, but she still moved so fast that she seemed to have bounded straight from one side of the street to the next. He didn’t blinked, but it felt like he had, because now a vast shadow loomed over him, and it was Polypa, her body blotting out the moonlight, her squishy chitin shining an iridescent pink and green  He mostly just saw her stomach, her great work and the pride of her carefully sculpted body, and he felt a great surge of diamond-pale affection as she patted her belly, smiling faintly down at him. Long ago, their most ancient ancestors had gathered, and the small weak ones had gathered to the big, strong troll-women to protect them, and he supposed he felt something of that.

The oldest forms of the quadrants had been built from strong things. Love, certainly. Affection, reassurance. The need to stabilize others. Safe venues to voice the aggression and test oneself against a worthy lover. And for Tegiri, one of the strongest feelings was loyalty.

He saw a hand move from inside her stomach. Briefly, barely budging against a broad abdominal, and no one else could have seen it but him, his eyes adapted to note anything that might be wrong with Polypa.

Polypa’s express changed, just for a moment, and Tegiri knew what that had been. He knew the fear of disapproval.

Tegiri gazed up at Polypa, and followed up on a decision he had already made some time ago. He patted her stomach, almost stroking her belly, at the spot where her prey had moved. “You’ve been doing art commissions already?” He asked. “This early in the morning?”

Polypa stared blankly, until her one revealed eye blinked. Oh, right; the code they’d agreed to. “Yeah; figured I might as well do it as early as possible… thought I’d get it done before meeting up with you. I wasn’t trying to delay meeting up with you, or anything!”

“IT’s fine, it’s fine!” Tegiri said quickly. Polypa instantly calmed down, her raising chitinous plates lowering into something less agitated. “I just wondered… you didn’t have to use, ah.” He thought of a way to phrase it without giving her away. “Colder shades in your work, did you? That can be troublesome.”

She worked out what she meant, and like a mountain inclining, nodded her head gravely. “Yeah. You know i usually do.”

Yeah, I killed a highblood today. Again.

It was a bold thing, he knew, to just say that to a tealblood, one charged with enforcing the law, with killing mutants and accusing those they felt like bringing low. In sweeps not so long ago, when he had been younger, he would have enforced his imperial duty, without a second thought.

Now, though…

He patted her stomach again, and Polypa purred shortly, a dense rumble that spread out and made the windows rattle. “Well, you do what you must,” he said firmly. “I support you regardless, my moirail.”

Polypa grinned, leaning down (knocking a few people away with her on-rushing belly, and she was too focused on Tegiri to notice or care much) and raised a fist, extending two claws in a triangle shape.

He extended his own claws in a similar pose, and pressed them against digits nearly thick around as his entire arm, and completed the diamond. Then her hand moved downwards, to his sleeve, and took a gentle but inescapably firm grip, pulling him protectively close to her leg. “C’mon, let’s get our shopping in,” she said, smiling behind her bandages.

Tegiri was not much for open displays of emotion. He found big smiles a hard thing to maintain, a performative thing that he struggled with. Nevertheless, he smiled easily around her. Being around her made a lot of things easier.

Accepting things he’d never thought he could ever begin to even consider, for one.

Polypa led him onwards, and though there wasn’t really anything he could realistically do to stop her, she would if he asked, but he saw no reason to alter her course. He was loyal to her above all else now, even though the changes to his world view this demanded was upsetting at first, and would accommodate her however she wanted.

Even if it meant indulging her fondness for some anime series he absolutely detested, but when they left, carrying quite a lot of new model assembly kits from a recent series she’d absolutely fallen in love with, Tegiri felt fine with that.

It was all just part of the routine now, and he didn’t mind being adaptable.

[a-memory-of]

”But come, sit," Ellere Valahan nodded toward the couch. "Did you perchance come by to pick up your gift?"

"G-gift? Well..." Ruran Vas shifted his feet, glancing toward the couch, then back to her. "Moreso to...give you one." He offered her a small look, then headed toward a seat in front of the fireplace.

Ellere shook her head, following along. She stopped by the Starlight tree and picked up a stack of three wrapped gifts before taking a seat by him. "Now, now, you know I wouldn't let you run off without a little something."

Ruran exhaled a quiet sigh. "O-of course," he murmured, good-natured. He admired the Starlight tree for a moment, then looked to her. "...Three? I...--you need not have gotten so many."

"Oh hush," she patted his arm, "They all go together, in a way. And as I said, they're just... small things. This is what I enjoy, you needn't worry." She picked the largest of the three, from the bottom, offering it to him. The gift was wrapped in pale blue, shimmering paper and tied with a golden ribbon. "Would you like to go first?"

Ruran lifted open the flap of his satchel pulled out a very small package, no larger than his palm. It was wrapped neatly in icy blue paper, but it contained no fancy decorations. He felt a bit sheepish holding such a small thing in the presence of her packages, but alas. "W-well, I...I admit I am curious, and--" He did not finish, instead relenting with a quick nod. Setting the small box aside, he retrieved the gift from her.

She eyed the small gift, and smiled. She scooted a little closer in lieu of offering a comforting handhold. He'd need his to open the gifts after all. "Relax, sugar, the mere thought you still sought to give me something at all, means more than I can say. Your little case keeps my glasses nice and snug on my bedside table each night. And it is perfect for travel."

"Oh--does it, truly?" The thought of his previous gift being useful seemed to comfort him, judging by the small, relieved nods of his head. He studied all sides of the first box, then carefully began to pull off the pale blue wrapping.

With @weepingknight

Ellere nodded again, to assure him before looking down to the gift. It was of average weight, and as the paper was pulled way, it would reveal itself as a book. Different than the hand-made one of last year, this one seemed of the officially printed variety. It was bound in dark leather, and a fancy script leafed in silver read 'The Saints of the Twelve' upon the front. Ruran straightened as the book's cover came into view. The small stone flickered at his chest. "This is...--is this what I think it is?" He glanced toward her, brows lofted, and then turned his attention to the book and flipped through the pages.

She shrugged her shoulders a bit, "I admit, I do not know if you know of it. But back home, Sharlayan honors people who do incredible deeds, or are examples of virtuous souls. And they become saints. Heroes. Many... remind me of you." She glanced to the side, still smiling softly. "I thought you would be interested in some of their tales."

His eyes grew wide as she explained, skimming through the pages with anticipation. He shrunk meekly into his shoulders. "Like..me?" He almost sounded skeptical, but he was in no less awe than he was before. "Th-thank you, I...I cannot wait to read this."

Ellere laughed, looping an arm around his armored shoulders, "Yes, like you." Her words were incredibly sincere, even if she was amused at his reaction. "I know you do not see it, but you've saved my life on more than one account. So... I am afraid that makes you my hero, whether you like it or not."

Ruran leaned toward her, a soft look behind his mask. Something about her laughter made him feel...lighter. "You have done the same for me, as well as being...very good to me, a-all around."

She angled her arm from around his back to fiddle with the ends of his hair. "I do try, at the least," she shifted to offer him the two remaining gifts, both smaller than the other but wrapped in the same blue paper and gold ribbons. "You can open these in either order, they go together."

He set the book on his knee, and he received the two gifts with restrained eagerness. After passing a look her away, he started to open the smaller one, as it was easier to set it on top of the larger one.

Inside the smaller package was a finely made wooden case, slightly thinner than the one he had made for her. The edges were decorated with a deep blue-dyed leather. As he opened that, nestled instead was pen and an inkwell, both golden metal similar in design to the aetherometer she had given him. Atop the pen was a small golden crystal.

Ruran was already marveling at the wooden case, but when he opened it, he was momentarily stunned speechless. His stone flickered again, as if acknowledging the similarity to the top of the pen. "This is beautiful." Words of awe finally left him, looking toward Ellere.

Ellere smiled, pleased by his reaction. The hand at his back lowered a bit, and her other reached to pick up the pen. As she did, the small crystal began to illuminate a soft, warm glow. "It may make more sense once you open the other." Ruran’s head canted as the crystal glows; his soulstone glimmered, sharing his curiosity. He nodded and set the case on top of the first gift, then started to open the third. "You have gone so far above and beyond, Ellere..." He murmured, a tone of admiration, not of chastisement. Ellere looked down as he opened the final gift. Inside was a journal, wrapped in the same blue-dyed leather as the accents on the pen case. There was no text, but engraved on the front cover was a sigil of a sun that caught the light of the nearby fireplace. "Not at all," she replied, but continued. "Last Starlight I gave you a book. And I know... since then, you have heard from many people how your life ought to be, what you ought to do. So, I thought this year... maybe you'd like to write your own story."

He stared stared down at the cover, and his fingertips gently touched the sigil. His head bobbed, eyes distant for a moment. "I would...like to do that," he murmured, "very much. This is...--uh, fortuitous, in truth. I have been...intending to write my biography..."

She tilted her head, curious, "Have you?" Her arm rubbed at his opposite shoulder, quietly. "I think it might help you. I told you I keep a journal myself, but in truth, I write to my mother," she hummed, her smile turning soft as she looked in her lap. "Writing is a powerful thing. In a way... it is healing."

Ruran nodded. "It is, yes. This...this will help a great deal, I think." After a few beats of hesitance, and a few accompanied flickers of his stone, Ruran leaned toward her, arms wrapping around in a hug. He was silently apologetic for the uncomfortable armor. "Thank you."

She returned the hug, not minding the armor at all. She had grown used to it. "Happy Starlight, dear. You are most welcome. I shall of course also send you home with a package of those cookies, too," she laughed near his ear.

His brows rose at the promise of cookies. He nodded and offered her a small squeeze, and then relinquished the hug to reach for the small box beside him. "Ah--r-right, here, for you..." He passed it her way.

Ellere pulled back, looking down at the small box. She finally let the arm that had been around him slip back to take it from him. She was delicate with the paper, but it did not mask the eagerness on her face.

Ruran fidgeted in his seat as he watched her open it. Within the paper was a small wooden box--perhaps another of his making, but it was far too simple and unremarkable to tell. Inside that, nestled safely in dark blue velvet, was a necklace. It had several tiers of length, decorated with small stars formed with gold and clear gems that reflected the firelight. On the longest strand hung a circular pendant, carefully decorated like the night sky, with a large star at the center. At the back of the pendant, a single word would be etched. 'Hope'. Her face shifted to a quiet, stunned awe. It took her a moment to even find words, and even then all she managed was a soft, "Oh, Ruran..." She touched the dangling stars, lingering on the largest and turning it this way and that in the light. She caught the word and it made her quiet again. Her lips slowly turned up, and she looked up to him, "Thank you... it is beyond words." He idly picked at the tips of his gloves in a nervous tic. "I...I saw it and...knew at once that I wished to give it to you. I know an excellent engraver, and..." The fidgeting continued. "--I am glad you like it. Your words to me that night we chose our star has...meant much to me."

Ellere took it out of the box as she listened, letting it rest over her hand before undoing the clasp so that she could put it on. Looking down, she admired it again as it settled over the sweater against her chest. "I think on it often myself," she agreed, finally looking back to him. "I am glad that you do, too. Hope is a very powerful thing, and yet, sometimes we need to be reminded of it."

"I pray that this helps remind you, then," he softly replied. "I...cannot thank you enough, Ellere. For the gifts, and...all else this year." He placed a hand on his small pile of gifts; he would treasure each one.

"You know I need no thanks for that," she gave a moment's thought before leaning over and placing a kiss on the corner of his mask, over his cheek. "Happy Starlight, Ruran." Quietly, she hoped she would spend the next one with him as well.

[abalonetea]

Happy STS! What is the weirdest location you've created in Fara?

oh wow! this one really had me thinking, because i have a lot of super interesting places in Fara!

Fara Falls has a lot of really dark, dystopian areas, like the Wastes and the Burning Lands, and even Bastion, to an extent. but i wouldn’t really describe any of them as weird. that land’s had a lot of its magic sapped out of it.

but Fields of Fara is still rife with magic and interesting creatures! i was very tempted to talk about the Honeycomb Wastes because it’s one of my favorite settings, but i think that the Quilt Coast is far more bizarre on an aesthetic level.

it butts up against a raging, vicious sea; the sort that is never calm. the thin strip of beach appears to be made from burlap, with buttons scattered about in lieu of shells. the cliffs are denim, rough and difficult to climb, with few handholds; fabric formed into stone, filled with sand and hard packed stuffing.

at the top rests the quilt cliffs, a patchwork land that’s so dangerous, its largely suggested no one walk out onto them.

[necrowriter]

Fog and Fire: 2.3

Chapter Two: A Plan In The Works

Chapter One: 1 2 3 4 5

Chapter Two: 1 2

The university was in a very quiet uproar.

There was no one visible on the streets save the university guards in their neat suits, patrolling with unusually grim faces. Paths that were usually a mess of students coming and going were now eerily empty. But lights poured from every window of every building, and from every lamp and ward-light. Ms. Harcourt, like most students, had never seen the ward-lights burning; they floated gently above their pedestals, blue firefly glows compared to the bonfire light of the library ward-lamps.

“At least they're actually doing something for once,” she whispered to Mr. Vervain as they waited for a guard to go by, the baton at his waist tapping against his hip. Mr. Vervain looked amused but put a finger to his lips.

Mr. Vervain had cloaked them in the dappled pattern of light and shadow that the university streets were gently swimming in. It made them difficult to see when they were moving, and nearly impossible when they were standing still, but not quite impossible, he had warned Ms. Harcourt. “Best I can do at the moment,” he'd told Ms. Harcourt apologetically. “I'm still quite exhausted, I'm afraid.”

“I thought you could make people just not notice you,” she'd said, confused, and Mr. Vervain had actually looked a bit abashed.

“That one depends a bit, I'm afraid,” he'd said. “It works well if no one's actively looking for you. If they're expecting you, it's a lot harder. Normally I could probably still manage it, but just now...”

He'd shrugged helplessly, and Ms. Harcourt hadn't pressed the issue.

So now they were making their way down the university streets, avoiding the patrolling guards as much as possible. It wasn't terribly hard. The university guards weren't too much used to this kind of thing anymore than anyone else on campus was, and their patrols were a bit sloppy.

Nonetheless, they managed to provide an obstacle when the two fugitives finally reached Ms. Harcourt's dormitory. Two guards stood in front of the entrance, looking uncharacteristically stern. Mr. Vervain drew back into the shadow of a nearby building with a dubious expression.

“I don't think we can get away with going that close to them,” he said. “Is there another entrance to this building?”

“I can do you one better than that,” Ms. Harcourt said. “My room is on the second floor.”

Mr. Vervain looked quizzical.

Ms. Harcourt gestured to the rows of windows looking down at them from the side of the dormitory. “Give me a boost.”

Mr. Vervain glanced at his bare frame, and then at Ms. Harcourt's considerably more sturdy one. “I'm not sure-”

“It'll be fine.” Ms. Harcourt crossed over the thin strip of grass separating the dormitory from the alleyway and counted windows until she found the correct one to stand under. “Just put your hands out.”

Mr. Vervain shrugged and laced his fingers together. Ms. Harcourt stepped into his hands, doing her best to ignore the gasp of exertion this prompted, grabbed onto the windowsill, and hauled herself up. In lieu of having to give up a handhold to knock on the window, she simply tapped her forehead against it.

There followed a long pause that was thoroughly uncomfortable for both parties, and then the window slid open and a shocked face peered out. “Harcourt! What-”

“Give me a hand up, would you?” Ms. Harcourt broke in.

The young woman inside the room stared at Ms. Harcourt for a moment longer before grabbing her hand. Ms. Harcourt kicked off the side of the building and, with the woman's help, managed to scrabble through the window and land on the other side.

“Saints, Harcourt.” The young woman was tall and gangly with dark tan skin and wavy black hair, and her exclamations were in a thick Iron City accent. She watched agog as Ms. Harcourt hurried to the chest of drawers on her side of the room and began hastily pulling out clothing. “What's going on?

“The plan went awry,” Ms. Harcourt said.

“You don't say.” Ms. Harcourt's roommate rolled her eyes. “Of course the plan went awry! You setting off all the ward lamps was not part of the plan! What happened?”

"You're not going to believe it, Vale, you're really not," Ms. Harcourt muttered.

“Try me.” Vale sat down on her own bed, arms folded. “And where are you packing for in such a hurry?”

“Well I can't stay here,” Ms. Harcourt said. “The university's after me.”

“That doesn't actually answer my question.”

Ms. Harcourt sighed and started tossing more things onto the bed “I...met someone. In the library. A real magician.”

Vale stared.

“I know. I told you--”

“When you say a real magician--”

“I mean he did magic, Vale. Real magic. I saw it.”

Vale looked dubious. “Could have been some sort of trick.”

“No, Vale. Trust me. It was no trick. He—he hid us. He got us out of the room they put me in and he hid us so no one would see us and then he woke up the library--”

“He did what?”

Ms. Harcourt sat down heavily. “Like...you know that story about Blackthorn waking up the Ironwood Forest?”

“Um,” Vale said. “The child's story? Sure.”

“It was like that, only with a library instead. He talked to it, Vale. He asked it questions and it told him the answers. And then it told us to each take a book.”

“The library told you to take a book?” Vale said incredulously. "Wait. You took a book?"

“Yes! Look, I know this sounds--”

“It sounds mad, Harcourt,” Vale said. “Completely mad.”

Ms. Harcourt hesitated for a moment, and then opened her satchel and pulled out the book.

Vale looked at it in awe. “That's—you got that from--?”

“From the inner library,” Ms. Harcourt said. She was surprised at how jealous she already felt of the book, but she let Vale run her fingers over the warm leather cover. “How do you think we managed to get this out of there? Past the wards and everything? The library let us, Vale. It's—sort of alive, I think. And it said--”

Ms. Harcourt swallowed. This was the hardest part to tell, something she barely believed herself. But she had a strange feeling that it was important to share it, to get it out there. “The library said I could be a magician, Vale. It said—it didn't seem to think it mattered that I haven't got the blood. It told me to take a book. It wanted me to. It wants—I think it wants magicians to be out there again. Real magicians. Doing real magic.”

Vale looked at Ms. Harcourt in surprise that softened into wistful longing. “That's impossible, Harcourt. I don't mean any offense, but you can't be a magician, any more than I can.”

“That's what I said, over and over again. But the library didn't agree.” Ms. Harcourt had to stop to brace herself for the question that came next. “Vale, what if—what if we're wrong? What if everyone's wrong? About what magic is? About who can do it?”

Vale went quiet. Ms. Harcourt knew that she longed to be a real magician nearly as much as Ms. Harcourt herself did.

“I'd—like to think that,” Vale said. “But...it's hard to believe.”

“I know,” Ms. Harcourt said. “But I do believe it, Vale. So I've got to go. He said he would teach me some, and I...I don't think I can turn that down. Not if there's even a chance it's all true.”

She picked up her packed satchel and stood up.

Vale stood up too. “Hold on a minute,” she said. “Before you go traipsing off with this—this magician—I want to meet him.”

Ms. Harcourt glanced out the window. “I don't think we can get him up here. He's not very athletic.”

“Then I'll come outside,” Vale said stubbornly. She a pair of shoes on and grabbed up the rope that the two of them usually used to sneak out, tying it around a bedpost with quick, practiced gestures. “You're not going to get rid of me this easily, Harcourt.”

Ms. Harcourt shrugged. “Alright.”

She was very thankful that both of them had practice sneaking out and managed to land in the grass with very little noise. They both caught their breath in the shadow of the building, waiting to see if they were discovered, but no guards came running.

“Right then,” Vale said. “Where's this magician of yours?”

“Right here,” said Mr. Vervain.

Vale jumped and looked around. “Where?”

“In front of you.” Ms. Harcourt thought there was the faintest tinge of amusement in Mr. Vervain's voice. “Look a little harder.”

Vale peered into the darkness and at last managed to discern the faint shape of Mr. Vervain cloaked in shadow. “Wow,” she breathed. “That...is that magic?”

“You see, I told you,” Ms. Harcourt said triumphantly. “Vale, this is Mr. Vervain. Mr. Vervain, this is Ms. Vale, my roommate. She was part of our conspiracy to get into the library.”

“Pleased to make your acquaintance,” Mr. Vervain said.

Vale was still staring. “Vervain,” she said at last. “That's—that's a Name, isn't it? But it's not one I can say I recognize...”

“I wouldn't think so,” Mr. Vervain said. “I chose it myself.”

Both Vale and Ms. Harcourt stared at him.

“You—you can do that?” Vale said.

“You never told me that,” Ms. Harcourt said at more or less the same time.

“You...never asked,” Mr. Vervain said. “Neither did I, when it comes to that. I just did it.”

“But I don't understand,” Vale said. “You're saying you didn't have a Name?”

“Precisely,” Mr. Vervain said. “I took my own. That was how they did it in the old days.”

“But then how can you be doing magic?”

Mr. Vervain shrugged. It appeared as a faint shifting of shadow, as if something had just passed over a light source very quickly. “I don't know. I didn't ask anyone about that, either.”

Vale glanced at Ms. Harcourt, who was still digesting the revelation that Mr. Vervain was not of the blood either. No wonder he was so insistent that it wasn't required to be a magician.

“Then you—you think Harcourt could be a magician too?” Vale asked.

“I am quite certain of it,” Mr. Vervain said.

“This is incredible,” Vale muttered. “I just don't...this goes against everything I've ever been taught. What if he's lying, Harcourt? What if he really is of the blood and he's just—just trying to trap you or something?”

“Excuse me,” Mr. Vervain said, sounding a little offended.

Ms. Harcourt shook her head slowly. “I think if he wanted to do that, he could have done it already,” she said. “In the library, he could have turned me over any time. Or—if he wanted to do something to me...I think he could have. And why would he bother lying? What would be the point in him telling me I could be a magician if I can't?”

“I'm not lying,” Mr. Vervain said. “And I have no wish to trap anyone. However, I must point out that the longer we stand here talking the greater our risk of being discovered grows.”

“He's got a point there,” Ms. Harcourt said. “Look, Vale...I believe him. And I'm going with him. I...I can't really describe it, but I think it's important somehow. It's...it would make all this worthwhile. If I learned things. Otherwise it would have all been for nothing. Besides, I can't stay here.”

Vale groaned. “Why did you have to go and steal a book, anyway, Harcourt?” she said. “Everything's turned into such a mess.”

Mr. Vervain coughed. “If I may,” he said. “I didn't approach Ms. Harcourt until after she had already been caught by the library staff. So everything was already quite a mess, but now it's a much more interesting mess.”

Vale looked at them, then off to the corner of the building, beyond which waited the university guards. “Look,” she said at last. “Can you just—just not leave, wherever you're going, just yet? Give me, give me a day and I can get word out to the others, and maybe...I don't know. Maybe we can help you, at least.”

Mr.Vervain shook his head. "The longer we remain here, the more likely it is that the university will find some way to track us down. Besides, how do I know I can trust you?”

Vale opened and shut her mouth. “I...I won't ask you where you're going to be while you're waiting. Alright? So I can't rat you out."

“I trust Vale,” Ms. Harcourt said quietly to Mr. Vervain. “I trust all of them. We were all in this together, it's...it's only fair that they know what happened."

Mr. Vervain went quiet for a moment.

Then, to Ms. Harcourt's surprise, he said, "Make it early. And I warn you of this: I can see things you might not. Do not try to lay a trap for us.”

He said it in the same way he had told Ms. Harcourt you would not succeed: not threatening, just a fact. Vale looked about as unnerved as Ms. Harcourt had felt.

“I'm not laying traps for anyone,” she muttered. “Harcourt, meet us tomorrow at...nine o'clock at the usual spot, alright?”

“Will do,” Ms. Harcourt said.

“And now you two better get out of here.”

“On that we agree,” Mr. Vervain said, and extended his hand to Ms. Harcourt.

Ms. Harcourt hesitated very briefly. “See you tomorrow, then,” she said to Vale at last, and took Mr. Vervain's hand. She saw the look of shock on Vale's face even as she felt the spell wrap around her again, and the two of them melted away into the night.

[nutcrackergame]

So how did it go?

I ran a continuous Stars Without Number (2nd ed beta rules) drop-in game at Ropecon 2017. 18 hours, 13 characters, four worlds, two ships, not sure how many players; perhaps 13-15. This is my report.

WHAT DO I MEAN BY “DROP-IN” GAME?

Anybody could jump in at any time, as long as there were fewer than six players at the table. Basically any scene change worked for changing characters (and players). That meant people looking to kill an hour or two could jump in without compromising their existing engagements and plans. I am very happy to report that almost everyone came back for more - some for all three days.

We played for five, eight, and five hours, (on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, respectively) as planned. In hindsight the eight hour game was a bit much for myself, and I probably shouldn’t have started the Sunday game at ten in the morning.

I went for minimal frontload. I hoped that the OSR legacy Stars is a part of would be enough handholding for everyone. That wasn’t quite the case as it looks like my 39 years on this planet have skewed my perception a bit. However, Stars was easy to pick up for everyone, regardless of their previous level of experience with D&D/OSR/tabletop RPGs in general.

Even more than the OSR tropes I was banking on my premise of “it’s Firefly”. Firefly was mostly or completely unknown to all of the younger crowd (let’s say under 30). Thankfully it’s easy enough to cover in a minute or so.

THINGS THAT WORKED

The sandbox setting is perfect for drop-in games. There is no major plot to follow except whatever the current players at the table want to do next.

I had pre-created all characters. This in itself is a given in a con game, but I’d gone a little bit further than that.

First, every character was represented by a card with a line or two outlining what that character is like.

Second, I had another set of cards with portraits on them. This gave everyone at the table an easy reference for themselves and for the other players. There were more portraits than characters (19 vs 13), and each player could choose their own until all thirteen characters had an assigned face for continuity reasons. I think this subtle psychological guidance was all most players needed to get going - pick a card with some words you like, and pick another card with an image you like. I mentioned that while the characters had gendered names, most of them were from foreign cultures (as per SWN standards), and I left the actual gender vague on purpose, so you could basically pair any image with any characters.

Finally, I spent some effort on making sure each character had a couple of lines of background and current goals. This allowed everyone to quickly get on with the roleplaying, no matter their level of system expertise. Most players seemed to really take to their proposed demeanour.

I handwaved player changes. Before we started the game with a new player, I always made sure they understood a couple of rules.

One, all the characters have a pressing need for the mission to succeed.

Two, we are not going to talk about how characters enter or exit the stage. If the player is at the table, then the character is there, and if they’re not, then the character is not. A few players struggled with this a bit, but it didn’t take long for everyone to get on board. I argue that coming up with increasingly implausible entrances and exits for shifting party configurations is a lot more destructive to maintaining a sense of disbelief than characters being on and off screen as needed. It’s not like assemble casts in movies or TV shows are all on-screen all the time.

I had pregenerated the sector, of course. I read through all the systems and worlds to get an idea about where things are. I did pre-plan the jump routes, even though that wasn’t really necessary. I made a big spreadsheet where I could quickly figure out the factions and notable features in play at each stop. This was the biggest bit of prep I did. The sheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1VA3pdCXbjhjB5Ro9WNge3VahLNba6uCGe00YP-ncEF8/edit?usp=sharing

I had pre-thought factions and aliens. I didn’t need the aliens after all, but the factions were useful to have available with little improvisation. I didn’t have more than two lines each, though. The biggest task was preparing faction power relations and presence on each world. I just gave them a number, from N/A to 5. One faction is in control, another is challenging them, and there may or may not be a third one in the mix. Players were quick to start working from this setup.

I ensured the players had clear objectives. After every jump, the ship needs refuelling, and the pilot needs updated metaspace maps (jump routes, or “rutters”). Everything else is a bonus as far as the players are concerned. Each world did have a spaceport on the planet surface to make things easier; many of them were contested or in hostile control, though, providing the players with immediately solvable situations.

The mission was clear. Explore a lost sector, recently become available through a shift in metaspace “weather conditions”, re-establish contact with surviving Crown (the players’ own civilization, the “Magellan Union”) elements, claim Crown resources, and make a ton of money trading on the way. So this way players were always looking for signs of Crown, and a potential deal.

I read through the far trader expansion, Suns of Gold, and decided to use most of it, depending on how focused on trade the players are. It turns out trading made for a good excuse to get out and do stuff, but the book keeping side I kept very light. It would probably make for great gaming in a regular campaign, but for a con game the trading objectives were not immediate enough, I feel.

I rolled with the punches in lieu of making plans. I used the random tables for everything, from what a random important NPC wanted, to what kind of pet the cowgirl PC picked up in the bazaar. Sometimes this slowed down play a bit as I was fishing around for the right hardcopy or PDF bookmark. I would organize my materials better if I were to do this again.

THINGS I HAD TROUBLE WITH

Space combat was something I had originally felt I’d leave out of scope, but having read the revised rules in the new edition’s beta rules, I really liked them and wanted to give them a go. I shouldn’t have done that on the fly.

It would’ve been fine if I had had more play aids: cards with all the actions per stations, plus six cards with general actions, and tokens for Command Points. I only had one starship combat before realizing it was a mistake and refraining from having more. If players would’ve pushed the game in that direction, I would’ve abstracted it to simple skill checks and attack rolls.

I hadn’t really understood how fast the characters are supposed to level in the beginning, or how much of a jump there is between levels one, two, and three. Both the amount of increased HP and skills available changed the game quite a bit. The next time I would either not level the characters at all, or, preferably, prepare the levelled up versions of the characters in advance, with no need to dig for new or levelled up Foci.

We had psionics, but I neglected explaining their role in the world in any way. As a result, most players didn’t really use their psionic abilities. I did choose their powers so that I could condense them down to a line or two on the character sheets, but obviously that fell apart when the psionics levelled up and chose their own powers. I was lucky in my most psionic heavy character being played by my regular D&D group's cleric, who's very familiar with D&D type magic systems. That could've been a disaster.

Being a marketing kind of guy, I don’t quite understand how I neglected to prepare an elevator speech. My “welcome to my table” speech got shorter and more to the point as the weekend wore on, but the whole game should’ve been written around a short speech. The first time I had three people joining the table just minutes apart I realized I had made an unfortunate mistake. Everybody was very understanding, though, and I don’t know if there was any damage to the overall experience except my own desire for efficiency.

Should you run Stars Without Number as a drop-in convention game? Yes, you should.

[gaysianthirdspace]

AskG3S #1a: Long Distance Relationships

Q: How do you guys manage long distance feelings and relationships? When is it considered not worth chasing?

A: By @gregasaurus, Me: Just answer the question.

Shadow Me: Answer the question with several other questions that will fuck him up.

Sorry, the Shadow Me cannot be contained. But really, I think there are actually two ways of managing long distance relationships depending on the type that you’re finding yourself in.

Are the conversations stagnant? Do you resort to passive aggression to make a point? Do you feel like your efforts to maintain the relationship are not reciprocated? Those are the symptoms of emotional distance. This kind of distance can be tricky because you could be living with your significant other yet still feel like there are miles between the two of you. If your relationship has gone stale in this way, you need to rekindle the connection that brought the two of you together in the first place. Stop asking him about what he did today and instead ask about how you’d like to spend your time together. Relish in your shared interests and activities, and engage in them often. Don’t treat compliments and affectionate gestures with nonchalance—respond in kind to acknowledge and validate the vulnerability that is inherent in sharing feelings (especially for us Asians). This is a really tough situation to be in, but it’s salvageable if the effort is put in on both sides to make it so.

But hopefully you're just physically distant—across the state, across the country, or even across the ocean. Luckily, physical distance has become less of a barrier over time thanks to technology. Want to hear from your boo? They’re just a call or a text message away. Want to see your boo? Jump on Skype and it’s like you’re talking in the same room. Want to feel your boo’s heartbeat? There’s a high-tech pillow for that. Want to feel your boo’s D? High-tech dildo (yes, really). Of course, technology is just a consolation prize—not a true substitution—for being close to your partner. And that distance can be agony, especially for those who thrive on physical touch and intimacy. The best way to mend this in my opinion is to fuck like rabbits when you are together.

Okay fine, I guess you should also be capitalizing on your emotional connection when you’re apart. Communicate openly, honestly, and often. Verbalize your affection in lieu of silent handholds or wistful glances from your side of the bed. Have e-dates where you Skype or FaceTime one another over dinner or while watching a movie. People often scoff that digital time spent together is less meaningful, but when your love for one another is obvious and reciprocated, when the feelings you share are palpable, time and space become irrelevant. To quote the film Interstellar, "Love isn’t something that we invented. It’s observable. Powerful. It has to mean something. Maybe it means something more, something we can’t yet understand. Maybe it’s some evidence, some artifact of a higher dimension that we can’t consciously perceive. Love is the one thing that we’re capable of perceiving that transcends dimensions of time and space."

And if you’re in the middle of that Venn diagram between emotional and physical distance—jump ship. It’s not worth the time or energy. There are plenty of other gay fish in the gay sea.

[flynnraider-blog]

“Between a Rock and a Hard Place″

New Side Quest Available! Accept? Yes or No

Leo had been heading back to his favourite grinding spot with the Kobold’s when he’d heard the faint yelling. At first he’d thought he was imagining it – a full day spent in the sun tended to mess with your mind – until he heard it again. Curious, and more than a little wary, he’d followed the sound as it got clearer and clearer, all the way to a rocky mountainside.

“Help! Help! Somebody please help me!”

Eyes drawn upwards, they landed on the faint figure of a man, cowering on a ledge. A small piece of rope tied below him blew gently in the breeze. The drop must have been at least 20 feet, give or take.

“Uh, you alright up there?” Leo called back, shielding his eyes from the sun. Kind of redundant, given the situation, but he figured he might as well ask.

The yelling immediately cut off as the person noticed him.

“Oh thank god. I thought I was doomed to die up here. Any chance you could help get me down from here?” he pleaded down.

Leo squinted skeptically. Seemed a little shady to him. Coming across somebody stranded on a mountain wasn’t your typical everyday occurrence. “What are you even doing up there in the first place?” he asked in lieu of responding.

“I’m an explorer. Archaeologist, if you will. I was exploring some caves up here before my rope snapped. Found some pretty valuable stuff. I’d be willing to make it worth your while if you lend a hand.”

Leo mulled it over in his head. While it did seem like a good deal, how the hell did he expect Leo to help? It’s not like her could fly or something. Biting his lip, he examined his surroundings. The cliff face might just be rocky enough to climb if he could rely on his high agility. If he could scale the rocks up to the explorer then Leo could reattach the rope so he could climb back down. He eyed the mountain warily. Easier said than done.

But it wasn’t like he could just leave the guy there. Sighing, Leo gathered up the fallen rope. Best not to think about it too much.

“Alright, I’m coming up.” He called back before setting a tentative foot onto a jagged piece extending from the cliff. It held solid beneath his foot. Right. He could do this. Very slowly, Leo began to ascend the mountain, clutching at the rough face of the mountain.

Trying his best not to look down, Leo reached for the next handhold. Finding it steady, he readjusted his foot briefly and then – nothing. With a huge crunch the rock crumbled away, sending him roughly off-balance. Swearing, he clutched desperately at the wall, suddenly startling aware of just how high up he was. Above him, the explorer blubbered his concern.

“Not helping,” Leo grunted, righting himself once more. His heart was beating a million miles per second. Exhaling and closing his eyes briefly, Leo pulled together his resolve and continued. It was too late to turn back now anyway.

Upon finally reaching the small outcrop the explorer was stuck on, Leo collapsed onto it. The man yelped in response, frantically reaching for him. Leo simply shrugged him off, grumbling. “This reward better fucking be worth it.”