#infernal eighteen

[sky-kiss]

@taneysha-pictures requested Raphael doing a torture about EIGHTEEN THOUSAND YEARS AGO. Apologies for the delay, hopefully this scratches the “Raphael is terrible bastard” itch.

R/F!T: Your Blood, My Wine

She disappointed him for the last time.

Raphael considers himself a generous patron, even-tempered, and endlessly patient. No, he does not come calling at first sight of the little mouse's indiscretions. He waits, a snake coiled in the dark, to gauge her intent. He does not bat an eye when she first crosses the threshold into the House of Hope. He'll call it mortal curiosity. 

He's amused when she makes use of Haarlep, feeling the phantom sensation of her cunt spasming around his cock. The little thing breathes his incubus' name in the throes of passion, but he feels the truth: desire for him, hungry and ill-suited for a hero. 

Two missteps in quick succession.

And then the little dear makes a critical error, the only sin he might have called to account: she betrays him. Trust is not a currency a devil deals in, not truly, but he's placed a degree of it upon her shoulders. He treats her fairly and constructs a partnership! And then, this. 

And he cannot allow it to stand, can he? Not as a creature of order. Not as a master of law. 

Raphael reclines in his seat, casting a glance to his right. His mouse hangs suspended, a delicious gift strung up in silver chains. Blood trickles from the mangled ruin of her hands, cutting rivulets down bare skin and precious metal alike. So lovely, his Tav. He's carved fresh ruins in the delicate skin of her belly, painstakingly elegant infernal. It must burn in the open air. 

"Are we paying attention, pet? This lesson is for your benefit." 

She doesn't speak or can't. The poor thing's chin rests on her sternum, the muscles in her neck straining. She's looking so worrisomely pale. He lifts a claw, dragging it across the inside of her ankle. Blood still rushes to the surface, but the trickle into his goblet is slower. 

"Haarlep. A drink for our guest." 

The incubus snickers. They move around the table with an exaggerated sway, holding the healing draught to their toy's lips. She whimpers and tries to turn her head away. Haarlep snarls, squeezing his jaw until Raphael hears the bones click. The message is quite clear: open, or they'll break it. The incubus doesn't give them time to adjust; they pour the water down their gullet, leaving them choking, sputtering, and screaming. 

Raphael rests his chin on his hand, cooing. "Oh, how shortsighted of me. I quite forgot." 

The healing is arguably worse. Tav's flesh tries to pull shut, but the hooks are already set. It's new skin closing around the barbs and tearing all over again. His little mouse howls. 

Raphael strokes the inside of her calf, touching it with deceptive tenderness—a lover's caress. The cambion smiles. He takes his goblet and drinks deeply, the sweetness of her blood washing over his tongue. A treat, a prize, compensation for his efforts and the resources he's lost. 

"A toast, pet. To all that we might have been." 

[agirlandherquill]

two and then one

Darkness closed in all around her. Not the kind that tricks, the kind that chokes and steals its victims away into a terror-filled haze never to be heard from again. The darkness that crept along the edges of her vision was the comforting kind. It caressed her footsteps.  Even as she walked, trapped in her mind, she was not alone. Fenley’s here. The realisation gave her hope. It gave her the power to fight Arden’s compulsion over her mind, and little by little, her senses started to creep back to her. She heard the branches breaking underfoot, the thud of her feet as her soles traversed the uneven terrain, and she could feel things too, only distantly - as if the blood had drained from her skin and left her numb. Her arm throbbed, her thigh held a deep ache that penetrated into her bones, but the most startling sensation of them all was the traversal from rough, wooden terrain to that of mud, the sharpness of a steep slope that brought the roaring of water along with it. The more she fought the haze, the harsher the blinding light behind her eyes became until she could barely see, but what little she saw was enough. More than enough.  She was approaching the edge of a cliff. For a moment she regained her voice, only enough to utter two words, but they were enough. They had to be. “Fen! Water!”  Her voice died out once more, in a strangled croak that hurt her ears. Her body started to slip and slide with the sudden incline, and as the trees grew sparser she could see the moonlight beaming onto a beautiful sight, one poised for tragedy. The Sartorian Strait, a stretch of water that spread from the west, cut through Aliria and into Court territory. The water was deep and ever-flowing, and at this part of the Strait, it roared. If I go over this cliff, I will drown. The shock of it may be enough to break Arden’s hold on me but the water will kill me. It’s night. The water will freeze my heart long before I have the chance to gather a lungful of breath.  A voice hummed in her ears. It was faint, distant. But it was there.  She tried to make out the words, focusing on the voice because the sound would be her salvation. It’s Fenley, I’m sure of it. But her fear overrode her longing to hear him. Whatever Arden was doing, he was going to get her killed.  “I’ve got you. I’ve got you, I’m here.” The words couldn’t have been clearer this time around. But they were too late. Her feet hit the precipice of the cliff and she toppled over. The silver water below was a cruel sight - this was the demise poets would only dream of, in her time at Court she had known a few and would happily trade with them - but there was nothing she could do. The only other possibility was that her body would dash against the jagged cliffs on its way down. Edeva wasn’t so certain which was worse.  Neither was how she envisioned her demise, but then again, could anyone? Edeva swiftly realised it wasn’t just herself she had to worry about. She heard the impact more than she felt it, but another body collided with hers, she saw the arms wrap around her and crush her back against a torso. Then an auburn blur invaded her vision. It was hair. A curl.  Fenley pressed his head into the crook of her shoulder and held onto her. He threw himself from the cliff to safe me. The thought was a pitiful blanket to cushion the brutality of what was about to happen, what they were both about to experience - death. Two faced the water. Nothing alike in the slightest - their scales of infernal judgement tipped different ways; good and bad, sinner and saint, destroyer and destroyed - but it was that difference that bonded them together. Limb clung to limb, face touched face and hearts beat a single drum. Two faced the water, but it was one soul that graced its depths.

~ Ruin's Reprisal, Chapter Eighteen

[iron-hearts-ablaze]

Modern Verse

This is still a high fantasy 'modern' verse. Artificers have expanded their technologies but there is still plenty of magic being used.

TL;DR: Karlach is trapped in an infernal/magical contract with Gortash to impliment automaton augmentations into her body and cannot escape him until the contract's payment of millions of gold is paid off in full. Something she is unable to achieve due to his constant additions to the debt. She is trapped in Baldurs Gate by his side rather than in Avernus. Something she wants to escape from, but cannot find a way out on her own.

More detailed version below for length reasons:

Karlach was hired by Enver Gortash at the age of eighteen, after two years of struggling to keep a job after school - but maintaining a reputation for her fights and strict training. At first she was just his bodyguard, and earned a decent enough living.

Gortash runs the Steel Watch Foundry; the Gondians and artificers working on automatons - the outside world is unaware of the terrible treatment they recieve. Wanting to experiment and expand his business he wanted to see if it was possible to make an augmented soldier.

Greatly sugarcoating the procedure and that it had failed drastically with previous subjects, Gortash convinced Karlach to undergo the experimental procedure after running out of homeless test subjects. The augmentation worked almost too well. Karlach's heart was replaced, her body covered in relentless flames.

The contract Karlach signed with Gortash has magical or devilish properties. She is unable to lay a hand on him whilst it is still active - as well as owing him millions of gold for the augmentation. He takes her wage and uses it against the debt she owes him as per the contract, but it never goes down as he's always adding interest and paying off all her bills so she relys on him for everything.

She tried to flee, but Gortash's reach is vast and she was quickly attacked by hired mercenaries looking for a quick pay day. She lost part of her horn in the scuffle - which now hangs in Gortash's office at Wyrm's Rock as his takeover of Baldurs Gate, merging his underground deals with his outward presence, working with other powerful people to expand his network.

Karlach has been trapped for a decade. She has become incredibly isolated due to being untouchable and every single person she deals with having some form of connection back to Gortash somewhere. Always watched, always fighting his battles for him and guarding the man who encased her in this invisible prison. Paraded around for his fundraisers to show what the Flaming Fist could achieve.

She is a bit more jaded in this verse. Having tried everything to break the contract but only ends up severely punished somehow. Her body used to perfect his augmentations - but never fixed so he can keep her around. She's paranoid of new people as they could easily report back to Gortash if they so chose.

Unlike when she is in Avernus, she can see the world she loves so much from her window of her apartment, but unable to join it as she used to.

[faintingheroine]

@longagoitwastuesday I don’t have a definite interpretation but I think that Cathy’s ghost probably isn’t an entity that has motivations. She is more of a presence. Heathcliff yearns to see Cathy and he sees her everywhere but he also can’t:

“I could almost see her, and yet I could not! I ought to have sweat blood then, from the anguish of my yearning—from the fervour of my supplications to have but one glimpse! I had not one. She showed herself, as she often was in life, a devil to me! And, since then, sometimes more and sometimes less, I’ve been the sport of that intolerable torture! Infernal! keeping my nerves at such a stretch that, if they had not resembled catgut, they would long ago have relaxed to the feebleness of Linton’s. When I sat in the house with Hareton, it seemed that on going out I should meet her; when I walked on the moors I should meet her coming in. When I went from home I hastened to return; she must be somewhere at the Heights, I was certain! And when I slept in her chamber—I was beaten out of that. I couldn’t lie there; for the moment I closed my eyes, she was either outside the window, or sliding back the panels, or entering the room, or even resting her darling head on the same pillow as she did when a child; and I must open my lids to see. And so I opened and closed them a hundred times a night—to be always disappointed! It racked me! I’ve often groaned aloud, till that old rascal Joseph no doubt believed that my conscience was playing the fiend inside of me. Now, since I’ve seen her, I’m pacified—a little. It was a strange way of killing: not by inches, but by fractions of hairbreadths, to beguile me with the spectre of a hope through eighteen years!’”

(Chapter 29)

After he sees her corpse after Edgar’s death and especially after Hareton and Catherine’s romance, Cathy’s presence becomes stronger and stronger but he can never actually reach her. We know that he is seeing her ghost at the end of his life:

“With a sweep of his hand he cleared a vacant space in front among the breakfast things, and leant forward to gaze more at his ease.

Now, I perceived he was not looking at the wall; for when I regarded him alone, it seemed exactly that he gazed at something within two yards’ distance. And whatever it was, it communicated, apparently, both pleasure and pain in exquisite extremes: at least the anguished, yet raptured, expression of his countenance suggested that idea. The fancied object was not fixed, either: his eyes pursued it with unwearied diligence, and, even in speaking to me, were never weaned away. I vainly reminded him of his protracted abstinence from food: if he stirred to touch anything in compliance with my entreaties, if he stretched his hand out to get a piece of bread, his fingers clenched before they reached it, and remained on the table, forgetful of their aim”.

“I distinguished Mr. Heathcliff’s step, restlessly measuring the floor, and he frequently broke the silence by a deep inspiration, resembling a groan. He muttered detached words also; the only one I could catch was the name of Catherine, coupled with some wild term of endearment or suffering; and spoken as one would speak to a person present; low and earnest, and wrung from the depth of his soul.”

(Chapter 34)

So it is either:

1) He understood that he wouldn’t be able to reach her in life so he kind of willed himself to death in his last moments

2) He actually managed to reach her in his last moments and died of happiness/excitement

3) His pursuit of her required so much focus that he neglected nourishment and sleep and died naturally

Maybe a combination of all three?

So I don’t really think Cathy’s ghost is Lady Stoneheart, a zombie actively looking to kill Heathcliff for whatever reason. That being said Heathcliff also says that “She showed herself, as she often was in life, a devil to me”, so the interpretation that she is a malevolent spirit is also certainly valid. Some people think the ghost was saving her daughter and nephew, distracting Heathcliff from disinheriting them. But I think she is probably a neutral motivationless supernatural presence driving him mad and eventually killing him.

[papasmicstand]

Tied as One Infernally - A Dracopia Story

Cardinal Copia is really struggling to be a vampire. He's disgusted by blood and by himself. Did I mention he's in charge of the infirmary? To combat his feelings he starves himself, or sometimes he is able to feed but purges later.

You walk into is life and fuck things up for him (/positive). --- I have Bulimic/Suicidal Dracopia brainrot. This might be reminiscent of a Carlisle-esque character (Twilight). No Papas are dead except Copia who is undead. I expect this story to have serious themes (heed the TWs), but also plenty dark humor and romance. I'll try to make it a slow-burn, but if you know me, you know my characters have trouble keeping it in their pants.

TW: Slow Burn, Bulimia, Anorexia, Eating Disorders, Rape/Non-con Elements, Suicidal Thoughts, Mental Health Issues, Medical Procedures, Vomiting, Blood and Injury, Drug Use, Sexually Transmitted Diseases, Self-Hatred

Chapter 1 - The New Assistant

Don’t pass out.  Don’t pass out.

Copia’s hands were shaking.  It had been days since he last fed.  He shuffled back to the blood refrigerator that was nestled in the shadowy corner of the infirmary’s supply room and struggled with the handle.  Success.  The blast of cool air brought a hint of relief and he held on to what little strength remained in his weary muscles as he peered inside. How long have I been on duty?  Eighteen?  No, twenty hours . His shoulders sagged as he stared at the bags of blood.  Type A, Type O, none of it appealed to him.

Reluctantly grabbing a bag of O, he cursed and hurried down the hall.  His vision was already going dark, he might keel over at any moment.  He wondered if he could die from this?  What if I black out, and just ceased to exist?  The thought buzzed around in his mind as he paused inside the door of his office.  Maybe that would be best?  There was nothing here for him.  He tried to tell himself that he was making a difference in the infirmary, but to be honest there was rarely any life-saving.  Only once when Brother Thomas was exposed to peanuts, but that was merely a blip in what had become an otherwise inconsequential vocation.

The bag felt heavy in his hands as he wrestled with himself.  His stomach protested the thought of having to process the necessary sustenance.  It was like a metallic syrup, coppery and rich.

A dry heave wracked him as he thought about it.  He really was the world’s worst vampire.

“Copia, there is a walk-in patient that needs to be seen.  It’s your brother.” Aether interrupted from the doorway, not bothering to knock.

Merda .  “What’s his problem today?”  Copia asked, knowing he meant Terzo, and aware that his brother was a bit of a hypochondriac.

The ghoul came in closer, “He says it’s personal, won’t tell me.  His new assistant brought him in.”

Copia rolled his eyes, “Take him to Exam Room 2 please, I’ll be there momentarily,” he called to the door.  He ripped the corner of the bag and forced himself to drink the whole thing.  I can always try to kill myself later , he shrugged to himself mirthlessly.

The blood was bitter as all hell, and he struggled to get it down.  Satan’s taint .  He paused for a moment, unsure if it would all come back up.  The distinct aftertaste clung to his tongue and throat uncomfortably, but he didn’t have time to focus on it.  What kind of vampire hates blood?   He hung his head, a deep sigh escaping him as he made his way to the exam room.  

He opened the door to see his brother curled in on himself on the exam table.  It didn’t take a supernatural being to sense the pain radiating off of him.  And in the chair next to him a woman he had never seen before.  A glowing, beautiful Sister who took his breath away... You.  You with your dark hair and hypnotizing curves.  From that first moment he felt his whole reality shift.  You laid a comforting hand on Papa’s shoulder as he whimpered on the table.  The scent of you sent a jolt of energy down Copia’s spine like lightning.  He’d never smelled anything close to the delectable ambrosia that was you.  Not in his earlier life, nor in this husk of existence that he was suffering through currently.  He cursed internally at how he must look to you; unrested, unwashed, undead.  Oh, and on the brink of starvation.  Never had he been more thankful to be full of the trash blood that he had chugged, because if he had been remotely thirsty he wouldn’t have been able to keep himself from you.  It also helped that he barely had the energy to stand.

He pushed all of that aside.  “Hello, Sorella,” Copia greeted stiffly, trying not to leer but his eyes were glued to you.  “I don’t believe we’ve met, I’m Cardinal Copia.”

“Hi Doctor, I mean Cardinal, Copia, I’m Sister Y/N, I’ve only been Terzo’s assistant for about two weeks.”  You paused, unsure if you should keep speaking for Papa, and distracted by the oddly entrancing figure of the quasi-doctor.  Ultimately you decided to keep talking, “I found him doubled-over in his room when he didn’t show up for his first meeting.  I could tell he’d been vomiting and in a lot of pain,” you said softly.  “I’m sure it was a UTI… I have a medical background from before I came here, but I think now he has a kidney infection.  I tried to get him to come in days ago.”

Copia hung on your words.  “I see, Papa here can be quite stubborn.”  

Terzo moaned, reminding both of you that he was still in the room.

Trying to recenter himself, the Cardinal took a seat on the stool and wheeled over to his brother.  Another scent invaded his nostrils, stale bacteria-laden urine.  He almost heaved again, and cleared his throat.  “How long have you been in pain like this?” he asked his fratello.

“Close to a week,” Papa managed through clenched teeth.  Unkempt black hair framed his uncharacteristically bare and sweaty face.  Terzo had been trying to hide his symptoms.  He thought he might have gotten chlamydia again and didn’t want to have to face his brother’s judgemental attitude.  He had been hoping that whatever it was would have cleared up on its own, but today was worse than it had been the last few days.  Much worse.

Copia sighed, surely this ailment stemmed from too much sex.  He wondered to himself if you were the one on the receiving end of his passion.  Terzo had been known to sleep with his assistants, also his bandmates, his ministry colleagues, basically anyone in his path.  Irritation flooded his mind and he shook his head to clear it, “I believe you are correct, Sorella.  We’ll do a quick test, then start him on IV antibiotics.”  He turned back to his brother, “You really did it this time.  No sex for at least two weeks.”

“Wait,” Terzo implored.  “That’s too long.  If it’s not an STD, why can’t I have sex?”

“I’d bet you can’t even stand up straight,” Copia assessed, though the same could be said of himself.  “And some celibacy will be good for you.  You could probably write a whole album if you spent some evenings alone for once.  Now, settle down and give me a sample.”  He handed Papa a specimen cup.

Terzo scowled, but he didn’t have any fight in him.  He took the cup and hobbled over to the closest bathroom.  Indeed, he couldn’t stand up straight.

You pretended not to be able to hear the crying coming from the bathroom as Papa peed what felt like razor blades.  “I’ll cancel the rest of his appointments,” you offered.

“Grazie, Sorella, keep his schedule clear,” Copia unconsciously had moved closer to you.  “I’m going to fill in Aether as I’m leaving soon.  But he’ll test the sample and start the medicine.  I’ll be back in a few hours to check on him.”  

Aether was competent to handle things, and Copia said his goodbyes and made his way back to his suite.  He couldn’t stop thinking about you.  He was going to sleep so the next time he saw you he didn’t look quite as dead as he was.  The blood he had ingested sloshed uncomfortably inside him.  He knew he needed it, knew it would help him, but the fullness was revolting.  He knelt in his sparse bathroom and stuck his finger down his throat in a practiced way.  Shame rolled over him as he gagged and expelled the remaining blood.  Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand he stayed on the floor until he could trust himself to make it to the bed.  

The crimson sheets of his bed enveloped him and his eyes immediately began to close.  If you knew who he was, what he was , there was no way you could ever even tolerate him.

After clearing Papa’s schedule and making a few phone calls you made your way back to the infirmary.  It was still early and you weren’t really sure what to do.  You brought Terzo a few books and magazines and his reading glasses in case he felt better and was bored.  

The infirmary was quiet when you arrived.  Aether was seated at the small reception desk.  There were only a handful of rooms in this front section, and then the waiting area, which was empty.

“Hello again, Sorella,” he greeted.  “I’m afraid your Papa is asleep.”

“Oh, well that’s good I suppose,” you responded.  “I brought some things for him.”

“That’s very kind of you, I can take them,” Aether offered.

“Well, I don’t want to lose my job… I just started.  And Terzo is probably mad that I made him come here,” you admitted.

“He needed to come in regardless, don’t worry about him.  He’ll get over it.  He just hates being seen when he isn’t in sexy Papa mode,” Aether grinned.  “If I know him, he’ll want to fuck right away for his self-esteem.  But stay strong, he really needs to wait.”

“Oh, I’m not,” you stammered, “I mean, we’re not fucking.”

Aether’s eyebrows shot up, “Really?  Hmm… well stay on guard.”

“Will do,” you gave a salute.  “But I had a question for you?  About the Cardinal.”

“Sure, what’s up?” Aether asked.

“Is he well?  He seemed more than just tired today?  I know it’s none of my business, I don’t even know him, but since he’s running the infirmary I wasn’t sure if there was anyone to check in on him?”  You felt like you were starting to babble.  Why did you even care?  But you cared a lot it seemed.

“Oh, it’s true, he does have a condition, but he doesn’t like to talk about it,” Aether looked away.  Of course, all of the ghouls knew what he was.  Primo too, but that was all.  There was a story in place in case anyone else asked questions.  “It’s rare and makes him anemic.  A few siblings donate blood so that he can have regular transfusions.  But don’t worry, it’s well-managed.”

“But is it cancer?” you asked, eyebrows knitted.  “I was attending med school before I came to the abbey, I know several oncologists that practice not far from here, maybe there’s more that could be done?”

Aether gently touched your shoulder, “I’m afraid he’s already seen the top specialists.  It’s something that has no cure, but don’t stress about it.  He won’t be running any marathons, but he manages well enough.  We could use more coverage during the busy times, he works too much, but aside from that there’s nothing that he needs.  You are kind to worry about him though.”

Your stomach twisted.  It didn’t seem like everything was really under control.  You decided to find out more.  “I could help out here when you are busy if you’d like?  I don’t think Papa would mind.”

“Really?  The Cardinal has been looking for someone to train.  He’s not legally a doctor, but he’s the closest we have and his knowledge is unmatched.  But even with help from us ghouls and the Siblings, there are procedures that only he can perform.  I know it wears on him.”

“I’d be honored to learn from him, and you, if you’d have me?” you had missed the medical part of your life that you’d set aside to come here.  You didn’t think that you could have both, but maybe you could?

“I’ll talk to Copia when he’s back.  In the meantime, you should enjoy your day.  Papa will be out of it for a while so take advantage of the quiet while you can.  He winked, and you nodded and left, excited about where this could lead.

[leiflitter]

Obligatory Els-centric drabble to go alongside the latest chapter!

Girl Talk, ft. Els, Karlach and Shadowheart

"He didn't!"

The three of them were crammed into Shadowheart's tent. Karlach's infernal engine was pumping hard, banishing any hint of the night chill.

"Are you sure he didn't just mean a regular magic lesson?"

Els' hands flapped at the air, the words too slow to keep up with her excitement. "He said that the pleasures he wants to teach me are best in intimate surrounds-"

"Our little bardling is going to get it!" Karlach interrupted, Shadowheart having to steady the wine bottle that the tiefling's wagging tail almost knocked over.

"I'm just saying not to get too excited. I don't know if it's that different from his usual vocabulary- and even if he was offering some sort of tryst... what if you get your hopes up and..."

"What if he's shit in bed."

Shadowheart's lips pursed. "Well, to put it crudely, Karlach, yes."

The cleric gave Karlach a pointed look. On Els' part, she looked a little worried.

"Forget about him, what if I'm bad at it."

The two others goggled at her, Shadowheart almost choking on her wine.

Karlach spoke first, tentative. "Els, have you never...?"

Els' face had grown hot beneath her thatch of orange hair. Even the tips of her ears were pink. "I've done some stuff! Just not- I lived in the woods with my dad for eighteen years!"

Karlach leaned forwards, "You've been playing inns for eight and you never-"

"Yeah, and the bard life isn't exactly great for getting to know people well enough to want-"

Shadowheart let out a strange sound. Els and Karlach's heads swivelled towards her, concerned until they realised it was as close to a laugh as Shadowheart had ever made in their presence.

"Lady Shar have mercy, you two are ridiculous." She gestured to Els with her wine glass. "Look. You were going to talk to him about that crush of yours anyway- if he reciprocates, then he ought to be willing to... respect your level of experience. And if he isn't, then he's not worth your affection."

Karlach nodded enthusiastically. "Yeah. If that wizard tries anything you don't want, I'll turn him into meat paste."

[revenant-dumpster-fire]

Faulty Sparkle (Revenant x Reader)

Theme: Season 9 of the Apex Games are imminent as the autumn comes to a close, and the events of the past couple months only begin to find any closure.

Warnings: Pain, bodily trauma, medical trauma, PTSD, bipolar disorder, mania, depression, anxiety disorder, lewd.

Reader's Notes: I think I got my mojo back a bit. I think for a while there I forgot to write what makes sense to me and was too concerned with writing well.

Writing Notes: "Get laid, get paid, Gatorade." -Valkyrie, probably. (Also congratulations to me on learning how to spell "valkyrie".)

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"Just A Volunteer" (Book 1) | "The Lost Files" (Book 1.5) | "Of Feathers And Venom" (Book 2)

You moan as you lift your hand to rub your eyes. You wake up in your bed, alone. The light coming through the window is strong and blinding you before you even sit up to face it. You must have slept in until almost noon after falling asleep in the taxi. You don't remember getting out or coming up to the apartment, let alone getting into bed.

You hear the suspicious sound of... scissors cutting paper? It's coming from the little seating area near the foot of your bed. You want to sit up to look, but your stomach hurts from where that strange simulacrum bumped into you yesterday at the coffee shop. It's not a sharp pain; just a very blunt, mild soreness. It's enough pain to be a reminder of him, but not enough to cause alarm. At least you got free apple cider out of it.

You hear a faint mewing coming from the same direction as the sounds of the scissor blades. It must be Royce.

"Shush, you infernal marshmallow!" You hear Revenant chide in hushed tones. "If you keep smacking at the scissors I will trim your fur to look like a fancy poodle. Then no one will take you seriously ever again. You'll be the joke of all your peers." The mews continue. "Dammit, you sad excuse for a cloud! You're just like her—throwing yourself into danger and making a fuss the whole damn time."

You huff out a laugh, alerting him to your consciousness.

"Oh, and speak of the devil." He bemoans openly. "How was your eighteen-hour-long reprieve? You want to nap some more, or are you finally finished?" He sounds very exasperated.

You sit up, the light from the window blinding you as you face him. For a moment, he's just a silhouette against the brightness, but as your eyes adjust you make out his features. He's sitting on the small loveseat, cutting up what appears to be a newspaper with a pair of scissors. There's a couple of snipped out articles sitting on the table already, and even more scraps littered across the rug on the floor. Royce is sitting on the lower half of the newspaper in his lap, pawing wildly at his palms, unable to reach the scissors. Revenant takes a moment to move Royce away with his spare hand, but she quickly bounds back into his lap to demand attention. He cuts a few more snippets out, moves Royce just for her to return, he sighs in exhaustion, and he returns to cutting. This cycle repeats three times before you decide to give input.

"What are you—?"

"No." He cuts you off, turning to face you. Royce stops playing for a moment, apparently a little scared by his tone. She jumps up, latching onto his headscarf, burying herself inside to hide. "Now that you've calmed down a bit... You owe me an apology."

You freeze, your gut hurting even worse now from the dread. Before you have time to recover and speak, he continues.

"I do so much for you. I give you everything I possibly can. I save you from certain death, even if that bit was selfish of me. I put up with your little girlfriend and try to help her out. I am actively trying to avenge what happened to you. I provide water, whatever food you want, and a luxurious shelter. I literally got you a MRVN slave to take care of anything you don't want to do! I surround you with puppies and this—" He pulls Royce out of his scarf, holding her ragdolling and purring form up, presenting her for you to see, "—this defective thing! But you still do the one thing I asked you not to do! You leave! You put yourself in danger. You put everything I've done for you at risk by simply putting yourself out there for the wolves to devour. You don't even warn me! You sneak out, you don't let me know where you are. You have no idea what could have happened to you, and I need you to stop." He tucks Royce back in his scarf. She's purring so loudly. She really loves Rev. "So what am I doing wrong, little raven? Why are you acting like I've trapped you in a cage and all you want to do is fly away? Or am I right, and I've done nothing wrong, and you're just your own brand of selfish?"

You can't respond. You are scared to move. He's not gesturing aggressively, but he is clearly infuriated with you. You carefully scoot backwards, away from the foot of the bed and towards the headboard. He watches you without losing focus for a mere moment. Once you back yourself into a wall, you nab some pillows and begin to cover yourself.

"I'm sorry..." your voice quivers before you shove your face into a pillow, preventing him from seeing your tearful and mortified expression. You hear him sigh loudly and exaggeratedly.

"Ugh, the point isn't to make you cry, little skinsuit. You're supposed to apologize and explain what's going on in that skull of yours so I can make it right."  You hear him bemoan aloud. You hear him shuffle a bit, but he suddenly stops making any sounds.

You shove your face deeper into the pillow, trying not to anticipate what he might say next.

"You're not making any sense... I give you so many things... What's missing? Why won't you stay here—stay safe?" He actually sounds a little desperate. You grab a second pillow behind you and toss it in his general direction. You hear him shuffle to react, giving you time to come up for air and get out your answer before burying your face again.

"Affection!" Your face makes a pomf sound as it slams back into the pillow. You only managed to catch a glimpse of his surprised stature catching the pillow as it flew a few feet to the side of him. He didn't make eye contact with you, otherwise you might have burst into tears under his gaze. Even if he doesn't intend to seem harsh, there's always an unsettling edge to him that can set your emotions over the edge.

"Does providing for you not count as affection?" You hear him ask poignantly. He pauses for a few moments, but you don't remove your face from the cotton pillowcase. It smells like fresh feathers and the natural scent of your hair, but the heat of your face and the labor required to breathe makes the experience a little bit suffocating. "We keep talking about this, but I feel like we never get anywhere. I can't just stay here all the time. I need to work on finding out who tried to take you. I need to do my job and take contracts. Soon, I'll be back in the Games on top of it all again. Surely you understand that. I can't imagine—"

"Stop talking over there and come hug me!" You emerge to yell at him in a desperate burst. You bury yourself again, waiting to hear if he'll be mad at you.

You hear him sigh before he shuffles audibly in your direction. You feel his weight create slopes in the mattress near you as he crawls over to you. Your spine tingles with excitement as you anticipate him, but you don't wait. The moment he's in range, you toss the pillow aside and go to slam your torso into him. Instead of the graceful embrace you expected to pull off, your head makes a loud, reverberating thunk against his chassis' chest as you hit him way harder than you expected. He quickly shuffles into a seated position before forcibly grabbing and cradling your head. You know that's going to hurt in a few moments, and you know with a sound that loud it's going to hurt badly.

"What the hell…?! Skinsuit, are you okay?" He's pulled you into his frame again as he crosses his legs around you. You're trying to hold your arms around his waist to give him the hug you intended, but the pain is rapidly gathering up in your forehead where you crashed into his metal body. He's cradling and brushing his fingers against your scalp, but it can't spare you now. You want to grab your head, but you struggle to move your arms. "Did you actually just give yourself a concussion trying to hug me?" He makes a vocalization that sounds like a small mechanical whine in his throat.

You slump into him and forget what you were upset about mere moments ago.

•    •    •    •

You come to loosely tucked under the covers in bed and lying on your side, Royce curled up behind your neck and purring softly. Revenant is lying next to you, his mask pressed into your face gently. His arms are cradling your neck and head, which still feels a bit sore as it pounds at the sudden wave of consciousness. You can feel the motion of a few fingers near your neck stroking Royce and keeping her purring happily. One of his legs is wrapped around yours, pinning you down on your side. You feel the weight of Six at the foot of the bed, although he's perfectly still for the time being. You moan a little from the dull, pounding pain and a few tears escape your closed eyes as you struggle not to cry, even though you don't feel emotional or in any sharp, overwhelming type of pain.

"Fragile little thing, just stay there. Listen to the purring. Relax." His voice is low, smoother, and calmer than normal. You feel like you're underwater and can't reach him, but you lift your arms up and meet his cold chest anyway. You loosely grab at the straps holding his headscarf to his chassis; your eyelids too heavy to open as you weakly tangle your fingers around them.

"Your little birdcage is too boring, isn't it? You just need a reason to stay, and I haven't given you one. The one thing you want is me, but I need to leave to hunt those who might hunt you, so you fly away when I leave the door open. I see the issue." He hums rhythmically, almost melodically, ensuring his voice is soft enough to not upset your head. One of his hands pulls away from behind you, suddenly reappearing in your blind perception when it gingerly and softly pulls your closest hand away from his straps to intertwine with it. His cool, metal fingers slip between yours, allowing his leather-clad palm to press into your fleshy, warm, soft one. His fingers anchor themselves to you as they curl around and press into the back of your hand. His claws frame your knuckles, intentionally squeezing your whole hand with a vibrant and dominant affection. You instinctively squeal a little, letting it barely erupt past your throat.

"You miss me. You want me. I am your ultimate prize, aren't I? You worship me. You crave my attention. You're helpless without me." He whispers with a concerning voraciousness. "What a responsibility that is, to care and protect such a needy little thing as you, but in truth..." His mask lifts away from your face to land right against your ear, letting his breath leave your nerves alight. "...I love how much you need me."

You feel the blood rush to your face rapidly. Your head pounds with the newfound pressure, giving you a fierce enough headache to make you moan in agony. His mask presses back into yours as you wince from the pain in your forehead, but he presses in deeper.

"Oh, dear, calm down, little raven. Did I say something to rile you?" His voice is laced with a cruel delight. He knows what he said.

You know he loves to tease you. His body is tensed up and primed to strike and pin you down. You know for a fact that he enjoys the dynamic of being overwhelmingly stronger and scarier than you, and he can barely help becoming that predator in your presence. You also instinctively want to buckle under the weight of his aura or flee from his attention, both of which only fuels him more. You're locked up under him as you feel your heart rate spike with concerned anticipation, but it causes his stature to loosen rather than tense further as he realizes that he needs to be softer in this moment.

"But truly, calm down. Listen to Royce's purrs. Feel my hand. Know you're safe. Just be quelled. Sleep." His voice is soft and smooth again, almost quiet enough to fool you into thinking it was someone entirely antithetical to the normally cold, cruel simulacrum he shows most others.

You tug on the one strap you still have a grip on and squeeze his hand. You don't want to do what he asks and rest. You missed this so much, all it took was injuring yourself on him and his façade of uncaring aloofness gives way to a possessive doting. You don't care about the headache or the pounding veins, you just want to enjoy the moment. Maybe he finally gets what you want from him and it's safe to pass out, but what if it isn't? What if he goes back to being distant? You aren't able to pull him any closer, so you muster up the strength and mental fortitude to pull yourself into him. It's more of a writhing motion than a graceful one, but you get your body pressed up against his as you push his face backwards enough to straighten out his spinal plates. You slink out of his hand's grasp to get an anchor back and around his leathery neck, feeling the muscle-like tubes, hydraulics, and robotics underneath. You let your naturally smaller frame shrink into him as your forehead naturally lines up and presses against his chin. He spares a few moments before his metal arms wrap around you and squeeze you in place. He could crush you if he had the inkling to do so, but he eases off as soon as your spine starts to bend into his hug.

"Sleep." Another order. Despite your headache, you insist on defying him, huffing under your breath in response. He scoffs at you, letting his breath drench the surface of your face in warmth.

"I said sleep, and you will do as I ask. Don't pretend like you don't want to. You hit your head hard. I'll be here when you wake up."

You hold your breath for a few moments, deciding if you'll give a slow exhale of surrender or a labored hiss of defiance. Despite your genuine desire to be as insubordinate as possible, you slowly release your breath with a long, wistful sigh of defeat. You make a small inhale, just enough to get out a final request before you let yourself go adrift.

"Don't move," is your last utterance before your jostled nervous system pulls you away from reality once again.

•    •    •    •

You wake up again, but now it's late in the afternoon. Your head still hurts a bit, but it's significantly less disturbing than the metal machination tangled and grappled around your frame. He is strangely silent.

You cock your head back a bit to meet his eyes, only to be met with void, lifeless pits. He's in reboot? You take a moment and remain still, but he doesn't stir. You gently jostle a bit in his arms, making a small electrical buzz begin somewhere deep in his chest. It holds for a moment before you can begin to hear the familiar whirring of cooling fans begin again. His vocalizer begins to hum a little calibration tone at a low volume. Limbs twitch a little as each tests its own movement in a recursive manner, starting near his midline and working its way down his limbs and to each of his digits. His emotional state should be back any moment now. His jerky movements slow down and cease after a few more seconds, then you feel his entire body lurch into yours, grasping you with all the fierceness and strength of an apex predator. You're far too sluggish to react in time, not that you had any hope of escaping him like this anyway.

You squirm a little in apprehensive discomfort under his oppressive grapple, remembering the wounds he's accidentally inflicted on you before while in reboot. You try to pull away, but he's quick and firm to press you back into him, one arm wrapped around your back and cradling the back of your head while the other keeps his open palm anchoring your lower spine and teasing your tailbone. He vomits a static cacophony from his jaw that slowly clarifies into legible words.

"—dare you to try! You can't have what's mine!" He shouts over you in a tone laced with wrath towards an unknown entity. He seems to be hallucinating something upsetting to him. As you realize this, your desire to help him back to reality snaps into action.

You slink your arms out from being pinned at your sides—thankfully without his notice—and lift your hands carefully to caress his mask gently and softly. As soon as your touch is registered, he leans into your hands and nuzzles into them, allowing you to gently run your fingers down and around every ridge, divot, and plane of his mask. Your affection seems to warp his hallucination from a stressful and loud defensiveness to a quiet and quelled relaxation. All that is audible is your own heartbeat and breathing, the sounds of your fingers sliding across the smooth texture of his face, the minor whirrs and negligible clicks of his body adjusting and moving, and a low rumble of a purr emitting somewhere from deep in his chest. His eyes are still empty, but you brace yourself and try to coax him back.

"H-Hey big guy, are you okay?" You airily whimper at him, hoping he will wake up a little more to your voice. Unfortunately, he still remains somewhere between unconscious and sentient. His movement ceases for a moment as he processes your words.

"I love you." He mumbles in a low tone.

Oh.

You knew this, didn't you? Then why does it feel so shocking and reassuring to hear him say out loud? Sure, you said it to him first in a moment of excitement, but for some reason you never expected to hear him ever say it back to you, with or without his full awareness. Your face burns a little as your face flushes, and you feel a strong need to squirm into his frame excitedly. You feel your heart speed up and your body warm up. You emit a high pitched whine from holding back the natural need to express your elation. It was only three words, and it isn't even news to you, yet you can't stop lingering on it. You bury your face into his headscarf to hide from his empty stare out of some combination of mutual affection and the pure embarrassment of being felled by a mere statement.

You feel his hug tighten around you into a threateningly powerful squeeze. A few of your joints make cracking sounds as they give way to his demands, but he stops short of causing you pain. All you get is the concerning anticipation of that pain, but thankfully none of the payoff. He emits a stronger, deeper purring sound out of his chest and into your hidden visage, dampened only by the cloth of his scarf. His hands slip under your shirt slowly and carefully, finally making contact with your bare skin. You twitch away from the cold touch, but it quickly warms to match your body heat. He pushes into the revealed crevasses of your spine, gently guiding you to relax your frame.

Suddenly and unexpectedly, his grip on you loosens and his limbs ragdoll for a mere moment as he takes account of the past few minutes.

"Ah, the little raven couldn't resist using me as a nest to roost in, huh?" He is now fully aware and teasingly condescending. "I didn't move, just like you asked." He's fishing for praise already.

You unbury yourself from his scarf to glance up at him. Indeed, his eyes are glowing a bright and aware golden yellow with their piercing, tightened, analog pupils drilling into your soul. You're still terrified of being caught in his gaze even if you know you have nothing to fear. It's as if his entire body was built for inciting terror and reducing the human form to be nothing but brittle and weak vermin. It's scary, but you've become a connoisseur for his monstrous aura.

"Yeah, you didn't." You respond coyly as your nose scrunches up for the quip: "I guess I've tamed the mean old simulacrum, eh?"

He immediately emits a snorting sound as if to choke back a laugh, scoffing openly and cocking one eyelid shut to accentuate his disbelief.

"Very bold words coming from a tiny skinsuit with a swollen nose, a black eye, and a concussion." He states as dryly as his vocalizations allow him to.

"Wait, what?!" You immediately try to see your reflection in his metal chest, but alas, it's too matte to reflect properly. Your whole head is sore but you had no idea you tanked a black eye in the process. "You're joking, right?!" You look back up at him desperate for some reassurance. He looks back at you with an awkward shrug and another snicker, clearly humored by your sudden realization that you did—in fact—hurt yourself just trying to hug him.

You push out of his embrace and nearly leap out of the bed, intending to head to the bathroom to see for yourself. As soon as you're on your feet, the dizziness hits you almost as quickly as the floor does.

"Skinsuit!" He's fast, but he wasn't fast enough to catch you this time. Your face is planted into the ground, your head hurts, you can't remember how to coordinate your limbs to get up, and now having a busted up face is the least of your problems. "Why did you do that?! Are you stu—" He catches himself by slurring his insult into a frustrated growl. You can hear his palm slap into his mask before he collects himself and begins to lift you off the floor by your shoulders.

There's blood on the floor beneath where your face landed, a couple fresh droplets making their way off your face and into the forming puddle below.

Soon, you're staring at the ceiling from the bed, looking up to meet Revenant's bothered but concerned gaze down at you.

"Your nose is bleeding and possibly broken, and now you have two black eyes." He states without any infections before sighing and turning away to continue. "You need to stop. You are the most fragile, aloof, and shortsighted skinbag I have ever met, and I need you to stop throwing yourself into danger and hurting yourself." He is speaking so plainly that the frustration comes across even stronger than it would if he tried to express it. "It's funny, but only to a point. It's funny when it's a mistake and a negligible enough injury, but sometimes you really just don't think, do you?" He sighs and turns back to you, holding out his spindly, clawed hand above your chest as if expecting something. "I'll give you more attention if you'll just listen to me and try to stay safe. Deal?" It's a handshake he's offering.

You struggle but manage to raise your hand and grasp his awkwardly, but you don't shake. You're actually not sure how when your hands are perpendicular and not parallelly joined. He shakes it for you.

"Deal. I expect you're good on your word, right? A fan of the Hunter would never be so dishonorable, would they?" He coos a little sarcastically.

"Ha, my first favorite. You figured it out." You weakly whisper aloud.

"Oh please, it was super obvious since that bird seems to like you so much. Plus it seems like most of my fans originally were Bloodhound's. 'Hunter to prey pipeline', or something like that. I've seen a few fans say that online." He praises his fan poaching openly as he sits next to your splayed out body on the bed.

"Oh... so you do consider yourself prey for them?" Your voice sounds weak even to you, so you're a little worried if he can hear you prod at him.

"If a manufactured killer that can skewer someone with a single claw is the definition of 'prey' to them, then who am I to argue?" He stretches out his hand and sharpens the tips, making them look as feral as possible. "They can come at me any day if they think these are the hands of mere..." He thinks for a moment "...bráð... I think that's what they called me."

You light up as he says a word you do not recognize. It sounds like Bloodhound's native tongue to you, although you aren't sure what it means, context clues are good enough to give you the gist.

"So you do like Bloodhound?" You're smiling a little. He grimaces and winces at the word 'like', possibly not remembering that he uttered the word 'love' during reboot a short while ago. He makes a sound similar to clearing one's throat, not that he necessarily has anything akin to that type of hardware.

"We have a mutual respect for one another's capabilities as hunters and killers." He clarifies, letting the silence settle for a moment.

The silence speaks volumes.

"Deceit is a learned skill, don't worry, you'll get there eventually." You finally utter.

He whips around to give you the dirtiest glare his static visage can offer.

"You're not allowed near Sherry anymore. She's clearly a horrible influence." He growls.

"You seem to have taken a liking to her though." You hum, averting your eyes to the pure white ceiling, focusing on the small imperfections where the joists have minimally sagged under the weight of the building above.

He growls again, refusing to acknowledge such a possibility. He peers over you again, locked onto your eyes, which meet his gaze when prompted.

"You nearly look like a corpse." He pauses. "I don't like it."

"Thanks." You respond with a weak thumbs up to signal how utterly reassuring such a compliment is. Your sarcasm isn't lost on him, but he ignores it.

"I'm going to get you a washcloth to wipe your face up with. Your nose is going to bleed for a bit, but if it doesn't slow down, I'm going to have to use styptic powder again." You wish you could see what he's talking about, but you can still feel the blood droplets making their way down your nose and cheeks. Maybe it's best you can't see. "I'll fix your nose up and splint it with a bandage in a few moments. It's probably not as bad as it looks currently, but you need to not move since you're also still recovering from a minor concussion." He trails off his voice a bit. "Ice packs, rest, and not planting your face into the floor for a couple weeks should do the trick." He mumbles the last bit, but you still heard it.

He gets up off the bed and begins to walk over to the closed door. The sound of Six's excited claws scratching the door becomes audible as he excitedly hopes to be let in. You also hear mews laced with wrath at being kicked out of the room, but they're mostly drowned out by the scratching sound. Apparently Revenant must have moved once while you were passed out to lock them out of the room. You feel a minor pang of hurt from such a realization, but your logical side recognizes that he has a point. Sometimes he really does need to leave. Sometimes it's good for him to take care of things. What matters is he was there when you woke up, right? He was, which is what you really wanted in the end anyway.

You hear his metal digits clink against the door handle as he goes to turn it.

"Hey, Rev..." He stops cold. The room is silent for a moment. "Everything is gonna be okay, right?"

The world is silent for a long couple of moments. He is obviously reading deeply into the question as he formulates an answer.

"Yeah, as long as you trust me. I've been through this before. I'm experienced, for better or for worse. Just don't panic and become the one maverick in the equation that I can't anticipate."

He doesn't pause for additional input or questions. The door opens, two very needy animals bound into the room, and he walks out, Royce angrily mewing after him. Six leaps into bed with you and begins gently licking your face clean, whimpering in minor concern.

Normally you might resist being coated in prowler saliva, but your head is spinning a little and it's not worth the squirming.

•    •    •    •

"I can't believe how much I have to babysit you." Revenant huffs as he uses a warm, wet washcloth to wipe some remaining stray blood off your cheek. He's used some medical tape and popsicle sticks the MRVN brought from the store to splint and bandage up your nose. The adhesive on the paper tape feels uncomfortable and makes your facial muscles twitch a little in protest, allowing the corners of the tape to turn up. Somehow that's more annoying than the adhesive itself.

"Stop that!" He uses his claws to gently press the tape back to your face, already annoyed at the MRVN looking over his shoulder at his workmanship.

"Sir, I think—"

"Nobody cares what you think!!" He throws his hands up trying to dismiss the MRVN, but he refuses to not watch.

"But... Mr. Cross, I have general practitioner physician software installed for this very thing, I could really help—"

"Fine!" He finally rips the MRVN by his arm to get in front of you. "Fix her, but I swear if you mess up again I will not hesitate to break you down into parts." He practically yells as he stands up from kneeling over you on the couch. The MRVN's emote looks stressed, but quickly changes to a sad face.

"I am sorry, you did put the dog in charge and he did say that she could leave..." He pleads, harkening back to how you managed to slip by him and escape yesterday.

"No, Six didn't say anything of that sort. Six can't talk. She lied to you. How are you this stupid?" Revenant is pacing back and forth between the massive window of a wall overlooking the city and the pillar with the fireplace and the television mounted over it.

The MRVN looks distressed at you as he realigns your nose splint and reapplies the medical tape.

"I am sorry, I wasn't equipped to handle lies! I've been issued a software update to account for skepticism, deceit, and sarcasm now, but—"

"Fine! I think you're a waste of metal and I would systematically deconstruct you if you had the pain receptors to suffer during every minute of it. How'd your lie detector do, hmm?!" Revenant throws a shrug up as he tilts his head in a sarcastic, wrath-filled gesture beckoning the MRVN.

The MRVN winces away a little, taking a moment to process.

"I didn't register any deceit in your statement." The MRVN almost whimpers as he wilts in front of you, still trying to dab up some blood off your face. Your nose still is steadily bleeding. "Ma'am, please sit still." He casually sticks a finger with an exposed node into each of your nostrils and you feel an electrical snap course through it for a moment. It stings and you naturally wince away from him as you grab at your splinted face. He pulls his fingers out and wipes them off for a moment. You feel a tear well up in your eyes from the stinging pain, wondering what just happened.

"What was that?!" You hear Revenant growl as the MRVN lifts off the ground from in front of you, hoisted up by an enraged simulacrum. The MRVN immediately begins to curl into a defensive stance as he desperately tries to explain himself.

"I cauterized her nosebleed! I'm sorry, it's standard first aid procedure!" Revenant drops him and he slams into the floor with a loud crash, making you jump and sink deeper into the couch away from them both, still covering your splinted nose. Revenant leans over you and lightly pulls your hands away from your nose, inspecting the work. His eyes dart in small jumps to each area of your face the MRVN touched. His LED irises slowly relax and widen as he wipes away a tear that escapes your eyes. He stands up and away from you to then hoist the MRVN back up to his knees.

"That hurt her. Do something about it." Revenant growls again before returning to pacing. The MRVN whimpers before getting to his feet to shuffle to a cabinet in the kitchen, explaining as he goes.

"Ibuprofen should help, but I'm also licensed to administer a little lidocaine." He hums with a tremolo, still a little fearful of Revenant's ire. "You won't be able to blow your nose for about a week, but you'll feel a lot better at the end of it."

You return your hands to your nose to cover it, still tearing up over the stinging sensation from the electrical cauterization. Revenant extends the trek of his pacing, now requiring him to step over and around a couple of prowlers curled up on the floor in clusters, keeping each other warm. He slowly decides to alter his pacing into an extended, winding figure eight, circling around the piles of his "puppies'' in an infinitely looping manner. It's funny to watch what would normally be an aggressive, threatening lurk around the room turn into a chaotic shuffle to avoid disturbing the creatures he's come to adore and deeply care for.

You hear Six's claws tap against the hardwood floor from behind you, confirmed by the meowing of Royce who sticks to Revenant and Six at almost all times. As Six comes into your view, you see Royce angrily mewing behind him and leaping into short sprints trying to keep up with the unfair stride advantage Six possesses. Six takes a moment to decide between going to your side or Revenant's as Royce makes a straight dash towards Revenant, immediately grabbing onto his leg wraps and trying to climb him with her tiny claws.

"Oh, for the love of—" Revenant winces in minor surprise at her, but quickly lifts his leg to pry her off. She cries insistently in protest until he tucks her into his headscarf, where she quiets down and begins purring loudly enough for you to hear. Six watches in some combination of concern and disapproval. To be fair, you've never seen Six spoil the two juvenile prowlers, who now lie in a pile with their mother in the corner. Six seems like a more stern parent than Revenant is, funnily enough. What's even more humorous is Six's palpable judgment of Revenant's constantly giving in to Royce's demands.

Realizing he can no longer easily pace around the room and brood, Revenant audibly makes a sighing noise and relaxes a bit, making his way to the couch. Six immediately cuts him off and leaps into the seat next to you instead, sniffing at your face for a moment before turning to growl at Revenant.

"It wasn't me this time!" He throws his hands out to his sides to accentuate his point. "She fell of her own accord."

Six growls a little more, refusing to give up the seat next to you, but instead nuzzling up into your lap and turning his growl into the most disconcertingly deep purr. Revenant's stature shrugs further as he takes the seat on the opposite side of Six, reaching into his headscarf to scratch Royce's cheeks.

The MRVN returns with a gelled up cotton swab, pushing it gently into your nose and numbing it almost instantly. He hands you a small shot glass of a measured out medicine, followed by some ice water. The medicine tastes like some combination of orange and alcohol that barely is palatable, but it washes down easily enough with the water. The MRVN seems cautiously happy that you accepted his help.

"Thank you." You say to him, mostly to give him audible approval and hopefully keep Revenant from dogging him further. You can hear Revenant sneer as he hisses a little under his breath, seemingly mad that he doesn't have an excuse to abuse the automa further. "I am sorry I snuck out yesterday and lied to you about having permission. I didn't think it would be that big of a deal." You hang your head a little, but a whirring chirp comes from the MRVN that reestablishes your attention on him.

"It is okay! It won't happen again, I am sure. Everyone makes mistakes." He seems happy enough as he stands upright from kneeling in front of you.

"Bring me my notes, rustbucket." Revenant demands quite hastily.

As the MRVN walks away, Revenant reaches forward to the coffee table and turns on the television, flipping through a few channels before finding the Apex Games' broadcasting network. A couple of news folks are sitting around a table all chatting about the upcoming announcement for the new celebrity contender, theorizing on who they may be.

One commentator is placing bets with the others that the new player will be a simulacrum. Another insists that it will be a pilot. Still another thinks that it may be another supermodel-type like Mirage or Loba, which makes you giggle a little inside knowing how awkward Mirage can sometimes be. A more cynical member from behind the camera can be heard saying it'll probably just be a new modded-up MRVN with a goofy name because "they're running out of attractive people with a high tolerance for pain." The eldest anchor who has been silent up to this point begins to chuckle a little jovially at that comment, finally retorting with a jab that eventually they're going to have to start letting prisoners of war fight in the games to really spice it up. The majority of the table cracks up at that one before they throw a poll up on the screen with all the proposed options, asking viewers to place their own bets for fun. The top voted option quickly becomes supermodel which is to be expected, but the joke entry of "prisoner of war" easily takes second place. The remaining votes are spread pretty evenly across the remaining options. Revenant audibly scoffs.

"Did they tell you who the new player is?" You ask with a slightly awkward twinge to your voice caused by your nose struggling to handle rapid airflow. You peer across Six to see if he reacts. He huffs again, apparently annoyed by the whole ordeal.

"No, I find out at the same time everyone else does. Heard some rumors though, not that I could care less. I've been too busy hunting down the scum of this city and leaving messages for whoever runs the criminal operations around here." Revenant averts his gaze despite your obvious lean to try to make eye contact. He may not like seeing your face bruised and your nose in a splint. You haven't dared look in a mirror yourself, so it could be understandable.

The MRVN returns with a stack of newspaper clippings, scizzors, a folder filled with papers, and a partially snipped up paper from today, handing them all to Revenant sequentially. The MRVN, now empty-handed, comes back to you and kneels down to your level to review your injuries. He carefully and gently pushes and pulls on your jaw to force your head to look any which way so he can get a better view.

"It should make a full recovery in a few weeks. Swelling will persist for a few days. I will check up on you regularly and administer painkillers as needed." The MRVN nods a little, eventually looking in Revenant's direction for approval. Revenant offers none except for the lack of disapproval. The MRVN seems a little lost by Revenant's refusal to acknowledge him, so you lightly reach out and hold his wrist to grab his attention again.

"Thank you, I appreciate your help." You say to him as he looks to you. His emote immediately brightens to a happy face at the feedback.

"I am glad to help! Would you like some dinner?" Geeze. You forgot what time it was. Now you look to Revenant instinctively for approval, already knowing you're going to be chided for wanting to say no.

"Make her soup," he demands, "if she isn't that hungry, at least soup is easy to consume."

You didn't want to eat, but he's not wrong about soup either. He hears you sigh a little.

"Listen, you're probably still suffering from a concussion, you've bled plenty today, and now your face needs to heal. I know you vastly prefer to starve yourself most of the time, but you need nutrition." He pauses for a moment, contemplating. He calls out to the MRVN who is now in the kitchen. "Actually, prepare a tonkotsu ramen for tomorrow. Make her eggs for tonight."

You cringe a little at that word: ramen. It's the cheapest noodle soup available at most stores, sold in individual little packages. You lived off of them for a long time while homeless. They were shelf stable, lightweight noodle bricks with powdered bullion, loosely wrapped in thin plastic packaging. You've eaten the noodles like crackers before, made the two-minute-long soup format, you tried using the noodles like bread for peanut butter sandwiches, and you even have made cheap macaroni and cheese with the noodles. Homeless shelters would have pallets of the stuff donated by well-meaning individuals, but it could never undo how utterly exhausting and tiring it is to taste the same noodle soup every day for years on end. You were grateful for the food, of course, but not ready to even try such a thing again. You don't feel right complaining now either; after all, you'd shudder to think how much money Revenant has dumped on you. You don't want to come off as ungrateful. You have no idea what word he put in front of "ramen" or why the MRVN would have to prep for a two-minute meal tomorrow, but your internals churn at the thought. Ramen isn't even that bad. You've just had enough to last the rest of your life, and you really don't want the uncomfortable "nostalgia" of your homeless life. You steel yourself for the moment. You can handle one more bowl of the stuff if it makes him happy.

"You look like you're going to throw up. Are you sick and tired of eggs or something?" Revenant has been staring at you this whole time, apparently. You quickly shake your head to dismiss his concerns before finding the energy to answer him more completely.

"I'm fine, just thinking back to..." You trail off. You're afraid you're going to sound ungrateful if you're honest, but you also don't want to be dishonest. You internally panic trying to figure out how to word this well. Six begins licking you, making your train of thought careen off the rails. You pull your face away but he pushes his snout beneath your chin to carefully lick the uninjured area of your face. Before you have time to collect yourself, you feel Revenant appear behind you and grab you under your arms, lifting you over the back of the couch and out of Six's reach. As you lift off from your comfy perch, you see Royce bounce into the warm cavity in the couch, leaping over Six's massive tail to do so. Six begins licking her instead as she swats at his hardened snout.

Revenant puts you on your feet before pulling a single arm around your back to brace you, leading you back into your bedroom and into the bathroom. He glances at the sink, toilet, shower, and massive bathtub before speaking up.

"Pick your poison." He offers, gesturing in the general direction of the many plumbing sources.

You lower yourself to the floor, actually feeling a bit dizzy from either the concussion or being lifted unexpectedly. You crawl over to the toilet, just in case Revenant is right. Thankfully the MRVN cleans the bathroom daily so the whole room is pristine, the white and black marble flooring with artful black bamboo mats being no exception. You peer in at the blue-tinted water. It has a floral scent from the bowl cleaner which settles your stomach more than you care to admit. You jump a little as Revenant's entire mass slams into the ground next to you, only cushioned by his meager loincloth and the bamboo mat. It's genuinely a miracle he didn't crack the marble. You whine a little in delayed protest.

"We can stay here until you're looking a little less pale." He shifts a little, possibly trying to find comfort on the cold floor. "If your nose starts to bleed again, I'll get the MRVN to cauterize it again." You wince a little at that idea.

You don't think you need to throw up. You just had a moment remembering what a block of dried noodles with sodium-laced powder tastes like, as well as remembering an era where sitting in a nice bathroom like this was a pipe dream. You feel the room seem to spin, not out of nausea but rather out of feeling like you do not belong in this space. Is this all too good for you? Maybe things would be better if you went back to living off of ramen and sleeping in a tiny bunk in the Apex Games facility.

You jolt back to reality as a cold set of claws gently lands on your shoulder.

"Flighty raven, what's wrong?" You hear him say, but you struggle to see him through the visual snow even as it fades. He called you 'raven' again. It's been an unexpected shift from his original nickname for you, but you appreciate how much more it sounds like a name than an insult.

He sounded so much more concerned than you thought he would be. You rub your eyes gently hoping the visual snow will fade faster, but unfortunately it seems as if it will recede at its own pace regardless of what you do. You have to try to answer him.

"Sorry, I just was reminded of back when I was..." You trail off before realigning yourself to speak again. "Sorry, sorry. I was just thinking back before I was a volunteer and—"

"You don't need to say anything more." He pushes his metal thumb against your closed lips as his other fingers curl up underneath your chin. You are whipped back to the present moment in an instant, absolutely enamored by that simple touch. The visual blur and pixelated coloration fades almost instantly. Gravity feels as if it barely is gripping you anymore and your internals almost feel tickled, sparing the new synthetic ones. Suddenly, the lack of feeling in the synthetic organs is jarring. Acid burns your throat and you keel over, unable to vomit but also in an otherworldly pain brought on entirely by the psychological whiplash.

Revenant is fast to his feet, especially considering how quiet he is when he moves from a sitting position on the floor to a full tilt sprint. If you hadn't just seen it, you would have thought the noise was only him shifting his weight a little. Before you know it, the MRVN is practically falling over as he is dragged backwards into your presence.

"Fix this." Revenant hoists the MRVN to tower over your curled up form on the floor. Despite the inevitably disconcerting experience of being dragged around by a frustrated simulacrum, the MRVN is quick to adapt, kneeling over you and helping you back into a seated position.

"What hurts?" The MRVN asks with fairly little emotion.

You want to answer but you can't for some reason. The MRVN takes your arm, feeling your pulse in your wrist, touching your forehead, and pressing his hand gently into a few places on your torso where the healed surgical scars are.

The MRVN goes still for a moment before standing up and beginning to leave, much to Revenant's displeasure.

"Well? What's wrong?!" He looks as if he might disassemble him right there for daring to walk away from you.

"Give me a moment." The MRVN sounds surprisingly unfearful of Revenant at the moment, possibly engrossed in accomplishing whatever he is doing.

Revenant turns to you for a moment. His shoulders tense up as he stares down at you, pausing to try to determine if you're well again or not. He seems to conclude not, as he moves as if to follow the MRVN through the doorway before he suddenly reappears over the threshold, holding one of the two young prowlers as the other follows.

Revenant looks on in a mix of shock and confusion as the MRVN leans over, placing one next to you while the other gravitates to the opposite side. They squirm against your hands as you try to pet them. You remember when they were small enough to hold only a mere few months ago; they grow so fast.

"What are these?" The MRVN asks you plainly.

"This is..." you pause for a moment, not sure why this is important. "This is Seven and his sister."

"What are they?" He stays kneeled in front of you, showing no emotion, simply quizzing you along.

"They're Six's offspring, I think?" You look to Revenant for reassurance, who stays completely and utterly still, probably confused himself. "They—uh—they're young prowlers."

"Good." The MRVN completely falls into a seated position, but much gentler than Revenant had minutes earlier. He takes a moment to look you over. "Now, can you tell me which is the boy and which is the girl?"

"Um..." You pause. The deep purple one has curled up in your lap, gently purring at a low hum. This dark hued one is calm, collected, and lax. The orange-red one is boisterously sniffing you up and down, licking your arm and other exposed skin if something smells interesting enough. This bright one is energetic, curious, and squirmy. You're not sure which is which. "I'm guessing—" You point to the purple one in your lap. "—this is the girl."

"Wrong." Revenant butts in finally, now leaning against the wall with crossed arms, looking like he's losing patience with the MRVN. "It's reversed. The boy is purple, the same color as Six. The girl is red like her mom. The red with teal stripes is one of the more common colorations to see out in the wild. They stick out so easily, plus they have a higher rate of aggression, so humans encounter them more often." He huffs to end his tangent, realizing he's going into more detail than he initially intended.

The room is silent for a moment before the MRVN continues his line of questioning.

"What texture do they—"

"Seriously, what is this?" Revenant interrupts angrily, throwing his hands up a little bit. "This is getting annoying. What the hell are you doing? This is a waste of time." You wince away from the MRVN, who reaches out and takes your pulse a second time. "All you're doing is asking idiotic questions over and over. She's injured, you idiot. I don't need you to test her—"

"You're going to make her have another anxiety attack if you continue." The MRVN interrupts, still holding your wrist and feeling for your heartbeat.

The room falls silent once again. You wish you could curl up into a ball. Revenant has become a statue, frozen in some kind of shock, but the MRVN returns his attention to you.

"Anyways, I was asking you what it feels like to pet this one." He motions to the boy in your lap. You pull your wrist away from him and run your fingers across the young prowler's back. He coos at your touch happily.

Like Six, the boy is very warm like freshly laundered linens, but with the smooth texture of a reptile. Some scales are large and rocky, yet others are small and smooth like silk. The larger scales afford less warmth but more armor, while the smaller scales offer flexibility and hug closer to the warm body, letting the heat emanate through and into your palm. As you run your hand from the crest of his furls down to his flank, his cooing and purring vibrates into your palms. His back legs twitch a little against your touch, possibly a sign of ticklishness.

"He feels really well armored in some areas, almost like a stone. Some places the scales are smooth and slippery and warm." You keep it short as you continue to pet him, somewhat engrossed by the experience. The red girl begins to lick the back of your neck, possibly trying to grab your attention away from her brother.

"What does that feel like?" The MRVN motions to your neck.

Her licks aren't light in the slightest. Her tongue makes wide strokes, pressing into your neck with force. It's moist and warm, but not any rougher than a human's tongue despite being much larger. Her nostrils flare hot air over your wet neck with each lick, and her pants follow up with a cooling sensation. Her snout also hardens into a beak-like texture, but hers isn't as pronounced as her brother's or Six's. Her licks slowly slip around to the side of your neck, pausing as if to feel for the beat in your jugular. She stops licking, eventually resting her head on your shoulder for a few moments. The calm only lasts a few seconds before she notices the curious protrusion on the side of your head, resuming by licking and sniffing your ear. The tickling sensation necessitates you to squirm away and try to push her snout away as you attempt to answer the question posed.

"It feels like—" She pushes past your hands and nails your ear with the sloppiest lick. "—ugh! It feels like an oversized slug hitting me!" You get your hands around her snout and hold her at your shoulder. She immediately slips out, then pushes her snout back into your grip. Suddenly, she's enamored by the concept of fingers, inserting and removing her snout from the circular grip you've made. She looks ridiculous. You start to chuckle as she tilts her head in confusion before reinserting her snout, withdrawing it, and tilting again.

The MRVN stands up and begins to leave.

"Her anxiety attack seems to have been staved off. I'll get back to—" Revenant grabs him before he's made it over the threshold.

"What did you do?" Revenant asks, his voice caught somewhere between genuine curiosity and frustration.

"It's a distraction technique. Perhaps if you were more present and didn't feel the need to escalate every situation, she'd feel a bit more grounded and stable in your presence." The MRVN pushes his hands away and proceeds out of the bathroom. A few moments pass as you watch Revenant's entire stature tense up with rage.

"I am going to fucking tear that stupid—!"

"Escalation!" The MRVN rings out from the kitchen.

Revenant lets out a wrath filled scream as he drives his fist into the mirror above the two sinks next to him, shattering the mirror and causing the glass to shower down on the marble floor in front of you. You feel some of the tiny shards hit your legs, as you wince away from the splash of sharp, reflective daggers. The purple prowler sinks deeper into your lap to try to hide as he whimpers, while the red girl stays behind you momentarily.

Everything sits still for a moment after the glass is shattered. The MRVN appears in the doorway again.

"What happened?!" The MRVN exclaims from the other side of the doorway, peering in.

Revenant holds his fist inside the newly revealed hole in the drywall, staring into the wall where his reflection once was. He's completely still except for a minor tremble that resembles someone under heavy duress. The boy prowler is whimpering in your lap, while the red one tugs on your shirt trying to pull you closer into the wall and away from the glass. You shrink into the marble floor, wishing you could vanish from the scene in front of you.

"Sir, are you both traumatiz—?!"

"Shut up." Revenant growls, ripping his hand out of the wall by making an even bigger hole in the drywall. "I don't need your patronizing bullshit."

Revenant walks over as you cower into the floor, your heart racing. He pulls the purple prowler out of your lap as he ragdolls in his arms, whimpering loudly. Revenant walks him across the glass, causing the many shards to crunch between his metal soles and the marble. What's left beneath his feet is a pool of dangerous, glittery, faulty sparkles. He leaves the whimpering prowler in the safety of the doorway where Six appears to usher him back to the pack.

Revenant returns, picking up the red girl next. She squirms and tries to shake her way out of his grasp, but he has no issue holding her as he carries her across the sea of broken pieces. He places her in the doorway. The MRVN kneels over and pats her head before Six ushers her away too.

Finally, Revenant returns, his mass hulking over you like a hunter victorious over their prey. Your frame is as crouched and shriveled into the floor as it can be. For a moment, you feel that same fear again, overwhelming you. His whole frame blurs into a black silhouette spare for his bright yellow eyes which pierce through the void. You feel dizzy and the sensation of static begins to take over all your senses.

He kneels down to your level, letting you see the color return to his form. Your heart is still racing, but something about him kneeling to meet you closer to eye level is reassuring.

You flinch as the tip of his index finger taps the tip of your nose for a moment. You flinch in surprise before the realization catches up to you.

"Did... Did you just boop my—"

"Shut it." He pulls you into a hug and lifts you off the ground by your torso before scooping an arm under your knees to support you. He casually carries you across the sea of crunching shattered glass, leaving behind a shimmering wake of destruction where he walked. He places you down on your bed before turning to the MRVN.

"I'd throw you in a trash compactor and watch you be turned into a block if you were even slightly less valuable." Revenant pokes a finger into the screen on his chest, which leaves a stoic emote up before switching to a smug one.

"So you're saying I was right?" The MRVN chirps.

"Clean up that mess. I need some time alone. Don't bug me." He huffs at the MRVN. He turns to you. "I'm sorry, just take a break. Turn on the new player announcement and let me know if anything interesting happens. Right now I just need to focus on something else for a little while."

You nod at him and he dismisses himself from the room as you and the MRVN watch. The MRVN shrugs haplessly when he meets your gaze again, his emote displaying a little sweat droplet and rolling eyes. His software update made him a little more sassy and cynical than he was before. You wonder how Pathfinder would change with similar updates.

You can hear Revenant pick up the newspaper clippings from before, as well as Royce whose screams for attention suddenly drift off in the direction of his room before abruptly vanishing as the door slams. You still aren't sure what he's working so diligently on with the newspaper clippings, but maybe it will help him calm down.

The MRVN walks over to you, quickly checks you over for any injuries before giving you a hearty thumbs up.

"Thank you," you say to him, "I'm sorry about him. He's just..." You trail off, unsure of what words to use to describe Revenant that vindicate his attitude.

"It will help now that he knows what an anxiety attack looks like and how his behavior feeds it. I don't think he's completely well either. There aren't many beings who see their own reflection, understand it is themself, and still attack it instinctively." The MRVN pats you on the shoulder before turning on the bedroom television for you, swapping the channel over to the Apex announcement.

You hadn't even realized that. He did attack his own reflection in that moment. If he simply wanted to break the mirror, he would have gone for a right hook that caught the mirror wide, but instead he went for a direct jab. It was a jab with so much power and lethality that it shattered the mirror to penetrate the wall behind it. He only calmed down when his reflection was gone. You remember back at the Apex Facility when his mirror was intentionally smeared with soap, petroleum jelly, or a similar substance to make it opaque and unreflective. You hold your breath for a moment, unsure of what that means. You've heard of people who were scared of their own reflection before, but this isn't fear—this is hate.

"Oh, look! That's her!" The MRVN happily points to a woman on screen who has happily taken a seat at the commentator's table, kicked her feet up on it, let her chair lean back, and is actively throwing back a bottle of beer. You turn your attention to the screen.

"Oh, sorry, are you guys not allowed to drink beer on TV? Shame. More for me I guess." She smirks coyly at the group of anchors who are now huddled together on the opposite end of the table, gawking in awe. She finishes the whole beer in a long swig before turning to look someplace off camera and throwing the bottle. It's a moment before you can hear it land in a trashcan off-screen. "Hell yeah!" She celebrates her small victory.

"So, you're Viper's daughter?" One of them asks, noticeably taken aback by her garrish attitude.

She flicks her head so her silver hair swishes with the motion. Her skin is perfect, her cheeks are slightly flush from the alcohol, but her eyes are a sharp, reflective amber. She's downright gorgeous, but you're not sure who Viper is.

"You bet! Name's Kairi Imahara, but you all can call me Valkyrie." She snaps finger guns in their general direction before leaning over, pulling a fresh bottle of beer up from behind the table, and flicking off its bottle cap using a metal buckle on her boots. She immediately takes another swig. You look on in awe. How can someone about your size manage to throw back carbonated drinks like that, let alone alcohol? You'd be tapping out after one.

"So, uh, Miss Valkyrie—"

"Valk is fine, I don't need all the pleasantries."

"Yes, um, Valk... What is it that you bring to the Apex Games?"

Valkyrie chuckles to herself for a moment.

"Ever heard of Northstar?" She throws her head back, looking to the ceiling, almost in a gesture of nostalgia. The commentators all nod to one another, before one offers an answer.

"Of course, your dad's Titan. It's been decommissioned for—"

"I stole it," she says nonchalantly as she throws her head forward to see her audience. She says it so casually, but her devious smile gives her away as she breaks into a small laugh at the abject horror on the commentator's faces.

She has her laugh before taking another swig of beer and continuing.

"I mean, I stole it when I was a kid. Piloted it myself. No training. Just years of watching good ol' dad." Her smirk turns even more sadistic as the shock washes over their faces.

"You were a child?!"

"Yup. I was lucky. I found my place in the world young, and that place was in the sky." She throws her head back again to look at the ceiling again for a moment. Her smile is still clear despite most of her visage being out of sight. "Northstar is coming with me to the Games."

Now there is audible gasping. One commentator clutches her necklace. Another leans back. Yet another is stunned silent.

"A Titan? In the Apex Games? That's crazy! How is anyone—"

"Not in its original form." She pulls her feet off the table, sits upright, suddenly glowing with a seriousness about her. "Northstar was decommissioned after my dad..." She clears her throat audibly. "After I lost my dad, I knew I couldn't let his legacy die. So, me and a friend took some of the modded parts from Northstar. We made it compact. Made it light. Made it wearable." She reaches behind her, pulling out a white helmet with golden orange stripes and bullet holes in the visor, placing it on the table. Everyone is silent for a long pause.

She sighs, clearly experiencing a moment of grief before she begins to smile again, closing her eyes as if to hold back a slight welling of tears.

"Know this name—Imahara—and always keep an eye on the skies." She says to the camera before hugging the helmet for a long time, eventually pulling off the table and placing it out of view once again.

She looks back to her audience.

"Oh man, did I kill the vibes we had going? Ha, sorry about that." She's back to being charmingly brash as she takes another swig of her bottle, clearly finishing it. "It wouldn't be right of me to not give a little backstory, right?"

One of the commentators adjusts his tie awkwardly to try to regain his composure.

"Yes, um, my apologies Miss Imahara—I mean... Valk. Would you mind answering some questions from the audience? Perhaps give us some insight on you as well as your plans?"

"Of course! Just don't ask me what the capital of Leviathan is. I can never remember that one." She laughs at her own joke while the commentators follow suit, giving them all a chance to regain their composure.

"Well, this one is from, uh, let's see..." he says as he taps away on his tablet. "Aha, from Victoria, age twelve, from Solace."

"Twelve?" She smiles. "I'll drink to that." She rips another beer out, casually bending the cap off using the edge of the table top, and throwing it back. She must have a stomach and liver made of steel.

The commentators give a more genuine laugh at that one.

"Victoria asks: what's your favorite food?"

Valkyrie's eyes light up at the question. Despite the simplicity of such a question, she seems unreasonably eager to answer it.

"Ha! Easy!" She leans back in her chair, swirling the beer in its bottle in the air. "Ramen!"

You grimace and pull your attention back out of the television. You've heard enough. Honestly she seems pretty cool, even if you don't know her heritage. Anyone who has—legally or otherwise—piloted a Titan is clearly talented and worthy of respect, and if her dad was the pilot of a notable Titan, that's even more impressive. Clearly that was her dad's helmet. You could see the grief wash over her when she held it. You think you have heard things about Northstar before, but you can't remember. If its name even remotely jogs your memory, it must have been one of the most powerful ones out there. You normally have no room in your memory banks for those types of things.

The MRVN knocks on the open door to your bedroom, holding a plate of eggs.

"You can come in."

"Isn't she neat?" The MRVN chirps. He must have been watching the broadcast from the television in the living room while he cooked. "I like her a lot, but Pathfinder is still my favorite." You take the plate of eggs as he hands them to you.

"That's understandable, Pathfinder is super nice."

"You've met him?!" The MRVN perks up happily.

"Yeah! Next time I see him, maybe I can bring you a flower from his garden! Or have him sign something for you!" You taste a piece of egg. He's very good at consistently making tasty food. Surprisingly, Revenant manages to make better ones, but you know Revenant goes above and beyond every time he cooks anything. Maybe he enjoyed cooking back when he was human. "Honestly, it's the least I could do for putting up with me and Revenant."

The MRVN tilts his head in confusion.

"You mean Mr. Cross?"

You nearly choke on your eggs. Fuck. Right. He was trying to be incognito and use a fake name. Although you're not sure how he's managed to do so when walking around looking exactly like the Revenant from the Apex Games. The MRVN's optic bulb adjusts a couple times before it brightens again.

"Oh... you do mean Mr. Cross..." The MRVN pulls his pointer finger to his head, holding it over where his mouth might be as if he is pondering deeply. "He lied, I see this now. My deception software update hadn't parsed through older logs yet." Suddenly he goes from pondering to cradling his head. "Oh no! That's the Revenant! I backtalked the Revenant! He could have had me—"

You grab one of his hands and he calms down.

"It's a secret, you can't tell anyone. If you promise not to tell anyone, I'll see if I can get a signature from Pathfinder or some other momento for you." You don't know what else to do but bribe him to stay quiet.

"I promise." He is quick to agree. "I wouldn't want to make him mad. Plus you seem nice."

"Thank you," you say, relaxing and withdrawing before taking another bite of food.

•    •    •    •

You knock on Revenant's door. At some point Royce must have been let back into the main living room, as she's now curled up in sight with the two juvenile prowlers and a short ways from Six. Most of the prowlers are curled up since the MRVN recently fed them; they always seem to want to relax immediately after eating.

You knock again.

It's getting late. The sun has gone down and the windows overlook the glowing signs and screens below lining the streets. Since the fall weather is nice, people are out and walking around. A lot of the screens are showing replays and promos for the upcoming season of the Apex Games, showing off Valkyrie and her sponsor's products as she poses with them. The news was huge and the city's liveliness absolutely reflects that. Taxi and limo horns blare angrily at one another, drunk people can be heard hooting and hollering over the general crowd, and the white noise of hundreds of engines turning over and humming below is barely muffled by the glass panes. You knock again, but even louder this time.

You wait. The scent of an apple spice candle that the MRVN lit a few hours ago is wafting in the air. The light musk that the prowlers normally generate is washed out by the smell, but the warmth of having so many snoring bodies in the same room is significant. The top edge of the windows are also slightly fogged up from the temperature difference. The MRVN is sitting in the corner of the living room, plugged into the wall and recharging. He looks asleep, but you know from experience that they are very much aware even when in sleep mode.

"If you don't answer this time, I'm coming in." You say gently into the door as you knock one last time.

You stare at the white door, noting each paint streak at eye level. It's been long enough.

You open the door just to be hit with a crisp breeze. The sliding glass door to a small balcony is slightly ajar. He's not here. Newspaper clippings pinned to a map of the city on the wall flicker in the wind. It looks like a conspiracy theorists' dream, but without the funny lines of yarn connecting different pins and all centering in on a single location in the city. You can't help but curiously approach the giant map filled with articles.

Each clipping is either an obituary, a police blotter report, or an article about a crime pinned to the location on the map where it presumably occurred. Some of the articles are about murders, drug den busts, trafficking busts, or shootouts between rival gangs; but they're all about crime. Some names are highlighted with a red 'x' at the end of them with an obituary pinned underneath them. Others are highlighted without the red 'x', possibly indicating the perpetrator may still be alive. Different areas of the city have different clusters. Understandably, the worst areas are filled to the point of obfuscation with clippings. Areas like the one you're currently in have a more sparse distribution. There's always less crime in areas with more money and more people at all hours of the day.

This must all be related to him trying to hunt down your abductors. You begin to flip through clippings quickly, looking for any photographs of one man in particular, begging to find his name with a red 'x' beside it. You begin pouring over them with almost as much obsession as it took to make such a wall of madness. You have no idea how long it takes you to stumble upon it, but eventually you see it. That damn, wide-brimmed hat, that toothy scowl, and barely a visible face. It's not a good picture, clearly it's not a mugshot. The article doesn't even have a name. But you'd know that evil smile even if you hadn't met him a second time. Scribbled in black ink across the margin of the article clipping it says "taxi bastard"—a fitting name.

You read the article. Apparently he was caught with tons of illegal pornographic material produced using victims of trafficking, abduction, and even—you stop reading for a moment, unwilling to read that last word and wishing you had let Revenant murder him the first time he offered. Apparently a lot of the pornography also included the torture of victims, sometimes even leading to their death and dismemberment. He sold the copies to the worst perverted sickos looking for a quick fix. According to the article, the payload was revealed when copies were accidentally forwarded to multiple parties, including the police themselves. You know who did that. Even though his warehouse was raided the following day, he had vacated and disappeared. No record of his legal name was found, nor any signs of where he might have gone. The article concludes on the dark note that the police are parsing through each film, trying to document any victims and connect them to cold cases looking for closure. The number of victims estimated to be in the files is estimated to be in the hundreds.

As you try to stop reading, you realize the out of body experience you started having midway through that article. You don't feel your legs, but you are standing on them. You carefully walk back to the door, shutting it and locking out the many animals littered on the living room floor. You meander over to the balcony door and close it the rest of the way, intentionally leaving it unlocked for him. You make it up to his bed and fall into it, unwilling to try to keep walking. You feel so hot with stress and racing thoughts, you don't really hesitate to tear everything off and toss it to the side. You curl up in the pillows, turn off the lone lamp on the nightstand, and begin to bawl in the dark.

You're not even sure why you're crying, just that you can't help it. Your thoughts are tumbling uncontrollably, wondering what fate you might have met had Revenant not come for you. Your nose runs and pounds against its splint. Your eyes are sore in their sockets. Your surgical scars sting despite being fully healed. Your bare skin raises into goosebumps despite how hot it feels. What about everyone else? How could people like him exist? Why were you spared by fate but not the others?

You breathe slowly as the tears dry up. You lose emotional attachment to the concept of being the one that made it out. You feel as if you might die for some reason, but you have no reason to believe that. Still, you curl up tighter in the dark. Perhaps if you remain defenseless and hidden, no one will notice you. Perhaps you can be forgotten by everyone. No more heroes coming to save you, because no more villains will come to victimize you. You feel as if you're floating in a warm ocean, drowning but refusing to fight the current, able to breathe despite the weight on your chest.

Why are you treated so special despite being so cursed?

[atozphantomsquadron]

Full Text of Infernal Eighteen

Foreword - 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10 - 11 - 12 - 13 - 14 - 15 - 16 - 17 - 18 - 19 - 20 - 21 - 22 - 23 - 24 - 25

[nanoland]

HEY SO who wants a sneak peek at the first page of my new book?

(coming out 10 November, preorder here to help an indie author out <3)

VOILA, MY GOOD BITCHES:

Chapter 1

He’d spotted seven snow-coated corpses on his way to the summit thus far and had paused only to spit on them for discouraging him.

“Daisyhearts!” he rasped as he dragged his aching body over another infernal rocky ledge, his fingers throbbing inside the thick, expensive gloves he’d stolen along with the rest of his climbing gear. “Custardspines! May your widows laugh when they think of you! May your – nngh, ow, ow – may your bones roll downhill and land in a cowpat!”

To give his mind something with which to occupy itself besides the biting cold, he wondered as to their identities.

His research had revealed that seventy-two men and women were known for a fact to have died on the way to Evil Veronica’s icy pinnacle, and over two thousand according to legend and rumour.

Most of the known casualties were idiots; highborn second sons with a chip on the shoulder, more money than sense, and everything to prove. They usually died before reaching the halfway mark, which he’d passed eighteen hours ago.

“Could have gone to university, you rich twit,” he chided one reddish-grey lump that might have been a boulder as easily as a person with a click of his tongue. “Could have become a renowned scholar or… or one of those wanky artists who paints meadows. Made something of yourself. What a waste.”

Which wasn’t entirely fair, he knew, given that many of the corpses had, in fact, been men of learning who’d made the climb in search of new plants, a better view of the stars, or, in one notable case that people were still chuckling over, to find out if angels could be charmed from the Heavens if you just got high enough and sang the right hymns.

Over there, for example.

Unless he was very much mistaken, that was the great bronze telescope of Lord Fabian, renowned astrologer and absolute loon, poking up from the pile of murderous white powder that had killed its erstwhile owner ten years ago.

“Hey there, beautiful,” he crooned at it. “I’ll tell you what, eh, if I could get you down the slope and back to civilisation, you’d probably earn me enough to buy a nice little observatory of my own. And drugs! Oh, I’d buy so many drugs. Enough to bury a horse in.”

Gods alive, he was cold.

EVIL MEN: 10 NOVEMBER 2023

[feverinfeveroutfic]

flowers for alexander | chapter eighteen

The brand-new day in Santa Barbara was to be a rather cool one with the advent of the hazy marine layer over the morning sun. Testament’s ship drifted over the ground about a mile away from State Street, and the bunch of them congregated at the main hull to keep themselves steady and safe against the hard landing. Florence and Francine stood next to Eric right by the door of the boiler room with the paper clasped in their hands; the former lingered closer to him out of comfort, but also out of the fact that Alex stood right across from her.

His long black curls dangled over his shoulders, those thick tendrils like the vines from a weeping willow; his deep eyes swept over the shape Florence’s body, followed by the shape of Francine next to her. The feeling of infernal lust within that boy, and it had been woken up by that mere kiss on his lips courtesy of Florence. It was a feeling that Florence had yearned to see from him when they were together, and a feeling that burned from him, from those deep eyes like the cherries from a pair of cigarettes.

He crossed his legs to accentuate the shape of his body, and Florence rested a hand on Eric’s shoulder. She locked eyes with Alex as she moved her hand down the shape of Eric’s back, all the way down to the base, right down to the top of his leather belt.

Alex showed her the tip of his tongue, to which he directed his gaze over to Francine next to her. Florence felt a chill run up her spine. She couldn’t recall the last time he was this sensual and right in front of her no less.

Francine meanwhile didn’t even seem to notice that he was looking at her, given she gazed on at the dials and gauges right over his head: one was for water pressure as well as the temperature right by there at the very heart of the boiler. The one over Louie’s head read the minute amount of millisievert inside of that particular hull of the ship.

The mere thought of a steam boiler like the one behind the pane of glass behind the three of them running on radioactive material made Florence shudder down to the bone. She rested a hand on her belly; Eric rested a hand on her left hip to bring her closer to his body. Alex’s gaze was fixed on Francine, however.

The ship landed on the ground and Florence and Eric ducked over to the door across the room first. Francine lingered back a bit to keep looking at the gauges; Florence glanced back at her best friend to see her lock eyes with Alex for a brief second, but then she strode on after them. Once they were outside in the hazy golden sunlight, Eric ran his stubby fingers through his black hair and let out a low whistle.

“Whoa,” Florence couldn’t hold it in anymore; she looked out to the dark ocean waters and the sparkling crests of waves against the deep orange and scarlet veil of the sky at the surface. The feeling raged like the high tide before sunrise.

“Man, is it just me or did Alex get like… really sexy overnight?” Eric asked her in a low voice, and Florence had to resist the urge to laugh.

Francine joined them from behind with the paper in her hand and a nonchalant expression on her face.

“Florence, do you know where to get breakfast at this point at this time of day at all?” she asked her in a single breath. “I just got really hungry really hard right now.”

“Yeah, right over here—” Eric gestured to the low building across the grass from there, and Florence spotted a small cafe on the far end. She took Francine by the hand and led her over there as if they were running from something.

“I’ll meet you girls over there,” he called after them.

Florence paid no attention to the papers in Francine’s hand once they were there at the outside table closest to them: she took her seat and she ran her fingers through her hair and rested her free hand on her belly. The growing life inside was not too far away from sending her a kick or two. Francine set the papers down the table top before her and let out a low whistle.

“Man… what do you reckon we should have?” she asked Florence, slightly out of breath.

“I’m feeling some French toast with a few strips of vegan bacon,” she replied. “A cup of tea, too.”

“Vegan bacon? Do they even make vegan bacon?” Francine chuckled.

“If they don’t, they should,” Florence proclaimed, and she glanced down at the space on the table between them.

“Okay, so… what do you think we should say in our letters?” Francine began.

“Question for the ages.” Florence leaned over for a view into the cafe, where she spotted a small line of people inside of there waiting.

“I think we take a number or something,” she suggested, and Francine padded inside of there for one of those numbers in question from the little dispenser. She returned outside and took her seat across from Florence. She looked as though she had just sprinted a short distance as well with her face gone red and her hair still a disheveled mess from sleeping.

“Got a number,” she said. “When our number is up, I’ll go back in there and get you some French toast and myself an omelette.”

Florence rested her hands upon her belly as if she awaited her fate from the other side of that glass door behind them. All the while, she wondered if Eric would join them there at the table, especially since those boys were just as hungry as the two of them.

“God…” Francine leaned back in the chair with her arm extended out before her.

“What?” she asked her.

Francine nibbled on her bottom lip. “You want to know the truth, Flo?”

“Frankie, we’re friends,” Florence assured her. “You can tell me anything and everything.”

Francine peered over her shoulder and Florence patted the top of the table to gather her attention.

“The boys are way over there,” she assured her with a gesture behind her. “Speak now or they can and will come on over here without warning.”

“I can’t stop thinking about Alex,” Francine confessed. “Did you see how he was looking at us?”

“Did I see? I was leaning into Eric as if he was about to get away from me! I don’t ever recall seeing him that hot and sexy before. It was like it came out of nowhere.”

“You must have unlocked something in him,” Francine explained with a shake of her head and a fanning of her face with her hand. “Something that he couldn’t get out in the open before when you two were initially together.” She closed her eyes and parted her lips for a soft whistle, and Florence could see it on her face, such that she ran the tip of her tongue along her upper lip in excitement.

“Are you okay?” Florence asked her with a fluttering in her chest.

“I think so,” Francine answered, and she ran her fingers through her hair again.

“When we see him again, you should talk to him,” Florence suggested with a wag of her finger. “What’s our number, by the way?”

“Thirty-two,” Francine quipped.

“Here, I’ll go in there to get our food and if you see him, go talk to him,” Florence suggested, and she stood to her feet and arched her back even though she wasn’t nearly that big yet.

But when she stepped inside of the cafe, she was greeted by the sights and smells, the fresh coffee beans with the tea leaves, the baked goods out of the oven in junction with the sweets on display before her; all of it was enough to send everything into overdrive. She shook her head and brought a hand to her forehead as if she was about to faint right then and there on the floor.

The smell of cooking sugar, like the glaze on the ginger snaps on display before her, an otherwise lovely smell that she loved to the ends of the earth, made her stomach turn.

It was overwhelming to the point she believed she would vomit, and she bowed out of there for the fresh air of the marine layer once more. Francine peered back at her in concern.

“Are you okay? What happened?”

“I couldn’t handle it,” Florence confessed as she took her seat once again, and she could feel the tears well up in her eyes.

“Aw, it’s okay,” Francine comforted her with a gentle pat on the table before her.

“I usually love the smells of a cafe or a bakery,” Florence said tearfully; “I thought I was going to puke.”

“Here, I’ll get our food,” Francine offered, and she doubled back inside of there. Florence sniffled, and she glanced over her shoulder to the airships parked over on the grass. She noticed the boys from Death Angel congregated around Testament’s ship as if there was something happening there; as far as she knew, they were just boys being boys and hanging out before they gathered breakfast for themselves.

Their long black hair and their sun-kissed brown skin made her think of the first time that she and Eric had gotten together in the face of the breakup of her and Alex. His pale skin in lieu of the soft tan that kissed Alex’s lanky forearms, those delicate lips in lieu of Alex’s ripe cherries, that stout stubby body in lieu of Alex’s long and lanky strength… She looked on at those five boys and she wondered if she could trust any of them with the secrets that she and Francine wanted to write down for themselves.

Lead singer Mark nudged his hair back with the flick of his long fingers: even from a distance, Florence could make out the shiny silver on each of his fingers.

There was just something about a boy with a whole slew of rings on his hands like that. Something that she yearned to see more of with Alex and especially Eric. It was the way that the silver accentuated everything, and she couldn’t help but visualize those two boys in particular with them.

Francine emerged from the cafe with a cup of coffee in her left hand and a cup of tea in her right: she handed Florence the tea before she sat down across from her, and she sipped on the little slit in the lid.

“What’cha looking at?” she asked her.

“The kids from Death Angel,” Florence replied. “I kind of wonder if they could be like our audience when we write our letters.”

“Sort of as like a second opinion but without the bias?” Francine followed along.

“Exactly, right!”

Francine would head back into the cafe once their food was ready, and the two of them got to work on their letters in unison, and with the hazy sun at their backs. Unlike being on the airship, the words flowed out of both women; Florence had a fluttering whirring sensation in the pit of her stomach as the tip of the pen scrawled over that sheet of paper, still smooth despite Francine having clutched it against her body all the way across the grass.

Those five boys made their way over to the patio of the cafe: Florence glanced over at Mark, who led the pack over to the big table right behind them. He showed her a friendly little smile, and she nodded her head at him.

She set down her pen and sipped on her tea, which was still nice and hot even with the cool morning around her. He strode on over to her with that thick mane of coarse black curls drifted behind him like the sail from a catamaran straight out of the Philippines.

“Florence, right?” he asked her.

“Yeah. Is it possible you could be a peer review for me and Frankie here?”

“You say ‘peer review’ as if we’re in school,” he joked, and he treated her to a loud belly laugh.

“It is school in a way,” Francine assured him. Rob then said something to him.

“I think so, yeah?” Mark replied. “We have to take a number?”

“Yeah, take a number,” Florence chimed in, and Rob bowed into the cafe for a number tag for the five of them. Mark then dragged a chair up behind him and took his seat there with the two of them.

“What the hell, dude?” Dennis jeered at him.

“I’ll be right back, keep your shorts on,” Mark assured him with a gesture of his hand, and then he returned to them and rubbed his ring-clad hands together. “Okay! So, what do we got?”

“These are letters that—um—” Florence cleared her throat, and she gestured for Mark to move in closer. “—we wrote to Alex. It’s a long story, but we needed to say these things to him, as closure for me and for Frankie over here to tell him the truth about how she feels about him.” 

“We need a third set of eyes with us,” Francine added with a slight tremble to her voice.

“Oh, okay,” he said with a nod. “Sort of as like a, uh… ‘is this acceptable enough?’ or something like that.”

“Exactly, yeah,” Florence clarified, and she noticed that Francine was looking at something behind her, and she turned around in her chair. Alex stood right behind them with his mirrored sunglasses on his face and his shirt opened at the top to show off the top of his chest. She returned to Francine and the look of euphoria on her face. Mark cracked her a sky smirk.

“What’s up with you?” he asked with a chuckle.

“He’s so hot,” she confessed.

“You think so?” he retorted to her with a little gyration to his head.

“I know so,” she sputtered; Alex ran his fingers through his black curls and peered up to the sun to let the soft light caress over his handsome face. The small pearl of gray at the top of his head almost appeared pure white in the face of the sun, a little shock in the face of all normal things, like a big earthquake that went unreported. He looked as though he was about to come on over there but he was waiting for someone: Florence turned around the other way to see Eric ambling closer to them.

“Shit,” she muttered. “Just when I thought we had some privacy.”

“Here, I’ll take these and I’ll read them in a private place,” Mark vowed as he picked up the papers and folded them in half.

“You’ll do that for us?” Francine asked him.

“Oh, yeah! I’d be happy to.” He folded them again and tucked them into the front pocket of his denim vest.

“Thank you, Mark—you’re a lifesaver,” Florence declared.

“Nah, just trying to do good—your hubby’s the real lifesaver,” he said with a nod. She peered straight up to find Eric right above her: his long smooth black hair swept over her like a curtain.

“You talking about me?” he asked her.

“Depends. Are you hungry?”

“Does a bear shit in the woods?”

Mark let out another laugh at that, and he stood up to let Eric have a seat with the two girls; he dragged another chair up for Alex. At least the letters were in good hands at that point.

[bluejeanbaby]

DAMIEN DECESSO, 47, ANTICHRIST CARDINAL,  HAMISH LINKLATER, TAGS.

BASICS

NAME: Damien Lucien Decesso DATE OF BIRTH (& AGE):  June 6th, 1976 PLACE OF BIRTH: Unknown. GENDER AND PRONOUNS: Male, He/him for the most part but he responds and enjoys all pronouns.

BACKGROUND

Damien never believed that he would be important. Raised as an orphan in church he was often reminded no one would ever love him. He never had many friends, considering there were not many children running around Satanic Churches, especially not in the small abbey in the south of Italy he had been shifted to. Rather than linger on the loneliness, Damien found comfort in reading and learning as much as he could. He turned to religion and truly created a bond with the infernal majesty. Not in a cheesy faith way, no. He swore that the fallen angel had actually been speaking with him. Damien was sure he could have told everyone around and blown their minds but he enjoyed keeping that connection to himself. Damien always assumed his differences were just because of his lack of family, or his shyness, he had no idea what bloodline he was truly from. Nor did he know his mother, one of the Sister's in the abbey was his mother and kept tabs on him. In fact he just assumed she was immensely bossy and hated him. Though as he grew older he noticed a certain fondness in her eyes that he never understood. He wasn't sure when the change happened. If he had to guess it'd be around eighteen. He left the church briefly to explore the world. It didn't take long before he realized people were fawning over him. They would do anything he asked, some even falling to their knees and crying upon meeting him. It took him a few weeks of freaking out and panicking before he slowly got a hang of controlling it. Really it wasn't so different from masking. If he hid his true self from others they would treat him just the same. Damien still doesn't understand why he has the power he does, but for now he uses it as rarely as possible. Only when he notices those in his congregation who seemed lost. Lucifer told him to lead his sheep. He listened. He climbed his way up to the church and got a cushy position, one where he could read books and perform any sort of magic that interested him. People around him continue talking about the fall of mankind, and yet Damien has no idea he will be the cause.

[cake-apostate]

Blasted and Infernal Flynn

I was thinking about how in Blasted and Infernal Tokyo, you never meet an alternate counterpart of Flynn. I don’t mean the boy who died to create the Ceiling, because he’s dead in all three timelines; I mean that the boy doesn’t seem to have reincarnated in timelines other than Flynn’s. 

At first I thought it was because lower birth rates decrease the probability that any given person could reincarnate. While we don’t see that much of Mikado, I believe it can be safely inferred that its population exceeds both Blasted and Infernal Tokyo, which means it’s more likely someone would reincarnate in Mikado. (I still think this is possible, given how backed up Charon is.)

Then I realized that the boy could have reincarnated in Blasted and Infernal Tokyo--we just wouldn’t recognize him if we saw him.

For a start, he almost certainly wouldn’t have been named Flynn. Flynn’s got a Western name because that’s what they use in the Eastern Kingdom of Mikado; while not impossible, it’s certainly unlikely in Tokyo. 

Second, if we’re assuming that the parallel Flynns reincarnated at the same time as him, he’d be a baby. One year in Mikado is approximately five days in Tokyo; Flynn is eighteen, on top of the one month you spend in Tokyo (Navarre aged seven year on the outside), so he’d be four months old. 

Actually, there isn’t any rule for reincarnating at the same time. Now I’m thinking it would be funny if important past lives did reincarnate before. Repeatedly, even, and almost always in Mikado (because higher birth rate). Nanashi is not the second coming of King Aquila, but the thirty-seventh. 

But nothing special ever comes of it. Like, they all wind up Samurai because the Gauntlet rite detects past lives, but they just have undistinguished but successful careers. They never have dramatic, world-shattering SMT adventures, mostly because they don’t all reincarnate at the same time until the present.

As for why none of King Aquila’s reincarnations activate his Gauntlet before Nanashi, I’m thinking that after the Samurai figured out that the late king’s Gauntlet won’t activate for anyone but him, they kept it as a holy relic. They use it to crown the new king and inaugurate the Commander of the Samurai, but none of Akira’s reincarnations were in those positions. 

[furinana]

On the subject of the post where Skins and Fujiwara reflect on Akira: I think it would be funny if deep inside Nanashi, Akira was screaming, "Why did you have to come right after they broke that giant statue of me?!"

(Turns out that the statue would have been broken for at least two years, but hey, it's been up for centuries until then).

On another note, some timeline info I thought might interest you (and where I got the two years from). According to the artbook, Gaston was nine when Navarre became a Samurai at eighteen, so Apocalypse starts nine years after SMT4, not seven. Navarre is twenty-five, so two extra years passed in Mikado after Flynn rescued him (or about ten Tokyo days).

The latest you can rescue Navarre on Neutral is right before you enter the Reactor. After that, Flynn goes on his adventures in Blasted and Infernal Tokyo, comes back, does all the Neutral sidequests, and then goes to the rock in Ginza. I'm going to add Yuriko's assassination on top of that, because her warning about Walter is urgent, and it wouldn't make narrative sense for Flynn to stop and finish up sidequests. For all this to squish into ten days, I'm assuming that time either stops or slows while you're in Blasted or Infernal Tokyo.

You’re absolutely right! I haven’t taken the time to check the artbook properly so so thank you for reminding me about it.

[greenlodgecypher]

In The Case Of The Ring, pt. 2/4

Part 1

"As a result, the Martel family holdings slipped into the Whitstones' keeping. All that untimely death, and the subsequent change in fortunes, cemented a legend.

The Devil had enticed the women of the Martel family and eventually won, stealing the Martel family riches away for more infernal purposes. It became quite a specific story over time. The ring was spoken of as a warning, given to Lady Martel to mend her ways; it would prick her finger to remind her. Instead, she cursed the ring, and her daughter completed the Martel ruin. "And the Whitstones, who got the fortune, completed the story as the Devil's beneficiaries. They certainly played that part. Their money was the only thing keeping them in polite society. Even in an era where corporal punishment was common, the Whitstones were spoken of as brutish and violent to each other, their children, and their servants. They once had a stake in the slave trade." “Is the current owner such a gem?” Anne said. I smiled. “Not exactly. The Whitstones came down in the world—as many British families of note did—and necessity finally drove the heir, in time, to South Carolina. That man’s grandson, a rather quiet young man named Jonathan, left home promptly at eighteen and became an architect. The family inheritance meant little to him. He didn’t think he would get much of anything, and in the end, he was mostly right. "It was from him that I learned the story of the ring. His mother wore it often. She herself had told him the story, in fact. From the sound of it, she didn’t believe any of it, and neither did he—except for the part about the Whitstones being rather nasty. She liked to wear it because the witchy aspect of the story appealed to her. Theirs was not a happy home life, you see, and he thought it helped her feel like she had some power in her life. His mother died while he was in ninth grade, and his father grew increasingly abusive towards him. Jonathan was happy to leave his home, and family history, behind him. "Jonathan is in his sixties now. My mother had the ring in a lot of old oddments from him—all hand-me-downs that he'd inherited and didn't care about keeping. All small objects that his father had kept. He told her the story about the ring; said he'd be well rid of it.” "I thought it wasn't for sale?" Sayers said. "I'll come back to that." I settled back in my chair. “With a story like that, of course, Mother was insistent that there must be some evil influence about the thing. I will spare you, of course, the initial run of tests. I found nothing; nothing unusual at all about the object itself. It disrupted no electrical field; it evoked no reaction in my ghost-light; it didn’t respond at all to my circle. It had some stains on the underside of the band; there had been a bad filing-job done to it, too. That was it." “It had something, then?” Eliot asked. “Or you wouldn’t have it still.” I nodded. “I had had the object for a couple of days when it happened. Mother wanted a clean bill of health, and you know I can’t really be sure about something without a couple of days of signal to go on. I’d left it in the monitoring box downstairs and gone to bed. “It was my absolute surprise, then, to wake up in the middle of the night with a companion,” here I paused. “That wasn’t how I meant it. But there was indeed a woman in the room.” I accepted the general round of amusement and continued on after a moment. “She was tallish, and rather unhealthy-looking; but she was furious. She glared at me with absolutely righteous anger. And then I blinked! And she was gone. "Remarkably, I fell back asleep. I wasn't very awake, you see. Well, when I woke up, I saw my warning-glass still standing up. I keep it for dreams, you know, to see whether a dream has significance or not. If she was a dream, she was only a figment of my own mind. But I had been certain I was awake. "The next morning I went straight to the library to get a sense of her clothing. You may not be surprised to learn that she was wearing high-class British clothing, of the decade of Simon Whitstone's death.”

Part 3

[moremysteriesthantragedies]

🤝 - How do the characters meet? (antagonist included!)

I'll do this for Infernal Serenade, since I find everyone's history super interesting.

Quince met Bradi when he stopped at the bend next to his house and asked for water. Bradi sprayed him instead. Quince met Juno and Castell at a pride event when he was eighteen. They also met each other there. Bradi first met Juno and Castell in the first book when Quince brought Bradi to the bar for one of Juno's remedies. Desiderius met Bradi at a young age due to the ceremony, and meets Quince in book one when he reawakens. Quince meets the wisdom creature in the second book through a dream, and Bradi in the third. Everyone (except Des, who met it centuries ago) meets Esuriet in book three, though Quince first. Esuriet tried to eat Quince upon meeting him.

For the antagonists, Quince met Jetta when she was released from prison. Bradi only meets her and the others at the end of the first book (Des meets them here as well). Quince met Beth when he first moved in with them and Vince much later, as he keeps to himself. Everyone meets Dolly and Glorfais together in book two. Quince only meets Avariticu and Inaestri in book three, as do the others. Both Quince and Bradi meet all the other demons in book three.

Thanks for asking!

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